Despite the existing fragmentation amongst social change agents serving women on Vancouver's downtown east side, they are seeking fresh and innovative ways to work together to communicate their social change needs and to alleviate social problems facing their clients. Using appreciative inquiry to elicit stories of successful collaborations with alternative media, I collected narratives from seven change agents and then employed narrative analysis to understand what agents considered positive experiences and expressions. I found that successful collaborations are primarily ad hoc and are driven by: the organization's source of funding, the organization's viewpoint towards media, and the trust held towards the media outlet. Enabling factors for successful collaborations with media include: a viewpoint that media coverage is integral to an organization's success, dedicated resources to pursue collaborations with the media, and a high level of respect and admiration for the intended media partner.

Thesis analyses imaging of women in the Cairo graffiti field that emerged after 2011 January 25 revolution. Author raises and argument that Cairo graffiti is not only a romanticized and heroic space created as genre of freedom of expression and used as a struggle against changing political systems in Egypt, but rather a pluralistic public sphere where different opinions, ideas and arguments are emerging. Thesis distinguishes major archetypes used as predominant images of women, it analyses what features are used in constructing the "correct" role of woman. / Magistro darbas analizuoja moterų vaizdavimą Kairo miesto graffiti erdvėje. Keliant pagrindinę tezė, jog tai nėra vien tik romantizuota ir herojiška kovos prieš kintančią sistemą Egipte forma (Mubarako rėžimas, Armijos valdymas, prieštaringai vertinamo prezidento Morsi kadencija), o veikiau dinamiška bei pliuralistinė viešoji sfera, kur išreiškiamos skirtingos nuomonės, vyksta dialogai ir debatai ir kartais net „graffiti karai“. Bandoma nustatyti kokios moteriškumo įvaizdžiai bei vaidmenys naudojami konstruojant „teisingąją“ moteriškumo idėją. Analizei pasitelkiami vokiečių sociologo Jurgeno Habermaso viešosios sferos principai bei Yuval Davis lyties kaip nacionalinio simbolio konstravimo teorija; naudojami surinkti graffiti darbai gatvėse, interviu su graffiti piešėjais, moterų teisių aktyvistais. Kairo graffiti erdvė ir joje varijuojančios idėjos yra lyginama su visuomenėje vykstančiais debatais apie moters padėti, vaidmenį bei teises. Pirmoji darbo dalis iškelia tris pagrindiniu moteriškumo archetipus: moteris-tauta, moteris-mama, moteris- kekšė, - dominuojančius graffiti sferoje, kur moters atvaizdas dažnai naudojamas kaip metafora įvairių struktūrų, režimo, ar pačios šalies kritikai bei šlovinimui. Analizuojama kaip šie tipai atspindi visuomenėje vyraujančias vertybes susijusias su moters padėtimi bei elgesiu. Antrojoje dalyje analizuojama trys vyraujantys debatai susiję su moterų teisėmis ir padėtimi: seksualinis priekabiavimas, moterų teisių aktyvizmas bei tradicinis... [toliau žr. visą tekstą]

Critics have observed that in early Stuart England, the broad, socially significant concept of melancholy was recoded as a specifically medical phenomenon—a disease rather than a fashion. This recoding made melancholy seem less a social attitude than a private ailment. However, I argue that at the Stuart universities, this recoded melancholy became a covert expression of the disillusionment, disappointment, and frustration produced by pressures there—the overcrowding and competition which left many men “disappointed” in preferment, alongside James I’s unprecedented royal involvement in the universities. My argument has implications for Jürgen Habermas’s account of the emergence of the public sphere, which he claims did not occur until the eighteenth-century. I argue that although the university was increasingly subordinated to the crown’s authority, a lingering sense of autonomy persisted there, a residue of the medieval university’s relative autonomy from the crown; politicized by the encroaching Stuart presence, an alienated community at the university formed a kind of public in private from authority within that authority’s midst. The audience for the printed book, a sphere apart from court or university, represented a forum in which the publicity at the universities could be consolidated, especially in seemingly “private” literary forms such as the treatise on melancholy. I argue that Robert Burton’s exaggerated performance of melancholy in The Anatomy of Melancholy, which gains him license to say almost anything, resembles the performed melancholy that the student-prince Hamlet uses to frustrate his uncle’s attempts to surveil him. After tracing melancholy’s evolving literary function through Hamlet, I go on to discuss James’s interventions into the universities. I conclude by considering two printed (and widely circulated) books by university men: the aforementioned The Anatomy of Melancholy by Burton, an Oxford cleric, and The Temple by George Herbert, who left a career as Cambridge’s public orator to become a country parson. I examine how each of these books uses the affective pattern of courtly-scholarly disappointment—transumed by Burton as melancholy, and by Herbert as holy affliction—to develop an empathic form of publicity among its readership which is in tacit opposition to the Stuart court. / Thesis (Ph.D, English) -- Queen's University, 2011-09-27 15:30:01.702

Studiens syfte är att undersöka internetanvändares medvetenhet och åsikter om filterbubblor på sökmotorn Google. Undersökningens frågeställning är: Vad har internetanvändare för tankar och förhållningssätt till filterbubblor som skapas på Google? Studien är avgränsad till studenter vid Uppsala Universitet. Det är en population som kan förmodas vara storkonsumenter av information via sökmotorer. En stor majoritet av respondenterna menade också att Google var ett viktigt hjälpmedel i studier och vardag. För genomförandet av undersökningen användes en kvalitativ metod med fokusgrupper. 17 respondenter i fyra grupper fick diskutera medvetenhet, åsikter och uppfattningar om filterbubblor och informationsinhämtning som sker via Google. Som teoretisk vägledning användes sex olika samhällsvetenskapliga teorier mot vilka det empiriska materialet prövades. Resultatet från undersökningen visar att en majoritet av respondenterna inte var medvetna om den filtrering av informationen som sker på Google och därmed skapar filterbubblor. När respondenterna vid intervjuerna blev informerade om filterbubblor och dess effekter framkom olika uppfattningar och åsikter. Många respondenter uttryckte oro för effekterna av avskärmningen från information och utbyte med andra användare som bubblorna medför. Andra respondenter ansåg att så länge det inte medförde några negativa effekter i användandet av söktjänsten var det inget problem. Avskärmningen som filterbubblor skapar kan begränsa internetanvändares exponering för ”ny” information. Detta kan innebära en risk att människors tillgång till fri och icke styrd information manipuleras av kommersiella intressen. Detta lyfts fram i studiens analys med en teoretisk anknytning till Habermas inflytelserika arbeten om den publika sfären. Ett problem i det sammanhanget, som lyfts fram i forskning, är att filterbubblor kan komma att motsäga fundamentala demokratiska informationsprinciper. Resultatet visar därmed att filterbubblor fungerar som en slags grindvakt för internetanvändarens tillgång till information på Google. Med andra ord har en förändring skett där de “nya” nätbaserade grindvakterna saknar den mänskliga faktor som traditionella mediers grindvakter hade och som styrdes av transparanta värderingar. Respondenterna menade slutligen att Google bör vara mer transparant om problematiken med filterbubblor för att stärka sitt förtroende bland användarna.

L'espace public (1962) de Jürgen Habermas est souvent lu comme le premier ouvrage de sa carrière. Notre mémoire tâche de porter un éclairage différent sur celui-ci, de lire L'espace public comme point d'aboutissement de la pensée habermassienne des années 1950. Par l'exploration d'un certain nombre d'écrits mineurs et majeurs pré-1962, L'espace public se révèle une sorte de théorie critique de la société, encore fortement empreinte de marxisme, faisant figure de synthèse partielle des écrits de jeunesse. / Jürgen Habermas' The structural transformation of the public sphere (1962) is often read as the first landmark of his career. Our study sets out to shed a different light upon it, to read The structural transformation of the public sphere as the arrival point of Habermas' 1950s thought. While we explore a certain number of minor and major pre-1962 works, his thesis reveals itself as some kind of critical theory of society, still deeply rooted in Marxism, that embodies a partial synthesis of his early works.

A qualitative study of the Swedish Instagram account Kvinnohat´s framing of media criticism. The Instagram account Kvinnohat is an example when citizens with a feminist agenda participate in a public debate. With a critical point of view Kvinnohat approach society; which media is a part of. Social network with photo-sharing implement such as Instagram is a quite new type of social media. Instagram has quickly become a part of many peoples everyday life, especially among adolescents. Kvinnohat allows guest admins to do personal photo-sharing from the account Kvinnohat so that different feminist users have an opportunity to express their opinions. We have analyzed how Kvinnohat use rhetorical strategies and frames to express their opinions about media. By analyzing the frames with help of Robert Entmans (2004) Cascading Activation Model the result of the study shows how Kvinnohat frame their content. The semiotic analysis reveals the visual rhetoric in the post and is a supplement for the rhetorical analysis in which the strategies appears. The result of the study showed that the attitude in Kvinnohat's media criticism is both negative and positive. Kvinnohat and like-minded followers are not only consuming media but also questioning the content and the media industry. The founders of Kvinnohat often recommend their followers a positive media content where the content shows a norm critical perspective. The negative critique practiced by Kvinnohat tend to inform and educate their audience of a problem. To strengthen a relationship between Kvinnohat and its followers, Kvinnohat tend to be personal in their posts by relating to their followers, and inspire them to interact.

This thesis analyzes the democratic deficit problem inherent in the European Union since the initial stages. In the study, the two dimensions of the problem is studied and within this context, the decision making procedures in the European Union, the functioning of the European Union institutions, the European Parliament elections are discussed in detail. Moreover, issues related to Europeanness and European identity are referred to and the improvements achieved by European Union concerning institutional structure and popular unity to overcome the democratic deficit are analyzed.

By means of a historical analysis of representations, this thesis argues that an increasing sexualisation of Indigenous personalities in popular culture contributes to the reconciliation of non-Indigenous and Indigenous Australia. It considers how sexualised images and narratives of Indigenous people, as they are produced across a range of film, television, advertising, sport and pornographic texts, are connected to a broader politics of liberty and justice in the present postmodern and postcolonial context. By addressing this objective the thesis will identify and evaluate the significance of 'banal' or everyday representations of Aboriginal sexuality, which may range from advertising images of kissing, television soap episodes of weddings, sultry film romances through to more evocatively oiled-up representations of the pinup- calendar variety. This project seeks to explore how such images offer possibilities for creating informal narratives of reconciliation, and engendering understandings of Aboriginality in the media beyond predominant academic concerns for exceptional or fatalistic versions.

This thesis interrogates my and others?? creative praxis using the tools of the Internet, webcam, blogging and digital video, to elucidate possibilities for communication. I examine whether these tools are productive for my creativity and others?? in increasing communicative spaces and building social networks amongst the complexities of globalised culture. Many cultural commentators consider the Internet as a new kind of public sphere, developing community, strengthening the lifeworld and providing ethical discourse. The Internet, however, is a context not without problems. Still, less that one quarter of the world??s population has access, and computer illiteracy and governance (to name only a few) contribute to its limitations ?? this dichotomy is central to my investigation. I demonstrate that information communication technologies (ICTs) such as the Internet are radically altering our everyday lives and mediation is increasingly pervasive. I argue, therefore, that our globalised context demands alternative communicative spaces to mainstream media that allow diversity, plurality, intersubjectivity and new forms of interrogation. I ask whether the Internet can assist in the development of social networks and newest social movements (NSMs) by increasing civic bonds and communities. I posit communicative action, reflexivity and praxis as productive tools for a critical practice. I suggest that these theories are influential in researching the Internet??s potential in generating social awareness. I argue that the Internet can be used to construct social spaces and, in conjunction with creativity, can increase its productive capacity in developing diverse and ethical communicative contexts.

This thesis investigates the potential for radio on the Internet to enhance processes of communication and media practice in the form of new a public sphere. Drawing on the work of Marshall McLuhan, the early stages of this thesis present an enquiry into the unique positive qualities of both radio and the Internet. The argument that follows contends that radio presented on the Internet can draw from the perceived technological benefits of each individual medium, combining as a potential site for public spheres. Both Habermas’s liberal public sphere and contemporary critiques of the concept are examined to define a range of principles that could be tested against relevant examples. The increasing commercialisation of the Internet is presented as a challenge to the normative ideals of a public sphere and counter-balances the optimism of a technologically determinist approach. A series of thematic codes are developed from the relevant theory and combined with qualitative interviews. This forms the framework for a thematic analysis of three individual case studies: Unwelcome Guests, an anti-corporate radio programme, SW Radio Africa, “the independent voice of Zimbabwe,” and NH Making Waves, the radio arm of a community peace activist group. The study investigates opportunities for these three individual case studies to act as public spheres, by examining the interplay that occurs between both Internet and radio practices. As the thematic analysis will demonstrate, placing radio content on the Internet presents new opportunities to diversify content and audiences through collaborative production and improved distribution. Recommendations for further research emphasise the need to pursue the Internet’s role in the public sphere potential of radio.