This PhD explores the experience of female journalists working in the Saudi Arabian press. It looks at the difficulties they face as women journalists, their motives for working in this area and their writings. The research discusses how the culture gender segregation in Saudi Arabia impacts upon Saudi media representations of gender stereotypes and the role of print media (the press) in exposing women’s issues to the public and forming public opinion. I utilised a media studies’ approach adopting an Islamic feminist perspective. I generated data from indepth interviews with seven Saudi female journalists working in Saudi press, who discuss female-related topics as well as content analysis of related press articles. The analysis indicated that the Saudi culture of extreme gender segregation has impacted on the experience of female journalists, particularly on their ability to compete with male journalists. As my analysis argues, my participants report experiencing female segregation and discrimination mainly affecting their pay, job opportunities, promotion, availability and access to information. My findings further suggest that the media in Saudi Arabia is the most direct venue for women to express their views and discuss their issues. In accordance with previous studies in the field, my study reveals that Saudi Arabian women interpret feminism within the boundaries of their specific culture and Islamic standpoint. Lastly, I discuss how current political, social and economic reforms in the region, which influence women’s status in the public arena, are reflected in the Saudi press.

This dissertation is concerned with adaptation, in the context of new emerging digital media platforms. The project proposes that new media has allowed for the creation of a universal digital heteroglossia; a heteroglossia that contains the plurality of the unstable utterances of cinema, radio, television, the web and computer games. This has allowed for the process of adaptation to become more instantaneous in the simultaneous deployment of narratives across the digital heteroglossia. Therefore, the process of adaptation is far more dialogical, with previous variants of narratives being ‘rewired’ and gaining an ‘afterlife’ through adaptation, and through the creation of new variants and versions. The Internet has allowed for adaptation to move into a participatory mode, where fanfic writers fill in ‘gaps’ left by the creators of televisual and filmic texts. Videogames, based on pre-existing or co-existing texts, mean that players can experience moments of supreme and non-permanent adaptation themselves. This thesis suggests that this participation has democratised adaptation, and has fundamentally altered the nature of ‘traditional’ adaptation. The thesis concludes that, due to a digital heteroglossia, ‘traditional’ adaptation will decline, as the process becomes more plural and instantaneous. With previous variants of narratives being summoned back into life - due to adaptation, remaking and refashioning - it is increasingly unlikely that ‘fidelity’ strategies of adaptation will continue to be the dominant discourse, as all variants of narratives begin to exist in a dialogical plurality with one another; a mutual exchange of fluctuating source and target texts, cross-referenced through intertextuality and assembling a collage of influences.

This dissertation analyzes the human and computer relationship in the novel. The database for this study consists of thirty-nine novels, selected for their depiction of anthropomorphized computers who engage in intimate and/or intense ties with humans. Two primary organizational schemas are used to categorize the human/computer interactions in these works. Kenneth Burke's rhetorical pentadic model is used as the principal structuring device. Within this framework, the fictional bonds are subdivided into three stages: the initial phase (transformation), the post-introductory phase (transmutation), and the transcendental phase (transfiguration). The findings of this research indicate that in popular-genre novels, personified computers are never regarded simply as tools for enhancing the efficiency of one's work. In these stories, the machines are converted from objects into intelligently conscious entities who are perceived as parents, children, friends, teachers, and/or gods. The communicative messages that are exchanged between fictive people and computers contain powerful potential for character metamorphosis. Ultimately, these works function as cautionary tales, warning that in interactions with computers, humans must be sensitive to the same issues that would arise in attachments to other people.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Brown University, 2005. / Vita. Thesis advisor: Nancy Armstrong. Includes bibliographical references. Also available online.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--York University, 2004. Graduate Programme in English. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 329-359). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pNQ99196

The private and public domains are usually regarded as a dichotomy: what is in one is not in the other. There can be many reasons for intrusions by the news media into the private lives of people. This thesis assesses the extent to which celebrity is a useful conduit for understanding why the media intrudes into people’s private lives and the extent to which celebrity affects any public interest justification for doing so. In essence: does celebrity make a difference in press intrusions into the private lives of others, or is it just one of many factors. The private lives of celebrities have been subject to invasion by the press for many years, while the conceptual definition of privacy has been fiercely debated by academics and lawyers. In 2011, as a direct consequence of the revelation that the News of the World had illegally accessed murder victim Milly Dowler’s voicemail during an active police investigation into her disappearance, the first part of the Leveson Inquiry was launched in order to examine the relationship between the British press and the public, the police and politicians. The significance of the Leveson Inquiry on public life and the media and political spheres means that an analysis of press intrusions into the private lives of both celebrities and those, like the Dowler family, who were unlucky enough to fall under scrutiny due to tragic events, is essential in understanding the relationship between celebrity, privacy and the press in twenty-first century England. This thesis utilises an observation study of the Leveson Inquiry public hearings from the Royal Courts of Justice, and the resulting evidence, to investigate the impact of celebrity on the nature and extent of press intrusion into the privacy of celebrities, and how it differs in the cases of noncelebrities who become of interest to the media. The thesis concludes that the element of celebrity has a major impact on press intrusion into the private lives of individuals regardless of their personal status, as ordinary individuals are targeted due to their proximity to a celebrity, or as a result of being caught up in extraordinary circumstances. However, social media platforms are threatening the role of the press in revealing private information about individuals to the general public, as both traditional celebrities and ‘internet micro-celebrities’ communicate directly with global audiences.

Examines Chuck Palahniuk's novel Invisible monsters using the theories of Jean Baudrillard as a lens through which to better understand Palahniuk's commentary on the effects mass media have on human subjectivity in the terminal state.

This thesis examines the life and career of Bret Easton Ellis, and the influences of his work on the author's development as a writer. Part one encapsulates a novel written specifically for this thesis. 'Call waiting' is a harsh look at modern friendships, the role of work in these relationships and the proliferation of shallow communication through the advent of email. A critical reflection follows, examining the process that led to the novel's creation. Three specific areas are focussed on: the direct influence of Ellis' novel 'The rules of attraction' on the overall themes of 'Call waiting', the realisation of the project and the various editing changes and narrative developments that arose during the writing of the novel, and an examination of the inspiration behind the novel's creation. Part two considers Ellis' role in the literary world of the 1980s, his own complicity in the creation of a career as a celebrity author, and the carefully manufactured persona Ellis presents to the world. In Part three the thesis is concluded with a close analysis of the publication of Ellis' controversial novel 'American psycho'. This chapter explores the negative publicity the novel attracted and the possible causes of the ensuing backlash against the author. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Comparative Literature Department, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Western Sydney, 2001. / Bibliography : p. 456-481.