This thesis seeks to be a contribution to a broader debate on how public opinion builds up its perceptions on foreign policy and foreign affairs. Its two main objectives are to examine: (a) which are the determinants that explain public opinion knowledge on foreign affairs; and (b) whether public opinion is sensitive to framing effects on this issue. The analysis was done by mixing quantitative methods and survey experiments, while its novelty is that brings unprecedent evidence from Latin America. The main findings of the thesis are two-fold. On the one hand, Latin American public opinion knowledge on foreign affairs is low. In this regard, both traditional individual variables and contextual ones, namely the size of the city, are useful to predict a person\'s knowledge. On the other, public opinion perceptions regarding foreign policy, either presented on a general or specific way, are sensitive to framing effects. / Esta tese procura ser uma contribuição para um debate mais amplo sobre como a opinião pública constrói suas percepções sobre política externa e assuntos internacionais. Os dois principais objetivos são examinar: (a) quais são os determinantes que explicam o conhecimento da opinião pública a respeito de assuntos internacionais; e (b) se a opinião pública é sensível a efeitos de enquadramento sobre esta questão. A análise foi feita misturando métodos quantitativos e pesquisas de opinião pública experimentais, enquanto sua novidade é que traz evidências sem precedentes da América Latina. As principais conclusões da tese são duplas. Por um lado, o conhecimento da opinião pública latino-americana sobre assuntos externos é baixo. A este respeito, tanto as variáveis individuais tradicionais como as contextuais - o tamanho da cidade - são úteis para prever o conhecimento de uma pessoa. Por outro lado, as percepções da opinião pública em relação à política externa, apresentadas de forma geral ou específica, são sensíveis aos efeitos de enquadramento.

本論文主要的研究旨趣，在於嘗試從原住民國中生的個人特徵、家庭背景及學校教育機制角度，探討其與政治知識及民主價值觀的關聯性。並藉以瞭解不同背景因素的政治文化差異，是否影響原住民國中生的政治社會化行為。 本研究是以臺灣地區年齡十二至十四歲之原住民國中學生為研究對象，採非隨機抽樣方式。選定新北市烏來國民中小學等七所原住民地區的學校，安排450位學生進行施測。並依問卷分析及檢視結果，對屏東縣瑪家國中學生及教師作進一步的訪談。 本研究問卷採封閉型式，共分成「個人基本資料」、「家庭背景」、「學校教育機制」、「政治知識」及「民主價值觀」等五大部份。分別採用描述性統計分析、信度分析、t檢定、單因子變異數分析、皮爾遜積差相關係數分析及迴歸分析等統計方法處理。 本研究共有以下幾點發現： 一、教室民主氣氛有助於原住民國中學生政治知識的提升。 二、教室氣氛愈民主、同儕團體討論愈熱烈，對原住民國中學生民主價值觀愈有正面的影響。 三、原住民國中學生的政治知識與其正相關民主價值觀有顯著。 / The main essential of the research is trying to inquire the correlation of the political knowledge and the democracy value of the aboriginal junior high students, characters based on family background and school formation. The research tries to realize whether the different political cultures based on different background effect the political socialization of the aboriginal junior high students in Taiwan. This research object is with the 12 to 14 year- old junior high school students in aboriginal district in Taiwan for research, not random samples. The research chooses 450 students , who are in Wulai in New Taipei and other six junior high school students in aboriginal district for testing. It looks for the result by the questionnaire analysis. And it makes a further interview to Majia junior high school students and teachers in Pingtung County. The questionnaire research is in closed type. It includes five parts such as personal information, family background, school education formation, political knowledge, and the democracy value, etc. And the research adopts the statistical methods such as descriptive, reliability, t tests, one-way ANOVA, Pearson product-moment correlation, and multiple regression analysis. This research has the following findings: 1. The democracy atmosphere of the classroom contributes to the promoting of the political knowledge of the aboriginal junior high school students. 2. The more democratic atmosphere the classroom and the more discussion the students has all contribute to the positive influence to the aboriginal junior high school students. 3. The political knowledge of the aboriginal junior high school students are positively related to their value of democracy.

The recent political events in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and Tunisia (2011) have confirmed the key role of social networks (SNSs), as well as online political news in supporting citizens with their self-determination. Furthermore, “changes in the media landscape present new challenges for scholars interested in the relationship between the media and civil society. Additionally, the explosion of the Internet that started in advanced democracies and has spread through much of the globe provides new and unexplored pathways for communication. Moreover, the inclusion of the Internet in the media environment raises new questions for citizens, politicians, researchers, journalists, and government” (Oates, Owen & Gibson, 2006, p. 1). This study looks at the relationships between young people’s exposure to political news on the Internet and their political awareness. It develops and applies an index for political participation composed of several variables measuring political interest, discussion, knowledge, and participation. The survey among students in both countries was administered in Arabic and German, while the master questionnaire was developed in English. The survey was conducted between April and June 2010 in Egypt at Minia University and in Germany at Technical university of Dresden. The sample size was 1000 (500 in each country) students from several departments representing different academic fields: three departments of Engineering, three departments of Humanities and Social Science, and finally three departments of Natural Science. The study’s main research question was: “What is the impact of students’ exposure to political news on the Internet on their political awareness and civic activities?” The researcher started from the hypothesis that heavy use of political news on the Internet is positively related to political awareness. A further research question aimed at gauging the role of intervening variables such as gender and field of study for the relationship between the use of political news on the Internet and the level of political awareness. Results show that there is a positive relationship between using political online news and political awareness. German students’ political awareness for German students was higher than Egypt student’s political awareness (M=63.02, SD=15.65, comparing to M=45.72, SD= 17.65 for Egyptians).

This thesis seeks to be a contribution to a broader debate on how public opinion builds up its perceptions on foreign policy and foreign affairs. Its two main objectives are to examine: (a) which are the determinants that explain public opinion knowledge on foreign affairs; and (b) whether public opinion is sensitive to framing effects on this issue. The analysis was done by mixing quantitative methods and survey experiments, while its novelty is that brings unprecedent evidence from Latin America. The main findings of the thesis are two-fold. On the one hand, Latin American public opinion knowledge on foreign affairs is low. In this regard, both traditional individual variables and contextual ones, namely the size of the city, are useful to predict a person\'s knowledge. On the other, public opinion perceptions regarding foreign policy, either presented on a general or specific way, are sensitive to framing effects. / Esta tese procura ser uma contribuição para um debate mais amplo sobre como a opinião pública constrói suas percepções sobre política externa e assuntos internacionais. Os dois principais objetivos são examinar: (a) quais são os determinantes que explicam o conhecimento da opinião pública a respeito de assuntos internacionais; e (b) se a opinião pública é sensível a efeitos de enquadramento sobre esta questão. A análise foi feita misturando métodos quantitativos e pesquisas de opinião pública experimentais, enquanto sua novidade é que traz evidências sem precedentes da América Latina. As principais conclusões da tese são duplas. Por um lado, o conhecimento da opinião pública latino-americana sobre assuntos externos é baixo. A este respeito, tanto as variáveis individuais tradicionais como as contextuais - o tamanho da cidade - são úteis para prever o conhecimento de uma pessoa. Por outro lado, as percepções da opinião pública em relação à política externa, apresentadas de forma geral ou específica, são sensíveis aos efeitos de enquadramento.

The recent political events in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and Tunisia (2011) have confirmed the key role of social networks (SNSs), as well as online political news in supporting citizens with their self-determination. Furthermore, “changes in the media landscape present new challenges for scholars interested in the relationship between the media and civil society. Additionally, the explosion of the Internet that started in advanced democracies and has spread through much of the globe provides new and unexplored pathways for communication. Moreover, the inclusion of the Internet in the media environment raises new questions for citizens, politicians, researchers, journalists, and government” (Oates, Owen & Gibson, 2006, p. 1). This study looks at the relationships between young people’s exposure to political news on the Internet and their political awareness. It develops and applies an index for political participation composed of several variables measuring political interest, discussion, knowledge, and participation. The survey among students in both countries was administered in Arabic and German, while the master questionnaire was developed in English. The survey was conducted between April and June 2010 in Egypt at Minia University and in Germany at Technical university of Dresden. The sample size was 1000 (500 in each country) students from several departments representing different academic fields: three departments of Engineering, three departments of Humanities and Social Science, and finally three departments of Natural Science. The study’s main research question was: “What is the impact of students’ exposure to political news on the Internet on their political awareness and civic activities?” The researcher started from the hypothesis that heavy use of political news on the Internet is positively related to political awareness. A further research question aimed at gauging the role of intervening variables such as gender and field of study for the relationship between the use of political news on the Internet and the level of political awareness. Results show that there is a positive relationship between using political online news and political awareness. German students’ political awareness for German students was higher than Egypt student’s political awareness (M=63.02, SD=15.65, comparing to M=45.72, SD= 17.65 for Egyptians).:Table of Contents: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS II ABSTRACT III TABLE OF CONTENTS IV INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1 POLITICAL COMMUNICATION IN THE LIFE OF YOUNG PEOPLE……………………………………………………………………………...8 1.1 INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL COMMUNICATION 8 1.2. POLITICAL MEDIA USES AND EFFECTS IN THE LIFE OF YOUNG PEOPLE 10 1.3. THE ROLE OF POLITICAL COMMUNICATION IN ELECTION CAMPAIGNS 12 1.4. THE LITERATURE UP TO NOW IN THIS AREA 14 1.5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND HYPOTHESIS 18 1.5.1 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 18 1.5.2 RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS 18 CHAPTER 2: CHANGING COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT THROUGH THE INTERNET AGE ……………..20 2.1 INTRODUCTION 20 2.2 INTERNET HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT 20 2.3 STRUCTURE, FEATURES AND PHENOMENA OF THE INTERNET 23 2.3.1 MANY TO MANY COMMUNICATION 23 2.3.2 INTERACTIVITY 34 2.3.3 CREDIBILITY 28 2.4 SOCIAL NETWORK (SNSS) 30 2.4.1 SOCIAL NETWORK; DEFINITION, HISTORY, AND DEVELOPMENT 30 2.4.2 SOCIAL NETWORK (SNSS); USERS, CHARACTERISTICS AND FEATURES 32 2.4. 3 BLOGS 35 2.5 INTERNET USE 38 2.5.1 GENERAL TRENDS 38 2.5.2. SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLES AND –INTERNET USE 40 2.6. SOCIAL NETWORK AND POLITICAL TRANSFORMATION IN EGYPT 44 2.7 CONCLUSION 47 CHAPTER 3 POLITICAL AWARENESS AND RELATED CONSTRUCTS……….. 49 3.1 INTRODUCTION 49 3.2 POLITICAL COGNITIONS 50 3.3 POLITICAL INTEREST 51 3.4 POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE 52 3.4.1. MEASURING OF POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE 53 3.4.2 MEDIA USE AND POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE 54 3.5. POLITICAL EFFICACY 56 3.5.1 DEFINITION 56 3.5.2. MEASURINGOF POLITICAL EFFICACY 58 3.6. POLITICAL PARTICIPATION 59 3.6.1. THE INFLUENCE OF MEDIA ON POLITICAL PARTICIPATION 61 3.6.2. MEASURING OF POLITICAL PARTICIPATION 62 3.6.3 VOTING 63 3.7. POLITICAL DISCOURSE 66 3.8. POLITICAL AWARENESS 67 3.8.1. CONCLUSION ON THE OPERATIONALIZATION 68 3.8.2. MASS MEDIA AND POLITICAL AWARENESS 70 CHAPTER4: THE POLITICAL AND MEDIA SYSTEMS IN GERMANY AND EGYPT 71 4.1. EGYPTIAN POLITICAL SYSTEM 71 4.2. EGYPTIAN MEDIA SYSTEM 72 4.2.1 HISTORY AND POLITICAL FRAMEWORK 72 4.2.2 THE EGYPTIAN PRESS 75 4.2.3. RADIO AND TV UNION 77 4.2.4 OTHER MEDIA OUTLETS 97 4.3. GERMANY MEDIA SYSTEM AND POLITICAL SYSTEM 81 4.4. GERMANY MEDIA SYSTEM 82 4.4.1 HISTORY AND POLITICAL FRAMEWORK 82 4.4.2 THE GERMANY PRESS 83 4.4.3. RADIO AND TV UNION 84 4.4.4. OTHER MEDIA OUTLETS 85 5.1. CONCLUSION 85 CHAPTER 5: METHODS ………87 5.1. SAMPLE 87 5.2. QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT 88 5.3. FIELDWORK AND DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURE 89 5.3.1 DEPENDENT VARIABLES 89 5.3.2. INDEPENDENT VARIABLE (IV’S) 91 5.4. DATA ANALYSIS …92 5.5. VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY OF MEASURES.. 93 5.5.1 VALIDITY 93 5.5.2 RELIABILITY 94 CHAPTER 6: RESULTS COMPARING EGYPTIAN AND GERMANY UNIVERSITY STUDENT’S ….95 6.1 POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS OF MEDIA USE 95 6.1.1 POLITICAL FREEDOM 95 6.1.2 TECHNICAL ACCESS TO INTERNET 98 6.1.3 THE DIGITAL DIVIDE 98 6.2. GENERAL MEDIA EXPOSURE 101 6.2.1 TRADITIONAL OR NEW MEDIA PLATFORM? 102 6.2.2 WHERE AND WHEN DO YOUNG PEOPLE USE THE INTERNET? 104 6.3 EXPOSURES TO POLITICAL MEDIA CONTENT 106 6.3.1 ACCESSING POLITICAL INFORMATION ONLINE 107 6.3.2. THE AMOUNT OF ONLINE COVERAGE OF POLITICAL NEWS 109 6.3.3 CONFIDENCE AND ACCURATE PICTURE OF ONLINE POLITICAL NEWS 110 6.4 POLITICAL AWARENESS 111 6.4.1 POLITICAL INTEREST 111 6.4.2 POLITICAL DISCUSSION 113 6.4.3. POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE 113 6.4.4 POLITICAL PARTICIPATION 116 6.5. INTERNET USE AND POLITICAL AWARENESS 119 CHAPTER 7: SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION IN LIGHT OF THEORY AND HYPOTHESIS 126 8. RECOMMENDATIONS 129 9. REFERENCES 130 APPENDICES. 145 A/QUESTIONNAIRE IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE 145 B/QUESTIONNAIRE IN GERMAN LANGUAGE 155 C/QUESTIONNAIRE IN ARABIC LANGUAGE 166 APPENDIX. D. AGREEMENT LETTER TO APPLY QUESTIONNAIRE IN EGYPT FROM CENTRAL AGENCY FOR PUBLIC MOBILIZATION AND STATISTICS 175 APPENDIX. E. LIST OF TABLES 176

Few issues in the contemporary American political and social environments are as salient and emotionally charged as the debate over immigration. The thesis tests several competing hypotheses concerning the determinants of public opinion – among white respondents – on immigration issues. These include: the contextual considerations of southern residence and proximity to large numbers of Hispanic immigrants, as well as the individual-level factors of economic insecurity, political knowledge, national identity, group pride, and racism. Using data from the 2004 American National Election Study, the thesis provides a critical test of the competing hypotheses using multivariate analysis. Furthermore, conditional relationships are posited, facilitating a more refined analysis of the structure of attitudes on immigration issues. The results indicate that racism, group pride, symbolic patriotism, ideology, and isolationism are the most consistent and significant predictors of immigration policy preferences. The use of four distinct dependent variable questions also highlights the inconsistency in public opinion regarding immigration and the division between public perception of documented and undocumented entries. Future research should focus on the interrelationship between variables that are used by the individual to define group associations, as well as the change in national and personal identity brought about by the events of September 11th, 2001.

Sweden is a member of the European Union and Sweden’s turn-out in the elections to the European Parliament is low compared to its own national elections. Earlier research in the field of didactics in civics regarding the EU have mostly focused on aspects of civic education such as which subject content teachers teach and what knowledge they test their students on. Even today, textbooks are an important part of shaping education. This study has focused on how the EU is presented in textbooks for civics in Swedish upper secondary school, specifically the course “Samhällskunskap 1b”. The aim was to research the political knowledge about the EU presented in textbooks and research how the presented political knowledge can contribute to political participation.  The study utilizes two different theories, the first is Maria Jarl’s definition of the participatory democratic process and the second is a categorical instrument constructed by Peter Wall used to analyze political knowledge. The method used is both a qualitative content analysis and a comparative analysis. The categorical instrument used stipulates that political knowledge contains three dimensions, polity, policy, and politics. Each dimension has several variable categories attached.  In the study, four textbooks written for the civics course “Samhällskunskap 1b” were analyzed, in accordance with the developed methodological framework. The results of the study found that each of the textbooks contained all three dimensions of political knowledge. However, the dimensions were not equally present in the content with an imbalance favoring the polity dimension which encompassed more than half of the observed variable categories in each of the textbooks. The politics dimension was also found to be relatively non-existent in each of the textbooks with coverage as low as 2% in one of the textbooks. Thus, the conclusion is that the political knowledge regarding the EU in the textbooks is far too one-sided to provide a satisfactory contribution to political participation. We also confirm that a similar focus on the polity dimension regarding the EU exists in textbooks which can also be found in the content teachers teach. This might have several implications for future political participants in Sweden and thus also Swedish democracy.

At what age people ought to be given the right to vote has become a salient issue in both contemporary Western politics and political science. A prevalent argument opposing lowering the voting age to 16 asserts that 16- and 17-year-olds lack the necessary political competence required of voters. However, the validity of this argument rests upon the assumption that adolescents do not attain the required competence upon enfranchisement. While the idea that political competence improves when given the vote can be traced back to 19th century political theory, empirical investigations of this claim remain scarce. In this thesis, I address this gap in the literature by applying a regression discontinuity (RD) design using eligibility to vote as the cut-off. By surveying the political theory regarding requirements for voting rights, I identify political knowledge and communicative skills as the most relevant competencies. No effect of being eligible to vote can be found on the former, while the results concerning communicative skills are inconclusive and sensitive to model specifications. These findings are consistent with previous RD-studies within this field: gaining the right to vote does not seem to have a significant effect on political knowledge. This study contributes to the ongoing discussion on the age of enfranchisement.

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Essay 1 (with Oskar Nordström Skans): This paper provides field evidence on the causal impact of past successes on future performances. Since persistence in success or failure is likely to be linked through, potentially time-varying, ability it is intrinsically difficult to identify the causal effect of succeeding on the probability of performing well in the future. We therefore employ a regression discontinuity design on data from professional golf tournaments exploiting that almost equally skilled players are separated into successes and failures half-way into the tournaments (the “cut”). We show that players who (marginally) succeeded in making the cut substantially increased their performance in subsequent tournaments relative to players who (marginally) failed to make the cut. This success-effect is substantially larger when the subsequent (outcome) tournament involves more prize money. The results therefore suggest that past successes provide an important prerequisite when performing high-stakes tasks. Essay 2: Recent experimental evidence suggests that women in general are more discouraged than men by failures which potentially can explain why women, on average, are less likely than men to reach top-positions in firms. This paper provides the first quasi-experimental evidence from the field on this issue using data from all-female and all-male professional golf tournaments to see if this result can be replicated among competitive men and women. These top-performing men and women are active in an environment with multiple rounds of competition and the institutional set-up of the tournaments makes it possible to causally estimate the effect of the result in one tournament on the performance in the next. The results show that both male and female golfers respond negatively to a failure and that their responses are virtually identical. This finding suggests that women’s difficulties in reaching top-positions in firms are caused by external rather than internal barriers. Essay 3: Voting is a fundamental human right. Yet, individuals that are younger than 18 do typically not have this right since they are considered uninformed. However, recent evidence tentatively suggests that the political knowledge of youths is endogenous to the voting age. I test for the existence of such dynamic adjustments utilizing voting age discontinuities caused by Swedish laws. I employ a regression discontinuity strategy on Swedish register data to estimate the causal effect of early age voting right on political knowledge around age 18. The results do not support the existence of positive causal effects of early age voting right on political knowledge. Thus, we should not expect that 16-year-olds respond by acquiring more political knowledge if they are given the right to vote. This finding weakens the case for a lowering of the voting age from 18 to 16. Essay 4 (with Lena Hensvik): We postulate that firms’ production losses  from absence depend on the employees’ internal substitutability, incentivizing firms to keep absence low in positions with few substitutes. Using Swedish employer-employee data we show that absence is substantially lower in such positions even conditional on establishment and occupation fixed effects. The result reflects sorting on both entry and exit margins, with stronger separations responses when it was difficult to predict the absence of the employees beforehand. These findings highlight that internal substitution insures firms against production disruptions caused by absence and that absence costs are important aspects of firms’ hiring and separations decisions.