On opening women's magazine the reader is bombarded with page after page of advertisements featuring highly sexualised images of women. This thesis explores the use of sexuality in contemporary women's magazine advertising and how women respond to this. A year-long analysis of twelve different monthly magazines, spanning three different age demographics was undertaken. A comprehensive coding schedule was developed, and over 5000 advertisements were analysed in a quantitative manner to determine the level of sexuality. Nearly 500 women took part in an online survey. It was designed to gauge their responses to the use of sex in advertising, as well as the influence of advertising overall. This analysis found that sex is a tool used by advertisers in almost every advertisement that appears in women's magazines, particularly those targeted at the youngest age demographics. Some products, such as fragrances, rely more heavily on the use of sex in their advertising campaigns than others. The women surveyed believed that average and older women are under-represented in advertising. Women tend to recollect advertisements that promote a 'promise' or an idealised lifestyle set in a sexual context. Recollection is, of course, the aim of advertising, so it would appear that the use of sex is here to stay.

The purpose of this study was to examine how male and female celebrities are represented on the 24 covers of e+, a weekly entertainment magazine that was published by Dubai-based Al Nisr Publishing. This cross-sectional, exploratory study used a qualitative visual semiotic analysis and quantitative content analysis to examine how male and female celebrities are constructed and represented on covers published between October 2010 and September 2011. In addition, the study explored whether the myths and ideologies found on the covers made an impression on the perceptions and tastes of teenagers living in the UAE. A subsequent self-administered questionnaire was completed by 30 teenagers living in the UAE aged between 16 and 19 with the purpose of determining how teenagers experienced representations of celebrities. Furthermore, to gain a deeper understanding of how teenagers experienced celebrity culture, three focus-group interviews, each comprising of six participants, are conducted. The study found that both male and female celebrities were represented in gender stereotypical roles. Results showed that male celebrities were represented as active, strong, decisive and dominant. Male celebrities were associated with success, fast cars and dangerous weapons. On the other hand, female celebrities were predominantly represented as submissive. The representations of female celebrities focused on beauty and fashion. The survey and focus-group results revealed that celebrity culture does have an influence on teenagers. Participants reported that they bought products that they saw celebrities wearing or using, emulated the celebrities’ behaviour and copied hairstyles and make-up looks. However, the study found that, in addition to celebrity culture, teenagers’ perceptions are also shaped by their peers, parents and other people they interact with such as teachers. / Communication Science / M.A. (Communication Science)

The purpose of this study is to develop a better understanding of how negative behavior affects a celebrity's public image.

This Master's Thesis analyzes various roles that First Ladies of the United States take upon when their spouses are elected President of the United States. Even though the role of First Ladies is undefined, the public still expects a certain level of manners and dedication to their selected causes. The influence of First Ladies is, on the one hand limited by the fact that they do not have any real policies to follow. On the other hand, the platform of First Ladyship offers a great deal to influence and ability to raise awareness to causes they care about. The main argument is that Mrs. Obama had a particular skill to promote her initiatives and to turn negative attention by the media to the rights directions. Additionally, she was able to get the attention of corporations and state officials to help her make a real impact on her initiatives. Her authenticity and fun engaging style helped her with engaging young people into her campaigns and her status of popular First Lady. Therefore, the goal of this thesis is to find out how the role of First Lady changed during Michelle Obama's term as First Lady and what kind of influence her initiatives brought. Finally, the analyses shows that Michelle Obama was a very active First Lady that pushed the role of the First Lady forward. Her well though...

Des recherches ont montré comment les mouvements sociaux tirent parti des capacités techniques offertes par les plateformes numériques pour attirer l'attention sur leurs causes et mobiliser des partisans. Pendant la pandémie de COVID-19, le même phénomène a été observé chez certains softleaders s’opposant aux mesures sanitaires qui ont utilisé ces mêmes plateformes pour promouvoir leurs points de vue et leurs croyances. Cependant, elles ne sont pas neutres et tiennent un rôle dans l’aboutissement de tels objectifs. C’est ce que ce mémoire s’efforce de mettre en lumière. Dans le cadre de cette recherche, l’échange de propriétés entre des actants humains, et non-humains, soit les micro-célébrités activistes politiques et les capacités techniques de la plateforme Twitter, sont considérées comme une voie stratégique vers la mise en visibilité d’une idéologie politique. Dans une perspective sociotechnique, nous visons à comprendre la construction de récits et la fabrique du discours, en analysant les thèmes qui émergent des publications sur Twitter et le rôle des entités du collectif composé des actants humains et non-humains dans la production et la diffusion de ces messages. Nous remarquons que le résultat d’un tel assemblage, à travers des stratégies et les possibilités offertes par les affordances, permet de se saisir de l’attention médiatique de l’auditoire à des fins politiques : la promotion de valeurs issues de convictions anti-mesures sanitaires basées sur de la désinformation, des théories du complot et de la méfiance envers différentes institutions démocratiques. Ainsi, nous suggérons que des recherches futures doivent continuer de se pencher sur les effets de composition de cet assemblage sur la production et la diffusion du discours et que ces considérations doivent être prises en compte dans la recherche de solutions au problème de la désinformation. / Research has shown how social movements leverage the technical capabilities offered by social media platforms to draw attention to their causes and mobilize supporters. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the same phenomenon has been observed among some softleaders opposing health measures who have taken to Twitter to promote their views and beliefs. However, the platforms are not neutral and play a role in the achievement of such objectives. This is what this dissertation attempts to understand. In the context of this research, the exchange of properties between human and non-human actors, micro-celebrity political activists and the technical capacities of the Twitter platform, called affordances, are considered as a strategic path towards the visibility of a political ideology. From a sociotechnical perspective, we aim to understand the construction of their stories, the making of discourse, by analyzing the themes that emerge from their tweets and the role of the collective entities in the production and dissemination of these messages. We see that the result of the collective, through strategies and the capabilities offered by affordances, makes it possible for these softleaders to seize the attention of the audience for political ends: the promotion of values stemming from opposition health measures during the crisis based on misinformation, conspiracy theories and distrust of various democratic institutions. Thus, we suggest that future research should continue to address the composition effects of the network (humans/dispositive) on the production and dissemination of discourse and that these considerations should be considered in the search for solutions to the problem of misinformation.

The subject of this dissertation thesis is investigating the issue of the German ethnic group status in inter-war Czechoslovakia shown in the example of the Nejdek political district with the emphasis on the major and crucial aspects of social life - politics, economic and social issues while the assistance and support elements include: demographics, border issues, the presence of the Czech ethnic group, a preview of own (German) history and the development of churches and religion. The Nejdek political district is set within a framework of regional history with regard to the historical context of the development of Czechoslovakia, or even of the world in some cases. The regional history presented here in the form of a probe from the perspective of great historical events and partly through micro-history aim to build on the broad source base and capture the impacts and effects of national policies on shaping of the Nejdek region and its inhabitants. In some ways, when possible of course, research methods are applied. Overall, the work is to fill the so-called white gaps in the regional historiography, since the books or studies published so far have been focusing only on partial, closely regionally defined topics and only comprehensive work, which the author of this paper attempts, could therefore...