In this thesis, the author wants to deal with the broad spectrum of the contemporary Czech architecture. However, the phrase "Czech architect" appears in the title to show that this thesis is not a critical analysis of the stylish development of Czech architecture, but rather a search for links and inspirations that define the modern architectural profession in Czech society. These links and connections are deeply rooted in architects' experiences before and after the political regime change. The author feels that the architects' understanding of today's society and political transformation will help clarify some uncertainties of their meaning and status. One can understand the modern architects and the course of the Czech chamber of architecture as well as the public sector with it's ever changing tendencies ever since 1989 if the broad spectrum of contemporary architecture is kept in perspective.

Abraham L. Shushan worked in the shadow of Huey P. Long. Long’s political machine ran on the force of his personality with political power given as a reward to those he considered loyal. Shushan was one such lieutenant who benefited from his unwavering loyalty to Long. Shushan served within the New Orleans political scene helping Long achieve his goals including building the Shushan Airport on the city’s lakefront as well as being instrumental in the construction of the seawall protecting New Orleans along the shoreline of Lake Pontchartrain. By the time he started working for Long, Shushan was already a fixture in New Orleans politics serving on the Orleans Levee Board since 1920. A man of ambition and skill, Huey Long chose Shushan for his political acumen. Shushan’s work for Long cost him his career during the period of “scandal and reform” following the fallout after Long’s assassination in 1935.

This thesis seeks to trace the process of Germany&rsquo / becoming a multicultural society through the politico-historical analysis of the matter of immigration to Germany. The working assumption while projecting this study is as follows / there is a close relation between the policies and implementations of Germany in practice and becoming a multicultural society during the process in question. Germany became a multinational society with its composition of different ethnic, religious and cultural groups / but it is clearly seen that Germany is not moving toward becoming a multicultural society, at least in the near future, considering its policies and implementations in practice. At the same time, considering the main arguments and effects of these new immigration and citizenship laws concerning immigrants will provide an essential ground for recognizing whether Germany is a multicultural society or not.

This thesis examines the changing relationships between television, politics, audiences and the public sphere. Premised on the notion that mediated politics is now understood “in new ways by new voices” (Jones, 2005: 4), and appropriating what McNair (2003) calls a “chaos theory” of journalism sociology, this thesis explores how two different contemporary Australian political television programs (Sunrise and The Chaser’s War on Everything) are viewed, understood, and used by audiences. In analysing these programs from textual, industry and audience perspectives, this thesis argues that journalism has been largely thought about in overly simplistic binary terms which have failed to reflect the reality of audiences’ news consumption patterns. The findings of this thesis suggest that both ‘soft’ infotainment (Sunrise) and ‘frivolous’ satire (The Chaser’s War on Everything) are used by audiences in intricate ways as sources of political information, and thus these TV programs (and those like them) should be seen as legitimate and valuable forms of public knowledge production. It therefore might be more worthwhile for scholars to think about, research and teach journalism in the plural: as a series of complementary or antagonistic journalisms, rather than as a single coherent entity.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T14:19:43Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 SebastiaoFF.pdf: 448629 bytes, checksum: 4ac6abf16ea8a1b338a59557d2bea8df (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006-05-12 / Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior / Contemporary politics have assumed new configurations both in the way they are carried out and in the content publicized. Nevertheless, some practices are unchanged since antiquity. But the advent of the media and its circumstantial molding of current society have forced politics to make some changes to adapt both to mass media and to the new social practices in liberal democracy. Given that fact, this study tried to demonstrate how power has become personalized in Campina Grande, Para?ba, Brazil, by a politician named C?ssio Cunha Lima. Through the communications media and popular manifestations, he has been trying to create a symbiosis between Micarande a Carnival party (not held in the traditional Mardi Gras week) and his own public image, elaborating a process that identifies him with that event. In that way, he hopes to appropriate the festival and project his political image by using the party as na electoral currency in his publicity campaigns / A pol?tica contempor?nea tem assumido novas configura??es tanto nas suas formas de exerc?cio como no conte?do exposto publicamente. No entanto, algumas pr?ticas continuam imut?veis desde a antiguidade. Por?m, o advento dos meios de comunica??o e sua circunstancial moldagem na sociedade atual obrigou ? pol?tica algumas modifica??es necess?rias ? adequa??o tanto dos meios massivos quanto ?s novas pr?ticas de sociabilidade na democr?tica liberal. Diante disso, o estudo aqui apresentado procura demonstrar a personaliza??o do poder, em Campina Grande (PB), pelo agente pol?tico C?ssio Cunha Lima que, atrav?s dos meios de comunica??o e de uma manifesta??o popular, busca uma simbiose entre a festa Micarande, carnaval fora de ?poca e a sua imagem p?blica pol?tica, elaborando um processo de identifica??o pessoal com o evento citado. Objetiva, com tal fato, a apropria??o do festejo e a proje??o da sua imagem pol?tica, usando-a como moeda eleitoral e pol?tica nas suas campanhas publicit?rias

One of the central questions in political theory deals with the nature of rights. What sorts of rights do people possess? How are these rights justified? How ought these rights be reflected and related when seen in political, economic, and social institutions? Following the publication of John Rawls' A Theory of Justice (1971) and Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974), rights have once again returned to dominate much of contemporary political theory. However, natural law, which was the historical basis of the early Enlightenment theories of rights, is no longer the primary system appealed to when discussing rights. In fact, classical natural law has been all but discarded in most of political theory today. There has also been renewed debate over the nature of public neutrality, and what the relationship ought to be between the public and private sphere. The mainstream view of how our liberties relate to our rights, as well as what kinds of rights we have over our private affairs, has come under fire from a newly emerging political philosophy known as communitarianism. This thesis will present a robust theory of rights that provides a new understanding of the relationship between positive and negative rights through a defense of classical natural law as an ethical foundation for political theory. It will side with the communitarian critics of public neutrality, and offer a practical method of determining when the state is justified in limiting private liberties due to public interest.

Sex-education in Canada has predominantly been informed by an abstinence-based content, leaving the sexual literacy of adolescents hanging in the balance. As public health statistics indicate, sexually transmitted infection, early and unwanted pregnancy, and rates of HIV/ AIDS are staggeringly high. At the center of these statistics is the young Black female, as they are disproportionately over-represented in negative public health statistics. Many factors have been theorized to be the cause; from socioeconomic factors to educational limitations, it has been historically concluded that the individual failings and class issues of Black women are the root cause of sexual decision making that causes negative health implications. However, adopting a critical perspective may lead to a different conclusion. This qualitative study sought to explore if the lack of comprehensive, racially attentive, and reflective sex-education as well as the influential societal discourse that shapes Black women and their sexuality in stereotypical lights, may have an impact on the sexual decision making of Black women. Through centering and highlighting the lived experiences, perspectives, and insights of a diverse pool of Black women, the stereotypes and scripts of Black femininity and sexuality, their root causes, and the impacts on young Black girl’s sexual decision making were captured to collaboratively redefine and reclaim Black femininity and sexuality while capturing what would be helpful to include in sex-education, specific to Black girls and women. This study’s theoretical underpinnings are Black Feminist Theory, Critical Race Theory, and Hip-Hop Feminism, which has been coined by me as “the trifecta”. A focus group with Black female-identified participants was conducted and facilitated through open-ended question and discussion based processes. Thematic analysis was adopted to explore themes, meanings and to gain a better understanding of the participant’s collective perspectives regarding sex-education and Black femininity and sexuality. The main finding of this study, based in the lived experiences and insights of the participants, were that harmful societal scripts and stereotypes about Black femininity and sexuality historically and as they are presented in popular media, coupled with inconsistent and bare sex education, has the ability to affect the sexual decision making of young Black girls in a way that feeds participation in unsafe sexual practices. This study fills gaps in literature because it contributes to the limited critical body of research that paramount the voices and insight of Black women in regards to sexual practice. This study also fills gaps by extending the conversation of Black women and sexual decision making, by suggesting tangible solutions of how the participant’s insights can be injected into larger policy and practice as well as social work research. The information supplied by the participants of this study will help social workers, policy makers, and educators create racially attentive, comprehensive, and accessible sex-education. / Thesis / Master of Social Work (MSW) / Sex-education in Canada has predominantly been informed by an abstinence-based content, leaving the sexual literacy of adolescents hanging in the balance. As public health statistics indicate, sexually transmitted infection, early and unwanted pregnancy, and rates of HIV/ AIDS are staggeringly high. At the center of these statistics is the young Black female, as they are disproportionately over-represented in negative public health statistics. Many factors have been theorized to be the cause; from socioeconomic factors to educational limitations, it has been historically concluded that the individual failings and class issues of Black women are the root cause of sexual decision making that causes negative health implications. However, adopting a critical perspective may lead to a different conclusion. This qualitative study sought to explore if the lack of comprehensive, racially attentive, and reflective sex-education as well as the influential societal discourse that shapes Black women and their sexuality in stereotypical lights, may have an impact on the sexual decision making of Black women. Through centering and highlighting the lived experiences, perspectives, and insights of a diverse pool of Black women, the stereotypes and scripts of Black femininity and sexuality, their root causes, and the impacts on young Black girl’s sexual decision making were captured to collaboratively redefine and reclaim Black femininity and sexuality while capturing what would be helpful to include in sex-education, specific to Black girls and women. This study’s theoretical underpinnings are Black Feminist Theory, Critical Race Theory, and Hip-Hop Feminism, which has been coined by me as “the trifecta”. A focus group with Black female-identified participants was conducted and facilitated through open-ended question and discussion based processes. Thematic analysis was adopted to explore themes, meanings and to gain a better understanding of the participant’s collective perspectives regarding sex-education and Black femininity and sexuality. The main finding of this study, based in the lived experiences and insights of the participants, were that harmful societal scripts and stereotypes about Black femininity and sexuality historically and as they are presented in popular media, coupled with inconsistent and bare sex education, has the ability to affect the sexual decision making of young Black girls in a way that feeds participation in unsafe sexual practices. This study fills gaps in literature because it contributes to the limited critical body of research that paramount the voices and insight of Black women in regards to sexual practice. This study also fills gaps by extending the conversation of Black women and sexual decision making, by suggesting tangible solutions of how the participant’s insights can be injected into larger policy and practice as well as social work research. The information supplied by the participants of this study will help social workers, policy makers, and educators create racially attentive, comprehensive, and accessible sex-education.