The issue of ‘race’ and policing has generated considerable public controversy. I draw the work of Norman Fairclough in analyzing online public comments responding to three Winnipeg incidents from the summer of 2008: the detainment of Robert Wilson, the inquest into the death of Matthew Dumas and the tasering death of Michael Langan. My main research questions are 1) what characterises these discourses? 2) what processes of social struggle are evident? and 3) what can this tell us about power relations and ideology in society? The analysis of 3342 comments demonstrates power dynamics in discursive struggles over the definition of the relationship between racialized group-members and the police. Specifically, a conservative discursive formation was found to have three interrelated ‘stages’: support for the police, denial of racism and mediating discourses of responsibilization/criminalization. The conclusion considers how a transformative discourse of racialized policing might mitigate prevailing justifications of racial privilege and inequality.

Climate change is an issue that is increasingly being adopted into various NGO campaigns. Drawing on a theoretical framework that is grounded in post-colonialism and subaltern studies, this thesis investigates representations of agency in the climate change discourse of Oxfam International. The central research question guiding the study is: To what extent do developing world people and countries have agency in Oxfam International’s 2009 climate change campaign? The methodological approach used to address this question combines content analysis and critical discourse to analyze 105 documents published by Oxfam in the lead up to the 2009 U.N. Climate Change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. The findings reveal that that developing world subjects tend to possess less speaking space and to be represented with less agency than their developed world counterparts.

The issue of ‘race’ and policing has generated considerable public controversy. I draw the work of Norman Fairclough in analyzing online public comments responding to three Winnipeg incidents from the summer of 2008: the detainment of Robert Wilson, the inquest into the death of Matthew Dumas and the tasering death of Michael Langan. My main research questions are 1) what characterises these discourses? 2) what processes of social struggle are evident? and 3) what can this tell us about power relations and ideology in society? The analysis of 3342 comments demonstrates power dynamics in discursive struggles over the definition of the relationship between racialized group-members and the police. Specifically, a conservative discursive formation was found to have three interrelated ‘stages’: support for the police, denial of racism and mediating discourses of responsibilization/criminalization. The conclusion considers how a transformative discourse of racialized policing might mitigate prevailing justifications of racial privilege and inequality.

The care provided by informal caregivers is an important part of the support needed by older adults with chronic health concerns. As the demand for caregivers grows, so does an interest in helping caregivers be healthy in order to fulfill this role. As of yet, no research has explored what being healthy means to caregivers. I explore caregivers’ beliefs about being healthy and how their beliefs are consistent with or a challenge to the values present in the health promotion discourse targeting caregivers. I incorporate qualitative data from three sources: interviews with caregivers, interviews with people responsible for creating and updating health promotion brochures (producers), and a critical discourse analysis of health promotion brochures. I explore what being healthy means to caregivers, and I also explore what caregivers do to be healthy. The meaning of being healthy is often discussed by caregivers in terms consistent with the values of neoliberal ideology and individual responsibility. However, the means by which caregivers can be healthy are both consistent with and a challenge to these values. Policy makers interested in finding ways to help caregivers be healthy should take into account that the meaning of being healthy is non-static and multi-dimensional. In addition, the means by which caregivers are able to be healthy are composed of multiple layers. The ability to be healthy depends on each caregiver making healthy decisions and living a healthy lifestyle. However, each caregiver’s ability to make and execute these choices is predicated on their ability to access to a wide spectrum of services and support. Encouraging caregivers to access services and supports is a vital part of helping caregivers be healthy. / Graduate

Considerable research has been done on conceptions of poverty and on the welfare state; however, there is little research into the relationship between the two the ways in which poverty discourses shape welfare states and how transitions in welfare states influence poverty discourses. Using Critical Discourse Analysis, I explore the underlying construction of poverty in Albertas income-support policy as it has developed within an active social policy framework. In the government documents analyzed, poverty is constructed as an objective and neutral assessment of unmet basic needs and is effectively removed from political debate. Also constructed as a lack of labour-market attachment, the poverty discourse that does exist is subsumed within the market discourse. The thesis argues that we need to expand our conceptions of poverty to improve our poverty alleviation strategies, to revitalize the place of social policy in Alberta, and to enrich the way in which we live together. / Family Ecology and Practice

Since the early 1990s, there has been an increasing focus on the education of boys in the media, impacting more recently on education policy processes. Some previous research has documented the background to this focus, including the impact on earlier policies and programs addressing the education of girls. However, the ways in which discourses about masculinity have informed gender equity policies in education have not been analysed at a fine-grained level. This study identifies the major perspectives involved in debates about the education of boys, and the various discourses informing them 1) advocates for boys' perspectives informed by discourses including biological essentialism and anti-feminism; 2) feminist and profeminist perspectives and discourses; and 3) social psychological perspectives and discourses. A theoretical framework for understanding discourse and policy, as well as gender and masculinities is developed, drawing on critical discourse theory and theories about gender relations. Using critical discourse analysis, drawing on the work of Fairclough, I analyse the discourses about masculinity informing two recent policy documents: Gender Equity: A Framework for Australian Schools and Education Queensland's Boys Education Strategy. The study found that the Gender Equity Framework was primarily informed by (pro)feminist discourses, although advocates for boys discourses informed the Framework in significant ways as well. The Boys Education Strategy, while primarily framed by advocates for boys' discourses, was largely informed by (pro)feminist discourses at the micro level. In both cases, discourses marginalised in the broader culture and in the debates generally, such as those associated with marginal sexualities or minority cultural groups, were found to be marginal. These findings have implications for policy and policy processes, gender equity policy and for teacher education. In particular there is a need for further research on the role of the media in policy processes as well as work on developing teacher understanding of and responses to policy processes and the construction of gender and masculinities.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis concerns the intersection of social semiotic theory and critical discourse analysis (CDA), applying systemic-functional (SF) theory to verbal-visual news media texts. The aim of the thesis is to develop social semiotic descriptions of visual meaning in order to facilitate analyses of evaluative stance in visual-verbal text. The texts studied are ‘factual’ daily broadsheet news photos and prominent visual-verbal ‘displays’ that incorporate these photos alongside headlines and captions. Such displays introduce investigative stories on the front page of broadsheet weekly news reviews and are referred to in the thesis as ‘standout’ texts. They are significant because they may also be read as independent texts and play a critical role in positioning a wide readership on the issues investigated in the story. The SF system of verbal appraisal was used in this thesis to develop a corresponding system of visual appraisal. The process involved applying general appraisal options to a corpus of news photos and proceeding to further delicacy in a repeated cycle of analysis and system-building. Once refined in this way the system was applied alongside the verbal appraisal system to account for evaluation in verbal-visual standouts. In the thesis four Australian and four Greek standouts introducing stories on asylum seekers were analysed in order to explore the potential for variation and the impact of context on evaluative meaning choices. The thesis contributes insights into SF theory, media discourse and CDA. The visual systems developed allow appraisal analysis to be extended to images and to verbalvisual texts. Visual appraisal analysis in the thesis provides new evidence for the ideological and evaluative power of news photos. Verbal-visual appraisal analysis shows how each semiotic contributes to evaluative meaning, and to its accumulation and spread across a text. In respect to media discourse, the thesis also provides evidence for the ‘standout’ as an orbital verbal-visual news genre. The comparison of evaluative stance in two sets of standouts demonstrates consistent editorial choices in texts within each context and contrasts across the two sites. The Australian texts display more evaluative complexity, greater emphasis on entertainment and offer two different stances, aligning a diverse target audience. The Greek texts are more straightforward and construct a single stance, aligning a narrower audience. By identifying the semiotic choices involved in the evaluative positioning of readers by visual-verbal texts, the thesis can contribute to more informed and reflective practice. Thus, as well as making theoretical advances, the findings have relevance for journalism and education at a time when the impact of images is changing our conception of literacy.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis concerns the intersection of social semiotic theory and critical discourse analysis (CDA), applying systemic-functional (SF) theory to verbal-visual news media texts. The aim of the thesis is to develop social semiotic descriptions of visual meaning in order to facilitate analyses of evaluative stance in visual-verbal text. The texts studied are ‘factual’ daily broadsheet news photos and prominent visual-verbal ‘displays’ that incorporate these photos alongside headlines and captions. Such displays introduce investigative stories on the front page of broadsheet weekly news reviews and are referred to in the thesis as ‘standout’ texts. They are significant because they may also be read as independent texts and play a critical role in positioning a wide readership on the issues investigated in the story. The SF system of verbal appraisal was used in this thesis to develop a corresponding system of visual appraisal. The process involved applying general appraisal options to a corpus of news photos and proceeding to further delicacy in a repeated cycle of analysis and system-building. Once refined in this way the system was applied alongside the verbal appraisal system to account for evaluation in verbal-visual standouts. In the thesis four Australian and four Greek standouts introducing stories on asylum seekers were analysed in order to explore the potential for variation and the impact of context on evaluative meaning choices. The thesis contributes insights into SF theory, media discourse and CDA. The visual systems developed allow appraisal analysis to be extended to images and to verbalvisual texts. Visual appraisal analysis in the thesis provides new evidence for the ideological and evaluative power of news photos. Verbal-visual appraisal analysis shows how each semiotic contributes to evaluative meaning, and to its accumulation and spread across a text. In respect to media discourse, the thesis also provides evidence for the ‘standout’ as an orbital verbal-visual news genre. The comparison of evaluative stance in two sets of standouts demonstrates consistent editorial choices in texts within each context and contrasts across the two sites. The Australian texts display more evaluative complexity, greater emphasis on entertainment and offer two different stances, aligning a diverse target audience. The Greek texts are more straightforward and construct a single stance, aligning a narrower audience. By identifying the semiotic choices involved in the evaluative positioning of readers by visual-verbal texts, the thesis can contribute to more informed and reflective practice. Thus, as well as making theoretical advances, the findings have relevance for journalism and education at a time when the impact of images is changing our conception of literacy.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Canterbury, 2008. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 218-239). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.A. (Health Social Science))--Mahidol University, 2008. / LICL has E-Thesis 0039 ; please contact computer services.