Browsing by Author "Khrebtan-Hörhager, Julia, committee member"

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Any good thing
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2016) Mangan, Andrew Nicholas, author; Levy, E. J., advisor; Doenges, Judy, committee member; Khrebtan-Hörhager, Julia, committee member
This thesis is titled after its first story but also functions the primary theme of the collection itself: Each character is in casting around desperately for “any good thing” in their lives. These “good things” range from monetary salvation, to the mitigation of loneliness, to escape from someone toxic. The arc of the collection as a whole is that of people identifying their conditions, trying to rescue themselves from them, then finally doing so in complicated ways.
Open Access
Corporate communication and intra-organizational legitimacy
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017) Hooper, Alissa, author; Williams, Elizabeth, advisor; Khrebtan-Hörhager, Julia, committee member; Christen, Cindy, committee member
This exploratory study investigates the ways in which corporate communication professionals struggle to attain legitimacy within their respective organizations and what tools and strategies are used to navigate an illegitimate, intra-organizational state. This thesis works to connect the gap between the literature written about the field of corporate communication at its inception and the reality now lived by the thousands of individuals who declare corporate communication as their profession nationally. Using the constant comparative method to analyze interviews of corporate communication professionals, the researcher will share a broad interpretation about which areas the sample stated corporate communication professionals are currently struggling for legitimacy and what tools and strategies can be used to effectively navigate this tension.
Open Access
"France deserves to be free": constituting Frenchness in Marine Le Pen's National Front/National Rally
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2020) Seitz, Lauren, author; Anderson, Karrin, advisor; Khrebtan-Hörhager, Julia, committee member; Daum, Courtenay, committee member
This thesis employs constitutive rhetoric to analyze French far-right politician Marine Le Pen's discourse. Focusing on ten of Le Pen's speeches given between 2015 and 2019, I argue that Le Pen made use of Kenneth Burke's steps of scapegoating and purification as a way to rewrite French national identity and constitute herself as a revolutionary political leader. Le Pen first identified with the subjects and system that she scapegoats. Next, she cast out elites, globalists, and immigrants, identifying them as scapegoats of France's contemporary identity split. Finally, by disidentifying with the scapegoats, Le Pen constituted her followers as always already French patriots and herself as her leader. This allowed her to propose a new form of French national identity that was undergirded by far-right ideals and discourse of revolution. This thesis presents several implications for understanding contemporary French national identity, the far right, and women politicians. It also contributes to the project of internationalizing public address research in Communication Studies.
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The conquered
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) Thayer, Kristen Marie, author; Levy, E. J., advisor; Becker, Leslee, committee member; Khrebtan-Hörhager, Julia, committee member
The Conquered is a novel about the unintended consequences that spiral out of deeply felt emotions and unresolved conflicts--about how the little things, unchecked, become the big things. It is about the cycles of good and evil that are experienced and passed on, both intentionally and unintentionally, and the small acts of understanding that make us human. This is a novel primarily about women: their concerns, their choices, their public and private griefs. It is an epic tale of mothers and daughters, of communities linked by faith and torn apart by prejudices. Set among the Uyghurs of northwestern China, a Muslim minority totaling ten million people, The Conquered follows the lives of three Uyghur women--Habiba, an ambitious middle-aged shopkeeper whose success in the world of business puts her personal and familial relationships in jeopardy; Zulpiya, the shopkeeper's teenaged daughter who is caught between the Han and Uyghur worlds because of her success in the Han educational system; and Rashida, a young woman attending Xinjiang University who gets involved with the growing Uyghur separatist movement. The narration spans the period from April 2008 (just before the 2008 Beijing Olympics) to August 2009 (just after the July 2009 ethnic riots in Urumqi).
Open Access
The interplay of politics, ideology, and culture in news framing of President Xi's first state visit
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017) Lan, Di, author; Plaisance, Patrick Lee, advisor; Kim, Jangyul Robert, committee member; Khrebtan-Hörhager, Julia, committee member
In the context of globalization, the media plays a significant role in constructing perceptions of another culture. When constantly expanding understanding of different societies, misperceptions of another culture may also emerge. This is especially true for the current Sino – U.S. relations, as mistrust has been found from both countries in the recent poll. At the time of discouragement and pessimism, Xi Jinping, China's president and the chairman of China's Central Military, arrived in Washington on September 22nd, 2015 and started his first official state visit in the U.S. This study examined media coverage of President Xi's first state visit in order to explore the power dynamics of ideology, politics, and culture between China and the U.S. Conducting comparative media research between U.S. and China breaks through the traditional UK and U.S. basis of communication study, which allowed communication scholars to be aware of non-western journalistic practices and be more sensitive to the global context. A quantitative content analysis with a qualitative assessment of overall frames were used to identify the way The New York Times and the People's Daily framed President Xi's first state visit. Results showed that both The New York Times and the People's Daily chose to highlight and interpret certain aspects of the trip, which led to different general assessments for the visit. There were five frames identified in their coverage, namely the anti-China frame, provocateur frame, recognition frame, great-leader frame and description frame. In addition, the distribution of quoted sources and issue salience were also found to be different in reports of The New York Times and the People's Daily. Possible ideological, cultural and political forces were elaborated upon in order to explain the coverage differences between the two newspapers.
Open Access
The power of the player: embodied social activism of professional athletes
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2020) Schade, Kennedy J., author; Dunn, Thomas, advisor; Khrebtan-Hörhager, Julia, committee member; Cloud, Doug, committee member
Designed to contribute to conversations about the political nature of sports, this thesis proposes a new type of rhetorical activism that is utilized by professional athletes. The figure of the athlete activist has a long history in United States sports culture of using their platform to speak to their fans and other audiences about social issues that occur in the lives of everyday citizens. By drawing on scholarship surrounding rhetoric, social activism, identity, and embodiment, this thesis directs explicit attention to the way that the human body functions rhetorically for professional athletes when practicing social activism. Extending Kevin Michael DeLuca's claim that the body is not inherently argumentative, I argue that given the inherent political nature of sports, the body of a professional athlete can be read as political even without intent of the athlete themselves and because of that, athletes are given opportunities to practice "embodied social activism." Representing an evolution of the athlete activist, I define embodied social activism as the way an athlete's marked body or lived experiences can be read as consequential contributions to discourses surrounding social issues. Analysis of the careers and activism of National Basketball Association (NBA) player Allen Iverson and National Football League (NFL) player Michael Bennett stands to show the ways that the athletic body can both function as argument itself and can be used as evidence to support more traditional means of social activism.
Open Access
Theorizing commensality discourses: food truck communication and influence in local culture
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Combs, Mitch, author; Aoki, Eric, advisor; Khrebtan-Hörhager, Julia, committee member; Elkins, Evan, committee member; Carolan, Michael, committee member
Food trucks offer spaces of commensality where people negotiate cultural identity and senses of place though practices, tastes, and performances communicated through enactments of food sharing. In this dissertation, I theorize commensality as a rhetorical texture of subcultural ideology, a rhetorical texture of resistance to cultural gentrification, and as a digital process of online community building. I use rhetorical criticism and ethnographic methods of participant observation to analyze physical spaces of food truck commensality in Fort Collins, Colorado: The FOCO Food Truck Rally and North College Avenue. Additionally, I conduct a media discourse analysis of the Fort Collins food truck Instagram community. Overall, I argue that commensality operates as a subcultural ideology resistant and reifying of gourmet elitism, a rhetoric of difference resistant to cultural gentrification, and a process digital commensality building community through social mediated branding, networking, and audiencing.
Open Access
"We will be the last mass shooting": Emma González's tactical subjectivity through differential consciousness, affect, and silence
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Palomino, Selena J., author; Aoki, Eric, advisor; Khrebtan-Hörhager, Julia, committee member; Black, Ray, committee member
The purpose of this thesis is to uncover the rhetorical strategies employed by Emma González throughout her "We call BS!" speech (i.e., February 17, 2018) and her "March for Our Lives" speech (i.e., March 24, 2018). Chela Sandoval's theorization of differential consciousness is used to uncover the ways González shifts her subject position from "kid," "teenager," and "student" in order to challenge "adults," the "President," and "lawmakers" to create systemic change. In this thesis, I argue Emma González uses the affective capacities of grief and silence to construct a counterpublic. Through González's rhetorical strategies a moment of silence is transformed from a ritual to a political act. Public grief is used as a tool for healing and reconciliation allowing for a national community to contend with the harrowing effects of gun violence. To conclude, with gun violence continuing to be a pervasive social problem, I discuss contributions, limitations, and directions for future studies.