In today's digital era, the way we receive, share, and interpret information has evolved dramatically due to technological advancements and shifting social dynamics. The Web 2.0 era has revolutionized communication, transforming it into an interactive exchange between content creators and audiences. This shift has empowered individuals to engage actively with information, rather than just consuming it passively. Audiences, now seen as active participants, interpret content based on their demographics and preferences, influenced by media ownership and distribution channels. Digital media platforms, particularly social media and streaming services, provide new avenues for audience engagement and participation.  Despite extensive research on digital media audiences and consumer behavior, there is a notable gap in understanding the perspectives of digital advertising professionals on their audiences. These professionals shape consumer behavior and act as intermediaries between business entities and audiences. This study examines how advertising professionals perceive their audiences through the concept of imagined audiences. By examining the formation of imagined audiences, communicators can tailor their messages to resonate with diverse audiences across various platforms. This study utilizes qualitative methods, specifically semi-structured interviews with digital advertising professionals in Indonesia, to explore their perceptions of imagined audiences. Drawing on theoretical frameworks such as Goffman's impression management, Cooley's looking-glass self, and symbolic interactionism, this research aims to provide insights into impression management practices and enhance the effectiveness of advertising efforts in the digital landscape.

After the change of their country’s political and international statuses, post-colonial and respectively post-communist individuals and collectives develop feelings of alienation and estrangement that do not involve physical dislocation. Eventually, they start imagining their national community as a collective of individuals who share this state. Paraphrasing Benedict Anderson’s definition of the nation as an “imagined community,” this study identifies this process as “imagined exile,” an act that temporarily compensates for the absence of a metanarrative of the nation during the post-colonial and post-communist transitions. This dissertation analyzes and compares ten English Canadian and Romanian plays, written between 1976 and 2004, and argues that they function as expressions and agents of post-colonial and respectively post-communist imagined exile, helping their readers and audiences overcome the identity crisis and regain the feeling of belonging to a national community. Chapter 1 explores the development of major theoretical concepts, such as nation, national identity, national identity crisis, post-colonialism, and post-communism. Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 analyze dramatic rewritings of historical events, in “1837: The Farmers’ Revolt” by the theatre Passe Muraille with Rick Salutin as dramaturge, and “A Cold” by Marin Sorescu, and of past political leaders, in “Sir John, Eh!” by Jim Garrard and “A Day from the Life of Nicolae Ceausescu” by Denis Dinulescu. Chapter 4 examines the expression of the individual and collective identity crises in “Sled” by Judith Thompson and “The Future Is Rubbish” by Vlad Zografi. Chapter 5 explores the treatment of physical and cultural borders and borderlands in Kelly Rebar’s “Bordertown Café”, Guillermo Verdecchia’s “Fronteras Americanas”, Petre Barbu’s “God Bless America”, and Saviana Stanescu’s “Waxing West”. The concluding chapter briefly discusses the concept of imagined exile in relation to other investigations of post-colonial and post-communist dramas and reviews some of the latest perspectives of national identity, reassessing this study from a diachronic perspective.

The objective of this thesis was to examine the effectiveness of contact and imagined contact (a derivative of direct contact) in reducing intergroup prejudice when the prejudice in question is deemed socially acceptable. Studies focused on two populations that are targets of socially acceptable, prejudice – people suffering from schizophrenia in the U.K., and homosexual men in Jamaica. These target groups were selected because they are similar in that they are both targets of socially acceptable prejudice, but also because of their differences in that the stereotypes associated with them are quite dissimilar. The first part of the thesis empirically tested the assumption that the aforementioned populations are targets of socially acceptable prejudice. Two cross-sectional studies, one of which was also cross-cultural, measured motivation to control prejudice against these target groups, and compared it to motivation to control prejudice against targets of socially unacceptable prejudice. I found that motivation to control prejudice against people with schizophrenia in the U.K. was lower than motivation to control prejudice against Black people in the U.K. Also, motivation to control prejudice against homosexual men was higher in the U.K. and the U.S.A. than in Jamaica, and differences in motivation to control unspecified prejudice were significantly smaller. The second part examined the association between actual contact and prejudice for both populations. Two cross-sectional studies, one of which was also cross-cultural, found that contact was associated with less prejudice. This effect was mediated by intergroup anxiety in all cases, and also by fear in the case of people with schizophrenia. Furthermore, I found that contact was more strongly negatively associated with anti-homosexual prejudice in Jamaica, where the prejudice is socially acceptable, than it was in Britain, where the prejudice is not socially acceptable. The third part tested the effect of imagined contact, a form of extended contact, on prejudice against people with schizophrenia. Four experimental studies demonstrated that imagined contact can be an effective means of reducing prejudice against this group. However imagined contact must be conducted in very specific ways, otherwise it has the potential to increase prejudice against people with schizophrenia.

It is now widely accepted that the experience of pain is subject to cognitive influences that may determine the severity of subjectively perceived pain. Many of these top-down factors rely on memory-based processes, which in turn are related to prior experience, learned beliefs and behaviours about pain. As such, memory for pain heavily contributes to the physical pain experience. We posit that pain memory is bidirectional in that following each painful event a trace is stored and that these traces in turn may modify future pain perception prospectively. The following body of work explores aspects of what we have termed a memory template for pain. The results of these chapters taken together, examine these bidirectional aspects of short-term memory for pain employing a recall pain task. Specifically, we explore how, after an acute pain event, a short-term mental representation of the initial event persists. We show that during this time, sensory re-experiencing of the painful event is possible. Furthermore, we investigate aspects of recalled pain, namely intensity and vividness. Data suggests that the intensity and the vividness of this mental representation are determined by the intensity of the initial stimulus, as well as the time-to-test delay. We identify regions that characterise short-term memory for pain. Following on from studies in motor and visual imagery, we explore how pain imagery in the form of recall may affect subsequent pain perception. Our results demonstrate that the inclusion of pain-related imagery preceding physical pain events reduces affective qualities of pain. Testing healthy, naïve subjects, we replicate the effect observed in studies using attention management and imagery strategies, which normally require extensive training. Finally, in a cohort of neuropathic pain patients we show significant reductions in white matter connectivity between areas responsible for working and prospective memory. Collectively, these studies emphasise and elucidate the role of short-term memory of pain in physical pain perception. Acting both retrospectively and prospectively, cognitive reinforcement can increase or decrease the subjective feeling of pain, and therefore manipulating how pain is recalled may have therapeutic potential.

Le décret royal du 1924 est souvent considéré le point culminant de la campagne séfardiste du sénateur espagnol Ángel Pulido. Il s'agit d'une initiative qui reflète l’ambiguë de toutes les dynamiques espagnoles envers les Séfarades. La loi de 2015, relative à l’octroi de la nationalité aux descendants des juifs expulsés au XV siècle, et le décret royal de 1924 ont été choisis respectivement comme le point d'arrivée et le point de départ de ce travail. Durant cette période, a eu lieu une série d'événements qui ont constitué l'épine dorsale de cette communauté imaginée appelée Sefarad. Sefarad correspond à un espace indéfini résultant d'une erreur d'interprétation biblique. Cependant, pendant des siècles l'idée de Sefarad a continué à être associée à l'espace géographique connu comme l'Espagne et, à partir de la seconde moitié du XXe siècle, le gouvernement espagnol s'est de plus en plus identifié à cet espace idéal. Ce processus de superposition vise à soutenir les intérêts nationaux. La loi de 2015, ainsi que le décret royal de 1924, sont deux initiatives qui s’adressent à l'opinion publique internationale plutôt qu’aux Séfarades. Ces deux lois sont révélatrices d'une tendance politique espagnole basée sur des argumentations séfardistes. L'objectif de ce travail est donc de montrer comment le gouvernement espagnol, à travers la reproduction de cette rhétorique séfardiste, a réussi à reconstruire une communauté imaginée connu comme Sefarad. / The Royal Decree of 1924 is often considered the culminating point of the campaign of Spanish senator Ángel Pulido. It’s an initiative that reflects the Spanish ambiguity towards Sephardim. The law of 2015 concerning the granting of nationality to descendants of Jews expelled in the XV century and the Royal Decree of 1924 were respectively chosen as the starting point and the end point of the present work. During this period, there was a series of events that have been the backbone of this imagined community called Sepharad. Sepharad corresponds to an undefined space resulting from a biblical misinterpretation. However, for centuries the idea of Sepharad continued to be associated with the geographical area known as Spain. From the second half of the twentieth century, the Spanish government has increasingly identified himself with this ideal space. This superposition process aims to support the national interests. The law of 2015 and the Royal Decree of 1924, are two initiatives addressed to the international public opinion rather than Sephardim. These two laws are indicative of a Spanish political tendency based on sephardist argumentations. The purpose of this work is to show how the Spanish Government, through the reproduction of this sephardist rhetoric, managed to rebuild an imagined community known as Sepharad.

This thesis documents my exploration of professional development of four experienced English language teachers of diverse background taking the MA TESOL programme at the University of Manchester. Having considered professional development to be about change construed broadly to professional identity and teacher beliefs, I explored it through a series of individual in-depth interviews held throughout the programme. The majority of the interviews focused on the teachers' ongoing life and development and allowed the teachers space to make meaning of what they were going through and how they were developing as they engaged in the programme. On the basis of the interviews, stories about the teachers and their year were constructed. Within the stories, I synthesized what I had learned about the teachers' experience and highlighted the changes that I could see had happened to their professional identity and teacher beliefs. The stories provide a vivid example of professional development of experienced English language teachers through a master's degree. They also bring to the fore the significance of future-directed thoughts for how teachers develop professionally, which is rarely acknowledged in the existing literature. I further use the stories as a ground to conceptualize professional development of the four teachers to account for the important role their thoughts about the future played in it. Using the concepts of imagined identity and antenarrative, which I borrow from the literature, I describe it as an iterative pursuit of an ever-evolving imagined identity, or identities, and antenarrative, or antenarratives. Finally, I examine the cases using the conceptualization as a lens and offer some further insights about professional development in TESOL.

<p>“Fröknarna von Pahlen”, is a series of novels written by the author Agnes von Krusenstjerna. Especially the fourth and fifth parts, published in 1933, raised questions about sexuality, especially about what was conceived as perverse and provoking descriptions. “Fröknarna von Pahlen” became a part of heated debates about what is acceptable to write about. How can the so called Pahlen feud be understood from an intersectional perspective, and from a focus on values, and by discussing imagined communities? The purpose is to find out what is going on in these debates. Six different values are being pointed out; art and skill, truth, freedom of speech and freedom of the press, the value in the young, the value in female perspectives, and moral values. There is a number of knot points tied to these values, and differentiating processes such as sex, class, age, ethnicity, religion etc. are all intertwined in these debates. From an intersectional understanding, none of these processes are more primal than another. The knot points are both of an emotional nature and thematic. The individual voices that emerge in the feud are named small narratives, and the more intersubjective narratives are called grand narratives. These narratives are being investigated rhetorically; for instance how some stories can appear more as truths than others, and it is analyzed how they separate people in groups and create hierarchies. They are also being seen from an emotional perspective; how individual feelings are a part of emotions, larger contexts and meaning coherences. These feelings are also understood as actions. Throughout the investigation there is a hermeneutic will to make things intelligible, and respect and point out the many different perspectives. This is being made in a cultural relativistic attempt. By focusing on imagined communities, different comradeships and groups in the feud can be pointed out. People can consider themselves parts of these groups, but they can also, more or less involuntarily, be considered as parts of these groups. In the writers opinion, the most important question is how “extreme” sexual descriptions an author is allowed to bring forth.<em></em><em></em></p>

Sports fandoms can form a key site of identity formation, particularly as they gather and merge numerous threads of identity, including gender, socio-economic status, and civic affiliation. The connections formed between members of the fandom, the fandom and the team, and the fandom and the place in which it is grounded can be a strong force for social cohesion. This cohesion becomes particularly relevant during times of crisis, when some turn to sports as a unifier. However, these relationships can also be fraught with tensions, within the group and without. Forces such as nostalgia and the ‘othering’ of those outside the group become import methods in creating and sustaining these Andersonian “imaginary communities” of fans, mitigating difference. In examining this process of identity creation, two cities were chosen for their intense team attachments: Pittsburgh and Baltimore. Qualitative analysis of discourses surrounding the teams in these cities reveals the complex ways in which nostalgic fantasies about the team and its relationship to the city are created and maintained, hierarchies of space and time are formed, and the identity of the community is shaped by its relationship to team and city. Analysis of the sporting landscape, created through a complex network of material culture, media, and the repetition of certain fantasy themes, reveals how geography is complexly implicated in the production of sporting fandom. / text

This study aims to gain greater knowledge about the use of framing in local sports journalism. We did this by doing a qualitative content analysis of the local Swedish newspaper Barometern/OT and it’s coverage of the largest local football team, Kalmar FF. We randomly selected six of the team’s games during 2014 and analysed all the texts that had to do with the games, except for shorter texts and texts that are supposed to be based on personal opinions, such as chronicles. The results show that Barometern/OT have a tendency of defending individual players and giving them positive criticism, while they much more often give negative criticism to the team as a whole. Also, we found signs that Barometern/OT contributed to creating a local imagined community by having a incomplete use of names at a few times, amongst other factors. Because of these observations we noticed that the editorial staff both contributed to creating a local imagined community and that they were a part of it themselves.

After the change of their country’s political and international statuses, post-colonial and respectively post-communist individuals and collectives develop feelings of alienation and estrangement that do not involve physical dislocation. Eventually, they start imagining their national community as a collective of individuals who share this state. Paraphrasing Benedict Anderson’s definition of the nation as an “imagined community,” this study identifies this process as “imagined exile,” an act that temporarily compensates for the absence of a metanarrative of the nation during the post-colonial and post-communist transitions. This dissertation analyzes and compares ten English Canadian and Romanian plays, written between 1976 and 2004, and argues that they function as expressions and agents of post-colonial and respectively post-communist imagined exile, helping their readers and audiences overcome the identity crisis and regain the feeling of belonging to a national community. Chapter 1 explores the development of major theoretical concepts, such as nation, national identity, national identity crisis, post-colonialism, and post-communism. Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 analyze dramatic rewritings of historical events, in “1837: The Farmers’ Revolt” by the theatre Passe Muraille with Rick Salutin as dramaturge, and “A Cold” by Marin Sorescu, and of past political leaders, in “Sir John, Eh!” by Jim Garrard and “A Day from the Life of Nicolae Ceausescu” by Denis Dinulescu. Chapter 4 examines the expression of the individual and collective identity crises in “Sled” by Judith Thompson and “The Future Is Rubbish” by Vlad Zografi. Chapter 5 explores the treatment of physical and cultural borders and borderlands in Kelly Rebar’s “Bordertown Café”, Guillermo Verdecchia’s “Fronteras Americanas”, Petre Barbu’s “God Bless America”, and Saviana Stanescu’s “Waxing West”. The concluding chapter briefly discusses the concept of imagined exile in relation to other investigations of post-colonial and post-communist dramas and reviews some of the latest perspectives of national identity, reassessing this study from a diachronic perspective.