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05 Apr 2012
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Motivations, Value Orientations and Content Contributions in Social Media: A Chinese Perspective
by
Jianbin JIN
Vice-chairman
China New Media Communication Association
School of Journalism and Communication
Tsinghua University, China
Time: Wednesday, April 09, 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 2 Executive Seminar Room (#02-19)
Abstract:
This study attempts to explain the mechanism of content contribution in social media. While rapidly prevailing in recent years, the UGC's (user-generated content) flourishment is by no means without potential threats. Among others, the free-riding of UGC utilization by a large proportion of users is a salient one to potentially jeopardize the sustainability of the UGC. This study explores the effective incentives of people's online content contributing behaviors. For the purpose, we investigate the possible patterns of how different motivations, i.e., prestige seeking and social embeddedness, are related to the contribution of online content which we further defined through the classic concept of public goods, i.e., communal public goods (which is operationalized as the number of original posts) and connective public goods (which is operationalized as the number of shareing of referred posts) respectively. Internet user's social value orientations (which are classified into prosocials, individualists and competitors) are taken into consideration as moderating variable. The data were collected through an invited survey conducted from July to September 2011, with 728 valid cases based on the user pool of the most popular Chinese SNS site, Renren.com. A complementary content analysis was also conducted with the purpose to obtain the data thought to be able to reflect informants' online content production behaviors. The results of this study show that, compared to prosocial users, a competition-oriented user is more likely been motivated by the increase of recorded viewing of his posts which significantly drives him to produce more original posts. On the other hand, compared to individualists, a prosocial user is more likely been driven by the expanding friend list which significantly encourage him to share more posts he appreciates.
Key words: Social value orientation, communal public goods, connective public goods, prestige-seeking, social embeddedness.
Speaker biography:
Professor Jianbin JIN, born in July 1968, obtained his B.E., B.A., and M. E. from Tsinghua University in 1991, 1992, 1997 respectively. Since 1992 on, he has been serving in Tsinghua University as a faculty in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature, and then in the School of Journalism and Communication. He went to Hong Kong Baptist University in 1998 with the purpose to pursue his PhD in communication studies and was granted the degree in 2002. From May 2006 to January 2007, Professor Jin was a visiting scholar in Oxford Internet Institute. He is currently the vice-chairman of China New Media Communication Association, and an editorial board member or external reviewer for several highly known journals in the field of communication studies. Professor Jin’s research interests include, among others, the adoption, use and effect of new media. Currently he is involved in the study of an inter-disciplinary research project entitled Theories and Methodologies on Web-based Social Networking Analysis which was financed by China’s National Scientific Foundation. He has published two books, as well as over 30 academic journal articles on the aforementioned research fields.
金兼斌教授简介
金兼斌教授，男，1968年7月出生于浙江省诸暨市。1986年考入清华大学工程物理系，先后在清华大学取得工学士、文学士和工学硕士并留校任教。1998年赴香港浸会大学传理学院攻读博士，并于2002年取得哲学博士学位。2006年在英国牛津大学互联网研究所进行访学研究。目前，金兼斌教授是清华大学新闻与传播学院博士生导师，党委书记，中国网络传播学会副会长，国内外多个刊物的编委成员和论文通讯评阅专家。金兼斌教授的研究领域主要在新媒体传播方面，研究对象包括博客、数字鸿沟、网络舆情等。目前正在从事一项跨学科的、国家自然科学基金重大项目“面向WEB的社会网络理论与方法”研究。他著有《我国城市家庭的上网意向研究》、《技术传播：创新扩散的观点》等书，并在国内外重要中英文刊物上发表论文和书稿章节30余篇。
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27 Mar 2012
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Communicating Information on Social Network Sites
by
Cliff Lampe
Assistant Professor
School of Information
University of Michigan
Time: Wednesday, April 04, 1:30-2:30 p.m.
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
Social Network Sites offer a range of tools that reduce the cost of communicating with a widespread network of people. In previous work, we have found that this ability to maintain distributed network is associated with more social capital for those who are active SNS users. In recent work, we have looked at how people use SNS to fill information needs they have, and the characteristics of both the information and the user that indicate when a person will turn to their network rather than to a search engine to answer their questions. Through a combination of surveys, experiments, interviews and analysis of status update content, Dr. Lampe will show some early results from work on SNS as locations where people communicate their information needs, ask for favors more generally and respond to the questions of others.
Speaker biography:
Dr. Cliff Lampe is an assistant professor in the School of Information at the University of Michigan. Previously, he was an assistant professor in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University. In his research, he has studied the design, use, and effects of large-scale computer mediated communication environments. In that work, he has both studied existing platforms like Facebook, Slashdot and Wikipedia, and has created social media sites related to economic growth, environmental action, citizen journalism, and youth engagement. He has received support for this work from sources including the National Science Foundation, the National Telecommunication Infrastructure Agency, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and more. The studies on social media and online communities co-authored by Dr. Lampe are among the most highly cited recent works in the field.
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26 Mar 2012
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How Misguided Marketing is Destroying Journalism, and Why Your Students Shouldn’t Be ‘Customers’ of NTU
by
James Hutton
Visiting Professor
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information
Nanyang Technical University
Professor of Marketing and Communications
Fairleigh Dickinson University, USA
Time: Wednesday, March 28, 1:45-2:45 p.m.
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
Should your students be “customers” of NTU? Does journalism have a nobler purpose or is it simply another business serving “customers” in order to maximize profits and the stock price of media companies? Should screenplays be edited or rewritten to best satisfy customers’ tastes and preferences? As a student of the relationship between marketing and communications, Visiting Professor James G. Hutton has conducted research and written extensively about the marketing of social institutions such as education, religion, journalism, art and healthcare. Please join him for a lively presentation, discussion and debate about the wisdom and implications of treating students, news-media readers/listeners/viewers, healthcare patients, art patrons and religious followers as “customers.” Professor Hutton’s presentation will include research findings about student attitudes toward the “customer” metaphor from a study that included Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand the U.S.
Speaker biography:
Dr. James G. Hutton is a professor of marketing and communications in the Silberman College of Business at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey, just outside of New York City. He has a degree in journalism and mass communication and an MBA from the University of Tulsa, and a PhD in marketing from the University of Texas at Austin, where he was a University Fellow and Dean’s Doctoral Fellow. He has taught at the University of Hawaii, the University of St. Thomas (Minneapolis/St. Paul) and the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Business. Prior to his academic career, Professor Hutton was a financial and corporate communications executive for three major multinational corporations, including the largest company in Hong Kong. He has also served as a consultant and trainer for 3M, the American Red Cross, and Financial Executives International (the largest association of chief financial officers, treasurers and controllers in the U.S.), among others. Hutton has published in such journals as Public Relations Review, the Journal of Brand Management and the Journal of Business Research, and is the author of three books, including Marketing Communications: Integrated Theory, Strategy & Tactics, and The Feel-Good Society: How the “Customer” Metaphor is Undermining American Education, Media, Religion and Healthcare.
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12 Mar 2012
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The Media Scene in Hong Kong
by
Cyril Pereira
Co-chairman of the Asian Publishing Convention
Time: Wednesday, March 14, 1:30-2:30 p.m.
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
This remains the supreme contradiction of a free press operating in an environment that has never enjoyed democratic political franchise for 150 years before it was handed to the People’s Republic of China, which operates a one-party communist dictatorship. It complicates the governance of Hong Kong under PRC rule. More than the clash of political systems, is the clash of fundamental values between Hong Kong and China on individual rights, respect for property, civic behavior, freedoms of assembly, protest, press and the rule of law. A vigorous press shines a torch on governance which the HK administration and its masters in Beijing would rather keep secretive. Hong Kong has long allowed communist party newspapers to circulate freely in the territory. There is no shortage of contrarian opinion. What are the factors impacting the direction of political development and press in HK?
Speaker biography:
Dr. Cyril Pereira is co-chairman of the Asian Publishing Convention which since 2007 has been hosting the annual magazine & online publishing 2-day conference. His consulting work for newspaper, magazine and online publishers spans more than 10 years across the region from China, through ASEAN to India. He has worked with national governments on media policy and corporations on profitability, new product launches and business growth. He was publisher of the Asia Magazine for 12 years, the largest circulating Sunday insert of 800,000 copies with national newspapers in eight countries. Asia Magazine’s advertising rates were the highest in the region above all the international titles like Time, Newsweek, Fortune etc. He was elected four terms as chairman of the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) whose core members are the international media brands in Asia. As newspaper operations director of the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong for 15 years, he led new technology implementation, designed and built an award winning press technology centre and won a string of international prizes for production excellence. He was assigned by Mr. Rupert Murdoch to guide the implementation of new color technology for News Corporation in Australia. Cyril is sought by media owners for clear-headed counsel on publishing strategy, technology and implementation. His commentaries on Asian politics and management issues are regularly featured on www.asiasentinel.com, his Blog www.pereiraview.blogspot.com and observations from industry personalities on his work can be viewed at http://hk.linkedin.com/pub/cyril-pereira/8/724/193.
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12 Mar 2012
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Chasing a Moving Target: Discoveries in Chinese Media and Lessons in Surviving Academia
by
Judy Polumbaum
School of Journalism and Mass Communication
The University of Iowa
Time: Wednesday, March 13, 2:30-3:30 p.m.
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
This presentation has two objectives: To examine the development of contemporary study of mainland Chinese journalism, drawing on fieldwork experience and scholarship of the past 25 years; and to offer junior scholars in the field some academic survival lessons, with an emphasis on successfully negotiating the demands of research, teaching and service without compromising intellectual passions and personal integrity.
Throughout the Cold War, and prior to China’s inception of market reforms, the primary method for examining PRC media was content analysis, uninformed by actualities of production and reception; and apart from a few truly discerning studies, the literature arising from such China-watching was largely speculative. In the 1980s, increased access to the field along with expansion of spheres of action in both public and personal realms in China opened the way for research of a different order. With PRC scholars still hampered by ideological constraints, expatriate and non-native scholars subject to enduring suspicion, and journalism enveloped in politically charged sensitivities, the barriers to studying media remained especially hard to crack. An unusual confluence of circumstances at an early stage of China’s reforms made it curiously advantageous to be an “outsider” for a period, and despite many shortcomings, Western mass communication scholarship proved an important wedge to greater understanding of constructions and meanings of news in China. Since then, younger generations of scholars from diverse backgrounds have added range and nuance to our knowledge of PRC journalism. Yet we are far from calling this a “mature” field of study. Some barriers have fallen, others have arisen, and the subject matter remains a moving target. Adding to the conceptual, methodological and practical challenges confronting young scholars in the field are the mounting demands of the academic workplace. In the academic pressure cooker, where ambition and competition threaten to confound conscience and accountability, individuals and scholarly communities must work even harder to maintain a strong moral compass.
Speaker biography:
Prof. Polumbaum joined the faculty of the School of Journalism & Mass Communication at the University of Iowa (Iowa City, Iowa, USA) in the fall of 1989, and currently is a visiting professor in the Department of Media & Communication at City University of Hong Kong. She has a professional background as a newspaper reporter and teaches reporting and writing, international communication, visual communication and research methods. She has taught at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Postgraduate School, Beijing Broadcasting Institute (now Communication University of China) and Nanjing University; worked at China Daily in Beijing in 1981-82, its inaugural year; and conducted dissertation fieldwork in mainland China during 1987-88. Her research focuses on journalism in China, freedom of expression in comparative perspective, and the interactions of media, sport and culture.
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07 Mar 2012
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Message Tailoring: Measures and Consequences
by
Michelle See
Assistant Professor
Department of Psychology
National University of Singapore
Time: Wednesday, March 07, 1:30-2:30 p.m.
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
Persuaders often try to maximize the impact of their message on people’s attitudes by tailoring the content of the message to target audiences. For example, a charity might encourage donations from first-time donors by appealing to their sympathy, but solicit donations from experienced donors by assuring them that their money would be used efficiently. However, message tailoring is not always effective. How and when does message tailoring work? To address this question, I propose that we should consider (1) the properties of the audience’s existing attitudes (e.g., emotions- or beliefs-focused), and (2) differences in the audience’s processing motivation and ability. In this talk, I will present studies that demonstrate that subjective and objective measures of attitudinal properties differ not only in their methodology but also in their prediction of processing-related behavior such as information seeking, information attention, and attitude change. I will also discuss the theoretical and practical implications of this research.
Speaker biography:
Dr. Michelle See is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at National University of Singapore. She received her Ph.D. from The Ohio State University. Her research interests lie in the areas of attitudes and social cognition. Much of her current work focuses on the implications of the subjective-objective distinction in attitudinal properties for various persuasion phenomena such as information-seeking and message tailoring. Her work has been published in various journals including Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
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24 Feb 2012
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Intercultural Weddings and the Simultaneous Display of Multiple Identities
by
Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz
Director of the Center for Intercultural Dialogue of the Council for Communication Associations in Washington, D.C.
Professor Emerita of Communication
University of Wisconsin-Parkside, USA
Time: Wednesday, February 29, 1:30-2:30 p.m.
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
Traditionally, intercultural communication research has emphasized description of a single culture at a time, so that it can be better understood; or comparison of two or more cultures. What is really the heart of intercultural communication has actually been studied least often: sustained interaction between individuals coming from different cultural backgrounds who must cope with their different expectations. Intercultural weddings provide an excellent example of a communication event between members of different cultural groups. A wedding is a public event requiring the display of identity. When two people of different cultural backgrounds get married, they encounter the problem of simultaneously displaying multiple identities. Intercultural weddings vividly demonstrate the extent to which cultural identity is socially constructed since identity is never so visible as when it is placed into immediate contrast with one or more different identities. This presentation briefly outlines a long-term research project, describes the theoretical and methodological orientations, and provides two case studies.
Speaker biography:
Dr. Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz is Director of the Center for Intercultural Dialogue of the Council for Communication Associations in Washington, D.C., and Professor Emerita of Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. She has been Chercheur invitée at the Ecole normale supérieure de Lyon, France, and Senior Fellow at the Collegium de Lyon. She has served as an expert for the Division of Cultural Policies and Intercultural Dialogue of UNESCO (Paris, 2009), and presented at the World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue (Baku, Azerbaijan, 2011). Leeds-Hurwitz is interested in how people construct meanings for themselves and others through interaction; how cultural identity is constructed and maintained; and how conflicting identities or meanings can be conveyed simultaneously. She studies disciplinary history to learn why scholars examine particular topics in specific ways; often stops to consider particular research methods or theories; and always takes an interdisciplinary approach to problems. Her article “Notes in the history of intercultural communication” published in Quarterly Journal of Speech (1990) provides the standard introduction to intercultural communication in the USA. Her major publications include: The Social History of Language and Social Interaction (2010), Socially Constructing Communication (2009), From Generation to Generation: Maintaining Cultural Identity over Time (2005), and Wedding as Text: Communicating Cultural Identities through Ritual (2002). Leeds-Hurwitz earned her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania.
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03 Feb 2012
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Getting Health Information into Consumers' Hands: Today's Information Landscape and Impact on Health Communication and Healthcare
by
Jisu Huh
Associate Professor/Director of Graduate Studies
School of Journalism and Mass Communication
University of Minnesota
Time: Wednesday, February 22, 1:30-2:30 p.m.
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
In today’s health environment, individuals are increasingly expected to be actively involved in their healthcare and to accept more personal responsibility for acquiring and using information to make wise health decisions. Yet, that responsibility has become more and more demanding as individuals are required to navigate a plethora of competing sources of health information (e.g., healthcare professionals, traditional media, the Internet, product advertising, and health education). Among many different types of sources for consumer health information search, Huh’s research points to the potentially important role advertising can play as a health information source. Huh will present findings from her decade-long research on the content and effects of direct-to-consumer prescription drug (DTC) advertising and the role of advertising in the overall healthcare system and communication between patients and physicians. The research findings will be discussed in the broad health information and regulatory environment, and research implications for communication scholars and policy implications will be offered.
Speaker biography:
Dr. Huh's research focuses on the intersection of health communication and advertising, and the role and effects of various forms of online and offline advertising for healthcare-related products in the broader context of healthcare. Her work has been published in The Routledge Handbook of Health Communication, 2nd Edition (2011), the Journal of Advertising, International Journal of Advertising, Journal of Health Communication, Health Communication, Health Marketing Quarterly, Journal of Consumer Affairs, JMCQ, and Communication Research. She currently serves on the Editorial Review Board of Journal of Advertising, International Journal of Advertising, and Journal of Advertising Education. She has also served on the expert review panel for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Pfizer’s “Optimizing TV DTC Health Communication” Initiative Expert Panel. More recently, Dr. Huh was one of the invited panelists for a Special Topics Panel Session focusing on Pharmaceutical Advertising in Asian Perspectives: Marketing, Consumer, and Public Health at the 2011 AAA (American Academy of Advertising) Asia Pacific Conference (June 2011, Brisbane, Australia).
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13 Feb 2012
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Gender and Social Resource: Digital Divides of SNS and Mobile Phone Use in Singapore
by
Pan Ji
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information
Nanyang Technical University
Time: Wednesday, February 15, 1:30-2:30 p.m.
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
This study examines how gender and workplace social resource influence how people use SNS and mobile phone in a Confucian culture. Analyses of survey data from Singapore show that males use mobile phone and SNS for professional connections more frequently than females. The use of SNS or mobile phone to contact friends does not differ between genders. People with more social resources use both SNS and mobile phone more often to interact with professional or personal connections. Nevertheless, the effect of social resource on usage does not vary between genders. Implications for second-order digital divide and media use are discussed.
Speaker biography:
Dr. Pan Ji received a PhD in Communications from the University of South Carolina in 2010. A current post-doctoral research fellow at Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), his research interests relate to the effects and antecedents of mediated social connectivity, technology use, as well as the behavioral or cognitive effects of media framing. Specifically, Ji examines the coverage of global events such as environmental crises, product safety issues or health perils, as well as the spread of related information and resources within established or emergent social networks. His current studies involve a social network analysis blog hyperlink networks, framing of made-in-China products in western media and the impacts of SNS on job mobility and entrepreneurship among Singaporeans.
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07 Feb 2012
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The Archive with a Virtual Museum: The (Im) possibility of Digital Archival Art in Chris Marker’s Ouvroir
by
Jihoon Kim
Assistant Professor
Division of Broadcast and Cinema Studies
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information
Nanyang Technical University
Time: Wednesday, February 08, 1:30-2:30 p.m.
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
Can digital forms such as 3D virtual space and database offer new possibilities of the archive as the apparatus of storage, preservation, and access, or do they threaten to undermine its foundations with their dematerialization of objects and information? What concept of the archive can be pursued and envisioned by contemporary practices that appropriate and explore the digital forms in order to engage with the radical transformation of the experience and memory of older arts and media? This presentation seeks to address these questions by investigating Ouvroir (2008), a virtual museum created by Chris Marker (b. 1921), a brilliant yet enigmatic practitioner who has explored the reconstruction of the memories of cinema and photography with the non-linear, divergent, and generative forms of virtual screens and databases since the 1990s. It argues that Marker’s model of the virtual museum allows for the dialectic of the archive as marked by the possibility of collection and documentation as well as its inherent room for loss, fragmentation, and disorientation. Whilst taking the navigable 3D space of Second Life as a platform for the embodied, affective remembrance of the avatar-visitor as virtual flâneur, Marker at the same time draws the avatar’s attention to both the structural limitation of the space and the tension between the persistence of old media forms and the transformation of them as data objects. This dialectic concept of the archive, incorporated by this ambivalence, challenges not simply the traditional concept of the archive that presumes the totality of preservation and the systematic classification of information, but also the utopian account of the virtual museum or archive, according to which its simulation, free accessibility, and universal connectivity contribute to overcome the physical museum or archive.
Speaker biography:
Dr. Jihoon Kim is assistant professor of the Division of Broadcast and Cinema Studies at Wee Kim Wee School of Communication, Nanyang Technological University, after receiving his PhD from the Department of Cinema Studies at New York University. His essays on film and media theory, experimental film and video, moving images in contemporary art, and digital media arts appeared in Screen, Film Quarterly, Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Screening the Past, and the anthology Global Art Cinema: New Histories and Theories (Oxford University Press, 2010), and Taking Place: Location and the Moving Image (University of Minnesota Press, 2011). Currently he is in preparation for a book manuscript entitled Between Film, Video, and the Digital: Intermediality and the Art of Hybrid Moving Images, and conducting a new funded research project entitled “Transitory Screens: Digital Media Interfaces and the Remediation of Spatiality and Spectatorship,” on which this seminar presentation is based.
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25 Jan 2012
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Multi-theoretical lenses to understand emerging mobile television
by
Trisha T. C. Lin
Assistant Professor
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information
Nanyang Technical University
Time: Wednesday, January 25, 1:30-2:30 p.m.
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
Studying new media bring challenges for scholars to understand their multi-directional developmental trajectories, and to select appropriate theoretic lenses to interpret fast-changing empirical phenomenon. In this talk, the speaker will discuss her studies of mobile TV in Singapore with different theoretical approaches and research methods. The first qualitative study applies a socio-technical framework to investigate mobile TV’s complex relations between co-evolving subsystems of industry/market, policy, and technology. The second study uses mix methods (web survey and focus group) to understand individuals’ perceived adoption of mobile TV and content preferences. The final telephone survey study identifies factors affecting mobile video use based on an extended Theory of Planned Behavior model. Theoretical and practical implications will be outlined.
Speaker biography:
Dr. Trisha T. C. Lin is an Assistant Professor in the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. With an interdisciplinary Ph.D. from Communication and Information Sciences program at University of Hawai’i at Manoa, she has extensive research interests and works on various projects regarding adoption and impact of new communication technologies, new media convergence in Asia, digital journalism, and mobile communication. As a former TV and radio professional, Trisha is particularly interested in studying emerging broadcasting and video technologies across platforms. In 2004, she was granted the Australia Executive Award to conduct digital TV research as a visiting scholar in New South Wales University, Australia. In 2010, her comparisons of Chinese TV news sensationalism study won the best faculty paper at the conference of Association of Education of Journalism and Mass Communication.
In recent years, she has published several mobile TV papers in Asian Journal of Communication, Chinese Journal of Communication, Journal of Information & Communication, and Journal of International Commercial Law and Technology. Her other publications about interactive digital media include: an article examining factors affecting the adoption of Social Network Sites in Asia Journal of Communication, a forthcoming article about organizational cross-platform framing and cross-cultural adaptation in Environmental Communication, a chapter investigating multiskilling and journalistic changes in convergent newsrooms in the book International News in the Digital Age: East-West Perceptions of a New World Order (Routledge) and a coming book chapter about new media impact on youth’s political participation and voting in 2011 Singapore General Election.
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15 Nov 2011
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Connections and Survival: How Albanian and Filipino immigrants use social networks in Greece
by
Simeon S. Magliveras
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow
School of Art, Media and Design
Nanyang Technical University
Time:Wednesday, November 16, 1:30-2:30 p.m.
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
Humans are measurably affected by three degrees of separation. Individuals effect and can be affected by people they do not even know exist. Even their happiness or their smoking behaviour can be affected by friends, of friends, of friends. This paper focuses on social networks such as patron/client or kinship relationships to explore how we, as humans, use or are manipulated by these networks. Immigrants are particularly fascinating groups to investigate because they are thrusted into pre-existing social webs and must quickly adapt. However, most newly arriving immigrants are not intimately aware of these systems which they must interact with to live in their new host country. This paper focuses on Albanians and Filipinos is Greece suggesting that depending on which network an individual is exposed to, the network will drastically effect his/her life. Moreover, I explore how new systems of communication as network mediums may also effect social relations, memories and identities. I propose that the level of integration an individual experiences is directly related to the individual’s social networks.
Speaker biography:
Simeon Magliveras is presently a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Art, Media and Design. He received his PhD. from the Durham University in the UK in 2010 and has worked as a professor of anthropology at the American College of Greece since 1999. He was one of the first non-Albanian social anthropologist to go to Albania after the dissolution of the USSR to investigate how filigree craft production was done during and after the Cold War for his Master’s degree. His PhD. thesis was a study of ethnic identity and memory of unofficial minorities in Greece called the Arvanites who are Albanian speaking but have resided in Greece since the 14th Century. He has presented his work at many international conferences and has written articles about Albanian and Greek kin-like relations, food as a site for identity, and how social networks are key to immigrant survival in somewhat hostile social environments. He examined how identity is practiced and how individuals manipulate their positions between different poles of national and local discourses. Recently, he has also worked with Filipino migrants in Greece, looking at how they use social networks to reach their desired objectives. At ADM, he is working with the ethnic groups of the Yao Mien and Hmong of North Eastern Laos, exploring how memory and identity are imbued in the textile production.
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4 Nov 2011
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Mass Communication Research and Cognitive Neuroscience – A Promising Combination?
by
René Weber, Ph.D., M.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Communication & Cognitive Science Program
University of California, Santa Barbara
Time:Wednesday, November 9, 1:30-2:30 p.m.
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
Numerous histories of communication science argue that our discipline evolved from earlier investigations in psychology and sociology in the early to mid 20th century and was always characterized by transdisciplinary perspectives. Today, scholars in still related fields such as cognitive psychology have long begun to study human behavior with state-of-the-art neuroscientific approaches. In the field of communication, however, it seems that this opportunity remains unexplored with few exceptions.
This colloquium debates potential benefits and pitfalls of incorporating neuroscientific approaches – mainly functional brain imaging – into communication research. René Weber will present a selection of his brain imaging studies in the areas of media violence, media entertainment, and health communication/persuasion as examples for how examining media processes with a modern neuroscientific perspective might have the potential to enhance mass communication research. A new analytical paradigm for brain imaging experiments using typical low-controlled stimuli in mass communication research will be presented. The colloquium will also demonstrate that the communication discipline has a lot to offer for cognitive neuroscientists.
Speaker biography:
Dr. René Weber is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and Cognitive Science Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He holds a Ph.D. in Media Psychology, an M.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience, and BA/MA degrees in Communication and Business Administration/Statistics. Prior to his academic appointments he worked as consultant for media entertainment in the US and in Europe. In his recent research he focuses on cognitive responses to mass communication and new technology media messages, including video games. He develops and applies both traditional social scientific and neuroscientific methodology (fMRI) to test media related theories. His research has been published in major communication and neuroscience journals.
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10 Oct 2011
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Zydeco: Using Mobile and Cloud Technologies to Support Science Inquiry Between Classrooms and Museums
by
Chris Quintana
Assistant Professor
Learning Technologies
School of Education
University of Michigan
Time:Wednesday, October 12, 1:30-2:30 p.m.
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
Current national K-12 science education recommendations envision expanding beyond classroom-based scientific inquiry to include out-of-class contexts, such as science museums, nature parks, etc. Such "nomadic inquiry" can help students incorporate a broader range of information to explore a range of scientific questions. However, this type of inquiry can also be challenging for students and teachers alike. We are exploring how to support students and teachers with this type of expanded science inquiry through our work in developing Zydeco, a scaffolded system for science inquiry that combines mobile devices (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) with web and cloud technologies. The Zydeco model uses mobile devices to scaffold aspects of the science inquiry process (e.g., data collection) in different contexts, and web/cloud components to coordinate the data and observations that students gather while "on-the-go," to help create a bridge between classroom and out-of-class contexts for richer science experiences.
Speaker biography:
Dr. Chris Quintana currently serves as Associate Professor of Education (Learning Technologies) in the School of Education at the University of Michigan, where he explores the design and use of learning technologies, primarily for middle school science contexts. Dr. Quintana combines his background in human-computer interaction (HCI) and computer science with educational research for his work with the Center for Highly Interactive Computing in Education (hi-ce), where he has collaborated with researchers in curriculum development and teacher professional development. Dr. Quintana’s work in developing design methods and scaffolding guidelines for scaffolded software environments on desktop and mobile platforms has resulted in a range of articles and presentations in top education and HCI conferences and journals, along with several grants from the National Science Foundation.
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3 Oct 2011
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Multi-theoretical multilevel models to understand and enable networks
by
Noshir Contractor
Director of the Science of Networks in Communities (SONIC) research group
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, NTU
Time:Thursday, October 6, 4:00-5:00 p.m.
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
Recent advances provide comprehensive digital traces of social actions, interactions, and transactions. These data provide an unprecedented exploratorium to model the socio-technical motivations for creating, maintaining, dissolving, and reconstituting social and knowledge networks. Using examples from research in massively multiplayer online games and scientific collaborations, Contractor will outline a multi-theoretical multilevel model to help advance our ability to understand and enable networks.
Speaker biography:
Dr. Noshir Contractor is the Jane S. & William J. White Professor of Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern University, USA. He is the Director of the Science of Networks in Communities (SONIC) Research Group at Northwestern University. He is investigating factors that lead to the formation, maintenance, and dissolution of dynamically linked social and knowledge networks. His research program has been funded continuously for over a decade by major grants from the U.S. National Science Foundation with additional current funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), Air Force Research Lab, Army Research Institute, Army Research Laboratory and the MacArthur Foundation. Professor Contractor has published or presented over 250 research papers dealing with communicating and organizing. His book titled Theories of Communication Networks (co-authored with Professor Peter Monge and published by Oxford University Press, and translated into simplified Chinese in 2009) received the 2003 Book of the Year award from the Organizational Communication Division of the National Communication Association. He is the lead developer of C-IKNOW (Cyberinfrastructure for Inquiring Knowledge Networks On the Web), a socio-technical environment to understand and enable networks among communities, as well as Blanche, a software environment to simulate the dynamics of social networks.
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3 Oct 2011
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Understanding children’s contributions to the evaluation of user experience
by
Janet C. Read
Director of the International Child Computer Interaction group
University of Central Lancashire, UK
Time:Wednesday, October 5, 1:30-2:30 p.m.
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
In designing and developing novel technologies and innovative software we are all charged with creating a good, or even an exemplary ‘user experience’. When asked about their experiences, adults can be critical judges but in the field of interaction design and children, it has been observed that the age of the child significantly affects the extent to which they can report in a critical way. Too often, the children ‘love everything’. In this talk, Janet Read will, in a fast paced and engaging way (with a great experience for the audience!), summarize the current knowledge in this space and outline her own solutions for child critique.
Speaker biography:
Dr. Read is the principal researcher, and director, of the International Child Computer Interaction group at the University of Central Lancashire I Preston, UK. Her main research interests are in exploring methods to better design and better evaluate interactive products for children. Her most cited works are in the evaluation of fun and in the inclusion of children in design studies. She has a particular interest in the use of technology for writing and in the design of cool products. She is the chair of the international IFIP SIG on Interaction Design and Children and is a co-chair of the ACM SigCHI Community of Child Computer Interaction. With Dr. Panos Markopoulos from Eindhoven she has authored ‘Evaluating Interactive Products for and with Children’ and she is also, with Dr Markopoulos, the designate editor in chief of the first International Journal of Child Computer Interaction. She has over 100 refereed papers, has lead master classes on child computer interaction in six different countries and has contributed four book chapters.
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20 Sep 2011
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Cultural Differences and Behavioral Switching between Facebook and Renren
by
Lin QIU
Assistant Professor
Division of Psychology
Nanyang Technological University
Time:Wednesday, September 21, 1:30-2:30 p.m.
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
Prior research has documented cultural dimensions that broadly characterize between- culture variations in Western and East Asian societies, and that bicultural individuals can flexibly change their behaviors in response to different cultural contexts. In this talk, I present cultural differences and behavioral switching in the context of online social networking, based on self-report measures and content analyses of online activities on two highly popular SNSs, Facebook and Renren (the “Facebook of China”). Results showed that while Renren and Facebook are two technically similar platforms, the Renren culture is perceived as more collectivistic than the Facebook culture. Further, we presented evidence for the first time that users who are members of both online communities flexibly switch and adapt their behaviors in response to the online culture they are in.
Speaker biography:
Dr. Lin Qiu is an assistant professor in the Division of Psychology at Nanyang Technological University. He received his PhD from Northwestern University. Lin’s current research focuses on social–psychological aspects of human–computer interaction. He is broadly interested in cognitive science, learning technology, and engineering psychology. Lin has published papers in the above areas for Social and Personality Psychology Compass, Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, Journal of Interactive Learning Research, Journal of Educational Computing Research, Annual CyberTherapy & CyberPsychology Conference, International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology, and International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces. Besides research and teaching, Lin has been invited to provide consultation and training on usability engineering to IT organizations, including Singapore Defense Science and Technology Agency, Arab Organization for Internet Standards, and Malaysian Institute of Microelectronic Systems.
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12 Sep 2011
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Contrasting Contexts, Contrasting Contents: A Comparative Analysis of Blogs and Blogging in Malaysia and Thailand
by
Drew McDaniel
Professor
School of Media Arts and Studies
Scripps College of Communication, Ohio University, USA
Visiting Professor:
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, NTU
Time:Wednesday, September 14, 1:30-2:30 p.m.
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
In Southeast Asia, media policy-making faces an interesting but potentially contradictory set of circumstances. On the one hand, countries of the region have a long tradition of tightly controlled information policies, with most governments not only regulating but actively censoring media content. On the other hand, the countries of Southeast Asia have recently struggled to maintain control over citizen journalists who operate on the World Wide Web. Thailand has actively suppressed Internet Websites such as YouTube while Malaysia has an open Internet policy forced on it by virtue of its massive Multimedia Super Corridor project. This paper examines the popular blogsites of two countries that have quite different political and historical settings. I look at the range of contents presented by blogs in Thailand and Malaysia, examining their presentational styles, and the frames employed to present information to their readers. I compare the differences in blogging in the two countries, and finally I analyze how these contents differ from and sometimes challenge mainstream media.
Keywords: Internet policies, lese majeste, Thailand, Malaysia, blogs
Speaker biography:
Dr. McDaniel is Professor of Media Arts and Studies in the Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University. Previously, he held the posts of Director of the School of Media Arts & Studies, Director of the Southeast Asian Studies Program, and Director of the Center for International Studies. He was twice named Ohio University’s most outstanding graduate faculty member and has received the L.J. Hortin Faculty Mentor Award. Prior to joining Ohio University, he worked as a journalist for broadcasting organizations in the states of Colorado and Washington.
Professor McDaniel has written on media in Asia and on technology in media and communication. Among his book publications are Electronic Tigers of Southeast Asia: The politics of media, technology, and national development, Broadcasting in the Malay World, Fundamentals of Audio Production, and Fundamentals of Communication Electronics.
He holds an additional appointment as Staff Consultant at the Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development (AIBD), a UN-chartered agency in Kuala Lumpur that provides research and training assistance across the region. Since 1981 his AIBD projects have taken him to more than 25 nations in Asia. He has held a Fulbright Southeast Asia Regional Research Fellowship and an appointment as a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the University of Queensland in Australia.
Education
Ph.D., Ohio University
M.A., University of Denver
B.A., University of Idaho
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5 Sep 2011
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Swedish film culture in retrospective: Trans(national) reflections in film memory
by
Åsa Jernudd
Assistant Professor
Teaching Fellow
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, NTU
Time:Wednesday, September 7, 1:30-2:30 p.m.
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
I am engaged in a reconsideration of Swedish film culture by focusing on oral history-inspired narratives of cinema going and film told by senior citizens living in a post-industrial town in central Sweden. Tapping into a discussion in film studies concerning Hollywood dominance and the reception of Hollywood films in foreign, local contexts, I ask if and how Hollywood films are or should be a part of a historical (re)view of Swedish film culture. A related question is that of European films and their status considering Sweden joined the European Union in 1995. This is a work-in-progress. I am at the point of analyzing the transcriptions and will be discussing very preliminary results based on a survey of the film memories in the oral histories.
Speaker biography:
Åsa Jernudd completed her phd in Cinema Studies at Stockholm University in 2007 and is assistant professor at Orebro University, Sweden. She is currently a teaching fellow here at WKWSCI on a grant from STINT, The Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education. Åsa’s research has revolved around questions of film historiography, and Swedish film and cinema. Her recent publications include: a chapter in the book Cinema, Audiences and Modernity: new perspectives on European cinema history, published by Routledge 2011; a contribution to the March 2011 issue of the journal Senses of Cinema as one of many brief reports on going to the movies around the world; and a chapter in the book Regional Aesthetics: locating Swedish media, published by The National Swedish Library in 2010.
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31 Aug 2011
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Gambling films in Hong Kong cinema
by
Brenda Chan
Assistant Professor
Division of Communication Research
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, NTU
Time:Wednesday, August 31, 1:30-2:30 p.m.
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
The gambling film in Hong Kong cinema is a hybrid genre that combines elements from action, comedy, martial arts and gangster films. It is usually seen as highly commercialized and has received relatively little attention in the study of Hong Kong cinema. However, Hong Kong gambling films contain rich political allegory and are worth further research. In this seminar, Brenda Chan will first provide an overview of her research project on Hong Kong gambling films, which is now in its third year. She will then present her reading of God of Gambler’s Return (1994), which is ranked highest in box office among all the gambling films produced in Hong Kong. The movie was released at a time when there was collective anxiety over the return of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China in 1997 and the search for identity became all the more acute. God of Gambler’s Return articulates the liminality and fluidity of Hong Kong identity through its highlighting of the cross- strait tension between mainland China and Taiwan.
Speaker biography:
Brenda Chan is Assistant Professor at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication in Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. She teaches courses on cultural studies and qualitative research methods. Her research interests are in Chinese cinema, East Asian television drama, and Chinese popular music. She is also embarking on a new project on the Internet and memories of nations.
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23 Aug 2011
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Radio & Facebook: Examining the relationship between broadcast and social media software in the US, Germany, and Singapore
by
Bradley C. Freeman
Assistant Professor
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, NTU
Time:Wednesday, August 24, 1:30-2:30 p.m.
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
Since its inception, the Internet has been eyed with both hope and caution by traditional media outlets. For many years, radio looked to the Internet (Web 1.0) to extend their brand and increase awareness for their stations. Enter Facebook (Web 2.0), with its interactive ability to add friends and build an online community. How are radio stations using social media at this early point in the relationship? The results and the strategy to best build the radio/Facebook relationship are not uniform and the jury is still out on exactly how social media can benefit a station’s bottom line.
Speaker biography:
Bradley C. Freeman is an Assistant Professor in the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His research interests include community and campus radio, popular culture, political communication, media convergence, and sound design. He recently edited a special "Radio in Asia Symposium" for the Journal of Radio & Audio Media. He has three chapters on Southeast Asian Radio appearing in "The Palgrave Handbook of International Radio" due out this semester. The "Radio & Facebook" paper is to be presented at a December pop culture conference in Hong Kong.
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25 Apr 2011
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The User Interface and Coordinated Action in Online Environments: A Case Study on World of Warcraft
by
Patrick Williams
Assistant Professor
Division of Sociology
School of Humanities and Social Sciences
NTU
Time:Wednesday, April 27, 1:30-2:30 p.m.
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
Some of the biggest developments in video games over the last decade have been the growth of infrastructures that allow people to play together in visually-rich, persistent online gameworlds. With these developments, the classic fantasy genre that has long been popular among table-top role-playing gamers has become a backdrop to the leisurely pursuits of tens of millions of people. The World of Warcraft (WoW) has become the exemplar of the fantasy massively-multiplayer online game (MMOG), with more than 12 million current players. Along with the growth in MMOG popularity has come the voices of moral entrepreneurs who see time spent online as idle and wasteful if not downright dangerous to one's physical and mental health. In addition to that line of research, we need academic insight into the social aspects of motivation and immersion--why do people play games and what they find pleasurable about their experiences. The questions I have been considering most recently are both about what people do in fantasy gameworlds and how they go about doing it. In this talk I will share some of my research on advanced players of WoW with a particular focus on how they utilize different technological tools in the User Interface (UI) to maximize their ability to play with other people. I will focus on three aspects of WoW's UI--visual, textual, and aural--in order to help think about the following kinds of questions:
-- how does the game communicate with the player, and vice versa?
-- what are players able to see and hear as they play and what do they
learn to identify as important or unimportant?
-- what visual cues do players rely on as they play with others?
Speaker biography:
Patrick Williams is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, where he teaches courses in social psychology, culture, and media. Patrick's research on new media has been published in several journals including Symbolic Interaction, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography and Qualitative Sociology Review, among others. He is the editor of Gaming as Culture (McFarland, 2006) and The Players' Realm (McFarland, 2007) and is currently studying the motivational and immersive experiences of World of Warcraft players.
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18 Apr 2011
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How to play also matters beyond the content: Effects of various contextual factors such as interface and role enactment on people’s virtual experience in interactive media
by
Younbo Jung
Assistant Professor
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information
NTU
Time:Wednesday, April 20, 1:30-2:30 p.m
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
In general, most studies in the field of mass communication focus on the issue of how specific media content influences human minds and behaviour — i.e., media-effect studies. For example, influential theories in media studies such as Media Priming Theory, Social Cognitive Theory, and the General Aggression Model are often applied to address the issue of how certain types of media content—usually violent media—generate certain thoughts, affect, or behavior related to the portrayed media content. Although what-to-play is an important factor influencing user experience, recent studies have demonstrated that how-to-play also affects virtual experience significantly, especially in the context of emerging interactive media. In this talk, I will present a series of experimental studies that investigated how various contextual factors such as user interface, role enactment, and points-of-view could have a significant impact on virtual experience in three different forms of interactive media: videogames, human-robot interaction, and virtual reality systems.
Speaker biography:
Dr. Younbo Jung is an Assistant Professor at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Dr. Jung earned his B.A. and M.A. degree in Telecommunication at Michigan State University and his Ph.D. at the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, the University of Southern California. His research areas include interpersonal and socio-psychological effects of interactive media such as video games, virtual reality, human-robot interaction, and their applications in medical aids. Dr. Jung supports interdisciplinary research and has successfully collaborated on many research projects with scholars in computer science, electrical engineering, physical therapy, and social work. In Singapore his interviews have been featured on Channel News Asia (CNA) and in articles in the Strait Times.
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12 Apr 2011
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Perception of emotion in multisensorial environments: Cartoons and sound installations
by
PerMagnus Lindborg
Assistant Professor
School of Art, Design & Media
NTU
Time:Wednesday, April 13, 1:30-2:30 p.m
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
In this talk, I will give a brief overview of research in music emotion, and examples of its use in interdisciplinary contexts. I will present methods and findings from a recently completed study of the perception of emotion portrayal in Mickey Mouse cartoons, and methods of a study in preparation of emotion perception in 3-dimensional soundscapes.
Speaker biography:
PerMagnus Lindborg is a composer, performer and researcher. Member of the Norwegian Society of Composers and assistant professor at School of Art, Design and Media, NTU. Studied piano in his native Sweden before concentrating on composition, obtaining degrees from Oslo (Music Academy) and Paris (Ircam and Paris-4). He has presented compositions, sound designs, and interactive music performances in more than 20 countries. Works released on ECM Records, Daphne Records, and Ash International. Highlights include a First Prize at Stavanger Orchestra Competition 2002, the Audience Prize at Forum-Montreal 1996, commissions from Centre Pompidou 2002 and Ultima Festival 2006.
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04 Apr 2011
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Musical Communication and Media
by
Lonce Wyse
Associate Professor
Department of Communications and New Media
National University of Singapore
Time:Wednesday, April 6, 1:30-2:30 p.m
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
The traditional communication channels between composers, performers, and audiences have changed dramatically over the last century. Computational media support experiments in improvisation, networked instruments, the incorporation of audiences in live performance, and graphical notation systems. In this talk, I will present and discuss several contemporary musical works that explore these issues, focusing particularly on visualization and "real time scores".
Speaker biography:
Lonce Wyse is an Associate Professor with the Department of Communications and New Media at the National University of Singapore, and directs the Arts and Creativity Lab of the Interactive and Digital Media Institute at NUS. He obtained his PhD in Cognitive and Neural Systems from Boston University in 1993, and spent the following year in Taiwan on a Fulbright Scholarship. Before joining NUS, he conducted computational audio technology research and development at the Institute for Infocomm Research and with Mindmaker Pte Ltd. His portfolio includes publications, patents, and audio software licenses. He is on the editorial boards of the Computer Music Journal and of Organized Sound. His current research focus is on gesture sonification, communication strategies, visualization, and networked architectures for media and sonic arts.
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28 Mar 2011
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Media Education for the We-Media Generation
by
Dan Gilmor
Director
Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship
Arizona State University
Time:Wednesday, March 30, 1:30-2:30 p.m, a buffet lunch starts at 12:45p.m.
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
Journalism education, like journalism itself, needs to evolve with the times. It is no longer sufficient to teach the basics of traditional media creation. In tomorrow's world, journalists will need to be platform-agnostic. They will need to work with programmers. And they will need to be entrepreneurial. The fundamental principles of journalism will not change, but educators will need to modify their approach to ensure that the principles survive in a rapidly changing world.
Speaker biography:
Dan Gillmor is the Director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University. He is best known as the first traditional media journalist to start a technology blog and for his book, We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People (2004 and 2006). His latest book, Mediactive, aims to turn passive media consumers into active users. More: http://dangillmor.com/about.
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08 Mar 2011
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What goes on behind the “social”: Roles of social networks in engendering and sustaining collective action among bloggers
by
Carol Soon
Communications and New Media Programme
National University of Singapore
Time:Wednesday, March 9, 1:30-2:30 p.m
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
In collective action studies, social movement scholars have explored the role of social networks in influencing individuals’ decision to participate in collective action. The proliferation of Internet technologies and recently Web 2.0 technologies has made it possible to galvanize support among like-minded individuals for different causes. In cognizance of the significance in both offline and online social networks in mobilizing individuals to participate in collective action, this paper examines the functions of activist bloggers’ social networks, and ascertains what goes behind the “social” in online, formal and informal networks. This study focuses on political bloggers as collective action participants. Through 41 in-depth interviews supported by a small-scale survey, we found that social networks influenced activism participation among activist bloggers. In addition, online, formal and informal networks played different roles, and overlaps of networks were also observed among activist bloggers.
Speaker biography:
Currently a doctoral candidate and an instructor at CNM Programme, National University of Singapore, Carol’s research interests include online collective action, online social networks, blogs, and the domestication of ICTs. For her dissertation, she studies political and civic engagement among bloggers using social movement theories, specifically the roles of collective identity and social networks in influencing activism participation. Prior to her graduate work, Carol did marketing and communication work for profit and non-profit organizations, as well as brand consultancy. She is now teaching modules on transnational media industries and communication management.
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01 Mar 2011
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Global Health, ICTs and the Trans-disciplinary Research Challenge
by
Santosh Vijaykumar
Postdoctoral Fellow
Division of Information Studies
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information
NTU
Time:Wednesday, March 2, 1:30-2:30 p.m
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
The domain of information and communication technologies in health (also called ICT4H) is growing in importance as an area of research with implications at both, the national and international levels. The range of technologies and their varied applications across diverse social and cultural contexts has invited calls for “trans-disciplinary research” and “holistic approaches” albeit with limited understanding of how to conduct the same. In relation to this issue, I present my doctoral dissertation that examines contextual factors that influence online participation of young people in the online global youth HIV/AIDS social movement. Summary findings from this inquiry – where I integrated concepts from public health, social informatics and social movements literature – are presented. Based upon a critique of my research, I use this dissertation as a lens to highlight some of the challenges for new researchers aiming to conduct trans-disciplinary research and offer possible strategies while dealing with conceptual and theoretical dilemmas.
Speaker biography:
Santosh Vijaykumar (Ph.D. Saint Louis University) is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information (WKWSCI). His research broadly focuses on health communication and the use of information and communication technologies in public health. Prior to pursuing doctoral studies, Santosh was involved in international health communication programs at Johns Hopkins University, Center for Communication Programs. He finished his Master of Arts in Strategic Communication from the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Journalism and has previously practiced as a journalist for English-language national dailies in India. His research and commentary can be found in peer-reviewed/referred publications such as Marriage & Family Review, International Journal of Medical Informatics, Communication Research Reports, Ethnicity & Health, and Economic & Political Weekly. |
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22 Feb 2011
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How long should I wait to get drunk after antibiotics? A study of online drug-related content
by
Lorraine Goeuriot
Postdoctoral Fellow
Division of Information Studies
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information
NTU
Time:Wednesday, February 23, 1:30-2:30 p.m
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
There is a proliferation of medical and health-related information of various types on the Web. Health-related websites have become one of the most important public information sources on health, diseases and treatments. Web2.0 technology has given rise to a host of social media sites, such as discussion forums, blogs, and user-review sites, that allow users to contribute their own content. It is not known what kinds of health and medical information can be gleaned from such sites. Finding relevant, useful and trustworthy information on the Web is a real challenge. The overall goal of this project is to develop techniques to mine medical and health-related social media content for information and opinions about diseases and treatments. This paper reports the results of a textual analysis of user-generated content on drug review websites. The aim is to determine what kinds of drugs are discussed and what kinds of content can be expected on these sites, from a linguistic point of view. User postings were harvested from two websites carrying different kinds of user-generated content and compared to information on the same drugs from a hospital information portal. The corpus was analyzed to identify what kinds of drugs were often reviewed, the vocabulary and medical concepts used, and the textual characteristics such as length of postings, sentence length, and part-of-speech distribution.
Speaker biography:
Lorraine Goeuriot is a postdoctoral fellow in the Division of Information Studies at Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University. Her research interests include medical discourse analysis and opinion mining on health-related content on the Web. She has a PhD in Computational Linguistics from the University of Nantes, France. Her previous work there consisted in categorization of medical documents through their specialization degree (popular science vs. science). She worked on multilingual corpora (French, Japanese, Russian), and defined a multi-layer analysis (structural, discursive, lexical). She published papers in Linguistics and Computational Linguistics journals and conferences. |
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08 Feb 2011
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Public Relations @ Monash University: Teaching and Research
by
James Gomez
Deputy Associate Dean and Head of Public Relations
School of Applied Media and Social Science at Monash University
Australia
Time:Wednesday, February 9, 1:30-2:30 p.m
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
The current public relations program at Monash has evolved from its early offerings at its regional campus in Gippsland and the Business and Economic Faculty at the Berwick campus. Since 2010, the PR program at Monash has been accredited with the Public Relations Institute of Australia. It is now an Arts Faculty programme with a multi-campus operation with selected units to be taught at its Malaysian and South African campus from 2012. The undergraduate program will also offer an Honours track in 2012 with plans for a Master level program further down the track. This presentation looks at how the demand for professional courses in the context of university education has impacted the evolution of the PR teaching at Monash University and looks into the rise in professional courses at universities. In particular it examines the issue of teaching and researching in public relations in the context of renewed discussion about the role of universities, their place in society and their role as guardian of cultural capital. In present day Australian universities, two other aspects of the discussion that need to be also considered include the financial pressures that universities face and the need to attract international students. This presentation discusses the case of Public Relations program at Monash University.
Speaker biography:
Dr. James Gomez is presently Deputy Associate Dean (International) and Head of Public Relations, School of Applied Media and Social Science at Monash University, Australia. As Head of Public Relations, he is responsible for leading and designing an internationally oriented public relations curriculum. In his role as Deputy Associate Dean (International), James is involved in faculty level strategic planning and travel aimed at attracting research students (MPhil/PhD) to the Arts Faculty. One of his current research projects is on Crisis and Risk communication in Asia. The project critically examines crises affecting corporations, governments, non-governmental organisations, inter-governmental organisations and evaluates issues emerging from business, health, the environment, technology, culture, politics and globalisation. Selected papers from this project will form part of a special issue of the Asian Pacific Public Relations Journal (APPRJ). |
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29 Nov 2010
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Bar Girls and Macho Dancers: Sex Tourism in Vietnamese and Philippine Cinema
by
Mariam Lam
Associate Professor
Comparative Literature, Media & Cultural Studies, and Southeast Asian Studies
University of California-Riverside
&
Senior Research Fellow
Asia Research Institute, NUS
Time:Wednesday, December 1, 1:30-2:30 p.m
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
Comparative filmic depictions of sex tourism can serve as an alternative lens for examining the national and transnational modes of consumption and desiring gazes of these Southeast Asian countries’ diverse national policies and policing, as their directors, producers and screenwriters are themselves trying to gauge, integrate, expand, challenge, transform and improve their own industry conditions upon cinematic immersion into the neoliberal global economy. The Việt Nam-Philippines comparative frame reveals how divergent state priorities and cinematic auteur political cause preferences lead to differing outcomes in transnational representational fields.
Speaker biography:
Mariam Lam is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, Media & Cultural Studies, and Southeast Asian Studies at the University of California-Riverside, USA, and currently Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, NUS. She is co-founding co-editor of the Journal of Vietnamese Studies (U of California P), and her research interests include Southeast Asian and Asian American cultures, diaspora and globalization, gender and sexuality, translation, tourism, trauma, and academic disciplinarity.
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23 Nov 2010
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Internet and the 201X Elections
by
Arun Mahizhnan, Deputy Director
Tan Tarn How, Senior Research Fellow
Institute of Policy Studies
Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy
National University of Singapore
Time:Wednesday, November 24, 1:30-2:30 p.m
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
The Internet and other new media like mobile telephony are an important part of the lives of Singaporeans. In the political arena, however, old media such as television and newspapers are still pre- eminent, though they are increasingly seeing their position threatened by new media. Social media such as Facebook and Twitter have mushroomed into essential platforms for citizens to communicate with one another. Mobile telephony has developed to the extent that what used to be only possible on the laptop or desktop computers, such as emailing and surfing, are now commonplace on handheld gadgets such as iPhones. In the last few years, political content and activity online have also seen an evolution towards a more engaged and more multifaceted whole. Events such as the AWARE saga have galvanised some sections of society and opened up their minds to the potential of technology as a tool for sharing, organising and mobilising. The government’s relaxation of the rules on the use of the Internet, especially those governing election advertising, will also encourage more voters to dip tentative toes into the online waters, while enabling existing commentators to swim further out. Hence it is predicted that the coming election, which is due by February 2012, will see new media making further inroads as a tool for the electorate to gain and exchange information, to discuss the election, and perhaps even to exert some influence on the course and outcome of the polls.
THE PROJECT
IPS is proposing a multi-study project to investigate the impact of new media on the coming election. This project will be led by IPS and will bring together a dozen researchers from National University of Singapore and the Nanyang Technological University. The aim is to scrutinise the impacts of what is done by the different players (parties and candidates, bloggers, mainstream media, opinion makers; ordinary voters; youths); the consequences to the voter (their political knowledge, their perception of what issues are important, the manner in which they reconcile conflicting information, the perception of candidates and parties; and their voting behaviour); and the role of technology (social media, mobile telephony). The individual studies include:
• A national survey on the use of media during the election
• How 'citizen journalists' see their role
• How different media sets the political agenda
• How political knowledge is influenced by consumption of media
• How voters cope with conflicting information coming from different media
• Use of Twitter during the election
• How use of mobile phones and social networking sites impacts political participation
• How youths use various media
The results of the studies will be presented at a one-day symposium aimed at policy makers, community leaders and academics and then published in a book for general readers. Researchers will also write academic journal papers from their studies. A web archive of the election will be created, and will be made open source and available to other researchers.
Speaker biography:
Arun Mahizhnan is Deputy Director at the Institute of Policy Studies. Mr Arun's responsibilities include assistance in setting the strategic direction of IPS, overseeing its research output and the management of the Institute. In addition, he leads the research work in the areas of Arts & Culture and Media at the Institute. His past research interests included business issues such as regionalisation of the Singapore economy, and development of entrepreneurship. Mr Arun is concurrently an Adjunct Professor at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication & Information at the Nanyang Technological University. Before joining IPS in 1991, he had worked in both the public and private sectors for 20 years, mostly in public communication fields.
Tan Tarn How is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies. His research areas are in arts and cultural policy and media and Internet policy. He has written on the development of the arts in Singapore, in particular, fostering partnerships between the people, private and public sectors, on the creative industries in Singapore, China and Korea, on the history of cultural policy in Singapore, on censorship, and on the management of media in Singapore. He has also carried out research on the impact of the Internet and new technology on society, the regulation of the Internet, the role of new media in the 2008 Malaysian election and the 2006 Singapore election, and the impact of new media on old media. He was a journalist for nearly one and half decades before joining IPS. He has also been a teacher and television scriptwriter and is an award-winning playwright. He graduated from Cambridge University.
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08 Nov 2010
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Children, New Media, and POS (Parent Over Shoulder)
by Wonsun Shin
Assistant Professor
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information Nanyang Technological University
Time:Wednesday, November 10, 1:30-2:30 p.m
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
As children spend an increasing amount of time using various types of digital media, concerns about children’s digital media use have also increased. Concerns include children’s excessive exposure to and over-dependency on new media, marketers’ information collection practices directed to children, and a lack of government regulations or specific guidelines to provide children with a safer media environment. This current situation, especially the lack of regulations and guidelines, places greater responsibility on parents to actively supervise and educate their children regarding new media use. Consequently, interest in parental mediation practices and effects in the new media environment has been heightened. However, most existing research has focused on parental mediation of children’s exposure to television, and research related to new media has been limited. Using the consumer socialization perspective as a theoretical framework, this research seminar explores the role of parents in the way children use media and are socialized as consumers in two digital media contexts—electronic games and the Internet. Three studies will be discussed: Study1 investigates parental mediation of teenagers’ video game playing and its influence on various types of teenagers’ gaming behaviors. Study 2 explores the relationship between parental mediation and teenagers’ information disclosing behaviors on the Web, using secondary data from a survey of a representative sample of teenagers and their parents in the USA. Study 3 examines the roles of two important socialization agents—parents and media—in Korean preteens’ information disclosure on their own websites and their willingness to provide online marketers with sensitive personal information.
Speaker biography:
Wonsun Shin is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Public and Promotional Communication at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information (WKWSCI), Nanyang Technological University. She received her Ph.D. in Mass Communication from the University of Minnesota, M.A. in Television-Radio from Syracuse University, and B.A. in Journalism from Ewha Women’s University, Korea. Her research interests include effects and effectiveness of interactive advertising, parental mediation of children’s new media use, and consumer socialization on the Web. She won several research awards, including Ralph Casey Dissertation Research Award from the University of Minnesota, Top Student Paper Award (1st place) from the Communication Technology Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), and Top Scholar Award from Kappa Tau Alpha (KTA) National Honor Society. Her research has appeared in Journal of Marketing Communication and has recently been accepted by New Media & Society for publication. Her current research projects focus on parental mediation of children’s interactions with online advertising, children’s privacy disclosure on the Web, and consumer trust in health product websites. Prior to academia, Wonsun worked as an Account Research Manager at Gallup & Robinson, Inc. an advertising and marketing research firm in USA.
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01 Nov 2010
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Elaboration as Moderator for Framing Effects: Effects of Embedding “Incompetent Authority” Frame into Made-in- China Product Recall Coverage
by Pan Ji
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information Nanyang Technological University
Time:Wednesday, November 3, 1:30-2:30 p.m
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
To examine the mechanism of framing effect and cognitive elaboration’s moderating influence on it, this study conducted an experiment to investigate how embedding symbolic devices from the “Incompetent Authority” frame package into made-in-China product recall coverage influences readers’ cognitive activation, attitude toward Chinese products, elaboration depth and causal attribution. It was found that exposure to framed texts activated more frame-related thoughts that influence attitude; elaboration did not moderate the effect of cognitive activation on attitude or on causal attribution; and cultivated values such as consumer ethnocentrism played an important role in media effects. Implications for the prediction of framing effects and for U.S. media’s coverage of made-in-China product were discussed.
Speaker biography:
PAN JI (Ph.D. University of South Carolina) specializes in the use and effects of new media as well as media framing of global issues/events. Mostly engaging in quantitative investigations of media presentation and its social psychological effects, he draws heavily on the framing paradigm, social cognitive theory and concepts from the uses & gratification tradition. He participated in a series of National Social Science Foundation projects in China and also some Fulbright grant projects on International Communication and New Media. His research has been published in journals such as Journalism Studies, Telematics & Informatics, China Media Research and Journal of Internet Commerce.
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25 Oct 2010
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Creating Some Awareness in Virtual Humans and Social Robots
by Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann
Director
Institute of Media Innovation Nanyang Technological University
Time:Wednesday, October 27, 1:30-2:30 p.m
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
Since a few decades ago, we have seen the venue of Virtual Humans and more recently Social Robots. In our presentation, we will describe our research to define a common platform for interacting with Virtual Humans and Social Robots. For being able to interact, we need to define various personalities, memory processes, and relationship models. These features are highly inspired from models defined by psychologists. This kind of research is still in its infancy but has a bright future. Children could play better with social robots that normal dolls as these characters will be aware of children’s presence and emotions, and capable of actions or learning together. As most populations, particularly in the Western world, are aging, social robots or virtual humans could assist and coach elderly people, playing the role of therapist, or companions, decreasing the sense of loneliness of these people, and helping them in the long term. In our presentation, we will show how we create some kind of consciousness or awareness in these cyber entities and how they can start to interact with us, recognize us and remember us.
Speaker biography:
Prof. Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann has pioneered research into virtual humans over the last 30 years. She obtained several Bachelor's and Master's degrees in various disciplines (Psychology, Biology and Chemistry) and a PhD in Quantum Physics from the University of Geneva in 1977. From 1977 to 1989, she was a Professor at the University of Montreal in Canada. In 1989, she founded the interdisciplinary multimedia research group MIRALab at the University of Geneva. She has participated to several European Research projects related to virtual and augmented reality populated by virtual humans. More recently, she is doing research on social robotics and actively developed emotional robots in the European project INDIGO. She is Editor-in-Chief of the Visual Computer Journal published by Springer Verlag, and associate Editor of several other journals as for example the journal of Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds published by Wiley and IEEE Transactions on Multimedia. She was awarded a Doctor Honoris Causa in natural Sciences from the Leizniz University of Hanover in 2009 and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Ottawa in 2010. Recently this year, she was awarded the Eurographics Distinguished Career Award. Prof. Nadia Magnenat Thalmann is currently Director of the Institute for Media Innovation (IMI) at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
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13 Oct 2010
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Urbanity, Modernity, Identity and the Communication of Health and Wellness in the Radio Programmes of Radio Television Hong Kong
by Liew Kai Khiun
Assistant Professor
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information
NTU
Time:Wednesday, October 13, 1:30-2:30 p.m
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
This paper explores the role of health messages in the radio programmes of Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) in promoting public health discourses as notions of wellness among the city’s residents. From the recommendations of places for morning walks from DJs before the break of dawn, and advices by medical experts in the studio in midday to the discussions on Traditional Chinese Medicine and medical statistics after midnight, health messages dominate the government run radio station that was established in 1928. Underlying these discussions, public advisories and recommendations on RTHK radio channels are not just efforts in raising public awareness on specific clinical issues. More subtly, from casual mentions on the extent of pollution to more specialised topics on acupuncture, the radio station helps in defining the biopolitical requirements of urban living in the heavily polluted and densely populated postcolonial metropolis. With expectations of a growing health burden caused by an ageing society in fluctuating uncertain global economy which Hong Kong as a major financial centre is being tied to, RTHK’s radio programmes serve in getting its listeners to take greater responsibilities for their own well being by following healthy lifestyles that are associated with modern progressive urbane living. With attention in the non-Western world focused predominately on the dissemination of health messages by usually Western funded radio broadcasts in apparently impoverished agrarian societies with low literacy rates, the case of RTHK offers a potentially refreshing perspective of that of a highly urbanized and developed Asian city. In the geo-political context, with its airwaves reaching parts of the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, the mainly Cantonese language radio programmes of RTHK, have also become a vital source of information for mainland Chinese listeners who are subjected to more restrictive media regulations. Hence, for the case of RTHK, communicating health on the airwaves is not merely focused on attaining some level of behavioural change along safety and hygiene standards. Rather, on a daily basis, the radio station can be said to be defining, distinguishing, reiterating and communicating to both its residents and beyond, Hong Kong’s socio-cultural identity as a cosmopolitan, modern and healthy city.
Speaker biography:
Kai Khiun obtained his B.A (Hons 2nd Upper) and M.A. at the National University of Singapore and was awarded his doctorate from the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at University College London in 2007. Prior to his graduate training, Kai Khiun worked as a civilian officer at the Ministry of Defense (Singapore) as well as the Singapore International Foundation (an NGO) between 1997 and 2000. Upon completing his doctorate, he served in the National University of Singapore between 2007 and 2009 as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Cultural Studies Cluster of the Asia Research Institute, and a Visiting Fellow teaching Popular Culture at the Department of Sociology. On the level of community service, aside from serving in voluntary activities in a soup kitchen in London, as well as a Court Mediator in Singapore, Kai Khiun has been involved in a range of civil society groups like Transient Workers Count Too and the Singapore Heritage Society.
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6 Oct 2010
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Death in the digital age: The meandering meanings of death and implications for information management
by Natalie Pang
Assistant Professor
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information
NTU
Time:Wednesday, October 6, 1:30-2:30 p.m
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
“You aren’t a real community until you have a funeral” (Rheingold, 1993, p. 37).
The multifaceted layers of networks on the Internet offer a diversity of information resources, new social experiences, and interactions with others, free from the constraints of time and place. Such pervasive interactions have contributed to the socialisation of digital spaces, where meanings are made and participants in these spaces interact with references to their physical realities. Death and bereavement – an emerging area of research – is one such aspect of life that has been weaved in the fabric of life in digital spaces. Using Durkheim’s notions of society and social solidarity, the seminar will explore the meanings of death and bereavement in various examples of digital spaces, focusing particularly on the challenges for information management.
Speaker biography:
From Telnet to Second Life, Natalie has been exploring communal digital spaces since 1989. These explorations have informed much of her research on the knowledge commons. In 2009 her PhD thesis focusing on the commons and cultural resources won the Vice-Chancellor’s commendation for doctoral thesis excellence, and the Faculty of Information Technology’s doctoral medal at Monash University (Australia). Aligned with her research interests, she has been involved in projects involving open data/data curation, heritage informatics, and issues in creating and using co-created information resources. She is also a contributing member of Peer- to-Peer Foundation, a research network founded in Netherlands, and OnTheCommons, founded by David Bollier.
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29 Sept 2010
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Structural and Personal Influences on Individuals' Information Behaviour
by Joanna Sin
Assistant Professor
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information
NTU
Time:Wednesday, September 29, 1:30-2:30 p.m
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
This presentation introduces the Person-in-Environment (PIE) framework and a research design, developed by the presenter, to measure the relative impacts of socio-structural and personal factors on individual- level information behaviour. The information behaviour (IB) field needs to tackle two questions: 1) In a particular situation, how much of an individual’s information behaviour is influenced by personal characteristics? and 2) How much of this behaviour is shaped by one’s environment, such as socio-structural barriers? PIE is a beginning effort to address this agency-structure debate, which is a topic that confronts many social scientists. An empirical study of the library usage by 13,000 U.S. 12th graders will be presented to demonstrate PIE’s applicability. In PIE, personal characteristics and socio-structural factors are conceptualized as inter-related. Thus, they need to be tested simultaneously with a multivariate method such as structural equation modelling. Previously, it was difficult to link individual- and societal-level datasets because their units of observation often vary. This presenter proposed linking multiple datasets with geographic information systems (GIS). Spatial location such as the respondent’s postal code can be used as the basis for merging datasets. The PIE framework can contribute to theoretical and methodological development in IB research. It also offers scholars and policymakers a way to evaluate the contributions of information services on an individual’s life, while taking personal differences into account.
Speaker biography:
Joanna Sin holds a Ph.D. and a Master's degree in library and information studies from the University of Wisconsin- Madison. Previously, she received her Bachelor of Social Science degree from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Joanna's research interests include information behaviours, library services provision and use, and information equity. Using national statistics, social surveys and geospatial data, she has conducted nationwide studies on public and school libraries usage, and on U.S. library funding and service levels. Joanna has published in ISI-ranked journals and has presented papers in conferences such as the ASIS&T annual meeting. Before joining NTU, Joanna was a visiting assistant professor at the School of Library and Information Studies at UW-Madison. She has served as a peer reviewer for LIS journals and has professional experience working in technical and reference areas in academic libraries.
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22 Sept 2010
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Increasing the persuasiveness of gain vs. loss framing: The effects of gender and fear arousal on processing gain- vs. loss-framed breast cancer screening messages
by Hyo Jung Kim
Assistant Professor
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information
NTU
Time:Wednesday, September 22, 1:30-2:30 p.m
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
Based on prospect theory and framing literature, the current study investigated how the gain vs. loss framing effect would be moderated by the gender of message recipients and their fear arousal in the context of breast cancer screening (BCS) intervention. A 2 (male vs. female) x 2 (gain vs. loss) between-subject experiment was conducted with 128 African American participants (mean age = 45.9). The results showed that men and women processed the BCS messages with a different elaboration depth, and also perceived gain- vs. loss-framed messages differently. The findings provide practical implications for health communication practitioners into how to strategically use gain vs. loss framing in accordance with their target publics. As for the role of fear arousal, the results suggest that practitioners may need to actively utilize fear appeals, but use them cautiously by considering that the advantage of fear arousal might be contingent upon the combined frame type especially for systematic processors.
Speaker biography:
Hyo Jung Kim (Ph.D. University of Missouri) specializes in health communication; public relations; the psychological influence of media messages and social marketing campaigns. Her experience in Health Communication Research Center (HCRC) at University of Missouri-Columbia has allowed her to participate in a national health grant project on cancer for National Cancer Institute (NCI) and National Institute of Health (NIH). Her doctoral dissertation examined African American men and women’s responses to breast cancer screening intervention, generating practical implications for practitioners to develop effective health communication messages. Her research has appeared in journals such as Communication Research, CyberPsychology & Behavior, Public Relations Review, and Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising.
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15 Sept 2010
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Who We Are and What We Want: A Feminist Standpoint Approach to Defining Effective ICT Use for West Virginian Women
by Debbie Goh
Assistant Professor
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information
NTU
Time:Wednesday, September 15, 1:30-2:30 p.m
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
Feminist standpoints are forms of knowledge that serve as critical insight about how dominant society thinks and structures itself in relation to the oppression of marginalized groups. This research presentation discusses the use of Third world feminist epistemology as theory and method in gender digital divide research to establish the consciousness of Appalachian women left behind in the information society, and to enable them to define how ICTs can be used effectively and meaningfully in their struggles to improve their situations. The presentation will draw from findings of an ethnographic study that examines how women in West Virginia negotiate the complexity of their identities as mothers, wives and workers, alongside the structural factors that create the conditions for them to engage in computer learning and use. It also discusses how non-economic concerns become central in discussions about their experiences and lives, and identifies opportunities that will help them transcend their marginalized positions.
Speaker biography:
Debbie Goh is an assistant professor in the Division of Journalism and Publishing at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information. She received her Ph.D. in Mass Communication from Indiana University's School of Journalism. Her research focuses on gender and ICTs, the digital divide, and media framing. Before moving to Singapore, Debbie Goh lived in the Appalachian mountain state of West Virginia, where she made buckwheat cakes, canned blueberries, and raised her very own Mountaineer, all the while observing, listening and learning about the women of West Virginia as they related their life experiences while making the arduous journey into the wild frontier of the information society. "Who We Are and What We Want," winner of the 2010 International Communication Association Feminist Scholarship Division’s top student paper award, tells some of these stories.
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8 Sept 2010
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When I Play as a Black Man I Think More Violently: The Influence of Cultural Stereotyping in Video Games on Post Game Play Hostility
by Osei Appiah, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, School of Communication
The Ohio State University
Time:Wednesday, September 8, 1:30-2:30 p.m
Venue: WKWSCI, Level 4 Conference Room (#04-48)
Abstract:
Based on prospect theory and framing literature, the current study investigated how the gain vs. loss framing effect would be moderated by the gender of message recipients and their fear arousal in the context of breast cancer screening (BCS) intervention. A 2 (male vs. female) x 2 (gain vs. loss) between-subject experiment was conducted with 128 African American participants (mean age = 45.9). The results showed that men and women processed the BCS messages with a different elaboration depth, and also perceived gain- vs. loss-framed messages differently. The findings provide practical implications for health communication practitioners into how to strategically use gain vs. loss framing in accordance with their target publics. As for the role of fear arousal, the results suggest that practitioners may need to actively utilize fear appeals, but use them cautiously by considering that the advantage of fear arousal might be contingent upon the combined frame type especially for systematic processors. There has been a great deal of interest among researchers to identify patterns that exist between violent video game play and aggression. For example, are there certain features of video games that may interact to predict individual’s aggressive outcomes? The race of the characters combined with violent actions in a video game may activate well-learned Black cultural stereotypes among White video game players. The current presentation examines the impact of racial representation on character identification and post video game play hostility. Data examining Black and White participants demonstrate that cueing racial attributes in a video game influences identification and elicits stereotyping and violent thoughts among game players.
The findings and implications are discussed in the context of distinctiveness theory, theories of accessibility, and cultural voyeurism (Appiah, 2004).
Speaker biography:
Osei Appiah, Ph.D (email: appiah.2@osu.edu) Osei Appiah is an Associate Professor in the School of Communication at The Ohio State University. He holds a B.A. in Communication from Santa Clara University, an M.S. in Communication from Cornell University, and a Ph.D. in Communication from Stanford University. His professional experience includes market research at Yankelovich Partners, Inc., product marketing and customer research at Apple Computer, Inc., and sports marketing at Nike, Inc. He has also worked as a professor- in-residence and a multi-cultural media consultant for Ogilvy & Mather advertising agency in New York.
Dr. Appiah’s main research interests are in advertising effects on ethnic minorities, and the impact of ethnic identity on audiences’ responses to new media. His research is designed to uncover more effective ways to get ethnic minorities to respond to persuasive communication messages designed to change consumer and health behavior among members of their community. Recently, he has begun exploring the effects of violent video games on players’ perceptions of race, gender, self-esteem, body image, and aggressive attitudes and behaviors.
He has given formal talks and presented refereed research papers at international conventions such as: Society for Consumer Psychology, American Academy of Advertising, Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication, International Communication Association, and the Advertising & Consumer Psychology Conference. Dr. Appiah’s research has been published in leading academic journals such as the Journal of Advertising Research, Journal of Current Issues & Research in Advertising, Journal of Communication, Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, Human Communication Research, Howard Journal of Communications, Communication Research, Health Communication, and The Journal of Applied Social Psychology. He has been quoted in the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Columbus Dispatch, and other popular press outlets. He has been honored with a number of awards, including Top Faculty Paper Awards at the international conventions, and several teaching awards such as the ISU VEISHEA Award for Teaching, and the NAACP Teaching and Mentoring Award. Dr. Appiah also served as Head of the Advertising Division of the Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication (AEJMC).
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