Exploring options to build trust between journalists and audiences in collegiate community journalism education

This case study research explored options for improving trust between journalists and their communities within the boundaries of collegiate community journalism education. Data collected from students who completed a community journalism class, the instructor of that class, and journalism professionals who engaged with the class was analyzed using a two-step qualitative text analysis coding process. Data collected from students included both written reflections and in-depth interviews; data collected from the class instructor and the journalism professionals included in-depth interviews. Findings produced four dominant themes that participants spoke of most frequently including: journalists being part of the communities they work in, journalists working to meet community needs, the multiple elements and requirements that lead to doing journalism right, and finally, with all three preceding themes relating to a final overarching theme that practicing journalism is quite hard. Conclusions from the findings included: student journalists do understand that trust is not easily gained from an audience, and while they seem to understand reliability and credibility as related to trust, they have less of a grasp on the element of responsiveness; students understand and have a desire to implement community journalism practices across multiple platforms, including digital; political divisiveness continues to increasingly shape how journalists think of trust in the journalism profession; students somewhat understand that improving the relationship between journalist and audience is more of a responsibility on the journalist, but they tend to blame audience members for shortcomings in the relationship; and, although seasoned professionals and educators understand that younger journalists operate in a different media landscape than a decade ago, they may not fully understand how those differences have shaped the younger journalists' thoughts about trust and the relationship with their audience

Farm worker uprising in the Western Cape: a case study of protest, organising, and collective action

Research Report Global Labour University, Department of Sociology University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg September 26th, 2014This research report looks at the historic farm worker strikes and protests that took place during late 2012 and early 2013, involving thousands of farm workers and the rural poor in the Western Cape, with a view to answering: 1) why did the protests take place when they did; 2) how did the protests spread across the Western Cape; and 3) did the mass participation of the protests turn into formal organisation. The research was conducted primarily through in-depth interviews with participants and observers of the protests during field visits to the Western Cape in late 2013 and early 2014. The findings of the report suggest that farm owners, responding to top-down pressures of shifting global production standards and competition, along with increased government regulation and worker protections, continue to move toward a more seasonal, outsourced, and off-farm labour force; the transformation of the workforce is leading to a breakdown or re-negotiation of two of the major impediments to overt, confrontational, and collective action, namely paternalistic social construction and farm worker isolation. These longer-term trends combined with the spark of a small, successful strike and an increasing sense of tactics, strategy, and possibility to ignite a large-scale strike in one of the major farming towns in the area. With the help of television coverage featuring scenes of this protest and a clear demand by protestors themselves for an increase in the minimum wage, local organisations then served as “coordinating” units, alongside a range of more informal networks, to spread the protest and its easily replicable tactics to towns around the region. In part because farm workers do not have meaningful access to the more institutional vehicles for expressing their grievances, the protests took on a more bottom-up, “spontaneous” nature and spread, with the strategy of disruption and its emerging repertoires of contention serving as key sources of power. Because of the unique nature of the protests and the shifting nature of farm worker identities, most of the participating organisations were unsuccessful at translating the mass participation of the protests into greatly expanded levels of formal organisation. This challenge of turning participation into organisation was exacerbated by a major backlash by farm owners after the protest, as well as by some of the organising approaches of these organisations during and after the protests. The report concludes that there may be reasons for hope as the protests seem to have created some expanded confidence and leadership among farm workers, even if they did not primarily challenge power on the farms; the question remains as to whether this historic uprising can lead to further transformation from below

Investigating reactions catalyzed by terpene synthases in a novel model system

Terpene synthases are a set of enzymes that initiate the biosynthetic production of the largest class of known natural products. However, not much is known about how these enzymes carry out their complex cyclization reactions to form polycyclic olefins from linear hydrocarbon diphosphates such as geranylgeranyl diphosphate.;Since rice is known to produce many diterpenoid natural products and the rice genome was recently published, sequence information for many putative diterpene synthases was available. This provided the basis for functional characterization of the diterpene synthases from rice (Oryza sativa ssp. Indica). An enzyme producing syn-pimaradiene was identified, followed by those producing syn-stemodene, ent-kaurene, ent-isokaurene, ent-sandaracopimaradiene, ent-cassadiene, and syn-stemarene. At the same time another group published similar results, however one of the reported ent-isokaurene synthases was reported as ent-pimaradiene synthase by another research group.;Noting this difference in product with only the three amino acid differences in the active site, experiments were carried out leading to discovery of a single amino acid residue that switches product profile completely to pimaradienes from kaurenes, OsKSL5i:I664T. This switch was found not only in the originally targeted isokaurene synthase, OsKSL5, but also in the second reported isokaurene synthase from rice and kaurene synthases from rice and Arabidopsis. Further expounding on this idea, a similar amino acid difference was noted in diterpene synthases of conifers. This amino acid difference, A723S in abietadiene synthase, was a switch, too, with the product profile switching from \u3e95% abietanes to \u3e95% pimaranes. Utilizing a combination of functional genomics, metabolic engineering, macromolecular modeling, and enzyme biochemistry a basis for further investigations into how terpene synthases work has been provided

Contributions of groundwater seepage to the water and nutrient budget of Mendums Pond Barrington, New Hampshire

An understanding of the rates of groundwater seepage into and out of a pond or lake is important in assessing the flux of contaminants in a given system. Many studies have assessed the contribution of overland runoff and precipitation to freshwater pollution, but few have focused on direct measurement of groundwater inputs of nutrients and water to lakes. Spatial variation and natural heterogeneity of groundwater seepage around a large pond or lake can vary and make it an ambiguous and challenging parameter to quantify. The amount of groundwater seepage is thought to be related to the physical characteristics of a particular location. These include underlying soil type, slope, water-table characteristics. The aim of this study was to determine if land-use and upland topography impact groundwater seepage rates and nutrient contributions to Mendums Pond

Learning to teach : a beginning teacher's story

A beginning secondary teacher in rural Saskatchewan, Sarah, was interviewed over a four month period to examine how a novice secondary teacher describes the process of learning to teach. Relevant is Goodson's (1992) recognition that a teacher's classroom life and professional influences are not inseparable from a teacher's life outside the classroom and personal influences. Complexity is reflected in Sarah's storied description of learning to teach. Narrative inquiry within a qualitative design was used in this study. The researcher and participant engaged in weekly interviews, or more accurately conversations, about learning to teach. Participant observation was also employed for researcher orientation to Sarah's world and for grist for researcher-participant conversations. Sarah's story is offered as an alternative to traditional research and is a response to calls for stories with authentic markers of human presence (Graham, 1993). Sarah's story is presented as a writerly text (Barthes, 1974); that is, her story is contextually understood; is descriptive rather than prescriptive; is open to meaning making; and is intertextual in nature. Sarah's story is a reflection of the constructive way this novice teacher makes sense of her experience. Sarah's story of learning to teach is, possibly, more perceived than, for lack of a better word, real; her talk about "learning" and "becoming" is more about "finding her teacher mask. Sarah's story becomes one of perceptual identity formation, a marriage of her pre-teaching life and her teaching life so far; however, her understanding of the various cultural myths associated with the idea of "teacher" become significant. Sarah's story may have implications because teacher talk propagates the cultural myths clustered around the concept of "teacher" and, for Sarah, her colleagues prove to be a powerful influence. Second, her story suggests that feelings of separation and detachment must be usurped with a setting, which includes time and place, for teachers to discuss schooling, teaching and learning. The implication is for changing schools where the structure and climate preclude such opportunities. Third, the professional development value to the teller of story is apparent. The act of telling for Sarah, reflecting on the principles that inform practice and centering on the act of teaching, is the valuable part, not the story itself. Fourth, stories teach in ambiguous ways--they have an affective power. More research on what stories can offer the field of education is required

Namaste in the USA: The Growing Pains that Traditional Yoga Faces in America – An International Marketing Case Study

Yoga is a mind, body, and spiritual practice that originated nearly 5,000 years in India. It is known to relieve stress, enhance athletic performance, increase strength and flexibility as well as assist in achieving inner peace, focus, and improving mental wellness. In recent years, the practice of yoga has grown exponentially in the United States with about 37 million practitioners in 2016. However, the future growth of yoga in the U.S faces some critical challenges. American innovations in yoga techniques and the rise of the yoga accessories industry with deep linkages with consumerism, is drawing the practice away from its philosophical roots which emphasizes mental and spiritual benefits. A shortage of qualified instructors is exacerbating this problem. Further, the practice of yoga in the U.S seems to be mainly by females and concentrated largely in urban areas and East/West coast, thus, precluding its mass adoption. Also, although yoga has many health benefits across ages, and many schools have started adopting it, there has been some backlash due to its roots in Hinudism. Anti-immigrant rhetoric is also on the rise, in the U.S. which could have adverse impact on yoga which is clearly linked to India and Hinduism. This case study examines the practice and background of yoga and its rising popularity in the United States. It delves into the many challenges that yoga faces in becoming a part of mainstream health/wellness and fitness industry. Additionally, the case study poses critical marketing questions related to the scalability of its adoption in the United States…a challenge that the Brahmans, Rishis, and Yogis who created this practice thousands of years ago in India could never have foreseen

The MEGA Advanced Compton Telescope Project

The goal of the Medium Energy Gamma-ray Astronomy (MEGA) telescope is to improve sensitivity at medium gamma-ray energies (0.4-50 MeV) by at least an order of magnitude over that of COMPTEL. This will be achieved with a new compact design that allows for a very wide field of view, permitting a sensitive all-sky survey and the monitoring of transient and variable sources. The key science objectives for MEGA include the investigation of cosmic high-energy particle accelerators, studies of nucleosynthesis sites using gamma-ray lines, and determination of the large-scale structure of galactic and cosmic diffuse background emission. MEGA records and images gamma-ray events by completely tracking both Compton and pair creation interactions in a tracker of double-sided silicon strip detectors and a calorimeter of CsI crystals able to resolve in three dimensions. We present initial laboratory calibration results from a small prototype MEGA telescope.Comment: 7 pages LaTeX, 5 figures, to appear in New Astronomy Reviews (Proceedings of the Ringberg Workshop "Astronomy with Radioactivities III"