Frameworks for engaging creative practice in bureaucratised project environments

This project examines procurement of creative services in a bureaucratic setting and proposes alternative procedures that better negotiate the tensions between creative and bureaucratised ways of working. The outcome is a project procurement strategy called 'Creative Practice Enabled Procurement' and a prototype industry toolkit 'It's Not Shopping! A Guide to Purchasing Innovation and Creativity'. The research is of benefit to managers and creative practitioners, especially those working in interpretive settings. The goal is to propagate better forms of creative procurement across government and private sectors by providing an evidence-based case for improved, practical alternatives.

Prototyping the self-authored video interview : Challenges and opportunities

Self-authored video- where participants are in control of the creation of their own footage- is a means of creating innovative design material and including all members of a family in design activities. This paper describes our adaptation to this process called Self Authored Video Interviews (SAVIs) that we created and prototyped to better understand how families engage with situated technology in the home. We find the methodology produces unique insights into family dynamics in the home, uncovering assumptions and tensions unlikely to be discovered using more conventional methods. The paper outlines a number of challenges and opportunities associated with the methodology, specifically, maximising the value of the insights gathered by appealing to children to champion the cause, and how to counter perceptions of the lingering presence of researchers.

Community participation in post-disaster reconstruction

When a community already torn by a prolonged war is subsequently subjected to being hit by a natural disaster, the combined impact of such disasters can be extremely devastating. Affected communities often face enormous challenges during the long-term reconstruction, mainly due to the lack of a viable community involvement process. In post-war settings, affected communities are often conceived as being disabled and are hardly ever consulted when reconstruction projects are instigated. This lack of community involvement often leads to poor project planning, decreased community support and an unsustainable completed project. The impact of war, coupled with the tensions created by the poor housing provisions, often hinder the affected residents from integrating permanently into their home communities. This paper identifies a number of fundamental factors that act as barriers to community participation in reconstruction projects. The paper is based on a statistical analysis of a questionnaire survey administered in 2012 in Afghanistan.

Associated schools of construction of southern Africa infrastructure design and delivery workshop - Report. CIB task group 91 infrastructure

This workshop comprised a diverse group of African construction experts, ranging far wider than RSA. Each of the attendees had attended the annual ASOCSA conference and was additionally provided with a short workshop pre-brief. The aim was to develop a view of their 15-20 year vision of construction improvement in RSA and the steps necessary to get there. These included sociological, structural, technical and process changes. Whilst some suggestions are significantly challenging, none are impossible, given sufficient collaboration between government, industry, academia and NGOs. The highest priority projects (more properly, programmes) were identified and further explored. These are: 1. Information Hub (‘Open Africa’). Aim – to utilise emerging trends in Open Data to provide a force for African unity. 2. Workforce Development. Aim – to rebuild a competent, skilled construction industry for RSA projects and for export. 3. Modular DIY Building. Aim – to accelerate the development of sustainable, cost-efficient and desirable housing for African economic immigrants and others living in makeshift and slum dwellings. Open Data is a maturing theme in different cities and governments around the world and the workshop attendees were very keen to seize such a possibility to assist in developing an environment where Africans can share information and foster collaboration. It is likely that NGOs might be keen to follow up such an initiative. There are significant developments taking place around the world in the construction sector currently, with comparatively large savings being made for taxpayers (20% plus in the UK). Not all of these changes would be easy to transplant to RSA (even more so to much of the rest of Africa). Workforce development was a keen plea amongst the attendees, who seemed concerned that expertise has leaked away and is not being replaced with sufficient intensity. It is possible today to develop modular buildings in such a way that even unskilled residents can assist in their construction, and even their appropriate design. These buildings can be sited nearly autonomously from infrastructures, thus relieving the tensions on cities and townships, whilst providing humane accommodation for the economically disadvantaged. Development of suitable solutions could either be conducted with other similarly stressed countries or developed in-country and the expertise exported. Finally, it should be pointed out that this was very much a first step. Any opportunity to collaborate from an Australian, QUT or CIB perspective would be welcomed, whilst acknowledging that the leading roles belong to RSA, CSIR, NRF, ASOCSA and the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

Musicalising theatre, theatricalising music: Writing and performing intermediality in composed theatre

This investigation combined musicality and theatricality in the creation of four shows: Bear with Me, The Empty City, Gentlemen Songsters and Warmwaters. Led by creative practice, the research identified four polyvalences that characterise Composed Theatre, a transformational artistic domain which offers distinct challenges for performance makers. These include tensions and resolutions between compositional and theatrical thinking; music and words; setlist and script; and finally persona and character. The research finds that these interplays not only lend Composed Theatre its distinct qualities, but offer a potential set of balances to strike for writers, performers, composers and musicians who mix music and theatre in intermedial performance.

Editorial of "Communication Research and Practice, 1(3)"

For the third issue of Communication Research and Practice, we bring together a mix of submitted content and papers presented at events that were hosted under the auspices of the International Communication Association. Dal Yong Jin captures the dynamic and contradictory elements of both convergence and transmedia storytelling, and the ‘Korean Wave’, in his paper on webtoons. Exploring this distinctive online form of transmedia storytelling, Jin considers its evolution from the perspectives of digital content, political economy, convergent media and digital labour, and the tensions that surround its potential expansion into global cultural markets.

The trend toward pre-graduation professional work experience for Australian young planners: Essential experience or essentially exploitation

This paper explores the changing employment expectations that frame the early professional work experiences of young planners in Australia. In particular, it considers the rising popularity of pre-graduation professional work experience as a precursor to formal entry into the workforce as a practising planner. This shift is being driven in part by employer expectations that graduates will already have ‘real world’ and relevant work experience. However, an equally significant driver appears to be a growing desire for early career and graduate planners to find ways to distinguish themselves from their peers in an increasingly tight labour market. Using data from an ongoing research project into the formative work experiences of young people this paper describes the three main types of pre-graduation professional work experience undertaken by young planners. It highlights the potential challenges and benefits of pre-graduation work experience from a legal, social and ethical perspective as well as from the perspective of young planners themselves. The paper concludes by reflecting on the role of the planning profession – employers, peak bodies and planning educators – in managing the tensions between producing ‘work ready’ graduates and safeguarding the employment conditions of early career planning professionals.

Rauta ja Ristilukki : Vilho Helasen salapoliisiromaanisarja

Vilho Helanen (1899 1952) was a right-wing opinion leader in interwar Finland. But following the Second World War, the political situation in the country changed dramatically, and Helanen lost his job as well as his influential social station. He began to write detective fiction, and between 1946 and 1952 published seven novels (one had already been published in 1941). The novels protagonist is Kaarlo Rauta, a lawyer who acts as a private investigator. This doctoral dissertation analyzes the Rauta series from three different points of view. It investigates the extent to which the author s life and his strong political background appears in the series. The study also situates the series within Finnish society during and after the war. Finally, the study examines the Rauta series in terms of the genre conventions of detective fiction, that is, the study compares the Rauta series with other Finnish crime fiction and international crime fiction written during the 1940s. The Iron and The Cross Spider uses the term citizenship education when analyzing how Helanen implicitly continued his political teaching when writing crime fiction. The series includes a didactic register, which instructs the middle class in appropriate behaviour and manners, and the social roles entailed by gender. A special area of focus in this didacticism are norms of correct masculinity and femininity. The study devotes specific attention to the status of character in the series. The masculine detective and his beautiful wife are prominent, as is the fictive community and the tensions that criss-cross it. After the war, the Rauta series takes on a positive tone. Men can earn their place in society by fighting at the front, and after the war a homosocial bond exists between all the former soldiers. Women are shut out of the war experience. The detective hero has served in the war, but he is physically and psychologically untouched by it. The community is threatened by artists and immoral bohemians, but not the working class. Artists have affairs outside of marriage and abnormal sexual habits. The members of the upper class are also described as immoral in the series. Sadistic sexuality is often characteristic of the criminals, who are mostly femme fatales in the fashion of hard-boiled detective stories and film noir. Also, strong feelings have a negative connotation in the series, and showing them is forbidden behaviour. Men become criminals when they are insufficiently masculine or when they have not carried out their duty by fighting in the war. Helanen portrayed the communists, his political opponents from the 1930s, as criminals in his post-war series, but they were not openly represented as Russians or communists. Instead, Helanen used the cross spider as their symbol, a symbol which the readers of the time would recognize.

Scheffleriläinen rationaalisuus ja kasvatustodellisuuden monikerroksisuus : Jännitteitä ja ratkaisuja Israel Schefflerin kasvatusfilosofiassa

The study is a philosophical analysis of Israel Scheffler’s philosophy of education, focusing on three crucial conceptions in his philosophy: the conception of rationality, the conception of human nature, and the conception of reality. The interrelations of these three concepts as well as their relations to educational theorizing are analysed and elaborated. A conceptual problem concerning Scheffler’s ideal of rationality derives from Scheffler’s supposition of the strong analogy between science education and moral education in terms of the ideal of rationality. This analogy is argued to be conceptually problematic, since the interconnections of rationality, objectivity, and truth, appear to differ from each other in the realms of ethics and science, given the presuppositions of ontological realism and ethical naturalism, to which Scheffler explicitly subscribes. This study considers two philosophical alternatives for solving this problem. The first alternative relates the analogy to the normative concept of personhood deriving from the teleological understanding of human nature. Nevertheless, this position turns out to be problematic for Scheffler, since he rejects all teleological thinking in his philosophy. The problem can be solved, as it is argued, by limiting Scheffler’s rejection of teleology – in light of his philosophical outlook on the whole – in a manner that allows a modest version of a teleological conception of human nature. The second alternative, based especially on Scheffler’s later contributions, is to suggest that reality is actually more complex and manifold than it appears to be in light of a contemporary naturalist worldview. This idea of plurealism – Scheffler’s synthesis of pluralism and realism – is represented especially in Scheffler’s contributions related to his debate with Nelson Goodman dealing with both constructivism and realism. The idea of plurealism is not only related to the ethics-science-distinction, but is more widely related to the relationship between ontological realism and the incommensurable systems of description in diverse realms of human understanding. The Scheffler-Goodman debate is also analysed in relation to the contemporary constructivism-realism debate in educational philosophy. In terms of educational questions, Scheffler’s plurealism is argued as offering a fruitful perspective. Scheffler’s philosophy of education can be interpreted as searching for solutions to the problems deriving from the tension between the tradition of analytical philosophy and the complexity and multiplicity of educational reality. The complexity of reality combined with the supposition of the limitedness of human knowledge does not lead Scheffler to relativism or particularism, but, in contrast, Schefflerian formulations of rationality and objectivity preserve the possibility for critical inquiry in all realms of educational reality. In light of this study, Scheffler’s philosophy of education provides an exceptional example of combining ontological realism, epistemological fallibilism, and the defence of the ideal of rationality, combined with a wide-ranging understanding of educational reality.

The Networks of Learning in Technological Innovation : The Emergence of Collaboration Across Fields of Expertise

This study addresses four issues concerning technological product innovations. First, the nature of the very early phases or "embryonic stages" of technological innovation is addressed. Second, this study analyzes why and by what means people initiate innovation processes outside the technological community and the field of expertise of the established industry. In other words, this study addresses the initiation of innovation that occurs without the expertise of established organizations, such as technology firms, professional societies and research institutes operating in the technological field under consideration. Third, the significance of interorganizational learning processes for technological innovation is dealt with. Fourth, this consideration is supplemented by considering how network collaboration and learning change when formalized product development work and the commercialization of innovation advance. These issues are addressed through the empirical analysis of the following three product innovations: Benecol margarine, the Nordic Mobile Telephone system (NMT) and the ProWellness Diabetes Management System (PDMS). This study utilizes the theoretical insights of cultural-historical activity theory on the development of human activities and learning. Activity-theoretical conceptualizations are used in the critical assessment and advancement of the concept of networks of learning. This concept was originally proposed by the research group of organizational scientist Walter Powell. A network of learning refers to the interorganizational collaboration that pools resources, ideas and know-how without market-based or hierarchical relations. The concept of an activity system is used in defining the nodes of the networks of learning. Network collaboration and learning are analyzed with regard to the shared object of development work. According to this study, enduring dilemmas and tensions in activity explain the participants' motives for carrying out actions that lead to novel product concepts in the early phases of technological innovation. These actions comprise the initiation of development work outside the relevant fields of expertise and collaboration and learning across fields of expertise in the absence of market-based or hierarchical relations. These networks of learning are fragile and impermanent. This study suggests that the significance of networks of learning across fields of expertise becomes more and more crucial for innovation activities.

Supporting mindful planners in a mindless system: Limitations to the emotional turn in planning practice

Despite widespread acknowledgment within planning scholarship that emotion – both present in knowledge and a form of knowledge – is integral to lived experience and the judgement of planners, it is often sidelined within planning practice. The extent to which mainstream planning has been able or willing to accommodate emotions remains constrained and the emotions of planners and the public remain an unacknowledged but pervasive presence. Antonio Ferreira recently highlighted in this journal the importance of attending to emotions at the level of the individual planner through the concept of mindfulness. We argue this approach must be complemented by an acknowledgement of the structural and institutional limitations of including emotions in planning practice. Drawing from the emotional geographies literature to describe a social-spatial conceptualisation of emotion, we highlight ontological and practical tensions associated with the achievement of the ‘emotional turn’ and advance a more purposeful engagement with emotion in mainstream planning practice.

Copyright law and mash-ups: A policy paper

This report provides an analysis of the cultural, policy and legal implications of ‘mash-ups’. This study provides a short history of mash-ups, explaining how the current ‘remix culture’ builds upon a range of creative antecedents and cultural traditions, which valorised appropriation, quotation, and transformation. It provides modern examples of mash-ups, such as sound recordings, musical works, film and artistic works, focusing on works seen on You Tube and other online applications. In particular, it considers - * Literary mash-ups of canonical texts, including Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, The Wind Done Gone, After the Rain, and 60 Years Later; * Artistic mash-ups, highlighting the Obama Hope poster, the ‘Column’ case, and the competition for extending famous album covers; * Geographical mash-ups, most notably, the Google Australia bushfires map; * Musical mash-ups, such as The Grey Album and the work of Girl Talk; * Cinematic mash-ups, including remixes of There Will Be Blood and The Downfall; and This survey provides an analysis of why mash-up culture is valuable. It highlights the range of aesthetic, political, comic, and commercial impulses behind the creation and the dissemination of mash-ups. This report highlights the tensions between copyright law and mash-ups in particular cultural sectors. Second, this report emphasizes the importance of civil society institutions in promoting and defending mash-ups in both copyright litigation and policy debates. It provides a study of key organisations – including: * The Fair Use Project; * The Organization for Transformative Works; * Public Knowledge; * The Electronic Frontier Foundation; and * The Chilling Effects Clearinghouse This report suggests that much can be learnt from this network of organisations in the United States. There is a dearth of comparable legal clinics, advocacy groups, and creative institutions in Australia. As a result, the public interest values of copyright law have only received weak, incidental support from defendant companies – such as Network Ten and IceTV – with other copyright agendas. Third, this report canvasses a succinct model for legislative reform in respect of copyright law and mash-ups. It highlights: * The extent to which mash-ups are ‘tolerated uses’; * The conflicting judicial precedents on substantiality in Australia and the United States; * The debate over copyright exceptions relating to mash-ups and remixes; * The use of the take-down and notice system under the safe harbours regime by copyright owners in respect of mash-ups; * The impact of technological protection measures on mash-ups and remixes; * The possibility of statutory licensing in respect of mash-ups; * The use of Creative Commons licences; * The impact of moral rights protection upon mash-ups; * The interaction between economic and moral rights under copyright law; and * Questions of copyright law, freedom of expression, and political mash-ups.

Learning challenges of NGOs in development : Co-operation of Finnish NGOs in Morogoro, Tanzania

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have gained an important role in development co-operation during the last two decades. The development funding channelled through NGOs has increased and the number of NGOs engaged in development activities, both North and South, has been growing. Supporting NGOs has been seen as one way to strengthen civil society in the South and to provide potential for enhancing more effective development than the state, and to exercise participatory development and partnership in their North-South relationships. This study focuses on learning in the co-operation practices of small Finnish NGOs in Morogoro, Tanzania. Drawing on the cultural-historical activity theory and the theory of expansive learning, in this study I understand learning as a qualitative change in the actual co-operation practices. The qualitative change, for its part, emerges out of attempts to deal with the contradictions in the present activity. I use the concept of developmental contradiction in exploring the co-operation of the small Finnish NGOs with their Tanzanian counterparts. Developmental contradiction connects learning to actual practice and its historical development. By history, in this study I refer to multiple developmental trajectories, such as trajectories of individual participants, organisations, co-operation practices and the institutional system in which the NGO-development co-operation is embedded. In the empirical chapters I explore the co-operation both in the development co-operation projects and in micro-level interaction between partners taking place within the projects. I analyse the perceptions of the Finnish participants about the different developmental trajectories, the tensions, inclusions and exclusions in the evolving object of co-operation in one project, the construction of power relations in project meetings in three projects, and the collision of explicated partnership with the emerging practice of trusteeship in one project. On the basis of the empirical analyses I elaborate four developmental contradictions and learning challenges for the co-operation. The developmental contradictions include: 1) implementing a ready-made Finnish project idea vs. taking the current activities of Tanzanian NGO as a starting point; 2) gaining experiences and cultural interaction vs. access to outside funding; 3) promoting the official tools of development co-operation in training vs. use of tools and procedures taken from the prior activities of both partners in actual practice; and 4) asymmetric relations between the partners vs. rhetoric of equal partnership. Consequently, on the basis of developmental contradictions four learning challenges are suggested: a shift from legitimation of Finnish ideas to negotiation, transcending the separate objects and finding a partly joint object, developing locally shared tools for the co-operation, and identification and reflection of the power relations in the practice of co-operation. Keywords: activity theory; expansive learning; NGO development co-operation; partnership; power

Työlähtöiset menetelmät työterveyshuollossa : Oppimisen johtaminen uuden toimintakonseptin käyttöönotto- ja vakiinnuttamisvaiheessa

Working life is changing. The core of the change is change in the production and service concepts of organizations. Changes at work are connected to problems in the well-being of employees. To respond to this challenge, occupational health care must develop a course of action. A group of occupational health care units has developed new activity theory-based methods, the object of which is to change the service concept of occupational health care. The focus is on the changes and disturbances in work activity. My aim was to study this development from the perspective of knowledge management; to clarify directors'/ managers' conceptions of the content and object of their managerial work and the tensions included in these conceptions; to examine the learning process involved in these methods and to bring to light the problems, developmental needs and challenges during the implementation and consolidation phases of the process. This was a case study which included 10 occupational health care units using or being trained to use activity theory-based methods. My data consisted of interviews with directors/managers and recordings of the meetings; 20 directors/ managers are represented; I interviewed seven directors/ managers who represented four units. Directors'/ managers' conceptions of the content and object of managerial work were divided into eight categories of description, which I connected to the historical forms of organizations and types of management. Intuitive and rational management are historically older forms of management. The categories of description representing intuitive and rational management contained many internal tensions, i.e. they do not satisfy the demands of the environment. On the other hand, the categories of description which represented management by results and the control of the development process contained very few or no tensions at all; they are effective in the present environment of occupational health care. The learning process of activity theory-based methods has been expansive in nature. The occupational health care units studied are in different phases of the learning process, and these processes have been different. In three units the focus was on work development; in one unit the focus was on development of the service concept. The most central problems, challenges and developmental needs during the implementation phase were related to learning and spreading of methods inside one's own unit, and during the consolidation phase to working with partners.

Porn, censorship, classification and free speech: Global paradoxes in the governance of media content

In this presentation, I reflect upon the global landscape surrounding the governance and classification of media content, at a time of rapid change in media platforms and services for content production and distribution, and contested cultural and social norms. I discuss the tensions and contradictions arising in the relationship between national, regional and global dimensions of media content distribution, as well as the changing relationships between state and non-state actors. These issues will be explored through consideration of issues such as: recent debates over film censorship; the review of the National Classification Scheme conducted by the Australian Law Reform Commission; online controversies such as the future of the Reddit social media site; and videos posted online by the militant group ISIS.