Cette thèse examine les stratégies des think tanks (TTs) européens pour influencer les processus de formation des politiques publiques de l’Union européenne (UE). Cette étude comparative explore des TTs, basés à Bruxelles, qui fonctionnent au niveau supranational, ainsi que des TTs basés en France, en Slovénie et au Royaume-Uni. L’analyse des données empiriques est guidée par le cadre conceptuel combinant la théorie des champs de Bourdieu et ses développements récents avec le concept des frontières et l’approche des réseaux sociaux. Cette étude propose une nouvelle conceptualisation des TTs européens comme un champ transnational. En plus de la dimension horizontale de ce champ, qui se reflète dans sa position intermédiaire entre les champs adjacents, la thèse identifie les mécanismes de son institutionnalisation verticale au niveau européen. La thèse affirme que ces deux dimensions permettent aux membres de ce champ d’accumuler et d’utiliser stratégiquement des formes spécifiques de capital pour augmenter leur légitimité, crédibilité et visibilité sur la scène politique de Bruxelles et ainsi être en capacité d’influencer les institutions européennes. Cette recherche souligne l’importance particulière du capital symbolique et des réseaux qui établissent les frontières symboliques et sociales de ce champ et contribuent à la légitimité du système politique de l’UE lui-même. La topographie des positions des TTs selon le volume et la structure de leur capital dans leur propre champ permet de déterminer leur statut d’« insider » ou « outsider » dans le champ politique européen. Cette thèse apporte des réponses aux questionnements relatifs au « déficit démocratique » et à la légitimité de l’UE, en montrant l’accès privilégié de certains TTs aux institutions européennes, mais aussi l’insuffisance des mesures de transparence, qui règlent leurs relations. Elle contribue à la discussion sur la transformation de la production des connaissances sous l’influence des demandes politiques, économiques et médiatiques. / This thesis examines the strategies used by European think tanks (TTs) to influence the EU policy making process. It includes in its comparative analysis both Brussels-based TTs, which function at the supranational level, and TTs from France, Slovenia and the United Kingdom. The analysis of empirical data is built upon a flexible conceptual framework combining Bourdieu’s field theory and its recent developments with the concept of boundaries and the social network approach. This study proposes a new way of conceptualising European TTs as a transnational field. While acknowledging a horizontal dimension of the TT field, reflected in its intermediary position between adjacent fields, the thesis identifies mechanisms which account for its vertical institutionalisation at the European level. The thesis argues that both these dimensions of the European TT field allow its members to accumulate and strategically use specific forms of capital in order to enhance their legitimacy, credibility and visibility in the Brussels policy making scene and to gain political influence on the EU institutions. This research emphasises the particular importance of symbolic and network capital which fix the symbolic and social boundaries of the European TT field, as well as contributing to the legitimacy of EU policy making itself. Mapping the structural topography of the positions of European TTs in their own field according to the volume and structure of their capital allows us to determine their “insider” or “outsider” status in the EU political field. This thesis joins current debates concerning the challenges of the EU’s “democratic deficit” and legitimacy, by showing the more privileged access of “insider” think tanks to the EU institutions, but also the insufficiency of transparency measures which regulate their relations. Finally, it furthers the wider discussion of transformation of knowledge production under the influence of political, economic and media demands.

Este trabalho teve como objetivo analisar o discurso educacional dos especialistas em educação e as coesões e ramificações ocorridas no campo educacional entre os anos de 1990 e 2007, período em que se constatou novas estratégias de liderança, motivadas pela presença de agentes singulares e institucionais que atuavam ou passaram a se movimentar nos programas de pósgraduação no qual estavam vinculados, em entidades particulares que adquiriram o caráter de agências think tanks em razão de sua influência direta ou indireta nas políticas educacionais, especialmente para a educação básica, ou em e em assessorias em órgãos públicos como o INEP ou o IBGE. Ao mesmo tempo em que especialistas em educação com reconhecido prestígio na universidade procuravam exercer a censura acadêmica pautando-se pelo discurso de oposição às políticas advindas do Estado sobre educação. Foram utilizados como fontes de investigação, as revistas Educação & Sociedade e a revista Ensaio, bem como o exame dos currículos lattes dos colaboradores de ambos os períodos. O objeto em apreço foi construído mediante o esquadrinhamento das fontes citadas, depois sistematizadas em banco de dados e posterior análise por meio de tabelas e quadros, método esse que permitiu verificar as ramificações e coesões existentes. Foi constatado que o discurso sobre as políticas educacionais, sobretudo a educação básica está calcada em indicativos produzidos pelas avaliações em larga escala sob a égide do MEC/INEP, mas conta com o acréscimo de outras formas de auferição desenvolvidas por entidades como a Ação Educativa com o ENAF, projetos postos em prática de laboratórios ou grupos de pesquisas de algumas universidades que procuram produzir indicativos com medidas longitudinais dos alunos do ensino fundamental. A centralidade dos argumentos desses agentes subsidiar os sistemas de ensino na oferta de uma educação de qualidade para todos os alunos. Essas iniciativas, no entanto resultou num mercado de serviços demandado ou induzido pelo Estado, bem como as instituições think tanks que adquiriram a prerrogativa de certificar os serviços oferecidos, tais como alfabetização, EJA ou políticas afirmativas de outras entidades. / This work aims to analyze the educational discourse of the education specialists, the cohesion and the stretching that occurred in the educational field between 1990 and 2007, a period in which was perceived leadership strategies, motivated by the presence of single and institutional agents that acted in the post-graduation programmes they were linked to, in private institutions that acquired the character of think tanks agencies due to their direct or indirect influence on the educational policies, specially on basic education and in the advisory of public organs as INEP or IBGE, whereas specialists in education with recognized prestige within the university sought to exercise censorship relying on the opposition discourse the State policies on education. The magazines Education and Society and Rehearsal, as well as the exam of Curriculum Lattes of the collaborators both periodicals were used. The object of study was built through the analysis of the quoted sources, then patterned in the data bank and later analysis by means of tables and charts. Such a method has allowed to verify the existing stretching and cohesion. It has been noticed that the discourse on educational policies, specially basic education is rooted in produced indications of large scale evaluations under the shelter of MEC/INEP, but counts on the addition of other forms of checking developed by institutions as educational Action with ENAF, or projects which were put into practice in laboratories or research groups in some universities that search to produce indicatives (with longitudinal measurement) of the Fundamental School Students. The core of the arguments of these agents is to offer subsidies so that the teaching systems may offer quality education to all the students. These initiatives however resulted in services market demanded by or induced by the State, as well as the think tanks institutions acquired the prerogatives to certify the offered services like literacy courses, EJA, or affirmative policies of other institutions.

Think-aloud protocol is a usability testing method whereby the participant running the usability test on an interface, thinks aloud as a way of giving feedback of the task he/she is performing on the given interface. It is one of the most researched on usability testing methods. It has attracted both praises and criticisms based on the effects it has on the participants or the tests at hand. A recently done study that used simple tasks, aimed at finding out the difference between using think-aloud protocol and not using think-aloud protocol. The study concluded that no notable differences were evident on the number of fixations and the amount of screen areas viewed when using think-aloud protocol and when not using think-aloud protocol.As an extension and follow-up of the recently done study, this study focused on finding the type of tasks that the concurrent think-aloud protocol has effects on. The tasks were chosen based on the information scent concept and eye-tracking methodology was used in collecting the necessary results.The study that involved twenty participants, resulted to some effects of the concurrent think-aloud protocol being noted on the low-scent tasks but not on high-scent tasks. It therefore goes ahead to conclude the tasks onto which concurrent think-aloud protocol would be more effective and the tasks that would be executed more effectively through other usability testing methods other than concurrent think-aloud protocol.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The decision process is an important aspect in the lives of individuals and, because of the complexity that it takes in certain situations, the application of multi-criteria methods have been presented as aid in making decision (GOMES, and CARIGNANO ARAYA, 2004). Thus, it arises the concern in relation to the way of decisions are made or how they should be taken in the theory (Dillon, 1998), which motivated us to conduct this study, i.e, to check if a Multi-criteria Decision Support system fits the process of human decision. For this, we took as basis the fundamental elements of AHP - Analytic Hierarchy Process (Saaty, 1981), which allowed up to five categories of analysis in this study, namely: OEC - (Order of Choice Criteria), OCA (Order Comparison of Alternatives), CPP (pairwise comparison), VPA (Provision of a weight vector for each attribute) and HAA (the hierarchy of attributes for evaluation). Accordingly, the experiment was conducted in the laboratory, so that the individual perform the task of choosing notebook independently, with the aid of a Multicriteria Decision Support system AHP MAKH-ER system and without the aid of the DSS, i.e, only the individual's mind to guide the decision on which it was used a protocol verbal think aloud. The presentation of the results showed significant differences for four from five categories of analysis under the AHP. Accordingly, through hypothesis testing, the only category that had no significant difference in both tasks was the order of choice criteria (OEC). Regarding to the other categories, OCA, CPP, VPA and HAA, these significant differences in both tasks, and it can be seen that the makers did not follow the prescriptive model of the system. The discussion of the results reveals important peculiarities in the process of decision making, since the decision-making process within a normative perspective, using a DSS is similar only to the Order of choice criteria in relation to human decision making. Regarding the other categories of analysis, it was not found statistical evidence to claim that the process is similar, although the final decision has been the same, as confirmed by the principle of invariance of the theory of rational decision (Tversky and Kahneman, 1986). For this reason, the hypothesis of this study cannot be confirmed, ie, it is not possible to say, in light of scientific observation that a Multi-criteria Decision Support system fits the human decision making. With regard to the conduct of the decider on options for finding information, it can be said that the process is similar in both tasks, since both the tasks with the help of DSS as in without the help of DSS, the decision maker sought the information criterion, which verifies the value of the three alternatives for a certain criteria before making the weights to the attribute in question. / O processo decisório é um dos aspectos mais importantes na vida dos indivíduos e, devido a complexidade que o mesmo assume em certas situações, a aplicação de metodologias multicritério tem sido apresentada como auxílio na tomada de decisão (GOMES, ARAYA e CARIGNANO, 2004). Assim, surge a inquietude em relação à forma com que as decisões são tomadas ou como deveriam ser tomadas, teoricamente (Dillon, 1998) o que motivou a realização desse estudo, isto é, verificar se um Sistema Multicritério de Apoio à Decisão ajusta-se ao processo de decisão humana. Para tal, tomou-se como base os elementos fundamentais do método AHP Processo Analítico Hierárquico (Saaty, 1981), que permitiram constituir as cinco categorias de análise deste estudo, quais sejam: OEC (Ordem de Escolha dos Critérios); OCA (Ordem de comparação das alternativas); CPP (Comparação par a par); VPA (Fornecimento de um vetor de pesos para cada atributo) e HAA (Hierarquia de atributos para avaliação). Assim, foi conduzido um experimento em laboratório, de forma que o indivíduo realizasse a tarefa de escolha de notebook de modo independente: com o auxílio de um Sistema Multicritério de Apoio à Decisão AHP MAKH-ER e sem o auxílio do SAD, ou seja, tendo somente a mente do indivíduo como guia da decisão, no qual foi utilizado o protocolo verbal think aloud. A apresentação dos resultados exibiu diferença significativa para quatro das cinco categorias de análise decorrentes do método AHP. Nesse sentido, através dos testes de hipótese, a única categoria que não teve diferença significa em ambas as tarefas foi a Ordem de escolha dos critérios (OEC). Com relação às demais categorias, OCA, CPP, VPA e HAA, elas apresentaram diferença significativa em ambas as tarefas, podendo-se perceber que os decisores não seguiram o modelo prescritivo do sistema. A discussão dos resultados revela importantes particularidades no processo de tomada de decisão, uma vez que o processo decisório, dentro de uma perspectiva normativa, utilizando um SAD assemelha-se apenas para a Ordem de escolha dos critérios no que tange ao processo de decisão humana. Com relação às demais categorias de análise, não foi encontrada comprovação estatística para afirmar que o processo se assemelha, embora o resultado final da decisão tenha sido o mesmo, sendo confirmado pelo princípio da invariância da teoria racional da decisão (TVERSKY e KAHNEMAN, 1986). Por tal razão, a hipótese deste estudo não pode ser confirmada, ou seja, não é possível afirmar, à luz da observação científica que um Sistema Multicritério de Apoio à Decisão ajusta-se ao processo de decisão humana. Com relação ao comportamento do decisor sobre as opções de busca de informações, pode-se dizer que o processo se assemelha em ambas as tarefas uma vez que tanto na tarefa com o auxílio do SAD quanto na sem o auxílio do SAD, o decisor buscou as informações por critério, na qual verifica-se o valor das três alternativas para um determinado critério antes de fazer as ponderações para o atributo em questão.

Este trabalho teve como objetivo analisar o discurso educacional dos especialistas em educação e as coesões e ramificações ocorridas no campo educacional entre os anos de 1990 e 2007, período em que se constatou novas estratégias de liderança, motivadas pela presença de agentes singulares e institucionais que atuavam ou passaram a se movimentar nos programas de pósgraduação no qual estavam vinculados, em entidades particulares que adquiriram o caráter de agências think tanks em razão de sua influência direta ou indireta nas políticas educacionais, especialmente para a educação básica, ou em e em assessorias em órgãos públicos como o INEP ou o IBGE. Ao mesmo tempo em que especialistas em educação com reconhecido prestígio na universidade procuravam exercer a censura acadêmica pautando-se pelo discurso de oposição às políticas advindas do Estado sobre educação. Foram utilizados como fontes de investigação, as revistas Educação & Sociedade e a revista Ensaio, bem como o exame dos currículos lattes dos colaboradores de ambos os períodos. O objeto em apreço foi construído mediante o esquadrinhamento das fontes citadas, depois sistematizadas em banco de dados e posterior análise por meio de tabelas e quadros, método esse que permitiu verificar as ramificações e coesões existentes. Foi constatado que o discurso sobre as políticas educacionais, sobretudo a educação básica está calcada em indicativos produzidos pelas avaliações em larga escala sob a égide do MEC/INEP, mas conta com o acréscimo de outras formas de auferição desenvolvidas por entidades como a Ação Educativa com o ENAF, projetos postos em prática de laboratórios ou grupos de pesquisas de algumas universidades que procuram produzir indicativos com medidas longitudinais dos alunos do ensino fundamental. A centralidade dos argumentos desses agentes subsidiar os sistemas de ensino na oferta de uma educação de qualidade para todos os alunos. Essas iniciativas, no entanto resultou num mercado de serviços demandado ou induzido pelo Estado, bem como as instituições think tanks que adquiriram a prerrogativa de certificar os serviços oferecidos, tais como alfabetização, EJA ou políticas afirmativas de outras entidades. / This work aims to analyze the educational discourse of the education specialists, the cohesion and the stretching that occurred in the educational field between 1990 and 2007, a period in which was perceived leadership strategies, motivated by the presence of single and institutional agents that acted in the post-graduation programmes they were linked to, in private institutions that acquired the character of think tanks agencies due to their direct or indirect influence on the educational policies, specially on basic education and in the advisory of public organs as INEP or IBGE, whereas specialists in education with recognized prestige within the university sought to exercise censorship relying on the opposition discourse the State policies on education. The magazines Education and Society and Rehearsal, as well as the exam of Curriculum Lattes of the collaborators both periodicals were used. The object of study was built through the analysis of the quoted sources, then patterned in the data bank and later analysis by means of tables and charts. Such a method has allowed to verify the existing stretching and cohesion. It has been noticed that the discourse on educational policies, specially basic education is rooted in produced indications of large scale evaluations under the shelter of MEC/INEP, but counts on the addition of other forms of checking developed by institutions as educational Action with ENAF, or projects which were put into practice in laboratories or research groups in some universities that search to produce indicatives (with longitudinal measurement) of the Fundamental School Students. The core of the arguments of these agents is to offer subsidies so that the teaching systems may offer quality education to all the students. These initiatives however resulted in services market demanded by or induced by the State, as well as the think tanks institutions acquired the prerogatives to certify the offered services like literacy courses, EJA, or affirmative policies of other institutions.

Syftet med den här processorienterade studien var att undersöka hur texttypen påverkar översättningsprocessen, och närmare bestämt om olika texttyper aktualiserar olika fokus i de kognitiva processerna. Fyra deltagare fick därför översätta två olika källtexter, en operativ och en informativ. Materialet samlades in med hjälp av Think-Aloud (TA). Studien visar att de båda texterna huvudsakligen gav upphov till liknande fokus. Texttypen verkar således inte ha haft någon märkbar påverkan på översättningsprocessen i det aktuella fallet. Vad gäller deltagarnas individuella processer fokuserade flera av dem på liknande faktorer oberoende av källtexten, vilket antyder att processerna i viss utsträckning kan antas vara individuellt betingade. / The aim of the present study was to investigate whether different text types bring different focuses to the fore in the cognitive processes during translation. Four translator students were thus asked to translate one operative and one informative text while verbalizing their thoughts. The verbalizations were recorded and later transcribed into so called think-aloud protocols (TAPs). The analysis of the TAPs showed that the participants focused on similar aspects regardless of the source text, which indicates that the text type did not have any significant effect on the translation process in the study at hand.

Syftet med den här uppsatsen var att belysa frågan om hur många användare det behövdes för att uppnå en viss mättnad i en användbarhetsutvärdering för en specifik flash-applikation kallad My Garden. De aspekter som låg till grund för denna uppsats var brytpunkten i ökningen av unika fynd i korrelation med höga procentsatser. Med hjälp av den formativa utvärderingen och analysen av denna gick det sedan att ta reda på vilka problem (så kallade fynd) som upplevdes av användarna i gränssnittet. Resultatet av analysen resulterade i 95 unika fynd i tio användbarhetsutvärderingar. Resultatet visade följaktligen att för denna sorts utvärdering behövdes sju användare för att uppnå 93 % av alla unika fynd som hittades och därmed uppnå en slags mättnad i avklingandet av hittade unika fynd. / The purpose of this report was to highlight the issue of how many people are needed to reach a certain level of saturation in a usability evaluation of a specific flash application called My Garden. The aspects that formed the basis of this study were the breakpoint in the growth of unique findings in correlation with high percentages. The help of the formative evaluation and the analysis made it possible to find out what kind of problems (so called findings) the users experienced within the interface. The results of the analysis resulted in 95 unique findings in ten usability evaluations. The results showed consequently that for this kind of evaluation seven users where needed to reach 93 % of all unique findings and thereby achieve a kind of saturation in the unwinding of the findings of unique findings.

Viva la Diva är ett Svenskt makeup-varumärke som nyligen har lanserat sin nya webbplats. Denna webbplats har inte blivit testad på deras slutanvändare eller målgrupp. Genom att använda en heuristisk utvärdering och 12 Think aloud-tester har flera användbarhetsproblem upptäckts där designen behöver förbättringar. Senare i rapporten presenteras några förbättringsförslag om hur användarupplevelsen kan förbättras på webbplatsen, men också hur problemen som jag fann under utvärderingen och Think aloud-testerna kan lösas. Jag tillhandahåller också för Viva la Diva ett designförslag för en av deras sidor som inte är helt färdig i designen. Detta arbete ger insikt i hur man kan använda en heuristisk utvärdering och Think aloudtester för att upptäcka användbarhetsproblem på webbplatser. / Viva la Diva is a Swedish makeup-brand that has recently launched their new website. This website has not been tested with their end-users or target users. By using a heuristic evaluation and 12 Think aloud-tests several user problems have been discovered where the design needs improvements. Later in the article I present some suggestions on how to improve the user experience on the website, as well as fix the problems that I found during the evaluation and Think aloud-tests. I also provide Viva la Diva with a design suggestion for one of their pages that is not completely finished in the design. This work provides insights on how to use a heuristic evaluation and Think aloud-tests to discover usability problems on websites.

Le champ politique est un espace dans lequel s’affrontent des acteurs variés, acteurs qui ne se résument pas aux partis : trop souvent laissés dans l’ombre par la science politique, les clubs et cercles de réflexion, les fondations politiques, les instituts, participent effectivement à la vie politique. L’enjeu de cette étude est de mettre en perspective les modalités d’action des structures non-partisanes, de 1958 à nos jours, en revenant sur leur genèse, leur morphologie, et leurs trajectoires dans le temps : apportant de nouvelles idées, proposant des nouveaux modes de fonctionnement partisans, elles contribuent à faire bouger les lignes du débat politique et pallient les défaillances des partis en matière programmatique et d’écoute des revendications de la société civile. Sans se confondre avec les mouvements sociaux, elles partagent cependant avec ces derniers un militantisme différent de l’engagement classique et utilisent des modes d’intervention bien spécifiques. Malgré des ressources faibles au regard de leurs homologues étrangers (les fondations allemandes, les think tanks anglo-saxons), les structures non-partisanes françaises connaissent une tendance à la professionnalisation et mobilisent de véritables réseaux d’experts pour faire entendre leur voix : à la faveur d’une crise prolongée des organisations partisanes, elles sont appelées à jouer un rôle de plus en plus important dans la construction du « politiquement imaginable », ainsi que dans l’élaboration des politiques publiques. / The political arena is a field where in various actors confront each other, yet cannot be defined as political parties per se. Although clubs, think tanks, political foundations and institutes all genuinely participate in the political life, political scientists have, for the most part, ignored them. The purpose of this study is to put into perspective non-party structures methods of action, from 1958 to the present day, emphasizing their genesis, morphology and trajectories. As they bring new ideas to the forefront and suggest reforms for the internal functioning of political parties, they thus contribute to the evolution of political debate and even compensate for the parties failure in designing political programs and paying attention to the demands of the civil society. Though they are not to be assimilated to social movements, they do share a form of activism which can be distinguished from classical political commitments, and also use specific methods of intervention. Compared to their foreign counterparts (German foundations, Anglo-American think tanks), and despite meager resources, French non-party structures tend to develop their professionalism and mobilize authentic networks of experts so that their message is heard. Due to an ongoing crisis of political organizations, they will certainly play an increasing role in shaping the “politically conceivable” and in building public policies.

Cette thèse porte sur la caractérisation du milieu des think tanks aux États-Unis à travers l’étude de leur discours et de leur culture professionnelle dans le cadre d’une recherche en anglais de spécialité. L’objectif est de démontrer que ce milieu hétérogène peut être envisagé comme un milieu spécialisé, caractérisé par un discours et une culture spécifiques qui répondent aux impératifs de son objectif d’influence. Dans une première partie, nous exposons les fondements épistémologiques de la thèse : nous présentons les défis soulevés par l’étude de cet objet du point de vue de la recherche en anglais de spécialité, et proposons une approche de sa spécialisation fondée sur sa raison d’être. Une définition opératoire est élaborée, et le cadre méthodologique de la thèse à la croisée de l’histoire institutionnelle et politique des États-Unis, de l’ethnographie, de l’analyse du discours et de la pragmatique est exposé. La deuxième partie porte sur les modalités notamment culturelles de la spécialisation ; nous montrons comment le milieu s’est structuré en réponse à un besoin d’expertise dans la société américaine, et s’organise autour de missions, pratiques, valeurs et genres communs. Une topographie de ces genres est proposée pour éclairer les modalités communicationnelles de la stratégie programmatique des think tanks. La troisième partie explore les modalités discursives de cette stratégie dans deux genres, les blogs et les policy briefs, pris individuellement, puis en vis-à-vis ; l’analyse des modules péritextuels, structurels et interpersonnels révèle un ensemble de choix argumentatifs qui reflètent les enjeux de captation et de crédibilité de l’intervention des experts. / This dissertation aims to characterize the milieu of think tanks in the United States through their discourse and professional culture from the French point of view of research on English for Specific Purposes. We contend that this heterogeneous milieu may nonetheless be considered a specialized milieu, as its discourse and its culture are shaped by its programmatic aim. Part 1 presents the epistemological foundations of our research: it sheds light on the theoretical challenges raised by the study of think tanks in the framework of English for Specific Purposes and offers an approach to specialization based on its raison d’être. We suggest a working definition for the milieu and explain the methodology for this study situated at the crossroads between US institutional and political history, ethnography, the French approach to discourse analysis, and pragmatics. Part 2 focuses on the cultural manifestations of think tanks’ programmatic aim; it shows how the milieu has crystallized in response to a need for expertise in US society and is characterized by similar aims, practices, values and genres. A topography of these genres is offered to cast light on the milieu’s discursive strategy. Part 3 explores the discursive manifestations of this strategy and concentrates on two genres, blog posts and policy briefs, which are studied first individually and then jointly. The analysis of peritextual, structural and interpersonal modules reveals the argumentative choices experts make to remain credible and attractive in the marketplace of ideas.