Mae'r traethawd yn trafod newyddion lleol Ceredigion, ac yn arbennig ddeunydd tra lleol er mwyn gweld sut y medrir eu cynnwys ar safleoedd a meicrosafleoedd amlblatfform dan adain cwmni newyddion proffesiynol sef Golwg360, adain ar-lein cwmni Golwg Cyf. Holir sut y gallai hynny gyfoethogi bywyd ac economi cymunedau gwledig yng ngorllewin Cymru, a chynnal y Gymraeg fel cyfrwng byw a chyfoes mewn oes o gyfathrebu digidol. Gosodir hyn yng nghyd-destun ehangach newyddion lleol a newyddiaduraeth yn gyffredinol ynghyd â datblygiad ystod o ddyfeisiau technolegol. Tynnir ar gyfnod o brofiad newyddiadurol gyda Golwg360 yn Llanbedr Pont Steffan ac ar waith ymarferol mewn gweithdai a fu'n braenaru'r tir ar gyfer sefydlu gwefan Clonc360. Bu hyn, ynghyd ag ymchwil yn y gymuned - gyda busnesau, Clybiau Ffermwyr Ifainc, papurau bro, disgyblion ysgol, a grwpiau ac unigolion eraill - yn sail i asesu effaith y chwyldro digidol yn yr ardal, ac i archwilio'r potensial i godi ymwybyddiaeth am werth y cyfryngau newydd, a'r budd masnachol a diwylliannol a allai ddeillio ohonynt.

No description available.

No description available.

Those involved with the management of the countryside have an imperative to understand the drivers of behaviour towards it. This is particularly so, since the UK population is largely urban-based and yet still retains an attachment to green open spaces and engagement with the pastoral scene (DEFRA, 2009; Natural England, 2016). The media has been recognised as playing an important role in sustaining this attachment but its relative influence compared to the role of the family, other social groups and education is less well understood in this context. The aim of this research is to provide a measure of the influences that underpin this attachment, specifically to develop a better understanding of the role of mass media as a component of the socializing factors which influence attitudes towards leisure behaviour in the countryside. The measurement and exploration of these influences is based upon a pilot study, followed by a survey of 2775 respondents, in six urban centres in England during 2011 and 2012. The data was analysed in order to investigate the relative role of developmental and mass media influences on countryside leisure behaviour. The cognitive and emotional processes that catalyse these relationships were also evaluated. A structural model of relationships was then developed, which provided predictive measures of the formative influences upon countryside leisure behaviour. Three key findings emerged from the research. The first confirmed that interest in countryside leisure may be derived from early socialization influences but significantly there are sub-groups for whom this early experience is irrelevant. These sub-groups developed their interest in countryside in later adulthood, inspired by the cultural discourse of rural themes represented in the media. Secondly the research identified that the relative influence of early exposure to countryside interests from family and friends is weaker than the direct effect of media on current countryside visit behaviour. Thirdly the predictive relationship suggests that countryside knowledge, the normative and control influences of others and the media, work largely through emotional rather than cognitive processes in their effect upon countryside visit behaviour. A further outcome of the research identified a control influence upon attitudes and engagement with the countryside, driven by pragmatic considerations of countryside as a resource for housing and infrastructure needs. The significant findings from this research make a contribution to knowledge regarding the processes that influence countryside leisure attitudes and behaviour. Specifically, it confirms the importance of developing media strategy that reflects the emotional bond that people have with the countryside and targeting robust market segments, differentiated by media responsiveness and developmental influences. An effective media strategy is particularly important for those sections of the population, who have had little encouragement to engage with the countryside during childhood but are, in adulthood, responsive to its portrayal in the media.

This research explores the mutual influences between citizen media and the mainstream media, through studying two phenomena occurred in Egypt during the years 2011, 2012 and 2013; which are the institutionalisation of citizen journalism and the employment of a number of citizen journalists in the mainstream media. The thesis answers the question: What is the nature of interaction between citizen media and the mainstream media? I argue that the citizen media -mainstream media interaction is driven by the medium, which is the social media, the media organizer; or the individuals who control the media outlet, either by having editorial authority, such as Editors-in-chief, or owning it. In addition, the mass media are another driver of the interaction between citizen media and the mainstream media. Plus, the relationship between the citizens of the state and the political regime too, it influence the convergence and divergence of citizen media and the mainstream media. And in the authoritarian regime, such as Egypt, where the state controls these three sides, it becomes the focal point of interaction between citizen media and the mainstream media.

Social media has become an integral part of the Internet and has revolutionized interpersonal communication. The lines of separation between content creators and content consumers have blurred as normal users have platforms such as social media sites, blogs and microblogs at their disposal on which they can create and consume content as well as have the opportunity to interact with other users. This change has also led to several well documented privacy problems for the users. The privacy problems faced by social media users can be categorized into institutional privacy (related to the social network provider) and social privacy (related to the interpersonal communication between social media users) problems. The work presented in this thesis focuses on the social privacy issues that affect users on social media due to their interactions with members in their network who may represent various facets of their lives (such as work, family, school, etc.). In such a scenario, it is imperative for them to be able to appropriately control access to their information such that it reaches the appropriate audience. For example, a person may not want to share the same piece of information with their boss at work and their family members. These boundaries are defined by the nature of relationships people share with each other and are enforced by controlling access during communication. In real life, people are accustomed to do this but it becomes a greater challenge while interacting online. The primary contribution of the work presented in this thesis is to design an access control recommendation mechanism for social media users which would ease the burden on the user while sharing information with their contacts on the social network. The recommendation mechanism presented in this thesis, REACT (REcommending Access Control decisions To social media users), leverages information defining interpersonal relationships between social media users in conjunction with information about the content in order to appropriately represent the context of information disclosure. Prior research has pointed towards ways in which to employ information residing in the social network to represent social relationships between individuals. REACT relies on extensive empirical evaluation of such information in order to identify the most suitable types of information which can be used to predict access control decisions made by social media users. In particular, the work in this thesis advances the state of art in the following ways: (i) An empirical study to identify the most appropriate network based community detection algorithm to represent the type of interpersonal relationships in the resulting access control recommendation mechanism. This empirical study examines a goodness of fit of the communities produced by 8 popular network based community detection algorithms with the access control decisions made by social media users. (ii) Systematic feature engineering to derive the most appropriate profile attribute to represent the strength or closeness between social media users. The relationship strength is an essential indicator of access control preferences and the endeavor is to identify the minimal subset of attributes which can accurately represent this in the resulting access control recommendation mechanism. (iii) The suitable representation of interpersonal relationships in conjunction with information about the content that result in the design of an access control recommendation mechanism, REACT, which considers the overall context of information disclosure and is shown to produce highly accurate recommendations.

This practice-based thesis aims to construct a practice framework in the field of new media art that can be multi-disciplinary, reflective and productive in nature, and has potential implications for the relationship of humans and machines in the 21st Century. The core focus of this research is on how a media archaeological exploration of Wundermaschinen promotes an approach to Media Art practice that engenders wonder and expands our vocabulary about wonder is. Building on reflections on creative projects Sensing Energies (2012) and Spirit Exposure (2012-2013), specific concerns emerged. It is argued that further practices of information visualisation move away from scientific and explanatory means, and otherwise explore how they are in line with similar developments in Media Art practice. It is then recommended to embrace a paleontological view on media development, and explore the hidden motives in practice of technology for observation. In other words, a media archaeological approach is adapted to excavate the family resemblance characteristics and unrealized dreams of Wundermaschinen. A review of contemporary maker-culture also suggested that we go beyond the homogenisation of novelty in open source making and examine specific experimental aspects. To inform making activities thus conceived, a speculative framework of ‘21st Century Wundermaschinen’ is proposed: rarity and refined labour, information-oriented visual complexity, performance-like setting for specific sensuousness, embracing knowledge across disciplines, assembling multiple epochal technologies, and machinery of curiosity. This framework is then applied through five experimental projects conducted between 2013 and 2016 that each has been documented the developmental context, implementation, technical ii details and audience response. The results of this application are discussed and reflected to locate their characteristics of experience, aesthetic potential, and suitability for media research. This practice-based research makes the following contributions: (i) a design framework for new media practitioners and HCI designers, (ii) a method of utilizing maker tools that critically contextualise themselves to broader techno-historical context of technology, (iii) an aesthetic and analytic strategy expressed as a framework which re-examines contemporary human-machine relationships, and (iv) a set of provocative examples that reflects on, and provides practical examples for, a media archaeology as artistic methodology.

With digital image technologies proliferating in contemporary visual culture, the ubiquity of photographs suggests people produce, consume and share photographs widely and routinely, in multiple contexts and with different meanings attached to them. Creating these photographs involves decisions, actions and interventions the photographer makes to guide the viewer and convey a particular message. Illuminating the ways in which photography enables one specific, often overlooked group – young male adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) – to visually express the ways they see self and the world, this thesis develops a more inclusive understanding of everyday photographic practices. From the literature that has been reviewed for this study, there has been no investigation that offers a systematic and rigorous approach to empirical enquiry in an effort to explore the photographic image-making of young autistic male adults. The area that has been researched extensively is how autistic people perceive gaze patterns and focus on facial expressions in picture communication systems. While recent studies consider photography and analyse visual perception in ASD, there has been little collaborative discussion in the literature that encompasses autistic people’s own everyday photographic image-making and self-reflective thoughts. This study is one of the first to address this knowledge gap. The methodological framework developed for this qualitative investigation includes participatory visual research methods, and positions this study at the intersection of the recent advances in visual methodologies, and participatory creative methods. Using thematic analysis, the study identified key findings across two dimensions of ASD individuals’ photographic image-making; namely, the phenomenological and social dimensions. Participants’ insights were not only deeply fascinating in their own terms, but also challenged dominant assumptions of digital photography. This qualitative study underlines the importance of multiple senses in the act of taking photographs, while expanding an understanding of what constitutes autistic people’s visual and social worlds. The contribution to knowledge of this investigation is to (i) deepen the knowledge of young male adults with ASD and their everyday photographic practices; and (ii) extend the development of visual and creative research methods. Furthermore, working with this specific group sheds light on photographic practices more broadly.

Meanwhile/Becoming is a practice-led research project that includes a written thesis and a final exhibition of work investigating methods of creating photographs that do not conform to the Cartesian perspective prevalent in photographs taken with a standard format camera. The research explores the opportunity of examining a visual space other than that offered by the standard single lens reflex camera through manipulation of the pinhole camera. The photographic series that constitutes Meanwhile/Becoming uses processes that produce what the research describes as a reinterpretation of phenomenology, postphenomenology and posthumanism through photographic practice; where the photographs are expressive of the what and how humans see and the lived experience of the situated perspectives of a specific space. The research question reflects and critiques this position asking, if multiple viewpoints are presented within a single photograph, does the resulting photograph incorporate the human experience of, relation to and presence in, the world? Once expressed within this framework, the research questions if these multiple viewpoints more closely represent the physiology of how humans see. The concept of the meanwhile is taken as the timespace between events, examining the “meanwhile” through the landscape of the domestic garden. “Becoming” refers to “the movement between events”, an interval between events that allows the processes of creativity and change through differentiation and duration, identified by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari (2004) and Henri Bergson (1911). Together, my practice and thesis interrogate the restricted boundaries of the Cartesian model of constructed visual space through the apparatus of a unique purpose-built multiple pinhole camera. This apparatus mediates between me and the world, enabling me to develop a new method of making photographs that considers space/place and how we respond to it both physically and perceptually.

This research will address the proliferation of witnessing social media and the consequent emergence of curation for online news coverage. World events are increasingly mediated; acts of violence and protest are documented by those within the conflict zone, who transmit scenes and testimonies from streets to screens around the world. These witnessing media offer new opportunities for the ways in which conflict is covered in the news, with the potential to transform representations of the conflict and those within it. News organisations have responded to these developments through the practice of curation: content from across the web is aggregated and curated onto a single page in order to cover events in real-time. This thesis will critically examine curation as a representational practice based upon witnessing social media by focusing upon a case study analysis of the 21st August 2013 chemical attack in Ghouta, Syria. It draws upon interviews with journalists who work with social media at the BBC, The Guardian and Storyful, and qualitative analyses of three curated texts produced by Al-Jazeera English, The Guardian and The New York Times. This research will empirically examine the role of social media in the newsroom, the witnessing affordances of the social media curation, and the resulting representations of the conflict. I conclude that witnessing social media largely operate backstage to provide wider contextual understanding to the journalist curator, and offer limited opportunities for media witnessing for distant audiences. The curated text in this context reveals the ways in which news organisations have asserted their professional norms over the deluge of information emerging from the conflict zone. What results from the strategies developed to reassert these norms is the curated other, who is present and networked, but unacknowledged and framed with uncertainty within the space of appearance.