Alcohol misuse and related harm costs money, drains resource and takes lives. Alcohol brief interventional advice forms an important method to moderate alcohol consumption at both individual and population level. Alcohol exerts a significant negative influence on the oral cavity and is implicated in the development of oro-mucosal and dental disease. Alcohol and tobacco smoking are recognised a key aetiological agents in the development of oral cancer which is the 14th most common cancer, accounting for approximately 2% of new cases, killing over 2300 people in the UK every year. A crucial weapon to tackle the disease is prevention through management of those modifiable lifestyle factors. The role of the general dental practitioner (GDP) in providing alcohol advice has received sparse attention, however evidence suggests that GDPs do not routinely engage in this activity. The aim of this research was to identify factors preventing or facilitating GDP engagement and develop strategies to support them to deliver alcohol advice. GDPs salient beliefs were applied, using behaviour change theories (the Theory of Planned Behaviour and Social Cognitive Theory), to formulate a theory based questionnaire. A postal survey (n=300, RR 60%) identified that few (17%) GDPs routinely provide advice to patients exposing potential for improvement. Subsequent exploratory multiple regression analysis identified 5 key items which might act as targets. The resultant five-item model accounted for 41% of the variance in intention [Adjusted R2 for this model is .41; F = 15.34 (.001)].A theoretically informed intervention was administered as a multi-centre, parallel group, three-arm randomized controlled pilot study. The aims were to test the feasibility and acceptability of implementing an alcohol advice intervention in dental primary care. The intervention was not entirely acceptable to patients or dentists. Qualitative analysis revealed factors (not limited) to remuneration, perceived relevance, confidence, embarrassment and fear of consequences mar progress. Modifications to study processes and methods would seem a sensible prior to further study.

Past research has shown that dialogic communication has essential characteristics that foster two-way communication between organizations and their stakeholders. This study investigates how public relations firms incorporate the principles of dialogic communication on their websites. The top and bottom 50 websites from the Holmes report on Top 250 Global PR agency rankings were content analyzed. Kent and Taylor’s (1998, 2003) five principles of dialogic communication were applied to find out if public relations firms incorporate the principle of dialogic communication effectively on their websites, provide relevant information for stakeholders and prospective clients, and if there are differences between PR rankings in terms of website usability and the dialogic loop. Findings reveal that bottom 50 PR websites are not as dialogic as the top 50 PR websites. In addition, the study revealed that both top and bottom to a considerable extent incorporated the principles of dialogic communication.

La presente investigación aborda el estudio de un tipo de texto de la comunicación de masas: el eslogan. La perspectiva adoptada es la lingüística. Concretamente, nos proponemos analizar las estructuras sintácticas fundamentales en la elaboración del eslogan electoral español entre los años 1975 y 2000. Este objetivo general del proyecto de tesis se concreta en tres objetivos particulares:1) Elaboración de un corpus documental de eslóganes políticos electorales representativo de esta etapa de la historia política española.2) Consideraciones teóricas acerca del eslogan y de su contexto. Trataremos de definir y de delimitar nuestro objeto de estudio: el eslogan político electoral. De igual modo, daremos cuenta del contexto histórico, social y político en el que fueron emitidos. 3) Análisis del corpus. Finalmente, afrontaremos el análisis de las principales estructuras sintácticas del eslogan electoral y ofreceremos una interpretación de su rentabilidad en este tipo de texto. / This research raises the study of a type of mass communication text: the slogan. It has been adopted a linguistic perspective. Precisely, we propose to analyze the basic syntactic structures used to write the spanish electoral slogans between the years 1975 and 2000.This general objective of the thesis project is materialized by three particular objectives:1) Preparation of a documentary corpus of electoral political slogans representative of this period of the Spanish political history. 2) Theoretical considerations about the slogan and its context. We will try to define and specify our object of study: the electoral political slogan. In the same way we will provide the historical, social and political context in which they were issued.3) Corpus analysis. Finally, we will face up to the analysis of the main syntactical structures of the electoral slogan and we will offer an interpretation of its profitability in this kind of text.

This research discusses communication and meaning in the context of orality, using a variety of theoretical perspectives, including memory theory, media and communication theory, and semiotics. Drawing on the work of Walter Ong, it provides new insight about the characteristics and limits of oralnarration by assessing the memes, tropes, and phraseological units in the oral narrations of Armenian Genocide survivors. This research identifies a list of replicable forms of stories and oral devices that are used by the group in question; it then proposes that oral narration of non-fictional topics designed to convey historical or episodic information to others is intuitive, reactive, directed, fuzzy, and sticky. Concerns about the legitimacy and historical value of the narrations under review do not play a role in this research; instead, the focal point is the meaning embedded in the form and structure of the narrations under study.

Text in English / Two consecutive referrals of early onset (symptom onset at 11 years) anorexia nervosa (restricting sub-type) to an inpatient eating disorders unit in a psychiatric hospital, will be described. Within both cases, there was a history of sequential mother-daughter dieting prior to the daughter's onset of anorexic symptoms. This pattern will be viewed from the perspective of systemic theory, with reference to the cybernetic processes implicated in the onset and maintenance of symptoms. Structural systemic interpretations, in terms of exchangeable senses of self within the mother-daughter pairs, will also be considered. A brief comment will be made about the symmetry which underlies the choreography of anorexia nervosa when viewed from the perspective of communication theory. The implications for intervention will be addressed. In conclusion, the nature of the intergenerational transmission of disordered eating behaviours, will be considered with reference to the nature-nurture debate. / Clinical Psychology / M.A. (Clinical Psychology)

Text in Afrikaans / Een van die grootste probleme waarmee die prediker in 'n industriele konteks te doen het, is om die evangelie op 'n sinvolle wyse aan die hoarders oor te dra. Die radikale verandering in die samelewing deur die moderniseringsproses, het die homiletiek gedwing om teoreties her te besin. Hierdie moderne homiletiese teorie soos deur H.J.C. Pieterse, T.G. Long en G.D.J. Dingemans verteenwoordig het die volgende belangrike teoretiese aanpassings gemaak: Eerstens, in plaas van die tradisionele beweging van die teks na die hoarders, is die homiletiese proses omgekeer. Die beweging is nou vanaf die hoarder na die teks deur middel van die prediker en weer terug van die teks na die hoorder. Tweedens, hierdie benadering het noodwendig hermeneutiese implikasies gehad. Daarom het die homiletiek die bree aanpak van die moderne kritiese hermeneutiek in diens geneem. Derdens moes 'n nuwe kommunikasieteorie ondersoek word naamlik, die dialogiese kommunikasieteorie van H.J.C. Pieterse en C.J.A. Vos. / One of the greatest problems, with which a preacher in an industrial context have to deal with, is to convey the gospel in a sensible manner to the listeners. The radical change in society caused by the modernisation process, forced homiletics to review its theoretical base. Modern homiletics as represented by H.J.C. Pieterse, T.G. Long and G.D.J. Dingemans, has made the following theoretic adjustments: Firstly, in stead of the traditional movement of the text to the listeners, the homiletical process is revearsed. The movement is from the listener to the text by means of the preacher and back from the text to the listener. Secondly, this approach inevitably has hermeneutic implications. Therefore homiletics has employed the broad approach of modern critical hermeneutics. Thirdly, a new communication theory has to be developed namely, the dialogical communication theory of H.J.C. Pieterse and C.J.A. Vos. The most important theoretical foundation for preaching in an industrial context is the approach of taking the listeners as starting point without neglecting the text. In practice, it brings about that the following topics ask for particular attention: For the understanding and formulating of the message of the Scriptures, the modern critical hermeneutics and the use of metaphors is of the greatest importance. The new understanding of rhetorics which is about conveying the message, must be taken into consideration. The formulating of the message in the language of the listeners has a theoretical influence on the formulating and use of the theological concepts during preaching. The dialogical communication theory is also of great importance, and has dialogue before, during and after the preaching in mind. For it to be fulfilled, preaching work groups is an important component to improve dialogical communication in the congregation. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / D.Th. (Practical theology)

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-03T12:29:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Diego Franco.pdf: 1192566 bytes, checksum: 154a0ae08db54c52e6292e9fa0292394 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-05-02 / Steven Johnson é uma referência de relevo na pesquisa brasileira sobre comunicação digital. Ainda assim, essa temática é abordada apenas de maneira tangencial na maior parte da sua produção bibliográfica: os livros de Johnson são, ao mesmo tempo, exemplos e defesas de um método de pesquisa e exposição que integra pensamento sistêmico e abordagem interdisciplinar ao qual ele chama long zoom e que tem a pretensão de trazer novos fatos sobre os fenômenos aos quais é aplicado. Essa dissertação, através de um estudo teórico, analisa os limites e as possibilidades do pensamento de Steven Johnson e de seu long zoom para a pesquisa científica em Comunicação Social. Por meio de uma revisão bibliográfica da obra do autor, cruzando-a com dados biográficos, é apresentada uma análise de conjunto do pensamento de Steven Johnson que o caracteriza como, fundamentalmente, um pensamento epistemológico. A partir disso, com uma breve revisão das principais miradas epistemológicas, da Grécia Antiga ao século XXI, são traçados os parentescos intelectuais do long zoom. Num terceiro momento, revisa-se as formas com que Johnson aplica o long zoom aos problemas da Comunicação Social, verificando-se uma tendência dominante a ressaltar as consequências sociais dos fluxos de informação permitidos pelos meios de comunicação TV e internet, sobretudo, mas também videogames numa aproximação com a Cibernética e, principalmente, um modelo mcluhaniano de análise da comunicação. Após esse trajeto, conclui-se que, a despeito das suas próprias pretensões, Johnson não apresenta novos fatos com o seu long zoom, mas novos pontos de vista e proposições teóricas que podem ou não vir a ser comprovadas pelo trabalho de cientistas.

This dissertation follows an interdisciplinary approach that weaves practice and theory in the disciplines of visual communication, semiotics, cultural studies, linguistics, and new media art. The research methodology is practice-based located within a historical and contemporary context that allows for artistic experimentation and new knowledge to be generated through reflected creative practice This research proposes a context within which society can develop a transcultural means of communication with the objective of gaining completely unambiguous forms of understanding. This research explores the possibility of an open source scaffold for pictorial language that fosters self-enhancing diversity of production models, communication paths, and interactive communities. The dissertation explores research strategies and visual practice in relationship to a proposed global use of a common system of visual semantic decoding that would allow for visual synthesis by individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds. It is proposed that a shared collective knowledge of signs, symbols, and pictographs, supported by the advancement of future communication and information systems, can lead to a visual communication system that will be universally accepted. There is a historic, on-going and collective consensus on the need for a universal language in the near-future posthuman condition. In answer to this need, this dissertation contextualises and goes on to explore a realised case study of a practice-based solution for a universal pictorial communication system. The system may at times seem ambitious and abstract, however, it aims to include all cultures of the world, seeking to establish a direction that identifies and locates cultural similarities over cultural difference. This practice-based enquiry proposes a direction that should maintain coherence, logic, and veracity in order to develop a pictographic communication system that is a valid representation of the human experience in a posthuman condition.

In this study, a qualitative rhetorical analysis is done on U.S. president Donald Trump’s crisis communication on Hurricane Maria, which was an Atlantic hurricane that struck areas such as Puerto Rico and Dominica in the autumn of 2017. Given that the former is an unincorporated territory of the U.S., the need for effective relief measures by the Trump administration became of particular importance there. However, in the media, the actual response by the administration was widely criticised as being slow and inefficient by actors like the relief group Oxfam and the humanitarian organisation Refugees International. Therefore, this study critically evaluates Trump’s crisis communication strategies on the hurricane to assess their success. The material consists of statements by Trump in both traditional and social media through official remarks and tweets, which are analysed through the crisis communication theories of image repair theory and situational crisis communication theory. In doing so, of interest is also to examine whether any differences can be seen in the strategies used by Trump in these two kinds of media channels. To address the hurricane, the findings showed that Trump mainly used the crisis communication strategies of corrective action, bolstering, defeasibility and attack accuser from image repair theory and compensation, reminder, ingratiation, excuse and attack the accuser from situational crisis communication theory. Moreover, no distinctive differences were found in which strategies Trump used in the respective channels, even if the attacks on Twitter were often more aggressive. While both positive and negative evaluations could be made of how Trump used these strategies overall, the main conclusion of the study is that his crisis communication was largely ineffective due to the strategies sometimes being contradictory and inconsistent.

Magister Public Health - MPH / The aim of this study was to conduct an evaluation of the campaign implementation between 2009 and 2012, taking account of its implementation plan. This qualitative evaluation study employed a descriptive study design focusing on whether the programme components were being implemented as planned and whether any issues that have arisen, require attention. Key Informant Interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 12 respondents drawn from the study population of people who were directly involved with the campaign, and a documents review was also conducted.