Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio University, June, 2008. / Abstract only has been uploaded to OhioLINK. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 138-149)

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Western Sydney, [2002]. / "A thesis presented to the University of Western Sydney, Sydney, Australia in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy " Supported by videocassette Africa 2000: Voices of the future (30 mins.) and Aids: An African perspective (30 mins.). Bibliography: leaves 245-277.

Thesis (M.A. (Journalism and Media Studies))--Rhodes University, 2006. / A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for a Master of Arts degree in Journalism and Media Studies.

My critical discourse analysis (CDA) of the New York Times' front-page and editorial articles, within the framework of Herman and Chomsky's (1988) propaganda model, shows that the newspaper constructed the intervention in Rwanda as suicidal for the United States and beyond the capacity of the international community. On the other hand, U.S. and NATO intervention and military airstrikes against Serbia were represented as surgical and the only options available to save ethnic Albanian lives in Kosovo. My analysis finds that the New York Times' constructions of the two conflicts, conflict actors and victims of the conflicts heavily favored the official U.S. policy of nonintervention in Rwanda and intervention in Kosovo. In particular, the analysis of the Kosovo conflict discourse in the New York Times found strong support for the dichotomization hypothesis of the propaganda model. I further analyzed U.S. policy papers or the official propaganda discourses alongside news media discourses, and also reviewed my CDA findings alongside key historical episodes related to the two conflicts. My analysis shows, while the New York Times showcased and regurgitated arguments that were in favor of U.S. policy of intervention in Kosovo and nonintervention in Rwanda, the newspaper--deliberately or otherwise--omitted and distorted key details that could potentially and fundamentally reshape perceptions of the need or lack of need for U.S. interventions in each of the two conflicts. Lastly, my analysis finds that there was high degree of similarity between the official propaganda discourses and the discourses in the New York Times.

Online disinformation is a complicated and controversial phenomenon that is proving to be a large challenge for governments, private sector bodies, and civil society groups in a variety of different contexts around the globe. Foreign influence operations conducted through online disinformation campaigns have been implemented in various contexts with the intention to create political instability within these targeted nations. This thesis examines the question: What education policy initiatives are being implemented and/or already exist in the United States and Finland in an effort to make themselves more resilient to transnational online disinformation campaigns? Various policy documents that concern education legislation are analyzed through Bacchi’s (2009) ‘What’s the Problem Represented to be?’ approach. Concepts associated with the Securitization theory and Buzan’s (1998) security analysis framework were applied to the content of these documents in order assess whether the reasoning or discourse associated with the introduction of critical media literacy programs was related to counteracting the threat of one foreign disinformation. Results indicated that there were many differences in how and why the United States and Finland implemented media literacy programs. There are indications that the perceived threat of foreign disinformation campaigns is one of the main justifications for the United States and Finland to introduce or improve national media literacy policies. This work allows other researchers to see these differences in approaches and how they relate to the international communities’ efforts toward utilizing media literacy as a security measure against disinformation.

Today, marketers and media companies face a changed environment, affected mostly by the rise of the Internet era. The emergence of various technology applications, combined with the global change of customers is affecting the communication between marketers and consumers. Consumers and marketers are changing their roles; consumers are now media producers, programmers, and distributors, through the use of the social networking applications. The aim of the thesis is to analyze this trend, to predict its lifetime and to provide useful insights for the parties that are involved in it. Main point of evaluation are; the structure of the social media marketing ecosystem; the impact that social networking has on the business environment; the relationship of social media and the conventional media, and the legal and ethical concerns of the use of social media. Social networking is a new, experimental trend that has been accepted by many companies, as a part of their communication strategy. The trend has introduced many challenges for businesses, both positive and negative. To seize the positive challenges, marketers need to invest further in learning the rules of the new marketing trend, and in improving their social networking strategies.

By 2019, the Syrian civil war has lasted for nearly eight years and it has created the largest humanitarian crisis since WWII (Achlume, 2015). Using the siege of Aleppo in 2016 as a case study, the author applied a Marxist-humanist theoretical framework and incorporated arts-based research methodology to examine how US news media supports capitalist social relations. The research question for this study was: how do the US media depictions of the siege of Aleppo, Syria in 2016 reflect capitalist social relations? There were three sub-questions that followed: (1) Which elements of the siege of Aleppo in 2016 get the most attention in the specific outlets examined? In what ways do these depictions support the US government and/or corporate interests? (2) What are some of the ways in which Syrian refugees are depicted in the various outlets examined? How and in what ways is US humanitarian policy reflected? How are Syrian’s racialized through these depictions? and (3) How are corporate and government interests tied to these media outlets? This study used narrative inquiry, visual analysis, and critical discourse analysis as research methods to discover five major themes found in US news media’s reporting on the siege of Aleppo in 2016. The author then examined these five main themes through a Marxist-humanist lens to discover how the US news media, the supposed “gatekeeper” for the public, establishes, maintains, and reinforces an ideology that supported hegemony for the dominant class.

The diploma thesis with the title "Media Presentation of International Relations in Czechoslovakia during the Cold War in the Czechoslovak Television" uses selected events in the defined period to show how much foreign policy of the Soviet Union influenced the Czechoslovak Television news. First, both Czechoslovak and Soviet foreign policies as well as media policy of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia are described, followed by a brief history of the Czechoslovak Television. The core part of this diploma thesis lies in the third chapter, where specific reports from the news of the Czechoslovak television are analyzed.

This thesis is concerned with the Czech doctor's campaign "Thanks, we are leaving" on the background of the health care system in the Czech Republic. The campaign started in 2010 by the Czech doctors trying to focus on the working conditions, salary conditions, educational system and some failures of the health care system with the aim to improve it. The campaign resulted in February 2011 in a compromise between doctors and Ministry of Health. This thesis focuses especially on media and on the interest group LOK (Medical union trade club) which set the agenda. The perception of the campaign is ambiguous both for the public and for the doctors themselves. The individual milestones of campaign are explained by the theory of punctuated equilibrium from the authors Bryan D. Jones and Frank R. Baumgartner. Using many helpful methods such as content analysis of media messages, semi- structured interviews with particular actors, analysis of secondary sources, stakeholder analysis or analysis of selected events in health policy I explained the core events and actors who participated in this campaign. The theoretical concepts used in this thesis are: public policy in its multidisciplinary meaning, health policy and health care system, punctuated equilibrium theory, theories concerned with interest groups...