The front page of Hawai`i's largest-circulated newspaper - The Honolulu Star-Bulletin - was reviewed for a three-month period: March 1, 2008 - June 1, 2008, to examine representations of race in a media market where Caucasian individuals are the minority. Analysis of the newspaper seeks to present a greater understanding of ethnic portrayals in island news and examines ethical implications that have/can arise from adopting journalistic values typical of "white news" or mainstream reporting practices in areas where the mainstream is, in fact, the minority.

The present study seeks to identify if journalistic objectivity is compromised in the coverage of the Russian-Ukrainian war and how the various media bias practices are incorporated into news reports. It provides a critical analysis of the portrayal of conflicting sides of the conflict in Western mainstream media, examining how the "us" versus "them" narratives were constructed and how the produced discourse aligns with the principles of peace journalism. The study uses a combination of critical discourse analysis, semiotic, and narrative analysis methods as well as quantitative content analysis to achieve its objectives. Analyzing the content of twelve articles sourced from BBC and CNN, published across two distinct time frames, reveals that Western media coverage disproportionately represents the Ukrainian perspective, with the Russian standpoint largely marginalized or stereotypically characterized. The findings indicate that Western media also normalize or trivialize the role of neo-Nazi organizations in the conflict while downplaying potential war crimes committed by the Ukrainian side. Quantitative content analysis of 99 articles according to criteria adapted from Galtung's model finds a discernible dominance of war journalism over peace journalism, thus propagating divisive narratives. Comparative findings for each digital outlet suggest that the BBC adopts a more aggressive war journalism modality than CNN. The research advocates for a critical reflection on media coverage, the challenging of media biases, and a strive for a more balanced, peace-oriented portrayal of conflicts.

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This dissertation comprises of three problems in the area of Political Economy and Industrial Organization. The first chapter concerns how ideologically-opposite media firms report a particular event to maximize their payoffs from advocating their ideology and strengthen reader trust which increases if the report is proximate to their beliefs. I use these facts to develop a Hotelling's linear city model of competition where the two media firms choose their respective locations which signify the impression they want to impart to its readers. I find partisan media provides accurate information while covering topics favorable to its ideology. However, for unfavourable topics, the media never provides an indifferent report, but either defends its own ideology or delivers a partially accurate report. For unfavourable issues, imparting an indifferent impression rewards a media with lowest equilibrium payoffs. I identify sufficiency conditions where readers give better assessment to news of a media located farther away from their ideology than one which is nearer. Increasing competition by the entry of a third firm does not necessarily alleviate the level of bias in the news economy. The second paper studies the pricing schedule of a monopolist while it sells a non-durable product over two time periods. The consumer's experience with the product is correlated with two possible states — good (bad) experience is more probable under a high (low) state. Given this, I study the monopolist's pricing scheme in the two periods when consumers are wishful — overly optimistic about the high state even after a bad experience. I provide a comparative study of prices in each periods when the monopolist announces prices with and without commitment when consumers are either naive or sophisticated. The final chapter provides an understanding of the efficacy of two types of trade sanctions (import and export) using a directed network model. Sanctions are common punitive measures taken by a sender player to discipline a target player. Empirical evidences in the realm of international trade show differences in the effectiveness between import and export sanctions. This paper shows that such differences can be explained by one specific centrality feature of the underlying trading network — betweenness-centrality. This measure lends insights to the trade spill-overs following sanctions underscoring why sanctions are ineffective. I highlight when a higher value of this centrality acts as a sufficient condition towards effective sanction. Based on this analysis, one can conclude whether import or export sanction will be more effective for a given trade network. / Doctor of Philosophy / Three essays spanning across topics of political economy and Industrial Organization has been studied. The first essay `Media bias in the best and worst of times' studies how ideology-motivated (partisan) media firms try to create impressions to its audience about a particular issue to increase its payoffs from either of the two sources — reader trust and advocating its ideology. This trade-off depends on the type of issue at hand which either aggravates or moderates a media's wish to generate bias in its news. I investigate not only the degree of bias for any given event, but also study how profits of media are impacted from doing so. The second chapter `Monopoly pricing under wishful thinking' investigates the pricing strategies of a seller when he sells a non-durable product to a wishful buyer twice, over two time periods. Under two possible states of the world — textit{high} and textit{low} — the buyer can derives either a good or bad experience. It is assumed that a good experience is more likely than a bad one under textit{high} state. Would the buyer re-purchase the product after having a bad experience in the first period? A wishful buyer is overly optimistic about a good experience in the future even after a bad experience in the current period. Such optimism paves the way for pricing strategies in favor of the seller under certain conditions. My aim has been to highlight these conditions and draw comparison with a pricing model with non-wishful buyers. The third chapter investigates the effectiveness of trade sanctions. Such sanctions are imposed by a sender country against a target country when the latter has taken an action which the sender disapproves — initiating domestic war, building nuclear arsenals, etc. The sanctions are enforced until the target. However, only 30% sanctions are effective in disciplining the target. This paper studies if any feature of the trade network can explain why sanctions fail and what type of trade sanction — import or export — will be optimal in any given trade network.

This thesis analyzes the role of the press in five political campaigns in Trinidad and Tobago, over a ten year period, from 2000 to 2010. Using framing theory, it seeks to determine if the level of structural and partisan bias in the three daily newspapers in the country was a major factor in the outcome of general elections. This thesis further examines how press coverage of national elections contributed significantly towards development of a healthy democracy in Trinidad and Tobago and this research on media and politics, especially over a defined period of electoral volatility in the country, is the first of its kind in the Caribbean and will complement existing literature written on this subject worldwide. It is also the only comprehensive study on media bias in electoral coverage of political campaigns in Trinidad and Tobago in a context in which there have been public allegations of media bias by political leaders in the country. The two - pronged methodological approach of content analysis, and interviews with media practitioners allow for both qualitative and quantitative analysis of case studies of electoral campaigns using innovative research tools such as a bias scale and coding template, to minimize the margin of error in the analysis. In this thesis the issue of whether the press did have an influential effect on election outcome is also explored. Based on analysis and findings, this thesis proposes a new model of media and politics for countries like Trinidad and Tobago transitioning from a system of authoritarianism to liberalism called an “emerging liberal democratic model”. The evolution of this model is a work in progress which may have implications for other similar societies.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the media bias of the selected Czech newspapers. The study is conducted through a modified method for the measurement of the media bias, introduced by Gentzkow and Shapiro (2010). The media bias here means the use of the politically loaded language in the newspapers. The method is based on the comparison between the partisan language of the political parties represented in Parliament and language of the selected newspapers. This is carried out by comparing the phrases frequencies in the parliamentary speeches assigned to a coalition or an opposition and in the newspaper content. The analysis of the statistical dependence of newspaper's language and the partisan speech provides the evidence that Hospodářské noviny and Lidové noviny use language more similar to a coalition. Content of Mladá fronta Dnes, Blesk, Právo a Haló appear to be closer to an opposition parties.

This dissertation analyzes the discourse of Obama’s speeches to argue my thesis that Obama won election by virtue of his rhetorical speechmaking but more specifically, his ability to manage race in those speeches. I define and refer to Obama’s rhetorical handling of race in his speechmaking throughout the campaign as the rhetoric of race management. By rhetorical race management, I mean the strategic use of race (or obfuscation of race) in one’s discourse to manage or affect the audience’s beliefs or opinions of the listener. From a communication-based standpoint, understanding how race operated in this election requires us to examine the history of racism in the United States as well as critical scholarly work on the subject. Understanding how Obama was able to manage race in his rhetoric is necessary because it forces us to perhaps reexamine and scrutinize the 2008 Presidential election more carefully for several reasons. As rhetorical scholars, if we are in the business of understanding how our icons and politicians can potentially manipulate and use our rhetorical signs and symbols against us—or in spite of us--it is in our best interest to understand why the process occurred and why we allowed it to happen. I suggest that Obama’s deliberate attempt to weave ideological constructs like patriotism and the American Dream into his campaign strategy obfuscated his representation as the marginalized “other” and created a new political identity that has little to do with marginalization. By examining the theories of scholars like Kenneth Burke, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Walter Fisher, and Dana Cloud, I outline how race and racism historically operated in our political elections, from both a sociopolitical, or quantitative perspective, as well as a critical perspective. By using a multimethod analysis, we are better positioned to understand how Barack Obama successfully played the race card in the Presidential Election of 2008. More importantly, I argue in my conclusion why his use of rhetorical race management, was absolutely necessary if he were to become the first African-American president in a historically racist country. / text

This thesis is concerned with processes of decontextualization and recontextualization of non-governmental organizations in discourse of news and public affairs of Czech television. Due to the so called european migrant crisis and other domestic or foreign events, which have recently taken dominant place in TV news, critique of Czech television's broadcasting has increased significantly. Mostly it's aimed towards supposed bias, unbalanced reporting, tendentious way of approaching guests and favoritism of certain NGOs, just to name a few. Thesis is divided into three parts, gradually presenting theoretical framework including some related terms (intertextuality, dialogism, media bias etc.), methodological approach and practical elaboration of analysis. The method used is critical discourse analysis, loosely based on Fairclough's threedimensional model of CDA. Main goal of the analysis is to find out whether there are aspects of implicit ideologies or media bias in examined utterance.

Russian-American Relations and the Mass Media Securitization of Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in the American Press by Valeriia Alikina This thesis is focused on two issues relevant to Security Studies and Political Science: relations between the Russian Federation and the United States of America, which are currently experiencing yet another decline, and problematics of political journalism. It reviews the process of securitization of Russia through speech acts in the mass media of its historical opponent, the United States. First, the thesis provides a theoretical framework, securitization theory, introducing its main principles. To prove that the process of securitization indeed occurs, the method of discourse analysis is employed. The third chapter provides background information on the relations between the Soviet Union/Russia and the United States since the end of the World War II; this information is completed by the role mass media had in their affairs. The next chapter frames the issue of propaganda, elaborating on the meaning behind this concept, the "fake news" narrative, and the idealistic idea of media objectivity. In the fifth chapter, the case study, two processes of securitization are reviewed. The first one is the American mainstream media, namely ​The New York Times​ and ​The...