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This study uses the analysis of communication practices and strategies to argue for a new understanding of papal power in the years 1050 to 1250. Historians frequently argue that the high medieval papacy increased the scope and effectiveness of its authority through the creation, maintenance, and use of centralized governmental institutions. According to this view, legates, councils, delegated justice, legal codification, and a remarkable production of letters all allowed the bishops of Rome to reach into the far corners of Christendom to shape in profound ways the spiritual, political, and economic trajectories of medieval Europeans. But how effective were those institutions? To what degree was the papacy able to implement policy at the local, national, and international levels? The following study attempts to answer this question by considering the specific communicative mechanisms and strategies that the papacy employed in a variety of policy realms. Four case studies analyze the papacy’s efforts to: 1) resolve the York-Canterbury primacy dispute at the turn of the twelfth century; 2) mobilize political support during the papal schism of 1159; 3) reform the Church in the wake of the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215; and 4) convene the Council of Rome to fight Emperor Frederick II in 1240. Each case reveals innovations in papal communication practices while simultaneously highlighting key limitations in the papacy’s ability to implement its will. The papacy, once a model of institutional centralization for medieval historians, suddenly appears much less centralized—and, in many cases, much less effective—of an institution than many scholars had led us to believe. This conclusion forces us to rethink what we know about one of the single most important institutions in European history.

M.A. (Communication Studies) / Negotiation is at present a key concept in South Africa. It is also a comprehensive one. This is the motivation for this study. In South Africa negotiation is not only a relevant subject, but also a complex one which necessitates further examination. In this study the subject is reduced by focusing on political negotiation from a communication perspective. The dynamics of negotiation and negotiation communication are examined by means of a literature study. From this, and through empirical observation, applications concerning the South African political negotiation process are made. Perspectives on political negotiation in the South African context are given as an introduction: the current political situation, the development of negotiation as choice of policy and the state of the negotiation process. With this background in mind the concept. of negotiation and approaches to the study of the negotiation process are described. Communication is a key element in this process and its role in negotiation as well as its relationship with other elements of the process are analysed. Eventually there is a return to the South African political context with the demonstration of the dynamic role of communication in negotiation in this context. Through this an attempt is made to give explanations for political negotiation communication in South Africa and on this basis guidelines about the subject are suggested. By emphasizing the importance of communication in political negotiation in South Africa and by highlighting essentials in this dynamics, an attempt is made to provide a contribution to the understanding of the complex, but relevant subject of negotiation in South Africa.

M.A. (Corporate Communication) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

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In this thesis I detail how large-scale public entertainment, in the form of gladiatorial games (munera) and dramatic festivals (ludi), could function as a tool for social control in the Roman West. Using late-Republican and imperial Pompeii as a test case, I argue that these spectacular performances provided local notables with a rare and powerful platform for mass messaging. The chief purpose of this communication within the arena and theatres of Pompeii was not to transmit particular words or gestures from wealthy benefactors to their captive audience, but rather to arrive at a public consensus that implicitly acknowledged the legitimacy of local political, religious, and cultural institutions while also underscoring existing social hierarchies and power relations within the unified community. The local laws, traditions, and setting conditioned the behaviour of the entertainers and spectators, who played central rôles in a series of formulaic rituals at these regular events. The processions that preceded games, for example, and the prize-giving ceremonies after munera were staged as dialogues between benefactor and spectators, structured in ways that celebrated the prosperity, civic identity, and political stability of the community. Such a function was particularly important to ensure stability in periods of great uncertainty. I suggest that the construction and renovation of venues for public entertainment should also be understood in terms of crisis communications, as part of a response to political turbulence following the wars of the late Republic and a string of local catastrophes under Nero. In the highly urbanized regions of early imperial Italy, however, the emphasis on civic politics at mass spectacles risked inflaming tensions between neighbouring rivals. This system of social control was not, however, limited to the duration and location of mass spectacles. The Pompeian council limited freedom of association and the production of formal texts and images concerning mass spectacles to the margins of the city. The unofficial forms of expression that clustered here, often in dialogue with one another, suggest that individuals continued to identify with their rôles as consensus-building spectators beyond the games. In spite of its rich and varied dossier of evidence for quotidian life, genuinely original or subversive content that is independent of official messaging appears only rarely in the archaeological record at Pompeii.

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In the 20th century, political communications have evolved at a tremendous pace. In its present version, as can be encountered everywhere in the Western world, this type of communication increasingly makes use of marketing-related techniques. These techniques, coupled with the naturally affective characteristics of modern media have influenced political campaigning into featuring more and more emotional messages. This tendency has decisively affected the quality of the information that political actors (politicians, parties, etc.) contribute to the public sphere, thus impeding on citizens' capacity to construct rational opinion on a variety of political matters. / This thesis sets out to explore two examples from Quebec's history to show how this increasing use of emotional messages in political communications has found its way into the province's social environment.

Thesis (MPhil (Journalism))--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / The leading South African media groups are subject to many challenges to their political economic interests as part of the international capitalist profit economy. These challenges coincided with the democratization and transformation of South Africa since 1994, which heralded many changes to the national political economic context within which media companies operate.

Political organisations are now using a two-way path of communication thanks to the development of technological platforms that work in-sync with the internet to allow this to happen. Information can now flow across new networks to allow exchanges from the many to the many. This study sets out to explore the use of social media by political organisations as a means of political communication. A case study was conducted which focussed on online communication used by the Democratic Alliance in the 2014 General Elections in South Africa. The social media strategies adopted by the Democratic Alliance was examined. Reference is made to the 2008 Obama Campaign. The study revealed that the DA primarily made use of two-way asymmetrical communication despite the party posting a lot of consistent information and content; however in response to many questions and comments posted on the social media fora by online users, the DA only selectively responded to a handful of these.