Tools, building blocks, and rewards : traditional media organizations learn to engage with productive audiences

This paper explores how traditional media organizations (such as magazines, music, film, books, and newspapers) develop routines for coping with an increasingly productive audience. While previous studies have reported on how such organizations have been affected by digital technologies, this study makes a contribution to this literature by being one of the first to show how organizational routines for engaging with an increasingly productive audience actually emerge and diffuse between industries. The paper explores to what extent routines employed by two traditional media organizations have been brought in from other organizational settings, specifically from so-called ‘software platform operators’. Data on routines for engaging with productive audiences have been collected from two information-rich cases in the music and the magazine industries, and from eight high-profile software platform operators. The paper concludes that the routines employed by the two traditional media organizations and by the software platform operators are based on the same set of principles: Provide the audience with (a) tools that allow them to easily generate cultural content; (b) building blocks which facilitate their creative activities; and (c) recognition and rewards based on both rationality and emotion.

Natural free convection in porous media: First field documentation in groundwater

Natural free convection is a process of great importance in disciplines from hydrology to meteorology, oceanography, planetary sciences, and economic geology, and for applications in carbon sequestration and nuclear waste disposal. It has been studied for over a century - but almost exclusively in theoretical and laboratory settings, Despite its importance, conclusive primary evidence of free convection in porous media does not currently exist in a natural field setting. Here, we present recent electrical resistivity measurements from a sabkha aquifer near Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, where large density inversions exist. The geophysical images from this site provide, for the first time, compelling field evidence of fingering associated with natural free convection in groundwater.

Digital Spring? New media and new politics on the campus

Whilst the dynamics informing processes have taken time to become clear, civic resistance initiated by young people using new media began in Egypt in 2010 against the Mubarak regime, soon widened to Tunisia, Yemen and Libya. Known as the 'Arab Spring', this phenomenon re-ignited discussion about the political role of digital space and its democratic potential. While parallels between authoritarian regimes and universities and educational institutions might seem overdrawn to some readers, I suggest there is value in considering the 'Digital Spring' (apropos the 'Arab Spring') as a metaphor to suggest the possibility that similar processes are taking place in schools and universities. This invites discussion about the political significance of digital space and its democratic potential in those institutions. To assess how some young people engage in digitally mediated politics within schools and universities, I identify five propositions which amalgamate descriptive and normative elements derived from Habermas and Dahlgren. These propositions offer an ideal taxonomy of normative and descriptive elements to establish whether digital technology promotes participation and debate in ways that sustain democratic practice.

Revisiting borehole stresses in anisotropic elastic media : comparison of analytical versus numerical solutions

We present a rigorous validation of the analyticalAmadei solution for the stress concentration around arbitrarily orientated borehole in general anisotropic elastic media. First, we revisit the theoretical framework of the Amadei solution and present analytical insights that show that the solution does indeed contain all special cases of symmetry, contrary to previous understanding, provided that the reduced strain coefficients β11 and β55 are not equal. It is shown from theoretical considerations and published experimental data that the β11 and β55 are not equal for realistic rocks. Second, we develop a 3D finite-element elastic model within a hybrid analyticalnumerical workflow that circumvents the need to rebuild and remesh the model for every borehole and material orientation. Third, we show that the borehole stresses computed from the numerical model and the analytical solution match almost perfectly for different borehole orientations (vertical, deviated and horizontal) and for several cases involving isotropic and transverse isotropic symmetries. It is concluded that the analytical Amadei solution is valid with no restrictions on the borehole orientation or elastic anisotropy symmetry.

Digital literacies: Understanding the literate practices of refugee kids in an Afterschool Media Club

Since the 2000s, teachers in an increasing number of Australian schools have been learning how to support students with refugee backgrounds. For some of these students, entry into the Australian school system is not easy. English literacy is integral to some of the challenges confronting the students. In response, educators have been developing and researching ways of engaging with the students’ language and literacy learning. Much of the focus has been on traditional print-based school literacies. In contrast, I look here at student engagement in digital literacies in an after-school media club. Several concepts from the theory of French sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu are useful for understanding the position of students of refugee background in the Australian school system. Like other conflict theories, Bourdieusian theory has sometimes been criticised as ‘pessimistic’, that is, for suggesting that schools necessarily reproduce social disadvantage. However, others have used Bourdieusian theory to analyse and critique the reproductive work of schooling for groups of students who experience educational disadvantage. I align myself with this latter tradition. Specifically, I use Bourdieu’s triad of concepts to explain aspects of the literacy education experiences of some young people of refugee background: field, capital and habitus. In particular, I look at questions of the legitimation of students’ competences as capital in literate fields within and beyond the school context. Data are drawn from an Australian Research Council-funded project, Digital Learning and Print Literacy: A design experiment for the reform of low socio-economic, culturally diverse schools (2009-14). The data analysed in this chapter include interviews and observations relating to the participation of two Congolese girls in an after school media club. Implications are drawn for teachers of literacy in culturally and linguistically diverse contexts. Consideration is made of early childhood, primary and secondary settings.

Making stories matter: Using participatory new media storytelling and evaluation to serve marginalised and regional communities

In this chapter, we draw on our experiences facilitating community storytelling workshops in regional Queensland in partnership with the Queensland branch of Oral History Association of Australia (OHAA Qld) in order to develop a best practice model for promoting creative approaches to recording oral narratives using digital tools, informed by creative writing practice and embedded evaluation (Klaebe 2012 & 2013). These experiences offer an insight into how creative approaches to training can facilitate the sharing and preservation of stories in regional communities.

Further development of discrete computational techniques for calculation of restricted diffusion propagators in porous media

Magnetic resonance is a well-established tool for structural characterisation of porous media. Features of pore-space morphology can be inferred from NMR diffusion-diffraction plots or the time-dependence of the apparent diffusion coefficient. Diffusion NMR signal attenuation can be computed from the restricted diffusion propagator, which describes the distribution of diffusing particles for a given starting position and diffusion time. We present two techniques for efficient evaluation of restricted diffusion propagators for use in NMR porous-media characterisation. The first is the Lattice Path Count (LPC). Its physical essence is that the restricted diffusion propagator connecting points A and B in time t is proportional to the number of distinct length-t paths from A to B. By using a discrete lattice, the number of such paths can be counted exactly. The second technique is the Markov transition matrix (MTM). The matrix represents the probabilities of jumps between every pair of lattice nodes within a single timestep. The propagator for an arbitrary diffusion time can be calculated as the appropriate matrix power. For periodic geometries, the transition matrix needs to be defined only for a single unit cell. This makes MTM ideally suited for periodic systems. Both LPC and MTM are closely related to existing computational techniques: LPC, to combinatorial techniques; and MTM, to the Fokker-Planck master equation. The relationship between LPC, MTM and other computational techniques is briefly discussed in the paper. Both LPC and MTM perform favourably compared to Monte Carlo sampling, yielding highly accurate and almost noiseless restricted diffusion propagators. Initial tests indicate that their computational performance is comparable to that of finite element methods. Both LPC and MTM can be applied to complicated pore-space geometries with no analytic solution. We discuss the new methods in the context of diffusion propagator calculation in porous materials and model biological tissues.

The applicability of the Precaution Adoption Process Model for understanding self-regulatory driving behaviour among older drivers

1. Introduction The success of self-regulation, in terms of enhancing older drivers’ safety and maintaining their mobility, depends largely upon older drivers’ awareness of the declines in their driving abilities. Therefore, interventions targeted at increasing older drivers’ safety should aim to enhance their awareness of their physical, sensory and cognitive limitations. Moreover, previous research suggests that driving behaviour change may occur through stages and that interventions and feedback may be perceived differently at each stage. 2. Study aims To further understand the process of driving self-regulation among older adults by exploring their perceptions and experiences of self-regulation, using the PAPM as a framework. To investigate the possible impact of feedback on their driving on their decision making process. 3. Methodology Research tool: Qualitative focus groups (n=5 sessions) Recruitment: Posters, media, newspaper advertisement and emails Inclusion criteria: Aged 70 or more, English-speaking, current drivers Participants: Convenience sample of 27 men and women aged 74 to 90 in the Sunshine Coast and Brisbane city, Queensland, Australia. 4. Analysis Thematic analysis was conducted following the process outlined by Braun and Clarke (2006) to identify, analyse and report themes within the data. Four main themes were identified.

Changing influences on the concept of ‘media influence’

The concept of media influence has a long history in media and communication studies, and has also had significant influence on public policy. This article revisits questions of media influence through three short case studies. First, it critically analyses the strongly partisan position of News Corporation’s newspapers against the Labor government during the 2013 Australian Federal election to consider whether the potential for media influence equated to the effective use of media power. Second, it discusses the assumption in broadcasting legislation, in both the United Kingdom and Australia, that terrestrial broadcasting should be subject to more content regulation than subscription services, and notes the new challenges arising from digital television and over-the-top video streaming services. Finally, it discusses the rise of multi-platform global content aggregators such as Google, Apple, Microsoft and others, and how their rise necessitates changes in ways of thinking about concentration of media ownership, and regulations that may ensue from it.

Trial by media: An empirical investigation of corporate reputation and stock returns in Australia

This article examines whether investors are able to generate abnormal risk-adjusted returns in the Australian market based on media-specific firm reputational factors under market uncertainty between 2004 and 2012. The findings suggest that after controlling for crisis-centric time periods and market risk factors, contrarian trading strategies produce abnormal returns for poor corporate reputation firms but not for their good corporate reputation counterparts. Corporate reputation may be a driver of performance for poorly performing Australian firms and could be considered a stimulus for trading activity due to its explanatory capabilities.

Coverage algorithms for an under-actuated car-like vehicle in an uncertain environment

A coverage algorithm is an algorithm that deploys a strategy as to how to cover all points in terms of a given area using some set of sensors. In the past decades a lot of research has gone into development of coverage algorithms. Initially, the focus was coverage of structured and semi-structured indoor areas, but with time and development of better sensors and introduction of GPS, the focus has turned to outdoor coverage. Due to the unstructured nature of an outdoor environment, covering an outdoor area with all its obstacles and simultaneously performing reliable localization is a difficult task. In this paper, two path planning algorithms suitable for solving outdoor coverage tasks are introduced. The algorithms take into account the kinematic constraints of an under-actuated car-like vehicle, minimize trajectory curvatures, and dynamically avoid detected obstacles in the vicinity, all in real-time. We demonstrate the performance of the coverage algorithm in the field by achieving 95% coverage using an autonomous tractor mower without the aid of any absolute localization system or constraints on the physical boundaries of the area.