The development of journalistic style in English : the case of the National Geographic magazine

http://www.ester.ee/record=b4679698*es

Blogs : open-source diaries

Weblogs, or blogs, are Web sites maintained by one person or a few select people, are usually about one distinct subject, are constantly updated, and attract repeat visitors. This form has become a popular means of self-expression because it empowers both the writer and the audience. Blogs empower writers by providing them with an easy way to self-publish their points-of-view to a wide audience. Blogs empower the audience when the writer either provides informative hyperlinks and references that the audience can use to verify the writer\u27s claims or allows the audience to append their own text to the blog that could refute the writer\u27s claims. When the blogger provides links to her sources and encourages her readers to challenge her arguments in much the same way as academic or scientific authors do, her blog feels more authentic. To understand how blogs empower people, a useful comparison can be made between blogs and traditional autobiographical writing, as well as the collaborative environment of the open source movement

Digital habits and competences of health professionals the Health Area East of Málaga−Axarquía (Málaga)

Las competencias en lectura y escritura digital -que se engloban en la Alfabetización Informacional- son imprescindibles para participar plenamente en la sociedad del conocimiento y afrontar nuevos esquemas y enfoques en los procesos educativos, para poder afrontar los retos de una sociedad global cada vez más exigente tecnológicamente. Las plataformas de formación e investigación, así como la aparición de medios y dispositivos digitales que dan acceso a Internet y permiten la gestión, generación y difusión de la información, están produciendo cambios en los hábitos de lectura y escritura hasta el punto de encontrarnos en un nuevo paradigma de intervención donde la traslación a lo digital es ineludible e irrevocable. Nos interesa conocer los cambios que se están produciendo y cómo se está produciendo la transición hacia el consumo y uso de la información digital entre los usuarios de las bibliotecas de ciencias de la salud, ya que éstas son proveedoras pioneras de acceso a los medios digitales para los usuarios de la información. Conocer las prácticas de lectura, escritura y gestión de la información de los profesionales sanitarios del Área de Salud Este de Málaga. Se utilizó un enfoque metodológico de investigación mixto mediante el uso de técnicas de investigación cualitativas y cuantitativas en diferentes etapas. Se incluyó un estudio exhaustivo del estado del conocimiento científico sobre lectura y escritura digital, Alfabetización Informática/Digital, plataformas virtuales para la Gestión de la Formación, Ecosistema de Libros Electrónicos, Entornos Personales de Aprendizaje y Gestión del Conocimiento. Recogeremos información sobre los profesionales en cuanto a su desempeño en sus funciones profesionales y personales mediante un cuestionario específicamente diseñado. La muestra de la población está formada por 1.300 miembros del personal que trabajan en todas las categorías de trabajo implicadas. Como resultado, esperamos poder establecer un diagnóstico de la situación actual, que permita diseñar un plan de acción dirigido a potenciar la alfabetización digital específicamente en los profesionales sanitarios

"I Saw You": searching for lost love via practices of reading, writing and responding

How do emotions move and how do emotions move us? How are feelings and recognitions distributed socio-materially? Based on a multi-site ethnographic study of a romantic correspondance system, this article explores the themes of love, privacy, identity and public displays. Informed by ethnomethodology and actor-network theory its investigations into these informal affairs are somewhat unusual in that much of the research carried out by those bodies of work concentrates on institutional settings such as laboratories, offices and courtrooms. In common with ethnomethodology it attempts to re-specify some topics of interest in the social sciences and humanities; in this case, documents and practices of writing and reading those documents. A key element of the approach taken is restoring to reading and writing their situated nature as observable, knowable, distributed community practices. Re-specifying topics for the social sciences involves the detailed description of several situated ways in which the romantic correspondence system is used. Detailing the translations, transformations and transportations of documents as 'quasi-objects' through several orderings, the article suggests that documents have no essential meaning and that making them meaningful is part of the work of those settings

KNOWLEDGE AND USERS’ PREFERENCES OF CONTEMPORARY MARKETING STRATEGIES USED IN ACADEMIC LIBRARIES

Purpose: This study investigated knowledge and users’ preferences of contemporary marketing strategies used in academic libraries. It is a user study innovation characterized by granting users’ with the information appropriate for better library usage and their feedback to analyze how what is presented to them makes an impact towards their attainment of academic goals. Methodology: This study carried out in University of Calabar Library adopted survey research design on a population of 1804 registered users. A simple random sampling technique was adopted in selecting 600 undergraduate and postgraduate registered users. Accordingly, 600 copies of questionnaire were distributed in the reader services units, which comprised Social Sciences, Medical, Africana, Humanities, Law, Reference as well as Science and Technology/Annex Divisions of the library. Questionnaire was distributed with a condition that only registered users who use the library often (at least thrice a week) were eligible to respond. Only 428 usable copies were returned and these were analyzed for the study. Findings: Study revealed users’ knowledge of marketing strategies in the following sequence Digital media marketing 423(98.83%), Awareness services marketing 377(88.08%) and Conducive environment marketing 224(52.34%). The result of preferences showed Digital media marketing as most preferred with 421(98.36%), Awareness services marketing had 398 (92.99%) respondents and Conducive environment marketing 204(47.66%). On the challenges, two respondents (5&34) frankly indicated their lack of understanding for the term conducive environment. This has a great implication for the result altogether but other respondents revealed their challenges with regards to inappropriate time fixed for library use of e-library, epileptic power supply, low bandwidth, that causes the network to show while pages were unable to open and staff negative attitude. Suggestions were given to encourage the publications of local news and magazines, which would help to intimate users of issues relating to library use among others. Originality: This article offer valuable insight on the users’ knowledge and preferences of contemporary marketing strategies in academic libraries. This indicate that, it is only when users’ are given what they desire, that they could be said to be satisfied. Classification: Research paper Keywords: Information, librarians’ empathy, Knowledge, users’ preferences, Contemporar

Informing Practice through Collaborative Partnerships

This paper focuses on students and their teacher engaging in authentic tasks and materials couched in problem-oriented formats within meaningful learning contexts that foster thinking and learning. Authentic in that students construct meaning from real data and are asked to make sense of the world around them. Students pursue individual paths of inquiry using critical and imaginative thinking, and engage in social and solitary contexts that involve them in writing, intervening, and reflecting on ideas gleaned from conversations and readings (electronic and conventional) with a university educator and NASA science educator. The process engages students in formal skills such as written communication, literacy, logic, and calculation using an innovative electronic interactive network. Evaluations of timed writings, concept maps, and Vee diagrams are presente

What is a book?

The aim of this paper is to reach a level of conceptual clarity about what we call a book. The motivation for this exercise lies in the desire to chart the trajectory of the book as a cultural phenomenon in light of the gradual move to shorter textual expression that is taking place alongside the delivery of stories in other forms besides text. For this purpose the article takes a historical perspective without, however, attempting to chart all the phases in the development of the book. Concurrently with the move to shorter textual expression, in the digital reading environment the basic elements of the 1964 UNESCO definition of the book (printed, a minimum number of pages) have had to be left behind. Alongside the arrival of new publishing business models, the entire notion of the book is in jeopardy. This set of developments calls for a fundamental reconsideration of how we define a book in relation to other book-like objects and text forms. The approach taken is iterative, moving closer towards a definition of the book whilst acknowledging the arrival of offspring such as the ebook and audiobook

Hardwiring consumer desire: Publishing and promoting the online technocultural experience : a critical textual analysis of Wired magazine and its advertising, 1993-1996

This thesis examines the evolution of magazine publishing in the face of significant technological change in print-based industries. It takes as its focus the techno-lifestyle magazine Wired, and to a lesser degree its online derivative, Hot Wired because both these media magazines exemplify the changes in publishing examined. In the magazine\u27s initial editorial statement Louis Rossetto, the publisher and editor of Wired, claimed to \u27\u27reinvent the magazine .. ,going beyond paper by making our hard copy edition a gateway to our interactive services {Rossetto, 1993, p. 12). This claim demands an explanation as it suggests that changes in media are revolutionary rather than evolutionary. Specifically, it suggests a reinvention (rather than evolution) of magazine publishing, magazine form, the media environment and rending and consumption practices. The thesis takes this claim as a basis for exploring the evolution of the magazine as a cultural and material form in the context of late 20th century, hypermediated capitalism. In order to achieve a detailed yet nuanced analysis of Wired\u27s claim of reinvention, the thesis has been organised into areas which analyse Wired\u27s material and textual characteristics, the construction and promotion of techno-lifestyle in relation to Wired\u27s readership, and an examination of Wired\u27s online derivative - Hot Wired. To achieve this level of analysis the thesis draws upon three theoretical approaches. It analyses the history and characteristics of the magazine form by drawing upon medium theory as articulated by Harold Innis and his successors Marshall McLuhan, Walter Ong, and Ronald Deibert. This approach is combined, secondly, with a historical comparative analysis of the American specialist lifestyle magazine as refracted through the work of Harold Abrahamson. Finally, to analyse the relationship between magazines, technological convergence and the construction and promotion of techno-lifestyle, the thesis uses contemporary, critical textual analysis as articulated by theorists such as Ellen McCracken and Andrew Wernick. Medium theory suggests that there is, increasingly, convergence at the level of production. Here media, telecommunications and computers/IT intersect to create a new kind of publishing environment. Such changes in textual production reflect an emerging techno-lifestyle that promotes interconnectivity between consumers and producers and an intensification of hybridity and intertextuality in material forms such as Wired. This thesis will demonstrate that some material characteristics of the print magazine have evolved more gradually in the past century than other aspects connected with the magazine form and magazine publishing. These other aspects include, digital and online technologies, which are currently informing change in modes of production, distribution, content, design, authorship, readership and consumption. Relationships between media form and media environment, reading practices, reader and text, however need to be examined further before the claim that magazines have been \u27reinvented\u27 can be critically assessed. This research is part of that project. It contributes to the nascent body of new media research by providing an innovative theoretical framework that challenges and dispels the claim of media reinvention by interrogating the technological and commercial processes of media evolution in relation to the mid-l990s print magazine and emergent new media technologies

Standardization, compromise, or specialization: a content analysis of magazine advertisements in America and Taiwan

When researchers studied standardization and specialization of advertising, most of them only focused on comparisons of the cultural influences of the advertisements across the different nations. McCarty (1994) studied the general role in cross-cultural research and international marketing and advertising of several different cultural values, such as individualism versus collectivism: masculinity versus femininity; time orientation, activity orientation and humans’ relationship with nature. Kahle, Beatty and Mager (1994) studied implications of social values for European community communications. Astroff (1994) (1994) studied the language culture use of women in advertising. Huang (1995) studied the different cultural factors, such as norms and ethics, between American and Taiwan’s television commercials. Caillat and Muller studied the cultural influences on American and British beer advertising in 1996. Cheng and Schweitzer (1996) computed cultural values, such as tradition versus modernity, reflected in American and British beer advertising. Although many of the international studies were carried out comparing the differences among cultures it will be of more practical value to study advertising messages because the results might be able to provide guidelines for the international marketers and international advertisers to sell their products across countries. Researchers, such as Ramaprased and Hasegawa (1992 & 1992), who have been focusing on international advertising from the standpoint of creative development rather than cultural influence view advertising standardization, compromise, specialization as creative strategies. Douglas and Dubois (1977) studied how the cultural environment impacts market and advertising strategies across countries. In 1981, Kaynak and Mitchell analyzed marketing and advertising strategies used in Turkey, Britain and Canada. Kanso (1992) studied the significant differences of the cultures in international advertising. Killough (1978) researched the transfer of international advertising. Colvin, Heeler and Thorpe (1980) researched advertising strategies in three European countries: United Kingdom, France and Sweden. Dowling (1980) studied American and Australian use of informational cues in different product categories on television. Hornik (1980) compared the evaluations of international and national advertising strategies. In 1988, Hite and Fraser studied international advertising strategies of multinational corporations. Keown, Jacobs, Schmidt and Ghymn (1992) studied different information cues used in America, Japanese, South Korean and Chinese television, radio, magazine, and newspaper advertisements. Duncan and Ramaprasad (1995) studied international advertising strategy, execution, and language differences. This study is designed to separate one aspect from other various influences in advertising and to focus on advertising creative strategies in international markets by following these researchers’ guidelines

Monopoly Power in the Electronic Information Industry: Why, and So What?

This law and economics article diagnoses why monopoly power infects so many markets in the electronic media, communications, and information technology industries (collectively the Industry ),and recommends changes to prevailing intellectual property and antitrust doctrines to remedy this problem. The analysis focuses on a single norm -- the maximization of economic value, as defined by standard welfare economic theory. Identifying three distinct functions that operate throughout this otherwise diverse Industry -- authoring, publishing, and distribution -- the article notes that two economic peculiarities characterize most Industry markets: the technical feasibility of non-rivalrous use of digitized information products, and the frequent creative destruction of Industry markets by new technologies and business methods. Using these concepts, the article argues that, while concern surrounding media megamergers is overwrought, certain public policies do significantly constrain economic value creation in the Industry. The article proposes reforming several major legal doctrines and public policies to loosen these constraints, e.g.: (a) reduce the over recognition of copyrights and patents, (b) cease the over enclosure: of the radio spectrum, (c) challenge more frequently nationalizing mergers among local/regional distribution network monopolies, (d) aggressively promote open standards for interconnecting networks and software platforms, and (e) simplify antitrust rules against the cross-market leveraging of monopoly power, including a ban on dominant distribution companies engaging in preferential self-dealing in related markets. The article concedes that such reforms, though also satisfying many non-economic norms, would meet stout political resistance from established Industry firms