By 2050, 2 billion people in the world will be 60 years old, or older. With the rise in an ageing population a plethora of problems associated with healthcare for older people and their carers is anticipated. Social media is an interactive facet of the Internet, which is presented as a potential panacea for the challenges faced due to ageing and particularly that of social isolation. Work presented in this Thesis contributes knowledge to the design, usability and adoption of social media for older people and their carers. A review of social media in healthcare highlighted issues involving the design, usability, training and barriers to adoption of technology for both older people and carers. These issues guided the focus on the five studies presented within the Thesis. A study establishing the barriers that older people and carers face regarding adoption of social media was undertaken. As a result set of recommendations for training older people to use social media has been proposed. An evaluation was conducted to explore the usability of online social networks. This study established usability issues with Facebook in that the current user interface design and experience did not meet the needs of older people. Subsequently a optimised web interface was designed called EasiSocial which used the Facebook platform but displayed the interface in a way, which was suitable for older people. Results following the evaluation indicated there was significant difference in ease of use (p=0.0937) and ease of learning (p=O.0036) between Facebook and EasiSocial. This shows that statistically that EasiSocial was easier to use and learn than Facebook. A set of recommendations for designing online social networks for older people has been proposed. The increased use of social media has seen a rise in online training material available for carers, teaching them how to care for older people. Subsequently usability evaluations were undertaken and solutions to issues proposed. The incorporation of these findings within the design of social media will help to ensure that the technology can be adopted and meets its full potential, particularly in the challenging role of supporting the health and wellbeing of older people and their carers

This study of the Nigerian Political Communications examines the patterns of mass media ownership and their impact on the coverage of selected national issues - the census controversy, ethnic problems and the general elections of 1979 and 1983. The contents of 21 newspapers of variegated ownership pattern involving governments, partisan and private interests are analysed and "live" illustrations of stories are given. This is to demonstrate empirically the thesis argument that the criterion of ownership is the key factor which determines how the Nigerian mass media are used for moulding the citizens' perception of political reality. The thesis seeks to answer questions such as: (a) what role have the Nigerian mass media played in promoting and/or compounding the problems of national integration in the Nigerian society since independence. (b) what role should the Nigerian mass media play to promote national integration and political stability. (c) what changes are necessary and desirable with the present situation to allow the mass media perform such integrative and stabilizing functions. Located within a comparative political communication approach to the study of mass media and politics in developing countries, this thesis seeks to contribute to knowledge in the areas of the theory, methodology and practice of political communications in Africa - with Nigeria as a case study. The question of media ownership has remained central to the Nigerian political communications with the attendant intrigues, ethnic violence, character assassination, political vilification, personal vendetta, coups and counter coups, general violent political disagreement and perennial problems of political instability culminating in fragmentation and disintegration that threaten the continued existence of Nigeria. The thesis also highlights a host of other factors which work in collaboration with media ownership to influence the Nigerian political communications - ethnicity, economic position, religion, legal limitations, circulation, transportation, audience reach, freedom of the press or lack of it, linguistic barriers and literacy. The thesis argues, in conclusion, that as Nigeria approaches a third attempt at democratic rule in socio-economic conditions which are less propitious than on past occasions, there is a need for the Nigerian mass media to operate in a way which contributes to national integration. It questions the existing pattern which is elitist and urban in orientation, ignores the rural majority and divides the Nigerian people rather than unites them. To achieve integration through political communications, the thesis suggests the need to restructure the media ownership pattern and to establish a Nigerian Media Advisory Council with some regulatory powers and authority to impose punitive sanctions on media practitioners and institutions for any professional misconduct.

According to the literature, there are four determinant forces in TV viewing: audience, message, media environment and viewing environment. For each of these forces, the factor most influential with Gulf audiences was selected by a pilot study for this thesis. These factors were found to be, respectively, religion, advertising contentiousness, clutter and number of viewers. This study proceeds to examine the role of these four factors in mediating audience response to TV commercials in the Gulf. While previous studies have mainly concentrated on a "single factor / single force" approach, this study has adopted a "multi-factor / multi forces" approach. Such approach was utilized to measure the individual and combined effects of mediating factors in advertising effectiveness and to examine the relative importance of broader (uncontrollable) versus narrower (controllable) factors. In this study, religion and the number of viewers (relating to audience characteristics and viewing environment respectively) are deemed broader factors and ad contentiousness and clutter (relating to message characteristics and media environment respectively) are narrower factors. All four mediating factors were statistically significant in ad effectiveness. Religion was the most influential , followed in descending order by advertising contentiousness (AC), number of viewers (NV) and clutter. For strict Muslims,, AC was the most important, followed by NV and then clutter. Conversely, for lenient Muslims, AC was the least significant, with NV most influential, followed by clutter. The study indicates that broader factors may also have a significant role in determining the response of the audience to TV commercials. The broader factors were found in some cases to be stronger than the narrower ones and should henceforth be given a prominence in the literature which they have not so far received. Thus, through its model and procedure, this study suggests a new approach which enables researchers to measure the effectiveness of TV commercials through the combined mediating effects of broader and narrower factors Some of the broader factors may be globally used in market segmentation. As evidenced by supplementary research for this study, conducted in the UK, on Muslims and Christians, religion was also found to have a significant role in determining how audiences respond to TV commercials. Finally, recommendations are made on how advertising effectiveness can be improved in the Gulf.

Introduction and Rationale ‘The propaganda model explains the elite-mass gaps, and elite and mainstream media hostility to this mode of analysis, and refusal to allow it entry into the debate, is understandable given that the gaps are embarrassing and suggest that the media do serve a narrow elite interest.’ (Hermann, 2000: 1) This critical review is based upon four peer-reviewed research papers, published since 2004. which have made a contribution to knowledge in the field of media and communications theory by providing, in particular, new evidence in support of a relatively neglected theory - Hermann & Chomsky’s Propaganda Model (PM) (1988). Hermann’s assertion (above) that the mainstream media refuse to allow the PM entry into the debate is also evident, for this writer, of mainstream media theory in Higher Education. The PM is recognised as a very useful starting point and analytical tool for the evaluation of data in this field by a minority of published researchers (Klaehn, 2002, 2009; Jhally, 2007; Robertson 2010). However, it is widely disregarded by many other UK media researchers and, for that matter, educationists (Mullen, 2008: 2). In addition to demonstrating retrospectively work worthy of the award of PhD by Publication, this critical review revisits and re-assesses the value of the PM using new evidence, in areas such as the reporting of economic theory, the coverage of autism and the relative coverage of different topics across TV news, from the author’s published work submitted in the attached portfolio.

This thesis explores the role of traditional media and “new medias” such as Social Networking Sites (SNS) in various aspects of adolescents’ wellbeing. It comprises of a literature review, a research paper, a critical appraisal and an ethics section. The literature review synthesises qualitative research exploring the role of the media in adolescents’ body image. A meta-ethnographic approach was utilised to synthesise the findings of 12 qualitative studies. Through the process of reciprocal translation four core concepts were generated: “Internalising an Unattainable Ideal”, “Cultural Relevance and Reflected Appraisals”, “Not Measuring Up: The self-ideal discrepancy” and “Responding to the Self-Ideal Discrepancy”. These concepts represent adolescents’ experiences of internalising the media ideal, processes of social comparison and implementing various strategies to manage the impact of such comparisons. Clinical implications highlight the potential value of therapeutic approaches in supporting young people with body image dissatisfaction and the need for a fuller understanding and a broader conceptualisation of boys’ body related concerns. The research paper explores the impact of SNS experiences on the wellbeing of young people accessing mental health services. Twelve young people participated in semi-structured interviews, which were transcribed verbatim and analysed using grounded theory methodology. A theoretical framework was developed which identified two key mechanisms of SNS use that influenced adolescents’ wellbeing, “threats and judgement” and “connection and support”. Young people implemented a range of strategies to enable their continued use of SNS, despite difficult experiences. The findings highlight the importance of routine assessment and formulation of social networking use in understanding adolescents’ psychological difficulties. Furthermore, opportunities exist for clinicians to utilise social networks to broaden the range of mental health services offered to young people. The critical review section provides further reflections on the process of undertaking the research, with a specific focus on reflexivity and managing the researcher-clinician role.

This study investigated the influence of various forms of media (old and new) on the political awareness and socialisation of secondary school students in the Kingdom of Bahrain. Data were obtained from focus groups conducted in eight schools and a survey of 1,179 respondents aged between 15 and 22 years from 12 schools located across Bahrain. This study found that young Bahraini males (teenagers and young adults) displayed more political interest, greater political knowledge, greater political involvement and greater trust in politicians than did young Bahraini females. There were also significant differences between residence areas in terms of trust in politicians. Young Bahrainis with greater political involvement achieved higher political knowledge scores and the young Bahrainis who had greater religious interests also had greater political interests. Parents, peer groups, religious interest, people in the media and teachers contributed significantly in forming political interest, political knowledge and political involvement among young Bahrainis. Male students had significantly more confidence and trust in the government, the judiciary, parliament, Bahraini TV broadcasting and Bahraini domestic news websites than did their female counterparts. The internet and parents were the sources that contributed the most in forming political knowledge among young Bahrainis. This study found that watching TV and using the internet were positively correlated with political interest and involvement. Furthermore, the results indicate that the internet, newspapers and TV had a significant influence on political knowledge, political involvement and political interest among Bahraini young students. Areas of residence influenced young Bahrainis‘ preferences for channels and websites with in terms of whether they lived in Sunni or Shiaa governorates. Generally, religious interest and sect play an important role in political socialisation and political life in this small country.

This study focuses on the processes by which new media practices may result in redefining ethnic belonging for diasporic populations. Similarly to other social media, the social network site of Facebook mediates the diasporic experience of Greeks in London. The thesis's methodological choices are aimed at addressing the challenges and potentials that social networking applications have created for practice-based ethnographic research as well as for the study of identity and diaspora. With an aim to describe how a set of participants –Greeks in London– practice their ethnicity and move between online and offline sites, countries, cultures and languages, I triangulate qualitative and quantitative data which emerge from various online and offline locations such as interviews, questionnaires, screen observation and fieldwork. Following the tradition of online ethnography, I examine ethnospecific content shared on the Profile and Group pages, identify the resources which the participants draw upon to articulate their ethnic identity and I investigate the beliefs and attitudes related to their online practices. Along with expressions of banal nationalism, the study points to a range of creative and innovative online practices of hybridization which contest stereotypical notions of Greek ethnicity, create a new identity for ‗place‘ and ‗home‘ and expand the resources from which ethnic identity can be imagined. In a wealth of textual evidence, emerging from the Status Updates and Wall posts, participants celebrate their transnational mobility, report on their experience of homeland in real time, participate in Groups for Greek diaspora and build networks of practice to engage with life in London. The analysis reveals the existence of an online space which facilitates transnational identities and challenges discourses of ethnicity and diaspora.

While it is not new to claim that the news media form an important part of the contemporary political systems, the role of the media is usually neglected in traditional study of public policy. At the same time, previous studies of media-policy relations do not take traditional policy theories into account. The objective of my thesis is to examine the possible role of the media in the policy process in order to establish the link between traditional policy theories and existing media-policy models. Following previous studies of media-policy relations, in particular Robinson’s (2002) study of the ‘CNN effects’ on US humanitarian interventions, this thesis uses data derived from framing analysis, process tracing and in-depth interviews to examine the influence of news coverage in four cases of domestic policy making in Hong Kong with particular reference to several factors, namely media consensus over framing and policy certainty measured by elite consensus and policy stage. Comparison across the selected cases demonstrates that the influence of news coverage is specific to policymakers’ institutional positions and policy stage. Media effects on policy are also enhanced by unfavourable long-term and short-term public attitudes towards the Government and its policy. However, news coverage does not exert an influence on policy all by itself. Rather, the media’s influence on policy is created by the interactions between news coverage and a series of factors, including public views, institutions, and political actors’ beliefs and strategies.

Abstract Virtual worlds now allow 'second lives' for World Wide Web users online, lives where identity is mutable and not assailed by the fallibility or perceived inadequacy of the flesh. Two terms have entered the new media lexicon, that are useful in denoting this dualism between the real and the simulated, 'cyberspace' and 'meatspace'. The meatspace is simply where the meat lives; meatspace is where physical, in contrast to electronic, interaction takes place. What the virtual is to cyberspace, flesh and blood is to meatspace. Yet an irony of this dichotomy is that in the digital realm of the World Wide Web there is a huge market, or rapt audience, for ‘real life’ representations of the body. The attraction of these images is that they privilege the flawed, unusual or damaged body as a site of spectacle. Here, the object of fascination is not only the human body and its functions, the most obvious example being the sexual body found in the hardcore pornography genre, but the human body in extremis. A dominant theme of this thesis shall be how the emergence of new media technologies has seen this hitherto niche genre grow exponentially, in regard to the volume of material available and the potential size of its audience. The primary focus in this thesis is the sub-genre of actuality body horror and death media, a recess within contemporary media that is dedicated to the production, distribution and consumption of visual records of ‘real life’ violence and its bloody aftermath, and the explicit representation of the traumatised, decayed or torn asunder body. Along with this, the thesis shall also look at how new media has changed spectator positions. However, this is no technologically deterministic account, for while new media enables greater production and distribution of death media, it is acknowledged herein that what is actually captured on camera is often dictated by a complex intersection of socio-cultural, religious and political influences. It shall be argued that in actuality body horror and death media the body fulfils either one of two functions, being a site of spectacle or cultural artefact. The distinction between the body being a site of spectacle or cultural artefact provides an organising duality for the thesis: meaning (the body as cultural artefact) and spectacle (the body as spectacular attraction). Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, the thesis incorporates film theory, literary and cultural theory, new media and socio-technological studies, and applies critical discourses to key actuality body horror and death media texts.

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