On May 25th 2000 Israeli occupation forces withdrew from South Lebanon after 22 years of occupation. The role the Lebanese media played in achieving liberation has been regarded as significant. Media campaigns were conducted to unite the Lebanese people against their foreign occupier (the Israeli military forces) and in support of the Lebanese resistance in South Lebanon. This study is a qualitative investigation into the culture and performance of Lebanese journalism in the context of the Israeli forces' escalating incursions against Lebanon and their encounters with the Lebanese resistance. It is a story about journalism told by a journalist, yet one who is using academic tools to narrate her story and the story of her fellow journalists. Necessarily, the ethnographic tale of Lebanese journalists' coverage of these events, and of their performance, has been narrated retrospectively and reflexively. Thus, it is a reflexive ethnographically informed study. The culture and performance of Lebanese journalism has been examined within the framework of war propaganda. The objective has been to restore propaganda as a distinct generic entity and to claim a new understanding for it in the context of two conditions: foreign occupation and the struggle against that occupation. This study examines the media coverage of the two Lebanese TV stations. Tele Liban and Al Manar in just such a context of occupation and resistance to it. The first of the two television stations was considered to have started the campaigns I will call instances of liberation propaganda and the latter to have successfully continued them. To identify the characteristics of an alternative interpretation of propaganda this study will explore the historical, cultural, organizational and religious contexts in which the Lebanese TV outlets and journalists studied here operated and how these contexts shaped their professional practice and their news values. My argument will be that particular kinds and genres of journalism realise a positive form of propaganda in this particular context. This positive form of propaganda is what I call liberation propaganda.

In 2003 the United States of America led an international coalition to topple Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. The war on Iraq followed the war launched on Afghanistan in 2001, designed to topple the Taliban regime. In both conflicts a wide range of media strategies were implemented by the Coalition forces to sway domestic and international public opinion and to construct support for the US-led military campaigns. This research explores the media strategies implemented in the 2003 Iraq war and the policies of coverage that were used to report the conflict by the Al-Jazeera satellite channel. The major research question is to ask what developments took place in wartime media strategies during these conflicts and to investigate the way media conditions changed, especially around the rise of Al-Jazeera, and the role it played in covering the war. In order to answer these questions, it was essential to review conflicts of a similar nature, such as the 1956 Suez Canal war, the 1991 Gulf war, the 1999 Kosovo war and the 2001 war in Afghanistan. The thesis argues that the toppling of regimes was a [text unavailable] conflicts, and thus, that media strategies and techniques followed similar patterns in each case. Lessons from these conflicts had considerable impact on the 2003 Iraq war. Media strategies in this conflict were a product of lessons from previous experiences, the outcome of remarkable developments in communications technologies, and a result of the increasingly complex influence of political, economic and social factors on the way modern conflicts are mediatized. In this thesis the mediatisation of conflicts is the research thematic approach which is used to make sense of the role of these various complex factors in the production of media output. The overlapping of these factors contributes to the presentation and the perception of modern conflicts. In the case of the 2003 Iraq war, Al-Jazeera and other Arab satellite channels expanded the news agenda to include an alternative perspective to the western mainstream media. This thesis argues that this was a major development which had a critical effect on the flow of information, and radically challenged existing mainstream news management policies. Thus, studying Al-Jazeera in relation to the coverage of the 2003 Iraq war became a crucial element in understanding the changes in the way contemporary conflicts are communicated and reported, which is the central focus of this research. A triangulation of qualitative research methods has been applied to examine the issues this thesis is critically assessing. Documentary research, including on-line research, was used to explore media strategies during the 2003 Iraq war and to establish the patterns within these. The same method was applied to explore Al-Jazeera's policies of coverage. In addition, the research used in-depth interviews and an ethnographic approach, spending time for example in Al-Jazeera's newsrooms, in order to answer the main research question. This was to assess the challenges Al-Jazeera, as an Arab news provider, posed to US policies of information control and news management during the conflicts discussed above, and how, as a result, the emergence of a new mediascape in the Arab world came to challenge policy makers, media strategists and media organisations alike.

The Daily Express reporting of battered women who kill uses framing borrowed from popular contemporary' entertainment narratives, which have included melodramatic theatre and silent film, clue-puzzle novels, film noir and reality-crime television. Its representations of the guilt or innocence of the women are shaped by these stories, which accord with the newspaper's political views and express its gender politics. It has preserved conservative, traditional ideologies of womanhood to the extent that the virgin-victim is held as a virtuous figure at both ends of the century. It has supported anti-feminist discourse by remaining a sellable product, during both main feminist social movements, whilst circulating anti-feminist and traditionally gendered images that are viewed from the male gaze. The permanence of this male gaze suggests that attempts to blame feminisation as a cause of tabloidisation are misapplied and the culprit is instead the drive to entertain for monetary gain. The newspaper's orientation towards its dual purpose of information and entertainment has demonstrated its different understandings of its own role in society (its epistemology) at different times.

On 1 September 2004, School No. 1 in Beslan, North Ossetia-Alania (Southern Russia) was seized by an armed group that held over a thousand children, parents, and teachers hostage. With over three hundred people killed by the time the siege came to an end, Beslan was Russia's worst hostage-crisis and, to date, there has not been another like it. This thesis uses socio-narrative theory as a conceptual framework to investigate, using a case study approach, a sample of online reporting generated in response to the crisis, thus exploring ways in which different narratives are constructed from, and in response to, events emerging from situations of violent conflict. Narrative theory is adopted not only as an analytical tool with which to approach the data, but in order to investigate and develop the theory itself. Thus, the study offers a revised typology of narratives, it intentionally combines narratological and sociological approaches, elaborates an intratextual model of analysis, and emphasises the importance of narrators and temporary narrators in the (re )configuration of narratives. The bulk of the thesis is a detailed, sustained textual analysis examining online reporting of the events in Beslan published by three different Russian-language news websites- RIA-Novosti, Kavkazcenter, and Caucasian Knot-during the course of the hostage-taking and its immediate aftermath, that is, from Wednesday 1 to Saturday 4 September 2004. By examining both Russian and English texts published by the three websites, the study also explores issues of translation, particularly in regard to online publishing, and ways in which translation impacts on the (re )construction of narratives. The case study is firmly grounded in socio-narrative assumptions that narratives do not merely represent, but constitute, reality, and furthermore, are fundamentally (if complexly) linked to human agency and behaviour. Thus, conclusions are drawn from the analysis that concern not only the construction and translation of narratives but ways in which narratives are used to account for, legitimise, and challenge individual behaviour and the practices of institutions. With its particular focus on narratives and violent political conflict, the project also reflects upon the potential for certain kinds of narratives to either perpetuate or dissolve such conflict. 6

This thesis examines the press uptakes (news reports) of public apologies in Britain and France. Apology, as used here, includes unequivocal apologies, equivocal apologies and refusals to apologise. The approach adopted in this study is primarily data-driven and relies on a comprehensive bilingual (English and French) data set including 268 news texts. The two corpora are compared to reveal any cross-cultural variations pertaining to the speech act of public apology. The main goal of the research is to provide a new account of public apologies by combining methodologies from pragmatics, critical discourse analysis and corpus linguistics. The research presented has four main aims: - to further develop and re-interpret the four basic components of apologies, namely apologiser, apologisee, offence and remedy, in terms of their relation to public apology processes. This is achieved by emphasising the different ways used by public figures to apologise, the identity of apologisers and apologisees, and the types of offences involved in the corpora of media texts examined. - to describe the evaluative stancetaking in news texts in order to determine the degree of variation in the evaluative strategies identified in the immediate framing of verbatim apologies, and in the explicitly and implicitly evaluative metapragmatic comments found in the press uptakes. - to explore cross-cultural variations in the perception of public apologies, with the particular aim of gauging any differences in representations of these apologies in newspapers in Britain and in France. This perspective considers the extent to which press uptakes in each country are indicative of the ways in which discourse meanings are verbally and situationally bound. - to determine the ways in which ideology permeates press uptakes of public apologies. This is achieved by considering how evaluative stancetaking is used in the corpora, thereby accessing aspects of ideological positioning as represented in the media texts under scrutiny.

Within the contemporary political context of 'Thai power', this dissertation explores how an Internet forum can be used as a tool for civic empowerment and democratisation, because such digital platforms, where users can connect and share news, appear to be rather neglected in academic research literature. Thailand.s Pantip.com is the case study in the project. The three dimensions of investigation include the content in conversation threads, the content creators, and the impacts of content on Thai news media. The methodologies used are: discourse analysis, focus groups, and interviews. The main findings indicate that Pantip.com is a virtual place that is exceptional in Thai society. Indeed, it could be called the Thai agonistic public space for the expression of different views and voices, with active intellectual work that supports a social movement and alternative media content. In regard to news production, the dynamic relation between Pantip.com users and Thai professional journalists initiates a vigorous news ecology. Hence, this study makes several noteworthy contributions to a better understanding of Thai online participation. First, Pantip.com is used as a tool for the democratic reform of the Thai media themselves. Second, the intense regulation of participation in the fora is beneficial, since it enhances the content quality and the standard of discussion in the threads. Third, Pantip.com and the Thai news media create a virtuous circle of influence while, at the same time, providing a counterbalancing action for one another.

The thesis comprises a series of nine studies that were all published in peer-reviewed journals or books between 2003 and 2016, accompanied and contextualised by a commentary setting out the coherence and significance of the research when viewed as a whole. This work is concerned with exploration of alternative media in general, and alternative journalism in particular. The submitted publications comprise separate studies that are linked thematically and point to the following conclusions: alternative journalism is not necessarily a failed project just because audiences tend to be small and the lifetime of any particular project tends to be short; there can be said to be a continuum of journalistic practice involving both mainstream and alternative media; and the reporting practices and ethical commitment found within alternative journalism can be seen as an expression of active citizenship. Taken together, the studies gathered in the submission make an original contribution to scholarship in the fields of alternative media and alternative journalism; in the process, they have much to say about journalism as a whole. As an original contribution to scholarship over a sustained period of enquiry, the thesis represents a substantial addition to our knowledge.

This thesis investigates online newspapers in Lebanon, and their adoption of, and adaptation to, new technologies in 2008 and 2014. The study examines two online newspapers that descend from a print version: Annaharonline and Aldiyaronline, and a born-on-the-web newspaper, Elnashra. The data obtained are used to examine their rationale and development processes, communication routines and the use of interactive features. This thesis employed three research methods: ethnographic observations, ethnographic interviews, and content analysis. The observation of the three newspaper newsrooms and the interviews with their editors journalists were conducted in Lebanon. Qualitative and quantitative content analysis of the interactive features was carried out in order to examine the extent and format of readers’ comments on the news, and the utilisation of multimedia in the three newspapers. The Diffusion of Innovation theory (DOI) was used as the main analytical framework for this research, which revealed that the three Lebanese online newspapers remained in the ‘trial stage’ for an extended period; although the Lebanese newspapers were among the first in the Middle East to adopt an online version, they were tardy in adapting to this new technology - many incidents, mainly the turbulent political and economic situation, interfered with the adoption and decision processes; moreover, the flow of global technology, the competition in media industry, the Lebanese Diaspora, the Arab revolts and social media were other significant factors in the slow development of online newspapers in Lebanon. This research suggests that the editors-in-chief of the Lebanese online newspapers fell between the ‘late majority’ and the ‘laggards’ categories, which are understood to deliberate for a protracted phase, before they make a decision to adopt and adapt. This study concluded that the Lebanese online newspapers followed the same news delivery policy as their print editions by publishing, practically unchanged, the print version of their articles on to their websites; online journalists from two of the three studied newspapers selected the news items from their print newspapers and other multimedia sources, rather than creating them; this practice met fixed print deadlines, but did not fully exploit the flexibility of online newspapers, and therefore, the advantages of the Internet interactive features, such as the readers’ comments on the news items posted on the websites, were undervalued. The findings in this research concluded that, although the Lebanese online newspapers under study had upgraded some interactive properties to their websites, they were less organised than the born-on-the-web version which employed dedicated and trained online journalists, rather than charging untrained print copy journalists with additional duties.

This thesis argues that between 1967 and 1983 the music press became increasingly embroiled in extra-musical, social and cultural issues. The music press provided an arena for editors, journalists, musicians and readers to debate social mores. This has gone unnoticed in the existing historiography. The music press - which was conventionally assumed to favour 'permissiveness' - hosted a variety of different moral viewpoints that challenge our understanding of conversations on social mores from 1967-1983. Bringing the music press to the fore of historical analysis in this period illustrates that British moral discourse was complex, fragmented and drew from a variety of narratives from the conservative to the radical. The thesis examines how moral debates emerged in the late-1960s' music press and then investigates the most salient themes that elicited discussions. These themes include youthful rebellion and generational divisions, sex, sexuality, drug use, gender, anti-racism, violent transgression, urban decay and alienation. The thesis analyses how these themes were narrated in the music press and identifies multiple viewpoints were articulated in reference to other tensions that affected moral conversations, such as the music press's commercial concerns and journalistic styles. It recognises that the music press gave journalists, musicians and readers considerable scope to express their views. Thus the music press is a unique source for gauging the sentiments and proclivities of youth, music subcultures, the press and music industry.

The thesis argues that in their development, organization and news services, the major western-based global news agencies have responded and continue to respond primarily to the requirements of western markets. In particular, their domestic markets are shown to be especially important to them, and much of their early development is explained by their struggle to secure monopolistic or oligopolistic control of these markets. The struggle to, achieve security in the domestic markets greatly tempered early international competition between the agencies in a way that still has consequences for their relative market positions in certain world regions, and which has hindered their penetration of one another's domestic markets.