Surface parameterization is to establish a transformation that maps the points on a surface to a specified parametric domain. It has been widely applied to computer graphics and image processing fields. The challenging issue is that the usual positional constraints always result in triangle flipping in parameterizations (also called foldovers). Additionally, distortion is inevitable in parameterizations. Thus the rigid constraint is always taken into account. In general, the constraints are application-dependent. This thesis thus focuses on the various constraints depended on applications and investigates the foldover-free constrained parameterization approaches individually. Such constraints usually include, simple positional constraints, tradeoff of positional constraints and rigid constraint, and rigid constraint. From the perspective of applications, we aim at the foldover-free parameterization methods with positional constraints, the as-rigid-as-possible parameterization with positional constraints, and the well-shaped well-spaced pre-processing procedure for low-distortion parameterizations in this thesis. The first contribution of this thesis is the development of a RBF-based re-parameterization algorithm for the application of the foldover-free constrained texture mapping. The basic idea is to split the usual parameterization procedure into two steps, 2D parameterization with the constraints of convex boundaries and 2D re-parameterization with the interior positional constraints. Moreover, we further extend the 2D re-parameterization approach with the interior positional constraints to high dimensional datasets, such as, volume data and polyhedrons. The second contribution is the development of a vector field based deformation algorithm for 2D mesh deformation and image warping. Many presented deformation approaches are used to employ the basis functions (including our proposed RBF-based re-parameterization algorithm here). The main problem is that such algorithms have infinite support, that is, any local deformation always leads to small changes over the whole domain. Our presented vector field based algorithm can effectively carry on the local deformation while reducing distortion as much as possible. The third contribution is the development of a pre-processing for surface parameterization. Except the developable surfaces, the current parameterization approaches inevitably incur large distortion. To reduce distortion, we proposed a pre-processing procedure in this thesis, including mesh partition and mesh smoothing. As a result, the resulting meshes are partitioned into a set of small patches with rectangle-like boundaries. Moreover, they are well-shaped and well-spaced. This pre-processing procedure can evidently improve the quality of meshes for low-distortion parameterizations.

Whilst there has been a substantial amount of research into the uncanny valley, defining research that contextualises a character as they would normally be viewed remains an unexplored area. Often previous research focused solely on realistic render styles giving characters an unfair basis that tended towards the realistic, thus facilitating only one mode of animation style: realism. Furthermore, characters were not contextualized because researchers often used footage from previous productions. These characters also differed in quality as various artists worked on different productions. This research considers characterisation as three key components, the aesthetic, the behaviour and the contextualisation. Attempts were made to develop a greater understanding of how these components contribute to the appeal of a character within the field of 3D computer animation. Research consisted of two experiments. Both experiments were conducted using an online survey method. The first experiment used five different characters ranging from realistic to abstract. Each character displayed three different behaviours and the characters were contextualized within a six panel narrative. Data obtained from the first experiment was used to refine the second experiment. A further experiment was conducted to further define how combinations of different behaviours and the context containing a character affected the subject’s perception. The second experiment used three different character types and the characters were contextualized within a video stimulus. Findings from the first experiment indicated a strong relationship between character type and context. Interest with the various characters changed depending on adaptions to either the behaviour of the said character or the contextualisation. Certain character types based on appearance where better suited to different contexts than others. An abstract character was more likely to be perceived positively by the subject in a surprising context stipulated by the behaviour of the character and form of the narrative sequence. Other characters such as one based around an inanimate object found a greater positive reception with the subjects under sad contextual constraints rather than happy or surprise. The first experiment took into account various independent variables obtained from the subject and aimed to draw parallels if found between these variables and the subjects perception of a given character be it positive or negative. However, these variables namely gender, nationality and age had no effect on the subject’s perception. In the second experiment, it was found that in order for the realistic human character to be perceived more positively, the behaviour needed to match the context. When a mismatch occurred the subjects began to perceive the character more negatively. The cartoon character was however not affected by the mismatch of behaviour and context. The experiment was further expanded when two different character types were compared committing negative actions and having negative actions inflicted upon them and what effect it had on the subjects perception. It was found that a cartoon character committing a negative action was perceived positively whilst a human character committing the same act was perceived negatively. However, when a negative action was inflicted on these same characters, subjects were more concerned for the human character than the cartoon character. Results from both experiments confirm the idea that various characters are perceived very differently by the viewers and come with predefined notions within the viewer of how they should behave. What is expected of one character type is not acceptable for another character type. Cartoon characters can get away with bizarre behaviour. A real human character may have some sort of novel unusual behaviour, whilst a realistic CG human character is assessed on how realistically (normally) it behaves. This research expands upon previous research into this area by offering a greater understanding of character types and emphasising the importance of contextualisation.

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The submission, comprising nine outputs, ranges from journal articles and a book to a podcast and a radio programme. The accompanying commentary aims to contextualise the submitted work, demonstrate that it constitutes a coherent whole and that it makes a significant, original contribution to the field of cultural studies. The submission and commentary contest the idea that the voice has become less important than text and image in an era that has come to be known as one of 'secondary orality'. The outputs set out to demonstrate that, although metaphorical and narrative meanings of 'voice' have come to displace a sense of the audible voice in popular discourse as well as in many scholarly texts, it remains a prime and powerful modality in both human communication and new technologies. Applying the approach of psycho-social studies to the voice in a novel and original way, the outputs draw on semi-structured interviews, archive research and cultural analysis to argue that, despite the discursive absence of the audible voice, a study of vocality can enrich our understanding of both face-to-face and electronically-mediated communication. The commentary describes the phenomenological orientation of the outputs. Using the interdisciplinary approach of psycho-social studies to explore aspects of the cultural sphere, the submission is thus situated in the emerging strand of psycho-cultural studies: the commentary argues that, despite the methodological problems this throws up, it constitutes a valuable and apt addition to the study of voice. It suggests that gendered ideas of the voice may lead to an essentialism that can be countered by understanding the voice as a medium for the performativity of gender. Challenging the common polarisation of eye and ear and the idealisation of the voice, it traces some ways in which the voice is culturally-constituted, especially the radio and cinematic voice. The appendix documents not only the outputs' origins but also their wide impact.

This study explores the mediatisation of political challenges involved in addressing climate change, in particular relation to the United Nations framework in place to tackle the issue. Climate change is one of the most urgent issues of our time and extensive international collaboration is required in order to deal with it appropriately. Due to the nature of climate change, this thesis argues that ethical considerations should be at the core of public debates. Addressing climate change will require the implementation of drastic and often expensive measures, which might be particularly challenging to ‘western’ way of life. The media provides a crucial forum for debating the challenges climate change poses to our societies. This thesis examines how the issue is represented in the television and print media in three European countries: the United Kingdom, Denmark and the Faroe Islands during two global conferences on climate change,COP15 and COP16. This is backed up by examination of the ideal role of the media within liberal democracies and how such a role can be used as a benchmark against which to measure coverage. The thesis applies an ethical lens to the three different national media and their treatment of climate change to explore how the issue is made meaningful to the public. It examines the prominence of different ethical arguments – divided into cosmopolitan and communitarian positions - within public debates on climate change. It develops a comprehensive framework that identifies the key issues in the debate over climate change, and how ethical positions figure within them. Through the application of this analytical framework, this thesis seeks to shed light on the overall quality of public debate on the main issues around climate change in the respective countries. It also considers the extent to which media coverage in the United Kingdom, Denmark and the Faroe Islands could represent an emerging transnational public sphere on climate change. These questions are addressed through a quantitative and qualitative content analysis of climate change coverage. The approach deployed means that the study is able to examine in a systematic fashion how values underpin the debate on climate change in the respective countries. This thesis also brings a much needed comparative dimension to the analysis of media coverage of climate change. The findings demonstrate that political ideology plays a stronger role in shaping coverage in the UK context, whilst its role is less significant in Denmark and the Faroe Islands. The analysis also identifies some strong similarities in coverage across the countries, both with respect to the quantity of coverage, the topics and values emphasised. In addition, the thesis concludes that coverage across the three countries could indicate an emerging transnational public sphere on climate change.

Relational demographers and dissimilarity researchers contend that group members who are dissimilar (vs. similar) to their peers in terms of a given diversity attribute (e.g. demographics, attitudes, values or traits) feel less attached to their work group, experience less satisfying and more conflicted relationships with their colleagues, and consequently are less effective. However, qualitative reviews suggest empirical findings tend to be weak and inconsistent (Chattopadhyay, Tluchowska and George, 2004; Riordan, 2000; Tsui and Gutek, 1999), and that it remains unclear when, how and to what extent such differences (i.e. relational diversity) affect group members social integration (i.e. attachment with their work group, satisfaction and conflicted relationships with their peers) and effectiveness (Riordan, 2000). This absence of meta-analytically derived effect size estimates and the lack of an integrative theoretical framework leave practitioners with inconclusive advice regarding whether the effects elicited by relational diversity are practically relevant, and if so how these should be managed. The current research develops an integrative theoretical framework, which it tests by using meta-analysis techniques and adding two further empirical studies to the literature. The first study reports a meta-analytic integration of the results of 129 tests of the relationship between relational diversity with social integration and individual effectiveness. Using meta-analytic and structural equation modelling techniques, it shows different effects of surface- and deep-level relational diversity on social integration Specifically, low levels of interdependence accentuated the negative effects of surface-level relational diversity on social integration, while high levels of interdependence accentuated the negative effects of deep-level relational diversity on social integration. The second study builds on a social self-regulation framework (Abrams, 1994) and suggests that under high levels of interdependence relational diversity is not one but two things: visibility and separation. Using ethnicity as a prominent example it was proposed that separation has a negative effect on group members effectiveness leading for those high in visibility and low in separation to overall positive additive effects, while to overall negative additive effects for those low in visibility and high in separation. These propositions were sustained in a sample of 621 business students working in 135 ethnically diverse work groups in a business simulation course over a period of 24 weeks. The third study suggests visibility has a positive effect on group members self-monitoring, while separation has a negative effect. The study proposed that high levels of visibility and low levels of separation lead to overall positive additive effects on self-monitoring but overall negative additive effects for those low in visibility and high in separation. Results from four waves of data on 261 business students working in 69 ethnically diverse work groups in a business simulation course held over a period of 24 weeks support these propositions.

In this thesis I primarily address those within media and communications studies who research mass media audiences and their engagement with a diverse range of texts. I ask in what ways our knowledge about the interpretation of genres, emergent from many decades of empirical research with mass media audiences, is useful in understanding engagement with new media. This conceptual task is pursued empirically by applying a conceptual repertoire derived from reception analysis to interviews with youthful users of the online genre of social networking sites (SNSs). The thesis presents findings on the heterogeneity of children’s experiences in using SNSs following their perceptions of authorial presence, their notions of others using the text, their expertise with the interface and pushing textual boundaries. I explore four tasks involved in the act of interpretation – those being intertextual, critical, collaborative and problem-resolving. In analysis, I also reflect on a selection of the core conceptual tools that have been animated in this thesis, in research design as well as analysis and interpretation. It is concluded that inherited concepts - text and interpretation, continue to be useful in extension from the world of television audiences to the world of the internet. Second, inherited priorities from audience reception research which connect clearly to the conversation on media and digital literacies prove to be important by connecting resistance and the broader task of critique to the demands of being analytical, evaluative and critical users of new media. Third, the notion of interpretation as work is useful overall, to retain in research with new media use, for there is a range of tasks and responsibilities involved in making sense of new media.

This thesis examines the understandings and meanings of personal blogging from the perspective of blog authors. The theoretical framework draws on a symbolic interactionist perspective, focusing on how meaning is constructed through blogging practices, supplemented by theories of mediation and critical technology studies. The principal evidence in this study is derived from an analysis of in-depth interviews with bloggers selected to maximise their diversity based on the results of an initial survey. This is supplemented by an analysis of personal blogging’s technical contexts and of various societal influences that appear to influence blogging practices. Bloggers were found to have limited interest in gathering information about their readers, appearing to rely instead on an assumption that readers are sympathetic. Although personal blogging practices have been framed as being a form of radically free expression, they were also shown to be subject to potential biases including social norms and the technical characteristics of blogging services. Blogs provide a persistent record of a blogger’s practice, but the bloggers in this study did not generally read their archives or expect others to do so, nor did they retrospectively edit their archives to maintain a consistent self-presentation. The empirical results provide a basis for developing a theoretical perspective to account for blogging practices. This emphasises firstly that a blogger’s construction of the meaning of their practice can be based as much on an imagined and desired social context as it is on an informed and reflexive understanding of the communicative situation. Secondly, blogging practices include a variety of envisaged audience relationships, and some blogging practices appear to be primarily self-directed with potential audiences playing a marginal role. Blogging’s technical characteristics and the social norms surrounding blogging practices appear to enable and reinforce this unanticipated lack of engagement with audiences. This perspective contrasts with studies of computer mediated communication that suggest bloggers would monitor their audiences and present themselves strategically to ensure interactions are successful in their terms. The study also points the way towards several avenues for further research including a more in-depth consideration of the neglected structural factors (both social and technical) which potentially influence blogging practices, and an examination of social network site use practices using a similar analytical approach.

This research examines Vietnamese in London, focusing on identity formation and community networks through transnational activities. I argue that ‘the transnational’ is a ‘subset’ of migrant categories, and that Vietnamese transnational identities depend on the measurable activities in which they are involved. Important aspects of this research are: First, the Vietnamese are one of the first major non-British Commonwealth peoples to migrate into the United Kingdom in the modern era. This has had implications related to settlement into British society, overcome by the subsequent shift from refugee status to transnational activity and identities, resulting in widespread Vietnamese transnational networks. Second, the Vietnamese represent one of the first ‘quota’ refugee populations granted entry into the UK. Refugees were accepted prior to entering Britain, and upon arrival, government and private support structures were provided. Also, Vietnamese refugees underwent mandatory dispersal across the UK, a detrimental situation prompting a subsequent intra-Britain migration to urban centres, particularly London. Third, Vietnamese communities in Britain have distinctive characteristics, making a study of identities and networks an interesting and useful one, particularly in light of developing research in transnational studies. These characteristics include the Vietnamese North-South cultural and linguistic ‘divide’, the presence of Vietnamese and Chinese-background Vietnamese, and differences in the timing and reasons for migration. Key research questions relate to transnational activities, identities, and community networks played out in the role, reach and specific pathways of those activities across national borders. Key questions are: ‘What does it mean to be a transnationally active Vietnamese Londoner?’ and ‘How are Vietnamese Londoners engaged in community-based transnational networks?’ These questions are addressed using interviews, participant observation, participation in Vietnamese-related conferences, and in informal conversations on the street and in local Vietnamese shops. This research relates stories of contextualised transnational identities linking Vietnamese from London across the globe.

This thesis examines the mediation of the nation-state as a dimension of the diasporic experience of place. It focuses on the consumption of mass-media about Israel or originating from it by people residing outside of the country. I understand this mediation to take place continuously throughout the day, in multiple spaces, through different technologies. As such, it forms part of the experience of place in media- saturated (urban) environments, allowing for a distant nation-state to become embedded in daily routines. In order to theorise this experience, I draw on Merleau- Ponty’s phenomenology, which understands place through embodied perception and habit, and on studies of diaspora and media, which examine the social meanings and uses of media among specific transnational groups. This qualitative project is based on a researcher-absent exercise and extended interviews with British Jews and Israeli immigrants in London. Analysis reveals that orientation includes four areas of practice: investing and withdrawing emotions as part of managing ‘care’, searching for truth, distinguishing between ordinary and extraordinary time, and domesticating media. Some of these practices may be particular to the case of Israel, but some are shaped by discourses around insecurity, rather than Zionism itself. Others appear to be related to experiences of migration and diaspora in general. I argue that these practices are ‘orientational practices’ in which people endeavour to make sense of spatial positioning through negotiating distance and controlling media. I theorise media as ‘orientation devices’ in diasporic everyday life, but ones that are unstable, contested and reflected upon, and hence never fully habituated. The resulting experience is one of increased reflexivity about everyday place and, paradoxically, increased dependency on media for orientation. I conclude by suggesting that practices of orientation point to a mode of being in place in globalisation that is not sufficiently addressed by the dominant understanding of ‘belonging’.