Social Media under Social Control: Regulating Social Media and the Future of Socialization

The process of socialization for new and future journalists will look dramatically different from the process undergone by previous generations of journalists, due to economic realities and changes in the nature of news production. The rise of social media and its role in the establishment of a successful career will also affect the integration of these rising professionals into their employing organizations. These changes in the socialization process will require alterations both in the day-to-day management of these individuals and in the theoretical approaches to studying their work, particularly with regard to the impact of social media on the profession. This paper demonstrates a wide range of concerns that media managers and researchers must consider as the journalism profession incorporates these new professionals into its ranks

From Textbooks To Safety Briefings: Helping Technical Writers Negotiate Complex Rhetorical Situations

In this dissertation, I analyze the organizational and political constraints that technical writers encounter when dealing with complex rhetorical situations, particularly within risk-management discourse. I ground my research in case studies of safety briefings that airlines provide to their passengers because these important documents have long been regarded as ineffective, yet they ve gone largely unchanged in the last 20 years. Airlines are required to produce these safety briefings, which must satisfy multiple audiences, such as corporate executives, federal safety inspectors, flight attendants, and passengers. Because space and time are limited when presenting safety information to passengers, the technical writers must negotiate constraints related to issues such as format, budget, audience education and language, passenger perceptions/fears, reproducibility, and corporate image/branding to name a few. The writers have to negotiate these constraints while presenting important (and potentially alarming) information in a way that s as informative, realistic, and tasteful as possible. But such constraints aren t unique to the airline industry. Once they enter the profession, many writing students will experience complex rhetorical situations that constrain their abilities to produce effective documentation; therefore, I am looking at the theories and skills that we re teaching our future technical communicators for coping with such situations. By applying writing-style and visual-cultural analyses to a set of documents, I demonstrate a methodology for analyzing complex rhetorical situations. I conclude by proposing a pedagogy that teachers of technical communication can employ for helping students assess and work within complex rhetorical situations, and I offer suggestions for implementing such practices in the classroom

Research Identities: Reflections of a Contract Researcher

This paper examines the institutional identity formation of contract research staff in the context of the Taylorisation of research knowledges. The author has been a contract researcher for many years, after initially training and practising as a Probation Officer. She makes links between her social work training, and her current practice as a qualitative researcher. Drawing on her experience of working on a variety of different projects, at a number of different institutions, and providing illustrative examples from projects in sociology, social policy, health, and education, she reflects on the implications of the current social organization of academic research both for professional research practice and for researcher identity. There is a paradox in the way that contract research staff accrue a wealth of experience of how research is organised and conducted in different contexts, a repertoire of skills, and a vast volume of various kinds of \'data\', whilst remaining vulnerable and marginalized figures within the academy, with few opportunities for professional development and advancement. She outlines a number of strategies she has employed in the preservation of the \'research self\', and concludes by suggesting that the academy has much to learn about the effective management of \'waste\', as embodied by researchers\' selves and their data, consequent upon the Taylorisation of research work.Taylorisation; Academic Work; Identities; Qualitative Research; In-Depth Interviews; Reflective Practice

A multimodal dataset of real world mobility activities in Parkinson’s disease

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterised by motor symptoms such as gait dysfunction and postural instability. Technological tools to continuously monitor outcomes could capture the hour-by-hour symptom fluctuations of PD. Development of such tools is hampered by the lack of labelled datasets from home settings. To this end, we propose REMAP (REal-world Mobility Activities in Parkinson’s disease), a human rater-labelled dataset collected in a home-like setting. It includes people with and without PD doing sit-to-stand transitions and turns in gait. These discrete activities are captured from periods of free-living (unobserved, unstructured) and during clinical assessments. The PD participants withheld their dopaminergic medications for a time (causing increased symptoms), so their activities are labelled as being “on” or “off” medications. Accelerometry from wrist-worn wearables and skeleton pose video data is included. We present an open dataset, where the data is coarsened to reduce re-identifiability, and a controlled dataset available on application which contains more refined data. A use-case for the data to estimate sit-to-stand speed and duration is illustrated

Using Internet‐Based Vignette Methods to Understand Elder Residential Choices

This paper illustrates an innovative method of administering fractional factorial surveys (vignettes) using the internet. The approach makes it possible to use video clips to deliver information. The method also provides subjects with interactive options before making judgments. A study to determine the views of older people regarding residential options is used to illustrate the method. The study found that the following characteristics of vignette persons affected subject recommendations: personal introduction, functional status, social network, and current housing characteristics. However, characteristics of retirement community features and personal financial status did not affect recommendations

PGCE Primary Trainee Teachers' Perceptions and Accounts of Using Manipulatives When Teaching Mathematics on Placement

Primary Postgraduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) teacher training courses are intense programmes of study that provide opportunities for trainees to develop and employ the more experiential aspects of classroom teaching such as making use of manipulatives. Manipulatives are tactile objects that can enrich instruction when handled. While there is a large body of complementary mathematical literature endorsing the use of manipulatives, some evidence exists within the literature that manipulatives are not used as effectively or as extensively as they could be. Little is known about how trainees conceive, use and apply manipulatives in the classroom. In response, this study explored eight primary PGCE trainee teachers’ experiences of using mathematical manipulatives as they develop their professional learning during placement. A mix of methods (survey, interviews and video recordings) was used over the course of one academic year. In order to understand the participants’ lived experiences, interviews were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Overall, findings indicated a silent set of institutional rules at play as to how manipulatives are selected, introduced and utilised, reinforcing habitual practices such as assigning manipulatives solely to the pupils classified as requiring further support. Study data also revealed the sensory experiences of the manipulative were used as a ‘lifebuoy’ to bridge the social gap caused by grouping by ability. Significantly, this study revealed that although trainees are novices, they appeared to be expected to cope and navigate difficulties with mathematics teaching in isolation. Participants reported that they drew on support for manipulative use from learning theories, textbooks and their own experiences. Mismatches existed between perceptions and accounts of use, and although manipulatives have many affordances, it was taken for granted the manipulatives and the associated language assigned would be universally understood. This thesis concluded inquiry-based practices could help trainees challenge their traditional view of mathematics teaching and how manipulatives are assigned and used in the classroom. A balance has to be found between providing enough support to nurture trainees in becoming autonomous professionals and setting policies that prescribe practices

Our Space: Being a Responsible Citizen of the Digital World

Our Space is a set of curricular materials designed to encourage high school students to reflect on the ethical dimensions of their participation in new media environments. Through role-playing activities and reflective exercises, students are asked to consider the ethical responsibilities of other people, and whether and how they behave ethically themselves online. These issues are raised in relation to five core themes that are highly relevant online: identity, privacy, authorship and ownership, credibility, and participation.Our Space was co-developed by The Good Play Project and Project New Media Literacies (established at MIT and now housed at University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism). The Our Space collaboration grew out of a shared interest in fostering ethical thinking and conduct among young people when exercising new media skills