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M.A. (Communication & Media Studies) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

M.A., Faculty of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, 1983

The media has always been an institution inseparable from the rest of society – where they have been societies, there have been ways of discussing and representing information that is key to constituting those societies through media. Specifically, it has been argued that gender identities are informed by social representations in the media, but relatively little research has focused on male gender identities. The importance of understanding male gender identity in South Africa cannot be overstated as this identity shapes men’s interactions with women and other men. For example, beliefs around male dominance and aggression may lie behind woman abuse, homophobic behaviour, and the spread of HIV (Dunkle & Decker, 2012; Engh, 2011). For example, South African women suffering intimate partner violence or in gender-unequal relationships have a higher risk of HIV infection (Dunkle & Decker, 2012). In this context, a sample of 52 male undergraduate students from a large university in Johannesburg, South Africa, completed an open-ended survey after viewing video clips taken from popular media. The three clips showed men carrying out non-stereotypical male activities, such as ballet dancing, nursing, and striptease. The participants were asked to give their feelings about the clips, the importance of being male and about masculinity in general. A thematic content analysis of the data gathered illuminated the dominant social representations regarding masculinity in contemporary South Africa, which were primarily interpreted with reference to the theory of hegemonic masculinity and Moscovici’s social representations theory. Some themes which emerged were around heteronormativity, the high status of male identity, male defensiveness and the constant flux of masculine identity. The appearance of these themes shows the complex interplay of sexuality and gender, the diversity of masculinity, and the power that men continue to hold. This serves to illuminate the relationships between hegemonic and non-hegemonic masculinities in South Africa. Beyond its theoretical significance, this study may also inform gender-education campaigns. There are several university societies for which the results would be useful, such as the LGBQTIA society, Wits Activate. National social programmes that may be able to act on these results include the Brothers for Life campaign, which seeks to change masculine stereotypes. Changing attitudes such as male superiority and defensiveness may be key to the prevention of gender-based violence as well creating greater gender harmony in South Africa. Some hope is created by tolerant attitudes and resistance to hegemonic social representations this study, but the results presented are divergent.

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences. / Department of Communication

This thesis is an exploration of popular media texts that influence veganism, with either explicit representations or implicit messages that implicate vegans. Research focuses on the question: How does the gendering of food in popular media texts implicate veganism? Theories used include a combination of cultural, film, and feminist studies, including Stuart Hall’s audience reception, Laura Mulvey's male gaze, R.W. Connell’s hegemonic masculinity, Carol Adams' feminist-vegetarian critical theory, and Rebecca Swenson's critical television studies. A print and television advertisement analysis demonstrates the gendering of food, and subject-object relationship of meat, women, and men. A film analysis of texts with vegan characters and horror film texts with implicit vegan and feminist messaging follows, thus revealing interesting trends and developments in the characterization of vegans on films, and hidden messages in the horror films studied. Lastly, an examination of competitive and instructional cooking shows ends the analysis, with interesting challenges to hegemony present in these television texts. The thesis concludes with examples of modem media feminizing veganism through food associations, the problematic imagery of women and meat as fetishized objects, along with challenges to hegemony that exist in some explicitly vegan texts. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Lee Yee Chong, Catherine. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references. / Acknowledgments / Abstract / Chapter I. --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / The Media as Definer of Social Reality --- p.1 / Crime and Hong Kong -- A General Background (1989-1993) --- p.3 / Research Problem and Significance --- p.5 / Notes --- p.7 / Chapter II. --- THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK -- NEWS AS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY --- p.9 / Park (1940) -- News as Knowledge --- p.9 / The Social Construction of Reality --- p.11 / The Foundation of Knowledge in Everyday Life --- p.11 / Society as Objective Reality --- p.12 / Society as Subjective Reality --- p.13 / Media and the Social Construction of Reality: Towards an Integration of Theory and Research --- p.14 / Gatekeeping Theory --- p.16 / Agenda Setting Theory --- p.17 / Media Agenda Setting --- p.18 / An Integrated Theoretical Model for Crime News Study --- p.19 / Conceptualization of social realities --- p.20 / Inference in the process of social construction of reality --- p.20 / Figure 1: Integrated Theoretical Model for Crime News Study Notes --- p.22 / Chapter III. --- LITERATURE REVIEW --- p.24 / Understanding the News making Process --- p.24 / Empirical Research in Crime News (1950s - 1990s) --- p.25 / Crime News as a Distorted Reality -- Misrepresentation and biasin reporting --- p.25 / Criteria in News Reporting --- p.29 / How Crime News is Handled by the Press - -Differences in Media Agenda --- p.31 / Crime News and Criminal Activities in Contemporary Society --- p.33 / "Crime News, Public Attitude and Fear of Victimization" --- p.34 / Crime News in Chinese Newspapers --- p.35 / Major Publication in Crime and the Press (1970s - 1990s) --- p.36 / Quinney (1970) - -The Social Reality of Crime --- p.36 / Winick (1978) - -Deviance and Mass Media --- p.37 / Graber (1980) - -Crime News and the Public --- p.38 / "Ericson, Baranek and Chan (1987) --Visualizing Deviance: A Study of News Organization" --- p.41 / "Ericson, Baranek and Chan (1989) -- Negotiating Control: A Study of News Source" --- p.42 / "Ericson, Baranek and Chan (1991) - -Representing Order: Crime, Law, and Justice in the Mass Media" --- p.43 / Lotz (1991) - -Crime and the American Press --- p.44 / "Suretta (1992) -- Media, Crime, and Criminal Justices: Images and Realities" --- p.45 / Summary on Research Findings --- p.45 / Notes --- p.47 / Chapter IV. --- RESEARCH HYPOTHESES AND METHODOLOGIES --- p.50 / Research Hypotheses --- p.50 / Research Design --- p.52 / Definition of Crime --- p.52 / Background Information of Ming Pao and Oriental Daily News --- p.53 / Sampling and Data Collection Methods --- p.54 / Basic Research Design and Operationalization of Variables --- p.56 / Notes --- p.58 / Chapter V. --- CRIME NEWS IN HONG KONG --- p.59 / Size of Coverage and Various Visual Aids --- p.59 / Nature and Causes of Crime --- p.65 / Stereotypes of Suspects and Criminals --- p.67 / Stereotypes of Victims --- p.72 / "Sources, Information and Newsworthiness" --- p.73 / Image of Crime Fighting Institutions and Public Security --- p.78 / Distortions in Crime News Coverage --- p.80 / Official Reality versus Symbolic Reality --- p.81 / "Media Attention, Newsworthiness and Different Crime Topics" --- p.85 / Legitimating the Status of Law Enforcement Institutions --- p.87 / Differences in Media Agenda -- Elite Press versus Mass-Oriented Press --- p.88 / Notes --- p.92 / Chapter VI. --- THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF CRIME --- p.93 / Official News Sources and News Organizations --- p.95 / Market Differences and Media Agenda --- p.96 / Manufacturing A Universal Consensus against Crime --- p.98 / Summary on Discussion --- p.100 / Recommendations for Further Study --- p.101 / Notes --- p.102 / Chapter VII. --- CONCLUSION --- p.103 / Notes --- p.105 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.i -xii / Appendices / Appendix I -- Code Book --- p.1-13 / Appendix II --Table for sampling --- p.1-4 / Appendix III - -Score of Inter Coder Reliability Test --- p.1-2 / Appendix IV -- Important Crime Figures and Other Statistics --- p.1-11 / Appendix V -- Testing of Hypotheses --- p.1-2

by Lee Lap-fung, Francis. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 187-197). / Abstracts in English and Chinese; questionnaire in Chinese. / Chapter Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter 2 --- The background of the 1998 election --- p.10 / Chapter Chapter 3 --- Approaches to election and media effects studies --- p.20 / Chapter Chapter 4 --- Activating informed participation - a conceptual model for empirical evaluation --- p.33 / Chapter Chapter 5 --- Design and methods --- p.47 / Chapter Chapter 6 --- "News consumption, knowledge and sophistication" --- p.51 / Chapter Chapter 7 --- Media and political attitudes --- p.65 / Chapter Chapter 8 --- Voter turnout --- p.100 / Chapter Chapter 9 --- The pitfalls of media strategic coverage: How media fall short from activating informed participation --- p.120 / Chapter Chapter 10 --- Conclusion: Mass media and political participation in Hong Kong --- p.147 / Appendix A Variable constructions and statistical procedures --- p.159 / Appendix B Questionnaires and basic information about the data --- p.165 / "Appendix C Electoral system,vote calculating method, and candidate lists" --- p.180 / Reference --- p.187

The association of women and mysticism this century is not always perceived as a positive one. In Power, Gender and Christian Mysticism (1995), the feminist philosopher of religion, Grace Jantzen, suggests that the experience of mysticism gradually became defined as an ineffable, private emotional encounter in order to remove it from the sphere of political management of society and religion. She writes of a direct increase of association between mysticism and women, who were permitted to have spiritual experiences, but powerless to speak with authority about their insights. Jantzen's view of this association of women with mysticism is therefore somewhat negative; she warns of mysticism's ability to silence and disempower. But as women mystics, particularly in the medieval period, have spoken and written of their (often vivid and imaginative) experiences with authority, this thesis explores how ideas about mysticism have been addressed by women writers this century. In particular, 1investigate whether the women writers treated in this thesis developed the definition of such spiritual experience in a more affirmative and expressive way than Jantzen suggests. Rather than assuming that mysticism is an unchanging spiritual experience within a strictly religious context, this thesis explores how women writers discovered a creative expression of their inner spirituality through the inspiration of contemporary ideas about mysticism, and how they helped to move these ideas on. I introduce my argument, therefore, by examining constructions of mysticism at the beginning of the twentieth century, when the idea of mysticism was defined and developed both in terms of experiential philosophy and of psychology. In particular, the attention paid to the emotional effects of a "mystical experience" became associated, by William James, with the importance of what he termed the "subliminal realm" of the mind, a realm which would subsequently be defined as the unconscious by Freud, but which James saw as a valid channel for imagination and spirituality As well as drawing attention to the "subliminal realm" and its role in spiritual experience, James first suggested the idea of the "stream of consciousness", a term which became important for much modernist literature, but which James did not link directly with the expression of mysticism. Not all psychological studies of mysticism were as open-minded as James'; I also look at texts which were hostile and eclectic in turn. And James himself was not immune to contemporary prejudice regarding gender. But the period's general interest in the imaginative workings of the mind, flowing from the unconscious into consciousness, and the struggle to express this imaginative process, has led me to the study of its literature in order to explore how such ideas about mysticism were used, by women writers, within a creative context. Evelyn Underhill provides a link between the areas of religious thought and women's fiction writing. Underhill in fact started her writing life as a novelist, exploring those themes of spirituality which she was later, more famously, to address in texts such as Mysticism, in which James' ideas are acknowledged. Importantly, Mysticism was certainly read by two women writers - May Sinclair and Dorothy Richardson - who, while fascinated by mysticism, were equally concerned to develop the novelistic form in order to allow the expression of individual consciousness. They were also interested in the subject of gender to a greater degree than was Underhill. By examining the work first ofMay Sinclair, whose mysticism is chiefly concerned with loss, then of Dorothy Richardson, who was to develop the mystical concepts of vision and illumination, I trace the progression of mysticism's influence in women's writing, an influence which Underhill had to a large extent initiated. Underhill, Sinclair and Richardson were not the only women writers to explore mysticism alongside stylistic innovation and an awareness of gender issues. There was, for example, Virginia Woolf, whose aunt, Caroline Stephen, was a respected Quaker. But rather than continue to explore all the women writing in this period, a task too large for this thesis, I move on to show how ideas about mysticism, gender and writing have developed in later thinkers. In examining the ideas of the feminist critics Cixous, Irigaray, and Kristeva, I show that mysticism, and the ways of articulating what James termed an "ineffable" experience, are even more strongly linked with gender and innovative creative writing in their work, whether "novelistic" in a strict sense or not. I have not anal.vsed the work ofUnderhill. Sinclair, and Richardson solely. in terms of psychoanalytically acute feminist criticism I, although I introduce such Such work is generally available: Jean Radford's examination of PiIbTfi mauc. for example critical ideas where appropriate, and have shown that these writers point towards the critical concepts of later feminist writers and thinkers. My emphasis is on the particular space lor creativity which mysticism develops and towards which psychoanalysis with its emphasis on the talking curehas indicated but paid less attention to than the aetiology and symptoms of madness and hysterical disorders. Rather than continue to pursue this psychoanalytical preoccupation, I have looked at the work of the later feminist critics as experimental mystical writers in their own right, and I suggest that it is mysticism. rather than hysteria or other forms of "madness", which has provided the creative space for gendered exploration of imagination and writing. Just as psychoanalytic criticism seeks to explore those "moments of vision" which madness has been said to facilitate in writers such as Woolf I have set out to show that the insights of mysticism, classed as neither mental illness nor rigorous rationality, have played an essential part in the development of women's fiction-writing, criticism and religious thought this century, allowing, additionally, the closer relationship of these three disciplines. In concluding this thesis therefore, I examine the way in which mysticism has provided a place for "visionary" gendered discourse in contemporary theology, and return to the area of religious thought, where I had begun my research. I examine ways in which there is now an increased awareness of the imagination in feminist theology and, specifically, in mysticism within a feminist theological context. The developments of mysticism's creative space have facilitated this awareness in theology, just as they have in the fiction and criticism through which I have traced its influence. Although the question of what constitutes mysticism and who counts as a mystic may remain open (plurality being one of the emphases of feminist critical thought), the conclusion of this thesis affirms that the space of spiritual creativity developed by mysticism has been one of the major forces to have shaped women's writing and critical thought (both literary and religious) this century.