Ever-developing media and innovative propaganda strategies continually change the ways that political authorities exercise their manipulation of the public, which always causes great concern among scholars in the field of political communication. To respond to the lively debate on the roles new modes of communication can play in the processes of politics in modern society based on the experience of China and also to help scholars adapt to the changing context of China today, we chose one representative trend in the latest political propaganda of the Communist Party of China (CPC) on social media--"cuteness-coated propaganda"--of which we study the impacts on political support among Chinese youth and the mechanisms involved. After conceptualizing and theorizing the cuteness-coated propaganda of the CPC, we design and conduct two studies. In Study One, we firstly recruit 199 participants offline for a pair of between-subjects 2 (selling cuteness or not) × 2 (soft content or hard content) factorial design experiments. In Experiment 1, the cuteness is presented in the form of video, and in Experiment 2, it is presented in the form of pictures. In Study Two, we recruit 386 participants online to join in the online survey-embedded experiments, in which the cuteness is presented in the form of text in Experiment 3 and the form of pictures in Experiment 4. We find that in our research context when the CPC propagandizes with soft-oriented content using the selling-cuteness strategy in video form on Weibo, it improves the specific political support of Chinese youth by increasing their positive emotions or closing the psychological distance between themselves and the propagandist. This finding suggests that the "Double-Soft Model" of political propaganda (utilizing a soft propaganda strategy to publicize soft content) proposed in our thesis can be a very persuasive way of influencing young people's specific political support. However, when the selling-cuteness with soft content is presented in picture form or textual form, it is unable to influence the specific support because it cannot evoke significantly increased positive emotions or psychological closeness. Meanwhile, neither general political support nor national pride is influenced by the selling-cuteness strategy no matter in which form it is presented, which is consistent with the findings of previous scholars. Our research represents a pioneering study of cuteness-coated political propaganda on social media, both theoretically and empirically.

Ever-developing media and innovative propaganda strategies continually change the ways that political authorities exercise their manipulation of the public, which always causes great concern among scholars in the field of political communication. To respond to the lively debate on the roles new modes of communication can play in the processes of politics in modern society based on the experience of China and also to help scholars adapt to the changing context of China today, we chose one representative trend in the latest political propaganda of the Communist Party of China (CPC) on social media--"cuteness-coated propaganda"--of which we study the impacts on political support among Chinese youth and the mechanisms involved. After conceptualizing and theorizing the cuteness-coated propaganda of the CPC, we design and conduct two studies. In Study One, we firstly recruit 199 participants offline for a pair of between-subjects 2 (selling cuteness or not) × 2 (soft content or hard content) factorial design experiments. In Experiment 1, the cuteness is presented in the form of video, and in Experiment 2, it is presented in the form of pictures. In Study Two, we recruit 386 participants online to join in the online survey-embedded experiments, in which the cuteness is presented in the form of text in Experiment 3 and the form of pictures in Experiment 4. We find that in our research context when the CPC propagandizes with soft-oriented content using the selling-cuteness strategy in video form on Weibo, it improves the specific political support of Chinese youth by increasing their positive emotions or closing the psychological distance between themselves and the propagandist. This finding suggests that the "Double-Soft Model" of political propaganda (utilizing a soft propaganda strategy to publicize soft content) proposed in our thesis can be a very persuasive way of influencing young people's specific political support. However, when the selling-cuteness with soft content is presented in picture form or textual form, it is unable to influence the specific support because it cannot evoke significantly increased positive emotions or psychological closeness. Meanwhile, neither general political support nor national pride is influenced by the selling-cuteness strategy no matter in which form it is presented, which is consistent with the findings of previous scholars. Our research represents a pioneering study of cuteness-coated political propaganda on social media, both theoretically and empirically.

This dissertation examines how legislators learn about policy proposals. It focuses on three common sources of policy information --- staff briefings, cues, and group deliberations --- to show the causal effect of information on legislators' policy positions. It uses a new approach, field experiments, that allows me to answer questions about information, institutions, and outcomes that heretofore have been difficult to study quantitatively. Results from the three studies I conducted are largely consistent with theories of legislating under imperfect information. All three studies find that information affects position-taking. On average, information increases support by reducing legislators' uncertainty. Information is most influential on bills that legislators are ideologically predisposed to support. In some respects, findings extend or challenge existing theories. Legislators appear responsive to repeated messaging. Cues and briefings interact to make legislators even more supportive of bills than we would expect from their separate effects. Cues determine a far greater proportion of positions than prior studies suggested. Finally, group deliberation appears to reduce partisan polarization in bill coalitions. All together, the studies illustrate that imperfect information constrains position-taking, that legislative staff, cue-taking, and deliberation can effectively communicate information, and that legislative institutions influence individual positions by providing policy-relevant information.

Photocopy of typescript. / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

This study was designed to investigate decision-making as it relates to message appraisal, and determine what effect, if any, identification with the message source has on those appraisals. For the purpose of study, message appraisal was operationalized as message strength ratings. Furthermore, the study investigated how the political ideology of message receivers and the perceived partisanship of message senders might influence identification, and message appraisal by extension. The study used the theory of motivated reasoning to explain the role of identification in the process of message appraisal. The results indicate that there is a relationship between identification and message strength ratings, which suggests identification can produce motivated reasoning. However, the study did not show support for an interaction effect between the political ideology of participants, the perceived partisanship of message senders, and identification when considering message strength ratings.

In recent years an extensive body of discursive research has accumulated on race, immigration and asylum seeker debates in western liberal democracies. This work has primarily focussed on oppressive discourses that are employed to exclude and marginalise minority groups. Comparatively, however, there has been significantly less research on anti-racist and pro-asylum seeker accounts in these debates, despite the potential of such work to provide a greater understanding of contemporary race and immigration discourse, and to contribute to the development of anti-racism and refugee advocacy. The present thesis adds to the further analysis of exclusionary discourse and asylum seeking, and examines this in the as yet unexplored context of the Australian parliament, but its primary focus is on refugee advocates' accounts. Using critical discursive social psychology ( Wetherell, 1998 ), this thesis examines Hansard transcripts of speeches made in the Australian parliament on the new restrictions against asylum seekers introduced in 2001. Analysis focuses on the interpretative repertoires that proscribe and deny responsibility for asylum seekers, and those that are used to construct ' the nation ' and ' racism '. These repertoires are explored with a view to tracing their intellectual history, the subject positions for asylum seekers and Australia/ns they make possible, and the rhetorical tools and strategies used in building them. It was found that those supporting the new legislation positioned asylum seekers as having made a personal choice to come to Australia, and presented the legislation as : a rational, practical response to the emotionally-driven, unreasonable demands of humanitarianism ; as the necessary defence of sovereign rights, the national space and Australian citizens from the incursions of asylum seekers ; and as non-racist. These discourses reproduced the liberal valorisation of reasonableness and rationality, the liberal concepts of sovereign and citizens' rights and individualism, and utilised new racist strategies to present their position as ' not racist '. On the other side of the debate, advocates criticised the legislation as a violation of : the duty of care owed to those who have been persecuted ; human rights and the liberal principle to assist those in need ; and of Australia's national values. Advocates also worked up some aspects of the new laws and the debate on this issue as racist. These repertoires drew upon the liberal discourses of internationalism, human rights, humanitarianism, multiculturalism, equality and egalitarianism. Although these advocacy discourses have considerable cultural currency, they were constrained and marginalised by the hegemonic representations of asylum seekers as ' bogus ' and ' illegal ', of humanitarianism ( as refugee advocates understand it ) as dangerous, and of the new legislation as an assertion of threatened sovereign rights. In addition, some of these discourses, such as multiculturalism and a construction of racism as ' generated by politicians ', functioned to minimise and deny racism. On the basis of this analysis, I conclude that the study of anti-racist and pro-refugee discourse contributes to a broader understanding of the language of contemporary debates about race, ethnicity and immigration as a dynamic, argumentative dialogue, and to critical evaluations of the discourses used in these contexts. However, I also argue that discourse analysis may not offer the requisite tools for developing, as well as critiquing, anti-racist and refugee advocacy discourses. I also suggest that there may be sites of resistance other than political discourse where change to refugee policies may be better effected. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--School of Psychology, 2006.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 195-210).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2002. / Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains xi, 175 p.). Includes abstract and vita. Advisor: Kathleen M. McGraw, Dept. of Political Science. Includes bibliographical references (p. 167-175).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oklahoma, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 181-205).

Not available / text