The aim of this study is to examine the framing of the issue of climate change in two swedish daily newspapers . 55 texts, 36 of which are from the morning newspaper Dagens Nyheter and 19 from the tabloid Aftonbladet go through a critical discourse analysis in terms of how they portray climate change itself, the actors involved, blame and responsibility for causing and alleviating the problem, possible solutions, system criticism as well as which ideologies and power relationships are supported by existing narratives. Louw's understanding of mass media as hype, Fairclough's perspectives on discourse, Strömbäck's perspectives on agenda setting and Palm's study of the factors behind news production have been central to the theoretical approach of the study, as have Machin and Mayr's work on critical discourse analysis. The results show that there are two main recurring discourses in the analysed material. One describes climate change as a threat. This narrative describes a struggle between civilisation and nature and places blame on all humans in a manner that closely relates to the christian concept of original sin. It is a discourse that emphasizes the following of rules and strict moral codes, naming those who do not follow the Swedish example as cheaters or villains while excluding non-civilized humans. The other, economic, discourse frames the problem of climate change as one of costs and incentives. The climate is given a monetary value, suggesting everything involved is as exchangeable as money. No alternative discourse challenges the two discourses, which interact and reinforce eachother, both legitimizing human domination of nature as well as current power relations in society.

This dissertation examines how we construct security threats. Theoretically, it contributes to the literature on securitization and threat construction, which has hitherto overlooked how influential bureaucracies that – in contrast to the police and the military – have little to gain from widened threat perceptions, may still contribute to threat construction. The dissertation studies the European Commission and the issue of irregular immigration. By using frame analysis, it firstly explores what constructions of irregular immigration that the Commission generates and to what extent these contribute to threat construction. Using the Bourdieusian concepts of field, capital and habitus, it secondly analyzes how certain constructions of irregular immigration are authorized at the expense of others, due to the inner bureaucratic logic of the Commission. The empirical result reveals that the Commission mostly defines irregular immigrants as victims, yet simultaneously favors policy solutions that mainly seek to avert immigration. The Commission thus contributes to threat construction primarily through its policy solutions. Studying the inner logic of the Commission field highlights how informal routines and tacit power relations between Commission departments authorize certain frames over others. Importantly, the analysis shows how the naming of irregular immigrants as victims tends not to cost the officials anything in terms of symbolic capital, whereas the suggesting of less restrictive solutions tends to do so. Definitions and policy solutions thus follow different bureaucratic logics, which enables a mismatch between them. Moreover, the threat construction appears not because Commission officials believe that restrictive measures are the only way to solve problems linked to irregular immigration. On the contrary, officials believe that a multitude of solutions are needed. Instead, the threat construction is an unintended consequence of the logic of the field.

This thesis examines the evolution of international humanitarian concern culminating in adoption of a Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) banning these weapons in May 2008. It is based on systematic analysis of official documents, extensive interviews, participant-observation, and several bodies of international relations (IR) theory. Part I explains the research methodology and discusses the theoretical context for the thesis. It is argued that several core assumptions of rationalist-materialist approaches to IR theory impede understanding of the CCM's emergence, and thus the thesis adopts an interpretivist framework. The four chapters of Part II analyse international efforts on cluster munitions including prior, failed attempts to restrict cluster munitions, the emergence of an international campaign from 2003, ensuing activity involving states, international organisations and civil society, and the CCM's eventual negotiation involving more than 100 states. Part III marries this empirical account to theoretical analysis of four thesis propositions. It is concluded that non-state actor-engendered processes of evidence collection and analysis, learning and frame alignment were central to the Oslo process's emergence. The Oslo Declaration's particular humanitarian framing (to ban cluster munitions causing unacceptable harm to civilians) and the structure of the subsequent 'define-and-ban' discourse permitted convergence between states over prohibiting these weapons. Nevertheless, they contain implications for other international efforts aimed at controlling means of armed violence.

This research proposes that design and visual thinking in combination with narrative theory contribute to enhance knowledge of innovation processes and support managers in their work. In particular, the focus is on the use of Storyboarding to support a better definition of a project’s brief. Innovation studies have shown that the initial phases of innovation processes (typically called the “front end of innovation”) are crucial for success. A proper definition of a brief, that occurs at the front of the front end, is therefore one of the most relevant events in innovation. This study investigates the early phases of innovation by developing and evaluating a new method for developing a brief. First, an explorative approach has been used in order to develop knowledge of challenges in the front end of innovation and how design thinking, visual thinking and narratives can bring new insights in teamwork. In this explorative search the use of case studies has been employed. Then, the explorative search has focused onthe use of Storyboarding as a tool for reflection, and in particular for igniting dynamics of framing and reframing of innovation problems. Finally, in order to create a deeper knowledge in the use of storyboarding three hypotheses has been evaluated, four experiments has been conducted with the involvement of more than 60 people defining innovation briefs. In these experiments, storyboarding (visual and narrative) has been used to support “thinking” that leads to the brief. In other words, storyboarding has been seen as a process to enable innovation teams to think differently or more precisely, rather than just a tool to represent or to communicate the brief. The experiments show that using storyboarding has effects that can support innovation management. First, storyboarding is useful if management wants to “stimulate” a reflection on meaning when developing a brief, i.e. when they want an innovation team to consider both utilitarian and emotional/symbolic factors in an innovation process. Second, Storyboarding brings a narrower focus, compared to traditional written briefs, within the “area of interest” brought up by management, which sometimes may be asked for when the organization is in search for reframing the direction of innovation. / Denna avhandling föreslår att design och visuellt tänkande i kombination med narrativ teori kan bidra till en bättre förståelse och ledning av innovationsprocesser. Framför allt med fokus på användningen av storyboarding för att stödja en bättre definition av ett projekts uppdragsbeskrivning, eller som det kallas en ”brief”. Tidigare innovationsforskning har visat att de inledande faserna av innovationsprocesser (vanligen kallad “the front end of innovation”) är av avgörande betydelse för att innovationer skall nå framgång. En ordentligt utformad ”brief”, formulerad tidigt, i de inledande faserna av innovationsprocessen är således en av de mest relevanta händelserna för framgångsrikt innovationsarbete. Denna forskning bidrar till kunskap i de tidiga faserna av innovationsprocessen genom att utveckla och utvärdera en ny metod för att utveckla en ”brief”, storyboarding. Först så har en explorativ metodik använts för att skapa förståelse för de tidiga faserna av innovation och hur metoder och teorier från design, visuellt tänkande och narrativ kan ge nya insikter i teamarbete. I denna explorativa del så har fallstudier använts som forskningsstrategi. Därefter så har mitt sökande efter förståelse fokuserats på användningen av storyboarding som ett verktyg för reflektion, och i synnerhet att formulera och omformulera inramningen av möjligheter för innovation. Slutligen, för att skapa en djupare förståelse av storyboarding, så har tre hypoteser utvärderats med hjälp av ett antal experiment med mer än 60 personers deltagande där team utvecklar en ”brief”. I dessa experiment så har Storyboarding använts för att stödja teamens “tänkande” för att utveckla en ”brief”. Med andra ord så har Storyboarding setts som en process för att möjliggöra för team att tänka annorlunda eller mer exakt, snarare än bara ett verktyg för att representera eller för att kommunicera en ”brief”. Experimenten visar att användningen av Storyboarding har ett antal effekter som kan stödja ledning av innovation. För det första kan vi se att Storyboarding kan vara användbart om man vill “stimulera” reflektion kopplat till innebörd (meaning) när man utvecklar en ”brief”, dvs. när man vill att ett team ska överväga både funktionella så väl som känslomässiga/symboliska faktorer i en innovationsprocess. För det andra så skapar storyboarding en ”smalare” definition, jämfört med traditionella skriftliga ”briefs”, inom det av ledningen valda fokusområde. Detta kan vara önskvärt när ledningen söker efter nya möjligheter för innovation.

The majority of earlier studies on media and the environment have concentrated on media contents, effects, and associated problems and limitations. The focus here on 'approaches to improvement' advances research in this field a step forward. This research proposes three broad 'approaches to improvemen' and undertakes four case studies to provide an exploration of their potentials. First is the 'educational approach' of building journalists' knowledge. Two cases studies illustrate the high potentials of this approach. Assessment of a mid-career training initiative in environmental reporting reveals positive impacts on journalists' knowledge, reporting skills, and job satisfaction. Evaluation of a university journalism module on sustainability shows increases in students' understanding of the meaning and multidimensional nature of sustainability, and their appreciation of the need for enhancing public awareness through media coverage. Second is the 'social responsibility approach' of media receptiveness towards a more responsible role in communicating these issues. An analysis of newspersons' views reveals partial support for this approach – although they were somewhat unreceptive to media environmental policies as a way of expressing social responsibility, they tended to be receptive towards an educative role. However, journalistic routines and norms may restrict an educative approach to news reporting. Third is the 'message framing approach' of employing effective and persuasive communication strategies in the framing of mediated information to influence understanding and perception. An experimental assessment of an information campaign on 'sustainable consumption', designed based on this approach finds some increases in community understanding and concern; thus, illustrating the potentials of this approach. Finally, drawing from the findings of the case studies and other observations in the literature the study identifies the interdependencies between the three approaches and the interconnected network of other influencing factors that are likely to determine their success – thus providing a clearer perspective of their viability in the real world.

To the vast majority of people, the terms “sustainability” and “sustainable development” are unfamiliar, and, when they are recognized, there is still a great deal of interpretability as to their significance. Since no consensus exists regarding these terms, communication efforts to promote action and awareness among citizens must invariably “frame” the issue of sustainable development in one way or another. By and large, most communication strategies promote small private-sphere actions relevant to patterns of consumption. While these small actions are helpful, participatory, collective, public-sphere activism towards sustainability is much more potent and desirable. In attempting to engage this type of participatory action, communicators must understand the psychological barriers that are likely to confront their efforts. Communication professionals recognize that one such barrier, that of perceived, or, psychological distance, from issues of non-sustainability is especially pernicious. This paper attempts to apply Construal Level Theory (CLT), which provides “an account of how psychological distance influences individuals’ thoughts and behavior” (Trope et al. 2007) to the design of communication strategies for participatory sustainable development. After providing a thorough review of CLT, the authors examine the many ways that the theory can contribute to the design of communication strategies for participatory sustainable development.

The role of grievances in drawing public concern and activist support is a surprisingly understudied topic in modern social movement literature. This research is the first to parse grievances into core components to understand whether some grievances are more successful than others in evoking mobilizing, affective and cognitive reactions that can ultimately benefit social movements. I find that not all grievances are created equal when it comes to concern, support and interest in activism, and that the content of grievances can be studied in systematic ways to identify the types of grievances likely to be more powerful injustice events. This dissertation bridges social psychology and social movements by applying concepts from Affect Control Theory (such as evaluation ratings and deflection) to grievance evaluations. To understand the differential effects of grievances, I break grievances into three basic building blocks—a Perpetrator (Actor), the act itself (Behavior), and the victim (Object). I then use measures of cultural perceptions of the goodness or badness of behaviors and identities to investigate how people react to different configurations of good or bad perpetrators, behavior and victims in injustice events. I posit that two mechanisms—concern about the wellbeing of others and desire for consistency in meanings about the world—drive reactions to the goodness or badness of elements in a grievance. I test hypotheses using an experimental design, specifically a vignette study. I find strong support, across outcomes, that bad behavior, particularly when directed toward good victims, constitutes a form of grievance that promotes strong mobilizing, affective and cognitive reactions. I also find that the perpetrator matters for many outcomes, but that the effect of perpetrator is weaker than the effect of behavior and its target, tends to be insignificant for measures specific to behavioral activism, and largely disappears in cases of bad behavior toward good victims. In general, bad perpetrators produce higher levels of concern and emotion than do good perpetrators. The results also show that while concerns about the wellbeing of others dominate grievance evaluations, expectations about how the world should be (and deflection from those expectations) are useful for understanding reactions to perpetrators and to injustice events involving good behavior. The conclusions from this dissertation contribute to a number of social movement arenas, including participation, movement outcomes, framing and emotions. Further, it has the real world implications of suggesting how well particular social issues might fare in attracting public concern and activist attention. This provides insights into both the types of movements more likely to be successful as well as the types of social problems less likely to draw public attention, increasing the chances that such problems persist.

What has become known to the world as the Baby Veronica case (2009-2013) involves several parties including the biological father, Dusten Brown, who is a Cherokee citizen, the Non-Native adoptive parents, the Capobiancos, the Cherokee Nation, and most importantly the baby who is now a child getting ready to start school, Veronica. It is a complex child custody case, but one that is well supported in Federal Indian Law and Policy with the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) of 1978 and Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians v. Holyfields (1989). In the beginning of the Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl et al case (or famously known simply as the Baby Veronica case), the South Carolina Family Court and Supreme Court used the legalese of the ICWA to uphold the biological father's parental right to stop the adoption of his child. However, in an interesting turn of events the case was then taken up by the United States (U.S.) Supreme Court where it was ruled that the biological father was not an Indian parent as defined by ICWA (before the child was placed with the prospective adoptive couple there was no preexisting custody of the newborn child by the father) and stating that state law applied and not ICWA in this case and since the father was not married to the birth mother and had not paid child support he was not deemed a parent by South Carolina’s definition of the word. The most recent decision came from the South Carolina court stating that Baby Veronica, after two years of living with her father, must be returned to the prospective adoptive parents. Most everyone out there felt sadness for the prospective adoptive couple who had loved and provided for this child for two years, but all adoptive/foster parents know there is always a chance for the natural parents to object to the placement (it is called legal risk in child welfare). Each state sets their own laws on how long the natural parents have to change their mind, but in this case the biological father was not even aware that the biological mother was planning on giving the child up for adoption. Once he discovered the adoption, four months after the child was born and had been living with the Capobiancos since birth, he filed a petition to stop it and regain custody. This action would lead to a four year long custody battle. While it is important to look at all the facts and the history of the ICWA (and now the future of the ICWA) this dissertation focuses mostly on the public perception of the case. This case has received a fair amount of media coverage throughout the United States including a one-hour episode on Dr. Phil which aired on CBS. It is not often that something happening in Indian County makes it to mainstream media/attention, but when it does there is usually a great deal of misunderstanding on the issue. This is also true for most of the coverage and public responses from the media. This time around it was also true of the U.S. Supreme Court who focused too much attention on Dusten Brown’s blood quantum and not his cultural upbringing. Further the majority of the Supreme Court Justices held that the problems that existed pre-ICWA are not really a problem anymore which is reverberated through the public's perception. It is the intention of this dissertation to follow and analyze the media and the public of this particular case and the ICWA in general through the theories of framing and Red Power. In the social sciences framing is the social construction of a social phenomenon (the Baby Veronica case) by mass media sources (newspapers and television shows), political or social movements, political leaders (Chief John Baker of the Cherokee Nation), or other actors and organizations (National Indian Child Welfare Association). The individual's perception of the facts and meaning attributed to words or phrases will be influenced by some or all of these entities. A frame creates rhetoric in a way that can either encourage or discourage certain interpretations. Stereotypes are one example of framing and are seen in the Baby Veronica case especially as people try to define what it means to be Cherokee. Red Power can be seen as a frame, but is also an American Indian theory that links ethnic pride and political activism to a resurgence of Indian identity. There was a lot of ethnic pride and political activism that took place in favor of Dusten Brown retaining custody of his daughter which no doubt heightened the Cherokee Indian identity, but unfortunately in this case this resurgence would not be enough to keep Veronica, now at the age of four, living with her biological father. However, this dissertation will conclude with some possible recommendations for the Indian Child Welfare Act and the future of American Indian child custody cases.

This study aims to contribute to the understanding of ideology conveyed by lexical items and framing of texts. Since ideology is embedded in language the frames used in newspapers construct a narrow ideological perspective for the readers to interpret subjects and events through. On the basis of editorials from The Washington Post and The Washington Times that cover President Barack Obama, the study examines how the editorials differ in their framing of Obama and which discourses and keywords occur unusually frequently in each newspaper. Findings suggest that when it comes to framing, The Washington Post allows for a relatively balanced perspective on Obama as they both support and criticise him, while The Washington Times overwhelmingly condemns and attacks Obama. A keyword analysis points to unusually frequent discourses on race, conservatives and reforms in The Washington Post, and spending, unemployment and political institutions in The Washington Times. Because of their ideological differences the newspapers construct a reality where the subject, Obama, is presented in very different ways.

No description available.