Analysis of roles and groups in blogosphere

In the paper different roles of users in social media, taking into consideration their strength of influence and different degrees of cooperativeness, are introduced. Such identified roles are used for the analysis of characteristics of groups of strongly connected entities. The different classes of groups, considering the distribution of roles of users belonging to them, are presented and discussed.Comment: 8th International Conference on Computer Recognition Systems, CORES 201

Innovation brokers and their roles in value chain-network innovation: preliminary findings and a research agenda

Intervention approaches have been implemented in developing countries to enhance farmer's livelihoods through improving their linkages to markets and inclusiveness in agricultural value chains. Such interventions are aimed at facilitating the inclusion of small farmers not just in the vertical activities of the value chain (coordination of the chain) but also in the horizontal activities (cooperation in the chain). Therefore value addition is made by not just innovating products and services, but also by innovating social processes, which we define as Value Chain-Network Innovation. In Value Chain-Network Innovation, linkage formation among networks and optimisation is one of the main objectives of innovation enhancing interventions. Here some important roles for innovation brokers are envisaged as crucial to dynamise this process, connecting different actors of the innovation system, paying special attention to the weaker ones. However, little attention has been given to identify different innovation brokering roles in those approaches, and to the need that they facilitate innovation processes and open safe spaces for innovation and social learning at different organisational settings and levels, to have more effective and sustainable impacts. This paper offers some preliminary empirical evidence of the roles of innovation brokers in a developing country setting, recognising the context-sensitive nature of innovations. Two cases from work experience with intervention approaches are analysed in light of the theories of innovation brokering, presenting some empirical evidence of different types of arrangements made by innovation brokers. A third case was taken from the literature. Data from questionnaires, key informant interviews, participant observations of different types of activities and processes carried out in those approaches, SWOT analysis and project reports were used for the analysis of different types of brokering roles and to draw some lessons. One important outcome of this preliminary analysis was that Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in integration with other media facilitate new ways of social organisation and interaction of innovation networks, which offer more possibilities for processes of innovation, aggregating value to the production and sharing of knowledge. There is already a transition of paradigm for approaching agricultural innovation to more participative and open approaches, which offers a promissory landscape for organising the value chain actors in a way that is more favourable for small farmers

Climate Justice and Women's Rights: A Guide to Supporting Grassroots Women's Action

This Guide emerged from a "Summit on Women and Climate" in Bali, Indonesia, and aims to increase timely and appropriate funding for worldwide climate action initiatives led by women and their communities. The Guide is not a comprehensive resource on climate change or women's rights. Instead, it addresses an urgent need within the funding community and offers concrete, practical guidance that: Orients grantmakers to the importance of funding at the intersection of climate justice and women's rights.Draws lessons from specific examples of funding for women's climate change initiatives.Provides guidance on how funders can collaborate to direct timely and appropriate funding to women and their communities.Advocates for bringing women's voices into climate change policy discussions.Highlights the strong impact that small (less than $10,000) to medium-sized ($10,000-$50,000) grants can make in women-organized efforts to address climate change at the community level, across geographic boundaries and in global climate policy. Grassroots women's climate activism is becoming increasingly critical to women's collective and individual rights, freedom and survival

Inserting extant corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities of international oil companies in the Niger Delta Region

In this paper, the author aims to draw on his thesis to discuss extant CSR activities of IOCs in the NDR. The paper presents a compelling insight on the CSR activities of select IOCs in the NDR and how such activities identify in Carroll’s Pyramid of CSR for the purposes of relevance and generalisability. The issue of equitable distribution of oil resources has been very contentious in the NDR within the last couple of decades and its implications can hardly be exaggerated. The paper confirms the salient role of some IOCs in the provision of social welfare packages and the overall development of the region. Furthermore, the paper examines the Global Memorandum of Understanding (GMOU) framework, an approach considered as ``best practice’’ model by IOCs in the region. The model combines IOCs’ expertise with local stakeholder intelligence to achieve the desired results. The author presents a summary of the evolution of CSR in the NDR underscoring the significance of localized ``best practice`` approach. The paper concludes by highlighting the limitations of CSR in the sustainable development of the NDR

On the discovery of social roles in large scale social systems

The social role of a participant in a social system is a label conceptualizing the circumstances under which she interacts within it. They may be used as a theoretical tool that explains why and how users participate in an online social system. Social role analysis also serves practical purposes, such as reducing the structure of complex systems to rela- tionships among roles rather than alters, and enabling a comparison of social systems that emerge in similar contexts. This article presents a data-driven approach for the discovery of social roles in large scale social systems. Motivated by an analysis of the present art, the method discovers roles by the conditional triad censuses of user ego-networks, which is a promising tool because they capture the degree to which basic social forces push upon a user to interact with others. Clusters of censuses, inferred from samples of large scale network carefully chosen to preserve local structural prop- erties, define the social roles. The promise of the method is demonstrated by discussing and discovering the roles that emerge in both Facebook and Wikipedia. The article con- cludes with a discussion of the challenges and future opportunities in the discovery of social roles in large social systems

Participatory Transformations

Learning, in its many forms, from the classroom to independent study, is being transformed by new practices emerging around Internet use. Conversation, participation and community have become watchwords for the processes of learning promised by the Internet and accomplished via technologies such as bulletin boards, wikis, blogs, social software and repositories, devices such as laptops, cell phones and digital cameras, and infrastructures of internet connection, telephone, wireless and broadband. This chapter discusses the impact of emergent, participatory trends on education. In learning and teaching participatory trends harbinge a radical transformation in who learns from whom, where, under what circumstances, and for what and whose purpose. They bring changes in where we find information, who we learn from, how learning progresses, and how we contribute to our learning and the learning of others. These trends indicate a transformation to "ubiquitous learning" ??? a continuous anytime, anywhere, anyone contribution and retrieval of learning materials and advice on and through the Internet and its technologies, niches and social spaces.not peer reviewe

Women as social entrepreneurs in the hospitality and tourism industry: Does empowerment play a role?

This paper which is a work in progress presents a qualitative study exploring the nature, motivations and extent to which female entrepreneurs use their H&T businesses as platforms for engagement in various forms of social entrepreneurship (SE) leading to value creation, economic and community development. Although SE is seen as a key contributor to the creation and diversification of entrepreneurial activity, women empowerment and local economic development, there is limited research on the role of female H&T entrepreneurs in emerging non -western destinations. We focus on the following research questions: a) Can female entrepreneurs in H&T be considered as social entrepreneurs? b) How does the structure and organization of society shape the nature of female participation in SE? c) What are the challenges involved in mobilizing female entrepreneurs to effectively engage in SE? d) How does SE maximise value creation and higher levels of satisfaction for all participants? Concepts from women-owned H&T enterprises, SE and women empowerment are drawn upon. We argue that women are embedded in male dominated traditions/customs, community associations and government bureaucracies that may either empowered or dis-empower them. Using the case of Cameroon, we examine how embeddedness enhances the capacity of women to engage in SE in the H&T industry, thereby contributing to local economic development. Empirically we adopt a mixed methods approach using multiple case studies: a survey questionnaire, five focus groups meetings (two women -only, one male-only, and two mix of male and female entrepreneurs) and twenty-five in-depth interviews with selected female entrepreneurs (18), (non)governmental organisations (03) and beneficiaries (04) of social enterprise ventures between May 2014 and February 2015. The findings clarify the role of women in SE in H&T and policy implications for maximising social value creation through the participation of women in SE

Reading between the lines : is news media in Fiji supporting or challenging gender stereotypes? : a frame analysis of local news media coverage of violence against women during the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence campaign of 2017

Violence against women is recognised as a global public health issue and an obstacle to development, as ending it is inextricably linked with achieving gender equality. The public relies on and believes in the capacity of news media to present them with a ‘true’ picture of reality and the news media are therefore treated as valuable allies in changing the norms, beliefs and attitudes that perpetuate violence against women. In the production and consumption of news, however, journalists employ frames to condense complex events into interesting and appealing news reports, in turn influencing how audiences view particular events, activities and issues, especially when it comes to attributing blame and responsibility. This study employs a frame analysis to identify whether, and to what extent, episodic or thematic framing is used in news articles on violence against women published in the Fiji Sun and Fiji Times during and around the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence campaign of 2017. It showed that episodic framing was overwhelmingly used in the sample, thereby divorcing the violence from its social roots and encouraging audiences to blame the individuals involved, both for the violence itself and for remedying it. This directly contradicts the campaign’s central principles positioning violence against women as a social and development issue that requires every member of society to play a part in ending it. The results, therefore, suggest that changes are needed in how organisations engage with the news media to ensure that coverage of violence against women improves in both quantity and quality