This dissertation examines the role of television reform within twentieth century social movements in the United States. Typically, scholars have examined the relationship between activists and television through the lens of media representation: how the mass media have depicted and defined social movements, and how activists have negotiated with the media that publicize their goals. This dissertation, in contrast, examines the role of media reform within social movements themselves. By investigating the television reform campaigns of civil rights activists, feminists, conservatives, the progressive left, and educational groups, this dissertation reveals how American reform movements have responded to an increasingly mass-mediated culture and have tried to mold television to reflect their moral and political beliefs. This dissertation explores not only the myriad ways activists have approached television reform, but illustrates how these campaigns have responded to changes in the television industry, broadcasting policy, and American culture more broadly. This dissertation also charts the rhetorical strategies that the reformers have used to legitimate their stake in media policy and practices and to convince of the importance and power of the medium that they are trying to change. Television reform fights have been battles not only over television programming and policy, but over the meaning of television's role in American society. / text

This thesis examines the effects of television and entertainment culture on American fiction. Focusing primarily on the novels of Don DeLillo and David Foster Wallace, with a secondary focus on the films of American film director David Lynch, the thesis proposes that post-postmodern fiction, fiction in which the familiarizing trends of postmodern fiction are reversed, is a response to the powerful influence of television and other forms of electronic media on American culture.

This study researched a project to set up a national television service for Botswana to find out whether the service could be used for rural development generally, and in particular to assist the Ministry of Health to implement its health projects in the rural areas and including the fight against the AIDS disease. It reviews conceptions of development and also analyses various communication models that usefully inform the conceptualisation of a TV service that can contribute to development. The study was done by going through reports of feasibility studies on the project and through letters of official correspondence among officials of the Government of Botswana who debated the subject of whether or not the country should have a national TV service. The reports and correspondence were supplemented with interviews of key people involved in the implementation of the project, as well as interviews of officials of the Ministry of Health. The findings of the study are that the Botswana television service project started and ended on a footing that forgot about television, a medium that is dependent on professional and organisational capacity and purpose, and as a result the project did not take-off. A qualitative method was used as the study required in-depth interviews during which new issues kept on emerging and nothing could be pre-determined because the study took place as the project was being implemented. The study was completed in June 2000, at a point where the project should have been completed but it was discovered that the station could not go on air as a television service had not been conceptualised and there was no management structure in place and the Government of Botswana appealed to the British Government for the staff of the British Broadcasting Corporation to come quickly to Botswana to rescue the project and put it on track, supposedly. The study has concluded that the Botswana television service project became stillborn because there was a lack of professional and intellectual capacity to conceptualise the service, and instead there had been too much concentration on the construction of the TV building and acquisition of equipment.

South Africa's turbulant political and social history has meant that alchol consumption was a way for many to escape from the harsh realities in which people lived. Inder aparthied, prohibition laws dominated the drinking habits of many South Africans. the 1928 prohibition act, which was established to prevent the sale of European beer to Africans, effectively boosted the illicit black drinking culture in shebeens and socially in the townships. As people began to move from rural to urban areas in search of job; commual beer halls became places of connection and support for people who felt alienated and disconnected from their homes and famillies.

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<p>Working from a child participatory perspective, the study aimed to explore children's perceptions and experiences of screen violence. Within this process there is an attempt to understand how children assign meaning to these violent screen images at an interpersonal and broader social level.</p>

The television viewing habits of ten Indianapolis-based households were researched and analyzed as to the effects of television on the middleclass American family. This study illustrates how television reinforces Americans' abilities to make choices and exhibit control over technology. With television use as its main focus, this study examines choice in American culture, remote control use, gender-based comparisons, and television's role in the American home-individualism and community. / Department of Anthropology

<p>Working from a child participatory perspective, the study aimed to explore children's perceptions and experiences of screen violence. Within this process there is an attempt to understand how children assign meaning to these violent screen images at an interpersonal and broader social level.</p>

The study examined the ability to learn values while watching sports programming on television. Sports are seen as a huge influence in our lives and helping to spread that influence and bring the games right to our living rooms is television. A total of 360 surveys were collected from three universities, one in the West, one in the Midwest, and one in the South. What was found was there is a direct connection between the exposures to the values seen in sports to the evaluation of those values in our society, which led to individual acceptance of the values personally. It was found that almost half of the viewing by respondents of television was watching sports. By watching these events, respondents were able to see these values first-hand and then personally accept them into their own values.

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