Research Opportunities for Students

Students attending Miami have the opportunity to participate in the intellectual excitement of a department that encourages research. To take classes with faculty who are generating new knowledge, and then go beyond the classroom and work directly with those professors on research projects, can be intellectually stimulating experiences for both undergraduate and graduate students. The collaborative research process can be a defining academic experience and also helps develop skills that are applicable to life after graduation.

Below are opportunities for students to work on research with faculty in the department of communication. Contact the individual faculty member directly to get more information about the projects..

Ann Frymier
frymieab@muohio.edu
November 2004 Anticipated Research Project: Teacher-Student Relationship Impact on the Interpretation of Teacher Use of Humor in the Classroom.

Description: This research project is part of a program of research being conducted by myself and Dr. Melissa Bekelja Wanzer of Canisius College. Earlier research has found that students prefer teachers who use humor in the classroom. In another study we examined students' perceptions of appropriate and inappropriate use of humor in the classroom. We speculate that to some extent, whether a student perceives teacher humor as appropriate or inappropriate depends on the teacher-student relationship.

Research Assistant: a research assistant is needed to assist with data collection, data entry, and review of relevant literature. If the student has an adequate background in statistics and research methods, the student assistant could also assist with data analysis.

Ron Becker
beckerrp@muohio.edu
Background: Research in contemporary politics of gay, lesbian, bisexual and straight representations on television (e.g., Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Boy Meets Boy, Its All Relative, The L Word, etc.). Research Assistant: A student assistant will perform systematic library research (LexisNexis, ProQuest, etc), careful textual analysis, and assist in writing. Interested students should have taken a class like Media & Society or other Mass Communication classes that deal with analysis of television/film texts. Students must be detail oriented and know how to research and write a scholarly paper with an argument.

Dr. Becker is also interested in talking with students who are interested in studying media coverage of the current debate over gay marriage.

Jim Cherney
chernejl@muohio.edu
I am interested in working with students on the following projects. In each case, I believe that a student and I could develop a paper that would be presented at an appropriate academic conference and be the basis of a joint publication. If appropriate, I would be happy to integrate these ideas with work that students have already begun.

1. NDY v. AUTONOMY: Contesting “Dignity” within Disability Culture
Over the last few years, a debate has begun between disability rights activists over the issue of voluntary euthanasia and death with dignity. Not Dead Yet (NDY) originally articulated the predominant position that allowing assisted suicide and similar measures would provide a structure through which some people with disabilities may be pressured to end their lives. Seeing the decision to end one’s life as inherently tied to ableist perspectives of the quality of life associated with living with a disability, NDY argues that no one would reasonably choose to end their life if our ableist society and its institutions had not made them miserable. In opposition, some disability activists have founded AUTONOMY, a group that argues in favor of providing people with disabilities the legal right to terminate their lives with dignity. Seeing the restriction of any rights available to able-bodied individuals as discriminatory, and concerned with the influence of traditionally right wing organizations within disability circles, AUTONOMY argues that all humans should have equal access to the right to die.

I propose a study of this debate, applying rhetorical and critical theory to understand its action, elaborate on its implications, and evaluate its claims. From my early work on the topic, I believe the debate can be profitably characterized as a struggle over the ideograph “dignity,” which each side interprets in radically different ways. This analysis would develop an interesting perspective on the right to die debate, but it would also present a case where two groups – aligned so strongly on so many issues vital to their identity – have been forced to deal with their differences. If the clash does not generate a schism within disability culture – and it has not yet – then I think we may be able to better theorize the relationship between ideographic rhetoric and identity politics (both of which are often viewed as absolutist endeavors).

2. The Living Screen: Fearing Interface in Videodrome and The Ring
Both David Cronenberg’s Videodrome (1983) and Gore Verbinski’s The Ring (2002) present graphic and disturbing images of the television screen coming to life, to interface actively with viewers. These images are both attractive and horrific, playing upon the traditional relationship of the TV viewer as voyeur and the TV as passive display. The success of both of these films as icons of “the living screen” testifies to their significance as rhetorical texts, as both have been used to (re)imagine and complicate the traditionally simple relationship of entertainment and consumer.

I propose a critical analysis of these films as rhetorical fragments of the way we understand the power of media. Media scholars have long suggested the nefarious ways that we can be “programmed” by our televisions, and the literal realization of televisual control and power in these films as a source of horror suggests a cultural awakening to these issues. In short, I wish to argue that these films construct a rationale for rejecting and fearing televisual interface as a violation of the “normal” relationship of bodies and technology. That concerns me, especially given recent critiques that suggest the value of exploring that relationship such as Kevin DeLuca’s work on the accessible “Public Screen” provided by television coverage and Steven Shaviro’s analysis of the positive cyborgian implications of Videodrome in his work The Cinematic Body (1993). I suggest that these films provide the basis for a nice analysis of how media power has become recognized, feared, and consequently misunderstood as something inaccessible by the general public, which limits its utility for social action and change.

3. The Body in Interface Theory
Developing literature on the human/machine interface appears – from my admittedly cursory examination – to expend substantial time and energy theorizing machines and our relationship to them, yet often adopts rather simplistic assumptions of what constitutes “bodies” in this discussion. Yet as scholars begin to seriously study interfaces, as some at Indiana University’s School of Infomatics are doing today, this tendency risks reifying views of the body contested elsewhere (such as in Disability Studies).

In the context of Donna Haraway’s cyborg theory, and critical theories of bodies associated their textuality, I propose a critical reading of interface theory texts to uncover the ways that the body has been (re)placed in their analysis. By engaging these texts, we may be able to extend the potential of interface theory and help its practitioners avoid a damaging pitfall.

4. What’s Entertainment? Perceived Textual Functions and Resistance to Criticism
Audiences often utilize the concept of “entertainment” to justify a lack of critical analysis or judgment. While recently teaching a course on Disney films I repeatedly encountered student resistance to reading the films critically, usually justified by the claim that the films were only meant to be entertaining. Entertainment value is often used to justify a lack of other qualities, such as when Michael C. Jensen argued against critiques of newspaper veracity by claiming that the function of the press was not to inform, but to entertain.

Entertainment is clearly a rhetorically or culturally constructed idea, as what is accepted as entertaining at one place and time may be reviled in another. Furthermore, entertainment is also a way we describe a physiological response, as some recent work in psychology suggests that some people experience as pleasurable stimuli that others do not. Finally, given our country’s founding principle of a “right to pursue happiness,” what counts as entertaining may distinguish legal activity from the illicit. Yet “entertainment” remains an under-theorized – if not ignored – concept.

I propose an analysis of “entertainment” to theorize its significance, use as an ideograph, and cultural limits. What rhetorical baggage does it carry, and what rhetorical norms do we invoke by identifying something as entertainment. The legal structures we use to distinguish proper and improper entertainment may be a place to start, but the possible texts where this concept may be examined are so numerous that I am open to tailoring this project to a student ’s specific interest.