In the past, human rights have often been studied as philosophical or legal concepts. In this thesis, Norman Fairclough's Critical Discourse Analysis is adopted to examine them as social practices, specifically focusing on the human right to food. This is done through a discursive analysis of a corpus of documents drawn from FIAN International, a human rights organization advocating for the human right to food, and La Via Campesina, an international peasant organization which also aims to realize the right to food but is not itself a human rights organization. Findings highlight how each of the organizations define the right to food, and show that these differences are tied to the structure of the organizations themselves. This suggests that human rights organizations such as FIAN are more constrained by their need to balance legitimacy and programmatic visions than are other types of organizations in the struggle for meaningful social change.

This dissertation is a political sociology of production of knowledge about insecurity that focuses on the United States invasion of Iraq in 2003 as its empirical study. Inspired by Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology and the insights of Critical Discourse Analysis, it analyzes the media coverage of Iraq in order to identify ‘actors with the capacity to make statements’ and their contributions to the process of securitization. In addition to its analysis of agency, it offers a theorization of time in security and securitization. By analyzing evidence (intelligence), it explores the question of ‘acceptance of audience’ in Securitization Theory. Contextualizing securitization in a broader social space, this project argues that securitization can be understood as the double movement of soft and hard securitizations that respectively refer to reproduction of language and construction of existential threat.

Sustainable development is major post of global and national political agendas, and notions of sustainability permeate whole societies. Sweden is heavily influenced by sustainable development which can be exemplified by the ambitious goal of fossil-free energy and the current phase of rapid wind-power developments. In the name of sustainability many of these wind-power turbines and parks are now placed in the northern regions of the country, but whether it is sustainable is questionable. The northern region is a colonised territory, and the colonial relations between the indigenous Sámi people and the non-indigenous population remains an unresolved area. It is a cause of grievance and continuous conflict over land-use in the north – by of which wind-power developments are a part of. Therefore, this thesis examine the discursive construct of sustainability, in terms of content and underlying power relations, when applied to wind-power in four north Swedish newspapers between 2009 and 2016. The thesis use discourse and media-sociological theories in order to understand the role of media texts in the social construction of knowledge and how knowledge is shaped by social realities and shaping the social interpretation of reality. To study discourses a qualitative method based on critical discourse analysis is employed with the aim of investigating contextual meaning derived from the relationship between the text and the surrounding society. The empirical material is subject to an inductive analysis that has much in common with a grounded theory approach, but which involves some deductive analytical elements derived from theory and previous research. The findings of this thesis is that there is no singular discursive construct of sustainability, but rather a multiplicity of perspectives that together form a general representation of how sustainability is perceived when applied to wind-power. However, the discourses were dominated by non-indigenous actors with a national perspective - such as political parties, government actors and the wind-power industry. They portrayed sustainability and wind-power as environmentally benign economic growth leading to societal development, but in doing so experiences of marginalisation, and sustainability perspectives of peripheral groups, were made invisible. The study did find indications of change in the discourses from 2012 in the sense that the perspective of dominant actors was increasingly challenged by Sámi reindeer herders and rural populations, but the discursive and practical impact of this change remains uncertain.

Rooted in ideology critique, this dissertation studies the construction of democracy in the coverage of Venezuela during the era of President Hugo Chávez. The aim of this endeavor is twofold. First, the dissertation aims to understand the relationship between ideology and the construction of democracy in journalism on foreign political phenomena. Second, it attempts to explore the ways in which the relationship between ideology and democracy in journalism serves to legitimize or delegitimize the struggle for social justice in nations in the global South vis-à-vis the political and economic fundamentals of global capitalism. The dissertation comprises three articles that study the construction of democracy in depictions of the Venezuelan political system and its key political actors. Article I studies the construction of (il)legitimate democracy in relation to the Venezuelan government, Article II explores the construction of difference between Chávez’s supporters and his opponents, and Article III studies the coverage of the coup d’état against Chávez in 2002. All three articles are methodologically rooted in critical discourse analysis and rely on materials from a sample of three elite newspapers: Dagens Nyheter (Sweden), El País (Uruguay), and the New York Times (US). Across the studies, there are four macro-strategies that in different ways serve to ideologically load the notion of democracy. Three of these strategies – the constructs of populism, of power concentration and of difference – serve to define political deviance and to (de)legitimize political actors in relation to democracy. The fourth macro-strategy, relativization, serves to justify actions that contradict established democratic principles but serve greater politico-ideological goals. (De)legitimation in relation to democracy corresponds with the closeness of a group of actors to the dominant political practices and values within global capitalism. Journalistic reporting thus follows a post-political gaze; it is generally in accordance with the political consensus that characterizes the post-Cold War era. Through this gaze, any challenge to the political tenets of global capitalism fails on democratic grounds.

The final months of 2017 have witnessed the birth of a movement, the #Metoo movement, which started after several Hollywood actresses have accused famed producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment. The movement is an ongoing prevalent phenomenon on social media where its aim is to demonstrate the frequency and widespread of sexual harassment in all sectors of work, whereas the movement Media has been widely reporting on the movement and has given a platform to several women to speak their truths. In my research, I aim to conduct a comparative study of how three mainstream media outlets have covered the moment on their websites. The media outlets chosen are Aljazeera, BBC and CNN. The theoretical framework for the study will revolve around theories of representation, power, and to help in understanding how mainstream media represents the #Metoo movement on their news websites A total of 15 articles will be analyzed through a Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis. The study concluded that the #Metoo movement is represented through a constructionist approach, and there are minor differences between the three distinctive international mainstream media news websites.

Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-01T18:24:40Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertacao_carla_karina.pdf: 14841020 bytes, checksum: 762602d236cc8f84d1d508205fc3032a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-03-23 / This study aimed to analyze the speeches of presidential Rousseff and Jose Serra during the 2010 elections. We selected three speeches from each of the presidential candidates (one statement and two debates, one of the 1st round and another in the 2nd round) on education in Brazil, seeking to understand the concepts, proposals, justifications of the planned actions of each then presidential candidates regarding education. Analyzed the using some argumentative operators in order to understand this ideology that permeates political discourse. We have seen how the politician draws its positive character while drawing the negative character of the opponent, appealing tone and polyphony inserted in the speech. The theory of critical discourse analysis based this research, from the relationship between text, discursive practice and social practice because it emphasizes the role of some symbolic discourses that reproduce social power such as political discourse. We analyze non-speaking subjects, but discursive subjects, subjects inserted in a particular social situation, a historic place, socially and ideologically marked. During analyzes, we realized that the then presidential candidate Rousseff always emphasized the actions of the current president Lula as Lula was present in Dilma. This is a persuasive strategy, because the popularity of Lula praised Dilma. But in other statements, the candidate is contradicted by criticizing some negative points of the Lula government to expand the number of fans. Ever the presidential candidate Jose Serra did not mention the name of former president Fernando Henrique due to its low popularity in relation to Lula. This reference would minimize the image himself. Serra appealed to the very emotional and did it very well because this is a characteristic of neoliberalism. Dilma presented a broader view and the real in relation to education. While Serra fled a bit of reality, having a fragmented view of education, emphasizing his proposals for technical education / O presente trabalho teve como objetivo analisar os discursos dos presidenciáveis Dilma Rousseff e José Serra durante as Eleições 2010. Selecionamos três discursos de cada um dos presidenciáveis (um pronunciamento e dois debates, um do 1° turno e outro do 2° turno) sobre a educação no Brasil, buscando compreender os conceitos, as propostas, as justificativas das ações planejadas de cada um dos então presidenciáveis em relação à educação. Analisamos o uso de alguns operadores argumentativos a fim de entender essa ideologia partidária que perpassa o discurso político. Vimos como o político desenha seu caráter positivo e ao mesmo tempo desenha o caráter negativo do adversário, o tom apelativo e a polifonia inseridos no discurso. A teoria da análise crítica do discurso embasou esta pesquisa, a partir da relação entre texto, prática social e prática discursiva, pois ela enfatiza o papel de alguns discursos emblemáticos que reproduzem o poder social como é o caso do discurso político. Analisamos não sujeitos falantes, mas sim sujeitos discursivos,sujeitos inseridos em uma determinada conjuntura social, um lugar histórico, social e ideologicamente marcado.Durante as análises, percebemos que a então presidenciável Dilma Rousseff sempre enfatizava as ações do atual presidente Lula, pois Lula estava presente em Dilma. Essa é uma estratégia persuasiva, porque a popularidade de Lula exaltava Dilma. Mas, em outros enunciados, a candidata se contradizia criticando alguns pontos negativos do governo Lula a fim de ampliar o número de adeptos. Já o então presidenciável José Serra não mencionou o nome do ex-presidente Fernando Henrique devido a sua baixa popularidade em relação a Lula. Essa menção minimizaria a imagem dele. Serra apelava bastante para o emocional e fazia isso muito bem porque essa é uma característica dos neoliberais. Dilma apresentou uma visão mais ampla e real em relação à educação. Enquanto Serra fugiu um pouco da realidade, tendo uma visão fragmentada da educação, enfatizando suas propostas para o ensino técnico

Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-01T18:25:01Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 leonardo_ariel_felipe.pdf: 1303117 bytes, checksum: c4bf67cc2a3cc42b0307dc4aa7a7d02c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-08-28 / This research is a qualitative, analytical and documentary study in the light of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Investigates the discursive strategies present in the campaign to dispute the power to the State Government of Pernambuco 2014. As a goal we intend to investigate the verbal and nonverbal features of the election campaign for the state government, an ideological manipulation strategy to maintaining hegemony. Thus, the media will be investigated tactics winner of the last election through the delimitation of the corpus, this consists of a kind of genre pictures, the "holy card". Distributed in the electoral race the holy card bearing the candidate's image and is used as a proxy tool even with its voter. The study is based on the concepts of displacement and concealment of political figures, to enhance the candidate's figure, presented by Thompson (1995). The vision of ideology as the spirits of the past, presented by Marx and Engels, and the latent conception of ideology by Thompson (1995) help to understand the relationships of power and domination. Is indispensable therefore understand how the ideology and ideological apparatuses explained by Gramsci (1966), Althusser (1983) and Santos (1987). Bobbio (1995) and Giddens (1996) helps to understand the way in which the notion of right and left shapes the political reality and structure the hegemonic process. Therefore, this dissertation aims to contribute to society and to the historical moment of struggle of the population by structural improvements in policy. The paper also attempts to contribute to an understanding of the relationships, often silent, domination to which the electorate is subjugated. The fundamentals of analysis and understanding of speech presented by Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) will look for a more thorough discursive practice of the candidate and the ideological apparatuses, according Fairclough (2001). The Social Semiotics and studies, on Multimodality, present the metafunctions as grammatical components of semantic characterization. It also shows the use of verbal and visual contributing to the captivating strategy in the speech of holy cards. Sometimes the markers and metafunctions indicate the action to move forward in other mask partisan historical, disclosed in a bibliographic research pointing alliances and coalitions in the last 30 years in Pernambuco. Already as verbal and visual discourse markers will be used those of the ACD for text analysis and Design Visual Grammar (GDV), the authors Günter Kress and Theo Von Leeuwen (2006), for image analysis. Through research on imagery and textual speech, full of ideology, the thesis points to the maintenance of local hegemony. In this sense is shown using symbols and historical figures appear next to a text by simple but very elaborate times, thus contributing to shape a winning strategy in the electoral race. / A presente pesquisa é um estudo qualitativo, analítico e documental sob à luz da Análise Crítica do Discurso (ACD). Investiga as estratégias discursivas presentes na campanha eleitoral para a disputa do poder ao Governo de Pernambuco em 2014. Como objetivo geral, pretendese averiguar os recursos verbais e não verbais da campanha eleitoral para o governo do Estado, uma estratégia de manipulação ideológica destinada a manutenção da hegemonia. Dessa forma, serão investigadas as táticas midiáticas do vencedor do último pleito através da delimitação do corpus, este constituído por um tipo de gênero dos retratos, o santinho . Distribuído na corrida eleitoral, o santinho carrega a imagem do candidato e é utilizado como ferramenta de aproximação do mesmo com seu eleitor. O estudo se fundamenta nos conceitos de deslocamento e de dissimulação de figuras políticas, para engrandecer a figura do candidato, apresentados por Thompson (1995). A visão da ideologia como os espíritos do passado, apresentada por Marx e Engels, e a concepção latente da ideologia de Thompson (1995) auxiliam na compreensão das relações de poder e dominação. Faz-se imprescindível, portanto, compreender como funcionam a ideologia e os aparelhos ideológicos explicados por Gramsci (1966), Althusser (1983) e Santos (1987). Bobbio (1995) e Giddens (1996) ajudam a entender a maneira pela qual a noção de direita e esquerda molda a realidade política e estrutura o processo hegemônico. Logo, essa dissertação tem como a discussão do momento histórico de luta da população por melhorias estruturais na política. O trabalho também tenta contribuir para um entendimento das relações, muitas vezes silenciosas, de dominação às quais o eleitorado está subjugado. Os fundamentos de análise e compreensão do discurso apresentados pela ACD permitirão olhar de maneira mais criteriosa para prática discursiva do candidato e para os aparelhos ideológicos, segundo Fairclough (2001). A Semiótica Social e os estudos sobre Multimodalidade apresentam as metafunções como componentes gramaticais de caracterização semântica. Já como marcadores discursivos verbais e visuais são utilizados aqueles da ACD para análise de texto e da Gramática do Design Visual (GDV), dos autores Günter Kress e Theo Von Leeuwen (2006), para análise de imagens. A pesquisa revela, a composição das peças de campanha valorizando a figura do candidato e o discurso político atrelado a ela. Mostra ainda o uso do verbal e visual contribuindo para a estratégia cativante presente no discurso dos santinhos. Por vezes os marcadores e as metafunções indicam a ação de avançar, por outras mascaram as relações históricas partidárias, reveladas em uma pesquisa bibliográfica apontando as alianças e coligações nos últimos 30 anos em Pernambuco. Através da pesquisa no discurso imagético e textual, recheado de ideologia, a dissertação aponta para a manutenção da hegemonia local. Nesse sentido é mostrado o uso de símbolos e personagens históricos apresentados junto a um texto, por vezes simples mas muito elaborado, colaborando assim para moldar uma estratégia vencedora na corrida eleitoral.

This paper aimed to investigate how women, through the advertisement of U.S. shapewear brands Shapermint and Honeylove, are exposed to the ideological idea of the female body. This study's method was a three-dimensional framework developed by Norman Fairclough, which revealed ideological hidden messages about the female body in shapewear advertisement. The study discussed how the companies participate in the social practice of perfecting the female body and normalize the patriarchal demands of women. In conclusion, the study showed how popular shapewear brands with the internet's power target women in their advertisements.

This dissertation is a critical discourse analysis of how anti-Islamic rhetoric in prominent online forums is articulated within the context of popular discourses of multiculturalism and tolerance. According to Melanie McAlister, perceptions of Muslims within the United States are unique in comparison to other minority groups in that they are almost entirely mediated, whether it is the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the terrorist attacks of September 11th, or the various Muhammad cartoon controversies. While much work has been done analyzing how Islam and Muslims are mediated in popular film and television, very little attention has been given to how these perspectives are mediated through the Internet. Using Erving Goffman's theory of performativity and Kristine Fitch's notion of persuadables, I examine how both prominent bloggers and pseudonymous commentators work in a "back stage" context to bring Islamophobic norms and premises within the sphere of acceptable opinions for the "front stage" of mainstream media discourses. In particular, I examine how these discourses have evolved over the past few years on three prominent weblogs: the anti-jihadist Little Green Footballs, the liberal-atheist advocacy blog One Good Move, and the popular news aggregate Fark. In light of increasing evidence that weblogs exert a high level of influence over popular media discourses disproportionate to their readership, these websites offer a glimpse "back stage" into how contemporary American discourses on Islam and Muslims are articulated across a broad array of political perspectives, particularly in relation to norms and premises regarding multiculturalism, tolerance, and freedom of expression. While Islamophobic rhetoric has become firmly embedded within discourses of the American Right, each of the three sites examined show a steady integration of anti-Islamic perspectives within the American Left. Leftist anti-Islamic discourses are frequently articulated within the context of general anti-religious sentiment, misanthropy, and a belief that the values of "the Islamic world" are inherently incompatible with the liberal, democratic, and multicultural values of "the West." While by no means universal, these perspectives have become sufficiently common, recognizable, and sensible to be granted the status of persuadables within these particular web forums, which in turn helps to move them into the realm of popular American cultural persuadables.

Syftet med denna uppsats var att studera hur urfolket Samernas rättigheter var beskrivna i den offentliga debatten i Sverige genom att analyser svenska artiklar. Under studien, olika konstruktioner av samiska rättigheter hittades, vilka har blivit analyserade genom metoden kritisk diskurs analys, specifikt den tre dimensionella modellen av Norman Fairclough. Det empiriska materialet utgjordes av debatt-artiklar och nyhetsartiklar från olika tidningar och nyhetsbyårer i Sverige. Perspektivet i analysen var klargjord genom teorin om grupprättigheter. Resultatet visade, bland annat, hur diskussioner om ratificering av ILO-169konventionen har pågått under lång tid och att den har aldrig ratificerats. Detta är på grund av tvetydigheten i hur en kan säkra de samiska land rättigheterna samtidigt som att säkra den svenska statens ekonomiska intressen. / The purpose of this thesis was to study how the rights of the Indigenous Sami people were described in the public debate of Sweden through analysing Swedish articles. During the study, different constructions of Sami rights were found which have been analysed through the method of critical discourse analysis, specifically the three dimensional model by Norman Fairclough. The empirical material consisted of debate articles and news articles from different newspapers and news agencies of Sweden. The perspective of the analysis was clarified through the theory of group rights. The result showed, among other things, how discussions of the ratification of ILO 169-convention have been going on for a long time, and that it has never been ratified. This is due to the ambiguity in how to secure the Sami land rights at the same time as securing the Swedish state’s economical interests.