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How can a Digital Storytelling workshop help educate, inspire and mobilise young women engaged in a non-profit organisation, in order to assist their peers? This exploratory study investigates whether Digital Storytelling can foster digital literacy, self-awareness and reflection amongst workshop participants, and how young women may be able to support each other and their peers through the act of creating and sharing personal digital stories. Conducted using qualitative and participatory methods, with the theoretical underpinnings of Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory and Social Cognitive Theory, Paulo Freire’s conscientisation and participatory development, this research is conducted in collaboration with female mentors from the sport-based adolescent health organisation, Grassroot Soccer. First, I analyse the women’s interactions and learnings during the Digital Storytelling workshop, where participants create digital stories in a hands-on setting (using the Story Center model). This is done through participant observation and semi-structured interviews with participants following the workshop. Second, I seek to understand how or if young women can re-present themselves in the context of a facilitated Digital Storytelling workshop and challenge gender stereotypes through their own digital stories. This data is collected through a pre-workshop questionnaire, participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and analysis of the digital stories. While this is an exploratory study, I anticipate results in the following areas: (1) cross-pollination of knowledge between workshop participants and facilitators; (2) self-awareness, self-confidence and reflection amongst young women; (3) increase in digital literacy, storytelling and audio/visual skills; and (4) increase in understanding of, or introduction to, digital media and communication, activism and social change.

Access, use and ownership of mobile phones is increasing rapidly in Tanzania, as in the rest of Africa. It is estimated that a staggering 97% of the population are able to access a mobile phone, according to a study carried out by the Centre for Economic Policy Research and Vodafone. The growing number of people using mobile phones has led to optimism and speculation regarding its effect on economic and social development. Expectations from mobile phones are high and it has already been coined as Africa’s PC. Expectations are further fuelled by sensationalist headlines in the media such as, Mobile phones join war on African poverty, The mobile revolution sweeps across Africa or Cell phones the latest tool in Africa's fight against HIV and is shaping the discourse on mobile phones for development (M4D). This study was carried out between January and March 2010 in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania and funded by SPIDER, The Swedish Program for ICT in Developing Regions and commissioned by Femina HIP (Health Information Project) a Tanzanian multimedia civil society initiative that expressed desire for research to be conducted on mobile phones and SMS (Short Messages Service) in Tanzania. This paper contains data from three group interviews and one quantitative survey that was completed by 97 youths. The empirical material gathered is discussed in relation to empowerment and participation, two concepts that have become mainstreamed in development theory and practice and in communication for development. The paper is structured as following. The first chapter provides the aim and purpose of the study as well as its delimitations. The second chapter discusses mobile phones for development while critically looking at the M4D and ICT4D discourse. Also incorporated in this chapter is an example of a mobile phone project that was started in Bangladesh in the late 1990s and is used as an example to represent the empowerment narrative in M4D. A short discussion on this sentiment will conclude the second part. In the third chapter I present my theory. I take a critical look at empowerment and participation, two concepts that have gained, one can say, a moral authority that effectively hides power relations amongst participants, facilitators and donors in development projects. In the fourth chapter I discuss my methodology and how I gathered my material. In the fifth part I present my data and in the last chapter I analyse the empirical material by applying the framework of participation and empowerment. I also discuss what an organisation such as Femina HIP could gain from incorporating mobile phones into their communication strategy.

Recent years were marked by a major transformation in human and social communication, owing to the advances in ICT and thus social media technologies. Social media have introduced new communication practices, provided newfound interaction patterns, created new forms of expressions, stimulated a wide civic participation, and so forth. They are rapidly evolving and their significance is increasing while their role is changing in social and political processes. Moreover, they are increasingly becoming an instrumental approach to, and power for, social change due to their potential in bringing new dynamics to its underlying processes such as public mobilization. Indeed, more recently, they played an important role in what has come to be known as the Arab Spring. Particularly, in the recent Egyptian revolt, social media, such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, have been transformed into effective means to fuel revolt and bring about political transformation. This marked a victory for social media and corroborates that they are an enduring resource for the successful mobilization of bottom-up, grassroots movements and leaderless collective actions. This, in turn, has stimulated discussions about their impact on political change, giving rise to a new discourse, what might be identified as ‘social media for social change’. This discourse is gaining an increased attention in the media and the academia: many journalists and authors talk and write about it. Particularly, research and publications by journalists emphasize the fundamental role the online media play in the reproduction of the role of social media in the Egyptian revolution and political change. The aim of this study is to establish, by means of a discourse analysis, how and with what purpose in mind, the online media report on – represent – the relationship between social media and the Egyptian uprising and political transformation, a social relationship that seems to be overstated and constructed in various ways by different journalists. This critical reading reveals what is undervalued, overvalued and excluded, as well as the intersection between the media discourse, subjects and ideology. To achieve this aim, the discourse analysis approach was used to examine the set of selected media texts. The media representation is deterministic as to the role of social media in the Egyptian revolution and political transformation, i.e. it exaggeratedly depicts the power of social media by describing the Egyptian revolution as a Facebook revolution. It also tends to be rhetorical and exclusionary. The event of the revolution and the reality of political change in Egypt are far more complicated than how it is reconstructed by most journalists. Further, it plays a role in constructing a positive image of different corporate players, namely Facebook, Twitter and media companies, as well as in constituting their identities. A great highlight is given to represent these actors. In addition, the media representation does ideological work. It sustains and serves corporate power as well as advances ideological claims. This discursive research enhances the current understanding of the phenomenon of social media in relation to revolution and political change, although the findings may not be generalizable.

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are digital assets that exist in the blockchain with a unique signature that has been gaining significant attention starting from the early 2021. While NFTs can be anything stored digitally from text to music, since these digital tokens enable artists to democratize their works, there has been a particular rise in using them to promote digital art which has long been undervalued. With NFTs’ potentially holding the power to transform the art world and imminent Web 3.0, the lack of women representation in NFT space and blockchain has started to occupy the agenda of mission-driven artists, sparking conversations around the issue that has led some female artists to begin strategically taking up their space in a male-dominated market with different initiatives and projects. World of Women (WoW) and Women Rise are two separate NFT art projects that aim to diversify and balance the NFT space. They put emphasis on increasing the representation of women while empowering them to participate in blockchain and NFT space by using the tools of Web 3.0 to challenge gender biases and ‘decentralize’ power structures. Herewith, this research by examining these NFT projects will explore how exactly NFT art projects can culminate a more inclusive environment towards Web 3.0, the future of internet. The project will try to uncover the mechanisms and strategies of these NFT art projects through the themes of voice, agency, and representation by using a case-study approach. The project will be analyzing the findings with the guidance of the conceptual framework that is operationalized though Roberts’ ICT4D Intent and Practice Matrix. The data used for this research consists of chosen web pages of the websites of these projects and media texts that feature the projects and the artists who founded these projects. The findings will in the end reveal through what types of practices these projects unlock social change and enable representation based on their conformist, reformist, and transformist inclinations.

This study investigates how the non-governmental women’s rights organization Kvinna till Kvinna structures their external communication to raise public awareness in Sweden of issues important for social change; and in what way strategic communication is used in this process in order to cope with contemporary challenges. A qualitative research approach is applied to create an in-depth understanding of this. Two methods, qualitative content analysis of online gathered material and semi-structured interview, are used to grasp the organization’s work with the external communication. The strategic participatory approach to communication for development and social change functions as the theoretical framework. The results identify the organization’s approach to social change, strategic thinking in the set of goals, communication tactics, communication strategies and use of strategic junctures. Kvinna till Kvinna communicates on the basis of a structured and strategic plan which decides what, when and how to communicate. By repeatedly sharing great amounts of information about women’s rights, development work and development challenges, the communication is characterized by persuasion as well as educational connections. The persuasive character is strengthened through the use of storytelling and celebrities that convey the information. Kvinna till Kvinna to some extent work according to the strategic participatory approach which indicates that the awareness of the public could be increased. It is however primarily strategic rather than participatory elements, that permeate the organization’s communication, which also function as a way to handle contemporary challenges. A strategic communication which takes the external environment into account is concluded to be a tool for counteracting threats by political developments. The study highlights that strategic elements are central for a non-governmental organization in its strive for promoting and achieving social change, but participatory elements can also be understood as valuable in this process. The case of KtK enabled a discussion about the applicability of the theoretical framework and through this, possible developments and additions to the framework were highlighted.

La pandémie de la COVID-19 a causé des bouleversements considérables, altérant nos vies, les systèmes de santé et les dynamiques sociales mondiales. Cette crise, qualifiée de changement social dramatique, a remodelé les comportements sociétaux en introduisant des mesures préventives telles que la distanciation sociale et rester à la maison. Le respect de ces mesures s'est révélé crucial pour rétablir un équilibre social, suscitant l'intérêt des chercheurs pour évaluer l'adhésion de la population. Deux approches distinctes émergent dans la littérature pour étudier cette adhésion : une statique et une dynamique. L’approche dynamique est favorisée à l’approche statique puisqu’elle permet de cerner l’effet du temps et les transitions entre différentes périodes d’une pandémie (du durcissement à l’assouplissement des mesures). Les premières études dynamiques sur le sujet se sont concentrées seulement sur l’effet du temps, négligeant ainsi l’autre aspect central de cette: l'effet transitoire entre états sociétaux. Par ailleurs, un autre pan de la littérature s’est intéressé aux prédicteurs d’adhésion aux mesures préventives. De nombreux prédicteurs ont été identifiés, mais leur relation avec l’adhésion aux mesures préventives reste inconsistante, affectant la reproductibilité des résultats. Ce mémoire a donc pour premier objectif d’étudier leur relation avec des prédicteurs individuels et sociaux, et ensuite de comprendre simultanément l’effet du temps et de transition entre états sociétaux sur les mécanismes d’adoption et de maintien d’un comportement en contexte de changement social dramatique et ensuite d’étudier leur relation avec des prédicteurs individuels et sociaux. Le premier article du mémoire, sous forme d’examen de la portée, a identifié 136 études éligibles selon les critères d’inclusion et a retenu 52 prédicteurs au total. Parmi tous les prédicteurs identifiés, l’adaptation, l'auto-efficacité perçue, la confiance dans la science et le contact avec un cas COVID-19 présentaient des niveaux de cohérence élevée en lien avec l’adhésion aux mesures préventives. Les prédicteurs sociodémographiques n’ont pas rapporté des résultats concluants, limitant leur reproductibilité. Ensuite, des analyses de trajectoires jointes réalisées avec 1984 participants durant la première vague de la pandémie ont identifié des patrons longitudinaux d’adhésion distincts pour les mesures de distanciation sociale et de rester à la maison. Trois trajectoires distinctes d’adhésion ont été mises en évidence pour les périodes de mesures obligatoires et d’assouplissement de mesures: "Faible et constant" ("Faible et décroissant" pendant la période des mesures de levée), "Élevé et décroissant", et "Élevé et constant". L'étude des mouvements de transition entre les trajectoires a révélé principalement la présence d'une stabilité dans l'appartenance aux trajectoires, entre 85,83% et 90,44% pour la distanciation sociale et entre 80,68% et 87,71% pour le maintien à domicile. L'analyse des trajectoires jointes a également révélé un mouvement descendant à partir des groupes de conformité les plus élevés, 174 Canadiens passant à une trajectoire de conformité plus faible en matière de distanciation sociale et 195 à une trajectoire de conformité plus faible en matière de maintien à domicile. Une analyse plus poussée a montré que la littératie en santé prédisait de façon constante l'appartenance à une trajectoire pour les mesures de distanciation sociale et de rester à la maison, tandis que la perception des normes sociales provinciales et la confiance dans la science ont prédit modérément des mouvements de transition entre les trajectoires. Enfin, les implications théoriques, méthodologiques et pratiques sont discutées. / The COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant disruptions, impacting our lives, healthcare systems, and global social dynamics. This crisis, characterized as a dramatic social change, has reshaped societal behaviors by introducing preventive measures such as social distancing and staying at home. Compliance to these measures has proven crucial for restoring social balance, prompting researchers to assess population compliance. Two distinct approaches, static and dynamic, emerge in the literature for studying this compliance behaviour. The dynamic approach is favored as it captures the effects of time and transitions between different pandemic societal states (from mandatory to lifting measures periods). Initial dynamic studies focused solely on the time effect, neglecting the other central aspect of this approach: the transient effect between societal states. Additionally, literature has explored predictors of compliance with preventive measures, with identified predictors showing inconsistent relationships, affecting result reproducibility. This thesis aims to simultaneously understand the effects of time and transition between societal states on the mechanisms of adopting and maintaining behavior in the context of dramatic social change, while studying their relationship with individual and social predictors. The first article, a scoping review, identified 136 eligible studies, retaining a total of 52 predictors. Among them, adaptation, perceived self-efficacy, trust in science, and contact with a COVID-19 case exhibited high consistency with preventive measure compliance. Sociodemographic predictors did not yield conclusive results, limiting their reproducibility. Joint trajectory analyses with 1984 participants during the first wave identified distinct longitudinal compliance patterns for social distancing and staying at home measures. Three distinct compliance trajectories emerged for mandatory and easing measure periods: "Low and constant" ("Low and decreasing" during the lifting of measures), "High and decreasing," and "High and constant." Transition movement analyses mainly revealed stability in trajectory membership, between 85.83% and 90.44% for social distancing and between 80.68% and 87.71% for staying at home. Joint trajectory analysis also unveiled a descending movement from the highest compliance groups, with 174 Canadians transitioning to a lower compliance trajectory for social distancing and 195 for staying at home. Further analysis indicated that health literacy consistently predicted trajectory membership for social distancing and staying at home measures, while perceptions of provincial social norms and trust in science moderately predicted transition movements between trajectories. Finally, theoretical, methodological, and practical implications are discussed.

This dissertation examines how new gender norms and family relations challenged the structures and categories of European welfare provision in the late twentieth century. It recovers a crucial yet forgotten era of welfare reform between 1957 and 1992, in which policymakers and publics grappled with how to adapt welfare institutions designed for paid industrial workers to suit the needs of unpaid family caregivers. These reforms were sparked by mass demographic and social changes in the age of affluence: working motherhood, the increase of migrant workers and their families, rising divorce rates, aging populations, and new definitions of equality. This process of reform was actually realized, however, amid the economic turmoil and political realignment of the 1970s and 1980s, as demographic changes and social movements pushed on the budgets of reformist governments and constrained the viability of their economic reforms. In this dissertation, I show how the attempt to develop social protections for family care entailed more than the creation of new or better benefits. Rather, addressing the demands of family care required that politicians, bureaucrats, sociologists, feminists, trade unions, poverty activists, and officials in the European Community rethink the very notions of “risk,” “aid,” and “insurance” on which European welfare states had been based. Drawing on archival records in five languages from seven countries, I reconstruct how centrist governments in the 1970s developed a series of innovative measures – social-security credits for caregivers, workplace protections for part-time workers, cash benefits for families with disabilities, leave allowances for caregivers, new entitlements and restrictions for family migrants, European Directives on gender equality– that reshuffled the relationship between welfare, employment, and care. But I also show how revisionist governments in the 1980s adapted those same policies to confront new economic conditions marked by high unemployment, low productivity, and low-wage, flexible work. The result was a new politics of welfare, developed first for caregivers in the 1970s and then expanded to the long-term unemployed and the socially “excluded” in the 1980s. Precisely because care troubled the categories of the post-war welfare state, care policies of the 1970s helped found the active employment policies of the 1980s and 1990s. Working at the intersection of the intimate and the international, this dissertation recovers how the post-industrial welfare state emerged from contestations over the gendered foundations of the industrial welfare state that preceded it.

This project examines how European leaders of autocratic and democratic nations engage with masculinity discourses in their public speeches. Do authoritarian leaders use masculinity in a different way than democratic leaders? I answer this question by completing a critical discourse analysis of speeches from Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Boris Johnson, and Emmanuel Macron, the leaders of Russia, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and France, respectively. The speeches were publicized from July 2019 to September 2022, when all four leaders were simultaneously in office. I found that a similar rhetorical strategy focusing on dominance and strength was used across regime types and that empire is still a central component of their approach. These findings support the ideas that gendered language is used in discussions of international affairs and that the current form of hegemonic masculinity currently maintains its dominance in these rhetorical spaces. While all of the leaders have their own styles of portraying masculinity, they all engage in discourses that strongly reaffirm the dominant gender order. These findings suggest that these nations strive to sustain and extend their positions of global geopolitical dominance and that masculine strategies are essential to these processes.