CONTRIBUTORS

Fall 2018

COMM 233A

Sungyeon Ahn

William Andries

Kamal Apatira

Georges Azouri

Faith Blakey

Colleen Kelly

Benjamin May

Pia Ocvirk

Natalie E. Raskas

Helina Samson

Ryan Scott

Sydney Secuskie

Sarah Selzer

Abigail Smith

Griffin Spurgin

Jarrod Stiver

Aleysha Ward

Theresa R. Weigel

Jackson Williams

Joseph S. Zanca

COMM 233C

Caleb Baue

Jonathan Bonilla

Frederick Coudret

Destiney Davis

DaBreonna Doss

Christopher Douglas

Cailey Griffin

Gunter Jaeger

Emmanuel Koutsouras

Yongjie Li

Katharine McLean

Brogan Miller

Joshua Mundell

Richard Pasch

Daniel Scotto

Ryan Smith

Nathan Stapleton

Leda Turpen

Margaret Wagenbrenner

Kenneth West

CLASS REPRESENTATION IN BREAKING BAD: THE CASE OF ALBUQUERQUE

By Georges Azouri Breaking Bad was a critically acclaimed television series that aired from 2008-2013. It was show that was based around the life of Walter White, a high school chemistry teacher turned methamphetamine producer. Walter turns to a life of violence and crime due to a cancer diagnosis and the desire to provide for his family. While the show touches on masculinity and similar perspectives of family and providing, it also makes an interesting choice with setting, making Albuquerque, New Mexico and the class representation of the community a central role of the show. Class representation, or rather misrepresentation is a common characteristic of American television and cinema, Breaking Bad is no exception to this. Albuquerque is a city riddled with social problems and struggles with poverty and unemployment, along with crime and drug issues (Cook & Ashutosh, 2018). The real city of Albuquerque is one that struggles from these very real issues. Breaking Bad , ...

Move Over Kim Here Comes The Donald

Move Over Kim Here Comes The Donald By Caleb Baue The American media’s new favorite celebrity power couple isn’t quite what we all expected. The all-star line up including Thomas Rhett and Lauren Atkins, Will and Jada Smith, Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively, are now joined by Kanye West and Donald Trump. Celebrity endorsement gained its popularity back in 2004 when Red Sox Pitcher Curt Schilling publicly endorsed former President George W. Bush. Since then, we’ve seen pairs like Michael J. Fox and current senator Claire McCaskill in 2006, Hank Williams Jr. and the late John McCain in 2008 and Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama in 2008. (Ivory, Morin, Tubbs, 2012) Celebrity endorsement is most commonly used for product advertisement, companies have been using athletes, singers, actors, and public figures in advertisements for years. The goal or idea behind these endorsements is that they will positively change the audience’s perception of the product and the co...

INFOTAINMENT: A SOURCE OF POLITICAL EFFICACY AND PARTICIPATION

By Georges Azouri Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, and Trevor Noah. These are all household names of television hosts on shows such as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report . Both shows are infotainment programs that inform their viewers on current news and entertain them in a satirical way. While there is great comedic value provided by these programs, there is even greater value to the political culture of the United States. Infotainment programs are not new, rather the influence they can have on an audience is new. Shows like The Daily Show or The Colbert Report share news stories and often political stories in a satirical manner. In doing so these programs are still educating audiences on politics even if it may be skewed. Political efficacy is the belief that one is able to strongly influence politics and usually is tied to political participation. A study done on adolescents showed that, “nontraditional sources of political information on television (late-night comedy) i...

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