In this study we examine four Swedish newspapers’ visual coverage of the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings in 2010 and 2011 – commonly known as the “Arab Spring Revolution”, the “Jasmine revolution” and in Sweden also the “Women’s revolution” – focusing on three main perspectives: news values and framing, postcolonialism, and gender. By means of a comprehensive content analysis and an in-depth semiotic analysis, the purpose of this study is to investigate how Swedish written media frames the revolution and its initiators and partakers through news photographs, headlines, lead paragraphs and photograph bylines, and to determine whether or not it reproduces earlier trends of media coverage and framing of non-Westerners and non-Western societies. The purpose of the extensive content analysis is to attain data for empirical research of the visual portrayal of the uprisings’ first twelve weeks in Sweden’s four largest newspapers Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet, Aftonbladet and Expressen. The analysis reveals that episodic framing is regularly used in all four newspapers, and that media demonizes Tunisians and Egyptians by constructing them as a brutal, uncivilized and threatening group which almost exclusively consists of men, and whose members are neither quoted nor named. It also shows that women are symbolically annihilated by media and that the very few women who do occur are gender stereotyped in accordance with established media conventions and postcolonial tradition, with the interesting exception of women being quoted to a larger extent than men. The analysis furthermore confirms the low occurrence of female journalists in Swedish foreign reporting, as well as demonstrates that the gender of the journalists does not influence what types of stories are written or how they are framed. The variable frequencies obtained from the content analysis provide indicators which are subsequently explored in the semiotic analysis of four news photographs. The qualitative study establishes that the North African uprisings are represented and framed as being conducted by a group of angry, uncontrolled and unstoppable men. In conclusion, the results of this study indicates that Sweden’s four largest newspapers use a colonial discourse which threatens to establish and reproduce the idea of Tunisians and Egyptians as the Arabic “Others”.

Ce mémoire propose une analyse sémio-narrative d’un corpus de dix-neuf contes merveilleux recueillis auprès des conteurs canadiens-français et canadiens-hurons par l’anthropologue Charles-Marius Barbeau, au début du XXe siècle. Après avoir passé en revue les principales théories dans l’approche sémiotique du conte à partir de Vladimir Propp jusqu’à nos jours, nous avons procédé à une étude narrative du corpus selon la méthode du grand folkloriste russe : cela nous a permis d’en montrer la valeur exceptionnelle mais aussi les limites. Nous avons constaté ainsi que le travail sur un corpus inédit peut mener à l’identification de nouveaux éléments dans la structure du conte merveilleux. En poursuivant nos recherches sur les dix-neuf contes recueillis par Barbeau, nous sommes passée du schéma linéaire, syntagmatique de Propp aux modèles logiques de ses continuateurs, particulièrement celui élaboré par Guy Laflèche. Nos analyses ont mis en évidence non seulement le fait que la structure en miroir est un modèle valide auquel une partie des contes merveilleux se plie parfaitement (d’emblée l’exclusivité du schéma de Propp est mise en question, sinon infirmée), mais aussi que tout conte merveilleux est exceptionnellement organisé, structuré (ce qui confirme la théorie de Claude Bremond conformément à laquelle le récit narratif est une alternance de dégradations et d’améliorations). Enfin, la dernière partie du mémoire est une analyse sémio-discursive de notre corpus qui, au lieu d’être une simple accumulation de listes de mots, d’expressions et de figures, tente d’aborder la structure idéologique, grâce à une étude en parallèle d’un conte du corpus et de deux versions littéraires. / This memoir proposes a semio-narrative analysis of a nineteen-fairy tales corpus collected among French-Canadian and Huron-Canadian storytellers by the anthropologist Charles-Marius Barbeau at the beginning of the XXth century. Firstly, we present the major theories used in the semiotic approach of a fairy tale, starting with Vladimir Propp’s up to the present-day ones; then, by following the method of the great Russian folklorist, we carried out a narrative study of the corpus, which allows us to see both its exceptional value and its limits. Thus, the analysis of a different corpus may lead us to identify new elements in the structure of the fairy tale. Pursuing our research into the nineteen fairy tales of Barbeau’s corpus, we move from the linear, syntagmatic of Propp’s pattern to the logical models of his followers, especially the one developed by Guy Laflèche. Our analyses prove the validity of the mirror-image model that some fairy tales perfectly comply to; thus, the hegemony of Propp’s method is questioned, maybe even invalidated. Furthermore, they prove that every fairy tale is exceptionally well organized, structured (confirming Claude Bremond’s theory according to which a narrative is an alternation of deteriorations and improvements). Finally, the last part of the memoir is a semio-discursive analysis of our corpus that, instead of being a simple accumulation of lists of words, expressions and figures, it tries to tackle the ideological structure through a parallel study of an oral fairy tale and two literary versions.

RESUMO Neste trabalho procurei retratar resumidamente a diáspora judaica, desde a destruição do Segundo Templo até a expulsão dos judeus da Europa cristã, culminando com o seu refúgio no leste europeu, especialmente na Polônia e Lituânia. Estes dois reinos, que foram unificados em 1569, passaram para o total domínio russo em 1815. Nesta ocasião os judeus ficaram sujeitos aos novos mandatários e foram confinados no assim chamado Distrito de Residência, em algumas cidades e em aldeias denominadas de shteitlach, na Europa Oriental. Em seguida, apresentei a biografia de alguns poetas populares que viveram nessa região onde houve um enorme desenvolvimento cultural e literário da língua ídiche. (século XIX e começo do século XX). Eles foram especialmente escolhidos por seus trabalhos, que resultaram em canções populares, as quais se espalharam pelo mundo judaico, levando as mensagens do judeu dos shteilach da Europa Oriental do seu modo de vida, de sua religiosidade, seus dramas, as perseguições sofridas e também suas alegrias e suas esperanças. Seguem-se quarenta e sete canções transliteradas e traduzidas para o português, bem como algumas delas devidamente comentadas. Depois, sete canções são analisadas com base na lingüística e semiótica, revelando fatos históricos do povo judeu. O capítulo 4, “O fim do shteitl e as canções do gueto”, com sete canções, retrata o inferno vivido pelos judeus europeus durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial, que se encerra com o bárbaro assassinato de seis milhões de judeus pelos nazistas, marcando quase que em definitivo, o final da literatura poética em língua ídiche. Por fim, uma vasta bibliografia, os créditos relativos às ilustrações utilizadas, bem como um glossário, para melhor entendimento do texto. São apresentados também dois anexos: no Anexo A, um catálogo de seissentas músicas judaicas e, no Anexo B, um livreto com doze músicas, na lingua original,transliteradas e traduzidas para o português, alem das partituras e um CD com as respectivas canções. / ABSTRACT I tried to portray, concisely, the Jewish Diaspora from the destruction of the Second Temple till the expulsion of the Jews from Christian Europe, that obliged then to be refuge in the western Europe specially in Poland and Lithuania. Both Kingdoms were unified in 1569 and after annexed to the Russian Empire in 1815 that forcing the Jews to live in Pales and inside villages called shteitlach, in Oriental Europe. In the sequence I presented some popular poets biographies, specially chosen by their work, which resulted in popular songs that spread through out the jewish world and showed their way of life, their religiosity, their dilemmas, their persecutions, their happiness and their dreams. Forty-seven songs transliterated and translated to Portuguese (some of that properly commented) are presented. Also seven songs analyzed using linguistics and semiotics methods, from which emerge historical facts of the Jewish people. The Fourth Chapter: “The end of the Shteitl and the Ghetto’s Songs,” containing seven songs, portrays the Holocaust of the Second World War, the murder of six million Jews, which led to the Yiddish poetic literature ending. Finally., there are a large bibliography, credits to the illustrations, and a Glossary, for a better understanding of the text. There are, also, two enclosures: In Enclosure A: A Six-hundred Jewish Songs Catalog. In Enclosure B: A song book and one CD containing Yiddish songs.

This study explores how contemporary Afrikaans churches represent gender in their visual culture. For these purposes, a Barthean semiotic analysis is done on visual material produced between 2007 and 2008 by three Afrikaans corporate churches in the Pretoria- Centurion area, namely the Dutch Reformed congregations Moreletapark and kerksondermure (“church without walls”), and Doxa Deo’s Brooklyn and East campuses – Afrikaans Apostolic Faith Mission congregations. The analysis seeks to demystify and denaturalise the material’s potentially mythical, ideological and hegemonic underpinnings. Operating from an interdisciplinary theoretical framework comprising aspects of Visual Culture Studies and Gender Studies, this study primarily provides a focused analysis of the representation of men and masculinity in the selected churches according to three themes, namely professional occupation and leadership; physical activity and adventurism; and fatherhood. This focus was adopted owing to the lack of available literature on men and masculinity in the church and Christianity, as opposed to the more ready availability of research on women and femininity. The representation of gender in Moreletapark, kerksondermure and Doxa Deo is conceptualised in broad terms through a comparison of the representation of masculinity with femininity as its foil. In this regard gender is analysed in the three churches according to notions of gendered ontology and matters of work, marriage and family. Exscripted, or non-represented, themes are also problematised. It is argued that the churches under investigation represent gender in dualistic, essentialist and often stereotypical terms. This particular depiction of gender attests to the churches‟ participation in the biological essentialising of gender, polarising men and women into strict binary dualisms, whilst also visually denying the existence of homosexuality and alternative sexualities. This tendency is problematic, not only because it fails to provide a realistic portrayal of men and women in the three churches, but also because it visually participates in conservative and fundamentalist gender discourses. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / Visual Arts / unrestricted

The thesis focuses on the research event, the World Para Ice Hockey Championships, which took place in 2019 in Ostrava, and on its media representation in online news media (Aktuálně.cz, iDnes.cz, Deník.cz and iSport.cz), in live broadcasts of ČT sport and in the TV reportage Machři from the 168 hodin TV programme. The basic theoretical concept of the thesis is the media representation of reality and the semiotic perception of the construction of reality on the general level and on the level of sport discourse and the discourse of sport of athlethes with disabilities. The thesis also briefly discusses the context of sport of athlethes with disabilities and para ice hockey in the Czech Republic. The qualitative research method is a semiotic analysis based primarily on the semiotics of Roland Barthes. The main research question asks what was the media image of the Czech para ice hockey team during the aforementioned event, and is answered through subsidiary research questions that focus on the media image of spectator attendance, on narrativisation and narratives, that the media told in relation to the championship, on modern myths, on the semiotic construction of stereotypes, their reinforcement, breaking down or creation, and on the difference in these media constructions between written and...

This diploma thesis is focused on the analysis of humorous environmental cartoons in specific periods during last twenty-three years. In the content and semiotic analysis, I am dealing with cartoons in its various forms in the Czech broadsheet newspapers MF Dnes, Právo, Lidové noviny, Hospodářské noviny, Deník, Lidová demokracie, Svobodné slovo and Práce. I surveyed the subtopics dominating in specific periods and the frequency of envirotoons depending on particular titles and current events in the Czech Republic. The thesis deals with these media contents also in connection with global environmental issues and their public discussion. Another important part is the reflection of social problems which the analyzed topics are closely related with. Combination of quantitative and qualitative methods enables to describe and interpret media units of content and lay the foundations for the research of environmental cartoons which has no tradition in the Czech Republic. In the thesis, I point to the fact that newspaper cartoons provide not only the relaxation and entertainment, but it is also an important medium in environmental agenda-setting and its discussion.

Contemporary constantly expanding content of social media like Instagram brings the medium of photography to new contexts. Photography becomes an instrument of immediate communication and its historically defined functions are an object of change. The continuity of Instagram content creating, the personal perspective of its users, the constant presence of camera accompanying them are aspects analogous to the artwork of Nan Goldin. Goldin's photo essay ​The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (1986)​has a character of visual diary that captures the life of her community with almost obsessive continuity. It's also captured from deeply personal perspective depicting intimate moments and describing Goldin's personal relationships. Publishing of ​The Ballad​and formation of Instagram is divided by more than twenty-five years and both events and its meanings are profoundly different. This thesis nevertheless presumes that comparison of these, in many aspects alike phenomenons can help describe the change of the function of the media of photography, explore contemporary tendencies in photography aesthetics, the meaning of instagram's content to its users and provide general understanding of the role of shared photography in social and historical context. The methods of comparison are semiotic visual analysis,...

The thesis aims to describe how was the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement, which began in June 2019 in response to the proposed extradition law, perceived. In its theoretical part, the thesis will focus on a detailed description of the historical development of Hong Kong and the formation of an independent Hong Kong identity. Major events will be presented, from the times of colonial administration to the description of pro-democracy protests in 2019, which affected the current state of Hong Kong. Subsequently the theoretical framework of the processes of hegemony and visual representation will be introduced, which will be further presented in the context of Hong Kong. Last but not least, the topic of journalistic photography and its significance in the current journalistic field will be defined. The practical part of the thesis will offer an analysis of how the direct participants perceived the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, and whether their perceptions of events correspond not only with each other but also with the journalistic visual material that mapped four months of protests. A photo essay from the author's set of photographs was created to be also analysed in this work, part of which was subjected to a socio-semiotic analysis. Last but not least, there will be a comparison of results...

Based on the semiotic analysis, this diploma thesis analyses mythological frameworks of chosen magazines. It consists of two parts, a theoretical and a practical one. The theoretical part is focused on semiotics as science, examines a sign and its historical development, describes myth, its history and research, as well as defines a theoretical starting points leading to definition of mythological framework. This definition is built on the theory of decoding and encoding of Stuart Hall, as well as his representation acknowledgements, as well as on the works of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Roland Barthes examining the myth. The practical part consists of definition of research-subject and semiotic analysis of mythological frameworks in front pages of Reflex and Respekt magazines. Findings of this analysis are then compared. This comparison leads to confirmation or disproval of hypotheses the author articulated prior to the analysis.

Kveten was a monthly magazine for literature and art (and by its third year also for "life"), which was published under the auspices of the Union of Czechoslovak Writers from September 1956 to June 1959. It was founded as a magazine for "aspiring writers", but quite soon this concept proved to be unsustainable and members of the editorial board started to give the magazine its own new look, which got even a more comprehensible form during the II. Czechoslovak Writers Congress, after young poets (and theorists) manifested the "Poetry of Everyday Life". It was, however, defined quite generally and maybe even vaguely, which is the fact the authors were struggling with during the following year. At the same time they are exposed to the pressure of official authorities as "anti-revisionism" began to destroy liberal environment that prevailed around 1956. Kveten tried to resist this tendency. In addition, at that time young theorists found a firmer basis, which gradually became unacceptable for the regime. At the beginning of 1959 there comes a wave of heavy critcism and results in abolishing the magazine. In my thesis I demonstrate through archival research, oral history and semiotic analysis that despite the abolition the management of Kveten maintained the principle of "partiality" and is guilty rather for...