Transformative times: Australian journalists’ perceptions of changes in their work

Numerous studies have pointed to the fact that journalism in most industrialised societies is undergoing a particularly intensive period of transformation. Yet, while many scholars have studied how news organisations are changing, comparatively fewer studies have inquired into how journalists themselves are experiencing the changes in their work brought on by the technological, economic and cultural transformations. Based on a representative study of Australian journalists, this paper reports on their perceptions of changes in a variety of influences and aspects of their work over the past five years. It finds that journalists say change has been most notable in audience interactions and technological innovation, while economic changes are somewhat less strong. Importantly, they are also very concerned about an increase in sensationalism and a drop in journalistic standards and the credibility of journalism. Results are also compared across different organisational contexts.

'How much love are you going to give this brand?' Lifestyle journalists on commercial influences in their work

The news increasingly provides help, advice, guidance, and information about the management of self and everyday life, in addition to its traditional role in political communication. Yet such forms of journalism are still regularly denigrated in scholarly discussions, as they often deviate from normative ideals. This is particularly true in lifestyle journalism, where few studies have examined the impact of commercial influences. Through in-depth interviews with 89 Australian and German lifestyle journalists, this paper explores the ways in which journalists experience how the lifestyle industries try to shape their daily work, and how these journalists deal with these influences. We find that lifestyle journalists are in a constant struggle over the control of editorial content, and their responses to increasing commercial pressures vary between resistance and resignation. This has implications for our understanding of journalism as a whole in that it broadens it beyond traditional conceptualizations associated with political journalism.

Initial prototype testing of Ray's Night Out: A new mobile app targeting risky drinking in young people

Background Risky single occasion drinking (RSOD; 4 or more drinks in <6 h) more than doubles the risk of injury in young people (15 - 25 years). The potential role of smartphone apps in reducing RSOD in young people is yet to be explored. Objective: To describe the initial prototype testing of ‘Ray's Night Out’, a new iPhone app targeting RSOD in young people. Method Quantitative and qualitative methods were used to evaluate the quality, perceived utility, and acceptability of the app among nine young people (19e23 years). Results Participants reported Ray's Night Out had good to excellent levels of functionality and visual appeal, acceptable to good levels of entertainment, interest and information, and acceptable levels of customization and interactivity. Young people thought the app had high levels of youth appeal, would prompt users to think about their alcohol use limits, but was unlikely to motivate a change in alcohol use in its current form. Qualitative data provided several suggestions for improving the app. Conclusion Following revision, Ray's Night Out could provide an effective intervention for RSOD in non help-seeking young people. A randomized controlled trial is currently underway to test the final prototype of the app.

May the best Tweeter win : The Twitter strategies of key campaign accounts in the 2012 US election

The 2008 US election has been heralded as the first presidential election of the social media era, but took place at a time when social media were still in a state of comparative infancy; so much so that the most important platform was not Facebook or Twitter, but the purpose-built campaign site my.barackobama.com, which became the central vehicle for the most successful electoral fundraising campaign in American history. By 2012, the social media landscape had changed: Facebook and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Twitter are now well-established as the leading social media platforms in the United States, and were used extensively by the campaign organisations of both candidates. As third-party spaces controlled by independent commercial entities, however, their use necessarily differs from that of home-grown, party-controlled sites: from the point of view of the platform itself, a @BarackObama or @MittRomney is technically no different from any other account, except for the very high follower count and an exceptional volume of @mentions. In spite of the significant social media experience which Democrat and Republican campaign strategists had already accumulated during the 2008 campaign, therefore, the translation of such experience to the use of Facebook and Twitter in their 2012 incarnations still required a substantial amount of new work, experimentation, and evaluation. This chapter examines the Twitter strategies of the leading accounts operated by both campaign headquarters: the ‘personal’ candidate accounts @BarackObama and @MittRomney as well as @JoeBiden and @PaulRyanVP, and the campaign accounts @Obama2012 and @TeamRomney. Drawing on datasets which capture all tweets from and at these accounts during the final months of the campaign (from early September 2012 to the immediate aftermath of the election night), we reconstruct the campaigns’ approaches to using Twitter for electioneering from the quantitative and qualitative patterns of their activities, and explore the resonance which these accounts have found with the wider Twitter userbase. A particular focus of our investigation in this context will be on the tweeting styles of these accounts: the mixture of original messages, @replies, and retweets, and the level and nature of engagement with everyday Twitter followers. We will examine whether the accounts chose to respond (by @replying) to the messages of support or criticism which were directed at them, whether they retweeted any such messages (and whether there was any preferential retweeting of influential or – alternatively – demonstratively ordinary users), and/or whether they were used mainly to broadcast and disseminate prepared campaign messages. Our analysis will highlight any significant differences between the accounts we examine, trace changes in style over the course of the final campaign months, and correlate such stylistic differences with the respective electoral positioning of the candidates. Further, we examine the use of these accounts during moments of heightened attention (such as the presidential and vice-presidential debates, or in the context of controversies such as that caused by the publication of the Romney “47%” video; additional case studies may emerge over the remainder of the campaign) to explore how they were used to present or defend key talking points, and exploit or avert damage from campaign gaffes. A complementary analysis of the messages directed at the campaign accounts (in the form of @replies or retweets) will also provide further evidence for the extent to which these talking points were picked up and disseminated by the wider Twitter population. Finally, we also explore the use of external materials (links to articles, images, videos, and other content on the campaign sites themselves, in the mainstream media, or on other platforms) by the campaign accounts, and the resonance which these materials had with the wider follower base of these accounts. This provides an indication of the integration of Twitter into the overall campaigning process, by highlighting how the platform was used as a means of encouraging the viral spread of campaign propaganda (such as advertising materials) or of directing user attention towards favourable media coverage. By building on comprehensive, large datasets of Twitter activity (as of early October, our combined datasets comprise some 3.8 million tweets) which we process and analyse using custom-designed social media analytics tools, and by using our initial quantitative analysis to guide further qualitative evaluation of Twitter activity around these campaign accounts, we are able to provide an in-depth picture of the use of Twitter in political campaigning during the 2012 US election which will provide detailed new insights social media use in contemporary elections. This analysis will then also be able to serve as a touchstone for the analysis of social media use in subsequent elections, in the USA as well as in other developed nations where Twitter and other social media platforms are utilised in electioneering.

Creating a standardised teaching and learning framework for social work field placements

Mapping and evaluating a student's progress on placement is a core element of social work education but there has been scant attention to indicate how to effectively create and assess student learning and performance. This paper outlines a project undertaken by the Combined Schools of Social Work to develop a common learning and assessment tool that is being used by all social work schools in Victoria. The paper describes how the Common Assessment Tool (CAT) was developed, drawing on the Australian Association of Social Work Practice Standards, leading to seven key learning areas that form the basis of the assessment of a student's readiness for practice. An evaluation of the usefulness of the CAT was completed by field educators, liaison staff, and students, which confirmed that the CAT was a useful framework for evaluating students' learning goals. The feedback also identified a number of problematic features that were addressed in a revised CAT and rating scale.

Paraxial-wave optics and relativistic front description .1. The scalar theory

With the extension of the work of the preceding paper, the relativistic front form for Maxwell's equations for electromagnetism is developed and shown to be particularly suited to the description of paraxial waves. The generators of the Poincaré group in a form applicable directly to the electric and magnetic field vectors are derived. It is shown that the effect of a thin lens on a paraxial electromagnetic wave is given by a six-dimensional transformation matrix, constructed out of certain special generators of the Poincaré group. The method of construction guarantees that the free propagation of such waves as well as their transmission through ideal optical systems can be described in terms of the metaplectic group, exactly as found for scalar waves by Bacry and Cadilhac. An alternative formulation in terms of a vector potential is also constructed. It is chosen in a gauge suggested by the front form and by the requirement that the lens transformation matrix act locally in space. Pencils of light with accompanying polarization are defined for statistical states in terms of the two-point correlation function of the vector potential. Their propagation and transmission through lenses are briefly considered in the paraxial limit. This paper extends Fourier optics and completes it by formulating it for the Maxwell field. We stress that the derivations depend explicitly on the "henochromatic" idealization as well as the identification of the ideal lens with a quadratic phase shift and are heuristic to this extent.

The Duet between the Author and the Translator: An Analysis of Style through Shifts in Literary Translation

The study proposes a method for identifying the personal imprint of literary translators in translated works of fiction. The initial assumption was that the style of a target text is not determined solely by the literary style of the author but also by features of its translator s idiolect. A method was developed for identifying the idiolectal features of individual translators, which were then used to describe personal translation styles. The method is not restricted to a particular language pair. To test the method and to establish the nature of the proposed personal imprint empirically, extracts from four English-language literary source texts (two novels by James Joyce and two by Ernest Hemingway) were first compared with their translations into Finnish (by four different translators) in order to identify changes, or shifts, that had taken place at the formal linguistic level in the translation process. To allow individual propensities to manifest themselves, only optional shifts in which the translators had a range of choices available to them were included in the study. In the second phase, extracts by different authors rendered into Finnish by the same translator were compared in order to gauge the extent of the potential impact of the author's style on the translator's work. In-depth analysis of the types of shifts made most frequently by the individual translators revealed further intersubjective differences, and the shifts were used to construct translation profiles for each of the translators. In order to determine the potential effects of frequently occurring shifts on the target text, some central concepts of narratology were adapted and used to establish an intermediate link between microlevel choices and macrolevel effects. In this way the propensity of an individual translator to opt for certain types of shift could be linked with the overall artistic effect of the target text.

Voice, deliberation, resistance and persuasion through participatory journalism business models

The pervasive use of the World Wide Web by the general population has created a cultural shift throughout the world. It has enabled more people to share more information about more events and issues than was possible before its general use. As a consequence, it has transformed traditional news media’s approach to almost every aspect of journalism, with many organisations restructuring their philosophy and practice to include a variety of participatory spaces/forums where people are free to engage in deliberative dialogue about matters of public importance. This paper draws from an international collective case study that showcases various approaches to participatory online news journalism during the period 1997–2011 (Adams, 2013). The research finds differences in the ways in which public service, commercial, and independent news media give voice to the public, and ultimately in their approach to journalism’s role as the Fourth Estate––one of the key institutions of democracy. The work is framed by the notion that journalism in democratic societies has a crucial role in ensuring citizens are informed and engaged with public affairs. An examination of four media models, OhmyNews International, News Corp Australia (formerly News Limited), the Guardian and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), showcases the various approaches to participatory online news journalism and how each provides different avenues for citizen engagement. Semistructured in-depth interviews with some of the key senior journalists and editors provide specific information on comparisons between the distinctive practices in each of their employer organisations.

Transient state work fluctuation theorem for a classical harmonic oscillator linearly coupled to a harmonic bath

Based on a Hamiltonian description we present a rigorous derivation of the transient state work fluctuation theorem and the Jarzynski equality for a classical harmonic oscillator linearly coupled to a harmonic heat bath, which is dragged by an external agent. Coupling with the bath makes the dynamics dissipative. Since we do not assume anything about the spectral nature of the harmonic bath the derivation is not restricted only to the Ohmic bath, rather it is more general, for a non-Ohmic bath. We also derive expressions of the average work done and the variance of the work done in terms of the two-time correlation function of the fluctuations of the position of the harmonic oscillator. In the case of an Ohmic bath, we use these relations to evaluate the average work done and the variance of the work done analytically and verify the transient state work fluctuation theorem quantitatively. Actually these relations have far-reaching consequences. They can be used to numerically evaluate the average work done and the variance of the work done in the case of a non-Ohmic bath when analytical evaluation is not possible.