The Role of ICTs in Social Movements: The Case of the Honduran National Front Against the 2009 Coup

There is an important academic conversation happening about how social movements adopt, use, and configure Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for political participation. This dissertation contributes to that conversation by taking a holistic look at ICTs, throughout a social movement\u27s emergence and development, while considering its context, its organizational structures and sense-making processes. I explore the case of the Honduran National Front Against the Coup (NFAC), a relevant case due to its similarities with other movements, like the use of social media, the support from the international community and its geographically dispersed networks; but also, particular in its political and ICT context. Guided by the Contentious Politics Model (CPM) asked an overarching research question: What is the role of Information and Communication Technologies in the emergence and development of the National Front Against the Coup? I also asked three second-level questions: (1) How does the Honduran Resistance Movement relate ICTs to political Opportunity Structures? (2) What role do ICTs play in creating and supporting the movement\u27s organizational structures, and in preparing and carrying out visible movement episodes? (3) How does the NFAC use ICTs to shape its attitudes, identities and competences? I conducted a single embedded exploratory case study guided by the extended case method where I studied the NFAC in a sequence of interconnected time periods called Collective Action Framing Episodes (CAFEs). Data were reconstructive narratives from primary and secondary sources. The movement\u27s use of ICTs for mobilizing social support for their cause can be considered an improvised subversive response to the institutionalized political environment. The movement\u27s regional affiliates formed a loosely coupled extended organization, which allowed the affiliates a degree of autonomy to do their oppositional work while remaining fully aligned with the movement\u27s priorities. ICTs allowed the movement to broadcast its messages across the network to socialize the affiliates and ensure they were all on the same page. This lose confederation, coordinated through ICTs allowed the NFAC to dynamically reconfigure and rearrange its regional affiliates as needed. I found instances of resourcefulness and improvisation, both in the way individual media platforms were used, and in the way these platforms were combined and recombined to move ahead. Thus, the intellectual contribution of this study is twofold: The first one is an expansion of the CPM (Contentious Politics Model). I propose that ICTs don\u27t drive revolutions, but neither are they simply tools. There is a dynamic relation as environmental conditions (OS) like policies, institutions, ICT ownership, media centralization, shape the way social movements configure ICTs, and ICTs configurations by social movements can influence environmental conditions. The same way ICT configurations can be determined by he availability, collaboration and connectedness of civil society organizations within the movement (MS), and their relations can be influenced by ICT configurations. Therefore, by playing a reflexive role in the process of frame creation, ICTs are embedded in every level of the social movement emergence and development. The second contribution is an operative framework and analytical tool to study the interactions between social movements, institutions, and ICTs. The model uses CAFEs (Collective Action Framing Episodes), a composed construct that allows integrating several levels of analysis into one unit of analysis

Source amplitudes for active exterior cloaking

The active cloak comprises a discrete set of multipole sources that destructively interfere with an incident time harmonic scalar wave to produce zero total field over a finite spatial region. For a given number of sources and their positions in two dimensions it is shown that the multipole amplitudes can be expressed as infinite sums of the coefficients of the incident wave decomposed into regular Bessel functions. The field generated by the active sources vanishes in the infinite region exterior to a set of circles defined by the relative positions of the sources. The results provide a direct solution to the inverse problem of determining the source amplitudes. They also define a broad class of non-radiating discrete sources.Comment: 21 pages, 17 figure

Insectos de la "una de gato" (Uncaria guianenesis y U. tomentosa : Rubiaceae), planta medical de la Amazonia peruana

Two species of #Rubiaceae$ known as "una de gato", vernaculate name, are medicinal plants very used in the Peruvian Amazonia. Its excessive exploitation in the natural environment has made its cultivation necessary. Different species of phytophagous insects have been observed on "una de gato" in an experimental plantation in Iquitos, Peru. (Résumé d'auteur

Scanning tunneling spectroscopic studies of the pairing state of cuprate superconductors

Quasiparticle tunneling spectra of both hole-doped (p-type) and electron-doped (n-type) cuprates are studied using a low-temperature scanning tunneling microscope. The results reveal that neither the pairing symmetry nor the pseudogap phenomenon is universal among all cuprates, and that the response of n-type cuprates to quantum impurities is drastically different from that of the p-type cuprates. The only ubiquitous features among all cuprates appear to be the strong electronic correlation and the nearest-neighbor antiferromagnetic Cu2+-Cu2+ coupling in the CuO2 planes

Asset-based Teaching; Uncover, Cultivate, and Empower Students’ Uniqueness

As instructors who are in tune with their learners learning and communication styles as well as their family and cultural backgrounds, it makes sense that they view their students’ skills and abilities from an asset-based lens. This article provides the readers with some tactics on how to develop and nurture that growth mindset. When we consider the assets students bring to individual classrooms, the teaching becomes more personalized and relevant to their learning needs. By implementing these teaching practices, instructors are uncovering, cultivating, and empowering their students’ unique abilities. Ultimately students are able to apply their knowledge, skills, and abilities in improving their lives and enable them to make contributions to be productive and contributing members of society

Cobranding with Pinterest: Expediting Apparel Retail Brand Experience

Cobranding creates points of difference, generates sales from existing markets, and opens opportunities (Lebar, Buehler, Keller, & Sawicka, 2005). Pinterest is an effective cobranding platform for consumer interaction. Bullas (2015) reports 69% of apparel brands have a presence on Pinterest, and 88% of the 70 million Pinterest users purchase a product they pin. Thus, we examined: (a) the impacts of apparel brand reputation and Pinterest usefulness on consumer experiences with apparel brands at Pinterest; (b) the impacts of consumer experiences of apparel brands at Pinterest on loyalty toward apparel brand and Pinterest; and (c) the mediation of consumer experience at Pinterest between apparel brand reputation and apparel band\u27s attitudinal loyalty. Findings suggest cobranding with Pinterest combines the strength of partner brands by increasing value, attracting new customers, and validating the brand among consumers. An effective brand Pinterest page creates important backlinks that expand apparel brand awareness and direct other consumers to the brand website (Walberg, 2015)