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Item Tonight It’s Government Funded: A Rhetorical Analysis of Manufactured Social Controversy and Government Funding of the Arts(North Dakota State University, 2013) Beckermann, Kay MarieThomas Goodnight’s definition of controversy offers an initial examination of Reverend Donald Wildmon and Reverend Pat Robertson’s attack of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), initiating the Culture Wars of 1989. Using their most reliable communication tactics, Wildmon and Robertson attempted to garner support for their values by manufacturing controversy related to government funding of the National Endowment for the Arts. Together, they manufacture social controversy around two inter-related themes, one of morality, in which they argued Christians were being persecuted by the art community, and the other against federal funding of objectionable art, using Andres Serrano and Robert Mapplethorpe as symbols of corruption. In addition to the initial attacks on Serrano and Mapplethorpe, my rhetorical analysis illustrates how Wildmon’s and Robertson’s rhetoric seemingly sanctioned the manufacturing of a social controversy regarding the Federal funding for objectionable art as a way to promote their pro-family and anti-homosexual agenda.Item Newspapers as a Form of Settler Colonialism: An Examination of the Dakota Access Pipeline Protest and American Indian Representation in Indigenous, State, and National News(North Dakota State University, 2019) Beckermann, Kay MarieSettler colonial history underlies much of contemporary industry, including the extraction and transportation of crude oil. It presents itself in a variety of contexts; however, this disquisition applies a traditional Marxist perspective to examine how settler colonialism is present in news media representation of American Indian activists during the Dakota Access Pipeline protest. Rather than focus on the benefit of using colonized labor for financial gain, this disquisition pushes Marxism into settler colonialism in which the goal is to eliminate the Indigenous and continue to widen the gap between social classes. This research is important for two reasons. First, the media are powerful, making it the perfect vehicle to disseminate inaccurate representations of American Indians. These incorrect representations come in the form of media frames that created an altered reality for news audiences. Second, the term settler colonialism, in particular its relationship with American Indian protest, has been little studied in the American field of communication. A comparative qualitative content analysis was applied to media artifacts from the protest that occurred in North Dakota. Artifacts were discovered using a constructed week approach of two online versions of print publications—the Bismarck (ND) Tribune and the New York Times—and one digital only news site, Indian Country Today. One hundred twenty four artifacts were examined in total. Five dominant frames emerged from the analysis: blame, cultural value, water, American Indian stereotypes, and confrontation. These frames were considered dominant due to the number of coded excerpts that appeared in at least 20% of the artifacts. The frames either contribute to or resist settler colonialism based on the publication in which it appears. The Bismarck Tribune contributed the most to settler colonialism; the New York Times neither rejected nor acknowledged it while Indian Country Today resisted through recognition of America’s settler colonial past, sovereignty, and government-directed violence. The implication of this research is that elimination of the American Indian is ubiquitous in American news media. The mainstream media contributes to widening the gap between social classes, ensuring the dominant class stays in power and Indigenous issues are ignored.