Vaunting the independent amateur: Scientific American and the representation of lay scientists

This paper traces how media representations encouraged enthusiasts, youth and skilled volunteers to participate actively in science and technology during the twentieth century. It assesses how distinctive discourses about scientific amateurs positioned them with respect to professionals in shifting political and cultural environments. In particular, the account assesses the seminal role of a periodical, Scientific American magazine, in shaping and championing an enduring vision of autonomous scientific enthusiasms. Between the 1920s and 1970s, editors Albert G. Ingalls and Clair L. Stong shepherded generations of adult ‘amateur scientists’. Their columns and books popularized a vision of independent nonprofessional research that celebrated the frugal ingenuity and skills of inveterate tinkerers. Some of these attributes have found more recent expression in present-day ‘maker culture’. The topic consequently is relevant to the historiography of scientific practice, science popularization and science education. Its focus on independent nonprofessionals highlights political dimensions of agency and autonomy that have often been implicit for such historical (and contemporary) actors. The paper argues that the Scientific American template of adult scientific amateurism contrasted with other representations: those promoted by earlier periodicals and by a science education organization, Science Service, and by the national demands for recruiting scientific labour during and after the Second World War. The evidence indicates that advocates of the alternative models had distinctive goals and adapted their narrative tactics to reach their intended audiences, which typically were conceived as young persons requiring instruction or mentoring. By contrast, the monthly Scientific American columns established a long-lived and stable image of the independent lay scientist

Fan Films and Fanworks in the Age of Social Media: How Copyright Owners Are Relying on Private Ordering to Avoid Angering Fans

Fandoms active in creating “fanworks” are increasingly able to leverage social media to coordinate and respond to owners of large media franchises who attempt to limit the creation and distribution of fan films. The resulting friction between these groups can be more efficiently addressed through private ordering rather than through formal legal reform

Accounting for taste:conversation, categorisation and certification in the sensory assessment of craft brewing

The recent rapid growth of “craft beer” has led to a search for definitions and categorisation of that sector with “beer style” used as one criterion. This thesis explores the origins of these style definitions and how they act as a technology of classification which affects how sensory judgments are formed and expressed in practice, and how judges are examined and certified. The investigation draws on actor-network theory and ethnomethodology to trace how taste descriptions are assembled and translated into test items in an online exam. The material orderings and classification practices which assemble competition judging are then explored ethnographically by following the trajectory of a beer through these situated actions. The magnification is increased through developing original methods utilising digital pens, and draws on principles from conversation analysis to explore the sequential and categorial aspects of judging talk and its co-ordination with writing and form-filling. Finally, auto-ethnographic and material-semiotic explorations are used to explore how a blind beer tasting exam is assembled, and the models of learning and assessment it enacts. The historical construction of the contemporary language of sensory assessment supports the construction of the style guides. Once assembled into an information infrastructure the style guide is extended to act in multiple different ways: its propositions are translated into testable facts with multiple choices, it functions as a technology of material ordering and coordination, as a regulatory technology placing limits on how taste judgements can and cannot be expressed or recorded, and as a re-enactment and materialisation of individual cognitivist models of assessment. Through exploring the ways a classification system is assembled, translated and made authoritative this thesis extends the conceptualisation of what is considered a technology in technology enhanced learning, and extends the dialogue between that disciplinary field and scholarship in science and technology studies

A Review of the Open Educational Resources (OER) Movement: Achievements, Challenges, and New Opportunities

Examines the state of the foundation's efforts to improve educational opportunities worldwide through universal access to and use of high-quality academic content

Creating a French brewing heritage through terroir

The relevance of terroir in the creation of a French brewing heritage Drinking is a performance that reveals our identity and is shared by a community to become a distinctive behavioural pattern. In France this notion is particularely relevant through the promotion of terroir referring to the soil, the art and craft that went into the creation of the product. The importance and global recognition of the terroir is the basis of recognition for French wines on the international market, linking the product to a regional identity and craft. The need for craft, heritage and authenticity through terroir has spread to the brewing industry with French breweries opening every week to achieve one goal: brewing craft and local. The development of autonomous breweries that cultivate their ingredients is developing the concept of bière de terroir. Different beer styles can in fact be directly linked to their terroir as a result of a region's geography, topography, economy, politics and cultural heritage. My research will look at the importance of terroir in the creation of a French gastronomic heritage and its influence on the brewing industry. Though my research I want to find out if this terroir heritage can enable and be relevant in the creation of a French brewing heritage

Existential Copyright and Professional Photography

Intellectual property law has intended benefits, but it also carries certain costs—deliberately so. Skeptics have asked: Why should intellectual property law exist at all? To get traction on that overly broad but still important inquiry, we decided to ask a new, preliminary question: What do creators in a particular industry actually use intellectual property for? In this first-of-its-kind study, we conducted thirty-two in-depth qualitative interviews of photographers about how copyright law functions within their creative and business practices. By learning the actual functions of copyright law on the ground, we can evaluate and contextualize existing theories of intellectual property. More importantly, our data call for an expansion of the set of possible justifications for intellectual property. Contrary to accepted wisdom, we find that copyright provides photographers with economic leverage in up-front negotiations with clients but not much benefit in anticopying protection afterwards. Beyond that, copyright also serves as part of photographers’ multifaceted sense of professionalism to protect the integrity of their art and business. Identifying these unrecognized and surprising functions of copyright in creators’ accounts is separate from evaluating their desirability. But we argue that the real-world functions of copyright are better candidates for justification and better subjects for policy discussion than chalkboard theories. In this way, our study of photographers moves the longstanding debate over intellectual property law’s purpose to a new and more informed place

Existential Copyright and Professional Photography

Intellectual property law has intended benefits, but it also carries certain costs—deliberately so. Skeptics have asked: Why should intellectual property law exist at all? To get traction on that overly broad but still important inquiry, we decided to ask a new, preliminary question: What do creators in a particular industry actually use intellectual property for? In this first-of-its-kind study, we conducted thirty-two in-depth qualitative interviews of photographers about how copyright law functions within their creative and business practices. By learning the actual functions of copyright law on the ground, we can evaluate and contextualize existing theories of intellectual property. More importantly, our data call for an expansion of the set of possible justifications for intellectual property. Contrary to accepted wisdom, we find that copyright provides photographers with economic leverage in up-front negotiations with clients but not much benefit in anticopying protection afterwards. Beyond that, copyright also serves as part of photographers’ multifaceted sense of professionalism to protect the integrity of their art and business. Identifying these unrecognized and surprising functions of copyright in creators’ accounts is separate from evaluating their desirability. But we argue that the real-world functions of copyright are better candidates for justification and better subjects for policy discussion than chalkboard theories. In this way, our study of photographers moves the longstanding debate over intellectual property law’s purpose to a new and more informed place

Skateboarding, Space and Subculture: Indexing Skated Spaces and Their Urban Implications

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College

Buy Global, Think Local: Direct Trade Coffee and Community Renaissance in Olympia, Washington

The development of the specialty coffee industry in the United States occurred in the latter half of the twentieth century not as an independent phenomenon but rather as a result of a series of interrelated movements that began to coalesce in the late 1960s. Direct Trade, the latest development in gourmet coffee sourcing and marketing, is an amalgam of elements of an American food revolution that gained national prominence in the 1970s, the environmental movement, and movements for social justice through conscious consumption. Direct Trade coffee is differentiated in particular by roasters\u27 rejection of the notion of coffee as a commodity in favor of recognition that coffee is a seasonal fresh produce subject to discernible differences in quality. This thesis examines Direct Trade’s popularity in Olympia, Washington, a suburban cultural center located midway between Seattle and Portland along the I-5 corridor. It seeks to explain why and how residents of the Pacific Northwest, long distinguished for their pioneering spirit, adopted Direct Trade coffee from an early stage