Pathways to Fragmentation:User Flows and Web Distribution Infrastructures

This study analyzes how web audiences flow across online digital features. We construct a directed network of user flows based on sequential user clickstreams for all popular websites (n=1761), using traffic data obtained from a panel of a million web users in the United States. We analyze these data to identify constellations of websites that are frequently browsed together in temporal sequences, both by similar user groups in different browsing sessions as well as by disparate users. Our analyses thus render visible previously hidden online collectives and generate insight into the varied roles that curatorial infrastructures may play in shaping audience fragmentation on the web

In the footsteps of a quiet pioneer: Revisiting Pearl Jephcott’s work on youth leisure in Scotland and Hong Kong

Pearl Jephcott’s (1967) research on Scottish teens, Time of One’s Own, is one of the first sociological studies of leisure in the postwar period. This research is remarkable not only for its emphasis on ‘ordinary’ young people but also for its ambitious and eclectic research design, which incorporates field research, sample surveys and task based participatory methods. The (Re)Imagining Youth team revisited Jephcott’s Scottish research alongside her survey of The Situation of Children and Youth in Hong Kong (1971) as part of a contemporary study of youth leisure and social change. This paper outlines our attempt to reimagine Jephcott’s work for the contemporary context, highlighting the ways in which her method was both a product of its time and ahead of its time

Jefferson Digital Commons quarterly report: October-December 2019

This quarterly report includes: Articles Dean\u27s Research Development Lunch Conference Dissertations Educational Materials From the Archives Grand Rounds and Lectures Journals and Newsletters Population Health Presentation Materials Posters Reports Symposiums What People are Saying About the Jefferson Digital Common

Smart Conversational Agents for Reminiscence

In this paper we describe the requirements and early system design for a smart conversational agent that can assist older adults in the reminiscence process. The practice of reminiscence has well documented benefits for the mental, social and emotional well-being of older adults. However, the technology support, valuable in many different ways, is still limited in terms of need of co-located human presence, data collection capabilities, and ability to support sustained engagement, thus missing key opportunities to improve care practices, facilitate social interactions, and bring the reminiscence practice closer to those with less opportunities to engage in co-located sessions with a (trained) companion. We discuss conversational agents and cognitive services as the platform for building the next generation of reminiscence applications, and introduce the concept application of a smart reminiscence agent

Technological Change in the Retirement Transition and the Implications for Cybersecurity Vulnerability in Older Adults

Retirement is a major life transition, which leads to substantial changes across almost all aspects of day-to-day life. Although this transition has previously been seen as the normative marker for entry into older adulthood, its influence on later life has remained relatively unstudied in terms of technology use and cybersecurity behaviours. This is problematic as older adults are at particular risk of becoming victims of cyber-crime. This study aimed to investigate which factors associated with the retirement transition were likely to increase vulnerability to cyber-attack in a sample of 12 United Kingdom based older adults, all of whom had retired within the past 5 years. Semi-structured, one to one interviews were conducted and subsequently analysed using thematic analysis. Six themes were identified referring to areas of loss in: social interaction, finances, day-to-day routine, feelings of competence, sense of purpose, and technology support structures. We discuss the implications of these losses for building cyber-resilience in retirees, with suggestions for future research

Growing up and growing old with television: peripheral viewers and the centrality of care

This essay draws on feminist work on the ethics of care to both (re)establish an alliance between the very young and the very old and to begin to challenge the normative models of subjectivity and spectatorship that circulate within film and television studies. Through textual experiences of time and space and the operations of care, we emphasize the reciprocity and interdependence between generations. This recognition, we argue, offers a new mode of engagement with the challenges of ‘growing up’ and ‘growing old’ on and with television. In our alignment of older and younger audiences we challenge the normative chain of associations where ageing is represented as growth, and growth is associated with development. For the child, this model appears unproblematic even inevitable: ageing = growth = development. In contrast, ageing for older individuals is associated not with growth and development but with decline. A positive alignment between childhood and old age may offer an understanding of this motion (between the status, capacity and experience of child and older adult) as continuous, as an oscillation that is often made evident in the interdependence between child and adult. This, we believe, is mirrored in certain textual and experiential characteristics of television, and we explore it through close textual analysis of children’s programmes Katie Morag, Old Jack’s Boat and Mr Alzheimer’s and Me. These are programmes that not only offer representations of caring intergenerational relationships (of grandchild and grandparent) but express, in their seaside locations, an ebb and flow that is mapped onto experiences of both television and of intergenerational care