My paper examines the politically influenced travel restrictions imposed by the United States towards American and Cuban academics and the subsequent detrimental effects to academic exchange and bi-lateral relations with Cuba.  Since the Cuban Revolution in 1959, travel constraints have fluctuated with every American presidential administration.  The tightest restrictions to academic travel were implemented during the G.W. Bush administration.  After the tragic events of 9/11, President Bush began a policy stance of regime change towards a list of States that sponsor terror-Cuba has been on that list since 1982.  In an attempt to bring about political change in Cuba, President Bush commissioned then Secretary of State Collin Powell to organize a committee to make recommendations and develop a comprehensive program to end the Castro regime, and promote democracy in Cuba.  This program was known as the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba.  Recommendations include reduced contact between Cubans and U.S. citizens and severely restricting visas for Cuban and American academics in professional research programs, academic working groups, professional conferences, and study-abroad programs.  In my paper, I argue that easing travel restrictions and expanding intellectual exchange will help foster mutual understanding and bring divided nations closer together.  I contend that restricting the freedom of movement or hindering the ability to collaborate and exchange scholarly information impedes normalized relations with Cuba rather than bridging animosities and conflicting interests.  In addition to secondary academic sources, used for historical background of the U.S. embargo towards Cuba, I draw on primary sources such as the Emergency Coalition to Defend Educational Travel, Latin American Working Group, Cuban Democracy Act, and the Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act.

“Augusto Pinochet: A United States Supported Dictator” investigates the policies implemented by the United State to bring Augusto Pinochet to power in Chile and train his military officials after the 1973 coup against democratically elected Marxist, Salvador Allende. United States foreign policy sought to keep Allende’s socialist project from spreading to other countries in Latin America. I argue that the United States, through the School of the Americas(SOA), assisted in Augusto Pinochet’s rise to power in Chile and provided the tools to institute a highly repressive regime, all in accordance with the United States anti-communism agenda in Latin America. Inside Chile, the United States provided Pinochet’s regime with material, financial and logistical support vis-à-vis the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The School of the Americas, with campuses in Panama City, Panama and Fort Benning, Georgia, provided formal counter-insurgency and professional leadership skills to Chilean military officials. Pinochet’s infamous secret police, the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), had at least one SOA graduate for every seven members of their organization, ultimately spreading the SOA’s brutal tactics throughout the military. It was through this school that the United State was able to influence the methods and to a certain extent, the ideology of the Pinochet regime. In addition to numerous secondary sources about Chilean history and the SOA, research, for this paper is based on first hand conversations between the US State Department, the CIA, members of the Chilean military and Augusto Pinochet himself. These exchanges are documented in United State government declassified files, compiled by Peter Kornbluh in The Pinochet File (2003), and serve as primary sources to support my paper.

Barack Obama’s successful presidential campaign in 2008 invites study by students of Communication. Seeking to reconcile the public’s conflicting conceptions of the country’s problems while simultaneously striving to break historical precedent by becoming the first biracial and black candidate of a major party and then the first president, Obama's campaign relied heavily on narrative discourse. This narrative painted a compelling and convincing picture of the past, present, and future that the audience of the American people found persuasive and in many cases inspiring. To explain the rhetorical dynamics that contributed to and perhaps even accounted for Obama’s unexpected electoral victories, I will apply narrative analysis to a representative sample of his most prominent public speeches as well as key campaign documents such as his “Blueprint for America.” The goal of my project is to reveal the appeal of Obama’s campaign message and to shed light on how this message was able to transform the perceptions of the American people by animating audiences, inspiring volunteer workers and an unprecedented number of individual campaign contributors, and encouraging a grassroots enthusiastic support which helped to secure the presidency for Obama.

The purpose of this research project is to gain a better understanding of how the Middle East is portrayed in international news media. Specifically, it explores the similarities and differences in news coverage of the Middle East on the three biggest international television news networks: Al Jazeera English, the BBC, and CNN International. I am interested in which stories from which countries garner the most attention, who is sourced most often, and which narratives are privileged on each network. Based on preliminary research, my primary theoretical expectation is that all three networks will “localize” their coverage of the Middle East by privileging news stories that affect, and news sources that come from, their home countries—Qatar in the case of Al Jazeera, Britain in the case of the BBC, and the United States in the case of CNN. To test this and other expectations I intend to systematically collect and content analyze the main news story in the Middle East section of each network’s website for one calendar month. The results of this analysis will be statistically analyzed using SPSS.

This study will investigate how American presidents have discussed terrorism over time. A computer-aided content analysis will be conducted to determine the frequency with which presidents have invoked terrorism in their public communications and the context in which they have invoked it. Specifically, the study will focus on two forms of presidential communication: (a) major presidential speeches to the nation and (b) presidential news conferences. The time period to be analyzed encompasses the post-World War II era; specifically it extends from 1946--when Harry Truman was president--to January 2009--when George W. Bush left office. The two primary expectations of this study are that (a) presidential rhetoric about terrorism will have increased considerably since September 11th, and (b) presidential rhetoric about terrorism will tend to be affiliated with the Middle East more than any other region. The findings of this research are important because it will enhance the current knowledge about the word “terrorism” being used in presidential public communication and provide an understanding about the significant impact this word has had on presidential speech post September 11th.

My paper, The Impact of Media Censorship on the Current Generation of Cuban Youth, analyzes how past media censorship policies in Cuba have affected present youth politics. Strict media censorship began after Fidel Castro's Revolution triumphed in 1959, as Castro ensured that all information accessible by society served as revolutionary propaganda. Regardless of whether Castro's government fulfilled societal needs, most Cubans supported the Revolution. After witnessing their elders' struggles under Castro's system, today’s youth desire political reform. Heightening this discontent, in 2006, Raul Castro reduced the severity of certain forms of media censorship. Although young people are pleased that Raul has provided additional liberties, such as cell phone use, having limited access has only made them yearn for additional freedoms. Today, Cuban youth are increasingly dissatisfied with surfing the legal “intra-net,” watching pro-revolutionary television programs, and listening to filtered music lyrics that the government sponsors and promotes. In my paper I argue that the combination of witnessing their elders' struggles under Fidel Castro's strict media censorship, living in a technologically advanced time, and being permitted only partial access to this technology has made Cuban youth eager for reform. However, the youth do not hope for a reversion to Capitalism or the advancement of Fidel Castro's Socialist state. Rather, there is a popular aspiration to merge the best aspects of Capitalism and Socialism, so that society remains centered on equality while simultaneously providing freedoms for the individual. Thus, I conclude that current Cuban youth identify as Socialists rather than Fidelistas. As evidence, I cite many secondary academic sources that address the history of media censorship in Cuba and youth politics. Likewise I consulted primary sources, such as famous youth activist Yoani Sanchez' blog and youth newspaper the Juventud Rebelde, where young Cubans address their present discontent and future political goals.

One way to judge Barack Obama’s inaugural is to compare it to John F. Kennedy’s inaugural. This paper undertakes a research project based on the method of analog criticism. This method can be defined as using each speech as a reference standard for the other. I will use this method to compare and contrast the general themes, word choice and stylistic aspects of each speech with the hope that it will allow me to gain better insight into how Obama’s address should be looked at years from now. Both speeches were chosen as the basis for this comparison because they are both inaugural addresses, and commentators have suggested the two men faced similar rhetorical situations due to their respective political and economic climates. This paper begins with a comparison of the introductions of the two speeches, takes a step back to do a structural analysis of each address, then moves in closer for an examination of inventional choices such as those identified as typical in inaugural addresses by Campbell and Jamieson and Rowland, and concludes with a stylistic analysis. This analysis discovers that while there are striking similarities between the two speeches, the differences suggest an evolution of presidential speech.