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.

Methodological innovation in precarious spaces: The case of Twitter

Social media analytics is a rapidly developing field of research at present: new, powerful ‘big data’ research methods draw on the Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) of social media platforms. Twitter has proven to be a particularly productive space for such methods development, initially due to the explicit support and encouragement of Twitter, Inc. However, because of the growing commercialisation of Twitter data, and the increasing API restrictions imposed by Twitter, Inc., researchers are now facing a considerably less welcoming environment, and are forced to find additional funding for paid data access, or to bend or break the rules of the Twitter API. This article considers the increasingly precarious nature of ‘big data’ Twitter research, and flags the potential consequences of this shift for academic scholarship.

Digital innovation in social marketing: A systematic literature of interventions using digital channels for engagement

Social marketing uses commercial marketing techniques to deliver interventions for social benefit in order to improve quality of life for individuals and communities. Behaviour change is the primary objective of social marketing interventions (Andreasen 2002). The aim of this systematic review is to provide insight into social marketing interventions and their evaluations published in peer-reviewed journals so as to identify the key elements of social marketing employed by these interventions. as well as understand the use of digital channels for engagement.

Workplace belongingness, psychological distress and resilience in emergency service workers

- Objective Ambulance personnel provide emergency medical services to the community, often attending to highly challenging and traumatic scenes in complex and chaotic circumstances. Currently the assessment of predictors of psychological well-being remains limited. The current study investigated whether workplace belongingness was significant in predicting psychological distress as well as the presence of resilience in ambulance personnel whilst controlling for more routinely examined factors. - Method Australian ambulance officers (N = 740) completed a survey battery including the Kessler 10 (Kessler & Mroczek, 1994), Brief Resilience Scale (Smith et al., 2008) and Psychological Sense of Organisational Membership (Cockshaw & Shochet, 2010) scale. - Results Controlling for more commonly examined factors such as severity of trauma exposure and length of service, hierarchical multiple regression analyses demonstrated that workplace belongingness was significantly associated with reduced distress levels and enhanced resilience levels. - Conclusions Results suggest that strategies to enhance a sense of workplace belongingness in emergency service organisations could promote the well-being of emergency workers despite routine exposure to potentially traumatic events.

Enforceable undertakings: Perceptions of organisational justice

In this thesis the use of enforceable undertakings is examined as a sanction for a breach in work, health and safety legislation through the lens of organisational justice. A framework of justice types - distributive, procedural and interactional - is developed and the perceptions of the three parties to the process - the regulator, the business entity and the worker as the affected third party - are explored. It is argued that the three parties perceive the sanction to be distributively unfair, but procedurally and interactionally just.