New immigrants to Canada are identified as a vulnerable population in mental health and, as a result, organizations are signaling the need to enhance their mental health supports. The research uses focus groups and questions based on the messaging of a Canadian school mental health program to understand how new immigrant mothers interpret and develop key aspects of their mental health literacy and how they attain parent empowerment. A thematic assessment of the knowledge, interpretation, action and decision-making of the study participants (n=7), all recent immigrants to Canada and mothers of high school students, shows that new immigrant mothers are prepared to follow a path towards mental health literacy. At the same time, however, there are barriers that can block progression towards mental health literacy for this audience. These findings are supported by three umbrella themes: the first main theme “home as haven” espouses maternal roles in mental health maintenance such as protector and communicator, the second main theme “knowledge versus suspicions of mental health and mental illness” represents informed views and support of mental illness and myths and illusions of mental illness, and the third main theme, “additional barriers to mental health literacy” includes the hardships of immigration and fear of knowledge. The study concludes that new immigrant mothers appreciate the importance of fostering mental health understanding and discussion with their children at the same time that they encounter obstacles to the advancement of their mental health literacy. This study is relevant to the field of communication in that it demonstrates the experience of new immigrant mothers as a secondary audience in mental health programming. As the caregivers of their children, they are in position to enforce the messages and health maintenance behaviours of a school-based mental health program aimed at adolescents.

Planning and optimization of TV advertising space in the area of the Czech media market requires a knowledge of features of the problem and systems that are able to suggest the best results from data taken from measurement of TV audience, which is complex and demands special capacity. These results should be obtained (calculated) by using mathematical optimization models. Results depend on the objectives of company. The content of this thesis is to create and implement mathematical models, which serve to solve practical problems about planning advertising space and commercial blocks. The work deals with the characteristics of the television media market, audience measurement, the factors that influence the ratings, as well as an examination of other indicators that are necessary for the planning and optimization of TV advertising. Besides familiarizing the reader with the operations of buying advertising space, this paper`s goal is to demonstrate newly created mathematical models that are applicable to the work of TV channels, media agencies or other companies, which deal with the optimization of the television media market.

This diploma thesis focuses on the communication of a non-profit organization with a stress on the area of media used for advertising. The thesis includes analysis and definition of the target audience for Konto Bariéry organization and comparison with the original definition. The thesis furthermore presents analysis of the advertising investments within the non-profit segment and also focuses on the main advertisers who belong to this segment. Based on these analysis the recommended mediamix and concrete media are introduced to effectively address the defined target audience.

The basis of this research project stems from reflections upon the process of composition for electroacoustic audio-visual music. These are fixed media works in which sound and image materials are accessed, generated, explored and configured in creation of a musically informed audio-visual expression. Within the process of composition, the composer must decide how to effectively draw relationships between these time based media and their various abstract and mimetic materials. This process usually has no codified laws or structures and results in relationships that are singular to the individual artworks. The composer uses their own experience and intuition in assessing how best to associate sounds and images and they will use their own interpretation of the materials to evaluate the how successful they are in realising their intentions. But what is there to say that the interpretation made by the composer bares any resemblance to interpretations made by audiences? The current research sought to assess any trends or commonalities in how people interpret such works. Utilising a combination of empirical research, composition and scholarly study, the project investigated various theoretical approaches to interpretation and the occurrence of correlation between compositional intention and audience interpretation. Models from different theoretical disciplines were combined in order to build up a picture of the processes involved in making interpretations, and to aid in the rationalisation of empirical data. The application of three methodological approaches allowed for the topic to be considered from a diversity of perspectives, and for triangulation to take place in confirmation of the research outcomes. The way in which individuals build up interpretations from non-codified abstract and mimetic materials also provided a suitable case study for the critique and assessment of various theoretical approaches to interpretation. The project challenges structuralist approaches to interpretation, drawing together theoretical materials and empirical research findings in support of a post-structrualist model of interpretation that demonstrates the absolutely vital role played by context - the framing of the artwork in the consciousness of the individual audience member.

Though scholars have discussed how reflective writing can benefit students in college-level writing classes, little research has focused on students’ perceptions of this kind of writing. This study examines the curriculum of a particular first-year writing course, as well as student reflective writing that was created for the class. Research questions focus on how students used reflective writing to articulate their understandings of audience and academic discourse, two curricular concerns that tend to be prevalent in first-year writing courses. To answer these questions, I studied examples of student reflective essays, conducted interviews with eight students, and maintained researcher field notes. I analyzed this data using discourse analysis to understand how the institution constructed itself, students, and me. I also explored how students used language to engage in particular building tasks associated with writing for particular audiences and engaging in particular academic discourses. My findings suggest that students perceive that reflective writing can lead to opportunities for expanded dialogues between students and teachers, and can facilitate student learning of academic discourse.

A prominent British newspaper and its website publishes an inflammatory article stating that a lifeboat charity has been cynically abused by migrant traffickers who are using it as a ‘free ferry service’ to get their cargo of human beings into the United Kingdom. What reaction is generated on the Twitter social media network? What narrative, language usage and sentiment is formed? How does the charity react?This thesis examines this case and discovers through word frequency and conversational analysis how one news story reverberated in 280 characters or less. Themes impacted by this research include Twitter as a social media network service, fake news, echo chambers and their bubbles, trust and audience perception, news media literacy, social campaigning and awareness, and crisis communication and news/stakeholder management.The conclusion reached is that the story had the potential to adversely affect the charity’s reputation and future income stream even though it was doing its duty because of its unwillingness or inability to engage with stakeholders and correct any misunderstandings. The thesis discusses why this was not a good idea and considers how the story could have developed into a broader, more damaging entity with relative ease, especially with the role social media can play for news consumers in today’s society.

La audiencia social surge con la exhibición sincronizada de las redes sociales y la televisión, por medio de ellos, el público puede manifestar sus distintas opiniones o intereses sobre los contenidos en tiempo real. Esta información es de gran importancia para las producciones audiovisuales. El trabajo muestra las diversas estrategias usadas por la producción del programa “El artista del año”, al analizar la presencia de las audiencias sociales en los programas. Se indagan 2 episodios del programa y 2 cuentas de Twitter, concluyendo que los elementos de la comunicación pública y los programas concursos de tv ahora tienen que trabajar juntos. La incorporación de las audiencias activas en redes sociales expone tantas oportunidades como también desafíos. / The social audience arises with the synchronized exhibition of social networks and television, through them, the public can express their different opinions or interests about content in real time. This information is of great importance for audiovisual productions. The work shows the different strategies used by the production of the program "The artist of the year", when analyzing the presence of social audiences in the programs. In 2 episodes of the show and 2 Twitter accounts, concluding that elements of public communication and television quiz shows now have to work together. The participation of active audiences in social networks exposes as many opportunities as well as challenges. / Trabajo de investigación

In this study, I investigate how foreign language anxiety affects students’ performance during oral presentations. The study also explores how secondary school teachers in Sweden work with anxious students before, during and after an oral presentation and what approaches and exercises they find effective to use when doing so. Foreign language anxiety is a relatively new subject within language education and impacts language learning in various, mostly negative, ways. The data is collected from interviews with secondary school teachers in Sweden. The result show how these teachers identify FLA and what effects they believe it has on their students. The result also gives insight into how the teachers approach all three stages of an oral presentation to reduce symptoms that lead to increased anxiety. The study concludes by comparing the teachers’ choices to theories within language teaching to establish a pattern of what strategies are effective when dealing with FLA. In this study, I highlight the benefits of using oral presentations based on research and why every student should be given help to overcome their anxiety, so that they are prepared to use their English in high-pressure situations, such as during an oral presentation.

The purpose of this study is to clarify university students’, between the ages of 18 and 25 years, awareness of and attitudes towards greenwashing in advertising as well as understand a potential connection between their awareness and attitudes and their perceived environmental engagement. One quantitative method and one qualitative method were used to collect data; an online survey with 148 respondents was conducted, and three separate focus group interviews were held and later transcribed and analyzed through a qualitative text analysis. Two theoretical frameworks were used: Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding model to process audience reception and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to process the topic of greenwashing. The results of the study showed that the students’ awareness of greenwashing was high and that their attitudes were almost exclusively negative towards it. The students’ awareness of greenwashing was shown to possibly affect their decoding of advertisements, as they tended to have more positive attitudes towards advertisements in which they judged greenwashing to not be very prominent. The students’ perceived environmental engagement could be linked to their awareness of greenwashing but no clear connection between their perceived environmental engagement and their attitudes towards greenwashing could be found. Our conclusion states that greenwashing may become an increasingly ineffective advertising strategy in the future, as current students, who have the ability to see through and not be deceived by greenwashing, will be in decision-making positions within a couple of decades and may demand stricter regulations.

Ce texte s’intéresse aux déclarations politiques médiatiques et plus précisément à la performativité des langages à partir des questionnements suivants : peut-on faire avec des mots ? Peut-on, comme l’entend le philosophe John Austin, réellement faire un acte grâce au langage ? En abordant différentes situations de déclarations politiques, la thèse interroge, sous l’angle de la pragmatique (des langages) et de la sémiologie, des discours politiques et médiatiques ainsi que les images qui les accompagnent. L’analyse porte tout d’abord sur des déclarations issues de notre quotidien (déclaration de pauvreté dans le métro, proposition artistique, etc.) puis s’attache plus particulièrement aux déclarations politiques sous la Vème République en France. On constate qu’une déclaration politique, afin de faire, ne peut être isolée mais doit s’entendre selon le contexte qui l’entoure. Elle dépend de langages, de rituels, de références culturelles et des médias. Ces derniers sont ceux qui l’hébergent et qui lui permettent une visibilité importante. Seule, une déclaration politique est vide et son langage ne peut agir. Elle est donc un objet qui existe par ramifications. / This text considers media-covered political declarations in the light of speech act theory and performativity by using the following questions as a starting point: Is it possible to do things with words? Can we, in the sense of John Austin, perform an action thanks to language? The thesis addresses different situations of political declarations in order to inquire into political statements, as well as the images the media associate to them, from the perspective of the pragmatics of languages and semiology. The work first focuses on declarations from everyday life (declaration of poverty, artistic endeavours) before moving on to a thorough analysis of political declarations during the French Fifth Republic. It is thus revealed that, in order to do, a political declaration cannot be considered as isolated but should be heard and understood in accordance with the context that surrounds its utterance. It depends on languages, rituals, cultural references and on the media. Indeed, the latter both host and allow the declaration broad reception by the public. By itself, a political declaration is empty and its language cannot perform. It is therefore an object which exists as part of a web of connections.