Towards a more participatory style of election campaigning: identifying the comparative use of Web 2.0 by parties and candidates in elections 2007-2010

Election campaigning tends to be synonymous with top-down, persuasive and propaganda-style communication; with the strategic aim being to win the support of voters crucial for the victory, either in local or national contests, of a candidate or party. While this remains the dominant paradigm for understanding campaigns, the use of the Internet as a communication tool challenges this notion and in particular with the availability of Web 2.0 tools, features and platforms for campaigning purposes. Emerging in 2005, Web 2.0 has heralded a networked, participatory culture to be observed online with tools being introduced to facilitate synchronous or asynchronous conversations to take place within a variety of online environments. This participatory and conversational culture, like the Internet itself, reaches beyond national borders and cultures, reshapes communicational hierarchies, and creates a new set of communicative rules. The existence of Web 2.0 applications raises significant questions for political parties and individual candidates in terms of how they might use the Internet. Web 2.0 offers political actors a potentially effective means of building a relationship with activists, supporters and possibly floating voters. The cost, however, is that the interactive nature of these technologies requires some loss of control over political discourse. Our question is regarding the extent to which these rules have permeated election campaigning. This paper analyses the use of the Internet, and in particular Web 2.0 tools, features and platforms, across four key election contests over the period 2007-2010. Focusing on the presidential election contests in France 2007 and the USA 2008 and the parliamentary contests in Germany 2009 and the UK 2010 we measure the extent to which there is a more participatory culture being encouraged by election campaign’s online modes. The analysis follows the conceptual tradition of MacMillan (2002); Ferber, Foltz & Pugiliese (2007) and Lilleker & Malagon (2010). This allows us to not only detect feature use but to analyse whether the inclusion of Web 2.0 into election campaigning actually potentiates participation of voters and so conversation between voters and political actors as well as intra-voter discussion. Our (currently incomplete) data (we have three of the four election case studies) suggests there has been some significant moves towards a more participatory style of election campaigning over the last four years with Obama’s campaign setting clear benchmarks for later contests in the UK and Germany

Towards a non-hierarchical campaign? Testing for interactivity as a tool of election campaigning in France, the US, Germany and the UK.

Interest in the Internet and its role within political communication and election campaigning has now an established body of theoretical and empirical history, with mixed predictions and findings. The bulk of the empirical research has been in single countries, and where there has been comparative research it has tended to use a range of methodologies conducted by different authors. Largely, empirical studies have agreed with the politics as usual thesis, that political communication online is of a similar if not identical style to offline: top-down, information heavy and designed to persuade rather than consult with voters. The mass take-up of Web 2.0 tools and platforms challenges this approach, however. Internet users now have opportunities to interact with a range of individuals and organisations, and it is argued that such tools reduce societal hierarchies and allow for symmetrical relationships to build. Theoretically democratic politics is a fertile environment for exploring the opportunities potentiated by Web 2.0, in particular the notion of interactivity between the campaign (candidate, party and staff) and their audiences (activists, members, supporters and potential voters). In particular, Web 2.0 conceptually encourages co-production of content. This research focuses on the extent to which interactivity is encouraged through the use of Web 2.0 tools and platforms across a four year period focusing on four discrete national elections; determining take up and the link to national context as well as assessing lesson learning between nations. Using the Gibson and Ward coding scheme, though adapted to include Web 2.0, we operationalise the models of interactivity proposed by McMillan (2002) and Ferber, Foltz and Pugiliese (2007). This methodology allows us to assess whether election campaigns are showing evidence of adopting co-created campaigns based around conversations with visitors to their websites or online presences, or whether websites remain packaged to persuade offering interactivity with site features (hyperlinks, web feeds, search engines) only. Indications are that the French election was largely politics as usual, however the Obama campaign took a clear step towards a more co-produced and interactive model. There may well be a clear Obama effect within the German and UK contests, or parties may adopt the look if not the practice of the US election. This paper will assess the extent to which an interactive model of campaigning is emerging as well as detailing a methodology which can capture and rate the levels and types of interactivity used across the Internet. Whilst specific political cultural and systematic factors will shape the use of Web technologies in each election, we suggest that an era of Web 2.0 is gradually replacing that of Web 1.0. Within this era there is some evidence that campaigners learn from previous elections on how best to utilise the technology

Suggested Procedures for the Reorganization of the Adapted Program at Prairie View College

The purpose of this study is (1) to provide a philosophical background that will allow substantial cause for reorganizing the present adapted physical education program at Prairie View A. & M. College; (2) to recommend, as the result of findings, a program which can be administered by the personnel and facilities available and which would meet the needs of those students enrolled in this adapted physical education program. This study will provide information that should be valuable to the Department of Physical Education, Health and Recreation in preparing a program for the ensuing school term. The school administrator and supervisors should be made conscious of the prevailing situation and possibly as a result, this study could serve as a guideline for the school administrator and supervisor in planning an adapted program at Prairie View A. & M. College. This study is concerned only with making an analysis of the situation at Prairie View A. & M. College as far as an adapted physical education program is concerned

Practices of Naming and the Possibilities of Home on American Zulu Mission Stations in Colonial Natal

From the 1840s, the American Zulu Mission (AZM) in Natal included a number of converts who took on Christian names after missionaries within the circle of the AZM, and after those missionaries’ American friends and relations. This article emphasises an issue that has been secondary in scholarship on naming as a tool of colonial control and redesignation: the responses to and uses of such names by those who bore them. We address this issue through an examination of two prominent lineages: the Goba/Hawes and Nembula/Makhanya families on American mission stations north and south of Durban. Our findings suggest that the results of missionaries’ exertions of power through renamings were uneven: that pre-baptismal names resurfaced as a means of laying claim to or invoking particular identities and pasts; that baptismal names, or parts of them, could be mobilised or rejected over time according to different needs; and that attention to names may help to track these dynamics over time. We make use of the sociolinguistic understanding of names as “labels” (terms without semantic content) or as “pointers” (names pointing to, for instance, the circumstances of a person's birth) and adapt these categories: suggesting while scholars have seen baptismal names essentially as colonising labels, in the cases we explore, both baptismal and pre-baptismal names have served also as pointers—gesturing towards unstable pasts and futures.Other Research Uni

A survey of the elementary principal's professional library in 135 selected schools of Massachusetts.

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston Universit

Transnuclear CD8 T cells specific for the immunodominant epitope Gra6 lower acute-phase Toxoplasma gondii burden.

We generated a CD8 T-cell receptor (TCR) transnuclear (TN) mouse specific to the Ld -restricted immunodominant epitope of GRA6 from Toxoplasma gondii as a source of cells to facilitate further investigation into the CD8 T-cell-mediated response against this pathogen. The TN T cells bound Ld -Gra6 tetramer and proliferated upon unspecific and peptide-specific stimulation. The TCR beta sequence of the Gra6-specific TN CD8 T cells is identical in its V- and J-region to the TCR-β harboured by a hybridoma line generated in response to Gra6 peptide. Adoptively transferred Gra6 TN CD8 T cells proliferated upon Toxoplasma infection in vivo and exhibited an activated phenotype similar to host CD8 T cells specific to Gra6. The brain of Toxoplasma-infected mice carried Gra6 TN cells already at day 8 post-infection. Both Gra6 TN mice as well as adoptively transferred Gra6 TN cells were able to significantly reduce the parasite burden in the acute phase of Toxoplasma infection. Overall, the Gra6 TN mouse represents a functional tool to study the protective and immunodominant specific CD8 T-cell response to Toxoplasma in both the acute and the chronic phases of infection

The economic experimentation of Nembula Duze/Ira Adams Nembula, 1845 – 1886.

Journal article.This paper gives a short biography of Ira Adams Nembula, the Natal sugarcane manufacturer. Nembula's business and his family have been often mentioned but not fully described before in accounts of Natal's nineteenth-century economy and mission stations. This paper draws on historians' narratives and missionary writings on Nembula from the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (American Board), and incorporates information from the archives of the Secretary for Native Affairs (SNA), to look at the life of a man who was described by missionaries as one of the “first fruits” or very first converts to Christianity in Natal, and was a preacher, a pioneering sugarcane producer, and also a transport rider. The paper outlines Nembula's and his mother Mbalasi's position and portrayal as initial converts in the American Board, his sugar milling business, and his plans to farm on a large scale. Nembula's steps towards buying a large tract of land left an impression in the procedures government followed around black land ownership; and may also have contributed to the formulation of colonial laws around black land ownership and exemption from “native law”. Nembula's story in many ways exemplifies the amakholwa experience of what Norman Etherington has called “economic experimentation” and the frustration of that vision

Supervision of community peer counsellors for infant feeding in South Africa: an exploratory qualitative study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Recent years have seen a re-emergence of community health worker (CHW) interventions, especially in relation to HIV care, and in increasing coverage of child health interventions. Such programmes can be particularly appealing in the face of human resource shortages and fragmented health systems. However, do we know enough about how these interventions function in order to support the investment? While research based on strong quantitative study designs such as randomised controlled trials increasingly document their impact, there has been less empirical analysis of the internal mechanisms through which CHW interventions succeed or fail. Qualitative process evaluations can help fill this gap.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This qualitative paper reports on the experience of three CHW supervisors who were responsible for supporting infant feeding peer counsellors. The intervention took place in three diverse settings in South Africa. Each setting employed one CHW supervisor, each of whom was individually interviewed for this study. The study forms part of the process evaluation of a large-scale randomized controlled trial of infant feeding peer counselling support.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Our findings highlight the complexities of supervising and supporting CHWs. In order to facilitate effective infant feeding peer counselling, supervisors in this study had to move beyond mere technical management of the intervention to broader people management. While their capacity to achieve this was based on their own prior experience, it was enhanced through being supported themselves. In turn, resource limitations and concerns over safety and being in a rural setting were raised as some of the challenges to supervision. Adding to the complexity was the issue of HIV. Supervisors not only had to support CHWs in their attempts to offer peer counselling to mothers who were potentially HIV positive, but they also had to deal with supporting HIV-positive peer counsellors.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This study highlights the need to pay attention to the experiences of supervisors so as to better understand the components of supervision in the field. Such understanding can enhance future policy making, planning and implementation of peer community health worker programmes.</p