Much has been written about the political mediatisation of society, often through the lenses of the media, its institutional rules and processes. These studies have focused on either side of the debate, choosing to look at the media itself, or its influence on the political subsystem and vice versa. This has resulted in the formation of a gap in the literature around the issue of the relationship between media and governance particularly in the political branding area. This thesis focuses on political branding in South Africa and explores the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF)'s "brand image" amongst voters in the last national elections 2014. The thesis thus is considered an exploratory study that uses in-depth interviews combined with primary qualitative and a preliminary secondary quantitative research. The data from the different research methods were thematically analysed by the researcher through the projective technique analysis of political branding in South Africa. The main objective of this thesis is to consider how the EFF used the media function within the current commercial media spheres to shape and influence political branding in South Africa. In addition, this thesis will look into how the EFF positioned itself on top of the current political dynamic in South Africa. The thesis ends with a number theoretical reflections and directions for future empirical research to explore the relation between media and governance in depth in dealing with South Africa as a society in transition. It also acknowledges its limitations.

Black electoral politics has undergone a profound transformation in the half century since African Americans statutorily secured equal voting rights with whites. Once confined to a small number of exceptional cases, the population of black elected officials has multiplied dramatically. The genre which studies African American politics has, likewise, vigorously proliferated, but theoretical deficiencies persist. In particular, the dominant model used to explain the choice of racial campaign strategies by African American candidates in jurisdictions where most of their voters are white is incomplete. The model's underlying hypothesis is premised on limited and increasingly outdated assumptions. Commentators continue to argue that successful black candidates must discard their racial identity in order to win white votes, yet a careful examination of the actual practices of black politicians in majority-white jurisdictions demonstrates that this argument is not substantiated empirically. As a result, scholars are mischaracterising the potential for black candidates to win elections in majority-white contexts. This thesis is an attempt to advance the scholarship through a theoretical reconceptualisation of racial campaign strategies underpinned by original, empirical research. The thesis sets out to achieve two goals. The first goal is to provide a rich, analytical account based on primary research of the range of campaign strategies available to office-seeking African American candidates outside of majority-black election contexts. The thesis demonstrates the capacity for black candidates to embrace their racial identity and champion policies which redress racial inequality while still seeking support from white voters. The second objective is to offer plausible explanations as to the strategic decision-making process in these campaigns. The thesis highlights the shifting importance of three sets variables which candidates face when choosing their racial campaign strategies: racial context and history, the racial attitudes of supportive and opposing elite actors, and candidates' own racial biographies.

Since the beginning of the 1990s, Swedish society has gone through a great change. Firstly with the personal computer and then with the internet moving in to everyday life, a new arena for interaction with society evolved. Work, education, doing bank errands and reading or discussing the news, just to name a few, now all take place in the virtual world online. Not to mention social media sites such as twitter, instagram or facebook, the last of which has over half of the Swedish population represented as members.    Companies, corporations, interest groups, political parties and politicians must be aware of the massive impact that a post spread through social media can have.      This thesis will, with the text analyzing tool, argumentation analysis, and on the theoretical platform of political communications theory, analyze three of the most viral Swedish political posts spread over 120 000 times each, to see if there are any combined qualities that point to the fact that there is a formula for getting a post to become a viral success on social media.      The main result showed that of the three posts analyzed, all were built up around a factual thesis, argued for with foremost example arguments, not only appealing to the logical branch of argumentation but also to the ethical, and that they tended to be of high relevance and sustainability. The conclusion must therefore be that these are all qualities that tend to be of relevance for making a political post on social media into a viral success.

<p>Housing is an issue that affects all individuals in society. People have firsthand experiences with housing daily. Housing is also a macro issue that is affected by and has implications for the nation’s economy and public policy. Despite the centrality of housing for individuals <i>and</i> society, few scholars have examined media coverage of housing issues and housing policy. This gap is especially problematic when considering the critical role of the housing market collapse in the 2008 Great Recession, the landmark housing policies instituted during the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the media's potential to shape perceptions of housing policy and the economy. In this study, I use content analysis to examine the media agenda-setting and framing of housing and housing policies from 2005 to 2010 and 2020 in the <i>New York Times</i>. I investigate whether housing is framed in episodic or thematic ways and how housing media frames changed in response to the economic collapse and the pandemic. I also examine the context of media agenda-setting using housing topics. Lastly, I pay particular attention to whether housing media frames and housing topics are racialized. The data for this project was collected from the <i>New York Times</i> between 2005 - 2010 and 2020. The search terms used to identify relevant news articles were housing policy, subprime, affordable housing, foreclosure, homeownership, and eviction. The articles identified are all from the front page of the <i>New York Times</i>.</p>

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Les médias font-ils les décisions publiques ? Cette conception d’un pouvoir du journalisme sur les politiques publiques est répandue parmi les « décideurs ». Elle est aussi présupposée par les théories de l’agenda et de la construction sociale des problèmes. La réalité du phénomène est cependant plus complexe : ce pouvoir n’est ni uniforme ni unidirectionnel. Il repose sur la contribution active et variable des agents politiques et administratifs qui produisent ces décisions. La question s’en trouve alors reformulée : dans quelle mesure la production des décisions publiques peut-elle se faire en fonction du champ journalistique ? Pour y répondre, la thèse propose une sociologie des logiques spécifiques de prise en compte de la médiatisation dans les activités décisionnelles au sein des champs politique (dans les cabinets ministériels et au Parlement) et administratif (dans les administrations centrales des ministères). L’élaboration de ce cadre théorique, au croisement de la sociologie du journalisme et de celle de l’action publique, s’appuie sur l’analyse de la gestion politico-administrative de la maladie de la « vache folle » en France dans les années 1990. Il s’agit de restituer l’importance que les responsables de l’exécutif (en particulier les ministres de l’Agriculture, de la Consommation, de la Santé, mais aussi le Premier ministre et le président de la République), les parlementaires et les hauts fonctionnaires ont pu accorder aux enjeux médiatiques jusque dans leurs pratiques décisionnelles. Il apparaît ainsi que les décisions les plus « médiatiques » sont le produit de la prise en charge des dossiers les plus emblématiques selon les logiques d’action des agents les plus dépendants des enjeux de légitimation dans le champ journalistique : les principaux ministres et leurs conseillers / Are public policies made by the media? This would-be influence of journalists over public decisions is common place among “decision-makers”. It is also assumed by Agenda-setting as well as social problems theorists. Yet, the real nature of the phenomenon is more complex: it follows different paths along several directions. It rests on the active and variable engagement of the politicians and high civil servants who produce decisions. Thus, the question needs to be rephrased: to what extent does the production of public decisions depend on the journalistic field? In order to elucidate this question, this doctoral thesis offers a sociological analysis of the specific logics which lead decision-makers (i.e. ministers’ personal staff, and representatives aswell as high civil servants,) to pay attention to media coverage in decision-making processes. The elaboration of this theoretical framework, at the crossroads of the sociologies of journalism and public action, is based on ananalysis of the handling of the mad cow disease by French officials during the 1990s. The ambition is to account for the very attention the holders of the executive power (namely, the Ministers of Agriculture, Consumption,Health, but also the Prime Minister and the President), the members of Parliament and high civil servants paid to media-related challenges within the practice of decision-making. Thus, it appears that the most “media dependent”decisions are the result of the handling of the most symbolic issues according to the logics of action of the most dependent agents on legitimization stakes in the journalistic field: the principal ministers and their advisers

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