Gigantes do telejornalismo mundial Mutações editoriais e tecnológicas das agências internacionais de notícias

Esta tese resgata a história das agências de notícias que atuam em escala internacional (Reuters Television e Associated Press Television News), delimitando suas características operacionais dentro do fluxo informacional do telejornalismo mundial. Por meio dos estudos de caso da Reuters TV e da APTN, a tese mostra o funcionamento do ecossistema noticioso global, voltado para as emissoras de televisão, explorando o entendimento de como ele se comporta a partir da irrupção das novas mídias advindas com a internet. Aponta como o desenvolvimento das tecnologias digitais em rede provocou mudanças editoriais e logísticas na rotina produtiva das agências, vistas neste trabalho como importantes atores sociais da globalização. Ao mapear a dinâmica comercial e estrutural das agências, é sustentada a hipótese de que as reportagens transmitidas por essas empresas são, em sua maioria, determinadas pelos interesses políticos e econômicos de seus maiores clientes. Isso nos leva a ratificar que, ainda hoje, após 30 anos da publicação do Relatório McBride, da UNESCO, há uma assimetria no noticiário internacional, no qual alguns países, regiões e assuntos são negligenciados e excluídos. A tese revela, entre outros pontos, que as agências agora difundem um número expressivo de vídeos relacionados à Ásia e que a maior parte de suas reportagens tem imbricações com os Estados Unidos e/ou a Europa. Durante a cobertura midiática de eventos de grande impacto, as agências renovam seu capital simbólico vendendo a ideia de isenção, credibilidade e multiplicidade de vozes. Reforçam também papéis específicos: a organização do noticiário, a viabilização das imagens e a alimentação contínua, segura e veloz do fluxo informativo.

AS RELAÇÕES ENTRE SUPORTE SOCIAL E BALANÇO EMOCIONAL

O objetivo deste estudo foi descrever os níveis de dimensões de suporte social (emocional e prático) e de balanço emocional, analisar as suas correlações e investigar as suas relações com variáveis sócio demográficas de um grupo de pessoas que participam de programa de apoio emocional e informacional em uma instituição beneficente de São Paulo. A amostra pesquisada, escolhida aleatoriamente, consistiu de 95 pessoas do sexo masculino e feminino com idade média de 47,99 anos (DP=12,11). O instrumento de coleta de dados foi um questionário de auto preenchimento composto por duas medidas que aferiram as variáveis de estudo (percepção de suporte social, afetos positivos e negativos), além dos dados sócio demográficos. Foram utilizadas análises estatísticas descritivas, testadas diferenças entre médias, bem como calculados os índices de correlação entre as variáveis. Os resultados mostraram que não há diferenças significativas na percepção de suporte social (emocional e prático) e as variáveis sócio demográficas sexo, trabalho, estudo, voluntariado, permanência na instituição, escolaridade e estado civil. Os mais jovens, com menos de 30 anos, revelaram maior percepção do suporte social (emocional e prático). Revelaram também que não há diferença significativa do balanço emocional em relação às variáveis sócio demográficas, com exceção do trabalho voluntário que repercutiu expressiva e positivamente no balanço emocional. A análise das relações entre suporte social (emocional e prático) e idade revelou existir uma correlação significativa, baixa e negativa, isto é, com o aumento da idade há uma tendência a decrescer levemente a percepção de suporte social. A descrição dos níveis de suporte social revelou que as percepções de suporte emocional e prático são significativamente diferentes, embora a diferença entre as médias seja pequena, prevalece a percepção de maior suporte emocional. A descrição dos escores de balanço emocional revelou que cerca de três quartos dos entrevistados registrou balanço emocional positivo e cerca de um quarto registrou balanço emocional negativo. Não foi constatada correlação significativa entre balanço emocional e idade. As análises das relações entre suporte emocional, suporte prático e balanço emocional revelaram correlações significativas e positivas, isto é, com um acréscimo na percepção de suporte social (emocional e prático) há a tendência de acréscimo no balanço emocional. Portanto, os resultados deste estudo poderão contribuir para a compreensão do quadro psicológico dos indivíduos pesquisados, bem como, suscitar aos gestores de instituições reflexões para o aprimoramento dos serviços de programas assistenciais.(AU)

IMPACTO DO CONFLITO INTRAGRUPAL, DO SUPORTE SOCIAL NO TRABALHO E DO AUTOCONCEITO PROFISSIONAL SOBRE A RESILIÊNCIA: UM ESTUDO COM POLICIAIS MILITARES.

A resiliência é um construto que remete à habilidade do ser humano de ter êxito frente às adversidades da vida, superá-las e inclusive, ser fortalecido ou transformado por elas. Campos de investigações da psicologia, como Psicologia da Saúde, Psicologia Positiva e Comportamento Organizacional Positivo, têm considerado a resiliência como uma importante via para a compreensão dos aspectos positivos e saudáveis dos indivíduos. Este trabalho pretendeu ampliar o conhecimento acerca da resiliência e suas relações com outros construtos no contexto organizacional. Para isto, definiu-se como objetivo geral deste estudo verificar a capacidade preditiva do conflito intragrupal (tarefa e relacionamento), do suporte social no trabalho (emocional, informacional e instrumental) e do autoconceito profissional (saúde, realização, autoconfiança e competência) sobre a resiliência (adaptação ou aceitação positiva de mudanças, espiritualidade, resignação diante da vida, competência pessoal e persistência diante das dificuldades) de policiais militares. Participaram do estudo 133 policiais militares de um batalhão do interior do estado de São Paulo, prevalecendo indivíduos do sexo masculino (97,7%), com idade média de 30 anos (DP= 5,7). Para a medida das variáveis foram utilizadas as seguintes escalas validadas: Escala de Avaliação de Resiliência reduzida, Escala de Conflitos Intragrupais, Escala de Percepção de Suporte Social no Trabalho e a Escala de Autoconceito Profissional. Os dados foram submetidos a cálculos descritivos e a análises de regressão linear múltipla padrão. Os resultados indicaram que o modelo que reunia as variáveis antecedentes (conflito intragrupal, suporte social no trabalho e autoconceito profissional) explicou significativamente a variância das dimensões da resiliência: 30% da persistência diante das dificuldades, 29% da adaptação ou aceitação positiva de mudanças, 28% da competência pessoal e 11% da espiritualidade. As variáveis que tiveram impacto estatisticamente importante sobre a persistência diante das dificuldades foram o suporte emocional no trabalho, cuja direção da predição foi inversa, e autoconfiança, cuja direção da predição foi direta. A adaptação ou aceitação positiva de mudanças teve como preditor inverso a variável saúde e como preditor direto a autoconfiança. A competência pessoal teve impacto significativo da variável autoconfiança, que se mostrou um preditor direto. A espiritualidade, por sua vez, teve um único preditor significante, a variável realização, cuja direção da predição foi direta. Os resultados sugerem que dentre as variáveis antecedentes, o autoconceito profissional evidenciou maior poder de explicação da variância da resiliência. À luz da literatura da área foram discutidos estes achados. Por fim, foram apresentadas as limitações e a proposta de uma agenda de pesquisa que contribua para confirmação e ampliação dos resultados desta investigação.

RESILIÊNCIA EM TRABALHADORES: IMPACTO DA AUTO- EFICÁCIA E DA PERCEPÇÃO DE SUPORTE SOCIAL

Resiliência representa o processo dinâmico envolvendo a adaptação positiva no contexto de adversidade significativa. Estudos sobre o conceito têm aumentado com o advento da Psicologia Positiva, pelos potenciais efeitos na saúde e no desempenho dos trabalhadores. Outros conceitos importantes para a saúde circunscritos no escopo da Psicologia Positiva no contexto de trabalho são os de auto-eficácia, definida como crenças das pessoas sobre suas capacidades e/ou seu exercício de controle sobre os eventos que afetam sua vida e o de suporte social no trabalho, que compreende a percepção do quanto o contexto laborativo oferece apoio aos trabalhadores. Pouca literatura existe sobre resiliência no contexto de trabalho e nenhum estudo envolvendo os três construtos foi encontrado. Por isto, esta investigação analisou o impacto da auto-eficácia e da percepção de suporte social no trabalho sobre a resiliência de trabalhadores. Participaram 243 universitários trabalhadores da região metropolitana de São Paulo, com idade média de 23 anos (DP=6,2 anos), em sua maioria do sexo feminino (69,5%), cristãos (católicos=51,5%; protestantes=18,1%), atuantes em cargos de apoio administrativo e técnico (49,1%), oriundos de organizações de diversos ramos. Foi aplicado um questionário para coletar dados sócio-demográficos dos participantes e três escalas brasileiras válidas para medir a percepção de suporte social no trabalho (Escala de Percepção de Suporte Social no Trabalho EPSST), as crenças de auto-eficácia (Escala de Auto-eficácia Geral Percebida) e nível de resiliência (Escala de Resiliência de Connor-Davidson CD-RISC-10). Foram realizadas análises estatísticas exploratórias e descritivas, análises de regressão stepwise, análises de variância (ANOVA) e teste t para descrever participantes, variáveis e testar o modelo. Os dados revelaram que os universitários trabalhadores apresentam níveis de resiliência e auto-eficácia acima da média e de suporte social no trabalho, na média. Auto-eficácia se confirmou como preditor significativo de resiliência ao contrário dos três tipos de percepção de suporte social no trabalho (informacional, emocional e instrumental). Os achados indicaram a necessidade de aprofundamento sobre o tema e foi apontada a necessidade de novos estudos que auxiliem na compreensão dos resultados desta investigação.

Business systems purpose, analysis

This thesis deals with the problematic of the business systems systemic purpose definition. The definition of the systemic purpose, which is regarded as the utmost expression of the system's purposefulness, is to be achieved by ensuring the participation of all the stakeholders, if possible, who affect or they are affected by the business system's operations. The nature of participation, defined as a process of the stakeholders' perceptual exchanges, is deemed to be problematic in itself due to the influence exerted upon it by organisational power, coercion and false consciousness. The main focus of the thesis then is to make aware and provide the stakeholders with an explicit philosophical pedestal and a set of principles upon which a meta- epistemological framework for the enquiry of the business system's purposeful behaviour is developed. In addition, the thesis focuses on the development of a methodology that can be used by the stakeholders to achieve self-knowledge through the critical and systemic examination of their normative presuppositions, about the business system, at both sociological as well as the psychological levels concurrently and the subsequent development of an organisational intrinsically motivated information system. According to the critical systems philosophy and principles, developed in this thesis, normative presuppositions define the stakeholders' perceptions about the purposeful behaviour of the business system they perceived as having a material, an informational and/or an emacipatory stake (human interest) in. The methodology will provide Information Systems that demonstrably improve coordination of organisational activities by enabling the development and maintenance of a single/multifaceted view of purpose throughout organisations.

Designing a methodology for an office communication and information system:for executives in the Malaysian public sector : the Prime Minister's office

Modern managers are under tremendous pressure in attempting to fulfil a profoundly complex managerial task, that of handling information resources. Information management, an intricate process requiring a high measure of human cognition and discernment, involves matching a manager's lack of information processing capacity against his information needs, with voluminous information at his disposal. The nature of the task will undoubtedly become more complex in the case of a large organisation. Management of large-scale organisations is therefore an exceedingly challenging prospect for any manager to be faced with. A system that supports executive information needs will help reduce managerial and informational mismatches. In the context of the Malaysian public sector, the task of overall management lies with the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. The Prime Minister's Office is presently supporting the Prime Minister's information and managerial needs, although not without various shortcomings. The rigid formalised structure predominant of the Malaysian public sector, so opposed to dynamic treatment of problematic issues as faced by that sector, further escalates the managerial and organisational problem of coping with a state of complexity. The principal features of the research are twofold: the development of a methodology for diagnosing the problem organisation' and the design of an office system. The methodological development is done in the context of the Malaysian public sector, and aims at understanding the complexity of its communication and control situation. The outcome is a viable model of the public sector. `Design', on the other hand, is developing a syntax or language for office systems which provides an alternative to current views on office systems. The design is done with reference to, rather than for, the Prime Minister's Office. The desirable outcome will be an office model called Office Communication and Information System (OCIS).

Management information:design of a system for change identification

This thesis deals with the problem of Information Systems design for Corporate Management. It shows that the results of applying current approaches to Management Information Systems and Corporate Modelling fully justify a fresh look to the problem. The thesis develops an approach to design based on Cybernetic principles and theories. It looks at Management as an informational process and discusses the relevance of regulation theory to its practice. The work proceeds around the concept of change and its effects on the organization's stability and survival. The idea of looking at organizations as viable systems is discussed and a design to enhance survival capacity is developed. It takes Ashby's theory of adaptation and developments on ultra-stability as a theoretical framework and considering conditions for learning and foresight deduces that a design should include three basic components: A dynamic model of the organization- environment relationships; a method to spot significant changes in the value of the essential variables and in a certain set of parameters; and a Controller able to conceive and change the other two elements and to make choices among alternative policies. Further considerations of the conditions for rapid adaptation in organisms composed of many parts, and the law of Requisite Variety determine that successful adaptive behaviour requires certain functional organization. Beer's model of viable organizations is put in relation to Ashby's theory of adaptation and regulation. The use of the Ultra-stable system as abstract unit of analysis permits developing a rigorous taxonomy of change; it starts distinguishing between change with in behaviour and change of behaviour to complete the classification with organizational change. It relates these changes to the logical categories of learning connecting the topic of Information System design with that of organizational learning.

The impact of drug information on the prescribing of drugs

Using prescription analyses and questionnaires, the way drug information was used by general medical practitioners during the drug adoption process was studied. Three new drugs were considered; an innovation and two 'me-too' products. The innovation was accepted by general practitioners via a contagion process, information passing among doctors. The 'me-too' preparations were accepted more slowly and by a process which did not include the contagion effect. 'Industrial' information such as direct mail was used more at the 'awareness' stage of the adoption process while 'professional' sources of information such as articles in medical journals were used more to evaluate a new product. It was shown that 'industrial' information was preferred by older single practice doctors who did not specialise, had a first degree only and who did not dispense their own prescriptions. Doctors were divided into early and late-prescribers by using the date they first prescribed the innovatory drug. Their approach to drug information sources was further studied and it was shown that the early-prescriber issued slightly more prescriptions per month, had a larger list size, read fewer journals and generally rated industrial sources of information more highly than late-prescribers. The prescribing habits of three consultant rheumatologists were analysed and compared with those of the general practitioners in the community which they served. Very little association was noted and the influence of the consultant on the prescribing habits of general practitioners was concluded to be low. The consultants influence was suggested to be of two components, active and passive; the active component being the most influential. Journal advertising and advertisement placement were studied for one of the 'me-too' drugs. It was concluded that advertisement placement should be based on the reading patterns of general practitioners and not on ad-hoc data gathered by representatives as was the present practice. A model was proposed relating the 'time to prescribe' a new drug to the variables suggested throughout this work. Four of these variables were shown to be significant. These were, the list size, the medical age of the prescriber, the number of new preparations prescribed in a given time and the number of partners in the practice.

Theme and thematic patterns in Spanish and English history texts

The aim of this research project is to compare published history textbooks written for upper-secondary/tertiary study in the U.S. and Spain using Halliday's (1994) Theme/Rheme construct. The motivation for using the Theme/Rheme construct to analyze professional texts in the two languages is two-fold. First of all, while there exists a multitude of studies at the grammatical and phonological levels between the two languages, very little analysis has been carried out in comparison at the level of text, beyond that of comparing L1/L2 student writing. Secondly, thematic considerations allow the analyst to highlight areas of textual organization in a systematic way for purposes of comparison. The basic hypothesis tested here rests on the premise that similarity in the social function of the texts results in similar Theme choice and thematic patterning across languages, barring certain linguistic constraints. The corpus for this study consists of 20 texts: 10 from various history textbooks published in the U.S. and 10 from various history textbooks published in Spain. The texts chosen represent a variety of authors, in order to control for author style or preference. Three overall areas of analysis were carried out, representing Halliday's (1994) three metafunctions: the ideational, the interpersonal and the textual. The ideational analysis shows similarities across the two corpora in terms of participant roles and circumstances as Theme, with a slight difference in participants involved in material processes, which is shown to reflect a minor difference in the construal of the field of history in the two cultures. The textual analysis shows overall similarities with respect to text organization, and the interpersonal analysis shows overall similarities as regards the downplay of discrepant interpretations of historical events as well as a low frequency of interactive textual features, manifesting the informational focus of the texts. At the same time, differences in results amongst texts within each of the corpora demonstrate possible effect of subject matter, in many cases, and individual author style in others. Overall, the results confirm that similarity in content, but above all in purpose and audience, result in texts which show similarities in textual features, setting aside certain grammatical constraints.

A flexible cost function model with risk

In examining bank cost efficiency in banking inclusion of risk-taking of banks is very important. In this paper we depart from the standard modeling approach and view risk intimately related to the technology. Thus, instead of controlling for risk by viewing them as covariates in the standard cost function we argue that the technology differs with risk, thereby meaning that the parameters of the parametric cost function changes with risk in a fully flexible manner. This is accomplished by viewing the parameters of the cost function as nonparametric functions of risk. We also control for country-specific effects in a fully flexible manner by using them as arguments of the nonparametric functions along with the risk variable. The resulting cost function then becomes semiparametric. The standard parametric model becomes a special case of our semiparametric model. We use the above modeling approach for banks in the EU countries. Actually, European financial integration is seen as a stepping stone for the development of a competitive single EU market that promotes efficiency and increases consumer welfare, changing the risk profile of the European banks. Particularly, financial integration allows more risk diversification and permits banks to use more advanced risk management instruments and systems, however it has at the same time increased the probability of systematic risks. Financial integration has increased the risk of contagion and changed its nature and scope. Consequently the bank’s risk seems to be an important issue to be investigated.

Endogenous ownership structure:factors affecting the post-privatisation equity in largest Hungarian firms

Using a data set for the 162 largest Hungarian firms during the period of 1994-1999, this paper explores the determinants of equity shares held by both foreign investors and Hungarian corporations. Evidence is found for a post-privatisation evolution towards more homogeneous equity structures, where dominant categories of Hungarian and foreign owners aim at achieving controlling stakes. In addition, focusing on firm-level characteristics we find that exporting firms attract foreign owners who acquire controlling equity stakes. Similarly, firm-size measurements are positively associated with the presence of foreign investors. However, they are negatively associated with 100% foreign ownership, possibly because the marginal costs of acquiring additional equity are growing with the size of the assets. The results are interpreted within the framework of the existing theory. In particular, following Demsetz and Lehn (1985) and Demsetz and Villalonga (2001) we argue that equity should not be treated as an exogenous variable. As for specific determinants of equity levels, we focus on informational asymmetries and (unobserved) ownership-specific characteristics of foreign investors and Hungarian investors.

Does online information drive offline revenues? Only for specific products and consumer segments!

While many offline retailers have developed informational websites that offer information on products and prices, the key question for such informational websites is whether they can increase revenues via web-to-store shopping. The current paper draws on the information search literature to specify and test hypotheses regarding the offline revenue impact of adding an informational website. Explicitly considering marketing efforts, a latent class model distinguishes consumer segments with different short-term revenue effects, while a Vector Autoregressive model on these segments reveals different long-term marketing response. We find that the offline revenue impact of the informational website critically depends on the product category and customer segment. The lower online search costs are especially beneficial for sensory products and for customers distant from the store. Moreover, offline revenues increase most for customers with high web visit frequency. We find that customers in some segments buy more and more expensive products, suggesting that online search and offline purchases are complements. In contrast, customers in a particular segment reduce their shopping trips, suggesting their online activities partially substitute for experiential shopping in the physical store. Hence, offline retailers should use specific online activities to target specific product categories and customer segments.

GEO Label – quality information interrogation tool for geospatial datasets:towards effective visualization of quality metadata

Although the importance of dataset fitness-for-use evaluation and intercomparison is widely recognised within the GIS community, no practical tools have yet been developed to support such interrogation. GeoViQua aims to develop a GEO label which will visually summarise and allow interrogation of key informational aspects of geospatial datasets upon which users rely when selecting datasets for use. The proposed GEO label will be integrated in the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) and will be used as a value and trust indicator for datasets accessible through the GEO Portal. As envisioned, the GEO label will act as a decision support mechanism for dataset selection and thereby hopefully improve user recognition of the quality of datasets. To date we have conducted 3 user studies to (1) identify the informational aspects of geospatial datasets upon which users rely when assessing dataset quality and trustworthiness, (2) elicit initial user views on a GEO label and its potential role and (3), evaluate prototype label visualisations. Our first study revealed that, when evaluating quality of data, users consider 8 facets: dataset producer information; producer comments on dataset quality; dataset compliance with international standards; community advice; dataset ratings; links to dataset citations; expert value judgements; and quantitative quality information. Our second study confirmed the relevance of these facets in terms of the community-perceived function that a GEO label should fulfil: users and producers of geospatial data supported the concept of a GEO label that provides a drill-down interrogation facility covering all 8 informational aspects. Consequently, we developed three prototype label visualisations and evaluated their comparative effectiveness and user preference via a third user study to arrive at a final graphical GEO label representation. When integrated in the GEOSS, an individual GEO label will be provided for each dataset in the GEOSS clearinghouse (or other data portals and clearinghouses) based on its available quality information. Producer and feedback metadata documents are being used to dynamically assess information availability and generate the GEO labels. The producer metadata document can either be a standard ISO compliant metadata record supplied with the dataset, or an extended version of a GeoViQua-derived metadata record, and is used to assess the availability of a producer profile, producer comments, compliance with standards, citations and quantitative quality information. GeoViQua is also currently developing a feedback server to collect and encode (as metadata records) user and producer feedback on datasets; these metadata records will be used to assess the availability of user comments, ratings, expert reviews and user-supplied citations for a dataset. The GEO label will provide drill-down functionality which will allow a user to navigate to a GEO label page offering detailed quality information for its associated dataset. At this stage, we are developing the GEO label service that will be used to provide GEO labels on demand based on supplied metadata records. In this presentation, we will provide a comprehensive overview of the GEO label development process, with specific emphasis on the GEO label implementation and integration into the GEOSS.

Unsupervised KDD to creatively support managers' decision making with fuzzy association rules:a distribution channel application

To be competitive in contemporary turbulent environments, firms must be capable of processing huge amounts of information, and effectively convert it into actionable knowledge. This is particularly the case in the marketing context, where problems are also usually highly complex, unstructured and ill-defined. In recent years, the development of marketing management support systems has paralleled this evolution in informational problems faced by managers, leading to a growth in the study (and use) of artificial intelligence and soft computing methodologies. Here, we present and implement a novel intelligent system that incorporates fuzzy logic and genetic algorithms to operate in an unsupervised manner. This approach allows the discovery of interesting association rules, which can be linguistically interpreted, in large scale databases (KDD or Knowledge Discovery in Databases.) We then demonstrate its application to a distribution channel problem. It is shown how the proposed system is able to return a number of novel and potentially-interesting associations among variables. Thus, it is argued that our method has significant potential to improve the analysis of marketing and business databases in practice, especially in non-programmed decisional scenarios, as well as to assist scholarly researchers in their exploratory analysis. © 2013 Elsevier Inc.

Network effects, network structure and consumer interaction in mobile telecommunications in Europe and Asia

This paper estimates the importance of (tariff-mediated) network effects and the impact of a consumer's social network on her choice of mobile phone provider. The study uses network data obtained from surveys of students in several European and Asian countries. We use the Quadratic Assignment Procedure, a non-parametric permutation test, to adjust for the particular error structure of network data. We find that respondents strongly coordinate their choice of mobile phone providers, but only if their provider induces network effects. This suggests that this coordination depends on network effects rather than on information contagion or pressure to conform to the social environment.