Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis concerns the intersection of social semiotic theory and critical discourse analysis (CDA), applying systemic-functional (SF) theory to verbal-visual news media texts. The aim of the thesis is to develop social semiotic descriptions of visual meaning in order to facilitate analyses of evaluative stance in visual-verbal text. The texts studied are ‘factual’ daily broadsheet news photos and prominent visual-verbal ‘displays’ that incorporate these photos alongside headlines and captions. Such displays introduce investigative stories on the front page of broadsheet weekly news reviews and are referred to in the thesis as ‘standout’ texts. They are significant because they may also be read as independent texts and play a critical role in positioning a wide readership on the issues investigated in the story. The SF system of verbal appraisal was used in this thesis to develop a corresponding system of visual appraisal. The process involved applying general appraisal options to a corpus of news photos and proceeding to further delicacy in a repeated cycle of analysis and system-building. Once refined in this way the system was applied alongside the verbal appraisal system to account for evaluation in verbal-visual standouts. In the thesis four Australian and four Greek standouts introducing stories on asylum seekers were analysed in order to explore the potential for variation and the impact of context on evaluative meaning choices. The thesis contributes insights into SF theory, media discourse and CDA. The visual systems developed allow appraisal analysis to be extended to images and to verbalvisual texts. Visual appraisal analysis in the thesis provides new evidence for the ideological and evaluative power of news photos. Verbal-visual appraisal analysis shows how each semiotic contributes to evaluative meaning, and to its accumulation and spread across a text. In respect to media discourse, the thesis also provides evidence for the ‘standout’ as an orbital verbal-visual news genre. The comparison of evaluative stance in two sets of standouts demonstrates consistent editorial choices in texts within each context and contrasts across the two sites. The Australian texts display more evaluative complexity, greater emphasis on entertainment and offer two different stances, aligning a diverse target audience. The Greek texts are more straightforward and construct a single stance, aligning a narrower audience. By identifying the semiotic choices involved in the evaluative positioning of readers by visual-verbal texts, the thesis can contribute to more informed and reflective practice. Thus, as well as making theoretical advances, the findings have relevance for journalism and education at a time when the impact of images is changing our conception of literacy.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis concerns the intersection of social semiotic theory and critical discourse analysis (CDA), applying systemic-functional (SF) theory to verbal-visual news media texts. The aim of the thesis is to develop social semiotic descriptions of visual meaning in order to facilitate analyses of evaluative stance in visual-verbal text. The texts studied are ‘factual’ daily broadsheet news photos and prominent visual-verbal ‘displays’ that incorporate these photos alongside headlines and captions. Such displays introduce investigative stories on the front page of broadsheet weekly news reviews and are referred to in the thesis as ‘standout’ texts. They are significant because they may also be read as independent texts and play a critical role in positioning a wide readership on the issues investigated in the story. The SF system of verbal appraisal was used in this thesis to develop a corresponding system of visual appraisal. The process involved applying general appraisal options to a corpus of news photos and proceeding to further delicacy in a repeated cycle of analysis and system-building. Once refined in this way the system was applied alongside the verbal appraisal system to account for evaluation in verbal-visual standouts. In the thesis four Australian and four Greek standouts introducing stories on asylum seekers were analysed in order to explore the potential for variation and the impact of context on evaluative meaning choices. The thesis contributes insights into SF theory, media discourse and CDA. The visual systems developed allow appraisal analysis to be extended to images and to verbalvisual texts. Visual appraisal analysis in the thesis provides new evidence for the ideological and evaluative power of news photos. Verbal-visual appraisal analysis shows how each semiotic contributes to evaluative meaning, and to its accumulation and spread across a text. In respect to media discourse, the thesis also provides evidence for the ‘standout’ as an orbital verbal-visual news genre. The comparison of evaluative stance in two sets of standouts demonstrates consistent editorial choices in texts within each context and contrasts across the two sites. The Australian texts display more evaluative complexity, greater emphasis on entertainment and offer two different stances, aligning a diverse target audience. The Greek texts are more straightforward and construct a single stance, aligning a narrower audience. By identifying the semiotic choices involved in the evaluative positioning of readers by visual-verbal texts, the thesis can contribute to more informed and reflective practice. Thus, as well as making theoretical advances, the findings have relevance for journalism and education at a time when the impact of images is changing our conception of literacy.

This master thesis is inspired by St. Pierre’s post qualitative inquiry and the philosophy of immanence, which support the creation of concepts through immersion in theory, philosophy, and practice. This serves as a guide of thought for the inquirer´s journey of exploration and creativity. This research departures in Latour´s concept of the Terrestrial, enriched by Haraway´s addition to the concept; and in Haraway´s theory of string figures, which is the foundation for exploring how to enact the change that is needed to survive in a world of climate destruction and business as usual. Haraway says that not all humans observe the Terrestrial from above (as Latour suggests) and invites us to go out there and find the people that never took off. For this purpose, I went to Costa Rica and had non-structured conversations with six Costa Rican leaders, who have been working for and with social and environmental causes for years. This inquiry aims to get a deeper understanding of how these stories, combined with the concept of the Terrestrial and SF theory, may help us create new concepts and develop a philosophy of Terrestrial Leadership. From a magic island to banana women, these stories tell us about how these leaders have gone through constant metamorphic processes of inner development, the discovery of their response-ability, the enactment of collaborations, and the politics of staying with the trouble in a chaotic world; in the Chthulucene. Finally, with the help of storytelling, I attempt to offer a first ontological and epistemological perspective on the concept of Terrestrial leadership and how we might benefit from it.