The Evolution of Media Coverage of Historical Sports Controversies

This thesis will cover sports controversies throughout the 20th Century in the context of the media’s newspaper coverage of the events. The 1919 Black Sox Scandal, the debate over American participation in the 1936 Olympics, and Muhammad Ali’s conversion to the Nation of Islam, standing as a notorious public figure, and conscientious objection to the Vietnam War will represent the three sports controversies. The media’s adherence to cultural norms is clear in all three cases. The consistent devotion to the cultural and racial atmosphere of their respective eras was constant and helped to perpetuate accepted, mainstream cultural attitudes. Cultural and racial norms were followed in the coverage of the three discussed controversies. The anti-Semitism and racially intolerant sentiments in America during great waves of immigration in the early 1900s allowed for journalists to freely vilify Jews as corrupters of baseball and the ballplayers who were rumored to have thrown the 1919 World Series. The white ballplayers were supported in the press, who protected their own and blamed outsiders. Jim Crow and the Americanization movement forced African American and Jewish newspapers to limit their journalistic bias on both sides of the debate over American participation in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The white, mainstream press was void of bias as the spirit of isolationism in America triumphed over journalist’s leanings in the Olympic debate. The racial tension created by the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s created an atmosphere that allowed mainstream journalists to heap endless criticism on Muhammad Ali as he gained fame. By portraying him as a villain of society as both a religious radical and traitor to America, journalists created a common enemy in the minds of white America. In all three cases, a pattern of journalists expressing the state of cultural and racial norms of the era is present and significant.

Dads, Daughters, And Disney: The Historical Trajectory Of Fairy Tale Fathers And Daughters

In my thesis I use a historical approach to close readings of fairy tale texts and movies to study the evolution of fathers, daughters, and marriage within three landmark tales: ¿Cinderella,¿ ¿Sleeping Beauty,¿ and ¿Snow White.¿ Using the works of Giambattista Basile, Charles Perrault, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, and Walt Disney and his cohort of animators, I trace the historical trajectory of these three elements, analyzing both the ways they change and develop as history progresses as well as the ways they remain consistent. Through close and comparative readings of primary sources and films, I demonstrate the power structures and familial dynamics evident through the interactions of fathers and daughters. Specifically, I show that through the weakness and ineptitude of fairy tale fathers, fairy tale daughters are able to gain power, authority, and autonomy by using magic and marriage to navigate patriarchal systems. The work I have done is important because it explores how each tale is a product of the story before it and thus that in order for these tales to continue to survive the test of time, we must not only recognize the validity of the academic merit of the Disney stories, but also remember them and others as we forge new paths in the stories we use to teach both children and parents. Specifically, this work is important because it explores the historical trend evident in the evolving relationships between fathers and daughters. This relationship ultimately it reveals the deep underlying need for family within all of us.

Women's Athletics at Mansfield University in Historical Perspective

Mansfield University, founded on January 7, 1857 as Mansfield Classical Seminary, has an overwhelming history of persistence. Along with the institution, the women’s athletic programs also have a strong past. This paper outlines the history of women’s athletics at Mansfield from the establishment of the school in 1857, to the first women’s athletic program starting in 1900, and through the present day. It is organized according to the eras the institution went through and the athletic opportunities given to the women at that time. The focus of each chapter reflects the major accomplishments of both the institution and the women’s athletic programs, events, and issues that transpired during each time period. Research was conducted by reviewing yearbooks, memorandums, and reports in the Mansfield University archives, school newspaper articles, and the university website, along with several other supplemental materials. Personal interviews also accompanied the documentary research to give a first-hand historical viewpoint of several eras. It was concluded that the women at Mansfield University have fought for, and created athletic opportunities for over 100 years. In comparison to other Pennsylvania state universities, women’s athletics at Mansfield are under-funded and on the low end of receiving athletic scholarship monies. The future of women’s athletics at Mansfield is uncertain due to budgetary factors that are unknown at this time.

A Historical-Institutional Study of the Welfare Systems in the United States and Sweden: Net Social Wage Approach

In this study I first look at the historical developments of the welfare systems in Sweden and the United States to understand why these countries have produced two distinct systems over the years. After understanding their historical context I turn to the question of the relationship between the welfare system and economic growth. Policy makers and the mainstream media commonly cite the critique that through government deficit and public debt, welfare systems are a drag on the economy. By calculating the net social wage, the difference in taxes paid and benefits received by workers, I test this hypothesis to see if welfare systems are self-financed by the workers. My findings demonstrate that the net social wage has been negative in the U.S. from 1962 to the early 2000s and in Sweden from 1965 to 2012. This shows that the welfare systems are entirely self-financed by the workers for the full period in Sweden and until the recent financial crisis in the U.S.

Liberal Nationalism: A Historical and Critical Analysis of Conceptions

At the end of the 20th century we live in a pluralist world in which national and ethnic identities play an appreciable role, sometimes provoking serious conflicts. Nationalist values seem to pose a serious challenge to liberal ones, particularly in the post-communist countries. Malinova asked whether liberalism must necessarily be contrasted with nationalism. Although nationalist issues has never been a major concern for liberal thinkers, in many countries they have had to take such issues into consideration and a form of 'liberalism nationalism' has its place in the history of political ideas. Some of the thinkers who tried to develop such an idea were liberals in the strict sense of the word and others were not, but all of them tried to elaborate a concept of nationalism that respected the rights of individuals and precluded discrimination on ethnic grounds. Malinova studied the history of the conceptualisation of nations and nationalism in the writings, of J.S. Mill, J.E.E. Acton, G. Mazzini, V. Soloviev, B. Chicherin, P. Struve, P. Miljoukov and T.G. Masaryk. Although it cannot be said that these theories form a coherent tradition, certain common elements of the different approaches can be identified. Malinova analysed the way that liberal nationalists interpreted the phenomenon of the nation and its rights in different historical contexts, reviewed the structure of their arguments and tried to evaluate this theoretical experience from the perspective of the contemporary debate on the problems of liberal nationalism and multiculturalism and recent debates on 'the national idea' in Russia.