Grounded at the intersection of rhetorics of health and medicine (RHM), technical and professional communication (TPC), and transnational institutional communication, my study aimed to explore the transnational issues of negotiation and power and (mis)articulations within the realm of global maternal nutrition (MN) communication design. Specifically, I sought to demystify the behind-the-scenes interactions and negotiations among funders (in this case, USAID headquarters), contractors (global health designers for a project called "Advancing Nutrition"), and local partners (Global South program implementers). To achieve this goal, I conducted a rhetorical analysis of twenty-eight publicly available Advancing Nutrition MN artifacts, including program guides, worksheets, toolkits, and multimedia discourses. Additionally, I performed fifteen episodic narrative interviews with key informants from the Advancing Nutrition team, USAID, and local implementing agencies in India, Kyrgyz Republic, and Ghana. Through the theoretical lenses of power as assemblage and articulation, my findings suggested a continual flux of (re)articulation tension within global MN communication design. This tension stemmed from power assemblages—a confluence of historical-political-ideological forces at the production site in the Global North and the rigid socio-cultural framework at the implementation site in the Global South—in transnational content creation spaces. This tension manifested in maternal-child nutrition indicators, temporally bound MN program design, community narratives in local implementation sites, and an emphasis on normative views of women's nutrition. Despite the power differentials among funders, contractors, and implementers, global health designers employed tactical technical communication approaches, including coalitional actions and reconstructive moves, to empower women and mothers in the Global South. Thus I conclude that technical and health communication scholars can help global institutional actors create socially-inclusive communication design and foster intentional community-engaged interventions by both attuning themselves to and exposing globalized power structures in the context of public health document creation. / Doctor of Philosophy / Situated at the crossroads of health and medical rhetoric, technical and professional communication, and cross-border institutional interaction, my research set out to delve into the complexities of negotiation, power dynamics, and communication challenges in the global arena of maternal nutrition. Specifically, I aimed to shed light on the behind-the-scenes dealings and discussions among key players such as funders (like USAID headquarters), contractors (working on projects such as "Advancing Nutrition"), and local partners (implementing programs in the Global South). To accomplish this, I conducted a detailed analysis of twenty-eight publicly available materials related to the Advancing Nutrition initiative, including program guides, worksheets, toolkits, and multimedia presentations. Additionally, I conducted fifteen interviews with individuals from the Advancing Nutrition team, USAID, and local agencies in India, Kyrgyz Republic, and Ghana. Using the theoretical frameworks of power dynamics and articulation, my findings revealed a continual tension in how maternal nutrition communication is (re)shaped and understood on a global scale. This tension arises from a blend of historical, political, and ideological forces influencing content creation in the Global North, juxtaposed with the socio-cultural realities at the implementation sites in the Global South. It is evident in various aspects such as maternal-child nutrition metrics, the design of time-sensitive nutrition programs, local community narratives, and the portrayal of women's nutrition. Despite the inherent power imbalances among funders, contractors, and implementers, those involved in global health initiatives employed strategic communication methods, including collaborative efforts and reconstructive strategies, to empower women and mothers in the Global South. As a result, I argue that scholars in technical and health communication have a vital role to play in fostering inclusive communication design and facilitating community-focused interventions by both understanding and exposing global power dynamics in the realm of public health document creation.

One of the most controversial wars in contemporary history, both in terms of the ideological powers behind it and its continued struggle for over 60 years, is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The most recent outburst of the conflict, commonly known as the Gaza War, has attracted extensive global media coverage. Employing an interdisciplinary approach, the thesis incorporates an extensive content analysis, to chart patterns and regularities within a large corpus of four broadcast media (namely BBC Arabic, BBC World, Al-Jazeera Arabic and Al-Jazeera English). It then integrates a more interpretative discourse analysis, to investigate the cultural ideas evoked linguistically and, to a lesser extent, visually throughout the coverage. Assuming a qualitative stance, it also draws upon focus groups conducted in Jordan and England to examine the public s knowledge and understandings of the events on the ground, in addition to their evaluation of both organisations levels of objectivity and impartiality. To allow for a comparative dimension, the thesis develops two frames of analysis that systematically looks at two recurring themes and scrutinises their discursive strategies and functions in the construction of meaning and ideology. These include Provocation, which examines questions of responsibility and culpability; and Proportionality which embraces matters of legitimacy and authority in relation to the humanitarian aspect of the war. The findings indicate that the actions of a protagonist may be deemed legitimate with regard to provocation, but illegitimate with regard to their proportionality. The peculiar circumstances of the war pushed the media in the direction of greater separation from the predominant ideologies ensued by the Israeli Army. It suggests that both networks lack a coherent discursive strategy at the level of the lexical in their reporting of Gaza. The empirical findings also confirm that meanings devised by viewers are pertinent to their behaviours, attitudes and beliefs. This conceptualisation formulated three readings shaped by political, cultural and social formations: an oppositional (counter-hegemonic) reading, a dominant reading and a subliminal (sub-conscious) reading.

In today’s world, cultural, social, and economic relationships increasingly transcend national borders. This coincides with high levels of migration and physical mobility across the globe. Therefore, this study investigates the degree that migrants participate in such transnational phenomena and how this participation relates to their integration in the country of residence. To address these questions, the cross-border relationships and practices of Turkish and Romanian migrants in Denmark, Germany, and Italy are examined. The study analyses the degree to which migrants are transnational, by which factors migrants’ transnationalism is determined, and whether transnationalism impacts the social and identificational integration of migrants in their country of residence. With respect to identification, not only the national but also the local level is taken into focus. The use of a unique quantitative dataset allows the study to address the often-voiced need for further quantitative findings on migrants’ transnationalism in Europe and particularly the lack of cross-national studies in this field. Additionally, the analysis goes beyond migration research’s typical focus on transnational connections between migrants’ country of origin and country of residence. The results show that the level of migrants’ transnationalism strongly differs between the measured dimensions of this phenomenon. Moreover, transnational connections and practices of all samples go beyond the dichotomy of origin and residence country, stressing the need to incorporate a broader perspective in migration research. The analysis does not find many effects of transnationalism on social and identificational integration. The few observable effects are in part of a positive and a negative nature. Furthermore, these effects differ across the analysed dimensions of integration. Based on these results, the study highlights that transnationalism and integration are not mutually exclusive.

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<p>In April and May 2015 Nepal suffered two massive earthquakes of 7.5 and 6 5 magnitudes in the Richter scale, killing 8856 and injuring 22309. Two years later in September 2017, Puerto Rico underwent the Category 5 Hurricane Maria, killing an estimate of 800 to 8000 people and displacing hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans (Kishore et al., 2018). This dissertation project is the comparative study of Nepal’s and Puerto Rico’s networked communities, their actors, participants (Potts, 2014), and the users (Ingraham, 2015; Johnson, 1998) who used crisis communication practices to address the havoc created by the disaster. Using a mixed-methods research approach and with framework created with the Assemblage Theory (DeLanda, 2016), I argue that disasters create situations in which various networked communities are formed into transnational assemblages along with an emergence of innovative digital technical and professional communication practices.</p>