No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This thesis concentrates on the emerging field of interactive documentaries. Digital interactive and networked media offer so many new possibilities to document reality that it is necessary to define what an interactive documentary is and whether there is any continuity with the linear documentary form. This research therefore proposes a definition of interactive documentaries and a taxonomy of the genre based on the idea of modes of interaction – where types of interactions are seen as the fundamental differentiator between interactive documentaries. Interactivity gives an agency to the user – the power to physically “do something”, whether that be clicking on a link, sending a video or re-mixing content - and therefore creates a series of relations that form an ecosystem in which all parts are interdependent and dynamically linked. It is argued that this human-computer system has many of the characteristics associated with living entities. It is also argued that by looking at interactive documentaries as living entities (Living Documentaries) we can see the relations that they forge and better understand the transformations they afford – on themselves and on the reality they portray. How does an interactive documentary change while it is being explored/used/co-created? To what extent do such dynamic relationships also change the user, the author, the code and all the elements that are linked through the interactive documentary? Those questions are discussed through the use of case studies chosen to illustrate the main interactive modes currently used in interactive documentaries. This thesis is a first step in exploring the multiple ways in which we participate, shape and are shaped by interactive documentaries. It argues that interactive documentaries are ways to construct and experience the real rather than to represent it.

No description available.

No description available.

This thesis examined the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the structure of drug treatment in the United States and how the effects have influenced the experience of undergoing and providing services in a variety of contexts. The COVID-19 pandemic emerged amid an opioid epidemic, which has taken the lives of over 564,000 Americans since the late 1990s. With overdose deaths increasing since the onset of the pandemic and government agencies responding with policy changes, recent research in the social sciences and on drug treatment services has necessarily shifted its focus to the effects of the pandemic on people who use drugs (PWUD) and the delivery of drug treatment. Yet, this work has focused primarily on logistical changes that occurred within specific public health or treatment settings; it has not investigated the experiences of individuals accessing or facilitating different drug treatment modalities. Based on 20 semi-structured interviews with 16 patients and four clinicians, this thesis examines how both groups across the United States experienced changes to drug treatment services during the COVID-19 pandemic. I argue that the temporal dimensions of the pandemic are key for understanding the variety of treatment experiences of my participants, as services fluctuated over time in concert with the pandemic's developments. However, I also argue that there are certain elements of the treatment experience that are "timeless," in other words not contingent on the pandemic, that continue to influence treatment in both positive and negative ways, including the therapeutic relationship and prohibitive cost of care. This project contributes to the call for a greater understanding of the shifting landscape of drug treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially from the perspective of PWUD accessing care.

No description available.