This work investigates the question, “what made ethanol’s time come when it did?” The case examined is the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-158), a landmark public policy law implemented in the United States to address the nation’s energy concerns. The Act’s emphasis on ethanol as a central part of the solution to address the energy crisis represented perhaps the most significant single policy shift in the history of the nation’s energy programme. This research draws attention to the process that resulted in ethanol being given a key role in American energy policy by investigating the pre-decision, agenda setting stage, of the process. Using qualitative research methodologies, this study conducts a historical case study analysis of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The Multiple Streams agenda setting framework developed by Kingdon ([1984] 1995) is the one which forms the backbone of the study. This research suggests that the greatest influence on ethanol’s placement on the agenda was the way in which policy problems were constructed. When the energy, agricultural, and environmental problems that had garnered ethanol some legislative consideration in the 1970s and 1980s reemerged in the early 2000s, ethanol emerged as an attractive policy option that was seen as addressing each of these concerns. The role of interest groups and policy entrepreneurs helped to reinforce the relationship between these problems. The tactic of seeking aid from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had its advantages, as support from these agencies gave the proposals offered by pro-ethanol interest groups and corn state politicians greater weight. In addition, the fall in political influence of the petroleum industry (a traditionally effective oppositional force to the advance of ethanol) helped to facilitate and reinforce favourable political factors such as pro-ethanol presidential campaign platforms and a public mood that favoured decisive action. With some small modifications, Kingdon’s agenda setting framework, originally designed and applied in the context of health and transportation, holds up well when extended to the energy policy domain. One key point where the energy agenda setting process appears to diverge from Kingdon’s model occurs in the problem stream, which does not appear to be distinct from the political stream. Instead, this research suggests that problem definition plays a strong role in informing the content of the political stream. Kingdon’s framework has significant potential to enhance our knowledge of alternative energy policy formation.

This case study has been about the attitudes and values of a group of participants in a specific workplace. The aim has been to try and ascertain if the identified attitudes and values of the participants have had any influence on career development. There were 12 participants involved and at the time of this project they were either in permanent part or full time employment with ‘The Company’. ‘The Company’ is a pseudonym given to the business where the participants worked and the setting for this research project. The workplace is situated in a remote location on an industrial work site in New Zealand. Each participant engaged in the research voluntarily. They completed a questionnaire and took part in a semi-structured interview. Confidentiality and anonymity of all participants had been respected and maintained throughout the entire project. Results show that there were three principle influences that could be attributed to the ways that participants perceived the workplace and personal career development. They were workplace values, workplace training, and workplace goals. These attributes are influenced in different ways and hold divergent meaning for individual participants. The most highly rated value, as identified by participants in this project has been variation of tasks undertaken in the workplace. This was not challenged by any of the indicators used to consider opinions and values expressed by participants; education, generational groupings, career type and work streams. Seven of the twelve participants desired promotion within ‘The Company’. The ways that participants hoped to achieve promotion was often unspecified. Participants did not articulate specific planning methods. Future research is recommended such as focusing on how employees can develop career goals that fit with the goals of their workplace.

The majority of smokers - regardless of race - wish to quit. Quitting tobacco use is a top national priority to improve the quality of life for all people. There is a wide range of effective tobacco addiction treatment strategies. Telephone counseling services or Tobacco Quit Lines (TQL) is one of the effective smoking cessation aids available to all people in the U.S. free of charge. This is a cross sectional analysis of data from Georgia Tobacco Quit Line (TQL). The study examined the differences in the utilization rates of the Georgia TQL by different smoking population. Analysis revealed that 2.9 per 1000 male smokers in Georgia called the TQL compared to 5.0 per 1000 females. Also, the rate of calling among black was significantly higher than that among white smokers. Television commercials promoting the use of the TQL were successful in reaching the Black smokers.

I examine how risk-based inspections influence auditor behavior in a multi-client setting. I conduct an experiment using an abstract setting that captures the theoretical constructs present in the audit ecology. I manipulate the presence of risk-based inspections between-participants and the level of client risk (higher vs. lower) within-participants. Consistent with the theoretical predictions, under conditions of high resource pressure, I find that auditor effort is higher under a regime with risk-based inspections as compared to a regime without inspections, and the auditor effort increases more for higher-risk clients than for lower-risk clients. More notably, following attentional control theory, I predict and find that risk-based inspections diminish the quality of auditor decision performance for lower-risk clients. Specifically, auditors' decision performance is worse (i.e., more suboptimal) for lower-risk clients than for higher-risk clients (ceteris paribus), but only under a risk-based inspections regime. Likewise, auditors' decision performance for lower-risk clients is worse in a regime with risk-based inspections than in a regime without inspections. I theorize that accountability pressures from PCAOB inspections combined with pressures from high resource constraints (that naturally occur in the audit environment) induce task-related anxiety on auditors. Following attentional control theory in a multi-task setting, I predict anxiety interrupts auditors' decision-making processing shifting attention toward higher-risk clients contributing to the anxiety, and away from lower-risk (untargeted) clients, thereby decreasing the quality of decision performance for lower-risk clients. I perform several supplemental analyses to test the underlying theory. First, I conduct a second experiment where auditors operate under relatively lower resource pressure and find that auditors’ decision performance is no longer worse for lower-risk clients in an inspections regime. The results support the theory that it is the combined pressures of inspections and high resource constraints causing the negative effects. Second, I conduct a supplemental experiment and measure participants' levels of anxiety. In support of the underlying theory, participants' reported anxiety levels are higher under a regime with versus without inspections. Third, I perform several robustness checks to rule out alternative explanations of the findings. The findings of this study contribute to the auditing literature, and they have practical and regulatory implications. First, by identifying higher auditor effort in a regime with inspections, I join others in documenting potential benefits of inspections on auditor behavior, and thus audit quality. Second, by examining the effect of risk-based inspections on auditor effort in a multi-task setting, I extend prior research by providing evidence that inspections increase auditor effort more for higher-risk clients than for lower-risk clients. Third, and most notably, by identifying diminished auditor decision performance for lower-risk clients under a risk-based inspections regime, this is the first study to provide theory and evidence on how risk-based inspections can lead to potential negative consequences on audit behavior, and thus audit quality.

On November 8, 2001, the Government of Manitoba announced that the number of school divisions and districts in the province would be reduced from 54 to 37. With that policy announcement, Manitoba embarked upon the most significant restructuring of school board governance arrangements since the late 1950s. The purpose of the research was to examine the school division amalgamation initiative as a case study in policy-making by the Government of Manitoba. The study investigated the nature of this initiative, including its origin, development, eventual conclusion and implementation. The fundamental question addressed by the study was this: Why was school division amalgamation an idea whose time had come in Manitoba? Discussion of amalgamation had been active within the Progressive Conservative administration of Gary Filmon since the early 1990s, but despite the recommendation in 1995 of a provincially established Boundaries Review Commission to move forward with government directed amalgamation, the idea languished until a newly-elected provincial government under Gary Doer, leader of the New Democratic Party, assumed power in 1999. The theoretical framework used in addressing the question posed relied primarily upon the work of John Kingdon (Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies) who contends that there must be a timely convergence of three key aspects of policy formation: problems, solutions and politics. Therefore, the study examined the key role of elected officials in promoting certain policy ideas and their impact on the decisions of government at specific times. It also compared and contrasted the differing policy approaches taken by the Filmon and Doer regimes on this question, and assesses the opportunities and constraints which explain the differences found. The study relied on extant public documents and other primary sources, and especially the expressed view or position of certain elected officials and supporting staff gained through one-on-one in-depth interviews. The focus of the analysis was an attempt to assess the interplay of problem, solution, and politics, and whether or not it reveals what Kingdon has called a “window of opportunity” for decisive action by government. The study showed that, indeed, the window of opportunity for amalgamation occurred with the convergence of three forces by 2001: pervasive indicators of a problem; promotion of amalgamation as a policy solution previously tried in Manitoba and elsewhere; and the election of a new government in 1999 which was receptive to pursuing some degree of change with respect to school division governance and organization.

Studien syftar till att ge ökad kunskap om mediedebattens diskurs, i synnerhet utifrån ett riskperspektiv. Målet med denna studie är att undersöka hur mediedebatten om HPV-vaccinet ser ut, och varför den ser ut som den gör. Vilka aktörer som är aktiva i debatten, hur de argumenterar och vilka budskap de använder är områden som besvaras för att uppfylla vårt mål. Studiens huvudfråga undersöks genom en kritisk diskursanalys samt argumentationsanalys. Huvudresultaten visar att debatten kan liknas vid en kampanj, eftersom debattens aktörer till största del representeras av elitpersoner, människor som har makt att driva igenom eller påverka beslut inom området. Till hjälp använder de sig av argument som kan tyda på en hälsorisk hos den enskilda individen. En trolig orsak till att medierna satte HPV-vaccinet på agendan kan vara ett flertal omvärldsfaktorer som; massvaccinationen mot svininfluensan, Kalla faktas program om vaccinet, internet och sociala medier, nyhetsrapporteringen samt barn och kvinnors roll i samhället. Detta är omvärldsfaktorer som kan ha förstärkt hälsorisken med HPV-vaccinet och gjort att diskursen ser ut som den gör.

Denna uppsats behandlar SVT:s Uppdrag granskning. Vi var intresserade av att titta närmare på detta program eftersom det har en särställning i Sverige som ett av de mest sedda samhällsprogrammen. Vi frågade oss vilken agendasättande roll Uppdrag granskning har i vårt samhälle och hur deras reportage utformas för att få genomslag och nå ut till publiken. Utnyttjar Uppdrag granskning sin särställning på bästa sätt för att informera och upplysa? Våra teorier har alltså mycket att göra med mediers agendasättande funktion. Vi har även tittat på angränsande teorier om ”moral panics”, och lutar oss samtidigt till viss del mot utvalda delar av nyhetsvärderingsteori. Vi har genomfört en kritisk diskursanalys (CDA) av två reportage av Uppdrag granskning. Det ena har fått stort genomslag i svensk tryckt press, medan det andra knappt har omnämnts. Vi ville studera hur redaktionen har arbetat för att utforma reportagen och påverka deras genomslag. Därför har vi tittat på bland annat användningen av dramaturgi och diskurs, samt hur avsnitten gestaltas för att tala till tittarna. För att komplettera vår undersökning har vi även tittat på vilket genomslag reportagen har fått i form av uppmärksamhet i svensk tryckt press. Vi har sedan sökt en förklaring av detta genomslag med hjälp av våra fynd från diskursanalysen samt parametrarna för nyhetsvärdering. När vi började vår analys upptäckte vi snabbt vissa skillnader mellan reportagen. Den tydligaste var att det reportage som fick störst genomslag också berörde ett ämne som var aktuellt och som är lätt att ta ställning till. Det förekom också tydliga symboler och metaforer som lätt kunde användas av andra medier för att skapa rubriker. Vi lade märke till att personer identifierades på olika sätt till följd av bland annat när och hur länge de förekom i reportaget samt hur reportrarna förhöll sig till dem. De ställde ledande frågor som resulterade i att vissa personer identifierades på ett sätt som tydligt passade in i en dramaturgisk modell: de goda och de onda. För att få genomslag i medierna framstår det som viktigt att en syndabock pekas ut, och gärna att denna är en enskild person, samt att reportaget innehåller tydliga symboler och metaforer och att konsumenten känner igen ämnet.

There is no abstract available for this thesis.

There is no abstract available for this thesis.

This study traces spatial and temporal disturbances in the modem short story structure. Edgar Allan Poe's "indefinitiveness" and Kenneth Burke's "actualization" serve as historical foundations for this investigation, which leads to contemporary frameworks proposed by such theorists as Gerard Genette, Umberto Eco, Wolfgang Iser, Paul Ricoeur, Peter Brooks, James Phelan, and Susan Sniader Lanser. In particular, I explore how effect operates as a predominant concern of short fiction. Short fiction is a rhetorical interaction encumbered by spatial and temporal constraints, and its narrative teleology is necessarily disrupted by rhetorical techniques. Narrative's boundaries are purposefully violated, its tempo twisted and contorted, exposing a purposeful tension in the rhetorical engagement of author, text and reader. Instabilities crafted within the text disrupt time-space expectations of readers.Importantly, effect is perceived as a rhetorical device within short fiction, and so in this study the text serves as a site of transference privileging equally writer and reader. Conditions of possibility and understanding are invested in the text by the author through techniques of spatial disruption and temporal discontinuity, and then reinvested in the reader by the narrative through the text's generation of uncertainty. Short fiction serves as an invitation by the author for the reader to construct explanations; devices work to disrupt the time-space constraints of the genre, establishing as they do a narrative contract between author and reader that is resolved in and from the text.Burke considers this to be shaping prose fiction to the author's purposes, an act which "involves desires and their appeasements" - and one which purposefully aims for a particular effect. But what are the limits of purposefulness in short fiction? I examine both textual effect and reader affect, relying particularly on Iser and Eco, and turn to Brooks in conclusion to summarize the role of desire in and from the text, and to Phelan to critique the place of rhetoric in establishing and maintaining that desire. My analysis discloses that time-space disruption, employed as a rhetorical strategy by short story writers, serves to heighten rather than threaten the mediated engagement of writer/text/reader in short fiction, producing a measured effect. / Department of English