What do nurses do in professional Facebook groups and how can we explain their behaviours?

AIMTo explore and explain the causal (mechanisms) relationships between nurse’s actions and behaviours in Facebook groups.BACKGROUNDOnline Social Networks such as Facebook have rapidly diffused through the nursing profession with an estimated 60% using social media every day. There have been a range of concerns linked to unprofessional behaviours on Facebook despite professional guidance being in place. However, there is little evidence that explores the causal and influencing factors that lead to nursing behaviour and actions on Facebook.METHODBhaskarian critical realist ethnography (CRE) employing structured observation and reflective field notes of publicly accessible, groups and profiles on Facebook explicitly relevant to the nursing profession. For ethical approval reasons, these groups and pages will remain anonymous. Observations were conducted over a 6 month period during 2015-2016 by applying a selective case sampling approach to post. Observations occurred at two time points during the 6 month period by a single researcher. This allowed for a range of ‘typical’ and more extreme behaviours to be observed.CRITICAL REALISM & DATA ANALYSISCausal mechanisms are a ‘reality’ that cannot be directly observed (this is not the same as cause-effect; reality is much more complex). However, the components and outcomes of this reality can be observed and measured. Components for coding data were: morphostatic and morphogenic structures, entities, tendencies, events, behaviours and outcomes. These were then ‘mapped’ to explain how they interacted. Theories based on past research and other theoretical models were established and the maps were used to test which of these best explained nurses’ actions and behaviours in the Facebook environment.RESULTSComponents from the data were mapped (e.g. figure.1). This identified that despite having awareness of being professional and being in the domain of the professional group with other nurses a shift from professional-unprofessional seemed to occur. Indicating that awareness (self-efficacy) does not always result in professional behaviours and actions. For example, swearing would be deemed to be unprofessional but heightened emotions in response to politicians and policy changes that affect nursing created resulted in offensive language being ‘accepted’ within the group. Figure.2 provides an example framework illustrating how personal-professional-social values can create conflict and a shift in one may then affect the behaviours of an individual or group in the online environment.CONCLUSIONPersonal-professional-social values overlap in the Facebook environment and triggers in one domain may result in unprofessional or unacceptable behaviours in another. Further research needs to examine the nature of these and methods by which awareness of professionalism translates into action (i.e. the areas where conflicting values may occur)

From the "Fareej" to Metropolis" Qatar Social Capital Sirvey II

Qatar faces a social and economic transformation today linked to its unique demographic composition. Understanding social interactions within and across its diverse subgroups is critical for understanding and managing this transformation. In its second wave of "From Fareej to Metropolis: A Social Capital Survey of Qatar II", we set out to describe those interactions and to compare them to the findings from the 2011 first wave survey. To achieve this goal, we draw on the concept of social capital, which refers to the sum of correlation indicators between the members of the same community, whether at the level of family and personal relationships, between different groups in the community, or the trust in institutions and public services. 2 Numerous studies support the hypothesis that there is a link between the increase of social capital in a certain community and its prosperity, including the work by Robert Putnam3 on Italian south and north provinces, in which he makes a link between the prosperity of the north and the increase of social capital indicators therein. This executive report presents a comparison between selected findings from the 2011 and 2015 waves of "From Fareej to Metropolis: A Social Capital Survey of Qatar.” The report is organized according to the various social capital literatures into bridging, bonding, and institutional social capital. 4 Bonding indicators examine the relationship between members of the same group and family and personal relationships, while bridging social capital indicators explore the relationship and communication between various groups. Finally, the third section presents the results of the institutional social capital indicators, which examine the attitudes of Qataris and white-collar expats towards government services, media sources, and their participation in charity and volunteer work. The report concludes that social capital in Qatar is still high in terms of within-group bonding relationships. It also indicates a significant increase in the indicators of trust among Qataris and white-collar workers in particular, while the percentage remained stable for the blue-collar workers as compared to the previous wave of the study. Last section of the study notes a rise in confidence among Qataris and white-collar workers in government agencies and services, and in unofficial sources of information such as majlis, the internet, and friends. It is also noted that there is no significant increase in the percentage of people participating in civil society institutions between the two waves of the study

Metadata enrichment for digital heritage: users as co-creators

This paper espouses the concept of metadata enrichment through an expert and user-focused approach to metadata creation and management. To this end, it is argued the Web 2.0 paradigm enables users to be proactive metadata creators. As Shirky (2008, p.47) argues Web 2.0’s social tools enable “action by loosely structured groups, operating without managerial direction and outside the profit motive”. Lagoze (2010, p. 37) advises, “the participatory nature of Web 2.0 should not be dismissed as just a popular phenomenon [or fad]”. Carletti (2016) proposes a participatory digital cultural heritage approach where Web 2.0 approaches such as crowdsourcing can be sued to enrich digital cultural objects. It is argued that “heritage crowdsourcing, community-centred projects or other forms of public participation”. On the other hand, the new collaborative approaches of Web 2.0 neither negate nor replace contemporary standards-based metadata approaches. Hence, this paper proposes a mixed metadata approach where user created metadata augments expert-created metadata and vice versa. The metadata creation process no longer remains to be the sole prerogative of the metadata expert. The Web 2.0 collaborative environment would now allow users to participate in both adding and re-using metadata. The case of expert-created (standards-based, top-down) and user-generated metadata (socially-constructed, bottom-up) approach to metadata are complementary rather than mutually-exclusive. The two approaches are often mistakenly considered as dichotomies, albeit incorrectly (Gruber, 2007; Wright, 2007) . This paper espouses the importance of enriching digital information objects with descriptions pertaining the about-ness of information objects. Such richness and diversity of description, it is argued, could chiefly be achieved by involving users in the metadata creation process. This paper presents the importance of the paradigm of metadata enriching and metadata filtering for the cultural heritage domain. Metadata enriching states that a priori metadata that is instantiated and granularly structured by metadata experts is continually enriched through socially-constructed (post-hoc) metadata, whereby users are pro-actively engaged in co-creating metadata. The principle also states that metadata that is enriched is also contextually and semantically linked and openly accessible. In addition, metadata filtering states that metadata resulting from implementing the principle of enriching should be displayed for users in line with their needs and convenience. In both enriching and filtering, users should be considered as prosumers, resulting in what is called collective metadata intelligence

Fortnight

Fortnight is a two-week long, fully immersive, experience based in the interactions and communications of daily life. Up to 200 participants sign up to receive messages that are sent to their mobile phones, email, and home address; these messages contain a series of poetic nudges that encourage those participating to question their sense of place. Participants also receive daily invitations to visit locations throughout their city where they can pause to reflect on what it means to be here now. Fortnight enables the experience of “theatre” to penetrate beneath a seemingly brittle aesthetic surface of performance, deep into the consciousnesses of our participants as they begin to interact with and perceive world around us as the performance itself; the place where we act out our own daily lives. In Fortnight, the spectator becomes participant; the journey becomes narrative. Fortnight therefore subverts the notion of an audience, in which each spectator’s perspective is forced to examine not the situation and setting of performers on a stage, but rather the situation and setting of our own sense of place and the meaning we apportion to our everyday lives. Fortnight uses various forms of ubiquitous technology such as: Radio Frequency Identification (aka, RFID tags of the type contained in key fobs), which are used in badges sent to each participant that allow them to interact with real-world “portals” to trigger certain effects in their surroundings; QR technology (in the form of barcodes on posters that reveal additional hidden messages, should the participant choose to delve further; SMS messages; email; and, Twitter. Alongside this, older modes of communication such as handwritten letters, give Fortnight a decidedly low-fi aesthetic. Throughout Fortnight, participants are encouraged to explore the creative possibilities of pervasive and communicative media without reverting to mere technological fetishism. In Fortnight, each mode of communication is used not only for its functionality but also as symbols that bind the project and the participant together, rooting them to the here and now with the everyday tools of modern society. The mediated messages within Fortnight lead participants down a living, breathing rabbit hole where the familiar becomes unfamiliar and reality distorts. The project becomes an experience for the participant that is as immersive as their own life; creating an alternative reality, that not only co-exists alongside their own everyday realities, but also merges with them.This is a performance with shared responsibilities, reflecting the actions and consequences of our daily lives: what we put in, we get out

Dynamics of private social networks

Social networks, have been a significant turning point in ways individuals and companies interact. Various research has also revolved around public social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook. In most cases trying to understand what's happening in the network such predicting trends, and identifying natural phenomenon. Seeing the growth of public social networks several corporations have sought to build their own private networks to enable their staff to share knowledge, and expertise. Little research has been done in regards to the value private networks give to their stake holders. This is primarily due to the fact as their name implies, these networks are private, thus access to internal data is limited to a trusted few. This paper looks at a particular online private social network, and seeks to investigate the research possibilities made available, and how this can bring value to the organisation which runs the network. Notwithstanding the limitations of the network, this paper seeks to explore the connections graph between members of the network, as well as understanding the topics discussed within the network. The findings show that by visualising a social network one can assess the success or failure of their online networks. The Analysis conducted can also identify skill shortages within areas of the network, thus allowing corporations to take action and rectify any potential problems.peer-reviewe

Spending time with money: from shared values to social connectivity

This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.There is a rapidly growing momentum driving the development of mobile payment systems for co-present interactions, using near-field communication on smartphones and contactless payment systems. The design (and marketing) imperative for this is to enable faster, simpler, effortless and secure transactions, yet our evidence shows that this focus on reducing transactional friction may ignore other important features around making payments. We draw from empirical data to consider user interactions around financial exchanges made on mobile phones. Our findings examine how the practices around making payments support people in making connections, to other people, to their communities, to the places they move through, to their environment, and to what they consume. While these social and community bonds shape the kinds of interactions that become possible, they also shape how users feel about, and act on, the values that they hold with their co-users. We draw implications for future payment systems that make use of community connections, build trust, leverage transactional latency, and generate opportunities for rich social interactions

Sexed up: theorizing the sexualization of culture

This paper reviews and examines emerging academic approaches to the study of ‘sexualized culture’; an examination made necessary by contemporary preoccupations with sexual values, practices and identities, the emergence of new forms of sexual experience and the apparent breakdown of rules, categories and regulations designed to keep the obscene at bay. The paper maps out some key themes and preoccupations in recent academic writing on sex and sexuality, especially those relating to the contemporary or emerging characteristics of sexual discourse. The key issues of pornographication and democratization, taste formations, postmodern sex and intimacy, and sexual citizenship are explored in detail. </p