Whilst the idealisation of extreme slenderness is widely recognised as a problematic issue, the negative portrayal of larger individuals is rarely criticised for its link with stigmatisation and problems with self-esteem. To the contrary, the representation of larger individuals in dehumanising terms – whether in news reports, advertising and research accounts – is generally regarded as a necessary means to encourage the pursuit of a ‘better’, ‘healthier’ self. However, these negative stereotypical portrayals – generally excluding the perspective and consent of those depicted – can also have adverse effects on human dignity, legitimacy and self-esteem of those thus depicted. Building on the work of fat studies scholars, as well as feminist marketing researchers, this research project seeks to contribute to the inclusion and rehumanisation of fuller-figured individuals, by involving them in the dialogue of visual and research representation. To do so, this research invited a group of fuller-figured women living in the UK and Canada, to ‘envision’, ‘model’, and ‘review’ their own self-presentations, primarily via the use of self-directed portraits, blogs, and conversations. Whilst the inclusion of their embodied perspectives is expected to contribute to humanising the representation of larger individuals – and offer a glimpse into what could be if we started considering women ‘of size’ as authors of their own depictions – it also contributes in filling a gap left by consumer researchers who have overlooked the way larger individuals make sense of their selves, bodies and well-being. As such, this research contributes to existing consumer research theories by explaining the ways individuals can envision their selves/bodies in the shadow of, but also in contrast with, the dominant marketplace promotion of slenderness. In terms of contribution, this research illustrates the relevance of therapeutic and embodied perspectives to understand the self, the body and to engage in acts of consumption. A new ‘self-nurtured’ discursive position offers challenges to the meanings generally attributed to larger individuals, and to the traditional approaches taken by consumer researchers to solve the ‘obesity crisis’. Overall, this research provides empirical, methodological and theoretical contributions to the field of consumer research. It also offers practical implications for the representation of larger individuals, and recommendations for those interested in the social marketing of health to enjoin people of all sizes in mindful acts of self-care and consumption.

This dissertation is an exploratory research that analyzes the representation of the state and its relationship with society in the meaning worlds of the Turkish bureaucrats. Accordingly, the research question of this dissertation has to do with political representation in the mindsets of bureaucratic actors. Regarding this question, we focused on the theory of representative bureaucracy and addressed its inadequacies in analyzing the issue of bureaucratic representation. In our view, representation is a phenomenon related to a particular mode of understanding that creates commonsense. It involves the contextual varieties of taken for granted knowledge that constitutes the basis of one&rsquo / s social world, which the theory of representative bureaucracy fails to question. In this respect, our research intended to discover how do bureaucrats order and arrange the meaning of state-society relationship in their minds. We conducted our research in the Capital Markets Board of Turkey, the Ministry of Finance, and the Turkish Military Academy. We used the methods of multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis to reveal the latent meaning patterns in the meaning worlds of the bureaucrats. The results of our analysis pointed out two major findings. Our first finding indicated the reductionism of the theory of representative bureaucracy in understanding and interpreting the meaning worlds of the Turkish bureaucrats. Our second finding involved the significant similarities as well as the differences in the meaning worlds of the bureaucratic organizations. These variations demonstrated how the organizations of the same state might differ due to distinct organizational ideologies.

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.

Viktória Beličáková December 6, 2018 This thesis is aimed to study selected themes and approaches within Con- temporary Roma Art, and at the same time investigate possibilities of writing about this topic from the perspective of Art History. First part of this paper is focused on methodological foundations of presented work with emphasis on poststructuralism and postcolonialism. The objective of this part is to provide relevant analysis of traditional frames of Art History in order to pro- pose possible novel perspectives related to the topic of Contemporary Roma Art. Subsequently, the conclusions will be further developed and extended within the analysis of selected artworks from contemporary artists. The aim is to present three interrealted studies based on themes of time, space and body with the stress placed on artistic strategies using tactics of liminal- ity, ambivalence and other related approaches in order to deconstruct and reconstruct representations of Roma in art and other spheres.

The master thesis is focusing on the representation of suicides and self-mutilation in American production movies and television in the year 1999-2019. The thesis aims to find out, how are these phenomena shown and with whom popular culture connects them. The theoretical part is dealing with social and media construction of reality, stereotype, stigmatization, and clearing the concepts and definitions of phenomena. For better understanding this part also includes a short presentation of socially deviant behavior since examined phenomena are part of it. The analysis was made based on qualitative content analysis and completed with short quantitative analysis for sociodemographic comparison with available real data. The sample contains 23 motion pictures as are films and series. Based on them and with processes of grounded theory the coding was done, typology was made and pointed out findings with whom American production connects these phenomena and how they represent them in popular culture. Those findings are important for their relations to media construction of reality as non-experts can perceive the way it is represented for their own.

本論文希望透過研究故宮博物院於1961年前往美國進行的「中國古藝術品展覽」，解釋今天故宮的特殊角色與定位。除了期望說明故宮代表中華文化的論述如何形成與建立，同時也解釋故宮如何透過展覽的陳列與解說，來呈現國家與國族的形象與想像。通過研究故宮發展、故宮藏品與國家政權之間的互動，對於文化藝術與權力之間的關係作更深刻的思考。 今天故宮不僅被視為中華文化的象徵，甚至將故宮藏品當成「國寶」。但是如果我們嘗試分析故宮藏品，不難發現這些文物僅是中國皇室收藏的珍奇異品。不過最近幾年，由於台灣社會、政治的變遷，故宮的獨尊地位開始受到挑戰。現任故宮院長杜正勝就質疑前任院長秦孝儀塑造故宮為華夏民族博物館的作法，否定台北故宮和北京故宮有前、後繼承的關係；並主張台北故宮的典藏政策不需要依循「國寶」的脈絡。由於這樣的質疑與轉變，使得故宮在中國文化上所代表的正統與典範地位，以及故宮和國家、政權之間的關係得以被重新思考。 今天，我們之所以認為博物館能夠傳達國族或文化的概念，主要正是因為博物館將收藏的文物「有意識」的重新加以排列展示，因而得以將國家、文化的發展脈絡，具體的呈現在人們眼前。國家對於藝術品的保存與展示，逐漸變成定義一個國家、文化傳統的重要媒介。展覽不僅呈現文化遺產，還進一步將國家發展歷史「展示」出來，經由重新脈絡化來宣揚國族與文化。例如日本過去經常藉由博覽會與展覽貶抑中國，並積極塑造日本成為「亞洲藝術遺產的守護者」。而故宮對外展覽，其實正是開始爭取中國對外形象的塑造以及發言權，甚至彰顯中國在東方藝術與文化上的重要地位。 因此本論文以1961年故宮前往美國五大城市舉行為期近一年的「中國古藝術品展覽」為例，探討故宮如何透過展覽的展示與解說，塑造中國國族的歷史與想像，同時建立中國藝術的「經典」，因此影響了西方對於中國藝術的論述與評價。這場展覽是中華民國政府播遷到台灣之後，國家級文物首次大規模的出國展覽。不僅由創辦《時代》（Time）、《財星》（Fortune）、《生活》（Life）等刊物的媒體鉅子亨利魯斯提出邀請，並出任贊助人。同時，中、美兩國元首擔任名譽倡導人，展覽期間更是備受官方與學術界的矚目。但此時世界局勢不穩，似乎沒有必要大張旗鼓安排故宮文物前往美國展覽。另一方面，由於中華民國與中華人民共和國政府互相爭奪正統，雙方都透過外交與司法途徑互相角力，爭取中國的代表權。如果中共借題發揮，這批參展文物極有可能被中華人民共和國政府收回，因此故宮赴外展覽的動作，格外引人矚目。 故宮博物院從建館以來，受限於經費及政治因素，對於收藏文物展示的時間並不長，研究工作也無從展開，只能偏重於清點工作。可是為了赴外展覽，必須編寫展覽目錄，勢必集合學者著手檢討文物的真假、年代與作者。也因為要對外展現「中國」，而必須對文物重新編排、解釋。因此，故宮赴外展覽確實是一個討論與觀察中國近代國族建構論述形成的特殊視角。故宮如何對外呈現、宣揚「中國」文化與藝術，其實正是具體展現故宮如何形塑與建構「中國」國族與文化的論述與想像。尤其是在前文所述的特殊歷史時空下，究竟展覽中呈現出怎樣的「中國」圖像，應該是一個相當值得探討的議題。因此，這個深受各方重視，又在敏感時機出國的展覽，如何選擇足以代表中國藝術與文化的作品，並以怎樣的方式展示，標示出民族國家框架下定義的中國，便是本研究試圖探討的議題。 本文希望強調故宮赴外展覽往往和國族形象的建構以及文化外交有密切的關係，因為展覽的特殊目的，因此影響了故宮在文化與藝術上的意義。也就是說，故宮今天獨特的地位和赴外展覽中的國族論述以及審美的展示方式有密切關係，而也正是因為故宮的特殊背景，賦予這些藏品更深的民族、國家意涵。 / The National Palace Museum has generally been considered as representing the culture of China and, for many years, the collection of the National Palace Museum was considered representative of traditional Chinese art. It has also been used by the Nationalist government in Taiwan as a symbol of legitimacy for the Republic of China. However, the society and politics of Taiwan have changed recently leading to an introspection for the foregoing opinions. The current director of the National Palace Museum, Tu Cheng-sheng, has questioned the transformation of the institution from the prototype of an imperial museum into a national art museum. Because attitudes about nations and cultures have changed, we can rethink why and how the National Palace Museum took on its role as representation of Chinese culture and the significance of its role in the history of modern China. Museums are important in shaping knowledge, in defining identities, and in representing culture. Since the late eighteenth-century in Europe, the modern museum has been a powerful apparatus for supporting the idea of the nation-state by exhibiting culture. Many recent studies on the establishment of the Louvre and other European national museums have demonstrated how these museums and their collection represent culture and establish canons through exhibitions. But in the past research, there has not been much discussion about how the National Palace Museum practices representation of culture through the images of art works displayed or exhibited in the museum. In 1961 The Chinese Art Treasures exhibition toured five major cities, Washington D.C., New York, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco. This exhibition of works from the National Palace Museum was organized on the invitation of the United States government for the purpose of instilling cultural understanding. At the same time, the exhibition was organized with a clear political agenda—to counter the threat from the Communist government who wanted to take back the collection. This paper will discuss how the exhibition The Chinese Art Treasures was used to define the Republic of China’s national sovereignty and to represent Chinese culture. The exhibition was held during the period when the conflict between the Republic of China under the Nationalist (the KMT) and the People's Republic of China over political legitimacy was the most heated and tense. This paper hopes to illustrate how the KMT employed the exhibition to proclaim the Republic of China’s firm stance in its claim of sovereignty over China and to demonstrate how the exhibition solidified the National Palace Museum’s role as the representation of the five thousand-year cultural legacy of China.

This thesis investigates the representation of Nigeria in the British news media. Using a multi-disciplinary approach, it examines the interplay of culture, race, ideology and geo-political power relations in the production of news. It interrogates the influence of sources, the impact of sources-media relations and their direct consequences on the construction as news of Nigeria’s socio-economic and human development indices, which further signpost the direction of representation of the world’s most populous black nation. By considering the coverage of Nigeria in the UK news media between 1997 and 2007, a period which marked a watershed in the democratic evolution of Nigeria, this thesis contributes to the on-going debates regarding cultural understanding in a globalized community. First, the research is based on a content analysis of the coverage of Nigeria in five UK quality newspapers at a period marking the end of the political logjam that engulfed the country following the annulment of the June 12, 1993 elections; the return to democratic rule and the early years of democracy, which witnessed the successful transfer of power from one civilian administration to another for the first time in Nigeria’s history. Second, a critical discourse analysis of a sample of the coverage of the most mentioned issues in the reportage, and third, on a small set of interviews with some of the journalists involved in the coverage. As a framework for its analysis, this thesis focuses on the theories of cultural politics, representation and news discourse. It finds that the coverage of Nigeria does not just follow the pattern of a distant and differentiated ‘Other,’ but is also significantly influenced by pre-colonial cum colonial history and geo-political power relations. Though news media outlets and individual journalists do try, within their own powers, to make a difference but the fact that the myths supporting these assumptions have been institutionalised over time presents a huge challenge. The issues in the coverage are discursively constructed from western point of view with greater access to shape the news clearly domiciled in the pouch of European or western sources rather than the Nigerians who should have a better appreciation of their local circumstance. This kind of coverage informs the idea of applying western solution to Africa’s problem, which further compounds the crisis. The fact that this manifest pattern of representation obfuscates the real issue behind Africa’s situation and presents imminent dangers to our common humanity are the core concerns contextualized within the thesis. It is negotiated with references to relevant dimensions of culture, politics, news discourse and interpreted in the light of geo-political power relations.