In 1997 the Labour Party introduced the White Paper Rights Brought Home: The Human Rights Bill. Bringing rights home was considered necessary to significantly influence rights conception in the UK and internationally. Rights Brought Home argued that incorporation would allow human rights to become a more prominent feature of society. The Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) was brought into force with optimism and expectations. However, the war of terror has significantly impacted the way in which rights have been understood and appreciated. National security issues have clashed with Convention rights. There is mounting concern that British judges must blindly follow the rulings established by the European Court of Human Rights. There have been problems of public disengagement and hostility. The HRA is characterized by a story of failure. Understanding the relationship between the war on terror and the HRA is central to human rights development.

In 1997 the Labour Party introduced the White Paper Rights Brought Home: The Human Rights Bill. Bringing rights home was considered necessary to significantly influence rights conception in the UK and internationally. Rights Brought Home argued that incorporation would allow human rights to become a more prominent feature of society. The Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) was brought into force with optimism and expectations. However, the war of terror has significantly impacted the way in which rights have been understood and appreciated. National security issues have clashed with Convention rights. There is mounting concern that British judges must blindly follow the rulings established by the European Court of Human Rights. There have been problems of public disengagement and hostility. The HRA is characterized by a story of failure. Understanding the relationship between the war on terror and the HRA is central to human rights development.

Travel is the stuff of dreams. But its facilitation or impediment is the reality of commerce and governments and their manipulation by marketing and political considerations. This thesis examines how travel journalism can maintain responsibility to a 'private' tourist audience in the 'public' tourism sphere. Travel journalism is not only an under-researched area, but provides an important site to study the role of public interest information for a consumer audience participating in a sometimes culturally and politically dangerous activity. The reporting of travel by mainstream newspapers concentrates on the travel dream, while the tourism industry, described as the largest in the world, receives little scrutiny by society's guardians of democracy. This thesis examines literature from the fields of journalism, sociology and marketing to highlight the private tourist audience desires and the measures that commercial and government travel enterprises employ to reach consumers through public relations influence over journalism entities and practitioners. This study also emphasises the public nature of tourism and the risks it presents to tourists to examine how travel journalism, as a responsible moral practice, should address its audience. A content analysis was conducted on a sample of Australian newspaper travel journalism to provide a description of international travel coverage. More specifically it revealed the characteristics of travel articles that provide public interest information to move the private tourist audience to engage in the public tourism sphere as an active citizenship.

The traditional news media is being reshaped by the phenomenon known as media convergence. This thesis, which is presented as a journalistic, multimedia website (see http://www.artsweb.aut.ac.nz/mediaconvergence), explores media convergence in New Zealand. Its primary objective is to gauge the impact of convergence on the extent to which journalism fulfils its public interest duties. To this end, the defining elements of convergence are examined, along with its driving factors and impact on day-to-day newsroom practices. The research project is based on in-depth interviews with news media experts and practitioners and the results of an industry survey. The research findings indicate that convergence poses significant risks to public interest journalism. At present, however, there is more evidence of benefits than detriments.

The traditional news media is being reshaped by the phenomenon known as media convergence. This thesis, which is presented as a journalistic, multimedia website (see http://www.artsweb.aut.ac.nz/mediaconvergence), explores media convergence in New Zealand. Its primary objective is to gauge the impact of convergence on the extent to which journalism fulfils its public interest duties. To this end, the defining elements of convergence are examined, along with its driving factors and impact on day-to-day newsroom practices. The research project is based on in-depth interviews with news media experts and practitioners and the results of an industry survey. The research findings indicate that convergence poses significant risks to public interest journalism. At present, however, there is more evidence of benefits than detriments.

The traditional news media is being reshaped by the phenomenon known as media convergence. This thesis, which is presented as a journalistic, multimedia website (see http://www.artsweb.aut.ac.nz/mediaconvergence), explores media convergence in New Zealand. Its primary objective is to gauge the impact of convergence on the extent to which journalism fulfils its public interest duties. To this end, the defining elements of convergence are examined, along with its driving factors and impact on day-to-day newsroom practices. The research project is based on in-depth interviews with news media experts and practitioners and the results of an industry survey. The research findings indicate that convergence poses significant risks to public interest journalism. At present, however, there is more evidence of benefits than detriments.

The legal regulation of the environment is exemplary of the formation, practice and challenge of modern legal discourse and governance. The latter part of the twentieth century has seen the emergence of environmentalism and the problematisation of the environment in terms of the management of hazard and risk. The social authority of law has meant that it has been inevitably implicated in the contestation and negotiation of environmental governance. In turn, environmental governance and discourse have required a certain refiguring of legal rationality as legal discourse has been confronted by the immanent critique of environmentalism. This thesis will focus on how the environment emerged as problematic and how it came to be governed and of legal interest. Several examples of legal thinking concerning specific environmental problems are analysed, and the manner in which the environment is constructed within the legal discursive domain is examined. Much modern knowledge and understanding regarding the environment developed in part from the specialisation of scientific discourse and experiment, which formed certain areas of expertise, including biology, ecology and toxicology. This scientific knowledge significantly contributed to governmental identification and elucidation of the environment. Modern ecology and associated technologies have facilitated the detailed mapping and auditing of physical environments, and have profoundly effected our modern appreciation of ‘the environment’ as an interdependent, dynamic and potentially fragile web of interdependent physical zones, spaces and activities. Modern environmentalism has emerged through the application of this type of technical scientific knowledge, in combination with certain forms of ‘environmental sensibility’ which treat the environment, not as a thing, or somehow ‘out there’, but as a dynamic process of which humans are a part, which has a history, an economy, and a power to transform and be transformed. The shape of modern environmental governance has been especially influenced by the scientific and ethical critique of environmentalism that connects the origin of ecological risks to technological application and commodity production. Throughout this thesis, specific aspects of the ‘analytics of government’ or governmentality approach derived from Foucault’s writing on governmentality are taken up. Governmentality theory is largely concerned with the contingent relationship between knowledge and power; thus, with analysing specific discourses and associated spaces within which differing knowledge and forms of thinking interrelate and resist each other. The contestation and negotiation associated with environmental governance has confronted legal discourse and led to a refiguring of legal rationality. Legal governance of the environment has stretched and unsettled legal orthodoxy, as the environment does not readily fit into any of the usual categories pertaining to legal rights and interests. The environment, as a legal subject, is not simply a physical space; it is a contingent and instrumental concept, determined by human activity, social values and legal and non-legal calculation.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - Carleton University, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 312-334). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--Carleton University, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 214-224). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Esta dissertação articula os conceitos relacionados à comunicação pública, cidadania e instituição com o objetivo de analisar processos de comunicação pública que incidem na construção da cidadania, a partir da atuação da Defensoria Pública do Rio Grande do Sul dirigida à defesa dos direitos de pessoas socialmente excluídas. A Defensoria é analisada como instituição constituída pelas perspectivas normativa, fática e estratégica. Os conceitos teóricos trabalhados reportam ao interesse público conforme discutido por Arendt (2014), Sennett (1988) e Bobbio (2012), à cidadania (MARSHALL, 1967; GIDDENS, 2008; CARVALHO, 2013; DAGNINO, 2004) e direitos humanos, a partir da gênese de valores proposta por Joas (2012). A abordagem comunicacional parte do conceito de interações comunicativas, conforme França (1998), desenvolve o conceito de comunicação pública articulando, principalmente, as proposições de Weber (2007, 2009, 2011) e Esteves (2011), e abrande os estudos de comunicação organizacional com Baldissera (2014), Marques (2015), Mumby (2009) e Deetz (2010) e de estratégia em Pérez (2012). A reflexão sobre instituição é feita a partir de Castoriadis (1982), Braga (2010, 2012), Berger e Luckmann (1998). O estudo de caso é a opção metodológica para a abordagem da Defensoria Pública do Rio Grande do Sul enquanto uma dimensão institucional particular. Os procedimentos metodológicos incluem pesquisa documental e bibliográfica da legislação federal sobre a instituição, sobre suas atividades, os defensores e as pessoas atendidas, além de práticas e produtos de comunicação. A análise da Defensoria Pública do Rio Grande do Sul é realizada nas perspectivas normativa (análise histórico-descritiva), fática (análises descritiva e das situações de interação) e estratégica (análises descritiva das estratégias e de temas e vozes). A articulação dessas perspectivas da instituição permitiu cercar a constituição de rede de comunicação pública sobre o tema de interesse público e os direitos de cidadania. Dessa forma, identifica-se a atuação da Defensoria Pública do Rio Grande do Sul como um espaço institucional rico em termos de interação comunicacional, capaz de ampliar as experiências de cidadania e privilegiar o interesse público. / This Master Thesis articulates the concepts related to public communication, citizenship and institution aiming to analyse public communication processes focusing in the construction of citizenship, from the perspective of Rio Grande do Sul´s Public Defender´s work directed to the defence of social excluded individuals´ rights. The analysis focus in the Public Defender as an institution constituted by the normative, factual and strategic perspectives. The main theoretical concepts worked report to public interest, as discussed by Arendt (2014), Sennett (1988) e Bobbio (2012), to citizenship (MARSHALL, 1967; GIDDENS, 2008; CARVALHO, 2013; DAGNINO, 2004) and human rights, starting from the genesis of values proposed by Joas (2012). The communicational approach derives from the communicative interactions concept, according to França (1998), develops the public communication concept articulating, mainly, the propositions from Weber (2007, 2009, 2011) and Esteves (2011), and includes the organizational communication studies with Baldissera (2014), Marques (2015), Mumby (2009) e Deetz (2010) and strategy in Pérez (2012). The observation about institution is made from Castoriadis (1982), Braga (2010, 2012), Berger and Luckmann (1998). The case study is the methodological option for the Rio Grande do Sul Public Defender approach as a particular institutional dimension. The methodological procedures include federal legislation documental and bibliographic research about the institution, its activities, the public defenders and the persons aided, in addition with communication practices and products. The Rio Grande do Sul Public Defender analysis focuses in the normative (historical descriptive analysis), factual (descriptive analysis and from the interaction situations) and strategic (descriptive analysis of strategies and themes and voices analysis). The articulation of these institutional perspectives allowed surrounding the public communication network about the public interest subject and the citizenship rights. Therefore, the Rio Grande do Sul Public Defender is a rich institutional space in terms of communicational interaction, capable of increasing the citizenship experience and prioritise the public interest.