How Scientists Retrieve Publications: An Empirical Study of How the Internet Is Overtaking Paper Media

The current mainstream scientific-publication process has so far been only marginally affected by the possibilities offered by the Internet, despite some pioneering attempts with free electronic-only journals and electronic preprint archives. Additional electronic versions of traditional paper journals for which one needs a subscription are not a solution. A clear trend, for young researchers in particular, is to go around subscription barriers (both for paper and electronic material) and rely almost exclusively on what they can find free on the Internet, which often includes working versions posted on the home pages of the authors. A survey of how scientists retrieve publications was conducted in February 2000, aimed at measuring to what extent the opportunities offered by the Internet are already changing the scientific information exchange and how researchers feel about this. This paper presents the results based on 236 replies to an extensive Web-based questionnaire, which was announced to around 3,000 researchers in the domains of construction information technology and construction management. The questions dealt with how researchers find, access, and read different sources; how many and what publications they read; how often and to which conferences they travel; how much they publish, and criteria for where they eventually decide to publish. Some of the questions confronted traditional and electronic publishing, with one final section dedicated to opinions about electronic publishing. According to the survey, researchers already download half of the material that they read digitally from the Web. The most popular method for retrieving an interesting publication is downloading it for free from the author's or publisher's Web site. Researchers are not particularly willing to pay for electronic scientific publications. There is much support for a scenario of electronic journals available freely in their entirety on the Web, where the costs could be covered by, for instance, professional societies or the publishing university.

Making sense of a transnational merger: Media texts and the (re)construction of power relations

In this study of symbolic power relations in a transnational merger, we suggest that the popular media can provide a significant arena for (re)constructing national identities and power in this kind of dramatic industrial restructuring, and are an under-utilized source of empirical data in research studies. Focusing on the press coverage of a recent Swedish-Finnish merger, we specify and illustrate a particular feature of discursive (re)construction of asymmetric power relations; superior (Swedish) and inferior (Finnish) national identities, which, we argue, are embedded in the history of colonization and domination between the two nations. The findings of the present study lead us to suggest that a lens taken from post-colonial theory is particularly useful in understanding the wider symbolic power implications of international industrial restructuring.

Global capitalism meets national spirit: Discourses in media texts on a cross-border acquisition

In this article, the authors explore media coverage of a recent acquisition across national borders. Their starting point is that the media represent a key arena of “discursive strategizing” for actors such as corporate managers. They illustrate and specify how global capitalism, as discourse relying on economic and financial rationale and exemplified here by the acquiring firm’s attempts to expand, meets national spirit, exemplified here by the complexity in selling the acquisition target to foreigners. The main contribution of this study lies in identifying how key actors draw on and mobilize rationalistic and nationalistic discourses in public discussion. The analysis illustrates that the same actors can draw on different—even contradictory—discourses at different points in time. Furthermore, different actors—even with opposing objectives—may draw on the same discourse in legitimizing their positions and pursuing specific ends.

The Merger Storm Recognizes No Borders: An Analysis of Media Rhetoric on a Business Manoeuvre

Despite the central role of the media in contemporary society, studies examining the rhetorical practices of journalists are rare in organization and management research. We know little of the textual micro strategies and techniques through which journalists convey specific messages to their readers. Partially to fill the gap, this paper outlines a methodological framework that combines three perspectives of text analysis and interpretation: critical discourse analysis, systemic functional grammar and rhetorical structure theory. Using this framework, we engage in a close reading of a single media text (a press article) on a recent case of industrial restructuring in the financial services. In our empirical analysis, we focus on key arguments put forward by the journalists’ rhetorical constructions. We maintain that these arguments—which are not frame-breaking but rather tend to confirm existing presuppositions held by the audience—are an essential part of the legitimization and naturalization of specific management ideas and ideologies.

Varities of National Metonymy in Media Accounts of International Mergers and Acquisitions

International mergers and acquisitions (M&As) often invoke national identification and national cultural differences. We argue that metonymy is a central linguistic resource through which national cultural identities and differences are reproduced in media accounts of international M&As. In this paper, we focus on two revealing cases: the acquisition of American IBM Personal Computer Division (PCD) by the Chinese company Lenovo and the acquisition of American Anheuser-Busch (A-B) by the Belgian-Brazilian company InBev. First, we identify the forms, functions and frequencies of national metonymy in media accounts of these cases. We present a typology that classifies varieties of national metonymy in international M&As. Second, we demonstrate how these metonyms combine with metaphor to generate evocative imagery, engaging wit, and subversive irony. Our findings show that national metonymy contributes to the construction of emotive frames, stereotypes, ideological differences, and threats. Combinations of national metonymy with metaphor also provide powerful means to construct cultural differences. However, combinations of metonymy with wit and irony enable the play on meanings that overturns and resists national and cultural stereotypes. This is the first study to unpack the deployment of metonymy in accounts of international M&As. In doing so, it also opens up new avenues for research into international management and the analysis of tropes in management and organization.

Essays on Platforms: Business Strategies, Regulation and Policy in Telecommunications, Media and Technology Industries

The growth of the information economy has been stellar in the last decade. General-purpose technologies such as the computer and the Internet have promoted productivity growth in a large number of industries. The effect on telecommunications, media and technology industries has been particularly strong. These industries include mobile telecommunications, printing and publishing, broadcasting, software, hardware and Internet services. There have been large structural changes, which have led to new questions on business strategies, regulation and policy. This thesis focuses on four such questions and answers them by extending the theoretical literature on platforms. The questions (with short answers) are: (i) Do we need to regulate how Internet service providers discriminate between content providers? (Yes.) (ii) What are the welfare effects of allowing consumers to pay to remove advertisements from advertisement-supported products?(Ambiguous, but those watching ads are worse off.) (iii) Why are some markets characterized by open platforms, extendable by third parties, and some by closed platforms, which are not extendable? (It is a trade-off between intensified competition for consumers and benefits from third parties) (iv) Do private platform providers allow third parties to access their platform when it is socially desirable? (No.)

Multiple support excitations of open-plane frames by a filtered white noise and soil-structure interaction

Seismic structural design is essentially the estimation of structural response to a forced motion, which may be deterministic or stochastic, imposed on the ground. The assumption that the same ground motion acts at every point of the base of the structure (or at every support) is not always justifiable; particularly in case of very large structures when considerable spatial variability in ground motion can exist over significant distances example long span bridges. This variability is partly due to the delay in arrival of the excitation at different supports (which is called the wave passage effect) and due to heterogeneity in the ground medium which results in incoherency and local effects. The current study examines the influence of the wave passage effect (in terms of delay in arrival of horizontal ground excitation at different supports and neglecting transmission through the structure) on the response of a few open-plane frame building structures with soil-structure interaction. The ground acceleration has been modeled by a suitably filtered white noise. As a special case, the ground excitation at different supports has also been treated as statistically independent to model the extreme case of incoherence due to local effects and due to modifications to the ground motion resulting from wave reflections and refractions in heterogeneous soil media. The results indicate that, even for relatively short spanned building frames, wave passage effect can be significant. In the absence of soil-structure interaction, it can significantly increase the root mean square (rms) value of the shear in extreme end columns for the stiffer frames but has negligible effect on the flexible frames when total displacements are considered. It is seen that pseudo-static displacements increasingly contribute to the rms value of column shear as the time delay increases both for the stiffer and for the more flexible frames. When soil-structure interaction is considered, wave passage effect (in terms of total displacements) is significant only for low soil shear modulus, G. values (where soil-structure interaction significantly lowers the fundamental frequency) and for stiff frames. The contribution of pseudo-static displacement to these rms values is found to decrease with increase in G. In general, wave passage effect for most interactive frames is insignificant compared to the attenuating effect a decrease in G, has on the response of the interactive structure to uniform support excitation. When the excitations at different supports are statistically independent, it is seen that for both the stiff and flexible frames, the rms value of the column shear in extreme end columns is several times larger (more for the stiffer frames) than the value corresponding to uniform base excitation with the pseudo-static displacements contributing over 99% of the rms value of column shear. Soil-structure interaction has an attenuating effect on the rms value of the column shear, the effect decreasing with increase in G,. Here too, the pseudo-static displacements contribute very largely to the column shear. The influence of the wave passage effect on the response of three 2-bay frames with and without soil-structure interaction to a recorded horizontal accelerogram is also examined. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Media Education in the Finnish School System : A Conceptual Analysis of the Subject Didactic Dimension of Media Education

The aim of the doctoral dissertation was to further our theoretical and empirical understanding of media education as practised in the context of Finnish basic education. The current era of intensive use of the Internet is recognised too. The doctoral dissertation presents the subject didactic dimension of media education as one of the main results of the conceptual analysis. The theoretical foundation is based on the idea of dividing the concept of media education into media and education (Vesterinen et al., 2006). As two ends of the dimension, these two can be understood didactically as content and pedagogy respectively. In the middle, subject didactics is considered to have one form closer to content matter (Subject Didactics I learning about media) and another closer to general pedagogical questions (Subject Didactics II learning with/through media). The empirical case studies of the dissertation are reported with foci on media literacy in the era of Web 2.0 (Kynäslahti et al., 2008), teacher reasoning in media educational situations (Vesterinen, Kynäslahti - Tella, 2010) and the research methodological implications of the use of information and communication technologies in the school (Vesterinen, Toom - Patrikainen, 2010). As a conclusion, Media-Based Media Education and Cross-Curricular Media Education are presented as two subject didactic modes of media education in the school context. Episodic Media Education is discussed as the third mode of media education where less organised teaching, studying and learning related to media takes place, and situations (i.e. episodes, if you like) without proper planning or thorough reflection are in focus. Based on the theoretical and empirical understanding gained in this dissertation, it is proposed that instead of occupying a corner of its own in the school curriculum, media education should lead the wider change in Finnish schools.

Conditionally One of 'Us' : A Study of Print Media, Minorities and Positioning Practices

This study deals with how ethnic minorities and immigrants are portrayed in the Finnish print media. The study also asks how media users of various ethnocultural backgrounds make sense of these mediated stories. A more general objective is to elucidate negotiations of belonging and positioning practices in an increasingly complex society. The empirical part of the study is based on content analysis and qualitative close reading of 1,782 articles in five newspapers (Hufvudstadsbladet, Vasabladet, Helsingin Sanomat, Iltalehti and Ilta-Sanomat) during various research periods between 1999 and 2007. Four case studies on print media content are followed up by a focus group study involving 33 newspaper readers of Bosnian, Somalian, Russian, and 'native' Finnish backgrounds. The study draws from different academic and intellectual traditions; mainly media and communication studies, sociology and social psychology. The main theoretical framework employed is positioning theory, as developed by Rom Harré and others. Building on this perspective, situational self-positioning, positioning by others, and media positioning are seen as central practices in the negotiation of belonging. In support of contemporary developments in social sciences, some of these negotiations are seen as occurring in a network type of communicative space. In this space, the media form one of the most powerful institutions in constructing, distributing and legitimising values and ideas of who belongs to 'us', and who does not. The notion of positioning always involves an exclusionary potential. This thesis joins scholars who assert that in order to understand inclusionary and exclusionary mechanisms, the theoretical starting point must be a recognition of a decent and non-humiliating society. When key insights are distilled from the five empirical cases and related to the main theories, one of the major arguments put forward is that the media were first and foremost concerned with a minority actor's rightful or unlawful belonging to the Finnish welfare system. However, in some cases persistent stereotypes concerning some immigrant groups' motivation to work, pay taxes and therefore contribute are so strong that a general idea of individualism is forgotten in favour of racialised and stagnated views. Discussants of immigrant background also claim that the positions provided for minority actors in the media are not easy to identify with; categories are too narrow, journalists are biased, the reporting is simplifying and carries labelling potential. Hence, although the will for the communicative space to be more diverse and inclusive exists — and has also in many cases been articulated in charters, acts and codes — the positioning of ethnic minorities and immigrants differs significantly from the ideal.

Non-darcy double-diffusive mixed convection from heated vertical and horizontal plates in saturated porous media

The non-darcy mixed convection flows from heated vertical and horizontal plates in saturated porous media have been considered using boundary layer approximations. The flows are considered to be driven by multiple buoyancy forces. The similarity solutions for both vertical and horizontal plates have been obtained. The governing equations have been solved numerically using a shooting method. The heat transfer, mass transfer and skin friction are reduced due to inertial forces. Also, they increase with the buoyancy parameter for aiding flow and decrease for the opposing flow. For aiding flow, the heat and mass transfer coefficients are found to approach asymptotically the forced or free convection values as the buoyancy parameter approaches zero or infinity.

Coupling of surface acoustic waves propagating in two separated piezoelectric media

The coupling of surface acoustic waves propagating in two separated piezoelectric media is studied using the perturbation theory of Auld. The results of the analysis are applied to two configurations using Bi12GeO20 and CdS crystals. It is found that the loss due to coupling is about 7 dB at 50 MHz in the cases of (111)-cut, [110]-prop. Bi12GeO20 and Y-cut, 60°-X prop. CdS combination. On étudie le couplage des ondes acoustiques de surface se propageant sur deux milieux piezo-eléctriques par la théorie de perturbation de Auld. Les resultats d'analyse sont appliqué's aux deux configurations des cristanx Bi12GeO20 et CdS. On trouve que la perte par couplage est environ de 7 dB a 50 MHz dans le cas de combination de (111)-coupe, [110]-prop. Bi12GeO20 et Y-coupe, 60°-X prop. CdS.