The central question in this thesis is what are the interrelationships between the news media and those at the center of power and how do these shape the role the media play in democratic processes, particularly since neoliberal reforms in 1991. More specifically, this research attempts to illuminate journalistic practice and the factors that influence it, at the intersection of political and economic interests in what is often described as a crony capitalist polity (Kohli, 2007; Varshney, 2000). This has been done by examining three case studies that represented the interests of those at the center of power and the growing collusion between the state and private capital that has been a mark of the polity's neoliberal turn (Chandrashekhar, 2014). Each of these - the Nira Radia conversations that exposed the nexus between private capital and the state, the news media's coverage of the political elite, mainly the Gandhi family and the leader of the Hindu majoritarian political party Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Narendra Modi, and lastly, the media's coverage of India's richest business house Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) and its owner Mukesh Ambani - was marked by extensive self-censorship by the national mainstream news media. The theoretical architecture underpinning this project draws on three major approaches - political economy, field theory and new institutional theory provides a framework sufficiently sensitive to the range of pressures and influences journalism is subject to. This research draws on forty semi-structured, in-depth interviews with forty journalists and editors who were directly involved in the editorial processes of each of these news stories. The salient finding of this project is that the field of journalism has been subject to regular incursions from the field of power, particularly when political and economic interests are aligned, such that the field of journalism collapses in the field of power resulting in the need to reassess Bourdieu's claim that fields, however heteronomous, possess a degree of autonomy. This research finds that journalism is not merely embedded in the field of power, it plays a more pernicious role after economic liberalization. It becomes an active participant in negotiating and consolidating the dominant coalition of economic and political interests on which the polity rests. In other words, it is recruited by the field of power in institutionalizing crony capitalism. However, the self-censorship could not be sustained and unraveled, albeit briefly, in each of these cases. Contradictions between the macro forces induced by the consolidation of democracy, dissensus within the elite and constitutional limits circumscribing power are some of the variables that allow for interstices of journalistic autonomy. Thus, new institutionalism's insistence on retaining the political elided by both political economy and field theory, is valuable. Lastly, this research foregrounds the role played by journalistic agency in upholding the democratic mission of journalism.

Thesis (M.J.)--Carleton University, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 247-256). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--Carleton University, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.) University of Missouri-Columbia, 2006. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file viewed on (June 26, 2007) Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Carleton University, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 286-312). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

As a result of a complex range of cultural, economic and social factors, contributions by learning disabled people to the production of knowledge have been at best marginalised and at worst rendered silent. This study seeks to break that silence by engaging learning disabled people as co-producers of disability and media research discourses. It does this in two main ways: by addressing the manner in which they are positioned in the research process, and by identifying the ways in which they are (mis)represented or not in newspapers. This research not only investigates but it also presents new ways of giving learning disabled people a say in the knowledge production process. y the adoption of a mixed method approach in which learning disabled people are placed at the centre of the research process, this study aims to identify and critically analyse the significance and meanings of representations of learning disabled adults by the contemporary, print version of English national newspapers. Drawing from both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies, it uniquely incorporates distinct but interrelated data collection stages, including a research advisory group and two focus groups with learning disabled people and their supporters, alongside a content analysis of five hundred and forty six learning disability news stories. This study offers new insights into the application and development of inclusive research principles, highlighting the contributions of supporters to the research process and the roles of a nondisabled inclusive researcher. It reveals the predominant ways by which learning disabled adults are represented by newspapers and how they are not generally engaged as sources of these news stories, while presenting the views of focus group members, throughout these discussions of the content analysis. This thesis concludes with a consideration of the implications of the findings for the future direction of inclusive research practices and media discourses that engage learning disabled people as co-producers of knowledge.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 2008. / Title from title page screen (viewed on Feb. 26, 2009). Thesis advisor: Mark Littmann. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis provides the first rigorous history of the concept of midlife crisis. It highlights the close connections between understandings of the life course and social change. It reverses accounts of popularization by showing how an idea moved from the public sphere into academia. Above all, it uncovers the feminist origins of the concept and places this in a historically little-studied tradition of writing about middle age that rejected the gendered "double standard of aging." Constructions of middle age and life-planning were not always oppressive, but often used for feminist purposes. The idea of midlife crisis became popular in the United States with journalist Gail Sheehy's Passages (1976), a critique of Erik Erikson's male-centered model of ego development and psychoanalytic constructions of gender and identity more generally. Drawing on mid-century notions of middle life as the time of a woman's entry into the public sphere, Sheehy's midlife crisis defined the onset of middle age, for men and women, as the end of traditional gender roles. As dual-earner families replaced the male breadwinner model, Passages circulated widely, read by women and men of different generations, including social scientists. Three psychoanalytic experts-Daniel Levinson, George Vaillant, and Roger Gould-rebutted Sheehy by putting forward a male-only concept of midlife as the end of a man's family obligations; they banned women from reimagining their lives. Though this became the dominant meaning of midlife crisis, it was not universally accepted. Feminist scholars, most famously the psychologist and ethicist Carol Gilligan, drew on women's experiences to challenge the midlife crisis, turning it into a sign of emotional instability, immaturity, and egotism. Resonating with widespread understandings of mental health and social responsibility, and confirmed by large-scale surveys in the late 1990s, this relegated the midlife crisis to a chauvinist cliché. It has remained a contested concept for negotiating the balances between work and life, production and reproduction into the present day.