Female genital mutilation: multiple-case studies of communication strategies against a taboo practice

This thesis examined female genital mutilation (FGM) in Africa and the global movement to eliminate the practice. Despite three decades of concerted efforts, behavior change of FGM-practicing population has been small. This thesis outlined international actions and how they influenced activities at the national and the local level.;A textual analysis of secondary sources revealed that the international community, guided by concerned UN organizations and large donor groups, define FGM as a violation of human rights and set a uniform goal to completely eliminate all forms of FGM. By coordinating actions not only at the international but also at the local level, any alternative being raised by cultural relativists is strictly ruled out.;However, an in-depth analysis of strategies implemented at the local level found that less attention has been focused on the effectiveness of messages that are being introduced to FGM-practicing communities. In particular, the case studies found that introducing the concept of human rights, in most cases, failed to succeed. The human rights argument did not correspond to the local reasons for practicing FGM. The case studies showed that the abstractness of the concept needs to be tailored to the realities and experiences of the FGM-practicing communities. A large majority of communication strategies and theories followed the traditions of the dominant paradigm. However, upon implementation, many lacked community-driven behavior change. Implementation of theories and strategies that take a participatory approach are suggested in order to evoke community-based and community-led solutions to FGM. Finally, this thesis suggests a decentralized model of behavior communication that permits greater flexibility of approaches to anti-FGM communication

Communicating development, branding nation in South Korea

This dissertation examines foreign aid-related activities of South Korea to demonstrate how the discourse and practice surrounding development is understood, interpreted, and enacted by an emerging donor. The past two decades have given rise to a diversity of development actors committed to doing good for their inter/transnational counterparts, evidenced in the multi-directional flow of development programs and funds to support such causes. Emerging from the multi-polar structure of the development landscape are a diverse range of articulations, motivations, and understandings guiding development aid. This has raised fundamental questions about how to approach and understand the geopolitical field of development at present moment in time, and the possibility of emerging actors to dismantle the dominant discourse of development. The scholarly field of development communication, however, has been slow to take such shifts into consideration. Following a critical approach to development communication, this study understands development as a discursive field where negotiation and struggle among different actors take place at multiple levels. Based on the theoretical understanding, this study examines South Korea’s development thinking and practice, specifically, in relation to its international development volunteer program. Drawing on a discourse analysis of multiple sources data, including news coverage that examines how development is discussed over time by Korean popular press, visual images of Korea’s volunteer program, and interviews with former volunteers, this study makes three points. First, geopolitical and domestic conditions over time have closely tied the understanding of development with nation building, where the two projects mutually constitute one another. Second, in examining how such enduring association of development with the national project is manifested in its representational practices of volunteer encounters, I show that the host becomes simplified, depoliticized, and romanticized, against which Korea is foregrounded as culturally rich, competent, and compassionate. Finally, drawing on an interrogation of multiple structural conditions that are implicated in development volunteering, I show the ways in which Korean volunteers navigate and complicate the dominant imaginaries of development, bringing new perspectives to nation, race, and gender in volunteer-host relationship.Radio-Television-Fil

TT‾T\overline{T} Deformation of N=(1,1)\mathcal{N}=(1,1) Off-Shell Supersymmetry and Partially Broken Supersymmetry

We construct the superaction for the $T\overline{T}$ deformation of 2D free $\mathcal{N}=(1,1)$ supersymmetric model with a deformed superfield. We show that the $\mathcal{N}=(1,1)$ off-shell is deformed under the $T\overline{T}$ deformation, which is reflected by the deformed superfield. We interpret this superaction as an effective action of the Goldstone superfield for the partial spontaneous breaking of $\mathcal{N}=(2,2)$ supersymmetry to $\mathcal{N}=(1,1)$. We demonstrate that the unbroken and broken supersymmetry of the effective superaction corresponds to the off-shell $\mathcal{N}=(1,1)$ supersymmetry and the off-shell fermi global non-linear symmetry in the $T\overline{T}$-deformed theory, respectively. We show that this effective superaction can be obtained by the non-linear realization of the partially broken global supersymmetry (PBGS) from the coset superspace. Furthermore, we reproduce the superaction by the constrained superfield method accompanied by a field redefinition.Comment: 33 pages; v2: reference adde

RISK-SHARING AS A LONG-TERM MOTIVATION TO FRANCHISE: ROLE OF FRANCHISING EXPERIENCE

This study aimed to examine a long-term motivation for franchising by considering the influence of experience franchisors gain through conducting the franchising strategy. The study mainly investigates the moderating effect of franchising experience on the relationship between three main motivations for franchising (derived from agency theory, resource scarcity theory, and risk-sharing theory) and firms’ degree of franchising in the restaurant context. Dynamic panel data model was employed and the findings suggest that not only do restaurant companies’ franchising experience positively affect firms’ degree of franchising, but also that those experiences positively moderate the relationship between risk sharing motivation and the degree of franchising. The findings lead to theoretical and practical implications and suggestions for future research

Cultural Mediation in International Exchange Programs: Personalization, Translation, and Coproduction in Exchange Participant Blogs

This study analyzes cultural mediation in international exchange participant blogs, exploring their significance for relational public diplomacy. We recognize exchange participant blogs as a site of public diplomacy at work. Moving beyond the dominant assumption guiding exchange programs as exporting values and ideas to foreign publics, we consider the extent to which the public engages in the processes of meaning making. Narrative inquiry of blogs written by participants of German and Japanese government exchange programs finds that the participants negotiate their everyday encounters with the host by personalizing, translating, and coproducing their experiences for and with the audience. The narratives convey a complicated and nuanced understanding of the host country that is interpreted through the lens of cultural and social identity embodied by the participants. The sequential and the fiction-like storytelling quality of the blogs transport audiences into the narrative world, resulting in enjoyment, emotional attachment, and identification with bloggers from their audience. © 2020 (Kyung Sun Lee and Diana Ingenhoff). Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd). All Rights Reserved

Mapping participation in ICT4D: A meta-analytic review of development communication research

We conducted a meta-analytic study of recent (2009 to 2020) information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) research in the field of development communication. Our aim was to explore the conceptualization of participation in the context of ICTs and globalization in contemporary scholarly discourse. We found that most studies published during this period evinced a technological deterministic discourse regarding the process of social change, privileging modernization and neoliberal modes of development. In such contexts, participation has often been conceptualized in terms of invitations to ‘access’ (first-level of participation) and ‘empowerment’ (second-level of participation) at the local level. Despite increasing concern regarding global digital inequalities, research that approaches participation in terms of claims to ‘social justice’ (third-level of participation) associated with global forces has been limited. We found, however, that research emerging from the communication and media disciplines have shown skepticism regarding the dominant trends. The paper concludes with a discussion of future directions in ICT4D for scholars across disciplines

Damped Population Oscillation in a Spontaneously Decaying Two-Level Atom Coupled to a Monochromatic Field

We investigate the time evolution of atomic population in a two-level atom driven by a monochromatic radiation field, taking spontaneous emission into account. The Rabi oscillation exhibits amplitude damping in time caused by spontaneous emission. We show that the semiclassical master equation leads in general to an overestimation of the damping rate and that a correct quantitative description of the damped Rabi oscillation can thus be obtained only with a full quantum mechanical theory.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure