Vad en konstnär vill med sin konst och hur den uppfattas behöver inte vara samma sak. Ulf Trotzig (1925 – 2013) hade många utställningar som konstnär, men vad ville han med sin konst och hur uppfattades detta av tidningarnas skribenter? Med utgångspunkt i kommunikationsteori och genom content analysis och en diskursanalys belyses hur Trotzig såg på sitt konstnärskap hur konstkritiker/skribenter uppfattade hans konst samt hur dessa stämde överens. Ett randomiserat stickprov på 42 av 84 tidningsartiklar och notiser ingår i studien.   Trotzig genomgick flera stadier, från kubism till abstrakt och landade i en egen version av abstrakt expressionism. Han ville skapa rörelse med sin färg, vind som blåser genom träd, en fågel som dras med av vinden, natur i rörelse. För Trotzig kom färgen först och rörelsen skapades av färgen. Skribenterna uppfattade konsten på ett likartat sätt, men satte rörelsen först. Studien konstaterar att det Trotzig ville också uppfattades av tidningarnas skribenter. Diskursmässigt är samtliga kategorier stängda, utom en som är öppen: skribenternas egna omdömen och upplevelser. Med en öppen diskurs avses att det finns mer än en dominerande åsikt.   En forskningsfråga var även att se om kommunikationsteori kan vara en utgångspunkt vid denna typ av studier. Kommunikationen mellan konstnär och skribenterna fungerade väl. Kommunikationsteorin gjorde det enklare i undersökningen för att ställa konstnärens sändning mot skribenternas mottagande. Troligen hade resultatet erhållits även utan denna teori, men dels gör det jämförelsen tydligare och dels om det hade varit skillnader mellan sändning och mottagande hade analysen av dessa varit enklare med teorin.

This study addresses the issue of overseas news production of foreign news media when they enter the market of the Mainland China. By making an in-depth investigation of BBC’s and the FT’s operations in China and comparing the news texts of the two news media’s Chinese online portals with that of their British online portals, differences in terms of narratives, semantics, plot emphasis, and ideologies are identified and analysed, thus revealing the cross-cultural behaviour patterns of the two prominent British news media in terms of balancing between British journalistic ideology and Chinese regulations, western journalistic style and Chinese readers’ tastes, and between moral standards and commercial profit. The four online portals are compared through three Chinese news events that took place in the year 2012: the downfall of Chinese high ranking official Bo Xilai; the large-scale anti-Japan protests in the summer of 2012; and Chinese writer Mo Yan winning the Nobel Prize for Literature. The three news events covered the fields of politics, economy, society and culture. The investigating methods include quantitative analysis and framing analysis of the news reports on the three news events produced by the four online portals, translation study of the translated news reports of the four online portals and semi-structured interviews with journalists and editors of BBC Chinese and the FT. The central argument is that BBC and the FT act differently in China and in the UK so as to cater to local media markets on many aspects including journalistic practice, coverage of local news, and media policy. Such changes in some cases do not remain consistent with their claims to represent the same news media. Consequently, the Chinese branches of the two prominent British news media become neither a British journalistic ideology carrier nor a copycat of a Chinese native news producer but rather a mixture of both cultures.

Sustainability has gained considerable interest from businesses, academics and in the press in the last two decades. However, the existing sustainability literature says little about what banks gain from moving towards sustainable development. Studies on the relationship between sustainability practices and performance in banks are extremely scarce and have produced inconclusive results. This thesis has two major purposes: to investigate the current sustainability practices in the banking sector and to examine the relationship between sustainability and performance in the banking sector. To achieve this, a sustainability model has been developed for the banking sector taking stakeholders’ effects into consideration. Content analysis was employed to collect the necessary data on stakeholder engagement, communication efforts to stakeholders, strategy and sustainability information. Performance data were obtained from the Bankscope database and 483 bank reports for EU & USA banks over the period 2006-2012 were examined. The data were first analysed using descriptive statistics. The main analysis involved bivariate tests and structural equation modelling path analysis. The results indicate that European banks pay more attention and communicate significantly more with different stakeholder groups than American banks. Banks responded to different degrees to stakeholder issues in their sustainability reports. Moreover, the results show that EU banks carry out more sustainability practices than USA banks. The results also show positive relationships between stakeholders’ salience and all aspects of sustainability; stakeholders’ communications and the environmental aspects of sustainability; size and all sustainability aspects except product sociology. The effect of stakeholder salience on sustainability is more significant in European banks pursuing a sustainability strategy while the effects of communications on sustainability are more significant in American banks with a non-sustainability strategy. Size affects sustainability more in banks with a non-sustainability strategy, but no differences were found for the effect of size on sustainability between the two regions. Furthermore, the results show that the environmental aspects of sustainability are not related to the banks’ performance, but a positive association with the social aspects of sustainability was found. This study is the first to develop a sustainability model for the banking sector. Hence, it makes significant contributions to the sustainability literature. It helps improve our understanding of the different dimensions of sustainability, how they are affected by different stakeholders and strategic orientations, and how they affect the performance of banks. The results of this study can help EU and USA banks to direct their efforts to areas that improve their engagement with stakeholders and their own performance.

In the context of globalization, commercialization, and the increasing presence of Western images (Western models, Western languages, and Western settings) in Chinese society, this study examines how these images are constructed in Chinese magazine advertising. It utilizes quantitative content analysis, facilitated by semiotic analysis to approach issues of race, gender and power reflected in the images of the West. Methodologically, this study sees quantitative content analysis and semiotics as two complementary methods in the study of contemporary visually dominant print advertising. Theories in both social sciences and humanities were reviewed and brought into the analysis of data. Based on advertisements (N=2,882) from a stratified random sample of four months in 2009 in 19 Chinese consumer magazines (men's, women's and general interest), results of the study showed that images of the West are primarily represented by Western models, and White female models in particular. Focusing on advertisements for Chinese products and services, Western models in Chinese magazine advertising were found differently portrayed from their Chinese counterparts, in their frequency, the type of magazines they appear in, product/service categories they feature in, occupational status, the extent of nudity, and relation to product. When Western models were chosen for an ad, they served different roles than Chinese models. Close examination of individual advertisements from a semiotic perspective showed that Western female models were eroticized, while at the same time representing universal beauty; both Western male and female models were signs that signify quality, social status, luxury and enjoyment of good life; China's relation to the West is also complicated by the fact that China sees itself as a collaborator with the West in the economic domain, and at the same time, accepts the power of the West by romanticizing the colonial past. Overall, this study showed that images of the West in the Chinese context are multifaceted: they have different significations in different domains.

In this thesis, I examine how the corporate financial information environment is shaped by the financial media. The thesis consists of three essays. In the first essay, I examine the role of voluntary company-initiated disclosures about firm financial performance as a stimulus for coverage in the financial press. I provide evidence that media coverage is affected by firm level disclosure management. Specifically, a firm's issuance of press releases attracts more media articles about the firm leading to greater abnormal returns and trading volumes. I find that there is a spike of media articles on the same day and one trading day following firms' press releases. I use a unique experiment, which differentiates between the online and print versions of the Wall Street Journal, to establish a causal relation between press releases and media coverage. My findings challenge the common assumption in the literature that media coverage is exogenous to the firm. In the second essay, I find that the financial media plays a significant role in enriching a firm's information environment by moderating the tone of corporate press releases. Using textual analysis, I show that the press moderates both the positive and negative tone of corporate press releases. However, the effect is asymmetric with the media disproportionately downplaying the tone of favourable corporate press releases, in line with the premise that management's highly positive news disclosures are less convincing. In addition, I find that there is an abnormal market response to the linguistic content of financial media articles rather than to the content of corporate press releases, suggesting that the tone of press-issued information is more value relevant to market participants compared to that of management's disclosures. Overall, this study offers robust evidence supporting the view that the financial media plays an important role as an information intermediary. In the third and last essay, I investigate the information dissemination and information creation roles of the financial media by examining whether the rebroadcasting of firm-initiated news (parroting) and the creation of original information by the media influence the stock market reaction to news disclosures differently. Using textual analysis, I calculate the tone expressed in corporate press releases and related articles in the financial media, and further distinguish between parroted (from the press release) and non-parroted (i.e., original) media tonal language. I provide evidence supporting a dual role of the press that affects price formation through both its information dissemination and information creation roles. However, my findings are consistent with press-generated information having the most significant impact on market reaction. My results also indicate that there is an asymmetric market effect, with negative original media tone being more value relevant to market participants compared to managerial and media-parroted (positive and negative) tonal language. As such, my findings have important implications for studies on the role of the financial media as an information intermediary in capital markets, and suggest that market participants perceive a difference between simple dissemination of firm-initiated information and new reporter-generated information.

Magister Artium - MA / In recent years South Africa has seen a significant growth in the number of migrants entering its borders. The country has opened its doors to not only migrants from the African continent, but also to immigrants from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Indian subcontinent. The increasing number of Chinese businesses in South Africa means that South Africans are now coming into fairly regular contact with Chinese people from mainland China. This study addresses the issue of intercultural communication between Chinese store keepers and South African customers and seeks to investigate the ways in which the two juxtaposed cultures communicate effectively despite linguistic and cultural barriers. As a study on intercultural communication, the theoretical framework for this is globalisation, with a particular focus on concepts like intercultural communication, politeness and face theory. The study adopts a qualitative research design with an ethnographic methodological approach to examine and describe the linguistic practices of Chinese and South Africans in the city of Cape Town when they interact in the business contexts. The study relies largely on interviews with Chinese business owners and their South African clients, as well as observation of the interaction between these two groups. The research population consists of 8 Chinese interviewees, random interviews with 4 customers and 4 shop assistants, and observation at stores in a local China Town (a collection of Chinese shops and businesses). For research purposes and for the sake of informed consent, a Chinese research assistant and translator assisted the principal researcher. The major tool for analysis is a content analysis of the transcribed interviews. From these transcribed interviews, I describe the strategies used for effective intercultural communication between the two groups, and aim to draw conclusions on how these strategies have enabled Chinese businesses to flourish in Cape Town.

Objetivo: avaliar a percepção da dor na fibromialgia por meio de técnica metodológica quantitativa e qualitativa. Métodos: 30 clientes foram avaliadas por meio de uma entrevista analisada através de análise de conteúdo temática e do Instrumento de Descritores de Dor, sendo que para os dados resultantes foram calculados a média aritmética e o desvio padrão para determinar quais descritores caracterizam melhor a dor na fibromialgia. Resultados e discussão: a análise de conteúdo resultou na construção de categorias de análise referentes às percepções de: diagnóstico, motivações, doença, sentimentos, pensamentos e repercussões na qualidade de vida. Já o Instrumento de Descritores de Dor revelou que os descritores de maior atribuição na caracterização da dor foram incômoda, que espalha, latejante, desconfortável e persistente e os de menor atribuição foram desgraçada, demoníaca, maldita, aterrorizante e assustadora. Os dois instrumentos mostraram tendência das clientes em perceber e relatar a dor, principalmente relacionada às características sensorialdiscriminativas. Além disso apresentaram dados relativos à importância do papel da família e do profissional de saúde no manejo da dor. Conclusão: percebeu-se a necessidade de estimular a percepção e a expressão das clientes com relação à dor, abarcando sua multidimensionalidade e que, o manejo da dor deve ser realizado levando-se em conta a tríade equipe de saúde - cliente - família, face à complexidade do fenômeno. / Objective: Evaluate the perception of pain in the fibromyalgia through the quantitative and qualitative methodological technique. Method: A total of 30 clients were assessed through an interview analyzed by the thematic content and through the instrument Descriptors of Pain. Arithmetic mean and standard error were used to determine which descriptors better characterize the pain in the fibromyalgia. Results and Discussion: The result of the content analysis was the construction of categories of analysis regarding the perceptions of: diagnosis, motivation, disease, feelings, thoughts and repercussions on the quality of life. The Descriptors of Pain instrument revealed the descriptors of higher attribution in the characterization of pain were inconvenient, spreading, pulsating, uncomfortable and persistent and the descriptors with the lower attribution were miserable, demoniac, cursed, terrifying and frightening. The two instruments showed the clients\' tendency in perceiving and reporting the pain regarding to the sensorialdiscriminating characteristics. In addition, data related to the importance of the family\'s and the health professional\'s roles in managing the pain were presented. Conclusion: The need to stimulate the perception and expression of clients regarding the pain in its multidimensionality was perceived. It is concluded that the management of pain must be performed considering the complexity of the phenomenon in terms of the triad health team - client - family.

Context. For the product manager, the product context analysis, which aims to align their products to the market needs, is very important. By understanding the market needs, the product manager knows the product context information about the environment the products conceived and the business the products take place. The product context analysis using the product context information helps the product manager find the accurate position of his/her products and support the decision-making of the products. The product context information generally could be found in the user feedbacks. And the traditional techniques of acquiring the user feedbacks can be replaced by collecting the existed online user feedbacks with a cheaper cost. Therefore, researchers did studies on the online user feedbacks and the results showed those user feedbacks contain the product context information. Therefore, in this study, I tried to elicit the product context information from the user feedbacks posted on Twitter. Objectives. Objectives of this study are 1. I investigated what kinds of Apps can be used to collect   more related Tweets, and 2. I investigated what kinds of product context information can be elicited from the collected Tweets. Methods. To achieve the first objective, I designed unified criteria for selecting Apps and collecting App-related Tweets, and then conduct the statistical analysis to find out what is/are the factor(s) affect (s) the Tweets collection. To achieve the second objective, I conducted the directed content analysis on the collected Tweets with an indicator for identifying the product context information, and then make a descriptive statistical analysis of the elicited product context information. Results. I found the top-ranked Apps or Apps in few themes like “Health and Fitness” and “Games” have more and fresher App-related Tweets. And from my collected Tweets, I can elicit at least 15 types of product context information, the types include “user experience”, “use case”, “partner”, “competitor”, “platforms” and so on. Conclusions. This is an exploratory study of eliciting product context information from the Tweets. It presented the method of collecting the App-related Tweets and eliciting product context information from the collected Tweets. It showed what kinds of App are suitable to do so and what types of product context information can be elicited from the Tweets. This study let us be aware of that the Tweets can be used for the product context analysis, and let us know the appropriate condition to use the Tweets for the product context analysis.

The purpose of this essay was to examine conversations between two Swedish organizations and their customers to explore how online meetings and dialogs can affect organisations image and relationships between customers and organisations. Viasat and C More are both live sport broadcasters with online play services. The study was motivated by three research questions: (1) How high response rates do the company's Twitter accounts have on positive or negative feedback and questions? (2) What strategies do the companies twitter accounts apply to customers who experience problems with with their live broadcasts? (3) What appeal and tonality does the company's twitter accounts have? Previous research offers a descriptive account of interaction and interpersonal communication, communication strategies, relationship building between organizations and their customers on social media and effects of relationship management and relationship building in social media. The theoretical framework consists of theories about relationship building and management, interpersonal communication and crisis communication. A quantitative content analysis was implemented to analyse in what extent the chosen companies respond to their customers during September 16 2017 and November 21 2017. Data collected was 734 tweets, which resulted in 406 twitter conversations. A qualitative analysis was conducted with methodological tools form nethnography and social network analysis. The findings showed that both companies answered the majority of received tweets. Patterns and themes were found in the qualitative study that showed both differences and similarities in C More and Viasat’ way of interacting. Viasat often has the last word, and end conversations more often than C More did. Both companies act accordingly to Benoits theories about image restoration. Findings also suggest that both companies risk their reputations and images by engaging in dialog. Interaction and commitment is also the key to build and nurture customer and organisation relationship in order to gain positive outcomes.

This thesis examines whether there is a frame difference in online news coverage of the controversial 2014 Crimean referendum by The New York Times and the Russian newspaper, Kommersant. The research is grounded in framing theory and literature on the attribution of news sources. The study is conducted in two languages and it seeks to examine how media systems, perspectives on the issue, journalistic standards, as well as cultural backgrounds and historical ties influenced framing of the event. Sample online articles from each newspaper were selected and a quantitative content analysis was performed in order to identify the main themes, frames and source attribution patterns in media news coverage about the referendum. The pattern to quote official sources for providing justification and legitimacy to news stories has influenced the coverage in both newspapers: both The New York Times as well as Kommersant heavily relied on their respective government officials and experts. However, The New York Times provided a greater diversity of opinions supporting the values of a libertarian media system. Politics was the dominant theme of the referendum-related articles in both newspapers, however, Kommersant and The New York Times touched on economy and military themes with different frequencies. A comparison between themes in two periods (before and after the referendum) has not shown a meaningful difference for both newspapers. Kommersant’s online coverage was less critical of Russian policies and frequently utilized a set of the For-referendum frames, rarely touching upon Russian military activities on the peninsula. However, the frame depicting breach of international law appeared with the same frequency as the For-referendum frames, showing that Kommersant tried to maintain independence under the Russian neo-authoritarian media system. The New York Times focused on the illegitimate character of Crimean annexation and exposed every move of Russian troops, which is in line with U.S. foreign policy aims. However, the American publications did not hide the cultural and historical ties between Crimea and Russia and frequently mentioned the illegal character pertaining to Ukrainian protests and a temporary government.