Sample Abstracts Notice how these abstracts here clearly identify the broad topic area for the research, the specific research question and purpose of the research, and the methodology used to conduct the research. These are the critical components for a good abstract. In addition, notice that these abstracts are not a just summaries of findings or background information (these elements may be part of your paper/presentation, but they are not critical for the abstract). Framing of Terrorism in the Media: A Public Influence Current research on framing in the media is either too broad or too specific to accurately describe how the framing of news stories affects public opinion. Using a two-­‐part research method and the topic of terrorism, the effect framing has on public opinion can be classified more realistically. The purpose of this paper is to use both a case study and a survey experiment to examine how people react to news stories about terrorism depending on how they are framed. First, coverage of the 2005 London bombings from three different news sources-­‐one American, one non-­‐American Western, and one non-­‐Western is analyzed: the Associated Press (based in New York City), Agence France Press (based in Paris) and Al Jazeera English (based in the Middle East), respectively. The framing of the 2005 London bombings used in each of these news sources is then classified. Using the frame found in Al Jazeera's coverage of the 2005 London bombings, a frame concerned with the identities of the attackers, four fake prompts are then created, each covering the same pretend terrorist attack, changing only the framing of the attackers' identities. These prompts are then randomized among participants in the second portion of the research: the survey-­‐experiment, each accompanied by the same questions concerning American security measures and racial profiling, both before and after the prompt. By gauging how participants' opinions on American security measures and racial profiling change after reading a certain prompt compared to the opinions of participants who read a different prompt, the effect framing has on public opinion can be examined more closely. People for Sale: Sex Workers as Commodities in Southeast Asian Sex Tourism Just like adventure tourism affects the economies of African safari destinations, sex tourism is the act of traveling to another country for the purpose of engaging in sexual services and it has vastly changed the economic and social landscapes of several Southeast Asian nations over the past few decades. Young girls and boys are taken out of school by pimps or parents, reliant on the money they make by servicing tourists. In addition to the implications for gender disparity, this has become a public health problem, largely ignored by the international community. This research, done in the context of commodity chain analysis, studies the geographical chain of demand from Western men of Southeast Asian sex workers in the phenomenon of sex tourism. I will analyze cases of arrests for this practice in Thailand, Cambodia and the Philippines for language, intent, and geographical location to study ways that the workers are treated as goods and not humans. Additionally, I will look at the marketing of such leisure tourism promoted by these nations' governments and ways they have ignored this problem due to the revenue they gain from tourism. In my study, I hope to find reasons why this kind of purchase of sexual services is distinct from that done in one's own country, and ways that xenophobia and post-­‐colonial mindsets influence the flow of tourists across the world. Autonomy of the People: Indigenous Identity, Land Tenure, and Human Rights in the Case of the Marline Mine in San Miguel Ixtahuacán, Guatemala San Miguel Ixtahuacán, in the northwestern Guatemalan highlands, first encountered Goldcorp, Inc. when the company began operating the Marlin Mine through its subsidiary company, Montana Explorada, in 2005. Over the course of Marlin’s life, numerous indigenous residents have sold plots of land to Goldcorp and numerous other residents have shown strong opposition to the mine on the basis of its environmental degradation, disruption of the community, and violations of human rights. This paper analyzes four discourses surrounding the case of gold mining in San Miguel Ixtahuacán, arguing that actors within the conflict ultimately construct the practice of land tenure as a collective indigenous right, a means for economic development, or a measure of individual political voice. This article draws upon, and remains skeptical of, recent scholars’ analyses, which assume land tenure’s role to be fixed and determining of indigenous peoples’ political power. Rather, it is argued that actors consciously work to produce and reproduce the meaning of land tenure in order to situate Goldcorp’s project within their community in order to make sense of their cultural heritage, community order, or development interests. Indigenous perspectives, human rights reports, Goldcorp company policy, and governmental stance related to the Marlin Mine construct land tenure’s role in vastly different capacities for different actors within the context of San Miguel Ixtahuacán and gold mining. Latin America’s Female Prisoner Problem: How the War on Drugs and Feminization of Poverty are to Blame for the Increased Incarceration of Women Since the 1990’s the number of incarcerated women in Latin America has almost doubled. Most women in prison are incarcerated for drug-­‐related crimes, and although women are still a minority within the prison population, the number of women behind bars is growing disproportionately in comparison to men. At the same time, states are implementing harsh drug criminalization policies in accordance with the global War on Drugs. Scholars have advanced the theory that women commit crimes out of economic need, and it has also been suggested that Latin America is currently witnessing a feminization of poverty whereby women are becoming increasingly poorer relative to men. In a quantitative analysis of seventeen (17) Latin American countries, this paper tests the hypothesis that an increase in poverty rates among women and implementation of harsh drug criminalization laws lead to an increase in the incarceration rates of women. Previous scholars have examined theories of female offending as well as the connection between drug criminalization and incarceration rates, however this paper is novel in offering a holistic analysis of the intersectionality of the aforementioned factors. The results of this study may be used to inform the debate surrounding the War on Drugs and the problem of women’s poverty in Latin America. Ethno-­‐Religious Discrimination in Urban Areas My research seeks to explain why ethno-­‐religious discrimination in urban governance occurs in some diverse cities in India and the Arab world but not in other cities of comparable diversity. Conventionally, academic research has sought to explain structural ethno-­‐religious conflict at a national scale, and other scholarship has sought to explain violent ethno-­‐religious conflict at the local scale of analysis. My research, instead, seeks to explain structural ethno-­‐religious conflict (like discrimination) at the urban level. Epistemologically, my paper will test theories that explain direct violence on structural violence like discrimination. Additionally, rather than operating at the national scale of analysis, my research will examine urban phenomena. Employing Mill's Methods of Difference, my research will examine two cities in India and two cites in the Arab world. As my research will be grounded in theoretical literature on urban governance, my research will not merely treat the cities as cites of larger dynamics; rather, my research will borrow from and contribute to the field of urban studies. Incorporating quantitative analysis of the individual cities with comparative analysis of all four cities, my research will likely draw conclusions accurate to the four cases but generalizable to the broader occurrence of ethno-­‐religious discrimination in urban governance.