This thesis is focused upon the development of the computer as a communication medium in history. To accomplish this, the computer is understood as constructed by language and technology where these are in turn grounded upon their roles as forms of cultural mediation. As methodology is of paramount importance, the digital medium is heuristically employed to discuss the epistemic and phenomenological significance of communications media. The more general inference therefore concerns the role of socially constructed media in the fabric of cultural development. In addressing this concern, the paper finds that communications media stand as the repositories of knowledge in the form of artificial memory and figurative technique. The computer then, as a medium in history, may arguably be declared as a paradigmatic instantiation of this role.

The psychosocial correlates of adolescent gambling behavior were assessed among 7th, 9th, and 11 th graders. Participants (N = 587) completed questionnaires concerning their gambling behavior, coping skills, locus of control, depression, and substance use. Adolescents were grouped into 1 of 4 groups based upon their performance on the DSM-IV-J (Fisher, 1992) gambling screen: non-gamblers, social gamblers, problem gamblers, and probable pathological gamblers. This research examined whether individuals belonging to the 4 groups differ with respect to locus of control, coping skills, depression, and substance use. Results indicated that probable pathological gamblers were characterized by an external locus of control and reported higher levels of maladaptive coping styles, depression, and regular substance use than non-gamblers and social gamblers. Logistic regression analyses suggest that coping skills, locus of control, substance use, and depression alone do not adequately predict pathological gambling, but do seem to play an important role in the etiology nonetheless. Implications are discussed.

Recent work in anthropology has speculated on how developments in molecular biology and medicine might bring about new bodies, selves, and forms of sociality. This thesis explores how herbal and pharmaceutical antidepressants differently affect experiences of one's neurochemistry. It does so in two ways. First, it outlines the historical 'social life' of pharmaceutical antidepressants, including their co-production with depression, and the neurochemical body in a particular style of reasoning in biological psychiatry. Second, it presents and analyzes claims made for the efficacy of antidepressants made in vernacular North American books, advertisements, and pamphlets. Although the claims for both herbal and pharmaceutical antidepressants allude to the same realms of value---those of science, nature/history, and personal experience---their different social lives enable different access to the neurochemical body.

Typescript. / Bibliography: leaves 259-280. / Photocopy. / xiv, 280 leaves, bound ill., map 29 cm

Typescript. / Bibliography: leaves 316-327. / xii, 327 leaves ill

Mass culture in Thailand creates idealizations about female beauty which cause many women to engage in destructive behavior such as starvation dieting and forced vomiting. In this dissertation I describe efforts to develop awareness among a group of predominately female students at a rural Thai university about the ideological purposes of these idealizations. Using a CD-based multimedia research template, the students reported the “common sense” beliefs which help create the beauty ideal and the effects of these beliefs on their own lives and the lives of other women. The major finding of their research was that mass culture creates beauty ideologies to maintain social stratification, in that those women who are made to feel “ugly” because they do not resemble the white-skinned underweight ideal tend not to be members of the elite social class which has the resources and time to achieve these ideals. The significance of this dissertation lies in the emancipatory effects that it produced; although a Critical Discourse Analysis showed that the students continued to assimilate some of the values and interests which they had identified as “oppressive”, they also demonstrated to varying degrees that they had ceased to think and behave in ways which had caused them mental and physical damage in the past.

No description available.

Despite the exponential growth in internet usage for personal communication over the last 10 years (Madden & Zickuhr, 2011) little is known of the online interpersonal persuasion process. Whilst some psychological research has been undertaken in this area, the findings are somewhat contradictory (e.g. Di Blasio & Milani, 2008; Murphy, Long, Holleran, & Esterly, 2003). These studies also fail to give consideration to cues used in online persuasive interactions due to the absence of paralinguistic cues. Further, the extant research in this domain has not explicitly examined the persuasion process in terms of a theoretical model. This thesis aims to address these issues and provide a foundation from which future research can be based. This thesis comprises two studies. The first study examined participants’ reactions to anonymous persuasive requests. These requests were presented using three situational contexts, each of which elicited different self-interest motivations (i.e. social, learning, and political). It also compared participants’ reactions to these contexts across three different communication modes both online and offline (i.e. instant messaging, email, and face to face). Language cues (i.e. language power and emotion) contained in the messages presented were also manipulated. The findings from this study show that in anonymous interactions communication mode does not affect compliance decisions. Instead, individuals are sensitive to situational context in online interactions and they process information in accordance with their self-interest motivations. Further, it was also found that, despite the anonymity, individuals are able to engage in impression formation by using the available cues and utilise these impressions when making compliance decisions. In response to these findings, Study 2 examined the effect of prior information in online interpersonal persuasive interactions and found that this information influences message evaluations over and above those in anonymous interactions. This study also examined the persuasion process in terms of a theoretical model finding that individuals engage in hypothesis-testing utilising all the information they perceive to be relevant to a compliance decision. Thus, it was concluded that Kruglanski and Thompson’s (1999) unimodel of persuasion provides the best explanation for online interpersonal persuasion processes. The findings from this thesis provide a broad foundation from which to base future research. They demonstrate that context is important in online communication and affects compliance decisions. They also show that cues are attended to in online interactions and are used in the evaluation process as they provide relevant evidence from which to base a compliance decision. From the findings of this thesis a model of the interpersonal persuasion process is proposed.

The work which is submitted for the degree of PhD by publication comprises eleven papers published in peer-reviewed journals: six sole-authored papers and five jointauthored. The publications span the years 1995 to the present, and the qualitative research projects from which the data and publications are derived were undertaken over a period of approximately ten years, commencing in 1994/95. The publications are included in full and are examined, both individually and within a more general context, in an overview. The overarching focus of the research coheres around the construction and maintenance of occupational and leisure identities, and more specifically in the case of the latter, on sporting identities. All the research projects from which the publications derive were qualitative in nature, apart from the earliest work on doctoral students in the social sciences, which was based predominantly on documentary analysis of the relevant literature. Whilst the unifying theme of the research and the PhD submission might be termed 'identity work', three principal strands can be delineated and these are described in some detail in the overview: 1) Occupational identities: contract researchers in the social sciences; 2) Occupational identities: doctoral research students; 3) Sporting identities: distance runners.

This thesis is concerned with the latest education reform, called 4+4+4 (4+), and overall educational changes in the basic education system (K12) since 2002 by the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP). The study investigates the role that education plays in state formation processes as well as looking at how dominant groups’ ideologies influence education policies. The research problem is the extent to which the state uses education policies to create a new public ideology. There are three key research questions that this thesis addresses. The data for this research was obtained from fifteen semi-structured interviews conducted with teacher trade unions, journalists and policy makers, focusing on their experiences and views not only about the 4+4+4 education system but also about the policymaking process in Turkey. The interviews present the pressing issues within the education system and indicate how education works a state apparatus for the government to gain and secure society’s consent. Located in a critical tradition, the research draws its theoretical framework from the Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci, especially focusing on his concepts of hegemony, civil society and consent. Using a Gramscian theoretical framework allows this study to place the 4+ reform in a bigger picture. The thesis analyses the reform not only from a local perspective but also from an international education policy perspective, focusing on the relationship between power, ideology and schooling. The findings suggest that the state and its private associations (i.e. media, and political parties) are actively encouraging Islamisation along with neoliberalism in order to consolidate their hegemonic dominance.