Fortnight

Fortnight is a two-week long, fully immersive, experience based in the interactions and communications of daily life. Up to 200 participants sign up to receive messages that are sent to their mobile phones, email, and home address; these messages contain a series of poetic nudges that encourage those participating to question their sense of place. Participants also receive daily invitations to visit locations throughout their city where they can pause to reflect on what it means to be here now. Fortnight enables the experience of “theatre” to penetrate beneath a seemingly brittle aesthetic surface of performance, deep into the consciousnesses of our participants as they begin to interact with and perceive world around us as the performance itself; the place where we act out our own daily lives. In Fortnight, the spectator becomes participant; the journey becomes narrative. Fortnight therefore subverts the notion of an audience, in which each spectator’s perspective is forced to examine not the situation and setting of performers on a stage, but rather the situation and setting of our own sense of place and the meaning we apportion to our everyday lives. Fortnight uses various forms of ubiquitous technology such as: Radio Frequency Identification (aka, RFID tags of the type contained in key fobs), which are used in badges sent to each participant that allow them to interact with real-world “portals” to trigger certain effects in their surroundings; QR technology (in the form of barcodes on posters that reveal additional hidden messages, should the participant choose to delve further; SMS messages; email; and, Twitter. Alongside this, older modes of communication such as handwritten letters, give Fortnight a decidedly low-fi aesthetic. Throughout Fortnight, participants are encouraged to explore the creative possibilities of pervasive and communicative media without reverting to mere technological fetishism. In Fortnight, each mode of communication is used not only for its functionality but also as symbols that bind the project and the participant together, rooting them to the here and now with the everyday tools of modern society. The mediated messages within Fortnight lead participants down a living, breathing rabbit hole where the familiar becomes unfamiliar and reality distorts. The project becomes an experience for the participant that is as immersive as their own life; creating an alternative reality, that not only co-exists alongside their own everyday realities, but also merges with them.This is a performance with shared responsibilities, reflecting the actions and consequences of our daily lives: what we put in, we get out

The Communication Policy of the European Commission: Radio Broadcasting since the 90s, from Radio E to Euranet Plus

In the middle of the most pronounced economic crisis since its inception, many of the communication policies initiated by the European Union in recent decades must be evaluated and redefined considering the future of the Union. The challenge to define Europe and create a common identity that respects the diversity of cultures within the Union has been attempted through various media policies. We explore the recent evolution of European radio policies, considering a range of projects from the global to network levels (e.g. Radio E, Euranet and Euranet Plus) that are fundamental to our understanding of the use of media in the development of a European identity that respects the diversity of cultures within the Union.This article is part of the research project «Cultural Diversity and Audiovisual: good practices and indicators» (ref. CSO2011-26241), which is part of the National Plan of Scientific Research, Development and Technological Innovation of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness

The mediated innovation model: a framework for researching media influence in language change

Linguistic innovations that arise contemporaneously in highly distant locations, such as quotative be like, have been termed ‘global linguistic variants’. This is not necessarily to suggest fully global usage, but to invoke more general themes of globalisation vis-à-vis space and time. This research area has grown steadily in the last twenty years, and by asserting a role for mass media, researchers have departed intrepidly from sociolinguistic convention. Yet they have largely relied on quite conventional sociolinguistic methodologies, only inferring media influence post hoc. This methodological conservatism has been overcome recently, but uncertainty remains about the overall shape of the new epistemological landscape. In this paper, I review existing research on global variants, and propose an epistemological model for researching media influence in language change: the mediated innovation model. I also analyse the way arguments are constructed in existing research, including the use of rhetorical devices to plug empirical gaps – a worthy sociolinguistic topic in its own right

managing the miTV Offering

There are three main purposes with this thesis: The first purpose is to find the opinions of the next generation users about mobile TV as an integrated function in mobile phones and the requirement for mobile TV to be appealing to the consumer. The second purpose is to find out what the value chain of mobile TV may look like and if there are incentives for all players required. The third purpose is to analyze how Sony Ericsson Mobile Communication (SEMC) and players in similar situations, being technology pushing, shall manage the phenomenon of inertia in technology innovation adoption resulting in deviations in consumer opinions and industry interests. The conclusions are: The N-Gens are spontaneously negative when first introduced to the mobile TV concept. This resistance can only be overcome by presenting a complete offering, miTV that exceeds the high expectations of the N-Gens. To create this offering will require the cooperation of the DTV value chain and the mobile phone value chain in a value creating net, including the right partners. This will most likely be achieved by the hybrid solution. Merely presenting an offering is not enough; it also has to be introduced to the market in the right way. For SEMC, this means by a triple drive strategy

Organisational and strategic communication research: European perspectives II

(Excerto) This e-book presents a selection of the research papers presented at the 5th European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) Conference in Lisbon, November, 2015. The book reflects the work of researchers within the Organisational and Strategic Communication (OSC) Section of ECREA from different backgrounds and higher education institutions in Europe and highlights the diverse professional and scientific interests of the Section. At the 5th ECREA Conference, the OSC Section selected almost 50 papers from the 90 submitted abstracts, which were organized into two specialist panels (“Government Public Relations in Europe: Critical Perspectives” and “Inconsistences Organizational Communication”), eight parallel sessions and one poster session. Those papers selected for Lisbon 2015 made a valuable contribution to key contemporary communications debates and issues. The peer reviewed papers presented in this volume share findings and “state of the art” critical reflections, which address the core objective of the Organisational and Strategic Communication Section of ECREA. They also continue the tradition of the promoting scientific knowledge in our broad and diverse field of research, which has been central to Section’s raison d’être since its creation in 2006

Organisational and Strategic Communication Research: European Perspectives II

This e-book presents a selection of the research papers presented at the 5th European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) Conference in Lisbon, November, 2015. The book reflects the work of researchers within the Organisational and Strategic Communication (OSC) Section of ECREA from different backgrounds and higher education institutions in Europe and highlights the diverse professional and scientific interests of the Section

The role of digitally native, nonprofit news media in the future of American journalism: an exploratory study

Unprecedented changes in journalism practices have been occurring since the 21st century ushered in the digital age. News gathering methods, means of information delivery, and consumer habits have altered dramatically because of technological advances, causing a disruption in the traditional business model. Newspapers, historically the key instrument for investigative and public affairs reporting in the United States, have been the media sector facing the biggest decline in revenue and circulation. While the audience is migrating to traditional news outlets online, the advertisers are not. Free services such as eBay and Craig\u27s List have contributed to a nearly 50% drop in revenue for newspapers. Therefore, the once profitable news industry is no longer as attractive to corporate owners with commercial interests. The response has been severe budget and staff cuts. An estimated 30% of traditional journalism jobs have been eliminated. In response to the fiscal crisis, 60 nonprofit news organizations have formed, mostly online, with the mission of performing public service journalism. Hearings on the future of news have been held by a U.S. Senate committee, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Federal Communications Commission, which is researching whether these digitally native nonprofit news outlets should be eligible for government funding, similar to the public broadcasting system. The purpose of this exploratory study was to gain a better understanding of how these digitally native nonprofit journalists view their role in the future of public service journalism and determine whether government financing is appropriate or even desired by the leaders of these organizations. Findings suggest that the leaders view their role as necessary to democracy because they provide information about public affairs, serve as a watchdog of government officials, and engage the public in a discussion of community issues using digital technology. However, they cannot perform these functions alone. The leaders see partnerships with commercial and public media as key to their success. The respondents also are concerned with diversifying their revenue streams beyond foundation and philanthropic funding. They do not support direct government subsidies, however, because they believe that type of support would present ethical and credibility issues

Purity Lost: The Paradoxical Face of the New Transnational Legal Body

Modern international law seems to be in disarray. The classic doctrines of international law, with their focus on sovereignty, state consent, custom and treaty, do not provide a satisfactory explanation for many of the practices and institutional structures that fill the global legal universe. The contemporary legal terrain is characterized by overlapping jurisdictions, inconsistent doctrinal interpretations and competing worldviews. But what are the social implications of the deepening fragmentation and increasing complexity of the global legal system? Some observers see these phenomena as a new global risk, which requires urgent collective response. Global constitutionalisation is put forward in this context as a possible and appropriate response. Using the notions of purity and paradox the article develops an analytic framework in which the increasing complexity of the international legal system can be elucidated. The complexification of the global legal system is described in terms of a move from purity to impurity and from singular to multiple paradoxicality. The article uses examples from diverse fields of law - ranging from the WTO, the International Criminal Court, to the ICC International Court of Arbitration and the World Wide Web Consortium Platform for Privacy Preferences Project to develop this argument. Drawing on this framework the article considers the consequences of the complexification of the global legal system in terms of its stability and legitimacy. Rather than seeing the messy nature of modern international law as a risk the article postulates it as an evolutionary achievement which extends the horizon of possibilities through which the international legal system can react to social pressures. Drawing on ideas from systems theory and ecology the article argues that the attempts to purify the international legal system through appeal to grand theories - constitutional, moral or other - could have negative social consequences. The article explores in this context an alternative institutional model - non-hierarchical reflexivity - which embraces, rather than oppose, the innate paradoxicality of modern international law