"Why Couldn't the Wind Blow Backwards?" Woody Guthrie's Songs for Children

Like many early program hosts in the emerging mass communication medium of radio, Woody Guthrie — during the time he spent as a daily radio program host in Los Angeles, from 1937 through 1939 — learned to craft and hone extemporaneous techniques for successfully addressing a new and unseen audience. Without the benefit of later media effects studies and audience research, Guthrie discerned to whom he was speaking and in what kind of language that would best be accomplished. Guthrie determined that certain aspects of his aw-shucks personality were more successful than others, and this winnowing process developed the performing persona Guthrie utilized during the subsequent escalation of his cultural status. This critical-historical study describes the climate of radio production into which Guthrie and his co-hosts inserted themselves and examines the effect of the medium’s evolution not on the audience but on the performer. The evolving application of parasocial interaction theory is explored in the context of Guthrie’s process of determining his target demographics and especially of shaping the identity of his performing persona. The identity-forming process active in immediate interpersonal communication remains active within the asynchronous feedback channels between radio hosts and audiences. The cultural figure of Woody Guthrie celebrated nationally in the 1940s was largely an identity honed along the trial-and-error learning curve of his earlier radio tenure

Securitization in East Asia

Securitization offers a range of benefits for Asiaâs financial systems and economies as a mechanism to assist funding and investment. As a form of structured finance, reliable and efficient securitization can assist development by enabling financial systems to deepen and strengthenâthus contributing to overall economic growth and stability. It must be recognized, however, that there are both overt and more subtle risks in certain uses of securitization. The credit and liquidity crisis that began in the United States and spread to other developed financial systems in mid-2007 exposed the danger associated with securitization: excessive risk-taking or regulatory capital arbitrage rather than a tool to assist more conventional or conservative approaches to funding, risk management, or investment. Securitization has also been criticized for rendering financial markets opaque, while contributing to a growing emphasis in the global economy of credit intermediation conducted in capital markets rather than through banks. This study examines the institutional basis of these concerns by investigating the use of securitization in East Asia, questioning both the growth in regional activity since the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis, and the reasons for it remaining constrained. The paper concludes with a discussion of proposals to support proper development of securitization in the region, including institutional mechanisms that could better allow securitization to enhance development and financial stability. If East Asia begins to make fuller use of securitization, its motive will be to meet funding or investment needs in the real economy rather than balance sheet arbitrage of the kind that peaked elsewhere in 2007.Securitization; East Asia; debt markets; risk transfer

Crime and disorder strategic assessment

Produced for Avon & Somerset Constabulary and Bristol City Council, in line with Bristol's Mayor and the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) strategic partnership priorities, to ensure that the funding of £ 202.1 m was spent according to the local area needs. The report received favourable media coverage

A Value-sensitive Design Perspective of Cryptocurrencies: A Research Agenda

Cryptocurrencies and their underlying blockchain technology have begun to transform numerous industries. Although we have seen an uptrend in the types of created cryptocurrencies, it has not yet translated into mainstream adoption., In this paper, we use value-sensitive design principles to identify values among current and potential cryptocurrency adopters. Using Bitcoin as the context for this qualitative research study, we use grounded theory analytical techniques to discover manifested values among users and non-users. We develop a cryptocurrency value-sensitive design framework to summarize our results. As our main contribution, we offer a research agenda based on the cryptocurrency stakeholders’ underlying value system. This agenda can help information systems scholars apply this value-sensitive design perspective to their own cryptocurrency research

Currents, April 1984

Currents, volume 1, number 3.https://scholarworks.umt.edu/sac_publications/1028/thumbnail.jp

Why Mississippi Should Reform Its Penal Code

The Mississippi Penal Code was determined at the turn of this century to be the fifty-second-worst penal code in the United States. As much as Mississippi is often used to being-and is even proudly defiant for being-ranked low on national scales, this is an issue about which we should be deeply concerned. A well-drafted penal code is crucial because it is at the core of the primary value of justice. While we are experienced with being ranked last in many situations, often unfairly, the criticism of the Mississippi Penal Code is accurate. Although many of the cited defects are ameliorated by court opinions, it is not desirable that the penal law should be so dependent on numerous sources outside the code. This article is the first in a series of articles that will present the case for penal-code reform and explain the Committee\u27s rationales. This series of articles is intended to replace comments, which the Committee did not write, although there are extensive comments to the Model Penal Code, on which these proposals are based. This first article will introduce and explain the Committee\u27s process. In addition, this article will begin the explanation of the important areas of change, starting with states of mind and homicide. Future articles will explain the other groups of crimes and other issues that the Committee has addressed. In this article, Section II will explain the methodology of the Committee\u27s work; Section III will explain the Model Penal Code because it was used as the basis for the Committee\u27s proposals; Section IV will discuss the criticism of the current code; Section V will explain how the reform would improve two important areas of the Mississippi Code: state of mind and homicide. Section VI will conclude

A Study of Ethics in Crowd Work-Based Research

Crowd work as a form of a social-technical system has become a popular setting for conducting and distributing academic research. Crowd work platforms such as Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) are widely used by academic researchers. Recent scholarship has highlighted the importance of ethical issues because they could affect the long-term development and application of crowd work in various fields such as the gig economy. However, little study or deliberation has been conducted on the ethical issues associated with academic research in this context. Current sources for ethical research practice, such as the Belmont Report, have not been examined thoroughly on how they should be applied to tackle the ethical issues in crowd work-based research such as those in data collection and usage. Hence, how crowd work-based research should be conducted to make it respectful, beneficent, and just is still an open question. This dissertation research has pursued this open question by interviewing 15 academic researchers and 17 IRB directors and analysts in terms of their perceptions and reflections on ethics in research on MTurk; meanwhile, it has analyzed 15 research guidelines and consent templates for research on MTurk and 14 published papers from the interviewed scholars. Based on analyzing these different sources of data, this dissertation research has identified three dimensions of ethics in crowd work-based research, including ethical issues in payment, data, and human subjects. This dissertation research also uncovered the “original sin” of these ethical issues and discussed its impact in academia, as well as the limitations of the Belmont Report and AoIR Ethical Guidelines 3.0 for Internet Research. The findings and implications of this research can help researchers and IRBs be more conscious about ethics in crowd work-based research and also inspire academic associations such as AoIR to develop ethical guidelines that can address these ethical issues

Young people who fireset in Western Australia: Peer group influences and impulsiveness trump consequences

The paradoxical character of fire is perfectly captured by the juxtaposition between the initial ease and excitement of lighting fires, and fire’s destructive and uncontrollable nature. Australia is fire prone with its hot, dry climate, volatile vegetation and urban sprawl surrounded by bushland. Since an estimated 50% of fires lit in Australia are deliberate (Stanley & Read, 2016) the problem of intentional firesetting cannot be overstated. This thesis argues that youth firesetting requires both macro- and microlevel approaches to appreciate the complexities of the problem, and aims to identify applicable and directed responses to minimise youth firesetting. Study one analysed data collected by the Western Australia Police to gain an understanding of characteristics associated with 20 medium to high-risk adult firesetters, such as proximal and developmental vulnerabilities. This study determined macro and microlevel theories are essential to explain firesetting. In study two, seven child and adolescent firesetters were interviewed to explore why they chose to light a fire. This qualitative research examined firesetting through the personal stories of young people who have set fires in Western Australia. Findings suggest that peer influence and impulsiveness outweigh a child’s capacity to anticipate the consequences of their firesetting. Supported also is the relevance of fire-specific and antisocial activity in the development of firesetting behaviour. Family function presented as both an influencing factor, and as a moderating factor for firesetting behaviour. This thesis found that social factors contribute a proximal and antecedent role in firesetting behaviour. Consequently, findings confirmed the need for the development of a micro-level theory to explain youth firesetting