Vol. 60, No. 1, September 17, 2009

•New 1Ls Have Some Unexpected Similarities •Letter from the Editor: 60 years?! •Desperately Seeking Tutors •Service Day •Pride and (DLA) Piper •Save Yourself: Get Out Now •This is Water: Calm Down •When You Were Cooler: Rock Band Edition •Best of LawOpen: An E&E •Between the Briefs: Real Sex, Posner-style •Grade Curve

Employees on social media: A multi-spokespeople model of CSR communication

Increasing societal and stakeholder expectations, along with easy access to information through social media, means corporations are asked for more information. The traditional approach to CSR communication, with corporations controlling what and how much to share with stakeholders has been restructured by social media, with stakeholders taking control. As legitimacy on social media is created through the positive and negative judgements of stakeholders, corporations must plan how to meet stakeholder demands for information effectively and legitimately, and this includes choosing appropriate spokespeople. Corporations in India have now turned towards their employees as CSR spokespeople. By encouraging employee activity on social media, these corporations are attempting to meet stakeholder demands and generate legitimacy through spokespeople whom stakeholders perceive as equals. This article examines that strategy and discusses its viability of using employees as spokespeople for CSR communication and engagement with stakeholder

“Be a Pattern for the World”: The Development of a Dark Patterns Detection Tool to Prevent Online User Loss

Dark Patterns are designed to trick users into sharing more information or spending more money than they had intended to do, by configuring online interactions to confuse or add pressure to the users. They are highly varied in their form, and are therefore difficult to classify and detect. Therefore, this research is designed to develop a framework for the automated detection of potential instances of web-based dark patterns, and from there to develop a software tool that will provide a highly useful defensive tool that helps detect and highlight these patterns

Minding the Gap: Computing Ethics and the Political Economy of Big Tech

In 1988 Michael Mahoney wrote that “[w]hat is truly revolutionary about the computer will become clear only when computing acquires a proper history, one that ties it to other technologies and thus uncovers the precedents that make its innovations significant” (Mahoney, 1988). Today, over thirty years after this quote was written, we are living right in the middle of the information age and computing technology is constantly transforming modern living in revolutionary ways and in such a high degree that is giving rise to many ethical considerations, dilemmas, and social disruption. To explore the myriad of issues associated with the ethical challenges of computers using the lens of political economy it is important to explore the history and development of computer technology

Technical Debt is an Ethical Issue

We introduce the problem of technical debt, with particular focus on critical infrastructure, and put forward our view that this is a digital ethics issue. We propose that the software engineering process must adapt its current notion of technical debt – focusing on technical costs – to include the potential cost to society if the technical debt is not addressed, and the cost of analysing, modelling and understanding this ethical debt. Finally, we provide an overview of the development of educational material – based on a collection of technical debt case studies - in order to teach about technical debt and its ethical implication

The Tragic Vision

Originally published in 1973. Literary critics who have studied tragedy and the tragic vision failed, in Murray Krieger's estimation, to define exactly what they saw as the tragic vision in general terms. An aim of his book is to create a tentative definition of tragic and to flesh out what the author sees as the definition most illuminating of modern literature and the modern mind. In order to do this, Krieger distinguishes between what he sees as the "tragic vision" and "tragedy"—tragedy, from his perspective, is an object's literary form, whereas tragic vision refers to a subject's psychology, the subject's view and version of reality. In light of the shriveling of the tragic concept in the modern world and the reduction of a total view to the psychology of the protagonist, Krieger contends that the protagonist in a tragedy is now more appropriately designated a "tragic visionary" than a "tragic hero.

Creating parental trust in children's toy brands: The antecedents and dimensions of trustworthy behaviour of toy companies

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Based around a case study of the traditional toy industry, the research examines how companies create trust with parents, the main toy purchasers, and the importance of ethical behaviour in trust development when a vulnerable community is involved. Previous literature has revealed that trust leads to mutually beneficial company-consumer relationships but scholars have failed to agree on its definition, dimensions or measurement due to its complexity, diversity and intangibility. Few have distinguished between 'trustworthiness' as a moral quality of organisations and 'trust', which is a consumer judgement about companies and brands, made as part of their purchase deliberations. A review of the literature led to the development of a framework of trustworthy behaviour identifying five sets of antecedents (organisational, individual, control, relational and branding factors) and four key dimensions with related variables - 'Integrity' and 'Benevolence', relating to ethical constructs and 'Commitment' and 'Satisfaction', relating to organisational constructs. The model was then substantiated through qualitative research with a sample of senior managers in 12 leading toy companies and other stakeholders including industry body representatives, retailers and parents. The findings revealed that in a challenging economic climate, trust in toy companies is being driven principally by the marketing offer and by external influencers such as legislators, retailers, licensors, and the media. Examples of good ethical practices were identified, although often unnoticed by consumers, and the worthier companies, for whom trustworthiness was important, appeared to be faring less well economically than companies selling third party brands. Consumers' trust was significant in the preschool market but diminished in importance as children matured when their influence overrode parents' more rational purchase considerations. The research revealed a paradox that parents as well as children are vulnerable consumers who are often bypassed in the marketing process. Whatever children's consumer rights, there will always be a lack of trust in the industry whilst young children rather than parents are so blatantly targeted

Trinity College Reporter, Fall 2010

https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/reporter/2155/thumbnail.jp