2-D histories: media texts and the creation of the past

Why might it be desirable or possible for historians to analyse media texts? The objective of this paper is to outline some theoretical considerations which seem necessary to the planning and execution of such a research project. I will discuss the question of how both media and history relate to the past, examine the significance of narrative as a device that brings coherence to media and historical texts, and finally relate these points to the construction of national identity

Method or Madness? Textual analysis in media studies

Scholarly analyses of media have tended to view the media text (e.g. film / programme / article) as the logical site of enquiry. However, this focus on the text has often resulted in a privileging of the text as the locus of meaning. The validity of textual analysis as a research method has increasingly been called into question due to the influence of poststructuralist theories and the critique of textually-based research emerging from the ‘new audience studies’. In this paper I examine the debates surrounding texts, audiences and meanings from a poststructuralist perspective. I argue that the rethinking of subjectivity achieved by discourse theory provides the key to a new conception of textual analysis, which remains a vital and rewarding approach to the study of media and culture

A vision of quality in repositories of open educational resources

In the future, Open Educational Practices (OEP) will facilitate access to open materials by promoting collaboration among educators, who will share, reuse and evaluate digital pedagogical content using Repositories of Open Educational Resources (ROER)

Synergistic literacies: Fostering critical and technological literacies in teaching legal research methods at the University of Waikato

Nowadays, new law courses are not approved unless both the "needs analysis" is convincing and the "consumer demand" is certain. Needs and demands today are driven by new pressures for technological literacy accelerated by globalisation and the current revolution in information and communication technologies (ICTs). The popular logic is that new global "knowledge economies" need "knowledge workers" or "wired workers" to labour in the new e-markets for goods and services and to use the burgeoning number and high quality of electronic information databases now essential to legal research. Students are acutely aware of these developments as well as of the highly competitive nature of the contemporary labour market for law graduates. Consequently, students are demanding more "how to" research skills training. This article puts in context the reasons why, at the University of Waikato, we regard creating synergy between critical and technological literacy as essential for teaching and learning law-in-context research methods, and then describes the curriculum we designed for a legal research methods course in order to trial this approach. From the start we have been clear that the new course was not just to be a "how to" course, and that we would be concentrating on critical literacy as much as technological literacy. For us, critical literacy is fundamental because it relates to the way in which one analyses the world, a process described as "becoming aware of the underlying structure of conceptions".1 This awareness includes the politics in the architectures that constitute the Internet and the assembly of information accessible on it. We designed our curriculum for critical literacy around five types of analysis. Our shorthand for this is to call these "the five 'Cs'". Our five interrelated categories for analysis focus on: Change - in society, economy and culture Concepts - legal and sociological concepts and analytical frameworks Critique (and standpoint or perspective) Comparisons (and Contrasts) Contexts. We argue that, at a minimum, these are the conceptual tools necessary to critique and engage the operation of the law in the context of society, noting especially inequalities and injustices. Throughout the course students are encouraged to harness technological literacy to each dimension of their analysis. This article consists of two main parts. The first part ("Context and Assumptions") explores in some depth the reasons for the need to teach critical literacy alongside technological literacy. The second part ("The Legal Research Methods Course") describes our efforts to promote the synergy between critical and technological literacies in the context of a fourth year optional course, Legal Research Methods 2000, at the University of Waikato School of Law

Bibliometric Indicators of Young Authors in Astrophysics: Can Later Stars be Predicted?

We test 16 bibliometric indicators with respect to their validity at the level of the individual researcher by estimating their power to predict later successful researchers. We compare the indicators of a sample of astrophysics researchers who later co-authored highly cited papers before their first landmark paper with the distributions of these indicators over a random control group of young authors in astronomy and astrophysics. We find that field and citation-window normalisation substantially improves the predicting power of citation indicators. The two indicators of total influence based on citation numbers normalised with expected citation numbers are the only indicators which show differences between later stars and random authors significant on a 1% level. Indicators of paper output are not very useful to predict later stars. The famous $h$-index makes no difference at all between later stars and the random control group.Comment: 14 pages, 10 figure

Blackboard Teaching and Learning Conference 2010

Conference revie

Open in the Evening: Openings and Closures in an Ecology of Practices

Recently a critical turn has emerged in the open education literature. In addition to voices which have critiqued open education as under-theorised (Bayne, Knox & Ross, 2015; Edwards, 2015; Gourlay, 2015; Knox, 2013; Oliver, 2015; Veletsianos & Kimmons, 2012), another strand has called upon scholars and practitioners to refocus their attention on open educational practices (OEP). From this perspective, open forms of education (like education in general) are framed as a range of processes undertaken by human beings, rather than consisting specifically in the resources they create or amend. This framing appears to offer the possibility of deeper insights into actual practices, but whereas the forms of openness afforded by OER or MOOCs are well understood, it is less obvious what exactly makes a practice open. However, this inherent ambiguity might be viewed as a strength rather than a weakness of OEP: while much of the literature discussing OEP has framed the concept in relation to OER, there is a more expansive concept of OEP which recognises other forms of openness and ways of opening (Havemann, 2016; Cronin, 2017; Cronin & MacLaren, 2018; Roberts et al, 2018). Taking its cue from this line of enquiry, this chapter considers the question of what is open about (or opened by) open education, and how the concept of OEP can potentially aid this investigation. It focuses on a case study of practice at Birkbeck, University of London, which is an institution of higher education that itself grew out of a particular instance of opening almost 200 years ago. The case study will illustrate the senses in which Birkbeck, along with the particular case of practice under study, is characterised by an interplay of openings and closures

Neutrality in Ireland: The War on Terror, the Use of Shannon Airport and the Irish Anti-War Movement

In 2001, following the terrorist attacks of September 11, Ireland’s Taoiseach Bertie Ahern flew to America to offer President George W. Bush the unlimited use of Shannon Airport in an invasion of Afghanistan. Since then, Ireland has played the role of controversial accomplice in America’s War on Terror. Each year hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops land in Shannon to fill up on beer and craic while their planes fill up on fuel and supplies. And each year, new accusations surface of CIA rendition flights passing through Ireland on their way to torture camps scattered around Europe. With the Celtic Tiger still thriving, this small island is changing more rapidly than anyone could have predicted. With the economic prosperity, however, has come the responsibility of playing a more prominent role in world affairs. No longer is the population flowing out of Ireland like water; no longer is Ireland isolated and detached from the world; and no longer it is easy for Ireland to claim neutrality in the face of conflict. In fact, one must ask the question, has Ireland ever really been a neutral country? The term “neutrality” masks quite a complicated and multifaceted concept, one that is ambiguous to some and essential to others. With the American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have sprung passionate peace activists, many of whom have different motivations for protesting the use of Shannon Airport, despite being on the same team. This paper will explore Ireland’s political parties and the rationale behind their support of — or opposition to — allowing U.S. planes through Shannon. It will examine the American perspective on the situation and on Irish-American relations in general, in part through the lens of the U.S. Embassy in Dublin. It will trace the concept of neutrality since the establishment of the Irish Free State, and will look at the significance of the concept today, in the face of war. It will study the careers and motivations of a few anti-war activists and organizations. And finally, it will attempt to determine the effectiveness of the anti-war movement in Ireland