Protecting children from sex offenders online: when strangers become 'virtual friends'

This article describes findings from research funded by the Metropolitan Police and Crimestoppers which aimed to explore children's online experiences. A non-random, stratified sample of 200 London school children aged 10- 13 participated in focus groups. Preliminary findings are also presented from unpublished ongoing PhD research, which seeks to explore sex offender behaviour online and the policing of the internet (Martellozzo, 2005 ongoing). The findings are discussed in the context of sex offender's use of the internet. This research indicates that children do have some basic knowledge about 'stranger danger' but are not necessarily applying these lessons to cyberspace. The children in this study had sufficient awareness to not give personal details to strangers on the internet, and would not arrange to meet them. However, they made a distinction between 'strangers' and 'virtual friends' and this is an important point. Preliminary findings also highlight the difficulty of policing the internet and serve to illustrate the manner in which the Sexual Offences Act 2003 is applied to internet sexual offending in practice.

Next generation Web marketing - beyond the glog

Social media offers access to marketers, yet an ethical framework for this has yet to be address by the industry or regulators. The rights and responsibilities for both producers and audiences are discussed with reference to existing fan groups and online communities.

Personality and performance on digit span tests in online and offline settings.

This paper describes two studies examining links between personality and performance on a cognitive test in online and laboratory settings. Study 1 was completed online. 345 participants passively recruited through a personality assessment website completed a Five Factor Model personality inventory derived from the International Personality Item Pool. They then completed an online text-based digit span test. This required participants to repeat increasingly longer strings of digits, either in the same order (forward) or in the opposite of the presentation order (reverse). Conventional digit span tasks ask participants to respond verbally; in this instance they responded by typing the digits. Agreeableness and Openness to Experience each had small but significant associations with forward and reverse digit span. In a second, laboratory based, study, 103 participants completed paper versions of the IPIP Five Factor inventory, the NEO-FFI, and a battery of cognitive tests including the WAIS 4 digit span test. In this instance, Agreeableness and Openness to Experience were not significantly correlated with digit span measures. Taken together, these studies suggest that personality characteristics may influence performance on an online cognitive test. This effect was not seen in an offline version of the study. The paper will consider potential implications for online testing, for equivalence of online and offline methods, and for links between personality and performance on this cognitive test.

Integrating Social Knowledge and Collaboration Tools into Dispersed Product Development

Employee collaboration and knowledge sharing is vital for manufacturing organisations wishing to be successful in an ever-changing global market place; Product Development (PD) teams, in particular, rely heavily on these activities to generate innovative designs and enhancements to existing product ranges. To this end, the purpose of this paper is to present the results of a validation study carried out during an Engineering Education Scheme project to confirm the benefits of using bespoke Web 2.0-based groupware to improve employee collaboration and knowledge sharing between dispersed PD teams. The results of a cross-sectional survey concluded that employees would welcome greater usage of social computing technologies. The study confirmed that groupware offers the potential to deliver a more effective collaborative and knowledge sharing environment with additional communication channels on offer. Furthermore, a series of recommended guidelines are presented to show how PD teams, operating in globally dispersed organisations, may use Web 2.0 tools to improve employee collaboration and knowledge sharing.

Plurality, policy and the local: can hyperlocals fill the gap?

Over the last 15 years, the acceleration in media consolidation has presented a series of policy challenges around diversity of editorial output. While policy debates on national ownership limits and other regulatory interventions are important, developments at the local level are often marginalised. And yet, the direction of travel—towards more consolidation and more deregulation—has arguably been more debilitating for democracy at the local level, where the vast majority of citizens interact with hospitals, schools, transport systems and local councils. The decline of local media—including, in some towns, the wholesale disappearance of local newspapers—leaves citizens starved of information and local institutions less accountable. This article uses an existing conceptual framework for assessing whether and how journalism makes a real-life contribution to democratic life at the local level. Against this normative framework, it then assesses the contribution of hyperlocal media sites to local democracy. We present findings from the most extensive survey of the hyperlocal sector to date, a collaboration with research partners at Cardiff and Birmingham City Universities and Talk About Local, which analysed online questionnaires from over 180 local online media initiatives. Our research offers a unique insight into the funding, operational problems and sustainability of community media sites, and suggests they have the potential to fulfil a vital democratic and civic role. These data inform our conclusions and recommendations for policy initiatives that would invigorate hyperlocal sites and therefore provide a real alternative for otherwise democratically impoverished local communities.

The Online dating romance scam: The psychological impact on victims – both financial and non-financial

This paper examined the psychological impact of the online dating romance scam. Unlike other mass-marketing fraud victims, these victims experienced a ‘double hit’ of the scam: a financial loss and the loss of a relationship. For most, the loss of the relationship was more upsetting than their financial losses (many described the loss of the relationship as a ‘death’). Some described their experience as traumatic and all were affected negatively by the crime. Most victims had not found ways to cope given the lack of understanding from family and friends. Denial (e.g., not accepting the scam was real or not being able to separate the fake identity with the criminal) was identified as an ineffective means of coping, leaving the victim vulnerable to a second wave of the scam. Suggestions are made as to how to change policy with regards to law enforcement deal with this crime.

Queer youth, Facebook and faith: Facebook methodologies and online identities

‘Making space for queer-identifying religious youth’ (2011–2013) is an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)-funded project, which seeks to shed light on youth cultures, queer community and religiosity. While non-heterosexuality is often associated with secularism, and some sources cast religion as automatically negative or harmful to the realisation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) identity (or ‘coming out’), we explore how queer Christian youth negotiate sexual–religious identities. There is a dearth of studies on queer religious youth, yet an emerging and continuing interest in the role of digital technologies for the identities of young people. Based on interviews with 38 LGBT, ‘religious’ young people, this article examines Facebook, as well as wider social networking sites and the online environment and communities. Engaging with the key concept of ‘online embodiment’, this article takes a closer analysis of embodiment, emotion and temporality to approach the role of Facebook in the lives of queer religious youth. Furthermore, it explores the methodological dilemmas evoked by the presence of Facebook in qualitative research with specific groups of young people.

Alienation and Digital Labour – a Depth-Hermeneutic Inquiry into Online Commodification and the Unconscious

At the core of this paper is a psychosocial inquiry into the Marxist concept of alienation and its applications to the field of digital labour. Following a brief review of different theoretical works on alienation, it looks into its recent conceptualisations and applications to the study of online social networking sites. Finally, the authors offer suggestions on how to extend and render more complex these recent approaches through in-depth analyses of Facebook posts that exemplify how alienation is experienced, articulated, and expressed online. For this perspective, the article draws on Rahel Jaeggi’s (2005) reassessment of alienation, as well as the depth-hermeneutic method of “scenic understanding” developed by Alfred Lorenzer (e.g. 1970; 1986).