This collection contains theses and dissertations from the Department of Media Studies, collected from the Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository
Theses/Dissertations from 2023
Witnessing Conspiracy Theories: Developing an Intersectional Approach to Conspiracy Theory Research, David Guignion
Canadians Redefining R&B: The Online Marketing of Drake, Justin Bieber, and Jessie Reyez, Amara Pope Ms.
Theses/Dissertations from 2022
Instagram Influencers and their Youngest Female Followers, Amanda Jenkins
A descriptive analysis of sport nationalism, digital media, and fandom to launch the Canadian Premier League, Farzan Mirzazadeh
Influencer Engagement Pods and the Struggle Over Measure in Instagram Platform Labour, Victoria J. O'Meara
Radiant Dreams and Nuclear Nightmares: Japanese Resistance Narratives and American Intervention in Postwar Speculative Popular Culture, Aidan J. Warlow
Theses/Dissertations from 2021
More barriers than solutions: Women’s experiences of support with online abuse, Chandell E. Gosse
Heavy Metal Fundraisers: Entrepreneurial Recording Artists in Platform Capitalism, Jason Netherton
Theses/Dissertations from 2019
Resistant Vulnerability in The Marvel Cinematic Universe's Captain America, Kristen Allison
Unwrapping the Toronto Christmas Market: An Examination of Tradition and Nostalgia in a Socially Constructed Space, Lydia J. Gibson
Trauma, Creativity, And Bearing Witness Through Art: Marian Kołodziej's Labyrinth, Alyssa Logie
Appropriating Play: Examining Twitch.tv as a Commercial Platform, Charlotte Panneton
Dead Men Walking: An Analysis of Working-Class Masculinity in Post-2008 Hollywood Film, Ryan Schroeder
Glocalization in China: An Analysis of Coca-Cola’s Brand Co-Creation Process with Consumers in China, Yinuo Shi
Critiquing the New Autonomy of Immaterial Labour: An Analysis of Work in the Artificial Intelligence Industry, James Steinhoff
Watching and Working Through: Navigating Non-being in Television Storytelling, Tiara Lalita Sukhan
Theses/Dissertations from 2018
Hone the Means of Production: Craft Antagonism and Domination in the Journalistic Labour Process of Freelance Writers, Robert Bertuzzi
Invisible Labour: Support-Service Workers in India’s Information Technology Industry, Indranil Chakraborty
Exhibiting Human Rights: Making the Means of Dignity Visible, Amy J. Freier
Industrial Stagecraft: Tooling and Cultural Production, Jennifer A. Hambleton
Cultural Hybridity in the Contemporary Korean Popular Culture through the Practice of Genre Transformation, Kyunghee Kim
Theses/Dissertations from 2017
Regarding Aid: The photographic situation of humanitarianism, Sonya de Laat
The Representation of the Canadian Government’s Warrantless Domestic Collection of Metadata in the Canadian Print News Media, Alan Del Pino
(Not) One of the Boys: A Case Study of Female Detectives on HBO, Darcy Griffin
Pitching the Feminist Voice: A Critique of Contemporary Consumer Feminism, Kate Hoad-Reddick
A place for locative media: A theoretical framework for assessing locative media use in urban environments, Darryl A. Pieber
Mapping the Arab Diaspora: Examining Placelessness and Memory in Arab Art, Shahad Rashid
Settler Colonial Ways of Seeing: Documentary Governance of Indigenous Life in Canada and its Disruption, Danielle Taschereau Mamers
Theses/Dissertations from 2016
Finding Your Way: Navigating Online News and Opinions, Charlotte Britten
Law and Abuse: Representations of Intimate Partner Homicide in Law Procedural Dramas, Jaime A. Campbell
Creative Management: Disciplining the Neoliberal Worker, Trent Cruz
No hay Sólo un Idioma, No hay Sólo una Voz: A Revisionist History of Chicana/os and Latina/os in Punk, Richard C. Davila
Shifting Temporalities: The Construction of Flexible Subjectivities through Part-time Retail Workers’ Use of Smartphone Technology, Jessica Fanning
Becoming Sonic: Ambient Poetics and the Ecology of Listening in Four Militant Sound Investigations, David C. Jackson
Capital's Media: The Physical Conditions of Circulation, Atle Mikkola Kjøsen
On the Internet by Means of Popular Music: The Cases of Grimes and Childish Gambino, Kristopher R. K. Ohlendorf
Believing the News: Exploring How Young Canadians Make Decisions About Their News Consumption, Jessica Thom
Theses/Dissertations from 2015
Narrative Epic and New Media: The Totalizing Spaces of Postmodernity in The Wire, Batman, and The Legend of Zelda, Luke Arnott
Canada: Multiculturalism, Religion, and Accommodation, Brittainy R. Bonnis
Navigating the Social Landscape: An Exploration of Social Networking Site Usage among Emerging Adults, Kristen Colbeck
Impassioned Objects And Seething Absences: The Olympics In Canada, National Identity and Consumer Culture, Estee Fresco
Satirical News and Political Subversiveness: A Critical Approach to The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, Roberto Leclerc
"When [S]He is Working [S]He is Not at Home": Challenging Assumptions About Remote Work, Eric Lohman
Heating Up the Debate: E-cigarettes and Instagram, Stephanie L. Ritter
Limitation to Innovation in the North American Console Video Game Industry 2001-2013: A Critical Analysis, Michael Schmalz
Happiest People Alive: An Analysis of Class and Gender in the Trinidad Carnival, Asha L. St. Bernard
Human-Machinic Assemblages: Technologies, Bodies, and the Recuperation of Social Reproduction in the Crisis Era, Elise D. Thorburn
Theses/Dissertations from 2014
Face Value: Beyond the Surface of Brand Philanthropy and the Cultural Production of the M.A.C AIDS Fund, Andrea Benoit
Cultivating Better Brains: Transhumanism and its Critics on the Ethics of Enhancement Via Brain-computer Interfacing, Matthew Devlin
Man Versus Food: An Analysis of 'Dude Food' Television and Public Health, Amy R. Eisner-Levine
Media Literacy and the English as a Second Language Curriculum: A Curricular Critique and Dreams for the Future, Clara R. Madrenas
Fantasizing Disability: Representation of loss and limitation in Popular Television and Film, Jeffrey M. Preston
(Un)Covering Suicide: The Changing Ethical Norms in Canadian Journalism, Gemma Richardson
Labours Of Love: Affect, Fan Labour, And The Monetization Of Fandom, Jennifer Spence
'What's in a List?' Cultural Techniques, Logistics, Poeisis, Liam Cole Young
Theses/Dissertations from 2013
Distinguishing the 'Vanguard' from the 'Insipid': Exploring the Valorization of Mainstream Popular Music in Online Indie Music Criticism, Charles J. Blazevic
Anonymous: Polemics and Non-identity, Samuel Chiang
Manufacturing Legitimacy: A Critical Theory of Election News Coverage, Gabriel N. Elias
The Academic Grind: A Critique of Creative and Collaborative Discourses Between Digital Games Industries and Post-Secondary Education in Canada, Owen R. Livermore
We’re on This Road Together: The Changing Fan/Producer Relationship in Television as Demonstrated by Supernatural, Lisa Macklem
Brave New Wireless World: Mapping the Rise of Ubiquitous Connectivity from Myth to Market, Vincent R. Manzerolle
Promotional Ubiquitous Musics: New Identities and Emerging Markets in the Digitalizing Music Industry, Leslie Meier
Money, Morals, and Human Rights: Commercial Influences in the Marketing, Branding, and Fundraising of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, Danielle Morgan
If I Had a Hammer: An Archeology of Tactical Media From the Hootenanny to the People's Microphone, Henry Adam Svec
Theses/Dissertations from 2012
Watching High School: Representing Disempowerment on Teen Drama Television, Sarah M. Baxter
Will Work For Free: Examining the Biopolitics of Unwaged Immaterial Labour, Brian A. Brown
Social Net-working: Exploring the Political Economy of the Online Social Network Industry, Craig Butosi
Watching the games: Critical media literacy and students’ abilities to identify and critique the politics of sports, Raúl J. Feliciano Ortiz
The Invisible Genocide: An Analysis of ABC, CBS, and NBC Television News Coverage of the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda., Daniel C. Harvey
It's Complicated: Romantic Breakups and Their Aftermath on Facebook, Veronika A. Lukacs
Keeping Up with the Virtual Joneses: The Practices, Meanings, and Consequences of Consumption in Second Life, Jennifer M. Martin
The (m)Health Connection: An Examination of the Promise of Mobile Phones for HIV/AIDS Intervention in Sub-Saharan Africa, Trisha M. Phippard
Born Again Hard : Transgender Subjectivity in Paul Chadwick's Concrete, Justin Raymond
Communicating Crimes: Covering Gangs in Contemporary Canadian Journalism, Chris Richardson
Online Social Breast-Working: Representations of Breast Milk Sharing in the 21st Century, Cari L. Rotstein
Because I am Not Here, Selected Second Life-Based Art Case Studies. Subjectivity, Autoempathy and Virtual World Aesthetics, Francisco Gerardo Toledo Ramírez
Day of the Woman?: Feminism & Rape-Revenge Films, Kayley A. Viteo
Theses/Dissertations from 2011
"Aren't They Keen?" Early Children's Food Advertising and the Emergence of the Brand-loyal Child Consumer, Kyle R. Asquith
Immediacy and Aesthetic Remediation in Television and Digital Media: Mass Media’s Challenge to the Democratization of Media Production, Michael S. Daubs