| 1. |
- Ezz El Din, Mahitab
(författare)
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Reporting Beyond Orientalism and Occidentalism
- 2017
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Bok (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study examines how the media construct the identities of the Other by creating various ‘us’ versus ‘them’ positions (Othering) when covering non-violence-based intercultural conflicts in Arab and Western news media. Othering in this study is understood as an umbrella concept that in general terms refers to the discursive process of constructing and positioning the Self and the Other into separate identities of an ‘us’ and a ‘them.’ Previous studies have devoted considerable attention to rather conventional dichotomous constructions of Eastern and Western Others. This study brings to the fore more non-conventional constructions and, while recognizing the occurrence of the conventional constructions, goes beyond these binary oppositions of ‘us’ and ‘them’. Variations in the types of identity constructions found in this study can be attributed to the mode of the article, the actors included, the media affiliations and the topic and its overall contextualization.
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| 2. |
- Geissinger, Andrea, et al.
(författare)
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Assessing user perceptions of the interplay between the sharing, access, platform and community- based economies
- 2020
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Ingår i: Information Technology and People. - : Emerald Group Publishing Limited. - 0959-3845 .- 1758-5813. ; 33:3, s. 1037-1051
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose: Digitally intermediated peer-to-peer exchanges have accelerated in occurrence, and as a consequence, they have introduced an increased pluralism of connotations. Accordingly, this paper aims to assess user perceptions of the interplay between the sharing, access, platform, and community-based economies.Design/methodology/approach: The sharing, access, platform, and community-based economies have been systematically tracked in the social media landscape using Social Media Analytics (SMA). In doing so, a total material of 62,855 publicly posted user-generated content concerning the four respective economies were collected and analyzed.Findings: Even though the sharing economy has been conceptually argued to be interlinked with the access, platform, and community-based economies, the empirical results of the study do not validate this interlinkage. Instead, the results regarding user perceptions in social media show that the sharing, access, platform, and community-based economies manifest as clearly separated.Originality/value: This paper contributes to existing literature by offering an empirical validation, as well as an in-depth understanding, of the sharing economy's interlinkage to other economies, along with the extent to which the overlaps between these economies manifest in social media.
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| 3. |
- Haysom, Gareth, et al.
(författare)
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Food systems sustainability: An examination of different viewpoints on food system change
- 2019
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Ingår i: Sustainability. - : MDPI AG. - 2071-1050. ; 11:12
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Global food insecurity levels remain stubbornly high. One of the surest ways to grasp the scale and consequence of global inequality is through a food systems lens. In a predominantly urban world, urban food systems present a useful lens to engage a wide variety of urban (and global) challenges—so called ‘wicked problems.’ This paper describes a collaborative research project between four urban food system research units, two European and two African. The project purpose was to seek out solutions to what lay between, across and within the different approaches applied in the understanding of each city’s food system challenges. Contextual differences and immediate (perceived) needs resulted in very different views on the nature of the challenge and the solutions required. Value positions of individuals and their disciplinary “enclaves” presented further boundaries. The paper argues that finding consensus provides false solutions. Rather the identification of novel approaches to such wicked problems is contingent of these differences being brought to the fore, being part of the conversation, as devices through which common positions can be discovered, where spaces are created for the realisation of new perspectives, but also, where difference is celebrated as opposed to censored.
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| 4. |
- Viktorelius, Martin, et al.
(författare)
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Automation and the imbrication of human and material agency : A sociomaterial perspective
- 2021
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Ingår i: International journal of human-computer studies. - London : Elsevier. - 1071-5819 .- 1095-9300. ; 145, s. 1-11
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Automation is projected to transform many industries and work domains and enable both increased levels of safety and efficiency by reallocating many of the functions traditionally performed by operators. However, research on the relation between automation and work practice is lagging and needs to be further explored in order to ground the debate and design of automated work on a sound empirical basis reflecting work in actual organizational settings. In particular, research is needed that offers rich naturalistic representations of human automation interaction that accounts for the mutual shaping of human and material agency over time. The ethnographic workplace study reported in this paper draws on the sociomaterial practice perspective and on the theory of imbrication to analyze a case in which an automatic speed regulation system was installed onboard five large passenger ferries in order to improve the energy efficiency of the execution of voyages. The results show how the adoption, appropriation and use of automated technologies is inextricable from the local patterns of social interaction and collaboration. The study contributes with a deeper understanding of the relation and entanglement of the social and technological elements in human automation interaction.
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| 5. |
- Diurlin, Lars, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Cultural policy as a governmental proxy tool for improved health : The Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare’s collaborations with cultural workers 1970–1975
- 2021
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Ingår i: The International Journal of Cultural Policy. - : Taylor & Francis Group. - 1028-6632 .- 1477-2833. ; 27:5, s. 667-682
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article highlights cultural policy as a governmental proxy to address political matters beyond the cultural domain – here civil health – and the need to problematize and historicize ‘arts in health’ policies. The article centres on the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare’s collaborations with cultural workers 1970–1975, framed by three contextual developments: politicization of the cultural sector, call for innovative governmental information, and changing character of health information. Theoretically, the article draws from the field of cultural policy research, with an emphasis on historiographical perspectives. The result shows that despite interdependence, the collaborations were an arena where interests clashed. The main conflict lay in what art should seek to change for the better: society or its citizens? However, the conflicts were also due to a mixture of roles: the agency suddenly found itself a patron of the arts, and the cultural workers producers of governmental information.
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| 6. |
- Bashitialshaer, Raed, et al.
(författare)
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Obstacles to Applying Electronic Exams amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic : An Exploratory Study in the Palestinian Universities in Gaza
- 2021
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Ingår i: Information. - : MDPI. - 2078-2489. ; 12:6
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, we aim to identify and understand the obstacles and barriers in applying electronic exams successfully in the process of distance education. We followed an exploratory descriptive approach through a questionnaire (one general, open question) with a sample of university teachers and students in four of the largest universities Palestinian in Gaza. A total of 152 were returned from 300 distributed questionnaires. The results indicate that the university teachers and students faced 13 obstacles, of which 9 were shown to be shared between teachers and students, with a significant agreement in the regression analysis. Several of the obstacles perceived by respondents are in line with the literature and can be addressed by improved examination design, training, and preparation, or use of suitable software. Other obstacles related to infrastructure issues, leading to frequent power outages and unreliable internet access. Difficult living conditions in students’ homes and disparities in access to suitable devices or the internet make social equity in connection with high-stakes examinations a major concern. Some recommendations and suggestions are listed at the end of this study, considering local conditions in the Gaza governorates.
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| 7. |
- Brauer, Rene, et al.
(författare)
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Using topic modelling to analyse EU’s Rural Development policy
- 2013
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Ingår i: Systematizing and digitalizing Nordic policy studies: Emergent perspectives within Swedish and Finnish research, Symposia, Aalto University, 27 November 2013, Helsinki, Finland.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Any social research at some point always touches upon issues dealing with the situatedness of the researcher. Policy analysis is no exception, and there have been many quantitative attempts to mitigate problems that arise from human biases. The general concern is that, for the most part, these methodological approaches remain fairly basic (e.g. word frequencies) in comparison to the semantic nuances a human reader would normally experience. In that light, the here presented approach explores the possibility of using topic modelling as a way to quantitatively assess policy without forgoing those finer nuances of human analysis. In this presentation, the material subject to topic modelling is EU’s Rural Development policy for 2007–2013 (RDP). It proclaims itself as the first European rural policy to in its conceptual framework cover aspects labelled as quality of life (QOL). In this paper, we treat this particular statement as a hypothesis, to which topic modelling is used to investigate if this really is the case. For any concept (not just QOL) to be incorporated into a policy and to retain its influence, it must be both mentioned and linked to other parts of that same policy, elsewise it could strike as merely a rhetorical strategy. Thereby, the hypothesis is that the more themes (topics) relate to a particular concept the more relative importance the policy allocates to that particular concept. In order to gauge this relative importance of QOL within RDP, we created a categorisation based upon: (1) the RDP’s own conceptual understanding of QOL, and (2) definitions provided by contemporary cutting-edge research dedicated to QOL. The analysis shows that only about 4 % of the topics found within the RDP relate to the issues of QOL. These particular topics only mention aspects of QOL without any explicit signs of implementation. This marginal position of QOL within RDP has been corroborated by other audits of the RDP using traditional qualitative techniques. Therefore, with further methodological development, this experimental application of topic modelling in policy analysis might represent one potential alternative to traditional qualitative methods.
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| 8. |
- Holt, Kristoffer, 1976-, et al.
(författare)
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Citizens as Media Critics in Changing Mediascapes
- 2011
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Ingår i: Communication and citizenship. - Coimbra : Grácio Editor. - 9789898377159
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Media criticism often evolve – and grow in strength – during times of media change with new forms of journalism, new media formats, new media markets, new ways of addressing media markets and new media technologies. Different stakeholders may pursue their interests by formulating a media critique that protect their positions and promotes status quo. It is not difficult to find critics who in the name of the citizens formulate criticism against journalism and the media. It is more difficult to find and study representative examples of criticism expressed by the citizens themselves.The technological develoment on the internet has paved the way for a number of new communicative tools that enable users to interact with each other and publish content in a way that changes the conditions for citizens to act as media critics radically. This is an aspect of the internet’s democratic and participatory potential – and a key point in the rhetoric surrounding the concept “web 2.0”. In this paper we analyse and compare media critical debates during two periods of media change in Sweden: A) the debate caused by the launch of the tabloid Expressen in the 1950’s, and B) the critique against the new, commercially driven participatory news- and debate forum called Newsmill, launched in 2008. These historical and contemporary cases are used to enlighten a theoretical discussion about participatory online media’s potential for improving the conditions for citizens to act as media critics in a fruitful way.Both Expressen and Newsmill represent examples of journalistic innovations that affect surrounding media considerably. Findings suggest that there is much to be gained from analyses of criticism of new media phenomena from different times – for finding critical aspects for continued discussion as well as perspective on the contemporary debate about new media.
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| 9. |
- Brauer, Rene, et al.
(författare)
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Digitally modeling regional development in Europe: A new methodological approach to policy analysis
- 2013
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Ingår i: Integrated development of cities and regions. Man-City-Nature, 9th International Conference, 14-15 October 2013, Toruń, Poland.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Sustainable regional development faces the complicated task of integrating socio-demographic, environmental and economic goals into a functioning policy proposal. The challenges of the 21st century are further complicated by the new nature of rural-urban relations that render traditional dichotomous approaches counterproductive. The latest EU rural development initiative proclaims itself as a fundamental break from older efforts that primarily focused upon agribusiness. This new humanistic vision includes improved quality of life, environmental sustainability and economic diversification alongside traditional agricultural tenets. New research takes this realization further, expressing a need for new conceptual tools to handle this ‘new rural’ reality seen as a composite of material and social aspects. Since older conceptualizations of the rural as agriculturally dominated might still linger on, the achievement of new humanistic planning goals is a complicated task. Policy planning – a complex actor-network of different interests – heterogeneously engineers different interests into a unified framework. In this case, the major refocus within policy planning, including re-conceptualizations of the ‘new rural’ and the new rural-urban relations, should, accordingly, be accommodated within the actual policy documents. If not, the proclaimed focus of the regional development goals could strike as empty political rhetoric. Due to their size, policies are often summarized. A policy summary should consequently be an unambiguous representation of the policy as a whole. Qualitative summarizations, however, may be problematic due to human biases. To circumvent this problem, this study borrows a technique from the digital humanities called topic modeling. This technique was applied to the framework of EU’s rural development policy for 2007–2013 and compared with the proclaimed development goals. First indications of the analysis show that there are indeed attempts to accommodate these new conceptualizations. However, the primary focus is still on agribusiness. Thereby, the humanistic focus of seeing the rural as more than agriculture-dominated areas does not appear to be strengthened. By adhering to a rationale different than the assumed one, such tendencies may possibly complicate the fulfillment of sustainable socio-economic development goals.
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| 10. |
- Keshavarz, Mahmoud, et al.
(författare)
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Orientations of Europe : Boats, the Mediterranean Sea and the Materialities of Contemporary Mobility Regimes
- 2018
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Ingår i: Borderlands e-journal. - Sydney, NSW, Australia : Borderlands. - 1447-0810. ; 17:2, s. 1-27
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper is an investigation of how the specific design and materiality of the artefact of the boat, as well as the various material, visual, technical and geographical practices at work in the space of Mediterranean Sea, orientate a specific space and produce a selective politics of seeing, saving and framing of bodies on the move. It highlights how the very presence and movement of ‘unseaworthy boats’ in this actively orientated space of the sea brings to the fore the many strategies and techniques that have been employed to make it a space of European control. We argue that this is an active and deadly orientation carried out in an often dispersed number of practices and interventions within a seemingly flat space of water. The paper concludes that border transgressors’ act of moving by boat, with all of the losses involved, both challenge and potentially reorientate European mobility regimes.
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