This thesis is an exploratory study on how people of African descent in the UK use blogs as social, cultural and counterhegemonic practice and is positioned within the theoretical frameworks of alternative media and critical race theory (CRT). The research questions at the centre of this study are what motivates African Caribbean people in the UK to become bloggers; what gratification they experience through authoring blogs; how they use blogs to address issues of representation in the mainstream media and their perceptions of the social impact of their activities as bloggers. The findings reveal that motivation for blogging is linked to voice, visibility and empowerment and gratification is linked to voice, knowledge sharing, knowledge acquisition and social interaction. While voice, as a motivational factor and gratification for some participants is linked to interests in creative writing and journalism, for many others motivation and gratification are driven by a complex set of factors linked to issues of race and representation. These stem from feelings of being voiceless, invisible and marginalised as African Caribbean people in British society and blogs function as an assertive strategy and medium for self-representation. The constructed narratives of the bloggers who participated in this study reveal their experience of subtle forms of prejudice and discrimination perpetuated through dominant discourses in the mainstream media and marginalisation in the wider society. The findings demonstrate that race and ethnicity are inextricably linked to motivation and gratification and influence blogging practice and content production. This thesis expands on current literature by documenting how African Caribbean people have appropriated blogs to harness social and cultural capital, to mediate against racism and marginalisation within British society and to empower themselves and their communities.

Capturing, recreating and representing a high fidelity virtual representation of the dynamic human form has long been a target for a diverse range of applications including tele-presence, games, film and TV special effects. The complexity of the challenge, to achieve a lifelike, faithful and believable representation, is such that a wide range of techniques and approaches have been developed. These are both due to research lead curiosity and requirements to address specific objective for particular problems. This work starts from a novel standpoint: that the processes of surfacing, tessellation and texturing, commonly used in 3D reconstruction, are computationally expensive and un-necessary. This work argues that by integrating the reconstruction and rendering processes into a single process that is aligned with the architecture of modern graphics hardware, a lightweight component solution can be achieved that is suitable for application on the end user systems within the many application domains. In order to achieve this aim the research undertaken seeks to both define an appropriate technique and develop detailed understanding of the reconstruction process pipeline and impacting factors. This is achieved through a complementary investigation of the tools and frameworks that are necessary to support iterative development of the approach with reliable, repeatable objective assessment. This reasons that by understanding the nature of the capture, reconstruction and presentation pipeline and by objective evaluation of the emerging reconstruction techniques this research will define an approach for 3D video based reconstruction that effectively utilises the processing potential of a single system to deliver acceptable levels of performance (speed) and fidelity (visual quality) for a componentised, multi-purpose 3D reconstruction and rendering solution. This thesis describes the research that has driven the evolution of technique and documents the iterations made. It presents a novel framework for experimentation and evaluation of the techniques and demonstrates how the use of these tools has enabled both rapid prototyping of approach and objective evaluation of improvement. The work concludes with a review of the approach taken and identifies approaches for evaluation of performance (speed) and fidelity (visual quality) that enable both repeatable experimentation within the research pipeline and reliable comparison of the end-to-end process against other techniques.

End-User privacy concerns surrounding use of Social Networks present new and complex problems for research. Specifically, a phenomenon known as “the Privacy Paradox” has been observed where end-users stated concerns, attitudes and intended behaviour are not consistent with the actual behaviour within the network. Numerous causes have been proposed as potentially being the root of the problem of this paradoxical phenomenon including a lack of user awareness of privacy issues, a low level skill in using technology or a lack of privacy salience within the social network itself. However, the role of the User Interface (UI) in contributing to, and potentially providing a solution to, poor privacy behaviour is under-explored. A potentially fruitful avenue of enquiry given that behaviour is considered to be a reaction to environmental stimulus and the UI provides the environment within which the user is interacting. This thesis implements a two phase approach to furthering understanding of privacy behaviour in social networks. First, a survey is implemented exploring the relationship of concepts within the privacy paradox identifying that users stated needs are not being met by their observable behaviour. Secondly, two experiments are implemented in order to explore this behaviour as an interaction with the network; these questions are answered to build a social network profile and can be grouped according to their potential sensitivity. A model of social psychology, the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), is used to develop such experiments in order to examine the cognition behind these interactions. Each of the salient influencers defined by the TPB is used to inform a series of UI treatments and form the basis for experiment groups. An initial experiment explores the method and is used to inform the design of the second, which also introduces a factorial design to explore the relationships between treatments. These experiments show that participants within the treatment groups disclose less information than the control, with statistical significance. Within the first experiment this non-disclosure took place across all questions sensitivities, possibly due to limitations in the experimental method. However, participants in experiment two appear far more selective in their disclosure, choosing not to answer more sensitive questions suggesting that they thought of their privacy while interacting with the system. Findings within this thesis suggest that the UI plays an important role in influencing end-user behaviour as it can inform the context of the interaction as it happens.

One of the challenging issues in Next Generation Wireless Systems (NGWS) is seamless Vertical Handover (VHO) during the mobility between different types of technologies (3GPP and non-3GPP) such as Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM), Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi), Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX), Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) and Long Term Evolution (LTE). Therefore, the telecommunication operators are required to develop an interoperability strategy for these different types of existing networks to get the best connection anywhere, anytime without interruption of the ongoing sessions. In order to identify this problem accurately, the research study presented in this thesis provides four surveys about VHO approaches found in the literature. In these surveys, we classify the existing VHO approaches into categories based on the available VHO techniques for which we present their objectives and performances issues. After that, we propose an optimised VHO approach based on the VHO approaches that have been studied in the literature and take into consideration the research problems and conclusions which are arisen in our surveys. The proposed approach demonstrates better performance (packet loss, latency and signaling cost), less VHO connection failure (probability of minimising VHO reject sessions), less complexity and an enhanced VHO compared with that found in the literature. It consists of a procedure which is implemented by an algorithm. The proposed procedure of loose coupling and Mobile Internet Protocol version 4 (MIPv4) provides early buffering for new data packets to minimise VHO packet loss and latency. Analysis and simulation of the proposed procedure show that the VHO packet loss and latency are significantly reduced compared with previous MIPv6 procedures found in the literature. The proposed algorithm is composed of two main parts: Handover Initiation and Optimum Radio Access Technologies (RATs) list of priority. The first part includes two main types of VHO and gives priority to imperative sessions over alternative sessions. III This part is also responsible for deciding when and where to perform the handover by choosing the best RATs from the multiple ones available. Then, it passes them to the decision phase. This results in reducing the signaling cost and the inevitable degradation in Quality of Service (QoS) as a result of avoiding unnecessary handover processes. The second part defines RATs list of priority to minimise VHO connection failure. Analysis and simulation based performance evaluations then demonstrate that the proposed algorithm outperforms the traditional algorithms in terms of: (a) the probability of VHO connection failure as a result of using the optimum RATs list of priority and (b) the signaling cost and the inevitable degradation in QoS as a result of avoiding unnecessary handover processes.

Despite an unshakable belief in the UK in the empowering and regenerating potential of ICTs locating the benefits of digital inclusion initiatives for deprived urban communities has remained elusive. Given social media discourses of empowerment and social progress this thesis explores whether and how social media may be associated with a greater potential for community empowerment and regeneration. I specifically focus upon the potential of the relationship between participation in community content creation and sharing, (community generated content), community empowerment and regeneration. The exploration is based on a qualitative case study of a Community Reporter Programme with a social media and empowerment focus being integrated within two urban regeneration areas in Greater Manchester. The study draws primarily on the experiences and insights of community reporter participants. The way in which participation in community generated content becomes meaningful within urban regeneration areas and thus potentially empowering, is found to lie in a complex interweave of individual interpretative framing, aspects of identity beyond the demographic frame and strategies for the domestication of the specific social media practice of community reporting. The study finds that empowerment value attached to participation in community generated content is primarily located at the individual level and psychological and social in nature related to a ‘reconnecting’ and ‘feel good’ factor which appears to have a particular benefit for those who have been at risk of social exclusion. The value at the collective level of empowerment constructed as ‘voice’ is found to be limited and potentially disempowering within a social context of audience inattention and subtle dangers of ‘voice’ exploitation and appropriation. The study highlights fresh perspectives on what ICTs might mean for local communities beyond the established links between online and offline social interaction and social capital frame locating empowerment value specifically in the process of social media focused content production. In line with emergent critiques of participatory culture the study also problematises assumptions of ease of participation and voice attached to social media technologies. While the study supports the emergent view within digital inclusion and community informatics research areas that the empowerment value of ICTs may indeed lie in the arena of content production, the importance of viewing the potential through a critical lens of specific co-creative media practices and shining a light on urban regeneration as a potential arena of disempowerment is identified.

This thesis concerns the ways in which the importance of practicing skin whitening is promoted and represented in newspaper advertorial articles and visual advertisements across different media in contemporary Taiwan, approximately between 2008 and 2012. Theoretically, it is inspired by structuralists such as Foucault in the discursive formation of discourse and knowledge legitimation, Bourdieu in classification of cultural consumptions, Barthes in the process of mythologisation, sociocultural theory in everyday practice and identity construction, and linguistic theories both from CDA and semiotics. Methodologically, I undertake qualitatively textual and visual analyses of articles from the Liberty Times newspaper, and graphic and video advertisements from product leaflets, television and the Internet. In terms of analytical approaches, CDA, semiotics and other critical visual analysing methods are applied to interpret and articulate dominant discourses, rhetorical tropes and representations of idealised female images with whitened skin. Through the exploratory investigation of the data, common themes such as scientific endorsed and legitimated discourses, an extended metaphor of fighting and the ability of whitening ingredients to penetrate/invade the skin are found in both textual and visual materials. In terms of results, the research echoes Foucault’s idea of interdiscursivity and suggests that these discourses are transferable and represented across both textual and visual media. Finally, a critical assessment is made on the extraction, appropriation and distribution of knowledge by cosmetics producers and the media to consumers; the hegemonic power of the mutual co-alignment between cosmeceutical industry, mass media, retailing channels, legislation, and advertising and research agencies intersected by ‘medical’ and ‘scientific’ qualities; and the implications behind the phenomenon of promoting skin whitening.

This thesis examines how the choice of course of study abroad interrelates with participation in online social networks, and provides an application of semiotics to research in choice and decision making in higher education and information systems research. The study itself is justified by the increasing need to consider students’ choice of course of study as a separate phenomenon from their choice of institution or host country. Alongside the adoption of a more nuanced view of student selection, the author also recognises the need to understand the role of online social networks within the decision-making process for selecting higher education courses. This work adopts an interpretivist philosophy and utilises a comparative case study method, drawing upon semi-structured interviews with international MBA students in addition to relevant documentation. The thesis finds a strong interplay between the choice of course of study abroad and participation in online social networks.

Through the examination of archived moving images, this practice-based research project explores processes and methodologies adopted by visual artists who use moving image archives as an integral component for the creation of new artworks. Underlying these methods of production are issues of originality, authorship and ownership. The research seeks to examine the role of archives as potential catalysts for the creation of new work and the role artists can play in animating collections thereby generating new meanings for archival materials. Central to the research is the study of traditional moving image archives, taxonomies, classifications and content alongside the more recent emergence of online digital archives. The creative outputs (artworks) comprise an exploration of how this virtual environment has the potential for artists to re-appropriate archival materials and how films housed in traditional moving image archives can respond to the challenge set by these new platforms. New collaborations between the artist-researcher and nine regional film archives test creative methodologies for creating artworks by re-presenting archival collections through a multi-disciplinary approach. The final artworks have been produced as a direct response to the contrast in accessibility of online works, freely available under the Creative Commons license, and the legal constraints placed on publicly funded archives (and archivists) who are nonetheless dedicated to making archives available to a wider audience and who have had a significant input into this research.

Traditional emergency service major incident table top training exercises are presented via ‘low-technology’ means, such as plastic bricks and paper maps, or ‘front-loaded’ via slides presented by an instructor. The purpose of this research was to develop a new, electronic approach to table top delivery, to address issues with the existing approaches and provide a usable, more useful, streamlined user experience that was acceptable for major incident education. While the benefits of the existing paper-based approaches include their: affordability; reliability; portability; accessibility and acceptability, they do not permit the recording of exercise progress. Presentations by instructors can result in a lack of candidate participation and physical maps can become cluttered and cause a loss of data when disturbed. Additionally, supporting information required by participants during the scenario is presented as an adjunct to the exercise, necessitating supplementary display equipment. To address these issues, low-cost, bespoke, interactive software solutions for major incident training were created. The usability and acceptability of these products were tested within two populations routinely using table top exercises, via an experimentally-led ‘research in the wild’ approach. These were healthcare professionals, attending the international Major Incident Medical Management and Support (MIMMS) courses, and Greater Manchester Police (GMP) Officers. An experimental approach was adopted to attain realistic responses from the target audience regarding table top use. Given the nature of this form of incident response training, we were constrained to conducting experiments in a non-intrusive way, to neither interfere with, nor distract from, the participants’ learning experiences. Three experiments were designed to establish the viability of this development. Two one centre, one sample studies were conducted, followed by a multicentre controlled trial. The one sample studies consisted of a pilot that explored proof of concept, focussing on table top usability by non-computing expert users, and a second study which determined the validity of the pilot’s findings within a larger sample size. The multicentre controlled trial compared paper-based table top with electronic table top cohorts in terms of the participant learning experience and, thereby, fitness for purpose. 6 candidates piloted the prototype MIMMS electronic exercise in February 2011. 114 Police Officers utilised the GMP table top during November and December 2011. The multicentre controlled MIMMS trial enrolled 23 candidates (n=11 electronic and n=12 paper-based table top cohorts) from courses held at 3 U.K. centres. Both the healthcare and policing trial participants evaluating the table top respectively rated significant levels of agreement with the software being fit for purpose and usable. Candidate results from the multicentre MIMMS trial indicated positive findings regarding the equivalency of the electronic with the existing, paper-based media. The MIMMS pilot trial was an acceptable proof of concept, justifying the further development of this work. The GMP study affirmed these findings for a larger sample size. The MIMMS multicentre controlled trial demonstrated the comparability of the electronic table top with its paper-based counterpart, in terms of the learning experience provided and affirmed this approach as fit for purpose. This work has changed major incident education practice by addressing real world training delivery issues, via the pertinent application of usable technology.

This research contributes to the evolving field of New Media Studies through an empirical examination of social media design in real-time practice at the computer interface. In recent years questions of technology and design have started to figure more prominently in research into Social Network Sites (SNSs) but critical analysis of design in practice, at the interface remains under-researched. The interface is becoming an increasingly important analytical concept in the digital age as it is the space where machine readable code is translated into the cultural codes which are accessible to the everyday users of digital media technology. Furthermore, there have been recent calls for an expansion of the traditional media practice paradigm encouraging practice approaches to media which take seriously the mediating role of technologies in emergent forms of digital media practice. This thesis carries out empirical research into social media/ted practice; it critically examines sites and real-time interactions at the interface, to understand the interrelationships between the specific design of platforms and evolving forms of social media/ted practice. The thesis draws on Media Studies, New Media Studies, Sociology and Social Studies of Technology to explicate an original interdisciplinary analytical framework for studying people’s interactions with social media technologies at the interface. This framework is referred to as the triple articulation of social media/ted practice. The triple articulation of social media/ted practice acknowledges the interplay between the materiality of social media technologies, the cultural coding of social media technologies and active practice with social media technologies. The term social media/ted practice has been coined specifically to emphasise the mediating role of technology in social media use. Using SNSs as a case study the thesis combines critical site analysis with interviews at the interface which illuminate the interpretive and constructive elements of the micro-interactions between people and SNSs that underpin related forms of social media/ted practice. Whilst this thesis is focused on SNSs, the analytical framework has wider applicability in New Media Studies and media-orientated Sociology. The central argument of this thesis is that design matters for social media/ted practice. Site-specific ‘micro’ architectures, affordances and algorithmic processes continue to shape social media/ted practice at the interface. The user-interface works to render aspects of the technology visible, accessible, meaningful and useful. This thesis calls attention to the user-interface as a key site for: (1), mediating social practice (2), understanding emerging social trends (3), site governance and (4), developing critical digital media literacies.