The Conservative Cave
Current Events => The DUmpster => Topic started by: LC EFA on February 13, 2009, 04:51:07 PM
-
I've always wondered if DU would be a suitable petri dish for some form of doctoral level project
boobooday Donating Member (1000+ posts) Fri Feb-13-09 09:42 AM
Original message
I wrote my doctoral dissertation about DU.
I wanted to tell you. I defended it in August, when I received my PhD in Mass Comm. I have been a participant here for a long time, and an observer at Free Republic, the site I used for my comparative study. I would also post it there, but I have been banned every time I have signed up. I just wanted to say thank you to you all, what you do is real, and you are a real community. People like you are insisting that the U.S. move towards more democracy, and making it happen. This is my abstract. If any Freepers are lurking, thanks to them too.
AGONISTIC DEMOCRACY AND THE NARRATIVE OF DISTEMPERED ELITES: AN ANALYSIS OF CITIZEN DISCOURSE ON POLITICAL MESSAGE FORUMS
Navigating the tension between liberalism and democracy that characterizes our political system requires an agonistic approach to political conflict. The agonistic approach recognizes opponents as adversaries rather than enemies, as discussed by Chantal Mouffe and by Robert Ivie and disagreement as productive rather than obstructive, shedding the idealized and frequently unobtainable goal of consensus.
In this interpretive study, the discourse of politically interested citizens participating in partisan online “rhetorical†communities was examined for evidence of Mouffe’s agonistic pluralism. Two popular and parallel message forums were chosen as the subjects of the study, and a composite sample was drawn in January 2008. FreeRepublic.com, a conservative forum, and the liberal message forum DemocraticUnderground.com represent two active communities with strong ideological identities that transcend party affiliation. Analysis of link sources and topics provided information about what these online citizens were discussing, and where they turned for information about political actors and events. The narrative analysis invoked Kenneth Burke’s dramatistic frames of acceptance and rejection in order to provide a framework for the investigation. The study identified a narrative of the citizen-protagonist that was shared between the two communities. A more robust rhetorical ecosystem existed at Democratic Underground, as they often applied Burke’s “comic corrective†to points of conflict and took a more egalitarian approach to who could speak and when. The participants at Free Republic were more likely to assign motivations that precluded the agonistic frame. Ultimately, these emergent communities created environments that manifested the centrifugal and centripetal forces of democracy and liberalism, respectively. They also shed light on some of the pitfalls of rituals of “virtual vengeance.†These rituals can be empowering, affirming the “rationality of outrage,†but veer into something akin to Nietzsche’s “slave morality†when judgment is passed without the presentation of forensic evidence regarding motivation. Finally, the study argues that investigations of what online citizens actually do to constitute their political identities provide a well-rounded picture of political culture, which, according to Doris Graber may be more important than factors such as “citizen wisdom and media excellence†but is undoubtedly a reflection of both.
I'd love to provoke a discussion, but I can't promise not to write about it!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5043531
What a load of garbage.
If this is what is required to get a PhD these days it's a sad testament to the state of public education.
boobooday Donating Member (1000+ posts) Fri Feb-13-09 11:28 AM
Response to Reply #52
62. Linkee
To save you the search:
http://www.toofunproductions.com/CastilloDiss.pdf
Now there's 270 pages that I can't un-download.
-
I noticed my fellow alum Skins was interested in that dissertation, and politely asked a copy of it be mailed to him. Black ink on white paper.
The boohoo primitive said he'd e-mail Skins a copy.
Talk about ingratitude.
Given all that my fellow alum gives to the primitives, I think the boohoo primitive should copy out that dissertation on $50 bills, and overnight-mail it to Skins.
Ungrateful jerks, the primitives.
-
We're not a democracy, damnit! :banghead:
Or at least, were not supposed to be...
-
All them fancy words and 200 something pages to just say......
B.S. and how the democratic party uses it to influence over educated idiots that get PhD's.
-
I wish dr. booboo lived near me so when the fighting starts I could strangle him with my bare hands.
-
I wish dr. booboo lived near me so when the fighting starts I could strangle him with my bare hands.
Don't forget your latex gloves.......HIV, body fluids and all that.....you know.
-
Five years and 270 pages to get a $9/hr job....wait now with porkulus passed he will get a job in education, brainwash our children, work 8 months a year, and retire at 55 with 95% of his last salary.
-
Submitted to the faculty of the University Graduate School
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree
Doctor of Philosophy
in the Department of Telecommunications,
Indiana University
August, 2008
As a Hoosier born and bred, I'm highly offended that the same university my son attends would give a dummie a Ph.D. in mass communications. BTW - this is the same university that the highly ignoramus David Shuster of MSNBC fame graduated from.
:banghead:
-
Mass Comm is the new basket-weaving. It's on a par with Womyn's Studies and Journalism majors.
-
What a waste of skin... :mental:
-
So his doctoral dissertation was about the insanity of hive mind, lack of historical knowledge, hatred, bigotry, lack of common sense and blindly following someone who's not qualified for the office of President?
-
I would also post it there, but I have been banned every time I have signed up
The only posters who get immediately banned are those who start nonsense "Republicans kill kittens and puppies" type of threads, and truthers.
Promoting leftist ideals in debate will not get you banned.
There are a few hundred thousand members of FR, and some of them are just out there on the fringe. You are going to run into that on any type of political board. That said, debate is welcome, and interesting intelligent debate involve posters who don't spend their days H5'ing each other, so dissent is certainly welcome.
I agree that anyone who bases their PhD on the insane ramblings of the misfits at DU is testimony of how completely watered down and useless doctorates have become.
-
I agree that anyone who bases their PhD on the insane ramblings of the misfits at DU is testimony of how completely watered down and useless doctorates have become.
I told my wife that, if she ever wanted to go for her PhD., that she could do an interesting case study on the psychoses of the denziens of the DUmp. Not sure if Skinner would want his site used in that way, but . . .
-
I agree that anyone who bases their PhD on the insane ramblings of the misfits at DU is testimony of how completely watered down and useless doctorates have become.
Well now, since 2006, I've actually gotten nine credit hours from the state college located east of here, "independent study" of, specficially, the primitives on Skins's island.
Not that I expect to do anything with it; it's just that with this vacancy of hearing, normal means of diversion and amusement are shut off to me--television, radio, music, movies, those sorts of things--but the brain's the same size as the brains of hearing people, and needs filled with something, anything.
The primitives are my television show, my radio show, my movies, my concerts.
However, if I ever expected this "scholarship" to lead to some lucrative money-making, I should, as the primitives, be committed for gross delusion.
If the boohoo primitive is thinking his research is going to lead to something big, the boohoo primitive too is nuts.
However, there's nothing wrong with doing something just for the fun of it, provided one has no Great Expectations.
-
He's a she, a lady moonbat, She also thinks she's a songwriter like Weid Al:
In this takeoff on the song "Honky Cat," (published in1972, lyrics by Bernie Taupin, music by Elton John) , Jeanette Castillo suggests that George W. Bush is a plutocrat who should go to his ranch in Crawford Texas, and stay there.
The lyrics to "Get Back Plutocrat" are at her website.. The lyrics include (emphasis added):
Well, I’ve read some books, and I’ve read some magazines,
About your high-class felons and their evil schemes.
And all those fools on the tube, well, they said we were the fools.
They said, Oh, if you’re against the war – you don’t support our troops.
We say, Get Back, Plutocrat,
Better get ya back to the ranch!
Cause we’re sick of your wars,
And your corporate whores,
And oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
Regime change gonna do us good.
http://www.moveleft.com/moveleft_entertainment.asp
Search her name, another whackjob professor.