Login

Publications  •  Project Statistics

Glossary  •  Schools  •  Disciplines
People Search: 
   
Title/Abstract Search: 

Dissertation Information for Cynthia Walker

NAME:
- Cynthia Walker

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- Library and Information Science

SCHOOL:
- Rutgers University (USA) (2001)

ADVISORS:
- Robert Kubey

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- Lea Stewart
- Brent D. Ruben
- Henry Jenkins

MPACT Status: Fully Complete

Title: A dialogic approach to creativity in mass communication

Abstract: In terms of theory and research, past and present, the concept of a social constructionist perspective in mass communication is something of an oxymoron. Linearity and a unidirectional flow still seem to be lodged at the core of all mass communication theories, even those that focus on audiences or take a critical perspective. No matter what their philosophical orientations or theoretical approaches, mass communication researchers have not moved very far beyond the simple causality of early sender-message-receiver models.

Drawing from a diverse collection of literatures, including traditional mass communication research, cultural studies, literary theory, writing and composition research, learning theory and perspectives on socially shared cognition, this study presents a new methodological approach to mass communication that considers the creative as well as the economic; the producer as well as the consumer; the writer as well as the reader; the work as well as the text, and the socially-situated individual as well as the surrounding social context. Central to the methodology is a dialogic model which illustrates that the ultimate meaning of a cultural text, reconceptualized as a "work/text," is the result of the many dialogues that occur, often simultaneously, between and among the various collective parties involved in the mass communication process. The model has two levels, a micro and a macro level, and considers both the symbolic/cultural and financial economies.

To demonstrate the heuristic value of this new approach, the model was applied to a case study, a cultural "site," the classic television series, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. The resulting research presented here, which maps the dialogic model onto the cultural work/text, is a systematic "unpacking" of the site, and a structured exploration of how meanings (particularly in regard to the series' major characters), were created and interpreted, and how, over time, they changed and evolved.

At the conclusion of the case study research, the approach was evaluated as a possible next step in the development of mass communication study, as a means to explore other, related mass communication theories; as a new approach in its own right, and as a way to investigate other cultural discourses.

MPACT Scores for Cynthia Walker

A = 0
C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-01-31 06:11:21

Advisors and Advisees Graph