Terror management theory research suggests that self-esteem acts as an anxiety buffer and high self-esteem can reduce implicit death thoughts and worldview defense. Self-compassion, it is argued, enhances wellbeing by making people feel safe and secure, while self-esteem makes people feel superior and sometimes unrealistically self-confident. Through a series of studies, this dissertation investigated buffering of death anxiety by self-compassion. Studies 1 and 2 investigated the role of trait (Study 1) and induced (Study 2) self-compassion in buffering existential anxiety by reducing implicit death thoughts. Studies 3 and 4 investigated the role of trait (Study 3) and induced (Study 4) self-compassion in buffering existential anxiety by reducing worldview defense. The series of studies did not support the proposed hypotheses, as they failed to replicate the expected mortality salience effects. Because of this, the effects of self-compassion on implicit death anxiety were also not evident. Possible reasons for failure to reject the null hypotheses are discussed and recommendation for future studies is given.

Terror management theory suggests that the fear of death is ubiquitous. Only recently has death been examined as something potentially interesting from this framework, and specifically, to individuals high in trait openness (Boyd, Morris, & Goldenberg, 2017). This research, however, did not clearly delineate if participants were actually becoming interested in death. My studies address this ambiguity by examining what high openness individuals are becoming interested in and if the way death is construed impacts interest. Study 1 tested if in addition to becoming more generally interested, high openness individuals become interested in death per se following mortality salience (relative to a control), as Boyd et al. (2017) speculated. Analyses revealed that individuals high in experiential openness only became more interested in death if the death interest measure came after a scale of general interest (i.e., after a longer delay). In contrast to predictions, individuals high in general openness did not exhibit these effects. In Study 2, I hypothesized that high openness individuals would become more interested in art and philosophy following mortality salience (relative to a control) because of the relevance of these domains to openness. This hypothesis was not supported. In Study 3, I tested if highlighting death’s experiential or intellectual qualities would increase general interest and subsequently decrease death anxiety, depending on if one’s unique brand of openness valued such qualities. Only when death was construed of in an experiential manner (relative to a control) did individuals high in experiential openness become more generally interested, and unexpectedly, more anxious about death. Together these studies demonstrate that the aspect of openness related to valuing experience can actually increase one’s interest in death, and when death is construed in a way that corresponds with this type of openness, general interest also increases.

Syfte: Undersökningen vill öka kunskapen om svenska dagstidningars rapportering av terrorbrott och vilka kausaliteter som svenska dagstidningar lyfter fram som förklaringar till terrorbrott i sin nyhetsrapportering. Frågeställningar: 1: Vilka kausaliteter har de svenska dagstidningarna Dagens Nyheter och Svenska Dagbladet lyft fram i sin nyhetsrapportering av de terrorbrott som skedde i: ● Utöya i Norge 2011 ● Newtown i USA 2012 ● Kuwait City i Kuwait 2015 2: Vilken förståelse av terrorbrott som fenomen bidrar svenska dagstidningar till att skapa med sin nyhetsrapportering av dessa händelser? 3: Hur kan man använda geografisk och kulturell närhet/distans för att förstå rapportering av terrorbrott inom svenska dagstidningar?  Metod och material: Undersökningen använder en kvantitativ innehållsanalys av svenska dagstidningars rapportering av tre olika fall av terrorbrott. Huvudresultat: Den förståelse av terrorbrott som svenska dagstidningar bidrar till att skapa varierar mellan olika fall av terrorbrott. Svenska dagstidningar rapporterar en stor variationen av kausaliteter mellan olika fall.

Denna studie granskar källor i form av personer i rapporteringen kring terrordådet på Drottninggatan 2017. Krissituationer innebär ett akut och stort behov av information hos allmänheten. Forskning har påvisat att svenska medier brister ur en källkritisk aspekt vid rapportering kring kriser, därför är det viktigt att granska källanvändningen vid dessa extraordinära händelser. I den här undersökningen fokuserar vi på personkällor och en av frågeställningarna som studien behandlar är: Vilka personkällor användes i rapporteringen? Inom kriskommunikationsforskningen är det vanligt att dela in en kris i olika faser då rapporteringens tema skiftar under olika tidpunkter i krisen. Därför behandlar studien även frågeställningarna: I vilka artikelteman förekommer de olika personkällorna? Vilka likheter och skillnader fanns i användningen av personkällor i fas 1 och fas 2? Vilka likheter och skillnader fanns i förekomsten av olika artikelteman i fas 1 och fas?  Studien bygger på en kvantitativ innehållsanalys av totalt 290 nyhetsartiklar från Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter, Expressen och Svenska Dagbladet.  Resultatet av studien visar att de vanligaste personkällorna var ”polis” och ”politiker”. Förstahandskällor var vanligast med 78% av alla personkällor och 10% utgjordes av alla personkällor utan namn. Manliga personkällor dominerade rapporteringen med 77% och kvinnorna utgjorde 33%. Resultatet visade även att det fanns vissa skillnader mellan de två faserna. Det förekom fler personkällor i fas 1 generellt och även fler elitpersoner. Frekvensen av olika personkällor och artikelteman förändrades i de två faserna vilket påvisar att rapporteringens innehåll såg olika ut vid olika tidpunkter i krisen.

This thesis is focusing on the emotion of fear in conjunction with an interactive narrative experience. It analyses the emotional scope fear entails as well as discusses different narrative formats and interactivity in terms of agency. Through extensive research on the topic at hand, multiple prototypes is developed focusing on expressing different variations of fear while experimenting with the narrative structure and interactive elements available through the software Twine. Based on this, conclusions were made on the complexity of designing for an emotion and the difficulty in reaching more intense feelings of fear. There was also a struggle of balancing interactivity with narrative while also designing for a frightening experience. Lastly, final conclusions were made on the prototypes abilities to produce frightening responses, which ultimately showed signs towards lesser feelings of fear, such as nervousness, anxiety and trepidation.

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The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual (FM 3-24) was published in 2006 and used by the military to consolidate counterinsurgency strategies and tactics and correct the growing military problems in Iraq. However, rather unusually, this military doctrinal publication was also heavily publicized through a wide array of media to the American public giving it an important role in political discourse and the rhetorical history of the U.S. ‘war on terror’. Beyond its military application, the FM 3-24 can be understood as a rhetorical device used by the Bush Administration to repair a collapsing ‘war on terror’ narrative and shore up plummeting public support for the war in Iraq, which had reached its lowest levels at the time of the manual’s publication. Still more important is the language in the text itself, which bears a conspicuous tone of benevolence, historically uncharacteristic to military doctrine. Despite this ‘spirit of goodwill,’ the FM 3-24, in fact, functions as a segment of the ‘war on terror’ narrative and an ideological vehicle for American global hegemony directed primarily toward American audiences. This view is justified by three main trends in the text: One, the manual omits mention of, or minimizes, the moral and political impact of military invasions on foreign countries that necessarily precede counterinsurgency operations; two, it relies fundamentally on legal arrangements with occupied countries that favor American prerogatives; and three, it reduces counterinsurgencies to a simple dichotomy between good and evil, the latter role being assigned to anyone who opposes the United States, which therefore denies the political complexities of that opposition. The FM 3-24 is a prescriptive document that has been 1) designed to militarily extend or reinforce American global power through counterinsurgency operations and 2) used politically to reproduce or justify particular attitudes in the American public that will foster support for those operations.

In the 1990s, three Mexican-born filmmakers, Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro, and Alejandro G. Iñárritu, began careers that would see them directing films in Mexico, the US, and Europe. The three filmmakers are known for incorporating a broad spectrum of genres and aesthetic traditions from world cinema into their own films. Despite their internationalism, scholars and critics have tended to emphasize their national identity, viewing their films as either intrinsically Mexican or not Mexican enough. I argue that their films reflect multiple national identities and address what it means to live in a global community constituted by a plurality of cultural perspectives. This dissertation reads these auteurs as constructing their films as sites of dialogue between different identities, enabling their work to appeal to global audiences. I also understand these filmmakers as being in conversation with each other through shared themes that articulate specific social scenarios while remaining broad enough to resonate with audiences around the world. Chapter 1 examines Cuarón’s Sólo con tu pareja (1991), del Toro’s Cronos (1993), and Iñárritu’s Amores perros (2000). I read the directors’ thematization of precarity, alienation, and abjection as resonating with audiences in Mexico and the US who experienced the jarring effects of neoliberalism. Chapter 2 discusses Cuarón’s A Little Princess (1995) and del Toro’s Mimic (1997), which I read as sharing a theme of dislocation that spoke to American, Indian, and Latin American societies that were being transformed at the end of the Cold War. Chapter 3 explores how del Toro, Cuarón, and Iñárritu responded to the post-9/11 political environment in Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), Children of Men (2006), and Babel (2006). Through their thematic concern with chaos and order, these films spoke to viewers overwhelmed by war, the torture and detainment of terrorist suspects, mass surveillance, harsh immigration policies, and the looming threat of terrorism itself. / 2024-11-14T00:00:00Z