Chatelaine, Canada’s longest running women’s magazine (1928-present), has seen various changes in relation to women’s presence in society, specifically women’s health and bodies. The purpose of this study is to investigate the framing methods employed in the presentation of health content in relation to the evolution of feminism throughout this publication’s existence. Drawing upon Michel Foucault’s (1979; 1980) investigation of power, the body, and sexuality; Susan Bordo’s (1993b) feminist theorizing on the cultural meanings of the female body; Erving Goffman’s (1974) Frame Analysis; and further theoretical foundations of frame analysis by scholars in media and communication studies, this thesis examines the ways which health knowledge in Chatelaine aids in the empowerment and modernization of women. The research design of this thesis employs a quantitative media content analysis and qualitative semi-structured in-depth interviews to explore the presence and production of health content in this publication between 1928 and 2010. Findings demonstrate Chatelaine’s interaction with the feminist movement in Canada—as feminist initiatives and activism in Canada flourish, Chatelaine covers an increasingly broad and diverse body of health topics. The analyses reveal the sophistication in Chatelaine’s health content, which is evidenced in the employment of various journalistic techniques that aid in the development of an increasingly pervasive media text. In doing so, Chatelaine demonstrates its ability to empower women through current, clear, and concise health knowledge.

No description available.

The growth of internet communication has affected deliberative democracy by introducing new public spheres. One emerging public sphere is the discussion forum linked to online news sources. By analyzing 1,768 comments posted to a regional online news website, I discuss five key frameworks that commenters used to simplify the debate over immigration. I also find that extreme comments decreased in frequency over a two-year period while more moderate comments increased. In light of group polarization theory, this finding suggests that the forum is more like a single community with a fairly moderate average position to which people with differing opinions converge, rather than a divided community consisting of two distinct groups, each polarizing toward more extreme positions. The forum appears to have moderated itself in response to triggers of discourse change by means of temporary reframing of arguments. I develop a theoretical framework for understanding how group interactions produce self-regulatory behavior that can prevent polarized discourse.

No description available.

This thesis studies how students do projects in a Swedish upper secondaryschool. The students have to produce products and at the same time provethem self as independent in relation to the teachers, and negotiate therequirements of the project setting and the written instructions within thegroup. The study focuses on what comes out as problematic for the students,how they solve these dilemma situations and what resources are used in orderto do so.A choice was made only to analyse student group interaction in parts ofthe project process where the teachers were not physically present thus fillinga research gap.The empirical material was collected during three years in sex secondaryschool classes through filmed sessions of groups or pairs working with theirproject.Each of the four articles primarily focuses a special dilemma; structure,independence, instructions and critical thinking. By combining Goffman’sframe analysis with the concepts of risk and uncertainty from a Risk – societyperspective, issues related to what it means to do project work asindependent, critical 21st-century learner are illustrated and discussed.The choice to look only at situations in which students have to managewithout the aid of a physically present teacher illuminates several practicalconsequences like an unwillingness to go to the teacher and ask questions andan increased concentration on and interpretation of the written instructions. Adevelopment of Miller and Parlett’s (1974) discussion of student approach tocues are suggested. The concept of the cue choosing student are constructedin order to better respond to demands from an individualised interactionsociety. The study also emphasises how the students have to balance differentframeworks in order to be both authors and assessed students. Byimplementing a risk society perspective new ways of analysing andunderstanding independence and classroom interaction is suggested and arecontextualization of critical thinking proposed.

This study investigates how five secondary students think mathematically and process information in a technology-supported environment while solving mathematics problems. In the study, students were given open-ended problems to explore in an online dynamic learning environment and to solve the problems in computer environments. Given that all the work was done in the computer environments, both online and offline, students’ work was recorded by using screen capturing software. A new method, the frame analysis method, was used to describe and analyze students’ thinking processes while they were interacting with mathematical objects in the dynamic learning environment and solving mathematics problems. The frame analysis method is a microgenetic method based on information processing theory and is developed to analyze students’ work done in computer environments. Two reasons make the analysis method used in this study unique: (a) collecting data with minimized disturbance of the students and (b) analyzing students’ artefacts through researcher’s (teacher) perspective, meaning that integrates teachers within the analysis process. The frame analysis method consists of multiple steps to observe, describe, interpret, and analyze students’ mathematical thinking processes when they are solving mathematics problems. I described each step in detail to explain how the frame analysis method was used to monitor students’ mathematical thinking and to track their use of technology while solving problems. The data emerged from this study illustrates the importance of using dynamic learning environments in mathematics and the potential for transformation of mathematical representational systems from symbolic to visual. Moreover, data suggest that visual representation systems and linked multi-representational systems encourage students to interact with mathematical concepts and advance their mathematical understanding. Rather than dealing with the grammar of algebra only, students may benefit from direct interaction with the visually represented mathematical concepts. It appears that recording students’ problem-solving processes may engage teachers and mathematics educators to seek opportunities for implementing process-oriented assessment into their curriculum activities. Furthermore, students may benefit from sharing their work through peer collaboration, either online or offline, and metacognition and self-assessment. Suggestions for further studies include using audio and video recording in the frame analysis method.

A constructivist understanding of policy production as a struggle of meaning in which ideas and actors interact is the point of departure of this thesis. Prostitution policy is a salient example of such a struggle and is thus a suitable case for exploring the role of ideas in politics. The purpose of the thesis is threefold: to explain the process preceding the Swedish ban on the purchase of sexual services in 1998, to understand the dynamics in gendered policy and to develop a framework for policy analysis. In the first part of the thesis a dynamic model of frame analysis is developed consisting of three dimensions to analyze: the politically relevant ideas in terms of policy frames (in this case related to gender and power); ideas as restricting and facilitating for actors; actors’ framing strategies and the consequences of strategic framing in terms of risks and limitations. This comprehensive and dynamic model of frame analysis fills a gap in previous policy research. In the second part of the thesis the dynamic frame analysis is applied to explain Swedish prostitution policy. The empirical analysis contains a study of the policy process preceding the ban of 1998, a micro study of the actors’ involvement at a critical juncture and an analysis of the actors’ strategic framing. The thesis concludes that the process was path dependent in the sense that the institutionalization of different ideas, at different points of time, was important for the final outcome. However, the thesis also concludes that the involvement of the actors’, mostly women, was a decisive factor. In relation to previous research the analysis provides a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the policy process both with regard to the ideas from which the client criminalization claim emanated and also with regard to the actors’ role.

This thesis contributes to the field of strategy-as-practice by developing understanding of the enacted performance of power within strategic interactions, an area that is underdeveloped. This is addressed by voicing the silences within the field of strategy-as-practice using an organisational studies lens. The study investigates the macro-influences of power, gender, body, culture, and Westernisation on micro-strategising activities and is based on an empirical cross-cultural study of a Saudi Arabian business college. The strategy-as-practice approach faces the challenge of balancing a focus on the specified actions of individuals and remaining aware of the social influences that govern them. This study complements linguistic approaches to understanding strategy with an embodied socially enacted dramaturgical approach to strategy analysis. Dramaturgy is the theoretical and methodological framework used to focus on micro-face-to-face interactions of strategists, complemented by frame analysis which enables invistigation of macro-level aspects of analysis at the meso-organisational level. The analysis focuses on two main areas: first it explores the embodied gendered aspects of strategising, which have previously been marginalised within the field. This analysis shows how the doing and undoing of gender on a managerial level in mixed-gender strategic interactions reflects the values that govern the family context, maintaining traditional values and often constraining women from assuming active roles as participants in strategising. Second, it analyses the tensions that arise between the clash of modernity and tradition by the adoption of international/Western management practices. These institutional influences create conflicts within strategists’ scripts when tradition encounters modernity in confronting a significant aspect of the Arab struggle. This analysis focuses on the importance of adopting a multi-level of analysis that aknowledges both structure and agency within strategising contexts. It also considers the importance of adopting a different type of ethics that is more sensitive to the particularities of caring for the ‘other’.

No description available.

The aim of the thesis was to find out how domestic violence was framed in the Czech printed media. The analysis was based on the findings of Robert Entman, who defined framing as selection and emphasising of certain attributes in the media (Entman, 1993). The work brought about a theoretical introduction into the concept of framing which became a part of the media studies in the last twenty years and which currently deals with all phases of media text origination and interpretation. The framing method was applied on a chosen topic of domestic violence, in connection with the new law on protection of abused people, which came into effect on January 1, 2007. Five weeklies (Blesk pro ženy, Instinkt, Květy, Reflex, Respekt) were selected for analysis and the monitored period of one calendar year from January 1, 2007, to January 1, 2008, was set. In the practical part, a qualitative analysis was carried out, determining the frames and research hypotheses for further interpretation of framing of given topic. Subsequent quantitative analysis studied the methods of article framing by individual magazines and eventual differences in the approach to this topic from the viewpoint of prevailing stereotypes associated with domestic violence. Attention was also paid to the question whether the magazines provided...