In 2016, Taiwan was on the verge of becoming the first in Asia to allow same-sex marriage. An amendment aimed at changing marriage definition in Civil Code has passed the first-round reading in legislative committee in 26 December 2016. However, although Taiwan is seen as one of the most gay-friendly places in Asia, the same-sex marriage bill has generated intensive debates among citizens. And mas

By answering the questions (1) What are the underlying reasons for choosing to migrate irregularly rather than regularly, and what are the implications of this choice? and (2) How and under what structural conditions are Cambodian migrants and their households using remittances? this study seeks to understand labour migration and development interactions in Cambodia, by examining why migration and

The way a society remembers its past is crucial for how it deals with its present. Migration is one of these historically continuous events that produce memory cultures, which affect how refugees and migrants are perceived today. This thesis presents a case study of mediated memory cultures of migration in Germany. Mediations of migration history from two strikingly similar periods of condensed so

This thesis aims to explain how Chinese females’ are aware of their identities and feminism in a new media age. The study will answer the question through the case study of Girls’ Day and Women’ Day. The approach I adopt to solve the problem is qualitative research. More specifically, I will use semi-unstructured interviews to gain data and then utilize coding and summaries. Identity is a key conc

The phenomenon, in which algorithms preselect information, can be observed in most as-pects of our everyday life. More and more decisions are left to computational processes without human intrusion. This development raises concerns about ‘algorithmic power’ and human agency within an ever more digitalized world. While much of the research around algorithms is committed to their technical understa

This thesis aims to examine the complex relationship between the realm of politics and media during a ‘terrorist event’ in Turkey by focusing on the politics of fear and the power relations between two. The research uses Critical Discourse Analysis as a primary method to analyse political communication and media coverage of a ‘terrorist attack’ in Turkey. In 6th of September 2015, a military conv

The usage of new media spaces has a strong impact in contemporary politics and democracy as political messages are largely exchanged through new communicative spaces of media. These democratized media spaces are also used for counter-democratic communication by right-wing populists around Europe. This thesis is a case study of the Estonian right-wing populist media platform Uued Uudised. The artic

Climate change has become an increasingly prevalent topic of discussion within the media. In recent years, a variety of NGOs and social movements have called attention to this global environmental issue, but the resulting action has been insufficient. This thesis explores how modern environmental organisations have readjusted their approach to citizen mobilisation according to the demands of a med

Axis cameras can detect motion and track object, but lacks object classification. This often gives rise to false alarms, which are triggered by non-human activity. The cameras cannot tell the difference between a tree blowing in the wind, which is a non-human activity, and a person breaking an entry, which is a human activity. This becomes a problem as false alarms can be resource consuming for op

This thesis explores the relationship between news media and trust from the perspective of the individual audience member using the term “fake news” to do so. This thesis set out to understand how audiences were engaging with and defining the term “fake news” in our contemporary media environment and if and how this was affecting their overall engagement with news media. To do so, the study used a

Cambodian migrants in the Thai construction sector, work in precarious working environments, with limited safety conditions and low wages. The use of social protection schemes has increased in recent decades, as a method of reducing the vulnerable against poverty and livelihood risks. However, despite the transformative potential of social protection, migrant workers face difficulties in accessing

With the emergence of the digital spaces, modern society has been witnessing the transformation of the public sphere, which is mostly altered by the new means of communication. Simultaneously, civic discussions that are taking place within the public sphere, are inevitably going through the same transformation and are now more and more often found in the digital spaces. This thesis is taking on th

To colonize novel environments, species need to adapt. However, if suitable phenotypes are not already present in the population, the population may go extinct before adaptive mutations emerge. Phenotypic plasticity offers a mechanism for species to mitigate effects of selection and to maintain a viable population size under stressful conditions. This may in turn increase the chances of future ada

Teaching quality is a vital key to education quality and student learning outcomes but few can agree on how to achieve it. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to analyse the efficiency of short-term training provided to teachers working in schools (i.e. in-service teacher training) with the objective of improved teaching quality in Cambodia. This was achieved in three steps. First, teac

Through qualitative interviews with ten study participants, this research investigates connections between the theme of artificial intelligence on HBO’s Westworld, and issues of identities of its audience members. The thesis critically examines audience engagement with complex television dramas. It begins by the analysis of industrial contexts of narratively complex serialized fiction. First, it p

The release of Beyoncé’s 2016 visual album Lemonade was one of the most talked about pop culture moments of the year. The album went on to become the highest-selling album of the year. Aside from commercial acclaim, the album was also successful in generating much talk within various circles about its focus on Black women and its political nature. The album’s release came at the height of increase

Indonesia has a history of hundreds of years revolving around the racism against its 3% Chinese ethnic minority—who are also known as Tionghoa. This circumstance engenders the racial-social order that has been shaping the attitudes and behaviours of the Chinese, both individually and collectively, in social, cultural, and political realms. The Chinese have become self-controlled and self-regulated

This research touches upon the influence of the museum as a media and the scepticist political framing of climate change in a U.S. context. By use of a two-step methodological approach, the thesis attempts to create a framework by which to understand the inner workings of the scepticist framing from a qualitative perspective. The thesis approaches the case from the onset that the case is the resul