Questioning the merits and demerits of electronic communication in Social Work

This paper examines the social dynamics of electronic exchanges in the human services, particularly in social work. It focuses on the observable effects that email and texting have on the linguistic, relational and clinical rather than managerial aspects of the profession. It highlights how electronic communication is affecting professionals in their practice and learners as they become acculturated to social work. What are the gains and losses of the broad use of electronic devices in daily lay and professional, verbal and non-verbal communication? Will our current situation be seriously detrimental to the demeanor of future practitioners, their use of language, and their ability to establish close personal relationships? The paper analyzes social work linguistic and behavioral changes in light of the growth of electronic communication and offers a summary of merits and demerits viewed through a prism emerging from Baron’s (2000) analysis of human communication.

Media web sites interactivity: Searching new ways to dialog with their users

Currently the media have made many new tools on their websites in order to broaden the dialogue with its users, a feature that has been called interactivity. The objective of this research is to describe the interactive resources of Chilean media websites. The analysis was conducted at 20 sites using a pattern of six dimensions with interactive forms which are today using identified. The findings indicate that digital media Chileans are expanding the possibilities of dialogue with users on social media, especially Twitter and Facebook, and the mediauser interaction is monological, that is to say, from the media to the user, but with very low feedback.

Circular migration and the Internet: The role of social networks in the sociocultural context of Mexican residents in Barcelona

This work focuses on the study of the circular migration between America and Europe, particularly in the discussion about knowledge transfer and the way that social networks reconfigure the form of information distribution among people, that due to labor and academic issues have left their own country. The main purpose of this work is to study the impact of social media use in migration flows between Mexico and Spain, more specifically the use by Mexican migrants who have moved for  multiple years principally for educational purposes and then have returned to their respective locations in Mexico seeking to integrate themselves into the labor market. Our data collection concentrated exclusively on a group created on Facebook by Mexicans who mostly reside in Barcelona, Spain or wish to travel to the city for economic, educational or tourist reasons.  The results of this research show that while social networks are spaces for exchange and integration, there is a clear tendency by this group to "narrow lines" and to look back to their homeland, slowing the process of opening socially in their new context.

The Internet as opportunity and challenge in contemporary social movements

This paper explores the relationship between the rise of “new” social movements (15-M and Occupy) and the Internet. The new social media gives rise to new kinds of social movements  which embed this technology from the moment of conception. The future of social movements will be characterised by movinets, which will have the effect of developing new efficient ways of activism. The movinets, with their embedded technology and capacity to circulate ideas among different spheres of reality, have a potential to alter the dynamics of social mobilisation.

The activity of the feminist online publications: challenges for the transmission of the feminist culture in Spain

Traditionally, big media corporations have contributed to hiding the women’s movement itself, as well as its main claims and topics of discussion (Marx, Myra y Hess, 1995; Rhode, 1995; Mendes, 2011). This has led the feminist movement to develop its own media generally print publications, usually, with a very specialized character and reduced audience. This is similar to what has occurred with quality main stream media, asthese publications have had to adapt themselves to a new communicatiion context, because of the financial crisis and  technological evolution. Feminist media has found in the Internet an excellent opportunity to access citizens and communicate their messages. , In view of this scene of change and renovation,  this article offers the results of a qualitative analysis focused on the experiences of four feminist online media sites edited in Spain: Pikaramagazine.com, Proyecto-kahlo.com, Mujeresenred.net and Laindependent.cat. Besides exploring the characteristics and content of these sites, the article pays attention to the virality of their contents spread through Facebook and Twitter. The onclusion estimates their social impact, insofar as they symbolize the specialization, diversification and dialogue promoted by the Web.

Methods, Models & Systems for Dealing with Some Business, Management & Engineering Problems

This keynote presentation will report some of our research work and experience on the development and applications of relevant methods, models, systems and simulation techniques in support of different types and various levels of decision making for business, management and engineering. In particular, the following topics will be covered. Modelling, multi-agent-based simulation and analysis of the allocation management of carbon dioxide emission permits in China (Nanfeng Liu & Shuliang Li Agent-based simulation of the dynamic evolution of enterprise carbon assets (Yin Zeng & Shuliang Li) A framework & system for extracting and representing project knowledge contexts using topic models and dynamic knowledge maps: a big data perspective (Jin Xu, Zheng Li, Shuliang Li & Yanyan Zhang) Open innovation: intelligent model, social media & complex adaptive system simulation (Shuliang Li & Jim Zheng Li) A framework, model and software prototype for modelling and simulation for deshopping behaviour and how companies respond (Shawkat Rahman & Shuliang Li) Integrating multiple agents, simulation, knowledge bases and fuzzy logic for international marketing decision making (Shuliang Li & Jim Zheng Li) A Web-based hybrid intelligent system for combined conventional, digital, mobile, social media and mobile marketing strategy formulation (Shuliang Li & Jim Zheng Li) A hybrid intelligent model for Web & social media dynamics, and evolutionary and adaptive branding (Shuliang Li) A hybrid paradigm for modelling, simulation and analysis of brand virality in social media (Shuliang Li & Jim Zheng Li) Network configuration management: attack paradigms and architectures for computer network survivability (Tero Karvinen & Shuliang Li)

Cosmic Topologies of Imitation: From the Horror of Digital Autotoxicus to the Auto-Toxicity of the Social

This article expands on an earlier concept of horror autotoxicus linked to digital contagions of spam and network Virality.1 It aims to present, as such, a broader conception of cosmic topologies of imitation (CTI) intended to better grasp the relatively new practices of social media marketing. Similar to digital autotoxicity, CTI provide the perfect medium for sharing while also spreading contagions that can potentially contaminate the medium itself. However, whereas digital contagions are perhaps limited to the toxicity of a technical layer of information viruses, the contagions of CTI are an all pervasive auto-toxicity which can infect human bodies and technologies increasingly in concert with each other. This is an exceptional autotoxicus that significantly blurs the immunological line of exemption between self and nonself, and potentially, the anthropomorphic distinction between individual self and collective others.

Responsabilidade social empresarial: uma avaliação do projeto "Escola de Informática e Cidadania" da Mineradora "Y" situada no Estado do Pará

The subject Responsibility Enterprise Social (RSE) is relatively recent in the half national academic and the world of the management businesses as practical. For the lack of socialization of experiences and clarity of concepts, shunting lines in the agreement of the subject and the conduction of the interventions occur. It was looked to inquire, in this research, the development of the project of Social Responsibility Enterprise ―School of Computer science and Citizenship‖ of a situated company in the State of Pará, objectifying to evaluate it and later to understand it. For this, one searched to describe the characteristics and structure of the School, to identify to the lines and lines of direction adopted for this Project and to identify to the influence and results of the same in the life of pupils, professors and egresses of the School. It is characterized for a study of case with qualitative boarding of descriptive character, carried through interviews structuralized in a sample of 21 divided members of the School between professors, pupils and egresses. It was used of the analysis of categorical content, having as axle for the interpretation of the data the Social Responsibility, the Digital Inclusion and the Education. The gotten results inform that the infrastructure has challenges to face, point disparities between the conception and practical of the categories characterized in the Politician-Pedagogical Project of the EIC and the influence that, exactly under limits, the life of the professors, pupils reaches and egress. One evidenced that Social action for damages of this company when come back toward this project, they had not been evidenced. For this prism, these actions had only remained in the assistencialist speech and not structural, being thus, the company is not fulfilling its paper of transforming element of the reality of its clientele and the population that lives in it s around

No right to sext? A critical examination of media and legal debates about teenage girls' sexual agency in the digital age

Advances in digital photography and distribution technologies enable many people to produce and distribute images of their sex acts. When teenagers do this, the photos and videos they create can be legally classified as child pornography since the law makes no exception for youth who create sexually explicit images of themselves. The dominant discussions about teenage girls producing sexually explicit media (including sexting) are profoundly unproductive: (1) they blame teenage girls for creating private images that another person later maliciously distributed and (2) they fail to respect—or even discuss—teenagers’ rights to freedom of expression. Cell phones and the internet make producing and distributing images extremely easy, which provide widely accessible venues for both consensual sexual expression between partners and for sexual harassment. Dominant understandings view sexting as a troubling teenage trend created through the combination of camera phones and adolescent hormones and impulsivity, but this view often conflates consensual sexting between partners with the malicious distribution of a person’s private image as essentially equivalent behaviors. In this project, I ask: What is the role of assumptions about teen girls’ sexual agency in these problematic understandings of sexting that blame victims and deny teenagers’ rights? In contrast to the popular media panic about online predators and the familiar accusation that youth are wasting their leisure time by using digital media, some people champion the internet as a democratic space that offers young people the opportunity to explore identities and develop social and communication skills. Yet, when teen girls’ sexuality enters this conversation, all this debate and discussion narrows to a problematic consensus. The optimists about adolescents and technology fall silent, and the argument that media production is inherently empowering for girls does not seem to apply to a girl who produces a sexually explicit image of herself. Instead, feminist, popular, and legal commentaries assert that she is necessarily a victim: of a “sexualized” mass media, pressure from her male peers, digital technology, her brain structures or hormones, or her own low self-esteem and misplaced desire for attention. Why and how are teenage girls’ sexual choices produced as evidence of their failure or success in achieving Western liberal ideals of self-esteem, resistance, and agency? Since mass media and policy reactions to sexting have so far been overwhelmingly sexist and counter-productive, it is crucial to interrogate the concepts and assumptions that characterize mainstream understandings of sexting. I argue that the common sense that is co-produced by law and mass media underlies the problematic legal and policy responses to sexting. Analyzing a range of nonfiction texts including newspaper articles, talk shows, press releases, public service announcements, websites, legislative debates, and legal documents, I investigate gendered, racialized, age-based, and technologically determinist common sense assumptions about teenage girls’ sexual agency. I examine the consensus and continuities that exist between news, nonfiction mass media, policy, institutions, and law, and describe the limits of their debates. I find that this early 21st century post-feminist girl-power moment not only demands that girls live up to gendered sexual ideals but also insists that actively choosing to follow these norms is the only way to exercise sexual agency. This is the first study to date examining the relationship of conventional wisdom about digital media and teenage girls’ sexuality to both policy and mass media.

From social action to business action - A qualitative research on the professionalization process of a blogger: Case P.s. I Love Fashion -blog

Blogging is one of the most common forms of social media today. Blogs have become a powerful media and bloggers are settled stakeholders to marketers. Commercialization of the blogosphere has enabled an increasing number of bloggers professionalize and blog as a full-time occupation. The purpose of this study is to understand the professionalization process of a blogger from an amateur blogger to a professional actor. The following sub-questions were used to further elaborate the topic: What have been the meaningful events and developments fostering professionalization? What are the prerequisites for popularity in blogging? Are there any key success factors to acknowledge in order being able to make business out of your blog? The theoretical framework of this study was formed based on the two chosen focus areas for professionalization; social drivers and business drivers. The theoretical framework is based on literature from fields of marketing and social sciences, as well as previous research on social media, blogging and professionalization. The study is a qualitative case-study and the research data was collected in a semi-structured interview. The case chosen to this study is a lifestyle-blog. The writer of the case blog has been able to develop her blog to become a full-time professional blogger. Based on the results, the professionalization process of a blogger is not a defined process, but instead comprised of coincidental events as well as considered advancements. Success in blogging is based on the bloggers own motivation and passion for writing and expressing oneself in the form of a blog, instead of a systematic construction of a successful career in blogging. Networking with other bloggers as well as affiliates was seen as an important success factor. Popularity in the blogosphere and a high number of followers enable professionalization, as marketers actively seek to collaborate with popular bloggers with strong personal brands. Bloggers with strong personal brands are especially attractive due to their opinion leadership in their reference group. A blogger can act professionally either as entrepreneur or blogging for a commercial webpage. According to the results of this study, it is beneficial for the blogger’s professional development as well as career progress, to act on different operating models

A VOICE OF THEIR OWN: MUSIC AND SOCIAL COHESION IN TURKISH ALEVI LIFE

This dissertation examines the role that music has played in the expression of identity and revitalization of culture of the Alevis in Turkey, since the start of their sociocultural revival movement in the late 1980s. Music is central to Alevi claims of ethnic and religious difference—singing and playing the bağlama (Turkish folk lute) constitutes an expressive practice in worship and everyday life. Based on research conducted from 2012 to 2014, I investigate and present Alevi music through the lens of discourses on the construction of identity as a social and musical process. Alevi musicians perform a revived repertoire of the ritual music and folk songs of Anatolian bards and dervish-lodge poets that developed over several centuries. Contemporary media and performance contexts have blurred former distinctions between sacred and secular, yet have provided new avenues to build community in an urban setting. I compare music performances in the worship services of urban and small-town areas, and other community events such as devotional meetings, concerts, clubs, and broadcast and social media to illustrate the ways that participation—both performing and listening—reinforces identity and solidarity. I also examine the influence of these different contexts on performers’ musical choices, and the power of music to evoke a range of responses and emotional feelings in the participants. Through my investigation I argue that the Alevi music repertoire is not only a cultural practice but also a symbol of power and collective action in their struggle for human rights and self-determination. As Alevis have faced a redefined Turkish nationalism that incorporates Sunni Muslim piety, this music has gained even greater potency in their resistance to misrecognition as a folkloric, rather than a living, tradition.

Responsabilidade social empresarial: uma avaliação do projeto "Escola de Informática e Cidadania" da Mineradora "Y" situada no Estado do Pará

The subject Responsibility Enterprise Social (RSE) is relatively recent in the half national academic and the world of the management businesses as practical. For the lack of socialization of experiences and clarity of concepts, shunting lines in the agreement of the subject and the conduction of the interventions occur. It was looked to inquire, in this research, the development of the project of Social Responsibility Enterprise ―School of Computer science and Citizenship‖ of a situated company in the State of Pará, objectifying to evaluate it and later to understand it. For this, one searched to describe the characteristics and structure of the School, to identify to the lines and lines of direction adopted for this Project and to identify to the influence and results of the same in the life of pupils, professors and egresses of the School. It is characterized for a study of case with qualitative boarding of descriptive character, carried through interviews structuralized in a sample of 21 divided members of the School between professors, pupils and egresses. It was used of the analysis of categorical content, having as axle for the interpretation of the data the Social Responsibility, the Digital Inclusion and the Education. The gotten results inform that the infrastructure has challenges to face, point disparities between the conception and practical of the categories characterized in the Politician-Pedagogical Project of the EIC and the influence that, exactly under limits, the life of the professors, pupils reaches and egress. One evidenced that Social action for damages of this company when come back toward this project, they had not been evidenced. For this prism, these actions had only remained in the assistencialist speech and not structural, being thus, the company is not fulfilling its paper of transforming element of the reality of its clientele and the population that lives in it s around

The importance of relationship closeness expectations in brand-page communication in social networking sites

While there is extensive research regarding the way users in social networking sites (SNSs) connect and communicate with each other, literature on consumer-brand relationships in SNSs is scarce. This paper hypothesizes and tests the impact of varying the source of communication in Facebook brand pages on key characteristics of brand equity, examining whether this impact is conditioned by relationship closeness expectations. More specifically, two experiments assess how relationship closeness expectations vary according to brand category and brand affiliation and how the use of a spokes-character as the source of communication in brand pages versus communicating institutionally affects consumer’s attitudes towards two real-world brands. To measure these variables, structured questionnaires were conducted with three groups of undergraduate students. The results suggest that the appropriateness of opting for a more “informal” source of communication in brand pages such as a spokes-character varies depending on whether this is in(congruent) with existing relationship closeness expectations. Implications for researchers, brand and social media managers are presented.

Movimiento estudiantil en Chile, aprendizaje situado y activismo digital. Compromiso, cambio social y usos tecnológicos adolescentes

A partir del movimiento estudiantil que surge en Chile en 2011 el artículo reflexiona sobre la escuela como espacio de aprendizaje situado de tecnologías digitales audiovisuales y el modo en que este proceso puede impactar sobre la dimensión político-comunicacional de un movimiento social. Para ello, se describe y analiza el caso de una escuela donde la educación formal en lenguajes y tecnologías digitales se imbrica con el uso que hacen, estudiantes secundarias que se convierten en dirigentas estudiantiles, de aplicaciones y recursos de la web social y los llamados “social media” (youtube, blogs, redes sociales). Se trabaja con datos generados a través de entrevistas a informantes claves y una selección de videos creados por el estudiantado y subidos a internet. El contenido de las entrevistas es abordado desde el concepto de aprendizaje situado (Lave y Wenger, 1991) y los videos desde el concepto de videoactivismo (Askanius, 2013; Mateos y Rajas, 2014). Los resultados muestran que el uso concreto de herramientas digitales obtenidas en contextos educativos formales y dentro de procesos de movilización, genera a su vez nuevas experiencias de aprendizaje no-formal, que permiten tanto a estudiantes como docentes reflexionar sobre sus prácticas y mejorar su potencial comunicativo. Asimismo, muestran un uso acrítico de las herramientas digitales, lo cual constituye un llamado de atención respecto a la necesidad de incorporar los tópicos de privacidad y autocuidado en internet dentro de los contenidos a desarrollar por la escuela como espacio de aprendizaje digital.

Website content and design in SME: insights from Portugal

Although there is a vast amount of literature on website evaluation, relatively little has been written about the analysis of websites of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME). This paper examines a comprehensive set of content and design features of 915 websites of Portuguese SME, as well as the relationship between these features and enterprise size. The results indicate that the majority of the websites are used to convey information, rather than to make transactions, support networking and collaboration or to interact dynamically with users. Accessibility or privacy and security features are not common among websites. Web 2.0 features have a low presence in SME websites, but social media emerged as a construct. In contrast with existing literature, the study has found that website content and design features are positively related with enterprise size. The contributions and implications are discussed together with avenues for further research.