The emergence of new media tools and social media platforms over the last ten years has created new means of intercultural engagement. On Instagram, there is a growing trend of travel pages and travel bloggers whose aim is to introduce and share with other users the highlights of the destinations they travel to. This also applies to locals in these destinations who wish to portray their country positively and promote it as a tourist destination, particularly in certain countries of the Middle East where there is the added challenge of an ‘unsafe’ image to combat. This research focuses on Lebanon to find out to what extent Instagram can be considered a tool to combat the ‘unsafe’ image of the country, and if users who come across depictions of Lebanon on Instagram perceive the country as a potential tourist destination. Using a mixed methods approach, this thesis combines surveys and semi-structured interviews with Canadian participants to reach its findings. Its theoretical framework makes use of Edward Said’s conception of the ‘other’ (1978), Stuart Hall’s system of representations (1980), Jan Neverdeen Pieterse’s hybridization paradigm (1996), and Eli Pariser’s (2011) echo chamber to analyze its findings. Broadly, findings show that while Instagram can effectively be considered a tool to counter the ‘unsafe’ image of Lebanon, and while the country may be branded as a potential tourist destination to users who come across such depictions of it, algorithm restrictions limit the potential for such depictions to fulfill their potential since they don’t always reach users who perceive Lebanon to be an ‘unsafe’ place.

The purpose of this study was to develop two tape-recorded synthetic speech discrimination test tapes and assess their intelligibility in order to determine whether or not synthetic speech was intelligible and if it would prove useful in speech discrimination testing. Four scramblings of the second MU-6 monosyllable word list were generated by the ECHO l C speech synthesizer using two methods of generating synthetic speech called TEXTALKER and SPEAKEASY. These stimuli were presented in one ear to forty normal-hearing adult subjects, 36 females and 4 males, at 60 dB HL under headphone&. Each subject listened to two different scramblings of the 50 monosyllable word list, one scrambling generated by TEXTALKER and the other scrambling generated by SPEAKEASY. The order in which the TEXTALKER and SPEAKEASY mode of presentation occurred as well as which ear to test per subject was randomly determined.

This ethnographic study investigated the underlying motivations behind college-aged students ' use of the popular social-networking site, MySpace. It also examined how MySpace influences online and offline relationships as well as impacts individuals' self concept. The research method included an initial unobtrusive observation of 50 random MySpace pages, participant-observation of informants' sites and 18 interviews with the study's participants. Each component of this ethnographic design helps reveal various patterns associated with relational and self motivations using MySpace. Following transcription analysis and multi-tiered triangulation among interview, participant-observation and lurking data, the information was compiled in a matrix to help break down and to evaluate data in manageable pieces. Two key findings related to concepts of self and relationships resulted from this study. The first discovery suggested that participants engage in a number of relational maintenance strategies, particularly activities associated with alleviating dialectical tensions, such as autonomy and togetherness. Secondly, the study revealed that MySpace members constantly negotiate their ideal and actual selves through computer-mediated communication, based on reflective appraisals from significant others on MySpace. Taken together, relational maintenance strategies and self-concept activities are engineered by the users' need to necessarily learn the values, norms and culture associated with life in MySpace. The study builds upon previous literature on ethnographical methods, computer-mediated communication, relational maintenance, self-concepts and socialization practices. This thesis contributes to burgeoning research in virtual ethnography as well as to emerging, yet underrepresented academic research investigating social networking sites use motivations.

'l'his paper proposes to present a simplified course in radio broadcasting equipment, adequate for the needs and within the realm of understanding of the student of programming and production techniques.

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The emergence of new media technologies has influenced the broadcasting marketplace causing it to evolve and become more competitive. The various platforms that new media technologies have made available for content repurposing and the increased number of channels available via digital television and radio has altered the landscape of the public service broadcaster in an unprecedented manner. Thus, questioning its viability amongst the other private media organisations whose core focus is on commercialisation of content rather than serving the public interest. Based on the case study of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), this study articulates the influence of new media broadcasting on the public broadcaster’s business model and value chain. It investigated the legitimacy of public service broadcasting in the new media age. This study examined the current status of the SABC’s broadcasting policy and concluded that there is urgency for policy revisions to be fast tracked.

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This paper explores the complexity of the texts women create through blogging and their inherent value. I seek to explore how the mothers who blog are constructing online identities for their family units and family members in this space and how those constructions affect and inform the mothers' construction of their personal identities online. I analyze how perceptions of gender norms and practices of gender performance may affect and inform the identities thus constructed, and further complicate the liminal nature of blogging spaces. I begin with the sociological framework of Erving Goffman, which is commonly used to deconstruct identity performance in social and digital mediums through his explanation of social performance and identity construction. After presenting the shortcomings of this framework, such as its inability to deal with the more private aspects of blogging, I introduce theories of gender performance and feminist autobiographical studies to frame a constructive discussion of the subjectivities and constructed identities within women's blog posts. I explore the role and effects of audience relationships in creating autobiographical writing. I illustrate the co-constitutive relationship between understood norms, gender norms, and genres in blogging, as well as the forms that bloggers' self-representations take. , I analyze factors that inform female authorship and how these factors are shaped by prior models of female authorship, demonstrating how the private/public paradox of blogging informs how women perceive of their audiences in a gender-conscious way, and how that in turn affects their blogging behavior. I offer suggestions for how the study questions in this thesis can inform the decisions women make when they perform their identities through disclosive blogging. I demonstrate how an increased awareness of the unique qualities and tendencies of female subjectivity can decrease women's inclination to define their experiences as an “other” to a male normative. I also show that as women highly regard their autobiographical blogging, blogging can become more effective in fulfilling the autobiographical urge and can have a democratizing effect on global dialogue about blogging.

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