29 research outputs found
Production of biogas - a manner of manufacturing
Advertising is commonly criticised for being pervasive, offensive, manipulative, harmful
and irresponsible. This thesis focuses on the subjective criticisms and complex issues
related to taste, decency, morality and offence, particularly as applied to, and
understood within, the public and non-profit contexts. It is positioned at the intersection
of marketing communications, marketing ethics, and social and non-profit marketing
and explores how shocking, offensive and/or controversial (SOC) advertising appeals
are interpreted, regulated and contested, by divergent groups of people. The approach
taken is inspired by stakeholder theory and its focus on ethical decision-making for the
betterment of all stakeholders. A mixed methods research design was adopted, resulting
in three studies and these are presented as three discrete articles.
Article I maps the field of existing research into SOC advertising and identifies gaps in
our knowledge by means of a systematic literature review. It offers a critical appraisal
of the field by highlighting definitional tensions, limited interdisciplinary work and an
overdependence on student samples, on quantitative analysis and on non-longitudinal
methodologies. It then proposes a series of remedies to these shortcomings. The second
and third papers continue this reparative work by conceptualising and analysing actual
SOC advertising interpretations and contestations.
Article II explores the interpretations and experiences of SOC advertising within the
regulatory context by analysing evidence from complainants, advertisers and regulatory
bodies. It then proposes and develops an interpretation of the implicit power dynamics
through which their contradictory interests overlap. The methodology underpinning
this chapter combines a thematic content analysis of a substantial archive of complaints
submitted to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) with an interpretation of case
adjudication reports influenced by the work of Michel Foucault. The findings suggest
that the regulation of SOC advertising prioritises the interests of firms and advertisers
by relegating the role of complainant to that of merely registering complaints.
The focus of Article III moves from the regulatory framework to the complained-about
advertisements themselves. It provides an innovative theoretical and methodological
approach to analysing SOC advertisements, rooted in the classic Aristotelian notion of
rhetorical appeals and figuration, by developing and analysing a carefully selected
example in detail. The analysis reveals an implicit NFP sector-specific appeal to ethos
and the importance of a complex appeal to pathos.
Each of the papers offers a different level of analysis of the often-contradictory
viewpoints represented by stakeholder groups involved in, or affected by, the use of
SOC advertising tactics. These viewpoints include academics, general consumers, the
vocal minority of complainants, the advertisers including the non-profit and public
organisations and the advertising creatives, and the advertising regulator. Taken
together, the papers amount to a thesis that makes an important contribution to debates
about the appropriateness, ethics, and application of SOC themes, formats and imagery
in social and non-profit advertising. By exploring the regulatory processes of the ASA,
an exemplary advertising self-regulatory body, it further contributes to the discourse
on self-regulatory practices and highlights an NFP sector-specific consequentialist
approach that appears to stifle the voice of the offended complainant. On a practical
level, this work has implications for advertising practitioners and advertising regulators
who are involved in producing and regulating advertising that uses SOC tactics
Intraplate seismicity in the western Bohemian Massif (central Europe): A possible correlation with a paleoplate junction
An array study of lithospheric structure across the Protogine zone, Värmland, south-central Sweden — signs of a paleocontinental collision
International audienceA small seismological array was installed on both sides of the Protogine Zone (PZ) in Värmland, south-central Sweden, to study the structure of the mantle lithosphere and lateral variations of its anisotropy. No distinct isotropic velocity anomalies were detected by tomography in the upper mantle around the PZ. The observed velocity variations depending on the direction of propagation can be explained by anisotropy within the subcrustal lithosphere on both sides of the suture. The best solution of a joint analysis of anisotropic inferences from teleseismic P-residual spheres and an inversion of shear-wave splitting parameters, resulted in 3D self-consistent anisotropic models of blocks of the subcrustal lithosphere. The anisotropic structures within the lithosphere are approximated by hexagonal models (kP=5%) with low-velocity symmetry axes. The high-velocity planes dip to the E in a region westward of the PZ and to the NW eastward of the PZ. The PZ can be interpreted as a steep and narrow suture cutting the whole lithosphere and separating the two anisotropic blocks of different origin