Digital Commons Network^™

Resisting Aggression : Graphic Re-Presentations For Other Bodies, Camilla C. Loveridge

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

These chapters consider how art can provide a space for wider critical debate on established patriarchal power relations, which have operated in Western culture since the Enlightenment period. As a female artist, I want to explore the space in art of both the female body and the community body. This work seeks to position the female body within the "form" of her subjectivity, to destabilize patriarchal strongholds through the displacement of the traditionally aestheticised female "nude”. That is, I examine the (historicized) notion of a “subject” and the representation of an "object”, and understand the female "nude” as a representation …

Keeping The Money Under The Soap : Constructions Of The English And English Migrants In Australian Nationalist Texts, Ann Rule

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Where does an Englishman hide his money?' 'I don't know. Where does an Englishman hide his money?' 'Under the soap'. This thesis interrogates representations of ‘Englishness’and by extension, English migrants, in a variety of Australian cultural texts, including film, television, newspapers and academic publications. Underlying this investigation are two major research questions: What are the factors informing the ambivalent place accorded 'Englishness' in Australian cultural texts? and What can this form of investigation tell us about Australian culture and associated national myths? I have attempted to reinterpret these national myths through the texts/ narratives of Englishness and class. One of …

Occupational Awareness Of Singapore Primary School Children, Joy S. Ang

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The introduction of career guidance programmes in Singapore schools had tended to predominantly focus on secondary pupils. The lack of proactive career guidance programmes for the primary school had been due to the misguided belief that children in the primary school still have an extremely long way to go before they enter the workforce, and that their career development had not yet begun. Studies have shown that children have a natural tendency to form firm impressions of occupations early in life. This has resulted in their adopting certain occupations and discarding others before they have fully explored and understood the …

Seeing Beyond The Habitus - On Action, Art And Healing, Tarquam Mckenna

'INSCAPE' - ARTCAP November 13-16, 2003

This paper is written as a conversation had at the ARTCAP Symposium in Perth 2003. It was a conversation that alluded to the imaginal realm and action art therapy as a way into understanding. It is offered as a spoken comment to bring voice to the reader. The format of the paper is such that the reader is encouraged to see it as a series of statements that are a conversation between a group of people. The paper begs questions which are still unanswered.

Attempting To Ground Ethnographic Theory And Practice, Lelia Rosalind Green

Research outputs pre 2011

This paper is a response to continued discussion about the necessary and sufficient characteristics of a claim to 'ethnographic method' when made by researchers in the Media and Cultural Studies traditions. Many of the seminal studies informing-particularly-audience studies research have claimed that they were 'ethnographic'. But is this a variety of ethnographic that an anthropologist would recognise? And if not, what kind of ethnography is it, and why might it be more or less appropriate as a research fromework than straightforward 'interview' or 'focus group' research? Further, when might we say that an interview is conducted in the course of …

An Ethnographic Investigation Of The Relevance Of Shop Floor Culture To Effective Safety Communication In An Australian Minerals Refinery, David R. Leith

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Many organisations which aim to achieve excellent workplace safety choose 'culture change' as the means to achieve this. They make use of employee communication media to help re-form the values, beliefs, norms and behaviours which are generally thought to comprise culture. However, culture is a complex and profound phenomenon. Successful communication between two culturally separate groups requires each to achieve an understanding of the other, no less so in workplaces than in societies composed of different cultures.Yet even employers who believe in communicating fully with their workforces find it difficult to convey viewpoints other than their own. Their communication tends …

Identifying Complex Issues Surrounding The Construction Of Indigeneity In Film And Documentary, Debbie Carmody

Theses : Honours

Indigenous identity can only be located within . a framework of historical dislocation from where white notions of assimilation are shattered. Therefore Indigeneity can only be defined in relation to the black experience within colonialism's hegemonic structures. I will argue this by looking at constructions of Indigenous Australians in the feature film Radiance (1998) directed by Rachel Perkins, and the documentary Sissy (2000) directed by Debbie Carmody (previously known as Debbie Gittins), which was made as part of this thesis. This raises questions: What is the black experience and the process of black survival within colonialism's hegemonic structures? How does …

Multiply-Mediated Households : Space And Power Reflected In Everyday Media Use, Donell Joy Holloway

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This study investigates how contemporary Australian families incorporate the consumption of multiple media technologies within their home environments. It uses an approach similar to David Morley's (1986) Family Television where he explored the consumption of television programs in the context of everyday family life. He viewed the household (or family) as the key to constructing understandings of the television audience; where there were gendered regimes of watching, and where program choice often reflected existing power relationships in the home. However since then (a time when most families had only one television set) the media environment of many homes has changed. …

Year 12 Students' Perceptions Of Deputy Principals' Effect On The Religious Culture In Catholic Secondary Schools, Robert Novacsek, John R. Godfrey

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Research on how Deputy Principals affect the religious culture of Secondary Catholic Schools is extremely limited. Deputy Principals may play a crucial role in shaping the culture of schools in many ways, religious and otherwise. This study examined Year 12 students perception of the effect Deputy Principals have on the religious culture in their schools. Year 12 students have an insight into the role of Deputy Principals as they have more extensive school experience than the other high school grades; the nature of their interaction with Deputy Principals is more varied; and as they approach the conclusion of their secondary …

Aboriginal English Genres In Perth, Ian G. Malcolm

Research outputs pre 2011

Aboriginal Australia has a unique heritage of oral literature and Aboriginal people of all ages take delight in yarning. Despite the richness and contemporary relevance of this heritage, little is known in the wider Australian society about the oral discourse skills that are taken for granted in Aboriginal communities.

Although the art of oral narrative has developed over countless generations and by medium of Indigenous languages, previous studies (Malcolm 1994a, b; Malcolm and Rochecouste 2000; Rochecouste and Malcolm 2000) have shown that it is vigorously maintained in Aboriginal English.

The lack of general awareness of the verbal art of Aboriginal …

From Impartial Objectivity To Responsible Affectivity: Some Ethical Implications Of The 9/11 Attacks On America And The War On Terror, Lelia Rosalind Green, Steven Maras

Research outputs pre 2011

In this paper we trace same of the ways a responsibility to affect might be thought of in the wake of the events of 9/11, and examine what it might mean to shift the orientation of journalistic ethics away from an ethics based on objectivity to an ethics of affectivity.

A Study Of The Cultural Appropriateness Of Service Delivery Models In The Australian Mental Health System, Mong L. Connell

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This study is an attempt to examine the cultural appropriateness of the mental health system in relation to the Vietnamese refugee community in Australia. Culture and mental health, as widely acknowledged in the field of transcultural psychiatry, are closely linked. No aspect of the diagnosis or treatment methods can be justified without reference to the cultural traditions of the mental health system and the client. In a country like Australia, where multiculturalism is a dominant feature of the society, the need is even greater in incorporating culture into every aspect of the mental health system, if it desires to provide …

Reading Hong Kong Chinese Culture: Hybridity Or Eclecticism, A Matter Of Contemporary Configuration, K. C. Staples

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This thesis investigates the Cultural Studies paradigm 'hybridity' through an analysis of Hong Kong culture. In Cultural Studies, 'hybridity' is usually applied to cultures that have been influenced by another culture, resulting in a loss of identity, leading to a cultural mixture. As a former Colony comprising predominantly of a southern Chinese population, Hong Kong has been influenced by British culture. However, the question is whether Hong Kong culture has been 'hybridises', or, the Hong Kong people, in mastering two cultures, have become bicultural, and use their biculturalism bilaterally, as particular situations require. The study also researches the condition of …

Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Politeness For The Customer In Spoken Aspects Of Service In The Restaurant In Australian English And Japanese, Chieko Imaeda

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

In listening to members of different cultures, it is possible to feel bad, even while recognising that the speaker is trying to speak politely. Sometimes we do not feel very comfortable with someone else’s speech, even though their expressions might be very polite with the choice of specific linguistic forms to show a high level of formality such as terms of address and specific types of formulaic expression such as ' I (don 't) think ... ' or ' I (don't) believe' . The speaker may be intending to speak politely in a considerate way. But the hearer's reaction may …

The Children Overboard Event: Constructing The Family And Nation Through Representations Of The Other, Kate Slattery

Theses : Honours

This thesis presents a selection of representations of the Children Overboard event of October 7, 2001, sourced from the Australian government and print news media. Employing an interpretative and critical discourse approach, I explore how the event could be seen to define the physical and cultural boundaries of the Australian nation. In particular I explore how a threat to nation is articulated. From my analysis of the representations, I identify a rhetoric of the 'Other' set within the discursive spaces of family and nation. These discourses circulated within the Children Overboard event are pursued in this thesis in terms of …

Home And Away: The Tourist, The Flâneur And Everyday Life, John S. Gates

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This thesis examines the role and status of the tourist in the present day. It argues that the tourist, and the touristic experience, is emblematic of the consumption-based economy of late capitalism. It analyses tourism as a practice of, rather than opposed to, everyday life, for many subjects in late-capitalist Western society. The argument is developed by comparing and contrasting the tourist with the flâneur. The flâneur is regarded as a representative subjectivity of early modernity who developed visual and spatial practices, methodologies of movement and observation, which interpreted the city. The tourist's relationship with the global spaces of the …

Remote Audiences Beyond 2000 : Radio, Everyday Life And Development In South India, Thomas J. Yesudhasan

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The core of this thesis is that radio remains an important communication tool for tribal communities living In remote hill areas of South India. Some of the more salient findings relate to media uses and preferences ot people, suggesting that sophisticated negotiations take place between audiences and media. These Include suspicion of television and its impact upon work practices and education, the organization of time and space to accommodate radio and television Into people's busy daily lives, and the recognition that radio may be a more Innovative medium than television. These conclusions have been reached from an In- depth qualitative …

Conceptual-Associative System In Aboriginal English : A Study Of Aboriginal Children Attending Primary Schools In Metropolitan Perth, Farzad Sharifian

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

National measures of achievement among Australian school children suggest that Aboriginal students, considered as a group, are those most likely to end their schooling without achieving minimal acceptable levels of literacy and numeracy. In view of the fact that many Aboriginal students dwell in metropolitan areas and speak English as a first language, many educators have been unconvinced that linguistic and cultural difference have been significant factors in this underachievement. This study explores the possibility that, despite intensive exposure to non-Aboriginal society, Aboriginal students in metropolitan Perth may maintain, through a distinctive variety of English, distinctive conceptualisation which may help …

Your Place, My Place, Interface, Lelia Green (Ed.)

Research outputs pre 2011

This publication is the output of 2001 School of Communications and Multimedia post-graduate cohort. For many of us this is the first time our own work will be seen beyond the assignment or the essay destined for the tutor. For students from the interactive multimedia and film and video streams communicating in the written word without the assistance of pictures and electrical gadgetry can be a frightening experience. Further, most us of had little experience in creating or simulating an academic journal with all that it entails. Still, with assistance of our publications unit coordinator Lelia Green we soldiered on. …

Hiding Behind Nakedness On The Nude Beach, Lelia Rosalind Green

Research outputs pre 2011

This paper draws upon a series of experiences between 1980-85, when I identified as a naturist during my summer holidays in Europe, and in a visit to Wreck Beach in Vancouver (where I felt very much at home). At the time, I was aware that nude beaches were much less threatening to me as a large woman than are conventional 'textile' beaches. This paper draws upon those experiences to theorise why this might be the case, and why I have been absent from beach culture for much of the past decade.

A Socio-Historical Study Of The Construction Of Knowledge In Secondary Media Education In Western Australia - Whose Knowledge?, Robyn Quin

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This thesis investigates the history of the construction of knowledge in the school subject media studies using the Western Australian experience as the case for the study. It seeks to explain why the subject media studies looks and sounds the way it does today through the production of a genealogy of the subject. The problems addressed are first, why was this subject introduced into the curriculum in the 1970s. Secondly, how has the knowledge in the subject been defined and contested, how and why has it changed in the course of the subject’s history. Thirdly, which knowledge attains the status …

An Exploratory Study Into The Relationship Between Moral Judgement And Academic Ability By School, Gender, And Socio-Economic Status, Kathleen Bancroft

Theses : Honours

Society appears to be exhibiting an innate belief that the private school system provides a better education, a moral education and the opportunity to secure a place in the workforce more so than its counterpart, the public school system (Australian Council of Educational Research, 1980). A 1.5% shill of Australian school students from the public school system to the private school system each year has been reported (Kemp, 1997). Previous research indicates that parents are choosing the private system as they perceive an educational advantage over public schools (Australian Council of Educational Research, 1980). The purpose of this study is …

A Critical Linguistic Analysis Of A Popular Comic Genre In Japan, Angela Rawson

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This research will focus on the issue of power and gender in the language of Japanese comics (manga). Comics in Japan are enormously popular and are read by a wide audience. They are aimed at specific audiences and it is my argument that the language of manga helps to reinforce certain social stereotypes - particularly the inferiority of women and the dominance of males. The language of children's manga will be analyzed using the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), which concerns itself with the relation between ideology and power in discourse. The analysis will be at various levels including …

Monday Morning And The Millennium : Cultural Studies, Scepticism And The Concept Of Power, Mark Gibson

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The thesis examines the use or the concept of power in cultural studies, offering a revisionist perspective on the history or this use. The dominant approach to questions or power in the field, it is argued, is a 'rationalist' one: the various phenomena comprehended under the concept are conceived ultimately as instances or the one phenomenon. This approach implies that positions in relation to power share a common referent allowing them to be assessed according to general criteria of 'correctness' or theoretical adequacy. It also allows developments in debates around power to be represented in terms or a narrative or …

Dead Mothers, Lonely Daughters : Negotiating Intersubjective Space In Young Adult Fiction, Anna-Claire Walsh

Theses : Honours

This thesis examines the effect of maternal absence on the ability of three central female characters to develop intersubjective relationships in three novels for young adults. The theoretical framework is Jessica Benjamin's psychoanalytic theory of 'intersubjectivity' which seeks to transcend split complementarities such as active-passive creating a model that synthesises traditionally opposed terms. Benjamin situates maternal subjectivity as the foundation from which a baby's identity is constructed and attributes women with both active and passive qualities. The relationship between mother and infant consequently acts as a paradigm for understanding the interaction between adult subjects in later life. Chapter One introduces …

An Investigation Of The Multiple Response To Oppression And Implications For Identity Among Aboriginal Adolescents, Victoria E. Hovane

Theses : Honours

In a history characterized by dispossession and oppression since colonisation, the responses of Aboriginal people to oppression have typically been presented from an ethnocentric perspective of internalization and assimilation. Another body of literature however, suggests alternative responses to non-dominant status such as resistance and adaptation to oppression. This study sought to investigate the ways in which Aboriginal adolescents respond to the negative messages they receive about being Aboriginal and the implications for their developing sense of identity, within a sociopolitical framework. A group of nine participants (five females and four males), aged 14 - 17 years (M = 15.4yrs), were …

Spaces For The Spirit: Christian Spirituality As Represented By Australian Media, Jennifer Anne Jones

Theses : Honours

No abstract provided.

Mothers, Gaze And Rape : Almodóvar's Cinema And The Construction Of Gender, Gorana Mlinarevic

Theses : Honours

Although often named a 'women's director': Pedro Almodóvar has frequently been attacked by feminist, mainly Anglo-Saxon, film critics. Most of them have found his portrayals of women to be very humiliating. On the other hand, Spanish heterosexual, mainly male, film critics have attacked him for focusing only on portrayals of marginal genders and sexualities. Nevertheless, he has become one of the most, if not the most, commercially successful Spanish film directors. The intention of this project is not just to analyse Almodóvar's cinema and the critics' acceptance/rejection of the same. Rather, the project is intending, through use of 'Ia politique …

Salinity Tolerance Of Selected Ectomycorrhizal Fungi (Pisolithus Tinctorius Pers.) And Ectomycorrhizal Eucalypts, Ben Bradshaw

Theses : Honours

Increasing soil salinity has become a major problem worldwide. It has led to a reduction in the amount of arable land, has put at risk the supply of freshwater and threatens the existence of many natural habitats. The major increase in salinity has been attributed to human activities such as clearing of natural vegetation and large-scale irrigation programmes. The alleviation of this problem has focussed on changed management strategies. the most significant of which is the re-establishment of deep rooted plants in sail affected areas. This, however, is difficult because of the variation in salt tolerance of such plants and …

Influence Of Home And School Environments On The Academic Performance Of Chinese-Australian And Anglo-Australian Students Studying At An Academically-Oriented High School In Perth, Western Australia, Ranbir Singh Malik

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Although minority status has been associated with low academic achievement, the “high Asian achieving syndrome" remains as one of the unresolved sociological puzzles. Consistent evidence suggests that regardless of the family status, children from the Asian migrant families, settled in the industrialised countries, tend to perform academically better than their counterparts from the dominant group. This disparity is attributed to a number of factors, which taken separately, do not address this complex issue. In Australia little research has been done to compare the home environment and school experiences of children coming from Chinese-Australian and Anglo-Australian families even though the number …