From ‘broadcast yourself’ to ‘follow your interests’ : making over social media

In this article I briefly trace the complex and incremental but significant ways that social media platforms have been transformed since the ‘Web 2.0’ moment of the early 2000s, identifying some common trajectories across several platforms, and discussing their consequences for how users – and their capacity for creative agency – are positioned. I argue that the maintenance of balanced tensions between accessibility and openness is important to the ongoing prospects of social and cultural innovation in social media.

ESD starts where STEM stops : integrating the social sciences into STEM

The Earth and its peoples are facing great challenges. As a species, humans are over-consuming the Earth’s resources and compromising the capacity of both natural and social systems to function in healthy and sustainable ways. Education at all levels and in all contexts, has a key role in helping societies move to more sustainable ways of living. Two areas in need of catch-up in relation to Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) are early childhood education and teacher education. Another area of challenge for ESD is the way it is currently oriented. To date, a great deal of emphasis has been placed on scientific and technological solutions to sustainability issues. This has led to an emphasis on STEM education as education’s main way of addressing sustainability. However, in this paper it is argued that sustainably is primarily a social issue that requires interdisciplinary education approaches. STEM approaches to ESD - emphasising knowledge construction and problem-solving - cannot, on their own, deal effectively with attitudes, values and actions towards more sustainable ways of living. In China and Australia, there are already policies, frameworks, guidelines and initiatives, such as Green Schools and Sustainable Schools that support such forms of ESD. STEM educators need to reach out to social scientists and social educators in order to more fully engage with activist and collaborative educational responses that equip learners with the knowledge, dispositions and capacities to ‘make a difference’.

The informed manager : exploring absorptive capacity in the non-profit sector

Being across new knowledge is critical to the survival of individual businesses. This study explored the way in which managers of small social services in Queensland identified important new knowledge and brought this into their organisations. New knowledge was found to be highly valued by managers with key resources allocated to knowledge seeking processes particularly in response to regulatory change. Knowledge absorption involved accessing multiple sources, and external professional networks were found to be critical to understanding and integrating new knowledge. The research highlighted the challenges in securing new knowledge and the importance of managers professional links.

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.

Conceptualising, evaluating and reporting social resilience in vulnerable regional and remote communities facing climate change in tropical Queensland : marine and tropical sciences research facility transition project final report

Regional and remote communities in tropical Queensland are among Australia’s most vulnerable in the face of climate change. At the same time, these socially and economically vulnerable regions house some of Australia’s most significant biodiversity values. Past approaches to terrestrial biodiversity management have focused on tackling biophysical interventions through the use of biophysical knowledge. An equally important focus should be placed on building regional-scale community resilience if some of the worst biodiversity impacts of climate change are to be avoided or mitigated. Despite its critical need, more systemic or holistic approaches to natural resource management have been rarely trialed and tested in a structured way. Currently, most strategic interventions in improving regional community resilience are ad hoc, not theory-based and short term. Past planning approaches have not been durable, nor have they been well informed by clear indicators. Research into indicators for community resilience has been poorly integrated within adaptive planning and management cycles. This project has aimed to resolve this problem by: * Reviewing the community and social resilience and adaptive planning literature to reconceptualise an improved framework for applying community resilience concepts; * Harvesting and extending work undertaken in MTSRF Phase 1 to identifying the learnings emerging from past MTSRF research; * Distilling these findings to identify new theoretical and practical approaches to the application of community resilience in natural resource use and management; * Reconsidering the potential interplay between a region’s biophysical and social planning processes, with a focus on exploring spatial tools to communicate climate change risk and its consequent environmental, economic and social impacts, and; * Trialling new approaches to indicator development and adaptive planning to improve community resilience, using a sub-regional pilot in the Wet Tropics. In doing so, we also looked at ways to improve the use and application of relevant spatial information. Our theoretical review drew upon the community development, psychology and emergency management literature to better frame the concept of community resilience relative to aligned concepts of social resilience, vulnerability and adaptive capacity. Firstly, we consider community resilience as a concept that can be considered at a range of scales (e.g. regional, locality, communities of interest, etc.). We also consider that overall resilience at higher scales will be influenced by resilience levels at lesser scales (inclusive of the resilience of constituent institutions, families and individuals). We illustrate that, at any scale, resilience and vulnerability are not necessarily polar opposites, and that some understanding of vulnerability is important in determining resilience. We position social resilience (a concept focused on the social characteristics of communities and individuals) as an important attribute of community resilience, but one that needs to be considered alongside economic, natural resource, capacity-based and governance attributes. The findings from the review of theory and MTSRF Phase 1 projects were synthesized and refined by the wider project team. Five predominant themes were distilled from this literature, research review and an expert analysis. They include the findings that: 1. Indicators have most value within an integrated and adaptive planning context, requiring an active co-research relationship between community resilience planners, managers and researchers if real change is to be secured; 2. Indicators of community resilience form the basis for planning for social assets and the resilience of social assets is directly related the longer term resilience of natural assets. This encourages and indeed requires the explicit development and integration of social planning within a broader natural resource planning and management framework; 3. Past indicator research and application has not provided a broad picture of the key attributes of community resilience and there have been many attempts to elicit lists of “perfect” indicators that may never be useful within the time and resource limitations of real world regional planning and management. We consider that modeling resilience for proactive planning and prediction purposes requires the consideration of simple but integrated clusters of attributes; 4. Depending on time and resources available for planning and management, the combined use of well suited indicators and/or other lesser “lines of evidence” is more flexible than the pursuit of perfect indicators, and that; 5. Index-based, collaborative and participatory approaches need to be applied to the development, refinement and reporting of indicators over longer time frames. We trialed the practical application of these concepts via the establishment of a collaborative regional alliance of planners and managers involved in the development of climate change adaptation strategies across tropical Queensland (the Gulf, Wet Tropics, Cape York and Torres Strait sub-regions). A focus on the Wet Tropics as a pilot sub-region enabled other Far North Queensland sub-region’s to participate and explore the potential extension of this approach. The pilot activities included: * Further exploring ways to innovatively communicate the region’s likely climate change scenarios and possible environmental, economic and social impacts. We particularly looked at using spatial tools to overlay climate change risks to geographic communities and social vulnerabilities within those communities; * Developing a cohesive first pass of a State of the Region-style approach to reporting community resilience, inclusive of regional economic viability, community vitality, capacitybased and governance attributes. This framework integrated a literature review, expert (academic and community) and alliance-based contributions; and * Early consideration of critical strategies that need to be included in unfolding regional planning activities with Far North Queensland. The pilot assessment finds that rural, indigenous and some urban populations in the Wet Tropics are highly vulnerable and sensitive to climate change and may require substantial support to adapt and become more resilient. This assessment finds that under current conditions (i.e. if significant adaptation actions are not taken) the Wet Tropics as a whole may be seriously impacted by the most significant features of climate change and extreme climatic events. Without early and substantive action, this could result in declining social and economic wellbeing and natural resource health. Of the four attributes we consider important to understanding community resilience, the Wet Tropics region is particularly vulnerable in two areas; specifically its economic vitality and knowledge, aspirations and capacity. The third and fourth attributes, community vitality and institutional governance are relatively resilient but are vulnerable in some key respects. In regard to all four of these attributes, however, there is some emerging capacity to manage the possible shocks that may be associated with the impacts of climate change and extreme climatic events. This capacity needs to be carefully fostered and further developed to achieve broader community resilience outcomes. There is an immediate need to build individual, household, community and sectoral resilience across all four attribute groups to enable populations and communities in the Wet Tropics region to adapt in the face of climate change. Preliminary strategies of importance to improve regional community resilience have been identified. These emerging strategies also have been integrated into the emerging Regional Development Australia Roadmap, and this will ensure that effective implementation will be progressed and coordinated. They will also inform emerging strategy development to secure implementation of the FNQ 2031 Regional Plan. Of most significance in our view, this project has taken a co-research approach from the outset with explicit and direct importance and influence within the region’s formal planning and management arrangements. As such, the research: * Now forms the foundations of the first attempt at “Social Asset” planning within the Wet Tropics Regional NRM Plan review; * Is assisting Local government at regional scale to consider aspects of climate change adaptation in emerging planning scheme/community planning processes; * Has partnered the State government (via the Department of Infrastructure and Planning and Regional Managers Coordination Network Chair) in progressing the Climate Change adaptation agenda set down within the FNQ 2031 Regional Plan; * Is informing new approaches to report on community resilience within the GBRMPA Outlook reporting framework; and * Now forms the foundation for the region’s wider climate change adaptation priorities in the Regional Roadmap developed by Regional Development Australia. Through the auspices of Regional Development Australia, the outcomes of the research will now inform emerging negotiations concerning a wider package of climate change adaptation priorities with State and Federal governments. Next stage research priorities are also being developed to enable an ongoing alliance between researchers and the region’s climate change response.

Enhancing the capacity of kin caregivers and their families to meet the needs of children left behind

Based on qualitative research of the experiences of 23 kin caregivers and five school personnel, this article explores the role of informal kinship care in addressing the needs of school-age children left behind in rural China. The findings of this study suggest that kin caregivers' child-rearing capacity is limited in the rural context, and they are often overwhelmed by children's diverse and complex needs, particularly their emotional ones. In view of the huge population and their vulnerability, it is imperative for the state to take up its responsibilities and develop specific social work services and other support for children left behind and their families. 根据对23位亲属照顾者和5位学校人员的质性研究，文章探讨在处理中国留守学龄儿童的需要时，非正式亲属照料所担当的角色。研究发现，在农村的亲属照料者的抚养儿童能力有限，而且他们时常在面对儿童众多复杂的需求时应接不暇，问题又以情绪需要尤甚。有见于留守儿童的数目众多和易受伤害，政府急切需要承担相关的责任，为留守儿童及其家庭发展专门的社会工作服务和其他支援。

Reforming the procurement of construction and financing of Australian infrastructure : advancing capacity, competition and investment

Funded by an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage grant over four years (2009–13), the Major Infrastructure Procurement project sought to find more effective and efficient ways of procuring and delivering the nation’s social and economic infrastructure by investigating constraints relating to construction capacity, competition, and finance in new public sector major infrastructure.1 The research team comprised researchers in construction economics and finance from Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Griffith University (GU), The University of Hong Kong (UHK), and The University of Newcastle (UoN). Project partners included state government departments and agencies responsible for infrastructure procurement and delivery from all Australian mainland states, and private sector companies and peak bodies in the infrastructure sector (see “Introduction” for complete list). There are a number of major outcomes from this research project. The first of these is a scientifically developed decisionmaking model for procurement of infrastructure that deploys a novel and state-of-the-art integration of dominant microeconomic theory (including theories developed by two Nobel Prize winners). The model has been established through empirical testing and substantial experiential evidence as a valid and reliable guide to configuring procurement of new major and mega infrastructure projects in pursuance of superior Valuefor- Money (VfM). The model specifically addresses issues of project size, bundling of contracts, and exchange relationships. In so doing, the model determines the suitability of adopting a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode.

You are now entering the Twittersphere! Where EE meets social media

“Humans did not weave web 2.0, they are merely a strand in it. Whatever they do to the interweb, they do to themselves.” Is social media just a diversionary gimmick? A passing phase? The latest craze? Or can social media be socially ‘transformative’ media with an integral place in EE pedagogies? In this paper I will examine the affordances of Web 2.0 (and 3.0) technologies, such as social media, in the light of differences in perceptions of what technology represents underpinned by comparative theories of technology. An instrumental theory (or neutralist approach) of technology is one which views technology as a ‘tool’ without any inherent value whereas a critical theory of technology views technology as a site of struggle, of power relationships and of social transformation. From a critical perspective Web 2.0 (and 3.0) technologies have the capacity to democratise the knowledge economy by turning knowledge consumers into “prod-users” (Bruns, 2008); to promote ubiquitous learning; and to facilitate collaboration through online Communities of Practice. However, applying a critical technology perspective means that we also need to consider that web technologies are not a panacea: misappropriation and indiscriminate use of technology; substitution for valid EE experiences; environmental impacts; and exacerbating the digital divide are the flip side of the coin (W. J. Rohwedder, 1999).

Informal caring networks for people at end of life: Building social capital in Australian communities

The care of a person living at home near the end of their life is predominantly provided by family carers with the support of health services such as palliative care. In addition, informal caring networks also contribute at times to the support to the dying person and their carer. In this way, these networks can promote social capital in the communities from which they are drawn. This social approach to end of life care enhances community capacity to provide support to those dying at home and their carers. This article examines relevant published literature to explore the conceptual foundations of informal caring networks, examining the place of social capital and community development in the provision of end of life care at home, particularly in the Australian context.

Strange and stranger ruralities: Social constructions of rural crime in Australia

Rural crime has largely been understood through social disorganization theory. The dominance of this perspective has meant that most research into rural crime has tried to resolve perceived strains in communities, rather than analyze how social problems are constituted in rural places. Using Elias and Scotson's (1994) account of established-outsider relations, the paper examines how the organizational capacity of specific social groups is significant in determining the quality of crime-talk and responses to crime in isolated and rural settings. In particular social 'oldness' and notions of what constitutes 'community' are significant in determining what activities and individuals or groups are marked as features of crime-talk in these settings.

Co-creating stories in social learning systems : The role of community media and cultural organisations in disseminating knowledge

This paper investigates how community based media organisations are co-creative storytelling institutions, and how they learn to disseminate knowledge in a social learning system. Organisations involved in story co-creation are learning to create in fluid environments.They are project based, with a constant turnover of volunteers or staff. These organisations have to meet the needs of their funding bodies and their communities to remain sustainable. Learning is seen as dialogical, and this is also reflected in the nature of storytelling itself. These organisations must learn to meet the needs of their communities, who in turn learn from the organisation’s expertise in a facilitated setting. This learning is participatory and collaborative, and is often a mix of virtual and offline interaction. Such community-based organisations sit in the realm of a hybrid-learning environment; they are neither a formal educational institution like a college, nor do their volunteers produce outcomes in a professional capacity. Yet, they must maintain a certain level of quality outcomes from their contributors to be of continued value in their communities. Drawing from a larger research study, one particular example is that of the CitizenJ project. CitizenJ is hosted by a state cultural centre, and partnered with publishing partners in the community broadcasting sector. This paper explores how this project is a Community of Practice, and how it promotes ethical and best practice, meets contributors’ needs, emphasises the importance of facilitation in achieving quality outcomes, and the creation of projects for wider community and public interest.

Re-theorizing the “digital divide”: Identifying dimensions of social exclusion in contemporary media technologies

The digital divide is the disparancy in access to information, in the ability to communicate, and in the capacity to make information and communication serve full participation in the information society. Indeed, the conversation about the digital divide has developed over the last decade from a focus on connectivity and access to information and communication technologies, to a conversation that encompasses the ability to use them and to the utility that usage provides (Wei et al., 2011). However, this conversation, while transitioning from technology to the skills of the people that use them and to the fruits of their use is limited in its ability to take into account the social role of information and communication technologies (ICTs). One successful attempt in conceptualizing the social impact of the differences in access to and utilization of digital communication technologies, was developed by van Dijk (2005) whose sequential model for analyzing the divide states that: 1. Categorical inequalities in society produce an unequal distribution of resources; 2. An unequal distribution of resources causes unequal access to digital technologies; 3. Unequal access to digital technologies also depends on the characteristics of these technologies; 4. Unequal access to digital technologies brings about unequal participation in society; 5. Unequal participation in society reinforces categorical inequalities and unequal distributions of resources.” (p. 15) As van Dijk’s model demonstrates, the divide’s impact is the exclusion of individuals from participation. Still left to be defined are the “categorical inequalities,” the “resources,” the “characteristics of digital technologies,” and the different levels of “access” that result in differentiated levels of participation, as these change over time due to the evolving nature of technology and the dynamics of society. And most importantly, the meaning of “participation” in contemporary society needs to be determined as it is differentiated levels of participation that are the result of the divide and the engine of the ever-growing disparities. Our argument is structured in the following manner: We first claim that contemporary digital media differ from the previous generation of ICTs along four dimensions: They offer an abundance of information resources and communication channels when compared to the relative paucity of both in the past; they offer mobility as opposed to the stationary nature of their predecessors; they are interactive in that they provide users with the capability to design their own media environments in contrast to the dictated environs of previous architectures; and, they allow users to communicate utilizing multi forms of mediation, unlike the uniformity of sound or word that limited users in the past. We then submit that involvement in the information society calls for egalitarian access to all four dimensions of the user experience that make contemporary media different from their predecessors and that the ability to experience all four affects the levels in which humans partake in the shaping of society. The model being cyclical, we then discuss how lower levels of participation contribute to the enhancement of social inequalities. Finally, we discuss why participation is needed in order to achieve full membership in the information society and what political philosophy should govern policy solutions targeting the re-inclusion of those digitally excluded.

Adding paths to resilience and daily accounts to an already rich field of inquiry: A brief commentary on James Jackson's "Social structure and health disparities"

In absolute terms, there have been improvements in social resources for all racial and ethnic groups in the United States. The rise in education levels among blacks and Hispanics, for instance, suggests a lessening of the gap between classes, beginning in the later part of the 1960’s (Kao & Thompson, 2003). Yet the divide in income and to a lesser extent education between peoples who differ in gender, skin color and ethnic origin continues and in many ways is greater now than ever (Danziger & Gottschalk, 1997); (Gottschalk, 1997). The psychological distance between those high and those low in social-economic status continues unabated and threatens to undermine the capacity of communities to foster the positive architecture of hope, optimism and equal opportunity that holds us together as a nation...

Empowering PNG Women through Building Media Arts Production Capacity as Cultural Drivers: Showreel

The creative work comprises six short digital screen stories and emerges from a collaboration between the Discipline of Film Screen and Animation at Queensland University of Technology and the Centre for Social and Creative Media at University of Goroka, funded via the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's Australia Awards Fellowship. Six fellows traveled from Papua New Guinea to Brisbane for a two-week intensive course to learn the advanced skills necessary in order to create media that will empower women and girls to make more of their own economies in Papua New Guinea, and increase the representation of women and their well-being through leadership and decision-making. The resulting creative work is evidence of innovative media teaching-making methods designed to build human and cultural assets in PNG and address the increasing demand for media materials driven by the influx of mobile phones and internet services. The creative work provides a platform to directly address and positively impact gender issues in PNG and builds on the success of the Pawa Meri project, which trained six female directors to tell stories of women in leadership roles in PNG. One of the directors was a producer of this creative work. The creative work frames but problematises the complex issues influencing gender equity through the selection of content and narrative structures in ways which address the dynamics of male/female relationships and power in PNG society and will include strategies to illustrate transformed male and female behaviours. The creative work adopts a scaffolded approach, incorporating the findings of the Train the Trainer approach developed by UoG and QUT for the Life Drama research project. The creative work takes into account current developmental themes and approaches in the production of rich media products, and skills the key participants so that they are able to in turn train others in the wider community. The creative work was presented to partners and key stakeholders on 3 July 2015 at the Glasshouse, QUT Creative Industries Precinct and at the Dean’s Research Seminar Poster Exhibition 15 July 2015 at Room 212-213, Level 2, J Block, Gardens Point QUT and subsequent eBook. It has since returned to PNG to be showcased and distributed, and the skills and strategies disseminated.