Friendship and Technology

This book explores the nature of technology – participatory media in particular – and its effects on our friendships and our fundamental sense of togetherness. Situating the notion of friendship in the modern era, the author examines the possibilities and challenges of technology on our friendships. Taking a media ecology approach to interpersonal communication, she looks at issues around phenomenology, recognition of friends as unique, hermeneutics in a digital world and mediated communication, social dimensions of time and space, and communication ethics. Examining friendship as a communicative phenomenon and exploring the ways in which it is created, sustained, managed, produced, and reproduced, this book will be relevant to scholars and students of interpersonal communication, mediated communication, communication theory and philosophy, and media ecology

Friendship and Technology

This book explores the nature of technology – participatory media in particular – and its effects on our friendships and our fundamental sense of togetherness. Situating the notion of friendship in the modern era, the author examines the possibilities and challenges of technology on our friendships. Taking a media ecology approach to interpersonal communication, she looks at issues around phenomenology, recognition of friends as unique, hermeneutics in a digital world and mediated communication, social dimensions of time and space, and communication ethics. Examining friendship as a communicative phenomenon and exploring the ways in which it is created, sustained, managed, produced, and reproduced, this book will be relevant to scholars and students of interpersonal communication, mediated communication, communication theory and philosophy, and media ecology

Leading in a VUCA World

This open access book brings together works by specialists from different disciplines and continents to reflect on the nexus between leadership, spirituality and discernment, particularly with regard to a world that is increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA). The book spells out, first of all, what our VUCA world entails, and how it affects businesses, organizations, and societies as a whole. Secondly, the book develops new perspectives on the processes of leadership, spirituality, and discernment, particularly in this VUCA context. These perspectives are interdisciplinary in nature, and are informed by e.g. management studies, leadership theory, philosophy, and theology

The emergent patterns of Italian idioms:a dynamic-systems approach

In traditional generative linguistic theories, idiomatic constructions are seen as a sort of “anomaly”, and dismissed as non-decomposable items of non-literal language, uninteresting and “peripheral”. Contrary to this view, in the last decades psycholinguistic and corpus-linguistic studies have shown that idioms can often undergo structural modification and display different variation patterns, according to their specific formal and semantic properties. In virtue of these findings, the present study aims to investigate the levels of stability and variation in Italian idioms from a socio-cognitive point of view, in a two-step fashion. In the first stage, a set of 150 idiomatic constructions will be selected from a dictionary (Sorge 2010) and, taking the categorization proposed by Langlotz (2006a) as a starting point, a cognitively motivated typology of Italian idiomatic constructions will be drawn. Langlotz's parameters and categories will be used to classify Italian idioms into a structured taxonomy based on a set of notions which are generally accepted and employed by proponents of functionally-oriented approaches to language; these notions will be applied taking the Italian cultural context into consideration, in order to avoid (potentially hasty) claims about their supposed universality. Then, the mutual relationship between different idioms on the one hand and between idiomatic and non-idiomatic constructions on the other hand will be addressed and accounted for in the light of a constructionist perspective on language. In the second part of my study, a sample of occurrences of a subset of 50 idiomatic constructions will be downloaded from a large Italian corpus, in order to observe their variational behavior in the context of actual interactions in a contemporary setting. Particular attention will be paid to the potential correlation between the category an idiom was allocated to in the previous stage and the variation patterns observed in its occurrences, with the specific aim to understand if a causal connection can be established between the idiom category and the (quantitative and qualitative) level of variation observed in real language data. The two phases of the study will be treated as deeply interconnected, and a dynamic-systems approach will be adopted to highlight the several links between the two stages. An integrated model of the mechanisms which regulate the “life-dynamics” of idiomatic constructions will be provided, taking distinct dimensions, time-scales, and levels of granularity into account. Finally, the results of the study will be scrutinized in order to assess the adequacy of a dynamic-systems perspective to accurately explore and describe the self-organizing nature of linguistic constructions and their relationship with other aspects of human cognition and interactivity

Monitoring the Implementation of Trauma-informed Care

This work, which unites the fields of occupational psychology, cultural anthropology, and complexity science, examines the novel and nebulous domain of trauma-informed care. Mere definitions of concepts like trauma-informed care, organisational culture, and culture change ignite discord between researchers, writers, and practitioners alike. Trauma-informed care is a system model which encourages system-wide adoption by all involved within the organisation. An organisational shift towards adopting this model requires fundamental change. Change not necessarily within practice and policy but within the individuals who occupy the organisation themselves. Introducing a system-wide model is practicable, but ensuring that adoption and adherence is challenging when faced with the dynamic nature of the human psyche. When attending to organisational change, organisations must prioritise the sensitivities of individuals. Involving individuals and respecting the dynamics of change can smooth over the rough edges that make transitions difficult. Perceptions, attitudes, and behaviours change alongside correlating events, environments, and system stimuli. To be one step ahead of organisational fate, the organisation must adapt to the individual rather than the contrary. A whole-system approach is needed. The reflection on implementation requires a practical self-assessment. A whole-system approach utilises a network of interrelated systems that permits timely self-reflection and enables immediate action. This research utilises both qualitative and quantitative data by means of primary and secondary sources through a pragmatic design: staff and service-user participants from the NHS and relevant references within the broader context. The research congregates opinions from both parties and co-produces an implementation framework for application in dynamic contexts. The Roots framework is adapted into a learning and growth training package that stakeholders at the NHS and broader audiences can adapt and redefine at will. This work advances the fields of trauma-informed care and organisational culture change by coproducing a framework and drafting recommendations on how to co-produce a self-assessment that can monitor the implementation of trauma-informed care