Value Changes in Transforming China

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is back on the global agenda. Inthe late 1970s, the process of modernization (reform and opening up under Deng Xiaoping) brought enormous changes to the economy, society and cultural landscape. China has rapidly emerged as a major world power, despite the current global economic crisis. This article explores the changes in Chinese values caused by the expanding economic and cultural exchange processes within the country. Of specific theoretical interest is the role played by the mass media andinformation and communication technologies (ICT), and their bearing on modern Chinese society. Empirically, we first examine China’s placement on a global map of values (based on the World Value Survey), noting recent value shifts. We then offer a comprehensive view of attitudes of Chinese managers, drawing on a quantitative study from Beijing and Shanghai, to highlight the importance ofcultural differences deeply rooted in Chinese society. Finally, implications for cultural relations between West and East are discussed

Potential and Limits of Automated Classification of Big Data: A Case Study

This case study highlights the potentials and limits of big-data analyses of media sources compared to conventional, quantitative content analysis. In an FFG-funded multidisciplinary project in Austria (based on the KIRAS security research program), the software tool WebLyzard was used for an automated analysis of online news and social media sources (comments on articles, Facebook postings, and Twitter statements) in order to analyze the media representation of pressing societal issues and citizens’ perceptions of security. Frequency and sentiment analyses were carried out by two independent observers in parallel to the automated WebLyzard results. Specific articles on selected key topics like technology or Muslims in two major online newspapers in Austria (Der Standard and Kronen Zeitung) were counted, as were user comments, and both were evaluated according to different sentiment categories. The results indicate various weaknesses of the software leading to misinterpretations, and the automated analyses yield substantially different results compared to the sentiment analysis carried out by the two raters, especially for cynical or irrelevant statements. From a social-sciences methodological perspective, the results clearly show that methodology in our discipline should promote theory-based research, should counteract the attraction of superficial analyses of complex social issues, and should emphasize not only the potentials but also the dangers and risks associated with big data

Social-ecological considerations informing a universal screening strategy for sleep health in the community

“Poor sleep health” (PSH), defined as reduced amount of sleep and non-restorative sleep, affects cognitive, social and emotional development. Evidence suggests an association of sleep deprivation and mental health problems; however, there are no universal concepts allowing a first-tier screening of PSH at a community level. The focus of this narrative review is to highlight the cultural context of the current medicalized approach to PSH and to suggest social ecological strategies informing new and holistic community-based screening concepts. We present two conceptual screening frameworks; a “medical” and a merged “social emotional wellbeing framework” and combine them utilizing the concept of “ecologies.” The first framework proposes the incorporation of “sleep” in the interpretation of “vigilance” and “inappropriate” labeled behaviors. In the first framework, we provide a logic model for screening the myriad of presentations and possible root causes of sleep disturbances as a tool to assess daytime behaviors in context with PSH. In the second framework, we provide evidence that informs screening for “social emotional wellbeing” in the context of predictive factors, perpetuating factors and predispositions through different cultural perspectives. The distinct goals of both frameworks are to overcome training-biased unidirectional thinking and a priori medicalization of challenging, disruptive and/or disobedient behaviors. The latter has been explicitly informed by the critical discourse on colonization and its consequences, spearheaded by First Nations. Our “transcultural, transdisciplinary and transdiagnostic screening framework” may serve as a starting point from which adaptations of medical models could be developed to suit the purposes of holistic screening, diagnosis, and treatment of complex childhood presentations in different cultural contexts

BRICS as formation to study visual online communication? A dialogue on historical origins, perspectives on theory and future directions

In this paper, contributions from scholars working in the field of visual communication and/or online communication are gathered whose scholarly work falls into the BRICS countries realm. The interviews are framed by a brief sketch of the relevance of BRICS countries research in communication and media studies and some prospective comments on this novel field. The contributing scholars in this issue focus on China and Brazil in particular and work across the globe in Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, PR China, the UK and Brazil. They shared their ideas on the subject even though they are scholarly roots lie in fields as diverse as regional studies, political studies, communication and media studies and educational studies. Their thoughts were collected through email interviews and they are presented here in form of a cross-disciplinary dialogue on the issue of visual online communication in BRICS countries and the De-Westernization discourse. Gratefulness goes out to all the ones who have contributed and hopefully this project will contribute to many future dialogues between scholars from across the world

The development of the würde + infinitive construction in Early Modern German (1650–1800)

This paper presents a corpus-based analysis of the evolution of the würde + infinitive construction in German during the Early Modern period (1650– 1800), using newly available data from the GerManC-corpus. We demonstrate how this construction occupies a unique position orthogonal to both the tense and mood systems of German through an analysis of the syntax and semantics of würde + infinitive clauses, beginning with Modern Standard German and then subsequently with a historical focus on the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Through both quantitative and qualitative analyses, we examine the contexts in which the construction occurs and see how, as it came to be used more frequently over the period in question, it encroached more and more into contexts which had been the preserve of the synthetic preterite subjunctive, even being used in some where the latter is still the norm in modern German. Thus, by the end of the eighteenth century it had become difficult to identify a clear difference in meaning and use between these forms, and the reasons why the würde + in- finitive construction may be preferred over the synthetic preterite subjunctive are by no means clear. We conclude our discussion with an overview of how the würde + infinitive construction was received in the prescriptive tradition during this key period in the standardization of German, seeing its stigmatization in some contexts in part as an attempt by prescriptive grammarians to establish an explicit and clearly justified role for it in the language

Lässt sich das Sicherheitsgefühl der Bevölkerung automatisiert erfassen? : Eine Fallstudie zur (künftigen) Rolle sozialwissenschaftlicher Methodologie im Zeitalter von Big Data

Seit Oktober 2015 sind wir als wissenschaftlicher Partner an zwei von der FFG geförderten Projekten im Sicherheitsforschungsprogramm KIRAS beteiligt. Im Zuge des ersten Projekts (Laufzeit bis Oktober 2016) wurde in Kooperation mit Unternehmensberatern und einer IT-Firma die Online-Plattform Foresight-Cockpit entwickelt. Diese hat das Ziel, die österreichischen Ministerien in die Lage zu versetzen, kollaborativ sowie ressortübergreifend frühzeitig auf unerwartete Trendbewegungen und Zukunftsszenarien im Bereich Sicherheit aufmerksam zu werden, sodass dauerhaft die Qualität des Risiko- und Krisenmanagements gesteigert werden kann. Im aktuellen Projekt (Laufzeit bis Oktober 2017) wurde eine softwarebasierte Lösung (genannt „Weblyzard“) zur Analyse von Nachrichtenquellen und Social-Media-Daten in das bestehende Tool integriert, um den künftigen NutzerInnen der Plattform die Analyse sicherheitspolitischer Lageperzeptionen und Stimmungslagen in der Bevölkerung zu erleichtern. Die vorliegende Fallstudie soll primär die Möglichkeiten und Grenzen von Big-Data-Analysen auf Basis von Medienquellen im Vergleich zu klassischen quantitativen Inhaltsanalysen im Kontext einer Evaluationsstudie aufzeigen. Insofern entschieden wir, mit einer konventionellen Inhaltsanalyse auf Basis von zwei reichweitenstarken Online-Medien (Der Standard und die Kronen Zeitung) parallel zum Weblyzard Häufigkeits- und Sentimentanalysen mit zwei unabhängigen BeobachterInnen durchzuführen, indem die Anzahl relevanter Artikel und UserInnen-Kommentare von ForscherInnen ausgezählt und nach Stimmung bewertet wurden. Die Ergebnisse weisen auf deutliche Schwächen und Fehlinterpretationen durch die Software hin, besonders wenn Stimmungsaussagen sowie zynische und irrelevante Statements in die automatisierte Auswertung einfließen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen deutlich, dass empirische Forschung stets durch theoriegeleitete Interpretationen ergänzt werden sollte und nicht nur auf Potenziale, sondern auch gezielt auf Risiken des aktuellen Big-Data-Hypes hinweisen muss, um der Anziehungskraft automatisierter textbasierter Analysen entgegenzuwirken.Since October 2015, we have been involved as scientific partners in two FFG-funded projects (KIRAS security research program). The first project has developed a tool called Foresight-Strategy Cockpit. This software should enable the Austrian ministries to improve crisis management strategies by becoming aware of unexpected trends and future scenarios in security issues. The second project has integrated WebLyzard, a software tool for an automated analysis of online news and social media sources (comments on articles, Facebook postings and Twitter statements), to analyze the media representation of pressing societal issues and citizens security perceptions. The WebLyzard software was used in a case study where two independent observers performed a frequency and sentiment analysis in parallel to the automated Weblyzard results. Specific articles and user comments on selected key-topics in two major online newspapers in Austria (“Der Standard” and “Die Krone”) were counted and evaluated according to different sentiment categories. The results indicate various weaknesses of the software leading to misinterpretations, and the automated analysis yielded substantially different results compared to the sentiment analysis by the two raters, especially for cynical or irrelevant statements. Our case study highlights the potentials and limits of big-data analyses of media sources compared to those of conventional, quantitative content analysis. The results clearly show that empirical research should always be accompanied by theory-based interpretation and should highlight not only the potentials but also, specifically, the risks and weaknesses of the big data hype to counteract the allure of automated text-based analyses.(VLID)379962

Workshop: Digital Netizens at the Crossroads of Sharing and Privatising

In 1997, a review was published of the development of the Net (“a new social institution, an electronic commons”) pushed by the Netizens, as Michael Hauben baptised them.[...