This thesis examines the discourse strategies used to construct initiation schools in online media and message boards. The focus is on understanding the tensions that come with enacting traditional practices in the face of modernity and its associated cultural expectations. The thesis describes the manner in which these tensions are constructed in text by the media in news reports and participants in discussion forums. While there is still debate around whether the internet will revolutionise public participation and create a digital utopia; the internet is acknowledged as one of the widest reaching sources of information and entertainment. Specifically, the internet provides a platform to challenge the traditionally top-down communication between the elite, who have privileged access to the media, and the general public, who were previously constructed as passive recipients of information. Using the male circumcision initiation rite, this thesis examines how the South African public discursively constructs the epistemic location of African traditions in South Africa. The study drew on a sample of news articles from the News24 site, the largest news site in South Africa, ranging from January 2008 to December 2013. A corpus of 62 articles were analysed using the Critical Discourse Analysis technique described by Teun van Dijk. The findings of the thesis were that the initiation rite is used as a rhetorical tool to argue for the abandonment of African cultural practices in favour of modern, Western influenced beliefs and values. The findings also indicate that the initiation rite is reduced to the act of circumcision in the media by focusing on the injury and deaths of the initiates and excluding the meaning of the rite as a meaningful cultural practice. The conclusion of the thesis challenges the epistemicide committed against the male circumcision initiation rite from within the Decolonial school of thought, which critically examines everyday interaction for universalising, normative language that aims to commit cultural epistemicide to reinforce the white, male, European, Christian traditions of masculinity. / Psychology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Psychology)

This thesis examines the discourse strategies used to construct initiation schools in online media and message boards. The focus is on understanding the tensions that come with enacting traditional practices in the face of modernity and its associated cultural expectations. The thesis describes the manner in which these tensions are constructed in text by the media in news reports and participants in discussion forums. While there is still debate around whether the internet will revolutionise public participation and create a digital utopia; the internet is acknowledged as one of the widest reaching sources of information and entertainment. Specifically, the internet provides a platform to challenge the traditionally top-down communication between the elite, who have privileged access to the media, and the general public, who were previously constructed as passive recipients of information. Using the male circumcision initiation rite, this thesis examines how the South African public discursively constructs the epistemic location of African traditions in South Africa. The study drew on a sample of news articles from the News24 site, the largest news site in South Africa, ranging from January 2008 to December 2013. A corpus of 62 articles were analysed using the Critical Discourse Analysis technique described by Teun van Dijk. The findings of the thesis were that the initiation rite is used as a rhetorical tool to argue for the abandonment of African cultural practices in favour of modern, Western influenced beliefs and values. The findings also indicate that the initiation rite is reduced to the act of circumcision in the media by focusing on the injury and deaths of the initiates and excluding the meaning of the rite as a meaningful cultural practice. The conclusion of the thesis challenges the epistemicide committed against the male circumcision initiation rite from within the Decolonial school of thought, which critically examines everyday interaction for universalising, normative language that aims to commit cultural epistemicide to reinforce the white, male, European, Christian traditions of masculinity. / Psychology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Psychology)

Titel: Dyslexi, internet och stigma – en netnografisk studie av nätbaserad kommunikation hos personer med dyslexi Författare: Helena Taubner Handledare: Åsa Wengelin Examinator: Magnus Tideman Magisteruppsats (30 hp) i handikappvetenskap vid Högskolan i Halmstad, våren 2013 Uppsatsen är skriven på svenska. Vår kommunikation förändras ständigt, och internet är en viktig faktor i den utvecklingen. Nya sätt att effektivisera skriften, som till exempel förkortningar och specialtecken, växer fram. Vi blandar det skrivna språket med foton, filmer, ljudklipp och länkar. Normerna för vad som anses vara korrekt språk förändras. När omgivningens förväntningar på oss inte motsvaras av våra förmågor uppstår ett stigma. Detta är vad som händer för en person med dyslexi när kraven på läs- och skrivförmåga blir för höga. Vad händer när kommunikationen flyttas till den sociala miljö som internet utgör, med de nya normer som råder där? Studien behandlar följande tre forskningsfrågor: • Hur kommunicerar personer med dyslexi på nätet? • Hur resonerar personer med dyslexi om sin nätbaserade kommunikation? • Hur kontrollerar personer med dyslexi sitt stigma när de kommunicerar på nätet? Studien är en dubbel, kvalitativ fallstudie baserad på semistrukturerade intervjuer och netnografisk skuggning av två informanter, Andreas och Linda. Resultaten har analyserats med hjälp av begrepp från Goffmans teori om stigmatisering. Trots att Andreas har större svårigheter med att läsa och skriva än Linda, har han ändå ett mindre stigma när det gäller kommunikation på nätet, eftersom han mer medvetet kontrollerar sitt stigma. En avgörande faktor för båda informanterna är om nätforumet är synkront eller asynkront (det är omöjligt för dem att passera i synkrona forum). Studien visar alltså att graden av svårigheter att läsa och skriva inte nödvändigtvis styr graden av stigmatisering. / Titel (translated from Swedish): Dyslexia, the internet and stigma – a netnographic study of online communication in people with dyslexia Author: Helena Taubner Supervisor: Åsa Wengelin Examinator: Magnus Tideman Masters thesis (30 ECTS) in Disability Studies, University of Halmstad, Sweden, spring 2013 The thesis is written in Swedish. Our communication continually changes, and the internet is an important factor in that development. New ways of making writing more efficient, for example the use of abbreviations and special symbols are emerging. We mix written language with photos, films, sound clips and links. Norms for what is considered to be the correct use of language are displaced. When our abilities do not match society’s expectations, stigmatization occurs. This is what happens to a person with dyslexia when the demands placed upon them for their reading and writing abilities become too high. What happens when the communication moves into the online environment? The following three issues are addressed: • How do individuals with dyslexia communicate online? • How do individuals with dyslexia relate to their online communication? • How do individuals with dyslexia control their stigma when communicating online? The study is a two-part qualitative case study based upon semi-structured interviews and netnographic shadowing with two informants, Andreas and Linda. The results were analysed with reference to Goffman’s theory of stigma. In spite of the fact that Andreas has greater difficulties with reading and writing than Linda, he experiences less stigma in relation to communication, since he more consciously manages to control his stigma. A crucial factor for both informants is whether or not the online forum is synchronous or asynchronous (it is impossible for them to pass in synchronous forums). Hence, the study suggests that the degree of stigmatization does not necessarily correspond to the degree of difficulties with reading and writing.

This study is a critical analysis of translation-mediated Arabic news items on the “Arab Spring”. It explores the influence of social, historical, political, localic, and socio-ideological aspects of news translation via certain media agendas, by applying Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and qualitative descriptive methods in the analysis of the localised news items, interviews with translators, and a corpus of comments by the Arabic-speaking readership. The data analysed in this case study comprise a four-year (2010-2014) collection of news items that were localised by Al Jazeera and published on its website, as well as readers’ commentaries on said localisations, and interviews with two of Al Jazeera’s translators. Making use of this rich source of data, this study aims at finding answers for the questions: Are there discernible patterns in the translated texts? If so, how and for what purpose are they produced and re-produced through localisation in Al Jazeera’s translation-mediated Arabic news articles? Whose interests are served and whose interests are annulled by the reproduction and localisation processes? The three sets of data were thematically coded; then their most salient points and arguments were analysed. The localised news items were examined for clues to the localisation techniques, ideologies, and the agenda(s) of Al Jazeera. The readers’ comments were probed for the influence that the localised news items had on Al Jazeera’s target readership, and were examined to find out which of Al Jazeera’s ideologies resonate with which readers to form Al Jazeera’s target locale(s). The analysis of the interviews with Al Jazeera’s translators was undertaken with the aim of delineating the tasks of these translators, specifically to see to what extent journalism and translation meld, as suggested in much of the research done so far on translating news items. The tripartite analysis has provided a more comprehensive understanding of the processes involved in the production of translation-mediated news items as well as their effect on the readership. It also suggests relatively new insights into viewing the term localisation as a good alternative to acculturation in accounting for news translation. Within the umbrella of the social turn in translation studies (TS), this study suggests that current approaches to studying news translation question large-scale concepts such as culture and acculturation, and proposes they be replaced with the small-scale concepts of locale and localisation. Hence, this study suggests using localisation to extract and understand the underlying particulars of the processes involved in producing translation-mediated news items. The results of the analysis show that Al Jazeera ostensibly promulgates three major ideologies: anti-regimism, Islamistism, and pan-Arabism and embeds these ideologies in the messages it delivers to its target locales through the localised news items. The study concludes that Al Jazeera’s localisation techniques reflect the viewpoints of its benefactor the State of Qatar whose goal is to create a solipsistic identity that distinguishes it from its immediate rivalling neighbours within a dichotomy of the Same and the Other. These localisation techniques are driven by motives associated with the sociopolitical and sociohistorical circumstances of the founding of the State of Qatar and Al Jazeera.

This thesis aims to explore the video game medium in depth, to relate it to the stories foundon Internet communities about users’ gameplay experiences during burdensome moments inlife. To achieve that, the phenomena is explored through the lenses of Uses & Gratificationstheory by means of a netnography on the ‘/Persona 5’ official subReddit; interpreting, codingand analyzing all narratives that fit the criteria with the help of a proposed ‘USE’ system. Themodel is in charge of classifying the information into explicit displays of ‘Dissatisfaction’,‘Motivation’, ‘Immersion’ and ‘Emersion’. The resulting codification enabled the creation ofeight different types of reports among a sample of one-hundred threads, all in correlation withthe varied aspects of the game that act as categories. The data derived from the conclusions ofthis study shows that players are not motivated to use the video game for any other purposesthan mere entertainment. Yet, the immersive potential of the virtual world addressed theirdissatisfactions and made them emerge back to reality with, mostly, not-sought gratifications. Still, not all players were able to control their video game uses to regulate their emotions,further implying the importance to continue researching cases of media immersion toestablish guidelines of ethical design and appropriate production and consumption practices.