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I am proposing a critical inquiry into the structural function of the character of Skyler White in AMC’s Breaking Bad as well as a further investigation of show’s relationship to the Western genre and the construction of masculinity.

This thesis explores the early years of the British documentary movement as it formed within the Empire Marketing Board between 1926 and 1933. I begin by offering new insights into this formation by focusing on key institutions that have been under-researched in existing literature. The movement started with government money and resources, in a position formalised by the EMB's use of the Imperial Institute, a Victorian institution with an established history of public education, exhibition and research. Within this official institutional framework the EMB's filmmakers enjoyed an extraordinary level of creative freedom. They were simultaneously embedded within the'alternative' film culture that had developed from the independent screenings of the London Film Society (1925-1939). The Society offered coverage of the art and history of film for the first time in Britain, alongside showcasing a wealth of contemporaneous experimental and avant-Barde fiction and non-fiction work. Drawing on a variety of primary archival sources (some of which have not been previously explored) in the first three chapters I examine how the EMB's film unit developed in a relationship between the Board, the Imperial Institute and the Film Society. This position defined the work they produced, and the style and the content of their films for the EMB. The filmmakers were part of an Imperial discourse that aimed to promote Britain and the British Empire, however they were also engaging with, and contributing to, an international movement of filmmakers and intellectuals who were using documentary film to look closely at contemporary society from new perspectives. The fourth and fifth chapters offer fresh insights into filmmaking at the EMB, with a personal study based on new research into the life and work of Basil Wright. Although he was a central figure at the EMB, his role has remained under-researched. The material I present here offers a new account of the early formation of the documentary movement at the EMB and the original resources that the Board and its filmmakers drew upon.

This study aims to examine current reception analysis and meida theories to determine if extant literature in the field is relevant to the experience of the Arab audience focusing on the Jordanian audiences as an illustrative case study, using quantitative and qualitative tools including questionnaires and in-depth interviews. The findings show that the Jordanian audiences seem to favour television over print press as a source of information, and they favoured channels such as Al Jazeera. Getting information about international (political) affairs gives this sample of audiences a sense of empowerment which is argued, could compensate for the lack of genuine opportunities for political participation in Jordan. It is also argued that, unlike western studies which claim the prevalence of entertainment programmes and the decline of news, this study shows the opposite trend in the Arab region where viewers are more interested in politics as a topic for social conversation. The findings show that the Jordanian audiences are aware of the role of ownership on the news content but tend to use their awareness of this issue to distinguish between information and propaganda. In general, audiences seem mistrustful of pan-Arab channels and their ideologies and yet they are avid consumers of such channels. One reason, in my view, is the low quality of what they see as censored news in Jordan. Audiences' sceptism of what they watch on news channels is not necassarily damaging their engagement in the political life. Jordanian audiences also understand that the diversity of views offered by satellite news channels is based on the selectivity of each channel (and its editorial team as well as its owner).

The aim of this research is to investigate the interaction between the ‘beneficiaries’ of development - the Ngwatle Bushmen in southern Botswana and the Khomani Bushmen in the Northern Cape of South Africa, and the agents of development – local NGOs (Non Government Organisations) and Trusts, whose development programmes are influenced by broader state policy. The development programmes implemented by these organisations affect Bushman rights with regards to public participation in the development process, land, hunting and access to resources and benefits. In discussing these issues this study draws on James Murombedzi’s (2001) proposition that community based natural resource management (CBNRM) programmes that supposedly devolve the management of natural resources to the local population, may be an extension of greater state control over resources. It will investigate the impact of what Steven Robins (2002: 835) calls “double donor vision” on the lives of the Ngwatle and Khomani Bushmen. Donors and NGOs view Bushmen as “both ‘First Peoples’ and modern citizen-in-the-making” (Robins, 2001: 833). He argues that this dual mandate to “promote the ‘cultural survival’ of indigenous people and to socialise them into becoming virtuous modern citizens” (Robins, 2001: 842) contributes to intra-community divisions and conflicts. An overview of the issue of identity as discussed by Anthea Simoes (2001) who tested Stuart Hall’s (1990, 1996, 1997) two models of identity in both communities, is necessary here to frame the discussion of development as being affected by differences in identity construction.This research therefore seeks to discuss perspectives of the process of development communication and implementation in the two Bushman communities. What type of development occurs and how does this interaction shape perceptions of development amongst the Bushmen? Different development communication paradigms adopt communication strategies and implementation programmes that best suit their goals. The modernization and dependency/dissociation development paradigms fail to offer mechanisms to facilitate negotiation, conflict resolution and community or individual empowerment (Servaes, 1999). The development support communication (DSC) paradigm and to a larger degree the ‘another development’ paradigm, in contrast, encourage local people to actively participate in the search for solutions to development problems as perceived and experienced by them (Ansah, 1992). This research aims to illustrate, however, that these different development paradigms exist alongside each other in the field – this adds to the ‘messiness’ of development in practice. The research frames the perceptions of and engagement with development via a comparative analysis of Ngwatle and the Northern Cape Bushman communities. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2004.

This thesis presents the results of a multi-method investigation into how individuals in the film production industry manage their careers using China as a case study. Three rich hypotheses were tested against 14 in-depth interviews with inner-core decision makers and a survey questionnaire to which 119 actors and crew responded. The qualitative analysis confirmed that: (i) social networks provide vital functions for finding jobs in the film industry; (ii) personal reputation is vital for a long-term career in the film industry; and (iii) professional talent is socially determined. The findings present an alternative approach to project-based career theory. Social networks convey information on reputation and talent to facilitate the matching of people to jobs and may substitute for labour market institutions such as casting. The thesis proposes an individual career management model which links the key factors of: academic/training, professional talent, teamwork, social networks, reputation, film project, box office, career longevity, job security, self-development and career satisfaction. The model may be applicable to other countries and also to project-based creative industries.

The 'historical turn' in British Media Studies has yielded new histories of television but little work on the history of post-television radio. This thesis hopes to contribute to that neglected area. The research, based on radio and written archives and interviews with former BBC staff, examines the BBC Radio 4 current affairs programme, Analysis between the years 1970 and 1983. It addresses a number of questions about the programme, including the precise reasons for its creation, how it evolved, and how it covered a range of current affairs topics. In addition, this history of current affairs radio provides useful, new insights into the rise of professionalism in the BBC, the existence of informal networks, impartiality and bias, the tension between elitism and populism and the specificity of current affairs. The thesis includes a full discussion of the history of current affairs radio from 1927 to 1960. In this section the relationship of the literary elite to the BBC in the 1930s is addressed and the evolution of the 'topical talk' and the post-war 'talks magazine' are described. The precise origins of Analysis in the late 1960s are explained with reference to the tension between the more journalistic and populist 1960s news sequences and the elitist and anti-journalistic talks tradition from which Analysis emerged following the publication of Broadcasting in the Seventies. The role of individual presenters of Analysis is examined and the evolution of the form of 'broadcast talk' employed on the programme. There is a chapter on Analysis in Africa and a concluding chapter which evaluates the relationship between Analysis and the emerging political ideology of Thatcherism. By focussing on one programme over a period of time, and following the careers of named individuals who worked in BBC radio, it is possible to reveal conflicting broadcasting values and ideals of professionalism and current affairs and to trace these back to their antecedents in the pre-war BBC.

Using Mexico City as a case study, this research proposes an alternative framework for research which, rather than add to the dominant narrative that public relations should become a formalised and recognised profession, seeks to understand the make-up of public relations as an occupational culture. It explores the values and experiences relevant to practitioners and emphasises the need to recognise the role of practitioners as intermediaries in the development of society. In contrast to the prevalence of quasi-experimental methodology often adopted in public relations research, this thesis advances a subjective, cultural approach to public relations research and practice. This study is based on the premise that methodological approaches in public relations research need to be flexible enough so as not to suppress the new meaningful insights, which may emerge of practice in other parts of the world. The narrative advances an `in-awareness' cultural approach to public relations research, applying a social constructionism-inspired perspective to the study of public relations as an occupational culture in Mexico City. In-depth interviews were carried out in Spanish with 32 practitioners working in public and private sector organisations. This data was supported by general observation and follow-up participant observation, in order to explore the potential for practitioners as cultural intermediaries in the development of a culture in transition. The study focuses on the practitioner lifeworlds (or public relations practitioner culture - PRP) and considers the impact that their habitus, occupational identities, social networks and experiences have on the ways in which they communicate. Influences from the occupational structure and the socio-cultural structure of Mexico were also explored. The data was analysed by way of a `constant comparison' method in order to identify patterns within the culture. The findings are presented in the form of five semi-biographical composite narratives that bring out the contrasting ways of seeing and acting: the `Young Public Relations Executive Experience', the `Old School Experience', the `Agency Director Experience', the `Inhouse Practitioner Experience' and the `Social Communicator experience'. The relationships between these patterns were then interpreted by way of analytic generalisation. Three core themes emerged: `Occupational Identity', `Interpersonal Communication and Networks', and `Ethics', each of which were grounded in practitioners' experiences of Mexican culture. The findings suggest that public relations in Mexico City might be regarded as an occupational ethos of relaciones humanas, a Spanish term to mean human-centred approach. This ethos would place value on human and trusted communication manifested in an authentic occupational `character' in and formal and informal interpersonal communicative practices. Amalgamating these findings with broader sociological and community relations theory and within the context of wider globalisation theory, a reconceptualisation of community relations was developed in order to explain the potential for public relations practitioners as cultural intermediaries in Mexico City. This thesis suggests that this potential might be at a personal, grass-roots level. By communicating interpersonally, practitioners would be able to communicate trust and respect and encourage solidarity, and thus help to develop micro-level social capital, which is essential for a culture like Mexico with significant levels of suspicion and class division.

In this thesis, I argue that plays written by Alan Ayckbourn during the period 1970 to 1990 are political and subversive. They are political in the sense that they offer an analysis of political and social constructions then current, taking an oppositional standpoint. They are subversive in that they do this using an adaptation of a form not usually associated with such analysis and for an audience not already politicised. Ayckbourn is frequently taken to be a farceur. I will argue that he uses some aspects of British farce, but that his adaptation of the form subverts the expectations of his predominantly middle-class audience. Rather than the two-dimensional, essentially unsympathetic characters and the reinforcement of the status quo usually found in farce, Ayckbourn's plays offer political analysis in the private sphere and promote an oppositional agenda in the public sphere. While it is recognised by some that Ayckbourn was indeed a political commentator during this period, there has been no substantial account of what I suggest is their specific agenda in the public sphere - namely, the promotion of collectivism in direct opposition to the ideology embraced by Margaret Thatcher. During the 70s and then under Conservative governments post-1979, the tenets of what was to become known as Thatcherism, frequently centring upon the supposed supremacy of the individual, came to dominate British public life. Thatcher, Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990, declared herself openly against collectivism, disempowering the unions, establishing a major programme of privatisation that involved selling off previously State-owned assets such as the utilities, the railway network and social housing, and denying the very existence of society. Ayckbourn's plays of this period expose the solipsism that is the corollary of this anti-collectivist agenda, the moral bankruptcy of the selfishness it encourages and the dangers of a political system that actively sets itself against working together for the greater good of all. At the same time, many acknowledge that Ayckbourn writes about women in a particularly sympathetic way, reflecting the raised consciousness brought about through second-wave feminism. I shall argue that these plays not only demonstrate ways in which expectations of gender performance impact upon women, but also show pressures upon men to perform masculinities. The plays exhibit a complex picture of gender performance, frequently in settings that present a liminal arena between feminine or masculine associated spaces: the domestic garden of the middle-class suburbs. In this, they examine cross-gender conflicts in representations of situations familiar to the very audience by whom the plays are received.

This portfolio of published work consists of a selection of articles and book chapters representing the originality, breadth and coherence of my research into the ways in which gender, sexuality and ethnicity are mediated and articulated in French cinema. It is prefaced by an introductory section which discusses the unifying themes running through the work presented, placing it in the context of existing work within the field and also relating it to my research career to date. The portfolio opens with an early article on two white male-authored British films of the late 1950s/early 1960s, which establishes many of the concerns that have since informed my work: it analyses the films' discursive strategies within the particular context of their moment of production and reception, and assesses the extent to which they invite the spectator to accept or resist dominant ideologies of sexual and/or racial difference. The rest of the portfolio focuses not just on the deconstruction of gender, sexuality and ethnicity in white male-authored French cinema, but also on the challenges to dominant ideologies to be found in films by women and by ethnic minorities in France. The articles are grouped into three independent but interlocking sections: “Gender and Sexuality” addresses selected white, male-authored French films of the 1940s and 1990s, “Women's Filmmaking” focuses on films directed by French women directors in the 1980s and 1990s, and “Ethnicity, Identity and Ethnic Minority Filmmaking” looks at the construction of ethnicity and difference in both white and ethnic minority films in France, also in the 1980s and 1990s. The work presented provides both a comprehensive overview of women's filmmaking and postcolonial cinema in France in the 1980s and 1990s, drawing on extensive filmographies, and also detailed analyses of individual film texts (from the 1940s to the 1990s). Unified by a common concern with the changing hegemonic and counter-hegemonic representations of difference and identity within particular socio-historic contexts, it establishes the importance of the work of women and minority directors in offering new strategies of identification and cultural contestation.