Repatriating race: exorcising ethno-exclusion

Race is widely acknowledged as one of humankind's most pernicious and enduring myths, and its contemporary ideological doppelganger – ethnicity – presents as arguably the single most divisive, oppressive and dangerous axis of identity at work in the world today. Attempts to develop more racially/ethnically harmonious communities have typically looked to education programs, usually conducted through the formal mechanisms of schooling, as a primary vehicle for the development of greater understanding and 'naturalizing' of difference. Focusing almost exclusively on the effects of racism and marginalization on the typically located victims of such oppression, these programs have largely ignored the importance of turning the focus of attention on to those positioned as beneficiaries of racism. That such programs have been largely unsuccessful in any broad societal sense has led to the exploration of alternative approaches to developing racial and ethnic awareness. This paper derives from a long-term project that has been anchored by two key political imperatives: making whiteness visible and effecting conscientization through autoethnographic work. Research on this project with pre-service teachers, most of it funded over several years, and more recently with middle (secondary) school students has provided valuable insights into more effective possibilities for the development of anti-racist pedagogies and for the decentring of the WWW (White Western Ways) that the authors see as crucial to a genuine move towards ethnic harmony. The first part of this paper exposes and justifies the ideological and procedural underpinnings of the program design and operation, and the second section reports on the outcomes to date. The authors conclude with a set of implications and possibilities for further, future activity

Exploring Virtual Reality and Doppelganger Avatars for the Treatment of Chronic Back Pain

Cognitive-behavioral models of chronic pain assume that fear of pain and subsequent avoidance behavior contribute to pain chronicity and the maintenance of chronic pain. In chronic back pain (CBP), avoidance of movements often plays a major role in pain perseverance and interference with daily life activities. In treatment, avoidance is often addressed by teaching patients to reduce pain behaviors and increase healthy behaviors. The current project explored the use of personalized virtual characters (doppelganger avatars) in virtual reality (VR), to influence motor imitation and avoidance, fear of pain and experienced pain in CBP. We developed a method to create virtual doppelgangers, to animate them with movements captured from real-world models, and to present them to participants in an immersive cave virtual environment (CAVE) as autonomous movement models for imitation. Study 1 investigated interactions between model and observer characteristics in imitation behavior of healthy participants. We tested the hypothesis that perceived affiliative characteristics of a virtual model, such as similarity to the observer and likeability, would facilitate observers’ engagement in voluntary motor imitation. In a within-subject design (N=33), participants were exposed to four virtual characters of different degrees of realism and observer similarity, ranging from an abstract stickperson to a personalized doppelganger avatar designed from 3d scans of the observer. The characters performed different trunk movements and participants were asked to imitate these. We defined functional ranges of motion (ROM) for spinal extension (bending backward, BB), lateral flexion (bending sideward, BS) and rotation in the horizontal plane (RH) based on shoulder marker trajectories as behavioral indicators of imitation. Participants’ ratings on perceived avatar appearance were recorded in an Autonomous Avatar Questionnaire (AAQ), based on an explorative factor analysis. Linear mixed effects models revealed that for lateral flexion (BS), a facilitating influence of avatar type on ROM was mediated by perceived identification with the avatar including avatar likeability, avatar-observer-similarity and other affiliative characteristics. These findings suggest that maximizing model-observer similarity may indeed be useful to stimulate observational modeling. Study 2 employed the techniques developed in study 1 with participants who suffered from CBP and extended the setup with real-world elements, creating an immersive mixed reality. The research question was whether virtual doppelgangers could modify motor behaviors, pain expectancy and pain. In a randomized controlled between-subject design, participants observed and imitated an avatar (AVA, N=17) or a videotaped model (VID, N=16) over three sessions, during which the movements BS and RH as well as a new movement (moving a beverage crate) were shown. Again, self-reports and ROMs were used as measures. The AVA group reported reduced avoidance with no significant group differences in ROM. Pain expectancy increased in AVA but not VID over the sessions. Pain and limitations did not significantly differ. We observed a moderation effect of group, with prior pain expectancy predicting pain and avoidance in the VID but not in the AVA group. This can be interpreted as an effect of personalized movement models decoupling pain behavior from movement-related fear and pain expectancy by increasing pain tolerance and task persistence. Our findings suggest that personalized virtual movement models can stimulate observational modeling in general, and that they can increase pain tolerance and persistence in chronic pain conditions. Thus, they may provide a tool for exposure and exercise treatments in cognitive behavioral treatment approaches to CBP

The Realness of Fakes : Primary Evidence of the Effect of Deepfake Personas on User Perceptions in a Design Task

Deepfakes, realistic portrayals of people that do not exist, have garnered interest in research and industry. Yet, the contributions of deepfake technology to human-computer interaction remain unclear. One possible value of deepfake technology is to create more immersive user personas. To test this premise, we use a commercial-grade service to generate three deepfake personas (DFs). We also create counterparts of the same persona in two traditional modalities: classic and narrative personas. We then investigate how persona modality affects the perceptions and task performance of the persona user. Our findings show that the DFs were perceived as less empathetic, credible, complete, clear, and immersive than other modalities. Participants also indicated less willingness to use the DFs and less sense of control, but there were no differences in task performance. We also found a strong correlation between the uncanny valley effect and other user perceptions, implying that the tested deepfake technology might lack maturity for personas, negatively affecting user experience. Designers might also be accustomed to using traditional persona profiles. Further research is needed to investigate the potential and downsides of DFs.© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Peran Mediasi Mimicry Desire Dalam Hubungan Antara Kredibilitas dan Kesamaan Food Vlogger Dengan Purchase Intention Viewer: The Mediating Role of Mimicry Desire in The Relationship Between Food Vloggers’ Credibility and Similarity With Viewers' Purchase Intention

With the rising popularity of food vlogger in Indonesia, extant studies have not examined the effect of watching their content on viewers’ intention to mimic vloggers’ behaviors and to buy food products that they recommend. Therefore, in this study, we aim to examine the role of mimicry desire as the mediating variable that explains the relationship between food vlogger's credibility and similarity (homophily) on viewer's purchase intention. By using convenience sampling method, this study uses data obtained from an online survey to the viewers of well-known Indonesian food vlogger on Youtube. Further, by using PLS-SEM in the data analysis, our results indicate the positive role of credibility, homophily, and mimicry desire in explaining viewers’ purchase intention. In addition, our result show the role of mimicry desire as a full mediating variable in explaining the relationship between similarity (homophily) on purchase intention. Keywords: food vlogger, mimicry desire, purchase intention, Youtube, homophil

Beyond teacher transmission and Googling information to more creative language learning

As information is readily available online, students can Google and Google Translate perhaps challenging a teacher’s classroom role and language awareness. The safety of being a transmitter of knowledge and instructor may be threatened and classrooms could become fossilized as the instant nature of information grows. This paper will argue that by facilitating modern language learning we could also stimulate questioning. Tasks may need to include appropriate on line searching and a creative inquiry approach to using language. This suggests reworking teacher dominance into a facilitator’s role. Digital natives and the Facebook/Instagram/Snapchat generation may want a culture of learning which embraces information flows, while providing tools for English language learning and use in the modern era. Suggestions for engaging learners with contemporary techniques will be shared, even for classrooms in which there is not readily available connectivity

Macroeconomic Policy under Uncertainty and Inequality

Diese Arbeit umfasst drei Kapitel zur Debatte über makroökonomische Politik unter Unsicherheit und Ungleichheit. Das erste Kapitel zeigt auf, dass ein geringes Maß an Unsicherheit mit einer effektiveren Ausgabenpolitik einhergeht, und dass fiskalpolitische Ausgaben grundsätzlich ein wirksames Instrument zur Stabilisierung von Konjunkturzyklen sind. Das zweite Kapitel liefert Belege dafür, dass der regelbasierte Politikansatz der EZB den geldpolitischen Stress - d.h. identifizierte geldpolitische Unsicherheit - im Euroraum verringert hat. Dies hat dazu beigetragen, dass sich der Euro zu einer globalen Leitwährung entwickelt hat. Ein Verzicht auf den Euro würde für jedes der Euroländer wahrscheinlich zu einer Situation führen, in der die heimische Wirtschaft mit den nachteiligen Auswirkungen anderer weltweit dominierender Währungen konfrontiert wäre. Das dritte Kapitel untersucht, wie sich Geldpolitik auf die Verteilung zwischen Einkommen aus Arbeit und Kapital auswirkt, und wie Heterogenität zwischen Unternehmen die geldpolitische Transmission beeinflussen kann. Insgesamt unterstreichen die Ergebnisse die entscheidende Rolle von Unsicherheit im Transmissionsmechanismus von Fiskalpolitik, sie leisten einen Beitrag zur öffentlichen Debatte zur Euroskepsis und zeigen, dass Ungleichheit zwischen Mitgliedsstaaten eine Folge von Unternehmensheterogenität sein kann. Auf der Grundlage der Ergebnisse dieser Arbeit erscheint eine tiefere Integration der Eurozone - d.h. ein europäisches Finanzministerium mit dem Recht eigene Schulden aufzunehmen, eine Vereinheitlichung des europäischen Arbeitsrechts sowie die Vervollständigung der Banken und Kapitalmarktunion – als ratsam.This thesis includes three chapters that inform the debate about macroeconomic policy under uncertainty and inequality. The first chapter shows how low levels of uncertainty are associated with more effective fiscal policy. The second chapter provides evidence for the rule-based policy approach of the ECB reducing monetary policy stress – i.e., identified monetary policy uncertainty – in the euro area. This has contributed to the euro becoming a globally dominant currency. Giving up the euro would, for any country, likely result in a situation where the domestic economy would face the adverse effects of globally dominating currencies. The third chapter investigates how monetary policy affects the redistribution of income between employees and owners of companies, and how heterogeneity across firms affects monetary policy transmission at country level. Overall, the results highlight the important role of uncertainty in shaping the fiscal policy transmission mechanism, they contribute to the public debate of euro-skepticism, and they show that between-country inequality can be a result of firm-heterogeneity. Based on the findings of this thesis, a deeper integration of the euro area – i.e. a European fiscal union, joint debt issuance, unified labor rights as well as a completed capital markets and banking union - seem advisable

Life and the technological: cyborgs, companions and the chthulucene

Donna Haraway’s cyborg is a widely traveled figure with an important relation to life writing. This article traces the cyborg through modes of life writing and routes through feminist science fiction and science studies. It examines attachments and anger, looking at the return of the alienated cyborg in recent accounts of Haraway’s work. One of Donna Haraway’s most charismatic and widely travelled figures is that of the cyborg. It emerges as a figure in her writing in the 1980s and 1990s, and enables important interventions in thinking about lives as always already technological and prosthetic. One of its gifts is that it offers a different way into this than either technological evolutionism or the posthumanism of actor-network theory. The cyborg is a figure of specificity, of fiction but also of real-life couplings of technology and flesh, which are neither evolutionarily determined nor neutral but, in Haraway’s terms, are non-innocent encounters. The non-innocent relationality of the cyborg is posited as one of responsibility, which, in Haraway’s lexicon, evokes both an ability to respond to others and an ethics of encounter. The cyborg is a singular figure, although, in Haraway’s work, singularity is always multiple and allows for thinking about the life of life story and technology.1 The figure has generated strong attachments, multiple stories, and anger over the last thirty years. This article traces a partial examination of the manifesto as life writing, and surveys debates about and practices of cyborg life writing, including autobiography and fiction. It examines the possibilities of the cyborg, including anger, rejection, and reconfiguration (as embryo and doppelg€anger), as well as its relation to life itself more broadly conceived

THE DRIVERS AND IMPACTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCERS: THE ROLE OF MIMICRY

Despite the growing trend of influencer marketing, little effort has been made to understanding the comprehensive mechanism as to how social media influencers (SMIs) influence their target audiences. Although previous SMI literature identified possible drivers and effects of SMIs, much of former research has focused on the peripheral traits of SMIs: identifying the effect of a SMI’s number of followers on a target’s influencer likability. Not much investigation has been undertaken to understand the principal traits of SMIs that allow them to amass audience in the first place and gain influence over their audiences. The dissertation filled this void in the literature. Drawing upon Influence Framework and Consumer’s Doppelganger Effect theory, the study developed an overarching, structural framework that explains the influence mechanism of a SMI over her target audience as a whole in which (i) a target’s perceptions toward a SMI’s influence attempts (attractiveness, prestige, expertise, information, and interaction) affect the target’s attitudes toward the SMI, believing that the SMI exercises taste leadership and opinion leadership (H1 to H6), (ii) the target’s positive attitudes toward the SMI trigger her conscious mimicry desire toward the SMI (H7 and H8), and (iii) the target’s mimicry desire directs her performance outcomes of social media WOM and purchase intention (H9 and H10). The study included both a qualitative method approach (focus group (n = 11)) and quantitative approaches (pre-test (n = 48), pilot test (n = 155), and main-test (n = 395) surveys via Mechanical Turk) to attest its conceptual model. The main-test results, using the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analysis via AMOS 23, confirmed that the conceptual model and all the hypothesized relationships were statistically significant. Further, the bootstrap results demonstrated that a target’s mimicry desire indeed served as a significant mediator linking the target’s attitudinal beliefs to behavioral decisions. The study’s findings provide insightful contributions to the SMI literature and practical implications for brand marketers in developing successful influencer marketing strategies