Increased Content Accessibility For Wikis And Blogs

This paper aims to introduce a useful approach on the combined use of template based publishing tools (i.e. for blogs and wikis) and content personalization services. The approach considers that the original developers of web content have limited awareness on accessibility issues, and they are facilitated and guided by the editing interface. The publishing mechanism is responsible for storing web content in a flexible representation, where structured content is separated from the formatting information. Intermediate brokering services (i.e aggregators, mediators or simply the portal software) produce multiple versions of the same content in order to increase content accessibility. Finally, end-users are able to set their preferences on how the content will be presented and get a homogeneous representation of the community content. The different versions may comprise multiple languages, audio and text representations etc and be based on a single version of the original content. The structured nature of content produced by template based tools allows intermediate services to intervene and reproduce the original content in various formats and client tools to filter and present information according to user needs and capabilities. The paper presents the focal points of the suggested approach, details on the underlying architecture and presents the required supporting infrastructure

Exploring the Dominance of the English Language on the Websites of EU Countries

The English language is the most dominant language in the Western world and its influence can be noticed in every aspect of human communication. It’s increasing diffusion, especially since the turn of the century, is hard to measure with conventional means. The present research studies the use of language in websites of European Union (EU) member states, in order to collect data about the prevalence of the English language in the different countries and regions of the European Union. To achieve a realistic representation of today’s landscape of the European Web, this study uses a vast population of websites and a representative sampling size and methodology. By analyzing and processing the findings from over 100,000 websites from every country in the EU, a solid foundation is set that is used to explore the dominance of the English language in the European World Wide Web in general. This is the first study that examines the presence of English content in the websites of all EU member countries and provides statistical evidence regarding the ratio of English content availability for each country. Conclusively, the results of the research demonstrate that the English language is available on more than one quarter of all websites of non-English speaking EU member states. Moreover, it is available in the vast majority of multilingual and bilingual websites, while at the same time being the only language that is available in a number of monolingual websites. In addition, it is shown preference over the national language in a significant number of cases. A moderate negative correlation is found between a member state’s population and the availability of English in these countries’ websites and the same holds true for a member state’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Both these correlations indicate that smaller countries tend to provide more content in English in order to establish a stronger presence in the international environment. Taking into account the role of language in the expression of national identity, this study provides data and insights which may contribute to the discussion about the changes underway in the national identity of EU member states

Developing a Civic Journalism Social Medium on the Web: Technological Methods and Constraints

1. Introduction Specific and carefully designed procedures, along with thoughtful economic planning and decision-making are essential in order for any newly developed social medium to be positioned in the online market-place. The launching of a new social medium, named Television without Frontiers, in November 2008, has been a risky attempt in an immature market like the Greek online media one. The attempt can be thought of as successful, in terms of visitors, participation and media coverage..

A CASE STUDY ON VIRAL JOURNALISM IN GREECE: THE FIGURES, THE TRENDS AND THE FACTORS OF SUCCESS

In the era of social media, the concept of viral is a hub. But then, from the field of advertising and marketing, it is the turn of journalism to be affected by it. In recent years, websites such as buzzfeed and boredpanda have grown steadily and have reached a state in which -, according to statistics, they gather millions of users daily. The main characteristic of these websites is the fact that they are largely based on the viral journalism phenomenon, that is, they include small and light stories that have all the features of a viral content. The aim of these stories is to be shared by the users as much as possible on social networks and the web at large. Also, a second important feature of these websites is that they invite their readers to "upload" their own interesting content, thus giving them the opportunity to become journalists in some way and their content to become viral as well, exploding at the same time the user generated content (UGC) phenomenon. The aim of this article is to study the phenomenon of viral journalism in Greece, centered on the Mikropragmata (http://mikropragmata.lifo.gr), a column of the free press Lifo that has become so large that it has acquired its own micro-site and corresponding channels in social media. By studying the content of the website, we will try to understand what kinds of articles are posted and which appear to be more successful to the public. How do readers react? Are there any similar examples in Greece? In order to answer these questions, an online survey will be carried out. Quantitative and qualitative data will be gathered on the website under study and other relevant examples from Greece and abroad, as well

Entropy as a Transitional In-Game Variable

The aim of this research is to discover the bond of entropy and the experience of video game immersion, using an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to interpret the immersive experiences of players and how this bond of entropy and immersion could be transferred on other immersive technologies. The experiment was conducted on a selection of low-entropy scenes in three video games belonging to the genre of interactive drama. Six players were selected as the sample group for this research, based on their playthrough experiences of the games Heavy Rain (2010), Until Dawn (2015) and Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan (2019) on the PlayStation platform. By monitoring the levels of entropy and immersion during their playthroughs, this research explores the potential of transferring immersion through the use of entropy from digital games to other immersive technologies. According to the research highlights and through data interpretation, entropy is found to be immensely influential upon achieving and maintaining narrative, physical and emotional immersion, and its effect could be further applied to other immersive technologies sharing a common ground with digital games, which features are further examined in finer detail in the current research

Investigating Online Art Search through Quantitative Behavioral Data and Machine Learning Techniques

Studying searcher behavior has been a cornerstone of search engine research for decades, since it can lead to a better understanding of user needs and allow for an improved user experience. Going beyond descriptive data analysis and statistics, studies have been utilizing the capabilities of Machine Learning to further investigate how users behave during general purpose searching. But the thematic content of a search greatly affects many aspects of user behavior, which often deviates from general purpose search behavior. Thus, in this study, emphasis is placed specifically on the fields of Art and Cultural Heritage. Insights derived from behavioral data can help Culture and Art institutions streamline their online presence and allow them to better understand their user base. Existing research in this field often focuses on lab studies and explicit user feedback, but this study takes advantage of real usage quantitative data and its analysis through machine learning. Using data collected by real world usage of the Art Boulevard proprietary search engine for content related to Art and Culture and through the means of Machine Learning-powered tools and methodologies, this article investigates the peculiarities of Art-related online searches. Through clustering, various archetypes of Art search sessions were identified, thus providing insight on the variety of ways in which users interacted with the search engine. Additionally, using extreme Gradient boosting, the metrics that were more likely to predict the success of a search session were documented, underlining the importance of various aspects of user activity for search success. Finally, through applying topic modeling on the textual information of user-clicked results, the thematic elements that dominated user interest were investigated, providing an overview of prevalent themes in the fields of Art and Culture. It was established that preferred results revolved mostly around traditional visual Art themes, while academic and historical topics also had a strong presence