http://hdl.handle.net/1893/9 Electronic theses of Communications, Media and Culture students. Sat, 03 Oct 2026 18:40:45 GMT 2026-10-03T18:40:45Z http://hdl.handle.net/1893/37931 Title: Sports documentaries, gender, class and emotion: An autoethnography Author(s): McCuaig, Margot Abstract: I am a documentary filmmaker and this research explores how my identity as a working-class woman shapes my approach to filmmaking, specifically in the sports documentary genre. Drawing on an autoethnographic methodology, I critically analyse gender, class and emotional themes in four of my sports documentary films. The films profile Scottish football and tennis stars and were broadcast on television between 2018 and 2021. I assess my production processes and narrative drives, as both a filmmaker and a subject of the research, by analysing contributor testimonies, my reflexive practices as a documentary maker, my production notebooks and edit notes and childhood memories, exploring how my personal subjectivities intersect with my emotions and emotional engagement to influence my storytelling. The research also examines discrimination on the basis of gender and class within the TV industry, aligning my personal and professional experience of this within existing documentary film, ethics, class and gender academic frameworks. In addition, I investigate the impact of emotional engagement from the perspectives of the contributor and the filmmaker, assessing how my sense of self shifts in relation to my identities, creating specific dynamics with the contributors, resulting in a documentary filmmaking mode, specific to my processes, I describe as immersive collaboration. In conclusion, this thesis argues that my analysis offers an added dimension to the sports documentary and to scholarship in this genre, illustrating autoethnography’s potential to align practice and theory, positioning the filmmakers’ subjectivities as central to documentary filmmaking, while repositioning the sports documentary from the margin to the centre in academic discourse. This research bridges a gap, presenting a framework for the understanding of how subjectivities and emotions can influence the creative process, offering an alternative perspective for documentary filmmakers, particularly for those from, or focussing on, underrepresented backgrounds. Sun, 31 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1893/37931 2025-08-31T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/1893/37884 Title: Sound archives for football memories: exploring innovations in the use of the Scottish Football Museum Archive for older people Author(s): Tippett, Levi Sean Abstract: Football Memories Scotland (FMS) groups provide examples of sports-based reminiscence (SBR) wherein a range of football-related stimuli is used with older people to trigger memories and prompt socialisation. The Scottish Football Museum, who are affiliated with FMS, identified a largely untapped resource: Scottish football-related sound archival materials. This PhD explores the use of these materials with older people in FMS contexts. It develops frameworks for both the selection of FMS themes and the production of FMS tailored audio resources that feature sound archival materials. These approaches are exemplified by the production and use of the ’67 audio – an audio resource themed around the England 2 - 3 Scotland fixture at Wembley in 1967. The ‘67 audio was shared with five community-based FMS groups. I observed FMS participants’ responses to hearing the audio, and conducted follow up interviews with FMS group attendees, carers and facilitators. The findings evidence that the ‘67 audio was well received and, notably, seemed to play a significant role in triggering memories and prompting socialisation. This study therefore presents a novel yet potentially impactful approach for FMS theme selection, and the production and use of sound archival materials in FMS and, perhaps, wider SBR contexts. It also proposes a broad session structure for the use of sound archival materials with multi-sensory stimuli. Still, further research remains necessary to both determine whether the frameworks are applicable beyond this PhD and assess the value of the proposed session structure in FMS and/or wider SBR contexts. Tue, 30 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1893/37884 2025-09-30T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/1893/37227 Title: Whose ideal is it anyway? Religious women’s negotiations of beauty and multifaceted, ethnic identity on Instagram Author(s): Abreu, Rachel Marie Abstract: The concept of beauty is persistently debated across disciplines. Beauty is nevertheless upheld as a measure of women’s social capital. Ubiquitous social media usage, particularly of visual platforms like Instagram, now disseminates beauty ideals on a more rapid, global scale. These ideals adhere to Western standards, to the detriment of minority ethnic groups. This thesis therefore examines how religious identity influences minority ethnic women’s conceptualisations of beauty on Instagram. This thesis expands scholarship on Instagram, beauty, and ethnicity, which often conflates race with ethnicity; limits definitions of beauty to body size and shape; and largely centres on solely White Christian or Muslim experiences. Guided by feminist frameworks, this thesis endeavours to make space for the narratives of women who are marginalised both within research and in the wider social context. A combination of online focus groups and semi-structured, individual interviews was conducted with sixteen women, located globally, who identify as Christian, Jewish, or Muslim. Critical Thematic Analysis (CTA) and Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis (FCDA) were used to present a detailed, intersectional exploration of religious women’s criteria for beauty. The findings demonstrate the complex negotiations that guide religious women’s conceptualisations of beauty on Instagram. Striving for beauty emerges as inevitable; yet visual markers of race and religion remain obstacles to finding belonging within mainstream standards of beauty and femininity. The discussions reveal religious identity’s crucial influence on more holistic criteria for beauty, which move beyond physical qualities to reconcile religious duty with contemporary beauty trends. The research ultimately proposes that beauty is the ability to express nuanced, multifaceted identity. While Instagram’s tools for self-representation allow religious women to contribute to hybrid expressions of femininity and religiosity, these self-expressions are ultimately constrained. Efforts to broaden the scope of what it means to be a beautiful woman must therefore extend beyond social media. Fri, 01 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1893/37227 2024-11-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/1893/37192 Title: Understanding effective public health communication strategies in a rural region of a developing economy: a case study of COVID-19 communication in rural Nigeria Author(s): Chiweta-Oduah, Onyinye Abstract: Effective public health communication is key in managing public health emergencies like the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly in rural, underprivileged parts of developing economies. Using the Covid-19 pandemic as a case study, the study investigated effective public health communication and explored effective public health communication strategies in rural regions of Nigeria from policy level professionals and community level actors' perspectives. This was achieved by drawing upon the Integrated Framework for Effective Public Health Communication (IFEPHC) developed in the study through synthesis of various models for effective health communication, and utilising the deductive approach that incorporated an inductive element. It adopted a qualitative research design and used semi-structured telephone interviews to elicit information from 41 participants consisting of 12 policy level professionals (Group A) and 29 community level actors (Group B). The interview transcripts were subjected to thematic analysis using Nvivo software. The study found that the LG adopted audience definition and message tailoring; multiple channels of communication (such as interpersonal communication, mass media, and indigenous native communication); the engagement of multiple stakeholders; M&E; and repetition as communication strategies. It further revealed that the majority of the study participants believed that these strategies contributed to the effectiveness of public health communication in rural Nigeria and the achievement of the LG’s goals and priorities due to a notable reduction in infection and mortality rates, a perceived understanding of the Covid-19 messages by the villagers, and increased adherence to the Covid-19 protocols. Despite these indicators, the study found that mistrust in government, paucity of Covid-19 information, hostility of villagers to public health communicators, among other challenges, influenced the effectiveness of public health communication among rural dwellers. Finally, the study suggests that effective public health communication in rural developing economies such as Nigeria, can be achieved through careful and consistent application of the IFEPHC framework. Fri, 27 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1893/37192 2024-09-27T00:00:00Z