Date of Award

5-2010

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Sociology

First Advisor

Dr. Angela M. Moe

Access Setting

Masters Thesis-Campus Only

Abstract

In this study, I examine the ways Exodus Interna tional Ministries (EIM) and Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) each define homosexuality as a social problem, their per ceptions of homosexuality as shown on the websites and how each group promotes their definition and perception of homosexuality to the public through their websites. The research questions that guided this study were: 1) how do EIM and WBC represent their respective views of homosexuality through their websites and 2) how do the EIM and WBC websites compare in terms of their represen tations of homosexuality and their means of distributing such views via the Internet? This study shows that the differences of the messages on each website are similar, though their tactics of distribution vary significantly.

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