Mediating identity narratives : a case study in queer digital storytelling as everyday activism

Digital Stories are short autobiographical documentaries, often illustrated with personal photographs and narrated in the first person, and typically produced in group workshops. As a media form they offer ‘ordinary people’ the opportunity to represent themselves to audiences of their choosing; and this amplification of hitherto unheard voices has significant repercussions for their social participation. Many of the storytellers involved in the ‘Rainbow Family Tree’ case study that is the subject of this paper can be characterised as ‘everyday’ activists for their common desire to use their personal stories to increase social acceptance of marginalised identity categories. However, in conflict with their willingness to share their personal stories, many fear the risks and ramifications of distributing them in public spaces (especially online) to audiences both intimate and unknown. Additionally, while technologies for production and distribution of rich media products have become more accessible and user-friendly, many obstacles remain. For many people there are difficulties with technological access and aptitude, personal agency, cultural capital, and social isolation, not to mention availability of the time and energy requisite to Digital Storytelling. Additionally, workshop context, facilitation and distribution processes all influence the content of stories. This paper explores the many factors that make ‘authentic’ self-representation far from straight forward. I use qualitative data drawn from interviews, Digital Story texts and ethnographic observation of GLBTQIS participants in a Digital Storytelling initiative that combined face-to-face and online modes of participation. I consider mediating influences in practice and theory and draw on strategies put forth in cultural anthropology and narrative therapy to propose some practical tools for nuanced and sensitive facilitation of Digital Storytelling workshops and webspaces. Finally, I consider the implications of these facilitation strategies for voice, identity and social participation.

‘My people right here…’ Indigenous young people, alienation and paint sniffing in inner Brisbane

This paper describes and explains the social worlds of a group of young Murris who are engaged in chroming (paint sniffing) and who sleep rough in inner Brisbane. In particular, the paper considers the ways young Indigenous drug users describe their marginalisation from wider society and its structures of opportunity, but it also includes some reflections from their youth worker and a young man who frequents the young people’s squat. The paper demonstrates the centrality of racism and material disadvantage to the experience of a group of young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sniffers, a perspective largely unreflected in the literature on Indigenous volatile substance misuse. Further, the young people’s ways of interacting with the broader society are described to explain the ways their rejection of mainstream norms form a significant political response to their marginality and reflect, at least in part, the wider Indigenous historical experience. The work draws on theories of alienation and subculture to analyse the young people’s descriptions of their social estrangement and the formation of the ‘paint sniffer group’. It is concluded that paint sniffing among urban Indigenous youth is, at least in part, an obnoxious and encoded distillation of a wider Indigenous rebuttal of broader societal norms, and that the dominant — normalising — modes of treatment risk further alienating an already oppositional group of young people.

So what do Design students really think? Exploring perceptions of Learning Landscapes

This paper investigates learning environments from the view of the key users - students. Recent literature on designing Learning Landscapes indicates a near absence of the student voice, assuming that the majority of students are either uninterested or unable to express what they want or need, in a learning environment. The focus of this research is to reveal Architecture and Fashion Design students’ perceptions of their learning environments. Furthermore, this study questions the appropriateness of usual design of learning spaces for Design students, or if the environment needs to be specifically catered for the learning of different disciplines of Design, such as Architecture and Fashion Design. Senior Architecture and Fashion Design students were invited to participate in a qualitative mixed method study, including investigation into existing literature, questionnaires, focus groups and spontaneous participatory research. Through the analysis of data it was found that students’ perceptions validate discipline specific learning environments and contribute towards the development of a framework for the design of future Learning Landscapes, for Design education.

Email as an arena for authoring a dialogical self among gifted young adolescents : a qualitative study

This paper describes a qualitative study that investigated young adolescents’ self-constructions within the context of online (email) communication. Drawing from dialogical perspectives of self as multiply-situated and complex phenomena, the study focused on the everyday narratives of individual young adolescents interpreted as different “I” voices. With the assumption that computer mediation offers cultural relevance and empowerment to young adolescents, techniques of personal journal writing were used in combination with email as an alternative to face-to-face methods. Twelve participants aged 10 to 14 years were recruited online and by word-of-mouth with an invitation to write freely about their lives over a six month period in a participant-led email journal project. The role of the researcher was to develop a supportive voice of listener/responder that was intended to facilitate the emergence of participants’ own ‘self’ voices within an interactive space for relatively autonomous self-expression. Data as email texts were analysed using a close listening method that synchronised with the theory by revealing multi-layered patterns and shifts of voices in order to give a nuanced understanding of participants’ self and other evaluations. The paper shows that narrative methods used online and in concert with dialogical concepts have potential to heighten self-reflection and strengthen agency as a means to access rich and nuanced data from young adolescent individuals. The study’s findings contribute to a growing interest in the use of dialogical concepts to explore the ways people engage in active meaning-making while embedded in their specific social and cultural environments.

One night stand : only you

Technical: This looped video work is made up from a number of still images animated in a sequence, not intended to be a smooth action, but syncopated. The gaps in real time suggest blinking, lapses in technology, warps in time and distance. The still images have been manipulated in photoshop and imported into an animation software program, showing subtle emphasis on various aspects of the features of the face and location from the screen shots. Content: Obsession is one of the most constant expressions of love, whether it is a negative attribute, such as stalking, or the need to see or stroke the beloved, or telling and re-telling the story of first meeting. “like the beat, beat, beat of the tom tom when the jungle shadows fall like the tick, tick, tock of the stately clock as it stands against the wall like the drip, drip drip of the rain drops when the summer shower’s through a voice within me keeps repeating you, you, you… only you...” (Cole Porter, Night and Day) My desire to immerse myself in my newly-met adult daughter as a reality is as obsessive as any new parent. The primary means of contact is video cam, which has become a kind of surveillance for me. I stare at her mouth as it moves, her ear as she moves her head, her smile, her grimaces, her high cheekbones, her eyes that are like mine, the shape of her head, her teeth that are like her father’s… hundreds of candid pictures screen shot over a year and a half were the source of the video images.

Detecting Symbian OS malware through static function call analysis

Smartphones become very critical part of our lives as they offer advanced capabilities with PC-like functionalities. They are getting widely deployed while not only being used for classical voice-centric communication. New smartphone malwares keep emerging where most of them still target Symbian OS. In the case of Symbian OS, application signing seemed to be an appropriate measure for slowing down malware appearance. Unfortunately, latest examples showed that signing can be bypassed resulting in new malware outbreak. In this paper, we present a novel approach to static malware detection in resource-limited mobile environments. This approach can be used to extend currently used third-party application signing mechanisms for increasing malware detection capabilities. In our work, we extract function calls from binaries in order to apply our clustering mechanism, called centroid. This method is capable of detecting unknown malwares. Our results are promising where the employed mechanism might find application at distribution channels, like online application stores. Additionally, it seems suitable for directly being used on smartphones for (pre-)checking installed applications.

Macrophonics

Artists: Donna Hewitt, Julian Knowles, Wade Marynowsky, Tim Bruniges, Avril Huddy Macrophonics presents new Australian work emerging from the leading edge of where performance interface research is taking place. The program addresses the emerging dialogue between traditional media and emerging digital media, as well as the dialogue across a broad range of musical traditions. Due to recent technological developments, we have reached a point artistically where the relationships between media and genres are being completely re-evaluated. This program presents a cross-section of responses to this condition. Each of the works in the program foregrounds an approach to performance that integrates sensors and novel performance control devices and/or examine how machines can be made musical in performance. Containing works for voice, electronics, video, movement and sensor based gestural controllers, it critically surveys the interface between humans and machines in performance. From sensor based microphones and guitars, performance a/v, to post-rock dronescapes and experimental electronica; Macrophonics provides a broad and engaging survey of new performance approaches in mediatised environments.

Kerberos based security system for session initiation protocol

Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is developed to provide advanced voice services over IP networks. SIP unites telephony and data world, permitting telephone calls to be transmitted over Intranets and Internet. Increase in network performance and new mechanisms for guaranteed quality of service encourage this consolidation to provide toll cost savings. Security comes up as one of the most important issues when voice communication and critical voice applications are considered. Not only the security methods provided by traditional telephony systems, but also additional methods are required to overcome security risks introduced by the public IP networks. SIP considers security problems of such a consolidation and provides a security framework. There are several security methods defined within SIP specifications and extensions. But, suggested methods can not solve all the security problems of SIP systems with various system requirements. In this thesis, a Kerberos based solution is proposed for SIP security problems, including SIP authentication and privacy. The proposed solution tries to establish flexible and scalable SIP system that will provide desired level of security for voice communications and critical telephony applications.

Transnational field experience : making the familiar strange

This study explores the impact of field experience in Australian primary classrooms on the developing professional identities of Malaysian pre-service teachers. This group of 24 Malaysian students are undertaking their Bachelor of Education in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (BEd TESL) at an Australian university, as part of a transnational twinning program. The globalisation of education has seen an increase in such transnational school experiences for pre-service teachers, with the aim of extending professional experience and intercultural competence by engaging in communities of practice beyond the local (Tsui 2005, Luke 2004). Despite overseas governments, such as Malaysia, having sponsored multimillion dollar twinning programs for their pre-service teachers, there is a lack of research regarding the outcomes of transnational professional practice within such programs. This study adopts a qualitative approach focusing on participants’ narratives as revealed in their reflective writing and through semi-structured interviews. Adopting a Bakhtinian framework, this research uses the concept of ‘voice’ to explore how pre-service teachers negotiate their identities as EFL teachers in response to their lived professional experiences (Bakhtin 1981, 1986). Encountering different cultural and educational practices in their transnational field experiences can lead pre-service teachers to question taken-for-granted practices that they have grown up with. This has been described as a process of making the familiar strange, and can lead to a shift in professional understandings. This study investigates how such questioning occurs and how the transnational field experience is perceived by the participants as contributing to their developing professional identities.

Professional development using informal learning networks : an empirical study in Australia’s digital content industry

Informal learning networks play a key role in the skill and professional development of professionals working in micro-businesses within Australia’s digital content industry as they do not necessarily have access to a learning and development or a human resources section that can assist in mapping their learning pathway. Professionals working in this environment would typically adopt an informal learning approach to their skill and professional development by utilising their social and business networks. The overall aim of this PhD research project is to study how these professionals manage their skill and professional development, and to explore what role informal learning networks play in this professional learning context. This paper will describe the theme of the research project and how it fits with previous research and other relevant studies. Secondly, it will present the study’s research focus, and the research questions. It will also present relevant theories and perspectives, and the methods for empirical data collection. Data collection will be through three distinct phases using a mixed methods research design: an online survey, interviews, and case studies. It should be noted the findings presented in this paper offer some early results of the research project.

Sociocultural animation

The emergence of global computer networks and the ubiquitous availability of advanced information and communication technology (ICT) since the mid Nineties has given rise to the hope that the traditional disadvantages faced by regional economies and regional communities could be elevated easily and swiftly. Yet, the experience of both community informatics and community development researchers and practitioners tells a different tale. Although the potential of ICT is in fact realised in some situations and locations and does provide means to ensure sustainability in some regional communities, elsewhere it has not been taken up or has not been able to elicit change for the promised better. Too many communities are still faced by a centralised structure in the context of commerce, service provision or governance and by various degrees of digital divides between connected and disconnected, between media literate and illiterate, between young and old, and between urban and rural. Many attempts to close or bridge the digital divide have been reported with various degrees of success (cf. Menou, 2001; Servon, 2002). Most of these accounts echo a common voice in that they report similar principles of action, and they reflect – in most cases unconsciously – practices of sociocultural animation. This article seeks to shed light onto the concept of sociocultural animation which is already commonplace in various forms in the arts, in education and professional development, youth work, sports, town planning, careers services, entrepreneurship and tourism. It starts by exploring the origins of sociocultural animation and draws parallels to the current state of research and practice. It unpacks the foundation of sociocultural animation and briefly describes underlying principles and how they can be applied in the context of community informatics and developing regional communities with ICT. Finally, further areas of investigation are being proposed.

Teaching journalism students how to tell Indigenous stories in an informed way : a work integrated learning approach

Australian journalism schools are full of students who have never met an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Island person and who do not know their history. Journalism educators are ill-equipped to redress this imbalance as a large majority are themselves non-Indigenous and many have had little or no experience with the coverage of Indigenous issues or knowledge of Indigenous affairs. Such a situation calls for educational approaches that can overcome these disadvantages and empower journalism graduates to move beyond the stereotypes that characterize the representation of Indigenous people in the mainstream media. This article will explore three different courses in three Australian tertiary journalism education institutions, which use Work-Integrated Learning Approaches to instil the cultural competencies necessary to encourage a more informed reporting of Indigenous issues. The findings from the three projects illustrate the importance of adopting a collaborative approach by industry, the Indigenous community and educators to encourage students’ commitment to quality journalism practices when covering Indigenous issues.

Environmental pollution from shipbreaking industry : international law and national legal response

The international legal regime on shipbreaking is in its formative years. At the international level, the shipbreaking industry is partially governed by the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal. However, how far this convention will be applicable for all aspects of transboundary movement of end-of-life ships is still, at least in the view of some scholars, a debatable issue. Against this backdrop, the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has adopted a new, legally binding convention for shipbreaking. There is a rising voice from the developing countries that the convention is likely to impose more obligations on recycling facilities in the developing countries than on shipowners from rich nations. This may be identified as a clear derogation from the globally recognized international environmental law principle of common but differentiated treatment. This article will examine in detail major international conventions regulating transboundary movement and environmentally sound disposal of obsolete ships, as well as the corresponding laws of Bangladesh for implementing these conventions in the domestic arena. Moreover this article will examine in detail the recently adopted IMO Ship Recycling Convention.

People with ID as active participants in nursing research : a literature review.

Aim: The movement from a medical model of disability to a more social model implies an imperative to include the views of people with ID in research regarding their care. Contemporary quality processes in improving care require consumer involvement at many levels and in doing so have shown better outcomes. A New Zealand research study is being undertaken utilizing focus groups with people with ID to understand their experiences during a psychiatric inpatient admission. The primary focus of this presentation will concern the literature review, undertaken as part of the study, of research in which people with ID have participated. Method: The literature review was conducted using a variety of electronic databases and search terms to identify studies with people with ID as active participants. Results: Only a few studies have been undertaken with people with ID as participants. While these studies demonstrate numerous benefits in including the voice of the person with ID this still remains absent from much of the research discourse. Conclusion: It is accepted and indeed advocated that people with ID have the same rights as others in regard to choosing whether or not they wish to participate in research. High response rates in the few identified studies indicated that people with ID are eager to be consulted. It is recommended that the unique needs of people with ID be taken into account in the research evidence base for future services.

Digital soapboxes : towards an interaction design agenda for situated civic innovation

We argue that there are at least two significant issues for interaction designers to consider when creating the next generation of human interfaces for civic and urban engagement: (1) The disconnect between citizens participating in either digital or physical realms has resulted in a neglect of the hybrid role that public place and situated technology can play in contributing to civic innovation. (2) Under the veneer of many social media tools, hardly any meaningful strategies or approaches are found that go beyond awareness raising and allow citizens to do more than clicking a ‘Like’ button. We call for an agenda to design the next generation of ‘digital soapboxes’ that contributes towards a new form of polity helping citizens not only to have a voice but also to appropriate their city in order to take action for change.