Den här studien undersöker hur mikrokändisar presenterar sig själva på Instagram och vilka strategier för hur dessa mikrokändisar använder Instagram som är synliga. Studien analyserar bilder som publicerats av fyra svenska mikrokändisar under en månads tid. Netnografi används som insamlingsmetod och materialet analyseras med hjälp av en semiotisk text- och bildanalys. Teorier om självpresentation och attention economy används för att skapa en förståelse för hur de analyserade mikrokändisarna använder Instagram. Studien finner att mikrokändisarna presenterar sig själva som lyxiga och glamorösa. Strategier som de använder inkluderar att publicera bilder vid specifika tidpunkter, publicera bilder som ger ett intryck av att någon annan tagit bilden när de inte är medvetna om att bilden tas och tagga personer, platser, varumärken och inspirationskonton för att bli sedda av fler.

Esa obra explora las complejidades de la economía y la sociedad cubana ahora, después de las reformas económicas dramáticas de 2012. El fenómeno de la fuga de cerebros refleja un cambio dramático en la economía cubana, en que los salarios públicos y otros subsidios del gobierno ya no están suficientes y los trabajos lucrativos no necesariamente requieren un título avanzado. En un país conocido internacionalmente por su población educado, Cuba tiene una crisis demográfica en que muchas profesionales, particularmente los jóvenes educados, salen del sector público al sector privado o aún emigran del país. El sector privado da una ventaja a algunas personas, también, cuando algunos grupos marginados están desventajados en términos económicos. Para restaurar y proteger la esencia del socialismo cubano, que prometa un nivel de vida básica y la igualdad de oportunidades por las instituciones, el gobierno debe implementar algunas reformas educativas y económicas. El gobierno puede asegurar un futuro para los ideales del socialismo cubano por esas reformas. El crecimiento económico, si es inclusivo, puede lograr los objetivos del socialismo cubano aún mejor que el sistema económico del pasado, y tiene el potencio para mejorar el nivel de vida de todos los cubanos.

Alaska’s state government has long relied on oil revenue as its primary source of funding. In recent years, however, a combination of decreasing oil production and low oil prices has drastically reduced how much revenue Alaska can obtain from taxing oil. As a result, Alaska currently faces severe budget deficits. In order to close this funding gap, there have been numerous proposals for new ways to generate revenue. This thesis analyzes the main proposals, with particular attention given to the role the permanent fund and the permanent fund dividend plays in Alaska’s current funding structure and its future. This thesis concludes by advocating that in the long-term it will be necessary to alter the way the permanent fund functions in order for Alaska to have a sustainable future.

Demonetization is an economic tool used to reduce the size of an underground economy. Though studies on the effectiveness of demonetization have increased over the past 50 years, there is little literature on the ineffectiveness of demonetization and subsequent factors that could explain a lack of change, or an increase, in illegal activity. This paper examines past cases of demonetization to determine the effectiveness of demonetization, and investigates the incentive for foreign currency substitution as a mechanism for criminals to circumvent regulatory scrutiny. Major findings of this paper include a positive but statistically insignificant correlation between demonetization and growth in the shadow economy, and a statistically significant positive relationship between exchange rate appreciation and demonetization. Finally, this paper applies these findings to test the “Modi effect” of Indian Rupee (INR) demonetization.

Despite an unshakable belief in the UK in the empowering and regenerating potential of ICTs locating the benefits of digital inclusion initiatives for deprived urban communities has remained elusive. Given social media discourses of empowerment and social progress this thesis explores whether and how social media may be associated with a greater potential for community empowerment and regeneration. I specifically focus upon the potential of the relationship between participation in community content creation and sharing, (community generated content), community empowerment and regeneration. The exploration is based on a qualitative case study of a Community Reporter Programme with a social media and empowerment focus being integrated within two urban regeneration areas in Greater Manchester. The study draws primarily on the experiences and insights of community reporter participants. The way in which participation in community generated content becomes meaningful within urban regeneration areas and thus potentially empowering, is found to lie in a complex interweave of individual interpretative framing, aspects of identity beyond the demographic frame and strategies for the domestication of the specific social media practice of community reporting. The study finds that empowerment value attached to participation in community generated content is primarily located at the individual level and psychological and social in nature related to a ‘reconnecting’ and ‘feel good’ factor which appears to have a particular benefit for those who have been at risk of social exclusion. The value at the collective level of empowerment constructed as ‘voice’ is found to be limited and potentially disempowering within a social context of audience inattention and subtle dangers of ‘voice’ exploitation and appropriation. The study highlights fresh perspectives on what ICTs might mean for local communities beyond the established links between online and offline social interaction and social capital frame locating empowerment value specifically in the process of social media focused content production. In line with emergent critiques of participatory culture the study also problematises assumptions of ease of participation and voice attached to social media technologies. While the study supports the emergent view within digital inclusion and community informatics research areas that the empowerment value of ICTs may indeed lie in the arena of content production, the importance of viewing the potential through a critical lens of specific co-creative media practices and shining a light on urban regeneration as a potential arena of disempowerment is identified.

This thesis concerns the ways in which the importance of practicing skin whitening is promoted and represented in newspaper advertorial articles and visual advertisements across different media in contemporary Taiwan, approximately between 2008 and 2012. Theoretically, it is inspired by structuralists such as Foucault in the discursive formation of discourse and knowledge legitimation, Bourdieu in classification of cultural consumptions, Barthes in the process of mythologisation, sociocultural theory in everyday practice and identity construction, and linguistic theories both from CDA and semiotics. Methodologically, I undertake qualitatively textual and visual analyses of articles from the Liberty Times newspaper, and graphic and video advertisements from product leaflets, television and the Internet. In terms of analytical approaches, CDA, semiotics and other critical visual analysing methods are applied to interpret and articulate dominant discourses, rhetorical tropes and representations of idealised female images with whitened skin. Through the exploratory investigation of the data, common themes such as scientific endorsed and legitimated discourses, an extended metaphor of fighting and the ability of whitening ingredients to penetrate/invade the skin are found in both textual and visual materials. In terms of results, the research echoes Foucault’s idea of interdiscursivity and suggests that these discourses are transferable and represented across both textual and visual media. Finally, a critical assessment is made on the extraction, appropriation and distribution of knowledge by cosmetics producers and the media to consumers; the hegemonic power of the mutual co-alignment between cosmeceutical industry, mass media, retailing channels, legislation, and advertising and research agencies intersected by ‘medical’ and ‘scientific’ qualities; and the implications behind the phenomenon of promoting skin whitening.

This thesis examines how the choice of course of study abroad interrelates with participation in online social networks, and provides an application of semiotics to research in choice and decision making in higher education and information systems research. The study itself is justified by the increasing need to consider students’ choice of course of study as a separate phenomenon from their choice of institution or host country. Alongside the adoption of a more nuanced view of student selection, the author also recognises the need to understand the role of online social networks within the decision-making process for selecting higher education courses. This work adopts an interpretivist philosophy and utilises a comparative case study method, drawing upon semi-structured interviews with international MBA students in addition to relevant documentation. The thesis finds a strong interplay between the choice of course of study abroad and participation in online social networks.

Through the examination of archived moving images, this practice-based research project explores processes and methodologies adopted by visual artists who use moving image archives as an integral component for the creation of new artworks. Underlying these methods of production are issues of originality, authorship and ownership. The research seeks to examine the role of archives as potential catalysts for the creation of new work and the role artists can play in animating collections thereby generating new meanings for archival materials. Central to the research is the study of traditional moving image archives, taxonomies, classifications and content alongside the more recent emergence of online digital archives. The creative outputs (artworks) comprise an exploration of how this virtual environment has the potential for artists to re-appropriate archival materials and how films housed in traditional moving image archives can respond to the challenge set by these new platforms. New collaborations between the artist-researcher and nine regional film archives test creative methodologies for creating artworks by re-presenting archival collections through a multi-disciplinary approach. The final artworks have been produced as a direct response to the contrast in accessibility of online works, freely available under the Creative Commons license, and the legal constraints placed on publicly funded archives (and archivists) who are nonetheless dedicated to making archives available to a wider audience and who have had a significant input into this research.

Traditional emergency service major incident table top training exercises are presented via ‘low-technology’ means, such as plastic bricks and paper maps, or ‘front-loaded’ via slides presented by an instructor. The purpose of this research was to develop a new, electronic approach to table top delivery, to address issues with the existing approaches and provide a usable, more useful, streamlined user experience that was acceptable for major incident education. While the benefits of the existing paper-based approaches include their: affordability; reliability; portability; accessibility and acceptability, they do not permit the recording of exercise progress. Presentations by instructors can result in a lack of candidate participation and physical maps can become cluttered and cause a loss of data when disturbed. Additionally, supporting information required by participants during the scenario is presented as an adjunct to the exercise, necessitating supplementary display equipment. To address these issues, low-cost, bespoke, interactive software solutions for major incident training were created. The usability and acceptability of these products were tested within two populations routinely using table top exercises, via an experimentally-led ‘research in the wild’ approach. These were healthcare professionals, attending the international Major Incident Medical Management and Support (MIMMS) courses, and Greater Manchester Police (GMP) Officers. An experimental approach was adopted to attain realistic responses from the target audience regarding table top use. Given the nature of this form of incident response training, we were constrained to conducting experiments in a non-intrusive way, to neither interfere with, nor distract from, the participants’ learning experiences. Three experiments were designed to establish the viability of this development. Two one centre, one sample studies were conducted, followed by a multicentre controlled trial. The one sample studies consisted of a pilot that explored proof of concept, focussing on table top usability by non-computing expert users, and a second study which determined the validity of the pilot’s findings within a larger sample size. The multicentre controlled trial compared paper-based table top with electronic table top cohorts in terms of the participant learning experience and, thereby, fitness for purpose. 6 candidates piloted the prototype MIMMS electronic exercise in February 2011. 114 Police Officers utilised the GMP table top during November and December 2011. The multicentre controlled MIMMS trial enrolled 23 candidates (n=11 electronic and n=12 paper-based table top cohorts) from courses held at 3 U.K. centres. Both the healthcare and policing trial participants evaluating the table top respectively rated significant levels of agreement with the software being fit for purpose and usable. Candidate results from the multicentre MIMMS trial indicated positive findings regarding the equivalency of the electronic with the existing, paper-based media. The MIMMS pilot trial was an acceptable proof of concept, justifying the further development of this work. The GMP study affirmed these findings for a larger sample size. The MIMMS multicentre controlled trial demonstrated the comparability of the electronic table top with its paper-based counterpart, in terms of the learning experience provided and affirmed this approach as fit for purpose. This work has changed major incident education practice by addressing real world training delivery issues, via the pertinent application of usable technology.

The Gig-Economy is an alternative way of describing a world where long-term employees turn into short-term independent contractors in charge of their own careers. The cross-sectional half of the current study will gather data from multiple generations of professionals and emerging professionals that assesses their career adaptabilities, gender, marital status, presence of children, and preference for the Gig Economy. Previous research has not analyzed these factors in combination with each other. The Millennial participants from the cross-sectional portion of the study will be tested once every five years as they progress through their careers on these same measures. Millennials will have more career adapt abilities than other generations, and will prefer the Gig Economy more than other generations. However, females will prefer the Gig Economy more than men, as it provides for more flexibility. Those who are married and especially those with children will prefer the Gig Economy more than those who are unmarried or without children. The information from the current study will be helpful to anyone currently working in or about to start working. It will allow career counselors information with which to best guide Millennials and all those struggling to find their way in the Gig Economy.