Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Poblic Policy Studies, August 2002. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2009. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed October 13, 2009). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Honors)--College of William and Mary, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 107-119). Also available via the World Wide Web.

ABSTRACT This study examined global media discourses regarding the coverage of an anti-poverty campaign for Africa by celebrities in Europe by comparing media coverage of this event in the UK, US, and African press. The Make Poverty History campaign was organized in 2005 to pressure G8 leaders meeting in Glen eagles Scotland to cancel African aid, increase aid, and make trading conditions fairer. Former rock star, and humanitarian Sir Bob Geldof, rocker Bono, and filmmaker Richard Curtis, were the central figures in organizing this campaign on the global justice movement side of things. On the political arena, former British premier, Tony Blair, also had an agenda that put Africa and climate change at the top of the G8 agenda in 2005. Given Africa's historical negative coverage in the media, this study sought to investigate how a celebrity campaign which sought to change the perception of Africa as a pitiable place in need of charity, to one of a wronged continent in need of justice, would alter, if at all, the traditional coverage of Africa. The study sought to address three questions in particular: what were global media discourses regarding the Make Poverty History campaign; how were the major players in this campaign portrayed by the press in the United Kingdom, the center of the campaign, the United States, the key player in the G8, and in Africa, the continent in which all this attention was being directed to; and lastly to establish to what degree differences existed between media coverage of this campaign, and colonial/postcolonial discourses on the continent. The findings from the Western press showed both continuities and discontinuities of colonial rhetorical modes. These discursive continuities are classification, affirmation, debasement, idealization, and negation. These discourses are not static but have variations and shifts but some clear outlines of a continuation of colonial discourses were apparent. Classification refers to arranging nations according to a single standard of political and economic development. The Western press constantly held up industrialized countries as the ideal for Africa to follow. Affirmation has to do with confirming the moral superiority of the rich nations' publics. The Western media esteem the ability of the Western public, for example, to serve as the conscience of big business to restrain them from exploiting Third World countries. The leaders of the campaign also painted outstanding leaders on a mission to save the world, while the beneficiaries of the campaign were not involved. Debasement has to do depicting the "Other" in a degrading manner. This recurred in the coverage except the trope of debasement and idealization operated together with African leaders acting as the "villains" and the ordinary people as "noble" and "unspoilt" continuing the ambivalence of colonial discourse. Negation had to do with the media being ahistorical and denying historical links between Africa's deprivation in the past and its present reality. Even the campaign itself was in denial of Africa's past by adopting its slogan as Make Poverty History. Nonetheless, accommodation is a new discourse that came out of the reading and signified diverse perspectives within Western media coverage. Some perspectives from the activist public considered left-wing have entered the mainstream, for example, acknowledgment that subsidies given to farmers in wealthy countries make African countries less competitive contributing to poverty levels. African media texts had different perspectives. These can be classified as: self-affirmation (quest for global inclusion and /raising Africa's global profile); sovereignty (quest for economic independence); and self-reliance. African publications sought to reaffirm the place of Africa within the community of nations. They also sought resist what they considered undue interference by outsiders in the inside affairs of the continent. But there was some ambivalence because they still expressed concern over being forgotten by the rest of the world. Lastly, African media texts called for Africans to fashion their own solutions to the problems they encounter instead of waiting for outside help. These discursive strategies could be seen as defensive and in direct response to Africa's portrayal in the international media. Nevertheless, the African media provided perspective and continually drew the link between Africa's current problems and its historical development and place in global relations. While the Western press focused on Africa's present dilemma, the African press provided an alternative reading of the situation by illustrating global connections in Africa's plight.

This dissertation is a study of political realignment from a rhetorical perspective. Specifically, I use the lens of doxa to rhetorically explore how basic assumptions regarding the role of government shift over time, and how crisis narratives are used to usher in these doxastic transformations. I explore the elections of Franklin Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, and Barack Obama as markers of such shifts. In chapter one, I provide a statement of purpose and justification for my study, along with a description of the historical contexts of the 1932, 1980, and 2008 presidential elections. Chapter two includes a literature review, in which I discuss scholarship related to political realignment, the rhetorical situation, doxa, and crisis rhetoric. I also provide a description of my method of rhetorical criticism, and an explanation of how the analysis chapters are structured. Chapter three is my first analysis chapter. Using 55 news and opinion articles, I construct a doxa of the Roosevelt era, a doxa of the Reagan era, and a doxa of the Obama era. Creating these doxai provides a context for understanding how each respective candidate challenged the doxa of his time, and sought to usher in a transformation of the role of government. In chapter four, I explore five speeches delivered by each respective candidate to examine how these doxastic transformations are rhetorically manifest. I also investigate how crisis narratives are employed in the service of ushering in a doxastic transformation. In chapter five, I explore the implications of my analysis, and reflect upon limitations of this study and possibilities for future research. In sum, this study provides insight into the ways in which basic assumptions regarding the role of government change over time, and the implications of these shifts.

In this study, I examine how congressional candidates present gendered identities on their campaign websites. In my theory of candidate gendered identity, drawn from literature on presentation of the self and gender performativity, I argue that candidates construct their personal identities in relation to universally understood archetypes, which stand for ideal representations of real-world characters or roles. Through an in-depth content analysis of the biographical pages of 2010 U.S. House of Representatives candidate campaign websites, I examine how candidates construct and perform a range of gender-based archetypal roles in various electoral contexts. Specifically, I look at how such factors as electoral context, candidate partisan identification, and incumbency status (or challenger status) determine the range of archetypal roles a candidate might choose to perform. What I find is that candidate gender matters, but only for some candidates in some contexts. For many candidates, these factors have an interacting effect on the manner in which a candidate presents his or her gender-based identity. This study contributes to our current understanding of how political candidates behave and present themselves in their political campaigns. In their efforts to connect with and gain the trust of potential voters, candidates present their personal identities through the performances of familiar archetypes with which those voters can easily identify.

Several recent studies on information shortcuts and electoral vote choice show that challenges to classic democratic theory are largely exaggerated. Namely, there is now convincing evidence towards Americans having the ability to cast votes that are representative of their own political preferences. Research on such heuristics largely depend on presidential election data however, and it remains uncertain how voters respond to less salient elections where candidate information may not be as apparent and electoral communication efforts are more dismal. This study utilizes a voting correctly measure previously developed to analyze the ability of voters during Senate elections. Special attention in this study is given towards individual characteristics and campaign characteristics. First, individual characteristics, such as social and demographic variables, are expected to have an effect on voting correctly based on previous political behavior studies noting group disparities among political interest, knowledge, engagement, and turnout. Second, campaign characteristics are hypothesized to have an effect on quality voting based on literature explaining how campaigns matter in an informational sense. The findings reported in this study provide lackluster evidence towards the ability of voters to make preferred decisions based on limited information and minimal campaign effects on correct voting.

This study is a quantitative content analysis of the Facebook and Twitter communication of the Obama and Romney campaigns on seven dates within the 30 days prior to the 2012 presidential election. Specific rhetorical techniques are explored for similarities or differences in how these techniques have appeared in political communication in legacy media and how they are expressed in social media. Repetition, collective language, self-reference language and Benoit's functions of attack, acclaim and defend are examined. Additionally, the study identified what topics each candidate emphasized in their social media communication. Findings show that both candidates used repetition to reinforce key messages. The use of attacks, acclaims and defenses bore some similarities to uses in legacy media. However, the primary focuses by both candidates centered on motivating citizens to show support for the candidate and get out the vote. Few policy issues appeared in the communication of either candidate. / 2015-09-29

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:31:31Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2007-03-02Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:20:38Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 bertoni_lm_dr_arafcl.pdf: 320371 bytes, checksum: c6901d0a0a5bc387eec713b72b47e797 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / As representações sociais acerca do alcoolismo e do alcoolista por jovens - alvo das propagandas de cerveja - constituem-se o foco desta tese, ou seja, a relação entre juventude, mídia televisiva e campanhas de prevenção ao alcoolismo. A mídia televisiva, considerada como grande propagadora e incentivadora do consumo de bebidas alcoólicas aqui é investigada no tocante à disseminação conjunta de campanhas de prevenção ao alcoolismo, um dos aspectos mais polêmicos em nossa atual sociedade. / The social representations on the alcoholism and the alcoholist by the young - objective of the merchandizing of beer - establishes the focus of this thesis; that is, the relation between the youth and the television media and campaigns on prevention on alcoholism. The television media, considered as great spreader and stimulator of consume of alcoholic drinks, is investigated here together with the spreading of campaigns on prevention on alcoholism, one of the most polemical aspects of our society nowadays.