This thesis examines political culture in London, 1500–1550, by looking at different forms of political communication between the civic government and the city’s inhabitants, and at how these acts were situated within the urban environment. Based on the records of the civic government, the body of the work is divided into two halves addressing those acts conducted by the authorities – proclamations, processions, public punishments – and those directed towards the civic government by others, such as petitions, libels, and seditious talk. The study of these acts reveals two important things: first, that they were not only pragmatic attempts to communicate information, but also performances designed either to construct or contest particular images of authority; secondly, that these performances were spatially structured and that the urban environment was an integral aspect of the city’s political culture. It is then demonstrated that, just as political communication was inherently performative and spatial, so the urban environment was itself a medium of political communication. These observations highlight the importance of political communication to an understanding of the city’s political culture as depicted in the historiography of early modern London. At the same time, recent scholarship on the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries has identified an increasingly distinctive culture in towns typified by attitudes to political authority as communal and contingent, and to social identity as performative and self-fashioned. In London in particular, historians have pointed to a radical transformation in the city’s political culture in reaction to dramatic urban growth after 1550. The spatial aspect of this, however, has been neglected. It is argued here that the inherently political nature of urban space and its communicative potential, already in existence, was integral to changing urban values and part of what made rapid change in London after 1550 a politically traumatic and transformative process.

This practice-based research addresses the challenges that face the animation practitioner in the Arab region. In engaging with this topic it highlights the contrast with international animation producers, and also seeks to analyse how Arab animation cinema is represented and understood in the West. It introduces Arab animation history, and the animation industry as it currently exists in the Middle East. I suggest the reasons why there have been so few animated shorts and feature-length films successfully produced in the Arab world, in spite of their being a rich literary and cultural heritage. This study reveals a number of cultural, religious, political and economic issues related to Arab animation cinema, both in relation to its history and in regard to its place domestically and internationally. This research explores how YouTube and other social media became the main platform for Arab animation artists to distribute their political works during and since the 'Arab Spring' in the Middle East. The immediate consequence of this is an explosion in the exposure of Arab animation artists and their work to the world, in comparison to the very limited opportunities and freedoms of the past. Moreover, this study seeks to open up a conversation about the possibility of showing animated films that include Arabic content to Western audiences. This is complex in the sense that the place and presence of Arab animated stories are affected by how the representation is perceived within its production context and conditions of exhibition. My research will result in original knowledge, to be made available to Arab filmmakers, the Arab film industry and international academics addressing and championing animation, by engaging with conceptual questions, creating a critical practice methodology, and applying research-led practice methods.

This case study evaluates government communication practices at Superfund sites. I describe agency communication practices in Superfund communities, paying particular attention to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Seven Cardinal Rules of Risk Communication and its role as a model for federal agencies engaged at these sites. Situating the study within a theoretical milieu that includes sensemaking and symbolic interactionism, I examine whether current practices deepen divisions among stakeholders, reducing the possibility for communicative convergence. I implement textual analysis and narrative inquiry to examine written and spoken communication about the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant National Priorities List Superfund site. Through crystallized analysis of media coverage, public comments, focus group transcripts, and local blogs, I address the following research questions: RQ1: How does the enactment of accepted agency risk communication practices affect relationships among stakeholders, specifically: • how do stakeholders (including federal agency personnel) characterize past and present agency risk communication practices, and • how do stakeholders (including federal agency personnel) characterize each other in relation to these communicative practices? RQ2: What are the related implications for improving agency risk communication approaches? The study concludes with recommendations for improving existing agency risk communication guidelines, as well as the creation of a new communication model to promote convergent communication at Superfund sites.

<p><strong><strong><p>This thesis has its focus</p>on media portrayal of a large political institution; the European Union. Articles from two nations daily newspapers have been analyzed in order to examine how the European Union is described and framed for their readers. The newspapers that was chosen for this study and from which the material was collected, were the Swedish newspaper <em><em>Svenska Dagbladet </em></em>the American newspaper <em><em>The New York Times</em></em>. The material was taken from three periods of time, and by this the results did not only serve a presentiment on how the media reports about the subject, but also an idea over the media’s coverage character over time. Also, by analyzing articles from newspapers from different countries, the material could give an answer to whether there is any difference in media reporting and coverage about the European Union over nation borders. </strong></strong></p><p>Theories that have been under observation for this study, and which have functioned as tools for the analyzing process are: the agenda-setting theory, media ideology, framing, media logic and political communication. Further inspirations that have been under consideration and of values through the development of this thesis are thoughts from the modern theorist Jürgen Habermas, and earlier studies that have been made on the subject in matter, for example ones by Lars Palm and Vanni Tjernström.</p><p>Results from this study showed that there were differences between the two nations way of reporting about the subject, and also that changes over time have occurred. Mostly, it was the Swedish news reporting that showed evident change over the three investigated periods. This can be explained by the countries over all changed relationship towards the European Union. Further did results from this study show that the American articles included more actors and subjects, compared to the Swedish articles. This can be a factor of the American articles longer character.</p>

Magistro darbe nagrinėjamas politikų komunikacijos ir įvaizdžio formavimo procesas tinklaraščiuose, analizuojant skirtinguose valdymo lygmenyse: Europos Parlamente, Lietuvos Respublikos Seime bei vietos savivaldos institucijose piliečių interesus atstovaujančių politikų tinklaraščius. Tyrimu buvo siekiama patikrinti dvi pagrindines darbe formuluojamas hipotezes: 1) Lietuvos politikai tinklaraščiuose komunikuoja pasyviai bei formuoja personalizuotą politiko įvaizdį; 2) politiko veiklos aplinka lemia politiko tinklaraščio komunikacijos pobūdį: Lietuvos piliečių interesus Europos Parlamente, Lietuvos Respublikos Seime bei vietos savivaldos institucijose atstovaujančių politikų komunikacinės bei įvaizdžio formavimo strategijos skiriasi. Tyrimas buvo atliekamas keliais etapais. Pirmiausia, buvo aiškinamasi, kaip aktyviai tinklaraščiuose komunikuoja politikai. Šiame etape kiekybiškai ir kokybiškai tirti šešių politikų tinklaraščiai. Tyrimo metu siekta nustatyti politikų tinklaraščiuose vyraujančias komunikacijos ir įvaizdžio formavimo strategijas. Turinio analizės duomenys toliau buvo analizuojami remiantis penkiais pusiau struktūruotais kokybiniais interviu su skirtingo valdymo lygmenyse piliečių interesus atstovaujančiais politikais, kurių komunikacijos ir įvaizdžio formavimo strategijos nėra aiškiai apibrėžtos, ir ekspertais: elektroninės ir politinės komunikacijos specifiką tyrinėjančia mokslininke bei aktyviu tinklaraštininku, politikų tinklaraščiais besidominčiu politikos... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / This MA thesis focuses on the process of politicians’ communication and image formation in blogs and analyses different administration levels, i.e. the blogs of the politicians representing citizens’ interests in the European Parliament, the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania and local municipal institutions. The goal of the analysis is to test the two main hypotheses enunciated in the paper – 1) Lithuanian politicians communicate passively and embody a personalised politician’s image in their blogs; 2) the environment of a politician’s activity preconditions the nature of the politician’s blog – communication and image formation strategies of politicians representing citizens in the European Parliament, the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania and local municipal institutions differ. The analysis consists of several stages. The first stage is an investigation of how actively politicians communicate in their blogs. This stage contains a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the blogs of six politicians. The goal of this research is to determine the communication and image formation strategies dominating in the politicians’ blogs. The data of the content analysis is further analysed based on the five half-structured qualitative interviews with the politicians representing citizens on various administration levels whose communication and image formation strategies are not clearly defined; the experts, a scientist analysing the specifics of the electronic and political... [to full text]

The diploma thesis "Framing of euroscepticism in the Czech daily press" deals with political communication about the European Union realized in the czech daily press (namely MF DNES, Právo and Hospodářské noviny) during three events which were essential fot the Czech republic. It was referendum (2003), signing of Lisbon Treaty (2009) and signing of ESM (2013). It focuses on quality and europeanisation of public debate and its changes within this events. It also investigates how eurosceptic actors and and oponions are represented. It is trying to examine what are their possibilities of participating in public debate and identify attitudes of individual tituls. Research methods are quantitative analysis plus frame analysis. It also treats (in theoretical part) concepts like political communication (generally and on the european level), european public sphere and also euroscepticism itself.

This Master of Arts thesis examines how political marketing, and the Doer/Dexter model specifically, helped the NDP in Manitoba and Nova Scotia win elections from 1999 through 2007 in Manitoba and in 2009 in Nova Scotia. The study uses content analysis on the election platforms of the period and elite interviews with key political strategists of the NDP in order to gain insight and draw conclusions on what political marketing elements were critical to the party’s electoral success. This study concludes that the NDP in Manitoba and Nova Scotia used market research and a similar comprehensive political marketing strategy, now known as the Doer/Dexter model, which focused on the simplification of communication, the moderation of policy and the inoculation of any perceived weakness in order to win power. / May 2016

During the past ten years, European politics experienced a rise of far right-wing parties because of intensified levels of insecurity among the public (Falasca &amp; Grandien, 2017). These parties organize their political discourse around topics of nationalism and a strong opinion against immigration, the Euro and the European Union (Breeze, 2019; Häusler, 2018). One of these parties is the Alternative for Germany (AfD) which celebrated a major success in the federal elections in 2017 where it became the third largest party in the German Bundestag.   The present study aims to analyze the campaign posters of the AfD as one element of their strategic political communication for the 2017 election period in the context of the party’s growing popularity among German society. To accomplish that goal, the qualitative method of multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA) is applied. The MCDA analyzes written and visual content. The study seeks to identify the narratives implemented by the party and analyze them by drawing on the concept of nationalism. Furthermore, the analysis aims to identify the frames created around the main issues addressed in the party’s political agenda by discussing them in relation to the concepts of ontological security and existential anxiety by Giddens (1991) and the framing theory by Goffman (1974).   The study reveals that the AfD highlights in its political communication one main conflict: The German public versus the immigrants. The immigrants are framed as the threatening strange other whose cultural values, and religious beliefs contradict with those of the Germans who are depicted as the victims. This is achieved through the posters which seek to elicit fear and hatred towards the strange new to increase the insecurities perceived by the public. The party, on the contrary, represents itself as the savior of the German nation, its traditions, and values which they aim to maintain and protect from Muslim influence.

Esta tese analisa a atuação das empresas de televisão como grupos de interesse, a partir do estudo de caso sobre o processo decisório da política de classificação indicativa, que determina a faixa etária mínima e a faixa horária a que se recomendam os programas de entretenimento na televisão aberta. O processo transcorreu desde 1988 até 2016, mas tem seu período mais importante entre 2006 e 2007, foco principal da tese. O problema investigado é como, e em que medida, as empresas de televisão, em sua atuação como grupo de interesse no caso da classificação indicativa, utilizaram os recursos políticos que controlam diretamente. Utiliza-se a metodologia de process-tracing, combinando análise de documentos, análise de cobertura dos meios de comunicação e entrevistas em profundidade com participantes dos três poderes, das empresas, de entidades da sociedade civil e do Ministério Público. Os achados revelam atuação política permanente das empresas durante duas décadas, sustentada no uso forte de estratégias e táticas ordinárias de pressão política e no uso moderado de estratégias e táticas peculiares, possíveis devido ao controle que as empresas exercem do acesso à esfera pública. Ao fazer a análise do caso da classificação indicativa sob a luz de outros casos de negociação de políticas de comunicação no mesmo período, a tese identifica padrões de relação Estado-sociedade distintos dentro do mesmo governo, e revela que posição ideológica, contexto político, processos de articulação e mobilização social e processos políticos robustos são elementos determinantes da capacidade de o governo federal obter sucesso em suas tentativas de implantar políticas públicas de comunicação. A tese conclui que as empresas de televisão constituem, per se, um centro de poder que é interlocutor qualificado do poder político em escala nacional, e reforça o entendimento de que a relação entre comunicação e política não pode ser compreendida apenas como de influência entre dois campos, mas deve partir do reconhecimento das empresas de televisão como atores políticos. / This thesis analyzes the performance of television companies as an interest group, based on the case study on the decision-making process of the parental guidance policy, which determines the minimum age range and the hourly range for entertainment programs on free-to-air television. The process ran from 1988 to 2016, but it has its most important period between 2006 and 2007, the main focus of the thesis. The problem investigated is how, and to what extent, television companies have used the political resources they directly control in their performance as an interest group in the case of parental guidance. The methodology of processtracing is adopted, combining analysis of documents, analysis of media coverage and in-depth interviews with participants of the three powers, companies, civil society organizations and the Federal Persecution Service. The findings reveal permanent political performance of the companies during two decades, based on the strong use of ordinary strategies and tactics of political pressure and on a moderate use of peculiar strategies and tactics, possible due to the companies\' control of access to the public sphere. In making the analysis of the case of parental guidance policy in the light of other cases of negotiation of communication policies in the same period, the thesis identifies distinct state-society relationship patterns within the same government, and reveals that ideological position, political context, processes articulation and social mobilization and robust political processes are elements that determine the capacity of the federal government to succeed in its attempts to implement public communication policies. The thesis concludes that television companies constitute, per se, a power center that is a qualified interlocutor of political power on a national scale and reinforces the understanding that the relationship between communication and politics cannot be comprehended only on the basis of the influence between two fields, but must start from the recognition of television companies as political actors.

Dans cette thèse, j’ai souhaité explorer la communication politique espagnole réactivée après plus de quarante ans de dictature et porter une attention particulière au nouveau schéma communicationnel que l’Espagne a dû se réinventer, en s’inspirant des pratiques marketing déjà ancrées chez ses homologues européens et américains. Encouragé par l’augmentation du nombre de convocations électorales, la prolifération des discours parlementaires et l’essor des moyens de communication de masse, un nouveau jeu de langage politique est né entre les acteurs de cette communication politique que sont les hommes politiques, les médias et l’opinion publique. Aussi, insérés dans un contexte socio-historique extrêmement riche, les discours politiques prononcés dans l’Espagne démocratique (1982-2008) par le PP et le PSOE en campagne ou hors campagne sont non seulement révélateurs de l’évolution d’une société démocratique en quête de construction et de reconnaissance sur la scène internationale ; ils marquent également la fin des clivages idéologiques. La diversité de mon corpus a cherché à lever le voile sur la nouvelle parole politique, tiraillée entre la transmission des idéologies et la politique spectacle. La première partie de ce travail de recherche jette les bases théoriques de la communication politique et du discours politique généralisables à toutes les démocraties occidentales, en centrant son attention sur le cas espagnol, qui a su adapter sa manière de communiquer et de produire des discours dans la sphère politique aux exigences contemporaines sous l’égide du marketing politique. La seconde partie interroge les spots électoraux émis par les deux partis majoritaires au cours des élections législatives de 1982 à 2008 du point de vue des stratégies discursives en portant une attention particulière à l’image. La troisième partie livre une analyse lexicale des discours d’investiture prononcés depuis 1982 par les chefs de gouvernement espagnols, étude complétée par une analyse du contenu qui met en exergue les caractéristiques de chacun d’entre eux et confronte chaque allocution au débat qui a opposé le candidat aspirant à la Moncloa au porte-parole de l’opposition. / In this thesis, I intend to investigate the Spanish means of political communication that have been reactivated after more than forty years of dictatorship, and to pay particular attention to the new communication strategy that Spain has had to reinvent, by drawing inspiration from marketing practices already well established in her European and American counterparts. Encouraged by the increase in the number of elections, the proliferation of parliamentary speeches and the development of mass media, a new kind of political language has come about between the political communicators who are the politicians, the media, and the public. Furthermore, set in an extremely rich socio-historic context, the political speeches delivered in democratic Spain (1982-2008) by the PP and the PSOE during or outside their campaigns not only deal with a society in transition to democracy and which is internationally recognised on the but they also mark the end of ideological splits. The variety of documents in my corpus aims at unveiling the new political vocabulary, pulled between conveying ideologies and « showbiz politics ». The first part of this research lays the foundations of political communication and political language that can be applied to all western democracies, focusing on the Spanish case which was able to adapt its way of communicating and producing speeches in the political sphere to the contemporary requirements under the aegis of political marketing. The second part questions t both major parties’ party political broadcast during the general elections from 1982 to 2008 from the strategic point of view of the speeches, by paying particular attention to images. Third part is a lexical analysis of nomination speeches since 1982 by successive Spanish heads of government. This study is completed by an analysis of the content of the speeches and compares every political commentary with the debate that set the candidate aspiring to the Moncloa against the opposition’s spokesman.