This thesis examines the news coverage of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis that devastated the country of Japan in March 2011 from a comparative standpoint. Drawing on the key concepts in the theory of social constructionism and frame analysis, the series of studies in this thesis comparatively examines how cultures and value systems factored into the process of news production, dissemination and consumption when it comes to the news stories on what the Japanese government officially named the Great East Japan Earthquake. The first section looks at how Japan and its people were portrayed amid disaster relief efforts and analyzes how culture itself has become the topic of discussion and part of reality construction. The second section, on frame analysis, focuses on the workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, often called the Fukushima 50 by the Western media, and examines the cultural characteristics that contributed to the observable discrepancies in the ways they were represented by the Japanese media and their Western counterparts. The third study aims to shed light on the environment surrounding today’s foreign correspondents and international news reporting in the context of Japan, investigating what factors influence the ways journalist go about reporting and framing their versions of realities. The fourth section attempts to deconstruct the news narratives in terms of risk communication by paying particular attention to how people reacted to the coverage of potential dangers of radiation leaks as well as the tsunami warnings in Tohoku area. In the end, the series of studies described above underlines how cultural factors significantly affected the ways in which the journalists covered Japan in 2011 as well as the ways news audiences understood what was going on. The thesis argues that there are two types of cultural faming that contributed greatly to the social construction of realities in the aftermath of the triple disasters. The first type of cultural framing was observed when reporters consistently made the culture of Japan and its supposedly “unique” values as the main frame of news narratives. It often implied that the Japanese culture was somewhat exotic or alien through foreign eyes. The second type of cultural framing was observed when the cultural dispositions of journalists and audience framed the potential risk such as the incoming tsunami and the vital newsmakers such as workers in Fukushima Daiichi using familiar cultural molds. The finding accentuated the intricacy and precarious nature of “realities” in news reports. The research also indicated that when cultural factors in news process dictate and determine the focal point of reality perception, they tend to bring about racial discussions and stereotypical images in narratives. / published_or_final_version / Sociology / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / abstract / Sociology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

No description available.

The main purpose of this research study was to compare national and regional newspaper coverage of the issue of ethanol. The methodology used in this study was content analysis. Newspaper articles were the units of analysis. Newspaper articles printed in four national newspapers and four regional newspapers located in the top ethanol producing states in the United States were collected from a LexisNexis Academic database and analyzed. Newspaper articles were analyzed in terms of article source, size, placement in terms of section and page number, headline and author attributes, the number and types of sources included in each story, overall article tone and themes. Results from the content analysis found no significant correlations between national and regional newspapers and the tone, source types and themes of ethanol articles. Data did show differences in other affective attributes attached to the issue of ethanol. / Department of Journalism

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 390-433). / viii, 433 leaves, bound ill., facsims. 29 cm

Thesis (MPhil)--University of Stellenbosch, 2004. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Crime reporting creates a set of unique challenges within journalism in general. Generally inexperienced journalists are assigned to the crime beat in South African newsrooms. A lack of knowledge and absence of codes of ethical conduct create a reality wherein crime reporting more than often causes more harm than good. Within the existing media ethical debate, ethical reflections about responsible crime reporting will go a long way to stimulate thought on responsible crime reporting and help to formulate guidelines for ethical crime reporting in the future. In this project the debate on responsible crime reporting starts by illuminating where crime-reporting slots into the traditional philosophical ethical debate before a distinction is made between law and ethics. The way laws influence ethical crime reporting - if at all - is analysed. The crime reporter's relationship towards his employer, his community, the state and victims of crime creates a complex maze of responsibilities. After analysing these complex relationships, existing codes of conduct and the unique challenges within the South African context are evaluated. A set of case studies creates the opportunity to list factors needed to be taken into account, before proposing guidelines that will create a positive atmosphere for pro / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Midsdaadverslaggewing stel unieke uitdagings aan verslaggewers. Onervare joernaliste word in Suid-Afrikaanse nuuskantore met die misdaad-rondte opgesaal. Uit onkunde en weens 'n algemene gebrek aan etiese riglyne word misdaadverslaggewing dikwels op só 'n manier bedryf dat dit eerder skade as goed berokken. Binne die breër media-etiese debat kan 'n etiese besinning oor misdaadverslaggewing 'n bydrae lewer tot nadenke oor verantwoordelike misdaadverslaggewing, sowel as tot die ontwikkeling van riglyne wat verantwoordelike misdaadverslaggewing vir die toekoms kan kweek. Die debat oor verantwoordelike misdaadverslaggewing begin in dié werkstuk deur misdaadverslaggewing te beskou binne die tradisionele filosofiese debat oor etiek. Daarna word gekyk na die verband tussen wette en etiek en watter- indien enigeinvloed wette op verantwoordelike misdaadverslaggewing het. Die misdaadverslaggewer se verhouding tot sy werkgewer, sy gemeenskap, die staat en slagoffers van misdaad plaas hom in 'n komplekse posisie wat betref sy verantwoordelikhede. Nadat hierdie verantwoordelikheidsvelde uitgespel is, word gekyk na bestaande riglyne en die unieke komplikasies in Suid-Afrika op soek na riglyne vir verantwoordelike misdaadverslaggewing. Nadat enkele gevallestudies ontleed is, word voorstelle gedoen oor die faktore wat in ag geneem behoort te word ten opsigte van verantwoordelike misdaadverslaggewing. Dit bring die werkstuk tot uiteindelike voorstelle oor hoe 'n gunstige milieu in Suid- Afrikaanse nuuskantore geskep kan word vir die kweek van verantwoordelike misdaadverslaggewing.

Software testing is complex and time consuming. One way to reduce the effort associated with testing is to generate test data automatically. This thesis is divided into three parts. In the first part a mixed-integer constraint solver developed by Gupta et. al is studied. The solver, referred to as the Unified Numerical Approach (una), is an important part of their generator and it is responsible for solving equation systems that correspond to the program path currently under test. In this thesis it is shown that, in contrast to traditional optimization methods, the una is not bounded by the size of the solved equation system. Instead, it depends on how the system is composed. That is, even for very simple systems consisting of one variable we can easily get more than a thousand iterations. It is also shown that the una is not complete, that is, it does not always find a mixed-integer solution when there is one. It is found that a better approach is to use a traditional optimization method, like the simplex method in combination with branch-and-bound and/or a cutting-plane algorithm as a constraint solver. The second part explores a specification-based approach for generating tests developed by Meudec. Tests are generated by partitioning the specification input domain into a set of subdomains using a rule-based automatic partitioning strategy. An important step of Meudec’s method is to reduce the number of generated subdomains and find a minimal partition. This thesis shows that Meudec’s minimal partition algorithm is incorrect. Furthermore, two new efficient alternative algorithms are developed. In addition, an algorithm for finding the upper and lower bound on the number of subdomains in a partition is also presented. Finally, in the third part, two different designs of automatic testing tools are studied. The first tool uses a specification as an oracle. The second tool, on the other hand, uses a reference program. The fault-detection effectiveness of the tools is evaluated using both randomly and systematically generated inputs.

Telecom base stations are a critical part of society's information infrastructure. To ensure high quality base station software, automated testing is an important part of development. Ericsson measures the quality of automated tests with statement coverage, counting the number of statements executed by a test suite. Alone, however, statement coverage does not guarantee test quality. Mutation testing is a technique to improve test quality by injecting faults and verifying that test suites detect them. This thesis investigates whether mutation testing is a viable way to increase the reliability of test suites for base station software at Ericsson. Using the open-source mutation testing tool MiLu, we describe a practical method of using mutation testing that is viable for daily development. We also describe how mutation testing reveals a numbers of potential errors in the production code that current test suites miss even though they have very good statement coverage.

Test coverage criteria introduces metrics to measure the adequacy of a test suite as well as defined rules for performing software testing. This makes it possibly to formally define requirements for testing in various industries where software quality is essential, such as in aviation. This bachelor thesis aims to study the effectiveness of 11 different coverage criteria in two ways. Firstly how effective they are at finding faults and secondly their cost effectiveness. Test cases were created for each individual criteria for three different programs. The effectiveness of these test cases was then measured using mutation analysis. The results revealed that the scale of the experiment was too small to truly draw any conclusions regarding effectiveness. It was however shown that due to the “test noise” effect, the effectiveness of the test criteria can differ notably. It was also shown that test coverage criteria alone may not be sufficient in order to perform efficient testing.

The following thesis examined the coverage of HIV/AIDS in Uganda's top newspapers. Both evidence from previous literature and this study shows that HIV/ AIDS is a dangerous social, health, and demographic problem which has received varied media attention over the years. This study sought to investigate the different frames used in HIV/ AIDS news stories, the major themes associated with HIV/ AIDS, the different risk groups identified in the news stories, and the different preventatives/correctives provided in the HIV/AIDS news stories so as to discover what has been emphasized or de-emphasized in order to help the media become more valuable in HIV/ AIDS prevention. While some findings were consistent with previous literature, some were different. The general coverage of HIV/ AIDS news stories was low, with a fluctuating trend in the four-year period. The thematic frame emerged as the most used frame in both The New Vision and The Monitor. The themes of prevention, treatment, prevalence, awareness, moral issue, and stigma and discrimination appeared more frequently. Among the risk groups that appeared most were children, married couples. and women while some preventatives/correctives that appeared more frequently were diagnosis and antiretroviral therapy. The married couples appeared most in the risk group category for example. This group is a recent addition to the HIV/ AIDS risk group and has quickly become predominant as illustrated by this study hence showing that the concentration of HIV/ AIDS is constantly changing.