1,720,990 research outputs found
Protest communication ecologies
Full text linkThe flurry of protests since the turn of the decade has sustained a growth area in the social sciences. The diversity of approaches to the various facets and concerns raised by the collective action of aggrieved groups the world over impresses through multidisciplinarity and the wealth of insights it has generated. This introduction to a special issue of the international journal Information, Communication and Society is an invitation to recover conceptual instruments — such as the ecological trope — that have fallen out of fashion in media and communication studies. We account for their fall from grace and explicate the rationale for seeking to reinsert them into the empirical terrain of interlocking media, communication practices and protest which we aim to both capture with theory and adopt as a starting point for further analytical innovation
Gendered political spaces in international relations : the case of NGO use of information & communication technologies (ICTs)
Full text linkThe thesis contributes to evolving debates on spatial theorising in the discipline of International Relations (IR). It argues that spatial interpretation in the discipline is both gendered, through its focus on public institutions of politics, and state-centric, through a neo/Realist hegemony of ideas in its discourse. These discursive parameters are argued to impose limitations on the study of transnational phenomena, and the thesis therefore develops a framework for analysis apposite to
research into political activity that is not state-centred. This analytical frarnework is based initially upon the work of Henri Lefebvre, and identifies three categories of analysis: spatial practice, representations of space and space of representation. In this respect the thesis introduces a form of spatial methodology to the discipline. The thesis argues that these categories provide a more
flexible model for analysis of complex interactions in the international arena than extant approaches in the discipline can provide, by permitting examination of political activity at the level of agency. The spatial categories are applied to two transnational phenomena of relevance to the discipline: the international political practices of non-governmental organizations(NGOs), and
their use of information and communications technologies (ICTs). A survey of the use of ICT's by Amnesty International, Christian Aid, Friends of the Earth, the Institute for Journalism in Transition and Oxfam is undertaken. The thesis then analyses the use of ICTs as a political tool by these organizations, using spatial theories as a framework. The application of spatial theories
as a methodological approach aims to extend the discursive parameters of the discipline by introducing a less gendered, more flexible analytical model, appropriate to research into complex political practices
POVERTY IN THE NEWS
No full textThis article provides a framing analysis of mainstream press coverage of poverty (offline and online) in Canada and the UK, and compares mainstream news coverage to coverage on alternative news sites. The research questions the extent to which, and how, coverage of children and immigrants presents contemporary constructions of the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving poor’. It is argued that rationalizing and individualizing frames dominate coverage of poverty and immigration. The author suggests that the significance of the dominance of these frames is their ability to privilege and embed market-based approaches to poverty and immigration. An analysis of alternative news content reveals the extent to which social justice frames, the very frames that counter market-based approaches, are absent from mainstream news coverage. Overall, these results indicate that challenging problematic representations and approaches to poverty will require changing representations, an expansion of coverage that runs counter to news norms, and structural investments
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Perceptions of students and teachers in England about how social media are used (and how they could be used) in schools and elsewhere
Full text linkMaireder and Schwarzenegger who explore a short protest by Austrian students with very similar characteristics of self-organization and interaction with the public and media to that of the UK students found that both individual and institutional protest websites and weblogs were mainly focused on providing information and communication. Students criticized the cuts as an attack on education that would deter the majority of poorer students from applying, and a break of campaign promises, especially on the part of the Liberal Democrats. Ministers, protesters and the media acknowledged that the demonstration, which was at that time the largest and most dramatic in response to a series of austerity measures planned by the British government, gained significant public support. Although websites have been found to be indispensable tools for protest activism, the literature has focused primarily on social movement organization (SMO) websites and has overlooked their use by spontaneously formed, short-lived, loosely organized protest groups
Forward: Cyberactivism
No full textThe forward to this collection of texts about the use of new media for protest politics by social movements aims to set the intellectual stage for the chapter that follow. In particular the socio-cultural origins as well as limitations of the internet in these civic contests are highlighte
Young activists, political horizons, and the Internet: adapting the net to one's puroses
No full textBased on a series of interviews with young activists working in both parliamentarian and extra-parliamentarian contexts, this chapter underscores that political purposes steer the use of communication technology. This is an explicit position gainst technological determinism. The two different categories of activists generated two different kinds of civic cultures
- …
