<p>This dissertation examines the relationship between legislation and advocacy as forms of professional communication and interrogates their influence on mental health in the United States. Through a case study of one mental health nonprofit’s advocacy materials and interactions with the legislative process, this dissertation demonstrates the entanglements between legislation and advocacy materials and how their circulation impacts mental health outcomes at the national, state, and local levels. I use two major research strategies to conduct my case study: 1) structured interviews with staff members from the nonprofit’s national, Indiana state, and local offices and 2) a qualitative analysis of mental health legislation at the federal, state, and local levels, as well as the nonprofit’s advocacy materials using Rhetorical Ecologies and Assemblage Theory as the primary theoretical frameworks. My findings suggest that, although both the organization and legislative bodies in the United States have some hierarchal tendencies, they function more like a rhizomatic, multilevel assemblage that is constantly evolving and growing as a result of the communicative interactions among its various components. This is due largely in part to the organization’s grassroots structure, which enables staff and supporters from the state and local levels to affect change within and beyond the organization. Although components at the federal/national level have the most significant affects across the assemblage, my findings demonstrate how state and local components can disrupt or <i>deterritorialise</i> the assemblage to create new “lines of flight” or “flows” that expand the assemblage (DeLanda, 2006, 2016; Deleuze & Guattari, 1987; Fox & Alldred, 2015).</p><p>The findings and conclusions generated from this dissertation have several implications for mental health advocacy organizations, Technical and Professional Communication (TPC) pedagogy, and the Rhetoric of Health and Medicine (RHM) and the broader field of Rhetoric and Composition. For advocacy organizations, it provides a framework for tracking the potential material impacts of advocacy initiatives and legislation. For TPC pedagogy, it enables instructors to frame professional genres as components of a larger assemblage or organizational/institutional system, rather than as static artifacts. Finally, for RHM and Rhetoric and Composition, it provides a methodology for engaging in institutional and systems research that can be adapted to other rhetorical contexts.</p><br>

Videogames have been historically known for causing negative mood states in players, but there is still more research to be done about the potential for videogames to alleviate these induced negative mood states. Using an online repeated measures survey design, participants were asked to play a game with an impossible difficulty curve unbeknownst to them. They were then instructed to play one of three casual videogames (CVGs). It was hypothesized that increased levels of competency and autonomy would lead to a decrease in participants’ negative mood state as per Self-Determination Theory. In addition, the act of playing CVGs was also predicted to decrease participants’ negative mood state as per Mood Management Theory. To test for this, participants were asked questions regarding their feelings of competency, autonomy, and overall mood state throughout the experiment. Support was not found for competency and autonomy helping alleviate negative mood states, but support was found for CVGs and their healing potential towards negative mood states. The implications of these results as well as the potential for future research is discussed.

This thesis investigates the process of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) in South Africa with specific focus on New Africa Investment Limited (Nail), a company that had a firm foothold in the media industry, between 1993 and 2003. Black Economic Empowerment has become the cornerstone of South Africa's transformation process. The initiative is a form of regulation through which the economic imbalances of apartheid can be corrected by economically empowering previously disadvantaged communities1• Over the years the concept of Black Economic Empowerment has become a heavily contested and debatable one, both in the economic and political realms. This study explores how and why these contestations arise. In doing it analyses the various positions advocated by government, black empowerment groups, social movements and other empowerment groups in South Africa. In addition, it examines the impact these conflicts have had on the economic equality the Black Economic Empowerment aims to achieve. New Africa Investment Limited has also been at the centre of ·controversy with the company's empowerment status being called into question by both the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) and other empowerment groups. The nature and structure of NAIL is examined with a particular focus on the history from which the company emerged in order to assess whether NAIL fits into the model of a black empowerment company. The failure of BEE to reach its desired goals during the first years of its implementation has lead to some people calling for the withdrawal of the initiative completely. It is argued within this dissertation that one cannot dismiss the good intentions, with which the initiative was implemented, i.e. the empowerment of the historically disadvantaged people in South Africa. At the same time it is acknowledged that in practice the initiative did not achieve this goal. The BEE strategy needs to be integrated into the wider developmental strategy of South Africa. It needs to be broad-based, able to reach and change the lives of the poor black man on the street. Improving education, health care, and job creation should be placed first and foremost on the BEE agenda. The study is located within Vincent Mosco's (1996) political economy approach, which looks at the market as influenced, by the larger society and government. In addition it adopts a media economics approach, which deals with the economic relationships between media, producers, advertisers and society. This approach is useful because it explores issues pertaining to the markets and competition within which BEE is expected to occur. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2005.

While 'book hunger' in Third World societies was regarded by a 'first generation' of theorists, working in the modernization/diffusion of innovation paradigm, as a cause of underdevelopment (and thus requiring the correction of problems relating to the undersupply of books to Third World countries by means of book aid policies, transfer of expertise and technology, and development of modern (western) publishing and distribution procedures and infrastructures), a 'second generation' of theorists working in the dependency/disassociation paradigm responded by insisting that 'book hunger' was an effect of the underdevelopment of peripheral economies, and a symptom of the debilitating cultural effects of the global economic order, with its skewed international distribution of knowledge, resources and capital. In recent approaches to the topic of 'book hunger' (which are wary of the sweeping dichotomies of dependency theory), 'book hunger' serves to describe a chronic shortage of books which results from complex structural inequities and antagonisms, from the distorting effects of global rationalization, as well as from local economic arrangements and policy mechanisms which do not adequately meet the knowledge and information needs of competing local cultural formations. 'Book hunger' is seen to derive from a range of causes, and to produce a range of effects, which correspond to the varying needs, resources, and conditions operative in - and the cultural media and knowledge infrastructures available within specific societies. Obviously, 'book hunger' is rooted to a considerable degree in the specific historical configurations and socioeconomic circumstances of specific countries. An understanding of complex, globally-interlinked socio-cultural, political and economic structures and practices is thus crucial to understanding 'book hunger' in South Africa. A survey of global and local environments within which scholarly books are produced and circulated - including South African distribution systems and knowledge dissemination networks - makes it possible to sketch an approach to South Africa's own 'book hunger:' which is sensitive to the complexity and the specificity of conditions in the local booktrade, and which is able to contribute to the complex debates on local knowledge infrastructures, strategies for book development and new forms of distribution which are now beginning to take place in South Africa. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, 1994.

The African National Congress (ANC) has effected a shift in political discourse since the succession by President Jacob Zuma from Thabo Mbeki following the 2007 National Elective Conference in Polokwane. Subsequent political re-alignments have led to a strengthening of the tripartite alliance, and a perceived policy shift. However the current state of political play has made evident the tensions within the alliance, fronted by the trade unions on the left, and the elitist culture that has developed within the upper echelons of the ANC. This research examines how the political and economic discourses represented by different ruling factions of the ANC-led alliance transcend into assumptions regarding the role and function of the media. It plots policy developments and shifting ANC elite discourse on the media at various conjunctures since the early 1990s. Developments in the South African media are primarily studied from a political economy approach to ownership, control and transformation, as informed by the economic policies of the ANC. Specific focus is given to the economics of the five press houses, Independent Newspapers, Media 24, Caxton, Avusa and M&G Media. A critical content analysis, informed by a critical approach on discourse theory, is undertaken on various editorials and exposition pieces in five newspapers, Daily News, Witness, Citizen, Sunday Times and Mail and Guardian during the ANC elective conference in Polokwane, December 2007. This sample represents the five press houses under study. This study will offer insight into the English-language press" response to the power struggle and succession debate, represented by Zuma on the one hand and Mbeki on the other, and therefore engage Zuma's critique of the media being politically out-of-synch with society. This content analysis in context with the examination into the political economic transformation of the press, as well as personal representation of the ANC elites in the press, will be used to analyse the general discourse of English-language press at this time. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2012.

The investigation to the appropriate mass media for the micro-enterprises (informal sector) is in line with the principle of economic development for post-apartheid South Africa envisaged by the Reconstruction and Development Programme. In many countries, such as Latin America, Japan, United States of America, small business sector is the backbone of the economy, providing jobs and means for large companies to out-source tasks. This also applies to South Africa, the micro-enterprise in this country ''fulfils a social and economic function which neither state owned corporations nor the foreign transnational corporations, can perform. Due to their knowledge of the clientele they are able to determine more precisely the real and basic needs of the society and thereby render people-oriented, as against a purely commercial service" (Mersham and Skinner 1992 :33). However, lack of access to appropriate, relevant and understandable information and advice is one of the most critical aspect which hinders development of small enterprises, particularly, micro-enterprises and survivalist and small start-up enterprises. Due to the past discrimination and lack of opportunities this problem is most serve among black entrepreneurs who are participating in this sector. In addition, the central problem that has an impact in the process of reaching the micro-enterprises is the fact that the nature of communication systems and their relevance for the micro-enterprise activities, seem to have more over-emphasis on the print media. Subsequently, over-emphasis on the print media concentrate efforts on more easily and receptive individuals and communities, ignoring the micro-enterprises that require the service, since the majority of the micro-enterprises are comprised of people who have been disadvantaged by an incomplete education. It becomes therefore, essential to investigate how micro-enterprises consume mass media and the central role it plays so that an appropriate mass medium to reach this sector could be identified. Since my perception is that there is no assurance that the formulated policies and strategies by the Department of Trade and Industry become known to the intended beneficiaries . Most importantly, the approach taken in this study, is the one which tries to understand the role of the mass media in national development but which is more specific to the micro-enterprises. The media are seen as educators or teachers of the micro-enterprises. The ideal is that mass media can be used to teach people skills of different kinds and, under some conditions, to influence the attitudes and behaviour of the micro-enterprises. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1995.

This dissertation engages in a longitudinal study of the method of grassroots comics (Packalen & Sharma, 2007) amongst the Khwe people in the community of Platfontein, which is situated outside of Kimberley, South Africa. The study is largely informed by contemporary shifts in development theory, particularly that of participatory communication, which values individuals who live in the community as active participants in the research process. The use of grassroots comics (Packalen & Sharma, 2007) is largely based on theoretical concepts surfacing in current literature regarding the field development communication, which is somewhat critical of older, more dominant theories of development. Instead of applying a predetermined, uniform model of communication to multiple different settings in which varying development issues exist, this study is driven by the active involvement of community stakeholders throughout every stage of the research process. This includes the identification of community issues, the utilization of grassroots comics in the context of adapting and communicating about those issues on a community-wide scale, and the overall analysis of the process once research has been carried out. This particular study focuses on general health issues and how these might affect the Khwe community from a development perspective. However, what is of central importance is how the comics created by certain stakeholders in the community might serve as a means of promoting participatory communication amongst the local population, for the sake of alleviating certain health issues prevalent in the community itself. The practical nature of grassroots comics as a forum for health communication is what is of particular interest in this study. Purposive sampling techniques are employed in order to identify key participants and informants in the research process, to present a case-specific analysis of grassroots comics in use, and for purposes of limiting this study. Data collection methods applied to the research setting and research findings are conducted using various qualitative research techniques including participant observation, interviews, discussions and a participatory grassroots comics workshop. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2011.

This research focuses on a rock art recording process as a possible social development project from a Communication for Participatory Development perspective. The study is part of and builds on the wider National Heritage Council-funded Biesje Poort: KhoiSan rock art recording project. The wider project’s overall objective is “to alert and assist the local authority to the presence of a KhoiSan Heritage resource/s in their area of jurisdiction and assist in developing its educational and tourism potential” (NHC/Lange 2010, proposal). One of the project’s secondary objectives is to transfer skills in the recording and representation of the rock engravings and broader cultural landscape via GPS mapping to members of a present day KhoiSan community in the Northern Cape, as well as to young researchers from a variety of educational institutions in South Africa. My research explores and documents the role of participatory communication in the project including its promotion of skills transference, empowerment, and the level of participation amongst all participants. In doing so, the research investigates the dialogue, power relations and research negotiation between members of the multicultural and multidisciplinary research team. Data is gathered via participant observation and face-to-face interviews that is then analysed against participatory development communication principles as outlined in models such as Communication for Participatory Development (Kincaid & Figueroa, 2009), and strategies such as Participatory Action Research (PAR). Findings generated from this study reveal that in spite of all challenges encountered by participants the intended project objectives were met. This study further provides an insight into other possible research outcomes that could be achieved by implementing a participatory communication research with multicultural and multidisciplinary participants. Taking into account the possible influence that this research’s contextual dynamics could have exerted on the outcomes, recommendations have been made that further research be undertaken on a broader scale to provide more definitive evidence of using this approach. Further recommendations are made that dialogue, and skills acquisition or transference, be at the heart of every participatory communication. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2012.

The thesis begins with an examination of the literature on television news, taking particular note of the arguments for and against the 'dominant ideology thesis'. It is the contention of the work that the notion of 'professionalization' is a two sided one: while creating patterns and strategies of repetition and formulaic responses, during the emergency it was conversely used protect the integrity of a cadre of working journalists. In South Africa a State of Emergency was declared on 17 July, 1985, and successively renewed until 2 February 1990. An important element of the Emergency legislation were the stringent media restrictions placed on print and televisual journalists. This thesis examines the content and application of these restrictions, as well as the part played by the Bureau for Information in providing a bureaucratic base for the policy of media containment. The thesis argues that the restrictions, as well as the State of Emergency as a whole, was predicated on the South African Government's understanding that the country was facing a 'Total Onslaught', which could only be countered by a 'Total Strategy'. The empirical section of the thesis examines the manner in which the processes of political violence and reform were imaged on the televisual news broadcasts of South African Broadcasting Corporation, in the period July 1985 to November 1986. Under the discussion of 'Reform' particular attention is paid to P.W. Botha's opening speech to the Federal Congress of the National Party in Durban, 17 August, 1985; as well his opening address to Parliament the following year; followed by an examination of the communication of reforms concerning influx control and urbanisation. In defining political violence a distinction is made between the government's use of the word 'unrest' and 'terrorism', which is contrasted with the critical concepts of 'mass action' and 'insurgency'. The narration of the declaration of the State of Emergency, and some of the main thematic motifs which accompanied reporting in this period, specifically the insistence that the security forces, and through them, the government, was in constant control; and the concept of 'black-on-black' violence as a driving force in the political upheavals, are dissected. This is followed by an analysis of the television coverage of political violence in Durban (August 1985); Crossroads (June 1986) and the contracted 'Unrest Reports' which were regularly broadcast throughout the State of Emergency. In the final chapter, the portrayal of the ANC as a terrorist organisation is examined, together with the attitudes of those who were believed to support them. The thesis concludes with a re-examination of the dominant ideology thesis, specifically as it can be said to have applied to the television news broadcasts discussed in this project. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1992.

The thesis is an ethnographic exploration of the visual performances of the (≠Khomani) Bushmen of the Northern Cape and the Zulu from KwaZulu-Natal of South Africa. I investigate how the ≠Khomani and the Zulu involved in the cultural tourism industry are using archetypical tropes of ethnicity, and how they recreate these in the process of formulating context-specific identities in contemporary South Africa. The Bushmen and Zulu iconography that is ubiquitous is read against the modern day quotidian lives of the people concerned. The role and participation of tourists and researchers (anthro-tourists) in the performative culture of cultural tourism is investigated. An opportunity is also taken to critique the artistic creations of Vetkat Kruiper which partly arise because of the need to satisfy a tourism industry interested in Bushman arts and artefacts. Similarly his wife’s ‘biographical’ book Kalahari Rainsong (2004) is critiqued interactively and allows me to appreciate my encounters with people and text in the Kalahari. My visits to cultural villages where either the Zulu or the Bushman self-perform permit me to indulge in critical performative writing in which I also investigate the role and place of (anthro)tourists in the reinvention of site-specific identities. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2008.