Salient features of customer engagement, visual presentation and copywriting for effective social media marketing: an exploratory perspective / Nooraini Mohamad Sheriff, Aisya Syahira Zulkifli and Wan Nur Shahira Wan Othman

As internet-based marketing utilizes channels of social media to interact and attract prospective customers to make online purchase for apparels there is a need to ascertain the extent to which salient features of social media such as customer engagement, attractive visual presentation and copywriting that are capable of driving such purchase. A total of 128 usable questionnaires were included in this study. Distribution of online questionnaires was assisted where the online questionnaire link in Google document was emailed to the company’s sales team who in turn blasted the online questionnaire via email to all of their online customers in their data base. A positive significant (0.01) high correlation of .709 for customer engagement and .711 were obtained for visual presentation with online purchase for apparels. In addition, a positive significant (0.01) modest correlation of .653was secured for copywriting and online purchase of apparels. The study affirms that online firms using social media marketing must ensure they engage their online customers through discussions, reviews, contest and comments to understand them better and to build relationship between their brand and customer’s which has a positive impact on sales. Social media marketing too needs an exemplary visual presentation to explain abstract concepts and facilitates retention of information and maintain audience interest which ultimately has a positive impact on sale. Consequently, copywriting too performs an important role of convincing people about a product by transforming product features into benefits to convince readers into making a purchase

Stimulating the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex Decreases the Asset Bubble: A tDCS Study

Many studies have discussed the neural basis of asset bubbles. They found that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) played an important role in bubble formation, but whether a causal relationship exists and the mechanism of the effect of the DLPFC on bubbles remains unsettled. Using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), we modulated the activity of the DLPFC and investigated the causal relationship between the DLPFC and the asset bubble in the classical learning-to-forecast experiment. 126 subjects were randomly divided into three groups and received different stimulations (left anodal/right cathodal, right anodal/left cathodal, or sham stimulation), respectively. We also conducted a 2-back task before and after stimulation to measure changes in subjects’ cognitive abilities and explore in detail the cognitive mechanism of the effect of DLPFC stimulation on asset bubbles. Based on our results, we found that the bubble of the left anodal/right cathodal stimulation group was significantly smaller than that of the sham stimulation group. In the meantime, subjects performed significantly better in the 2-back task after left anodal/right cathodal stimulation but not right anodal/left cathodal or sham stimulation, which is consistent with their performance in the learning-to-forecast experiment, supporting the cognitive mechanism to some extent. Furthermore, we examined different forecasting rules across individuals and discovered that the left anodal/right cathodal stimulation group preferred the adaptive learning rule, while the sham and right anodal/left cathodal stimulation groups adopted a pure trend-following rule that tended to intensify market volatility aggressively

Recontextualization of professional development: bureaucratization of lesson study in a junior secondary school in Java

Lesson study, a professional development approach originated in Japan 150 years ago, has been widely considered to be one of the best practices for collaborative professional development and practiced in over 40 countries. Since lesson study is considered an effective approach in improving student performances, it has been transferred as a remedy for shortcomings of schooling in foreign countries. There is an underlying assumption that when “the best practice” in Japan is transferred to another country, it will generate a similar effect and will improve the quality of schooling. However, there is a fundamental problem with such pedagogic transfer. This thesis discusses the problem of pedagogic transfer through examining the “recontextualization” of pedagogic practice or what happens when lesson study, which originated in Japan, was introduced into foreign contextual settings. Since pedagogic practice is socially constructed, the meaning of educational practice is always open to interpretation within the local setting of the receiving country. This is especially true for schools in developing countries which may operate differently from those of industrialized countries. This study provides a sociological analysis of recontextualization of lesson study based on the review of the literature and an ethnographic style study of its implementation in a Javanese school. Since professional accountabilities are negotiated and contested within existing social relations, the practice—lesson study—transforms as it moves between contexts, across sociocultural contexts and also between policy and practice. The purpose of this study is not on the applicability of findings themselves across contexts but to analyze conceptually how the sociocultural settings shape teachers’ practice and influence their choice of pedagogy. As explored in the thesis, due to the strong bureaucratic accountability, lesson study in the Javanese junior high school, SMP Sari, was implemented as a bureaucratic project

The Art of Seduction and Affect Economy: Neoliberal Class Struggle and Gender Politics in a Tokyo Host Club

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008.My dissertation investigates the underground world of Japan’s increasingly popular host club scene, where mostly young, working-class men “sell” romance, love, and sometimes sex to indulge their female clients’ fantasy, often for exorbitant sums of money. I explore this commercialization of feelings, emotions, and romantic relationships — what I call ‘affect economy’— in the context of Japan’s recent socioeconomic restructuring, a reaction to globalization that is reshaping the nation’s labor and commodity forms. Based on ethnographic fieldwork I conducted in Tokyo between 2003 and 2005, I argue that selfhood, lifestyles, and social relationships have become commodifiable at the intersection of Japan’s postindustrial consumer culture and neoliberal globalization. My dissertation aims to provide a fine-grained ethnographic portrait of how hosts and their clients mutually seduce one another to foster a commodified form of romance whereby both sides seek alternative lives and cultivate their desirable selves —potentially successful entrepreneurial men and sexually attractive women—while it simultaneously underscores gender subordination, social inequality, and the exploitative nature of the affect economy in Japan. I illuminate how mutual seduction between hosts and their clients intertwines with Japan’s neoliberal policymaking and governance that similarly capitalizes on and mobilizes individual hopes, dreams, and self-motivations to satisfy both their own and national interests. In turn, I theorize seduction as a form of power that entails suggestive speech and bodily acts to entice the other person(s) into acting for both the seducer’s and the seducee(s)’ ends. Seduction is, I argue, neither a mere sexual temptation nor a sinful deception, but a ubiquitous yet unstructured tactic that institutions and individuals alike employ t

The Cultural Politics of Proprietorship: The Socio-historical Evolution of Japanese Swordsmanship and its Correlation with Cultural Nationalism

This thesis provides a detailed socio-historical analysis of the evolutionary process of traditional Japanese swordsmanship (kenjutsu) from the inception of distinct martial schools (bugei-ryuha) in the fourteenth century, to its gradual progression into a modern competitive sport (kendo), and a subject of study in the current Japanese education system. The following questions with regards to the development of Japanese swordsmanship were analysed: 1) How did schools dedicated to the study of martial arts (bugei-ryuha) evolve, and why was the sword so important to the early traditions? 2) What was the process in which kenjutsu become “civilised”, and how did it relate to class identity in the Tokugawa period (1600-1868)? 3) In what way did kenjutsu transmute when class distinctions and national isolationist policies (sakoku) were abolished in the Meiji period (1868–1912)? 4) What were the cultural and political influences in the rise of “state” and “popular” nationalism, and how did they affect the “re-invention” and manipulation of kendo in the first half of the twentieth century? 5) How did post-war private and national cultural policy affect the reinstatement of kendo and its usefulness in inculcating a sense of “Japaneseness”? 6) What are the nationalistic motivations, and perceived dangers of the international propagation of kendo with regards to cultural propriotership? Through applying socio-historical concepts such as Norbert Elias’s “civilising process” and Eric Hobsbawm’s “invention of tradition”, as well as various descriptions of nationalism to the evolution of kendo, this thesis demonstrates how the martial art has continued to maintain a connection with the past, while simultaneously developing into a symbolic and discursive form of traditional culture representing a “cultural ethos” considered to be a manifestation of “Japaneseness”. Ultimately, kendo can be described as a kind of participatory based mind-body Nihonjinron. Japan’s current reaction as it ponders the repercussions if it were to somehow lose its status as the suzerain nation of kendo, i.e. as exclusive owners of kendo - a martial art perceived as one of the most representative forms of traditional Japanese culture – is also assessed in this thesis