This thesis analyzes the role of Ukrainian mythological discourses in the formulation of Ukrainian national identity. The main purpose of the present thesis is to explore the interaction between mythological discourses, which are defined as sets of popular beliefs, presuppositions and the patterns of self-identification rooted in the consciousness of ethnic collectivities, and the process of national identity formation in post-Soviet Ukraine. The main focus of the thesis is on the ways of the use of Ukrainian mythological discourses by post-Soviet Ukraine&rsquo / s political and intellectual elite preoccupied with the task of implementing their nation-building project in Ukraine. This thesis consists of six chapters. Following the introductory first chapter, the second chapter explores the concept of &ldquo / myth&rdquo / in nationalism studies. The third, fourth and fifth chapters discuss the nation-building process of post-Soviet Ukraine by examining cultural, political and social aspects. The concluding chapter discusses the main findings of the thesis.

What is the structure of society? Many thinkers have pondered the regularities. Way of life theory (WOLT) shows the relationship of every rational, social issue to every other rational, social issue. ¶ From two dichotomised, theoretical dimensions called grid and group, Mary Douglas deduced four ways of life usually called individualism, hierarchy, egalitarianism, and fatalism. WOLT shows the same four ideal types may be deduced from any significant pair of social issues, including competition, cooperation, coercion, freedom, justice, self-identity, nature, human nature, and more. Since four types may be divided pair-wise in three ways, there are three, not two, dimensions or axes. ¶ WOLT also deduces Douglas’s fifth type (the hermit) and resolves the long-standing logical anomalies of grid-group theory. ¶ In all, seven social theorists have independently deduced four types from various dimension pairs. Mistakes aside, they find the same four theoretical types. Evidently, the four types are natural kinds. Between them these theorists use three axes. ¶ Numerous intuitive theorists from across social science have developed types without dimensions, and dimensions without types. Though incomplete, they show no significant disagreement. ¶ It appears that every issue that must be taken into account to live socially fits the three axes. There is no flexibility: each issue fits the axes one way. Geometrically, three dichot¬omised dimensions yield eight types, however four of them are not viable and do not arise. Given just four valid points, the number of dimensions is necessarily limited to three. The axes generate thousands of predictions. ¶ Since deduction yields the same four types whatever issues are placed on the dimensions, the four types are, like objects of natural science, independent of any theorist. In turn, these four types control which issues fit and how they fit, delimiting the scope and refining the meaning of the issues—which places the issues, too, beyond any theorist’s determination. ¶ As in natural science, the sphere of application is set by the deductive theory, not by a theorist’s pronouncement: what fits, fits. The domain appears to cover matters which people must take a position on to live socially. Emotional and internal personal issues will not fit. ¶ WOLT sharpens meaning, formalises structure and extends connections in areas as diverse as equality, liberalism, game theory, corporate culture, national culture, political right and left, religion, and working-class health. ¶ Like a natural science theory, WOLT is relational, not only taxonomic. As in natural science, no person, organisation, or social situation will conform exactly to its ideal types. It is falsifiable by deducing, or finding empirically, rival social types or a social phenomenon that will not fit. Empirical testing of the theory as a whole is awkward owing to its structure and to parochial effects. Three data sets failed to refute it. ¶ WOLT reveals how every social issue relates to every other social issue, providing a tool for analysing worldview, social structure, and social behaviour.

This thesis investigates the centrality of media spectacles in contemporary Chinese media culture, as sites of contestation over identity, citizenship and ethics. It examines four media spectacles - the media event of the new millennium celebrations, the news event of SARS reportage, the media stories about AIDS and SARS by new media users, and the media campaign war between Falun Gong and the Chinese state - to show how such contestation occurs in the interplay between the state and the non-state. It argues that the praxis to define identity, citizenship and ethics is not only in contestation (featuring resistance and opposition), but also in conjunction (characterized by mutual accommodation and appropriation) between the state and the non-state. Chinese modernity is produced in such interplay. / This thesis is an interdisciplinary study of Chinese media culture, which combines theories from media studies and critical theory with those from China studies, particularly cultural studies in and about China. Chapter One examines trajectories of studies on Chinese media and culture within the context of China's structural transformations in the post-Mao era. It also offers conceptual discussions of counter narratives of modernity as a tripartite concept and Chinese media spectacles in relation to the thematic structure of the thesis. Chapter Two examines the interplay of the state and the non-state through a case study of the new millennium celebrations. It argues that the interplay produces a rejuvenation millennialism that harbingers China's second coming in the third millennium. This rejuvenation millennialism is a hybrid discourse of nostalgia, nationalism, and utopianism, all of which require a post as their signifier. Chapter Three uses SARS reportage as a case study to examine the intellectual politics of Chinese journalists in their interplay with the state and the society. It shows how journalists use strategies of double-time narration to mediate the different logics that are imposed upon them. It argues that mediation journalism defines and confines contemporary Chinese journalism. / Chapter Four studies media stories about AIDS (the case of Li Jiaming) and SARS (the cases of Sun Zhigang and SMS rhymes about SARS) that are produced, circulated and consumed by Internet and mobile phone users in urban China. It shows how new media users are able to re-configure their subjectivities through the interplay with the state and intellectual/journalist communities. It argues that by allowing the reformation of political subjectivities, talking, linking and clicking has become an important means of exercising citizenship for the subjects of postsocialist China. Chapter Five examines Falun Gong's media campaign war with the state, with the focus on their representations of the body, in order to argue that the contestation between the state and the non-state constitutes a crisis not only for body politics but also for ethics. Falun Gong represents an historical force to split the ethics of the self and the nation from the politics of the state. Representing four aspects of counter narratives of modernity in China, these four media spectacles will inform Chinese politics, culture, society and everyday life in the 21st century.

Dissertation (Ph. D.)--University of Akron, Dept. of Public Administration and Urban Studies, 2007. / "May, 2007." Title from electronic dissertation title page (viewed 05/02/2008) Advisor, Raymond W. Cox, III; Committee members, Ralph P. Hummel, Julia Beckett, Jesse F. Marquette, Jennifer Alexander; Department Chair, Sonia A. Alemagno; Dean of the College, Robert F. Levant; Dean of the Graduate School, George R. Newkome. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D. Political Science and Public Policy)--University of Waikato, 2006. / Title from PDF cover (viewed March 3, 2008) Includes bibliographical references (p. 383-413)

Zugl.: Bamberg, Universiẗat, Diss., 2008.

Thesis (M.A.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Department of English, General Literature and Rhetoric. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 310-338).

[Zugl.: Berlin, Freie Univ., Habil.-Schr.]

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Canterbury, 2007. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 310-325). Also available via the World Wide Web.