The thesis hereby submitted, ‘How Does Technological Development And Adoption Occur In The Media? A Cultural Determinist Model’ was originally published in Media Technology and Society A History: from the telegraph to the Internet (London: Routledge 1998) and Technologies of Seeing: Photography, Cinematography and Television (London: British Film Institute 1996). The argument outlined in those two books is further supported and updated by six other texts published between 1995 and 2005 on the same topic. Media Technology and Society A History: from the telegraph to the Internet deals with the development of electrical and electronic mass media proposing a model for the nature of such developments. It is a final iteration of an approach to this history which has its origins in work first begun in the 1970s. Technologies of Seeing: Photography, Cinematography and Television applies the same model to photographic and cinematographic technologies. The thesis argues that all these media developments can only be understood in a social context; that they are to be understood as examples of what has become known as ‘socially shaped technology’ (or, in terms of the thesis, ‘cultural determinism’). This is contrary to the received dominant view that technology itself is the driver determining social formation – termed the ‘technological determinist’, ‘technicist’ or ‘diffusion theory’ approach. In rejecting technicism, ‘How Does Technological Development And Adoption Occur In The Media? A Cultural Determinist Model’ proposes instead an original, pioneering contribution to a revisionist cultural determinist/SST historiography as well as outlining a model to explicate at a theoretical level how such innovations and adoptions occur.

This thesis examines how blogging is being deployed to disrupt institutional hegemony in Malta. The island state is an example of a hyperlocal context that includes strong political, ecclesiastical and media institutions, advanced take-up of social technologies and a popular culture adjusting to the promise of modernity represented by EU membership. Popular discourse is dominated by political partisanship and advocacy journalism, with Malta being the only European country that permits political parties to directly own broadcasting stations. The primary evidence in this study is derived from an analysis of online texts during an organic crisis that eventually led to a national referendum to consider the introduction of divorce legislation in Malta. Using netnography supplemented by critical discourse analysis, the research identifies a set of strategies bloggers used to resist, challenge and disrupt the discourse of a hegemonic alliance that included the ruling political party, the Roman Catholic Church and their media. The empirical results indicate that blogging in Malta is contributing to the erosion of the Church’s hegemony. Subjects that were previously marginalised as alternative are increasingly finding an online outlet in blog posts, social media networks and commentary on newspaper portals. Nevertheless, a culture of social surveillance together with the natural barriers of size and the permeability of the social web facilitates the appropriation of blogging by political blocs, who remain vigilant to the opportunity of extending their influence in new media to disrupt horizontal networks of information exchange. Blogging is increasingly operating as a component of a hybrid media ecosystem that thrives on reflexive cycles of entertainment: the independent newspaper media, for long an active partner in the hegemonic set up in Malta, are being transformed and rendered more permeable at the same time as their power and influence are being eroded. The study concludes that a new episteme is more likely to emerge through the symbiosis of hybrid media and reflexive waves of networked individualism than systemic, organised attempts at online political disruption.

This study investigates peculiarities of the filtration combustion (FC) of the gaseous fuel-air mixtures in a porous inertia media (PIM). Combustion wave velocities and temperatures were measured for hydrogen-air, propane-air and methane-air mixtures in the PIM at different mixture filtration velocities. It is shown that the dependences of the combustion wave velocities on the equivalence ratio are V-shaped, It was further confirmed that the FC in the PIM has more contrasts than similarities with the normal homogeneous combustion. One of the interesting observations in the present study, which is not common in normal homogenous combustion, is the shifting of the fuel-air equivalent ratio at the minimum combustion wave velocity from the stoichiometric condition (¢ = 1). For a hydrogen-air mixture, the fuel-air equivalence ratio at the minimum combustion velocity shifts from the stoichiometric condition to the rich region, while for the propane-air and methane-air mixtures the fuel-air equivalence ratio at the minimum combustion velocity shifts toward fuel-leaner conditions. The measured maximum porous media temperatures in the combustion waves are found to be weakly dependent on the mixture filtration velocities. In general, the effects of the mixture filtration velocities on the measured maximum porous media temperatures are not significant.

In this research I employ a feminist and qualitative approach, challenging the predominant psychological discourse of pornography. I discuss the ways law, history and economics influence how women relate to pornography. A range of theoretical approaches, including psychoanalysis, film theory and cultural studies, are used to explore pornographic texts and women's accounts of their engagement with pornography. Drawing on these different disciplinary frameworks I argue that the meanings of `pornography' are changing and elusive: its insusceptibility to easy definition is a theme of this research, which takes into consideration diverse media, including erotic fiction and women's magazines. Feminist theory and discourse analysis informs the analysis of 34 interview transcripts, and leads to reflection on research-related problems such as questions of ethics, researching the `other', and tensions between feminisms and psychology. Women negotiate the heterosexist and masculine discourse of pornography in unexpected ways, and anti-porn feminism is shown to have shaped participants' views and impacted on their identities. The ways in which individual psychic histories and sociocultural constructions such as `race', `class', and sexual orientation enter into women's viewing of porn are explored. Psychoanalytic and gaze theories are drawn upon to offer insight into the different psychic mechanisms and positions involved in viewing and reading pornography. Pornography is a factor in the social construction of sexuality, but women's accounts (unlike much of the theory) show how their views, experiences and feelings about pornography are variegated, individual and complex. I argue for a Foucauldian perspective on the question of sexual repression and the effect-'of categorisations (such as `paedophile' and `sadomasochist'). The effects of new media and technologies are wide ranging, and include increasing opportunities for sex without physical contact, access to sex educational material, and the creation of multiple meanings of pornography for women. This thesis concludes by su gesting that the proliferation of new sexual discourses, including gay, lesbian and bisexual pornographies, has transgressive, contradictory and complex implications for women's sexualities.

The marketing, advertising and mediation of cosmetic surgery in the United States has become a controversial issue. The debate began with the normalization of unrealistic beauty images due to excessive exposure to cosmetic surgery in the media and consumer self-diagnosis. Surgeons use aggressive marketing tactics for preventative procedures and prey on insecurities. Moreover, the proliferation of cosmetic surgery in the media in conjunction with misleading advertising has created an environment where consumers have false and unrealistic expectations and perceptions of cosmetic surgery. This article discusses the history of cosmetic surgery, marketing and advertising tactics as well as mediated theory to understand the ethical issues involved in elective surgery. The goal of this paper is to suggest regulation and protection for vulnerable audiences. / text

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Sammanfattning Medias uppgift är dels att delge viktig samhällsinformation till medborgare samt granska myndigheter och förtroendevalda. Då media utgör en viktig informationskälla har dess rapportering betydelse för bildandet av samhällsopinioner. Mot bakgrund av detta och med koppling till vår framtida yrkesroll som socionomer fann vi det därför intressant att undersöka hur socialtjänsten och socialsekreterare skildras i media. Syftet med denna studie var att belysa svenska dagstidningars rapportering om socialtjänsten och socialsekreterare samt vilka likheter och skillnader som gått att utläsa mellan rapporteringen från två olika årtal. Studien har utgått ifrån två olika frågeställningar vilka har undersökt hur både socialtjänsten och socialsekreterares arbete har framställts i svenska dagstidningar. Empirin utgjordes av 68 tidningsartiklar från 2004 och 2014. Dessa hämtades från dagstidningarna Dagens Nyheter, Göteborgs-Posten samt Västerbottens-Kuriren. Datamaterialet har analyserats både kvantiativt och kvalitativt. Resultatet av analysen åskådliggjorde att rapporteringen i stort sett har varit utav samma karaktär under både 2004 och 2014. Tidningsartiklarna från 2014 har däremot varit mer innehållsrika i jämförelse med 2004 års artiklar. Framställningen har blivit mer nyanserad så till vida att fler betydelser har fått utrymme i hur socialtjänsten och socialsekreterares arbete skildras. Ytterligare en tendens som har gått att se var att arbetsmiljön har fått en alltmer central roll i rapporteringen. Under 2004 skildrades en positiv bild gällande personalbedrifter, vilket inte gick att återfinna 2014. Studiens resultat analyserades sedan mot bakgrund av tidigare forskning samt Bergers och Luckmanns socialkonstruktivism. Resultatet av analysen visade att porträtteringen av socialtjänsten och socialsekreterare är under ständig förändring, tillika som den grundläggande definitionen i mångt och mycket är av samma karaktär. Med andra ord är det möjligt att påverka hur och vilka områden media väljer att skildra i sin rapportering. Detta är av intresse då det innebär att vi med hjälp av våra utsagor kan vara medskapande i framställningen av socialt arbete.

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In the period 1963--1973, Weekend Magazine was the most widely-circulated periodical in Canada, claiming more than two-million weekly readers. An English-language publication, Weekend Magazine largely overcame the difficulties which beset the Canadian magazine industry in the 1950s and 1960s by circulating as an insert in the Saturday edition of local newspapers across the country. As a national magazine aimed at a general audience of Canadians, Weekend was involved in the difficult pursuit of inventing a kind of national entertainment for its readers, while representing the diversity of local identity without betraying the integrity of the national context. / This thesis is the study of a certain representation of the 1960s in Canada---an interpretation of the way in which the most widely-circulated magazine reflected and represented the nation in a period of significant transition. In the first half of the Sixties, Weekend was about the articulation of the various local identities within Canada, but always with regard to a power structure that maintained certain racial, sexual and regional divisions. Yet, in the second half of the decade, we can witness a transformation of this power structure, and with it, a disintegration of the sense of unity that had been implied before. As Weekend begins to move from an either/or understanding of otherness in Canada towards a more complicated recognition of local identities, its vision of a united Canada begins to break down. / This thesis considers various representative articles from the period 1963 to 1973 in an effort to establish the shift in the representation of otherness in Weekend's Canada. The key theme is explored through representations of Gender, Youth Culture, Foreignness and Nationalism in the magazine. A summary and review of historiographical and theoretical literature constitutes the first chapter of the work.