Paper+2

Neoliberalism and Consumer Culture - Maddie
As a theory and ideology, neoliberalism has had an influence in consumer practices based on free market principles in response to a capitalist consumer culture. While neoliberalism is a theory situated in a history of global political and economic movements, in this paper I attempt to position neoliberalism as a perspective in the pluralistic discipline field of Communication Studies as it relates to consumer culture in media studies of reality television. I begin by foregrounding neoliberalism from an economical and political perspective as presents its impact in consumer activism, then apply this perspective to two separate pieces of scholarship critically analyzing the ethos of self-help in reality television in a neoliberal capitalist economy.

Critical Anthropology - Michael
Critical Anthropology has been closely tied to Communication for many years because of the much-needed relationship it has to each other. This paper seeks to understand that relationship little by little and explain why Anthropology and Communication are important to each other. Then after the relationship is understood comments are made about Critical Anthropology itself and if it truly has merit in everyday life.

Critical Medical Anthropology is a sub-field of Critical Anthropology that has had an enormous impact on everybody's everyday life. Critical Medical Anthropology seeks to enhance the way the medical field conducts operations. This is done by making procedures faster, safer, and more cost-effective to the patient. Critical Theory Anthropology, on the other hand, has been able to broaden a person's knowledge of social theories by questioning the theorists that came before. This is done in an effort to not necessarily disprove the previous theorist's work but instead to simply apply it to the world that we are living in today.

Network Theory (if you use this I have a some books that you will want to look at!)
The focus of this paper remains in the description, understanding and application of network theory as it relates to the field of communication given its recent development and application. While this paper attempts to uncover network theory, it does so in respect to the current unstable academic shared ownership in the fruition of multiple theories surrounding networks. While some may focus on network theory from mathematic approaches with the use of conceptual geographies, algorithms and aggregations, others look at the internal ties of a network, or the diffusions of information within and among networks. Such theories draw on network analysis and social network theory. Moreover, network theory, as of now, stands as framework for justification not necessarily a frame for social scientific research of actual networks. This paper briefly explains preceding foundational literature, current communication conceptions, resent examples of application and method, and critique of network theory.

Rhetoric of Spirituality: Lauren
Adult Christian Contemporary pop group Go Fish in their song “Infectious” best described the integration of religion in the daily lives of individuals through which spirituality evolved. The lyric goes, “there’s a time and a place when I should share my faith, the time is always and the place is everywhere” (Go Fish, 2001). Spirituality has evolved from religion as a more applicable and politically correct form of practicing and referencing faith which an individual can practice anywhere. From this distinction, spirituality has become a separate classification from religion. This separate classification of spirituality continues to aspire to fulfill the needs of individuals who seek to transcend one’s self and orient one’s self towards the other. What used to be clearly defined in church doctrine and practice has now become more complicated, with individuals seeking to draw influences from a variety of belief systems to create an individualized, hybrid faith. This slow realization accelerated after September 11, 2001 with academic work reflecting such acceleration. Rather than ascribing rigidly to a church doctrine, Americans incorporated more individualized faith practices through practicing various forms of spirituality. Religious and spiritual are not mutually exclusive categories, but rather complementary. However, even as they are applied today, religion and spirituality are in the process of being defined both in academe and in daily life.



**Affect Theory: The Emotional Roller Coaster** (Colleen)
The conceptualization of affect initially defined as “an impingement or extrusion of a momentary or sometimes more sustained state of relation as well as the passage of forces or intensities” has traveled through scholars research as if it were on a roller coaster (Gregg & Seigworth, 2010). Theorizing about affect is a term defined to harness the understanding of how emotions create meaning and how it retains the cognitive process of human motivation and consciousness. While in the early maturation stage of our lives individuals visibly express their emotions and as a system, it draws attention to our emotions, feelings and mood. The ability to receive and interpret emotions makes this system a multi-functional process activated by what drives this psychological mechanism of movement in and out of the body. This drive system entices motivation, which informs the body when it does not know how to help itself. Affect can be understood as “affective dimensions of embodied experience, as incipient attitudes, as energies, intensities, and sensations that function as the first step toward an evolving attitude” (Ott, 2010, p. 50). Although affect was formally recognized as an ideology within the psychology field the aspect of communication being transferred from the body to the motivational drive is how it transforms into a communication perspective.

**Affect Theory - Dongni**
What is affect? It would be unwise to jump right into a conclusion and simply refer affect as emotion. After all, argued by Gregg and Seigworth (2010) in their book, //The affect theory reader//, “affect rises in the midst of //in-between-ness//” (p. 1). It is this notion of to be affect on and being affected by that captures the capacities of affect. Affect is not a concrete or tangible object, yet is both a momentary encounter which can be passed from body and body and a resonance which can be circulated about (Gregg & Seigworth, 2010). In fact, the methodologies that used by Sara Ahmed in her study of affect is based on the reading of text which circulate in the public domain (Ahmed, 2004, p. 12). To define affect, takes more than merely considering the biological side of emotion, but as well as the psychological side, and most importantly, what emotion produces, works, circulates, sticks, and passes by in a socially and culturally constructed terrain. Affect theory, an open and interdisciplinary field, travels across both humanities and social sciences, and provides scholars a new angle of looking at our society.

**Visual Communication- Elizabeth**
==== Visual culture studies is the study of images as they are culturally constructed. As a discipline, visual culture studies is fairly recent with the first dissertation completed in 2001. Although, traces of visual studies took place long before that date. Thus, visual culture was developed out of many fields of scholarship. It is an interdisciplinary area of study that incorporates fields such as art history, cultural studies, communication studies, sociology, media studies, aesthetics, psychology, and many more (Smith, 2008). Visual studies often supplements art history research by analyzing other dimensions such as photography, film, media, the internet, and other discourses. Which makes visual culture easy to study using a variety of methods. Visual culture studies is evolving even more as media and technology are developing and creating more spaces to consume visual images. Visual culture studies aims to look at how images are effected by the audience, and how the audience makes meaning out of the visuals. ====



**Contemporary rhetorical theory** - Brandon
Contemporary rhetoric is a broad field of study. This paper highlights the various definitions of contemporary rhetoric and discusses the components of what constitutes a rhetorical study. In particular, contemporary rhetoric evolved from its classical counterpart in large part due to new communication technologies and social movements in and around the 1960s. Various subfields exist within contemporary rhetoric as well; this paper touches on critical rhetoric briefly. Because contemporary rhetoric is so broad, it is applicable to a number of other theoretical dimensions.