This thesis questions on one level the assertion that the Internet is a force for democratisation in authoritarian regimes (Habermas, 2006), and at the same time another means for disseminating propaganda, fear and intimidation (Rodan, 1998). It overcomes the limitations of using automated data collection and analysis of blogs by supplementing these techniques with a prolonged period of participant observation and a detailed reading of the textual extracts in order to allow for meaning to emerge. It analyses the discourses and styles of discourse of the Singapore political blogosphere. Hurst (2006) and Lin and Sundaram et al., (2007) described the same blogosphere as isolated from the global blogosphere and clearly demarcated with no central topic. Countering the social ignorance of such automated data collection and analysis techniques, this study assigns meaning to data gathered from January 2009 to February 2010. This case study will help highlight the analytic framework, benefits and limitations of using social network analysis and an anthropological approach to networks. It has targeted blogs using hyperlink network analysis and measured ‘importance’ with ‘betweenness centrality’ (de Nooy & Mrvar et al., 2005) in order to demarcate the boundaries of the sample of blogs that are archived for semantic and discourse analysis. Beyond a brief introduction to betweenness centrality, and the merits or otherwise, of combining various ranking of blogs such as Google’s PageRank, Hits and Blogrank algorithms it avoids the algorithm fetishism within hyperlink data collection and linguistic analysis of corpus collected from blogs; allowing for culture, identity and agency. It assesses which of White’s (2009) three disciplines and relative valuation orders the Singapore blogosphere adheres. The contention raised here is that social network analysis, or rather those elements within it that are focused exclusively on algorithms, are in danger of co-option by states and multinational corporations (Wolfe, 2010:3) unless they acknowledge sociocultural forces. The tools of social network analysis and data mining are moved beyond mere description, while avoiding prescription – and at the same time advancing its contribution to substantive theoretical questions (Scott, 2010). Ensuring space for agency in a field dominated by sociograms, statistics and algorithms with theory that places persons lacking recognition at its centre is important to this thesis. Focusing only on the relational aspects of the interaction and in the individual persons linked (Wolfe, 2010: 3) creates a limited representation of the wider phenomena under study and a narrow awareness of the context in which these networks exist. A people governed by one political party since 1963 (The People’s Action Party) with the government of Singapore is the focus of this case study. This paper also highlights the use of various software technology; blogs, IssueCrawler, HTTrack, NetDraw, and Leximancer while using an ethnographic approach to counter the social ignorance of automated electronic software. The analysis of the Singaporean blogosphere from 2009 to 2010 provides a descriptive analysis of the argument that the non-democratic nature of Singapore society shapes the development of online public spheres.

This thesis aims to contribute to the growing field of media production studies through an ethnographic study of independent television production companies in Great Britain and Germany. Discourses of self-enterprise, free markets and consumer choice supported by technological developments, audience fragmentation and neoliberal legislation have led to a shift from a formerly predominantly public-service orientated broadcasting environment to a commercialised, competitive and consumer-orientated television industry. Because they seldom command high ratings, 'serious' documentaries are not a high priority for broadcasters compared to other programme genres, and a formerly protectionist attitude toward documentary is being eroded alongside public service broadcasting values. The thesis examines the impact of these developments on independent companies involved in documentary production. It inquires into the ways in which the new commercial production structures affect the work of independent documentary makers and asks to what extent they constrain or enable individual creativity in the development of original documentary programming. Combining participant observation with practitioner interviews, the study analyses the complex ways in which television workers adapt to creativity-commerce tensions. It describes how commercial imperatives cause independents to act as service-providers for broadcasters and to conform to predetermined programme preferences. The empirical results show that a sense of professional identity alongside occupational values and genre traditions play a particularly important role in this context. They disguise commercial conformity and prevent or dissolve creativity-commerce tensions. At the same time, they form the basis for an understanding of programme quality that is independent from and potentially in conflict with economic objectives. Consequently, television workers both accept their commercial supplier role and the creative constraints it entails, and are also critically reflexive about the production culture and their own role within it. The thesis will discuss the interplay of these competing values and address the consequences they have for the developed programmes and the documentary genre in general.

This thesis investigates the readability and comprehensibility of English language newspapers in Ghana as a developing country. It also attempts to discover the extent to which Ghanaian readers find the language of the newspapers easy or difficult to comprehend. The findings are meant to provide insights into the effectiveness of the newspaper press in providing news information to a broad readership to enhance political participation and democracy in the country. The study employed a research design that triangulated approaches in corpus linguistics, readability and survey studies. A computer-aided Linguistic analysis was carried out on the front-page stories of four influential national newspapers of the country to assess the extent to which the language is complex. A questionnaire survey of readers was also conducted in Accra to discover readers’ opinions and aptitude about how easy or difficult it was for them to comprehend the newspapers’ message. In addition, views from newspaper editors and news writers were also sampled in interviews to support the discussion. The research established that the language used to communicate socio-political news to readers is complex and difficult for a significant proportion of readers across the educational categories of the country. The significant implication is that the newspapers may be largely ineffective in transmitting information to a wide spectrum of citizens to enhance political participation and democracy. Thus, the study suggests that newspapers in Ghana largely alienate many readers from participating directly in the discourse of the press. While this may reflect the notion that political information from newspapers is generally and ideologically suited for the political elites who then monopolise political knowledge to control their societies, it means importantly that the press may not be enabling democracy in Ghana. Consequently, I argue for the press to use simple and plain language (as proposed by plain language movements in the West) to broaden access to newspaper messages in order to include the many potential readers who may hitherto be excluded from the discourse of the press because the challenging language impedes their comprehension.

This study is set against the backdrop of equity in education agendas and government policy focused on improving essential skills. The purpose of this study is to give a voice to rural adults with the aim of understanding through interviews and storied memoirs, the experiences and difficulties they face with literacy in relation to inclusion, participation and success in education and also how literacy has influenced and shaped the quality of their lives. From the literature review three research questions were generated. What barriers do the research subjects perceive to have contributed to preventing them acquiring confidence in reading, writing and communicating orally in a range of everyday contexts and how has this influenced their social behaviour and subsequent attainment? What are the current perceived barriers impeding their progress as rural adults towards literacy achievement and what is their perception of how this has impacted on their social behaviour and the quality of their adult lives? Can the research subjects identify a pivotal moment in their lives as rural adults in regard to their issues with literacy and how has this impacted on its quality? Key findings demonstrate that rural positioning (through life stages), school positioning and work positioning impacts on the social learning of rural adults influencing what and how rural individuals think and this subsequently impacts on the current position in their adult life. The collection of influences impacting on the current positioning of rural adults has an impact on their decision to seek help with literacy. This research emphasises that the nature of educational contact and opportunity is particularly crucial for rural adults if their lives are to be transformed for the better development of their achievements and sense of fulfilment.

This thesis contributes to research by taking a social psychological perspective to managing privacy online. The thesis proposes to support the effort to form a mental model that is required to evaluate a context with regards to privacy attitudes or to ease the effort by biasing activation of privacy attitudes. Privacy being a behavioural concept, the human-computer interaction design plays a major role in supporting and contributing to end users’ ability to manage their privacy online. However, unless privacy attitudes are activated or made accessible, end users’ behaviour would not necessarily match their attitudes. This perspective contributes to explaining why online privacy mechanisms have long been found to be in-effective. Privacy academics and practitioners are queried for their opinions on aspects of usable privacy designs. Evaluation of existing privacy mechanisms (social network service, internet browsers privacy tabs and E-Commerce websites) for privacy experts’ requirements reveals that the privacy mechanisms do not provide for the social psychological processes of privacy management. This is determined through communication breakdowns within the interaction design and the lack of privacy disclosure dialectical tension, lack of disclosure context and visibility of privacy means. The thesis taps into established research in social psychology related to the attitude behaviour relationship. It proposes persuasive communication to support the privacy management process that is to enable end user control of their privacy while ensuring typical usability criteria such as minimum effort and ease of use. An experimental user study within an E-Commerce context provides evidence that in the presence of persuasive triggers that support the disclosure and privacy dialectic within a context of disclosure; end users can engage in privacy behaviour that match their privacy concerns. Reminders for privacy actions with a message that is personally relevant or has a privacy argument result in significantly more privacy behaviour than a simple reminder. However, reminders with an attractive source that is not linked with privacy can distract end users from privacy behaviour such that the observed response is similar to the simple reminder. This finding is significant for the research space since it supports the use of persuasive communication within human-computer interaction of privacy designs as a powerful tool in enabling attitude activation and accessibility such that cognitive evaluation of an attitude object can be unleashed and end users can have a higher likelihood of responding with privacy behaviour. It also supports the view that privacy designs that do not consider their interaction with privacy attitudes or their influence on behaviour can turn out to be in-effective although found to support the typical usability criteria. More research into the social-psychological aspects of online privacy management would be beneficial to the research space. Further research could determine the strength of activated or accessed privacy attitude caused by particular persuasive triggers and the extent of privacy behaviour. Longitudinal studies could also be useful to better understand online privacy behaviour and help designs of more effective and usable online privacy.

The concern in this thesis is with the relationship between black music and black radicalism. This relationship is addressed through three case studies which centre on the co-emergence of the Black Consciousness movement and new forms of Black popular music in the United States between 1955 and 1971. The contention is that the relationship between the movement and the new popular music during this period is indicative of a general exchange between black music and black radicalism and can be analysed by paying attention to phonic substance. The relationship between these practices and traditions is primarily sonic, and it is as phonic substance that the blackness of black music and black radicalism emerges. The theorisation of blackness and phonic materiality is informed by a set of ongoing debates taking place within the field of Black studies. These debates address the structural and political meanings of blackness in the West and as such form the background to the research presented in the case studies on the Black Consciousness movement and Black popular music. Each of the case studies is made up of archival material ranging in format. The focus is always on how this material contributes to an analysis of the sonic form and content of the movement and the music. In this respect the archive is not a stable resource from which information is extracted but is always under construction and informing the arguments being made about the phonic materiality of black music and black radicalism.

The viewing of Japanese and South Korean TV dramas in Taiwan represents an opportunity to explore foreign media popularity as a cultural phenomenon. In addition, we can also examine the relationship between youth audiences and their construction of a sense of collective social identity in relation to their cultural ‘others’. This thesis examines how Japanese and South Korean TV dramas are incorporated into the lives and cultural practices of young people in Taiwan by looking at the varying degrees and levels of acceptance they enjoy, as well as the different purposes these dramas are used for. In addition, this thesis investigates the process of modern nation-building and the (re)construction of ‘local’ Taiwanese cultures in the context of transnational cultural flows. It focuses on how Taiwanese youth construct their own interpretations of national identity in the space which lies between the traditional Chinese national/cultural identity imposed in the pre-1987 period, and the new world of free media which heralds different models of identity emerging from the regional flows of cultural goods. Methods of data collection include: distribution of a questionnaire (278 in total) which was designed to give a general understanding of the consumption of both Japanese and Korean TV dramas. This was then followed by four group discussions with secondary school students and ten one-to-one interviews with university students. In this fashion the research investigates at a concrete level the cultural consumption of Japanese and Korean ‘trendy dramas’ (television dramas) and examines the ways in which young Taiwanese audiences utilise their new transnational cultural resources in order to construct a Taiwanese cultural identity that is orientated towards a specifically East Asian context. Although this work attempts to understand the ideas young Taiwanese have about national and cultural identity within the context of regional popular culture flows – focusing on the reception of Japanese and Korean popular TV dramas during late 1990s and early 2000s – it also demonstrates the way in which local, regional and global cultural flows contribute toward the production of a critical transcultural identity.

As a local filmmaker I was compelled to film during the 34-day war waged by the Israeli government on Lebanon in July 2006. My questioning of the function of my images amidst the proliferating international and local live media images of that war led me to pursue an interdisciplinary research. This thesis project, presented partly as an installation and partly as a theoretical text, is the result of my research. My thesis argument and original contribution to knowledge is that ‘co-liveness’ has become inherent in the act of watching live war since the first televised live broadcast of war (The First Gulf War, 1991). I have defined co-liveness as the local citizens’ experience of war as an embodied reality and as a mediatised event turning them simultaneously into potential targets and media spectators. My colleagues’ non-recognition of ‘co-liveness’ in my edited sequences leads me to question how the factual/fictional construct of what counts as an image of war is recognised revealing the ‘technostrategic discourse’ (Cohn, 1987) as a recognisable language/view from a gun/air raid perspective. Michel Foucault’s “return to the origin” (1977) inspires the analysis of the framing of first Gulf War (1991) and its critique as ‘infotainment’ and ‘spectacle’, as discursive practices where foundational omissions are inscribed in a critique that perceives all spectators to be distant to war’s materiality. A diffractive reading enables me to propose an imaginary co-live perspective on the margins of the text. The accompanying installation “Fragments” is conceived through the combined influences of ‘Détournement’ (Debord, 1958), the ‘Parergon’ (Derrida, 1979) and ‘Articulation’ (Haraway, 1992) where every visitor’s trajectory maps a personal interaction with the elements on display. Co-presence lends a renewed reading to what it means to ‘watch war’ when visitors share their impressions in a final discussion.

Mainstream news coverage of Africa relies increasingly on material provided by NGOs, who stand to gain in political influence as a result of becoming ever-more media savvy in a digital age. But at a time of widespread cost-cutting in mainstream journalism, is it appropriate for NGOs to ‘make news’ by providing audio, photographs and video to increasingly time and resource-poor journalists or does this diminish what news should be? Building a body of empirical evidence about why and how journalists use such multimedia and the consequences of this for journalism, NGO-work and those represented, is the central focus of this thesis. Unlike previous research on news coverage of Africa and journalists’ use of NGO-provided multimedia that tends to focus on the coverage of ‘disasters’ or ‘humanitarian emergencies’, this study analyses journalists’ use of NGO-provided multimedia about Africa during a very different news-making period – what journalists call a ‘quiet news week’. The research involved sixty semi-structured interviews with those whose decisions shaped the production of six media items, which were also subject to qualitative content analysis. These items were about a range of topics and African countries: all of which were published or broadcast in news readily available to British audiences. But why and how journalists used NGO-provided multimedia was shaped most powerfully by the ‘moral economies’ (Sayer 2007) structuring each news outlet. These moral economies were found to have brought about a ‘quiet revolution’: leading to the emergence of a number of heterogeneous, normatively-laden coalitions between NGOs and news outlets, often hidden from the view of audiences. Consequently, journalists’ use of NGO-provided multimedia was found to have limited progressive potential: for it inhibited collective reasoning by preventing critical scrutiny, as well as systematically excluding the political value of ‘voice’ in ways which further marginalised the disadvantaged and powerless (Sen 2010).

In this dissertation I look at various ways in which the relation between gamers and games has been discussed in video game culture in recent years. Gamers and games are currently being positioned by many scholars and industry experts as experiencing a series of major changes. From one perspective, gamers are said to be getting more and more access to the means of production of video games. Video games, in turn, are frequently analysed in terms of the effects they can have on their users. I argue that the discourses surrounding these phenomena have the effect of reinforcing the separation between gamers and games, considering both terms as separate and distinct entities. Throughout this dissertation I offer a series of readings of the relationship between the two, of how this relationship is currently being discussed by various actors and of how it could be narrated otherwise. I look at the narratives about the historical origins of both gamers and games, the conflicts between consumers and publishers, the production of independent games and the use of games for doing things. Drawing on deconstruction (Derrida 1976, 1980, 1985, 1988) and cultural and media studies scholarship, I interrogate the mechanisms behind many of the stories surrounding the contaminated and parasitical relations (Serres 1982) between gamers and games, whereby both categories are seen as emerging from the process of boxing consumers and products into discrete entities. I offer a reading of contemporary video game culture through a study that aims to encourage all of us who study and play (with) games to raise ethical questions for our own role in shaping the objects of research and for our involvement in the discourses we produce, as both gamers and scholars. What is ultimately at stake in this project is the possibility of outlining an alternative mode of thinking about the medium of the video game, one that blurs the distinction between studying, playing, making and living with video games through the invention of narratives about the unresolved relations (Laclau and Mouffe 1985) between gamers and games.