A quarter century of creative chaos: Xinhua News Agency 1980-2005

Chinese media in the context of China's rise have puzzled many scholars who used to understand media and communications phenomena by employing the theories generated from a few affluent Western democracies, notably the US. As a result, a complex but more accurate picture has been ignored. Under numerous theoretical polarizations, the contemporary social world seems little changed but polarized. This thesis aims to propose a different approach endeavoring to 'de-Westernize' or 'internationalize' media and communications studies. As a starting point, this study focuses on the globalization debate, Chinese media and news agency studies. The thesis has investigated the Chinese news agency, Xinhua, by employing Fuzzy Logic which captures the complexity of the change in the agency's business structure and journalistic practices over last 25 years. The change is also examined by scrutinizing the role of journalists in the interrelations of Xinhua with its news sources, media and nonmedia clients, and other news agencies. A combination of archive study and 94 semistructured interviews conducted in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macau and London provides an inclusive account of the Chinese news institution. The key research findings drawn from the empirical research into Xinhua have justified the central argument of this thesis: Crisp Logic or the 'either/or' approach has failed to explain the dynamics of the change to the media system based in a 'non-Western' society. The numerous theoretical polarizations generated by Crisp Logic to a large extent have distorted the understanding of the contemporary social world by polarizing it. Fuzzy Logic serves better(though it is not the only choice)than the traditional approach to reflect on the set of variables existing between the two poles created by Crisp Logic. This thesis is the first doctorate research in the UK and other English-speaking countries to investigate Xinhua by 'going inside' the news institution's headquarters, local branches and overseas bureaus. This is the first comprehensive academic study of the agency, which not only examines the agency's recent change in business structure and journalistic practices, but also provides a historical account of the agency and its relationship with other social institutions. This is the first media study that employs Fuzzy Logic to understand the globalization theory, Chinese media and news agencies.

Exploring the intangible impacts of cultural events on the creative sector: Experiences from the Cultural Olympiad programmes of Torino 2006 and London 2012

This paper engages with the debates around the Olympic legacy by exploring the qualitative, intangible impacts of the Cultural Olympiad programme on local small creative firms in Torino, Italy and London, UK. The research objectives are achieved through a qualitative study of local small creative firms’ perceptions of the impacts of the Olympic Games’ cultural programme on their activities. To achieve this, Torino 2006 and London 2012 are used as case studies. The findings of this exploratory study show that cultural events can impact the creative sector. They do this by providing opportunities for mutual learning and access to initiatives that may generate ideas and new skills, as well as contributing to the development of a creative field. The study also explores the weaknesses and missed opportunities linked to the Cultural Olympiad programme, as perceived by creative practitioners. These include the lack of information and failure to engage smaller businesses. Based on qualitative analysis and discussion, recommendations for future organizers and further research are provided.

Brief response to Ashton and colleagues regarding Fractionating Human Intelligence

Ashton and colleagues concede in their response (Ashton, Lee, & Visser, in this issue), that neuroimaging methods provide a relatively unambiguous measure of the levels to which cognitive tasks co-recruit dif- ferent functional brain networks (task mixing). It is also evident from their response that they now accept that task mixing differs from the blended models of the classic literature. However, they still have not grasped how the neuroimaging data can help to constrain models of the neural basis of higher order ‘g’. Specifically, they claim that our analyses are invalid as we assume that functional networks have uncorrelated capacities. They use the simple analogy of a set of exercises that recruit multiple muscle groups to varying extents and highlight the fact that individual differences in strength may correlate across muscle groups. Contrary to their claim, we did not assume in the original article (Hampshire, High- field, Parkin, & Owen, 2012) that functional networks had uncorrelated capacities; instead, the analyses were specifically designed to estimate the scale of those correlations, which we referred to as spatially ‘diffuse’ factors

Fractionating Human Intelligence

What makes one person more intellectually able than another? Can the entire distribution of human intelligence be accounted for by just one general factor? Is intelligence supported by a single neural system? Here, we provide a perspective on human intelligence that takes into account how general abilities or ‘‘factors’’ reflect the functional organiza- tion of the brain. By comparing factor models of individual differences in performance with factor models of brain functional organization, we demon- strate that different components of intelligence have their analogs in distinct brain networks. Using simulations based on neuroimaging data, we show that the higher-order factor ‘‘g’’ is accounted for by cognitive tasks corecruiting multiple networks. Finally, we confirm the independence of these com- ponents of intelligence by dissociating them using questionnaire variables. We propose that intelli- gence is an emergent property of anatomically distinct cognitive systems, each of which has its own capacity.