The objective of the project was to develop an online educational technology tool based on research from multiple disciplines to improve effective communication between students, counselors, teachers, parents, and school staff. The website developed for the project aims to increase the involvement of parents in their child's academic progress. The project also includes discussions concerning the website's field testing at a middle school in Rosemead, California, its evaluation through participant surveys, and final revision. The field test participant instructions, survey questions, and a computer disc of the website accompanies the project.

This thesis examines the discourse strategies used to construct initiation schools in online media and message boards. The focus is on understanding the tensions that come with enacting traditional practices in the face of modernity and its associated cultural expectations. The thesis describes the manner in which these tensions are constructed in text by the media in news reports and participants in discussion forums. While there is still debate around whether the internet will revolutionise public participation and create a digital utopia; the internet is acknowledged as one of the widest reaching sources of information and entertainment. Specifically, the internet provides a platform to challenge the traditionally top-down communication between the elite, who have privileged access to the media, and the general public, who were previously constructed as passive recipients of information. Using the male circumcision initiation rite, this thesis examines how the South African public discursively constructs the epistemic location of African traditions in South Africa. The study drew on a sample of news articles from the News24 site, the largest news site in South Africa, ranging from January 2008 to December 2013. A corpus of 62 articles were analysed using the Critical Discourse Analysis technique described by Teun van Dijk. The findings of the thesis were that the initiation rite is used as a rhetorical tool to argue for the abandonment of African cultural practices in favour of modern, Western influenced beliefs and values. The findings also indicate that the initiation rite is reduced to the act of circumcision in the media by focusing on the injury and deaths of the initiates and excluding the meaning of the rite as a meaningful cultural practice. The conclusion of the thesis challenges the epistemicide committed against the male circumcision initiation rite from within the Decolonial school of thought, which critically examines everyday interaction for universalising, normative language that aims to commit cultural epistemicide to reinforce the white, male, European, Christian traditions of masculinity. / Psychology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Psychology)

Den här studien undersöker hur webbplatsen kan användas i syfte att förmedla en varumärkesidentitet hos företag inom kultursektorn. Fotografiska, en privat konsthall för samtida fotokonst, belägen i Stockholm, publicerar på sin webbplats texter om varje utställning som konsthallen arrangerar. Undersökningen utgår från antagandet att såväl den omgivande kontexten som innehållet i texterna bidrar till att skapa en varumärkesidentitet. Genom en multimodal och narrativ diskursanalys av webbplatsen och utställningstexterna analyserar jag hur denna identitet realiseras i samspelet mellan semiotiska och narrativa resurser och vilken bild den förmedlar av Fotografiska till betraktaren. Resultatet visar, enligt min tolkning, att Fotografiska använder webbplatsen i identitetsskapande syfte genom porträtteringen av fotokonsten och dess centrala aktörer som bärare av ett antal socioestetiska kärnvärden; minimalism, intellektualitet, exklusivitet, tradition och kunnighet. / This study examines how websites can be used for corporate branding purposes of institutions in the cultural field. It is based on my analytical findings on the website of Fotografiska, a gallery for contemporary fine art photography in central Stockholm. The thesis is based on the claim that both the surrounding context and the content of the exhibition texts plays a crucial role in the creation of a corporate brand for art galleries. Therefore my intention here is to show how Fotografiska all together use semiotic and narrative resources on their website in order to brand themselves. Supported by the findings from my sociosemiotic discourse analysis I argue that the extensive portraying of fine art photography and its key figures, maintains a few artistic core values that are characteristic for the branding of Fotografiska. Those are minimalism, intellectuality, exclusiveness, tradition and expertise.

The number of instructors introducing web-based elements in the course curriculum is growing and students need to be able to access content on the web to participate. As such, a campus website with accessibility design standards for course developers at California State University showed potential to greatly assist in equalizing the educational playing field for students with disabilities.