1,394 research outputs found

    Digital identities: tracing the implications for learners and learning

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    This is the fourth in a series of seminars, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, to examine ‘The educational and social impact of new technologies on young people in Britain’. Its purpose is to bring together academics, policy makers and practitioners from many different backgrounds in order to consider the contexts and consequences of use of new information and communication technologies for children and young people, with a particular focus on the implications on technological change on formal and informal education. The series is coordinated by John Coleman, Ingrid Lunt, Chris Davies and myself, together with guidance from our advisory board – Keri Facer, Neil Selwyn and Ros Sutherland

    Travelling and sticky affects: : Exploring teens and sexualized cyberbullying through a Butlerian-Deleuzian- Guattarian lens

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    In this paper we combine the thinking of Deleuze and Guattari (1984, 1987) with Judith Butler’s (1990, 1993, 2004, 2009) work to follow the rhizomatic becomings of young people’s affective relations in a range of on- and off-line school spaces. In particular we explore how events that may be designated as sexual cyberbullying are constituted and how they are mediated by technology (such as texting or in/through social networking sites). Drawing on findings from two different studies looking at teens’ uses of and experiences with social networking sites, Arto in Denmark, and Bebo in the UK, we use this approach to think about how affects flow, are distributed, and become fixed in assemblages. We map how affects are manoeuvred and potentially disrupted by young people, suggesting that in the incidences discussed affects travel as well as stick in points of fixation. We argue that we need to grasp both affective flow and fixity in order to gain knowledge of how subjectification of the gendered/classed/racialised/sexualised body emerges. A Butlerian-Deleuzian-Guattarian frame helps us to map some of these affective complexities that shape sexualized cyberbully events; and to recognize technologically mediated lines of flight when subjectifications are at least temporarily disrupted and new terms of recognition and intelligibility staked out. Keywords

    'Anti-social' networking in Northern Ireland: policy responses to young people's use of social media for organizing anti-social behavior

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    Ten years after the Belfast Agreement, Northern Ireland remains a divided society as signified by the persistence and even proliferation of interface areas, often divided by so-called ‘peace walls’ and intermittent conflict between rival communities on either side. Recent media reports have suggested that online interactions between rival interface communities on social networking sites may be undermining efforts to foster better intercommunity relationships. This article explores the extent to which key stakeholders are aware of the use of the Internet by young people to plan street riots in interface areas in Northern Ireland and their responses to this ‘anti-social’ use of sites such as Bebo. It presents evidence to suggest that stakeholder awareness about the extent of the use of social media by young people to organize street riots is based on rumour and hearsay. Key stakeholders report that Internet Safety programmes have received positive feedback from local audiences but concede that they are unlikely have any significant impact upon the level of anti-social behavior in interface areas

    Harnessing Technology: the learner and their context – interim report: benefits of ICT use outside formal education

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    How ICT supports learning outside of the education setting (year 1 interim report

    Prof Les Carr interviews Bebo White

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    Prof Les Carr interviews Bebo White about the Early Web and the Future Web – the Internet of Thing

    A comparative case study: Examining the organizational use of social networking sites

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    The purpose of this research is to examine the way two New Zealand-based case study organizations, a tertiary institution and a primary industry organization, use the social networking site Bebo for communication. Both organizations recruited young people aged 16-19, to work in the primary industry and to attend the tertiary institution. This interpretive, qualitative comparative case study identifies why each organization decided to use Bebo, what it intended to achieve, whether Bebo helped each organization to achieve its goals and objectives, and the challenges and opportunities for developing authentic and interactive dialogue faced by each organization with its intended public. Interviews were conducted with organizational members and spokespeople involved in each campaign. A critical discourse analysis is applied to all transcripts and the Bebo profiles. Other relevant organizational documents, including press releases and information brochures, provide contextual information for the analysis. The findings indicate that both organizations have been misled by a taken-for-granted assumption about young people's use of the social networking site Bebo, with the research raising questions about whether the campaign reached the target audience or not. Other findings highlight that the tertiary institution reframed the social media-influenced understanding of 'engagement', from a two-way collaborative interaction between an organization and its publics, to a one-way, direct marketing effort by the organization. Questions are raised about the tertiary institutions use of Bebo as a marketing tool and harvesting users' personal information through a quiz. Findings indicate that both organizations were concerned about threats to their reputation, choosing to monitor both the comments left on the spokespeople's profiles by Bebo users, and the spokespeople's behaviour on Bebo. Evaluating success is identified as a challenge for both organizations, as well as issues associated with the production and distribution of the campaigns on Bebo. The findings identify opportunities for future research, to help organizations navigate the uncertainty associated with using social media applications and technologies for public relations and organizational communication. The research also highlights opportunities for other organizations to improve on the case study organizations' current use of the social networking site Bebo, to ensure future use of the application embodies dialogue, interaction and collaboration between the organizations and their target publics

    Text Production in Bebo: a study of three children's text production in online social networking sites

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    Full version unavailable due to 3rd party copyright restrictionsFull version unavailable due to 3rd party copyright restrictions.This thesis aims to explore three pre-teenage children’s text production in online social networking sites. Social networking is a mainstream youth activity in the UK, conducted by (at the time of writing) almost 50% of 10-12 year old internet users (Ofcom, 2011, p.44). While social networking has been the subject of much interest amongst scholars and policy-makers, little has been published that documents the use of social networking amongst pre-teenage children. The literature that does exist is largely concerned with documenting usage (Ofcom, 2011; Livingstone and Haddon, 2010), and children’s safety in these contexts (Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF)/Byron 2010; DCSF/Byron, 2008; Livingstone et al., 2011a). This study aims to explore children’s text production in social networking sites with rightful regard for this concern, but with a focus on how children behave as text producers in these contexts. Working from an interpretive qualitative research paradigm, a purposive sample of three children who used (at the time) the popular social networking site Bebo was selected. The children were interviewed using a semi-structured interview schedule three times between June 2008 and May 2009. Interviews were transcribed using a line by line coding method. To support these data and contextualise analysis, screenshots of the children’s profile pages were also collected at each interview. Using a constructivist grounded theory approach (Charmaz, 2006), these data were analysed within data sets around each interview incident, and then synthesised to build a case study for each participant. This recursive process involved initial and focused coding, where following the construction of key codes for each data set, the codes were organised under thematic headings and finally used to construct tentative categories that described how the children behaved as text producers. Four tentative categories were constructed to describe the participants’ behaviour: text production to achieve social positioning; text production to achieve social control; text production to enact a text producing role; and text production for pleasure. Based upon the elaboration of these categories, a model of text production as mastery is proposed. In this model, children’s text production is regarded in relation two spectrums of mastery: a spectrum of social control and a spectrum of textual crafting. This study concludes by recommending that the social networking context must be recognised by educators as a meaningful context in which children’s mastery of these critical skills can be developed in order that they can they learn to be critical and masterful text producers in the new digital age (Gee, 2011 and Hayes, 2011)

    Exploring social gambling: scoping, classification and evidence review

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    The aim of this report is to speculate on the level of concern we might have regarding consumer risk in relation to ‘social gambling.’ In doing so, this report is intended to help form the basis to initiate debate around a new and under-researched social issue; assist in setting a scientific research agenda; and, where appropriate, highlight concerns about any potential areas that need to be considered in terms of precautionary regulation. This report does not present a set of empirical research findings regarding ‘social gambling’ but rather gathers information to improve stakeholder understanding
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