This thesis examines how and why Thai advertising 'Westernises'. Drawing on a literature from the theoretical fields of globalisation, consumer culture and advertising, it interrogates the 'Westernisation' process across the three communicative moments of advertising: production, text and consumption. The research project argues first that Thailand's society, culture and media have historically evolved in relation to both the processes of 'W esternisation' and 'Thainisation', and ·second that class, mapped onto an 'urban' and 'rural' divide, is a key factor in shaping the articulations of 'Western' and 'Thai' cultures in contemporary Thai society. The thesis suggests that advertising represents and manages social change by looking 'back to the future'. As 'apostles of bourgeois modernity', the adverts 'look forward', mythifying modem life as 'future-oriented' and 'developed'. But at the same time, ads 'look backward', offering a 'nostalgic' presentation of what is lost in modem society -- the 'undeveloped' rural which is kept intact rather than modernised. Created by practitioners who identify themselves as 'Thai cosmopolitans', they and their urban audiences use 'Westernisation' to distinguish themselves from the rural peasantry: they set up a symbolic frontier between 'Us' and 'Them'. In contrast, in response to ads, rural people sceptically observe social change and the more 'Western' modem life which they wish to have; however, this is also a rationalisation of what they cannot (yet) have. The thesis concludes that in the 'journey to modem Thailand', although 'Western modernisation' is (re)defmed as 'social development' radiating outward from the metropolitan centre, culturally it is marked by an ambivalent relation to Thai traditional values and to the rural. The latter continue to constitute a necessary counter-pointing narrative of 'W esternisation' within advertising and the self-identity of the Thai middle classes.

published_or_final_version / Sociology / Master / Master of Philosophy

No description available.

This paper asserts the existence of the African American middle class novel as a genre in the African American literary tradition that has heretofore been neglected by literary critics. The premise of this argument is that conventional African American literary studies privilege novels concerned with the African American folk to the exclusion of portrayals of African Americans of middle and upper socio-economic class and cultural groups. A study of the Modem Language Association's catalogue of African American criticism and a review of novels widely accepted as representative of African American literary tradition were used to indicate how class status is often neglected as a subject. A study of the literary standards of the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement revealed the development of prescriptive literary conventions. Four exemplary twentieth century middle class novels were critiqued: Walls of Jericho by Rudolph Fisher, Plum Bun by Jessie Redmon Fauset, Meridian by Alice Walker, and Sarah Phillips by Andrea Lee. The novels were found to contribute to discourse on the intersection of race and class for African Americans by challenging stereotypes, advocating moral standards across class lines, and criticizing systems of oppression.

Thesis (M.A.)--香港中文大學. / Title also in English: The status of han ren in the central government during the Southern dynasties period (420 A.D.-588 A.D.) / Manuscript. / Thesis (M.A.)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Human Ecology-Personal Financial Planning / Maurice M. MacDonald / The 2016 Survey of Consumer Finances was used to investigate the impact of scarcity on the savings motives and debt of middle-class, non-retired households. This project adds to financial planning literature by incorporating previously unobserved variables, financial and time scarcity, in financial decision-making. Its use of the scarcity lens has also provided new insights for serving the middle-class with financial planning. Middle-class household decision-making was impacted by financial and time scarcity. Objective financial scarcity was related to increased odds of saving for basic needs and negatively related to saving for retirement. Objective financial scarcity was negatively associated with household debt, which can be attributed to credit constraints lenders want. Subjective financial scarcity was negatively associated with saving for retirement and at the same time positively associated with saving for esteem or luxury. Objective time scarcity was positively related to higher levels of household debt. Subjective time scarcity had a significant but mixed relationship with household debt. Financial planners and financial counselors working with the middle-class should consider the impact of scarcity for managing debt and shaping goals that will influence saving for retirement.

No description available.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Victoria, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 427-452).

Insug.-diss.--Freiburg i.B. / Lebenslauf. "Literaturverzeichnis": p. 182-186.