Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T18:23:43Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Celso Frade.pdf: 1002866 bytes, checksum: 3aae61084839d164917eabb55ae16230 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-05-12 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The present perfect (PrP) is a complex issue for researchers and non-native speakers of English that has been studied from many different perspectives. This research aims at showing a description of the PrP in the language of news media and brings to light new insights into the teaching of English as a foreign language. Linguistic research on the nature of news stories has seen a great increase since the 1970s. So, the theoretical underpinning for the research provides a briefing of the state-of-the-art literature on the area that includes views on tense and aspect, Travaglia (1985) and Comrie (1985), the usage of PrP according to Schwenter (1994), Michaelis (1998), Engel & Ritz (2005)) and Nishiyama & Koenig (2005, 2006) and the meaning of discourse by Bell (1991), Fowler (1991), Halliday (1978, 1985) and Fairclough (1995, 1999). It, therefore, provides a clear picture of what has been researched on the uses of the PrP and its various functions in the language of news media. More specifically, the research reported here, which used the documentary research methodology (Sanghera:2002), uses examples from the data collected, which include 60 sample articles from the websites of quality British and American broadsheets, such as The Guardian and The Independent (UK), The New York Times and The USA Today (USA), the website from the TV news broadcasters, BBC and CNN as well as from weekly magazines such as Newsweek and Time, which serve the purpose of illustrating both the occurrence and usage of the PrP in different contexts. The period sampled refers to the years 2003-2008 and the range of topics and subgenres include hard news (current events and one-off unscheduled events called spot news) and soft news (longer featured articles on different issues which are not time-bound to immediacy). The research question investigated in the study is: what kind of functions emerge from the PrP samples in the language of news media? With respect to the question, the results indicate the PrP is a means of intensifying the information according to specific pragmatic needs the producer has while writing the piece of news. Therefore, this study brings an original contribution to the existing body of research on the expression of time in TESOL and Applied Linguistics / Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo descrever as funções do present perfect (PrP) que emergem do discurso jornalístico e traçar considerações discursivas e pedagógicas sobre essa questão. Optou-se pelo PrP, por ser um item da gramática da língua inglesa estudado sob diferentes perspectivas, por causa de sua complexidade tanto para os pesquisadores como para falantes não-nativos. A pesquisa lingüística acerca da natureza dos textos jornalísticos tem-se desenvolvido de modo abrangente, desde os anos de 1970, razão pela qual este trabalho, fundamentando-se na literatura da área, apresenta as visões de tempo verbal e aspecto, segundo Travaglia (1985) e Comrie (1985) e o uso do PrP, conforme os estudos de Schwenter (1994), Michaelis (1998), Engel & Ritz (2005) e Nishiyama & Koenig ( 2005, 2006). Esta revisão de literatura fornece uma perspectiva cronológica do que tem sido pesquisado sobre o uso do PrP e suas várias funções no discurso jornalístico, além de uma resenha dos autores sobre o discurso, dentre os quais, Bell (1991), Fowler (1991), Halliday (1978, 1985) e Fairclough (1995, 1999). Mais especificamente, fazendo uso da metodologia de pesquisa documental (Sanghera, 2002), analisam-se os dados coletados que incluem 60 textos de revistas e jornais da imprensa de qualidade americana e britânica, via mídia digital, The Guardian e The Independent (GB), The New York Times e The USA Today (EUA), os websites das redes de TV BBC e CNN e das revistas Newsweek e Time, com o propósito de ilustrar a ocorrência do PrP em diferentes contextos e assuntos. O período de coleta abrange os anos 2003 2008, e a diversidade de tópicos e subgêneros incluem Hard News (notícias atuais, como acidentes, e notícias acerca de política e diplomacia) e Soft News (artigos opinativos, não necessariamente relacionados a uma notícia recente). Em suma, procurou-se verificar que resultados indicam que o uso do PrP intensifica o valor da informação e atende às necessidades pragmáticas do produtor ao escrever o texto jornalístico e tentar dar uma contribuição original para as pesquisas que se direcionem à expressão da temporalidade no ensino de inglês como LE e para a Lingüística Aplicada no estudo do gênero notícia jornalística

Titel: “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” Författare: Malin Nyberg Institution: Fakultetsnämnden för ekonomi och design, Ekonomihögskolan, ELNU Kurs: Turismvetenskap III – Examensarbete, 15 hp. Handledare: Martin Gren, (Linnéuniversitetet, Fakultetsnämnden för ekonomi och design, Ekonomihögskolan, ELNU) Examinator: Stefan Gössling, (Linnéuniversitetet, Fakultetsnämnden för ekonomi och design, Ekonomihögskolan, ELNU) Syfte: Studiens syfte är att undersöka på vilket sätt och varför Öland som turistdestination är sårbar inför vädervariationer ur turismaktörernas perspektiv. Studien avser även att belysa på vilket sätt marknadsföring av Öland och medias rapportering om destinationens väderförhållanden är bidragande krafter till väderkänsligheten. Metodik: I undersökningen har en kvalitativ fallstudie använts som forskningsmetod med en induktiv ansats. Informationsinsamling har skett via semi-strukturerade intervjuer med respondenter från fyra turismverksamheter på Öland. Urvalet av fallstudieområde och respondenter har skett genom ett bekvämlighetsurval med hänsyn till access och karaktär av forskningsområdet. Slutsats: De viktigaste betydelserna av forskningsresultatet har bland annat visat att brist på alternativa turismprodukter innebär en stor sårbarhet för turismaktörernas verksamheter vid ogynnsamma väderförhållanden för de huvudsakliga aktiviteterna Forskningsresultaten har även påvisat att fokus på specifika väderattribut i marknadsföringen av destinationen medverkar till destinationens sårbarhet tillsammans med förväntningar om specifika väderförhållanden bland besökare. / Title: “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” Author: Malin Nyberg Institution: School of Business and Economics Course: Tourism Studies III – Bachelors Thesis, 15 credits Supervisor: Martin Gren, (Linnaeus University, School of Business and Economics, ELNU) Examiner: Stefan Gössling, (Linnaeus University, School of Business and Economics, ELNU) Purpose: The study aims to examine how and why Öland as a tourist destination is vulnerable to weather variations from tourism operators’ perspective. The study also aims to shed light on how the marketing of Öland and media coverage of the weather conditions of the destination are contributing forces to weather sensitivity. Methodology: The study was conducted with a qualitative case study research method together with an inductive approach. Information has been collected through semi-structured interviews with respondents from four tourism businesses on Öland. The selection of the case study area and respondents have been through a convenience sample with respect to access and the nature of the research. Conclusion: The most important findings of the research results has shown that the lack of alternative tourism products is a major vulnerability for tourism operators in adverse weather conditions for the main activities. Research results have also shown that the focus of the marketing of the destination on specific weather attributes contributing to the destination vulnerability together with expectations on specific weather conditions among visitors.

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.

Governance and participatory democracy theory suggest that strong policy can stem from the inclusion of all societal voices in discussion of options, and that the public must have a strong base of information in order to participate fully in democracy. The news media can be an important vehicle for these voices and a central source of information. However, academic literature has recorded that “elite” sources, such as government, dominate news coverage to the disadvantage of “non-elite” sources, such as civil society groups and citizens, a situation that results in imbalanced information in the news. This thesis examines patterns of civil society inclusion in Winnipeg Free Press coverage of Lake Winnipeg water quality, and discusses the implications of findings for good governance. Three methods of inquiry are used: 1) a literature review, 2) a quantitative content analysis of newspaper articles published in the Winnipeg Free Press from August 1991 through December 2008, and 3) interviews with civil society members with an interest in Lake Winnipeg water quality. Content analysis findings indicate that civil society sources generally received less coverage than “elite” sources, were used less frequently, were given lower prominence within articles, had fewer chances to “define” coverage and were less often used in “hard” news compared to opinion sections. Interview findings challenge the dominant view within media literature that journalists are fully responsible for “elite” source dominance due to journalist bias in source selection, the “beat system” of journalism that focuses on governmental institutions, decisions made by editors and corporate or political preferences of news entities. While journalism practices are undoubtedly a factor, this study finds that there are also shortcomings within civil society organizations and the framework within which they operate that limit their engagement with the media. Four key factors are identified. Registered charities are often hesitant to speak with the media due to real and perceived legal restraints on their communications activities under Canada’s Income Tax Act. Many organizations are apprehensive about voicing concerns in the media for fear of losing funding. Few organizations have communications staff, or even staff members trained in media outreach, resulting in a passive approach to communications. And few organizations have the capacity to deal with media requests for information within journalism deadlines. In addition, the interview data indicate that those organizations actively pursuing media coverage are focusing attention on smaller newspapers, alternative media and self-published pieces, which suggests that the mainstream news media are perhaps of less importance to such organizations than in the past. Alternatively, it is possible that organizations are finding access to the mainstream media effectively cut off. Finally, recommendations are made to civil society organizations on how they can increase their prominence in the news and conquer their reluctance to deal with the media, and to the media on how to improve attention to civil society voices. For the latter, ideas are drawn from public journalism, a journalism movement which emphasizes citizens as sources.

This study examines how working women are represented in the news media, and its main aim is to determine to what extent ‘social class’ figures in the representations of women in news content. Using language, visual and narrative analysis, the thesis comprises four case studies each focusing on portrayals of different women from different socio-economic backgrounds determined by their occupation. The first two case studies examine portrayals of low paid working women through coverage of the National Minimum Wage introduction into Britain in April 1999 and the Council Workers’ Strike in England and Wales in 2002. The latter two case studies focus on women in particular professions: elite businesswomen, military women and women war reporters. The study concludes by noting that multiple voices occur in news texts around the key contrasting themes of progress/stagnation and visibility/invisibility and which can give contradictory discourses on the intersection of gender and class. From the massification and silencing of working class women, to the celebrity and sexualisation of the business elite, and the professional competency news frames of middle class women, class was shown to be a determining factor in how women figure in news content. However, these class determinants combined with other news frames pertaining to gender, whereby powerful and established myths of femininity can come to the fore. These myths can be particularly powerful when women enter non-feminine work ‘spaces’ such as business and the military, and class, particularly in the latter case, can tend to slip out of view, as sexist coverage is commonplace and debates are formed about the right and wrong behaviour for women.

Worldwide, the remarkable diffusion of transparency and access to information laws poses a monumental challenge to the state’s most enduringly undemocratic feature— excessive secrecy. Will recent laws lead to an effective surrender of secrecy? The incipient literature on transparency reform says little about the strength of current legislation or how strong laws emerge. This dissertation addresses these theoretical and empirical gaps. First, it articulates a theory on the political determinants of strong access to information laws. Second, employing an original evaluation, it scores the strength of twelve access to information laws advanced throughout Latin America between 2002 and 2010. Two extreme outcomes are examined in detail: a failed comprehensive reform in Argentina (1999-2005), which resulted in a limited presidential decree (2003), and the adoption of a seminal law in Mexico (2002). These cases are then compared with others across Latin America with special attention placed on Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, and Uruguay. I find considerable variance in the strength of the region’s laws: the average score is “moderately strong,” while the median and mode scores are “moderately weak.” Evidence shows that while civic coalitions and external pressure often help drive reform, they cannot explain observed variation in legal strength. Rather, I find that laws emerge more robust and earlier-on within the electoral cycle (within the first half of a president’s term of office), in countries where 1) presidents lack control over the legislature and 2) news media coverage of access to information laws is strong. By contrast, where news media coverage is weak and presidents possess strong negative agenda setting powers (partisan majorities or constitutional means of denying a vote), I find that laws tend to emerge later-on during the electoral cycle (within the last third), and are considerably weaker. I also find that press advocacy for access to information laws tended to be greater in countries where presidents were weaker and news media ownership concentration was low. The dissertation addresses key institutional preconditions for good governance and transparency reform. More specifically, it speaks to the determinants and power of the news media as an agent of democratic advancement (and stagnation), and the importance of weak leaders and partisan competition in promoting good governance reform. / text

Since the 1960s, the United States has experienced steady declines in news consumption and commensurate attrition in civic engagement and political participation. Americans read newspapers at less than one fourth the rate of 60 years ago; voter turnout has fallen to the point where the U.S. ranks 23 out of 24 established democracies; signing petitions, volunteering for a civic organization like the PTA and political party affiliation are all at contemporary lows. But these indicators only tell half the story…the younger half. Because among Americans over age 50, attrition in all these areas is much milder; among those under age 30 they are much steeper. So do young adults get news? If so, how do they get news? If not, how do they find out about things? A 21-year old journalism student reported that: “I usually just hear it from friends, when I talk to friends.” The present study employed four methods: Secondary analysis of longitudinal Pew data; interviews and focus groups about news consumption and media use habits, including social media and wireless devices; a survey on social media use and its relationship to news and news knowledge; and an experiment testing a novel game as a way to convey news and civics knowledge, all involving students at three large state universities. Findings include the following: students often rank social media use, like Facebook, as their most important and most-used media; social media are negatively related with traditional news use and with news knowledge; students draw clear and important distinctions between news and information; one method of teaching (direct instruction) works well while another (a news game) works, but not as well. Of particular interest is the role of opinion leaders in the two-step flow of news, and the role of relevance and need for orientation in agenda setting. Novel contributions include a clearer definition of students’ distinction between news and important information as they define it, a framework by which to experiment with creating an interactive game using news to promote news seeking, and some provocative recommendations for future research. / text

Governance and participatory democracy theory suggest that strong policy can stem from the inclusion of all societal voices in discussion of options, and that the public must have a strong base of information in order to participate fully in democracy. The news media can be an important vehicle for these voices and a central source of information. However, academic literature has recorded that “elite” sources, such as government, dominate news coverage to the disadvantage of “non-elite” sources, such as civil society groups and citizens, a situation that results in imbalanced information in the news. This thesis examines patterns of civil society inclusion in Winnipeg Free Press coverage of Lake Winnipeg water quality, and discusses the implications of findings for good governance. Three methods of inquiry are used: 1) a literature review, 2) a quantitative content analysis of newspaper articles published in the Winnipeg Free Press from August 1991 through December 2008, and 3) interviews with civil society members with an interest in Lake Winnipeg water quality. Content analysis findings indicate that civil society sources generally received less coverage than “elite” sources, were used less frequently, were given lower prominence within articles, had fewer chances to “define” coverage and were less often used in “hard” news compared to opinion sections. Interview findings challenge the dominant view within media literature that journalists are fully responsible for “elite” source dominance due to journalist bias in source selection, the “beat system” of journalism that focuses on governmental institutions, decisions made by editors and corporate or political preferences of news entities. While journalism practices are undoubtedly a factor, this study finds that there are also shortcomings within civil society organizations and the framework within which they operate that limit their engagement with the media. Four key factors are identified. Registered charities are often hesitant to speak with the media due to real and perceived legal restraints on their communications activities under Canada’s Income Tax Act. Many organizations are apprehensive about voicing concerns in the media for fear of losing funding. Few organizations have communications staff, or even staff members trained in media outreach, resulting in a passive approach to communications. And few organizations have the capacity to deal with media requests for information within journalism deadlines. In addition, the interview data indicate that those organizations actively pursuing media coverage are focusing attention on smaller newspapers, alternative media and self-published pieces, which suggests that the mainstream news media are perhaps of less importance to such organizations than in the past. Alternatively, it is possible that organizations are finding access to the mainstream media effectively cut off. Finally, recommendations are made to civil society organizations on how they can increase their prominence in the news and conquer their reluctance to deal with the media, and to the media on how to improve attention to civil society voices. For the latter, ideas are drawn from public journalism, a journalism movement which emphasizes citizens as sources.

企業越來越意識到使用者的重要性，知道產品設計必須以使用者為中心。但面對網路興起、讀者大量流失的報紙新聞媒體，該如何從使用者察覺出商業模式創新的機會，是當前文獻亟欲探索的主題。本論文因此提出兩大分析重點。第一，分析使用者的行為脈絡，由早期大眾的角色中找出使用者對資訊需求，理解創新擴散的關鍵。第二，透過使用者行為分析形成商業模式的各種可能性，了解如何能改變商業營運邏輯。本文以聯合報系旗下之《Upaper》捷運報做為個案，分析捷運族的移動行為與資訊需求，藉此鎖定十個新聞主題來分析使用者行為、資訊需求、設計洞見、設計方案等環環相扣的四個步驟。本研究歸納出三種人物誌：需要優先性資訊的懶人、喜愛連貫性資訊的達人、偏好比較性資訊的商人。這三種人物誌指引出三種可能的新商業模式：從新聞到情報、從廣告到商研、從紙媒到串媒。學理上，本研究提出使用者導向商業模式的形成過程及創新原則。實務上，新聞媒體組織可以理解分析使用者的微觀行為的步驟及策略。 / Enterprises are increasingly aware of the importance of users and know their product design must be user-centered. Now newspaper media is losing their readers due to the rising of Internet, so how to develop an innovative business model from users became one of hot topic of literature review. This thesis could be divided into two parts. Firstly, analyze the user behavior context in order to identify the information needs from the role of the early majority, and to realize the key point of innovation diffusion. Secondly, find the possibilities of business models through the user behavior analysis and learn how to change the business logic. In this paper, we use the United Daily News Group's "Upaper" as a case study of the mobile behavior and information needs of the commuters, thereby focusing the top ten news topics to analyze user behavior, information needs, design insights, design plan, these four steps which is closely connected and inseparable. This study identifies three Personas: lazy people who need priority information, Maven who like coherent information, businessman who prefer comparative information. These three personas point out three possible new business models: from news to intelligence, from advertising to business research, from newspaper media to the transmedia. Academically, this study presents the formation process and the innovative principles of the user-oriented business model. In practice, the media organization can understand the steps and strategies about how to analyze the user microscopic behavior.

Våld i nära relationer är ett omfattande socialt problem i Sverige och problemet förekommer regelbundet i nyhetsmedier. Denna studie syftade till att undersöka beskrivningarna av mäns våld mot kvinnor i nära relationer i två välspridda svenska tidningar. Studiens frågeställningar gällde hur våldsutsatta kvinnor och våldsutövande män beskrivs samt hur relationen, våldet och dess händelseförlopp beskrivs. Kritisk diskursanalys, med utgångspunkt i Norman Faircloughs tredimensionella modell, utgjorde studiens metod och teoretiska ramverk. Analysen visade att våldsutsatta kvinnor beskrivs som anonyma, rädda eller som objekt i motsats till våldsutövande män som porträtteras som subjekt med makt. Det framkom en diskurs kring en viss typ av våldsförövare och ett motsatsförhållande mellan våld och kärlek. Resultatet visade på en fascination vid våldet och detaljerna kring våldet samtidigt som kopplingen mellan våldsutövaren och ansvaret för våldet ofta var svag. Istället kopplades våldet, som kunde beskrivas som extrema våldshandlingar, ofta till själva relationen. / Intimate partner violence is an extensive social problem in Sweden and a recurring subject in Swedish newspapers. This study aimed to explore descriptions of men’s violence against women in intimate partner relationships in two well distributed Swedish newspapers. The research questions focused on how the men and women were described and how the relationship and the violence were depicted. Critical discourse analysis, with inspiration from Norman Fairclough’s three-dimensional model, constituted the theoretical framework and method of analysis. The analysis showed descriptions of the women as anonymous, frightened and as objects in contrast to the men who were depicted as subjects with power. A discourse regarding a certain type of perpetrator was revealed as well as an opposite relationship between violence and affection. A fascination with the violence itself was found and it was often depicted in vivid details. The violence was often connected to the relationship itself while the connection between the perpetrator and the violence was less distinct.