Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has put many political leaders in the spotlight. While almost all countries struggled to mitigate the virus, predominantly the well-capable democratic countries...Show moreBackground: The COVID-19 pandemic has put many political leaders in the spotlight. While almost all countries struggled to mitigate the virus, predominantly the well-capable democratic countries acted indecisively and were reluctant to respond. Autocratic countries, in contrast, performed better, especially in the first eight weeks after the outbreak. Interestingly, every country worldwide adopted a somehow different crisis response strategy, but they had one thing in similar: broadcasting a national television address to inform the nation. Due to the extremely high number of views, every word matters, and hence it sparked the interest to dive deeper into this correlation between language and the citizens' trust and compliance. Methods: For this study, a content analysis was conducted on these live addresses to the nation. Throughout the research, a comparative political perspective is used to discover possible similarities and differences between the two regimes. In total, speeches of eight countries were analyzed with a mix between inductive and deductive codes (China, Vietnam, Russia, Niger, U.S., France, U.K., Germany). Findings: Four primary themes emerged: sentiment towards the virus, attempts to achieve obedience, described strategy, and expected timespan. All leaders spread their deep concerns, however, autocracies leaders more often emphasized the high risks of transmission, and did not downplay the risks one single time. Contrastingly, in the democratic speeches forms of reluctance were spotted, which directly or indirectly can lead to a lower level of obedience to the restriction measures. Democratic leaders also appeal to the population more emotionally, in contrast to the more descriptive and aggressive autocratic rhetoric. Furthermore, penalizing disobediences was mentioned often by the autocratic leaders and solely once by the democratic ones. Also, whereas 'flatten the transmission curve' is mentioned as the primary goal of the democratic leaders to find a balance between the health impact and economic impact, the autocracies state that totally 'defeating' the virus is the goal, disregarding the economic impact. What seems prevalent is that almost all leaders do not back their described timespan with the factual data. As a result, statements that the crisis is almost over, or just at the start, lack the evidence and appear to be vague estimations or guesses.Show less
What determines beauty? What determines that a grandmother leans down to her granddaughter, affectionately pats her cheek and tells her that she would be pretty, were she a little bit lighter? Who...Show moreWhat determines beauty? What determines that a grandmother leans down to her granddaughter, affectionately pats her cheek and tells her that she would be pretty, were she a little bit lighter? Who determines that a young man or woman do not get the job because their face does not exuberate enough youthful cheerfulness? Who determines that at 173cm tall and 58.9kg, Miss Korea 2018, Soo Min Kim was called “too fat and not pretty enough” to represent Korean beauty by the public? The main goal of this thesis is to discover if advertisement of skin whitening products and cosmetic surgery created a homogeneous beauty ideal in South Korea.Show less
In deze scriptie doe ik verslag van een diachroon onderzoek naar genderrepresentatie in lesmethodes voor Nederlands als tweede taal (NT2-methodes). Hiervoor heb ik gebruik gemaakt van inzichten uit...Show moreIn deze scriptie doe ik verslag van een diachroon onderzoek naar genderrepresentatie in lesmethodes voor Nederlands als tweede taal (NT2-methodes). Hiervoor heb ik gebruik gemaakt van inzichten uit de Critical Discourse Analysis. Ik heb drie moderne NT2-methodes onderzocht en vergeleken met drie lesboeken uit de beginjaren van het NT2-onderwijs (jaren 1970/1980). Ik heb dit gedaan door een inhoudsanalyse te combineren met een grammaticale analyse (transitiviteitsanalyse). Uit de analyse blijkt dat vrouwen in de moderne NT2-methodes vaker voorkomen dan in de oude methodes en dat mannen en vrouwen minder stereotiep worden gerepresenteerd (minder stereotiepe beschrijvingen en minder stereotiepe verdeling van agentiviteit).Show less
