| 1. |
- Norén, Fredrik, 1984-
(author)
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"Framtiden tillhör informatörerna” : samhällsinformationens formering i Sverige 1965–1975
- 2019
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This dissertation is about the formation of governmental information in Sweden during the period 1965 to 1975. During this period information related issues were high up on the political agenda, in Sweden and internationally. I argue that the period is of particular interest in order to understand the impact and development of governmental information in Sweden, even for our time. One overreaching research question has guided this study: What ideas and practices characterized how and why the state disseminated information to the public? The thesis uses four tensions to study the formation of governmental information in Sweden during the late 1960s and early 1970s: (1) information as a solution – information as a problem, (2) dissemination of information – control over information, (3) information through mass communication – information through interpersonal dialogue, and (4) governmental information – commercial information. These tensions draw theoretically from John Durham Peters’ notions of communication.The thesis uses strands from three research fields: PR-history, cultural histories of media, and digital humanities. The four papers use different theoretical perspectives in order to shed new light on of the formation of governmental information in Sweden. Adding to that, and to theoretically tie the papers together, the thesis presents an overarching network perspective with a special focus on conceptual history as a means to better understand how governmental information was discussed as well as practiced. Different methods are used to study the formation of governmental information. The latter is partly because of the political issue’s porous boundaries and fragmented-oriented character, and partly due to the lack of previous research with a problematizing and historical approach to governmental information in Sweden. The thesis combines qualitative and quantitative methods to study different aspects how the state communicated with the public.This dissertation presents new findings about the formation of governmental information during the period 1965 to 1975. One regards the different intersections of governmental information. It shows that the production and dissemination of information from agencies to citizens was far from “pure” governmental information, and rather entangled with various actors from industry, academy and civil society. A second finding concerns the language of governmental information. Here, the dissertation shows – through large-scale digital text methods – how the concept of “information” exploded in usages from the 1960s and onwards, and how “information” as a discursive element infiltrated a growing number of political topics from the same period and onwards. A third finding centers on the media of governmental information. One result shows how broadly academics and bureaucrats defined the concept of media in relation to the practice of governmental information. All kinds of media devices, and not only the traditional news media, were considered important for the purpose of disseminating information on large scale to the public. Lastly, this dissertation reveals governmental information as without guaranties. Overall it shows how information from state agencies to citizens was generated through various conflicting tensions that have to be addressed, but without any hope of finding a balance free from communication problems. These problems tend to reoccur in different settings through history, also visible today. This result should however not be regarded as a pessimistic standpoint, rather it calls for modesty in terms of communication in general, and governmental information in particular.
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| 2. |
- Najem, Chafic T., 1991-
(author)
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Smuggle, Frame, Shoot : Illicit Media Practices and Visual Insurgency from Lebanese Incarceration
- 2023
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This research explores prisoners’ illicit use of digital-media technology during their incarceration in Lebanon. Prisoners smuggle cellphones and access internet and telecommunication connection to produce and mediate videos, images, and voice recordings documenting quotidian experiences of imprisonment, violent events, and the COVID-19 Pandemic inside the notorious and overcrowded Roumieh Central Prison. Fragmentary prison amateur cellphone media messages make their way from behind bars to various media ecologies, from social media to local and international news-media platforms, where they are (re)mediated and often appropriated to feed partisan and sectarian media narratives. In this dissertation, I investigate prison cellphone recordings and their political and testimonial possibilities by tracing the prison media practices responsible for their production and circulation. Influenced by Amel’s (1976, 1988) intellectual project of theorizing from the periphery and the lo popular approach to theorizing media with and from individuals’ media practices in their territory (Martín-Barbero, 1998), I propose a framework for the conceptualization of prisoners’ illicit use of digital-media technologies and the recordings they produce as media from the prison. Based on a foundation of media-practice theory, more specifically the articulation of activist media practices and mediation theory (Martín-Barbero, 1993; Mattoni, 2012; Mattoni & Treré, 2014), I introduce three overarching and overlapping conceptual themes: media witnessing, media mobilization, and vulnerability in resistance. Using this theoretical framework, I examine the categories, characteristics, and modes of framing reflected in prison cellphone recordings, explore their alignment with mechanisms of mobilization and organized protest, and consider them as visual and sonic recorded testimonies that document and communicate personal impressions and the conditions of quotidian life in confinement. The analysis draws on a qualitative, multi-method approach combining visual analysis and contextual interviews. Location- and event-based searches were used to systematically collect a corpus of prison cellphone recordings remediated between 2011 and 2022 on Facebook, YouTube, and local and international news-media platforms. I propose the notion of visual insurgency as a step towards understanding the role and function of recordings that are produced and mediated through inherently prohibited media practices. Through the examination of composition, POV, frame, sound, (re)mediation, and the partisan context of Lebanon and the colonial history of its prisons, I trace the illicit media practices responsible for these prison representations. I claim that, through their media practices, prisoners mediate from the prison testimonies of their lived experiences, expose their vulnerabilities to the precarious conditions they exist in, re-claim a sense of mundanity, and incite feelings of affinity to mobilize support. I conclude that prison cellphone recordings are the result of meticulous prison media practices that are intended to actively mobilize support and sympathy, as well as to establish communication networks with affiliates and media personnel. Prison media practices continue to grow as prisoners smuggle digital-media technologies, develop new approaches to framing their testimonies and shooting the precarious environment, stories, performative assemblies, and lived experiences behind bars.
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| 3. |
- Pamment, James, 1977-
(author)
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The Limits of the New Public Diplomacy : Strategic communication and evaluation at the U.S. State Department, Foreign & Commonwealth Office, British Council, Swedish Foreign Ministry and Swedish Institute
- 2011
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The new public diplomacy is a major paradigm shift in international political communication. Globalisation and a new media landscape challenge traditional foreign ministry ‘gatekeeper’ structures, and foreign ministries can no longer lay claim to being sole or dominant actors in communicating foreign policy. This demands new ways of communicating foreign policy to a range of nongovernmental international actors, and new ways of evaluating the influence of these communicative efforts. But where do the lines between old and new public diplomacies actually meet? How much current PD policy and practice conforms to older styles of communication, and how much can truly be considered new? What are the practical constraints upon the adoption of an entirely ‘new’ PD? This PhD thesis investigates the methods and strategies used by 5 foreign ministries and cultural institutes in 3 countries as they attempt to adapt their PD practices to the demands of the new public diplomacy environment. The question is not simply of how government actors have phased out their archaic old PD practices, but of how the continual need for short-term influence – for discernable impact, outcomes, value-for-money – complicates the paradigm shift. The case studies are based around an analysis of US, British, and Swedish strategies. Each chapter covers national policy, evaluation methods, and examples of individual campaigns. Material consists of 25 interviews with PD practitioners, detailed policy studies, reconstructions of 5 PD campaigns, and analysis of communication models and evaluation methodologies.
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| 4. |
- Gullström, Charlie
(author)
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Presence Design : Mediated Spaces Extending Architecture
- 2010
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis is a contribution to design-led research and addresses a readership in the fields of architecture as well as in media and communications. In juxtaposing the tools of the designer (e.g. drafting, prototyping, visual/textual/spatial forms of montage) with those of architectural theory, this thesis seeks to extend the disciplinary boundaries of architecture by observing its assimilation of other media practices. Its primary contribution is to architectural design and theory, and its aims are twofold: Firstly, this thesis applies the concepts of virtual and mediated space to architecture, proposing an extended architectural practice that assimilates the concept of remote presence. Through realized design examples as well as through the history and theory of related concepts, the thesis explores what designing mediated spaces and designing for presence entails for the practicing architect. As a fusion of architecture and media technology, video-mediated spaces facilitate collaborative practices across spatial extensions while simultaneously fostering novel and environmentally sustainable modes of communication. The impact of presence design on workplace design is examined. As an extended practice also calls for an extended discourse, a preliminary conceptual toolbox is proposed. Concepts are adapted from related visual practices and tested on design prototypes, which arise from the author’s extensive experience in designing work and learning spaces. Secondly, this thesis outlines presence design as a transdisciplinary aesthetic practice and discusses the potential contribution of architects to a currently heterogeneous research field, which spans media space research, cognitive science, (tele)presence research, interaction design, ubiquitous computing, second-order cybernetics, and computer-supported collaborative work. In spite of such diversity, design and artistic practices are insufficiently represented in the field. This thesis argues that presence research and its discourse is characterised by sharp disciplinary boundaries and thereby identifies a conceptual gap: presence research typically fails to integrate aesthetic concepts that can be drawn from architecture and related visual practices. It is an important purpose of this thesis to synthesize such concepts into a coherent discourse. Finally, the thesis argues that remote presence through the proposed synthesis of architectural and technical design creates a significantly expanded potential for knowledge sharing across time and space, with potential to expand the practice and theory of architecture itself. The author’s design-led research shows that mediated spaces can provide sufficient audiovisual information about the remote space(s) and other person(s), allowing the subtleties of nonverbal communication to inform the interaction. Further, in designing for presence, certain spatial features have an effect on the user’s ability to experience a mediated spatial extension, which in turn, facilitates mediated presence. These spatial features play an important role in the process through which trust is negotiated, and hence has an impact on knowledge sharing. Mediated presence cannot be ensured by design, but by acknowledging the role of spatial design in mediated spaces, the presence designer can monitor and, in effect, seek to reduce the ‘friction’ that otherwise may inhibit the experience of mediated presence. The notion of ‘friction’ is borrowed from a context of knowledge sharing in collaborative work practices. My expanded use of the term ‘design friction’ is used to identify spatial design features which, unaddressed, may be said to impose friction and thus inhibit and impact negatively on the experience of presence. A conceptual tool-box for presence design is proposed, consisting of the following design concepts: mediated gaze, spatial montage, active spectatorship, mutual gaze, shared mediated space, offscreen space, lateral and peripheral awareness, framing and transparency. With their origins in related visual practices these emerge from the evolution of the concept of presence across a range of visual cultures, illuminating the centrality of presence design in design practice, be it in the construction of virtual pictorial space in Renaissance art or the generative design experiments of prototypical presence designers, such as Cedric Price, Gordon Pask and numerous researchers at MIT Media Lab, Stanford Institute and Xerox PARC.
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| 5. |
- Spante, Maria, 1967
(author)
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Connected Practice: The Dynamics of Social Interaction in Shared Virtual Environment
- 2009
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis investigates the phenomenon of social interaction in shared virtual environments (SVEs), supported by virtual reality (VR) systems over time. SVEs are computer generated 3D graphical spaces where geographically distributed people can meet and interact with each other in a graphical space. Although there have been a number of studies about social interaction in SVEs, there has been a lack of research looking into changes over time, which this thesis does.In order to gain more knowledge about social interaction over the longer term, this thesis compares and contrasts four different types of VR systems that supported various SVEs. Two of the systems were internet based SVEs on desktop computers where many users could interact at the same time. One of the SVEs had voice based communication. The other SVE had text based communication. The other two were based in laboratory settings. One setting was networked immersive projection technologies (IPT) in which two participants performed a variety of tasks together. The other was one IPT connected to a desktop VR and participants changed systems half way through the trial in which they collaboratively solved a task together. In both settings voice based communication were used. Observations and other methods of analysis were carried out, focusing on differences and similarities in peoples behaviors in the process of social interaction over time in SVEs.The six papers contained in this thesis explore social interaction over time in shared virtual environments. This thesis argues that technology becomes not only a tool for social interaction; it also becomes a key aspect in social interaction. While the technology filters out some of the social cues we are familiar with from face to face situations, it also ‘filters in’ new cues that become important for how people can connect to each other in the shared virtual environment. Over time, these social cues, that people creates among themselves while using the technology, become essential for people learn about; otherwise they find it difficult to relate to each other and do things together in the shared virtual environments.The more difficulties people have in figuring out how to use the technology while interacting with others, the less they will accept the technology as an appropriate tool for connecting people and doing things together. The reason for this is that social and technical issues can only be separated analytically in shared virtual environments; in practice, as this thesis shows, they are highly intertwined.This thesis puts forward a dynamic model identifying the importance of looking more explicitly at individuals, technology, task and time while studying social interaction in SVEs. In this way, the thesis combines a number of insights both from previous social science theories of social interaction and practices - together with observations from the studies this thesis builds on. The thesis puts forward a concept that includes these insights - connected practice, defined as the dynamics of social interaction in technical systems. This concept can guide future studies to incorporate both technical and social aspects over time since it was shown to be the key to understanding the phenomenon of this thesis. It is finally suggested in the thesis that the concept connected practice can be utilized in other technical systems apart from SVEs in future research of social interaction in technical systems.
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| 6. |
- Dafgård, Lena, 1958
(author)
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Digital Distance Education – A Longitudinal Exploration of Video Technology
- 2020
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The context of this thesis is digital distance education. Distance education has developed from correspondence courses, based on letters sent by mail between student and teacher, to digital distance education with interactive video classes from anywhere, as long as a computer/tablet/smartphone and an Internet connection are available. The development of technology, particularly with the introduction of the Internet, has completely changed the possibilities for teaching, learning, interaction, and communication at a distance. Many technologies can be used in distance education, but this thesis aims to: Better understand the possibilities and limitations of video in digital distance higher education. The research has three elements of analysis: 1) video technology, 2) distance courses, and 3) distance teachers. Each allows a focus on how distance courses with video are designed and on teachers’ perspectives on the use of video in distance education. The first focus on course design is examined through two research questions. RQ1 asks, How is digital video used in distance higher education? When teachers design distance courses with digital video; a) which categories of video are used or not used? b) how much are these categories used? c) why are they used or not used? And d) how are they used? Complementing RQ1, RQ2 asks, How do course designers respond to the possibilities and limitations of video for distance higher education? Addressing the second focus of the thesis on teacher perspectives, RQ3 asks, What are the teacher’s attitudes and perceptions about the use of digital video in distance higher education? With a comprehensive literature review as a foundation, the results of this thesis include a classification system with two main categories; recorded and live video that is developed and used to orient an empirical investigation. The data for this investigation was collected through a national web-based questionnaire. Then, based on the survey, a specific higher education institution was selected for an interview study with teachers using video conferencing in distance courses in Teacher education. Interaction and communication are central concepts in this thesis, and the analytical lens combines the socio-cultural perspective and the theory of affordances. The results indicate that across types, video is mostly used as a supplement to other resources. Further, a correspondence is found concerning, on the one hand, teachers’ experience of distance education and participation in in-service training, and on the other hand, their use of video in teaching. In general, the most reported reasons why teachers do not use video are that it does not bring anything and takes too much time. Many of the constraints that teachers perceive are related to time; e.g. competition between an ambition to teach according to a student-centred approach but also a strong feeling of responsibility of delivering content to students. The technology of video has the affordances of mediating a teaching and learning environment similar to the one in the classroom, but conditions such as large groups or many students and the difficulty of perceiving non-verbal signals through video, affect the communication situation negatively and reduce possibilities of interaction. As a systematic study investigating the mainstream use of technology and media, this thesis contrasts with many other studies, which are often relatively small and local in nature, conducted by enthusiastic teachers investigating the use of one specific technology. The results show how the mainstream use of technologies such as video change conditions for distance teaching and influence how we think and interact with others and our environment.
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| 7. |
- Arnesson, Johanna, 1980
(author)
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FASHIONABLE POLITICS The discursive construction of ethical consumerism in corporate communications, news media, and social media
- 2018
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis investigates the discursive construction of ethical consumerism – a notion that encompasses both ‘conscious’ consumption choices and responsible’ corporate activities – in mediated discourses about fashion and clothing consumption in Sweden. Drawing on the discourse-historical approach within critical discourse analysis, the study provides an empirical examination of discursive elements in corporate communications, newspapers, and social media, which construct the market as the best solution to social injustice and climate change. The analysis focuses on how specific identities or practices are established as ethical, authentic, and legitimate, and investigates both the promises and the limits of discursive ethical consumerism in late capitalism. The thesis shows how corporate and journalistic discourses can be depoliticising, as they focus on consensus and collaboration rather than on conflicts of interest, and on individual responsibility and consumption choices rather than on political policy. However, the convergence of consumption and politics also becomes highly political when these issues are discussed by the audience. The approach places the thesis within a tradition of critical studies of branded politics and the neoliberalisation of contemporary societies, while still taking the reflexive awareness of politically motivated consumers into account.
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| 8. |
- Ezz El Din, Mahitab, 1972-
(author)
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Beyond Orientalism and Occidentalism : Identity constructions in Arab and Western news media
- 2016
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This study examines how the media construct the identities of the Other by creating various ‘us’ versus ‘them’ positions (Othering) when covering non-violence-based intercultural conflicts in Arab and Western news media. Othering in this study is understood as an umbrella concept that in general terms refers to the discursive process of constructing and positioning the Self and the Other into separate identities of an ‘us’ and a ‘them.’This process is analysed using a mixed method approach. A content analysis is used to map the data, and then a closer examination of the discourse is conducted using a qualitative approach inspired by critical discourse analysis. Two empirical studies are conducted based on this analysis: 1) the case of the Swedish newspaper Nerikes Allehanda’s publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohamed in 2007 and 2) the media coverage of the headscarf ban in French state schools in 2004. This study also employs Galtung’s Peace Journalism model as a frame of reference in the conclusions to discuss how this model could contribute, if applied in journalistic texts, to more balanced constructions of intercultural conflicts.The results show that Othering is a central discursive practice that is commonly adopted in both Arab and Western media coverage of non-violent intercultural conflicts, but it appears in different forms. Many of the previous studies have devoted considerable attention to rather conventional dichotomous constructions of Eastern and Western Others. The present study, in contrast, brings to the fore more non-conventional constructions and, while recognizing the occurrence of the conventional constructions, goes beyond these binary oppositions of ‘us’ and ‘them’. Variations in the types of identity constructions found in my study can be attributed to the mode of the article, the actors/voices included, the media affiliations and the topic and its overall contextualization.The different types of identity constructions in the media coverage may bring about a less black and white understanding of an event and help bring forth a more nuanced picture of what is going on and who is doing what in a conflict situation. Their occurrence in the media can possibly be linked to a new vision of a global society that does not necessarily constitute homogenous groups with the same characteristics, but rather is more consistent with a hybrid identity.This research is timely, as with the recent arrival of large groups of migrants from the Middle East, the ‘fear of Islam,’ and the right wing propaganda regarding Muslims as a threat is increasing. Islamophobia can be seen as a new form of racism used by elites to serve particular agendas. If media practitioners applied a more critical awareness in their writings so as not to reproduce culturally rooted stereotypes, which can inflame conflicts between people and nations, we might see less hostility against migrants and achieve a less racist world.
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| 9. |
- Pollack, Ester, 1954-
(author)
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en studie i... Medier och brott
- 2001
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- AbstractThe principal objective of this study is to provide a concrete historical illumination of the interplay between the media, crime and crime policy over the course of the last 50 years. A further important objective is to identify the boundaries of a field of research, ëmediated crimeí, lying between criminology and media studies, and to show how these two disciplines can stimulate one another.A critical examination of criminological and media studies theories on the relationship between crime policy, the media and crime indicates that, given the objectives outlined above, the most fruitful theories are those based on an institutional approach, that employ a contextual constructivist and historical perspective. The moral panic perspective lends itself particularly well to adaptations in this field of enquiry.A longitudinal study of crime journalism covering the period 1915 to 1955 examined crime texts from a one-week period every tenth year in four national daily newspapers. One of the major findings was that the crimes referred to vary over time in a way that cannot simply be explained by crime trends. A further series of contextualised, cross-sectional studies of the years 1955, 1975 and 1995, have focused on the discourse relating to the young offender and societal responses to youth crime. The legislative reform relating to the introduction of community service was included in the study of the year 1995. The media treatment of the juvenile crime issue is analysed in relation to crime policy documents. Several methods are employed, principal among them being a context oriented discourse analysis. The findings from the cross-sectional studies are presented in three time tableaux, where the focus is directed at synchronous relationships.In 1955, journalism served the notion of the national welfare state. There is a high degree of consensus between media content and crime policy. The period is characterised by an optimistic faith in the integration of young deviants into society. By 1975, journalism has become more independent. In both the media and the field of crime policy, there is criticism of the prison system, but also a spirit of optimism in relation to the possibilities offered by treatment programs. In 1995, journalism is a central social institution where the essentials of crime policy are dealt with and played out. Actors with an effective media strategy are able to create a major impact through the media at the same time as the media, on the basis of their own initiatives, have a large impact on the political sphere. The media are characterised by a tangible spirit of pessimism in relation to both the future and the possibilities offered by treatment, and this is linked to depictions of a youth culture of violence.One important finding is that changes in crime policy are better understood when one looks to the institutional interplay between crime policy and the media. The use of the term media panic is proposed as a more widely applicable concept than the moral panic, to relate to all forms of media constructed panic and hate phenomena that are of significance for the way society deals with crime.
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| 10. |
- Ferrada Stoehrel, Rodrigo, 1975-
(author)
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The mediation of affect : security, fear and subversive hope in visual culture
- 2016
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The overarching purpose of this study has been to problematise how visual practices and the mediation of affect is linked to the capacity to produce (new) perceptual realities, sensations and imaginaries, ultimately aiming to legitimate or counter-legitimate the hegemonic discourses and practices mobilised in the name of security. The first part of my thesis approaches this matter through an analysis of media cultures and discursive systems circulating within the court and the state military. Here, I discuss the impact of affect in the judicial-policial production of visible evidence (paper 1; published in the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law) and the state military (visual) narrative of threat (paper 2; published in MedieKultur: Journal of media and communication research). Additionally, as affect runs counter to hegemonic power relations as well as reinforces them, the second part of my thesis focuses on the way in which different resistance collectives cultivate affective dimensions through aesthetic practices in order to foster political attitudes that contest the established discourses of the (in)secure. Here, I examine the online activist group Anonymous’ visual political communication (paper 3; published in TripleC - Communication, Capitalism & Critique. Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society), and the Spanish movement Podemos’ visual and verbal discursive strategies (paper 4; forthcoming in Cultural Studies). In terms of theoretical and methodological approaches, I have my roots in, among others, Mouffe’s (2005) notion of conflict and (political) affect, Foucault’s (1980) concept of power/knowledge, and Thompson’s (1984; 1990) three-dimensional framework of ideology- analysis. In paper 1, my findings suggest that camera-produced images and technical and dramaturgical elements may have unintentional judicial consequences when they are read as evidence. I detail how this production of visible evidence can potentially stimulate and elicit emotional reaction, as well as discussing the degree to which pictorial crime evidence fails to be an instrumental and neutral representation of truth. In paper 2, my findings point in the direction where the military representation of the ‘Other as threat’ connects to aspects of economic globalisation and the (inter)national production of defence materiel. In article 3 (co-authored with Lindgren 2014) my findings suggest that citizen participation in public matters can be made engaging through the mobilisation of that which Anonymous calls ‘the lulz’; a tickling joy/pleasure (also, a sense of meaningfulness) of standing against power abuse through, for example, online direct action and culture jamming practices. Paper 4 explores the relationship between the affective and the visual using a broader security framework. Here, my findings indicate that Podemos’ discursive battle for social protection and economic security in a context of the crisis of political representation, is no longer framed through the traditional left-right conflict, but within the post- ideological (affective) articulation of ‘the new’ versus ‘the old’ and/or other discursive differences. I show how affect works as a potential for social change, by analysing the strategic production of a ‘We-Them’ discourse using Podemos’ take on social media and the media logic of mainstream television.
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