Library: Communications and the Arts

Robert Siodmak, who is considered the master of film noir thrillers and crime melodramas, has long been seen as a mere "assignment director," never an artist in complete control of his work. J. Greco's study of Siodmak's Hollywood career dispels this view and presents a unique perspective on the studio system and the director who used cunning to get his own way within it. He incorporates both archival evidence and stylistic analysis to show a distinct correlation between the production histories of Siodmak's studio films and the director's central artistic purpose. Shedding new light on t...

This dissertation is an attempt to define a Chinese "modernism," exemplified by the narrative practices of four major writers in Taiwan today, from the perspective of comparative literature and recent development of literary theory. I propose that modernity of Taiwanese fiction is not so much a result of Western influences as an evolution of Chinese narrative tradition itself. To argue my point I delineate a poetics of Chinese narrative, from which I devise a method of reading and a criterion of evaluation for contemporary Taiwanese fiction in defining its achievement and historical significan...

This work is concerned with the evaluation of rhetoric as an essential aspect of Renaissance sensibility. It is an analysis of the Renaissance world viewed in terms of literary style and aesthetic. Eight plays are analysed in some detail: four by George Peele: The Battle of Alcazar, Edward I, David and Bethsabe, and The Arraignment of Paris; and four by Christopher Marlowe: Dido Queen of Carthage, Tamburlaine Part One, Dr Faustus and Edward II. The work is thus partly a comparative study of two important Renaissance playwrights; it seeks to establish Peele in particular as an important fig...

Since its publication in 1860, critics have questioned the artistic value of Hawthorne's The Marble Faun. A revival of critical interest during the 1950's and 1960's has done little to change a generally unfavorable opinion of the work. With a few notable exceptions, most recent critics believe The Marble Faun to be inferior to Hawthorne's other completed romances. Such opinions, however, usually seem to be based upon the personal taste of the individual critic rather than upon any sort of objective artistic standards. The purpose of this study is to examine and evaluate the various critic...

The theory of the commodity is used by critical theorists to explain the general organization and development of capitalist society. It was originally proposed by Marx, and subsequently developed by Lukacs and later Adorno and the Frankfurt School. Media scholars such as Dallas Smythe, Judith Williamson, Robert Goldman and Eileen Meehan have identified the commodity structure in several forms throughout the process of mass communication. Although commodity theory is not always articulated as a part of critical studies, it is useful for understanding the process of mass communication under capi...

The overall aim of this thesis is to alert journalists and journalism educators to a serious lacuna in current news coverage, one which threatens the well-being of society. Simply stating that a gap in coverage exists, without giving examples, would be unlikely to convince members of such a notoriously skeptical profession. Newsmen and women, it seems, are all "from Missouri." They want to be shown. Part I. The importance of agriculture to society and of farm news to the general public Part II. The importance assigned to agriculture by the major news media and journalism educators.

Other investigators have surmised that different types of relationships use diverse maintenance strategies in order to keep the relationship in existence. This study examines relational maintenance strategies that people use specifically in the relationship known as friendship. Five adult friendship couples were interviewed for maintenance strategies they use to sustain their friendship. The discussions were recorded and transcribed. The Constant Comparison method was used to compare and contrast the data in order to discover strategies unique to friendships. Results revealed seven strategi...

Deliberative democracy can be defined as a political system based on citizens' voluntary and free discussions on public issues. Most scholars have discussed deliberative democracy within normative boundaries. However, based primarily on Katz's interpretation of Tarde, this study finds the concept of public sphere a useful framework for operationalizing the normative concept of deliberative democracy, since the four components of the public sphere-news media use, interpersonal communication, opinion formation, and political participation-provide us with empirically testable categories. This stu...

The purpose of this study is to examine the questioning behavior of males and females in an undergraduate Speech class. Whether one is analyzing social, mental, emotional, or verbal behavior of students, biological sex is usually a factor. This study describes differences between male and female questioning and discusses the implications of these differences for classroom teaching. The classroom is a small society with its own special language, a language that contributes to classroom events. Student questioning, a behavior that provides information on how students adapt and function...

This is a revisionist study of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century satires on science with an emphasis on the writings of Jonathan Swift and, to a lesser degree, Samuel Butler and other satirists. To say, as some literary commentators do, that the satirists attacked only pseudo-scientists who failed to employ the empirical method properly is to beg a crucial question: how could the satirists possibly have distinguished the genuine scientist from the crank? By a failsafe set of Baconian principles perhaps? No, the matter is more complicated. I read the satiric literature on early modern science...