Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Public Discourse'
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1
Walsh, Clare. "Gender, discourse and the public sphere." Thesis, Sheffield Hallam University, 2000. http://shura.shu.ac.uk/3155/.
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This thesis aims to develop an analytical framework that will combine the insights of critical discourse analysis and a range of feminist perspectives on discourse as social practice. This framework is then employed in an investigation of women's participation in a number of 'communities of practice('Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 1992) previously monopolised by men. Comparisons are also made with women's involvement in organisations where they are in a majority and where a feminist ethos prevails. I argue that women often find themselves at odds with the masculinist discursive norms that masquerade as gender-neutral professional norms. This, in turn, has implications for the way in which women are perceived and judged by others, as well as for the roles they are assigned within the public sphere. With reference to selective transcripts of in-depth structured interviews with women in each of the domains under investigation, I suggest that the complex negotiations in which they engage in order to manage contradictory expectations about how they should speak and behave cannot easily be accommodated within a dichotomous model of gendered linguistic styles. Nonetheless, this is precisely how their linguistic behaviour is often 'fixed' and evaluated by others, especially by the mass media. I make reference to a wide range of texts from a variety of media in order to illustrate the role the media, in particular, play in mediating the perception of women's involvement in the public sphere and in (re)producing normative gender ideologies. The first case study focuses on women Labour MPs in the House of Commons. It includes a detailed analysis of the media coverage of Margaret Beckett's bid for the Labour leadership in 1994. It also considers whether the record increase in the number of women MPs in the wake of the 1997 general election has helped to make the Government's policy priorities more woman-friendly and/or has changed the culture of the House. The second case study on women's involvement in devolved politics briefly considers their contribution to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly, before focusing in detail on the contribution made by the Northern Irish Women's Coalition to framing the Good Friday Agreement and to the structures of the new Northern Irish Assembly. The third case study compares the structure and rhetoric of the London-based Women's Environmental Network and those of male dominated environmental groups, including Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace and the relative media coverage these groups receive. The final case study compares women's involvement in the Church of England as outsiders, campaigning for women to be admitted to priesthood, and as recently ordained insiders, whose subordination within Church structures is sanctioned by canon law. A central thesis of this study is that both the institutional constraints with which women have to negotiate and the stereotypical evaluations of their performance of public sphere roles have contributed to a process of discursive restructuring, whereby the gendered nature of the public/private dichotomy has been reproduced within the public sphere. However, women are not passively positioned in relation to the institutional and other discursive constraints that operate on them. I suggest that, they, in their turn, have helped to promote a counter tendency whereby the discursive boundaries between the traditional public and private spheres are becoming increasingly weakened and permeable. The study concludes by arguing for a more socially situated theory of language and gender to account for the constant tension that exists between the freedom of individuals to make choices within discourse and the normative practices that function to limit these choices.
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Jen, Clare Ching. "SARS discourse analysis technoscientific race-nation-gender formations in public health discourse /." College Park, Md.: University of Maryland, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/1903/8798.
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Thesis (Ph. D.) -- University of Maryland, College Park, 2008.Thesis research directed by: Women's Studies Dept. Title from t.p. of PDF. Includes bibliographical references. Published by UMI Dissertation Services, Ann Arbor, Mich. Also available in paper.
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Munier, Opitz Bénédicte. "Les discours sur l'allaitement en France et en Allemagne : d'un geste privé à un acte public." Thesis, Sorbonne Paris Cité, 2016. http://www.theses.fr/2016USPCB208.
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Cette thèse en analyse du discours a pour objectif l'analyse comparative et l'analyse critique du discours sur l'allaitement dans deux communautés ethnolinguistiques différentes : la France et l'Allemagne. La question à l'origine de notre recherche est la suivante : choisir d'allaiter est-il réellement un choix ou les femmes suivent-elles le chemin tracé par les auteurs ? Nous avons réuni un corpus composé de brochures institutionnelles et de guides parentaux. Dans notre travail, nous avons relevé la façon dont les auteurs de ces guides et brochures se placent dans leur discours ainsi que les arguments qu'ils mettent en avant afin de convaincre les femmes d'allaiter. L'étude des caractérisations du lait et de l'allaitement dans notre corpus de textes franco-allemands nous a permis de montrer que ces auteurs laissent peu de place au choix d'allaiter même si cette absence relative de choix ne se traduit pas de la même manière dans les deux communautés ethnolinguistiques étudiéesThe objective of this thesis in discourse analysis is a critical and comparative analysis of discourses about breastfeeding in two different ethnolinguistic communities: France and Germany. The original research question is: is the option of breastfeeding a real choice or do women follow the path lined up by authors ? We gathered a corpus composed of institutional booklets and parent's manuals. In our research, we have considered how the authors of these guides and booklets are positioning themselves in their discourses and the arguments put forward to convince women to breastfeed. The study of milk and breastfeeding characterizations in our corpus of French and German texts has allowed us to show that these authors leave little opportunity to choosing breastfeeding, even if this lack of choice is translated in a different way in the two ethnolinguistic communities studied
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Kuhn, Christina T. "Public Political Discourse in Roman Asia Minor." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2008. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.485459.
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The present thesis provides a historical analysis of public political discourse in the cities of Roman Asia Minor in the period between 30 BC until AD 250. It sheds light on the political, social and cultural contexts in which political speech was embedded (e.g. Roman rule, the power of the urban elite, the Second Sophistic, the philosophical schools) and shows how these contexts shaped and sometimes transfonned the nature, fonn, function, thematic scope and major concerns of political discourse in the imperial period. Starting from a study of the main protagonists and fora of political speech, the thesis examines the possibilities and limitations of political debate in the civic institutions, the function of political discourse as an instrument of exercising control of elite power, the issue of consensus and concord in civic politics, the aims of rhetorical training, the power of persuasion and perfonnance, and the development of an ethics of political communication with parrhesia and moral instruction as its basic features. On the evidence of the literary and epigraphic sources the present study argues that, despite the constraints of Roman rule, there was still a remarkable vitality of public political discourse in the councils, assemblies and courtrooms of the poleis due to the intense competitiveness among the urban elite and the recognition of the demos as a relevant political factor in the decision-making process. Civic politics continued to be oriented towards the concerns of the demos, and the key notions of democratic rhetoric and ideology remained a living political heritage in this period. It is against the background ofthis vibrant political culture that certain developments in the theory and practice of political discourse could increasingly gain ground: the intrusion and establishment of sophistic and perfonnative elements in political discourse, and, as a response to it, the emergence of a meta-discourse on the basic principles of political speech.
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Choo, Zhe Ming Benjamin. "Global imbalances in public discourse, 1943-1974." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2015. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.709178.
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Weir, Antony John. "Theatre as public discourse : a dialogic project." Thesis, University of Exeter, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10871/24167.
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This project aims to develop and explore questions of theatre as public discourse and the representation of England and Englishness in contemporary British theatre during the period 2000-2010. I present a dual focus in this practice-led research process, creating an original creative work, Albion Unbound, alongside an academic thesis. I describe the relationship between play and thesis as ‘dialogic’ with reference to the work of Mikhail Bakhtin. His ideas on language, subjectivity and authorship offer an insightful perspective upon the theory and practice of theatre-making, but Bakhtin himself makes a concerted claim for drama’s inherent monologism, generically incapable of developing genuine dialogic relations between its constituent voices. Chapter One explores the ‘case against drama’ and identifies the different senses of theatrical dialogism which emerge in critical response. Chapter Two considers Bakhtin’s work around carnival, the grotesque and the history of laughter, framed within a debate about the ‘politics of form’ in the theatrical representation of madness and mental illness. A key division emerges between political, discursive theatre and experimental theatre, as I question the boundaries of Bakhtin’s ideas. Chapter Three questions the nature of political theatre and its British traditions via Janelle Reinelt and Gerald Hewitt’s claim that David Edgar represents the ‘model’ political playwright engaged in theatre as ‘public discourse’. I focus upon three-thematically linked of Edgar’s plays, Destiny, Playing with Fire and Testing the Echo to engage questions of the ‘state-of-the-nation’ play and Edgar’s varied formal strategies employed in constructing his dramatic worlds and the political discourse he seeks with an audience. Chapter Four extends this debate to question the alleged ‘return of the political’ in new writing between 2000-2010 and specifically a body of plays which engage issues of nation and identity – those plays contemporaneous to Albion Unbound. Chapter Five provides a reflexive conclusion, elaborating upon the creative, collaborative process of making Albion Unbound, accounting for its successes and failures as a piece of contemporary theatre. I also reflect upon the relationship of theory and practice the project has developed, the dialogic relationship between thesis and play. Chapter Six is the play itself, as it was performed.
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Cable, Timothy J. "Luther and the Reformation of Public Discourse." Bowling Green State University / OhioLINK, 2010. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1276890073.
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Mundayat, Aris Arif, and risrif@yahoo com au. "Ritual and politics in new order Indonesia : a study of discourse and counter-discourse in Indonesia." Swinburne University of Technology, 2005. http://adt.lib.swin.edu.au./public/adt-VSWT20051129.093517.
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This thesis will examine the more active role played in Java by the urban wong cilik (the underclass; literally, the 'little people') in contesting the state�s authority,
particularly during the later years of the New Order regime, and following its demise in
1998. I will provide examples of social practices employed by the wong cilik in their
everyday lives and in their adaptation to periods of significant social and political
upheaval. These demonstrate the ways in which they are able to contest the state�s efforts
to impose its authority. These practices also develop and employ a variety of subversive
discourses, whose categories and values diverge significantly from the official language
of government. The examination of the relative linguistic, cultural and normative
autonomy of the seemingly powerless underclass reveals an extremely contested political
terrain in which the wong cilik are active rather than passive agents in urban society.
These ideas have developed out of urban field research sited around warungs
(sidewalk food stalls), urban kampongs and in the city streets of the three Javanese cities
of Yogyakarta, Surabaya, and Jakarta. These urban social spaces will be shown to be
significant for the underclass because they constitute sites through which they constantly
interact with diverse social groups, thereby sharpening their knowledge of the
contradictions and feelings of otherness manifest between the classes in Java�s large
cities. It will be shown how, in these spaces, the underclass also experience the state�s
attempts at control through various officially sanctioned projects and how the underclass
are able to subvert those projects through expressive means such as songs, poems and
forms of mockery which combine to make the state�s dominant discourses lose much of
their efficacy.
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Hill, Heather L. Budd John. "Outsourcing the public library a critical discourse analysis /." Diss., Columbia, Mo. : University of Missouri--Columbia, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10355/6126.
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Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on Feb 15, 2010). The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Dissertation advisor: Dr. John Budd Vita. Includes bibliographical references.
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LaBore, Catherine. "Can we deconstruct "race" in the public discourse?" Thesis, The University of Arizona, 1990. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/291681.
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The concept of 'race' is examined from its earliest uses in European languages through the era of 'racial' sciences in the nineteenth century. The meanings acquired by the word 'race' are shown to be related to scientific thinking which has since been discredited. The history of efforts to discredit or eliminate the concept in science by twentieth-century anthropologists and others is shown to be complete, but the persistence of the word in public discourse is noted. Ethnographic examples of the problematic nature of the concept are introduced. Results of a study of American college students' understandings of the word are examined, and implication and recommendations for future efforts to discredit its use are presented.
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Gentile, Francesca. "Speaking to Crisis: Intellectuals, Literacy, and Public Discourse." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/20682.
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This dissertation analyzes public-intellectual work that deploys crisis tropes in its treatment of literacy, arguing that such work provides insight into the influence that intellectual engagement might exert on discourse in the public sphere. From A.S. Hill’s lament that freshman entering Harvard in 1874 could barely construct a legible sentence to Stanley Fish’s charge that millions of college graduates earning degrees in 2005 did so without learning what a sentence was, the relationship between literacy and the communicative skills required of productive citizens has been a constant source of concern. Between these two historical moments, this relationship has been an undertheorized feature of debates surrounding racial uplift, feminist protest, and America’s role as a world power. When interlocutors in such debates minimize the significance of literacy practices, they encourage rhetorical action driven by a coercive conception of social crisis that limits critical engagement on the part of the public. I argue that the public intellectual’s capacity to facilitate rhetorically literate discursive exchange at the level of the mass public can transform the paralysis of crisis into possibility. I reframe well-known debates between W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington, Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem, and Mortimer Adler and Glenn T. Seaborg in terms of the rhetorical models they offer for responsible public-intellectual work.
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Peoples, Susan J., and n/a. "Farm women : diverse encounters with discourse and agency." University of Otago. Department of Geography, 2007. http://adt.otago.ac.nz./public/adt-NZDU20071127.160311.
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This thesis contributes to the established literature on farm women within the context of family farming. It recognises that not enough is yet known about the discourses and agency which influence their lives. Consequently, this study has sought to establish what dominant discourses shape the lives of farm women, their responses to these discourses and how their discursive positioning influences their agency.
This study employed a qualitative case study approach involving interviews with a diverse mixture of independent farm women, along with women farming in marital relationships. This thesis engages these narratives to showcase the colourful, complex life-experiences of farm women. In addition, and where present, women�s partners were interviewed to provide male farmers� perspectives about women in family farming.
This research has found that women�s lives are shaped by positioning and contextualising discourses, with which they comply to ensure that the family farm survives. Their subservient discursive positioning limits the agency they can express, although they are able to mobilise indirect agency through supporting their partner; an implicit form of agency which has previously been unrecognised or understated.
Cumulatively, this thesis highlights the need to recognise the diversity of farm women, and how they are able to exercise agency from their constrained subject positions within the family farming context. Furthermore it emphasises that agency is a dynamic, and far more varied concept than previously understood.
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Davies, Sarah R. "Scientists and the public : studies in discourse and dialogue." Thesis, Imperial College London, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/7715.
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Walton, Sara, and n/a. "Contesting natures : a discourse analysis of natural resource conflicts." University of Otago. Department of Management, 2008. http://adt.otago.ac.nz./public/adt-NZDU20080404.142212.
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This research explores the discursive formations involved in two environmental conflicts during which organisations were not permitted to carry out their proposed extractive activities. The conflicts were based on the West Coast of the South Island in New Zealand. The first involved sustainable native logging and the second was over the siting and extension of a gold mine.
Extensive archival and media searches were carried out to generate data on the conflicts. Interviews were also conducted to investigate the community position in more depth. The discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe (2001 [1985]) is drawn upon as a framework to make sense of the conflicts. This framework was particularly useful as it enabled a close and careful examination of the antagonisms and addressed some of the ideological and power concerns with stakeholder analysis. The analysis involved identifying nodal points, subjectivity, subject positions and floating signifiers, which enabled certain hegemonic constructions.
The two conflicts were considerably different. The hegemonic constructions were quite similar and the notion of �being green� emerged as an antagonism that was at the heart of the conflicts and a key to understanding why these business organisations were unsuccessful. That is, who or what is given meaning as �being green� negates and de-legitimates other activity that is not deemed to be green. In these conflicts business organisations extracting natural resources and subjects supporting these organisational activities could not be green - when being green was constituted in terms of the clean green discourse operating economically and socially within New Zealand (see Bell, 1996). Consequently, not being green was deemed to be outside of what we see as New Zealanders as being important and thus should not occur in this country.
This research has implications for business organisations in New Zealand dealing with greening issues, especially as external stakeholders can have considerable influence on organisational activities. Theoretically it argues for a discursive approach to organisational stakeholder analysis in order to address power and subjectivity and for the organisation and natural environment literature to recognise the possibility of multiple meanings of nature. In particular, this thesis contributes to current organisation studies literature by explicitly focusing on �nature� as a concept. It shows that the meaning attributed to nature is a political process which can have consequences for preventing or enabling significant business organisational activities.
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Haber, Rebecca. "Urban revitalization and healthy public spaces, a critical discourse analysis." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/33817.
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In the past decade, Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES) has been the target of the Vancouver Agreement and the DTES Revitalization Program – two programs aiming to revitalize the neighbourhood and create a healthy community. Planning interventions in public spaces have a unique position in this environment. Public spaces should be accessible to all; however, in the process of revitalization, low-income or otherwise marginalized residents are frequently excluded.
The purpose of my thesis was to critically assess the way revitalization efforts in the DTES envision healthy public spaces and contribute to (in)equitable conditions in the area. I have done this by describing how the language used in urban revitalization planning compares to the dialogue of low-income residents in representing public spaces in the DTES.
The use of language (i.e., discourse) contributes to understandings of places and their inhabitants. Features such as grammar and sentence structure reveal what issues are highlighted or suppressed, what assumptions are made, and how actions are justified. I used critical discourse analysis to analyze two sets of texts: 1) planning documents from the Vancouver Agreement and DTES Revitalization Program and 2) 6 interviews and 1 focus group with local residents on healthy and unhealthy places in their neighbourhood.
My results show that while the planning texts present revitalization outcomes as uniformly positive (e.g., economic revitalization, participation, and visibility of public spaces), resident interviews highlight aspects that serve to marginalize individuals (e.g., displacing homeless people) or eliminate activities that currently fulfill everyday needs (e.g., buying goods from street vendors). The planning texts combine the goals of community health and increased economic activity in the DTES; however, interviewees separate these goals and identify ways they are incompatible. In this way, the planning texts do not acknowledge inequality, and low-income residents do not recognize revitalization’s purported benefits.
Community health and local planning are connected, but the goal of improving health may not be compatible with some planning imperatives. This highlights the need to exercise caution in integrating health and planning efforts and ensure that community improvements are equitable, prioritizing people who need them most.
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Attar, Mohammed Arif. "A critical discourse analysis of the 'GM Nation?' public debate." Thesis, University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10443/1399.
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The increasing application of science and technology, while having reduced uncertainties and threats to mankind (like impacts of natural disasters), has also created new uncertainties in terms of risks and ethics. Environmental risks from new technological innovations and ethical questions raised by developments in genetics are the defining uncertainties associated with technology in our risk society. Also the current socio-economic order is a knowledge-driven one. This ‘knowledge-based’ society also implies that it is a discourse driven order, with language playing a more critical role in contemporary socio-economic changes than it has in the past. Policy makers around the world, in response to these new challenges to technological innovations thrown up by this risk society, have started moving away from expert-based governance of science and technology and towards governance based on transparency, public dialogue and democratic engagement. It is within this context that this research analyses, using a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) perspective, the largest ever public engagement exercise conducted in the UK – the 2003 ‘GM Nation?’ public debate on the possible commercialisation of genetically modified crops in the UK. The primary aim of conducting this piece of research is to have a better and deeper understanding of the process of engaging the public in policy-making on technological issues. This includes analysing the aspiration to normative democratic ideals of public-engagement exercises and the role of the public in technological transition. The aspect of relations of power and domination between participants in public engagement exercises has been largely neglected in the empirical literature and this research aims at exploring these aspects in detail through the use of CDA as a research method. The findings of this research point to the ideological influence of the discourse of the market or, more generally, the neoliberal discourse in the contemporary socio-economic environment in the UK. This research concludes that the agriculture regime in the UK continues to operate under the selection pressure of the economic discourse despite the emergence of niche counter discourses of sustainability in recent years.
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Penn, Gemma Louise. "Medicalization and representations of smoking in public discourse and images." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 1998. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/1503/.
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An approach to smoking through an analysis of its representations, grounded in the medicalization literature, highlights the inadequacies of a narrow medical perspective and some of its negative implications. This does not require that we abandon the medical discourse, but stresses the importance of setting it in a wider representational context. Drawing on the work of Saussure, Barthes, Eco and Foucault, the author constructs a theory of interaction amongst representations suited to both discourse and images. To investigate the medicalization of smoking, four empirical studies are reported which include quantitative and qualitative approaches to press reporting at both macro-and micro-levels, cigarette advertising and packaging. There have been medical representations of smoking since the introduction of tobacco into Britain. However, a thematic analysis of tobacco-related reporting in the Times newspaper (1946-1995) found that these representations have expanded and diversified, becoming increasingly linked to other representations (e.g. financial) and generating new themes (e.g. discrimination, litigation). Medical representations, however, are contested and subject to subversion by alternative representations, including libertarian and alternative medical constructions of smoking. These processes are investigated in a detailed structural and rhetorical analysis of a contemporary newspaper article, together with related correspondence and cartoons. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of 754 UK cigarette advertisements from four national newspapers (1946-1995) identified an increase in medical and packaging-related representations of smoking and a decrease in financial representations, representations of the act of smoking and of cigarettes as social currency. The final, questionnaire, study (with 60 participants) found, among other things, a clear and consensually-held system of health-related signification in contemporary UK cigarette packaging in ratings of packets. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the implications of medicalization for smoking-related policy and for the smoker, and of smoking for the medicalization literature.
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Berdayes, Linda E. "The Information Highway in Public Discourse: Stories in the Making /." The Ohio State University, 1996. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1487933245539515.
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Mutambanengwe, Simbarashe Abel. ""Totally unacceptable" : representations of homosexuality in South African public discourse." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1013259.
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The 1996 Constitution of South Africa is ranked as one of the most liberal and democratic constitutions in the world. The right to freedom of sexual orientation, equality and the freedom of association amongst other rights is in its Bill of Rights and are thus inherently assured and protected in post- apartheid, democratic South Africa. However, the Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community continue to face discrimination and prejudice despite this newly established constitutional order. The present study is interested in how, in the light of the equality clause in the South African constitution, homosexuality is represented and constructed in the South African media. The thesis examines representations of homosexuality between the years 1999-2013 in articles collected from the Independent Online media site which incorporates 30 newspapers. The approach focuses on the topics, overall news report schemata, local meanings, style and rhetoric of the news reports. The results of the study show that negative attitudes towards homosexuality are framed in three main ways: homosexuality is represented as "unAfrican"; "ungodly" and "unnatural". I argue that rather than extreme forms of violence (such as "corrective rape" and murder) directed against LGBT citizens being interpreted as the aberrant behaviour of a few, these need to be understood in the context of the circulation of the above justificatory narratives.
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Andrus, Brenda Olsen. "Utopian Marriage in Nineteenth-Century America: Public and Private Discourse." Diss., CLICK HERE for online access, 1998. http://patriot.lib.byu.edu/u?/MTAF,4596.
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Moorhead, Gavin. "Britain in Europe : a discourse-theoretical approach." Thesis, University of Plymouth, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/390.
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Previous research upon European integration has observed that Britain has an I awkward partnership' with the rest of the EU. However, these analyses have not addressed how this awkward relationship reflects a difference in political and governmental discourse between Britain and the other Continental European member states. This thesis will examine this divergence. To this end, it applies the discourse-theoretical approach developed by Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, and Slavoj Zi2ek. By applying the discourse-theoretical concept of social antagonism, it will seek to explain why these discourses are different and opposed. Possible solutions to this conflict will then be identified and explored. Inspired by Laclau and Mouffe's vision of a 'radical plural democracy', this research concludes by advancing a project for a universal European identity that embraces the liberal democratic principles of 'freedom and equality for all' and transcends the national antagonisms that have plagued Europe's past.
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Frey, Ronald Michael. "The tyranny of singularity : masculinity as ideology and "hegemising" discourse /." [St. Lucia, Qld.], 2004. http://adt.library.uq.edu.au/public/adt-QU20050114.114216/index.html.
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Gibbons, Pauline. "Discourse contexts for second language development in the mainstream classroom /." Electronic version, 1999. http://adt.lib.uts.edu.au/public/adt-NTSM20040203.155828/index.html.
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Compion, Sara. "Tuberculosis discourse in South Africa a case study /." Pretoria : [s.n.], 2007. http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-08222008-110053.
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Lo, Bianco Joseph, and joe lobianco@languageaustralia com au. "OFFICIALISING LANGUAGE: A DISCOURSE STUDY OF LANGUAGE POLITICS IN THE UNITED STATES." The Australian National University. Research School of Social Sciences, 2001. http://thesis.anu.edu.au./public/adt-ANU20020902.101758.
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This is a study of the discourse contest concerning the officialisation of English in the United States. It consists of an analysis of the language of that discourse shaped by a belief that discourse is a rather neglected but potentially illuminating area of examination of language and literacy policy. The study seeks to understand the processes and content of language policy as it is being made, or performed, and is influenced by a critique of the theory and practice of language policy which tends to adopt technicist paradigms of examination that insufficiently elucidate the politics of the field.
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Accordingly a systematic gathering of the texts of language disputation in the US was collected. These texts were organised in response to the methods of elicitation. Semi-elicited texts, elicited texts and unelicited texts were gathered and tested to be sure that they constituted a fair representation of the concourse (what had been said and was being said about the issue) over a 15 year period. Those statements, or texts, that had particular currency during the 104th Congress were selected for further use. An empirical examination of the subjective dispositions of those activists involved in the making of official English, or of resisting the making of official English, was conducted.
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This examination utilised the Q methodology (inverted factor analysis) invented by William Stephensen. The data from this study provided a rich field of knowledge about the discursive parameters of the making of policy in synchronic and diachronic form. Direct interviews were also conducted with participants, and discourse analysis of naturally occurring (unelicited texts) speeches and radio debates and other material of persuasion and disagreement was conducted.
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These data frame and produce a representation of the orders of discourse and their dynamic and shaping power. Against an analysis of language policy making and a document analysis of the politics of language in the United States the discourses are utilised to contribute to a richer understanding of the field and the broad conclusion that as far as language policy is concerned it is hardly possible to make a distinction with political action.
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The theoretical implications for a reinvigorated language policy theory constitute the latter part of the thesis. In the multi-epistemological context that postmodernity demands, with its skepticism about the possibility of disinterest, the thesis offers its own kinds of data triangulation, and the making central of subjective dispositions and political purposes and engagements of the principal anatagonists.
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Carbou, Guillaume. "Les médiations symboliques à l'œuvre dans les débats de société : l'exemple de l'accident nucléaire de Fukushima dans les commentaires d'actualité sur le web." Thesis, Toulouse 2, 2015. http://www.theses.fr/2015TOU20118/document.
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Cette thèse entend contribuer à la construction d’un dispositif théorique méthodologique pour l’analyse des médiations symboliques à l’œuvre dans l’espace public lors des débats de société. Dans un premier temps, nous proposons de discuter les conditions épistémologiques de l’analyse des discours circulant dans l’espace public pour dégager des formes idéologiques (au sens large). Nous montrons dans un second temps que les discussions entre internautes à propos du nucléaire, sur les sites de presse en ligne, après l’accident de Fukushima, sont structurées par un nombre limité de grands cadres d’intelligibilité que nous appelons « modes d’appréhension ». Ces modes d’appréhension n’apparaissent jamais vraiment sous leur forme canonique, mais se retrouvent par bribes dans la parole individuelle des internautes. Ils peuvent alors être reconstruits, dans une optique d’analyse argumentative du discours, par le regroupement de « topoï » épars en micro-univers de sens relativement consistants et cohérents. La mise au jour de ces divers modes d’appréhension, construits et perpétués dans la circulation discursive, permet à la fois de faire apparaître une partie des médiations symboliques de la communication sociale sur le nucléaire après Fukushima, de faire émerger les points critiques de la réflexion politique et philosophique sur le sujet, et d’observer quelques-unes des sédimentations idéologiques dominantes de notre modernitéThis thesis aims to contribute to the construction of a theoretical and methodological framework for the analysis of symbolic mediations which occur in the public sphere during public debates. Firstly, we discuss the epistemological conditions of a search for ideological forms shaped by the circulation of discourses. Secondly, we show that conversations about civil nuclear power among internet users on comment boards of online news websites are structured by a limited number of frames of intelligibility that we call "modes of apprehension". These modes of apprehension never occur in their canonic form: they only appear by fragments in the speech of individuals. Hence, an argumentative analysis of discourse can be used to rebuild them by reordering the multiple "topoï" in consistent and coherent universes of meaning. Bringing out these modes of apprehension, forged and perpetuated by the circulation of discourses, has three main interests : we highlight some of the symbolic mediations of the social communication about civil nuclear power after Fukushima ; we underline some of the main political and philosophical issues of the question ; and we examine some of the dominant ideological sedimentations of our modernity
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Chadwick, Andrew. "The Left, the Constitution and public discourse in Britain, 1900-1924." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.286280.
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Cross, Simon. "Mediating madness : mental illness and public discourse in current affairs television." Thesis, Loughborough University, 1999. https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/7252.
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This thesis examines the public character of television and the various ways it works as communication. Drawing on a case study of recent British current affairs programmes dealing with mental health issues it explores the interplay between television form and content. The first part acknowledges television as the pivotal medium of the contemporary public sphere and situates its various organisations of language and imagery at the heart of programme makers' attempts to produce meaningful and entertaining programmes. Against the grain of those who see television as an arational technology, a case is made for its relevance as a vocal space for all citizens. However, in the historical context of British broadcasting, the differential distribution of communicative entitlements entreats us to view access to discursive space as a principle which soon runs up against its limits. The second half of this thesis explores the shortcomings of this system in relation to `expert' and lay people's access to a public voice on mental health issues. The recent transition from the asylum to Community Care invites an intermingling of voices in which the authority of this or that brand of professional knowledge cannot be taken for granted. The re-entry of ex-mental patients into the community also provides programme makers with opportunities to promote new forms of social solidarity based on `thick descriptions' of the person rather than the patient. The case-study presented here suggests however, that participation in televised forms of debate and argumentation does not match the promises of post-modem rhetoric. Despite the airing of new voices and the presentation of new controversies, British television's treatment of mental illness continues to revolve around established hierarchies of knowledge and a depiction of the (ex-)mental patient as less than a fully cognizant citizen. Visual techniques play a crucial role in this process. By recycling familiar images of madness as dangerous and unpredictable, people with a history of schizophrenic illness remain enmeshed in a web of psychiatric 'otherness' which undermines their credibility as speakers.
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Knight, David. "Making planning popular : popular agency, online discourse and English public planning." Thesis, Royal College of Art, 2018. http://researchonline.rca.ac.uk/3485/.
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Making Planning Popular explores the extent to which the design of new forms of online communication platform might enable a more mutual, agonistic relationship between popular discourse and public planning in England. Building upon an analysis of extant ‘planning’ discourse on popular online forums in the UK, a process of research through design led to a prototype platform, Building Rights, which provides a provisional test of how such a relationship might be created and reinforced online, in a manner that builds on the sympathies and practices already present in the popular domain. By failing to address the dichotomy between planning and the popular, the promise of a wider citizen engagement in public planning made in the era of Localism (for instance DCLG, 2012A: 6) has not been fulfilled, both on its own terms and in the context of a wider societal rejection of extant models of representative democracy. Meanwhile, recent critiques of contemporary public planning and of the democratic project in which it sits, such as in the work of Colin Ward, Leonie Sandercock and Chantal Mouffe, strongly suggest that a more mutual, agonistic relationship between planning and its ‘people’ is not only possible but desirable. Can the planning system, or part of it, be reconceptualised as an ‘open’, ‘agonistic’ political space in which the role of the public is as vital as the role of the trained professional? Can the emerging paradigm of the ‘collaborative’ planner be fulfilled or expanded upon by exposure to the popular? Can the paradigm shift represented by the ever-increasing significance of social media, and new forms of design, be used to aid in these transformations? This research firstly explores contemporary popular on-line discourse related to building activity and built environment decision-making in order to explore how the English public currently relate to and understand the planning system, and the terms through which ‘planning discourse’ is actually undertaken using social media and online discourse platforms. In parallel, a design research practice led to the development of a prototype digital platform, Building Rights. To test this prototype, a charrette (a design workshop wherein the on-line life of the platform 3 could be simulated and tested) was staged, the results from which form an analysis of the potential and limitations of such platforms in reconnecting English public planning with its public. Making Planning Popular is the first investigation of popular online discourse concerning public planning, the first to explore popular perceptions of public planning within social media and online discourse, and the first to test the role of the designer in expanding the significance of that discourse in the transformation of the built environment.
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Dillehay, Tom D. "Big Voices and Little Voices of Public Forums in Andean Discourse." Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 2012. http://repositorio.pucp.edu.pe/index/handle/123456789/113481.
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This essay consider several themes related to public gatherings that require more attention by archaeologists. These are (1) the relations between elites and non-elites in public events, (2) what public gatherings indicate about the societies sponsoring them, (3) the social pluralism of public encounters and their wider context and meaning, and (4) some material correlates of public gatherings. Also considered briefly are some theoretical and methodological issues in Andean ethnography and ethnohistory that have relevance to public gatherings and their analogical value in archaeology. Examples from Peru and Chile are employed to demonstrate several points.El presente ensayo considera diversos temas relacionados con las reuniones públicas, las que requieren más atención por parte de los arqueólogos. Estos son: 1) las relaciones entre las elites y las individuos que no pertenecen a ellas en los eventos públicos, 2) lo que indican las relaciones públicas acerca de las sociedades que las subvencionan u organizan, 3) el pluralismo social de los encuentros públicos y su contexto y significado más amplios, y 4) algunos correlatos materiales de las reuniones públicas. También se consideran, brevemente, algunos temas teóricos y metodológicos en etnografía y etnohistoria andinas que tienen relevancia para las reuniones públicas y su valor analógico en arqueología. Se emplean ejemplos del Perú y Chile para demostrar diversos aspectos.
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Woodward, Marian. "Ditch the Witch: Julia Gillard and gender in Australian public discourse." Thesis, Department of Gender and Cultural Studies, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/9554.
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This thesis explores the interplay of gender, media, politics and women’s political representation in Australia. I examine how the Australian media has tended to reinforce rather than challenge dominant cultural aspects of Australian politics. Specifically, I analyse the ways in which Australian media has reflected women’s marginalisation in parliament. As Australia’s first female head of state, Julia Gillard’s term as Prime Minister provides a unique opportunity to analyse explicit and implicit ways in which gender has been used by media commentators in their assessment of her achievements. Analysis of the media’s treatment of Julia Gillard is used throughout the thesis, as her time in office exposed underlying conflicts surrounding gender and sexism in Australian media and public discourse. Media response to Gillard’s so-called Misogyny Speech is used as a particular case study. The thesis draws on a range of scholarship and commentary, including the works of Erving Goffman, Walter Lippmann, Pierre Bourdieu, Robin Lakoff, Anne Summers, Julia Baird, Pippa Norris and Marian Sawer, to construct a framework through which to examine the period of Gillard’s prime ministership. The last two writers (Norris and Sawer), inter alia, discuss the significance of women’s representation in parliament. In particular, the analysis highlights the significance of Anne Summers’ contribution to Australian feminism and draws on her Newcastle Speech (August 2012). I argue that Summers’ ideas and writing have been influential in shaping public discourse on Julia Gillard. I place the widely varied media responses to Gillard’s Misogyny Speech into a historical and comparative context to demonstrate the conflict within Australian society around issues of gender, feminism and female participation in public life.
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Wheelock, Daniel. "Unremarkable and uncontroversial? : climate change actions in advertising and public discourse." Thesis, Cardiff University, 2018. http://orca.cf.ac.uk/111864/.
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Despite widespread public awareness, climate change remains a low priority compared to other public issues. This study’s starting point is the normative importance of public discourse about climate change in representing and legitimising public actions as responses to climate change. The study also explores public connection, how and to what extent the public engage with public discourse about climate change. The study has two main elements: (i) a discursive content analysis of 55 corporate, governmental and NGO websites, based on advertising, a widely consumed form of media discourse that has received relatively little attention in this context; and (ii) 23 semi-structured public interviews. A small number of individual domestic emissions reduction actions, often framed as unremarkable and uncontroversial, dominated the media sample, reflecting corporate communicators domination of this discourse. The same actions were integral to interviewees’ understanding of climate change, not due to acceptance of their efficacy, but a lack of awareness of alternative forms of action. Five linguistic repertoires used to frame these actions in the media sample are described in detail. Public connection to climate change reflected the strength of people’s wider public connection, both their talk about public issues and the quality and quantity of their news use. Overall, public connection to climate change was weak, reflecting low media coverage and norms of ‘climate silence’ in everyday life, resulting in a lack of opportunities for climate talk or deliberation about climate actions. The study identifies the need for both greater opportunities for public involvement in agenda setting, and more public interest content, in both the media and academia. These weaknesses of public connection to climate change reflect many wider concerns about public connection to democratic politics. The study highlights the crucial role that the construction of public opinion plays in legitimising both specific climate actions and a wider shift to a low-carbon society.
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Triglone, Robyn J., and n/a. "The features of interactive discourse that characterise a reasoning-based teacher approach to classroom discussion." University of Canberra. Education, 1993. http://erl.canberra.edu.au./public/adt-AUC20061113.083357.
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This study takes a theoretical stance that relies on the notion that cognitive
development is predominantly a process of learning. The study rests
particularly on the Vygotskian theory that children learn within a social
environment by practising cognitive skills, under expert tutelage, that they
will later perform independently. If children are to develop skills in
reasoning the classroom needs to be a place where reasoning skills are
modelled, practised and reinforced. Certain features of interactive discourse
may have the effect of emphasising the content of a discussion at the
expense of the reasoning process and therefore of the practice of reasoning.
This study investigated the interactive discourse of a classroom discussion
that had reasoning as the sole objective of the discussion and identified the
discourse features that characterised the discussion. One experimental
kindergarten group and two experimental grade 1/2 groups were introduced
to a reasoning-based approach using the Elfie package. A discussion, based
on a children's story, was then held with these groups and with two
experimental kindergartens that had received no previous exposure to the
reasoning-based approach. Examination was also made of the discourse
features of a control kindergarten discussion and a grade 1/2 discussion.
Important differences were identified between the discourse features of the
control and experimental classrooms.
Analyses of the experimental discussions found a lower proportion of
teacher utterances that were psuedo questions, and that included evaluation
of pupil comments; a higher proportion of teacher invitations to explore the
logical implications of an idea; a higher proportion of pupil utterances that
were in response to other pupil comments and a higher proportion of pupil
utterances that included reasons.
Analyses of control discussions found that the prevailing pattern of
discourse involved teacher initiation (often a pseudo question) - pupil
response - teacher evaluation and re-elicitation. Discussion is included about
the role such a pattern plays in emphasising content at the expense of the
process of reasoning.
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Tregidga, Helen, and n/a. "Power and politics of organisational sustainable development : an analysis of organisational reporting discourse." University of Otago. Department of Accountancy and Business Law, 2007. http://adt.otago.ac.nz./public/adt-NZDU20071219.160116.
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This research begins and ends with a concern for the environment, in particular with unease about current constitutions of the organisation/environment relationship. This thesis explores the discourse of organisational sustainable development examining organisational representations of sustainable development and 'sustainable organisations'. How a group of New Zealand organisations have come to (re)present sustainable development and how they have come to (re)present themselves in relation to sustainable development within a set of reports is analysed. The analysis aims to problematise the discourse and challenge such constitutions by opening out the debate surrounding the 'meaning' of sustainable development within this organisational context. The research considers the role of organisational reporting in creating and maintaining organisational legitimacy, something which is underplayed in the current literature. The thesis makes a contribution to both theoretical development and analytical method through elucidating sustainable development and sustainable development reporting from a discourse perspective.
Discourse (in particular the influences of Foucault and Laclau and Mouffe) both frames and informs the analysis. The discourse of organisational sustainable development is examined through an analysis of an archive of organisational reports and the context of which they are a part. The archive consists of 220 organisational reports (both annual and standalone) from member organisations of the New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development from 1992-2003. The texts which make up the archive were selected as they represent 'important texts' in the discursive debate surrounding organisational sustainable development.
Six themes employed in the discourse when representing sustainable development are identified. These themes are: 1) enlightened self-interest and the business case; 2) organisational sustainable development as a balancing act; 3) organisational sustainable development as necessary and important; 4) being sustainable: a responsibility and/or obligation; 5) the challenge and opportunity of organisational sustainable development; and 6) sustainable development: a new or old concept. Overall, 'organisational sustainable development' represents a reweaving of the discourse of organisations and accounting and the discourse of sustainable development. 'Organisational sustainable development' is shown to be organisationally focused, and generally does not challenge the traditional rational economic objectives of these organisations.
Representations of 'sustainable organisations' within the texts are analysed to show how organisational identities are constructed in relation to sustainable development. Five representations are recognised; 1) 'sustainable organisations' as providers; 2) organisations as leaders in sustainable development; 3) 'sustainable organisations' as responsible and committed; 4) 'sustainable organisations' as protectors; and 5) 'sustainable organisations' as accountable and transparent. How the process and practice of 'sustainability' reporting serves in constituting the identity of 'sustainable organisations' is underscored.
Potential effects of such discourse are acknowledged. The hegemonic potential of the discourse is recognised along with an identification of the ideologically-laden assumptions embedded within the texts. In reflecting on the discourse and its effects, the thesis concludes on a pessimistic note regarding the form of sustainable development articulated and the unchallenging nature of this form of sustainable development on the current structures of organisations and organising.
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Donnison, Sharn, and n/a. "Discourses for the New Millennium: Exploring the Cultural Models of 'Y Generation' Preservice Teachers." Griffith University. School of Education and Professional Studies, 2005. http://www4.gu.edu.au:8080/adt-root/public/adt-QGU20061012.154401.
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This thesis examines the cultural models and discourses that a group of aspiring, primary school teachers in South-East Queensland employed to explain their current world and describe the likely development of their own careers and lives. Thirteen males and fifty-seven females, aged between 15 and 25, were involved in the study. All participants had expressed an interest in preservice teacher training with 77 percent of the cohort currently enrolled in a teacher-training program in the South-East region of Queensland, Australia. This study adopted a multi-method approach to data collection and included informal interviews, scenario planning workshops, focus groups, and a telephone survey. Initial pilot studies, incorporating informal interviews, preceded scenario planning workshops. Four males and eleven females were involved in six scenario planning groups. The scenario planning format, based upon Schwartz (1991), followed a seven-step approach whereby participants formulated and evaluated four possible future scenarios for Australia. These formed the stimulus material for the second stage of the study where thirteen focus groups critically analysed the scenario planning data. Interpretation of the data was underpinned by a framework based on an amalgamation of Gee's (1999) theoretical concepts of acts of meaning, cultural models, and Discourses and Bernstein's (1996) theoretical concepts of classification, framing, and realisation and recognition rules. The respondents exhibited five pre-eminent Discourses. These were a Technologies Discourse, Educational Discourse, Success Discourse, Voyeuristic Discourse, and an Oppositional Discourse. The group's Technologies Discourse was pervasive and influenced their future predictions for Australian society, themselves, and education and was expressed in both positive and negative terms. The respondents spoke of their current and future relationship to technologies in positive terms while they spoke of society's future relationship to technologies in negative terms. Their reactions to technologies were appropriated from two specific cultural resources. In the first instance this appears to be from their personal positive interactions with technologies. In the second instance the group have drawn from Science Fiction Discourses to predict malevolent and controlling technologies of the future. The respondents' Technologies Discourse is also evident in their Educational Discourse. They predict that their future classrooms will be more technological and that they, as teaching professionals, will be technologically literate and proficient. Their past experiences with education and schooling systems has also influenced their Educational Discourse and led them to assume, paradoxically, that while the process of education is and will continue to be a force for change, schools will not evidence a great deal of change in the coming years. The respondents were optimistic and confident about themselves, their current interactions with technologies, their future lives, and their future careers. These dispositions formed part of their Success Discourse and manifested as heroism, idealism, and a belief in utopian personal futures. The respondents' Voyeuristic Discourse assumed limited social engagement and a limited ability to accept responsibility for the past, present, and future. The respondents had adopted an 'onlooker' approach to society. This aspect of their Discourse appeared to be mutable and showed signs of tempering as the respondents matured and became more involved in their teaching careers. Finally, the respondents' Oppositional Discourse clearly delineated between themselves and 'others'. They were users of technologies, teachers, good people, young, privileged, white, Australian, and urban dwelling while 'others' were controllers of technologies, learners, bad people, older or younger, non-privileged, non-Australian, and country dwelling. Current reforms introduced by Education Queensland have stressed the need for a new approach to new times, new economies, and new workplaces. This involves having a capacity to envisage new forms, new structures, and new relationships. 'New times' teaching professionals are change agents who are socially critical, socially responsible, risk takers, able to negotiate a constantly changing knowledge-rich society, flexible, creative, innovative, reflexive, and collaborative (Sachs, 2003). The respondents in this study did not appear to be change agents or future activist teaching professionals (Sachs, 2003). Rather, they were inclined towards reproducing historical, traditional, and conservative social and professional roles as well as practices, and maintaining a safe distance from social and environmental responsibility. Essentially, the group had responded to a period of rapid social and cultural change by placing themselves outside of change forces. Successful educational reform and implementation, such as that being proposed by Education Queensland (2000), demands that all interested stakeholders share a common vision (Fullan, 1993). The respondents' Discourses indicated that they did not exhibit a futures vision beyond their immediate selves. This limited vision was at odds with that being espoused by Education Queensland (2000). This body recognises the importance of being able to envisage, develop, and sustain preferable futures visions and have developed futures oriented curricula with this in mind. Such curricula are said to respond to the changing needs of today's and tomorrow's society by having problem solving and the concept of lifelong learning at the core. The future towards which the respondents aspire is one where lifelong learning and problem solving have little significance beyond their need to stay current with evolving technologies. In reflecting on the respondents' viewpoints and the range of Discourses that they draw upon to accommodate their changing world, I propose a number of recommendations for policy makers and educators. It is recommended that preservice teacher training institutions take up the challenge of equipping future teachers with the skills, knowledges, and dispositions needed to be responsible, reflective, and proactive educators who are able to envisage and work towards preferable visions of schooling and society. Ideally, this could occur through mandatory Futures Studies courses. Currently, Futures Studies courses are not seen as an essential area of study within education degrees and as such preservice teachers are given little opportunity to engage with futures concepts, knowledges, or skills. The success of the scenario planning approach in this thesis and the richness of the issues raised through interactive engagement in imagining possible futures, suggests that all citizens, but particularly teachers, need to enlighten their imaginations more often through such processes.
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Laverack, Glenn, and edu au jillj@deakin edu au mikewood@deakin edu au wildol@deakin edu au kimg@deakin. "Addressing the contradiction between discourse and practice in health promotion." Deakin University. School of Social and International Studies, 1999. http://tux.lib.deakin.edu.au./adt-VDU/public/adt-VDU20040723.104140.
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The main theme of this thesis is the contradiction between discourse and practice in health promotion. Many health promoters continue to exert power-over the community through top-down programming whilst at the same time using an emancipatory discourse. The thesis has addressed this contradiction in three parts. The first part determines how the emancipatroty discourse has evolved and eplores the role of social movements in the development of contemporary health discourses and their influence on the legitimisation of empowerment. Central to this discourse is the empowerment of communities. To understand the role of this concept the thesis provides an interpretation of the different meanings of power and community, and the different levels of analysis of empowerment in the context of health promotion programming.
The second part identifies the nature of health programming and the dominance of top-down, and to a much lesser extent, bottom-up approaches. The thesis argues that these two approaches are not, and do not have to be, mutually exclusive. To address this issue the thesis presents a new methodology is situated within a framework developed for the accomodation of empowerment goals within health promotion programmes. The study also identifies the organisational areas of influence on the processs of community empowerment and it is these which are used for the assessment of this concept. Both the framework and the methodology address the contradiction in health promotion by making community empowerment operational within a programme context.
The third part of the thesis supports the rationale for the design of the methodology with field work in rural Fijian communities. The findings are presented as a composite case study to highlight the experiences of implementing the methodolgy and the main themes that emerged during the field work. the final chapter of the thesis brings together the central themes of the study and draws from these and 'emergent agenda' as a way forward for health promotion research and practice.
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Reimers, Eva. "Economic and Political Subjectivities in Public Discourses on Education." Linköpings universitet, Lärande, Estetik, Naturvetenskap (LEN), 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-93316.
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Purposes The present paper employs public discourses, in the form of policy documents from the OECD, EU and the UN, news and popular media, to explore how economic and political subjectivities simultaneously emerge and are obfuscated in the ubiquitous discourses on education that are dominated by neoliberal ideas (Ball, 2006; Buras & Apple, 2005). Perspectives and theoretical framework One point of departure are the notions of “interdiscursivity” and “medialization of politics,” which point to how discourses are rearticulated in different contexts, drawing on each other, and thereby both affirming and displacing each other, and to how politics is made intelligible in public media (Fairclough, 1995; 2000). Another point of departure is the notions of assemblages and flight lines (Deleuze & Guattari, 2004). These concepts enable us to understand the neoliberal education discourse as an open, ambiguous and undecided assemblage, and to explore how this assemblage makes possible differing educational aims and subject positions. Methods The argument is based on discourse analysis of transnational policy documents and news and popular media from different nations. The aim of the analysis is to explore what economic and political subject positions are made possible in these different data sets. Results and Arguments Although the tenants of neoliberalism are dominant, they are not totally hegemonic. In both the policy documents and the public media data, there are simultaneous articulations of a neoliberal educational discourse and a discourse of education as a tool to enhance democracy and create social justice. Furthermore, these discourses inform and are often intertwined with each other. The transnational policy documents predominantly articulate education as possibilities. There are, however, salient differences between the OECD and EU documents, and the UN documents. Although all emphasize what education can do for the nations, the former stress education as a prerequisite for economic progress, whereas the latter stress eliminating poverty, fostering democracy, and empowering individuals and subordinated groups. In this way, the OECD and EU documents constitute subjectivities in relation to a market focused on how learners can contribute to a growing economy, whereas the UN documents constitute political subjects who can contribute to society through political interventions. News and public media are dominated by articulations of an education system in a state of “crisis”. The arguments for these representations and the solutions brought forward are drawn from a neoliberal discourse focused on competition, marketization, free choice, and private initiatives, but there is also a parallel and intersecting discourse of education as a means to give subordinated subjects opportunities for a better life. However, these discourses mainly point to economic rather than to political subjectivities, who hold their future in their own hands by making the right choices and working hard. This is not completely unambiguous, as media representations, especially in the popular media, also depict resistance and constitute subjectivities who subvert the neoliberal hegemony and who insist on the political (Mouffe, 2005). These subversions open the door to notions of education as practices that not only stabilize, but also destabilize and change society.Class in neoliberal education discourses
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Lo, Bianco Joseph. "Officialising language : a discourse study of language politics in the United States." View thesis entry in Australian Digital Theses Program, 2001. http://thesis.anu.edu.au/public/adt-ANU20020902.101758/index.html.
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Malaspina, Marilinda. "How to say sorry: A corpus-assisted discourse study of public apologies." Master's thesis, Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, 2021.
Find full textAbstract:
In the last twenty years, the exponential increase in public apologies in high-visibility contexts such as politics and show business has led more and more scholars to define this era as the "Age of Apology". Apologies are a type of persuasive discourse which can constitute a flourishing field of study for linguists who wish to study the "language of persuasion". Through skillful use of rhetorical and linguistic strategies, in fact, a speaker can succeed in convincing and even manipulating the reader. The literature on apologies and persuasion is vast; however, the study of public apologies in corpus linguistics is still in its infancy and deals almost exclusively with political figures’ discourse. Therefore, the present study wishes to shed light on the strategies and language used in public apologies by other potentially influential figures such as celebrities and well-known corporations, in the hope of integrating, at least partially, the studies of public apologies. The method adopted in this dissertation falls under corpus-assisted discourse studies. Using a specialized corpus composed of public apologies published online in the last ten years (2010-2020), the aim of this paper is to analyze and unveil the possible linguistic, rhetorical and persuasive strategies present in such texts and to compare the language used with the one proposed and identified by the past literature of apologies. The analysis allowed us not only to observe trends already mentioned in the literature, but also to discover new patterns, like the frequency of words in the semantic field of learning or feelings, as well as to identify differences in the use of the language of public apologies by different categories of speakers.
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Clear, Mike, of Western Sydney Hawkesbury University, and of Health Humanities and Social Ecology Faculty. "Public discourse personal reality: disablement and a re-search for caring culture." THESIS_FHHS_xxx_Clear_M.xml, 1996. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/34.
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This thesis explored the lives of carers of disabled people, and the research process itself within the collaborative framework of a support group. It used as its data sources an extensive review of the literature, interview transcripts and fieldnotes from carers, participants from the local service system, and the records of meetings and activities of the Group over 5 years. The study highlights the way public discourse on deinstitutionalisation has so captured our consciousness on care of disabled people that the personal reality of care in the family home has been effectively lost. It traces the disordering discourses of disablement and their link with constructions of caring. The personal reality of care and the isolating nature of this union of caring and disablement was the primary research focus. This may be characterised by social loss, and a lifestyle bound up with disablement which involves a search for a supportive or caring culture. The isolation and exclusion of carers occurs behind the screens of apparently caring institutions such as marriage, family, community and the service system. In the search for a caring cuture carers find their lives bound up with that of state and service systems which offer some hope of a supportive response. Instead they invariably find that the culture is an alien one. The research informed attempts of the Group to explore improved forms of caring culture, and more relevant public policy approaches. The study attempted to bridge the gap between the process of knowledge construction and discourse, and the material experience of carersDoctor of Philosophy (PhD)
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Stedman, Alison. "The imaginary country: The Soviet Union in British public discourse, 1929-1943." Thesis, University of Canterbury. Humanities, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10092/5507.
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For historians of twentieth-century British affairs, the decade of the 1930s is very significant. It was marked not only by a devastating economic crisis at the outset, but also by the rise of fascism in Europe and the onset of the Second World War at its close. These issues were problematic in themselves, but Britain’s response to them was complicated still further by the deep divisions between the Left and the Right over socialism and over the Soviet Union. The presence of the USSR in the East and its influence in Britain loomed over the internal debates that took place, affecting British responses to difficult situations in drastic and far-reaching ways. People of both anti-Soviet and pro-Soviet persuasions were forced to account for events that did not tally with their most strongly held beliefs, hopes or fears.
This dissertation explores the ways in which British people of a variety of political leanings publicly processed and coped with the role of the Soviet Union in these debates. Using a range of sources including contemporary newspapers, books and pamphlets, I will trace the evolution of attitudes to the Soviet Union from 1929, the first year of the economic crisis, up until 1943, the high point of the Anglo-Soviet wartime alliance. My analysis will show how people with fundamentally different belief systems mirrored each other in their responses to intellectual challenges, and how interactions between different groups sustained or exaggerated each group’s response to the Soviet Union. I will also critique the analyses of some historians who have limited the parameters of their studies to take in only single groups or single events, and in so doing have become unfairly critical of individuals who struggled to process a large number of difficult and confusing events.
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Donahue, Hugh Carter. "Defining public discourse : the Fairness Doctrine and Equal Time in American broadcasting." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1985. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/73267.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1985.MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH.
Bibliography: leaves 301-314.
by Hugh Carter Donahue.
Ph.D.
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Oh, Harold S. "Principles of social justice : implications of religious epistemologies for public moral discourse." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.621795.
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Doak, Jennifer. "Al Gore, "An Inconvenient Truth," and environmental discourse in the public sphere." CONNECT TO ELECTRONIC THESIS, 2008. http://dspace.wrlc.org/handle/1961/5514.
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Clear, Mike. "Public discourse personal reality: disablement and a re-search for caring culture." Thesis, View thesis View thesis, 1996. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/34.
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This thesis explored the lives of carers of disabled people, and the research process itself within the collaborative framework of a support group. It used as its data sources an extensive review of the literature, interview transcripts and fieldnotes from carers, participants from the local service system, and the records of meetings and activities of the Group over 5 years. The study highlights the way public discourse on deinstitutionalisation has so captured our consciousness on care of disabled people that the personal reality of care in the family home has been effectively lost. It traces the disordering discourses of disablement and their link with constructions of caring. The personal reality of care and the isolating nature of this union of caring and disablement was the primary research focus. This may be characterised by social loss, and a lifestyle bound up with disablement which involves a search for a supportive or caring culture. The isolation and exclusion of carers occurs behind the screens of apparently caring institutions such as marriage, family, community and the service system. In the search for a caring cuture carers find their lives bound up with that of state and service systems which offer some hope of a supportive response. Instead they invariably find that the culture is an alien one. The research informed attempts of the Group to explore improved forms of caring culture, and more relevant public policy approaches. The study attempted to bridge the gap between the process of knowledge construction and discourse, and the material experience of carers
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Clear, Mike. "Public discourse personal reality : disablement and a re-search for caring culture /." View thesis View thesis, 1996. http://library.uws.edu.au/adt-NUWS/public/adt-NUWS20030529.110649/index.html.
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Thesis (PhD. Philiosophy)--University of Western Sydney, Hawkesbury, 1996."This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, University of Western Sydney, 1996." Includes bibliographical references (p. 288-306).
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Gong, Qian. "Revisiting the media public sphere in China : media discourse on income disparity." Thesis, University of Leeds, 2009. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.496542.
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Ackland, Terri. "How Discourse in Public Community College Documents Supports the Learning College Philosophy." ScholarWorks, 2015. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/1770.
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Since the late 1990s, community colleges have changed strategies to enhance student success, moving from a traditional faculty-focused teaching model to a student-focused learning paradigm using O'Banion's 6 college learning principles to define and guide the learning college model. However, it is unclear how much the model is being used by community colleges or shared with stakeholders. The learning college model, supported by transformational language research on decision making and innovative thinking, provided a conceptual framework for this discourse analysis study. The purpose of this study was to discover the extent to which the language of the learning college model is present on publicly available community college webpages. The 17 website samples were drawn from colleges officially identified as elite learning colleges. Linguistic coding facilitated by applying the 27 discourse analysis questions developed by Gee to encompass O'Banion's 6 college learning principles provided evidence of student-focused learning as a goal at community colleges. Results indicated that learning college principles were presented by all 17 colleges in the study, represented on different pages of their websites. Determining transparent and accessible evidence of the learning college on community college websites provided colleges with a starting point to consider their procedures and the experiences of their students when determining which school is best for them to attend. Students at colleges with a clear learning college mission have the opportunity to collaborate in their learning experiences and to construct knowledge in ways that enhance student success and goal completion, so identifying the presence of such schools can change students' college outcomes.
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Lusiani, Maria <1981>. "Formal planning rationality in public sector professional work: between discourse and practice." Doctoral thesis, Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, 2011. http://amsdottorato.unibo.it/3701/1/Lusiani_Maria_Tesi.pdf.
Full textAbstract:
Although rational models of formal planning have been seriously criticized by strategy literature, they not only remain a widely used organizational practice in private firms, but they have increasingly been entering public, professional organizations too, as part of public sector managerial reforms. This research addresses this apparent paradox, exploring the meaning of formal planning in public sector professional work.
Curiously, this is an issue that remains under-investigated in the literature: the long debate on formal planning in strategy research devoted scant attention to its diffusion in the public sector, and public sector studies have scrutinized the introduction of other management tools in professional work, but very limitedly formal planning itself. In fact, little is known on the actual meaning of formal planning in public, professional services.
This research is based upon a case of adoption of formal planning tools in a public hospital. Embracing a discourse analytical lens, it examines which formal planning discourse entered professional work, to what extent, and how professionals interpret it and engage with it in their practice.
The analysis uncovers dynamics of social construction of meaning where, eventually, a formal planning discourse both shapes and is shaped by professional practice. In particular, it is found that formal planning rationality largely penetrated professional work, but not to the detriment of professional values. Morevover, formal planning ‘fails’ as a tool for rational decision making, but it takes up a knowledge work and a social value in professional work, as a tool for explicitation of action courses and for dialogue between otherwise more disconnected parts of the organization.
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Lusiani, Maria <1981>. "Formal planning rationality in public sector professional work: between discourse and practice." Doctoral thesis, Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, 2011. http://amsdottorato.unibo.it/3701/.
Full textAbstract:
Although rational models of formal planning have been seriously criticized by strategy literature, they not only remain a widely used organizational practice in private firms, but they have increasingly been entering public, professional organizations too, as part of public sector managerial reforms. This research addresses this apparent paradox, exploring the meaning of formal planning in public sector professional work.
Curiously, this is an issue that remains under-investigated in the literature: the long debate on formal planning in strategy research devoted scant attention to its diffusion in the public sector, and public sector studies have scrutinized the introduction of other management tools in professional work, but very limitedly formal planning itself. In fact, little is known on the actual meaning of formal planning in public, professional services.
This research is based upon a case of adoption of formal planning tools in a public hospital. Embracing a discourse analytical lens, it examines which formal planning discourse entered professional work, to what extent, and how professionals interpret it and engage with it in their practice.
The analysis uncovers dynamics of social construction of meaning where, eventually, a formal planning discourse both shapes and is shaped by professional practice. In particular, it is found that formal planning rationality largely penetrated professional work, but not to the detriment of professional values. Morevover, formal planning ‘fails’ as a tool for rational decision making, but it takes up a knowledge work and a social value in professional work, as a tool for explicitation of action courses and for dialogue between otherwise more disconnected parts of the organization.