The rise of social media has significant implications for the advertising industry, particularly for the relationships between marketers, consumers and advertising agencies. In fact, the entire advertising landscape has been developing in response to the emergence of digital technologies and advertising media, and the roles of these key stakeholders of the advertising industry and how they perform in the social media era are still not clear. Most previous research on this topic has focused on Western countries and adopted a macro perspective. In contrast, this study contributes to knowledge by focusing on an Asian context, and by exploring how social media are shaping the working lives of individual creatives who play a key role in the development of creative ideas and their expression across an increasingly diverse range of media. This study aimed to explore how and to what extent the work roles and identities of Hong Kong-based advertising creatives are changing in response to the rise of social media. As the study focused on creatives’ experiences, a qualitative, interpretive approach was taken. This involved 32 interviews with advertising creatives in agencies differing in size, digital focus and ownership, supplemented with participant observations in both a multinational full-service advertising agency (Agency-M) and an independent Hong-Kong digital agency (Agency R). The study has provided insights into creatives’ perspectives on their roles, identities, skill-sets and beliefs in relation to the rise of social media, and on the ways in which their relationships with clients and agency colleagues were changing as social media became more important. In particular, the study identified three key experiences of Hong Kong advertising creatives in relation to the rise of social media. First, they were found to have divergent role identities linked to their identification with traditional and digital communication agencies. Second, the rise of social media led them to experience new tensions in their relationships with clients. Finally, across both traditional and digital agencies in Hong Kong, the role of advertising creatives is beginning to transcend the digital/traditional distinction. This new hybrid role was found to involve creative switching between three identities over the course of the advertising development process: creative strategist, creative facilitator, and creative producer. Each of these role identities required more from them than the merging of ‘digital’ and ‘traditional’ creative skills; in particular, the creatives increasingly found themselves having to work closely with a broader range of stakeholders within and beyond their own agencies, requiring them to develop their interpersonal and negotiating skills. This research contributes to understanding the role and role identity in creative industries. It explores the many ways that social media are shaping advertising creatives’ working practices and identities, and it highlights the importance of cultural context to advertising practice. The triadic structure of contemporary Hong Kong advertising creatives’ roles identified here has implications for theorising advertising creativity, agency practice, and social media as a catalyst for individual and organisational identity and practices in the creative industries. The findings also have implications for advertising agency structure and practices, within and beyond the creative department.

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The thesis examines what children know about and how they feel towards Europe, drawing on interviews with 9-10-year-old pupils in Bulgaria and England. Although it is focused on the media, it also takes into account a plethora of other factors by investigating the interplay between social structures, socialization agents, national context and individual agency. The methodology combines qualitative and quantitative methods and involves 174 interviews with children, surveys with their parents, interviews with teachers and head teachers and content analysis of TV news, videos and school textbooks. The contributions of the thesis are both theoretical and empirical. The findings reveal important commonalities and differences in processes of European identity formation in the two countries. In both the new and enthusiastic European Union (EU) member Bulgaria and in the notoriously Eurosceptic England, European identity is largely an elite and racialized identity. However, the meanings of European-ness vary: in England, being European is linked with the idea of belonging to the continent of Europe, while Bulgarian children associate it with being part of the EU as a political unit. The results also provide a better insight into the relationship between knowledge and identity, as well as the role of the media in relation to each of them. The study concludes that the mass media, and television in particular, play an important role in raising awareness and knowledge, especially when the topic has a fairly salient position on the political agenda. In contrast, the media do not seem to play a decisive role in shaping identity as such: although Bulgarian media provide considerably more coverage of European issues than English media, Bulgarian children feel less European than their English peers. Theoretically, the thesis not only provides a detailed, sociologically informed and context-sensitive account of the media s influence in identity construction, but also bridges the gap between contrasting theories in media studies and sociology, including agenda-setting theories and audience-focused approaches to media effects, as well as theories of socialization and social structures.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2002. / Typescript. Paging starts with leaf 2. There is no leaf 1. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 165-185). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2002. / Typescript. Paging starts with leaf 2. There is no leaf 1. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 165-185). Also available on the Internet.

This dissertation in Middle Eastern Studies explores the creation of national identity through visual media in the contemporary United Arab Emirates. Within a framework of cultural and media studies the thesis analyses how forms of representation are negotiated by Emirati media producers. The research tests the applicability of cultural theories developed by Appadurai and Eickelman in the context of the Gulf Region. The UAE media industry is considered within a network of global media companies. The local industry's interaction with global media production companies illustrates a constructed divide between local and global identities. This creates specific patterns of media making and influences local audience perceptions of different narratives and representations. The research uses qualitative methods, based on interviews and focus groups conducted between September 2009 and April 2010 in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. The interviewees were Emirati media professional and Students of Media Communication. They discuss how media producers and television presenters try to reconcile their notions of what a national media should be with the restrictive structure of the industry. The interviews demonstrate the challenges of a government-controlled national media for the development of a public dialogue on national identity and confirm that the state-controlled television and film industry, does not account for the diversity of the Emirati community of nationals. The criticism of Emirati representation in the media is accompanied by a feeling of stagnation and inability to change the existing patterns. It results in their turning away towards commercial media. Going beyond an analysis of restrictive media praxis, the research provides an inside perspective on the complex issue of contemporary Emirati identity.

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This final thesis is looking for ways social networking site users understand their virtual image, online identity and the way online identity is made. It also deals with the way users view the use of social networks and the fact that their virtual profiles reflect their personalities and opinions. It also handles a study on how users perceive the closeness of "Facebook world", whether as a world made up of real people contacts or just a cold virtual space. Social network users leave a digital trace behind. In addition, this thesis follows its impact on online reputation. Also it follows effect it has on user's virtual contacts. It considers attitudes towards social networking sites based on age and gender. It mentions certain effects that accompany user and his presence on internet and social network in general: disinhibition effect, flaming, trolling or spiral of silence theory. It describes evolution of the communication on social networks. In the final stage it focuses on commercial potential: marketing opportunities on Facebook, ways to exploit users' data and what will be the benefit for both parties.

Thesis (M. A.)--University of Canterbury, 2006. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 153-164). Also available via the World Wide Web

By considering the advertising as a mediatical representation of a cultural industry, this thesis reflects upon the recognition of regional identity proposed in the advertising appeal. This qualitative study explored a few concepts and procedures from the enunciative Discourse Analysis in order to locate the meaning production which could answer to the following questions: What gaucho‟ has been portrayed by contemporary advertising? What are the main features of its mediatised identity? Based on the identity canon created, sustained and popularised (in terms of publicity) by the Gaucho Traditionalist Movement (GMT), were defined as specific objectives: (a) discursively describe and analyse different adverts, taking into account the localisation strategies guided by regional culture; (b) identify the verbal and non-verbal elements often used in the discursive appropriation of the gaucho myth (South Brazilian, Portuguese-speaking); and (c) verify what is(are) the predominant representation(s) of regional identity. The corpus is composed by 10 adverts published in different editions of the daily newspaper Zero Hora, which belongs to the RBS Group (South Brazil Network). The time span for data collection was 3 years (2005 2007). Adverts were collected during the months of September, in particular the Farroupilha Week and the holiday of the Gaucho Day, on September 20th. Sampling was intentional; it was selected adverts related to a variety of products and services thus contributing to diversify the representations promoted by the advertisers. The working hypothesis was that the contemporary mediatical representation of regional identity by advertising has been reified. After the analytical discursive analysis, it was possible to understand that once turned into a product, such identity is at the reach of several publics for an individual level of appropriation depending on the announcer‟s needs with their product/services and brands. Such condition would be visible when taking the gaucho myth popularised by the GMT, as its representation would be revisited in the adverts in two forms. This can be either in a compromising way, because the stereotype‟s appropriation may let slip traces of superficiality, i.e. poor arguments, faults, amateurism, forgetfulness, illogicalities, or in an openly customized way, when the advertisement bets on its overdoes and promotes itself due to its very embroidered experimentalism proposed on unusual relationships, surprise elements, provocative reads, i.e. pastiches. In those terms, the stereotype obtained from the analysis has revealed the representation of the regional identity manifested especially the following features: focus on the anonymous human plasticity in non-verbal texts; character‟s demarked phenotype, dominant masculinisation; individualising approach; socio-cultural values presented as having a common origin on a supposed ground zero, the Farroupilha Revolution; and a representation based on the gaucho myth of GTM, yet not necessarily loyal to it. / Entendendo a publicidade como uma representação midiática da indústria cultural, esta dissertação ocupa-se da reflexão acerca do reconhecimento identitário regional proposto no apelo publicitário. O estudo qualitativo empreendeu alguns conceitos e procedimentos da Análise do Discurso enunciativa a fim de localizar as produções de sentido que respondessem a seguinte problemática: que gaúcho é este, afinal, representado pela publicidade contemporânea? Quais as principais características de sua identidade midiatizada? Tendo por parâmetro o cânone identitário criado, sustentado e popularizado (em termos de ampla divulgação) pelo MTG (Movimento Tradicionalista Gaúcho) definiu-se como objetivos específicos: a) descrever e analisar discursivamente diferentes anúncios, tendo em vista a investigação das estratégias de localização orientadas pela cultura regional; b) identificar os elementos verbais e não-verbais mais recorrentemente utilizados na apropriação discursiva do mito do gaúcho (sul-brasileiro, de língua portuguesa); e c) verificar qual ou quais as representações da identidade regional predominantes. O corpus foi formado por dez anúncios veiculados em diferentes edições do jornal Zero Hora, pertencente ao Grupo RBS Rede Brasil Sul. O período de coleta do corpus ficou delimitado em três anos, de 2005 a 2007, restringindo-se ao mês de setembro e em especial à Semana Farroupilha e ao feriado do dia 20, Dia do Gaúcho. A amostra constituiu-se como intencional, sendo que os anúncios foram selecionados de maneira a contemplar produtos e serviços de diferentes naturezas, contribuindo assim à diversificação das representações promovidas pelos anunciantes. Partiu-se da hipótese da representação midiática contemporânea da identidade regional pela publicidade como reificada. Após a etapa analítico-discursiva, pôde-se compreender que, convertida em mercadoria, tal identidade encontrar-se-ia ao alcance dos mais diferentes públicos-alvo, para o nível de apropriação individual, sendo ofertada conforme as necessidades mercadológicas de cada anunciante, junto aos seus produtos/serviços e marcas. Tal condição estaria visível na tomada do mito popularizado pelo MTG, cuja representação seria revisitada nos anúncios hora de maneira aparentemente comprometida porque deixaria escapar vestígios de superficialidade na apropriação do estereótipo, tropeçando em pobrezas de argumento, enganos, amadorismos, esquecimentos e ilogismos hora de maneira declaradamente customizada quando apostaria nos seus exageros e se promoveria justamente pelo experimentalismo generalizado, proposto em relações inusitadas, elementos surpresas, releituras provocativas tais como pastiches de toda ordem. Nestes termos, o estereótipo obtido a partir das análises revelou, em síntese, uma representação da identidade regional pela publicidade contemporânea marcada especialmente pelas seguintes caracterizações: foco, em termos de texto não-verbal, na plasticidade humana anônima; fenótipo demarcado dos personagens; masculinização dominante; abordagem individualizante; valores sócio-culturais apresentados com origem comum num suposto marco zero, a Revolução Farroupilha; e representação baseada no mito do gaúcho do MTG, mas não necessariamente fiel a ela.