Thesis (M.A.)--California State University, Chico. / Includes abstract. "Located in the Chico Digital Repository." Includes bibliographical references (p. 61 -66. ).

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on Feb 25, 2010). The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Dissertation advisor: Dr. Kevin Wise. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

published_or_final_version / Conservation / Master / Master of Science in Conservation

The Live-in Caregiver Program is a temporary foreign worker program that allows workers to come to Canada in order to labour as private caregivers for children, the elderly, and disabled individuals. This program allows caregivers to apply for permanent residency after the successful completion of 24 months of full time work. There are a number of scholars, advocacy groups, former caregivers, and other parties that have raised concerns about certain regulations of this program. For example, caregivers under this program have an employer-specific work permit, must live in the homes of the employers, and have no external monitoring of their work environments. Subsequently, the Live-in Caregiver Program has been seen as problematic because of the high number of abusive labour situations. This thesis is dedicated to an analysis of how the Canadian news print media represents the Live-in Caregiver Program. Although there has been much research done on migrant care work within Canada, and around the world, there are few studies on how the news media construct arguments that describe these transnational labour flows. The main topics that guided the research questions for this thesis were: temporary foreign worker programs; citizenship status; globalized, gendered, and racial stereotypes; the live-in regulation; employer specific work permits, and power relations in the labour relationship. This research was not geared to proving or disproving the main findings of key migrant domestic worker literature, rather it was focused on how these conclusions are interpreted, transferred and argued within a publically accessible format, Canadian news print media. This analysis revealed how journalists within Canadian news media construct important cultural narratives to persuade audiences to either reject the LCP as exploitative and problematic, or embrace it as economically beneficial. / Graduate

With the spread of the Internet in the Arab world, many Arab publishers and governments' media bodies have begun to utilise websites in their outreach programmes. This thesis examines the subject of Arab e-newspapers on the Internet. Specifically, it focuses on readers of these publications and explores their use of this new news medium and their overall satisfaction with it. To supplement this analysis, data were also collected from e-newspaper publishers about their practices and about the content of their Internet news services. The methodology included online surveys of readers and publishers, content and format analysis of newspapers' websites, and face-to-face interviews with some Arab journalists. The research was restricted to Internet daily publications published by Arab publishers in Arabic and English, though its results may have wider implications. It was also restricted temporally to a specific time period, meaning that events in this rapidly changing new technology environment may quickly overtake the situation as elucidated in this work. In this respect, the findings do not reflect the impact of the new browsers that were introduced in late 1999, such as Microsoft's multi-language browser (Internet Explorer version 5), which will revolutionise the way people, read Internet content. The most important trend that has been identified is the major move of existing Arab printed newspapers towards online publishing in most Arab countries. Some of them just present part of their printed product (a selection of the daily content), others offer all of their content but, in most cases they appear in the same optical format as in the printed version. Yet, despite the urgency to get on the Internet, the findings reveal that most publishers did not have clear online publishing strategies and most of them were unaware of the seriousness of the Internet to their traditional business. This study revealed that the demographic profile of Arab e-newspapers' readers was similar, in many ways, to readership profiles found for Internet users in the non-Arab World, in terms of age, occupation and level of education. The keys to reader loyalty and satisfaction are found in the ease with which online news can be accessed and explored, and the extent to which it is updated.

The newspaper industry has in the last few decades experienced a gradual but steady decline. The cause of this decline and potential ways of counteraction have been under considerable debate recently both in the industry and in academia. For the last decade and a half, the digitization of news has emerged as a much debated challenge and been perceived by the industry as both its inevitable future and its biggest threat. Taking its starting-point in this complex situation, this dissertation particularly focuses on how the organizational culture of regional, ideologically driven newspaper organizations affects propensity for change. Particular focus is placed on the regional newspaper industry, and an ethnographical case study has been conducted of a Swedish county covered by two independent, competing newspaper organizations. The purpose of the study is to develop a theoretical concept to describe the kind of organizational inertia currently experienced by the regional newspaper industry. Combining semi-structured interviews, observations and analysis of public documentation, it is shown that both regional organizations in the study are struggling to reconcile a steadily declining print edition with the pressures of publishing news online. The regional newspaper industry is expected to deliver online news content to a growing audience without a profitable business model. Since the late 1990s, when the first of the organizations’ websites appeared, the Internet’s potential as a financially justifiable publishing platform has been put into question. Sixteen years later, the websites and the questions remain. The study shows how organizational memory and the act of remembrance are used along with certain aspects of corporate history and culture to legitimize long term strategizing that in turn have significant effects on the propensity for change. Dimensions of “spectrality” and the concept of “spectral organizations” are introduced as theoretical concepts to describe these particular types of organizations that are haunted by their past to the extent that they exhibit strategic entrenchment or even altogether an inability to progress and adapt to their environment. The contribution of the study is to increase the understanding of why the regional newspaper industry is experiencing inertia, and of the ideological forces that make implementing paradigmatic change so difficult. / Baksidestext: The newspaper industry has in the last few decades experienced a gradual but steady decline. The cause of this decline and potential ways of counteraction have been under considerable debate recently both in the industry and in academia. For the last decade and a half, the digitization of news has emerged as a much debated challenge and been perceived by the industry as both its inevitable future and its biggest threat. Taking its starting-point in this complex situation, this dissertation particularly focuses on how the organizational culture of regional, ideologically driven newspaper organizations affects propensity for change. Particular focus is placed on the regional newspaper industry, and an ethnographical case study has been conducted of a Swedish county covered by two independent, competing newspaper organizations. The end result is a theoretical concept that describes, and aids the understanding of, the kind of organizational inertia currently experienced by the regional newspaper industry. / <p>ISBN of the printed version refers to the 2nd edition of the book.</p>

This research examines representations of condominiums in the real estate section of the Toronto Star from 1967 through 1997, and in the Star’s Condo Living section between 1997 and 2007. I depart from conventional approaches by evaluating the articles as well as the advertisements that comprise the real estate section, based on the assumption that the context in which these texts appear is significant: a major newspaper is not a neutral vehicle, and ads and articles—consumed together, as they are in a print newspaper—will interact in creating representations of condominiums. The Condo Living section in particular is seen to perform a number of brand-like activities, most obviously in positioning the Toronto high-rise condominium as a dwelling that is particularly well-suited to young, middle-class women. This occurs partly as a function of the frequency with which women are portrayed as condominium owners. Beyond this, however, I show how the advertisements and articles in Condo Living help remake the public image of the condominium by countering existing stigmas attached to high-rise living. The section also helps to differentiate the condominium from other dwelling types by emphasizing elaborate amenities and making claims to urbanity through high-profile cultural and entertainment events. Perhaps most importantly, I demonstrate how the leading present-day design aesthetic—a reworking of midcentury modernisms—came to thoroughly dominate the image and the built form of the recent-era condominium. Positioning the condominium as a design-led dwelling type had profound implications: due to the links between design and high-end fashion, health and beauty items, the condominium immediately became a member of an aspirational product category associated with women, wealth, style and glamour. In addition to positioning the condominium as ‘naturally’ suited to young single, women, it removed the condo from direct competition with the single-family house, allowing it to be perceived as a desirable and distinct—rather than denigrated—dwelling type.

This research examines representations of condominiums in the real estate section of the Toronto Star from 1967 through 1997, and in the Star’s Condo Living section between 1997 and 2007. I depart from conventional approaches by evaluating the articles as well as the advertisements that comprise the real estate section, based on the assumption that the context in which these texts appear is significant: a major newspaper is not a neutral vehicle, and ads and articles—consumed together, as they are in a print newspaper—will interact in creating representations of condominiums. The Condo Living section in particular is seen to perform a number of brand-like activities, most obviously in positioning the Toronto high-rise condominium as a dwelling that is particularly well-suited to young, middle-class women. This occurs partly as a function of the frequency with which women are portrayed as condominium owners. Beyond this, however, I show how the advertisements and articles in Condo Living help remake the public image of the condominium by countering existing stigmas attached to high-rise living. The section also helps to differentiate the condominium from other dwelling types by emphasizing elaborate amenities and making claims to urbanity through high-profile cultural and entertainment events. Perhaps most importantly, I demonstrate how the leading present-day design aesthetic—a reworking of midcentury modernisms—came to thoroughly dominate the image and the built form of the recent-era condominium. Positioning the condominium as a design-led dwelling type had profound implications: due to the links between design and high-end fashion, health and beauty items, the condominium immediately became a member of an aspirational product category associated with women, wealth, style and glamour. In addition to positioning the condominium as ‘naturally’ suited to young single, women, it removed the condo from direct competition with the single-family house, allowing it to be perceived as a desirable and distinct—rather than denigrated—dwelling type.

Thesis (M.A.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1994. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 133-138). Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--Ball State University, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on July 12, 2010). Research paper (M.A.), 3 hrs. Includes bibliographical references (p. [37]-40).