Medicated bodies: Mental distress, social media and affect

Social media are increasingly being recruited into care practices in mental health. This paper analyses how a major new mental health social media site (www.elefriends.org.uk) is used when trying to manage the impact of psychiatric medication on the body. Drawing on Henri Bergson's concept of affection, analysis shows that Elefriends is used at particular moments of reconfiguration (e.g. change in dosage and/or medication), periods of self-experimentation (when people tailor their regimen by altering prescriptions or ceasing medication) and when dealing with a present bodily concern (showing how members have a direct, immediate relationship with the site). In addition, analysis illustrates how users face having to structure their communication to try to avoid 'triggering' distress in others. The paper concludes by pointing to the need to focus on the multiple emerging relationships between bodies and social media in mental health due to the ways the latter are becoming increasingly prominent technologies through which to experience the body when distressed.

VirRAD: A New Paradigm for Technology Enhanced Learning

In most e-learning scenarios, communication and on-line collaboration is seen as an add-on feature to resource based learning. This paper will endeavour to present a pedagogical framework for inverting this view and putting communities of practice as the basic paradigm for e-learning. It will present an approach currently being used in the development of a virtual Radiopharmacy community, called VirRAD, and will discuss how theory can lead to an instructional design approach to support technologically enhanced learning.(DIPF/Orig.)

La potenza del virtuale tra media e literatura

In this article, we will try to demonstrate that there are strong analogies between literature and new media, as they were both born to satisfy a human need. We will try to show that the inglorious world of media and the prestigious literary universe are walking – without knowing – in the same direction. Therefore, it would be easier to confute the recent theory that declares the death of literature after the rise of new media. Only an honest and interdisciplinary dialogue can reveal all sorts of hidden structural homologies, uncovering new creative horizons.

Character, Audience Agency and Trans-Media Drama

Changes in the television industry with regards to the development of new media technologies are having a significant impact on audience engagement with television drama. This article explores how the internet is being used to extend audience engagement onto platforms other than the television set to the point where television drama should increasingly be reconsidered as trans-media drama. However audience engagement with the various elements of a trans-media drama text is complex. By exploring audience attitudes towards character in the British television series Spooks and its associated online games, this article argues that in an increasingly converged media landscape audiences transfer values between platforms. Consequently the audience's perception of control in relation to their engagement with a trans-media drama text such as Spooks becomes complicated with values associated with television proving key to their engagement with the same fictional world in the form of games.

Tourist Destination Image in the New Technological Environments: Dialogism under the Public Relations Gaze

The dependence and influence of new media on social and organizational life have led to a new orientation of the communicational practices of organizations and to a research paradigm shift to a cocriational model within public relations theory. This model is based on dialogic rhetoric and dialogue that requires a joint production of content and meanings by organizations and publics, which have a central role in shaping image. The new social and communicational paradigms have also an impact on tourism research, implying the need to understand the role of new technologies, particularly websites, in image formation. The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of website in the formation of a tourist destination image (Portugal) through the understanding of the degree of adoption of dialogical principles on websites by official and unofficial tourist organizations and the identifying of denotative and connotative elements that are represented on published and shared photographs in these websites. The research corpus consisted of websites of entities and photographs published and shared on these websites. The methodology used is quantitative and qualitative, based on content analysis of data of websites and photographs. Results indicate that official tourist entities adopted the dialogic principles in a higher degree than unofficials. There is also a higher adoption of the principles related to technical dimension than dialogical dimension. Results confirm a relation between the adoption of dialogical link and an increased openness by entities to the possibility of photo sharing. The analysis of denotative and connotative elements of photography reflects a similarity in representations of entities and tourists. This study contributes to both theoretical perspectives, because it provides a conceptual scheme of destination image formation online and to a practical perspective, because it also suggests guidelines of dialogical practices to incorporate in websites of tourism entities.

Moedor de Pixels : interfaces, interações e audiovisual

Dissertação (mestrado)—Universidade de Brasília, Instituto de Artes, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Arte, 2016.

Áreas grises: territorio de investigación artística = Gray areas: artistic research field

El presente estudio refleja los argumentos teóricos y propuestas en el campo de la investigación artística, que resultaron de la autoreflexión en torno a la tesis Art Realities y el proyecto artístico visual The Cloudwalkers, que el autor realizó para la obtención del grado MFA in New Media en la Danube Universität (Austria), en colaboración con el Transart Institute (E.U.A.). Es un análisis autocrítico de caso que abarca tanto la parte escrita como práctica del proyecto de titulación, del que se deriva un estudio teórico que expone posibles instrumentos y estrategias de investigación para las artes visuales.

Guernica – a arte como forma de comunicação

Dissertação de Mestrado, Comunicação, Cultura e Artes, Faculdade de Ciências Humanas e Sociais, Universidade do Alagrve, 2014

Disturbi dell'informazione, nuovi media e libertà di manifestazione del pensiero

L’elaborato affronta il tema della massiccia diffusione di disinformazione tramite internet sotto il profilo del diritto costituzionale, nell’ottica di indagare se le dimensioni del fenomeno richiedano l’elaborazione di principi e soluzioni nuove ovvero se i paradigmi costituzionali enucleati dalla tradizione costituzionalistica con riferimento alla libertà d’espressione forniscano gli strumenti sufficienti per un intervento efficace. In tale ottica, il lavoro premette una ricostruzione del fenomeno della disinformazione nel tentativo di individuare il perimetro socio-cognitivo e tecnologico entro cui la medesima prolifera, descrivendo gli elementi che distinguono l’informazione diffusa dai nuovi media rispetto a quella veicolata dai media mainstream. Ciò premesso, lo studio passa a delineare lo “statuto costituzionale” del falso, indagando la rilevanza che la menzogna assume sotto il profilo costituzionale nel suo rapporto con la libertà di manifestazione del pensiero negli ordinamenti interno, europeo e statunitense. L’analisi prosegue poi con l’esame delle politiche di contrasto alla disinformazione introdotte da singoli Stati (prevalentemente Germania, Francia e Italia), Unione europea, e piattaforme, con l’obiettivo di mettere in luce vantaggi e limiti dei modelli di eteroregolamentazione, coregolamentazione e autoregolamentazione. Da ultimo, l’elaborato scompone alcune delle azioni e misure passate in rassegna e le analizza con la lente d’ingrandimento della libertà di manifestazione del pensiero, ordinandone i contenuti secondo la specifica propensione a comprimere la libertà d’espressione. L’indagine si conclude con alcuni brevi spunti conclusivi che evidenziano l’esigenza, in base ai principi costituzionali analizzati, che eventuali interventi normativi siano se del caso volti alla regolazione delle piattaforme, ovvero dei “contenitori”, lasciano i contenuti al libero scambio delle idee.

L'adeguamento di tradizionali laboratori europei di restauro fotochimico alle tecniche digitali

La presente ricerca ha avuto come obbietivo studiare come stia avvenendo l'adattamento dei tradizionali laboratori fotochimici di film alle tecniche digitali attraverso l'analisi delle politiche di preservazione, del restauro, dei costi relativi all’acquisto di nuove apparecchiature e della migrazione ai nuovi media presso il British Film Institute (BFI), lo Svenska Filminstitutet (SFI), l’Eye Filmmuseum, L'Immagine Ritrovata e ANIM - Cinemateca Portuguesa. A questo scopo è stato utilizzato il metodo dello studio di caso, in cui sono state effettuate interviste con gestori e tecnici delle istituzioni citate al fine di rispondere al quesito della presente ricerca: quali sono l’impatto e le implicazioni di questo adattamento? Quali sono i risultati raggiunti con le nuove attrezzature e metodi di restauro e preservazione? Per arrivare a rispondere a queste domande lo studio è stato diviso in due sezioni. Nella prima parte, sono riportate le interviste svolte presso SFI, BFI, Eye e L'Immagine Ritrovata, realizzate al fine di ottenere dati che permettessero di formulare un'intervista più completa e approfondita. Successivamente, questa intervista più dettagliata è stata condotta con una sola istituzione, la Cinemateca Portuguesa. Pertanto, nella seconda parte dello studio di caso, sono state realizzate interviste a tecnici e dirigenti di ANIM - Cinemateca Portuguesa e dei suoi laboratori partner. L'analisi dei risultati comprende tutte le informazioni provenienti dalle cinque istituzioni intervistate. È stato notato che l'adattamento al digitale ha effettivamente apportato miglioramenti nella preservazione e nel recupero del materiale fotochimico, ma ciò ha anche fatto sorgere alcuni dilemmi nei laboratori. C'è apprensione per la scarsità di materiale della filiera fotochimica e per una sua ipotetica fine nel prossimo futuro, poiché non ci sono ancora sufficienti conoscenze sulla filiera digitale e sul comportamento di questi media con il passare del tempo. Gli intervistati hanno altresì dimostrato positività riguardo alle tecnologie digitali.

Adjustment of Mineral Elements in the Culture Medium for the Micropropagation of Three Vriesea Bromeliads from the Brazilian Atlantic Forest: The Importance of Calcium

Many different species of Bromeliaceae are endangered and their conservation requires specific knowledge of their growth habits and propagation. In vitro culture of bromeliads is an important method for efficient clonal propagation and ill vitro seed g,germination can be used to maintain genetic variability. The present work aims to evaluate the in vitro growth and nutrient concentration in leaves of the epiphyte bromeliads Vriesea friburguensis Mez, Vriesea hieroglyphica (Carriere) E. Morren, and Vriesea unilateralis Mez, which exhibit slow rates of growth in vivo and in vitro. Initially, we compared the endogenous mineral composition of bromeliad plantlets grown in half-strength Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium and the mineral composition considered adequate in the literature. This approach suggested that calcium (Ca) is a critical nutrient and this was considered for new media formulation. Three new culture media were defined in which the main changes to half-strength MS medium were an increase in Ca, magnesium, sulfur, copper, and chloride and a decrease in iron, maintaining the nitrate: ammonium rate at approximate to 2:1. The main difference among the three new media formulated was Ca concentration, which varied from 1.5 mm in half-strength MS to 3.0, 6.0, and 12 mm in M2, M3, and M4 media, respectively. Consistently, all three species exhibited significantly higher fresh and dry weight on M4, the newly defined medium with the highest level of Ca (12 mm). Leaf nitrogen, potassium, zinc, magnesium and boron concentrations increased as Ca concentration in the medium increased from 1.5 to 12 mm.

Can and may: Monosemy or polysemy?

This paper argues, on the basis of a corpus-based study of the meanings of can and may in contemporary British, American and Australian English, that a polysemy-based analysis is applicable to both modals. With may, epistemic possibility is the dominant meaning, but the dynamic and deontic possibility meanings still account for over 16.5% of tokens. By contrast the meanings of can, apart from a small percentage (1.1%) of epistemic cases, are united through the concept of potentiality. Nevertheless there are signs that the epistemic possibility meaning is becoming established, as it sheds its syntactic/semantic restriction to non-affirmative contexts.

There is no subjunctive in English

The western classical tradition identifies three moods: indicative, subjunctive, imperative. Protagoras split the indicative into interrogative and declarative. Palmer 2001, 2003 argues for only two: indicative and subjunctive. Given any of these classifications of mood, English has no category of mood and so has no subjunctive. Instead it has certain clause-types which express hypotheticality and which can be subsumed to the irrealis branch of the apparently universal category realis~irrealis; to which subjunctives, optatives, jussives and the like can also be subsumed.

Australian political discourse: Pronominal choice in campaign speeches

The intention behind language used by candidates during an election campaign is to persuade voters to vote for a particular political party. Fundamental to the political arena is construction of identity, group membership and ways of talking about self, others, and the polarizing categories of 'us' and 'them'. This paper will investigate the pragmatics of pronominal choice and the way in which politicians construct and convey their own identities and those of their political opponents within political speeches. Taking six speeches by John Howard and Mark Latham across the course of the 2004 federal election campaign, I look at the ways in which pronominal choice indicates a shifting scope of reference to creat pragmatic effects and serve political functions.