Can action research improve local journalism?

This article considers the extent to which action research can help local stakeholders tackle the permanent technological disruption in the media sector by reshaping journalistic production practices with original design by examining a specific case. The INJECT Norway (Innovative Journalism: Enhanced Creativity Tools) project was part of an EU Innovation Action with partners that included universities, technology companies, business consultancies, and local newspapers. The objective was to design a new tool for creativity support in journalism and stimulate innovation competence through a business ecosystem. The article evaluates the collaboration between academics and local partners in the Norwegian ecosystem regarding the workability of the new designs and the credibility of the approach. The evaluation is written as a chronological narrative of the project's collaboration from optimistic beginnings to eventual failure. The main findings reveal a tension between the academic researchers and the local project partners. Despite these tensions, the article concludes with a hopeful note about the current action research ecosystem: harnessing the power of students to mediate the relationship between academics and local partners

Digital Creativity Support for Original Journalism

The decline in circulations and revenues resulting from the digitalization of news production and consumption has led to a crisis in journalism.Journalists have less time to research, investigate and write original stories, leading to problems for our democratic processes and holding the powerful to account. This paper reports the architecture, features and rationale for new digital creativity support designed to support journalists to discover more original angles onstories. It also summarises the evaluation of the tool’s use in 3 newsrooms

Evaluating the Use of Digital Creativity Support by Journalists in Newsrooms

This paper reports the evaluation of a new digital support tool designed to increase journalist creativity and productivity in newsrooms. After outlining the tool’s principles, interactive features and architecture, the paper reports the installation and use of the tool over 2 months by 12 journalists in the newsrooms of 3 newspapers. Results from this evaluation revealed that tool use was associated with published news articles rated as more novel but not more valuable than published articles written by the same journalists without the tool. However, tool use did not increase journalist productivity. The evaluation results were used to inform future changes to the digital creativity support tool

The participation paradigm in audience research

As today's media simultaneously converge and diverge, fusing and hybridizing across digital services and platforms, some researchers argue that audiences are dead-long live the user! But for others, it is the complex interweaving of continuities and changes that demands attention, especially now that audiencing has become a vital mode of engaging with all dimensions of daily life. This article asks how we should research audiences in a digital networked age. I argue that, while many avenues are being actively pursued, many researchers are concentrating on the notion of participation, asking, on the one hand, what modes of participation are afforded to people by the particular media and communication infrastructures which mediate social, cultural or political spheres of life? And, on the other hand, how do people engage with, accede to, negotiate or contest this as they explore and invent new ways of connecting with each other through and around media? The features of this emerging participation paradigm of audience research are examined in this article

Frequency Modulation Error Calculation

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / May 18-20, 1965 / Sheraton Park Hotel, Washington DCIn a frequency modulation process, small amplitude sidebands near the deviation limits are sometimes distorted or lost. The problems and expense of preserving these lessor sidebands are often great, and spectrum space must be reserved for them. To date there appears to have been no clear statement of their importance in terms of data accuracy. This paper presents a numerical calculation of the errors accrued in a demodulated signal after truncation of the FM spectrum obtained with sinusoidal modulation. It is shown that the error increases for decreasing bandwidth. Error is evaluated for several bandwidths, and relationships to power outside the band are noted. Applications include specification of bandwidth for a given error in demodulated signal. The use of a limiter is assumed.International Foundation for TelemeteringProceedings from the International Telemetering Conference are made available by the International Foundation for Telemetering and the University of Arizona Libraries. Visit http://www.telemetry.org/index.php/contact-us if you have questions about items in this collection

Automating science journalism tasks: emerging opportunities

Digital tools have the potential to both semi-automate science journalist tasks including the incorporation of more diverse voices in science journalism. This paper reports new design science research that developed then elicited first feedback on one digital prototype with algorithms that semi-automated selected science journalism tasks. The feedback revealed that almost all of participating science journalists were comfortable with increased automation of at least of some of their tasks, as long as opportunities to control and personalize this automation remained. The feedback also revealed the potential value of automation to discover and incorporate a wider range of expert voices, depending on geographical location. The paper ends with preliminary design implications for future semi-automation that provides digitized support for science journalism tasks, then a discussion of the paper’s wider research contributions

Digital learning and participation among youth: critical reflections on future research priorities

This article uses insights from media and communications research over recent decades to inform a critical analysis of the burgeoning multidisciplinary study of youthful digital engagement. The analysis first points to the systematic connections between mediatization and the problematic dimensions of consumerism, individualization, and globalization. Critiquing the popular rhetoric of the digital native, it then draws on empirical observation to temper excessive celebration of youthful creative and expressive skills and, thus, support rather than undermine the resourcing of digital opportunities for youth. To identify future directions for research on the social uses and consequences of digital media, the author argues that instead of asking, narrowly, how the digital impacts on learning or participation, we should turn the question around to identify the wide array of factors that shape learning and participation to reveal when and how the digital fits within this. The changing balance in childhood between independence and dependence positions digital media, for at least some young people, as a valued opportunity to explore, learn, and participate. But the consequent intertwining of opportunity and risk in the digital environment means that youth pursue the latter as well as the former in a manner here termed "playing with fire." Although disapproved of by adults, such activities may nonetheless benefit learning, participation, and resilience. The article concludes by observing some key dilemmas for a future policy-relevant agenda that will demand critical reflexivity from researchers if they are to navigate between independence and engagement

An international measure of awareness and beliefs about cancer: development and testing of the ABC

Objectives: To develop an internationally validated measure of cancer awareness and beliefs; the awareness and beliefs about cancer (ABC) measure. Design and setting: Items modified from existing measures were assessed by a working group in six countries (Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the UK). Validation studies were completed in the UK, and cross-sectional surveys of the general population were carried out in the six participating countries. Participants: Testing in UK English included cognitive interviewing for face validity (N=10), calculation of content validity indexes (six assessors), and assessment of test–retest reliability (N=97). Conceptual and cultural equivalence of modified (Canadian and Australian) and translated (Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and Canadian French) ABC versions were tested quantitatively for equivalence of meaning (≥4 assessors per country) and in bilingual cognitive interviews (three interviews per translation). Response patterns were assessed in surveys of adults aged 50+ years (N≥2000) in each country. Main outcomes: Psychometric properties were evaluated through tests of validity and reliability, conceptual and cultural equivalence and systematic item analysis. Test–retest reliability used weighted-κ and intraclass correlations. Construction and validation of aggregate scores was by factor analysis for (1) beliefs about cancer outcomes, (2) beliefs about barriers to symptomatic presentation, and item summation for (3) awareness of cancer symptoms and (4) awareness of cancer risk factors. Results: The English ABC had acceptable test–retest reliability and content validity. International assessments of equivalence identified a small number of items where wording needed adjustment. Survey response patterns showed that items performed well in terms of difficulty and discrimination across countries except for awareness of cancer outcomes in Australia. Aggregate scores had consistent factor structures across countries. Conclusions: The ABC is a reliable and valid international measure of cancer awareness and beliefs. The methods used to validate and harmonise the ABC may serve as a methodological guide in international survey research