The Eurovision Song Contest has, since its establishment in 1956, became a forum for European interaction and space where European identity is defined and performed. Participating states are...Show moreThe Eurovision Song Contest has, since its establishment in 1956, became a forum for European interaction and space where European identity is defined and performed. Participating states are expected to embrace the established shared norms and values, while presenting their cultural identity to a global audience. Examining Eurovision through mega-events theory, this thesis will answer: how are mega-events utilised by states and their critics to present and disseminate competing narratives on the host state’s identity and right to host? To do so, the 2019 contest in Israel will be examined as a case study to demonstrate how mega-events can be instrumentalised by states and critics. In doing so it also explores the dangers inherent in hosting a mega-event. This thesis will conclude that Israel utilised the hosting of the Eurovision Song Contest in 2019 as an opportunity to present a clear narrative of Israel as a legitimate and worthy member of Eurovision, and by extension Europe, by echoing the values of the contest. However, critics of Israel also utilised the same show to counter this narrative by challenging Israel’s adherence to Eurovision’s values and the ability of Eurovision to uphold its apoliticality when hosted by a controversial state. These competing narratives demonstrate how mega-events create a forum both for hosting states to disseminate their narratives and for critics to counter it, it also demonstrates how the values of a mega-event can be instrumentalised by critics to attack and delegitimate the hosting state.Show less
Ever since the start of the war on terror, governments worldwide have struggled with countering the narratives that are spread by violent extremist organisations. Recent academic research has...Show moreEver since the start of the war on terror, governments worldwide have struggled with countering the narratives that are spread by violent extremist organisations. Recent academic research has produced several prescriptions that indicate what aspects potentially successful counter-narrative, alternative narrative and government strategic communications programmes need to possess. Testing the scholarly recommendations on target audience, message, messenger and medium to the actual policies of Malaysia and Indonesia, it becomes apparent that the policies of both states are partially congruent with the dominant ideas in the literature. However, what both Malaysia and Indonesia lack is a clear delineation of target audiences based on level of radicalisation, the provision of alternative things to do to complement their alternative narrative programmes and a comprehensive strategy to combine online and offline measures to achieve the most sustainable effect. Still, when comparing the respective policies of the two states, it must be noted that Malaysia is more congruent with the scholarly prescriptions than Indonesia. The most important differences between the two states are that the Malaysian authorities showcase a more sophisticated awareness and application of the relevant academic definitions and take a rather comprehensive approach to providing government strategic communications, the latter of which is practically lacking in the case of Indonesia.Show less
This thesis touches upon the representation of the Maori within three different museums. One in the Netherlands, one in the United Kingdom and one in New Zealand. It discusses the presentation of...Show moreThis thesis touches upon the representation of the Maori within three different museums. One in the Netherlands, one in the United Kingdom and one in New Zealand. It discusses the presentation of the Maori through objects and how this reflects how the Maori are presented by these three museums using rhetoric within their displays. In this discussion the theory of the post-museum is added. This reflects upon if the museums are forward thinking in their presentation, but also behind the scenes.Show less
This thesis describes and challenges current narratives surrounding two Japanese artists, Kano Tan'yu and Ogata Korin respectively, ragarding their thematic and stylistic versatility and their...Show moreThis thesis describes and challenges current narratives surrounding two Japanese artists, Kano Tan'yu and Ogata Korin respectively, ragarding their thematic and stylistic versatility and their patron network by comparing these narratives with current scholarship. It shall show how certain associations with these artists have their roots in either non-academic or perhaps dated sources and how these narratives are being both perpetuated and challenged within the academic world.Show less
Story generation tasks and story retelling tasks are two examples of narrative tasks for children that can potentially provide information about pragmatic language skills. In the current study a...Show moreStory generation tasks and story retelling tasks are two examples of narrative tasks for children that can potentially provide information about pragmatic language skills. In the current study a comparison was made between a story generation task and a story retelling task. The main goal of this study was to determine differences in performance on the two narrative tasks. In addition, this study examines the validity and reliability of these tasks. The topic examined herein is important as pragmatic language skills play a major role in the development of children and have received little attention in the literature so far. The sample used in this study consisted of 51 children between 8 and 11 years old, of which 26 are boys and 25 are girls. Half of the children were given a generation task and the other half a retelling task of the Busstory from the Renfrew Taalschalen Nederlandse Aanpassing (RTNA). Parents were asked to complete the Children’s Communcation Checklist-2 (CCC-2) in order to investigate their children’s communicative skills and the interraterreliability was assessed for 18 narratives. A group comparison showed that for the story retelling task scores were higher for the narrative measures content, structure and mental state. During a retelling task, more relevant information was given by the children, they used more complex sentences and gave more insight into their mental state. The convergent validity with the CCC-2 was low. Furthermore, the intraclass correlation was acceptable, with the exception of the scores for embedding. In conclusion, this study showed that children perform better on the story retelling task. In clinical practise, the higher scores on the story retelling task can lead to a more complete assessment of narrative skills, which, in turn, can possibly lead to a more comprehensive view of pragmatic language skills. As differences do not exist between the reliability of the two narrative tasks, a choice between the two cannot simply be made and should take into account child characteristics. Finally, this study compares two different versions of the same narrative task (Busstory) and, in doing so, makes a novel contribution to the literature.Show less
