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The current Chinese media political literature ascribes China’s effective media control to Communist Party censorship. Up until now, scholars and authors have overlooked how the enormous social and economic changes that China has undergone since economic reform has affected media control. This dissertation explores how such changes influence media control in China. It first examines the Chinese political economy and then focuses on studying China’s media, which has gone through considerable change since economic reform. Previously, Party ideological indoctrination and violent suppression were rampant. Today’s situation, however, could be characterized as indoctrination mingled with entertainment or “indoctritainment” (Sun 2002), and repression with an absence of full freedom of the media. I argue that “repressive state capitalism” has propelled economic development in China, particularly since 1989. In the reform era, repression coexists with economic development and is actually productive to Chinese economic growth because repression has both ensured state intervention in the economy and safeguarded a stable environment that is pivotal to the flourishing of economic activities. Using this political economic approach, I propose a political economic theory of “marketizing media control” to account for effective media control after media marketization, beginning with an empirical investigation of the traditional media and ending with an investigation of the new media in China. In short, repressive state capitalism is my contribution to political economic theory and marketizing media control is my contribution to Chinese media politics. / Graduate

Chinese media control has been repressive, systematic, and successful. This thesis explores how it has been achieved in Post-Tiananmen China. Many outstanding scholars and authors of Chinese media politics assert that such a Chinese media control has been attained by the Party censorship system. Though this was the case before the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre and during the suppressive period from June 1989 to January 1992, I argue that the major part of Chinese media control since 1992 has been accomplished not by the Party censorship, but by marketizing media control. Marketizing media control is triggered by the job responsibility system. Job responsibility for media managers or contract responsibility for journalists in Chinese media imposes both a survival pressure and a compliance pressure on media professionals and organizations. Under the backdrop of the predatory Chinese political economy, the “Survival of the Fittest” logic encourages media professionals to begin their psychological transformation for pursuing their personal interests. The rich material compensation resulting from marketizing media control consolidates such a psychological transformation. Collective interest protection of media organizations reinforces collective self-censorship. Yet punishment pushes them further into compliance with the Party ideology. Marketizing media control works well as long as the Party-state structure remains unchanged and as long as the Chinese economy is still running.

This study researches the relationship between institutional racism and systemic supervision, highlighting the concept of the Other and how it is created as result of social racism. The project’s goal is to produce a dystopian live-action short film. To expose the danger of misusing technological advances to achieve propaganda set to ensure control over the public. And to closely look into the mentalities and perspectives of the public considering institutional racism.   This project represents the powerful impact of society's issues on the future by filming in the dystopian genre. The project goes through all aspects of scene making and filmmaking as a visual communication technique.   The research shows how deeply the established media is connected to social racism and Othering. As governments, institutions, and corporations are constantly in need to create targets for the viewer/public to fear, making the world seem like it is Us vs Them. Ending with a loop of hate and injustice that keeps spiralling downwards.

The thesis deals with actions and activities of Central Press Supervision Office in the period 1953-1966. The goals of this thesis may be further divided in four areas, i.e. gradual formation of Central Press Supervision Office, specific fields of interest of censorship, personnel resources, and finally departmental division of the above mentioned Office. The thesis is sourced mainly from primary materials in archives. The acquisition and further research of such materials in their historical context made it possible to postulate and clarify given thesis subject. The thesis offers a complex overview of the function of Central Press Supervision Office within the background of censorship in The Czech Republic as a whole and with regard to its specific aspects.

Smart phones today have become increasingly popular with the general public for its diverse abilities like navigation, social networking, and multimedia facilities to name a few. These phones are equipped with high end processors, high resolution cameras, built-in sensors like accelerometer, orientation-sensor, light-sensor, and much more. According to comScore survey, 25.3% of US adults use smart phones in their daily lives. Motivated by the capability of smart phones and their extensive usage, I focused on utilizing them for bio-medical applications. In this thesis, I present a new application for a smart phone to quantify the vital signs such as heart rate, respiratory rate and blood pressure with the help of its built-in sensors. Using the camera and a microphone, I have shown how the blood pressure and heart rate can be determined for a subject. People sometimes encounter minor situations like fainting or fatal accidents like car crash at unexpected times and places. It would be useful to have a device which can measure all vital signs in such an event. The second part of this thesis demonstrates a new mode of communication for next generation 9-1-1 calls. In this new architecture, the call-taker will be able to control the multimedia elements in the phone from a remote location. This would help the call-taker or first responder to have a better control over the situation. Transmission of the vital signs measured using the smart phone can be a life saver in critical situations. In today's voice oriented 9-1-1 calls, the dispatcher first collects critical information (e.g., location, call-back number) from caller, and assesses the situation. Meanwhile, the dispatchers constantly face a "60-second dilemma"; i.e., within 60 seconds, they need to make a complicated but important decision, whether to dispatch and, if so, what to dispatch. The dispatchers often feel that they lack sufficient information to make a confident dispatch decision. This remote-media-control described in this system will be able to facilitate information acquisition and decision-making in emergency situations within the 60-second response window in 9-1-1 calls using new multimedia technologies.