This is a study of news production by eight major news organisations in the UK and Canada. Through observation of daily routines and semi-structured interviews, 124 journalists were included in the final sample. The overall aim of this research was to explore the interrelationships between new technologies, the potential autonomy accessible by journalists and the structure of constraints under which they operate. The news marketplace has become congested while audiences have fragmented and public news-producing behaviours have soared, facilitated through the ubiquity of new media. These developments were crucial to the analysis of mainstream news production within a media environment that has left news organisations struggling to retain audiences and their own credibility. New technologies adopted by news organisations have altered routines both within newsrooms and out in the field. News values have shifted towards ‘live’ coverage while workflow has been improved and convergence become the norm. At the same time, new media available within the public realm – including the internet, online publishing tools and advanced mobile phone technologies – are also available to individual journalists. However, it is those journalists already familiar with technology who are more likely to incorporate them into their own daily routines, along with the wider range of sources now available within the information producing strata of society. Research findings relate to the specific locations in the news production process at which new technologies, journalistic autonomy and constraining factors have the most impact. For this purpose, a model was developed along with an autonomy-constraint ratio. Key findings are that the transmission phase of news production presents the least amount of autonomy for journalists while the newsgathering phase offers the greatest amount of autonomy. Due to the temporal and theoretical limits of previous research frameworks, an autonomy-centred approach is proposed as a means of complementing the existing constraints-based approaches that have tended to dominate news production studies.

This is a study of media production and coverage of Israeli-Palestinian relations. It investigates how media production and coverage have developed alongside developments on the ground, political necessities and shifting perceptions of peace in relation to this conflict since the beginning of the Oslo peace process in 1993. The study presents a comprehensive historical analysis of the negotiations that led to the Peace Accord between Israelis and Palestinians in 1993. It highlights the elements that made the Accord a diplomatic achievement but which reestablished the imbalance of power that had previously defined Israeli-Palestinian relations. It also presents the results of a content analysis of The New York Times’ representation of the first months of that process. It then discusses the perspectives of subjects who have been involved in activities promoting dialogue to challenge dominant explanations for this conflict since the early nineties, comparing these with the views of journalists who have covered this conflict and the peace process for different media. In describing the interplay between media and these other contexts, as well as the ways through which this has been linked to discursive explanations of peace and the return to visible conflict, this investigation reviews the factors that prevented the media from becoming agents of change.

This is a case study in the microsociology of knowledge conducted in the London-based News Division of the British Broadcasting Corporation during 1972-3. The data was gathered by fieldwork in Broadcasting House and Television Centre. The study falls into two parts. The first, after a review of relevant literature, presents a detailed account of those dimensions of the organisational milieu necessary for an understanding of broadcast news production. These are: the hierarchical control structure which determines policy for news coverage; the everyday production routines which structure “news” as an organisational product; the system of advanced planning through which news stories are identified. This section also locates the legitimising role played by the BBC’s editorial philosophy and power structure, and considers implications of the broadcaster’s conventional distinction between “news” and “current affairs”. The second part of the study develops the idea of news producers as constituting and epistemic community whose work skills, organisational location, and occupational knowledge give them a distinctive cognitive orientation. Newsmen’s characterisation of their thought and practice as “professional” is analysed as a mode of conferring authority upon the production process, and the product “news”. It is then argued that newsmen’s primary framework of reference is the organisation within which they assert their complete autonomy from the audience, while at the same time asserting their unique capacity to determine its needs for news. Next, “impartiality” is analysed as a distinctive corporate conceptions drawn from a model of the political consensus represented by the major Parliamentary political parties, and is presented as illus-trating the BBC’s accommodation to the realities of State power. Newsmen’s claim to be accurate is next considered. It is shown how they support their claim by pointing to empiricist methods of authentication. The specific character of these is demonstrated by showing how news production is heavily condition-ed by the temporal imperatives of the daily news cycle. The study then concludes after considering newsmen’s time-conscious-ness; their professionalism in this context is analysed as being in control of the pace of often unpredictable work.

The thesis explores priority setting in the National Health Service. It focuses on the changing way in which rationing issues are dealt with in the wake of the Health Service reforms and the separation of function between purchasing and providing health care. It examines how managers within sample District Health Authorities justify their priority-setting agenda. Two connected themes are also analysed. One is how health needs assessment and the call for a 'primary care led NHS' presage a more dominant role for Public Health medicine in informing purchasing. Secondly, how evidence based medicine together with the use of clinical protocols/guidelines, measurement of outcomes and the use of clinical/medical audit, become factors in the decision making process. Theoretically, the thesis attempts to demonstrate a practical use for the Foucauldian concept of 'governmentality' as a framework with which to analyse contemporary changes in health policy. The principal concern is the role experts play within the problematisation of government associated with liberalism. This includes their role within the institutions and technologies of governance that reflect the notion that the strength of the liberal state is derived from securing the well being of the population. In turn this reflects the self-critical dynamic within liberal problematisations of defining the legitimate boundaries of government responsibility in a society made up of autonomous individuals. The PhD is based on semi-structured interviews (32 in total), conducted with the Chief Executives and principal directors of six English District Health Authorities, together with the Chief Officers of their associated CHCs. The District Health Authorities were selected - after a general review of Health Authority Purchasing Plans for 1996/97 - from those Authorities that acknowledged the rationing debate in their purchasing intentions and represented a cross-section of gainers and losers with respect to the new funding formula.

This thesis provides a sociological analysis of the in-service training (INSET) of teachers in England between 1988 and 1992, to explore issues concerning the professionalism and autonomy of teachers. Sociologists of education have produced numerous explanations of educational phenomena, and evaluation studies reveal much about INSET. Yet there remains the task of developing sociological explanations in this field. As an especially dynamic phase, the period designated merits detailed study. Teachers' professional development is conceptualized in three ways: in relation to change in the education system, to the place of teaching as a profession, and in terms of professional learning. National INSET schemes implicitly threatened teacher autonomy, yet professionalism could be redefined at the micro- level, and this study therefore addresses macro- and micro-sociological issues. The empirical research concentrates with increasing intensity on school-focused INSET experiences, through data from documentary sources, in-depth interviews, and participant observation. Chapter 1 explains the rationale for the investigation and demarcates the field of study. Chapter 2 outlines the background to the Local Education Authority Training Grant Scheme and similar initiatives. Chapter 3 sets out the sociological basis for the analysis of INSET phenomena. Methodological issues are addressed in Chapter 4, including the choice of case studies, the challenges of re-analyzing data and the criteria for selecting cases. The analysis presents a macro-sociological perspective in Chapter 5, then examines how national and LEA priorities are implemented in schools in Chapter 6. Micro-level case studies explore specific aspects of INSET: across different phases in Chapter 7 and on using information technology in Chapter 8. Chapter 9 investigates INSET for art. Chapter 10 summarizes the ways this thesis contributes to knowledge about the professionalism and autonomy of teachers through the study of INSET during a critical period. It reviews the application of the theoretical approach and points to areas for further research.

The thesis looks at the morphogenesis of structure, culture and agency and the historical interplay between them. It attempts to do this by investigating the lives of mature students applying for a place on an Open Access course as a foundation year for university entrance. The focus of the study concerns the reasons given by the students for their application to undertake Access and seeks to discover whether their decision to enrol on Access can be interpreted morphogenetically as representing a 'new beginning' in their lives; a 'new beginning' which in turn represents the end of a personal and culturally related morphogenetic cycle. It is the contention of the thesis that the socio-cultural background of the students is not one that is usually seen as culturally compatible with university entrance and thus their application represents not only a major event in their personal lives but also a significant cultural movement from one cultural base to another. Since Access courses represent a major educational initiative the students' decision to join the course can be read as a morphogenetic interplay of structural, cultural and biographical factors. Research material was gathered through a morphogenetic analysis of the students' Access application forms, course interviews, informal discussions, written statements whilst on the course and a series of in-depth interviews. The thesis concludes that from the evidence of their own life histories the students were experiencing a personal morphogenesis related to change in their lives and that their biographical 'journeys' need to be read in relation to the changing wider structural, cultural and familial backdrop against which their own morphogenesis is occurring.

In the 1930s many people leaving the United Kingdom's depressed areas in search of work were drawn to Coventry. Companies involved in the manufacture of motor cars, electrical goods, artificial silk and machine tools were typical of those located in the city. Most incomers found work: unemployment remained at a low level whilst the city's population exploded. The city boundaries were extended, and Coventry was rapidly suburbanised in response to the heightened demand for accommodation. Private developers noted with surprise how few of the new houses were built to let. The 1936 edition of Home Market placed Coventry first on its national index of purchasing power. From the middle of the decade, the city was closely associated with rearmament and four shadow factories provided further employment opportunities. This research addresses changes in the processes and practices of (primarily non-food) shopping amongst prosperous working-class Coventry people in the 1930s. It assesses the development of new spending patterns In relation to new products and services, and examines the role played by gender in determining the who, what, when, where and why of shopping. The thesis asks how these men and women negotiated financial power and consumer choice between them and discovers that the families who benefitted most from new material opportunities were those which placed a value on togetherness'. A range of source material is utilised to interrogate and contextualise oral testimony, and to explore the development of local retail provision. relationship is established between the city's manufacturing, retail and domestic environments. The research suggests that men spent slightly more time in the home, and women slightly less during this period. It also asserts that going shopping was not necessarily about acquiring goods; that acquir1ng goods did not necessarily involve going to the shops; and that the shopper was not always a woman.

This thesis provides an extensive analysis of new communication technologies (NCTs), which includes email technology, the Internet, intranets, NetMeeting, video-conferencing and audio-conferencing, within an organisational context. These technologies have become ubiquitous in organisational life and work. The implementation, integration and application of NCTs in this setting have both innovative possibilities and negative consequences. Consequently, we need to understand the implications of these technologies on organisational cultures and structures. This is achieved throughout this thesis by focusing upon the context of technology implementation, the transformation of communication and information lines through and within the organisation, and the changing social networks and interactions. 'Communication Technologies at Work' will explain and critically explore the effects of NCTs whilst developing an understanding of the implications for its employment in the work and the training settings of an organisation. It is based upon the ethnographic study of a hi-tech organisation and draws upon the narratives of the organisational members collected through in-depth interviewing. Further data was collected utilising observational and survey methods. The research methodology of this study is distinctive because NCTs were used as methodological tools for carrying out the observations and distributing the surveys. Although a traditional methodological stance was adopted the study will further develop this tradition. It will analyse the relationship between NCTs and organisational cultural responses, by studying and interpreting the personal narratives of organisational employees. This study offers an original understanding of NCTs through the narratives of the organisational members and this forms the basis for its substantive contribution to existing research in this subject area. The importance of the narrated experiences of organisational employees negotiating the introduction of NCTs will be emphasised throughout and will be used to create the framework for the analysis. This thesis will conclude that organisational cultures have been 'technologised' through the application of NCTs. This is characterised by 'the ethos of technology enthusiasts' and 'the ethos of technology sceptics'. These positive and sceptical subcultures are embedded in the dominant organisational culture. Furthermore, this study will demonstrate that organisational communication and information flows have been altered, extended and interrupted with the advent of NCTs in the work setting. Finally, the discussion of the role of these technologies in the work and training settings of the case study organisation suggest that the consequences of their implementation and use vary in these different contexts.

In this thesis I outline a political problem of positioning organisation theory. I maintain that there are projects of positioning, depositioning and repositioning, which articulate organisation in different political ways. To dialectically critique the politics of these projects I discuss the way philosophers of destruction, deconstruction and impossibility conceptualise the political event. I argue that these speculative philosophies share a political belief in the need to question and show the limits of the ways social reality is positioned in the realms of modernity, capitalism and `Empire', and explore possibilities of how the world might look different. I maintain that the politics of the positioning project is to turn organisation into the hegemony of management, which I show by engaging with the particular discourse of knowledge management. The politics of the depositioning project is to resist the hegemony of management in multiple ways; I discuss particularly how organisation theorists emphasise the precariousness, plurality and locality of processes of organising. Although the political resistances by the depositioning project are of great importance, I argue that there is a tendency to not link their politics to questions of hegemony, which I show to have certain depoliticising effects. In response to these failures, the politics of the repositioning project aims to repoliticise organisation theory by speculating about a new hegemony of social organisation. My engagement with the so-called 'anticapitalist movement' and questions of its organisation and politics shows, however, that such an attempt of repositioning is itself an impossible or undecidable event. Nevertheless, I argue that it is precisely this political event of impossibility that calls for a speculative decision to be made; a decision, however, which will always fail to fully represent social organisation.

This thesis argues that questions of ethical life, moral identity, and gender are inextricably involved, and that an appropriate conception of each is necessary for the thinking of the others. In particular it seeks to demonstrate that the way in which freedom is conceived in its relation to moral identity and ethical life has profound implications for the thought of gender relations. It is further argued that the writings of Kierkegaard open up a way of relating freedom and the finite that offers the possibility of re-thinking gender. The writings of Rousseau and of Freud are examined to show the interdependence of their philosophical anthropology and the systematic subordination and exclusion of women that operates in each of them. In each case it is shown that, despite the very different, and even opposed ways that they construe the nature of moral identity and its relation to ethical life, a parallel gender polarity is at work. In Rousseau male moral identity rests on independence from society and infinite, excessive freedom. This is brought into relation to the mundane world of ethical life through gender. Women are denied independence and moral identity and made responsible for social being. Their subordination is such that dependence on them does not destroy the integrity of men. The crisis of this unstable structure is demonstrated through a reading of Rousseau's novel La Nouvelle Heloise, the death of whose heroine is shown to be the moment of collapse of the Rousseauean synthesis. In Freud moral identity is achieved through the identification of the self with social authority. The finite freedom that can be thought in psychoanalysis rests on a fusion of ethical and moral life. The "depersonalisation" of the super-ego is the road to liberation. Through the gendered experience of the Oedipal drama this path can only be taken by men. Woman are again exclude from moral identity, being allowed only a "masochistic" relation to the Law. The crisis of this structure is found in the notion of the "archaic heritage", which it is argued, represents a collapse of Freudian thought. Finally both Freud and Rousseau are brought into relation with the psychological writings of Kierkegaard, whose distinctive notion of freedom and faith is held to address the limitations of both sets of writing. Infinite freedom is made to co-exist with finitude. The implications of these writings for the thought of gender is briefly explored through other of the writings of Kierkegaard.