The gender portrayals study aims to understanding how the roles of men and women are portrayed in magazine advertisements. This has been an issue investigated over the past decades as companies try to achieve a higher level of sales of their products and services and the gender issue influences in how this companies plan one advertising program or another. However, there is a debate among authors: some of them believe that advertising reflects what is already on society and others express that advertisers use the most convenient reality to sell their products. Thus, it makes us wonder what is the actual truth behind this debate. This thesis tries to answer the question of how men and women are portrayed in advertising campaigns. There are several studies on gender portrayals across countries but none that compares France, Spain and Sweden. This thesis tries to fill this gap.   The study is conducted following Hofstede framework that classifies countries whether masculine or feminine, and is completed by analyzing the data gathered from four magazines of these three countries. We classified this data following Courtney and Lockeretz classification scheme and analyzed the data obtained with theories of some other authors.   The results of this thesis show that males were dominant among working roles while females were in non-working roles. The findings might not add a huge contribution to this field of study but may be used as guiding tool for further research.

This exploratory study examined the effect of cross-culture on the content of messages on message boards, more specifically through the sitcom programs shown in United States and Taiwan. The theoretical framework is based on the theory of culture: Individualism vs. Collectivism. However as shown in the study factors such as country of origin as well as viewers’ profile will play a role and have its effect in the findings. Content analysis was applied to analyze the data. The results of this study have important implications for cross-cultural consumer studies and marketing practices. The practical research involved analyzing an organization’s data utilizing data mining tools with the objective of customers and products segmentations. The report ends by pointing out areas for future research. / This exploratory study examined the effect of cross-culture on the content of messages on message boards, more specifically through the sitcom programs shown in United States and Taiwan. The theoretical framework is based on the theory of culture: Individualism vs. Collectivism. However as shown in the study factors such as country of origin as well as viewers’ profile will play a role and have its effect in the findings. Content analysis was applied to analyze the data. The results of this study have important implications for cross-cultural consumer studies and marketing practices. The practical research involved analyzing an organization’s data utilizing data mining tools with the objective of customers and products segmentations. The report ends by pointing out areas for future research.

This study examines how race affects the media’s coverage of candidates in Canadian politics. Situated in the literature on political communication, gendered mediation and race studies, it proposes a new theory of racial mediation, which posits that politics are covered in ways that reflect the assumption of whiteness as standard. Although candidate self-presentation does influence media portrayals, this alone does not account for differences in the framing of candidates’ policy interests, viability and socio-demographic characteristics. The project argues that candidate race has a significant but subtle impact on media portrayals. Articles from the print media coverage of the 2008 Canadian election are analyzed using a hand-coded content analysis, which is replicated through an innovative automated approach. The study finds that visible minority candidates’ coverage is more negative and less prominent than that of their White counterparts. It is less likely to focus on key electoral issues and much more likely to emphasize socio-demographic background. Visible minority candidates are held to a higher standard and in the absence of evidence to the contrary, they are portrayed as less viable and credible than their competitors. Gender can amplify these effects, with raced and gendered discourses characterizing the coverage of visible minority women. The media study is complemented by 40 elite interviews that probe candidates’ communication strategies, issue emphasis and self-presentation, as well as reporters’ negotiation of these elements in their construction of news stories. While there are visible minority candidates who emphasize elements of their ethnocultural heritage, my findings suggest that few rely only on racialized strategies, nor are White candidates immune from racialized appeals. Nonetheless, journalists struggle to adequately portray nuance and candidates’ multi-dimensionality. They employ familiar narratives and tropes, and generally only seize on racialized framing when it applies to visible minority candidates. Although the study does not provide a direct test of media effects on vote choice, it draws on existing literature to argue that because media coverage influences the ways that voters evaluate issues and develop schema for understanding the world around them, the portrayal of visible minority candidates has the potential to alter electoral opportunities and outcomes. As a result, racialized coverage and race continue to matter in Canadian politics. / Thesis (Ph.D, Political Studies) -- Queen's University, 2013-04-22 15:21:07.585

TITLE:  ”Fuck society” SUB-HEADING: Mr. Robot som samtida dystopi. AUTHOR: Petra Stråle. EXAMINER: Johan Nilsson. LEVEL: BA Thesis.SUBJECT: Media and communication science. INSTITUTE: Department of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences University of Örebro.PURPOSE: The thesis purpose is to examine how the television series Mr. Robot can be viewed as an dystopian work of fiction that depicts our present society. METHOD: Content analysis. RESULT: The results indicates that the television series Mr. Robot can not be categorized as a classical dystopia, but does, however, contain dystopian elements and is connected to different forms of dystopia, like the critical dystopia and the proto-dystopia.

The aim of this study is to seek increased sociological understanding of modern spirituality through an investigation of the spiritual teachings of the danish mystic Martinus and its followers. Seven interviews with followers of Martinus were conducted and analysed using qualitative content analysis. The analyze shows that the teachings of Martinus has resulted in a new life which can be understood in terms of its benefits and pleasures; the benefits being a sense of meaning, security and belonging and the pleasures being a sense of excitement, beauty and joy. Based on these results the study indicates that an aesthetic perspective can complement the more common instrumental perspective on spirituality to offer a more authentic and comprehensive understanding of why modern people becomes spiritual. The study ends with a final discussion on whether modern spirituality even can be sociologically understood and what this understanding would entail. Here I argue that genuine agnosticism is incompatible with the naturalistic premise of sociology and that the sociologist only can understand modern spirituality based on this premise, thus undermining the same spirituality that he or she wishes to understand.

This thesis deals with values in fairy tale movies. Its aim is to explore the possibilities of tracking values in fairy tale movies, because fairy tales serve as an important source of values for a child in the process of socialization. The theoretical part presents basic concepts of values, approaches to film research from a psychological point of view and observes the importance of fairy tales for a child. These topics are connected by socialization of a child and the role of media in adopting of values. Original research consists of content analysis of selected sample of Czech and Czechoslovak fairy tale movies. Certain characteristics, on which we can think about the values expressed in selected movies, are described. The research results indicate a trend of decreasing amount of contained values in fairy tale movies over time. Qualitative analysis examines various tales and describes value characteristics of particular characters in selected movies. Diploma project represents a contribution to the psychology of media and embraces media research as an important part of the socialization process.

This quantitative study intends to identify how collective meaning-making elaborates on social media in terms of a rather new swedish concept, klimatsmart. User generated content, gathered under the hashtag #klimatsmart, is analyzed through quantitative content analysis and the study focuses on which climate friendly representations is created and further maintained on the social media platform Instagram. The approach combines an understanding of climate communication as well as how affective communities is formed in social media. The results show that commercial actors and individuals contribute with most content and that visual content of food and items of everyday use are the most common. A consumptionand recycling aspect often is mentioned along with this visual content. This indicates that the ideological negotiation in terms of the hashtag #klimatsmart is focused mainly to small lifestyle changes such as behavior linked to environmentally friendly consumption.

Master of Arts / Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work / Laszlo Kulcsar / This study provided an exploratory qualitative analysis of printed brochures to evaluate the conceptualization of successful aging. Data was collected from a sample of 39 printed brochures derived from Kansas Department on Aging Directory (KDAD) of Adult Care Homes 2009. Content analysis methodology was employed to investigate how these brochures reflect the core elements of successful aging as constructed in the gerontological literature (Rowe and Kahn’s and Baltes and Baltes), as well as compare across the ‘traditional’ and ‘culture-change’ models. Other variables of ‘licensure classification’, ‘residency cost’ and ‘gender’ were explored. An overall perspective indicated several brochures met the core elements of successful aging delineated by the literature. In most cases, these elements showed no significance difference for brochures representing facilities by model types, licensure classifications, residency cost and by the demographic of gender.

The work deals with the current burning issue of cultural differences. These issues relate to the expression of culture and one's home country within the mediums of the Internet and online communication. Based on the research of previous studies, this work aims to demonstrate the influence of cultural dimensions in web design and content. In a sample of the largest beer producers in the Czech Republic, Japan and Great Britain supplemented with the largest international brewing companies are analyzed components which characterize cultural differences. The main scope of this study is based on assumptions and theories according to G. Hofstede and E. T. Hall. It thus demonstrates the influence of culture and dimensions -- Collectivism/Individualism, Power Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance, High/Low Context, Masculinity/Femininity, Time Orientation and Colour symbolism. It is recommended that companies pay more attention to the cultural adaption of web communication, which can bring more clarity and attractiveness, and also a higher added value to the customer himself.

The aim of this thesis is to map the perception of female body in our society and demonstrate the impact of marketing on the ideal of woman beauty. The work is divided into three major parts. The first part, which is theoretical, provides a basis for subsequent research and familiarizes the reader with the issue of body image. The second part is devoted to content analysis of women's web magazines that offer an interesting area for marketing communication. The third part contents an analysis of questionnaire survey from Czech and Slovak respondents. The specific conclusions and recommendations to the marketing are drawn at the end of the Master's Thesis.