Film is a medium which is mainly used for entertainment. It is a medium that is constantly expanding, and beside from it being a relaxing activity it can also be used for educational purposes. This is an aspect of film that should be valued, since it has the possibility to engage, educate and move its viewers. This is a study which aim is to analyze how employees within the care of disabled in Umeå have perceived educational movies. The movies that the staff has watched are a part of a basic training program, which all employees are required to fulfill. It is a total of three movies that have been watched by the workers. To examine their opinions six qualitative interviews were held with members of the staff. This study has therefor analyzed the employees’ views of the movies, rather than the movies themselves. The interviews were later analyzed in relation to the study’s theories, which include reception analyses, encoding/decoding and learning within an organization.The study has shown that the educational movies had both positive and negative aspects. When it comes to the movies' content, the informants had mostly positive things to say. They liked the information, the way the movies were made and have in some aspects incorporated what they learnt from the movies in their everyday life. When it comes to the experience of watching the movies, the informants have a more negative view. This mostly comes from the fact that they were disturbed while watching the movies, but also tired since they watched the movies late in the afternoon. These factors made it hard for the employees to concentrate while watching the movies.The study have shown that both the movies' content and the experience of watching the movies play two key roles in how the employees have perceived them. It is important that both parts satisfy the staff, in order for the organization to get their message across.

Thesis advisor: William Stanwood / Thesis advisor: Lindsay Hogan / Never before has it been so important to investigate the way in which televised historical drama recreates and represents the past, for, as Robert Rosenstone (2003) acknowledges, “the increasing presence of the visual media in modern culture and the vast increase in TV channels seems to ensure that most people now get their knowledge of the past, once school is over, from the visual media” (p. 10). Therefore, this research uses the popular PBS Masterpiece Theatre program Downton Abbey as a case study to examine the accuracy of depictions of historical periods in contemporary television programs with the intent of discovering the impact of historical fiction on audiences’ perceptions of the past and, subsequently, on the collective memory of the public domain. Using a reception analysis approach, this research considers both producer-encoded and audience-decoded content within the four categories of (I) Setting, Details, and Design; (II) History; (III) Behavior; and (IV) Agenda, Values, and Effects outlined by Paul B. Weinstein (2001) to form conclusions concerning the relationship between the encoding and decoding of Downton Abbey, in particular, as well as the larger implications these findings have for televised historical drama and society’s collective memory, in general. Ultimately, this essay argues that through its precision of post-Edwardian detail, Downton Abbey attempts to construct a veil of accuracy behind which the series’ narrative is theoretically able to operate freely and without rigid constraint by history’s “hard and fast rules” (Fellowes, 2012a, p. 60). The findings also reveal an incongruity between this philosophy of encoding and the subsequent decoding process of Downton Abbey’s audience members. Finally, this study offers two potential functions historical drama may serve in contemporary society: as either a catalyst for historical inquiry or as a purveyor of distinctly modern, as opposed to historical, lessons. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: College Honors Program. / Discipline: Communication Honors Program. / Discipline: Communication.

This thesis analyzes the contents of the Turkish magazine programs to explore as if the contents feed anti- establishment feelings or reinforce the existing hegemony in the society. The theses also traces the audience attitudes and beliefs towards the magazine programs in Turkey. The results suggested that programs do not represent any threat to the existing hegemony. On the contrary, it is more plausible to suggest that they represent a serious support to the existing order. The audience reactions revealed an oppositional attitude towards such programs in general which shows differences in terms of gender, education, political views, father&#039 / s education level and hours of TV watching.

This thesis examines the differences regarding thereception between American and Swedish reviews of the Swedish film, The Square (2017, Ruben Östlund). It explores whether or not their differences and similarities reflect different cultural contexts. By analyzing twelve reviews, six from each country, and using a qualitative analysis and reception studies as a theoretical foundation, the thesis have looked at what impacts our cultural understanding of a film like The Square. Janet Staiger’s theories on different type of readers (such as coherent readers, ideal readers, misreaders and competent readers) have also been brought to discussion. Furthermore, four themes have been identified as constantly present throughout the reviews, and they are: modern times, political correctness, the art world, and the disconnection from others. I have compared these themes with each other in order to approach the differences and similarities between the reviews in both countries. The conclusion is that the reviews differ due to what type of reader the reviewers are, and if they are willing to go beyond their cultural framework to try to understand the cultural context, displayed in the film. The thesis is also written from a post-structural perspective, awknowleding how each interpretation says something essential about the themes in the film

The purpose of this study is to address and understand how shock advertising can be used for the social marketing of non-profit organisations in Sweden. To better understand shock advertising in the Swedish context a case study of a campaign published by the Swedish non-profit organisation Talita, with the purpose of bringing attention and awareness to the problem of prostitution happening at younger ages in Sweden, is performed. The study uses reception analysis to gain insights to the contexts and ways the campaign was encoded as well as decoded by intended audiences.  The study begins with a content analysis of the material that provides information on how Talita and the communication agency responsible for the campaign encoded the information. After information on the context and encoding is analysed, three focus group interviews are performed with groups of teachers and parents of children aged 12–17 are presented. This is done to understand how they interpret and construct meaning from the campaign. The information from these interviews is thematized and analysed to be able to compare it with the organisation’s intended interpretations.  The result from this reception analysis showed that the shock advertising in this campaign was negotiated by the audience. The study even confirmed former research and found that elements of shock can lead to oppositional readings due to the audience feeling overwhelmed by the content and choosing therefore to do nothing or purposefully ignore advertisements. The case study was able to provide supporting evidence on media resistance and provide a contextual case example for how a specific Swedish audience of media consumers understand shock advertising in social marketing done by nonprofits.

This thesis examines how exclusive women's magazines readers approach the category of luxury, their relationship with products announced in these magazines and whether the feeling of luxury, aroused by such magazines, is affiliated with a certain social class. This thesis also focuses on question whether these readers regard physisal atractiveness as a sign of social status. The theoretical part of this thesis describes several concepts which are important in the context of media studies: social constructivism, the process of understanding media effects, the conception of uses and gratification and the role of mass media in the socialization process. This part further elaborates on exclusive women's magazines, conceptions of lifestyle, luxury, fashion and its importance for identity construction. The methodological part introduces the methodology of the analysis and the analysis itself. The sample used for this analysis was composed of ten respondents which were subjected to an in-depth interview. Each interview also included reception analysis. The following chapters describe the results of this analysis.

科學概念若能有效地普及於社會大眾，可以加速跨領域知識的整合創新、提高國家的創新經濟產能，並促進社會間的對話與發展想像。因此「科學普及」（以下簡稱「科普」）是全球許多國家推動知識工程的基礎。 所謂「科普」，是把科學研究的結果用一種比較含糊的轉譯方式提供給大眾，目的在於對公眾進行教育（educate）、說服（persuade）與溝通（communicate），讓大眾能學習理解科學的內涵（learned）、具有科學思辨的能力（competent）並能夠以科學精神參與社會事務（function-in-society）；傳播媒介則是科普最好的載具。然而，科普的工作一直都有傳播內容過於生硬難懂、望之生畏的困境，無法真正達到普及的效果；學者們認為主要包含科普內容文本、讀者理解以及科學家參與推廣等層面的問題。 本文藉由量化的研究方法初探「科普讀物的圖文呈現形式」在傳播效果上對讀者「認知資訊負荷」、「態度」及「理解」的影響。同時，將讀者的「涉入感」與「先備知識」納入變項，探究讀者「涉入感」與「先備知識」的差異對於科普讀物傳播效果的影響程度。 研究者以「奈米保養化妝品」為實驗科普訊息主題，針對臺灣大學及淡江大學合計507 名的大學生，進行不同形式的科普讀物訊息實驗，並以問卷量測受試者對科普訊息主題的涉入感、先備知識，以及閱讀實驗科普訊息之後，對該訊息內容的認知資訊負荷、態度及理解程度。經過資料整理及統計分析，得到本次實驗相關結果與發現如下： 一、 本次實驗中的科普訊息使用不同圖文呈現形式，但在依變項的傳播效果上並沒有顯著的差異，顯示科普訊息的文字與圖像其實可以各自獨立。 二、 科普訊息的涉入感及先備知識均高度影響閱讀科普訊息時的認知資訊負荷、態度與理解程度；認知資訊負荷較小的科普文本，其傳播效果較好。 三、 不同性別的閱聽人，在閱讀科普訊息的認知資訊負荷、態度及理解程度上均沒有顯著的差異，打破一般認為女性不擅長科學的刻版印象。 四、 理工背景學生在閱讀科普訊息時的認知資訊負荷明顯較小，在理解程度及態度上較非理工背景的學生表現僅為稍佳。 此外，本研究發現，新世代的資訊使用行為可能受網路閱讀行為的影響，因此對科普訊息的取用方式，已轉向使用篇幅短、取用彈性大的訊息內容服務；傳統科普傳播講究循序漸近、結構完整的知識傳遞方式，如何因應新世代的資訊使用行為而調整，是未來所有科普傳播工作者思考創新發展的重要方向。 / Popular science, sometimes called science popularization or literature of science, is to transfer and translate the concepts or results of scientific researches to the public in a comparatively vague manner. It aims at educating, persuading and communicating, so that the public could be learned in understanding science, be competent in scientific thinking and be able to function in the society with a scientific spirit. The mass media is absolutely the best channel for popular science. However, most contents of popular science are very difficult to understand, and this has put popular science in a dilemma and couldn’t be “popularized” at all. Scholars believe there’re three main factors influencing the achievement of popular science: the content design, the comprehension of readers, and the participation of scientists. This article based on quantitative methods attempts to make a preliminary inquiry into the communication effect of popular science reading materials with different presentation of graphs. The audience’s “cognitive loading”, “attitude” and “understanding of the science concepts” are observed and their “sense of involvement” and “prior knowledge “ are taken into account as variables. The experiments were conducted at 2 universities in Taiwan in June, 2010. There’re 507 students exposed to 3 different types of nanoscience reading. The result indicates: 1) The communication effect of popular science’s texts and pictures could be independent from each other. 2) Audience’s sense of involvement and prior knowledge both significantly influence their cognitive load, attitude and comprehension. 3) Audience of different genders shows no significant difference in understanding popular science messages.

傳播領域的相關研究顯示，收聽/看新聞的過程與閱讀不同，閱聽人並無法藉由重複閱讀來理解新聞內容；第二外語習得的學者認為聽力理解是主動的處理過程，這個資訊處理的歷程是傳播研究收訊分析取徑自1980年代以來所關注的焦點。鑑於第二外語習得的相關研究，並未觸及新聞文本對收聽新聞的影響，本研究試圖結合基模及理解理論，來探討新聞結構及議題顯著性對閱聽人理解及記憶英語新聞的影響。 在研究方法上，本研究採用2 (正/倒寶塔結構) X 2 (高/低顯著性議題) 的二因子實驗設計，以小團體施測的方式進行，共計134名國立政治大學學生參與實驗。 研究結果顯示，閱聽人對正寶塔式及倒寶塔式的新聞結構在理解新聞的程度上有差異；議題顯著性高的新聞較議題顯著性低的新聞能增進閱聽人對新聞內容的記憶。上述發現說明了不同議題顯著性及不同結構的新聞，在閱聽人收訊的過程中會產生不同層面的影響。 最後，研究者提出研究限制與檢討，並提供建議供閱聽人收訊及英語新聞相關課程教學的參考。 / Mass commimication researchers have found that listeners, unlike readers, cannot digest news at their own pace, reread passages or check details. Listening comprehension is viewed as an active process by second language acquisition researchers. However no research has been done to clarify how listeners are affected by news genres. An experiment was conducted in which 134 National Chengchi University students were recruited as subjects and were presented with news stories in four different versions: Low salient/ pyramid, low salient/ inverted pyramid, high salient/ pyramid, and high salient/ inverted pyramid. The study found that subjects assigned to the inverted pyramid structure news condition comprehended better than those in the pyramid structure news condition. Subjects in the high salient issue condition remembered the news contents better than those in the low salient issue condition. These findings suggest that knowledge of news structure and prior information would facilitate listening comprehension.

The aim of this thesis was to analyse the reception of the Fifty Shades book trilogy and a film adaptation of its first part from the perspective of a female audience - both women who like the books and/or the film and women who do not like them. The thesis sought to describe the fundamental ways of the reception of the Fifty Shades phenomenon and to connect them to media and public discourse about the trilogy. The research questions were particularly focused on women's motivations to reading the books and/or watching the film, their approach to and evaluation of the trilogy. A part of the thesis was also a comparison of the two groups of female readers and viewers regarding the questions mentioned above and a connection of those questions with media and public discourse about Fifty Shades. During the conducted research 13 individual semistructured interviews with female readers and viewers of Fifty Shades have been done. The gained data were analysed by using the grounded theory method (particularly in vivo coding and axial coding). The outcome of the analysis is a description of two different ways of reception and interpretation of Fifty Shades which show persisting ambiguity of romantic fictions for women. The analysis also revealed an impact of media and public discourse about the trilogy on...

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty could be used to effectively expand the media-narrowed definition of beauty. This study focused on the Onslaught video and corresponding message board. The sample included 119 posts written by 85 different message board users. Both a descriptive and interpretive content analysis based on reception analysis was used to deconstruct the message posters' interpretation and construction of individual beauty. The posters used the board primarily to express themselves, attach blame to the media and arrive at consensus. Overall, the users responded positively to the campaign. Twenty themes emerged from the posts, with the most prevalent attaching blame to the media for societal problems. The findings of this study suggest that Dove effectively created an online community where women could find a voice to express themselves and share experiences. More importantly, Dove initiated a public discussion that is a preliminary step in changing social norms. As such, the campaign should be viewed as having been effective.