Hurricane Sandy made landfall in Brigantine, New Jersey on October 29th, 2012. The storm impacted the coastal regions of New Jersey and New York, especially the heavily populated area of New York City. This research, which analyzes secondary data obtained from a telephone survey, investigates the public response of residents before, during and after Hurricane Sandy. The survey consisted of questions regarding what the residents expected concerning the threat of Hurricane Sandy, whether it matched what they experienced, where they got their information and how they made their decision to evacuate or not. The results from the survey were statistically analyzed in order to answer important research questions about public perception of Sandy's impacts. A Vulnerability Assessment of New York City, where some of Sandy's impacts were felt the most, was completed in order to understand why this area was so vulnerable. The concern level of various hurricane related hazards was analyzed and correlated to demographic variables to determine a relationship among the variables. A qualitative analysis was performed on the survey questions "Why did you evacuate?" and "Why did you not evacuate?" in order to determine themes in relation to people's reasons for evacuating or not evacuating. Finally, differences in how the public perceived Hurricane Sandy before and after the storm were analyzed and may be used for improving communication of the forecast to the public. Interdisciplinary research in this area is needed in order to better understand the public's need for appropriate warnings to ensure safety. Results show that residents were most concerned about wind damage and that they mainly used their television to obtain their information about the storm. Also, the most common reasons respondents reported for evacuating were because of the threat of possible impacts (storm surge, flooding, wind, rain and waves), the forecast called for bad conditions, or being told, recommended or convinced to leave. The main reasons reported by respondents for not evacuating are thinking that the impacts would not be bad in their area, feeling prepared or safe and thinking they could handle the impacts. This research can be used in the future for improving hurricane warning communication to the public.

The wetlands of Louisiana have provided protection against floods and storms for thousands of years. With the construction of the Mississippi River levees and increased urbanization the wetlands are quickly disappearing, thus leaving the area vulnerable to hurricane storm surge. Since Hurricane Katrina, levees have been showcased as the only way of fully protecting southeast Louisiana from floods and storms; however, this is also being accompanied by a push for more funding for coastal restoration. There is evidence that hurricane protection levees and coastal restoration are incompatible. This research examines the implications of levees on the wetlands both directly and indirectly. Furthermore, a survey was conducted to discover public perception about the impacts of levees in southeast Louisiana by residents most as risk for flooding from hurricane storm surge.

In recent years wrongful convictions have received a considerable amount of research attention. This flourishing interest has resulted in a growing body of literature that aims to investigate this criminal justice phenomenon. Specifically, the current academic literature suggests that exonerees have reported feeling stigmatized; however, public perception research suggests that the public is actually supportive of exonerees. As very little research has been conducted on public perceptions of wrongful conviction—and on the views of community members, in particular—this thesis sought to further explore this topic using open-ended, structured interviews. In addition, the literature has been criticized for its lack of theory integration. Therefore, the results of this study have been interpreted in the context of Giddens‘ Structuration Theory. Indeed, public perception and support are important as they may influence policy changes and encourage the government to be more forthcoming when it comes to preventing wrongful convictions and helping exonerees post-conviction. Overall, results indicated that community members defined wrongful conviction as cases of factual innocence. They also had limited knowledge of wrongful conviction, leading some participants to believe that wrongful convictions were infrequent. Community members were also able to identify several factors that lead to wrongful convictions (e.g., mistaken eyewitnesses), felt that the criminal justice system did a fair job in light of wrongful convictions, and generally held positive views toward exonerees (e.g., believing that they should receive supportive services, such as financial compensation, job training, and apologies). Furthermore, results highlight that while community members acknowledge that exonerees likely experience stigmatization, the majority of participants did not personally express stigmatizing views. / UOIT

The physical and biological characteristics of a stream are strongly influenced by its surrounding catchment. The riparian zone acts as a buffer between land and water ecosystems and can play an essential role to retain contaminants (e.g. sediment) from entering and affecting the receiving waterway. When the riparian zone is not managed, the consequence can be high amounts of sediment entering the waterway that negatively affects in-stream communities with a decline in native invertebrate and fish populations. I investigated three aspects of riparian management in the Canterbury region, South Island, New Zealand, by investigating the public perception using a questionnaire to determine what the public knows about riparian management and what practices are being done in the farming community. Results showed that riparian management varied across farm types, and there was some confusion about the roles of riparian management. Crop farmers were the least likely to do riparian management, in contrast to dairy farmers who were the most likely to do riparian management. A main concern is that the majority of respondents highlighted that filtering nutrients was the main goal for riparian management, and only 5% thought it was due to sediment, and 10% to decrease erosion. I then conducted a field survey to investigate riparian zone sediment retention in different land-uses (dairy farming, production forestry and urbanisation) compared to native forest. Surprisingly, dairy farms produced the least amount of sediment, and urban areas produced the most, and there was a marginal effect of season. However, generally there was no difference between the amounts of sediment passing through the riparian zone. Therefore, I was unable to distinguish if there were any vegetation effects occurring within the riparian zone. To complement the field survey, I tested sediment overflow by conducting multiple experiments using a rain simulator. The simulator controlled the intensity and amount of rainfall over differing percentages of riparian groundcover. My results were consistent with other studies showing that as groundcover increases, sediment runoff decreases. However, there was no relationship between rainfall intensity and the amount of sediment in runoff. My thesis indicated that riparian planting to reduce sediment flow into streams needs to focus on high amounts of groundcover (such as rank grass).

Coastal scenery evaluated by utilization of selected landscape components was subject to fuzzy logic system approach. Based on this methodology, coastal areas were grouped into five classes using the evaluation index D giving the overall result of scenic assessment over the attributes. Within the methodology, public perception surveys from Turkey, UK, Malta, and Croatia were used as a tool for environmental perception in the methodology. The results of the public perception surveys were utilized to obtain the weights of scenic parameters. Public surveys in &Ccedil / irali were related to demographical information of respondents by factorial analysis. A coastal scenic classification curve was obtained for all 86 coastal sites around the world which enabled grouping of the sites in five different classes.

Masters in Public Administration - MPA / The subject matter of corruption is a topical one in South Africa, where many institutions in the socio-political economy, both private and public, are subject to corruption allegations which emerge from time to time in the media. A number of studies have been undertaken on this topic globally, mainly in Latin America, but there remains a dearth of published academic work on the phenomenon in South Africa. Inevitably what transpires in the socio-political economy has a bearing on the lives of the general public. Of interest in this study is public perceptions of corrupt practices in the country and how these affect ordinary people. The objective of this study is to explore how people perceive corruption in the City of Cape Town, using the residents of Brooklyn as a case study.

Coal is a highly controversial energy source that has been widely perceived as environmentally harmful but socially important to regions with historical ties to coal production. Gauging public perception of coal is important to contemporary matters in energy policies like energy transition and the future of coal mining. Previous studies have demonstrated that public perception of coal can be affected by a multitude of geographic and social factors such as the distance to coal mining areas and political ideology. These studies predominantly relied on traditional survey approaches, which are typically cost prohibitive. With its growing popularity in public communication, social media has been recognized as an essential means of crowd-sourcing public perception and opinions. However, there is a general paucity of energy perception studies underpinned by social media, especially public perception of coal. Based on the Twitter data downloaded in August 2019, this thesis mapped the patterns of public perception of coal in the contexts of geographic spaces and social media network using data mining approaches. Generalized linear models were used to examine the quantitative relationship between public perception and explanatory geographic and social variables. The results demonstrate the geographic distance to coal mining regions, social network clusters, and certain social identities (i.e., environmental/renewable communities, Republicans, news and experts) have significant effects on coal-related sentiments by Twitter users, which are consistent with the results from other survey-based studies. The coal-related sentiments are found to be generally more similar among those Twitter users who are geographically distant, and socially close based on Twitter conversation network. This work suggests that social media may be a robust approach for future energy research in social science.

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An unprecedented 65.6 million people around the world have been forcibly displaced from their homes; 22.5 million of these individuals are refugees and 10 million are considered stateless (UNHCR, 2016a). Although, the conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic and the large arrival of asylum-seekers at the European borders in 2015 and 2016 gained significant global media attention, the frequently interchangeable use of the terms “migrant” and “refugee” to describe population within news headlines imposes significant implications on the legal protections entitled to each label. Conflating refugees and migrants can undermine public support for refugees and the asylum system at a time when there are more refugees than at any previously recorded time (UNHCR, 2016a). To better understand, two electronic databases CBCA Reference and Current Events and Canadian Periodical Index were searched for headlines containing the key term “refugee(s)” in Canadian English language newspapers. A total of 94 words were identified that offered an indication of the portrayal of refugees in the news media. Fourteen words were categorized as positive, 56 words were negative and 25 words were identified as neutral In addition, a literature review was conducted mirroring the five-stage Arksey and O’Malley (2005) scoping review framework and a data charting form was used to extract descriptive themes. Seven electronic databases (Sociology, Social Sciences Abstract, Web of Science, Communication Source, JSTOR and Social Work) were searched.. A total of 32 studies were selected for the literature review (16 through the database search and 16 through reference list search). From the included literature, five descriptive themes were found: securitization, immigration, legitimacy, economic considerations and othering. Both analyses indicated a dominant securitized discourse that portrays refugees negatively as a threat to the state and revealed a decrease in humanitarian dialogue within news media coverage. Positive representations of refugees were limited to the narrative of a passive victim or contributors to the economy. In addition, refugee voices within news media were restricted to their expression of gratitude towards the state and their compassion. The lack of refugee perspective and the use of journalistic semantic strategies perpetuate a one-sided negative portrayal of refugees. A more balanced media narrative is required to ensure that refugees are being portrayed accurately and their voices are heard. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

The final disposal location for used nuclear fuel in the U.S. remains unresolved. A major complication in resolving this issue has historically been the lack of public acceptance. This motivates the creation of a decision making model for selecting a nuclear fuel cycle in the U.S. that incorporates the preferences of the public. A model based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was created, tested, and shown to be problematic in incorporating public opinion into decision objectives. A new model based on Multi-Attribute Utility Theory (MAUT) has been created. This model contains the fundamental objectives for both technical and non-technical factors in both the short and long term for the decision. Additionally, the relevant subject matter experts involved in a nuclear fuel cycle selection are evaluated based on the public's perception of their qualifications, and environmental scientists are found to be considered equally as qualified as nuclear engineers and scientists.