Children's literature is crucial in shaping the way young children see and think about themselves in the eyes of society. Although diversity is increasing, a need remains for books that feature Black children as well as accurate portrayals of their lifestyles. According to the Cooperation Children's Book Center (2020), only 400 books out of 3,299 are about Black Americans, while a little over half of that number are actually written by Black authors. Why should children of color have to suffice with reading books that have no connection to their real-world life? Black children should have access to and enjoy quality, award winning books that accurately represent their everyday lifestyles and not merely retell stories from the past. To address these concerns, this thesis examined 16 of the Coretta Scott King (CSK) Award and Honor picturebooks, awarded in 2013-2020, to explore the contents in terms of themes to support young Black American children on their journey of finding meaning and joy in reading. Within the analysis, a total of 16 picturebooks showed that 8 featured Black Americans in struggling contexts highlighting historical events, while 8 focused on the everyday lives and culture of Black Americans. Delving deeper, two trends, artistic expression and self-confidence, were identified. Within the eight books Within the books focusing on everyday Black culture, four themes were agreed upon: 1) Navigating real societal problems within the Black community, 2) Realizing empowerment within ourselves, 3) Valuing relationships with others, and 4) Finding value in everyday activities.

At the end of 2018, more than 68.5 million people were displaced from their homes. Of these displaced persons, 22.5 million of these people were forced to leave their homes and find safety in another country. These people are known globally as refugees. Many of these refugees in recent years have fled to Western countries in Europe and North America. This immigration and the general subject of refugees and their integration into their host countries have recently been a large subject for media. Many of these refugees came from countries and cultures that may carry stigmatic backgrounds including Middle Eastern and African countries. For decades, media portrayals in entertainment, social, media, and news media have shown people from these countries in certain ways that may conflict with truthful characteristics of people from these cultures. The purpose of this study is to help better understand how refugees personal assimilation experiences compare to information distributed by the media. Through researching existing studies of media portrayals of refugees and Muslims through the lens of framing theory readers can better understand what information is distributed in Western cultures about refugees. Then, through conducting in-depth interviews with refugees hosted in Europe and the United States, seeking understanding of refugees personal stories, life experiences, and their perceptions of media representations of people of their same refugee status, readers may additionally better understand any differences in the portrayal of refugees and the experiences had by refugees themselves. Using grounded theory, poignant themes emerged from the interviews to explain how interviewed refugees lives are similar or differ and are affected by Western media portrayals. Emergent themes indicated that primarily polarized news accounts may interfere with refugee acculturation by making social and cultural connections difficult, discrepancies in qualifications, and issues with misunderstanding refugees lack of mobility. Additionally, refugee sentiments about refugee media portrayals and acculturation were evaluated to better understand how the media affects their assimilation processes.

Advertising plays an important role in society, since it reflect the norms and also helps create and educate social roles and values. However, advertising might not always be a true reflection of the reality, and instead might create and uphold negative cultural stereotypes. Sex-role portrayals refers to the study of how genders are portrayed within advertising and how these are characterized in relation to other characters and knowledge of how to portray the male gender is paramount for marketing practitioners. The decisions on how to do so must be based on the targeted segments and a consumer segmentation that in such a context must be given attention are married and unmarried women. In a two-step study, the purpose is to "explain the brand attitudes of married and unmarried women in advertisement with a traditional and non-traditional male portrayal" The initial first step utilized a qualitative approach consisting of a focus group with the aim to confirm or challenge previous theories of what is considered to be a traditional and non-traditional way of portraying the male gender within advertising. Emerging from this are two written advertisements, one with a traditional male and one with a non-traditional male, that are included in the subsequent step. Taking on a quantitative approach, the second step took on measures of brand attitude among married and unmarried women in a total of 205 self-completion questionnaires. The results indicated a more favorable evaluation elicited from the non-traditional male portrayal, with limited variance between the segments.

This study analyzes gender portrayals in Swiss prime-time television advertising with regard to gender stereotypes. A content analysis of 449 characters of 412 distinct advertisements sampled from four selected German-speaking TV channels in Switzerland was carried out. Characters in the ads were coded for physical appearance, sexualization, social role, and occupation. The data show significant variations between the representation of women and men in all four aspects. An international comparison of the gender portrayals used in Swiss advertising suggests that they are almost identical to internationally used stereotypes. Only small deviances occur, such as the portrayal of both women and men in a home setting, an equal share of female and male characters doing housework, and no differences in the arguments given by women and men on why to use a product they advertise.

De nombreux albums de littérature de jeunesse se proposent de désamorcer la tension dramatique qui entoure l'entrée à l'école du jeune enfant en mettant en scène ce premier jour. Ces ouvrages qui s'adressent aux enfants les plus jeunes et à leurs parents sont inscrits dans une double dynamique : miroir social et fabrique de représentations, ils participent à l'élaboration et à la transmission des codes et règles de l'entrée dans cette nouvelle vie sociale. Ils constituent des témoins privilégiés d'une épreuve de socialisation où le « métier d'élève » est constamment redéfini. L'analyse de contenu d'un corpus de 158 ouvrages (documentaires et fictions) propose de façon diachronique (de 70 à nos jours) et synchronique, d'inventorier les normes associées aux mises en représentation de ce rite de passage. Il s'agit de saisir comment évoluent et s'organisent ces systèmes de représentation, quelles définitions sociales de l'enfance les sous-tendent, et de quelle façon ils s'inscrivent dans un univers éditorial fortement hiérarchisé. Des entretiens menés auprès des auteurs des ouvrages visent dans ce sens à interroger le processus de fabrication de ces normes en pointant les éventuels conflits de normativités générés par les logiques qui s'entrecroisent au sein du champ de production de ces livres. / Numerous children's books try to lessen the stress for young children, related to the beginning of a new school year, by depicting this first day back. These publications, which are aimed at very young children and their parents, act in two ways: they provide a mirror of society, and paint a picture, as they contribute to the development and communication of the different codes and rules linked to this new step in life. They provide a priceless account of this new challenge, in which the "role of the pupil" is constantly being redefined. In this analysis of a body of 158 works and their content (documentaries and fictions) we will try to make an inventory, diachronically (from 1970 to present day) and synchronically, of the connected norms and portrayals of this key moment in childhood. The aim is to understand how these different portrayals have evolved and have been structured, which underlying social definitions of childhood can be detected, and in what way they fit into a highly ordered editorial sphere. The interviews carried out with the authors of these publications aim to question the process used to create these norms, highlighting any potential conflicts regarding normative values generated by logical ideas which cross over in the context of the production of these books.

This thesis examines the roles of imperial women in the later Roman Empire, with a central focus on the period from Constantine I to Valentinian III (306-455 AD). In this period the emperor’s role evolved from a military leader presiding over an itinerant court to a court-based figure, often a child, who was reliant on ceremonial presentation to display imperial prestige. In my analysis, I explore how the roles of imperial women developed alongside this evolution of the emperor’s own position. I also trace their roles in relation to other important developments of the period: the introduction of Christianity as the imperially favoured religion, the permanent division of Empire, and the series of military crises which affected the West in particular. Following an introduction that considers why relatively little is written on the women of the late antique court, the thesis is divided into two parts. In the first (Historical Overview and Models), Chapter 1 reviews the roles of imperial women in the period from Augustus to the establishment of the Tetrarchy, looking at nomenclature, coins and inscriptions, patronage activities, movements, literary portrayals, and cases where they were removed from their position. In Chapter 2, after providing a historical survey of the evidence for imperial women in the three dynasties of this period, I look in detail at their changing roles in the various areas considered in Chapter 1. In Part Two (Praise, Criticism, and Mischance), I consider particular case studies, divided into three general themes. Chapter 3 examines the positive portrayal and reception of imperial women in literature. In Chapter 4, I consider negative portrayals, as well as the changing reception of their images in later literature. Chapter 5 examines the consequences for women when they lost imperial protection. My conclusion summarises the trends that emerge from Part One and the case studies examined in Part Two. It is neither possible, nor is it my intention, to establish a biography of such women beyond their appearances in literary narratives. This thesis seeks instead to establish a comprehensive picture of imperial women whose roles have been neglected.

Media are powerful agents of socialization; mediated images affect individual and group behavior as well as inter-group attitudes. In the case of the Hispanic/Latino community in the U.S., frequently underrepresented and stereotyped in mainstream media, identity politics and perspectives of self-representation are complicated by the vast diversity of this membership. This project analyzed the current discourse on Hispanic/Latino ethnic identity proposed by Latina magazine and its social standing in relation to the mainstream culture. A quantitative content analysis that compared Latina’s visual portrayals of women to the female portrayals found in the mainstream magazine Glamour suggested that Latina constructed a homogenized and non-conflictive identity for Hispanic/Latino women; an identity that supports U.S. dominant discourses on ethnicity and race and is subjugated to marketing practices.

This study examines how women are portrayed in four of Disney’s feature films, withthe focus on the presentation of relations between women. The films examined areSnow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Sleeping Beauty (1959), The Little Mermaid(1989) and Frozen (2013). The aim is to analyse the development that has taken placefrom a gender perspective, from the earliest film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs(1937), to the latest, Frozen (2013), and to reveal the significance of the femalecharacters for each other. The films’ portrayal of women and female relations isdiscussed in relation to previous criticism of Disney for their stereotyped portrayal ofwomen, and through a thematic comparison with the known fairytales on which thefilms are based. The analysis has been performed with the aid of content analysis basedon Stukát (2011) and Ledin & Moberg (2010). The theoretical foundation is gendertheory, chiefly using Jarlbro (2006), Nilson (2010) and Davies (2003).One finding of this study is that it is only in the recent films that more room has beengiven to a positive relationship between women. In the early films there is more hatebetween women, who are therefore not shown as good objects for young girls toidentify with, whereas the later films often depict relations between women as loving.However, the mother figure and female friends are often absent from Disney’s films.These relationships are often described as being the most important for girls’ identitydevelopment, and therefore the early Disney films can be assumed to lack goodidentification possibilities for girls. Another finding is that the female characters havebecome more complex in the recent films, not following traditional female behaviour.

Content analysis of The Dallas Morning News focuses on sources, bylines, photographs, and main characters to determine the quantity and quality of portrayals of women. The study included front pages and main local news pages during one week each from 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, and 1990. Change was charted by year for both sexes. In 1950, few representations of women were included and many were stereotypical. Some stereotyping persisted in 1990, and men outnumbered women more than 3 to 1 as story sources, nearly 3 to 1 in front-page bylines, more than 2 to 1 in photographs, and more than 2 to 1 as main characters. Women still lag behind men, despite feminists' efforts to improve coverage.

While pornography has become highly accessible, another way in which pornography is present in media is through discussion in movies and television shows, which is often framed through casual reference, by way of a joke, or in a teasing manner. A content analysis of 55 episodes that reference pornography—looking specifically at the framing of pornography in individual scenes—provides valuable insight into the media ecosystem surrounding pornography and its potential impact on adolescents. Using cultivation analysis and framing theory as a theoretical basis, this study analyzes the inclusion of the terms, “porn,” “porno,” and “pornography” in popular television shows.