Thesis (Ph.D.)--McMaster University (Canada), 1990. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-01, Section: B, page: 0160. Supervisor: J. R. Kramer.

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<p><p>Following World War II, the network emerged as both a major material structure and one of the most ubiquitous metaphors of the globalizing world. Over subsequent decades, scientists and social scientists increasingly applied the language of interconnection to such diverse collective forms as computer webs, terrorist networks, economic systems, and disease ecologies. The prehistory of network discourse can be traced back to descriptions of cellular formations in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the invention of the electrical telegraph in the nineteenth century. Even so, it was not until the 1940s that researchers and writers began to rely on a more generalized network vocabulary to reflect fledgling material modes of interlinked organization and construct a new postwar vision of the world.</p></p> <p><p>Since the 1970s, the field of network science has given rise to an even wider range of research on complexity, self-organization, sustainability, group interactions, and systemic resilience. Scientists such as Albert-Laszlo Barabasi have studied network design and new media critics such as Alexander Galloway have addressed network ontology. This dissertation contends that to grasp the effects of networks on globalization, we must also look at the fears, hopes, and affects that they generate. While network scientists have been less concerned with the cultural fears, political investments, and changes in human subjectivity signaled by networks, my study of American literature focuses on writers, filmmakers, and media innovators who have captured the deep transformations of the era of interconnection. These artists have achieved insights about networks not through scientific analysis, but through aesthetic, narrative, and media-specific experimentation.</p></p> <p><p><italic>Network Aesthetics</italic> examines how contemporary American literature, film, television, and new media dramatize the affects -- alternatively terrifying and thrilling -- of interconnection. This interdisciplinary project combines numerous methodologies, including literary analysis, media studies, cultural criticism, and political theory. Given the importance of networks to representation, communication, and computing, these structures serve as an ideal hinge for operating intermedia exchanges. Using varied tools, I analyze terrorist networks (Stephen Gaghan's <italic>Syriana</italic>), financial systems (Don DeLillo's <italic>Underworld</italic>), computer webs (Marge Piercy's <italic>He, She, and It</italic>), neoimperial networks (Thomas Pynchon's <italic>Gravity's Rainbow</italic>), social networks (David Simon's <italic>The Wire</italic>), and interactive game networks (Persuasive Games' <italic>Killer Flu</italic>). In the end, I argue that obsessions with abstract network threats and solutions reveal a change in the most dramatic social protocols of our connected world. Understanding how networks have formally come to evoke fear can help us grow less susceptible to an American politics of terror and more able to act justly as we negotiate our interconnected world.</p></p> / Dissertation

This doctoral thesis studies a cycle of British film and television fictions produced in the years 2005-2011 and set retrospectively in the 1980s. In its identification and in-depth textual and contextual analysis of what it terms the ‘Eighties Cycle’, it offers a significant contribution to British film and television scholarship. It examines eighties-set productions as members of a sub-genre of British recent-past period dramas begging unique consideration outside of comparisons to British ‘heritage’ dramas, to contemporary social dramas or to actual history. It shows that incentives for depicting the eighties are wide-ranging; consequently, it situates productions within their cultural and industrial contexts, exploring how these dictate which eighties codes are cited and how they are textually used. The Introduction delineates the Eighties Cycle, establishes the project’s academic and historical basis and outlines its approach. Chapter 1 situates the work within the academic fields that inform it, briefly surveying histories and socio-cultural studies before examining and assessing existing scholarship on Eighties Cycle productions alongside critical literature on 1980s, 90s and contemporary British film and television; nostalgia and retro; modern media, history and memory; British and American period screen fiction; and transmedia storytelling. Chapter 2 considers how a selection of productions employing ‘the eighties’ as a visual and audio style invoke and assign meaning to commonly recognised aesthetic codes according to their targeted audiences and/or intended messages. Chapter 3 investigates semi-autobiographical dramas that bear the mark of remembering, from the vantage point of the present, a time of fast expansions and shifts in the global media landscape. Chapter 4 explores how historical fictions locate historical knowledge in the decade’s refraction through modern media and reconstruct, deconstruct or ironise these mediations to meet particular cultural or industrial demands. Chapter 5 identifies two spin-offs that exploit shifts toward transmedia production and distribution by using eighties iconography as the set pieces for an immersive fantasy world, considering how and why their source texts are adapted and what this implies for past representation. Finally, the Conclusion reviews the project’s findings and briefly considers possible factors for the cycle’s deceleration and transformation after 2011. Ultimately, this project sees the Eighties Cycle as a by-product of shifts in Britain toward advanced globalisation and new mediation that have facilitated access to domestic and international mediated recent pasts. These productions operate within a distinct recent-past period screen fiction mode, engaging audiences equipped with comprehensive notions of the eighties as circulated in media. Meaning is produced in how these notions are structured; sometimes they are lauded, sometimes parodied, sometimes criticised or ironised, and sometimes they are simply cited for the sheer pleasure of recall.

This thesis examines the implementation of the new digital information and communications technologies (ICTs) by the Women in Film and Television (WIFT) Non-government organisation (NGO) at the state, national and international levels through an ethnographic, participant observation case study, informed by the precepts of feminist research. A quantitative survey of Australian peak women's NGOs participating in the electronic mailing list - Pamela's List is also conducted mapping the context in which WIFT operates and providing an overview of Australian women's peak NGOs' uptake and use of ICTs. The findings are situated in relation to a review of the international surveys available on women's NGOs and the surveys and research reports available on the overall NGO sector, nationally and internationally. The study addresses two neglected areas in the ICT literature. For over a decade Feminist theorists have pointed to the omission of gender as a focus in studies on the new information and communications technologies. There has also been little research and few surveys into the uptake of ICTs by either women's NGOs or the broader NGO sector, nationally or internationally. The detailed, longitudinal case study of the implementation process from pre-establishment through to advanced use of digital communications by a women's NGO at state, national and international level is also unique. Combined with the survey, it affords the opportunity to not only document which ICTs are being adopted but also why particular technologies are being used over others and how they are being used. Despite key successes, the results show less than optimum uptake, a lack of advanced or strategic use, and the myriad of challenges shared by all three WIFT organisations, Australian women's peak NGOs, and the national and international NGO sector in utilising ICTs. The reasons for this are analysed revealing the conflicting values between the NGO sector and those underlying the development of ICTs and demonstrates that difficulties systemic to both the technology and the NGO sector are limiting access and utilisation by women's NGOs. While the myths of women as technophobic are seriously challenged by the findings, the study highlights the importance of gender factors in limiting access and uptake and shaping the use of ICTs. Australian women's NGOs' uptake is shown to be less than their mixed gender counterparts and the study also reveals a lack of acknowledgement by government of gender as a key factor in the uptake of ICTs. It is also shown that significant funding, infrastructure support and policy initiatives recognising the special technological and communication challenges of women's NGOs and the overall NGO sector are needed, if both are to fully and strategically embrace these technologies and function effectively in the new millennium. The significant contribution to knowledge of this thesis lies foremost in furthering the understanding of gender as a key factor in the uptake and utilisation of the new ICTs while at the same time challenging the patriarchal myth of women as technophobic. It thus contributes to the reconstruction of the epistemologies surrounding women's relationship to technology. The study also contributes to furthering the current very limited knowledge and understanding of women's NGOs and the overall NGO sector's uptake and use of information and communications technology. The knowledge and the critical insight provided is not purely historical but rather as the push to take up broadband begins, has relevance to this and future technological innovations. Without an understanding of the process, requirements and challenges faced by women's NGOs and the NGO sector in general, the existing problems will continue to be replicated. The material presented in this study will be useful to all women's organisations and NGOs contemplating establishing digital communications or wishing to review their current use of these technologies. It will also be of value to government and policy makers seeking to establish policies and initiatives that will enable NGOs to take up the new information and communication technologies.

Orchids: Intersex and Identity in Documentary explores the creative practice challenges of working with bodies with intersex in the long-form auto/biographical documentary Orchids. Just as creative practice research challenges the dominant hegemony of quantitative and qualitative research, so does my creative work position itself as a nuanced piece, pushing the boundaries of traditional cultural studies theories, documentary film practice and creative practice method, through its distinctive distillation and celebration of a new form of discursive rupturing, the intersex voice.

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隨著民主治理的發展，有效調和民主憲政與文官專業價值，才能夠確保民主政治運作的效能。背景因素使得政務官與事務官間的互動，愈具舉足輕重的角色。從相關研究可以理解，欲直接觀察政務官與事務官細部的互動並不容易，兩者間細部的互動對外界而言始終是一個黑盒子。因此，本研究使用鮮少作為該議題研究主體的影視產品進行分析。選擇英國經典影集「Yes, Minister」，乃因該劇主要以描繪政務官與事務官互動為主，描寫程度相當細膩。藉此旁觀的角度一窺政務官與事務官的互動，確實是個能夠協助深入理解該議題的良好個案。 研究設計的基礎為文本分析法，透過建構分析路徑，分別從兩者本質、選擇偏好、表現作為，以及互動後對政策產出的討論。先將14集研究樣本進行相同路徑的文本化，再將文本化的樣本進行論述與類型化。研究發現事務官的互動技巧，包括行政權力的作為與不作為、可行性評估、影響政務體系與政務官以及納入外部勢力等，目的為提升參與決策的條件，細部列出24項互動技巧；另一方面，政務官則可透過經驗複製、行政學習、媒體與聲望經營與納入外部力量等，目的為提升統治便利性與正當性，細部列出13項互動技巧。兩者的互動呈現出互相制衡的本質，若各自無法有效負責與調和時，易形成雙重價值選擇的壓力。 本研究提出以「鐘擺效果」解釋政務官與事務官的互動，兩者在制衡關係的基礎上，隨著時序性的影響而改變互動模式。基本上的互動如鐘擺式擺盪，進而系統性因素將會因時序性遞減，激發出最適的政策結果。最終提出兩大項建議：首先，從制衡到動態平衡的關係，正視制衡現象的存在、立基於分權制衡上的信任關係、減少彼此錯誤解讀的機會，以及培養持續監督與自省能力；其二，設定政策決策的妥協底線，認知非任務型指標的超然價值，以及試著創造沒有共識的共識。 / In any democratic state’s development, how to effectively reconcile the two values of constitutional democracy and bureaucratic expertise is fundamental to ensure the proper functioning and efficacy of democratic politics. As Taiwan further consolidates its democracy, the interaction between the political appointees and senior civil servants becomes ever more important in achieving a balance of pluralistic values on the one hand, and government’s administrative efficiency, on the other. Yet past research has found that it is not easy to observe directly the details of the interaction between political appointees and civil servants; to the external world, the actual interaction between the two has always been a black box. Therefore, to shed light on that black box, this study analyzes the interaction between appointees and civil servants as depicted in film and television programs. The classic British series, “Yes Minister,” was chosen as the study’s research subject because it portrays the minister-bureaucrat interactive behavior skillfully and poignantly, which allows a deeper understanding of the issue. The study employs textual analysis as the principal research method. Each of the series’ 14 episodes had been textually reinterpreted by using the same analytical paths, which were constructed by first categorizing the nature, choice preferences, display behaviors, and post-interaction reaction to policy outputs for both political appointees and senior civil servants. The research has found that civil servants, in their pursuit for greater participation in decision-making, exhibit as many as 24 distinct interactive behaviors with their political superiors. Some of these behaviors include administrative action and inaction, call for feasibility assessment, manipulation of the political system, and incorporation of external forces. On the other hand, political appointees, in their effort to achieve political expediency and legitimacy, have 13 behaviors of their own through experience replication, administrative learning, media and reputation management, and inclusion of external forces. Both sets of interactive behaviors are essentially parts of a checks-and-balances system. When responsibilities are unclear and actions cannot be coordinated effectively, the agency then becomes vulnerable to role ambiguity and double value selection problems. This research proposes a “pendulum effect” to explain the interaction between political appointees and civil servants. Because the appointees and civil servants have a mutual checks and balances relationship, both parties will alter their interactive behavior depending on the timing of events. Essentially, the interaction between the two sides will initially swing freely like a pendulum; subsequently, system factors will cause the pendulum to progressively decrease its swing, ultimately arriving at the most optimal policy result. In conclusion, this study makes two major recommendations. First, both political appointees and civil servants need to understand that they are in a dynamic equilibrium, in which they check and balance each other’s actions. By acknowledging the check and balance nature of their relationship, both minimize the chance of misinterpreting each other, and may develop the healthy capacity of ongoing oversight and self-introspection. Second, both political appointees and civil servants must establish a baseline in any policy negotiation and compromise, recognize the (sometimes) extraordinary value of non-mission-based indicators, and attempt to create a consensus when no consensus exists.

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