Promoting Norway in social media in China: Visit Norway’s co-created storytelling on Sina Weibo

Social media has changed how tourists obtain information about destinations. Utilizing social media provides both opportunities and challenges for the promotion of destinations. In this Master’s thesis, I explored how the Norwegian national destination management organisation (DMO), Visit Norway, promoted Norway as a tourist destination on one of the most popular Chinese social media platforms, Sina Weibo. The focus of my study was on examining storylines and narratives posted by Visit Norway from 2018-2020 and on how Sina Weibo’s users responded to Visit Norway through comments and likes. My qualitative study was inspired by constructivism. Netnography and thematic analysis were employed as the research methodology of the study and the method of data analysis for examining the narratives of Visit Norway and users on Sina Weibo. Theoretically, this study drew on a conceptual framework consisting of four sociological concepts: storytelling, mobilities, performances and performativities. Through thematic analysis, I identified five themes: celebrity endorsement, impact of films and television series, “Mei” of Norway (“mei” is “美” in Chinese, which means beauty), “Xiang” about Norway (“xiang” is “想” in Chinese, which means expectation/willingness) and longing for “lixiangguo” (“lixiangguo” is “理想国” in Chinese, which means utopia/wonderland). This study demonstrates that stories based on these five themes attract the most attention from users and gain the most responses from Sina Weibo users. The study provides Visit Norway with a better understanding of the growing Chinese tourist market and give better insights into which types of stories capture social media users’ attention. Keywords: social media, DMOs, storytelling, Chinese social media user

Transitional Justice

Transitional justice refers to a variety of measures that aim to address large-scale or systematic human rights violations in societies emerging from repression or mass violence. This chapter reviews the interdisciplinary literature on transitional justice with a particular focus on empirical studies attempting to uncover its effects on individuals affected by violence and repression, including victims, perpetrators, and communities at large. We first consider retributive and restorative justice as two distinct notions of justice that are of primary concern in the aftermath of mass atrocities, and then zoom in on the psychological implications of major transitional justice measures. These measures include criminal trials, truth commissions, material and symbolic reparations, as well as grassroot and hybrid measures. In addition, we discuss the case of impunity, or the absence of transitional justice. Our review highlights the advantages and limitations of different transitional justice measures in promoting human rights, peace, and reconciliation, and identifies directions for future research

The Contagion of Interstate Violence: Perceived International Images and Threat Explain Why Countries Repeatedly Engage in Interstate Wars

Three experiments investigated the phenomenon of war contagion in the context of international relations, hypothesizing that past inter- (but not intra-) state war will facilitate future, unrelated interstate war. Americans showed stronger support for violent responses to new, unrelated interstate tensions after being reminded of an historical war between the U.S. and another state, as compared to an historical domestic war within the U.S. (Study 1). This war contagion effect was mediated by heightened perceived threat from, and negative images of, a fictitious country unrelated to the past war, indicating a generalized effect of past interstate war on perceived threat/images from any foreign country. The war contagion effect was further moderated by national glorification (Study 2). Largely replicating these effects with an additional baseline condition, Study 3 yielded further support for the generalized effect of past interstate war on perceived threat and images, this time with a real third-party country

Sense of Community in Mixed-income Housing Project in China--Learning from a Case Study in Beijing

This thesis is about sense of community in mixed-income housing project in China and uses a case study in Beijing for analysis. Sense of community in this thesis is defined as a feeling of people who feel they belong to their community, a feeling that they are attached with each other physiologically and would like to contribute to the community with their joint effort. The purpose of this research is to investigate how the sense of community is formed in mixed-income communities in China, to find a better way to strengthen the social cohesion in these types of communities, and to provide policy recommendations for the future mixed-income housing development. This research uses the Yupu community in Beijing as a case study. The research is designed in two parts, one is quantitative research using a survey conducted in the Yupu community, and the other is qualitative research by interviewing the local residents. The survey questionnaire is designed with the Sense of Community Index to measure the sense of community in the case study area. This research finds that affordable housing residents in the case study value their sense of community at a high level. However, in practice, they experience a relatively low sense of community because of the physical barriers and economic segregation in their neighborhood. The sense of community is formed and continues to grow through community participation during the process of residents' right protection movement. The developer and the government should take the responsibility and better plan for the mixed-income communities in the future

Application and Challenge of Cadmium Sulfide Photocatalytic Hydrogen Production in Artificial Photosynthesis

Cadmium sulfide (CdS), as an important photocatalyst, has high photocarrier separation efficiency and quantum efficiency, which makes cadmium sulfide have significant advantages and wide application prospects in the field of photocatalytic hydrogen production. This paper will explore the properties of cadmium sulfide (CdS), the mechanism of photocatalytic hydrogen production, and its application in artificial light synthesis, and discuss current challenges such as photocorrosion, quantum efficiency, and propose possible solutions