<p>Purpose/Aim: To study the rhetorical changes in the speeches of Barack Obama from being a presidential candidate to being the President.</p><p>Material/Method: A rhetorical analysis of two defining speeches using logos, pathos and ethos in conjunction with framing and identity.</p><p>Main Results: The main result of the essay was that the rhetoric used by Barack Obama did indeed change as his position as a politician changed. This change, however, was the result of how language is affected by circumstance, audience, the context in which the language is sent and received and the current identity being used by the speaker. Rhetoric is not purely about the language used.</p>

<p>Purpose: The objective of this study is to illustrate how participants in leaderless based projects communicate with each other. Several studies have focused on technology-supported projects, such as open source projects, with an established project manager and goal. There is a lack, to the best of our knowledge, in studies that deal with the communication pattern in a leaderless computer supported collaborative project.</p><p>Method: We have chosen to use a quantitative method where we systematically group several messages according to their content. This method was used in a similar study to illustrate the communication between participants involved in an open source project. We have taken the same Kripendorff based method and adapted it to our study by adding more descriptive variables.</p><p>Theoretical perspectives: Manuel Castell discusses the aspects of a new communication power that is rooted in the individual as part of a larger creative audience. The collaborative works we have studies are prime examples of how the creative audience works together and of mass self‐communication. In order to analyze the potential motivations behind the participant’s involvement in these collaborative works, we have adopted the ideas of Preece and Shneidermans frame theory. They have identified 4 major roles in most onlinebased co‐operations and refer to them as reader, contributor, collaborator and leader.</p><p>Result: Our results show that the communication in computer supported collaborative works is characterized by positive and energetic communication. The participants are all involved by their own will; they contribute because they want to. We believe this to be the major factor influencing the flow and form of communication between the participants. The majority of posts are comments to other participants or contributing posts that add to the progression of the discourse. We also have reason to believe that the use of smileys and embedded pictures is related to the tools available to the participants; the quicker and easier it is to add a picture the more likely the participants will use these tools.</p>

Thesis (M.A. (Communication Studies))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

Thesis (Ph.D. (Homiletics))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

Selon différents théoriciens (Guénoun, Lehmann, Ryngaert, etc.), la fin du vingtième siècle se caractérise par l'émergence de nouvelles formes théâtrales, marquées par la contamination des pratiques spectaculaires. Hans-Thies Lehmann reprend la notion de "théâtre postdramatique" proposée par Richard Schechner pour qualifier ces formes métissées de spectacle vivant La thèse défendue est la suivante : le théâtre postdramatique trouve sa spécificité non seulement dans la transgression des codes dramatiques mais surtout dans des processus de réception spécifiques qu'il importe de définir, à l'aide d'outils notamment sémiotiques. Ces processus sont situés et construits par rapport à différents modèles interdisciplinaires.

Purpose/Aim: To study the rhetorical changes in the speeches of Barack Obama from being a presidential candidate to being the President. Material/Method: A rhetorical analysis of two defining speeches using logos, pathos and ethos in conjunction with framing and identity. Main Results: The main result of the essay was that the rhetoric used by Barack Obama did indeed change as his position as a politician changed. This change, however, was the result of how language is affected by circumstance, audience, the context in which the language is sent and received and the current identity being used by the speaker. Rhetoric is not purely about the language used.

Purpose: The objective of this study is to illustrate how participants in leaderless based projects communicate with each other. Several studies have focused on technology-supported projects, such as open source projects, with an established project manager and goal. There is a lack, to the best of our knowledge, in studies that deal with the communication pattern in a leaderless computer supported collaborative project. Method: We have chosen to use a quantitative method where we systematically group several messages according to their content. This method was used in a similar study to illustrate the communication between participants involved in an open source project. We have taken the same Kripendorff based method and adapted it to our study by adding more descriptive variables. Theoretical perspectives: Manuel Castell discusses the aspects of a new communication power that is rooted in the individual as part of a larger creative audience. The collaborative works we have studies are prime examples of how the creative audience works together and of mass self‐communication. In order to analyze the potential motivations behind the participant’s involvement in these collaborative works, we have adopted the ideas of Preece and Shneidermans frame theory. They have identified 4 major roles in most onlinebased co‐operations and refer to them as reader, contributor, collaborator and leader. Result: Our results show that the communication in computer supported collaborative works is characterized by positive and energetic communication. The participants are all involved by their own will; they contribute because they want to. We believe this to be the major factor influencing the flow and form of communication between the participants. The majority of posts are comments to other participants or contributing posts that add to the progression of the discourse. We also have reason to believe that the use of smileys and embedded pictures is related to the tools available to the participants; the quicker and easier it is to add a picture the more likely the participants will use these tools.

Syftet med det här arbetet är att undersöka hur barnteatern kan se ut idag och om den uppfyller barnens krav. Observationer gjordes på tre slumpmässigt utvalda barnföreställningar för lågstadiet. Därefter intervjuades medverkande och publik som i detta fall bestod av barnen och dess lärare. Intervjufrågorna behandlade dels hur medverkande tänker inför en föreställning för barn och hur publiken uppfattade den, dels hur de anser att en bra barnföreställning bör vara. Resultatet i undersökningen visar några tydliga tendenser. De tre barnföreställningarna höll en god kvalitet i avseende på framförande, musik och dekor. Men barn är ofta ovana teaterbesökare och har svårt att ta in information genom bara iakttagande. Därför behöver de en annan typ av föreställning än de tre jag observerade. En föreställning med mera delaktighet. / The purpose of this study is to investigate the current state of children’s theatre, and if it meets the needs of the children. Observations were carried out in three randomly chosen children’s theatre performances. After the observations, performers and the audience - in this case, children and their teachers - were interviewed. The questions dealt with how performers think prior to a performance for children, and how the audience reacted to it, in addition to how they think a good children’s theatre performance should be. The result of the study indicates some clear tendencies. The three children’s theatre performances received good reviews with regard to performance, music and décor. But children are seldom familiar with the theatre and have trouble attaining information through watching alone. Thus, they need a different kind of theatrical performance than the three I observed. A performance in which they are more involved in the action.

I explore the effectiveness of fan campaigns to save television shows through the lens of audience participation and fandom studies. Beginning with a background of active audience reception theory and the evolution of fan studies, I identify what elements are necessary for a successful fan campaign. The most important factors of a successful campaign are numbers and adherence to the television economy. Using case studies, I trace the development of fan campaigns from the 1960s to the present and analyze the effectiveness of various tactics used. I also explore how the Internet, particularly social media, has changed both the perception of fans and the effectiveness of fan campaigns.

The study explores how the Swedish public service TV institution imagines a child audience in a societal context where the broadcasting landscape hastransformed greatly over the past thirty years and where TV is seen to  constitute both risks and benefits for children. The concept of TV for children is established to broaden the scope for studying what has been broadcast for a child audience on public service TV. The empirical material consists of both broadcasting policy documents and an extensive selection of public service TV programmes targeting children, selected from 1980, 1992 and 2007, which marked before, during and after the abolishment of the Swedish public service broadcasting monopoly. The policy texts, as well as TV content, TV talk and TV visuality, have been studied to investigate how the imagined child audience is configured. The study shows that when the category ‘children’ is mentioned in the broadcasting legislation, they are seen foremost as being at risk of being harmed by commercial messages and only gradually as explicitly entitled to TV programme content meant for them. The broadcasting companies, however, have broadcast programming for the child audience during the whole research period. Adult notions form how children are represented. In the TV programmes, these notions have remained largely unchanged over the studied years, even if technology, legislative demands and approaches to narration also provide opportunities for change. The imagined child TV audience configured in TV for children is knowledgeable, but wanting and in need of more knowledge. This audience is also imagined as being close to nature, eager to interact with the programmes and activate on basically all occasions, which opposes the discursive view according to which children are passivized by television. This study of public service TV for children points to and questions discursive ideas about what it means to be a child in a mediated society. / Denna studie undersöker hur den svenska public service-TV-institutionen förställer sig en barnpublik i en samhällelig kontext där medielandskapet har genomgått förändringar under de senaste 30 åren och där TV ses som både en risk och en tillgång för barn. I avhandlingen etableras begreppet TV för barn för att visa på och lyfta fram bredden av den TV som riktar sig till en barnpublik. Studiens empiriska material består av lagstiftning, tillstånd och årsrapporter inom TV området och av ett omfattande urval av public service-TV-program för barn. Materialet har valts från 1980, 1992 och 2007, vilket betyder före, under och efter det svenska public service-monopolets upplösning. Dokumenten och TVprogrammen har studerats för att se hur föreställningar om en barn-TV-publik konfigureras. Studien visar att när kategorin barn efterhand nämns i TV lagstiftning och sändningstillstånd ses TV främst som en risk för barn, och då i förhållande till reklam. Först senare skrivs det fram explicit i dessa dokument att barn också ska ha tillgång till TV program. Public service företagen har dock sänt program för en barnpublik under hela undersökningsperioden. I TV-programmen har förställningarna om barn varit mer eller mindre stabila över den studerade tidsperioden, även om ny kommunikationsteknologi, förändringar i sändningstillstånden och sätt att berätta i TV har möjliggjort förändring. Studien visar att den tänkta barn-TV-publiken som konfigureras i TV-programmen är kunnig, men vill och behöver veta mer. Publiken föreställs också vara nära naturen, vilja interagera med TV och vara aktiv i nästan alla situationer. Detta ger en helt annan bild av barn-TV-publiken än den diskursiva föreställningen om det passiva barnet framför TV:n. Den här studien av public service-TV för barn påvisar och ifrågasätter diskursiva idéer om vad det innebär att kategoriseras som barn i ett medierat samhälle.