Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2009. / Title from PDF title page (University of Texas Digital Repository, viewed on July 30, 2009). Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (PhD)-Open University. BLDSC no.DX190076.

A form of data transmission which is increasing in popularity is satellite communication. In order to insure that data is received correctly, certain error control strategies are employed. In packetized transmission, automatic-repeat-request (ARQ) schemes and error correcting codes have been employed. Currently a combination of both is not employed by the AX.25 protocol. The purpose of this project is to determine which error correcting code should be combined with ARQ to provide the optimum performance. This project investigates the performance of the (7,4) Hamming code, (23,12) Golay code, Reed-Solomon, RS , codes over the Galois fields of 16, GF(16), and 256, GF(256), elements, and common rate convolutional codes of various constraint lengths. The codes are evaluated on three primary criteria, which include: throughput vs. input bit error rate, coding complexity, and burst error performance. The class of Reed-Solomon codes over GF(256) was chosen to be superior due to the throughput and burst error performance. The encoding complexity is small, but the decoding is more complicated. The conclusion is that error correcting codes should be employed in ARQ satellite systems. However, the error correcting strength of the code must be determined by observing the channel characteristics. / Master of Science

This study explores political parallelism in the context of diaspora-based transnational media through the experience of the Ethiopian Satellite Television and Radio (ESAT). The station is conceived as a party media outlet and transformed into a diaspora-based, non-profit and mainly diaspora funded institution. It has been operating from its three studios in Amsterdam, London and Washington, D.C., until recently. ESAT has emerged as one of the most influential media outlets in the political landscape of Ethiopia in the last ten years. The research, through qualitative and in-depth case study interviews, examines the underlying ideological, political and organizational affiliations that defined ESAT’s position in the media landscape. The study concluded that political parallelism, as an indicator of the dynamics between media and politics, can be used in the diaspora-based transnational media context. However, the study also validated critics on the inapplicability of the two preconditions of political parallelism, namely the existence of competitive system and patterns. The analysis confirms a high level of political parallelism in ESAT in all the five indicators selected for the study. The indicators considered are Ownership, Organizational connections, Party or ideological loyalty, Media personnel’s political involvement, and Journalists’ role orientation. Each of them demonstrated a level of parallelism in ideological orientations or party connection with Ginbot 7 Movement for Democracy and Justice. The study concluded that the salient features of political parallelism should further be studied in the context of the transnational media space of diaspora-based media.

The past two decades have witnessed a dramatic growth in Middle Eastern satellite television. The corresponding diversification of content and restructuring of media power in the region raise many important questions for research. This dissertation is a case study of Huda TV, an English-language Islamic satellite channel broadcasting from Cairo, Egypt. The author collected participant observation data as an employee of the channel in 2005-2006. The primary research question asks how Huda TV asserts an Islamic presence in the satellite television arena. Many areas of media research, including the broad historical debates on culture and power, contemporary conceptions of hybridity, and the analysis of media institutions in the Middle East, share an overarching secular bias. Consequently, this dissertation plots out relevant bodies of theoretical and empirical research that both inform and constrain the kind of questions that can be asked about Huda TV as a Muslim institution. With a conscious effort to overcome the reductionist secularism of media studies, this work offers empirical data on the manner in which orthodox Sunni Islam operates within the global mediascape--the increasingly integrated, geographically expansive, and globally accessible media environment of which satellite television is one important component. This dissertation first examines the concrete manner in which Huda TV attempts to define Islamic satellite television as a distinct set of content and practices. Next, it turns to the channel's engagement with dominant discourses and bodies of knowledge that may compete with Islam for ultimate authority. Finally, it examines the impact of cultural and political-economic factors on the channel's work. This dissertation offers original insights into the study of contemporary Islam and contributes to significant, enduring questions of media research. / text

Within the context of debates surrounding the consumption of global media by local audiences in Third World countries, this study explores the reasons behind satellite television subscription, and consumption of international news among a sample of young professional men and women in contemporary Zimbabwe. The study seeks to uncover how the research participants respond to news broadcast on SABC Africa's '60 minutes live in Africa', a programme which they can only access via satellite television in their country. Working within the frame of audience studies which insists on understanding media consumption and reception in context, this study examines how the respondents, situated within the specific Zimbabwe context, characterised as it is by serious social, economic and political challenges, respond to both regional news and news about their country on '60 minutes live in Africa'. Within the frame of qualitative research the study employs a two-stage sampling procedure and data collection strategy to uncover the factors that underpin international media consumption and reception by professional men and women situated in a country undergoing rapid change. The findings of the study point to the various social and individual factors that underlie media consumption choices as well as to the different socially patterned reasons why local audiences are either attracted to, or reject global media. The study found that SABC Africa's '60 minutes live in Africa' is more popular and better received than Western-broadcast programmes on channels such as BBC, CNN, and Sky News among Zimbabwean professionals. I also uncovered some evidence that cultural proximity and relevance are of supreme importance in determining which media audiences chose to consume and what level of engagement they bring to their reception of global media. These and other findings directly confront media models that privilege beliefs in cultural imperialism and the dominance of Western media and their effects on Third World audiences.

The growth of direct broadcast satellite television distribution to the home as a viable competitor to cable and terrestrial broadcast has fostered the availability of special interest or niche channels and therefore provided greater choice to the viewer. This study, based on uses and gratifications theory, examined the relationships among ritual and instrumental viewing motivations and satisfactions, viewer religiosity, and viewing attentiveness as they related to the selection of a niche television channel, Brigham Young University Television. The uses and gratification approach provides an appropriate framework for studying "media consumption, the interrelated nature of television user motives, and the relationships among viewing motives and viewing patterns" (Abelman, 1989, p. 57). Data was gathered by way of an online survey of non-random, self-selected BYU Television viewers. Participants answered 67 questions about their motives for choosing to view BYU Television and the gratifications they received from their viewing. The 596 valid responses to the survey were analyzed. The study results are in harmony with previous uses and gratifications studies examining ritual and instrumental viewing patterns. The data found positive relationships between instrumental viewing motives and instrumental viewing satisfactions, as well as instrumental viewing motives and viewing selectivity. There was no support for those hypotheses that dealt with the level of viewing attention as it related to religiosity or instrumental viewing motives. Future topics of study are suggested including the opportunity an expanded media universe provides to increase the depth and breadth of uses and gratification theory, as well as to study the role of niche television services in community building.

Thesis (M. A.) --University of Limpopo, 2021 / This is an exploratory study conducted to assess the effectiveness of the digital migration in South Africa. This study focused on two areas of domicile, which embarked on the process of migrating in Limpopo Province i.e. Shayandima Village in Thohoyandou and Rapotokwane Village in Bela-Bela. The theories that were used to guide the study were the diffusion of innovations theory, political economic theory and media policy theory. These theories were employed to assist in assessing the process, the effectiveness and the importance of Digital Migration. The results for this study are revealed that 85% of respondents asserted that digital broadcasting is very effective and easy to use compared to the analog broadcasting systems, as it shows clear pictures, quality sound and access to more television channels. This help television viewers to get quality television programs. It was interesting to note that respondents mentioned that they did not regret migrating from analog to digital broadcasting because of the benefits and impact that the Set Top Boxes Set (STB)s have on their televisions. The findings reveal that the STBs are effective and affordable and enable to watch more television channels. There is also a need for the Department of Communication and Digital Technologies to ensure that every household in South Africa migrates to digital broadcasting system

Based upon perspectives and concepts from social and historical research on technical systems, this dissertation describes and analyses events and processes relating to the dramatic change in television in Western Europe during the 1980s and early 1990s. In particular, it focuses on how Swedish television, conceived as a large socio-tecnical system, has shifted from a traditional 'public service' system to a more open and mixed system. In addition to traditional public television broadcasting, it has now come to encompass several commercial channels distributed through an expanding combination of technical and market alternatives, including satellite television. The study traces the multiple ways in which socio-historical processes and contingencies have shaped the television system in Sweden. The most detailed historical descriptions and analyses focus on the entrepreneurial activities of the Swedish firm, Industriförvaltning AB Kinnevik, documenting the introduction of the satellite channel TV3 in Sweden and the related expansion of the system. The entrepreneurial actions of Kinnevik in establishing the new satellite channel TV3 are analysed against the background of (1) the characteristics of the traditional Swedish radio and TV broadcasting system, (2) the development of cable television in Sweden, and (3) the broad history of satellite television. Emphasis is placed on how and why it was possible for a new actor to successfully challenge, gain access to, and help transform a well-established system that had remained relatively stable for a long time. This raises attendant questions of timing. How do we account for and explain the relative stability of this system for such a long period? Why did radical change occur at a particular time and not before or after? Whereas the empirical material concerning the activities of Kinnevik in relation to its entrance on the television market covers the period between 1984 and 1991, the study in general addresses developments throughout the twentieth century and, occasionally, even further back in history. The focus is thus on the system as a whole, rather than on only one of its components. A number of conclusions are drawn from the study concerning both the construction of new systems and the reconstruction of established systems. Two major conclusions can be mentioned here. (1) First, the historical material confirms the necessity of collective action in large-scale technology-based entrepreneurial action. (2) Second, the study also shows that there is nothing necessary or inevitable about the development of technologies/technological systems, even though they are subject to a high degree of path-dependence. / <p>The electronic version of the printed dissertation is a corrected version where all spelling and grammatical errors are corrected.</p>

The Qatari-funded channel, Al-Jazeera Arabic (AJA) has been subject to criticism as being in favour of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) in Egypt. The approach taken by AJA Satellite Television to represent the MB, the Mubarak regime and other political actors in Egypt, during its coverage of four key electoral moments - before and after the 2011‘revolution’- is reviewed in this research. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is applied to study the constructive effects of AJA’s language in an interpretive way (Parker & Burman, 1993). The effect of the language used by two predominant AJA TV programmes, Without Borders بلا حدود and Opposite Direction الاتجاه المعاكس has been investigated and a number of current and former AJA journalists have been interviewed. Van Dijk’s Ideological Square and Pier Robinson’s Framing Model, in conjunction with Chouliaraki’s Three Rhetorical Strategies (Verbal Mode, Agency and Time Space) have been used as analysis tools to study the process of AJA’s representation of different political ideologies: the MB’s Islamic ideology and the Mubarak regime’s secular ideology. Van Dijk’s Ideological Square helps to identify the boundaries between ‘us’ (the good) and ‘them’ (the bad), and to classify people according to their support of specific ideology against another - the ‘in-group’ or the ‘outgroup’. AJA positively framed the Islamic MB movement on the basis that the group and its members were democratic, Islamic and victims, whereas it negatively framed the Mubarak regime and the Military Council in Egypt as repressive, secular and villains. The assigned role of different actors (including; the Egyptian people and opposition parties) in AJA TV programmes changed from one electoral moment to another. While the Mubarak regime, its supporters and the Military Council were represented as the ‘out-group’ at all times, the role allocated to the Egyptian people and the opposition shifted between the ‘in-group’ and the ‘out-group’, depending on the political mood they held towards the MB.