<p>The Swedish election year of 2010 has just begun and the political actors are mobilizing their communication efforts to win the votes of the public. The political campaigns of 2010 have the potential to be the first where a new channel for political communication has the potential to make a difference – the social media. This paper aims to describe in what ways a Member of Parliament, Nina Larsson (FP), together with the PR-agency Hello Clarice are using social media to conduct political campaigning on the web. It also aims to study if the professional consultants of Hello Clarice have any influence over Nina Larsson’s political communication.</p><p>The theoretical framework which is the base for this study are theories of an extended public sphere in the age of mediation. The information age has created new forms of interaction between humans over geographical distance which also is a key starting-point in Manuel Castells theories of the network society. This theory is therefore a theoretical foundation of this paper. The paper also uses theories of political communication and the idea of the professionalization of political communication. The research was conducted with a netnographic approach with observational studies of Nina Larsson’s two blogs and her activities on the social network Twitter. As a compliment to the observational studies research has also been conducted trough qualitative interviews with both Nina Larsson and representatives from the PR-agency Hello Clarice.</p><p>The results show that Nina Larsson’s political communication has to a degree been affected by the professional consultants of Hello Clarice. The paper has also shown an indication of the potential of social media in use of strategic political communication, in which different channels serve with different purposes. Our research has also shown that in this specific case social media can decrease the communicative distance between politician and citizen.</p> / <p>Valåret 2010 har precis tagit sin början och de politiska aktörerna mobiliserar sina kommunikationsinsatser för att på bästa sätt kunna vinna väljarnas förtroende och i slutändan röster. Årets valrörelse kan också bli den första där en ny kanal för politisk kommunikation är av betydelse – de sociala medierna. Denna uppsats syftar till att beskriva på vilka sätt en riksdagsledamot, Nina Larsson (FP), tillsammans med en kommunikationsbyrå, Hello Clarice, arbetar för att bedriva politiskt kampanjarbete i de sociala medierna. Uppsatsens mål är också att undersöka om kommunikationsbyrån påverkar de politiska budskap som Nina Larsson kommunicerar i de sociala medierna. </p><p>För att skapa förståelse för det som studeras baserar sig studien på ett övergripande plan i olika teoretiska synsätt om utvidgningen av det offentliga rummet som skett i samband med medieutvecklingen. Informationssamhällets utbredning har skapat nya förutsättningar för interaktion mellan människor i ett geografiskt avstånd. Manuel Castells teorier om nätverkssamhällets framväxt, i vilket dessa interaktiva aktiviteter sker, är därför också en övergripande teoretisk utgångspunkt för studien. För att skapa förståelse för de aktiviteter som studeras grundar sig studien också i teorier om politisk kommunikation och tankesätt om professionaliseringen av den politiska kommunikationen. En netnografisk ansats har använts för att bedriva observationsstudier av Nina Larssons två bloggar och av hennes konto på mikrobloggen Twitter. Studien har också kompletterats genom kvalitativa intervjuer med Nina Larsson och med representanter från kommunikationsbyrån Hello Clarice. </p><p>Studiens resultat visar att Nina Larssons politiska budskap delvis har påverkats av kommunikationsbyrån Hello Clarice. Studien visar också de sociala mediernas potential för att bedriva strategisk politisk kommunikation där de olika kanalerna som Nina Larsson kontrollerar tjänar olika syften. Syften som sammantaget ska stärka de politiska mål som Nina Larsson har. Våra observationer av Nina Larssons kanaler visar också att de sociala medierna kan fungera som ett verktyg för att minska det kommunikativa avståndet mellan medborgare och folkvald, vilket i detta specifika fall visat sig genom att Nina Larsson visat en vilja till dubbelriktad kommunikation.</p>

The Swedish election year of 2010 has just begun and the political actors are mobilizing their communication efforts to win the votes of the public. The political campaigns of 2010 have the potential to be the first where a new channel for political communication has the potential to make a difference – the social media. This paper aims to describe in what ways a Member of Parliament, Nina Larsson (FP), together with the PR-agency Hello Clarice are using social media to conduct political campaigning on the web. It also aims to study if the professional consultants of Hello Clarice have any influence over Nina Larsson’s political communication. The theoretical framework which is the base for this study are theories of an extended public sphere in the age of mediation. The information age has created new forms of interaction between humans over geographical distance which also is a key starting-point in Manuel Castells theories of the network society. This theory is therefore a theoretical foundation of this paper. The paper also uses theories of political communication and the idea of the professionalization of political communication. The research was conducted with a netnographic approach with observational studies of Nina Larsson’s two blogs and her activities on the social network Twitter. As a compliment to the observational studies research has also been conducted trough qualitative interviews with both Nina Larsson and representatives from the PR-agency Hello Clarice. The results show that Nina Larsson’s political communication has to a degree been affected by the professional consultants of Hello Clarice. The paper has also shown an indication of the potential of social media in use of strategic political communication, in which different channels serve with different purposes. Our research has also shown that in this specific case social media can decrease the communicative distance between politician and citizen. / Valåret 2010 har precis tagit sin början och de politiska aktörerna mobiliserar sina kommunikationsinsatser för att på bästa sätt kunna vinna väljarnas förtroende och i slutändan röster. Årets valrörelse kan också bli den första där en ny kanal för politisk kommunikation är av betydelse – de sociala medierna. Denna uppsats syftar till att beskriva på vilka sätt en riksdagsledamot, Nina Larsson (FP), tillsammans med en kommunikationsbyrå, Hello Clarice, arbetar för att bedriva politiskt kampanjarbete i de sociala medierna. Uppsatsens mål är också att undersöka om kommunikationsbyrån påverkar de politiska budskap som Nina Larsson kommunicerar i de sociala medierna.  För att skapa förståelse för det som studeras baserar sig studien på ett övergripande plan i olika teoretiska synsätt om utvidgningen av det offentliga rummet som skett i samband med medieutvecklingen. Informationssamhällets utbredning har skapat nya förutsättningar för interaktion mellan människor i ett geografiskt avstånd. Manuel Castells teorier om nätverkssamhällets framväxt, i vilket dessa interaktiva aktiviteter sker, är därför också en övergripande teoretisk utgångspunkt för studien. För att skapa förståelse för de aktiviteter som studeras grundar sig studien också i teorier om politisk kommunikation och tankesätt om professionaliseringen av den politiska kommunikationen. En netnografisk ansats har använts för att bedriva observationsstudier av Nina Larssons två bloggar och av hennes konto på mikrobloggen Twitter. Studien har också kompletterats genom kvalitativa intervjuer med Nina Larsson och med representanter från kommunikationsbyrån Hello Clarice.  Studiens resultat visar att Nina Larssons politiska budskap delvis har påverkats av kommunikationsbyrån Hello Clarice. Studien visar också de sociala mediernas potential för att bedriva strategisk politisk kommunikation där de olika kanalerna som Nina Larsson kontrollerar tjänar olika syften. Syften som sammantaget ska stärka de politiska mål som Nina Larsson har. Våra observationer av Nina Larssons kanaler visar också att de sociala medierna kan fungera som ett verktyg för att minska det kommunikativa avståndet mellan medborgare och folkvald, vilket i detta specifika fall visat sig genom att Nina Larsson visat en vilja till dubbelriktad kommunikation.

Aestheticization belongs to a group of interrelated concepts which try to describe and explain current changes in political communication. The theoretical part of this thesis incorporates the notion of "aestheticization" into the context of considerations of political communication, and then - based on an analysis of its conceptualizations in aesthetic theories, critical social theories and political philosophy - it proposes its determination useful for media studies. The aim of the empirical part of this thesis is to examine the hypothesis about aesthetization of political communication in case of media content. We base this on Wolfgang Welsch's distinction between surface and deep-structure aestheticization. Using quantitative content analysis we examine changes in media coverage of five Czech general elections (i. e. the elections to the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic between 1996 and 2010) in two Czech dailies Právo and Mladá fronta Dnes. While we have not proved the surface aestheticization, some inclinations towards deep-structure aestheticization have been noticed. Nevertheless, these results raise doubts about appropriateness of the content analysis as a methodological tool for researching aestheticization. As an outcome of this discussion we make some...

The ever-changing landscape of social media coupled with today’s competitive political environment, means that small parties need to use all the tools at their disposal to distinguish themselves from the crowd. The Christian Democrats, a conservative party in the Swedish parliament, has been trying to do exactly that. In recent years, they have changed their party leader and their logo in an effort to move in a more modern direction and set themselves apart. That raises the question how this change has been reflected in what they post on social media. The overall purpose of this study is to compare Facebook posts published by the Christian Democrats at two different points in time, the Swedish general elections in 2014 and in 2022. It seeks to identify how the portrayal of two different party leaders differ, respectively Göran Hägglund in 2014 and Ebba Busch in 2022. We formulate research questions targeting if and how any potential differences in the presentation of the party leader manifest. To do so, we gather six posts from each year (from the month before the election) and analyse them with a multimodal semiotic method. We employ the theories of personalisation and personal branding, drawing conclusions within the framework of social semiotics (a sub-branch of semiotics). Finally, we answer the research questions by drawing several conclusions about key differences in presentation. We find that: personalisation has increased from 2014 to 2022, that the priorities for the desired form of personal branding has changed from 2014 to 2022, and that the professionalisation of the marketing material has increased from 2014 to 2022. We argue that the study expands the research within the realm of Swedish political communication, and contributes to filling a void of longitudinal and comparative studies within that same realm.

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The study explores the post-2000 popular song genre (expressed in Shona) in order to analyze its rhetorical potential in its appropriation as a medium for the construction and contestation of meanings concerning land, history and selected (political, social and religious) identities. The goal is to discover how the turbulent post-2000 period in Zimbabwe is narrativized through the lyrics of popular songs. The rationale to focus on popular songs in the context of this period was my observation of the uniquely high level of appropriation of the popular song in the Zimbabwean public sphere by political parties and the ordinary people to communicate various discourses (of their interest). The period surpasses by far the pre-2000 era in its rate of output of songs. Old songs were revived and new ones composed while new musical genres emerged and existing ones thrived. I also noted in previous researches gaps in both theoretical and coverage of the analyses of popular songs in Zimbabwe. There is little in terms of linguistically-rooted approaches while analyses are largely limited to politically-inspired songs. I therefore, besides the politically-oriented songs, also explore socially and religiously-oriented songs. I adopt a multi-perspective approach combining APPRAISAL, genre, “small stories/voices” and the “rediscovery of the ordinary” frameworks to study the rhetorical property and capacity (to communicate) of the popular song. I employ the APPRAISAL theory to deal with the songs’ language of evaluation in terms of the authorial stances and ideological positions singers adopt. I utilize the genre theory in making a typology of the various popular song texts on the basis of their communicative properties (which determine their rhetorical purposes). I employ the remaining theories to classify the songs into three clusters (‘grand narrative songs’; ‘small stories/voices songs’ and ‘songs of ordinary life’) based the sources of their ideological concerns. In pursuit of the connection between the songs’ language and its communicative effects, I note in chapters two, four, five and six, the high level of intertextuality the post-2000 popular song has assumed. I argue that the unique intertextuality can be explained in relation to the high demands being placed on the language of the song texts by composers and singers in a context in which the state and opposition are pitted in an intense competition for the “power to mean”. The state appropriates the popular song to demonize and delegitimate the opposition at the same time legitimating its hegemony, based on patriotic discourses derived from chimurenga (nationalist) grand narrative values. On the other hand, the opposition manipulates the popular song to legitimate its struggle for change through counter-state discourses exposing Zanu-PF’s political vices and debasing its power. The ordinary people also appropriate the popular song in their struggle to resolve issues of personal concern in their attempt to give meaning to their lives. It is therefore the study’s main thesis that the popular song in post-2000 Zimbabwe narrativizes the period in unique ways as illustrated through the manipulation of its rhetorical potential to construct meanings concerning land, history and identities. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die studie het die populêreliedjiegenre (in Shona uitgedruk) ná 2000 verken om die retoriese potensiaal by die aanwending as ʼn medium vir die konstruksie en omstredenheid van betekenisse rakende grond, geskiedenis en geselekteerde (politieke, maatskaplike en godsdienstige) identiteite te ontleed. Die doel was om vas te stel hoe die turbulente tydperk ná 2000 in Zimbabwe deur die lirieke van populêre liedjies aangebied word. Die rasionaal om op populêre liedjies teen die agtergrond van hierdie tydperk te fokus was my waarneming van die buitengewoon hoë vlak van aanwending van die populêre liedjie in die Zimbabwiese openbare sfeer deur politieke partye en gewone mense om verskillende diskoerse (tot eie voordeel) te kommunikeer. Die tydperk oortref verreweg die tydperk voor 2000 wat betref die spoed waarteen liedjies verskyn. Ou liedjies is opgediep en nuwes is gekomponeer terwyl nuwe musiekgenres na vore gekom en bestaandes floreer het. Ek het ook leemtes in vorige navorsing opgemerk, beide ten opsigte van die teoretiese ontledings van populêre liedjies in Zimbabwe en die dekking daarvan. Daar bestaan min inligting ten opsigte van linguisties-begronde benaderings terwyl ontledings hoofsaaklik beperk is tot polities-geïnspireerde liedjies. Ek het dus, afgesien van die polities-georiënteerde liedjies, ook liedjies wat sosiaal en godsdienstig geïnspireer is, ondersoek. Ek het ʼn multiperspektiefbenadering ingeneem en raamwerke met betrekking tot WAARDEBEPALING, genre, “klein stories/stemme” en die “herontdekking van die gewone” gekombineer om die retoriese eienskap en kapasiteit (om te kommunikeer) van die populêre liedjie te bestudeer. Ek het die teorie van WAARDEBEPALING aangewend ten einde aan die liedjies se evalueringstaal ten opsigte van die standpunte wat die skrywers inneem en ideologiese posisies van die sangers aandag te gee. Ek het die genreteorie gebruik om ʼn tipologie van die verskillende populêre liedjietekste op grond van hulle kommunikatiewe eienskappe (wat hulle retoriese doelwitte bepaal) op te stel. Ek het die oorblywende teorieë gebruik om die liedjies in drie groepe te klassifiseer (‘meesternarratief-liedjies’, ‘liedjies oor klein stories/stemme’ en ‘liedjies oor die gewone lewe’) gebaseer op die bronne van hulle ideologiese besorgdhede. In ʼn soeke na die skakeling tussen die taal van die liedjies en die kommunikatiewe effekte daarvan, wys ek in hoofstukke twee, vier, vyf en ses op die hoë vlak van intertekstualiteit wat die populêre liedjie ná 2000 aangeneem het. Ek voer aan dat die unieke intertekstualiteit verklaar kan word in verhouding met die hoë eise wat deur komponiste en sangers aan die taal van die liedjies se tekste gestel word in ʼn konteks waarin die staat en opposisie in konflik verkeer in ʼn intense wedywering om die “mag om te beteken”. Die staat eien hulle die populêre liedjie toe ten einde die opposisie te demoniseer en te delegitimeer en terselfdertyd sy hegemonie te legitimeer, gebaseer op patriotiese diskoerse afgelei van chimurenga (nasionalistiese) waardes van die meesternarratief. Aan die ander kant, die opposisie manipuleer die populêre liedjie om sy stryd om verandering te legitimeer deur diskoerse te weerlê en so Zanu-PF se politieke gebreke aan die kaak te stel en sy mag te verminder. Jan Alleman en sy maat eien hulle ook die populêre liedjie toe in hulle stryd om kwessies van persoonlike kommer uit die weg te ruim in hulle poging om betekenis aan hulle lewens te gee. Dit is dus hierdie studie se hoofhipotese dat die populêre liedjie in Zimbabwe ná 2000 die tydperk op unieke wyses beskryf soos geïllustreer deur die manipulasie van die retoriese potensiaal daarvan om betekenisse rakende grond, geskiedenis en identiteite te konstrueer.

The legend is a permanent fixture of human societies. Though the legends themselves are permanent, their functions and meanings can fluctuate as the context in which they are told and retold shifts. As societies move through history, certain authoritative institutions create narratives that direct those societies and frame debates within them. Issues neglected by these institutions yet experienced by members of the population can be said to be unconstructed. Social problems that have achieved some level of construction inevitably provoke those who dissent from those constructions. In these situations, members of a society look for alternative means for talking about these problems. Often they turn to the contemporary legend for this purpose. This study reviews a sample of the most popular legends in the early part of 2012 to determine the ways members of American society were dealing with the unconstructed social problems of that time.

The study looks into the 2008 American Presidential Election from two sides; the way the news channels frame the event and the way a sample of the audiences interpret it. Drawing on literature concerning framing theory which describes the practices employed by mass media to present world events in familiar and understandable formats to audiences, the study examines the coverage of the 2008 American Presidential Election on three trans-border news channels broadcasting in Arabic. A number of stories covering the American election campaign broadcasted on Alarabiya, Alhurra and Aljazeera, are included. The study assesses general frames used to describe the event by each channel. The analysis reports the frames generally employed by the three channels are relatively similar, suggesting a global effect on the media in following the Anglo-American model of journalism when reporting international events. The differences appear when reporting regional issues between the two Arabic trans-border channels Alarabiya and Aljazeera on one side and Alhurra on the other suggesting a link between journalistic ideology and framing. The second part of this thesis is the exploratory audience study which attempts to provide insights into perception of Arab news coverage - particularly in Saudi Arabia. The audience study uses a questionnaire and focus group methodologies on a sample of participants with high television news consumption levels, measuring the perception of news channels credibility in specific and credibility of media in general, and exploring the possible presence of a link between consumption level of news and perceived news credibility. Moreover, examining how audience analyse news and how their opinions about the event have been shaped by media framing.

Existing theories of party organisation, and political communication and marketing, address the issue of party evolution and electoral behaviour from opposing and largely one-dimensional angles. The purpose of this thesis is to develop a more integrated perspective to party campaigning that goes beyond the traditional approaches of party behaviour and present the relationship between intra-party organisation and campaign evolution in a new light. The party evolution approach is an alternative conceptual framework of party campaigning, which integrates the classic approaches of party organisation with the modern accounts of political communication and marketing while taking into consideration the institutional and ideological constraints of political parties. The main aim is to bridge the worlds of marketing and politics by offering a distinct perspective that integrates elements of a party’s innate political identity and readdressing the notion of party communications professionalisation within the wider context of party evolution process. To this end, the employment of consumer marketing techniques and approaches in party campaigning is not considered a means to the end of electoral success but an integrated element of the party’s evolving identity. The intention is that the Party Evolution Framework be used as a tool for comparative analysis. The holistic and integrated scope of the framework is likely to qualify its application to a cross-section of democracies, regardless of their party and electoral systems, campaign regulations, and historical, socio-economic and political landscape. To this end, the present thesis illustrates the use of the party evolution framework in two largely contrasting contexts; British and Greek politics.

L’objectif de ce mémoire est double. D’une part, il vise à proposer un cadre d’analyse novateur permettant d’étendre le modèle du marketing politique, traditionnellement limité au cas des partis politiques, en l’appliquant aux stratégies de recrutement (en amont) et de lobbying (en aval) des groupes d’intérêt. D’autre part, il a pour but de donner un nouveau souffle à l’étude des groupes d’intérêt en tant que sous-champ de la science politique en situant leur action dans une perspective dynamique et stratégique. De façon plus spécifique, cette recherche vise à évaluer, à l’aide de deux hypothèses, le degré de déploiement global de l’approche marketing chez les groupes d’intérêt au Québec et à comparer son niveau de pénétration spécifique au sein des différentes organisations. La première hypothèse avance que le degré de déploiement global du marketing politique auprès des groupes d’intérêt québécois s’avère relativement faible en raison d’un certain nombre de facteurs contextuels qui ont historiquement limité son intégration au sein de leurs stratégies de recrutement et de lobbying. La seconde hypothèse affirme pour sa part que le niveau de pénétration spécifique de l’approche marketing est limité à certaines organisations et varie en fonction de certains facteurs qui peuvent s’avérer contradictoires. Les données recueillies lors d’entrevues menées auprès de douze des principaux groupes d’intérêt actifs à l’échelle du Québec tendent à confirmer les deux hypothèses. / The goal of this paper is twofold. On the one hand, it aims to offer an innovative analytical framework for extending the model of political marketing, traditionally limited to the case of political parties, by applying it to the recruitment (upstream) ad lobbying (downstream) strategies of interest groups. On the other hand, it aims to give new impetus to the study of interest groups as a subfield of political science by placing their actions in a dynamic and strategic perspective. In more specific terms, this research aims to assess, with two hypotheses, the overall level of deployment of the marketing approach among interest groups in Quebec and compare its specific level of penetration within the various organizations. The first hypothesis argues that the degree of penetration of global marketing policy with interest groups in Quebec is relatively low due to a number of contextual factors that have historically limited its integration within their recruitment strategies and lobbying. The second hypothesis assumes for his part that the level of deployment of specific marketing approach is limited to certain organizations and varies depending on certain factors which may be contradictory. The data gathered during interviews with twelve key interest groups active throughout the Quebec tend to confirm the two hypotheses. / Fonds québécois de recherche sur la société et la culture

The diploma thesis deals with media representation of Slovak political case "Gorilla" in Slovak and Czech print dailies. The thesis builds upon the theoretical principles of the relationship between politics and media in a given societal system, media framing of political news, and normative aspects of balance in the news. A definition of scandal follows as well as description of fundamental characteristics of promotion in the media of political scandals in particular. The thesis aims at application of this theoretical basis on the aforementioned case and its empirical verification. The empirical research includes source analysis and an evaluation of the source balance. A quantitative content analysis is used for these purposes. The results show an intense media coverage of the case and a major media focus on elite (political) resources as well as a frequent representation of particular political actors at the expense of others (related to the case). The results also demonstrate that media did not reflect the fact, that the authenticity of the Gorila document which was the origin of the case was not officially proven at the time.