This dissertation advances a new theory of the editor. Editors are pervasively influential for shaping our evaluations of all kinds of work, from literature, to news, to scholarship, and beyond. I test my theory on editorial influence in little magazines, providing close readings, recovering historical contexts, and identifying a wide variety of rhetorical affordances available to little magazines’ editors. I draw on rhetorical narrative theory, most especially the “implied author” concept, which I build on in order to theorize an “implied editor.” I furthermore demonstrate that understanding the authored and edited texts as distinct is important for teasing apart the full breadth of editorial work. This dissertation also proposes a new model of editorship. My model captures (1) the role of the editor, which is a simultaneously author- and audience-oriented role; (2) the importance of poetics; and (3) the dual-streamed creative role of editors. As such, my model captures dynamics not noted elsewhere and enables us to address such questions as: (1) How does editorship differ from authorship? (2) How can we think of the relationship among author, editor, and audience? and (3) How does the ethics of editorship differ from that of authorship? This dissertation further tests my model in conversation with a contemporary little magazine, issue 23 of A Public Space. In so doing, I explore how APS’s editor uses editorial textual resources, some of which overlap with authorial textual resources and some of which diverge from them. I also test my theory against the editorial role in Harlem Renaissance little magazines to elucidate the distinctive ways in which editors manifest their respective magazines’ purposes, both implicitly and explicitly. In so doing, these editors reveal why we must view the magazines as distinct and holistic entities with potentially competing priorities rather than merely collections of (then) up-and-coming writers and their discrete works. My model of editorship highlights Fire!!’s complex editorial significance. My theory of editorship and its application to these little magazines demonstrates the significance of editorship, particularly in relation to the crafting of uniquely edited texts.

This thesis examines the processes of writerly and editorial literary production undertaken by women sensation authors in the 1860s and 1870s. This focus represents a shift from the prevailing critical emphasis on the consumption of sensation fiction to the realm of production and therein allows the thesis to analyse the ways in which sensation operates as a set of rhetorical and linguistic strategies for women writers in the changing publishing conditions of mid-to-late Victorian society. I consider the ways in which sensation is an idiom that permeates all aspects of magazine publishing in this period and demonstrate how it could be adapted and become an empowering discourse for women writers and editors. Furthermore, this thesis sees sensation as an important component in the transformation of the press in the 1860s and 1870s. By analysing the specific ways in which sensational strategies were appropriated and transformed, this thesis reassesses the role of sensation in the creation of women’s writing in the second half of the nineteenth century, and consider its legacies in later ‘New Woman’ writers. I achieve this by examining three women editors, who were part of the transformation of magazine publishing in the period. Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1835-1915), Ellen (Mrs. Henry) Wood (1814-1887), and Florence Marryat (1837-1899) all operated as writers and editors in the mid-to-late nineteenth century. They produced varying types of sensational fiction that they serialised in their own monthly magazines, Belgravia, Argosy, and London Society respectively. Sensation provided a dynamic and flexible means for these women author-editors to assert their status in the context of the expansion of the press in the 1860s and 1870s. I argue that their work invites a more fluid and generous critical definition of sensation.

The proportion of women editors on the English language Wikipedia has for years been known to be very low. The purpose of this thesis is to see if this gender gap exists on the Swedish language Wikipedia as well, and investigate the reasons behind it. To do this, three methods are used. Firstly a literature review is conducted, looking at women in computing and how Wikipedia works and how it was founded. Secondly, user behavior and activity-levels are measured through means of a database analysis of editors and edits. And thirdly, a survey is distributed, aimed at both readers and editors of Swedish Wikipedia, gathering some 2700 respondents. The results indicate that there is indeed a big disproportion, and that only between 13-19% of editors are women. The findings did not indicate readers of the encyclopedia having any strong negative preconceptions about Wikipedia or its community. However when looking at reasons for not contributing, women were significantly more likely to perceive themselves as not competent enough to edit. Computer skills were found to be an important factor for trying out editing in the first place, and Wikipedia’s connection to a male-dominated computing/programming culture is put forth as a reason for the resilience of the gender gap. The difference in men’s and women’s communication styles in relation to the climate Wikipedia’s policies and guidelines is also discussed. / Andelen kvinnor som redigerar engelskspråkiga Wikipedia har visats vara väldigt låg. Syftet med detta arbetet är att undersöka om andelen ser likadan ut på den Svenskspråkiga siten också, samt undersöka de bakomliggande orsakerna. För att göra detta används tre metoder. Först görs en literaturstudie som behandlar kvinnor inom programmering och hur Wikipedia fungerar och dess grundande. Därefter mäts användarbeteende och aktivitetsnivåer genom en databasanalys på redigerare och redigeringar. slutligen distribuerades en webb-enkät riktad till både läsare och redigerare av svenskspråkiga Wikipedia, med runt 2700 svaranden. Resultaten visar att det finns en stor snedfördelning och att endast mellan 13-19% av redigerare är kvinnor. Resultaten påvisar inte några särskilda negativa uppfattningar hos läsare om Wikipedia eller dess gemenskap. Däremot uppgav kvinnor i signifikant högre utsträckning att en viktig anledning till att de inte bidrog till encyklopedin var att de inte upplevde sig tillräckligt kompetenta. Datorvana fanns vara en viktig faktor till att testa på att redigera första gången, och Wikipedias koppling till en mans-dominerad programmeringskultur diskuteras som en faktor till den låga andelen kvinnor. Wikipedias policies och riktlinjer och dess sammankoppling med skillnader i män och kvinnors kommunikationsstilar på internet diskuteras även.

The thesis "Looking through the lens of the Czech daily newspaper Mlada fronta for 65 years" examines the topic of the liberation of Czechoslovakia in May, 1945. The qualitative content analysis of selected texts available from the newspaper is used to explore the interpretation of the event in Mlada fronta. The thesis has concentrated on the development of attitudes, beliefs, ways of communications and journalistic transformation of media content concerning the liberation event over time. The main objective has been to answer the question as to whether the media portrayal of the event has remained constant or altered over the stated time period and which factors influenced the portrayal. In the conclusion of this thesis we can confirm that the monitored event has been described differently in different time periods respectively, in connection with political progress and the value of democracy in the country. The more totalitarian the regime, the more the newspaper has described freedom through preferred ideology, biased themes, dogmatic posture and offered interpretations that suited the ruling party. This indicates a form of totalitarian hegemony. During periods of greater totalitarianism, the newspaper tends to describe the theme of the freedom completely within that communist ideology. However,...