Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism

The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society

https://www.bond.org.uk/sites/default/files/resource-documents/using_icts_to_create_a_culture_of_transparency.pdf

Using ICTs to create a culture of transparency: E-government and social media as openness and anti-corruption tools for societies

Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) has become a popular method for estimating path models with latent variables and their relationships. A common goal of PLS-SEM analyses is to identify key success factors and sources of competitive advantage for important target constructs such as customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, behavioral intentions, and user behavior. Building on an introduction of the fundamentals of measurement and structural theory, this chapter explains how to specify and estimate path models using PLS-SEM. Complementing the introduction of the PLS-SEM method and the description of how to evaluate analysis results, the chapter also offers an overview of complementary analytical techniques. A PLS-SEM application of the widely recognized corporate reputation model illustrates the method.

Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling

Online content providers such as YouTube are carefully positioning themselves to users, clients, advertisers and policymakers, making strategic claims for what they do and do not do, and how their place in the information landscape should be understood. One term in particular, ‘platform’, reveals the contours of this discursive work. The term has been deployed in both their populist appeals and their marketing pitches, sometimes as technical ‘platforms’, sometimes as ‘platforms’ from which to speak, sometimes as ‘platforms’ of opportunity. Whatever tensions exist in serving all of these constituencies are carefully elided. The term also fits their efforts to shape information policy, where they seek protection for facilitating user expression, yet also seek limited liability for what those users say. As these providers become the curators of public discourse, we must examine the roles they aim to play, and the terms by which they hope to be judged.

http://www.itu.dk/people/irsh/DMOK/Gillespie_10_PoliticsPlatforms.pdf

The politics of ‘platforms’

We -- the users turned creators and distributors of content -- are TIME's Person of the Year 2006, and AdAge's Advertising Agency of the Year 2007. We form a new Generation C. We have MySpace, YouTube, and OurMedia; we run social software, and drive the development of Web 2.0. But beyond the hype, what's really going on? In this groundbreaking exploration of our developing participatory online culture, Axel Bruns establishes the core principles which drive the rise of collaborative content creation in environments, from open source through blogs and Wikipedia to Second Life. This book shows that what's emerging here is no longer just a new form of content production, but a new process for the continuous creation and extension of knowledge and art by collaborative communities: produsage. The implications of the gradual shift from production to produsage are profound, and will affect the very core of our culture, economy, society, and democracy.

Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage

Recent years have seen the emergence of a new genre of user-driven Websites engaged in a novel form of news reporting which has been described as open publishing or open news, in analogy to the open source movement. Utilising state-of-the-art content management systems, these sites combine news, rumours and background information as well as community discussion and commentary on their chosen topic, and frequently serve as a first point of entry for readers interested in learning more about the field. Examples for this genre include Slashdot (http://Slashdot.org/), Openflows News (http://www.openflows.org/), and the Indymedia network (http://www.indymedia.org/). 

This book documents an extensive study of open news and related sites around the world, including interviews with staff of key sites in order to analyse their inner workings. It investigates the feasibility and the limitations of user community self-policing methods, and the effectiveness of the gatewatching process. It connects this with more recent developments in related areas, such as Weblogs and the Wiki movement, and develops a taxonomy of collaborative online publishing models. Overall, then, it charts the current state of play in the area of online gatewatching, open news, and participatory journalism, and provides the tools to analyse and classify the various forms of online publishing in this field.

Gatewatching: Collaborative Online News Production

As the use of Twitter has become more commonplace throughout many nations, its role in political discussion has also increased. This has been evident in contexts ranging from general political discussion through local, state, and national elections (such as in the 2010 Australian elections) to protests and other activist mobilisation (for example in the current uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen, as well as in the controversy around Wikileaks).

Research into the use of Twitter in such political contexts has also developed rapidly, aided by substantial advancements in quantitative and qualitative methodologies for capturing, processing, analysing, and visualising Twitter updates by large groups of users. Recent work has especially highlighted the role of the Twitter hashtag – a short keyword, prefixed with the hash symbol ‘#’ – as a means of coordinating a distributed discussion between more or less large groups of users, who do not need to be connected through existing ‘follower’ networks.

Twitter hashtags – such as ‘#ausvotes’ for the 2010 Australian elections, ‘#londonriots’ for the coordination of information and political debates around the recent unrest in London, or ‘#wikileaks’ for the controversy around Wikileaks thus aid the formation of ad hoc publics around specific themes and topics. They emerge from within the Twitter community – sometimes as a result of pre-planning or quickly reached consensus, sometimes through protracted debate about what the appropriate hashtag for an event or topic should be (which may also lead to the formation of competing publics using different hashtags).

Drawing on innovative methodologies for the study of Twitter content, this paper examines the use of hashtags in political debate in the context of a number of major case studies.

/pdf/the-use-of-twitter-hashtags-in-the-formation-of-ad-hoc-2oc92pog9e.pdf

The use of Twitter hashtags in the formation of ad hoc publics

In a ‘socially mobile learning environment’, it is no longer sufficient to use online learning and teaching technologies simply for the delivery of content to students. A ‘digital literacy’ exists where flexible and mobile technologies must be explored for collaborative and (co)creative purposes, as well as for the critical assessment and evaluation of information.
This paper will focus on the educational possibilities of blogs, wikis and RSS feeds. Blogs and wikis are two new content development and management technologies that enable an interactive and intercreative engagement amongst students and between students and teachers. RSS is a technology for syndicating information such as the content of websites. These technologies enable desirable practices such as collaborative content creation, peer assessment, formative evaluation of student work, individual as well as group reflection on learning experiences, and up-to-date information regarding changes in collaborative spaces, and can be used in the development of authentic learning tasks. An overview of each technology will be presented with pragmatic suggestions for their incorporation into the student learning experience.

The Use of Blogs, Wikis and RSS in Education: A Conversation of Possibilities

In a time of declining public trust in news, loss of advertising revenue, and an increasingly participatory, self-expressive and digital media culture, journalism is in the process of rethinking and reinventing itself. In this paper, the authors explore how journalism is preparing itself for an age of participatory news: a time where (some of) the news is gathered, selected, edited and communicated by professionals and amateurs, and by producers and consumers alike. Using materials from case studies of emerging participatory news practices in the Netherlands, Germany, Australia and the United States, the authors conclude with some preliminary recommendations for further research and theorize early explanations for the success or failure of participatory journalism.

/pdf/preparing-for-an-age-of-participatory-news-2on48eg97h.pdf

Axel Bruns

Papers

Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage

Gatewatching: Collaborative Online News Production

The use of Twitter hashtags in the formation of ad hoc publics

The Use of Blogs, Wikis and RSS in Education: A Conversation of Possibilities

Preparing for an age of participatory news