A field investigation was conducted in which a voluntary audience was exposed to educational television programs with humorous episodes inserted so as to produce a 2 x 2 x 2 x 3 factorial design. Factors were level of difficulty of the educational message (easy, difficult), funniness of the humor (not-so-funny, funny), distribution of the humor (random, predictable), and density of the humor (intervals without humor ranged from two minutes to four minutes to six minutes in length). Corresponding to the factorial combinations, twenty-four educational television programs were produced as well as two no-humor control conditions. Viewers' attention to the television screen was assessed on three different indices: (1) the frequency of "stop and go" behavior; that is, the frequency of subjects who "stopped and watched" or who "abandoned watching" the television screen; (2) the frequency of "eyes toward" and "eyes away" from the screen, measured by observing subjects' faces and coding the occurrences of eyes turned "toward the screen" as well as "away from" the screen; and (3) the "persistence" or cumulative duration of eyes on the screen. For each experimental program these data were collected for attention to the educational material as well as for attention to the humorous material. The findings of this study suggest that, under certain conditions, the voluntary choice of viewing an educational message can be measurably enhanced when the informative message is comprised of a mix of humor and education. The packaging of the humor within the educational message was significant in attracting an audience for exposure to the educational message. The density (or pacing) of the humorous segments within the educational message was the single most reliable factor in attracting viewers to turn their "eyes toward" the screen during the educational material. As the intervals without humor increased (or the humorous segments were less in number but greater in length) the frequency of eyes directed toward the screen increased. The level of difficulty of the educational message, the distribution pattern for the insertion of the humor within the educational message, and the degree of funniness of the humor had differing effects on an audience's choice to "tune in" to the educational message. Significantly more viewers turned their "eyes toward" than their "eyes away" from the television screen during easy educational material than did during difficult educational material. Neither the distribution pattern nor the degree of funniness of the humor were statistically significant factors in determining viewers' attraction to or withdrawal from the educational material. While the inclusion of humor within certain educational messages had positive effects on promoting attention to the educational messages that followed the humorous material, the maintenance of viewer attention for the upcoming educational message was not clearly shown.

This study examined the possible contingent conditions for the cultivation effect of television viewing. Program genre, program perceived reality, and direct experience with the outside world were major variables under examination. A survey of college students (N = 255) revealed that the amount of soap opera viewing was related to perceptions (1) more people in the real world having professional jobs; (2) liberal attitudes toward nonmarital intercourse. Viewing was not related to perceptions that most marriages end in divorce, or that people are promiscuous. Regression analyses reveal that while viewing is related to liberal sexual attitudes, the best predictor is church attendance. The results suggest that direct experience with the outside world has much more to do with social reality construction than does TV viewing. Implications for future research are discussed.

This dissertation seeks to assess the editorial treatment given by elite west European and American newspapers to the Arab-Israeli conflict during the 1980-1982 time period. The study was based on a content analysis of editorials dealing with the Arab-Israeli conflict in The Washington Post, The Times of London, Le Monde of France, and Corriere Della Sera of Italy. A number of variables were coded for each editorial paragraph, including editorial opinion, political symbols, editorial issues, personality focus, bilateral relations, country category, diplomatic initiatives, prominence, and size characteristics. The study found the four papers to be remarkably similar in their emphasis on issues, topics, countries, and personalities. Further, editorial interest in the Arab-Israeli conflict reached its highest levels during times of crises, such as the Israeli raid on Iraq's nuclear reactor, Israeli's annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights and the war in Lebanon. In addition, the study found the views held by the four papers to reflect to a large extent the basic positions held by the policymakers in the United States, Britain, France, and Italy.

Includes bibliographical references. / The widespread adoption of mobile communication by South African teenagers is playing an increasing role in their formation of identities and construction of knowledge. This dissertation uses feminist critical discourse analysis as an explanatory framework in order to investigate what types of discourses around HIV/AIDS emerge from queries submitted to the mobile application H360°, which is an educational portal on MXit, South Africa’s most popular messaging platform. These queries are analysed in order to identify how gender and other power relationships inform young people’s discourse on MXit. This approach gives insights into how South African teenagers construct discourses about HIV/AIDS knowledge within an environment where unequal power relationships reflect gender, race and class divisions. In the face of such dynamics, attempts to halt the spread of the disease have so far proven ineffective.

This thesis analyses South African news media discourses on piracy to consider whether corporate interests or those of civil society are served by stories about copyright infringement and piracy awareness campaigns. This thesis employs critical discourse analysis to show that hegemonic interests are ultimately served by news coverage, made up of selected newspaper articles and radio broadcast over a ten year period, that frames a range of commercial and non-commercial copying activities as criminal acts. Two dominant frames are identified: piracy as an economic issue and piracy as a crime. The thesis shows how the harms of copyright infringement are conflated by ideologies of the 'pirate' as a violent criminal and 'piracy' as an activity against commerce. The thesis finds a fracturing boundary between the orders of discourse of corporate and civil interests and those of news media. Entertainment media, as one block, garners a way to construct and sustain alliances with news and information media (such as newspapers and news and talk radio), taking on an ideological form. When this type of consent is won, and thus elite interests served, the ability to ensure a richly sourced and diverse public domain and public sphere is compromised.

Political narratives have entertained human beings since times immemorial. The political narratives in the form of drama, novel, ballads, and contemporary televisual and filmic stories revolved around various characters that served as role models. Citizens tended to identify with good, morally ambiguous, and sometimes bad characters depending on the context and a host of personal motives, which subsequently determined the enjoyment of the entertainment narratives and absorption into the storyline. Storylines and characters in political entertainment has also been a great source of enjoyable entertainment for the audience. However, female lead characters in political roles were marginalized and frequently represented in conventional roles that were uninspiring and cultivated negative sentiments about females in various leadership roles. In the past few decades, the representation of female lead characters has considerably changed due to the entry of several notable female politicians in the corridors of power across the globe. Since females are visible in different leadership roles, they are attracting attention of the news and entertainment media and their increased visibility is positively influencing attitudes of female and male citizens toward feminine role models. This dissertation focused on the portrayal of female politicians in semifictional and fictional political narratives and explored if enjoyment, character identification, and narrative transportation influenced the attitudes of the audiences toward female protagonists in political entertainment. As political entertainment became a dominant pattern to involve uninterested voters in democratic processes, entertainment psychology research paid attention to the dual process model of entertainment, and several scholars investigated the "serious" nature of enjoyment experience associated with the consumption of political narratives. Several other studies reported that audiences identified with positive political role models featured as the protagonists in "meaningful" semifictional or fictional narratives. Audience were likely to enjoy such narratives by transporting them into the storyline that reduced critical evaluation of the narratives and subsequently influenced their attitudes and beliefs. By designing and conducting two studies to explore the serious nature of political entertainment, this dissertation empirically tested the relationship between exposure to semifictional and fictional narrative and audiences' attitudes toward female protagonists playing the role of a politician, which was not adequately addressed in extant research. Study one served as a pilot study that tested the causal associations between exposure to semifictional biographical political movies and attitude of the audiences toward female politicians, followed by an exploration of the mediating role of a few variables such as enjoyment and narrative transportation. Study two, on the other hand, scrutinized similar relationships between exposure to fictional political drama and viewers' attitude toward female role models featured as political protagonists in the drama narratives. Both studies found significantly insightful results and paved the way for future inquiry into the effects of fictional entertainment, as was advocated by Holbert (2005) in his "typology for the study of entertainment television and politics". Exposure motives with meaningful intentions proved to be a significant exogenous variable due to their potential to elicit cognitive and elaborative processing of the entertainment narratives. This dissertation addressed significant questions surrounding political communication and entertainment psychology research. The studies conducted for this research offered plausible results and paved the way for continued research on fictional political entertainment and its effects on attitudes. Various conceptual models were examined (using SEM) to understand the effects of political entertainment and consistent with the previous research, this dissertation developed a plausible and replicable model that reasonably established causal links between different constructs frequently tested in entertainment psychology research. This research followed and confirmed the results of a relatively new approach based on the dual process model of entertainment experience. In agreement with current research in this area, studies in the dissertation found that biographical political movies and primetime drama engendered meaningful entertainment experience that subsequently paved the way for a story-consistent attitudinal change. This line of research also supported the use of entertainment to involve citizens in political processes, not approved by a stream of research arguing that entertainment weakened democratic ethos. Contrariwise, studies in this dissertation confirmed that entertainment was not a negative emotion, and in a postmodern world, entertainment should be effectively used for political well-being and ensuring the existence of a healthy public sphere. / A Dissertation submitted to the School of Communication in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2015. / March 30, 2015. / Attitudes, Enjoyment, Entertainment, Female politicians, Narrative transporation, Political self-efficacy / Includes bibliographical references. / Arthur A. Raney, Professor Directing Dissertation; Betsy J. Becker, University Representative; Laura Arpan, Committee Member; Jennifer M. Proffitt, Committee Member.

Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [212]-226). / This thesis examines the ways in which certain contemporary fiction cinema posits its narratives as real. Looking at a broad overview of realist movements through the history of cinema, it draws out the codes and conventions which filmmakers have employed and suggests that realist cinema is typically characterised by its focus on creating a sense of presence and immediacy. It describes how a strand of selfreflexivity can be traced throughout the history of realist cinema and asserts that this tendency has become increasingly predominant in a more sceptical postmodern climate. The study focuses on the interplay between the cinematography and the setting (to create a sense of locatedness and contextual specificity) in Matthieu Kassovitz's La Haine (1995), on Lars Von Trier's quest for a "naked" film stripped of its cosmetic trappings, and his pursuit of the "genuine" moment within that (in The Idiots, 1998), on Mike Leigh's use of improvisation and byplay to encourage a sense of authenticity in performance in Secrets and Lies (1996), and on Richard Linklater's reworking of the romance genre for a postmodern audience in Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004).

Digital and electronic learning portfolios (e-portfolios) are playing a growing role in supporting admission to tertiary study and employment by visual creatives. Despite the growing importance of digital portfolios, we know very little about how professionals or students use theirs. This thesis contributes to knowledge by describing how South African high school students curated varied e-portfolio styles while developing disciplinary personas as visual artists. The study documents the technological and material inequalities between these students at two schools in Cape Town. By contrast to many celebratory accounts of contemporary new media literacies, it provides cautionary case studies of how young people’s privileged or marginalized circumstances shape their digital portfolios as well. A four-year longitudinal action research project (2009-2013) enabled the recording and analysis of students’ development as visual artists via e-portfolios at an independent (2009-2012) and a government school (2012-2013). Each school represented one of the two types of secondary schooling recognised by the South African government. All student e-portfolios were analysed along with producers’ dissimilar contexts. Teachers often promoted highbrow cultural norms entrenched by white, English medium schooling. The predominance of such norms could disadvantage socially marginalized youths and those developing repertoires in creative industry, crafts or fan art. Furthermore, major technological inequalities caused further exclusion. Differences in connectivity and infrastructure between the two research sites and individuals’ home environments were apparent. While the project supported the development of new literacies, the intervention nonetheless inadvertently reproduced the symbolic advantages of privileged youths. Important distinctions existed between participants’ use of media technologies. Resourceintensive communications proved gatekeepers to under-resourced students and stopped them fully articulating their abilities in their e-portfolios. Non-connected students had the most limited exposure to developing a digital hexis while remediating artworks, presenting personas and benefiting from online affinity spaces. By contrast, well-connected students created comprehensive showcases curating links to their productions in varied affinity groups. Male teens from affluent homes were better positioned to negotiate their classroom identities, as well as their entrepreneurial and other personas. Cultural capital acquired in their homes, such as media production skills, needed to resonate with the broader ethos of the school in its class and cultural dimensions. By contrast, certain creative industry, fan art and craft productions seemed precluded by assimilationist assumptions. At the same time, young women grappled with the risks and benefits of online visibility. An important side effect of validating media produced outside school is that privileged teens may amplify their symbolic advantages by easily adding distinctive personas. Under-resourced students must contend with the dual challenges of media ecologies as gatekeepers and an exclusionary cultural environment. Black teens from working class homes were faced with many hidden infrastructural and cultural challenges that contributed to their individual achievements falling short of similarly motivated peers. Equitable digital portfolio education must address both infrastructural inequality and decolonisation.

This study examined the representation of China’s human rights and sustainability record in the mainstream South African media. It also explored the factors that influence both South African and Chinese journalists and its potential effects on their coverage of China’s sustainable development and human rights impact. Through its “Going Out” policy, China has re-established a close affiliation with African countries.. South Africa is significant to this growing China-Africa relationship, as a fellow member of the BRICS group of emerging nations. Through its soft power strategy, whether as a “charm offensive” (Kurlantzick, 2008), or “charm defensive” (Shi, 2013), China has expanded its media reach in Africa through platforms such as Xinhua, China Central Television (CCTV) and People’s Daily to provide counter stereotypical images of being “a mysterious, exotic and unknowable force” (Wasserman, 2012). Dominant media discourses have represented China as lacking concern for good governance, transparency, freedom of the press, worker’s rights, human rights, and environmental protection in its relationship with Africa (Sautman & Hairong, 2009; French, 2014). China has been criticised for exporting its environmental destruction and human rights violations to the African continent. These negative perceptions among global media and key roleplayers could harm China’s strategies to harness its soft power on the African continent. This study explored to what extent these perceptions are manifested in media coverage, and what factors influenced this coverage. Through a qualitative framing analysis, this study examined how China’s sustainable development and human rights record is depicted in South African media. The framing analysis explored three individually-owned South African media publications: the weekly investigative paper Mail & Guardian, the Cape Times daily and the online news site News 24, to determine South African media representation of China. The study found five dominant frames in South African media’s coverage of China’s sustainable development record. China as key perpetrator in poaching; China vs the USA as a superpower; China’s role in the struggle against climate change; China as a source of green technologies, renewable energy and green investment; and China as a polluted country itself. Regarding South African media’s coverage of China’s human rights record, three dominant themes have emerged: Cheap Chinese products replacing job opportunities in Africa, China’s general poor record of human rights and cheap Chinese labour in African countries. Additionally five dominant frames were found in Chinese media coverage of China’s sustainable development: China’s climate leadership, China-US collaboration, repercussion for environmental violations, China’s green technology and innovation, pollution in China, and Chinese environmental aid. Regarding human rights, only three dominant frames were found: Chinese jobs empower African communities, improved labour conditions and official human rights engagements. The second part of this study examined how China’s media image might influence Chinese and South African journalists’ coverage of China’s sustainable development and human rights impact. Apart from China’s environmental and human rights reputation, which other influences on journalists have been significant to their coverage of China? Using Reese’s (2001; 2016) hierarchy of influences model as a guideline, this study explored the individual, routine, organisational, extra-media and ideological influences on Chinese and South African journalists covering China’s human rights and sustainable development reputation. Using semi-structured interviews, 20 journalists from Chinese and South African publications were interviewed. The interview questions built on Reese’s (2001; 2016) sociology of the media approach. The aim was to compare the different layers of how journalists in China and South Africa are influenced when covering China’s human rights and sustainable development record. Results show that South African journalists were strongly influenced by their perceptions of China’s environmental and human rights impact, which are generally pessimistic. They find Chinese government and sources to be inaccessible and distrust them. South African journalists also believe that media diplomacy will not lead to soft power success in Africa, in particular compared to efforts such as health diplomacy. Chinese journalists were strongly influenced by the Chinese state’s media ownership. Despite censorship, Chinese journalists find working for Chinese publications, Xinhua in particular, honourable. They find their role in improving China’s soft power in Africa through media diplomacy to be crucial, and particularly through challenging current western representations of China.

Text elements on the mobile smartphone interface make a significant contribution to the user’s interaction experience. In combination with other visual design features, these words curate the path of the mobile user on a journey through the information to satisfy a specific task. This study analyses the elements that influence the interpretation process and optimum presentation of information on mobile media. I argue that effective digital writing contributes to reducing the cognitive load experienced by the mobile user. The central discussion focuses on the writing of text for this medium, which I suggest forges an entirely unique narrative. The optimum writing approach is based on the multi-dimensional characteristics of hypertext, which allow the writer to facilitate the journey without the user losing control of the interpretation process. This study examines the relationship between the writer, the reader and the text, with a unique perspective on the mobile media writer, who is tasked with achieving balance between the functionality and humanity of digital interaction. To explore influences on the development of the relevant writing techniques, I present insights into the distinctive characteristics of the mobile smartphone device, with specific focus on the screen and keyboard. I also discuss the unique characteristics of the mobile user and show how the visual design of the interface is integral to the writing of text for this medium. Furthermore, this study explores the role, skills, and processes of the current and future digital writer, within the backdrop of incessant technological advancement and revolutionary changes in human-computer behaviour.