Erasmus University Thesis Repository
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Pilaar van de democratie of politieke echokamer?
No full textEr bestaan veel zorgen over een steeds verder dalend publieksvertrouwen in de journalistiek. Zo ook in Nederland. Maar volgens de statistieken staat de Nederlandse journalistiek er juist goed voor, en is de afname van vertrouwen onder het publiek juist klein. Deze masterthesis probeert daarom te achterhalen in hoeverre wantrouwen en vertrouwensgebrek een rol spelen in aard van publiekskritiek op NU.nl. Dit onderzoek maakt gebruik van kwalitatieve methoden om de onderzoeksvraag te beantwoorden, omdat een groot deel van de huidige literatuur over vertrouwen in de journalistiek zich beroept op puur kwantitatieve onderzoeksmethoden. Dit zorgt ervoor dat de complexiteit en nuance van een begrip als vertrouwen niet goed gevat wordt. Deze studie probeert daarom verder een deur te openen voor anderen om vertrouwen in de journalistiek te onderzoeken door een kwalitatieve lens, zodat het wetenschappelijke begrip van dit concept in verschillende nationale en nieuwsmediacontexten kan worden vergroot. Door middel van thematische analyse bestudeerde deze masterthesis 153 kritische publieksreacties afkomstig van NUjij, het discussieplatform van NU.nl, waar gebruikers commentaar kunnen leveren onder nieuwsartikelen. Ook werden alleen reacties bestudeerd onder artikelen uit de rubriek 'van de hoofdredactie'. Hierin schrijven de hoofdredacteur en adjunct-hoofdredacteur wekelijks artikelen met een 'kijkje achter de schermen', of om uitleg te bieden over bepaalde beslissingen uit de redactie. Een initiatief vanuit NU.nl om transparante communicatie met het publiek te verbeteren, en zo vertrouwen te versterken. Alle kritische publieksreacties zijn met behulp van codering gekenmerkt en gecategoriseerd, met zes verschillende thema's als eindproduct die elk op hun eigen manier de rol van vertrouwen aantonen in de kritiek van het publiek op NU.nl. Uit de resultaten kwamen meerdere interessante conclusies naar boven. Maar vooral werd duidelijk dat wantrouwen een beduidende rol speelt in de aard van publiekskritiek op NU.nl. Uit verschillende reacties op NUjij bleek namelijk dat onder meer een vermeend gebrek aan objectiviteit, pluriformiteit, en transparante communicatie vanuit de nieuwsorganisatie zorgde voor een groeiend gevoel van argwaan en verdenking bij kritisch publiek. Deze bevindingen zorgen werpt een nieuw licht op het gebied van kwalitatief onderzoek naar vertrouwen, wantrouwen, en vertrouwensgebrek in de Nederlandse journalistieke sector. En daarnaast bieden de conclusies uit deze masterthesis nieuwe inzichten voor nieuwsorganisaties als NU.nl. Zo kunnen de grootste bronnen van wantrouwen of vertrouwensgebrek doelgericht aangepakt worden, om het vertrouwen van hun publiek zo goed mogelijk te onderhouden, en de sociale relatie tussen nieuwsorganisatie en burger te verbeteren
Green, Healthy, or Cheap? Exploring How Claim Types Influence Purchase Intention
No full textIn recent years, there has been growing interest in sustainable consumption and the role of advertising in influencing consumer behavior. While surveys show increasing concern among consumers about environmental and health-related issues, a significant intention-behavior gap persists between stated intentions and actual purchasing decisions. This study explores whether advertising claims emphasizing health, environmental impact, product quality, or price influence consumers' purchase intentions for food products, and whether this relationship is moderated by individual differences in health awareness, environmental awareness, and perceived quality. To investigate these relationships, a between-subjects experimental design was employed with 234 participants, each randomly assigned to view one of four food advertisements featuring a distinct claim type. Participants completed validated scales measuring purchase intention, health awareness, environmental awareness, and perceived product quality. Manipulation checks ensured participants' attention and correct identification of the stimuli. Data analysis was performed via a regression. The study found that not all types of advertising claims are equally effective in encouraging consumers to buy food products. While health, environmental, and quality claims did not generally lead to higher purchase intention than price-related claims, the results showed that context matters. In particular, environmental claims were more persuasive among consumers who were already environmentally aware. Additionally, the perceived quality of a product strongly influenced people's willingness to purchase it, regardless of the claim shown. These findings suggest that tailoring marketing messages to match consumers' existing values and perceptions can improve the impact of sustainability-focused advertising. No significant moderating effects were found for health awareness. These findings contribute to the literature by reinforcing the importance of consumer segmentation in sustainable marketing strategies. While general claim effectiveness may be limited, environmental claims appear more persuasive among environmentally conscious consumers. From a practical perspective, this suggests that targeted messaging strategies-tailored to consumers' values and awareness levels-may be more effective in encouraging sustainable consumption. However, the study also notes several limitations, including the use of a fictional product, a one-time advertisement exposure, and a median-split method for categorizing awareness levels, which may reduce ecological validity and generalizability. Future research should test these findings in more realistic environments, potentially through longitudinal or field experiments that more closely mimic actual advertising exposure and consumer decision-making processes
In between Fact and Fiction
No full textStorytelling and politics have a complicated and intertwining history, especially when looking at the period deemed as the Golden Age of Piracy. Since pirates did not have great military power, they relied on different tactics. By creating stories to scare the merchants they preyed on into surrendering their cargo, they managed to mainly avoid an actual battle. Due to this common practice among pirates it has been increasingly difficult for historians to separate the facts from the legends within primary sources. However, historians have seldom looked at the political implication of these 'pirate legends' and how they were received among the public and the government in their time.
The focus of this research is what these sources, whether semi-fictional or not, imply and how they were used by both the pirates themselves and the government that prosecuted them. This brings us to the question: To what extent did the mythmaking and 'pirate legend' of Henry Every and Edward Teach shape English political decision-making about the prosecution of piracy during the Golden Age of Piracy (1694-1724)?
The issue has been addressed according to the method of Discourse Analysis of multiple and various primary sources concerning both the mythicization of these two pirates and the prosecution of piracy at the time, such as letters, proclamations and newspaper articles. Secondary sources were used in order to create a deeper sense of understanding of historical context in which these primary sources ought to be read. Furthermore, there has been made use of two case studies, that of Henry Every and Edward Teach (alias Blackbeard) to establish a chronological trend in the influence and usage of narrative of the 'pirate legends' of these two pirates.
Throughout the analysis and discussion of the sources we have found that the English government was not only influenced by the mythicization and 'pirate legend' of Henry Every and Edward Teach with regards to political decision-making concerning the prosecution of piracy, they equally made use of these legends. All in all, a certain trend of progression in the tactics by means of using 'pirate legends' by the English government has been established according to the two case studies, showing an advancement in the using narrative to influence public opinion with regards to piracy
Sculpting the Dead: Taxidermy in Different Contexts
No full textThis research relies on the main question of whether the audience's responses to taxidermy vary when appearing in different contexts in which it is displayed. It explores people's opinions adjacent to the exhibition of taxidermy mounts in various spaces, asking the participants to categorise images based on their connotations with each context. As the interviewees place their scores and their spaces on the works, their scores were reassessed in a second round, to establish whether the perceived exhibition space changes their opinion on the mount. The results presented characteristics that trended in each space, equating specific queues to each place. Story and narrative were found to have value in the artistic space, along with a manipulation of the animal form, suggesting a need for deeper meaning within artistic objects. The natural history museum exhibited educational tendencies of taxidermy, representing an informative character of the space. The private home was showcased through hunting connotations and decorative capabilities of the medium, showing personal dispositions of individuals towards taxidermy. The general trends in scoring were observed to raise in the art museum, remain consistent in the natural history and dip in the private home. These results mean that the art museum space makes the mounts more valuable in the participants' eyes, noticing their capabilities of telling a story and conveying a message. Natural history is framed as museal and representative, acting as a historical depiction of animals' life, consequently remaining as interesting as they were initially. The private home is exhibited by the connotations with hunting and trophies, which resulted in many participants seeing the negative aspects of the work. These were accompanied by the immediate associations that some individuals have with the medium of taxidermy, the perspectives of ordinary materials within the artistic context and the many ethical considerations included in the acquisition of animal materials. The context was found to be significant, through different appearing characteristics represented by faltering scores
Scroll, Judge, Unfollow: How Audiences Navigate Authenticity and Cancellation
No full textThis thesis explores how audiences perceive and respond to authenticity and cancel culture within the context of beauty influencer content on platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. While authenticity has become a central marker of credibility and commercial viability in influencer culture, it remains a highly contested and performative construct. Similarly, cancel culture functions as a form of digital moral regulation, where audiences collectively hold influencers accountable for perceived violations of authenticity, ethics, or transparency. Despite growing academic attention to influencer strategies and reputational crises, there remains a notable gap in understanding how audiences themselves interpret, negotiate, and react to these dynamics, particularly within feminized digital spaces. To address this gap, this research draws on 11 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with young women aged 20-25 who regularly engage with beauty influencers. Using reflexive thematic analysis, this study identifies key themes related to how participants define and detect authenticity, how they respond to sponsorships and perceived commercialism, and how they engage with or disengage from influencers following moments of controversy. Findings indicate that authenticity is understood as both emotional sincerity and aesthetic consistency yet is often recognized as a carefully constructed performance. Participants described forms of strategic engagement, trust regulation, and disengagement shaped by parasocial relationships, brand alignment, and moral expectations. Notably, responses to cancel culture were highly contextual, shaped by perceived severity of the transgression, influencer response, and broader gendered dynamics of scrutiny. The study contributes to influencer scholarship by centering the audience as an active agent in shaping digital reputations and moral boundaries. It deepens theoretical understandings of authenticity as performativity and cancel culture as participatory moral discourse, offering insights into the emotional, ethical, and cultural dimensions of audience-influencer relations in contemporary digital life
The colonial binary of far-right representation of Irish identity on X
No full textThis study investigates how contemporary Irish far-right actors construct ideas of Irishness on X. It focuses on three voting periods of Irish politics in the year 2024. Amidst intensifying debates around national identity, migration, and care, Irish far-right actors have become increasingly visible and influential in diffusing nationalist discourses online. These discourses have resulted in some of the most violent manifestations in contemporary Irish history. With the exponential increase of support for candidates in promoting exclusionary ideologies, this thesis seeks to address a gap in literature focusing on how far-right actors represent meaning around Irishness online. Specifically, the central research question will explore: How do Irish far-right nationalist parties and their leaders construct Irish identity on X in the context of the 2024 Family and Care Referendum, the European Parliament and Local Elections, and the National General Elections? The study employs a qualitative thematic analysis on 573 posts from official X accounts of the National Party and the Irish Freedom Party, and three-party leaders. The findings reveal that far-right actors construct national identity on X by reworking colonial frameworks and representing Irishness as a nation rooted in a traditional societal order and oppression. Gender essentialism, the family, and cultural and ideological boundaries act as anchors for Irish national identity in the posts. They contrast representations of Irishness with 'Others' which are cast with the qualities of queerness, urban-ness, racial and religious difference. Irishness is thus defined as heterosexual, white, rural and Catholic by the far-right actors on X
Music Making Under Platformization
No full textWith the rise of streaming platforms, increasing algorithmic governance and novel forms of data-driven distribution, the music industry's' economical and organizational structure is profoundly disrupted. While academia has focused on the macro-level effects of platformization, fewer studies have explored how these transformations are experienced at the micro-level, by independent artists, specifically in less popular music scenes. This thesis aims to address this gab by asking How does the platformization of the music industry impact the cultural production process of independent artists? To answer this, we followed qualitative methods grounded in media and cultural studies, based on semi-structured interviews. Twelve independent artists from Lille were interviewed, and their narratives thematically analysed. The theoretical framework draws on scholarship on platform capitalism, algorithmic governance, and cultural labour, offering a critical lens in order to examine the tensions between autonomy, creativity, and economic precarity in the digital music economy. Five key
themes were uncovered from the data: 1. independence as a double-edged condition; 2. algorithmic logics and strategic navigation; 3. varied creative practices shaped by both solitude and collaboration; 4. affective and psychological pressures; and 5. the continuing importance of locality and regional infrastructures. The findings highlight that platformization not only democratizes access to cultural production, but also reconfigures artistic and creative labour, embedding them in systems of visibility, datafication, entrepreneurship and exploitation. While artists develop creative and strategic tactics to cope and survive, their agency and autonomy remains limited or constrained by broader logics of platform capitalism. This study underscores the need for better structural support, more inclusive policies, increased dialogues between creative workers and industry stakeholders, as well as future research into underexplored aspects such as the mental health impacts of independent music making under a platformized music industry
Maakt onbegrepen solidariteit bang?
No full textDeze studie onderzoekt hoe pro-Palestina activisten hun representaties in Nederlandse nieuwsmedia ervaren en welke invloed deze beeldvorming heeft op hun politieke participatie. In een context van toenemende maatschappelijke polarisatie over Israël- Palestina en een verschuiving naar repressiever beleid, worden pro-Palestina activisten regelmatig geconfronteerd met stigmatisering, uitsluiting en morele paniek. Door middel van een kwalitatieve inhoudsanalyse van drie Nederlandse nieuwsmedia (De Telegraaf, De Volkskrant en NRC) worden representaties die kenmerkend zijn voor de pro-Palestina beweging beschreven, waarin activisten herhaaldelijk worden geassocieerd met ordeverstoring, gewelddadigheid en antisemitisme.
Op basis van diepte-interviews met pro-Palestina activisten bespreekt deze studie hoe de ervaringen van de deelnemers hun politieke participatie vormen. De resultaten laten zien dat de representaties als eenzijdig, incompleet en onwaar worden ervaren door de activisten. Zij voelen zich hierdoor enerzijds beperkt in het participeren bij activiteiten, mede door negatieve gevoelens, angst voor repressie en sociale vervreemding; anderzijds motiveren gevoelens van onrecht en woede, en sociale verbondenheid binnen de beweging hen om meer te participeren. De analyse toont aan dat mediarepresentaties die morele paniek aanwakkeren niet alleen stigmatiserend werken, maar ook sociale controle legitimeren en politieke participatie onder druk zetten. Daarmee biedt deze studie inzicht in de rol van morele paniek verhalen in de media op activisme in een context van toegenomen repressie
"What if you take your important stuff and hide it in some[thing] juicy (?)?" - Postmodern Sitcoms: Searching for Meaning and Agency.
No full textThis thesis aims to answer the research question on how do 21st-century British and American sitcoms explore agency and the search for meaning in postmodern societies by conducting a qualitative, thematic content analysis of three programmes: 1) season three of "Community", created by Dan Harmon in 2011; 2) season four of "BoJack Horseman", created by Raphael Bob-Waksberg in 2017; and 3) "Fleabag", created by Phoebe Waller-Bridge in 2016.
The research is grounded in theories by Lyotard (1979) and Veit (2018) on postmodernity and its characterization of senses of meaninglessness, utilizing Royce's (1959), Thompson and Janigian's (1988), Schnell's (2012), and Längle's (2004) definitions of meaning and the search for it. Moreover, it is informed as well by notions of Fitzhugh and Leckie (2001), Gubrium and Holstein (1995), Hitlin and Elder (2007), and (most importantly) Bandura (2001) on the concept of human agency as well as its position within postmodern societies. This paper, furthermore, combines these approaches with Mills' (2005) Sociology of Humor, marrying it to the medium of television by utilizing papers by Juckel et al. (2016), Detweiler (2012), and McRobbie (1994), as well as being grounded in many other theories.
The analyzed portrayal of building human agency and searching for life's meaning was concluded to be showcased within the studied sitcoms with found subthemes of: characters' construction of identities, their relationships and resolving conflicts, existential nihilism and losing, searching, and assigning newly found meaning of life, all embedded and grounded in three main types of humor: absurdity, irony, and parody
Exploring Audience Perceptions of Branded Content Featuring AI Influencer Lil Miquela
No full textIn the rapidly evolving digital landscape, AI influencers represent a transformative development in marketing. This thesis examines Lil Miquela-one of the most prominent AI influencers-as a case study to investigate how audience interactions with her branded content on YouTube and Instagram reflect perceptions of both the AI influencer and associated brands. Through thematic analysis, sentiment analysis, and quantitative analysis, this thesis identifies key discussion topics, expression forms, and the sentiments conveyed in audience comments.
Thematic analysis reveals a broad range of topics, including influencer perception, brand perception, emotion, vibe, and commentary on comment section. Notably, Lil Miquela is perceived as both emotionally relatable and technologically alien, inviting connection while provoking unease through her content and appearance. Brand perceptions are related to not only brand value and product features but also audiences' imagination regarding product usage and brand personality. The branded collaborations with Lil Miquela have been controversial. Although the advertisements are praised by high quality, Lil Miquela was perceived to distract some audiences from core branded messaging. Some commenters directly expressed their rejection of these campaigns. Moreover, vibe descriptions span both positive and negative sentiments: descriptors such as "dream" and "futuristic" convey admiration, while terms like "disgusting" and "weird" indicate discomfort. Some commenters distanced themselves from the broader audiences, critiquing the comment section itself. Sentiment analysis confirms the predominantly positive attitudes toward both Lil Miquela and the associated brands. Quantitative analysis further reveals platform-specific patterns: Instagram comments tend to be more positive and brand-focused, whereas YouTube comments display more frequent interaction between commenters and greater emphasis on self-expression.
This thesis contributes to academic understandings by linking audience perceptions of AI influencers with those of associated brands within a shared context, while also highlighting platform-specific audience dynamics in AI-driven marketing. Practically, it provides actionable insights for marketers seeking to optimize AI influencer collaborations and leverage AI technologies for more effective and responsible campaigns