Working at the interface : the descriptive relevance of Grunig and Hunt’s theories to public relations practices in south east Queensland schools

This article examines the relevance of James Grunig and Todd Hunt’s (1984) theories to public relations practitioners’ roles in south east Queensland schools. It focuses in particular on the two-way symmetric model in this context. The geographical boundaries of the research mean that this article is intended primarily as an exploratory, descriptive analysis of a specific area rather than an exhaustive treatise on the general topic of public relations in Australian schools. However, it is hoped that it will prove useful in identifying bases for further study and discussion.

From mass communication to mass conversation : why 1984 wasn't like 1984

Marketers and commercial media alike are confronted by shifts in the social relations of media production and consumption in the global services economy, including the challenge of capturing, managing and commercialising media-user productivity. This trajectory of change in media cultures and economies is described here as ‘mass conversation’. Two media texts and a new media object provide a starting point for charting the ascendance and social impact of mass conversation. Apple’s 1984 television commercial, which launched the Macintosh computer, inverted George Orwell’s dystopian vision of the social consequences of panoptic communications systems. It invoked a revolutionary rhetoric to anticipate the social consequences of a new type of interactivity since theorised as ‘intercreativity’. This television commercial is contrasted with another used in Nike’s 2006 launch of its Nike+ (Apple iPod) system. The Nike+ online brand community is also used to consider how a multiplatform brand channel is seeking to manage the changing norms and practices of consumption and end-user agency. This analysis shows that intercreativity modifies the operations of ‘Big Brother’ but serves the more mundane than revolutionary purpose of generating commercial value from the affective labour of end-users.

Engaging, enraging public relations and the role of the other

The intention of this paper is to further the discussion around the development of theories of public relations by introducing to the mix the concept of the Other from the field of cultural studies. The development of discipline-specific theories as part of a “scholarly body of knowledge” (Wylie, 1994, p.2) – or at least a “unique” knowledge base (Parkinson, 2001) – has been suggested as one of the defining characteristics of a true profession. In the case of public relations, this is a development that has occurred relatively recently. Since public relations first began to emerge as a distinct practice in the early part of the 20th century, there has been a tendency to appropriate theories from other areas (such as organisational and media studies) to create a relevant theory base to explore, describe and predict public relations activities. However, these theories were often rarely more than a ‘best fit’ solution, and resulting areas of discrepancy led to much confusion surrounding the form and function of public relations. It could be argued therefore that the development of dedicated public relations theory – ideas that encompass the creation, maintenance and enhancement of relationships between organisations and publics as primary motivations – only began in the latter half of the 20th century with the work of people such as Grunig and Hunt, and latterly Ledingham and Bruning among others.

Security metrics for object-oriented class designs

Measuring quality attributes of object-oriented designs (e.g. maintainability and performance) has been covered by a number of studies. However, these studies have not considered security as much as other quality attributes. Also, most security studies focus at the level of individual program statements. This approach makes it hard and expensive to discover and fix vulnerabilities caused by design errors. In this work, we focus on the security design of an object oriented application and define a number of security metrics. These metrics allow designers to discover and fix security vulnerabilities at an early stage, and help compare the security of various alternative designs. In particular, we propose seven security metrics to measure Data Encapsulation (accessibility) and Cohesion (interactions) of a given object-oriented class from the point of view of potential information flow.

Mid-level concept learning with visual contextual ontologies and probabilistic inference for image annotation

To date, automatic recognition of semantic information such as salient objects and mid-level concepts from images is a challenging task. Since real-world objects tend to exist in a context within their environment, the computer vision researchers have increasingly incorporated contextual information for improving object recognition. In this paper, we present a method to build a visual contextual ontology from salient objects descriptions for image annotation. The ontologies include not only partOf/kindOf relations, but also spatial and co-occurrence relations. A two-step image annotation algorithm is also proposed based on ontology relations and probabilistic inference. Different from most of the existing work, we specially exploit how to combine representation of ontology, contextual knowledge and probabilistic inference. The experiments show that image annotation results are improved in the LabelMe dataset.

WorkChoices, ImageChoices and the marketing of new industrial relations legislation

This article takes a critical discourse approach to one aspect of the Australian WorkChoices industrial relations legislation: the government’s major advertisement published in national newspapers in late 2005 and released simultaneously as a 16-page booklet. This strategic move was the initial stage of one of the largest ‘information’ campaigns ever mounted by an Australian government, costing more than $AUD137 million. This article analyse the semiotic (visual and graphic) elements of the advertisement to uncover what these elements contribute to the message, particularly through their construction of both an image of the legislation and a portrayal of the Australian worker. We argue for the need to fuse approaches from critical discourse studies and social semiotics to deepen understanding of industrial relations phenomena such as the ‘hard sell’ to win the hearts and minds of citizens regarding unpopular new legislation.

Development of the benefit finding in multiple sclerosis (MS) caregiving scale: A longitudinal study of relations between benefit finding and adjustment

Benefit finding is a meaning making construct that has been shown to be related to adjustment in people with MS and their carers. This study investigated the dimensions, stability and potency of benefit finding in predicting adjustment over a 12 month interval using a newly developed Benefit Finding in Multiple Sclerosis Scale (BFiMSS). Usable data from 388 persons with MS and 232 carers was obtained from questionnaires completed at Time 1 and 12 months later (Time 2). Factor analysis of the BFiMSS revealed seven psychometrically sound factors: Compassion/Empathy, Spiritual Growth, Mindfulness, Family Relations Growth, Life Style Gains, Personal Growth, New Opportunities. BFiMSS total and factors showed satisfactory internal and retest reliability coefficients, and convergent, criterion and external validity. Results of regression analyses indicated that the Time 1 BFiMSS factors accounted for significant amounts of variance in each of the Time 2 adjustment outcomes (positive states of mind, positive affect, anxiety, depression) after controlling for Time 1 adjustment, and relevant demographic and illness variables. Findings delineate the dimensional structure of benefit finding in MS, the differential links between benefit finding dimensions and adjustment and the temporal unfolding of benefit finding in chronic illness.

When the object speaks, a postcolonial encounter : anthropological, representations and Aboriginal's women's self-presentations

As an Aboriginal woman currently reviewing feminist literature in Australia, I have found that representations of Aboriginal women's gender have been generated predominantly by women anthropologists. Australian feminists utilise this literature in their writing and teaching and accept its truths without question; the most often quoted ethnographic text is Diane Bell's Daughters of the Dreaming (1983a).1 Feminists' lack of critical engagement with this literature implies that they are content to accept women anthropologists' representations because Aboriginal women are not central to their constructions of feminism.2 Instead the Aboriginal woman is positioned on the margins, a symbol of difference; a reminder that it is feminists who are the bearers of true womanhood.

Rethinking youth cultures : the case of the 'Gothics'

This paper has argued that subcultural social formations, such as the Gothics, did not evolve as resistance to a dominant culture. Instead, they are a response to the governmental construction of youth as an object of knowledge—the by-product of particular forms of government, generated by specific power/knowledge relations. Accordingly, attempts to account for the phenomenon of ‘subcultures’ should begin, not with notions of a shared, resistant class/generational consciousness, but rather with detailed investigations of specific forms of government, such as those involving conventions and customs within the fashion and music industries, the distribution of technologies of marketing and consumption, the adoption of various techniques of self-shaping, the prevalence of different journalistic practices, routines of policing, and so on. ‘Subcultural style’ is not an expression of relationship between a given social class, its material conditions and its economic and cultural aspirations. Rather, it constitutes the construction of particular habitus, shaped by fashion and leisure activities, through which certain youthful personae are given their form.

Human brain regions required for the dividing and switching of attention between two features of a single object

This combined PET and ERP study was designed to identify the brain regions activated in switching and divided attention between different features of a single object using matched sensory stimuli and motor response. The ERP data have previously been reported in this journal [64]. We now present the corresponding PET data. We identified partially overlapping neural networks with paradigms requiring the switching or dividing of attention between the elements of complex visual stimuli. Regions of activation were found in the prefrontal and temporal cortices and cerebellum. Each task resulted in different prefrontal cortical regions of activation lending support to the functional subspecialisation of the prefrontal and temporal cortices being based on the cognitive operations required rather than the stimuli themselves.

Book Review: Larissa Behrendt, Chris Cuneen and Terri Libesman, Indigenous Legal Relations in Australia (Oxford University Press, Melbourne 2009) 376pp

Indigenous Legal Relations in Australia is a welcome and refreshing addition to the current literature on Indigenous legal issues. Written by a team of highly qualified Indigenous and non-Indigenous academics who share a long term commitment to Indigenous legal and social justice issues, this book provides a clearly written and accessible introductory text for tertiary students and general readers alike who are seeking to gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between Indigenous Australians and the Anglo-Australian legal system.

Enhancing digital road map with lane details extracted from large-scale stereo aerial imagery using object-oriented image analysis

Precise, up-to-date and increasingly detailed road maps are crucial for various advanced road applications, such as lane-level vehicle navigation, and advanced driver assistant systems. With the very high resolution (VHR) imagery from digital airborne sources, it will greatly facilitate the data acquisition, data collection and updates if the road details can be automatically extracted from the aerial images. In this paper, we proposed an effective approach to detect road lane information from aerial images with employment of the object-oriented image analysis method. Our proposed algorithm starts with constructing the DSM and true orthophotos from the stereo images. The road lane details are detected using an object-oriented rule based image classification approach. Due to the affection of other objects with similar spectral and geometrical attributes, the extracted road lanes are filtered with the road surface obtained by a progressive two-class decision classifier. The generated road network is evaluated using the datasets provided by Queensland department of Main Roads. The evaluation shows completeness values that range between 76% and 98% and correctness values that range between 82% and 97%.

Recruiting local public relations professionals for global relations practice : a comparative analysis between Australian and Indian public relations recruitment advertisements

The aim of this exploratory study was to gain an insight into Asian and Western public relations practices by investigating them through job advertisements and thus reflecting on what organisations expect from the public relations professionals. Grunig's (1984) four models of public relations and the concept of relationships management were used as the foundation for this study. Australia was used to represent the Western region and India was used to represent the Asian region. Sample sets of public relations recruitment advertisements from both countries were examined against Grunig's one-way communication, two-way communication and relationship management attributes.