This research is geared towards analysing the portrayal of the Russian Communist party, the KPRF in the regional and federal newspaper Argumenty i fakty in the campaign preceding the 2016 Russian...Show moreThis research is geared towards analysing the portrayal of the Russian Communist party, the KPRF in the regional and federal newspaper Argumenty i fakty in the campaign preceding the 2016 Russian Election. It uses discourse analysis of three selected articles as well as second level agenda setting analysis of articles concerning the KPRF which appeared in the federal edition of AiF and in two of its available subsidiaries where the party respectively did best and worst, namely the Omsk and Kazan editions.Show less
The media has played a centripetal role in shaping public opinion and setting domestic and foreign affairs agendas. The Republic of Turkey is a ubiquitous factor in Greek historiography, nation...Show moreThe media has played a centripetal role in shaping public opinion and setting domestic and foreign affairs agendas. The Republic of Turkey is a ubiquitous factor in Greek historiography, nation-building processes, and foreign security policy. Throughout their unstable and fluctuating relations, the Greco – Turkish dyad has received copious media attention. In 2019 Turkey and Libya signed a maritime exclusive economic zone (EEZ) Memorandum of Understanding. Such a settlement allegedly balked the EU's planned project to enhance the EastMed pipeline and violated Greece's EEZ, consequently causing an intense media reaction throughout Greece. This thesis applies Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to the publications of Kathimerini and Ta Nea, Greece's most widely read daily newspapers. The analysis brings insight into the media's sociopolitical role, its position regarding the citizenry and the state, and Turkey's importance as an external agent that reinforces the Greeks' in-group cohesion. Considering Aristotelian topoi to approach CDA, the analysis indicates that the Greek media's narrative on the Turkey-Libya settlement frames (i) Turkey as a threatening 'other,' (ii) portrays Greece as the referent object, and (iii) rejects the validity of such a settlement under international law, reinforcing the previous two points.Show less
The prevalent phenomena of "leftover women" has gained increasing attention from the media and different scholars in Chinese society. The term "leftover women" refers to urban and professional...Show moreThe prevalent phenomena of "leftover women" has gained increasing attention from the media and different scholars in Chinese society. The term "leftover women" refers to urban and professional women who remain unmarried by the time they are in their late twenties or early thirties. This phenomena frequently addresses questions pertaining to why such working women are not married, whether they are willing to marry and their attitudes towards marriage. The Chinese media has also produced many dramatic television series reflecting the situation and marital prospects of leftover women. Within the media, these women are stigmatised as money-worshipers, snobbish or picky. However, it has become evident that leftover women present themselves online as economically and spiritually independent entities who prefer compatibility over financial security in their romantic relationships. Upon comparing depictions of such women in the media to their self-representations, this paper makes a twofold argument: on one hand, media representations controlled by the dominant male discourse are criticising women for being money-oriented and picky so they become losers in the marriage market. On the other hand, women have realised their right to freely choose their own partners and decide when to get married. Hence, the discourse of leftover women actually represents a conflict between traditional patriarchy and potential burgeoning of a women's rights movement in the PRC.Show less
Since the 1979 revolution, the idea that the West has been involved in a conspiracy against Iran has become one of the most important national myths of the Islamic Republic. In recent years this...Show moreSince the 1979 revolution, the idea that the West has been involved in a conspiracy against Iran has become one of the most important national myths of the Islamic Republic. In recent years this national narrative has found new meaning as the “soft war”. A modern iteration of the myth of foreign conspiracy, it stipulates that Western powers seek to infiltrate the moral fabric of Iranian society through Western cultural products and media channels and by extending support to Iranian civil society. Since the 2009 Iranian presidential election protests the soft war has become one of the defining features of Iranian governmental discourse. The election protests relied to a large extent on digital communication and social media platforms to mobilize the opposition to the re-elected president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-2013). The soft war narrative was the primary justification for the increasing control of the Iranian authorities over their country’s cybersphere which accompanied the regime’s crackdown on the 2009 demonstrations. While the topics of digital repression and the soft war during the terms of president Ahmadinejad have received their share of scholarly attention, a review their status under the current Iranian president of Hassan Rouhani is lacking. This thesis aims to fill this gap in the literature by analyzing how the soft war narrative has been used in Iranian governmental discourse to justify control of Iran’s media environment and in particular, control of Iran’s internet, during the tenure of president Rouhani as compared to during the Ahmadinejad era. Particular attention is paid to the legacy Western imperialism in Iran, factional politics in contemporary Iran and the influence of the country’s political economy on the Iranian state’s restrictions on internet freedom under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hassan Rouhani.Show less
After the end of the Cold War, US – Russia relations have been fluctuating. In recent years, they have been deteriorating, partly because of the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014. The...Show moreAfter the end of the Cold War, US – Russia relations have been fluctuating. In recent years, they have been deteriorating, partly because of the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014. The portrayal in the media of the other has become increasingly negative in both states, and public opinion polls show that an increasing number of Americans and Russians saw each other as “unfavourable” in the months after the annexation. The purpose of this thesis is to examine how the annexation was framed in both American and Russian news. It employs a deductive framing analysis, using five pre-defined, issue-specific frames, that were derived from the literature. The dataset consists of two articles each out of two Russian and two American newspapers. The thesis concludes that American and Russian news have framed the annexation differently: American news framed the annexation as an aggressive Russian act, whereas Russian news framed it as a result of the Crimean people freely expressing their will to reunite with Russia. As media has an influence on public opinion, the results of this research partly explain the decline of respective favourability in public opinion.Show less
The War on Terror was initiated by President George W. Bush as a response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The War on Terror was not just a concept, it was a range of strategies,...Show moreThe War on Terror was initiated by President George W. Bush as a response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The War on Terror was not just a concept, it was a range of strategies, ideologies and expectations to justify the American response to the attacks and an expression around which the American public could rally. It shaped the nature and the scope of the American counterterrorism strategy to the terrorist attacks, into a specific form of conflict. This thesis demonstrates what the two different counterterrorism strategies entailed, and the different interpretations President Bush and President Obama gave to the War on Terror. Bush approached the attacks as an ‘act of war’, and rationalized the event through the Just War theory. Whereas Obama framed the conflict as a ‘crime’, of which the perpetrators should be brought to justice, in order to end the conflict as quickly as possible. During his campaign, Obama gave the impression of a foreign policy strategy that radically moved away from Bush. However, Bush had embedded a strong hegemonic discourse regarding the War on Terror in society. This social structure was complex to change, since it was entrenched in rhetoric, media and real-life institutions. Thus, Obama faced great difficulty during his first term, in order to change this hegemonic discourse, and was severely limited in executing his intended foreign policy regarding the Middle East.Show less
