40,153 research outputs found
Examining the role of smart TVs and VR HMDs in synchronous at-a-distance media consumption
This article examines synchronous at-a-distance media consumption from two perspectives: How it can be facilitated using existing consumer displays (through TVs combined with smartphones), and imminently available consumer displays (through virtual reality (VR) HMDs combined with RGBD sensing). First, we discuss results from an initial evaluation of a synchronous shared at-a-distance smart TV system, CastAway. Through week-long in-home deployments with five couples, we gain formative insights into the adoption and usage of at-a-distance media consumption and how couples communicated during said consumption. We then examine how the imminent availability and potential adoption of consumer VR HMDs could affect preferences toward how synchronous at-a-distance media consumption is conducted, in a laboratory study of 12 pairs, by enhancing media immersion and supporting embodied telepresence for communication. Finally, we discuss the implications these studies have for the near-future of consumer synchronous at-a-distance media consumption. When combined, these studies begin to explore a design space regarding the varying ways in which at-a-distance media consumption can be supported and experienced (through music, TV content, augmenting existing TV content for immersion, and immersive VR content), what factors might influence usage and adoption and the implications for supporting communication and telepresence during media consumption
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Transnational Activism in Support of National Protest: Questions of Identity and Organization
This article considers the question of whether transnational activism supporting national protest attains a cohesive collective identity on social media whilst organizationally remaining localized. It examines a corpus of social media data collected in the course of two months of rolling protests in 2013 against the largest proposed open-cast gold mine at RoĆia MontanÄ, Romania, which echoed among Romanian expatriates. A network text analysis of the data supplemented with interview findings revealed concerns with protest logistics as common across the transnational networks of protest localities on both Facebook and Twitter, a finding that testified to the coordinated character of the protests. On the other hand, collective identity emerged as the fruit of attempts to surmount localized protest experiences of geographically disparate but civically-minded social media users
Mapping Cultural Participation in Chicago
Charts the household income, educational level, race, and ethnicity of all neighborhoods in Chicago's metropolitan area and explores whether smaller, ethnic, and diverse organizations reach a different audience than the larger institutions
Understanding Small Business Networking and ICTs: Exploring Face-to-Face and ICT-related opportunity creation mediated by Social Capital in East of England Micro-businesses
Small businesses that are sole traders or micro-businessesâwith few, if any employees notoriously suffer from a âliability of smallnessâ (Aldrich and Auster 1986), including poor access to various resources. However, many authors argue that the inherent problems of smallness can be overcome with networking and good network connections. Resources, the opportunities to access them and other benefits apparent from networks and networking are
readily apparent in the literature. However, few articles, if any, have examined small business networking from the perspective of this studyâusing in-depth qualitative methods, the theoretical construct of social capital and exploring the increasing role of Information and
Communication Technologies (ICTs) in networks and networkingâas part of understanding a variety of entrepreneurial opportunities. This article provides much needed empirical insights on how and if ICTs support opportunity creation amongst small businesses within a spatial and social network perspective. Its âmedia ecologyâ approach does not over-prioritise the role of ICTs, but instead examines their interrelationships with face-to-face contactâputting technology in its âplaceâ. The article focuses on the notion of âopportunity creationâ from
networks, since this is the outcome critical for the small businesses themselves in order to generate economic benefits for their business. It seeks to provide a higher level, outcomebased framework that helps specify the various sorts of opportunities created by networks for
small businesses, based on original ethnographic material and findings from a case study of East of England micro-businesses
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Finding the far right online: an exploratory study of white supremacist websites
White supremacists and the Far Right political movement in the UK have, had considerable success in spreading their messages through Web sites. Some of these Web sites clearly contribute to an enabling environment for racially motivated violence in our towns and cities and possibly help to underpin also the rise of, and support for, the Far Right in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. From a position that acknowledges the enduring issue of white hegemony in Western societies, this paper provides a number of research-based recommendations for further research and future policy and practice in tackling white supremacist racial hatred on the Net
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