Uppsatsen undersöker den konstvetenskapliga diskussionen angående  rimligheten i att läsa in moraliska budskap i holländsk genrekonst från 1600-talet. Detta görs utifrån en diskursanalytisk metod med fokus på textanalys. De texter som behandlas är skrivna av konsthistoriker under 1980- och 1990-talet och belyser tolkningsfrågan ur olika synvinklar. / This thesis investigates the art historical debate about whether or not it is reasonable to assume the presence of moralistic messages in Dutch seventeenth-century genre art. The study is conducted according to a discourse analytical method with emphasis on textual analysis. The texts chosen for analysis were written during the 1980s and 1990s by art historians who advocate different standpoints.

Les jeunes sont considérés par les pouvoirs publics comme une population particulièrement touchée par les conduites à risque, mais aussi comme un public difficile à atteindre par des messages de prévention. Les jeunes se détourneraient de cette logique de prévention pour de multiples raisons, dont le fait de considérer que leur capital santé est inépuisable ou encore que les questions de prévention ne les concernent pas encore. Face à ces difficultés et freins, ces dernières années ont vu apparaître, dans le domaine de la prévention en santé des jeunes et plus précisément dans le domaine de la communication sur la prévention des risques auprès des jeunes Français, un certain nombre d’actions sociales publiques qui s’opposent à la prescription forte, mais qui vont chercher une logique de co-construction des messages, c’est-à-dire qui essaient de faire passer le message préventif en associant le récepteur-destinataire dans la construction du message. Cette thèse vise à comprendre ce que sont véritablement ces nouvelles initiatives qui se veulent de co-construction des messages et comment elles fonctionnent : une attention particulière est portée à la manière dont se fait et se représente ce travail de co-construction des messages, sur les caractéristiques qui la décrivent le mieux et en quoi celle-ci contribue réellement à la construction du sens par le récepteur-destinataire. Elle articule, d’une part, une approche théorique basée sur une analyse de la littérature qui traite des populations juvéniles, de la santé des jeunes, des transformations du journalisme et du rapport entre jeunes et médias et, d’autre part, une approche empirique centrée sur un examen de trois objets distincts, qui mettent en évidence la tentative de trouver le moyen de faire passer le message préventif en associant le récepteur : les magazines pour adolescents, la Mission du bureau de la vie étudiante de l’IUT de Lannion et le dispositif de prévention rennais le Prév’en ville. Au cœur de cette double approche thématique (état de l’art et état social), ce sont les formes de co-construction des messages qui apparaissent, avec leurs logiques, leurs incertitudes, leurs tensions et leurs contradictions, mais toujours avec cette singularité qui est la leur : laisser la place au récepteur-destinataire, laisser la culture des récepteurs s’exprimer. / Young people are considered by the public authorities as a population who is particularly affected by at-risk behaviors, but also as a difficult audience to reach with preventive messages. Several reasons can explain why young people turn away this logic of prevention. Firstly, they think that their health capital is inexhaustible. Secondly, they feel that prevention issues do not concern them. Faced to these difficulties and these obstacles, some new initiatives are recently appeared and try to transmit preventive messages by associating the receiver in the construction of the message. This study aims to understand what are truly these new initiatives of co-construction’ messages. Special attention is paid to how co-constructed messages work, to characterize this phenomenon and to know how the co-constrction contributes to the understanding of the meaning by the receiver. It takes two approaches. The first one is theorical and is based on the analysis of the literature that deals with young people, youth health, transformations of journalism and the relationship between young people and the media. The second one is empirical and is based on the study of three examples:Teen magazines, Prév’en ville in Rennes and the “Bureau de la vie étudiante de l’IUT de Lannion”. At the heart of this dual approach, different forms of co-construction’ messages appear with their logics, their tensions and their contradictions, but always with their singularity: respecting the receiver and encourage the expression of the receiver’s culture.

A typical automobile system consists of many Electronic Control Units (ECUs) for the purposes of safety, comfort, and entertainment applications. FlexRay is a high bandwidth protocol for such automotive requirements, which facilitates communication between distributed ECUs. This thesis addresses some of the issues associated with the design and implementation of the FlexRay protocol. The number of ECUs that are used in automobiles has an increasing trend to implement more functionality, which demands more bandwidth. By minimizing bandwidth requirements for servicing a given workload of periodic and sporadic real-time tasks, one can connect more ECUs to the same FlexRay bus. With this motivation, the first part of this thesis proposes new algorithms for minimizing bandwidth usage of ECUs in both the static and the dynamic segments of FlexRay. FlexRay provides a time-triggered static segment for the transmission of time critical periodic messages. The static segment consists of a fixed number of static slots each with a fixed duration. The duration of the static slot and the number of slots are design parameters which need to be fixed so as to meet all the deadline requirements of the workload in the application. The static slot duration can be minimized by packing the signals into message frames, while respecting scheduling constraints. Since message frames also contain overhead information, the duration of message frames can be optimized by proper signal packing, based on the network utilization constraints of individual ECUs. The thesis proposes a novel algorithm for packing of signals into message frames and fixing the static slot duration so that the total duration of the static segment is minimized. The dynamic segment of FlexRay caters to the transmission of event-triggered signals. A novel algorithm has been proposed to obtain the minimum duration of the dynamic segment while meeting the deadline constraints of all sporadic messages in their worst-case arrival instances. We also extend all these algorithms to the case of slot multiplexing scheme provided by FlexRay 3.0. Modern automobiles provide infotainment and in-car telemetry functions, which produce a high volume of soft deadline messages. This makes the problem of analyzing scheduling algorithms for such traffic important. The dynamic segment of the FlexRay cycle is used for transmission of such soft deadline messages. The second part of this thesis addresses the issue of analyzing the quality of performance in servicing of the soft deadline tasks in the FlexRay protocol. Two quality measures, namely, the average delay in servicing of the soft deadline tasks and the fraction of tasks that miss their deadlines, are considered. The generation of different soft deadline messages is modeled as independent Poisson processes. The generated messages are queued in different queues and are serviced according to pre-assigned priorities for different queues as per the FlexRay protocol. By analyzing this multiple queue model under some mild assumptions, upper bounds on the arrival rates for different messages are derived so that all the queues are stable. Analytical expressions are also derived for average delay and for deadline miss ratio. The correctness of these approximate analytical expressions are demonstrated through simulation studies.

This dissertation reports on an exploratory study investigating the potential of recorded audio media (i.e. audiocassettes/CDs) as a method of health communication in South Africa. The investigation examines recorded audio media as an alternative to printed brochures. People need access to information in order to make informed decisions about their health. In South Africa, the high HIV/AIDS infection rate is a case in point. The literature review deals with the accessibility of information in terms of physical accessibility (whether the receiver can find, operate and use the communication medium); and semantic accessibility (whether the receiver understands the message disseminated via the medium). Through the review, it was discovered that, where necessary, information must then be repackaged from an inaccessible to an accessible and appropriate format. Factors like visual disabilities, low levels of literacy and low reading proficiency, can render printed information inaccessible. This study discusses and researches the feasibility of recorded audio media (audiocassettes/CDs) as an alternative to print-based brochures by means of a comparative literature review and empirical study. Selected HIV/AIDS brochures (developed by the Department of Health) and similar recorded audio messages were evaluated amongst the target audience in order to compare the comprehension of the messages, the accessibility and acceptability of both media forms. The study was conducted at four public health clinics, where individual structured interviews and focus group interviews were employed as data collection methods. The data was analysed by means of qualitative content analysis. The findings indicate the definite potential of the use of recorded audio media in health and HIV/AIDS communication, and should be explored further. The comprehension of the audio messages was better than that of the printed brochures indicating the semantic accessibility of the audio messages. The positive reaction of the research participants toward the recorded audio messages also indicates the acceptability of the medium. Incorporating audiocassettes into the media mix of HIV/AIDS and other development and/or health communication campaigns, will contribute to the overall effectiveness of the communication strategy. / Dissertation (MA (Development Communication))--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Information Science / unrestricted

This dissertation reports on an exploratory study investigating the potential of recorded audio media (i.e. audiocassettes/CDs) as a method of health communication in South Africa. The investigation examines recorded audio media as an alternative to printed brochures. People need access to information in order to make informed decisions about their health. In South Africa, the high HIV/AIDS infection rate is a case in point. The literature review deals with the accessibility of information in terms of physical accessibility (whether the receiver can find, operate and use the communication medium); and semantic accessibility (whether the receiver understands the message disseminated via the medium). Through the review, it was discovered that, where necessary, information must then be repackaged from an inaccessible to an accessible and appropriate format. Factors like visual disabilities, low levels of literacy and low reading proficiency, can render printed information inaccessible. This study discusses and researches the feasibility of recorded audio media (audiocassettes/CDs) as an alternative to print-based brochures by means of a comparative literature review and empirical study. Selected HIV/AIDS brochures (developed by the Department of Health) and similar recorded audio messages were evaluated amongst the target audience in order to compare the comprehension of the messages, the accessibility and acceptability of both media forms. The study was conducted at four public health clinics, where individual structured interviews and focus group interviews were employed as data collection methods. The data was analysed by means of qualitative content analysis. The findings indicate the definite potential of the use of recorded audio media in health and HIV/AIDS communication, and should be explored further. The comprehension of the audio messages was better than that of the printed brochures indicating the semantic accessibility of the audio messages. The positive reaction of the research participants toward the recorded audio messages also indicates the acceptability of the medium. Incorporating audiocassettes into the media mix of HIV/AIDS and other development and/or health communication campaigns, will contribute to the overall effectiveness of the communication strategy. / Dissertation (MA (Development Communication))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Information Science / MA / unrestricted

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore and describe how the developmental asset framework could be used to conceptualise HIV/AIDS message framing. LoveLife media messages (as gain-framed HIV/AIDS prevention messages) were purposefully sampled. Qualitative content analysis allowed loveLife media messages to be analysed through coding, categorisation and memoing. The analysis process revealed core values and developmental assets portrayed in gain-framed HIV/AIDS prevention messages. Core values identified included, love, respect (portrayed least), dignity (portrayed most) and responsibility. Internal assets identified included, achievement motivation, school engagement, responsibility, integrity, restraint, honesty, planning and decision making, resistant skills, personal power, sense of purpose, self-esteem and positive view of personal future., External assets identified included, family support and positive family communication. Responsibility and personal power, were portrayed most and honesty together with family support, and positive family communication, least. Broadcast messages portrayed the most developmental assets and outdoor messages the least. Correlations were found between core values love, dignity, and responsibility, and the identified developmental assets. Insight was gained into three potential roles developmental assets could play in framing HIV/AIDS prevention messages. Firstly, developmental assets could serve as a source of enablement to make youth aware of strengths they could utilise to foster well-being. Secondly, developmental assets could direct incorporation of positive psychology principles in designing HIV/AIDS prevention messages. Lastly, the study revealed that the developmental asset framework could be used in conjunction with the theory of message framing in designing HIV/AIDS prevention messages. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Educational Psychology / unrestricted

Unsafe driving habits increase the severity of roadway accidents. The behaviors that are generally associated with unsafe driving are influenced by drivers and their decision to engage in dangerous habits. In order to solve this problem, Departments of Transportation use roadside safety campaigns. To gain a comprehensive understanding of the effectiveness of these campaigns, this research study captured five different metrics of effectiveness to understand what messages are effective and how to target messages to different groups of people. Since reading and interpreting the messages produces cognitive activation among participants, a neuroimaging technology called functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) was used to measure neurocognitive activation as a proxy for response. The fNIRS system captures this cognitive activation by measuring change in oxygenated blood (oxy-Hb). An increase in oxy-Hb is a proxy for increased task engagement. The first journal paper provides an understanding of what types of messages are perceived as effective, are misunderstood, are memorable, are considered inappropriate, and cause the greatest increase in cognitive engagement. Overall, drivers perceive messages to be effective at changing behavior, but particular messages are perceived as more effective than others. Messages about distracted driving and driving without a seat belt, messages that are intended to produce a negative emotional response, and messages with statistics are the behaviors, emotions, and themes that are most likely to be perceived to change driver behavior. Messages about distracted driving and messages about statistics are most likely to be remembered by drivers. In general, drivers do not find messages used in safety campaigns to be inappropriate. Drivers elicit more cognitive attention to signs about distracted driving and signs with a humorous emotion. The second journal considers the effectiveness of these messages with different target demographics by further investigating the first journal's results by different dependent variables, including age, gender, and risky driving habits of the participants. In the second study, the results from the first study are further examined to determine if some campaigns are more effective among different demographics of drivers. The behavioral results indicated that females, drivers over 65, low-risk and high-risk drivers, and urban and rural drivers perceive the safety campaigns as more effective. The neurological data revealed that younger drivers had more activation in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, an area known for semantics and word processing, which might indicate more cognitive attention to these types of messages. This study provides a unique application of using neuroimaging techniques to understand driver response to safety messages. The recommendations for an effective safety campaign are to use messages about distracted driving, messages with an emotional stimulus, and messages about statistics. Messages about word play and rhyme are recommended for appealing to younger demographics. / Master of Science / Messages like "New year, new you, use your blinker" and "May the 4th be with you, text I will not" are increasingly used to catch drivers' attention. The development and use of these non-traditional safety messages are distinctly different than messages previously displayed on highway signs because the intent of these messages is to modify driver behavior rather than just provide information. Unfortunately, there is little empirical evidence measuring how effective these messages are at changing driver behavior or guidance on how to target messages for specific groups of people. The goal of this study was to understand what types of non-traditional safety messages are effective and how to target these messages to different target audiences. Roadway collisions are made more severe when the cause of the incident involves dangerous driving habits, such as distracted, impaired, or aggressive driving. The problem is made even more severe by the fact that the habits that make driving dangerous are affected by the driver's decision to engage in risky driving behavior. The solution to this problem is to gain an understanding of driver preferences and response, a research effort this study will address. Reading and interpreting the messages produces cognitive activation among participants. The study uses functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), which allows researchers to capture this cognitive activation by measuring change in oxygenated blood (oxy-Hb). This provides not only the ability to gain a more detailed understanding of driver response, but the ability to triangulate this with what drivers perceive as effective in changing driver behavior. In the first study, the participants felt that campaigns targeting distracted driving, messages with a negative emotion, and campaigns about statistics were significantly more effective at changing driver behavior compared to other behaviors, emotions, and themes. The neurological data revealed that drivers respond more to campaigns about distracted driving. However, the neurological data indicates that humorous messages and messages that fit under the theme word play and rhyme elicit a greater cognitive response. The second study furthers the first study and revealed that females, drivers over 65, low-risk and high-risk drivers, and urban and rural drivers perceive the safety campaigns as more effective. The neurological data revealed that younger and older males and older high-risk drivers respond with greater peak oxy-Hb when compared to other groups of people. This study advances the applicability of fNIRS in traffic related studies.

Master of Science / Department of Psychology / Laura A. Brannon / Self-monitoring was examined as a moderator of the effectiveness of persuasive messages for reducing college student binge drinking. Low self-monitors tend to be influenced by their personal values and attitudes, while high self-monitors tend to be influenced by the behavior of those around them. Via a website simulation, college students were presented with one of three types of anti-binge drinking messages: a self-schema message, which highlighted how responsible drinking is consistent with the message recipient’s personal values and attitudes; a social norms message, which explained that most college students drink less than one might think they do; or a control message, which stated in general terms that people can experience a variety of problems from binge drinking. Overall intended drinking behavior in the self-schema message condition was almost identical to that of the social norms message condition, both of which were lower than drinking intentions in the control message condition. When presented with a self-schema matched message, low self-monitors intended to drink less alcohol than did high self-monitors, but these means were not significantly different. However, high self-monitors intended to drink significantly less than did low self-monitors when presented with a social norms message. The results suggest that self-schema matched messages may be effective at reducing binge drinking for most students, and that social norms messages may be equally as effective but only for high self-monitors.

Objects can evoke our most vivid memories and sensory emotions, through the stories that have been engraved into them across their lifetime. Throughout history, patchwork-quilting has been used to tell stories, hide messages and hold histories. They are seen as objects of warmth, comfort and security, inanimate extensions of ourselves that store our most complex sentiments and memories- becoming heirlooms that are kept in the families and communities for generations, preserving our histories and material culture.    I intend to explore the inseparable relationship between craft and narrative within quilts, whilst re-imagining the quilts forms and functions in order to communicate stories more vividly. To do so I will use my memories of My Dead Dog, Henry, to illustrate narratives and embed them into quilted objects to stage as a tableau of artifacts. I intend to encourage the viewer to realise the imagined, through a haptic experience of my material world, whilst simultaneously creating my own heirlooms that can be passed down so my stories are not forgotten. / <p>The full thesis contains copyrighted material</p><p>which has been removed in the published version</p>

The present study investigated the influence of receiver sex on supervisor’s feedback message choice, and the influence of the interaction between receiver sex and feedback message type on employees’ subsequent behaviors and attitudes. Participants (N = 45) included a representative sample from a reputable organization in the southeastern United States. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected using a survey methodology. This mixed-methods approach revealed that while participants in this study rated the overall atmosphere of the performance evaluation as positive and informal, the interaction between receiver sex and feedback message type did have a statistically significant influence on their perceived utility of the feedback message, retention of the feedback message, and motivation to implement the feedback. In addition, women in this sample reported receiving significantly different types of feedback than did men. Therefore, supervisors should ensure that both men and women receive more task performance related feedback messages in order to increase employees’ perceived utility of the feedback message, retention of the feedback message, and motivation to implement the feedback.