Third Space, Social Media and Everyday Political Talk

Theoretical and empirical research into online politics to date has primarily focused on what might be called formal politics or on how activists and social movements utilize social media to pursue their goals. However, in this chapter, we argue that there is much to be gained by investigating how political talk and engagement emerges in everyday, online, lifestyle communities: i.e. third spaces. Such spaces are not intended for political purposes, but rather – during the course of everyday talk – become political through the connections people make between their everyday lives and the political/social issues of the day. In this chapter, we develop a theoretically informed argument for research that focuses on everyday informal political talk in online third spaces

Third Space and Everyday Online Political Talk: Deliberation, Polarisation, Avoidance

This paper takes forward a new agenda for online deliberation - the study of everyday political talk in 'non-political' online ‘third spaces’ - online communities devoted to issues such as parenting, food or sports (author 2012a, b). Online deliberation research has identified a series of problems with online debate: it often polarises with like-minded people talking to each other; disagreement and/or difficult topics are avoided; and it lacks deliberative characteristics and is plagued by trolling, flaming and curbing. This paper hypothesises that political talk in third spaces will avoid these limitations. It empirically analyses the nature of debate about the 2016 Australian federal election, in a discussion forum devoted to parenting. It finds that debates are broadly rational, with limited negative discursive behaviours. While participants lean to the left, there is significant crosscutting political talk and disagreement and debates focus on 'sensitive’ topics such as immigration and marriage equality

Extragalactic infrared spectroscopy

The spectra of galaxies in the near infrared atmospheric transmission windows are explored. Emission lines were detected due to molecular hydrogen, atomic hydrogen recombination lines, a line attributed to FEII, and a broad CO absorption feature. Lines due to H2 and FEII are especially strong in interacting and merging galaxies, but they were also detected in Seyferts and normal spirals. These lines appear to be shock excited. Multi-aperture measurements show that they emanate from regions as large as 15 kpc. It is argued that starbursts provide the most plausible and consistent model for the excitation of these lines, but the changes of relative line intensity of various species with aperture suggest that other excitation mechanisms are also operating in the outer regions of these galaxies

Star formation in the merging Galaxy NGC3256

The central 5 kpc of the ultra-luminous merging galaxy NGC 3256 was mapped at J, H, K, L, and 10 micrometer, and a 2 micrometer spectra of the nuclear region was obtained. This data was used to identify and characterize the super starburst which has apparently been triggered and fuelled by the merger of two gas rich galaxies. It is also shown that the old stellar population has relaxed into a single spheroidal system, and that a supernova driven wind might eventually drive any remaining gas from the system to leave a relic which will be indistinguishable from an elliptical galaxy

Shape, shear & flexion: An analytic flexion formalism for realistic mass profiles

Flexion is a non-linear gravitational lensing effect that arises from gradients in the convergence and shear across an image. We derive a formalism that describes non-linear gravitational lensing by a circularly symmetric lens in the thin-lens approximation. This provides us with relatively simple expressions for first- and second-flexion in terms of only the surface density and projected mass distribution of the lens. We give details of exact lens models, in particular providing flexion calculations for a Sersic-law profile, which has become increasingly popular over recent years. We further provide a single resource for the analytic forms of convergence, shear, first- and second-flexion for the following mass distributions: a point mass, singular isothermal sphere (SIS); Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW) profile; Sersic-law profile. We quantitatively compare these mass distributions and show that the convergence and first-flexion are better indicators of the Sersic shape parameter, while for the concentration of NFW profiles the shear and second-flexion terms are preferred.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRA

A socio-ecological examination of the primary school playground: Primary school pupil and staff perceived barriers and facilitators to a physically active playground during break and lunch-times

Using Brofenbrenner’s socio-ecological model as a conceptual framework, the objective of this study was to determine playground users (primary school staff and pupils) perceptions of the barriers and facilitators to a physically active school playground at an intra-personal (individual), inter-personal (social), environmental and policy level. Results from a series of qualitative interactions with children (n = 65) from years five and six (9 to 11 years old), and structured interviews with adult teachers (n = 11) revealed key differences in the child and adult perceptions of the playground and the purpose of break-times. A number of inter-related environmental boundaries and school policies were identified as restrictive to children’s explorations and activity levels during ‘free play’ periods, which centred on resource availability, accessibility and health and safety. Further, traditional playground hierarchies act to promote and prevent physical activity engagement for different groups (e.g. gender and age). Finally, differences between the adult and child perception of the primary school playground were observed. Playground physical activity, during break-times appears to be affected by a number of variables at each level of the socio-ecological model. This study provides an opportunity for primary schools to reflect on primary school playground strategies and practices that are implemented at each level of the socio-ecological model to encourage a more effective use of the playground during school break-times