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This is a qualitative content analysis that explores the presence of government framing in political communications regarding environmental issues by governmental actors in Sweden and Poland. By analyzing policy documents, press releases, and equivalent content spanning recent years, the study aims to identify instances of "emphasis framing" deployed by official governmental entities.  The findings of the study identify distinct patterns in framing strategies between the two nations. Some of the key areas that shape the environmental narratives of both nations include Ambition, Just Transition, Economic Concerns, and Equality. However, the framing of these areas differs between the nations communications. Poland tends to center its communication on the challenges associated with climate change and energy transition, emphasizing strategies to mitigate adverse effects. In contrast, Sweden consistently accentuates the positive aspects of energy transition, positioning itself as a global leader in climate-friendly solutions.

Murphy, Eloise, The Heady Mix of the 2016 Presidential Election: Twitter, Power, Politics, Gender, and Journalism, Doctor of Philosophy (Media and Communication), May 2020, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA The 2016 US presidential general election was unusual for a variety of reasons. Politically, the candidates were new and different in that Clinton was the first woman to be elected Presidential nominee by a major political party, and Trump was brash and the Republican Party’s dark horse who had never held a political office. Also, Trump used Twitter to amplify political speech that was abnormal for a presidential candidate. Journalistically, the coverage of the candidates was strange because, in general, non-alt-right media organizations amplified Trump’s atypical rhetoric by providing Trump with an unprecedented amount of free media coverage. Also, in general, media organizations did not acknowledge or tiptoed around the bizarre nature of Trump’s rhetoric. This extraordinary display of political and journalistic abnormalities revealed an angry electorate divided into political, economic, and sociocultural factions. The confluence of abnormal political speech, by Trump on Twitter, as well as the media’s obsessive unfiltered coverage of Trump, led to the question this dissertation asks: How did candidate representation and media coverage of candidate representation comport with and push against political and journalistic norms in the 2016 presidential election? This dissertation employs qualitative methodology and performs a critical discourse analysis through a feminist lens to examine how each candidate communicated their identity, performed power, and expressed gender on Twitter. Also, the dissertation analyzed how national newspapers and Sunday morning political talk shows recontextualized the candidates’ tweets, and whether journalistic norms of like objectivity, were demonstrated. The goals of this dissertation are to explain how Trump and Clinton represented themselves as candidates and how Trump used Twitter as his foot soldier to violate political norms. Also, this research demonstrates that the media enabled, normalized, and legitimized Trump’s rhetoric by engaging in tacit co-conspiratorial agenda-setting with Trump, by binding and blinding themselves to Trump’s rhetoric, revealing that the press relinquished their role as a watchdog of government corruption and overreach. KEYWORDS: Political communication, Journalistic norms, Twitter, 2016 Presidential election, Gender / Media & Communication

We have acquired, over the last several decades, a fairly rich understanding of the impact on voter behavior of political communication in general and of political advertising specifically. Yet much of this knowledge pertains to “traditional,” candidate-centered elections; comparatively very little is known with regards to ballot initiative races. In principle, these contests pit not people, but proposed policies, against each other. In practice, however, they not only feature ads discussing policy, but also frequently comprise ads highlighting a measure’s supporters and opponents, be they individuals, non-profit groups, media outlets, industries, or political parties. This, in turn, leads to a basic query: what types of advertising message carry the greatest weight with voters in initiative contests – and how do they differ (if at all) from the effects they have in similar ads run in candidate-centered elections? Through an original experiment, this dissertation aims to break new ground in the voter behavior, media effects, and direct democracy literature by tackling this question. / Political Science

This dissertation contains a qualitative case study of how Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate, and her staff, created communication systems to contact Latinos during the 2016 presidential campaign and how these systems operated in Northeast Philadelphia. Three research questions guided these observations: How was political communication produced, disseminated, and decoded through interpersonal, mass, and digital communication by the Democratic candidate, her Latino communication staff, and Northeast Philadelphia Latino residents during the 2016 presidential campaign? What were the functions, norms, and values that structured the political communication systems among the Democratic candidate, her Latino communication staff, and Northeast Philadelphia Latino residents? What were the power relations that informed the interactions between the Democratic candidate, her Latino communication staff, and Northeast Philadelphia Latino residents in the political communication system? For this dissertation, I devised the Political Communication Systems Model, a toolkit to observe and theorize on political communication. Under the grounded theory umbrella, two methods were used to collect data. First, Clinton’s mediated campaign communication was monitored. Second, I worked as a volunteer in a field operations office that Clinton opened in Philadelphia and performed a participant observation. Clinton built a political communication machine to produce a campaign that used a hybrid media system. She hired a large staff to design and execute an "air war" (i.e., radio and TV ads and journalistic coverage), a digital campaign (i.e., distribution of information through websites, blogs, social media, newsletters and text messages), and a "ground game" (i.e., canvassing, phone banking, and online messaging). The Latino campaign was designed to promote liberal values such as globalism, cosmopolitanism, multiculturalism, and diversity, values that shaped her economic and political proposals. The ground game had three main objectives in Northeast Philadelphia: register new voters, create strategies to persuade undecided voters to support Hillary Clinton, and organize the "Get Out the Vote" (GOTV), which consists of convincing people to get out their houses, go to the polling station, and vote. A substantial part of the dissertation focuses on describing and analyzing the ground game in Northeast Philadelphia and offers two significant findings. First, political communication systems need material infrastructures operate. Clinton built a material infrastructure to communicate with residents. This infrastructure was made, primarily, of human bodies that were able to move around the territory and use other communicative technologies smartphones, tablets, and computers. Second, human bodies were also used as symbolic devices. Clinton recruited staffers and volunteers whose bodies embodied values such as diversity, multiculturalism, cosmopolitanism, and globalism. The biographies and trajectories of these individuals projected these values, because they were persons from different parts of Latin America, with diverse cultural and educational backgrounds, and with different experiences of being a U.S. citizen or resident. Finally, the dissertation offers two main contributions. On the one hand, the dissertation expands the Political Communication Systems Model and suggests that the human body is the primary material unit in political communication infrastructures. On the other, this work illustrates how qualitative research can be employed for researching political communication in general, and presidential campaigns in particular. / Media & Communication

This dissertation explored the differences in federal budget communication associated with the development and passage of the Federal Budget Resolution for Fiscal Years 1999, 2000, and 2001. A computer-aided (i.e., DICTION) content analysis was completed to explore Executive, Legislature, and Agency budget communication for source-based and party-based differences. Source-based differences were explored using the variables Activity, Realism, Optimism, Commonality, Certainty, Public Interest, Budget Concepts, and Functional Budget Categories. When reviewing the findings as a whole — and taking into account the variables, data, and time period analyzed - a distinct and predominant source-based perspective was not present in the federal budget communication associated with the development of the Congressional Budget Resolution. However, it was possible to identify predominant sources for individual variables Activity, Optimism, Commonality, and Certainty. Party-based differences were explored within seven themes: the use of Lakoff's value language; discussions of campaign actors; coalition building rhetoric; moral virtue and entrepreneurialism rhetoric; language of order, efficiency and unity; public interest; and, accusatory language. Variables included Liberal Language, Conservative Language, Party References, Voter References, Leader References, Commonality, Familiarity, Realism, Human Interest, Rapport, Praise, Inspiration, Liberation, Tenacity, Communication, Denial, Public Interest, Blame, and Pessimism. The analysis of party-based differences revealed that Democrats were more likely to incorporate language associated with the following variables: Liberal Language, Conservative Language, Party References, Voter References, Leader References, Human Interest, Rapport, Liberation, Blame, and Pessimism. Republicans were more likely to incorporate language associated with Familiarity, Realism, Tenacity, Communication, and Denial. This research illustrates that within our political institutions generally, and the budget specifically, there are significant source-based and party-based differences in the goals and values communicated by the actors within the federal budget process. If it is possible to gain a better understanding of how actors within this key process communicate, public administrators will be better equipped to engage each other in an honest dialogue and debate that facilitates agreement and understanding. Until source-based and party-based communication barriers have been broken down, the negative tenor in political communication and the public's apathy and frustration towards the political process will continue. / Ph. D.

Social media is becoming an increasingly studied phenomenon in recent years, with a rise in users and the wide variety of content. Political socialization covers mass media and social media, though it only discusses the implications of how attitudes are developed from media forms. While politics and political content occur on different social media platforms, the literature and research of this subject is lacking. Life-altering events can work to change one's political outlook, where motherhood, traumatic experiences, and first-time experiences can affect political opinions. Converging the two together, with specific groups on social media platforms discussing politics, will help to expand the knowledge of how politics and social media work with one another. This study seeks to examine first-year teachers and teachers on social media platforms, the types of content they post, the types of political content they post, and how they work to discuss political topics. I scraped different first-year teacher posts on social media platforms, coded the posts into different categories, and analyzed the trends in these posts. Then I take these first-year teacher posts and compare them with Florida teachers in the same context. This will help to understand how each of these groups vary from another in discussions of political content. With these findings working to expand the previous knowledge of how political socialization is within social media, how different teachers discuss political content, and the types of possible interactions work to socialize children in schools.

This study’s main contribution is a theoretical model for analysing parties’ use of deepfakes of their candidates in elections. Research stresses deepfakes’ capacity for disinformation as a challenge for democracies. In the Korean 2022 election, the two main parties used deepfakes of their candidates to communicate with voters. Given deepfakes’ well-studied negative implications, this seems perplexing. Amid this context, this study addresses the question: How can parties ethically use deepfakes of their candidates in elections? Merging AI ethics and deliberative democracy theory, three prerequisites are identified - disclosure of information, civil language, and giving justification - required for adherence to AI ethics and deliberative norms. This model was applied in a content analysis of the deepfake use in the Korean 2022 election. Results indicate strong adherence to the prerequisite of civil language, and partial adherence to disclosure of information and giving justification, and their corresponding AI ethical principles and deliberative norms. The findings suggest AI ethics and deliberative democracy theory are useful for studying the implications of parties' deepfake use. Starting from the premise of deepfakes as morally neutral, this study addresses a gap in the emerging field of deepfake research and highlights areas needing inquiry. If deepfakes become a legitimate communication tool for parties, it raises questions of the implications of such normalisation.