Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Evaluated family use of the newly mandated V-Chip technology. A yearlong quasi-experiment with 150 families with children between the ages of 7 and 10 was conducted in which one group was given V-Chip equipped television sets along with training and information on how to use the technology (n=58), another group was only given V-Chip equipped television sets (n=52), and a third group was monitored over the course of the study for technology acquisition and use (n=40). The experimental manipulation was masked by informing participants that the study was about general family life and that the television was compensation for participation. Findings revealed that 33 of the 110 families attempted to use the V-Chip over the course of the study. Nine of these families had it successfully engaged when we visited the families’ homes at the conclusion of the study. Another 14 families engaged the V-Chip but opted to turn it off. And 10 families attempted to use the V-Chip but were thwarted by the technology. While training and information influenced attempts to try the V-Chip, these endeavors were not related to sustained use. Results suggest that access to supervisory technology alone is an insufficient indicator of adoption and use. Rather, family media supervision is better understood through the context of the family system.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: As a partial remedy to the reduction of First Amendment protections for religious action in Employment Division v. Smith (1990), Congress enacted the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) in 2000. Among other things, RLUIPA's core provisions require local zoning and historic preservation officials to exempt religious organizations from burdensome regulations unless doing so would threaten a compelling governmental interest.

To what extent has RLUIPA protected religious rights? Judging by litigation outcomes alone, the evidence looks bleak; indeed, in the reported decisions to date, religious organizations have usually failed in court when pressing RLUIPA claims. Yet as this paper shows, RLUIPA has indeed fostered greater accommodation of religion in numerous instances around the country -- because its statutory remedies have increased the leverage of religious interests in bargaining outside of court. Simply put, critics of RLUIPA who decry its ineffectiveness as a judicial remedy may be missing the forest for the trees. In dozens of instances of church-state conflict from coast to coast, religious organizations have effectively used RLUIPA -- and its implicit threat of judicial remedy -- as an effective tool in gaining accommodations through negotiations. In those cases, no resort to courts and formal litigation ever became necessary.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Romance novels have been criticized as reinforcing sexist stereotypes and distracting women from realizing their full potential. Defenders argue that they present empowering images of women and subvert patriarchal power structures. This study analyzed 13 contemporary, single-title romance novels. The novels do portray some gender equality, at least from a liberal feminist point of view. However, obsession with control as evidence of deeply-rooted, structural patriarchy continues unnoticed, just as it does in real life.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: European public broadcasters have a mandate to communicate the importance of multiculturalism to society, which is becoming increasingly difficult as they fight with private broadcasters for audience. This study compared two television comedies, from Great Britain and Germany, looking for similarities in how multiculturalism and minorities were portrayed to mainstream audiences. The comparison found that, even with the different histories of the two nations, the programs approached multiculturalism in very similar ways.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper uses the work of Pierre Bourdieu to analyze three cases of fat phobic discourse in popular culture. Developing his notion of embodied cultural capital, we argue that thinness can be understood as a solid, reliable form of cultural capital in American culture, a blue chip investment of sorts. We then use that understanding to analyze discourses of body size and the self in Morgan Spurlock's Super-Size Me, Oprah Winfrey's eponymous talk show, and the Skinny Wednesday episodes of Pat Robertson's The 700 Club. Our analysis compares the three cases based on the volume and composition each creator brings to the project and how their aspirations for social improvement shape their particular representations of fatness, thinness and change in body size.