Close, but not close enough? Audience’s reactions to domesticated distant suffering in international news coverage

The interest in audience responses to mediated distant suffering has been growing in the last decade. Earlier research about the mediation of distant suffering was often morally or theoretically based, or textually informed and recent empirical research has often focused on how the theories and text–based studies resonate with empirical research of the audience. Earlier text–based research has found that journalists domesticate news about distant events to bring such events closer by and thus make them more relevant and appealing. Four types to domesticate news about distant suffering were found; emotional domestication, aid–driven domestication, familiarizing the unfamiliar, and “what are the stakes”. These domestication strategies aim to establish a link between the distant event and the national or local context of the viewer to bring distant events closer to home and to invite the audience to care. Knowledge about the actual audience’s reactions towards domesticated news is lacking. Therefore, central to this study is whether, and how domestication strategies on the production side of the news, are recognized and if these, or other domesticating strategies are employed by the audience to be caring and morally engaged towards the distant victims. In order to study this we conducted ten focus groups (N=51) in January and February 2016, where we showed a news item about the earthquake in Nepal which happened nine months before. The empirical analysis is informed by concepts from the fields of moral and social psychology. For one, according to social psychological traditions, differentiation is made between people’s cognitive (rational) and affective (emotional) reactions towards their social environment. In addition, and more specifically, we used the concepts empathy and sympathy, defined in the field of moral– and social psychology to structurally analyze people’s reaction towards the mediated distant suffering. We also used the social psychologically informed concept of ‘denial’ to study people’s less caring reactions towards the mediated suffering. Based on the empirical results, we propose a two–flow model of domestication, consisting of first–level domestication on the production side by journalists, and second–level domestication where the audience themselves uses strategies of domestication to make sense of distant suffering. In addition, not all domestication strategies were equally, or equally successfully employed by the audience for a better understanding of– or moral engagement towards, the suffering

Activating Boxmind: an evaluation of a web‐based video lecture with synchronized activities

The aim of this study was to evaluate the use of synchronous computer‐mediated communication activities in a video e‐lecture. Previous research has reported that learning is facilitated when communication activities are added to a video lecture. Twelve postgraduate students participated in the study and they viewed a video e‐lecture on the perspective‐taking theory of communication. The lecture consisted of a video image of the lecturer, an audio track, slides, the transcript and a number of communication activities. They were given a pre‐test a week before the lecture and a post‐test a week after. They were also asked to rate the helpfulness of various aspects of the lecture. Students’ post‐test scores were statistically significantly higher than their pre‐test scores. They found the audio track, transcript, slides and activities helpful. The most helpful aspects were the communication activities. The implications of these findings are discussed

Improvable objects and attached dialogue: new literacy practices employed by learners to build knowledge together in asynchronous settings

Asynchronous online dialogue offers advantages to learners, but has appeared to involve only limited use of new literacy practices. To investigate this, a multimodal approach was applied to asynchronous dialogue. The study analysed the online discussions of small groups of university students as they developed collaboratively authored documents. Sociocultural discourse analysis of the dialogue was combined with visual analysis of its structural elements. The groups were found to employ new literacies that supported the joint construction of knowledge. The documents on which they worked together functioned as ‘improvable objects’ and the development of these was associated with engagement in ‘attached dialogue’. By investigating a wider range of conference dialogue than has previously been explored, it was found that engaging in attached dialogue associated with collaborative authorship of improvable objects prompts groups of online learners to share knowledge, challenge ideas, justify opinions, evaluate evidence and consider options

Knowledge convergence in computer-supported collaborative learning

This study investigates how two types of graphical representation tools influence the way in which learners use knowledge resources in two different collaboration conditions. In addition, the study explores the extent to which learners share knowledge with respect to individual outcomes under these different conditions. The study also analyzes the relationship between the use of knowledge resources and different types of knowledge. The type of external representation (content-specific vs. content-independent) and the collaboration condition (videoconferencing vs. face-to-face) were varied. Sixty-four (64) university students participated in the study. Results showed that learning partners converged strongly with respect to their use of resources during the collaboration process. Convergence with respect to outcomes was rather low, but relatively higher for application-oriented knowledge than for factual knowledge. With content-specific external representation, learners used more appropriate knowledge resources without sharing more knowledge after collaboration. Learners in the computer-mediated collaboration used a wider range of resources. Moreover, in exploratory qualitative and quantitative analyses, the study found evidence for a relation between aspects of the collaborative process and knowledge convergence

Scripts and scaffolds In Problem-based computer supported collaborative learning environments: fostering participation and transfer

This study investigates collaborative learning of small groups via text-based com-puter-mediated communication. We analyzed how two approaches to pre-structure communication influence participation, individual knowledge transfer, the conver-gence of participation and the convergence of knowledge among learning partners. We varied the factor "scripted cooperation" and the factor "scaffolding" in a 2x2-design. 105 university students of Pedagogy participated. Results show that scrip-ted cooperation was most and scaffolding least beneficial to individual transfer, knowledge convergence and participation in comparison to open discourseDiese Studie befasst sich mit kooperativem Lernen in Kleingruppen über text-basierte computervermittelte Kommunikation. Es wurden zwei Ansätze der Vor-strukturierung von computervermittelter Kommunikation und ihre Auswirkungen auf Partizipation, individuellen Wissenstransfer, die Konvergenz der Partizipation und die Wissenskonvergenz innerhalb einer Lerngruppe untersucht. Dabei wurden die Faktoren "Kooperationsskript" und "Scaffolding" in einem 2x2-Design variiert. 105 Studierende der Pädagogik nahmen teil. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass sich das Ko-operationsskript am günstigsten und das Scaffolding am wenigsten günstig auf individuellen Wissenstransfer, Wissenskonvergenz und Partizipation im Vergleich zu einer Kontrollgruppe des 'Offenen Diskurses' ausgewirkt ha

MEDIA EFFECTS ON THE NEW YORK TIMES’ “THE WOMEN’S MARCH IN WASHINGTON” VIDEO NEWS COVERAGE ON FACEBOOK

The reliance towards Facebook in regard to obtaining information becomes a news habit among the society. Considerable number of news coverage from media is accessible to Facebook which creates effects on the audience on account of the media exposure. The study is conducted for the purposes of analyzing news elements which are embedded in The New York Times' “The Women's March in Wahsington”video news coverage on Facebook and discovering the effects of the coverage towards media audience. This study is constructed as a library research which utilizes textual and user-response analysis research methodology. The theory utilizes to support the study is Pan &Kosicki's Framing Analysis, and McComb& Shaw's Agenda-Setting theory is also applied in this study to support the framing analysis. The results of the study indicate that three salient elements of the coverage set public agenda to which the salient elements become prominent issues of the Women's March on Washington

Fostering shared knowledge with active graphical representation in different collaboration scenarios

This study investigated how two types of graphical representation tools influence the way in which learners use shared and unshared knowledge resources in two different collaboration scenarios, and how learners represent and transfer shared knowledge under these different conditions. Moreover, the relation between the use of knowledge resources, representation, and the transfer of shared knowledge was analyzed. The type of graphical representation (content-specific vs. content-unspecific) and the collaboration scenario (video conferencing vs. face-to-face) were varied. 64 university students participated. Results show that the learning partners converged in their profiles of resource use. With the content-specific graphical representation, learners used more appropriate knowledge resources. Learners in the computer-mediated scenarios showed a greater bandwidth in their profiles of resource use. A relation between discourse and outcomes could be shown for the transfer but not for the knowledge representation aspectIn dieser Studie werden die Wirkungen von verschiedenen Arten graphischer Repräsentation auf die Nutzung geteilter und ungeteilter Wissensressourcen in zwei verschiedenen Kooperationsszenarien untersucht. Des Weiteren wird analysiert, wie Lernende geteiltes und ungeteiltes Wissen unter diesen verschiedenen Bedingungen repräsentieren und transferieren. Schließlich wird die Beziehung zwischen der Nutzung von Wissensressourcen auf der einen Seite sowie der Repräsentation und dem Transfer geteilten Wissens auf der anderen Seite geprüft. Mit der Art der graphischen Repräsentation (inhaltsspezifisch vs. inhaltsunspezifisch) und dem Kooperationsszenario (Videokonferenz vs. face-to-face) werden zwei Faktoren experimentell variiert. 64 Studierende nahmen an der Studie teil. Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Lernpartner in ihren Profilen der Ressourcennutzung konvergierten. Lernende, die durch die inhaltsspezifische graphische Repräsentation unterstützt wurden, verwendeten angemessenere Wissensressourcen. Lernende in den computervermittelten Szenarien weisen eine größere Bandbreite in ihren Profilen der Ressourcennutzung auf. Eine direkte Wirkung vom Diskurs der Lernenden auf die Entwicklung geteilten Wissens konnte für den Transfer, aber nicht für die Wissensrepräsentation gezeigt werde

Telepresence and the Role of the Senses

The telepresence experience can be evoked in a number of ways. A well-known example is a player of videogames who reports about a telepresence experience, a subjective experience of being in one place or environment, even when physically situated in another place. In this paper we set the phenomenon of telepresence into a theoretical framework. As people react subjectively to stimuli from telepresence, empirical studies can give more evidence about the phenomenon. Thus, our contribution is to bridge the theoretical with the empirical. We discuss theories of perception with an emphasis on Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Gibson, the role of the senses and the Spinozian belief procedure. The aim is to contribute to our understanding of this phenomenon. A telepresence-study that included the affordance concept is used to empirically study how players report sense-reactions to virtual sightseeing in two cities. We investigate and explore the interplay of the philosophical and the empirical. The findings indicate that it is not only the visual sense that plays a role in this experience, but all senses

Collaborative design : managing task interdependencies and multiple perspectives

This paper focuses on two characteristics of collaborative design with respect to cooperative work: the importance of work interdependencies linked to the nature of design problems; and the fundamental function of design cooperative work arrangement which is the confrontation and combination of perspectives. These two intrinsic characteristics of the design work stress specific cooperative processes: coordination processes in order to manage task interdependencies, establishment of common ground and negotiation mechanisms in order to manage the integration of multiple perspectives in design

The influence of film music on moral judgments of movie scenes and felt emotions

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.Music can modulate perceptions, actions, and judgments in everyday situations. The aim of this study was to investigate a potential influence of music on moral judgments in the context of film reception. In the course of an online experiment, 252 participants were assigned to three different experimental conditions (no, positive, or negative music). Participants were requested to assess actions shown in two 2–3-minute audio-visual film excerpts with regard to their perceived moral rightness and to report induced emotions after watching the film clips. Afterwards, they were asked to complete the MFQ-30 questionnaire measuring the foundations of their moral judgments. Results revealed that in one of four cases (i.e. happiness in film excerpt 1), music had a significant effect on recipients’ emotions and also indirectly influenced their moral judgment. In three of four cases, however, the intended emotion induction through film music did not succeed, and thus a significant indirect influence of music on moral judgment was not found. Furthermore, associations between moral foundations, perceived rightness of action, and induced emotions were observed. Future lab studies are indicated to investigate potential moderating influences of the experimental environment on emotion induction through film music