Sharing news, making sense, saying thanks: patterns of talk on Twitter during the Queensland floods

Abstract: This paper examines the discursive aspects of Twitter communication during the floods in the summer of 2010–2011 in Queensland, Australia. Using a representative sample of communication associated with the #qldfloods hashtag on Twitter, we coded and analysed the patterns of communication. We focus on key phenomena in the use of social media in crisis communication: communal sense-making practices, the negotiation of participant roles, and digital convergence around shared events. Social media is used both as a crisis communication and emergency management tool, as well as a space for participants to engage in emotional exchanges and communication of distress.Authored by Frances Shaw, Jean Burgess, Kate Crawford and Axel Bruns

Geomorphology of shell ridges and their effect on the stabilization of the Biloxi Marsh, East Louisiana

Extensive shell ridges frame the edges of marsh platforms in parts of the Biloxi Marsh of southeast Louisiana. The exact sources of the shells in these accumulations have not been clearly identified but the most likely source is a combination of shells from modern offshore and shells excavated from buried St. Bernard delta deposits. Larger or fetch-protected ridges remain stable through time, whereas ridges facing open water are more mobile, moving as much as 38 m inland from July 2017 to January 2018. Behind stable ridges, marsh platform biomass is relatively unaffected. When ridges are mobile, vegetation is smothered, leaving an exposed platform that lacks aboveground vegetation to dampen wave energy and fragments into “blocks” along its terraced edge, which in turn are deposited onshore. In the future, marshes will likely erode fastest in areas where shell ridges are mobile and remain resistant where shell ridges are stable

Geomorphology of shell ridges and their effect on the stabilization of the Biloxi Marsh, East Louisiana

Extensive shell ridges frame the edges of marsh platforms in parts of the Biloxi Marsh of southeast Louisiana. The exact sources of the shells in these accumulations have not been clearly identified but the most likely source is a combination of shells from modern offshore and shells excavated from buried St. Bernard delta deposits. Larger or fetch-protected ridges remain stable through time, whereas ridges facing open water are more mobile, moving as much as 38 m inland from July 2017 to January 2018. Behind stable ridges, marsh platform biomass is relatively unaffected. When ridges are mobile, vegetation is smothered, leaving an exposed platform that lacks aboveground vegetation to dampen wave energy and fragments into “blocks” along its terraced edge, which in turn are deposited onshore. In the future, marshes will likely erode fastest in areas where shell ridges are mobile and remain resistant where shell ridges are stable

Connecting Community Participation with Entrepreneurial Thinking: A way forward?

Backing people not structures, and using business techniques to achieve positive change are features of the social entrepreneur movement. In the crisis facing social welfare in western democracies and indeed global living, this movement suggests solutions that go beyond conventional partisan positions. Traditionally those on the left see large governments and increased spending as solutions to human marginalisation while those on the right argue for small government to build human independence and capacity. Both positions prioritise structures and institutions ahead of people. Social entrepreneurship emphasises investing in people and community to strengthen individuals and families in all their diversity. It challenges taken-for-granted boundaries between business, government, community, self-help, and philanthropy.This paper traces the emergence of the concept of social entrepreneurship within the discourse of the Third Way. After identifying problematics attached to the concept, the paper documents the development of social entrepreneurship in a remote Australian context and explores whether this way of working is new. Drawing on an in-depth interview with a social entrepreneur the paper concludes that the concept opens up new possibilities for community practice. These possibilities are not attainable through linear 'cook-book' steps to be followed by anyone, anywhere. Rather they are contingent on the actions and reflexivity of value based practitioners located in time and space in relationship with others. Using the voice of a grounded practitioner, the paper explores how an 'ethics of care', as articulated in feminist literature, is integral to the use of social entrepreneurship in renovating and making relevant civil society at this time in the north west of Australia

The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse: Dreaming of Child Safe Organisations?

On 12 November 2012 the then Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced she was recommending to the Governor General the establishment of a Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Following inquiries in Australia and elsewhere much is already known about institutional and inter-institutional child protection failures and what is required to address them. That Australia’s national government has pursued another abuse inquiry with terms of reference limited to institution-based (excluding the family) sexual abuse is of interest given the lack of political will to enact previous findings and recommendations. This article examines the background to the Government’s announcement, the Commission’s terms of reference and some of its settings, and literature on the nature of royal commissions across time and place. After the lack of success in implementing the recommendations of previous inquiries into how to better protect Australia’s children, the question is: how will this Royal Commission contribute to Australian child protection and safety? Will the overwhelming public support generated by “truth speaking to power” in calling for this inquiry translate into action

Social media and its impact on crisis communication: Case studies of Twitter use in emergency management in Australia and New Zealand

There is a growing awareness worldwide of the significance of social media to communication in times of both natural and human-created disasters and crises. While the media have long been used as a means of broadcasting messages to communities in times of crisis – bushfires, floods, earthquakes etc. – the significance of social media in enabling many-to-many communication through ubiquitous networked computing and mobile media devices is becoming increasingly important in the fields of disaster and emergency management. This paper undertakes an analysis of the uses made of social media during two recent natural disasters: the January 2011 floods in Brisbane and South-East Queensland in Australia, and the February 2011 earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand. It is part of a wider project being undertaken by a research team based at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, that is working with the Queensland Department of Community Safety (DCS) and the EIDOS Institute, and funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) through its Linkages program. The project combines large-scale, quantitative social media tracking and analysis techniques with qualitative cultural analysis of communication efforts by citizens and officials, to enable both emergency management authorities and news media organisations to develop, implement, and evaluate new social media strategies for emergency communication

Tennessee Municipal Benchmarking Project FY2013

This report marks the eleventh year of the Tennessee Municipal Benchmarking Project (TMBP). The report provides performance and cost data for the period July 1, 2012 through June 30, 2013 (Fiscal Year 2013 or FY2013). In this FY2013 annual report, there are a total of ten service areas measured and analyzed: 1) Building Code Enforcement 2) Employment Benefits 3) Finance 4) Fire 5) Human Resources 6) Parks and Recreation (new for FY2013) 7) Planning and Zoning 8) Police 9) Property Maintenance Code Enforcement 10) Refuse Collection, Disposal, and Recyclin

Integrating children's perspectives in policy-making to combat poverty and social exclusion experienced by single-parent families: a transnational comparative approach

This is the final report of a research project that addressed social exclusion and poverty as it relates to single parent families and their children in particular. The rising numbers of single parent families and children throughout the EU and the increased likelihood that these families will live in poverty and experience many different forms of social exclusion in their daily lives brings in sharp focus the need to address the issue as an urgent one in our efforts to eradicate poverty and social exclusion. The focus on the children of single parent families seeks to rectify a long-standing problem in our knowledge and understanding of single parent families and the social problems they face, namely, the fact that little, if anything, is known about how these children experience and understand their lives as members of these families. The research set out to contribute to policy development and the transnational exchange of best practice by adding a much-neglected dimension on single parent families. The project used a cross-national comparative qualitative research design and methods (Mangen 1999) which involved all partners in the design of each research phase including the analysis; partners were England, Cyprus and Greece