Bake Your Thesis 2023

Mainstreaming the blackpill: A cross-platform analysis of the incel ideology on TikTok and YouTube

In the digital era, the internet offers empowerment and connectivity, but it also harbours discrimination. Women face disproportionate online gendered hate speech, including harassment, objectification, and threats of violence rooted in systemic misogyny. This hostile environment degrades women and fosters fear and exclusion online. Inspired by the upcoming Barbie movie, the first cake picture represents young women's journey to express themselves in the digital world. However, the second cake picture shows Barbie's dress tarnished by misogynistic and hateful comments, revealing the bitter reality of women’s experiences online.

In my PhD research, I analyse the presence and content of a subcultural misogynistic men's group (Incels - involuntary celibates) on TikTok and YouTube, platforms witnessing an increase in misogynistic, far-right, and hateful content. I aim to uncover the role of such content in normalising subcultural misogyny and its interconnectedness with everyday sexism.

Tackling such content with adequate policy measures will hopefully create slightly happier Barbie Girls, in a (slightly more) equal Barbie World.

The use of heart rate monitors to determine the effects of environmental stressors in the common shore crab (Carcinus maenus)

Over the years, there has been a lack of wireless, non-invasive technology to monitor the health of invertebrates. Wearable health monitors have increased in popularity and have been shown to work on the carapaces of crabs. Carnicus maenas has been a popular specimen for health monitoring since the 1970’s due to its abundance, reliability and living conditions. Langstone Harbour in Portsmouth is subjected to increased pollution release during stormy weather and has become an increasing issue as seen in the news. With this wearable tech, the crabs will have their heart rate monitored over a week with the conditions coming from Langstone Harbour and increased stressors to validate the use of the wireless, non-invasive device. This would allow for advances in invertebrate monitoring without the need to affect them physically and allow for cheaper equipment free of constraints of a computer.

The framing and value of learning development work in UK Higher Education: An illuminative evaluation.

My thesis examines how the value that learning development work can release to students and staff in higher education is shaped and constrained by how universities frame the work. The key theoretical tools, related in the thesis, are Goffman's (1974) framing theory and Sheth et al.'s (1991) taxonomy of values. Value is a purely subjective construct and comes in many forms, from value for money (functional value), to value through dialogic relationships, to the value of knowledge. If learning development is framed narrowly, such as study skills instruction, this limits the anticipated value to functional value, which in turn limits engagement. By contrast, widening the framing to show learning development as functioning as a human-centred third space and embedded element of disciplinary learning unleashes the work’s full value and catalyses engagement. Data were gathered from students, academic staff and learning developers, and thematically analysed to gain a holistic picture.

Mindfulness and Prosocial Behaviour in the Classroom: The Paws.b Intervention

Mindfulness is becoming more popular in schools. There is evidence to suggest it reduces depressive symptoms and anxiety but little is known about its interpersonal effects. This mixed methods project aims to study the effects of the Mindfulness Based Intervention “Paws B”, developed by the Mindfulness in Schools Project (MISP), for children aged between 7 and 11 years old, with a particular focus on measuring prosocial behaviour. Prosocial behaviours include being kind, helpful, sharing, cooperating and being trustworthy. My project includes a randomised control trial, focus group interviews with children and an autoethnography, to gain a deeper understanding into this research area.

Targeted delivery of large macromolecular cargoes to subcellular environments

Current medicine is unable to target intracellular sites of disease. This research will explore the limitations of a designed protein delivery tool. A modified version of a bacterial toxin able to deliver a molecule into cells is used for this. Depicted in blue is the symmetric, pentameric structure of the beta subunit, responsible for recognising and entering cells. Depicted in red is the alpha subunit to which the cargo is bound to. In yellow is the proposed cargo, a large protein nanocage designed to test the size limitations of the tool. The green dots symbolise green fluorescent proteins, which make the cargo visible under the microscope and allowing easy tracking of the delivery process.

Frailty: Discovering Perspectives and Concerns of Community Dwelling Older Adults Using Grounded Theory

This research investigates how older adults perceive frailty and their frailty-related concerns. It is significant in light of the UK's ageing population, which poses considerable healthcare challenges. While frailty services and classifications have emerged, they often lack patient input and reflect biomedical bias, ignoring older adults' perspectives. Limited existing research with service users indicates that frailty terms carry negative associations. This study employs grounded theory methodology and semi-structured interviews to discover participants' understanding. Preliminary findings suggest that participants associate frailty with visual representations, often based on gender, but perceive themselves as distant from it (referred to as "othering", depicted by the women on the cake's far side). Participants emphasise their strength, vitality, and adaptive strategies, symbolised by the tree on the left. These insights aim to bridge the research gap (depicted by the river) and inform strategies that put the older adult's perspective at the heart of our understanding.