This thesis inquires into the cultural-political constitution of what are commonly known as the Amateur and Amateurism, terms which need to be seen from a new perspective in the digital era. The discussion begins with whether amateur production of culture and media and the role of monetary compensation are changing upon the emergence of the Web and digital technologies. Amateur productions networked to online audience communities are here understood using Simondon’s concepts of individuation, recently re-interpreted by Stiegler and Virno, as transindividual activities that realise human potential in newly structured society and politics. At the same time, however, it is not overlooked that such transindividual activities are technologically mediated by cognitive capitalist digital platforms specialised in mediating and monetising user-created content. Thus, the formation of gift culture around production and circulation of amateur content is discussed with its relationship to the commodity economy on such platforms. In this context, live streaming videos from Afreeca TV and Web-cartoons (Webtoons) have been selected as case studies to investigate audiovisual content production of professional-like amateurs on South Korean-based digital platforms, specifically during the candlelight rallies of 2008 and the impeachment proceedings of 2017. Conducted over three years, a variety of empirical studies on the multimedia interaction between amateur producers and their audience community provides a critical analysis of how the amateur's individual, self-fulfilling activities are transformed into the gift culture-based transindividual and competitive commercial activities and are embedded in the logic of cognitive capitalism. The counter-commercial movement of the amateur self-publishers concerned with the transindividuality of the memory technics is also presented. Their dedication to materalise individual and collective memories through paper-book publishing evokes the original value and ethos of amateurism devoted to the diversity of culture and life.

This thesis investigates the concept of agenda-setting and its applications to research on the press in a Third World country, namely Kuwait. One characteristic of agenda-setting research in that so far it has been exclusively Western and in particular American. Another characteristic is that early research into agenda-setting was limited due to a focus on the process by which the media set the agenda for the public, and gave little attention to the process by which the media itself was created. This thesis, however, seeks to examine and explain the conditions under which certain issues and not others appear in the Kuwaiti press. The range of this study, therefore, was not limited to the correspondence between the media agenda and the public agenda, but it was also concerned to examine the way in which certain groups and institutions influence journalists and consequently the press. The review of literature shows the extent to which most of the investigation into the relationship between the media and the public has been carried out in America and identifies the limited work on links between the media and other socio-political institutions in the U.K. Where this thesis breaks new ground, however, is in its application of the methodology and findings of agenda-setting research in a Third World country, namely Kuwait. The choice of Kuwait in particular was neither haphazard nor arbitrary. The presence in Kuwait of modern socio-political institutions of a certain degree of maturity of development and the diversity of its press, in more ways than one, made it most suitable for the present research. In tackling its objectives, the research reported in this thesis employed two main methodologies. First, a questionnaire and interview were devised to explore and assess the importance of the issues involved, as well as the attitudes of each member of the sample from a conservative or liberal perspective. Two groups of representative samples were extracted from among government officials and journalists. This is followed by a content analysis of a random sample of material from newspapers. Results were subjected to a thorough statistical analysis of frequency distribution and cross-tabulation. This analysis provides, moreover, a detailed examination of correlations between the salience of a range of policy issues to journalists and officials on the one hand, and press reporting on the other. From this analysis the thesis derives conclusions about the political role and context of the press in Kuwait, and offers more general observations as to the applicability of agenda-setting research in Third World societies.

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This study examines the internal and external influences on the news production process in the Arab newsrooms in London and Beirut. It does so by combining three theoretical approaches for the study of news production: the political economy approach, the social organisation of news approach and the culturological approach. In collecting data, three methods were employed: participant observation in the newsrooms, interviews with journalists and analysis of the newspapers' content. At the macro-level, the study focuses on the external influences on the news production process in the newsrooms of two Arab newspapers in London and two Arab newspapers in Beirut. The influences are those related to ownership and control, commercial determinants (advertising and circulation) and media-society linkages. Regarding the media-society linkages, the research examines: censorship, London and Beirut as specific and different "ideological environments", the occupational role and the professional ideologies of the Arab journalists, and the prospects for the Arab national press. At the micro-level, the study explores journalistic practices by focusing on two main dimensions: (1) the news gathering process, with special emphasis on the interaction between the Arab journalists and news sources; (2) the news selection process, with special emphasis on the news values. This study concludes that the use of three theoretical approaches to understand the influences on the news production process demands some qualifications. Such qualifications are necessary for a better understanding of the Arab press in London and Beirut. It also concludes that the use of three methods is useful for tackling the complexities of press organisations.

Although Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (Aids) is both a social and a medical problem, scholars largely concur that it has been imbued with meanings beyond its medical signification. Attempts to objectify the reality of Aids by authoritative claimants within medical science, within the news media and between them seem to have produced multiple realities of the disease. This study rejects the moral panic argument of early research on Aids and proposes instead the social problems constructionist theory and the critical argument of medicalisation. Empirical evidence, obtained through content analysis of all United States national news networks-ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS-and five local Chicago news networks---WGN-9, WTW-11, WBBM-2, WLS-7 and WMAQ-5---as well as survey of 200 students and 200 non-students in the city of Chicago, point out disjunctures in the representation of Aids and responses to Aids messages. However, no major differences were observable between networks in the coverage of Aids news and between groups of respondents, no major differences were observable with regard to knowledge and understanding of Aids. Generally, network television news was noted to give prominent, medically metaphorised coverage to Aids. While television news discourse appeared to have demedicalised homosexuality due in large measure to gay activism, children and race seemed medicalised. Subtly, television news tended to perpetuate a particular set of values providing as such common definitions of reality through the consensual depiction of normal and deviant. Television Aids news discourse seemed not to accurately reflect the actual incidence of Aids among groups of people in the United States or the actual difficulties of Aids research within medical science. Incongruencies were noted between audiences' construction of Aids and television portrayal of Aids as well as the real world of Aids. Although audiences were well-informed about Aids, sympathetic toward PWAs and largely denied Aids was a homosexual disease, yet they mostly blamed television for constructing Aids as a homosexual disease which they mostly said was not realistic. Furthermore, the more educated light viewers were somewhat more skeptical and critical of television presentation of Aids. Constructionists argument that social problems are not objective conditions is supported by highlighting the role of television news in the initial stage of the definitional process of social problems and underscoring that illnesses, such as Aids, tend to be impregnated with denial and blame in the construction of reality. Television, based on news values, made claims by selectively representing the claims, interest and values of the powerful.

This theses, of primarily a sociological nature, aims to examine the emergence of post-Mao Chinese cinema and its embodied political culture, in responding, or adjusting, to the sweeping and sometimes rather turbulent process of the "open door" reform movement. The transformation of Chinese cinema, as a whole, is an area of relatively minor importance, when compared with other major agenda items on the reform programme (i.e., economic growth, financial and fiscal stability, etc.). Nevertheless, the case of Chinese cinema does provide us with a unique setting and perspective so as to reach a better understanding of the interrelationship of economic development, political evolution and the advent of cultural pluralism in post-Mao China. This study aims, in other words, to show how the economic and political changes are themselves manifested in the changing reality of the Chinese screen. Author has argued throughout this theses that the emergence of post-Mao Chinese cinema could be seen as a unique process of rehabilitating the notion of "every day life" and "civil society", both of which were heavily suppressed under Mao. This theses has paid special attention to the changing relations of film-makers audience and political authorities in China. The examination of how film censorship works has revealed the complexity of China's political and economic situation and dilemma. Market forces have helped the film-making to be able to sever its ties with the party without seeming politically offensive or provocative. The legitimate and politically favourable "market forces" have made the Chinese film-making equally legitimate to rehabilitate and revive the notion and fundamental elements of human life that a market economy could not survive without.

This thesis is an exploratory inquiry into the press and transformation in the Caribbean, with particular reference to the Anglophone Caribbean. It highlights the major commercial corporate owned newspaper press in the mass-mediation of significant political and social change processes. It arose from the broad assumption that the press would tend delegitimate processes of, and efforts at significant political and social change. As a starting point, two case countries embracing change processes which were felt to be far-reaching - compared to the mere switching of parties in general elections, and so on - in the context of late twentieth century or post-independence Anglophone Caribbean formed the basis on which the analysis was conducted. Jamaica under the People's National Party regime of 1970s-1980, and revolutionary Grenada with particular focus on the 1979 insurrection were selected. In examining the case countries, the hope was not only to draw conclusions about the press in relation to those two cases cited but more broadly to see them as a path to an understanding of the Anglophone Caribbean as a whole. Basing the study on a holistic approach and a largely macro-analytic framework, the press was taken through its historical and sociological buttresses in keeping with the view that examination of the mediation process requires a perspective on these (buttresses). The study relied overwhelmingly on primary data to examine corporate concentration in newspaper publishing in the area of the Caribbean on which it focuses, to draw from such concentration and other broad factors (e.g., newspaper economics, and the prevailing economic and political climate) affecting production, the nature of the cluster of constraints and interests which were likely to impinge on the social production of news and information. It further embraced interviews, mainly of core journalistic producers of news and information in the Caribbean and executives who themselves bring various factors to bear on the process to isolate some of the factors which help to structure the production process. A content analysis of two brief but crucial periods gave an idea of the sorts of views which arose from this nexus of processes and actors. The findings broadly, but not unproblematically, pointed to the press as being ranged against significant transformation, by tending to reproduce views/positions in tune with the existing order of society and delegitimate the change process. This tendency seems to have arisen, and arise, from a complex of factors unearthed by other aspects of the study, including importantly; the concentration of ownership and control within interests antagonistic to change; external factors which impose particular constraints; the structuring of the news and information production process within organizational/editorial policy frameworks, journalistic codes and practices; as well as some degree of intervention particularly by policy makers.

This thesis is based on ethnographic research carried out between October 1993 and September 1994 and examines the construction and communication of Latin cultural identities across a selection of salsa music clubs in London. Through an engagement with contemporary theories of globalisation, 'power-geometry' and cultural identity the thesis argues for the need to understand music related practices in salsa clubs in relation to wider social, economic and political processes occurring from without the clubs, but which have an impact in the construction and communication of 'Latin' identities at these sites. In this sense, this thesis proposes three analytical distinct but interrelated levels of analysis as a way of studying cultural identities and salsa clubs in London; that of nation and migration, the identity of places and the performing body. In addressing the issue of nation and migration this thesis considers how Britain's immigration regulations affect the movement of Latin Americans across London, having an impact on the visible presence of Latin American cultural practices across London. This is then related to the geographical location of 'Latin' clubs which seek to attract both Latin Americans and non-Latin people. In discussing the identity of places this thesis provides specific details about salsa clubs in London and describes the practices of club owners, promoters and disc jockeys in constructing the identity of the clubs so as to communicate a 'Latin' identity. The thesis also examines how places with different but particular 'Latin' identities are constituted out of participants' movements across salsa clubs in London. The construction and communication of Latin identities is further developed by considering the relationship between body and music as performed by dancers and musicians. This approach to the study of 'Latin' cultural identities and salsa clubs in London has implications for theoretical discussions about the relationship between cultural identities and places: It suggests that the micro movements of the dancing body in a particular event needs to be related to macro attempts to regulate the movement of bodies at an international level. This, in turn, should be considered in relation to broader spatial relationships across the city of London whereby particular places have been given a 'Latin' identity. This thesis elaborates on this discussion and suggests the need for further exploration and explanation of ongoing relations of power between these three overlapping levels of analysis which are at play in the construction and communication of 'Latin' cultural identities in London.

This is a study of the advertising institution in Nigeria aimed to providing insights on the workings of foreign institutions introduced into traditional, pre-capitalist societies through the course of imperialism, in the general process of international capitalist expansion. This study then, represents a specific instance in what is essentially a diverse and complex process of assimilation into a world capitalist economy. In choosing advertising as a suitable medium for the analysis of such a process this study recognises the centrality of the advertising institution in advanced market economies; its increasing operations in developing countries; and the recognition of its role for the sustenance of the constituent consumer culture. The central contention in this work thus, is that modern product consumer advertising represents one of the most useful institution through which we can observe important social changes taking place in society. For Peripheral market economies like Nigeria, with a history of Imperial domination, advertising communication is a useful medium through which the process of cultural assimilation into the twentieth century consumer culture can be observed. In view of this recognition, this study follows the recent approach (in the study of advertising), to place the study on the twin pillars of history and culture in order first, to understand the dynamics of the wider dimensions within which society as a whole, and cultural practice in particular, operate; and secondly, to understand how the nature of these wider dimensions impact upon the workings of society and culture. This study then, involving analyses of Nigerian advertisements as a cultural form and, examination of the wider political economy of the Nigerian society, reveals evidence of social-cultural changes in the traditional patterns of social relations; how these have come about, largely as a result of Nigeria's historical link with international capitalist expansion; the role of local protagonists; and the ways that the nature of a peripheral market economy (including the role of local actors), forster cultural homogenisation particularly through the neglect of culture in National policy orientation, finance and administration.

Context, Text and Reader is an investigation of the way that members of a young audience use magazine and television advertisements to help them develop an understanding of technology and technological development. The thesis' main argument is that understanding the relationship between context, text and reader is the key to understanding how an audience uses advertising images to help it come to terms with the world. A combination of methodologies is employed, including semiotic analysis, content analysis, attitude surveys and group discussions. The study is divided into four main sections. The first, Context, provides a framework into which the empirical findings can be loosely fitted. Two important areas are looked at: the changes taking place in what is often referred to as the communications revolution and secondly, the role that advertising plays in the generation of social and cultural meaning. The second section, Text, includes a semiotic analysis of selected television and magazine advertisements for technology products. This is followed by a review of a number of published content analysis studies and then by a discussion of two empirical studies of television and magazine advertisements using a content analysis methodology. The third section moves on to investigate the reader's response to technology. The findings of three empirical investigations are outlined and discussed. These are an exploration of attitudes to, firstly, technology in general; secondly, a television commercial for a domestic personal computer and thirdly a commercial for a television set. The final section of the thesis, Context, Text and Reader, brings together the three different elements of the study with, first of all, an outline of the issues involved in what are called "Reception Studies", then by an analysis of two group discussions of the television commercials for a domestic personal computer and a television set, used earlier in the study.