This thesis examines the construction of agriculture in 15 North Korean propaganda posters issued between 1995 and 2010 provided by the Willem van der Bijl collection. The analysis adheres to an...Show moreThis thesis examines the construction of agriculture in 15 North Korean propaganda posters issued between 1995 and 2010 provided by the Willem van der Bijl collection. The analysis adheres to an altered version of the Four Sites theory by Gillian Rose to connect the results to the relevant socio-political context to uncover change, continuity, and trends in the visual construction of agriculture. The analysis discovers three main results: a strong presence of patriarchal values, the reuse of old revolutionary symbols related to Kim Il Sung, and various specific agricultural campaigns that offer a window into the economic turmoil that is the 1990s and 2000s. It concludes that the construction of agriculture portrays a successful socialist agricultural system. But the posters also reveal the government’s attempt to cope with economic distress and prevent collapse by seeking to motivate North Korea’s adult population through posters.Show less
Visual research in communication studies regarding terrorism in the media has been overlooked. Television and other sources of broadcasting play a significant role in the media landscape and in the...Show moreVisual research in communication studies regarding terrorism in the media has been overlooked. Television and other sources of broadcasting play a significant role in the media landscape and in the understanding of the public. The way terrorist incidents are reported and communicated can alter or influence the perception and perspective of the public. An increased understanding of the way the media reports a terrorist incident visually is as vital. The visual side is as important to the understanding as the written text. With the use of a case study, the Paris attacks of the 13th of November 2015, and a theoretical framework by Kress and van Leeuwen (2015) this thesis will attempt to shed light on the way different broadcasts use visuals and what they can potentially do with their viewers. By analyzing 18 videos of three different broadcasters using the qualitative data analysis software Atlas.ti an answer will be formed to the research question. The codes that are applied to videos originate from the framework and account for the pure visual aspects and includes added context codes. First, the broadcast is analysed separately and per dimension the most noteworthy codes are discussed with example. Also, the implications for the viewers will be elaborated. The findings, and thus the answer to the research question, indicate that all three broadcasters utilize visual elements that try to establish a connection between the represented participants in the footage with the viewer. Relying on the closeness of the shots of the victims but also on reactional vectors in narrative processes that try to convey a story and involve the viewer in the situation.Show less
In the People's Republic of China, the state takes a didactic approach towards the diffusion of media and forbids the depiction of homoerotic relationships on the big and small screen. Chinese web...Show moreIn the People's Republic of China, the state takes a didactic approach towards the diffusion of media and forbids the depiction of homoerotic relationships on the big and small screen. Chinese web series "The Untamed" (Chen Qing Ling 陈情令) however adapts a web novel containing an explicit homoerotic romance to public acclaim. This exploratory study examines how the directors of this series navigated government censorship and conveyed the homoerotic subtext between the two protagonists. In order to answer this, the thesis makes use of visual discourse analysis (divided into the layers of the image, the soundscape and the montage) on shot protocols as outlined as in Schneider (2012) while also building upon the theoretical frameworks of Van Leeuwen (1996; 2008), Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006) and Iedema (2004). The analysis is contextualized by a literature review spanning the topics of the history of homosexuality in China, the importance of representation and television, homosexual representation in the Chinese media landscape to end with the topic of the state approach to media and censorship mechanisms of web series. The thesis concludes that the directors successfully depicted homoerotic subtext by using a wide range of audio-visual and narrative techniques while leaving enough space for deniability, which might bring about more adaptations of such materials and influence public opinion about homosexual individuals.Show less
