An increasing number of individuals are looking for health information, interacting with health care providers, and participating in health-related online support groups The virtual landscape of the internet offers the opportunity for individuals to establish contact and relationships with persons having similar health concerns anywhere, anytime The phenomenon of health-related social media use generated an interest in why persons in the transplant journey chose to participate in an online support community, how they interacted and made use of the online community, and how this knowledge could assist nursing in improving care for this growing population A six month sample of internet postings from an international transplant-related social media site was analyzed using an inductive qualitative content analysis adapted from Graneheim and Lundman (2003) within the theoretical lens of Unitary Caring Science (Smith, 1999) The study provided a unique perspective of how members used the social media support group The synthesis of four pandimensional interconnected patterns, expressing emotions, sharing experiences, exchanging information, and offering reciprocal support lead to a theme of being known and understood Healing transcendence emerged as a unitary transformative metatheme that reflected the holistic nature of the member interaction in the online support experience / Includes bibliography / Dissertation (PhD)--Florida Atlantic University, 2016 / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

This thesis examines how the construction of news stories reveals relationships among groups of stakeholders and how their views unfold within environmental conflict coverage. This study uses a content analysis of 161 newspaper articles concerning the sea lion and salmon controversy at the Bonneville Dam, focusing on source use and blame and solution frames in environmental conflict coverage. This analysis of articles published between January 2003 and June 2010 in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, California, and Montana contributes to research concerning journalistic norms (i.e., balance and objectivity) and news production routines, specifically within the field of environmental reporting. The findings indicate governmental sources were most frequently quoted and presented the most successful solution frames; while advocacy/non-profit sources were quoted less frequently (in addition to tribal sources) and presented the most blame and failed solution frames. Additionally, this research reflects on the role of news filters, including journalistic norms and legal issues, and explores the relationship between blame frames and failed solution frames, which is perhaps a reflection of the role of spokespeople and media jargon.

This study examines the news media's construction of protests. Previous research has found that the news media demonizes and marginalizes protests. Protesters are framed in a highly negative fashion and primarily categorized as "violent." This study employed focus groups, agenda setting and framing theories to analyze this phenomenon. Previous research has been primarily quantitative in nature and thus qualitative research will provide a more in-depth understanding of this phenomenon. This study supports the findings of prior research but offers new insights. The implications of this study suggests that the news media can influence what people think about and how they think about it. Additionally, the news media frame protesters in a negative manner. Protesters are framed as violent and deviant. This negative framing both helps and hurts the protesters' cause. Lastly, this study found the news media to maintain the status quo in this society

Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree Master of Arts (Media Studies) Department of Media Studies School of Literature, Language and Media Faculty of Humanities University of the Witwatersrand / This research project studies the consumption of ‘self-help’ media texts with respect to black South African audiences. The core objective of this project is to contribute to expanding debates on race, class, identity, and media consumption. Based on in-depth interviews with 10 avid self-help consumers, the paper develops an argument for the role of self-management in race and other social identities. The deployment of the qualitative methodology of a thematic discourse analysis of over seven hours of interview transcripts assists this paper in providing an account of where, when and how self-help media manifests in the lives of the chosen participants. The paper finds that participants are motivated to consume self-help media texts by a need to ‘know’ and ‘understand’ themselves and others in order for these participants to acquire what they express to be an atmosphere of inter-relational harmony. A growth of media texts forming part of a genre related to the practice of therapy in South Africa is owed to what I argue as a deep-rooted culture of ‘reconciliation’ and a preoccupation with emotions which stems from a particularly murky socio-political past still in a constant state of reparation (prevalent in discourses about reconciliation and forgiveness) in the democratic dispensation. As a key inspiration, the once-off yet pertinent process of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of South Africa has noticeably inspired a genre which supplies its audience with an array of self-help, therapy-inspired media texts thriving on the practice of public confession and testimony (key principles of the TRC). This has paved the way for a culture of ‘treatment’ and ‘remedy’ becoming what this paper refers to as a ‘public affair’. Active participants on these self-help, often therapeutic, media texts on mass media platforms regularly do so at the expense of exposing deeply personal issues to ‘experts’ entrusted to assist with ‘healing’ what are deemed to be problem areas in people’s lives. Referred to by some of the interviewees as ‘brave hearts’, these participants (‘public confessors’) hold a complex position in the minds of the interviewed individuals who, ironically, express admiration and respect to the individuals who publicly testify and confess as they are a valued reference of ‘learning’ but at the same time, an expression of disappointment and shame is bestowed upon these ‘public confessors’ for allowing their argued exploitation by the media. Amidst all this, it is apparent that consumption of self-help media texts have particularly intricate influences on the patterns of self-identity as constructed by the participants of this research project. / GR2017

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A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the degree of Masters by Research in Media Studies, Johannesburg, March 2017 / In post-colonial, post-apartheid South Africa, “media wars”1 appear to have become a strong feature. Traditionally, the news media rarely report about other media. Media wars seem to manifest themselves more when news publications subject each other to critical scrutiny. Recent media wars between newspaper companies and editors have highlighted the agonistic pluralist nature of the South African print media which is facing persistent and complex disruptions. This research asserts that a notable feature of these media fights is that they are linked to the battle to gain market share in the South Africa print media market stranglehold by big media organisations. They are often couched in ideological discourses which are constitutive of editors and media owners speaking out publicly about issues internal to the media in order to carry the freight of public attention. The foci of this study will be two-fold: Firstly, it seeks to investigate whether these media wars are related to the broader issues of transformation in the South African print media. Secondly, the study seeks to unravel how some of the country’s leading news publications represent their competitors using editorial platforms and will investigate the editorial motivations behind certain representations. Despite the growing interest in media wars, South Africa is still underrepresented due to a lack of literature published in the field. The main rationale behind the study is to show how the media’s ‘independence’ from political parties plays itself out in ideological discourses found in the tensions between newspaper companies and editors in the period between 2010 and 2015. Two examples or case studies of media fights will be critically examined in this study and a qualitative discourse analysis will be undertaken in order explore the ways in which the media war texts spoke to or problematised the main theories employed in this study, namely: Critical Political Economy (CPE) of the media and Michel Foucault’s material post-structuralism blended with Bourdieu’s concept of the ‘media field’. Keywords: media wars, agonistic media space, market share, ideological discourses, transformation, representations. / XL2018

A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters in Media Studies, 2017 / On the 12th of February 2015, in an unprecedented move, members of the media in South Africa (SA) protested in Parliament and chanted “bring back the signal”, waving their smartphones in the air after discovering that a signal jamming device had been activated to disrupt cell phone signals in the National Assembly. Their protest denied President Jacob Zuma the opportunity to deliver his State of the Nation Address (SONA) until the signal and connection to the internet had been restored. It was the first time in the History of democratic SA the SONA was disrupted. The presence as well as the rapid spread and use of new media technologies in the SA mediascape has led scholars like Yu-Shan Wu to question the nature of their use and impact on government policy decisions. This study contributes to such work as well as long standing debates about the role of new media technologies in advancing democratic ideals in emerging democracies and the internet’s role as a public sphere. It does this by using a case study research method focusing on SONA 2015 to evaluate whether the South African digital space constitutes a digital public sphere. This paper concludes that indeed the South African digital space does constitute a form of digital public sphere. This sphere is largely operated and structured by news media organisations that use their websites, social media and various online platforms to engender it. / XL2018

This dissertation examines how the Global Peace Film Festival of Orlando, Florida, facilitates the construction of cosmopolitan identities within the context of humanitarianism and activism. An expansion of the notion of "peace"to include multiple levels of meaning is crucial to the identity of the festival, as it allows the screening of an array of films that appeal to the broad range of spectators and community organizations that interact with the event. Within the context of the Global Peace Film Festival, various discourses surrounding peace participate in the process of cognitively mapping the world and situating the self within it as a cosmopolitan citizen. The centrality of the self is key to understanding how audiences create solidarity with the other, and how they might choose to respond to appeals for humanitarian aid. The contemporary humanitarian imaginary builds solidarity between the viewer and the other-in-need in a manner that is rooted in self-reflection, creating an ironic spectator of vulnerable others and setting the stage for solutions to humanitarian problems that fit into personal lifestyle choices. This study examines the complexity inherent to the articulation between producers, audiences and films, and how meaning is negotiated on a local level. Witnessing and testimonial are key practices for engaging spectators, and the testimonial encounter has a transformative power for audiences that may be channeled into various responses to calls for action. An emerging practice is significant as well, a new situatedness of the documentary filmmaker as a central figure in the promotion of both films and humanitarian causes. This practice provides a role for the filmmaker as both entrepreneur and activist, easing the tension between the goals of humanitarianism and capitalistic concerns, while positioning the film as a tool rather than an aesthetic object and echoing the preeminence of self in our contemporary society. The Global Peace Film festival takes an innovative approach to promoting change, moving from a traditional exhibition model to an "engagement" model that focuses on the involvement of the local community. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

by Cheung Yuk-ching, Doreen. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1990. / Bibliography: leaves 179-188. / Chapter 7 --- Findings III: Hypotheses Testing --- p.99 / Mass Media / Family / School / Chapter 8 --- Findings IV: Relative Influence of Socializing Agents --- p.130 / Interaction among Agents / Relative Influence among Agents / Chapter 9 --- Discussion --- p.152 / Parental Influence / Problem of Perceived Parental Influence / Mass Media / School / Political Orientations / Shortcomings and Future Research Direction / Chapter Appendix 1 --- Fathers' birth place --- p.161 / Chapter Appendix 2 --- Mothers' birth place --- p.161 / Chapter Appendix 3 --- Item-by-item correlations among perceived paternal attitudes --- p.162 / Chapter Appendix 4 --- Item-by-item correlations among perceived maternal attitudes --- p.163 / Questionnaire --- p.164 / Bibliography --- p.179 / Reference --- p.183

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of Communication