<p>The starting point of this thesis is the debate surrounding the two referenda’s in France and the Netherlands in May and June 2005, regarding the proposal of a European constitution. The aim of this study is to analyse how democratic legitimacy and the role of the citizens portrays within the democratic discourse of the European Union. The empirical material is based upon both speeches from the European Commission and news articles from the French newspaper Libération and the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter. Discourse analysis is used as a theoretical frame of reference combined with models of democracy. The results of the study is that democracy is still defined by it’s traditional values but have also shifted into being a concept combined with effectivity. This has effects on the citizens and their role in the EU has been stripped down to only legitimize the decisions, the people should simply ”say yes to yes”.</p>

The starting point of this thesis is the debate surrounding the two referenda’s in France and the Netherlands in May and June 2005, regarding the proposal of a European constitution. The aim of this study is to analyse how democratic legitimacy and the role of the citizens portrays within the democratic discourse of the European Union. The empirical material is based upon both speeches from the European Commission and news articles from the French newspaper Libération and the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter. Discourse analysis is used as a theoretical frame of reference combined with models of democracy. The results of the study is that democracy is still defined by it’s traditional values but have also shifted into being a concept combined with effectivity. This has effects on the citizens and their role in the EU has been stripped down to only legitimize the decisions, the people should simply ”say yes to yes”.

This thesis is a contribution to the research of media discourse. During the last decades the media landscape has changed dramatically. These changes have been especially evident in German TV programs and the rise of private TV channels. The purpose of this thesis is to explore some of these changes more thoroughly, focusing on the live TV coverage of three soccer matches during the Soccer World Cups of 1974 and 2006 in Germany. The major research question is how these commentaries changed over the years. The thesis analyses how the reporters describe the players, the team and the coach, as well as the sport and the match itself. The relationships between the reporters and their respective audiences as well as the changing functions of the reporters are subsequently examined. The methodological approach used is Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough, 2001; Fowler 1985; van Dijk, 2001). It provides a framework that allows analysing of language in its cultural and social context. Hence, discourse is seen as “language as a form of social practice” (Fairclough, 2001, p.18). Cultural and social contexts as well as extralinguistic factors such as images and sounds are also considered part of the discourse. The overall results indicate that in 2006 soccer has taken on greater importance in the lives of the audience. Live broadcasts of soccer matches have turned more and more into spectacles. This has led to phenomena such as the media’s growing preoccupation with entertainment (“infotainment”). Besides that, an increased presence of the ‘private’ in the public sphere can be discerned. In conclusion, this thesis identifies five principles prevalent in current live media broadcasts: commercialization, individualization, emotionalization, identification, and globalization. Even though some of these principles had already begun to emerge in the 1974 broadcast, their presence in 2006 attests to their increased importance in the German media landscape over time.

This thesis is a contribution to the research of media discourse. During the last decades the media landscape has changed dramatically. These changes have been especially evident in German TV programs and the rise of private TV channels. The purpose of this thesis is to explore some of these changes more thoroughly, focusing on the live TV coverage of three soccer matches during the Soccer World Cups of 1974 and 2006 in Germany. The major research question is how these commentaries changed over the years. The thesis analyses how the reporters describe the players, the team and the coach, as well as the sport and the match itself. The relationships between the reporters and their respective audiences as well as the changing functions of the reporters are subsequently examined. The methodological approach used is Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough, 2001; Fowler 1985; van Dijk, 2001). It provides a framework that allows analysing of language in its cultural and social context. Hence, discourse is seen as “language as a form of social practice” (Fairclough, 2001, p.18). Cultural and social contexts as well as extralinguistic factors such as images and sounds are also considered part of the discourse. The overall results indicate that in 2006 soccer has taken on greater importance in the lives of the audience. Live broadcasts of soccer matches have turned more and more into spectacles. This has led to phenomena such as the media’s growing preoccupation with entertainment (“infotainment”). Besides that, an increased presence of the ‘private’ in the public sphere can be discerned. In conclusion, this thesis identifies five principles prevalent in current live media broadcasts: commercialization, individualization, emotionalization, identification, and globalization. Even though some of these principles had already begun to emerge in the 1974 broadcast, their presence in 2006 attests to their increased importance in the German media landscape over time.

From a social constructionist understanding of social reality, this research explores how the female entrepreneurs and female entrepreneurship are represented in official discourses. From the view point of post-structuralist feminism, this research takes the position that discourses are linguistic practices that create truth effects. It finds that the texts on the official website, including the policies and the female entrepreneurs¡¦ stories, have the potential to reproduce the stereotype of gender.

Diss. Göteborg : Göteborgs universitet, 2009.

On April 16, 2012, the much awaited primetime telenovela appropriately titled Cheias de Charme premiered on Rede Globo, the largest Brazilian television network, and viewers across the nation were introduced to as três Marias, the three charming protagonists who, in a rare occurrence on the network, are domestic workers. It is no surprise that domestic workers should be of interest to Brazilian television viewers; paid domestic work is an enormous part of daily life in Brazil and domestic workers make up nearly eight percent of the work force. This project builds on previous explorations of the unique relationships between domestic employers and employees in Brazil, as well as examinations of the traditional ways in which domestic workers have been imagined to draw a clearer image of the changing role of paid domestic work in Brazilian society. Part ethnographic study and part media analysis, this study is mainly preoccupied with exploring various representations of domestic workers. These representations speak to the tensions and contradictions surrounding the social dynamics of the intimate relationships between domestic workers and their employers, as well as the role of domestic work in Brazilian society, haunted by the legacy of nearly four-hundred years of slavery. / text

Human trafficking is one of today’s largest shadow economies and even though efforts of all kind have been accomplished throughout the years the number of trafficked persons continue to increase. The United Nations together with the European Union as well as the Association of South East Asian Nations cover three areas with different political and social cultures. All three have developed several documents on how to combat the phenomenon but do they understand and respond to the issue in a comprehensive manner? The intention of this study is to investigate whether the UN, EU and ASEAN approach trafficking in human beings in the same manner. By using the method critical discourse analysis, documents such as protocols and strategies from the three organizations have been object of the analysis. With six dimensions divided into two discourses; understanding and response to human trafficking – the analysis resulted in the understanding that the three organizations approach the issue similarly, but that EU and ASEAN put different aspects of the phenomenon in focus.

KîîTharaka is a Bantu language spoken by a minority community in Kenya numbering about 120,000. Attitude markers belong to the broad category of ‘residue’ elements in language commonly called ‘discourse markers’. Alternative terms for discourse markers are: Discourse particles, discourse/speech modifiers, pragmatic markers, pragmatic particles, or discourse operators. As the term ‘attitude’ markers itself suggests, attitude markers may best be defined as a set of expressions in language which the speaker applies to clarify his or her feelings, emotions or views contained in the utterance being made. Attitude markers ‘amplify’ the speakers intended meaning. Moore (2001: 5) observes that English speakers use expressive verbs to convey attitudes to or about a state of affairs e.g. ‘apologize’, ‘appreciate’, ‘congratulate’, ‘deplore’, ‘detest’, ‘regret’, ‘thank’, and ‘welcome’. It is such kind of expressions that are investigated in this research on KîîTharaka. This dissertation highlights on this linguistic phenomenon with the view that to ignore the role played by attitude markers in communicating meaning in KîîTharaka may reduce the accuracy of the speaker’s or the writer’s intended message. Bearing in mind that attitude markers are similar to discourse markers in that both are not part of the conceptual (i.e. the referential) information of the speaker’s utterance, the critical distinction to be made between discourse markers and attitude markers is that unlike discourse markers, attitude markers do not function as connectives i.e. they do not primarily establish discourse cohesion. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.

The issue of ‘race’ and policing has generated considerable public controversy. I draw the work of Norman Fairclough in analyzing online public comments responding to three Winnipeg incidents from the summer of 2008: the detainment of Robert Wilson, the inquest into the death of Matthew Dumas and the tasering death of Michael Langan. My main research questions are 1) what characterises these discourses? 2) what processes of social struggle are evident? and 3) what can this tell us about power relations and ideology in society? The analysis of 3342 comments demonstrates power dynamics in discursive struggles over the definition of the relationship between racialized group-members and the police. Specifically, a conservative discursive formation was found to have three interrelated ‘stages’: support for the police, denial of racism and mediating discourses of responsibilization/criminalization. The conclusion considers how a transformative discourse of racialized policing might mitigate prevailing justifications of racial privilege and inequality.