The Merger Storm Recognizes No Borders: An Analysis of Media Rhetoric on a Business Manoeuvre

Despite the central role of the media in contemporary society, studies examining the rhetorical practices of journalists are rare in organization and management research. We know little of the textual micro strategies and techniques through which journalists convey specific messages to their readers. Partially to fill the gap, this paper outlines a methodological framework that combines three perspectives of text analysis and interpretation: critical discourse analysis, systemic functional grammar and rhetorical structure theory. Using this framework, we engage in a close reading of a single media text (a press article) on a recent case of industrial restructuring in the financial services. In our empirical analysis, we focus on key arguments put forward by the journalists’ rhetorical constructions. We maintain that these arguments—which are not frame-breaking but rather tend to confirm existing presuppositions held by the audience—are an essential part of the legitimization and naturalization of specific management ideas and ideologies.

Essays on Platforms: Business Strategies, Regulation and Policy in Telecommunications, Media and Technology Industries

The growth of the information economy has been stellar in the last decade. General-purpose technologies such as the computer and the Internet have promoted productivity growth in a large number of industries. The effect on telecommunications, media and technology industries has been particularly strong. These industries include mobile telecommunications, printing and publishing, broadcasting, software, hardware and Internet services. There have been large structural changes, which have led to new questions on business strategies, regulation and policy. This thesis focuses on four such questions and answers them by extending the theoretical literature on platforms. The questions (with short answers) are: (i) Do we need to regulate how Internet service providers discriminate between content providers? (Yes.) (ii) What are the welfare effects of allowing consumers to pay to remove advertisements from advertisement-supported products?(Ambiguous, but those watching ads are worse off.) (iii) Why are some markets characterized by open platforms, extendable by third parties, and some by closed platforms, which are not extendable? (It is a trade-off between intensified competition for consumers and benefits from third parties) (iv) Do private platform providers allow third parties to access their platform when it is socially desirable? (No.)

Saracuruna News: produção audiovisual como dispositivo de subjetivação entre jovens da periferia de Duque de Caxias

Esta dissertação apresenta um conjunto de reflexões sobre produção de subjetividades em experiências de produção audiovisual no espaço educativo formal e teve como base uma pesquisa-intervenção com um grupo adolescentes prosumidores em uma escola pública de ensino fundamental na periferia metropolitana do Rio de Janeiro, no município de Duque de Caxias. O referencial teórico de Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze e Felix Guatarri orientam estas reflexões e a experiência de campo, que utilizou o método cartográfico como estratégia investigativa e que foi constituída do acompanhamento de uma oficina de vídeo produção, um dispositivo que provocou processos de subjetivação em seus participantes. A pesquisa também conta com a análise de contextos mais abrangentes que interferem diretamente nos processos de subjetivação observados como os contextos sócio-espacial e cultural que se insere o público pesquisado, a influência dos meios de comunicação, mais especificamente da TV e o universo de utilização das tecnologias da informação e da comunicação no contexto educacional com ênfase na produção audiovisual realizada por crianças e adolescentes no Brasil e em outros países.

Fazendo filmes na Ilha: produção de audiovisual como linha de fuga em Cotijuba, periferia de Belém

Fazendo filmes na ilha investiga as formas com que um grupo de jovens do sexo feminino e participantes assíduas do Cineclube Belém Insular na ilha de Cotijuba (Belém do Pará) se apropriam das imagens produzidas pelos diferentes dispositivos tecnológicos para exprimir as marcas territoriais do ambiente em que vivem. Analisa as produções realizadas por elas e verifica se expressam linhas de fuga às formas e formatos audiovisuais vigentes ou se apenas refletem os clichês visuais e sonoros, além das palavras de ordem, difundidos pelos meios de comunicação de massa. Esta pesquisa surge em decorrência do barateamento, facilidade de manuseio e de transmissão oferecidos pelo desenvolvimento das tecnologias de informação e comunicação, que permitiram novas formas de relação com as imagens. Se antes a produção e difusão das produções audiovisuais eram controladas pelos meios de comunicação de massa no formato um/todos, hoje, qualquer um com telefone celular, câmera fotográfica ou câmera de vídeo amadora é capaz de produzir um filme/vídeo e compartilhá-lo através das redes sociais e, principalmente, através de canais como o youtube. Dessa forma, territórios outrora isolados como a ilha de Cotijuba passam a ter acesso a informações locais e globais que se refletem em novos processos de subjetivação, transformando formas de pensar/agir e sentir na região. O campo conceitual circula entre Foucault, Deleuze e Guattari e outros autores pós-estruturalistas, além da bibliografia específica da área do audiovisual e das artes.

The cloud personal assistant for providing services to mobile clients

This paper introduces the original concept of a cloud personal assistant, a cloud service that manages the access of mobile clients to cloud services. The cloud personal assistant works in the cloud on behalf of its owner: it discovers services, invokes them, stores the results and history, and delivers the results to the mobile user immediately or when the user requests them. Preliminary experimental results that demonstrate the concept are included.

Delivering mobile cloud services to the user: description, discovery, and consumption

The mobile cloud computing paradigm can offer relevant and useful services to the users of smart mobile devices. Such public services already exist on the web and in cloud deployments, by implementing common web service standards. However, these services are described by mark-up languages, such as XML, that cannot be comprehended by non-specialists. Furthermore, the lack of common interfaces for related services makes discovery and consumption difficult for both users and software. The problem of service description, discovery, and consumption for the mobile cloud must be addressed to allow users to benefit from these services on mobile devices. This paper introduces our work on a mobile cloud service discovery solution, which is utilised by our mobile cloud middleware, Context Aware Mobile Cloud Services (CAMCS). The aim of our approach is to remove complex mark-up languages from the description and discovery process. By means of the Cloud Personal Assistant (CPA) assigned to each user of CAMCS, relevant mobile cloud services can be discovered and consumed easily by the end user from the mobile device. We present the discovery process, the architecture of our own service registry, and service description structure. CAMCS allows services to be used from the mobile device through a user's CPA, by means of user defined tasks. We present the task model of the CPA enabled by our solution, including automatic tasks, which can perform work for the user without an explicit request.

The role of economics in ecosystem based management: The case of the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive, First lessons learnt and way forward

The EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) sets out a plan of action relating to marine environmental policy and in particular to achieving ‘good environmental status’ (GES) in European marine waters by 2020. Article 8.1 (c) of the Directive calls for ‘an economic and social analysis of the use of those waters and of the cost of degradation of the marine environment’. The MSFD is ‘informed’ by the Ecosystem Approach to management, with GES interpreted in terms of ecosystem functioning and services provision. Implementation of the Ecosystem Approach is expected to be by adaptive management policy and practice. The initial socio-economic assessment was made by maritime EU Member States between 2011 and 2012, with future updates to be made on a regular basis. For the majority of Member States, this assessment has led to an exercise combining an analysis of maritime activities both at national and coastal zone scales, and an analysis of the non-market value of marine waters. In this paper we examine the approaches taken in more detail, outline the main challenges facing the Member States in assessing the economic value of achieving GES as outlined in the Directive and make recommendations for the theoretically sound and practically useful completion of the required follow-up economic assessments specified in the MSFD.

The role of economics in ecosystem based management: The case of the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive, First lessons learnt and way forward

The EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) sets out a plan of action relating to marine environmental policy and in particular to achieving ‘good environmental status’ (GES) in European marine waters by 2020. Article 8.1 (c) of the Directive calls for ‘an economic and social analysis of the use of those waters and of the cost of degradation of the marine environment’. The MSFD is ‘informed’ by the Ecosystem Approach to management, with GES interpreted in terms of ecosystem functioning and services provision. Implementation of the Ecosystem Approach is expected to be by adaptive management policy and practice. The initial socio-economic assessment was made by maritime EU Member States between 2011 and 2012, with future updates to be made on a regular basis. For the majority of Member States, this assessment has led to an exercise combining an analysis of maritime activities both at national and coastal zone scales, and an analysis of the non-market value of marine waters. In this paper we examine the approaches taken in more detail, outline the main challenges facing the Member States in assessing the economic value of achieving GES as outlined in the Directive and make recommendations for the theoretically sound and practically useful completion of the required follow-up economic assessments specified in the MSFD.

Sign language in Spanish television. Study on reception

The present article analyses the preferences of the deaf who use sign language and are users of the TV interpretation service to sign language, as well as the characteristics with which TV channels provide that service in television in Spain. The objective is to establish whether the way in which the aforementioned accessibility service is provided matches the preferences of users or differ from them. The analysis presents the opinion on this service of the deaf that use the Spanish sign language as their first language for communication. A study has also been conducted on the programmes broadcast with sign language during week 10-16/03/2014. The main data collected reveal that the deaf are dissatisfied with broadcasting times. They ask for news programmes with sign language, they would rather have the interpretation carried out by deaf people who use sign language and they prefer that the interpreter is the main image on screen. Concerning the analysis of the programmes broadcast, the study shows that the majority of programmes with sign language are broadcast at night, they are entertainment programmes, the interpretation is carried out by hearing people who use sign language and that their image is displayed in a corner of the screen.

Analysis of audiovisual production and music scene in Extremadura through YouTube channels

A study on Extremenian music and audiovisual production has been carried out through YouTube media. The purpose of this study is to analyze all audiovisual products and also assessing what broadcasting processes are conducted by creators to publicize their musical and audiovisual works. A quantitative and qualitative study of audiovisual materials of Extremadura bands was done to find out which processes are most suitable to increase the number of viewers for videos.

La Web Semántica y los archivos de televisión: estado de la cuestión

Se analizan y describen las principales líneas de trabajo de la Web Semántica en el ámbito de los archivos de televisión. Para ello, se analiza y contextualiza la web semántica desde una perspectiva general para posteriormente analizar las principales iniciativas que trabajan con lo audiovisual: Proyecto MuNCH, Proyecto S5T, Semantic Television y VideoActive.

‘Making Older People Equal: Reforming the Law on Access to Education and Other Services’

Age-based discrimination in the supply of goods and services (including educational services) has only very recently been outlawed in the United Kingdom by the Equality Act 2010, the relevant sections of which have not yet been brought into force. This paper critically considers the Act and its implications, as well as the current proposal for an EU Directive on Goods and Services.The greatest immediate potential of the Equality Act lies in the general prohibition against age discrimination and the scope of the exceptions to it. The paper argues that exceptions permitting service providers to discriminate against older people (i.e. negative exceptions) should be very specifically set out in the reforming legislation.There should be no general defence to a claim of age discrimination based around the concept of ‘reasonableness’, which would not be consistently interpreted by courts and tribunals in a way that steers clear of traditional ageist assumptions and stereotyping.The paper argues that service providers should be permitted to discriminate in favour of older people (i.e. make positive exceptions) if the reason for doing do so satisfi es legislative criteria which are designed, amongst other things, to meet the particular needs of older persons or to promote social inclusion. Under this proposal, preferential treatment such as age-related concessionary fees for adult education courses and programmes would be lawful.

Understanding Online Audio-Visual Content: A European Initiative, Media Literacy and the User

Recent debates about media literacy and the internet have begun to acknowledge the importance of active user-engagement and interaction. It is not enough simply to access material online, but also to comment upon it and re-use. Yet how do these new user expectations fit within digital initiatives which increase access to audio-visual-content but which prioritise access and preservation of archives and online research rather than active user-engagement? This article will address these issues of media literacy in relation to audio-visual content. It will consider how these issues are currently being addressed, focusing particularly on the high-profile European initiative EUscreen. EUscreen brings together 20 European television archives into a single searchable database of over 40,000 digital items. Yet creative re-use restrictions and copyright issues prevent users from re-working the material they find on the site. Instead of re-use, EUscreen instead offers access and detailed contextualisation of its collection of material. But if the emphasis for resources within an online environment rests no longer upon access but on user-engagement, what does EUscreen and similar sites offer to different users?

End-of-Life care and people with intellectual disabilities: A multi-media educational resource

Aim This study aimed to develop and evaluate a multi-media educational resource in palliative and end-of-life care for specialist palliative care and intellectual disability services which promoted collaborative working. Methods: A mixed methods design involving three phases was used. Qualitative data were obtained from semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of professionals (n=30) and family carers (n=5) and from two focus groups with people with intellectual disabilities (n=17). Data were content analysed as outlined y Newell and Burnard (2006). This identified training needs and issues, in end-of-life care for this population which were confirmed through quantitative data from services in a regional scoping study analysed using descriptive statistics. A DVD and manual were developed and evaluated with twelve professionals. Data were collected using a solicited diary, the Readiness for Inter-professional Learning Scale, Likert Scales and an evaluation questionnaire. Thematic analysis and descriptive statistics appropriate to data were used.Results: Findings suggest that this resource demonstrates the need for and benefits of partnership working and transferability of this learning to practice could address issues at end-of-life for people with intellectual disabilities. Conclusions: Findings of this study have importance for partnership working and service provision in end-of-life care for this population.

Green Media: The Future of Wireless Multimedia Networks:Guest Editorial

By 2015, with the proliferation of wireless multimedia applications and services (e.g., mobile TV, video on demand, online video repositories, immersive video interaction, peer to peer video streaming, and interactive video gaming), and any-time anywhere communication, the number of smartphones and tablets will exceed 6.5 billion as the most common web access devices. Data volumes in wireless multimedia data-intensive applications and mobile web services are projected to increase by a factor of 10 every five years, associated with a 20 percent increase in energy consumption, 80 percent of which is multimedia traffic related. In turn, multimedia energy consumption is rising at 16 percent per year, doubling every six years. It is estimated that energy costs alone account for as much as half of the annual operating expenditure. This has prompted concerted efforts by major operators to drastically reduce carbon emissions by up to 50 percent over the next 10 years. Clearly, there is an urgent need for new disruptive paradigms of green media to bridge the gap between wireless technologies and multimedia applications.