The 2014 Ebola Outbreak which is still ongoing in Sierra Leone and Guinea, in West Africa, have caught the attention of media globally. By exploring the coverage of the outbreak within the concept of global crisis reporting and global journalism as news style, this study compares two newspapers, one based in South Africa (The Mail & Guardian) and the other one from the United Kingdom (The Guardian). How we define ’global crisis’ from different media systems that cut cross, these two media motivate the study to dig in to explore similarities and differences in the Ebola news coverage from Cottle’s and Berglez’s point of views. A content analysis was used to analyze news story articles (text) published in both newspapers. A census selection of 72 articles from both “Mail & Guardian” and “the Guardian” digital newspapers was applied. The selection of articles was based on the news stories article published within the two months (July and August 2014). The time frame used was a critical moment for the outbreak since it had started expanding to other countries. Through the analysis, both notions of global crisis and global journalism as news style has been identified in the 2014 Ebola coverage.

In the last twenty years, the way in which individuals consume news about politics has changed. As the internet becomes increasingly accessible, convenient, and inexpensive, more consumers than ever before choose to get their news online. As this migration continues, an understanding of online news consumption becomes increasingly important to the study of media systems. There are several ways in which the internet can be truly transformative - this thesis investigates some of these claims as they pertain to the comparative study of media systems. The primary dimension of analysis presented here investigates the internet's role in facilitating the homogenisation, or convergence of domestic media systems. Using a historical institutionalist approach, this thesis examines internet news in the United States and the United Kingdom, two cases at the centre of this debate. To adequately reflect the diversity present in online news consumption, this project uses a dataset comprised of news stories about two national election campaigns accessed via search engines, news aggregators, and social media. The analysis presented here demonstrates the complexity of the online news environment, highlighting key areas like source distribution and regional news content where path dependency has persisted despite the transition to online news, and those areas such as regional news sources where distinguishing between the two cases is more difficult. Where this is the case, the thesis explores alternative the explanations of Americanisation and technological determinism. Variance between Google, News360, and NewsWhip data collected for this thesis demonstrates how the way in which consumers get their news influences how converged or path dependent the media system appears.

Like many developing countries, and for many years, Morocco has sought the help of television to disseminate development ideas to its citizens. The Moroccan government has recently given policy considerations to regulate the use of television and radio airwaves as important outside sources for promoting its development objectives. The newly assigned importance of television in Moroccan developmental policies makes a study on the relationship between television and development interesting and crucial. This study investigates the extent to which the Moroccan public service television meets the challenges of effectively contributing to the development objectives of the nation. It focuses on the two government-owned public service television stations, Radiodiffusion et Television Marocaine (RTM) and Soread 2M. Based on initial observations, the general hypothesis is that television programming decisions in the two public television stations are influenced by the elite class that wants more entertainment and has less need for educational programs than their rural and urban-poor counterparts. Concerning methodology, the study uses three main areas in critical media studies: content analysis, production analysis, and audience analysis. The study conducted a quantitative and a qualitative content analysis of a sample of Moroccan produced programs to examine the developmental themes addressed by the two public service television stations. Concerning the production study, the study carried out a critical assessment of the current choices undertaken by the TV producers in the two public service television stations through conducting in-depth interviews with media executives. The third important area is audience reception. Addressing this area helps tackle these research questions from both 'sides' of the screen, examining the issues from the perspectives of both the broadcasters and the audience. The audience reception study assesses the opinions of television viewers on the quality of Moroccan produced programs and their perceptions on the public service provided by the two TV stations. The audience study uses focus groups as a standalone data-gathering strategy. Finally, the study offers a list of recommendations for the use of TV for development.

Den här uppsatsen belyser hur Tysklands förbundskansler, Angela Merkel, representerades i svenska och spanska nyhets- och opinionsartiklar på webben mellan datumen 3 januari 2011 och 29 december 2012. Merkel blev en allt viktigare politiker inom EU i och med eurokrisen som tog fart år 2008, då Tyskland var ett av de länder som gav mest pengar till de stödlån som EU utfärdade till bland annat Spanien. Idag anses Angela Merkel vara en av Europas viktigaste politiker, främst då Tyskland som ekonomisk stormakt inom EU har ett stort inflytande vad gäller beslutsfattanden i EU-frågor. Vi analyserade fyra tidningar med olika politisk bakgrund: Aftonbladet, Svenska Dagbladet, El País och ABC. Studien baserades på en kvantitativ innehållsanalys kombinerat med en kvalitativ textanalys. Den kvantitativa undersökningen fungerar som en översikt och belyser hur stor plats rapporteringen om Angela Merkel tar upp i svenska och spanska webbtidningar, under vilka kategorier artiklarna faller in samt vilken narrativ roll Merkel tillskrivs. Begreppet "narrativ roll" kommer från Van Gorp, som menar att nyhetsmedier, medvetet eller omedvetet, kan tillskriva människor en viss roll genom artikelns utformning, vilket i sig påverkar läsarens uppfattning om dessa. I den här studien användes de konstruerade rollerna skurk, hjälte eller neutral, som pekar på olika sätt att beskriva Angela Merkel genom språklig utformning. I den kvalitativa delen analyserades åtta artiklar för att på ett djupare plan se hur språkliga grepp som ordval, stil, faktaurval, metaforer och disposition av materialet påverkar framställningen av Angela Merkel i nyhetsartiklar på webben. Som referensram användes Lundgren, Ney och Thuréns massmedieretoriska modell. Vår förförståelse var att ländernas olika sociala och politiska bakgrund och förhållanden till Tyskland skulle avspegla sig i medierapporteringen Undersökningen visade däremot att Angela Merkel oftast tillskrevs en neutral roll i nyhetsartiklarna, både i spanska och svenska webbtidningar och oavsett tidningarnas politiska bakgrund. I opinionsmaterialet framställdes hon oftast som skurk, även om hon nästan lika ofta tillskrevs en neutral roll. Studien analyserades utifrån Strömbäcks gestaltningsteori och Hallin och Mancinis teori om olika mediepolitiska system i västvärlden.

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In the news media environment, the systemic relationship between the media and public is reflexive, where the media shape public life and vice versa. This dissertation centers on explaining the relationship between the media environment and news consumers in media systems in five countries that share similar sociocultural values, namely Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Kuwait. This study identified state intervention as an influential factor that alters news consumers’ perceptions of the credibility and quality of news content as well as their consumption habits. This dissertation conducted a multinational survey of Twitter news consumers in order to investigate a range of issues relating to news consumers with a fuller consideration of the media system (structure) as a significant tool that can help understand news audiences’ behavior and attitudes towards the news. Findings suggest that the level of state intervention in the media landscape shapes participants’ attitudes and behaviors toward news. Participants who experience a high level of state intervention steer clear of the regulated traditional media outlets, want to obtain news independent from the government, and perceive a very low level of credibility and quality of traditional media. When it comes to participants from a country with greater press freedom, they perceive traditional media outlets as more credible with higher quality content than Twitter because they believe that their government does not interfere with the flow of news. The overall relationship between media systems (structures) and news consumers (agents) arises in the nature and kind of state intervention that must be taken into consideration if one is to grasp news consumers’ attitudes and behavior in these gulf countries. / Media & Communication

<p>This thesis covers the investigation of different content sources on the Internet and the analysis of the requirements they put on a set-top box. It also covers the adaptation of the set-top box to one of these sources. </p><p>An IP based set-top box (IP-STB) is mainly constructed for access to TV and video distributed over a high speed network. The IP-STB is also connected to the Internet and it potentially has access to all of the Internet based content. This could provide the user of the IP-STB with a lot of new services and was the stating point for my thesis work.</p><p>The goal of this thesis was to make a broad investigation of different content sources on the Internet and to adapt an IP-STB to one of them. </p><p>The investigation focused on streaming media content and how it was distributed over the Internet. It resulted in a representative overview of the streaming media content available and how the content is distributed. The IP-STB was adapted to handle the Streaming HTTP protocol which made it possible to listen to web radio transmissions from Sveriges Radio and other providers using the same protocol for their distribution.</p>

This thesis covers the investigation of different content sources on the Internet and the analysis of the requirements they put on a set-top box. It also covers the adaptation of the set-top box to one of these sources. An IP based set-top box (IP-STB) is mainly constructed for access to TV and video distributed over a high speed network. The IP-STB is also connected to the Internet and it potentially has access to all of the Internet based content. This could provide the user of the IP-STB with a lot of new services and was the stating point for my thesis work. The goal of this thesis was to make a broad investigation of different content sources on the Internet and to adapt an IP-STB to one of them. The investigation focused on streaming media content and how it was distributed over the Internet. It resulted in a representative overview of the streaming media content available and how the content is distributed. The IP-STB was adapted to handle the Streaming HTTP protocol which made it possible to listen to web radio transmissions from Sveriges Radio and other providers using the same protocol for their distribution.

Problem statement and purpose of the study Journalism is having economic issues, and the journalists knowledge of this together with tools for web analysis has increased the influence of the audience. The development of internet and the new media landscape has made several scholars call for changes in media ethics, but still not much has happend. The larger influence of the audience makes it interesting to examine how it views media ethics. Recently there has also been signs of an age segregation in media consumption where younger people are using new technology and platforms, which do not have an adjusted ethic system, and the older people are using the more traditional technology, which the media ethics originally was made for. Therefore this study also examines how the view differs in a younger and an older part of the audience. Method and material This study relies on three focus groups with participants from the swedish news audience. To be able to examine a possible age segregation in the view on media ethics, two of the groups consisted of younger participants and the third group consisted of older participants. Results The results of this study can be viewed as a sign of that the younger part of the audience is prepared to take a more individual responsibility for media ethics than the older part. This could for example be done by practicing source criticism. The results also indicates that the existing ethics system in Sweden is still supported by the audience

Les Systèmes d’Aide au Vote (SAV) comparent, sur des enjeux variés, les positions des utilisateurs avec celles des partis ou des candidats qui sont établies à partir d’une analyse de contenu de leur programme électoral. Les SAV sont un outil d’analyse novateur à usage des politistes puisqu’ils leur permettent de récolter des données empiriques à grande échelle tout au long d’une campagne électorale. L'objectif principal de cette thèse est d'utiliser les données collectées par les SAV afin d’analyser la diffusion d’un site Web à caractère informatif et politique, i.e. les SAV, auprès des internautes dans des systèmes médiatiques différents. Cette thèse teste l'hypothèse selon laquelle l'utilisation des SAV par différents groupes d'électeurs (électeurs partisans, hésitants et indécis) varie selon les systèmes médiatiques. Les analyses des données collectées par des SAV dans sept démocraties électorales représentant trois différents types de systèmes médiatiques (Democratic Corporatist, Liberal et Pluralist Polarized) montrent que les systèmes médiatiques structurent les comportements et influent sur le degré d’exposition à des informations politiques en ligne. Le second apport de cette thèse est l’utilisation des données collectées par un SAV pour l'analyse électorale, notamment pour l’étude du vote sur enjeux et des dynamiques de campagne. Plusieurs analyses sont réalisées dans cette thèse à partir des données recueillies par le SAV français de La Boussole présidentielle. Cette thèse montre que, bien qu’étant non-probabilistes, les échantillons SAV sont très informatifs à condition d’être intégrés dans un cadre de recherche approprié et d’ajuster les biais statistiques. / Online Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) are websites or online applications that show voters which party or candidate is closest to their own political ideas based on how they mark their positions on an ample range of policy issues. In addition to providing voters with reliable information in a structured manner, VAAs are an innovative data-collection tool on issue positions and on a wide set of other indicators. The main scope of this dissertation is to use VAA-collected data to learn about online information exposure during campaigns across media systems. Building on the realistic view of the Web’s political potential and its impact on the public, this dissertation test the hypothesis that VAA use by different voter groups (partisan, doubting and undecided voters) varies across media systems. The analyses of VAA-collected data in seven electoral democracies across three different types of media systems (Democratic Corporatist, Liberal, and Polarized Pluralist) show that media systems are key mediators to explain online information exposure. The second scope of this dissertation is to use VAA-collected data for the sake of electoral analysis, in particular to study issue-voting and campaign dynamics analyses. Several analyses are carried out using data collected by the French VAA of La Boussole présidentielle. This dissertation shows that, despite being non-probabilistic, VAA samples can serve as a very informative tool for the study of political and communication processes during electoral campaigns if integrated within an appropriate research framework and with the use of proper statistical adjustment.