This study highlights the significance of equal participation of men and women as central to the future health of politics and the democratic process in Wales. Following affirmative action taken by two major Welsh political parties, the National Assembly for Wales has been notable for the high level of female representation among its membership since the legislature was created in 1999. The large number of women in the Assembly is a unique phenomenon both politically and geographically. However, the question that remains unanswered is this: in spite of equal political representation in the Assembly, are men and women now treated equally and fairly by the Welsh press? This research is the first comparative study of press representations of men and women in a political institution that has an almost equal number of male and female representatives. It specifically attempts to examine how 12 Welsh newspapers portrayed female Assembly Members [AMs] during a three-month Welsh national election period as well as during a later three-month routine press coverage period. It draws on content and discourse analyses of the press coverage of over 3000 articles from about 1000 newspaper editions during the two periods studied. It is also based on data generated by in-depth interviews with 28 AMs from the current Assembly. This study shows that when there has been a relative equal participation of women in a political institution over a period, the gender issue initially remains noticeable and “business as usual”. However, over time, more complex media representations of male and female politicians have been observed and gender bias has gradually become less salient and controversial than before, both in colleagues’ perceptions of women politicians and in media representations, because gender parity has become a norm.

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A project was sponsored by the SERC for research into the design of a colour vision system for the detection of print faults in rotary screen printed fabrics. The research was carried out at De Montfort University (formerly named Leicester Polytechnic), which has previous experience with Image Processing in relation to Textiles. The proposed system was required to identify, process and correct the common print faults which can occur during rotary screen printing. These can be divided into two main categories, systematic and random faults. This thesis covers the work undertakeni n the developmento f a laboratory-basedin spection systema ndt he subsequendte velopmenat nd testingo f methodologiesto facilitate factory-based on-line inspection. Initial investigation identified the requirement for colour segmentation algorithmsa ndt he researchin to anda nalysiso f suitablem ethodologiesf or segmentationf orms a fundamental part of this thesis. Important, new colour segmentation algorithms were developed from first principles by the author. These new methods offer improvements (in most cases significant) over the current `state-of-the-art' colour segmentation technology, and are applicable to a wide-range of computer vision tasks. These proposed methodologies have been rigorously tested and the findings of the investigation are presented as part of this thesis.

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A sense of place and time has been the unconscious focus of my adult life. While living in Hawaii I often searched for ancient rock carving sites. These art forms have the ability to convey the mystery, magic and history of previous times. I use human figures, beads and various textiles with similarities to these petroglyphs as a powerful metaphor for my search to find a place that is home

As an artist, I am fascinated by surfaces and the stories they tell. I have observed that places and objects, like people, wear the effects of age in different ways. Their stories are revealed through pealing paint, rusty metal, and surface patina. My photographs are a record of their state of existence at the moment I am present. I have chosen a point in time when each is at rest, with only the aged surface to hint of a life of use. Their stories unfold with observation through the lens of my camera.

The Revolutionary era was a period of radical political change in France which dissolved traditional boundaries of privilege. It was also a time of creative experimentation on the stage, the street, and in print. Performance and theatrical language were an integral part of the French Revolution. This interdisciplinary thesis makes a vital contribution to knowledge of the cultural production of the French Revolution by analysing the theatrical influences in its satirical prints. It argues that printmakers drew from different aspects of Revolutionary performance to create their prints, from street singers and fairground performers to unsanctioned Revolutionary events and topics favoured by the stage, including the representation of Revolutionary characters in hell. These depictions – observed for the first time under thematic banners – provide a new insight into the multiplicity of opinions, beliefs and attitudes during the French Revolution.

“A Place ‘Rendered Interesting’: Antebellum Print Culture and the Rise of Middle-Class Tourism” analyzes the frequently overlooked ideological dimensions of antebellum print culture related to tourism. Traveling through the American leisure landscape became a primary means by which writers, poets, artists, and everyday sightseers explored and defined their worlds. Through tourism, authors expressed some of their deepest anxieties about the society they inhabited. Tourism texts are therefore deceptively powerful cultural artifacts; in fact, sometimes their codified and even repetitive nature was a means of emphasizing an author or authors’ deepest fears. In my dissertation, I analyze guidebooks, travelogues, periodicals, gift books, children’s literature, novels, and visual culture to reveal how authors and artists used potentially escapist discourses of leisure travel to engage with the most pressing problems of the antebellum moment. My examination of touristic print culture shows that this archive, long dismissed as superficial, was in fact central to the consolidation of white middle class identity, to the emergence of manifest destiny, and to ongoing debates over of the rise of commercialism and abolition. Chapter one explores how antebellum guidebooks address ideologies of progress and empire. I examine Catskill guidebook authors’ uses of literary sources, particularly short stories by Washington Irving. These authors quoted and cited Irving’s stories to create a white mythology for the Catskills that marginalized non-white people and encouraged their removal. Chapter two situates tourism within the broader context of antebellum class identity. I argue that authors like Catherine Maria Sedgwick and Nathaniel Parker Willis employ tourism discourse to articulate concerns about the threat of upwardly mobile lower classes and their potential impact on supposed middle-class morality. Chapter three frames the tension between Romanticism and capitalism inherent in touristic culture. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s sketches and stories of the White Mountains, I argue, can help us understand the emergent antebellum problem of the commodified landscape. In Chapter four, I argue that tourism became a space for heated political debate on slavery. Abolitionists like Lydia Maria Child encouraged readers to consider the possibility of reorganized society – specifically, a society without slaves – through the imaginative possibilities of the cave aesthetic. / 2020-11-27T00:00:00Z

The category of young adult (YA) fiction encompasses a wide range of genres; but despite this generic diversity, it has so far failed to represent the full range of communities that make up contemporary British society. Discussions are ongoing between professionals in the publishing industry and campaigning individuals and organisations who are aiming to redress this imbalance. Writers making new work are in a position to help effect a change, but acknowledging and responding to the call for inclusion can be far from straightforward, with questions being raised such as: ‘how far can a writer stray from their own lived experience?’ and ‘how can a writer avoid tokenism or cultural appropriation when writing for inclusion?’ This thesis consists of a new YA contemporary novel, Sea Change, and an accompanying critical essay, which reflects on the challenges I encountered while aiming to write for inclusion. Set in the Scottish Highlands, Sea Change is a contemporary YA crime novel, in which the world of the sixteen-year-old protagonist, Alex, is thrown into turmoil when he discovers a dead body next to his fishing boat. The decisions Alex makes following this discovery set in motion the plot of the story. The narrative, as it unfolds, facilitates the exploration of themes frequently associated with adolescence, such as friendship, risk-taking and the maturation into an adult identity, along with themes specifically linked to Alex’s status as a member of marginalised communities because of his sexuality and social class, such as prejudice, acute stress brought on by economic pressure, and low self-esteem. This thesis, then, reviews the opinions and recommendations being expressed by campaigners for greater diversity, and exposes the uncertainties and challenges a writer faces when aiming to write for inclusion.