Digital archives, e-books and narrative space

In this paper we are concerned with the capacity of digital media to enable publics to tell their own environmental stories using digital broadcast archives (DBAs). We consider how digital media afford different ways of telling stories in relation to digital media archives. Central to this discussion is our experience of writing e‐books as part of the AHRC‐funded project “Earth in Vision: BBC coverage of environmental change 1960–2010”. The e‐book format has been adopted in order to explore some of the possibilities for writing environmental history and politics using DBAs

Moderate and heavy metabolic stress interval training improve arterial stiffness and heart rate dynamics in humans

Traditional continuous aerobic exercise training attenuates age-related increases of arterial stiffness, however, training studies have not determined whether metabolic stress impacts these favourable effects. Twenty untrained healthy participants (n = 11 heavy metabolic stress interval training, n = 9 moderate metabolic stress interval training) completed 6 weeks of moderate or heavy intensity interval training matched for total work and exercise duration. Carotid artery stiffness, blood pressure contour analysis, and linear and non-linear heart rate variability were assessed before and following training. Overall, carotid arterial stiffness was reduced (p  0.05). This study demonstrates the effectiveness of interval training at improving arterial stiffness and autonomic function, however, the metabolic stress was not a mediator of this effect. In addition, these changes were also independent of improvements in aerobic capacity, which were only induced by training that involved a high metabolic stress

“Cycles upon cycles, stories upon stories” : contemporary audio media and podcast horror’s new frights

During the last ten years the ever-fertile horror and Gothic genres have birthed a new type of fright-fiction: podcast horror. Podcast horror is a narrative horror form based in audio media and the properties of sound. Despite association with oral ghost tales, radio drama, and movie and TV soundscapes, podcast horror remains academically overlooked. Podcasts offer fertile ground for the revitalization and evolution of such extant audio-horror traditions, yet they offer innovation too. Characterized by their pre-recorded nature, individualized listening times and formats, often “amateur” or non-corporate production, and isolation from an ongoing media stream more typical of radio or TV, podcasts potentialize the instigation of newer audio-horror methods and traits. Podcast horror shows vary greatly in form and content, from almost campfire-style oral tales, comprising listener-produced and performed content (Drabblecast; Tales to Terrify; NoSleep); to audio dramas reminiscent of radio’s Golden Era (Tales from Beyond the Pale; 19 Nocturne Boulevard); to dramas delivered in radio-broadcast style (Welcome to Night Vale; Ice Box Theatre); to, most recently, dramas, which are themselves acknowledging and exploratory of the podcast form (TANIS; The Black Tapes Podcast; Lime Town). Yet within this broad spectrum, sympathies and conventions arise which often not only explore and expand notions of Gothic sound, but which challenge broader existing horror and Gothic genre norms. This article thus demonstrates the extent to which podcast horror uses its audio form, technology and mediation to disrupt and evolve Gothic/horror fiction, not through a cumulative chronological formulation of podcast horror but through a maintained and alternately synthesized panorama of forms. Herein new aspects of generic narration, audience, narrative and aesthetic emerge. Exploring a broad spectrum of American and British horror podcasts, this article shows horror podcasting to utilize podcasting’s novel means of horror and Gothic distribution/consumption to create fresh, unique and potent horror forms. This article reveals plot details about some of the podcasts examined

Accentuating institutional brands: A multimodal analysis of the homepages of selected South African universities

In seeking to disentangle themselves from the constraints of apartheid, South African universities have immersed themselves in an identity modification process in which they not only seek to redress the past, but also to reposition their identities as equal opportunity and non-racial institutions. In this paper, we investigate how the University of the Western Cape, the University of Cape Town and Stellenbosch University have used visual and verbal semiotics to re-design their identities on their homepages to appeal to diverse national and international clients. Using Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA), we show how the multi-semiotic choices work together on the homepages to give the universities differentiated, competitive, powerful and attractive brands. We conclude that the homepages blended cultural semiotic artefacts, historical, global and transformational discourses, and architectural landscapes to construct different brand identities that, in turn, rebrand the universities from edifices of apartheid education to equal opportunity institutions

Arqueología cultural de los videojuegos. Entre discursos nostálgicos, experiencia del gamer e innovación tecnológica

In this paper, it is presented a videogames history as an innovation beyond a form of entertainment, offering reasons why it is important to know and investigate its history in relation to their social and cultural contexts. Marking the importance that users have when creating video games through their experience, questioning masculinity constructed in the first era of videogames and no or less participation of the female gender in the early decades. The social and cultural context in which those games were born is basic to understanding the spread and gained popularity in the ‘80s and especially in the ‘90s. The objective of this study is to identify communication strategies and information about the videogame before the arrival of the Internet and how information was shared in the Spanish context. In the first part we introduce the theoretical and methodological framework in which this research is based through the concept of cultural archeology. In the second part we present stories built by users to analyze the experiences of the game and how to share it, using the concepts of playformance and playworld. To finish questioning the identity of the gamer as a male subject, young white and upper middle class.En este trabajo, se presentara una historia de los videojuegos como una innovación más allá de una forma de entretenimiento, ofreciendo razones acerca de por qué es importante conocer e investigar su historia en relación a sus contextos sociales y culturales. Haciendo énfasis en la importancia que los usuarios tienen a la hora de crear videojuegos a través de su experiencia, cuestionando la masculinidad construida en los primeros videojuegos y la ausencia, o menor participación, del género femenino en las primeras décadas. El contexto social y cultural en que nacieron aquellos videojuegos es básico para entender la difusión y la popularidad que obtuvieron en los años ‘80 y sobre todo, en los ‘90. El objetivo de este trabajo es identificar las estrategias de comunicación y de información respecto a los videojuegos antes de la llegada de Internet, en especial la forma y el cómo se compartía esta información en el contexto español. En la primera parte introducimos el marco teórico y metodológico en que se basa esta investigación a través del concepto de arqueología cultural. En la segunda parte presentamos los relatos construidos por los usuarios para analizar las experiencias del juego y la forma de compartirlo, utilizando los conceptos de playformance y playworld. Para finalizar cuestionando la identidad del gamer como sujeto masculino, blanco y joven de clase media-alta