A multi-country and region comparison of the news coverage of the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games

The study analysed news coverage of the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games in newspapers in 17 countries or regions (Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Japan, Malaysia, Oman, Portugal, Chinese Taipei, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Thailand, the United Kingdom and Vietnam). In addition, Facebook posts of the respective newspaper organisations were also analysed. This is a quantitative study and offers an extensive comparative overview of trends and patterns in media representation of the Games in different parts of the world. The results showed that the total number of articles and photographs varied greatly between countries and regions. Analysis of the Facebook posts showed a similar trend to newspapers. The subject of interest is predominantly still the male athletes, and particularly those competing in wheelchairs. In nearly all the publications sampled, media coverage featured more content of their local athletes than foreigners. Overall, there appears to be a great disparity in terms of coverage and content of the Paralympic Games between the 17 countries or regions

Transformation of technology into educational technology from the late nineteenth to early twenty-first century

As education is a global concern, utilising educational technology to facilitate teaching and learning activities has been widely practised almost everywhere at every minute for decades. Revisiting the historical development of a particular technology is noteworthy to education practitioners, historians and various interested parties. Concerning the evolution of educational technology, most of the existing literature has focused on a rather brief period and often comes with fragmented, incomprehensive or oversimplified descriptions. In addition, some of the major literature was written several decades ago and further updates are desirable. In view of these considerations, this paper aims to contribute a comprehensive and updated examination of the transformation of technologies into educational technology from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first century. In particular, this paper scrutinises five technologies in their contexts of historiographical transformation: audio technology, such as phonography and radio; visual technology, such as silent films; audio and visual technology, which includes sound film and television; computing technology, which covers personal computers and the Internet; and asynchronous learning technology, which embraces course management systems and video conferencing packages, and synchronous learning technology. Briefly, this paper looks into when, why and how the technologies were transformed into educational technology with pedagogical implications. This paper is useful for education practitioners by stimulating them to devise more educational technology to cater for various educational needs. Besides, by illustrating how technology shapes education, this paper also helps historians and other practitioners by enriching their understanding of the connection between technology and different aspects of people’s livelihoods