Encounters on the social web: Everyday life and emotions online

Encounters also happen online nowadays and, yes, they are still difficult to describe, even though it is sometimes easier to observe them-and obtain data about them- than in the past. The internet is crucially 'shaping the interactions people have with one another' (Johns 2010: 499). With the recent explosion and popularity of Web 2.0 services and the social web, such as Facebook (FB), Twitter, and various other types of social media, internet users now have at their disposal an unprecedented collection of tools to interact with others. These modes of online sociability allow users to pursue social encounters with variable levels of involvement, attention, and activity (Papacharissi and Mendelson 2010). For many of us it is now difficult to imagine our social relationships without access to the internet. The social web plays an important role in relationships among internet users (Boyd 2006), with the expression, management and experience of emotions being key to the maintenance of these relationships

Qualitative analysis of social media data

Society has become thoroughly mediatised. Every aspect and part of society from the economy, politics and education to civil society and everyday social relations is immersed by media. Today we have the internet, smart phones, apps, social network services, blogs, email, and other social media platforms. Social media has brought changes to the way we inform, communicate with others, learn, play and socialize. Most people are quite well connected and communicate with others and while being connected they obtain, organize, produce and share information on a regular basis. These common routinely activities generate a large amount of information and knowledge of different forms, much of it created by ‘ordinary people’. This information is generally referred as digital social data which is potentially of great interest to social scientists (Sloan and Quan-Haase, 2017). From the emergence of the internet, both quantitative and qualitative research have been interested in analysing digital data for its endeavour. As social media have enlarged the size and variety of the traces of social actors’ actions and expressions, the analytical possibilities available for social science researchers have been reshaped too. This has brought to the fore the necessity of methodological innovations and interdisciplinary collaboration for the study of social media data. Conversely, this digital turn has generated lively debates about its potential to know the contemporary social world. While at the beginning of internet research scholars tended to study social life online as a separated from ‘real life’, researchers disputed this and argued the need for online social life to be viewed as an integral part of social life (Beneito-Montagut, 2011). Nevertheless, linking social media data to what is going on offline is still one of the challenges of digital social science research

The role of learning in innovation: in-house versus externally contracted R&D experience

En este trabajo se analiza el papel del aprendizaje en el éxito innovador de las empresas, tomando en consideración la naturaleza heterogénea de las actividades innovadoras, y en particular, distinguiendo entre el aprendizaje que proviene de la realización interna de actividades de I+D y el aprendizaje que proviene de la contratación externa de estas actividades. Para este trabajo se utiliza una muestra representativa de empresas manufactureras en España durante el período 1990-2006, y dentro del marco de una función de producción de innovaciones, se estiman modelos ¿count¿ con el fin de investigar la influencia que tiene en la obtención de resultados innovadores la experiencia que proviene de la I+D realizada dentro de la empresa y de la contratada externamente. Nuestros resultados muestran que el aprendizaje tiene un papel importante en la obtención de innovaciones de producto cuando las empresas organizan sus actividades de I+D internamente, y que la experiencia que proviene de la contratación externa de actividades de I+D no influye sobre el número de innovaciones de producto. This paper analyses the role of learning in firms¿ innovation success, taking into account the heterogeneous nature of innovation activities, and in particular, distinguishing between learning arising from the internal organization of R&D activities and learning from externally contracting these activities. We use a representative sample of Spanish manufacturing firms for the period 1990-2006, and within an innovation production function approach, we estimate count data models to investigate the influence of firms¿ in-house and externally contracted R&D experience in the achievement of innovative results. Our results show that learning is important in the achievement of product innovations when the firms organize R&D activities internally, and that experience from externally contracted R&D activities does not influence the number of product innovations.innovation, accumulation of knowledge, in-house R&D experience, externally contracted R&D experience, count data models. innovación, acumulación de conocimiento, experiencia en I+D interna, experiencia en I+D contratada externamente, modelos para datos ¿count¿.

Some links between conditional and coregionalized multivariate Gaussian Markov random fields

Multivariate disease mapping models are attracting considerable attention. Many modeling proposals have been made in this area, which could be grouped into three large sets: coregionalization, multivariate conditional and univariate conditional models. In this work we establish some links between these three groups of proposals. Specifically, we explore the equivalence between the two conditional approaches and show that an important class of coregionalization models can be seen as a large subclass of the conditional approaches. Additionally, we propose an extension to the current set of coregionalization models with some new unexplored proposals. This extension is able to reproduce asymmetric cross-spatial covariances for different diseases. This shows that the previously accepted belief that coregionalization was not able to reproduce models with asymmetric cross-covariances was wrong

Dos intents metodològics d'apropar els recursos arqueològics a l'aula

La voluntat de millorar la infraestructura museística per part dels responsables del Museu d'Alcoi, i el treball coordinat amb un grup de professors adscrits al CEP de la mateixa localitat, ha fet realitat l'elaboració de materials didàctics adients per apropar el museu - i amb ell la història- al públic escolar. Aquesta comunicació mostra les possibilitats divulgatives que emanen d'un treball a dues bandes, ensenyants i arqueòlegs, que fructifica en la realitat d'uns serveis pedagògics a l'abast dels centres educatius que desitgin aproparse al Museu.La voluntad de mejorar la infraestructura museística por parte de los responsables del Museo de Alcoi, y el trabajo coordinado con un grupo de professores adscritos al CEP de la misma localidad, ha hecho realidad la elaboración de materiales didácticos adecuados para acercar el museo - i con él la historia- al público escolar. Esta comunicación muestra las posibilidades divulgativas que emanan de un trabajo a dos bandas, enseñantes y arqueólogos, que fructifica en la realidad de unos servicios pedagógicos al alcance de los centros educativos que deseen acercarse al Museo

Doing digital team ethnography: being there together and digital social data

With the digital availability of social data helping reshape ethnographic research and thus broadening the mainstream understanding of ethnography, this research proposes a set of strategies to overcome current limitations in doing ethnography. Based on a two-year online and offline ethnographic project on social media use in later life, insights are provided into how the practices and meanings of ethnography are being reconstructed and negotiated in response to the explosion of digital social data and through team practices. This paper reviews how collaborative and interdisciplinary ethnographic reflection is sustained and extended by digital tools, creating a live source of data that can be analysed within the framework of ethnography. As a contribution to current debates on the “Social Life of Methods“, it also reviews epistemic issues associated with digital data and team ethnography, such as the role of the ethnographer(s), the field(s) and computational data analysis. The article reaches the conclusion that digital team ethnography is a viable option for undertaking thick and descriptive studies about the use of social media, which in turn favours a collaborative, non-hierarchical and dialogue-driven knowledge production process

What do we know about the relationship between Internet mediated interaction and social isolation and loneliness in later life?

Social isolation and loneliness are recognised social, health and wellbeing problems that particularly affect later life. They have been the subject of many recent studies. Studies examining the role of the Internet in addressing these problems have increased. However, it is still unknown whether Internet-mediated social interaction has a role in mitigating social isolation and/or loneliness or not. To address this gap, this study reviews previous research that investigates the relationship between Internet use for communication and social isolation and loneliness. It reviews the empirical literature published since 2000 and expands on previous literature reviews by including a variety of research designs and disciplines. Despite the recent growth of studies there is still little evidence to demonstrate Internet effects on social isolation and loneliness. It is concluded that future research programmes aimed at reducing them by the use of the Internet should include more robust methodological and theoretical frameworks, employ longitudinal research designs and provide a more nuanced description of both the social phenomena (social isolation and loneliness) and Internet-mediated social interaction