Consumer participation in the production of information, knowledge and culture has become increasingly popular in the last three decades. Although these participatory practices have been successfully incorporated into business models in many sectors, media and entertainment industries are still quite reluctant to invite audiences to create canonical content for their storyworlds. Media conglomerates hold a firm grip over their intellectual property and only allow selected parties to participate in the production of official content for their franchises. In contrast, participatory worlds are fictional worlds which allow audiences to contribute with canonical additions to their expansion. In participatory worlds, audience members are welcome to contribute to the content production chain and/or decision-making processes, having the chance to become contributors and co-authors of the texts. This thesis critically examines participatory worlds with the aim of understanding what they are and how they operate within the industrial context. This research introduces two models of participatory worlds, the ‘sandpit’ and ‘spin-off’ models, based on the location and medium where audience participation takes place, primary or ancillary works, and uses one case study to illustrate each of these: the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) Lord of the Craft (2011- ) and Grantville Gazette (2003- ), an e-zine rooted in the 1632 Universe. These case studies are compared with commodities produced and systems employed by media conglomerates in the management and canonical expansion of their fictional worlds in order to establish similarities and differences among them and determine where participatory worlds stand in respect to the media and entertainment industries. The concept of ‘intervention’ is introduced to define the capabilities that audience members are given to contribute canonically and make an impact in a storyworld. This thesis explores the factors which determine the degree of ‘intervention’ given to participants in participatory worlds by examining two further case studies, the web drama Beckinfield (2010-2013) and the TV show Bar Karma (2011), in addition to the aforementioned. The comparison of the four case studies reveals different approaches to audience participation within these practices.

Undertaking physical activity in the presence of a natural environment (termed green exercise) is good for health and wellbeing. Nevertheless, we need to understand more about what motivates people to perform green exercise. The literature suggests that beliefs may play a role in physical activity behaviours and outcomes. To expand on this, the aim of this thesis was to explore the role of beliefs on green exercise behaviours and outcomes. Specifically, the following research questions guided the experimental chapters: Do beliefs predict visiting local green space? Can beliefs be modified to encourage more green exercise, and improve outcomes? Chapter 2 found that subjective measures were stronger predictors of green exercise than quantity of local green space, showing initial support for subjective measures playing a role in green exercise behaviours. To explore this further, questionnaires to assess beliefs were developed (Chapter 3) and tested (Chapter 4). This was important because previous research has not explored what people think about green exercise. The evidence showed that beliefs about green exercise appear to predict intentions to perform green exercise and visit frequency to local green space. Chapter 5 used indoor vs outdoor methodology to assess the impact of a promotional video (attitude modification intervention) on the psychological outcomes of green exercise. This was important because assessment and/or modification of attitudes in a green exercise environment had not been previously examined. Chapter 6 used a promotional video in a four-week green exercise intervention. Overall, the evidence was mixed, however, there was some indication of expectancy effects. Regular green exercise can help with health and well-being. Evidence provided in this thesis highlights the importance of subjective measures (such as perceptions, beliefs, and intentions) on green exercise behaviours and acute psychological benefits.

Using people actively involved in mountain climbing, this thesis explores people's motivations to participate in mountain climbing, an activity frequently characterised in terms of risk. Moreover, using a variety of both quantitative and qualitative methods the assessment of the role of risk as a motivation for mountain climbing is central to the thesis. The first study (N = 232) employed a theory of planned behaviour framework that incorporated beliefs about risk, together with other behavioural beliefs, as a means to investigate the motivations of mountain climbers. Although risk emerged as significant positive predictor of attitudes towards mountain climbing, it was the weakest of the four predictor variables. Study Two (N = 207) presents a psychometric analysis which mapped perceptions of eight types of climbing onto a three component (Challenge, Risk, and Enjoyment) representation of the characteristics associated with mountain climbing. The position of each type of climbing revealed some clear differences between these types in relation to each of the three dimensions. The results presented provide a useful insight into which particular types of climbing should be studied further to build upon the current understanding of the role and importance of risk to participation in mountain climbing. Study Three (N = 205) used a laddering methodology in order to identify the hierarchical relationship between motives reported by climbers who participate in three types of climbing. Individual cognitive maps were created for each type of mountain climbing. Inspection of both the cognitive maps and indices designed to reflect the importance of individual motives seem to suggest that the importance of risk to people's participation may be less than originally thought. Study Four (N = 37) was an on-line qualitative study which addressed mountain climbers‟ views concerning the popular yet controversial opinion that climbers are motivated by risk. Overall, risk appeared to acquire motivational status as a result of its instrumental relationship with other factors explicitly labelled as motivations for mountain climbing. Together, these findings suggest that, while risk occupies an important position within people's motivations to participate in mountain climbing, it is not risk per se that is key to people‟s participation. Moreover, the results presented hint at risk acting as a facilitator, something necessary to the fulfilment of other important motivations for mountain climbing.

Underpinned by Bandura’s social-cognitive theory (SCT), this thesis examined the perceptions of physical activity (PA) in healthy and unhealthy older adults, and examined imagery as a potential strategy to promote PA. Focus groups with healthy older adults (Chapter 2) and those diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (Chapter 3) examined how PA is incorporated into daily living, and the unique barriers and enablers of PA in older adults. The subsequent chapters focus on the role of imagery as a strategy to increase PA. Using the revised applied model of deliberate imagery use as a framework, Chapter 4 explored where, when, what, and why older adults image PA. Based on Chapter 2 and 3’s finding that older adults use a range of imagery types and functions, and the importance of self-regulation, Chapter 5 investigated how self-regulatory imagery (i.e., images of goals and planning) related with social-cognitive variables, enjoyment, and PA. Overall, the thesis recognises the importance of SCT in explaining the unique challenges older adults face in relation to PA while accounting for contextual factors including PA level, disease severity, and employment status. The thesis also demonstrates imagery as a potential strategy for promoting PA in older adults.

This thesis presents a sociological analysis of the organisation and significance of thoroughbred horse-racing in Britain. It focuses on both the internal world of racing and the relationship between racing and the wider society. It argues that such an approach is necessary for an appreciation of the full meaning of horse-racing as a social institution. The study finds two major points of articulation between racing and wider social processes: first in terms of the role of racing in elite sociability and structuration; and second in terms of its location in working class culture, particularly as it is mediated through the working class betting tradition. The precise linkages, continuities and changes within these areas are explored in order both to amplify and qualify the conventional observation of a coalescence of interests in racing between otherwise sharply differentiated social strata. The analysis points to the conclusion that while the symbolic legacy of this observation may be strong, the evidence for this symmetry and its pervasiveness is now more tenuous and its implications for the general process of class identification heavily circumscribed. The analysis of the discrete world of horse-racing concentrates first upon the social production of the racehorse as reflected through the position of the stable worker. Evidence is presented which both casts doubt on received images of this process and indicates some erosion of the distinctive cultural output of racing which has customarily attracted a benign curiosity in outsiders. Secondly, attention is focused on developments in the control and administration of racing. In particular, the emergent role of the state in this process is shown to have reverberated through both the production and regulatory sectors of the industry, provoking a profound dislocation in the exercise of power. Such intervention is also demonstrated to have reacted upon the production and consumption of betting, precisely the activity which provided the original rationale for intervention in racing. While there are important elements of continuity in the organisation of racing, the thesis expresses the view that racing has passed over a watershed in the last two decades which in time may prove to have eroded its distinctive contribution to British society.

This thesis draws from a bi-national comparative study on the importance of ‘winning’ within university sport in England and the United States, in two institutions, University College Worcester (UCW) and the British University Sport Association (BUSA) in England and Northwest Nazarene University (NNU) and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States. The thesis focuses on perceptions and attitudes related to the ‘amateur’ – ‘commercial’ ethos of winning, specifically of administrative personnel, coaches and athletes within these systems. In order to provide a contextual setting, the socio-historical development of sport culture generally and in universities in particular was examined in both countries. This context also provided an informed rationale for ‘participants’ perceptions and attitudes selected for this study. A multi-method approach for data collection was utilised comprising questionnaire and interview instruments supported by a comprehensive underpinning literature review including participant observation and analysis of primary and secondary documentation in a comparative dimension. The study’s findings suggest that the extent of the importance of winning within university sport in England and the United States is influenced by a range of shaping factors. BUSA’s central goal emanates from an ‘amateur’ approach that includes features such as ‘mass-participation’ and recreational enjoyment for the student-athletes participating. The NCAA is a business-run organisation that operates on financial budgets into the millions. Inter-collegiate sport serves as a major form of entertainment in American society, with ‘commercial’ pressures driving a ‘winning’ attitude on all levels. However, the empirical evidence and participant observations do suggest an emerging blurring of perceptions, especially amongst the athlete groups at both UCW and NNU. The evidence reveals features, which challenge accepted orthodoxy on the nature and extent of the ‘amateur’ – ‘commercial’ ethos continuum in both university systems.

This thesis provides a critical account of contemporary female sports films. The research presented here is interdisciplinary in nature as it is situated in relation to (feminist) discourses around women and/in sport as well as women and/in cinema. Taking into account the embodied, discursive and psychic dimensions of identity and subjectivity, I investigate the ‘troubling’ implications of female athleticism within cinematic representation. Focusing on fictional, feature-length films, I provide insight as to the wider generic contexts in which depictions of female athleticism take place (i.e., the (male) sports film, the action cinema, melodrama and the musical). I explore the kinds of (heroic) narratives constructed around athletic female protagonists as well as the significance of the display of athletic female bodies ‘in action’. This allows me to provide insights as to the identities and subject positions (re-)constituted and privileged by these films. I additionally discuss the ways in which depictions of the athletic female body and its active physicality complicate (conceptualisations of) cinematic spectatorship. The film analyses are underpinned by a concern about female spectatorship in particular – about the relationship between the female spectator and the athletic female bodies on screen – and about the pleasures and anxieties cinematic depictions of female athleticism might provide.

This thesis explores the performative enactment of identity and embodiment through an online ethnography of the online game Final Fantasy XIV. It is argued that online identity must be viewed as performative, that is, enacted through speech and action, and embodied via the avatar, which acts as a body project for the player. The avatar identity is also constrained by the notion of authentic identity, which denotes how a single body is expected to hold a single identity. The thesis makes contributions to three areas. Firstly, in substantive terms, the thesis contributes original sociological knowledge of online social interaction, drawn from an online game and its related spaces, which remain under-researched sociologically. Secondly, the thesis makes a theoretical contribution through a theoretical framing of how online, embodied identity is achieved in an online game in a performative fashion, which is centred on the body of the avatar, coupled with the speech and actions of the player. Finally, the thesis also offers a methodological contribution through its original use of photo elicitation in online interviews, and furthers the debates around (online) ethnography. An 11 month programme of fieldwork was undertaken, comprising 36 asynchronous, image elicitation interviews, extensive participant observation of the game over the 11 months, and observation of the official forum lasting nearly six months. The thesis concludes that online identity and embodiment in these spaces are heavily constrained by norms drawn from everyday life, such as heteronormativity, and racism. The game design is also influenced by the developers‟ norms and values, such as the avatar appearance. The possibilities for performative identity and embodiment are severely constrained by the community, who reify the game space as separate from “real” life and reject the inclusion of non-normative avatars.

This thesis examines the factors which influenced how social issue story lines were developed in the areas of sexual violence, breast cancer and mental distress in British soap opera in the mid to late 1990's. The soap opera production process was examined by conducting interviews with members of production teams from different programmes. This core study was contextualised by additional interviews with production personnel working in other areas of television (e.g. documentary). Spokespeople from different organisations who consulted on story lines or lobbied around different issues were also interviewed. In total, 64 interviews were conducted. The influence of soap story lines on public understandings of an issue was explored in an audience reception study of sexual violence in Brookside (12 focus groups). The soap opera production study identified a number of factors which influence story line development (socio - cultural positioning of the substantive topic, broadcast hierarchy and commercial imperatives). The comparative study of mental distress identified some cross genre constraints (narrative pace, commercial imperatives) and some genre specific issues (access to people with mental health problems). The audience study revealed that people bring their social knowledge of an issue to their viewing experience. Research participants 'read' the meanings of Brookside's story line in remarkably uniform ways however some participants responded differently to certain elements of the story (rejecting empathy with the 'collusive' mother). The story line was demonstrated to have made a lasting impact on Brookside viewers (in relation to the conflicting emotions of the abused child). There were also identifiable links between the intentions of the production team, the nature of representation and audiences responses.

In the global marketplace of the twenty-first century a proliferation of festivals, or festivalisation, has produced an increasingly pressurised and politicized environment for international arts festivals. Through a case study of the Edinburgh International Festival the thesis explores what strategies the Festival is adopting to maintain its lead position in this increasingly competitive international landscape. It examines recent cultural policy development in Scotland and the UK exploring how creative industry theory promotes the argument for ‘investment’ in cultural festivals as economic drivers and city or region profile boosters. Edinburgh’s cultural policy is to brand itself the Festival City and it has supported the establishment of a number of competing festivals in the city. The case study investigates how the Edinburgh International Festival is managing a range of new initiatives at a time of rapid political change in Scotland. These include: exploiting changing technology to assist marketing and audience development; establishing partnerships and collaborations with a growing range of non-cultural public and private bodies, and cultural diplomacy – the development of international initiatives on behalf of the Scottish and UK Governments. The case study also explores a unique model of co-opetition which has developed between the Edinburgh International Festival and rival festivals, producing new strategic cultural organizations. The thesis establishes how current cultural policies in Scotland and the UK require international arts festivals to engage in non-cultural roles in order to create profile and advantage for themselves and their stakeholders in addition to fulfilling their cultural remit and in an environment of dwindling public and private sector support. In conclusion, it considers the opportunities and risks for arts organizations of an instrumental approach to cultural policy.