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I argue that the evolution of the Commission’s de facto competence over telecommunication services occurred when the Commission had greater ability to pursue institutional change as a result of its successful use of its agenda-setting power, informational advantages, its use of implied competence, mobilization of support from the industry, and strategic use of judicial review; or when there were shifts in at least some member states’ preferences concerning institutional change. Nevertheless, the Commission only achieved more legal competence when member states’ preferences were closely aligned. This thesis sought to develop an understanding of how and why the Commission gained increasing competence over new trade issues, including trade in services, foreign direct investment (FDI) and trade-related intellectual property. It accomplished this through examining telecommunication services as an example of new trade areas and made a detailed study of how the Commission gained increasing competence over this area. It established a synthetic analytical framework by combining insights from both historical institutionalism (HI) and actor-centred institutionalism (ACI) and presented a hypothesis deriving from this framework. To assess the validity of the hypothesis, the thesis traces throughout history and examines policy-making instances, which shaped the EU’s de facto and legal competence over telecommunication services since the 1980s. It examines the Commission’s representation of member states in the Uruguay Round and in the basic telecommunication negotiations. It also analyze debates on the Commission’s legal competence in the IGCs on the Amsterdam, Nice and Constitutional Treaties as well as legal proceedings before the European Court of Justice. While the Commission’s ability to pursue institutional change and member states’ preferences concerning institutional change are two independent variables, I argue that the institutional setting of the EU’s telecommunication policy making and the international economic environment indirectly affected institutional change by exerting influence on these independent variables.

This thesis aims to investigate the industry restructuration of the Chinese film industry in the context of China integrating into the global neoliberal capitalist system since its WTO entry in 2002. By interrogating the power dynamics between the Party-state, domestic capital and transnational media capital, this thesis explores respective roles each of the three stakeholders have played in shaping the commercialization and marketization of the Chinese film industry. Methodically, this thesis primarily relies on elite interviews with industry professionals, together with critical discourse analysis of one key policy document, and secondary data collected from news outlets, trade publications, industry reports, etc. Drawing on the empirical data, I present four main arguments. First, in light of China's culture system reform and the evolution of film policies since 2002, the Party-state continues to utilize film as an ideological instrument for consolidating the Party's hegemonic rule and sustaining its legitimacy. The Party-state proves ingenious in governing the Chinese film industry at the discursive level as China experiencing the integration into global neoliberalism. Second, despite the installation of the market mechanism in the film sector, the Party-state manages to retain control over the Chinese film industry, not only on the ideological front, but also in the economic sense by partaking in the competition with private capital, domestic and foreign. Third, the Chinese film industry has been profoundly transformed by the trend of conglomeration driven by other capital-intensive industry sectors in China, in particular the internet sector. Riding on their explosive success in the new century, several key tech giants seek to build Chinese media conglomerates that are competitive on the global scale. This process is further complicated by the keen participation of transnational media capital, mainly Hollywood players. Co-production film projects best epitomize the transnational collaboration which however, haven't achieved much success. Fourth, the Chinese film workers have developed professional skills that enable them to navigate between political imperatives, commercial demands, and personal fulfilment. The mental struggle of balancing individual artistic vision with political and commercial constraints is palpable for film practitioners on a daily basis, though to varying degree. One way of coping with the challenge is exercise agency in a highly depoliticized manner, channelling creative energy into filmmaking activities that are either considered politically safe, or in accordance with the official ideologies, in some cases pandering to the Party-state. The fact that Chinese film workers actively transform themselves into depoliticized subjects in their professional work, indicating neoliberalism as a national hegemonic project at its core.

This thesis undertakes the first history of the post-war British telephone system, and addresses it through the lens of both actors’ and analysts’ emphases on the importance of ‘information’ and ‘control’. I explore both through a range of chapters on organisational history, laboratories, telephone exchanges, transmission technologies, futurology, transatlantic communications, and privatisation. The ideal of an ‘information network’ or an ‘information age’ is present to varying extents in all these chapters, as are deployments of different forms of control. The most pervasive, and controversial, form of control throughout this history is computer control, but I show that other forms of control, including environmental, spatial, and temporal, are all also important. I make three arguments: first, that the technological characteristics of the telephone system meant that its liberalisation and privatisation were much more ambiguous for competition and monopoly than expected; second, that information has been more important to the telephone system as an ideal to strive for, rather than the telephone system’s contribution to creating an apparent information age; third, that control is a more useful concept than information for analysing the history of the telephone system, but more work is needed to study the discursive significance of ‘control’ itself.

The aim of this research was to offer a novel perspective on the existence of Service dominant logic (SDL) in an empirical environment within the growing and strategically important sector of information services. In doing so, the author wished to make an original contribution to SDL by offering a practical theoretical framework that was derived from the core foundational premises of SDL theory. Based on this, an SDL Presence framework was developed after an extensive and thorough review of existing literature on SDL and other relevant concepts. The SDL Presence framework was designed to offer a tool that can facilitate empirical measurement of SDL. It was decided that the aims of validating the empirical relevance of the developed framework would best be achieved by means of an exploratory case study. For, this a Business-to-Business service providing context was considered as most relevant. The author was able to negotiate access to SMC Telecom, one of the largest telecommunications related service provider in the Middle East. The organization's actual identity has been changed due to concerns of data confidentiality. The scope of the case study was SMC's B2B Business Unit that embraced three distinct customer segments, which demonstrated considerable variations in service exchange behaviours on the part of both customers and the SMC personnel interacting with them. The case study findings also identified that the strategic imperatives of SMC managers contributed to variations in behaviour and affected the dynamics of mutual value creation (MVC). This in turn was also linked to the business anomaly of having low customer satisfaction scores yet increasing sales (service contract renewals). The study has generated some valuable insights around the concepts that contribute to the development of SDL, namely: how the dynamics of service exchange, contextual managerial orientations, strategic assumptions and resource integration effect MVC. The empirical outputs of the case study have implications for both the theory of SDL and for practitioners tasked with the challenge of managing service exchange programmes.

The telecommunications sector faces rapid technology changes, which require huge capital investment, changes in rules and regulations, changes in customer behaviour and increasing customer demand. This rapid development directs how the telecommunication service operators deploy their strategies and network infrastructure and continue to evolve their business models. A unique requirement of the telecom industry is the need to manage and deploy planned, unplanned and emergency resources concurrently. The ‘dynamic capabilities’ (DC) approach can be used as a framework to respond to this critical requirement for both managers and researchers. This study has a particular focus on dynamic reconfiguration capabilities (DRC), as these play a critical role in the deployment of strategy. The current literature shows clear limitations regarding how DRC emerge and how they can be used to manage concurrent strategy approaches, which are relevant to the telecommunications sector. Five case studies from a telecommunication service provider are used in this research. Three types of data were collected, namely: 23 interviews, 10 direct observations and over 120 documents. A two-stage coding process is conducted for each case, and causal network diagrams are used to extract findings. A cross-case analysis enabled the identification of the empirical practices relating to the research questions. Findings from the case studies confirm the relevance of several practices previously highlighted in the literature. They also revealed additional practices that support the DRC lifecycle. The case studies are performing most of the practices outlined in the theory of the DRC lifecycle framework, with different degrees of emphasis, especially in the deployment phase. This research extends the current theory by identifying the role of DRC in deploying concurrent strategic approaches. It extends the resource-based view (RBV) and agility theories, which fail to adequately address long-term plans, and collapse when the market is very dynamic. Furthermore, it contributes to the DC literature by identifying the organisational practices that support development, deployment and improvement in the telecommunication industry. Also, it addresses an important gap in the literature by providing organisational practices and evidence of the DRC role to support the concurrent approaches to strategy deployment in the telecommunication industry.

The thesis examines the impact of the introduction, in 2009, of Long-Run Incremental Costing (LRIC) on the performance and efficiency of the wholesale market of the Jordanian Telecommunications Industry (JTI); an oligopoly industry composed of three, approximately equal sized firms, Orange, Umniah and Zain. Oligopolistic industries are associated with excess returns. The intention of the introduction of LRIC by the JTI regulator was to reduce excess returns and introduce a degree of competition. The research examines the impact of LRIC on performance; comparing two periods pre LRIC 2006-2008 and post LRIC 2010-2012. The data set includes financial accounting data, gathered between 2013 and 2015, from published accounts and primary data drawn from surveys of managers in the three firms, the latter needed to overcome well-known issues of transparency and more importantly the firm’s concern with commercial sensitivity. Analysis of the data revealed that adopting LRIC on pricing and costing apparently had significant impacts on performance; impact varied between measures; sales data (call traffic/volumes) were extrapolated and suggest some impact on competition and market share. Correlations between measures are interesting and not entirely of the order that theory would predict. One suggestion that emerges from correlation/covariance analysis is that performance and efficiency may be more reliably measured by composite measures than independent measures and that heat mapping comparative data is a useful management tool. This thesis draws on a long tradition of cost and cost efficiency analysis in accounting and economics, culminating in the concept of LRIC, which is composed of both. LRIC is really a cost plus measure; an attempt to account for true opportunity costs in a situation where the marginal cost, in this case the cost of an additional call, simply as a variable cost is negligible (and falling with respect to the volume of traffic) but when full opportunity costs are taken into account, they are substantial. IV The data set (population data, JTI is made up of the 3 firms) includes variables grouped under the categories of financial, operational and competitiveness. Variables considered include; rates of return on assets, equity and sales; profit margin, earnings and revenue; capital expenditure; calculated price and cross elasticities, and sales. The data set includes published and unpublished data and data from fieldwork consisting of structured surveys with JTI managers, carried out in 2013-2015. Confidentiality concerns and transparency issues were addressed. This involved the researcher in extrapolation of data especially with reference to sales, mark-up and industry competition. The academic contribution of this thesis is the measurement of the extent of the application of the LRIC model methodology in Jordanian telecommunication firms through tracking the application and development of LRMC through LRIC in a new context (Jordan). Additionally, the impact of the application of the LRIC model methodology on the financial performance of the Jordanian telecommunication firms will be analysed using financial performance indicators. Another expectation is the contribution of an important set of feasible recommendations on increasing the efficiency of the JTI, taking into account the Jordanian context (Economides et al. 2008). This study has many implications. First, from the view point of the regulator (TRC), service providers, whether incumbent or new entrants can earn a sufficient profit to cover a reasonable share of their cost of capital (investments). As a result, the prices of the services provided will be fair and reasonable for consumers. From this viewpoint, the research recommends the continuation of the application of the LRIC model for costing and pricing telecommunications services in the Jordanian telecommunications industry (JTI). Second, from the view point of the regulator (TRC) services providers, whether incumbent or new entrants, can earn a reasonable and sufficient profit and normal return on capital sufficient to cover a reasonable share of common and fixed costs by using an equal proportionate mark-up (EPMU) approach. Also to cover the cost of new investments which meet the increasing demand for next generation technology. This research, therefore, recommends the ongoing application of the LRIC model for costing and pricing telecommunications services in the JTI. V Third, from the view point of the regulator (TRC) the efficiency of prices based on the LRIC model methodology may open the door for new entrants into the industry and also may lead to ensuring that incumbent and new entrants share fixed assets (network elements) with each other as well as encouraging competition. In addition, the efficiency of the LRIC prices will protect consumers’ interests by providing them with new technology at lower prices. Consequently, service providers, whether incumbent or new entrants can earn a reasonable and sufficient profit and normal return on capital sufficient to cover a reasonable share of common and fixed costs by using equal proportionate mark-up (EPMU) approach, and also to cover the cost of their new investments. Thus from this perspective, this research recommends the long-term application of the LRIC model for costing and pricing telecommunications services in the JTI.

This thesis examines cultural policy for film in Scotland, from 1997 to 2010. It explores the extent to which the industry is shaped by film policy strategies and through the agency of public funding bodies. It reflects on how Scottish Screen, Scotland’s former screen agency, articulated its role as a national institution concerned with both commercial and cultural remits, with the conflicting interests of different industry groups. The study examines how the agency developed funding schemes to fulfil policy directives during a tumultuous period in Scottish cultural policy history, following the establishment of the Scottish Parliament with the Scotland Act 1998 and preceding the Independence Referendum Act 2013. In order to investigate how policy has shaped the development of a national film industry, a further two case studies are explored. These are Tartan Shorts, Scotland’s former flagship short film scheme, and the Audience Development Fund, Scotland’s first project based film exhibition scheme. The first study explores the planning, implementation and evaluation of the scheme as part of the agency’s talent development strategy. The outcomes of this study show the potential impact of funding methods aimed at developing and retaining Scottish filmmaking talent. Thereafter, the Scottish exhibition sector is discussed; a formerly unexplored field within film policy discussions and academic debate. It outlines Scottish Screen’s legacy to current film exhibition funding practices and the practical mechanisms the agency utilised to foster Scottish audiences. By mapping the historical and political terrain, the research analyses the specificity of Scotland within the UK context and explores areas in which short-term, context-driven policies become problematic. The work concludes by presenting the advantages and issues caused by film funding practices, advocating what is needed for the film industry in Scotland today with suggestions for long-term and cohesive policy development.

In a time of shifting technological, regulatory and economic regimes, and debate as to the present and potential uses of media, this thesis offers radio practitioners and students a pragmatic, rather than a highly theorised, enquiry into the notion and value of local radio. In a detailed case study, it uses the chosen stations as the basis for an empirical examination of actual output, and demonstrates comparisons between objectives and achievement against the background of regulatory and self-reflective constraints, and within geographical and technological contexts. This thesis also challenges some common assumptions about localness in quasi-local radio and provides a detailed insight into the perceptions of a number of managers about local and community radio stations. This is a qualitative study, focusing on broadcaster-output rather than on listener perception. The enquiry takes the form of a case study of “local” radio in the south-west of Cornwall, UK, by examining examples of the three tiers of radio: BBC Public Service, Commercial and Community Radio respectively. Methodologically, background factors are first assessed by interrogating literature covering local radio in the digital age; the nature of locality and localness; the notion of community; and the role of commercialism in local radio. The research, centered in particular upon notions of localness and community, interrogates those terms for meaning and relevance. A detailed review follows, looking at the formal obligations imposed on each tier and each station (a) by broadcast licences and (b) by self-reflective aims and objectives. Field research then employs observation and full-day, annotated audio monitoring, leading to detailed analytical comparisons of the extent to which the stations rise to the challenges posed. Aspects of typicality and representative sampling are addressed, to ensure that the results obtained through field-research methodology are reliable and repeatable. Conclusions on the specific issue of compliance produce a mixed picture, with all stations complying to a greater or lesser extent with regulatory licence conditions while some appear to fall short of fulfilling their own objectives. Other conclusions on comparative operational and management issues are equally varied but equally worth perusal.

The turn of the millennium bore witness to a phenomenon: the use of promotion trailers for a variety of products. Both stage theatre and the publishing industries came under the media spotlight for using trailers to promote their wares throwing into sharp contrast the normativity of film trailers. Despite increased academic study of the film trailer, few have considered the trailer outside the industrial context of the film industry. Coupled with this trend in focus, is the tendency within the literature to suggest that the trailer exists as a unique form because they exist in the same medium as the product that promote. Added to this is the tendency to rely on an a priori definition that is not explored fully. By way of intervention with these key issues, this thesis considers the aesthetics and emergence of the trailer in entertainment industries other than film and serves as a counterpoint to the cinema centric imbalance within the study of the trailer. Using a corpus of audiovisual texts identified as trailers through UK press websites, this thesis draws from the popular understanding of the trailer in order to explore the historical and industrial trajectory of these other forms of trailer. Taking the form of case studies organised by the industry in which the trailer's product operates this thesis explores the historical context in which the trailer emerged and the aesthetic trends at work in the current trailer therein. In exploring both the history and the aesthetic representation of the trailer in the industry this thesis moves the study of trailers away from repetitive debates surrounding the film industry and opens up the possibility of trailers as a cultural phenomenon and simultaneous marketing trend. Through providing a grounded understanding of the trailer's use within contemporary entertainment industries, the thesis argues that the term 'trailer' has moved beyond advertising for films. It suggests the trailer has come to typify promotion for any product that is at its core, is an experience. In doing so thesis presents a much needed counterpoint and challenge to cinema-centric analysis of the trailer.

Despite interest from policymakers and the telecommunications sector to deliver superfast broadband to the whole of the UK, rural areas remain underserved, decreasing their ability to benefit from broadband-enabled services. Public intervention, primarily structured as national subsidies, is active across the UK to respond to this rural market failure. Complementing such practices are local-level strategies framed as community-led broadband initiatives. Their inclusion within wider superfast broadband installation strategies has not yet been examined. This doctoral research examines two of these initiatives, their structure and impact on the community to develop an understanding of their potential as replicable rural broadband delivery mechanisms. I analyse both the process of installing superfast broadband technology from community-led perspective and the subsequent engagement with superfast broadband through a qualitative longitudinal approach. A conceptual framework of 'social resilience' is developed as a contemporary analytical tool for examining these individual and community processes. The findings reveal an inherent complexity to rural community-led broadband provision. Community-led broadband reflects a 'localism' development approach, and this process has strengthened local rural identity. Following the adoption of superfast broadband, rural users experienced a growth in digital knowledge and individual resilience. However, the initiatives themselves are often discussed as 'separate from', or incompatible with, the telecommunications industry, as well as sitting outside the scope of current government interventions. In doing so, barriers to external networking and extra-local partnerships are built, limiting the opportunities for community-led broadband networks to become a substantive part of rural broadband delivery across the UK. Throughout the thesis, an understanding of these various tensions, impacting the success, use and replicability of rural community-led broadband, is developed and community-led broadband is shown to be another example of uneven rural development. I conclude by making recommendations for future digital policy interventions in the UK.

A screenplay is sometimes said to be a blueprint for a film, and its genesis and development is therefore important to our understanding of how films are created. Film business studies has traditionally avoided close study of the screenplay development process, perhaps as a result of the film studies emphasis on analysing the text of the completed film, and the auteur theory emphasis on the importance of the director; both of which may have marginalised the study of development and the creativity of development practitioners. Professional screenplay development is a team activity, with creative collaboration between screenwriters, producers, development executives, financiers, and directors. So how does power and creative control shift between members of this team, especially as people arrive or leave? And how does this multiple authorship affect the auteur theory idea that the director is the creative author of the film? This research sets out to open debates around the process and nature of the business of script development, and consider how development practitioners experience, collaborate and participate in the process of screenplay development in the UK today. It uses original interviews, observation and hermeneutic reflection; and asks how cross-disciplinary ideas around creativity, managing creative people, motivation, organisational culture, and team theory could be used to consider how the creative team of writer, producer, director and development executive can work effectively together. It proposes new theories, including defining the independent film value chain and the commitment matrix, analysing changing power relationships during development, and establishing new typologies around film categories and their relationship to funding. The core of this PhD by Prior Publication is the book The Screenplay Business: managing creativity and script development in the film industry. The supporting paper explores the contexts of film industry studies; the film value chain; auteurship and screenplay studies.

Telecommunications policy debates concerning the contentious issue of net neutrality have revolved around a number of broadband network operator behaviors, including discriminatory traffic management – differential treatment of network traffic associated with different Internet applications for the purpose of managing performance. Some stakeholders have advocated for regulatory intervention to prevent network operators from discriminating to the detriment of independent application innovation. Others would prefer to rely on competition between network operators to discipline operator behavior. Fixed-line broadband markets in the United Kingdom and the United States have differed substantially with respect to discrimination, competition, and regulation. The UK has experienced intense competition and pervasive discriminatory traffic management without triggering regulatory activity. The US has seen much less discrimination, limited competition, and regulatory threat followed by regulatory intervention. This thesis uses elite interviews, participant observation, and documentary analysis in a comparative study of these two cases between the mid-2000s and 2011 to determine why network operators take up discriminatory traffic management (or not) and how competition and the regulatory environment affect traffic management outcomes. This thesis demonstrates that network operators take up discriminatory traffic management primarily to control cost, performance, or both. Competition promotes rather than deters discrimination because it drives broadband prices down, encouraging operators to manage high-volume applications whose traffic incurs high costs. Regulatory threat can be sufficient to counteract these desires, but in its absence and without concerns vocalized by interest groups, discriminatory approaches endure. Telecommunications regulators intervene to safeguard nondiscrimination when they conceive of their remits as encompassing social and industrial policymaking, are ambivalent about litigation risk, and are driven by their leaders’ reputational agendas, as in the case of the Federal Communications Commission. With a narrower perception of its remit and more concern for its organizational reputation, Ofcom exemplifies the characteristics that inhibit traffic management regulation.

Communities of repair in Kampala salvage phones; they bring dead ones back to life and rework recycled ones to operate with unfamiliar networks. How do these communities of repair congeal around the mobile phone? How do they form and develop? How is 'repair' understood and negotiated? The 'moment' of mobile phone repair exposes the multi-layered physical and social relationships that underpin mobile telephony in Kampala. Mobile phone workshops provide a rich and productive terrain for thinking about both the sociality and materiality of human-technology relations. Multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork of markets and small, informal businesses will enable the detailed exploration of socio-technical assemblages of mobile phone 'maintenance' and 'repair'. Perhaps the Kampalan 'repair cultures' can also suggest some new approaches towards computing and telephony in mature markets globally, particularly with reference to the growing problem of e-waste. The Ugandan proliferation of mobile repair businesses gives an insight into a new paradigm for computing, where hard and software are left more radically open to upgrade, and companies move towards a role of service provision (Graham and Thrift 2007: 19).

The use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has become a familiar part of the world of work. And as technology in general becomes increasingly sophisticated, ICT is in most cases, a means by which organisations and employers attempt to get everyday workplace tasks carried out more efficiently, saving on time and resources, and very often replacing some of the tasks carried out by experts themselves. I used ethnographic research methods to explore firsthand how my respondents, from a diverse range of professional backgrounds, use ICT in the workplace, to either replace or enhance, the jobs that they do. My thesis draws upon the philosophy of Heidegger, by using his theoretical ideas to investigate how my respondents encounter ICT at work in various ways. The application of Heidegger's ideas to this modern context, has enabled me to develop two fundamental arguments in this thesis. My first argument is that experts have a practical grasp of the jobs they do at work. Following Heidegger, and others, I call this kind of practical understanding know-how. I argue that know-how demonstrates the kind of understanding that is fundamental for my respondents to carry out their jobs, and is one which cannot simply be extracted and programmed into or replaced by an ICT system. In fact, attempts to extract expertise, I argue, result in a deficient mode of understanding and can ultimately be inferior in carrying out the tasks at work. The second argument in this thesis also draws upon Heidegger's philosophy, but in this case focuses on the way in which my respondents communicate via mediating technology (various forms of ICT specifically used for communicating with others). Here, mediating technology seemingly replaces or enhances how workers are able to communicate with others in the workplace, by using for example, email, telephones and video conferencing, rather than communicating with them face-to-face, whereby they are bodily-present with others. I argue that contemporary advances in ICT have had varying effects, on work environments and experiences of work because of distancing in communicative processes. My arguments drawing on Heidegger's ideas, are supported by the primary data I gathered from a series of ethnographic interviews with my nine respondents and from participant observation with one respondent in particular (a commercial aeroplane pilot), who took me to an aviation base to fly on a small aeroplane, and also aboard a simulated aeroplane used for training pilots.

The main purpose of this thesis is to critically analyse the film industry in Taiwan from a political economy perspective and to compare Taiwan’s film industry with that of Hong Kong. The thesis will examine the development of the film industries in Taiwan and Hong Kong in the 1990s and analyse the decline of these film industries. The study takes into account how the governments’ policies have been framed and examines the interaction between the governments and the industries in the 1990s. This thesis will start by expounding the approach of political economy and explain how it will be applied to the study of Taiwan’s film industry. The approach of political economy will provide a historical analysis of the film industry and review the industry’s development in terms of both political influence and economic factors. This approach will provide a more comprehensive study of these film industries. The framework assumes that the development of the film industry in Taiwan has been influenced by government policy and especially government subsidies and that this policy has directed the industry. A film in Taiwan is regarded as an art form, perhaps with a diplomatic purpose, rather than as a commercial cultural product. A film in Hong Kong is mainly made for the commercial market with the purpose of entertaining audiences. The distinction between Taiwanese cinema and Hong Kong cinema provides a diverse view of the Chinese-language film market. After examining the development of the film industry in Taiwan and Hong Kong from a political economy perspective a new image for the Chinese- language film sphere will be discussed. The advantages and disadvantages of the film industry in two places will be summarised and used to provide some suggestions for the future development of “New Chinese Cinema” in the twenty-first century.

This thesis is a historiography of early cinema in Calcutta and moves away from the received paradigm of ‘national’ cinema to consider the larger transnational framework within which to narrate histories of early cinema. It also positions the city as a critical frame from which early film historiography can be generated. The study maps out the emergence of the Calcutta film industry, from its beginnings in 1897 to the rise of the studios and its stabilisation by the 1930s. In the process the study challenges received film history to reveal a complex, multi-layered and robust film industry in Calcutta that emerged concurrently with Bombay – a narrative that has largely been written out of nationalist discourses of ‘Indian cinema’. The thesis addresses a lacuna in the history of film in South Asia by shifting the focus to Calcutta, from Bombay; by moving away from the film text to focus on institutional history; and by moving from an interrogation of production histories to placing histories of film circulation at the centre of film historiography. This is the first enquiry based on studio records to discuss film history in India in this period. It accesses rare industry documents found in the archives of the Aurora Film Corporation, the oldest surviving film studio in India. The Aurora papers bring to light new evidence on the everyday workings of the film industry in the 1930s, including details of circulation practices and trans-regional networks that inextricably link the three key industries of Bombay, Calcutta and Madras in complex relationships. The Aurora papers also reveal details of transnational circulation amongst the Indian diaspora in the 1930s and broadens the canvas of enquiry into early South Asian cinema. Thereby this study connects the Calcutta industry to other global film production/distribution centres of London and Hollywood, to other film nodes in colonial India – Bombay, Madras, Lahore, Rangoon – and to other film nodes across the Indian Ocean – in Fiji, Singapore, Mombasa and Baghdad.

Several studies suggest that the diffusion of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in developing countries (DCs) can help such countries achieve national development goals - especially if accompanied by appropriate government policies designed to regulate and promote the use and the diffusion of ICTs in the national context. Over the past few years 'ICT policy' has thus become something worthy of academic attention, in particular in the ambit of ICT-for-development (ICT4D) literature. Scholarly studies on the subject have so far focused however primarily on policy content, and have often been prescriptive and/or evaluative in nature. Relatively less attention has been paid instead to the processes by which ICT policy is made in DCs - a lacuna reflected also in the relative scarcity, in the realm of ICT4D literature, of detailed theoretical frameworks with which to study ICT policymaking practice in DCs. This study intends to help fill this lacuna, by proposing an innovative framework for the analysis of ICT policy processes in DCs, and subjecting such a framework to a first 'proof of concept', through its application to a particular case (ICT policymaking in Uganda). In recognition of the importance of the cognitive aspects of policy practice, the framework proposed is interpretive in nature, and is organised around three 'movements', or steps: an analysis of the linguistic and non-linguistic constructs employed by policy actors to articulate discourse on ICT policymaking; an analysis of the key discourses around ICT policy constructed by policy actors in specific settings; and an analysis of the composition and the strength of the 'alliances', or coalitions, of actors that construct and propagate specific discourses in such settings. The ultimate purpose of this type of analysis is to understand how specific discourses on, or 'versions' of the ICT policy process gain particular purchase and acceptance in given national settings, thereby providing ICT policy actors with elements for reflection on the practices they are involved in. The framework proposed is particularly innovative in that integrates elements derived from mainstream political science and policy analysis literature - thus going some way in solidifying theorization in the ambit of ICT4D research. The study draws conclusions at two levels: at case level, findings indicate that Ugandan discourse around ICT policymaking appears to be constrained by the existence of a powerful, overall political discourse that defines ICT policy as necessarily 'participative'; at the level of theory and method, findings suggest that the framework proposed appears to be a viable and useful one for research on ICT policymaking practice in DCs.

The main aim of this study is to examine the interrelationship of finance and government intervention in explaining the rise of co-productions in the international film industry in the time period between 1997 and 2004. Mainstream economic geography literature presents the film industry typically as a case study for embeddedness and agglomeration effects, with successful industry clusters drawing their strength from process knowledge, networks and local interaction. However, there is an increasing disparity in the literature between what mainstream theory suggests, and what empirical studies find with respect to the importance of cluster-external relations and dynamics. This, as I will argue, is particularly evident when looking at the picture of the whole film industry production system that emerges from the literature, which fails to include the alternative and complimentary pattern of co-productions. Co-productions are collaborations between film producers from at least two different countries, pooling their resources across distance to produce a feature film project. In the past fifteen years, the number of films made as co-productions has risen continuously in Europe, with co-productions accounting for more than 30 per cent of European film production activity. As a mode of production based on temporary, cross-border collaboration that is supported in its coordination by temporary clusters, such as trade fairs and industry events, the coproduction phenomenon poses a conundrum to economic geography literature and challenges its explanatory framework. As I will argue, in order to arrive at a satisfactory understanding of the phenomenon, it is necessary to look beyond social factors associated with locality, and to examine instead dynamics impacting on the industrial organization of the whole production system. I will argue that in the context of the pervasive demand uncertainty characterizing the film industry, the analytical focus should be on financial dynamics, as production activity and its organizational form are ultimately dependent on finance as an enabling force. Based on a description of the film financing process as the primary process in which the relationship between the economic categories of financial and production capital are played out, I propose that in order to explain the growth of co-productions empirically, it is necessary to examine changes in the film financing environments of the increasingly interrelated European and US film industries. As the State is the most important provider of financial capital in the European film industry through the provision of public aid, the focus will lie in particular on the consequences of a paradigm change in the rationale of State intervention in Europe moving away from funding film for cultural reason, to supporting the industry on economic grounds since the mid 1990s. As will be shown, the most important consequence of this paradigm change has been the introduction of tax incentives to encourage investment into film in a number of European and international countries within a short period of time. As will be demonstrated, this has led to the formation of significant, locally confined capital pools that can dis-embed production; and to the emergence of a distinct capital cycle in international film financing, which has strongly impacted on the productive system of the film industry. Finally, a dynamic explanation for the growth of co-productions in Europe in the time period between 1997 and 2004 will be provided. I will argue that co-productions have firstly grown in order to overcome a lack of finance, but have in the context of a capital cycle based on tax incentives from Germany and the UK, increasingly become driven by the opposite dynamic, namely an abundance of financial capital seeking profitable investment opportunities. The study will conclude with a discussion of policy implications, a summary of contributions to the literature and a brief overview of future research opportunities.

The market growth of content and data services in the mobile telecoms industry entails the development of complex industry networks or 'ecosystems'. This research stems from the emerging Location-Based Services (LBS) sector, which has suffered the slow-start dynamics that often belie optimistic forecasts of new technologies. An exploratory and generic industry-level model is developed using the system dynamics simulation modelling approach to explain the start-up problem. This serves as a dynamic theory for the emerging LBS industry market where service diffusion is based on the growth of the installed base of an embedded product. Supply-demand interactions occur through complementary bandwagon effects in which benefits accrue from services that complement the main product. Econometric estimation is compared with system dynamics calibration to test a range of diffusion models on historic data, revealing some evidence of bandwagon effects. The model is proposed as a generic structure for market growth in mobile data services in general and as a tentative theory to explain the phenomenon of technology 'hype' cycles. The model leads to broad policy proposals on how to alleviate the start-up problem. Launching products without attending to service quality can mean that consumers become disillusioned whereas ensuring a high quality user experience requires a collaborative and long-term view of ecosystem development. This implies that major players such as handset manufacturers or mobile operators must play a central co-ordinating role. Validation of exploratory models of emerging markets is based more in terms of plausibility and usefulness, given the lack of historic data. A validation framework in the three dimensions of model content, process and outcome provides a holistic and semi-quantitative profile of the utility of generic models. A validation profile is proposed that can be used in a formative role to clarify model purpose and aid planning in model-based interventions.

The development of a practical solution to all-optical buffer remains a challenge for high-speed (> 20 Gbit/s) optical networks. Most of the research in the field has concentrated on building test-bed solutions, however the literature review shows little evidence in the use of mathematical models to aid in the design process. This PhD study is an attempt to design and develop a mathematical model of an all-optical buffer suitable for use within optical time division multiplexed systems. The emphasis is placed on recirculating fibre loop buffers because of their inherent storage advantages. The most critical of these advantages is that the storage delay time is independent of the fibre length. While there is a precedent of employing large recirculating fibre loop architectures to simulate ultra-long haul transmission lines in research projects, their use in short length (< 500m) buffering architectures is not prevalent in the literature. This work finds a niche in this domain where the physical effects of the buffer components (e.g. optical switches) have not been previously documented. In order to optimise the bit error rate performance and characterise its dependence on the physical buffer characteristics, the buffer models are designed and simulated in MATLAB and VPI. The associated mathematical models, developed in this work, are validated by the results produced using these simulation packages. The benefit of this research is reflected in the fact that varying the parameters of the mathematical model effectively simulates the changing of physical device characteristics. Consequently, the designing process becomes less arduous, as lengthy simulation times are now reduced. Moreover, as physical implementation can now be delayed until the buffer design is optimised, production cost may be reduced.

This thesis examines the communication of scientific knowledge. Specifically, it considers the effect of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) on this process. It focuses on the discipline of toxicology, although the findings should be applicable to related subject areas. Toxicology was chosen because it is a rapidly developing, multifaceted subject area, with a rich history of information resources. New ICTs are defined as those computer and telecommunication technologies which have permeated our society from around 1980 onwards. The aim is to define toxicology information at the turn of the millennium, and to predict how its communication processes will progress over the next 5-10 years. This is achieved by examining facets of the discipline, and by researching the changes which have occurred from the inception of the subject, to the present day. Emphasis is on those changes taking place over the past 20 years, as these parallel the contemporary phenomenon of rapid technological advancement in western society. No analysis of this kind has previously been undertaken for toxicology information. The methodology also presents a novel, composite, mechanism for the study and understanding of communication within a discipline. Specific outcomes: A systematic way to identify toxicology resources is defined. A model for toxicology communication in 2002, is derived. Toxicology is found to have changed from being a sub-discipline, to a field in its own right, which exports ideas in addition to importing them. Ways of overcoming deficiencies in retrieval from existing information systems and services are suggested. The effectiveness of available tools for organising and describing toxicology information is assessed, and a three layer model for representation of a toxicology statement is proposed. An understanding of the impact of new ICTs on toxicology communication is gained, which gives insight into possible changes in the near future.

This thesis is concerned with the transition of radio as a medium and its significance for listeners in Finland. It is based on an analysis of radio listening data collected in 1993 and 1999. The main focus is on everyday uses and meanings of radio listening. The major conclusions are as follows: 1 The transition of modern radio at a technical, institutional and programming 2 3 4 level has been reflected in the geographical, textual and technological . mobility of radio. The meaning of geographical mobility to the listener is in changing listening situations during a day, which makes listening a plural concept. Individual differences in listening are seen in three listening profiles, i.e. the enthusiast, the selective and the indifferent listeners. The meaning of textual mobility to the listener lies in the contextuality of listening: texts have different meanings in different listening situations. The meaning of technological mobility to the listener lies in the individuality of different media. Within radio high channel loyalty makes for low technological mobility. However, listeners show much mobility between different media in their daily routines. Radio is distinctive compared to other media in that it has been replaced by television. Recordings have fragmented listening in households and the print media are competing for listeners' time. Overall, the mobility of radio in everyday life is a highly complex concept, meaning different things to different listeners. Although radio is regarded as an invisible and secondary media, it occupies a special socio-technical space in listeners'· everyday life. Changes in media scenery and the integration of digital radio technology with other media means that listening is set to become even more mobile in the future

The focus of this thesis is an investigation of the post-privatisation performance of the international telecoms sector. Firstly, the general hypothesis (1) of this thesis has been pursued, which states that the privatised telecoms companies perform differently from their non-privatised (private) counterparts. Several tests were applied; namely, ANOVA, and multiple regression analysis. The principal finding was that there was no significant difference in performance. Secondly, the next hypothesis (2) states that the financial performance of each company is positively related to that of the other two selected companies. For this purpose, multiple regression tests were performed to investigate any inter-relationships between BT, AT&T and NTT. It was found that the performance of each was affected by the other companies. Thirdly, the next hypothesis (3) states that, in a global market, company performance is related more closely to the sector than to each respective stock market. It was found that performance was affected more significantly by their respective stock markets than by competitor global players. Fourthly, the next hypothesis (4) states that, in terms of competitive advantage, NTT exhibits through time a superior position compared with BT and AT&T on account of its monopoly position. It was found that monopoly was not an issue. Fifthly, the next hypothesis (5) states that, of the three global players, AT&T is more adversely affected in its competitive advantage on account of its having a weaker monopoly position. It was found that AT&T had a competitive advantage from 1990 to 1993. BT took the lead until 2000, then NTT forged ahead after the Japanese market started to become more liberalised in terms of competition. Original tests were performed regarding the changing degree of competitive advantage of these three companies. This required an evaluation of the relationship between competitive advantage and priceearnings inverses, capital asset pricing model derived rates of return and dividend-based rates of return. A random walk with drift model was also applied, in order to evaluate forecasted trends. Finally, BT's short-term debt-financing problems were examined. To overcome these difficulties, BT raised funds via a rights issue, selling off Yell and other profitable assets and de-merged their mobile company. It was found that the strategic risk probability of a failed rights issue was quite small.

The increasing deployment of portable computers and mobile devices leads to an increasing demand for wireless connections. Infrared presentsseveral advantagesover radio for indoor wireless connectivity but infrared link quality is affected by ambient infrared noise and by low power transmission levels due to eye safety limitations. The Infrared Data Association (IrDA) has developed the widely used IrDA 1.x protocol standard for short range, narrow beam, point to point connections.IrDA addressedthe requirement for indoor multipoint connectivity with the development of the Advanced Infrared (AIr) protocol stack. This work analyses infrared link layer design based on IrDA proposals for addressing link layer topics and suggests implementation issues and protocol modifications that improve the operation of short range infrared connections. The performance of optical wireless links is measuredby the utilization, which can be drawn at the data link layer. A new mathematical model is developed that reaches a simple equation that calculates IrDA 1.x utilization. The model is validated by comparing its outcome with simulation results obtained using the OPNET modeler. The mathematical model is employed to study the effectiveness on utilization of physical and link layer parameters.The simple equation gives insights for the optimum control of the infrared link for maximum utilization. By differentiating the utilization equation, simple formulas are derived for optimum values of the window and frame size parameters. Analytical results indicate that significant utilization increase is observed if the optimum values are implemented, especially for high error rate links. A protocolimprovement that utilizes special Supervisory frames (S-frames) to pass transmission control is proposed to deal with delays introduced by F-timer expiration. Results indicate that employing the special S-frame highly improves utilization when optimum window and frame size values are implemented. The achieved practical utilization increase for optimum parameter implementation is confirmed by meansof simulation. AIr protocol trades speedfor range by employing Repetition Rate (RR) coding to achieve the increased transmission range required for wireless LAN connectivity. AIr employs the RTS/CTS medium reservation scheme to cope with hidden stations and CSMA/CA techniques with linear contention window (CW) adjustment for medium access. A mathematical model is developed for the AIr collision avoidance (CA) procedures and validated by comparing analysis with simulation results. The model is employed to examine the effectiveness of the CA parameters on utilization. By differentiating the utilization equation, the optimum CW size that maximises utilization as a function of the number of the transmitting stations is derived. The proposed linear CW adjustment is very effective in implementing CW values close to optimum and thus minimizing CA delays. AIr implements a Go-Back-N retransmission scheme at high or low level to cope with transmission errors. AIr optionally implements a Stop-and-Wait retransmission scheme to efficiently implement RR coding. Analytical models for the AIr retransmission schemes are developed and employed to compare protocol utilization for different link parametervalues. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposedRR coding on utilization for different retransmission schemes is explored.

This thesis is concerned with the investigation of methods of providing support to non-expert users of telecare systems by creating easy-to-use interfaces and assessing the effect of adapting the interface to suit the cognitive style of individual users. The contributions to knowledge fall into three main areas; firstly the innovations built into a prototype adaptive telecare system, secondly the identification of the sort of tasks and the types of media that best suit different cognitive style groups, and thirdly the proposal of a new dimension of cognitive style that classifies individuals by their perception of visual compared to auditory information. The first phase of the project is concerned with the design and implementation of a prototype adaptive telecare system that demonstrates existing usability principles. The prototype system enables users to communicate over the Internet using text, audio and video, and to enable access to information stored within the system and on the Internet. The adaptive features include the automatic selection of information based on the knowledge of the user and the automatic selection of a presentation style that is based on the way the user perceives information. The system contains a number of innovations that relate to the application of the technology used to build the system, how information is structured, and the design of the style of interaction. The second phase of the project is concerned with assessing the effect of designing interfaces using different media that are suitable for individual users based on how they perceive and process information. Cognitive style is found to significantly affect performance in few tasks, but relative differences of performance are observed between the cognitive style groups in the different types of task and in the different media versions of each task. A major contribution to knowledge is the identification of the tasks and the types of media that suit different cognitive style groups, as this will help developers of multimedia systems to design interfaces that will improve the performance ofusers in each cognitive style group. The major contribution to the field is the proposal of a new visual-auditory dimension of cognitive style. The assessment of cognitive style using a visual test is found to be significantly different to an assessment using an auditory test. An individual's style can be calculated using an existing cognitive styles analysis test augmented by the new audio test presented in chapter 8. The new visual and auditory classification of cognitive style is found to explain the performance of subjects to a greater degree than the old purely visual classification.

This thesis focuses on the evolution of the Internet system. It examines the dynamics of competing and collaborating technologies in the invention and development of computer networking technologies in general. In particular, it examines the negotiations among social groups with different economic and political interests in designing the Internet system. This system has been shaped by competition and collaboration between the US and other countries (other regions) reflecting their different institutional arrangements in the telecommunications sector and the dynamics of uneven power relationships. Population dynamics, i.e. similarities and differences in the growth and pervasiveness of the Internet system between regions and countries, are also examined to uncover how the co-evolution between technological system and social, cultural, and economic systems countries influenced by global and local interplay. This thesis combines techno-economic and socio-technological approaches in technology studies to address the 'localisation' of a technological system, how a system adapted to or was influenced by the local context of its application. This research focuses on empirical evidence about the evolution of the Internet system, recognizing that the Internet system is one instance of a large technological system. In addition, the political economy perspective provides a foundation for an integrated analysis of the local situation and the wider power structure which illustrates the economic and political interests that are embedded in the design and development of the Internet system. The main research questions are how have political and economic interests shaped the evolution of the Internet system and why does the outcome of the Internet system's development vary across countries? The Internet system emerged from one of the early experimental computer networks in the US, the UK and France during the development of packet switching technology and it involved mainly computer scientists. The development of packet switching technologies has been shaped by battles for control between network operators and computer manufacturers as a consequence of technological convergence; and between telecommunication operators and advanced users (e.g. computer engineers and scientists in the case of the Internet system) in the process of institutional change in telecommunications sector. The analysis shows how these battles were guided by different interests and strategies between, notably, the US and European countries. The analysis of the population dynamics of Internet system development confirms its uneven development between countries following regional, economic and cultural routes. It also confirms that the international spread of the Internet network is influenced by different choices of ICTs and non-linear relationships between competing technologies. The sources of uneven development of the Internet system are founded in the global expansion of the Internet system. These sources are shown to include: asymmetric development of research networks between regions and countries, the effects of the different economic and political interests of the US (and European countries) in connecting the Internet to other countries and regions, the US-centered network design and the international financial settlement regime for the Internet in addition to the existing technological and economic gaps and cultural differences between countries that influence the localisation of the Internet system. The empirical findings that emerge from the econometric modelling demonstrate that knowledge production and distribution capabilities, global integration efforts, economic strength and equality of income distribution, size of social system, telecommunication policies, science and technology policies, prices for access and using of the Internet, all influence the localisation of the Internet system. The thesis contests many accounts of the diffusion of the Internet that are based on 'technological inevitability' and the 'universality' of the technical methods chosen.

This thesis is about investment and access in network industries. More specifically, the aim of the thesis is to build theoretical models to examine some of the aspects of the link between access prices and incentives to invest in network infrastructure. We consider two basic questions relating to these issues, namely (i) how best to fund an incumbent network owner's investment when the network is an essential input for the operation of downstream providers, and (ii) what level of coverage a new firm which enters a market by building its own network infrastructure will choose. The choice of access prices has drawn a lot of attention from regulation economists and is a central aspect of regulatory planning. However, while becoming central to policy debate in the area, the effect of this choice on firms' incentives to invest in network infrastructure has received only limited attention. The questions considered here are motivated by examples in several network utilities in the UK and abroad. In both cases, substantial debate taking place concerning the choice of access prices and, at the same time, major investment in network infrastructure is required and is indeed taking place.

Recent years have brought great change in the telecommunication environment: Separate voice, video and data networks are being replaced by "broadband integrated service digital network" (B-ISDN) networks capable of supporting heterogeneous traffic. One possible protocol for implementation of B-ISDN is the Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM). Quality of Service (QoS) has become an important factor in the deployment of this next-generation of data networks. The continuing increase in the volume of data to be carried has boosted the need for efficient QoS administration. Although the Connection Admission Control (CAC) algorithm is not specified by the International Telecommunications Union Telecommunications (ITU-T), it is still widely used to moderate bandwidth allocation, and User Parameter Control (UPC) algorithms can ensure that contractual stipulations are met. However, if an accurate QoS monitoring technique is implemented, both the CAC and UPC mechanisms will have a firmer foundation upon which to base their decisions. QoS monitoring will allow a network operator to take an action if deterioration in the network is detected. This research focuses on the use of data interpretation to monitor the QoS of source bursty traffic based upon delay. The author has studied the monitoring process in a simulated environment of sufficient detail to produce statistically significant results. This research employs the implementation of a purpose-built simulation of an ATM network, in which the QoS experienced by different monitored sources is monitored in the presence of heterogeneous cross-traffic. The results from this simulation provide a deeper understanding of traffic interaction in broadband networks. Techniques have been deivised, tested and validated for the monitoring of both Constant Bit rate (CBR) and Variable Bit rate (VBR) traffic. The results will ultimately assist in the design of new network management strategies for ATM. Other network protocols or testing equipment will benefit from the findings of the research.