Within the framework of Critical Discourse Studies, this thesis looks at how Hazara peoples’ online activism during the Afghanistan 2009 and 2014 Presidential Elections contributed to promoting civil society and democratic values in Post-2001Afghanistan. The data corpus for this research is a selection of twelve published articles from the four most popular Hazara activists’ affiliated websites: The Republic of Silence, Hazara People International Network, Kabul Press and Hazara Net. Hazara writers applied a critical, but divisive and ethnocentric language to construct a political discourse during the Afghan national elections and polarized Afghan ethnic groups and differentiated between people and politicians. Despite the divisive and polarized discourse strategies in their texts, Hazara writers opened a fresh space for ethnic conversation in the Afghan online public sphere during the elections and enriched Afghan mainstream media discourse. The data corpus unveiled political activism based on historical consciousness, collective adaptability to social changes, and a continuous interest in education and civic activism as main Hazara online themes in post-2001 Afghanistan. These Hazara texts promote one role in particular for Hazaras, and that is to protest yesterday’s oppressive history, correct today's political structures and transform tomorrow's political culture in Afghanistan, so that all activists share something more than race, blood and ethnicity.

Although efforts have been made by the Afghan government and its international partners to promote the tents of gender equality in Afghan society, biases against women and other marginalized groups persist in the society and media sector, particularly. The current study is a timely research because feminist media studies are an under-researched field in the context of Afghanistan. My research aims to be a contribution to this field and open a path for Afghan feminist media studies. The current study explores the representations of gender relations in transnational television soap operas broadcast on Afghan television stations, audiences’ decoding of the representations, and the role of the media in promoting social change. The selected soap operas for the study are Paiman and Qesay Maa, Turkish television soap operas dubbed in the Dari language. The current study is based on feminist theory and feminist methodology, providing a balance of content and reception analysis. Drawing on feminist media studies and focusing on media representations, the content analysis of transnational soap operas echoed previous studies on representations of gender relations and indicated that gender relations are often portrayed in stereotypical and traditional manners. The content analysis further demonstrated that women are objectified in different ways and are often represented as domestic, passive, selfless beings in men’s service. Moreover, relationships between women are often based on rivalry, hatred, and shaming and often without any particular reason. The study also found that contrary to women, men are often represented at outdoor and professional settings. Additionally, grounded on encoding/decoding model through a feminist lens, the thematic analysis of focus group discussions demonstrated that audiences constantly interact with media text and actively make meaning. Interestingly, FGD findings further indicated that as active viewers, both female and male participants, derive multiple and often diverse meanings from the media text. Although both female and male participants problematize the content of transnational soap operas, their interpretations of representations of gender relations and gender equality are dissimilar. The study concludes that transnational soap operas, and the media in general, can play an important role in promoting social change in Afghanistan, particularly gender parity through the Entertainment-Education strategy. However, an intersectional framework is essential in designing EE programmes for promoting gender equality in a diverse society like Afghanistan.