International bankers as diplomatic agents during the Napoleonic wars, an example of business diplomacy. How and why were the bankers of Hope & Co and Baring in the period from 1800-1810...Show moreInternational bankers as diplomatic agents during the Napoleonic wars, an example of business diplomacy. How and why were the bankers of Hope & Co and Baring in the period from 1800-1810 involved in diplomatic dealings and what were the effects of their involvement? This question is answered on the basis of three cases: the Louisiana Purchase, the Mexican silver and peace negotiations. Internationale bankiers als diplomatieke agenten gedurende de Napoleontische oorlogen, een voorbeeld van business diplomatie. Hoe en waarom waren de bankiers Hope & Co en Baring betrokken bij diplomatieke acties en wat waren de effecten van hun betrokkenheid? Deze vragen worden behandeld aan de hand van drie cases: de verkoop van Louisiana, het Mexicaanse zilver en vredesbesprekingen.Show less
The Dutch scientist and Nobel Prize winner Hendrik Antoon Lorentz (1853-1928) was thrust into the media spotlight at the beginning of the twentieth century for which he was not quite ready. The aim...Show moreThe Dutch scientist and Nobel Prize winner Hendrik Antoon Lorentz (1853-1928) was thrust into the media spotlight at the beginning of the twentieth century for which he was not quite ready. The aim of this thesis is to find out how the media took a scientific public like Lorentz and constructed a public persona for him, what virtues and abilities were associated with this persona, and how this persona changed as a result of new social developments. Furthermore, this thesis will also describe the rise and fall of personas after his death and in his legacy, up to and including how Lorentz is represented in museums today.Show less
Deze studie onderzocht de soorten kritiek die Nederlandse nieuwsconsumenten uiten op de nieuwswaarde van NOS-nieuwsartikelen op Facebook. De nieuwsselectie op sociale media wordt gebaseerd op...Show moreDeze studie onderzocht de soorten kritiek die Nederlandse nieuwsconsumenten uiten op de nieuwswaarde van NOS-nieuwsartikelen op Facebook. De nieuwsselectie op sociale media wordt gebaseerd op publieksmetingen aan de hand van clicks, likes, shares en reacties. Hierdoor heerst er een trend naar nieuwsverzachting. Door zacht nieuws te selecteren lijken nieuwsorganisaties te luisteren naar de wensen van het publiek. Echter, het geluid van kritiek op de nieuwswaarde doet vermoeden dat populariteit wellicht niet overeenstemt met nieuwswaardigheid. Om dieper inzicht te kunnen krijgen in de voorkeuren van nieuwsconsumenten, analyseerden we in deze studie online en offline publieksreacties waarin kritiek over het gebrek aan nieuwswaarde van NOS-nieuwsartikelen op Facebook wordt geuit. Ten eerste, categoriseerden we via een inhoudsanalyse 320 online kritiekreacties die verschenen onder dertig NOS-nieuwsartikelen op Facebook. Uit dit eerste onderzoek bleek dat er drie hoofdkritieksoorten voorkwamen in de online kritiekreacties: ‘onbelangrijk nieuws’, ‘niets nieuws’ en ‘onbetrouwbaar nieuws’. Ten tweede, lokten we via een ‘Think Aloud’-onderzoek de offline publiekreacties van zes deelnemers uit. Het uitlokken van deze reacties gebeurde door middel van blootstelling aan vijf NOS-nieuwsartikelen uit de steekproef van het eerste onderzoek. Opnieuw lieten we op die data een inhoudsanalyse los. Via deze analyse slaagden we er weer in drie hoofdkritieksoorten te ontdekken, namelijk: ‘interessant impliceert niet per se nieuwswaardig’, ‘nieuwswaarden geherformuleerd’ en ‘niets voor NOS’. Uit de combinatie van deze twee onderzoeken concludeerden we dat het volgens het publiek aan enkele geherformuleerde nieuwswaarden ontbreekt, wanneer er online algemene kritiek wordt geuit op de nieuwswaarde van de NOS-nieuwsartikelen op Facebook. Dit bleek uit de bevinding van het ‘Think Aloud’-onderzoek dat nieuwsconsumenten nieuws dat niet nieuwswaardig was niets voor de NOS vonden. Nieuwsconsumenten verwachten blijkbaar dat de NOS, zo ook op Facebook, voldoet aan een bepaald imago. Dit brengt bepaalde verwachtingen met zich mee. Opvallend is dat deze verwachtingen aansluiten bij de geherformuleerde nieuwswaarden, waarmee de nieuwsconsumenten ook nieuwswaardigheid definieerden. Daarnaast verklaarde de kritieksoort ‘interessant impliceert niet per se nieuwswaardig’ uit ons ‘Think Aloud’-onderzoek waarom nieuwsartikelen tegelijkertijd veel likes en kritiekreacties ten aanzien van de nieuwswaarde kunnen genereren. Of er echter daadwerkelijk overeenstemming bestaat tussen populariteit en nieuwswaardigheid, zou echter statistisch onderzocht moeten worden in volgend wetenschappelijk onderzoek. De inzichten uit deze studie kunnen door de NOS toegepast worden op haar nieuwsselectie op Facebook. Ze kunnen daarnaast andere nieuwsorganisaties aansporen om een diepere analyse te doen van de voorkeuren van hun nieuwsconsumenten. Op die manier kan dit onderzoek handvatten aanreiken voor een echte publieksverschuiving, oftewel een publieksgerichte aanpak voor het selecteren van nieuws.Show less
De manier waarop journalisten zich profileren is sinds de komst van sociale media sterk veranderd. Waar zij voorheen geacht werden om afstand tot onderwerpen en verhalen te behouden, is het...Show moreDe manier waarop journalisten zich profileren is sinds de komst van sociale media sterk veranderd. Waar zij voorheen geacht werden om afstand tot onderwerpen en verhalen te behouden, is het tegenwoordig vanzelfsprekend dat journalisten zich geopinieerd uitspreken en persoonlijke informatie delen op sociale platformen als Twitter en Instagram. Dit duidt op een verandering in de traditionele journalistieke waarden. Een verklaring hiervoor is, volgens de literatuur, de normalisatie van een nieuwe medialogica binnen de journalistiek, waaruit de wens ontstaat om een personal brand op te bouwen. Dit zou journalisten namelijk talloze economische, activistische en egocentrische voordelen opleveren, die zij in een tijd van toenemende concurrentie en economische crisis hard nodig hebben. Vooral freelance journalisten zouden hierbij gebaat zijn, omdat zij aan de hand van een succesvol online brand gemakkelijker opdrachten kunnen verkrijgen. Deze scriptie onderzoekt middels kwalitatieve interviews met tien freelance journalisten en een inhoudsanalyse van hun sociale profielen op welke manier zij zich profileren, hoe zij hun keuzes in hun online activiteiten motiveren en hoe zich dit relateert tot traditionele journalistieke waarden als ‘objectiviteit’, ‘transparantie’ en ‘autonomie’. De resultaten van dit onderzoek vormen een uitgebreide typering van het online gedrag van freelance journalisten en hun opvattingen over sociale media. Hieruit kan worden geconcludeerd dat de respondenten de traditionele journalistieke waarden niet zo zeer herdefiniëren, maar dat er onder hen wel duidelijke verschuivingen te zien zijn in de prioritering van de journalistieke waarden. Dit betekent dat waarden als ‘autonomie’ en ‘transparantie’ tegenwoordig belangrijker worden geacht dan waarden als ‘objectiviteit’ of ‘onpartijdigheid’. Met een nieuw paradigma als ‘constructieve journalistiek’ wordt de verschuiving van deze waarden verklaard en gerechtvaardigd. Daarnaast wijzen de respondenten op het vervagen van de conceptuele grenzen van de journalistiek en benadrukken zij het belang van subcategorieën binnen het werkveld. Zo heeft de specifieke journalistieke functie waar een journalist zich mee identificeert belangrijke implicaties voor de hantering van journalistieke normen en waarden. Toch blijkt personal branding voor alle respondenten niet het belangrijkste doel van hun sociaalmediagebruik, waardoor de invloed op de journalistieke waarden beperkt blijft.Show less
The incorporation of other-than-human agencies in artistic practice has become increasingly popular within artistic institutions worldwide. The proliferation of exhibitions involving living things...Show moreThe incorporation of other-than-human agencies in artistic practice has become increasingly popular within artistic institutions worldwide. The proliferation of exhibitions involving living things signals the willingness to challenge traditional understandings of the human and its positioning in the world. Particular scrutiny will be directed towards the hosting space of such creative endeavors, seeking to shed light on how alternative art institutions, rather than conventional art galleries, provide a particularly promising and prolific context for the overall meaning-making process of multispecies artistic interventions; more specifically, it will be described how those latter provide venues where heightened levels of exploration and ethicality can be attained. The aim of the study is to highlight how cultural institutions’ experimentations with multispecies placemaking lay foundations for the emergence of unprecedented community formations, conscious of the complex and interlinked nature of the societies we cohabit. Simply put, the core inquiry that anchors this thesis is: how do alternative art spaces contribute to our understanding of multispecies coexistence in urban communities?Show less
The shifting of workers from agriculture to other more productive sectors is defined in academic circles as structural transformation. Tanzania’s experience with structural transformation looks...Show moreThe shifting of workers from agriculture to other more productive sectors is defined in academic circles as structural transformation. Tanzania’s experience with structural transformation looks different. Instead of manufacturing, labour in Tanzania appears to move from agriculture to the services sector. This structural shift also differs from the development experience in other regions like the United States, Europe, and East Asia. Such a pattern drives us to rethink whether and how the development service sectors can function as an alternative path to achieve sustainable economic growth in Tanzania without a robust manufacturing sector. This research thesis adopts a mixed method between quantitative and qualitative approaches to understand the role of manufacturing, service and servicification activities in determining the pattern of structural transformation in Tanzania from 1961 to 2021. Two disciplinary approaches are combined. First, the historical description is adopted to present Tanzania’s economic development trajectory. Secondly, in this trajectory, methods and materials are adapted from economics, to show with macroeconomic data how the country’s national economy has evolved over time. Focus is placed on policies that were implemented as well as the turning points where shifts become obvious in national economic processes. This thesis found that the service sector could enhance Tanzania’s economic growth and development if linked to industrial activities, specifically manufacturing. In general, the structural transformation from agriculture to the industrial sector in Tanzania still generated the highest growth and gains in worker productivity, except after the Arusha Declaration between 1967 and 1985. It is difficult for late industrialised countries, such as Tanzania, which lacks a strong manufacturing core, to pursue industrialisation and compete with what East Asian countries have achieved. However, the servicification of manufacturing provides an opportunity to bypass the manufacturing stage and keep up with the recent trend of global industrialisation.Show less
Fugitive slave narrators operated as a textual community within the abolitionist movement to contribute to the construction of broad and coherent arguments for the immediate abolition of slavery in...Show moreFugitive slave narrators operated as a textual community within the abolitionist movement to contribute to the construction of broad and coherent arguments for the immediate abolition of slavery in the Southern states. According to the Oxford Dictionary, a textual community is "a place or social circle where manuscript texts are or were produced, read, and circulated by and for a certain group." Through the production of fugitive slave narratives, the fugitive slave textual community formed a coherent discourse within the abolitionist movement that sought to persuade northern readers to support the abolition of slavery through the pluralistic nature of the production of slave narratives and the construction of overlapping forms of consensus. At the same time, by presenting themselves to the outside world, the narrators created a new collective identity of (ex)slaves. It was precisely by not focusing entirely on forming antislavery arguments that it resulted in becoming one of the most powerful antislavery arguments: through the manifestation of political agency and collective identity by writing themselves into a shared history, there was both expression in resistance to slavery and an important form of identification with northern readers.Show less
This thesis sets out to compare several landscape drawings of artists that went to Italy and those that did not. Both groups are called Italianates, but that does not always mean that they saw the...Show moreThis thesis sets out to compare several landscape drawings of artists that went to Italy and those that did not. Both groups are called Italianates, but that does not always mean that they saw the landscape first hand. What are the differences between these groups and how can we tell them apart via visual analysis? Furthermore, this thesis aims to compare the watermarks of the drawings in order to provide a technical foundation before comparing the drawings on a visual level. The artists that have been selected for this comparison are Jan Both, Thomas Wijck, Nicolaes Berchem and Jacob van der Ulft, who are all born in the Northern Netherlands at the beginning of the seventeenth century.Show less
Since 2009, northeastern states in Nigeria have been heavily plagued by the insurgency group Boko Haram. Additionally, an upsurge in recruitment and radicalization among Nigerian youth can be...Show moreSince 2009, northeastern states in Nigeria have been heavily plagued by the insurgency group Boko Haram. Additionally, an upsurge in recruitment and radicalization among Nigerian youth can be observed. Subsequently, fear and distrust in youth among communities arise, where young Nigerians are perceived as inherently dangerous, feared to be involved with Boko Haram. The emergence this stereotype has profound implications for the position of youth in society and prompts questions regarding the factors that contribute to the perpetuation of this stereotype. Therefore, this research aims to explore how youth in northeast Nigeria are portrayed through public and policy discourse, especially in regards to Boko Haram. Employing Critical Discourse Analysis as the methodological framework, this research critically scrutinizesif the Nigerian media, politicians and policymakers depict youth as a threat to society. Findings of the discourse analysis reveal a prevailing negative rhetoric surrounding youth in northeast Nigeria. They are presented as a demographic who are often unemployed and excluded from society. Additionally, young Nigerians are consistently associated with recruitment, radicalization, crimes and involvement in violent extremist groups such as Boko Haram. All these components appear interconnected, revealing a vicious cycle of stigmatization and violence. Drawing upon securitization theory, this research concludes that media, policymakers and politicians wield their influence to portray youth as a threatening actor to society, contributing to the perpetuation of a detrimental narrative that further fuels stigmatization and marginalization of youth in northeast Nigeria.Show less
The prevalence of right-wing extremism (RWE) in the United States and Europe has risen in recent decades with the aid of online spaces. Online or “virtual communities” continue to attract...Show moreThe prevalence of right-wing extremism (RWE) in the United States and Europe has risen in recent decades with the aid of online spaces. Online or “virtual communities” continue to attract individuals from around the world by providing an environment where otherwise disconnected peoples may form a community. This paper looks at the white nationalist aspect of RWE which places an emphasis on racial categorization and nationalism as its ideological foundations. On the white nationalist forum Stormfront.org a thriving international community has formed in what initially appears to be contrary to the nationalistic and culturally homogentisic inclinations of white nationalism. This research asks how the Stormfront community’s discourse incorporates international members into the WN movement. Through a poststructuralist discourse analysis this paper finds that unifying racial perspective legitimizing the construction of a white identity frames locally perceived issues as part of global and increasingly existential threats. This paper emphasizes the impacts of globalization on white nationalist perspectives as they adapt their movement to a globalized environment. The parallelization theory of globalization is implemented to explain the parallel and often contradictory perspectives maintained by the community.Show less
Between 1914 and 1940, the SDAP dominated municipal politics in Amsterdam. Buoyed with the introduction of universal male suffrage in 1917 and the expansion of municipal tax powers in 1920, social...Show moreBetween 1914 and 1940, the SDAP dominated municipal politics in Amsterdam. Buoyed with the introduction of universal male suffrage in 1917 and the expansion of municipal tax powers in 1920, social democratic aldermen such as Wibaut and De Miranda sought to establish a welfare municipality in the capital. Through the municipalisation of basic necessities, housework, and social hygiene, and the provision of care for the sickly, elderly, needy, and unemployed, the alderman hoped to provide for the material welfare and mental well-being of the working-class. Municipal Socialism in Amsterdam was seen as a unique project in the Netherlands. However, the municipal socialist project in Amsterdam was inherently dependent on acquiescence of bourgeois parties in Amsterdam and the confessional national government in The Hague, not to speak of global developments and the world economy. Relativizing the uniqueness of Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague concurrently pioneered different aspects of municipal socialism in the face of similar shortcomings. Amsterdam’s greatest distinction was its incredibly effective advertisement of municipal socialism in publications throughout the interwar period, reinforced by the opposition it inspired in the national bourgeois press. Practically, while Amsterdam’s spending and earnings in municipal socialist fields was generally above average, the capital did not spend or earn significantly more than other social democratic municipalities across all municipal socialist fields. Nor did the capital significantly outperform the two other major municipalities in municipal socialist fields. Thus, while the municipal socialist project in Amsterdam may have financially been above average in the Interwar period, it was not unique, nor significantly different. However, we cannot deny the political and ideational impact of the municipal socialist project in Amsterdam on interwar political thought and post-war public memory.Show less
