Migrant networks, language learning and tourism employment

This paper examines the relationship between migrants’ social networks, the processes of language acquisition and tourism employment. Data collected using netnography and interviews are used to identify the strategies that Polish workers in the UK use to develop their language skills. The paper highlights the roles played by co-workers, co-nationals and customers in migrants’ language learning, both in the physical spaces of work and the virtual spaces of internet forums. It also shows how migrant workers exchange knowledge about the use of English during different stages of their migration careers: prior to leaving their country of origin and getting a job, during their employment and after leaving their job. Implications for academic inquiry and human resource management practice are outlined

Are we PREPared? Quality of information available to patients in the UK about PREP on the internet

Professional bodies in the UK (BASHH/BHIVA) do not currently recommended pre-exposure prophylaxis (PREP) to prevent HIV aquisition for men who have sex with men (MSM) [1]. Conversely, although Federal Drug Administration approval is awaited, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have issued clinicians in the USA with interim guidance to facilitate PREP prescriptions [2]. Increasingly patients search the internet for information on HIV treatment, but disparate international policy can lead to confusing patient messages. This study was conducted to systematically assess the quality of internet information available to patients in the UK about PREP. More than 90% of internet searches in the UK are performed using ‘Google.co.uk’ and ‘Bing’ [3]. Using pre-specified criteria, we reviewed the first 100 hits retrieved from each search engine when the following searches were performed: [“HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis”]; [“HIV PREP”]; [“HIV PREP guidelines”]; [“HIV PREP guidelines UK”]; [“truvada prophylaxis HIV”]. Of 172 unique websites identified, 124 websites were active at the time of the review (July 2012). 33 websites were links to academic journals including commentaries and clinical trials, not intended to specifically provide patient information; 5 were internet portals directing users to alternative sites and 10 websites contained no information about PREP. Of the remaining 76 websites, 28 were written by medical professionals and 48 were written by journalists, where 7/48 (15%) were individual blogs. 64/76 (84%) contained a definition of PREP; 63/76 (83%) discussed the rationale and 58/76 (76%) reported efficacy data. Advantages and disadvantages of PREP were presented in 56/76 (74%) and 41/76 (54%) of websites respectively. Only 21/76 (28%) of sites referenced existing national guidelines (CDC/BASHH). A minority of sites described the current clinical practice in the UK (7/76, 9%) with an even smaller number presenting the contrast in clinical stance between the CDC and BASHH/BHIVA (3/76, 4%). The use of PREP is evolving, and the internet is an important patient resource. However, current clinical practice in the UK is seldom described in accessible websites. Avoiding ad hoc and unsupervised use of PREP is crucial to prevent future drug resistance and risky sexual behaviour. More should be done to engage at-risk groups and ensure patients in the UK have access to comprehensive information including the current UK PREP professional guidance

Social networks and their importance in job searching of college students

At present, in every sphere of human activity, using modern ICT is considered as a matter of course. Several human resources management institutions are aware of the potential of social networks in estabilishing and building relationships with their target groups. It is a trend to create job portals in social networks. These are currently an integrated part of communication with target audience and therefore also an objects of attention and reflexions. It is also the topic of this paper. The goal of this research is to determine the level of use of social networks by college students in Slovakia. Part of the research is also to discover the effect of social networks on job searching of a selected sample of students. The research was conducted on a sample of 407 slovak students. A questioning method in form of an online questionnaire was used. The obtained results were processed using methods of descriptive and test statistics. We studied the significance of gender on the frequency of using the internet to search for job opportunities via social networks, as well as the ability to apprehend the importance of personal presentation on social networks. The statistical testing did not prove any significant difference between men and women in the question of frequency of using internet to search for job opportunities, nor in the ability to apprehend the importance of personal presentation on social networks. A statistically significant difference in gender was proven only in case of using social networks in job searching. Women tend to use social networks to find jobs more often than men. These statements are proved by the results of tests of significance of mean changes at the 5% significance level, which means that they are valid with 95% probability

Does "The Media" Have a Future?

Media-related practices have so long been configured in a particular one-to-many pattern that the mass communication paradigm has seemed automatic as both frame for research and fact of social life. The paradigm is summed up in the English term ‘ the media’. But what if the very idea of ‘the media’ is also imploding, as the interfaces we call media are transformed? Does the implosion of ‘the media’ generate a crisis of appearances for government and other institutions? Three dynamics are considered here — technological, social and political — that are potentially undermining our idea of ‘the media’ as a privileged site for accessing a common world. The article concludes that, instead of collapsing, the social construction of ‘the media’ will become a site of intensified struggle for competing forces: market-based fragmentation vs continued pressures of centralization that draw on new media-related myths and ritual