This research will analyze the impact of bipartisan politics and the media's conflicting role in influencing public perceptions regarding national security issues. The central focus is on popular media narratives, critically examined as an impediment to fostering unified public solidarity or opposition regarding the enactment of controversial legislation. In light of the increase in geopolitical conflict and the pervasive nature of terrorism, this study attempts to analyze the media's public role versus the privacy of clandestine agencies whose policies, albeit controversial address critical national security concerns. As a result, the conflict inherent between institutional and public spheres provides the groundwork for discursive and objective analysis.Empirical data collection and critical analysis of relevant materials; academic journals, online archives and published works by individuals active in media and national security, provide the primary source of qualitative data. Research was primarily inductive. Analysis effectively combined data from various qualitative sources in an effort to justify the central hypothesis. Contemporary tragic events also provided a supplemental source of relevant content. It is important to note, such events resonate with the rationalization arrived at in the conclusion.The principle aim of this research was to address the question: Does the media's promotion of the bipartisan political agenda impede or enhance national security policies? In addition, is the role of the media reflective of state subservience or does the media actively challenge national security initiatives, e.g. curtailing of civil liberties, human rights violations and loss of constitutional freedoms? The analysis further subjected by cross-disciplinary inquiry and academic theories pertinent to achieving the principle aims of this research.The theoretical framework and methodology utilized was consistent with political discourse analysis (PDA), specifically textual, as all discursive elements were present within the collected source materials. Additional analysis utilizing mediatization and audience theories provides the proper contextualization within communicative and media studies. Contemporary events surrounding geopolitical conflict, race relations and terrorism in relation to the institutional and international response, provides further demonstrable results, which is commensurate with the overall conclusions of this study.The outcome and results of this research indicate that mainstream media provides both a support role, emphasizing status quo narratives concerning national and international political perspectives and policy, and also a contradictory role impeding domestic solidarity by exacerbating political division along the usual bipartisan lines. The specific focus on legislation that results in expanding judicial powers surrounding national security concerns. Such policies often interpreted as contrary to the preservation of domestic freedoms. These findings correlate with Couldry and Hepp's notions of institutionalist mediatization theory regarding the media as innately powerful agents of change, imparting influence on audiences and non-media actors.

Biblical and Ancient Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (Semitic Languages)

Biblical and Ancient Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (Semitic Languages)

No description available.

Considering that during the Baroque there was arguably nothing more enigmatic than the emblematic tradition, this thesis discusses how emblems played a role in the configuration of subjectivities in New Spain and, more precisely, in their production of symbolic imagery. Through the analysis of the poetic, political, and philosophical functions of the 1680 Neptuno alegórico (Allegorical Neptune), this this study discusses the concepts of "emblem,"ekphrasis"," "syncretism," and "neoplatonic tradition" in one of the most rethorical and multifaceted texts of the humanist writer and Hieronymite nun sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648-1695). / Graduate / mplundin@gmail.com

In recent years, terrorism and radicalization has been a consistent issue that many countries have faced. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has been the most recent in a long trail of organizations that have sought to strike terror against the western world. However, ISIS is distinguished from other groups, like Al-Qaeda, in that ISIS supports a complex propaganda machine. Although ISIS is not the first organization to use the social media platform, they are the first to use it with such diversity. The two main channels that ISIS uses to spread their propaganda messages are through social media sites such as Twitter and through online journals such as the Dabiq. Recent research has attempted to determine how recruitment messages are being received and which messages trigger recruitment. It is the goal of this paper to determine which messages are salient, and the psychological constructs that support them. By coding messages for appeals to identity, need for cognitive closure, time pressure, and appeals to ideology, the researchers expect that the two main channels of ISIS propaganda differ in their messages. We hypothesize that Twitter messages will be targeted towards novice ISIS sympathizers, whereas the Dabiq will be focused on already-radicalized individuals who have moved past the introduction of the radical ideology.

<p>The objective of this thesis is to design and implement a small scaleInternet Service Provider (ISP) for the NetCenter sub department atMälardalen University. The ISP is intended to give NetCenter a networkseparate from the University’s network, providing them with a moreflexible environment for lab purposes. This will give their students anopportunity to experience a larger backbone with Internet accessibility,which has not been previously available. At the same time it will place theteachers in control of the network in the NetCenter lab premises.The network is designed with a layered approach including an Internetaccess layer, a larger core segment and a distribution layer with aseparated lab network. It also incorporates both a public and a privateserver network, housing servers running e.g. Windows Active Directory,external DNS services, monitoring tools and logging applications. TheInternet access is achieved by peering with SUNET providing a full BGPfeed.This thesis report presents methods, implementations and results involvedin successfully creating the NetCenter ISP as both a lab network and anInternet provider with a few inevitable shortcomings; the most prominentbeing an incomplete Windows Domain setup.</p>

H.P. Blavatsky’s (1831-1891) Theosophy has been defined as central to the history of modern Western spirituality and esotericism, yet to this date no major study has mapped and analysed the major themes of Blavatsky’s writings, how Blavatsky used the concept ‘Theosophy’ or to what extent she was engaged with the intellectual contexts of her time. Thus the purpose of this thesis is to fill this gap. The proposed theoretical framework is based on the centrality of language in the production of intellectual products, such as texts—but contrary to the dominant focus on strategies, rhetoric and power this thesis will focus on the construction of meaning coupled with a set of methodological tools based on contextual analysis, intellectual history and intertextuality. In addition to an overview of Blavatsky research this thesis will map and analyse Blavatsky’s use of the concept ‘Theosophy’ as well as Blavatsky’s primary discourses, identified as: (1) discourse for ancient knowledge, (2) discourse against Christian dogmatism, (3) discourse against the modern natural sciences and materialism, (4) discourse against modern spiritualism, (5) discourse for system and (7) discourse for universal brotherhood. In mapping and analysing Blavatsky’s discourses, it was found that her construction of meaning was significantly interconnected with broader intellectual contexts, such as ‘modern historical consciousness’, ‘critical enlightenment ideas’, studies in religion, studies in mythology, the modern sciences, spiritualism, systemic philosophy, reform movements and practical ethics. It, for example, becomes clear that Blavatsky’s search for an ancient ‘Wisdom Religion’ was actually a part of a common intellectual occupation during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and that her critique of the Christian dogmas was equally a common intellectual trend. To read Blavatsky’s discourses as the idiosyncratic strategies of an esotericist, isolated from their larger contexts or only engaged with them in order to legitimise minority views would therefore largely fail to account for the result of this thesis: that in historical actuality, they were a part of the larger cultural web of meaning.

The objective of this thesis is to design and implement a small scaleInternet Service Provider (ISP) for the NetCenter sub department atMälardalen University. The ISP is intended to give NetCenter a networkseparate from the University’s network, providing them with a moreflexible environment for lab purposes. This will give their students anopportunity to experience a larger backbone with Internet accessibility,which has not been previously available. At the same time it will place theteachers in control of the network in the NetCenter lab premises.The network is designed with a layered approach including an Internetaccess layer, a larger core segment and a distribution layer with aseparated lab network. It also incorporates both a public and a privateserver network, housing servers running e.g. Windows Active Directory,external DNS services, monitoring tools and logging applications. TheInternet access is achieved by peering with SUNET providing a full BGPfeed.This thesis report presents methods, implementations and results involvedin successfully creating the NetCenter ISP as both a lab network and anInternet provider with a few inevitable shortcomings; the most prominentbeing an incomplete Windows Domain setup.

No description available.