1,182 research outputs found
Mass media destabilizes the cultural homogeneous regime in Axelrod's model
An important feature of Axelrod's model for culture dissemination or social
influence is the emergence of many multicultural absorbing states, despite the
fact that the local rules that specify the agents interactions are explicitly
designed to decrease the cultural differences between agents. Here we
re-examine the problem of introducing an external, global interaction -- the
mass media -- in the rules of Axelrod's model: in addition to their
nearest-neighbors, each agent has a certain probability to interact with a
virtual neighbor whose cultural features are fixed from the outset. Most
surprisingly, this apparently homogenizing effect actually increases the
cultural diversity of the population. We show that, contrary to previous claims
in the literature, even a vanishingly small value of is sufficient to
destabilize the homogeneous regime for very large lattice sizes
Sparrows can't sing : East End kith and kinship in the 1960s
Sparrows Canât Sing (1963) was the only feature film directed by
the late and much lamented Joan Littlewood. Set and filmed in
the East End, where she worked for many years, the film deserves
more attention than it has hitherto received. Littlewoodâs career
spanned documentary (radio recordings made with Ewan MacColl
in the North of England in the 1930s) to directing for the stage
and the running of the Theatre Royal in Londonâs Stratford East,
often selecting material which aroused memories in local audiences
(Leach 2006: 142). Many of the actors trained in her Theatre
Workshop subsequently became better known for their appearances
on film and television. Littlewood herself directed hardly any material
for the screen: Sparrows Canât Sing and a 1964 series of television
commercials for the British Egg Marketing Board, starring Theatre
Workshopâs Avis Bunnage, were rare excursions into an area of practice
which she found constraining and unamenable (Gable 1980: 32).
The hybridity and singularity of Littlewoodâs feature may answer,
in some degree, for its subsequent neglect. However, Sparrows Canât
Sing makes a significant contribution to a group of films made in
Britain in the 1960s which comment generally on changes in the
urban and social fabric. It is especially worthy of consideration,
I shall argue, for the use which Littlewood made of a particular
communityâs attitudes â sentimental and critical â to such changes and
for its amalgamation of an attachment to documentary techniques
(recording an aural landscape on location) with a preference for nonnaturalistic
delivery in performance
The Hyperlinked Scandinavian News Ecology. The unequal terms forged by the structural properties of digitalisation
Prosumer and Product Design Through Digital Tools
Currently, the growing interest of users and consumers in the participation of the creative process has led to the typical âmaker cultureâ practices. Consequently, there is an increasing number of prosumers - users who produce what they consume - who want to be part of the design and transformation process of the products. In order to achieve it, prosumers have begun to use digital tools that greatly facilitate this task. These tools could vary depending on the number of users involved in the process and the freedom of participation that they have on the product. It has been presented a number of qualitative classification of cases involving the end user, individually or collectively, that has influenced as a prosumer in the product design process. The objective is to study the use of digital tools in the creative phase within the design process according to their different levels of participation with respect to the final product. The cases are shown in four tables according to the number of users involved in the process and their level of participation. In these tables, other important aspects related to the study of digital tools such as the type of contribution of the prosumer to the product or the design phase in which he participates will be identified. In conclusion, this work will show if there is a pattern in the use of digital tools according to the number of users involved in the process and the freedom of participation that they have and which are the reasons for their use
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Re-Imagining Images of Organization: A Conversation With Gareth Morgan
In this article, we review the metaphors presented by Morgan in Images of Organization and highlight how they simultaneously act as ârelatively static reflectionsâ (i.e., they provide a history of organization theory) and ârelatively dynamic projectionsâ (i.e., stimulating the formulation of further organizational images). We also discuss the potential for new organizational metaphors and consider two specific metaphors (i.e., the âglobal brainâ and âorganization as mediaâ). We also challenge the established punctuated metaphorical process (i.e., a transfer from a metaphorical source domain to an organizational target domain), propose a dynamic perspective of interchange (i.e., source domain to target domain to source domain and so on), and develop the notion of multidirectionality (i.e., two-way projections between target and source domains)
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Five Ws and an H: Digital Challenges in Newspaper Newsrooms and Boardrooms
It is no news to anyone involved with the media, from the newsroom to the boardroom to the classroom, that journalism is at a crossroads as an occupation, a business, a content form, and a public good. This is perhaps particularly true of journalism in the traditional news medium of record, the newspaper, where enormous uncertainty surrounds virtually every facet of the enterprise as it adjusts to being part of a digital network. This essay uses a framework familiar to journalists and journalism educators -- the traditional âfive Ws and an Hâ of who, what, when, where, why, and how -- to address some of the significant issues facing corporate and newsroom managers, as well as journalists themselves
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See also Young 1971: Marshall McLuhan, moral panics and moral indignation
Despite the fact that he introduced the concept into the sociology of deviance, Jock Young never claimed ownership of âmoral panicâ. There is little to no evidence suggest that he felt the need to keep up with the burgeoning literature on âmoral panics studiesâ; rather, in much of this literature, his name is all but invisible, reduced to âSee also Young, 1971â. This essay begins with a review of Jock Youngâs original use of âmoral panicâ before discussing how he subsequently rejected the term, and then reflecting on why and how he re-engaged with it. My position is that Jock Young was ambivalent about how the term was subsequently developed and transformed into what he viewed as: an incredulous âleft idealistâ reaction to morally challenging issues; a mechanical sociological model used to decide on whether something was or was not a âboil-in-the-bagâ moral panic; and finally a dismissive journalistic judgement. In all these âmoral panic for dummiesâ usages, for Young, the volatile energizing moral dynamics of âaction + reactionâ have been lost as has his nuanced appreciation of the shifting cultural significance of moral panic. Perhaps most significantly, the core dynamic of âmoral indignationâ and its channellingâconcerns that are present in all of Jock Youngâs workâhave likewise been lost in common usage of moral panic
Milestones and Impact Factors
Environmental Health has just received its first Impact Factor by Thomson ISI. At a level of 2.48, this achievement is quite satisfactory and places Environmental Health in the top 25% of environmental science journals. When the journal was launched in 2002, it was still unclear whether the Open Access publishing model could be made into a viable commercial enterprise within the biomedical field. During the past eight years, Open Access journals have become widely available, although still covering only about 15% of journal titles. Major funding agencies and institutions, including prominent US universities, now require that researchers publish in Open Access journals. Because of the profound role of scientific journals for the sharing of results and communication between researchers, the advent of Open Access may be of as much significance as the transition from handwriting to printing via moveable type. As Environmental Health is an electronic Open Access journal, the numbers of downloads at the journal website can be retrieved. The top-20 list of articles most frequently accessed shows that all of them have been downloaded over 10,000 times. Back in 2002, the first article published was accessed only 49 times during the following month. A year later, the server had over 1,000 downloads per month, and now the total number of monthly downloads approaches 50,000. These statistics complement the Impact Factor and confirm the viability of Open Access in our field of research. The advent of digital media and its decentralized mode of distribution - the internet - have dramatically changed the control and financing of scientific information dissemination, while facilitating peer review, accelerating editorial handling, and supporting much needed transparency. Both the meaning and means of "having an impact" are therefore changing, as will the degree and way in which scientific journals remain "factors" in that impact
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