The Deceit of internet hate speech: A Study of the narrative and visual methods used by hate groups on the Internet

Intentional misinformation is a problem that has been documented in a variety of shapes and forms for thousands of years and continues to plague the American landscape. The advent and increasing usage of the Internet has created an additional venue through which intentional misinformation is disseminated, and many groups are taking full advantage of this new communication medium. Because the Internet allows anyone with web publishing skills to disseminate misinformation, it is often difficult for users to judge the credibility of the information. Hate groups understand this phenomenon and are taking full advantage of the Internet by publishing hate sites that promote their extremist ideologies by using language and symbolism that makes the true message difficult to decipher. This study will investigate the methods employed by hate groups to disseminate misinformation to the public

Sarmakand and the Labyrinth of Soyinka's Language and Thought

In 2002, Soyinka published a collection of poems titled Sarmakand and Other Markets I Have Known. The collection more than any other writings of his shows a catholicity of feeling beyond the personal. It adds more to our understanding of Soyinka's politics and statement on religion at local and global levels. The intention of this paper is to do an intensive scrutiny of the passages through which we can extend our understanding of the rhetorical, psychological, political and religious context of the collection. This collection is very engaging in its style and language and in it, we are back to vintage Soyinka where we see the poet's ability to transmute artistically his subject matter into an icon of visual feeling. There is a ferocious topicality in the collection but its language expresses the zeitgeist in a way that there is an aesthetic transition between the known reality and the frequently unpleasant conflict in the mind of the poet and the collective mind. We attempt to show how Sarmakand (as a place and as a poem) helps to elucidate the value held by Soyinka as a poet and how it helps us grasp the vision of the world and the moral promptings which the folklore of the market evokes in humanity in general

January 1970

Dear Brother: The clock in the hall struck five and the first light of another day spread over the parsonage lawn. My friend and I had been sitting in his study talking since midnight. For once the term dialogue would have been appropriate — but we had not yet learned to use the word for a discussion with a brother

Metaphoric Interpretations of a Social Issue

This thesis presents a study on how fourth graders can learn and use metaphor to create meaningful and expressive artworks. It is intended to investigate how students can understand the idea of metaphor and how they can use it to illustrate their own thoughts and ideas within their artworks. Jean Piaget believes much abstract thinking does not occur until the Formal Operations Stage of eleven to thirteen years of age. This study sought to question the ideas of Piaget by introducing the abstract thought of metaphor to fourth graders who are at the approximate age of nine. It set out to demonstrate that students may understand the idea of metaphor while applying it to create meaningful artworks that demonstrate their own opinions, thoughts and beliefs. Concepts about metaphor were introduced to the students through a number of interactive lessons to develop their ability to implement metaphor into their own artworks. This unit taught students how to interpret metaphor and apply the use of metaphor to their own artworks

Sacred and Profane: A Not-So-Southern Controversy

This thesis is proposing an alternative way to view the notions of sacred and profane that better facilitates conversation in public discourse. Currently, public conversation tends to not acknowledge that there can be competing notions of what is sacred. Instead, one group’s notion of sacred tends to be privileged, while another’s is vilified and seen as profane. I will analyze media reports covering the Confederate flag debate and the Charleston shooting to expose the tendency within public discourse to acknowledge one notion of sacred at a time. Exposing this tendency will provide me with the framework for discussing a needed shift in our thought process when it comes to the sacred. I argue that we should bring the notion of sacred back into public discourse not as a religious category but as a rhetorical category of analysis. As a rhetorical device, sacred is best understood through Kenneth Burke’s notion of “god-term.” He defines “god-term” as the main motivator for a person’s actions and understandings. Because the sacred is like a “god-term” there can be multiple notions of the sacred at once since each person is not motivated by the same factor. The rhetorical understanding of sacred allows for clearer conversation within public discourse

Laughing the Politically Incorrect Way: Humor Usage on the 4chan /pol/ Forum

Journalistic evidence suggests an increasing link between right-wing extremist groups and humor usage. I investigate archives from the “politically incorrect” /pol/ forum on 4chan, an anonymous imageboard website. While not every individual on the /pol/ forum is a right-wing extremist, many have views consistent with right-wing extremist ideology. I am interested in how humor is used on the /pol/ forum. I use three main methods. 1) Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling is being used for 4chan comments from years 2014-2018 to identify common topics and trends. 2) Qualitative text analysis is used to analyze 1,000 comments obtained from 4chan archives for years 2014 and 2018 for humor usage and prevalence of politically incorrect rhetoric (possibly indicating extremist views). 3) Image analysis is used to analyze 650 images from 2014-2018. Analysis of LDA topic modeling shows that most topics center around race, sex, and religion. Racial slurs and expletives are commonly used to discuss these topics. While there are slight differences in what topics are grouped together year by year, overarching themes remain consistent. Qualitative text analysis and image analysis show that ridicule is the most used humor type, and racial minorities - specifically African-Americans - are the most common targets. I explore rhetoric and humor nuances, and conclude that humor is a powerful online tool, used by those on the /pol/ forum to take over symbols in mainstream media and create in-group solidarity.Bachelor of Art