Food Product Information: Trusted Sources and Delivery Media

Consumers receive food-related information from various sources and strive to make informed food choices regarding their health, lifestyle and belief. To be effective and reliable, the information consumers receive needs to be from a credible source and delivered to them in a way they trust. The aim of this study was to investigate the sources and media channels of that information consumer trust. An online and hardcopy survey of 298 consumers currently living in Australia was carried out. Many consumers believe that the source of food product information is important (87%). As a source of general and nutritional information, Health Professionals, Scientists and Government sources are the most trusted sources, with at least 80% of participants confident of the information coming from these sources. Retailer advertising and social media are the least trusted sources with just 29% and 11%, respectively, confident of these sources. As a delivery medium, printed food labels (67%) and printed brochures or fact sheets (56%) remain the most trusted delivery media compared with electronic media, such as mobile phone or the Internet.

The Twitter float and free labour : the political economy of digital media

Nick Dyer-Witheford’s Cyber-Marx was published nearly 15 years ago, but there are continuing echoes of its dire promises today. The trends that Dyer-Witheford outlined—the growth of tech-giants in the communications field at the expense of democratic media practices and the radical shedding of jobs in the traditional mass media context—are confirmed by recent events. In November 2013, Twitter launched itself on the public share register, despite having no visible means of financial support, or even much of a business plan. The Twitter IPO tells us a lot about the economy of cyber-capitalism. Aligned to the trend of ‘technological unemployment’ is the rise of what some commentators call ‘digital serfdom’. This is not just growing unemployment, but also drastic under-employment of talented media professionals and an alarming rise in the number of media outlets that want to pay contributors in ‘exposure’, rather than in corporeal, fungible dollars and cents. This articlediscusses these trends and events in the context of the political economy of digital communication.

Just call me dad: health and social benefits to fathers and their children

In the past 20 years, social change and expectations for both maternal and paternal responsibilities have highlighted the need for services for families to better understand the role of a father in family relationships. In Australia, as well as internationally, there have been many contested understandings about what constitutes ‘good fathering’ in research, social media and in the political sphere. More specifically, there has also been an emerging trend to understand the challenging task of recruiting and maintaining men's involvement in child and family services programmes, particularly those fathers who are deemed a risk to children and mothers, violent or have been separated from their children. That many child and family/welfare services have exercised dedicated effort to work with fathers is still a relatively recent phenomenon, and has only emerged following criticism that services have been too geared towards working only with mothers. Despite this increasing interest, there is still ongoing need for more research to be undertaken in Australia. An important area of focus is the views of professionals about their perception and engagement of fathers, particularly the views of fathers who are described as being absent from family-based services. The purpose of this article is to report briefly on a study undertaken to examine how child and family welfare workers engage fathers in their work. First, this paper will describe some of the social and health benefits to fathers and their children, focusing on the key role of attachment through play. Research into effective service delivery involving fathers will then be presented, concluding with key practice factors necessary for fathers to be involved in family life.

The janus face of new media propaganda: The case of Patani neojihadist YouTube warfare and its Islamophobic effect on cyber-actors

Surfing on the Internet 2.0 revolution, Patani 2.0 has allowed Patani neojihadist militants to access new competitive spaces and create their own imagined online community by penetrating new realms of the Internet. This article discusses the use of new media militant propaganda by Patani militants and how it is Janus faced. It further examines how the Patani 2.0 social interaction enabled by social media such as YouTube leads to group cohesion among certain actors and the formation of a collective identity that is clustered around the notions of Muslim victimization and defensive jihad; and how, at the same time, it reinforces antithetical identities and fosters group identity competition, where one religious group is often pitted against another. As a result, the Janus effect of Patani neojihadist YouTube online propaganda, while it primarily seeks to radicalize, also generates a reactionary, often virulent, anti-Muslim response from the movement's critics.

Indian news media : from observer to participant

This book makes a new and significant argument that Indian news media is no longer just an observer but an active participant in the events that direct the nation. It explores the changing role of Indian news media and their performance in the past 25 years by closely examining media coverage of some landmark events within the context of India’s globalising polity, which has led to privatisation, widespread engagement with new communication technologies, and the rise of individualism. The challenges of globalisation have caused significant changes in news processes and procedures, which this volume details by examining media’s coverage of events and issues such as paid news, anti-graft movement, sting journalism, Delhi gang-rape protest, politics-media nexus and neo-liberalism’s impact on the industry’s performance.
The book places Indian media’s evolution in the context of economic, political and sociological developments in the country. It takes a multi-disciplinary approach to evaluate reportage in a multitude of media platforms. The theoretical exploration of the changes in the Indian media landscape draws from academic disciplines of ‘media studies’, ‘journalism,’ ‘cultural studies’ and ‘sociology’. This book follows the authors’ earlier work, titled Indian Media in a Globalised World (SAGE/2010).

SMEDIA: Designing to create a social and dynamic learning framework

This article discusses the design of social networking sites created through a PhD action research study. Social and participatory media was used as an active, flexible and motivating learning management system. The study investigated ways in which a social learning framework could be designed for students aged 13 to 16 and aimed to encourage student knowledge growth through peer-to-peer interaction while supporting both formal and informal learning. New literacies and multimodality were infused into the design. It was found that the practitioner-researcher’s cycles of planning, acting, observing and reflecting, action research, provided a mechanism for scaffolding the redesign of curriculum content and instruction. Social media in education can be dynamic, interactive and appreciated (SMEDIA) by the students.

Infusing instructional design principles into an active student-centred social learning framework

Social and participatory media offer a plethora of ways for students to communicate, collaborate, and learn in schools. Using a social learning approach, Casey (2013a) investigated ways that social media could be integrated into Australian public high school classrooms to enhance student learning. In the process, she developed a social learning framework as discussed in Casey (2013b). Similarly, Davidson-Shivers and Hulon (2013; Hulon & Daidson-Shivers, 2013) suggest ways to employ ID principles to prepare college instructors and pre-service teachers to integrate technology into classrooms. Prior to that, Davidson-Shivers with Rasmussen (2006) developed an instructional design (ID) model for creating effective Web-based learning environments. Through collaboration, Casey and Davidson-Shivers consider a wide range of social learning and instructional design principles and approaches to help develop frameworks for new media integration that can work within varying levels of education.

Towards global benchmarking of food environments and policies to reduce obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases : design and methods for nation-wide surveys

Introduction: 

Prioritization of psychological well-being in the care of diabetes: moving beyond excuses, bringing solutions

Jones and colleagues recently made a plea for the prioritization of psychological well-being in diabetes care [1]. Such calls to action began over 20 years ago with the 'St Vincent Declaration' guidelines [2]. A 'plea' two decades later emphasizes that this paradigm shift is a long, slow burn. In the 21st century, people with diabetes are now adding their powerful voices via social media, advocating for better psychological support, as active consumers (and constructive critics) of health care [3]. We can learn considerably from organizations such as Cancer Voices (www.cancervoicesaustralia.org) - they demonstrate how consumer representation and involvement in research agendas, policy and service provision play an integral part in shaping holistic health care. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Effect of mood, social connectivity and age in online depression community via topic and linguistic analysis

Depression afflicts one in four people during their lives. Several studies have shown that for the isolated and mentally ill, the Web and social media provide effective platforms for supports and treatments as well as to acquire scientific, clinical understanding of this mental condition. More and more individuals affected by depression join online communities to seek for information, express themselves, share their concerns and look for supports [12]. For the first time, we collect and study a large online depression community of more than 12,000 active members from Live Journal. We examine the effect of mood, social connectivity and age on the online messages authored by members in an online depression community. The posts are considered in two aspects: what is written (topic) and how it is written (language style). We use statistical and machine learning methods to discriminate the posts made by bloggers in low versus high valence mood, in different age categories and in different degrees of social connectivity. Using statistical tests, language styles are found to be significantly different between low and high valence cohorts, whilst topics are significantly different between people whose different degrees of social connectivity. High performance is achieved for low versus high valence post classification using writing style as features. The finding suggests the potential of using social media in depression screening, especially in online setting.

Are there news gaps in rural/regional Australia? Researching media plurality beyond Finkelstein

Rural/regional news is emerging as a vital area of media policy and research throughout the world as industry bodies, governments and academics grapple with debates concerning the future of news in a complex digital world. However, there has been little examination of media plurality at the rural/regional level, or research into the sustainability of the sector in Australia. Such concerns go to questions of what roles industry and government might play in ensuring its future. The Finkelstein report in 2012 noted that many rural/regional newspapers in Australia had limited resources and consequently low capacity for in-depth coverage of local issues. In the meantime, the funding model of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (which services rural/regional areas as part of its charter) has come under intense scrutiny by the federal Liberal-National Party coalition government. Signs from abroad – especially from the United Kingdom – are troubling. Several independent inquiries have called for policy initiatives to address what British scholars describe as the growing “democratic deficit” created by the closure of hundreds of local UK newspapers since 2004. This paper canvasses current and emerging media policy settings in the UK, the United States and Australia before posing some broader questions on the future of rural/regional news in Australia.

The myths big media peddle to demand deregulation

This article argues that big media in Australia promote three myths about rural and regional news in Australia as part of their case to deregulate the industry. These myths are that geography no longer matters in local news; that big media are the only ones who can save regional news; and that people in regional Australia can access less news that their city counterparts.