Governing young people’s drug use: Crime, harm and contemporary drug use practices

Since the nineteenth century, drug use has been variously understood as a problem of epidemiology, psychiatry, physiology, and criminality. Consequently drug research tends to be underpinned by assumptions of inevitable harm, and is often directed towards preventing drug use or solving problems. These constructions of the drug problem have generated a range of law enforcement responses, drug treatment technologies and rehabilitative programs that are intended to prevent drug related harm and resituate drug users in the realm of neo-liberal functional citizenship. This paper is based on empirical research of young people’s illicit drug use in Brisbane. The research rejects the idea of a pre-given drug problem, and seeks to understand how drugs have come to be defined as a problem. Using Michel Foucault’s conceptual framework of governmentality, the paper explores how the governance of illicit drugs, through law, public health and medicine, intersects with self-governance to shape young people’s drug use practices. It is argued that constructions of the drug problem shape what drug users believe about themselves and the ways in which they use drugs. From this perspective, drug use practices are ‘practices of the self’, formed through an interaction of the government of illicit drugs and the drug users own subjectivity.

Motivating domestic energy conservation through comparative feedback in mobile applications and social networking sites

The progress of technology has led to the increased adoption of energy monitors among household energy consumers. While the monitors available on the market deliver real-time energy usage feedback to the consumer, the form of this data is usually unengaging and mundane. Moreover, it fails to address consumers with different motivations and needs to save and compare energy. This master‟s thesis project presents a study that seeks to inform design guidelines for differently motivated energy consumers. The focus of the research is on comparative feedback supported by a community of energy consumers. In particular, the discussed comparative feedback types are explanatory comparison, temporal self-comparison, norm comparison, one-on-one comparison and ranking, whereby the last three support exploring the potential of socialising energy-related feedback in social networking sites, such as Facebook. These feedback types were integrated in EnergyWiz – a mobile application that enables users to compare with their past performance, neighbours, contacts from social networking sites and other EnergyWiz users. The application was developed through a theory-driven approach and evaluated in personal, semi-structured interviews which provided insights on how motivation-related comparative feedback should be designed. It was also employed in expert focus group discussions which resulted in defining opportunities and challenges before mobile, social energy monitors. The findings have unequivocally shown that users with different motivations to compare and to conserve energy have different preferences for comparative feedback types and design. It was established that one of the most influential factors determining design factors is the people users compare to. In addition, the research found that even simple communication strategies in Facebook, such as wall posts and groups can contribute to engagement with energy conservation practices. The concept of mobility of the application was evaluated as positive since it provides place and time-independent access to the energy consumption data.

Social media, data analytics and videogames development : Halfbrick case study

Social media platforms are of interest to interactive entertainment companies for a number of reasons. They can operate as a platform for deploying games, as a tool for communicating with customers and potential customers, and can provide analytics on how players utilize the; game providing immediate feedback on design decisions and changes. However, as ongoing research with Australian developer Halfbrick, creators of $2 , demonstrates, the use of these platforms is not universally seen as a positive. The incorporation of Big Data into already innovative development practices has the potential to cause tension between designers, whilst the platform also challenges the traditional business model, relying on micro-transactions rather than an up-front payment and a substantial shift in design philosophy to take advantage of the social aspects of platforms such as Facebook.

Social media

In the space of the past decade, the technologies, business models, everyday uses and public understandings of social media have co-evolved rapidly. In the early to mid 2000s, websites like MySpace, Facebook or Twitter were garnering interest in both the press and academia as places for amateur creativity, political subversion or trivial time-wasting on the behalf of subcultures of geeks or ‘digital natives’, but such websites were not seen as legitimate, mainstream media organisations, nor were they generally understood as respectable places for professionals (other than new media professionals) to conduct business. By late 2011, online marketing company Comscore was reporting that social networking was “the most popular online activity worldwide accounting for nearly 1 in every 5 minutes spent online”, reaching 82 percent of the world’s Internet population, or 1.2 billion users (Comscore, 2011). Today, social media is firmly established as an industry sector in its own right, and is deeply entangled with and embedded in the practices and everyday lives of media professionals, celebrities and ordinary users. We might now think of it as an embedded communications infrastructure extending across culture, society and the economy – ranging from local government Facebook pages alerting us to kerbside collection, to Tumblr blogs providing humorous cultural commentary by curating animated .gifs, to Telstra Twitter accounts responding to user requests for tech help, and to Yelp reviews helping us find somewhere to grab dinner in a strange town. As well as at least appearing to be near-ubiquitous, social media is increasingly seen as highly significant by scholars researching issues as diverse as journalistic practice (Hermida, 2012), the coordination of government and community responses to natural disasters (Bruns & Burgess, 2012), and the activities of global social and political protest movements (Howard & Hussain, 2013)...

Knowledge, attitudes and practices to reduce exposure among residents living near Danang dioxin hot spot : 2.5 years after a preventative intervention

Da Nang Airbase in Viet Nam served as a bulk storage and supply facility for Agent Orange and other herbicides during Operation Ranch Hand 1961-1971[1]. Studies have shown that environmental and biological samples taken around the airbase site have elevated levels of dioxin [1-3]. Residents living in the vicinity of the airbase are at risk of exposure to dioxin in soil, water and mud and particularly through the consumption of local contaminated food. In 2009, a pre-intervention cross sectional survey was undertaken. This survey examined the knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) of householders living near Da Nang Airbase, relevent to reducing dioxin exposure through contaminated food. The results showed that despite living near a severe dioxin hot spot, the residents had very limited knowledge of both exposure risk and measures to reduce exposure to dioxin[4]. In response, the Vietnam Public Health Association (VPHA) and Da Nang Public Health Association implemented a risk reduction program at four residential wards in the vicinities of the Da Nang Airbase in 2010. A post intervention KAP survey was under taken in 2011, and the results showed that knowledge of the existence of dioxin in food, dioxin exposure pathways, potential high risk foods, and preventive measures was significantly enhanced. This new study monitored KAP 2.5 years after the intervention through a 2013 survey of food handlers from 400 households that were randomly selected from the four intervention wards. The results show that most of the positive outcomes remained stable or had increased; some KAP indicators decreased compared to those in the post-intervention survey, but were still significantly higher than the pre-intervention levels. In 2014, these findings will be incorporated with qualitative assessments and the results of laboratory analysis of dioxin concentrations in foods in Da Nang and Bien Hoa dioxin hot spots to comprehensively assess the sustained effects of the intervention.

Social and cultural borders in Rio de Janeiro : the everyday life of community and mainstream photojournalists

This paper takes a multimethod approach which combines ethnographic techniques and discourse studies to investigate two contrasting professional groups: community photographers, who are favela dwellers who have developed photographic projects in Brazil‘s favelas, and photojournalists of the mainstream media. Its purpose is to determine how a cultural and social divide in the city of Rio de Janeiro shapes both community photographers and mainstream photojournalists’ practices, discourses, and identities. While community photographers strive to establish a humane and positive view about favelas and their residents by shifting the focus from poverty, shortages, violence, and criminality to images of the ordinary life, mainstream photojournalists express the view that their role is of primary importance for the defence of human rights in the favelas by helping to prevent, for instance, police abuses and violations. As the data analysis indicated the existence of socio-spatial borders all over Rio de Janeiro, this study adopted the idea of a divided city without denying interconnections between favelas and the city’s political life. Through the analysis of categories which emerged from the data, the complex world of documenting favela life is explored. The major themes touched upon are: the breakdown between the mainstream media and the favela communities; the different kinds of relationships which arise in Rio’s low income suburbs; and the gradual return of mainstream news workers to favelas.

The serious and playful work of gender : talk and social order in a preschool classroom

This chapter reports some observations made of the social interactions of girls and boys, aged 3 to 5 years, in play situations in a preschool classroom of a childcare centre. It provides an alternate framework for early childhood educators to become aware of how preschool children construct their gendered social organizations. As girls and boys organise and build their social worlds of play through their talk-in-interaction, they are building their social orders. In this chapter, an analysis of one episode of children's play has, as its focus , the methods that some girls and boys use in their talk and activity to make sense of their everyday interactions. The analysis of play shows the children's real life work of constructing and maintaining gendered social orders in their lived everyday social worlds. A close reading of the transcript of an episode illustrates how two girls turn they boys' masculine practices o ritualized threats into performance. By so doing, they show that while they know masculine discourse, and can perform it themselves, they do not actually 'own' it in the same way that the boys do. In this way, gender is established not as a social density but as a shaped dynamic practice that is ongoing, build by relational encounters and shaped by the collective performances of the participants.

Theatre, social media and spectatorship : translating commentary, critique and controversy across media

The occasional ArtsHub article asking spectators to show respect for stage by switching all devices off notwithstanding, in the last few years we have witnessed an clear push to make more use of social media as a means by which spectators might respond to a performance across most theatre companies. Mainstage companies, as well as contemporary companies are asking us to turn on, tune in and tweet our impressions of a show to them, to each other, and to the masses – sometimes during the show, sometimes after the show, and sometimes without having seen the show. In this paper, I investigate the relationship between theatre, spectatorship and social media, tracing the transition from print platforms in which expert critics were responsible for determining audience response to today’s online platforms in which everybody is responsible for debating responses. Is the tendency to invite spectators to comment via social media before, during, or after a show the advance in audience engagement, entertainment and empowerment many hail it to be? Is it a return to a more democratised past in which theatres were active, interactive and at times downright rowdy, and the word of the published critic had yet to take over from the word of the average punter? Is it delivering distinctive shifts in theatre and theatrical meaning making? Or is it simply a good way to get spectators to write about a work they are no longer watching? An advance in the marketing of the work rather than an advance in the active, interactive aesthetic of the work? In this paper, I consider what the performance of spectatorship on social media tells us about theatre, spectatorship and meaning-making. I use initial findings about the distinctive dramaturgies, conflicts and powerplays that characterise debates about performance and performance culture on social media to reflect on the potentially productive relationship between theatre, social media, spectatorship, and meaning making. I suggest that the distinctive patterns of engagement displayed on social media platforms – including, in many cases, remediation rather than translation, adaptation or transformation of prior engagement practices – have a lot to tell us about how spectators and spectator groups negotiate for the power to provide the dominant interpretation of a work.

‘Our’ community : corporate social responsibility, neoliberalisation, and mining industry community engagement in rural Australia

This paper addresses contemporary neoliberal mobilisations of community undertaken by private corporations. It does so by examining the ways in which the mining industry, empowered through the legitimising framework of corporate social responsibility, is increasingly and profoundly involved in shaping the meaning, practice, and experience of ‘local community’. We draw on a substantial Australian case study, consisting of interviews and document analysis, as a means to examine ‘community-engagement’ practices undertaken by BHP Billiton’s Ravensthorpe Nickel Operation in the Shire of Ravensthorpe in rural Australia. This engagement, we argue, as a process of deepening neoliberalisation simultaneously defines and transforms local community according to the logic of global capital. As such, this study has implications for critical understandings of the intersections among corporate social responsibility, neoliberalisation, community, and capital.

Four Aces : Bringing Communication Perspectives to Corporate Social Responsibility

The purpose of this chapter is to address the question of how communication studies can prove its value in relation to corporate social responsibility (CSR). As many disciplines seek to understand CSR, the role of communication has been relatively underexplored despite its prevalence in demonstrating and shaping social responsibility positions and practice. Literature review. The literature review points to what we consider as four aces. Communication studies alert us to (1) how meaning is constructed through communication, something that has implications for the management of organizations as publics hold different views of CSR and expect different things from them; (2) how a dialogue between an organization and its publics should unfold; (3) how practices of transparency can assist organizations to come across as trustworthy actors; and, importantly, (4) how a complexity view is fruitful to grasp the CSR communication process. These four key themes could be instructive for practitioners who want to argue for and demonstrate the usefulness of strategic communication for the management of CSR and bridge meso and macro levels of analysis.

The Global Financial Crisis : Neo-Liberalism, Social Democracy, and Criminology

This chapter begins with a discussion of the economic, political, and social context of the recent global financial crisis, which casts into relief current boundaries of criminology, permeated and made fluid in criminology's recent cultural turn. This cultural turn has reinvigorated criminology, providing new objects of analysis and rich and thick descriptions of the relationship between criminal justice and the conditions of life in ‘late modernity’. Yet in comparison with certain older traditions that sought to articulate criminal justice issues with a wider politics of contestation around political economies and social welfare policies of different polities, many of the current leading culturalist accounts tend in their globalized convergences to produce a strangely decontextualized picture in which we are all subject to the zeitgeist of a unitary ‘late modernity’ which does not differ between, for example, social democratic and neo-liberal polities, let alone allow for the widespread persistence of the pre-modern. It is argued that that contrary to this globalizing trend there are signs within criminology that life is being breathed back into social democratic and penal welfare concerns, habitus, and practices. The chapter discusses three of these signs: the emergence of neo-liberalism as a subject of criminology; a developing comparative penology which recognizes differences in the political economies of capitalist states and evinces a renewed interest in inequality; and a nascent revolt against the ‘generative grammar’, ‘pathological disciplinarities’, and ‘imaginary penalities’ of neoliberal managerialism.

Imagining social justice

This paper examines how creativity and the arts can assist teachers who teach from a social justice perspective, and how knowledge built through meaningful experiences of difference can make a difference. Just as imagining is central to visual arts practice, so too the capacity to imagine is a necessity for social justice. The authors ask what art can do, and how art can work, to bring about greater understandings and practices around social justice and the early years. A ‘recognitive justice’ (Fraser, 1997, 2000; Cazden, 2012) requires the capacity to be sensitive to the multiple voices that need to be heard, and the ability to imagine how lives might be lived differently. The arts can provide powerful means for thinking social justice, and the experiences described in this paper can have application in addressing social justice in the professional preparation of prospective teachers. Three teacher educators who teach from a social justice perspective apply a collective biography methodology to their stories of art activity. Data were collected from three sites: transcripts, notes and digital images from a salon evening; ethnographic observations, field notes and artefacts from a school classroom; and a/r/tographic data generated in a university art classroom. Data were analysed using Foucault and the conceptual work of other post-structuralist philosophies, to explore how aesthetic and creative artistic activity could excite imaginations and open up multiple possibilities for richer forms of educational outcomes – for teacher educators, their students, and ultimately for young children.

Practices surrounding event photos

Sharing photos through mobile devices has a great potential for creating shared experiences of social events between co-located as well as remote participants. In order to design novel event sharing tools, we need to develop in-depth understanding of current practices surrounding these so called ‘event photos’- photos about and taken during different social events such as weddings picnics, and music concert visits among others. We studied people’s practices related to event photos through in-depth interviews, guided home visits and naturalistic observations. Our results show four major themes describing practices surrounding event photos: 1) representing events, 2) significant moments, 3) situated activities through photos, and 4) collectivism and roles of participants.

Evaluation and social impact measurement amongst small to medium social enterprises : process, purpose and value

In recent years, the imperative to communicate organisational impacts to a variety of stakeholders has gained increasing importance within all sectors. Despite growing external demands for evaluation and social impact measurement, there has been limited critically informed analysis about the presumed importance of these activities to organisational success and the practical challenges faced by organisations in undertaking such assessment. In this paper, we present the findings from an action research study of five Australian small to medium social enterprises’ practices and use of evaluation and social impact analysis. Our findings have implications for social enterprise operators, policy makers and social investors regarding when, why and at what level these activities contribute to organisational performance and the fulfilment of mission.

Stagnancy in Indonesia’s reformed state asset management policies and practices : a wicked problem?

The policies and regulations governing the practice of state asset management have emerged as an urgent question among many countries worldwide for there is heightened awareness of the complex and crucial role that state assets play in public service provision. Indonesia is an example of such country, introducing a ‘big-bang’ reform in state asset management laws, policies, regulations, and technical guidelines. Indonesia exemplified its enthusiasm in reforming state asset management policies and practices through the establishment of the Directorate General of State Assets in 2006. The Directorate General of State Assets have stressed the new direction that it is taking state asset management laws and policies through the introduction of Republic of Indonesia Law Number 38 Year 2008, which is an amended regulation overruling Republic of Indonesia Law Number 6 Year 2006 on Central/Regional Government State Asset Management. Law number 38/2008 aims to further exemplify good governance principles and puts forward a ‘the highest and best use of assets’ principle in state asset management. The purpose of this study is to explore and analyze specific contributing influences to state asset management practices, answering the question why innovative state asset management policy implementation is stagnant. The methodology of this study is that of qualitative case study approach, utilizing empirical data sample of four Indonesian regional governments. Through a thematic analytical approach this study provides an in-depth analysis of each influencing factors to state asset management reform. Such analysis suggests the potential of an ‘excuse rhetoric’; whereby the influencing factors identified are a smoke-screen, or are myths that public policy makers and implementers believe in, as a means to ex-plain stagnant implementation of innovative state asset management practice. Thus this study offers deeper insights of the intricate web that influences state as-set management innovative policies to state asset management policy makers; to be taken into consideration in future policy writing.