Being Jacques Villeneuve: Formula One, 'Agency' and the Fan

DVD disc of supplementary material available with the print copy of this thesis, held at the University of Waikato Library.In this thesis, I analyse my fandom for the Formula One driver, Jacques Villeneuve. Despite its rampant commercialism, innovative mediation, prestige and popular status within global sport, Formula One is surprisingly an under-researched topic in academia. Moreover, 'intense' fandom has often been stigmatised; at worst associating such individuals with pathological and obsessive behaviours or refuting their affections as merely symptomatic of the socio-economic forces that transform fans into duped consumers. This thesis argues against such simplistic disqualifications and reconceptualises fandom in light of how the structure/agency binary has itself been reconceptualised within media and cultural studies. Rather than privileging either the determining social, mediated and commercial structures, or championing the 'active agential' capacities of social individuals, Grossberg's notions of 'affect' and 'structured mobility' are drawn upon to underpin a more flexible explanation of contemporary fandom. In particular, affect offers theoretical purchase for how fans form attachments with selective media objects and why these come to 'matter' for specific individuals. Furthermore, by marrying affect with 'structured mobility', affective investments are recognised for their capacity to 'anchor' individuals in specific and concrete spatial/temporal 'moments' of social reality as they navigate both the mediated apparatus of the sport and the structured social, cultural and economic terrain that shapes their mediated fandom. Such insights are developed through a 'funnelling' approach in this thesis which moves from an examination of collective Formula One fandom to my own, exploring the affective traces of a friction that Villeneuve's maverick status provided within the broader machinery of the sport and to which this fan has responded

Strangers Switching Their Identities: Cultural Identity Management and Performance on Social Media A Qualitative Analysis of International Students’ Intercultural (Ex)Change Processes and Perceptions Regarding Their Stay in the United States and Countries of Origin

In this globalized world, cross-country travel for education has been a prevalent (5.6 million students identified as international students in 2020) and ever-increasing (with a predicted increase of 250% by 2030) trend through the past decades. The sojourn impacts the students’ experience of the new culture and the ensuing shocks and adaptations. The understanding of something as complicated as culture, trying to be integrated into a new culture, and its perception to individuals, of course, have their ways of distinct communication trends through social media. The struggle of maintaining and changing one’s cultural identity and adaptation across cultures has been scrutinized in literature through different lenses, especially in light of the evolution of culture, perceived through how the players behave and communicate. Analyzing the works of literature related to the theories of (inter)cultural identity, the models of culture shock, intercultural communication, and impression management while emphasizing on communication through social media, this thesis sought to understand if and how the behaviors of the sojourners change depending on the audience at home and the host institution, and whether the travelers consciously change their social media activity based on their experience of culture shock and the eventual adaptation thereafter. A snowball sample of 14 international graduate students at Clemson University was selected to be interviewed, using semi-structured questionnaires for data collection. The raw interview data were collected and self-coded through the qualitative analysis tool MAXQDA. The respondents’ answers were evaluated from three principal perspectives – their communication over social media with their family and friends back home, contact with the hosts in the United States, and how the interaction on social media changed after the initial exposure to the cultural shock(s). The apparent quality of better education, a plethora of specific opportunities, and independent learning environments also brought in the challenges of missing the physical proximity from family and friends back home, including an intense workload, and the sense of self-sufficiency. Combining everything, communication efforts through social media needed adaptation while still being in touch, at least superficially, with close family and friends; students displayed additional incentives and measures to get acquainted with the professional cultural systems in the host environment. The characteristics of front-stage communications were audience and time-dependent, whereas the backstage elements showed traits of being excluded and growing respect for personal boundaries. Although this study is only a peephole of the entire spectrum that needs to be further elaborated, spanning multiple universities around the globe with a much larger sample size, it is undeniable that these trends of social media behavior are crucial to understanding the perspectives of culture shocks and how the home cultural differences might play a role in the adaptation process

Multispecies Storytelling in Intermedial Practices

Multispecies Storytelling in Intermedial Practices is a speculative endeavor asking how we may represent, relay, and read worlds differently by seeing other species as protagonists in their own rights. What other stories are to be invented and told from within those many-tongued chatters of multispecies collectives? Could such stories teach us how to become human otherwise? Often, the human is defined as the sole creature who holds language, and consequently is capable of articulating, representing, and reflecting upon the world. And yet, the world is made and remade by ongoing and many-tongued conversations between various organisms reverberating with sound, movement, gestures, hormones, and electrical signals. Everywhere, life is making itself known, heard, and understood in a wide variety of media and modalities. Some of these registers are available to our human senses, while some are not. Facing a not-so-distant future catastrophe, which in many ways and for many of us is already here, it is becoming painstakingly clear that our imaginaries are in dire need of corrections and replacements. How do we cultivate and share other kinds of stories and visions of the world that may hold promises of modest, yet radical hope? If we keep reproducing the same kind of languages, the same kinds of scientific gatekeeping, the same kinds of stories about “our” place in nature, we remain numb in the face of collapse. Multispecies Storytelling in Intermedial Practices offers steps toward a (self)critical multispecies philosophy which interrogates and qualifies the broad and seemingly neutral concept of humanity utilized in and around conversations grounded within Western science and academia. Artists, activists, writers, and scientists give a myriad of different interpretations of how to tell our worlds using different media – and possibly gives hints as to how to change it, too

Multispecies Storytelling in Intermedial Practices

Multispecies Storytelling in Intermedial Practices is a speculative endeavor asking how we may represent, relay, and read worlds differently by seeing other species as protagonists in their own rights. What other stories are to be invented and told from within those many-tongued chatters of multispecies collectives? Could such stories teach us how to become human otherwise? Often, the human is defined as the sole creature who holds language, and consequently is capable of articulating, representing, and reflecting upon the world. And yet, the world is made and remade by ongoing and many-tongued conversations between various organisms reverberating with sound, movement, gestures, hormones, and electrical signals. Everywhere, life is making itself known, heard, and understood in a wide variety of media and modalities. Some of these registers are available to our human senses, while some are not. Facing a not-so-distant future catastrophe, which in many ways and for many of us is already here, it is becoming painstakingly clear that our imaginaries are in dire need of corrections and replacements. How do we cultivate and share other kinds of stories and visions of the world that may hold promises of modest, yet radical hope? If we keep reproducing the same kind of languages, the same kinds of scientific gatekeeping, the same kinds of stories about “our” place in nature, we remain numb in the face of collapse. Multispecies Storytelling in Intermedial Practices offers steps toward a (self)critical multispecies philosophy which interrogates and qualifies the broad and seemingly neutral concept of humanity utilized in and around conversations grounded within Western science and academia. Artists, activists, writers, and scientists give a myriad of different interpretations of how to tell our worlds using different media – and possibly gives hints as to how to change it, too

On economic bicameralism

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2004."September 2004."Includes bibliographical references (leaves 99-104).(cont.) for both economic profitability and democratic justice, is explored after the roots of the idea of economic bicameralism in socio-economic history and existing socio-economic institutions (such as Works Councils) are reviewed. Economic bicameralism is thus an original form of governance of the firm with regards to both its philosophy and its institutions. It is founded on the recognition that two quests take place within the context of the firm, each of which is pursued primarily by one of the firm's two major agents, capital and labor. In the structure of economic bicameralism, two chambers, one representing each group of agents, govern the firm jointly. The Chamber of Capital assembles the investors in capital, who value an instrumental rationality while seeking profit as their foremost objective; and the Chamber of Labor assembles the investors in person, who display a political rationality and are best understood as seeking democratic justice as their primary goal. While investors in capital remain the sole legal shareholders of the bicameral firm, the governance of the firm is managed by these two chambers, which occupy an equal footing and are consequently bound to cooperate in order to allow the firm to function efficiently. The collaboration hence induced between investors in capital and investors in labor enables the firm to effectively respect the aspiration towards democratic justice that infuses the work experience with the objective of economic profitability that motivates first the investors in capital.This study contributes to normative democratic theory by exploring the relevance of the democratic ideal within the context of the capitalist economic system. It reviews the five traditional arguments for economic democracy before advancing a sixth, original argument, which both encompasses and surpasses its predecessors, based on the political meaning of the work experience. This provides for an understanding of the "political rationality" that animates workers, who, in investing their own person in the firm, experience work as an expressive, political experience that places them in a public space where their conceptions of the just are challenged in complying with the rules of the workplace. In the traditional capitalist shareholder firm, where workers are not entitled to take part in setting those rules, this political rationality also involves a normative content: an aspiration towards democratic justice within the context of the firm, embodied in the idea that every investor-in person as well as in capital- should have a say in the decisions that concern the organization. Consequently, after reviewing the limits of the traditional models of the shareholder firm and the stakeholder firm, this study introduces a theory of the firm capable of reflecting the two rationalities that animate the firm: on the one hand, the traditional rationality of the capitalist firm which is instrumental, displayed by the shareholders (the investors in capital), which is tied to the quest for economic profitability, and on the other hand the political rationality, displayed by the workers (the investors in person), informed by a quest for democratic justice. The scheme of the bicameral firm, whose institutions are conceived in order to jointly address the questsby Isabelle Ferreras.S.M

Continuing education for optometrists

Effective continuing professional development (CPD) has the potential to yield better health outcomes for optometrists and their patients. A conceptual model of CPD provided a framework to characterize CPD and its outcomes. A mixed-method approach was chosen for this thesis. Across three studies this thesis measured optometrists’ perspectives of CPD, the effectiveness of a specific CPD activity, and optometrists’ capability in critically appraising the most frequently presented statistical methods in articles published in relevant ophthalmic scientific journals. An in-depth study of the perspectives of optometrists towards CPD via focus groups and interviews was conducted and responses coded to the Cabana determinant framework. Optometrists’ attitude towards CPD was modulated by their outcome expectancy, self-efficacy, the inertia of previous practice and their desire for self-improvement. A Likert scale measure of 46 optometrists’ attitudes towards CPD revealed positive attitudes with mean score of 72% (Mean=20.27, SD=3.81. Range 0-28). Meanwhile, the self-efficacy of these optometrists on the topic of Choroidal lesions was moderate (59%) or often times weak. A quasi-randomized controlled trial comparing the online experience of an Adaptive (n=22) to a Traditional (n=24) CPD intervention demonstrated that Traditional learners lost significantly more knowledge at 12 weeks compared to those optometrists randomized to the Adaptive CPD arm of the intervention (T=3, p=0.01, r=-0.52). Adaptive learning was also seen as more fun. The final study evaluated the alignment between the level of statistical knowledge required to successfully appraise the ophthalmic literature and optometrists’ self-reported knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) of statistics. The most used tests were: descriptive, t-tests, contingency tables, non-parametric tests and ANOVAs. Together these tests were present in 61% of the 358 articles audited. Optometrists demonstrated very poor knowledge of t-tests, contingency tables, and ANOVAs (averages of <50% correct). Overall, the findings of this mixed-method thesis indicated that optometrists have a positive attitude to CPD and wish to maintain and expand their learning across a lifetime. CPD specifically focused on statistics would enable more effective lifelong learning in optometrists. Any gaps in knowledge or practice cannot be attributed to a lack of desire to learn more