Master's thesis. / Format: PDF. Bibl.

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

Originally published as the author's dissertation (doctoral)--Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. i-vii [second set of roman numerals]) and index.

The purpose of this qualitative study is to analyze the dominant propaganda strategies that were reflected in an hour-long program of Radio Martì, a broadcast produced on behalf of Voice of America in the United States and aired to Cuba. Through propaganda techniques, a content analysis was used to determine which strategies were present in the commentator's coverage of the program, El Dia de la Prensa Libre on May 3rd, 2012. This study uncovered propaganda strategies, including testimonials, flag-waving, glittering generalities, appeal to prejudice, image manipulation, over-simplicity, assertion, and third party technique, that were utilized in an effort to present nuanced perspectives on the broadcasts transmitted on Radio Martì. The use of these strategies demonstrates that the program continues to use propaganda when broadcasting to Cuba after the conflict of interest incident with the United States and Radio Martì in 2006. Beyond the analysis of this broadcast, the results of this study cannot be generalized, but they can be viewed as an exemplar of the broadcast's stance on propaganda messages to Cuba on behalf of American journalists.

This thesis assesses and explains the effectiveness of the legal regime for government transparency in China, with a focus on the legislative and judicial protection of citizens’ right of access to information (ATI), through a combination of normative doctrinal analysis and empirical investigation. In 2007, China promulgated the Regulation on Open Government Information (ROGI),which implicitly created a general and legally enforceable ATI right, thereby establishing a regime akin to the freedom of information (FOI) regimes that prevail in many countries worldwide. However, this nascent regime appears to have had mixed, and rather confusing, effects. Existent assessments of the regime’s effectiveness have concentrated either on the ROGI text or on data concerning bureaucratic performance and the extra-legal factors affecting that performance, but have failed to consider sufficiently the perplexities and peculiarities of the Chinese legal system that bear heavily on the ROGI’s operation. This thesis constitutes an attempt to make both substantive and methodological contributions to research in this field. The thesis is organized into three main areas. First, it analyses the relation between the ruling Communist Party’s policies and the making of local and national transparency legislation. It finds that the legislative endorsement of an ATI right resulted from several of the Party’s reform goals, which include not only the facilitation of economic prosperity and social progress but also the fostering of government accountability and public participation. These goals, although with respective limitations, overlap with the values underlying FOI law. Second, it examines the labyrinth of Chinese laws, regulations and other legal norms that regulate the disclosure of government information, particularly the ROGI and Law on Guarding State Secrets, and evaluates them against international best practice standards on FOI law. It finds that the overall legislative framework lags behind international standards, largely because it fails to stipulate a presumption of disclosure and contains multi-layered restrictions on access, thereby leaving administrative organs with an enormous degree of discretion. Third, it reviews 169 judicial decisions collected through methods specially designed to ensure their representativeness. It distils the major trends in the interpretations made and rules set by the courts and finds that, by placing restrictions on access to court, imposing a need test, failing to scrutinize state secret claims, deferring to administrative discretion in applying exemptions and avoiding injunctive relief, the courts have further reduced the normative scope of the ATI right. It argues that this inadequate judicial protection is caused not by limitations on judicial power with respect to that right, but primarily by the abandonment of duty on the part of most courts, which have either misapplied the law or deviated from the guiding cases and legal doctrine that maintain the coherence of laws and judicial autonomy. Owing to the combined effect of a weak legislative framework and largely impotent judicial protection, the ATI right has been virtually deprived of its function to enable the citizenry to monitor and check the government. It has also failed to fulfil its potential in protecting citizens’ personal and property rights. In this regard, China’s ATI right falls far short of a genuine right to freedom of information. These findings provide a necessary basis for a more accurate assessment of China’s open government information regime and a more perceptive comparison of this peculiarly Chinese regime with the FOI regimes of other countries. They also shed new light on the operation of judicial review in China. Furthermore, they indicate the barriers that must be overcome in future reforms to achieve a genuine FOI environment and highlight the interconnectedness of any such reform measures. / published_or_final_version / Law / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

This dissertation examines the impacts of shifting federal and state regulation on localities and on their efforts to extend public access to new technologies by exploring how libraries, diverse community sites and commercial hotspots have configured their services and programs in Austin, Texas in the last decade. Historically, regulation to ensure public access to communication and information systems have been regarded in the United States as an expression of government's concerns about preserving the public interest in the media. Since the early 1990s, diverse policy initiatives promoting public access to information and communication technology (ICT) sought to fulfill ideals of equity and democracy in the information age. However, an increasing preponderance of neoliberal ideology in current policy discourses, coupled with the explosive growth of high-speed, mobile networks, and individual-based, social software applications are challenging traditional notions of public access in communication policy. Since 2002, federal and state governments have ended a decade of direct government support to local, non-profit and community-based programs that facilitated public access to ICT. Over the same period, they have increasingly pursued a market-oriented approach to broadband access through the unlicensed spectrum, encouraging private enterprises to provider WiFi and wireless services to consumers in restaurants, airports, and other public places. Such changes bear significant implications for issues of governance, participatory democracy and equity in the information age. The comparative case study of Internet access initiatives in Austin seeks to answer three interrelated questions. First, how has public policy facilitating the transition toward convergent media environments framed public access to information and communication technologies (ICT)? A framing analysis of federal, state and local regulation of public ICT access indicates increasing fragmentation of policy discourses on access. Second, what are the main characteristics of the field of public access to ICT in an American technopolis? Austin, a modern American Technopolis and pioneer of Internet access in the country serves as a site to assess the impact of fragmented regulation on public ICT access. Third, how has public access to new technology through the unlicensed spectrum been conceptualized by different access cultures in a shifting regulatory environment? A survey of Wi-Fi hotspots in Austin, interviews with stakeholders and secondary data are employed in analyzing how non-profits, private firms and the local government are configuring high-speed Internet access through the unlicensed spectrum.

Freedom is a fundamental concept for anarchism; but what does that mean, exactly? What sort of freedom do anarchists seek, and how do they hope to realise this freedom? Starting with the premise that such questions, though vital to the anarchist project, have mostly been ignored, this thesis argues that the basic libertarian impulse of anarchism is in need of a critical analysis. Such an analysis, however, highlights a number of problems with the anarchist demand for a world without domination, so anarchist understandings of ethics, and of power, are explored in search for answers. However, anarchist approaches to ethics and power prove to be equally problematic, and serious doubts are raised about the potential for anarchism to provide a world where freedom is absolute, and, conversely, where all forms of coercion are rejected. One possible response to this is to be found in the contemporary support for consensus-decision making, which many anarchists argue has the potential to resolve conflict; however, it is argued that far from offering a response to the concerns raised in previous chapters, the possibilities of consensus must be seen to be greatly reduced, once such concerns are properly taken into account. Unable to live up to its libertarian promises, anarchism may appear to have reached a dead-end. However, the thesis concludes by arguing that anarchism s prefigurative approach to politics, as well as its sustained critique of hierarchy, offer both radical and realisable possibilities for creating a world of much greater equality and freedom even if such freedom can never be absolute. In accepting the limits of anarchism, its possibilities can be seen more clearly.

This dissertation consists of three essays on Finance and Innovation. The first essay argues that openness of research inputs can enable greater exploration of new research lines, particularly by academic researchers. We test this hypothesis by examining a natural experiment: NIH agreements that reduced the access costs imposed on academics regarding certain genetically engineered mice. We find that increased openness encourages the exploration of more diverse research paths, and does not reduce research into the creation of new genetically engineered mice. Overall, our findings highlight a neglected cost of strong intellectual property restrictions: lower levels of exploration leading to a reduction in the diversity of research output. The second essay analyzes clustering in firms’ layoff behavior and its links to financial markets. We develop a model in which managers delay layoffs during good economic states to avoid damaging their reputation. We test the model’s predictions by comparing the layoff behavior of publicly-listed and privately-held firms, and find that the layoffs of public firms are twice as sensitive to recessions. In addition, we find that the firms which cluster layoff announcements at high frequencies are also more likely to engage in mass layoffs during recessions. Our findings suggest that reputation management is an important driver of layoff policies both at daily frequencies and over the business cycle, and can have significant macroeconomic consequences. The third essay explores the relationship between funding availability and innovative output. I develop a theory of credit constraints in multi-stage research, and predict that greater funding leads to both transitions into the private sector and a shift toward shorterhorizon projects. Analyzing the patent output of a panel of life-science researchers linked to top universities, I find that greater funding availability leads to an increase in transitions from academia to the private sector and a higher quantity of patent output, but a decrease research value, innovative scope, and the time horizon of subsequent applications. These results indicate that profit-motivated funding not only increases the quantity of innovation, but also leads to a significant shift in the type of projects being pursued.

Η παρούσα διπλωματική εργασία πραγματεύεται το θέμα της Παιδικής Ελευθερίας. Εξετάζει επί της ουσίας, τη δυνατότητα των μαθητών να είναι ελέυθεροι μέσα στην εκπαιδευτική διαδικασία. Αναλύει το κατά πόσο οι μαθητές μπορούν, στα πλαίσια της εκπαιδευτικής διαδικασίας και ιδιαίτερα σε πολυπολιτισμικά περιβάλλοντα, να εκφράζονται ελεύθερα, να αναπτύσσουν την προσωπικότητά τους χωρίς περιορισμούς, να ασκούν την κριτική τους ικανότητα, να εκφράζουν την ιδιαίτερη κουλτούρα τους και να συμμετέχουν ελεύθερα σε συλλογικές διαδικασίες στην τάξη. / The present thesis focuses on the issue of children's freedom. It is studied the possibility that students have to be free in the context of the educational process. It examines students' capacity into school in multicultural environment, to express their opinion in a free way, to develop their personality without limits, to be able to criticize situations, to express their culture and be able to take part in group processes into class.

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