http://hdl.handle.net/1893/2671 This community contains the ePrints and eTheses produced by the Faculty's staff and students. 2026-10-24T22:14:33Z http://hdl.handle.net/1893/38416 Title: Outsourcing Emotions to GenAI: The Risk of Bypassing Identity Development Author(s): Lai, Ten-Herng; Archer, Alfred Abstract: There is growing research on how and when the use of Generative AI (henceforth GenAI) in cognitive tasks may lead to a decline in the users' cognitive capacities. There is emerging evidence that Generative AI also presents us with the opportunity to outsource some emotional tasks, such as flirting on dating apps or apologising. We believe that this may enable unsuspecting users to outsource too much of their affective capacities. Here, we wish to focus on a particular problem: insofar as articulating our own emotions is essential to discovering what we value and thereby shaping what sorts of persons we are, users who are heavily dependent on GenAI for emotional tasks risk forgoing crucial opportunities to develop a proper sense of their own identity. 2026-12-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/1893/38415 Title: Too Much or Not Enough? The Decline of the Iconic News Image and the Adaptive Challenges of Visual Digital Journalism Author(s): Macdonald, Ellie Abstract: Iconic news images have traditionally played a central role in journalistic praxis and public discourse, transcending news cycles and forming shared visual narratives. However, in contemporary digital media ecologies, single images struggle to gain traction amid multimedia storytelling, divergent editorial priorities, and dynamic platform affordances. To investigate the adaptive context of this shift, this article presents a case study of photographic reporting on the Israel-Palestine conflict from October 2023 to March 2024, analysing lead images from Al Jazeera English, The Guardian, and BBC News. While some unifying themes were evident, the outlets tended not to republish single images, instead favouring a high volume of imagery alongside multimedia content. In contrast, the viral circulation of a related AI-generated image indicates the continued importance of symbolic condensation within contemporary visual discourse. As such, the widespread circulation of this image illustrates how adaptive behaviours within a complex system can incite visual coherence outwith journalistic production. The image therefore signals a potential risk: in the absence of effective journalistic adaptation, the civic function of iconic news photographs could be displaced by epistemically synthetic imagery; loosening the connection between iconic visual symbolism and photographic witnessing. 2026-10-11T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/1893/38406 Title: Arqueologia do Isolamento Sénior ética, memória e metodologias de registo Author(s): Casimiro, Tânia; Sequeira, Joao; Santos, Joel; Henriques, Susana; Filipe, Vanessa Abstract: In Lisbon, archaeological interventions during urban rehabilitation works often reveal homes where everything is in its right place: the bed is made, the medication is on the bedside table, the dirty dishes are on the sink. Th ese are not old ruins or century-old archaeological deposits, but the homes of recently deceased people without direct heirs, suspended between life and abandonment. These recent environments are loaded with meaning and their imminent destruction raises a fundamental question: should they be ignored as contemporary litter or acknowledged as relevant archaeological contexts? This article stems from this debate to propose a reflection about the Archaeology of old age isolation (albeit abandonment). 2026-07-25T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/1893/38401 Title: ‘The living flag of Andrew scattered all across the Earth’: Scottish Identity and Diasporic Literature, post-1960 Author(s): Nakonechna, Irina Abstract: The following thesis considers the ways in which diasporic engagement with, and vision of, Scotland – as distant homeland, ambivalent inheritance, or cultural archive – is mobilised in order to legitimise or interrogate settler belonging. Adopting a conceptual, case study methodology to address four nations – Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Argentina – with organisations of political, commercial, and cultural authority founded on Scots institutional models and intellectual traditions, this analysis addresses the intersections between diasporic cultural practice and settler structures of power. Locating diasporic literary production within the post-1960 period of global reassessments of belonging and tradition, and the contemporaneous rise of cultural nationalism initiatives across differing geopolitical contexts, this study charts the ways diasporic authors of Scottish descent confronted, engaged with, or appropriated aspects of their Scottish heritage as a means of garnering narrative and political authority. The post-1960 era sees Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Argentina engaged in variegated processes of state-formation and (re)articulation of national culture. Such synthetic nationalisms on behalf of settler states, meanwhile, were occurring alongside the development and internationalisation of Indigenous rights movements and sovereignty claims, which continued to challenge settler legitimacy, and contest what may constitute a ‘national’ story. This project illustrates how Scotland’s cultural capital is deployed, resisted, or reconfigured by contemporary settler authors as they respond to and participate in the shifting geopolitical landscape of the period – amid growing reassessment of colonial histories of conquest – and the concurrent state-sanctioned initiatives of nation-building. By addressing the cultural nationalism projects of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Argentina, this thesis demonstrates how Scotland’s exported systems of cultural authority continued to operate in the post-1960 period, as its cultural histories become strategically coopted by settler societies for the reforging of diasporic and national identities, in light of contemporary pressures. The tracing of the Scottish ‘cultural thread’ across diverse geopolitical settler contexts reveals both the extent to which diasporic literatures interconnect via aspects of shared mythopoetics and intellectual frameworks, as well as the global reach and evolution of Scotland’s cultural influence and its role in the legacies of empire. 2026-03-01T00:00:00Z