The title of this thesis is 'British Perceptions of the Ottoman Empire (1876-1908). The thesis explores the 'cultural dimension1 of relations between the Ottoman Empire and Britain in this period, involving an examination of ideas about and representations of Ottoman society and its peoples. The overall aim is to stress the importance of these representations in in influencing and affecting relations between Britain and the Ottoman Empire. Nineteenth-century writings about the Ottoman Empire produce strong images of Ottoman society and steroetypes of the Turkish and Christian populations. These images are reconstructed and their significance examined. The approach is contextual and perceptions are analysed in the historical, material and cultural framework of late Victorian Britain. Descriptions of Ottoman society are treated as representations of that complex reality, with varying degrees of accuracy and inaccuracy, reflecting or distorting conditions in the Empire. In addition the relationship between older ideas and ideas developing at a new historical conjuncture of late nineteenth-century imperialism are considered important factors in determining the overall image of the Ottoman Empire in the late Victorian mind. In these ways the conclusion stresses the importance of, and the relationship between ideas about the Ottoman Empire, and the concrete factors of inter-state relations of which they are part. As such the subject contributes to an understanding of the multi-dimensional nature of nineteenth-century relations between a weak and strong state in the International system, and the degree to which culture and ideas are informed by these relationships of power. The study contributes to a greater understanding of the Eastern question and sheds light on many of the ideas that have come to influence modern historiography about the Ottoman past and the appreciation of Ottoman and European diplomatic history.

Prof. LWF Grundlingh

The purpose of this study is to inquire if there are dispositions of any type. of newscast carried by ABC News about Nigeria and if these newscasts are positively or negatively inclined. The analysis quantified and verified that while the broadcast content of ABC News presentations on Nigeria have been objectively covered, the newscasts have taken stereotypical patterns. This, thereby establishes the need for ABC News, being an example of American network news, to diversify and cover stories of social and human interest in Nigeria and other Third World countries. The study concludes that a true maxim of news coverage is needed as a guide to unbiased, unslanted or cliched news presentations.

When cultural values differ, it is difficult for people not to judge one another's behavior on the basis of their own individual and/or cultural values. Given the profound differences in Russian and American culture, the question of what happens when these two cultures interact comes to mind. The purpose of this study was to describe the relationship of culture specific orientation, coupled with a two week sojourn in Russia on the sojourners' perceptions of cultural values. The sojourners were high school athletes participating in the first part of a Russian - American Track and Field Exchange. In order to ascertain the students' value orientations, each student completed six Value Orientation Worksheets. Before the pre-departure orientation the students' completed two worksheets composed of fifteen questions, one according to their own cultural values, and one for their perception of Russian cultural values. The students completed two additional worksheets after the pre-departure orientation sessions, and two worksheets ten months after the sojourn. Analysis of the post-orientation worksheets suggests that the orientation sessions had a greater impact on the students' reported perceptions of their own cultural values than in changing their reported perceptions of Russian values. Unlike the post-orientation responses, an analysis of post-sojourn responses indicated that the sojourn experience appears to have had a comparable affect on the students' reported perceptions of their own cultural values and their reported perceptions of Russian cultural values. Post-sojourn worksheets revealed that agreement among the students after the shared orientation sessions was not a reliable predictor of agreement after the sojourn. In many cases, the individuality of the sojourn experience appears to have overcome the shared informational orientation training. Continued research in this field is needed to determine whether or not the tendencies uncovered in this study can be generalized to include a wider population, specifically - American high school student/athletes traveling abroad for a short term sojourn.

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This thesis entitled "Le discours francais sur l'Amerique latine revolutionnaire (1950--1985)" proposes to analyze about thirty texts published in France during the mentioned period in order to extract the primary axis around which the hexagonal representations and discourses which examine Latin America articulate themselves. The corpus gathers chiefly novels and political essays, but it also includes anthropological essays, journalistic commentaries and testimonies. This is a study that relies on the theory of social discourse and on imagology. / This investigation, which perceives itself as an overview of the images elaborated by the French social discourse on Latin America, examines closely the historical moments when there are determinant discursive mutations. Therefore, from 1950 to 1961, a first manner of apprehending the Latin American other is identified. This period was described as a moment of transition during which the French discourse goes from a discursive frame which emphasizes on the theme of nature to a discursive frame which privileges the power relations between social agents. From 1962 to 1974, Latin America becomes for the French writers a geographical region upon which one pours off revolutionary aspirations. The axioms of third worldism, primary discursive formation enhanced by this period, run through the whole of the texts at various degrees. Also, this thesis aims to reveal the figures and spaces which emerge from this whole of contradictory representations. From 1975 to 1985, one witnesses the decomposition of the discursive formations and representations established during the two previous decades. Indeed, several discursive formations during these ten years question not only third worldism and its revolutionary impulses, but also the function of the intellectual. / On a more general basis, this study examines the history of ideas in France from 1950 to 1985. One of its implicit goals is to describe the rules which diversify, give coherence, integrate, exclude, and legitimate a "new" idea in the French social discourse.

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The aim of this study is to find out, against the news genre norms, how representations of particular regions are produced in the structure of newspaper reporting in the foreign news sub-genre. The study focuses on news reports concerning Africa, or African countries, in one Tokyo-based newspaper: The Japan Times/Online. The study is theoretically informed by Cultural Studies – a field of study concerned with the study of ideology and power in discourse – and investigates how Africa and African countries are represented as “other” than developed countries. This is a textual study that focuses on the production moment using Critical Discourse Analysis methods. Critical discourse analysis is interested in the study of ideological forms that have become naturalised over time, so that ideology has become common sense. The first part of the study analyses headlines and reveals evidence of ideological positions adopted by The Japan Times/Online in the representation of, firstly, home or Japanese actors, which is very different to the representation of African actors. The second part of the analysis examines the structures of the texts and the language used therein. The evidence from this analysis shows how Africa is represented as a Third World entity through various crises, including a health epidemic, perceptions of political instability and economic instability, an inadequate business image, as well as market and managerial skills, and wars and conflict. The study concludes with a discussion of the representation of Africa and African countries as a part of the Third World entity. This representation reflects and naturalises social inequality between developed countries and those of the Third World, of which Africa is a part. The representation of Africa as a Third World entity also naturalises the social, health, economic and political conditions said to be characteristic of African countries. It is this process of representation that reveals the power relations between Japan as a First World country and Africa as part of the Third World.