bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Political Learning in Post-Communist Elections
Authors: Dawisha Karen , Deets Stephen
Published: October 2006

This article draws several conclusions. First, that elections provide critical information for shaping behavior, since in the second and third rounds, party elites and voters behaved in ways that were rational considering the outcome of the previous election. Second, on the whole, states have adopted a variety of systems and rarely changed them in major ways after the second round of elections, indicating that electoral systems quickly become constraining institutions. Where they have been changed, movement has been away from the extremes of either high disproportionality or proportionality. Third, results from the first three rounds of elections indicate declines in party system fragmentation, disproportionality, volatility, and wasted votes, indicating a growth in strategic voting. Finally, except in the very important case of party volatility, and Russia, the view that there is a generalized gap between the post-Soviet cases and the East European cases is not supported by the evidence.
Locking Horns in the Istrian Political Arena: Politicized Identity, the Istrian Democratic Assembly, and the Croatian Democratic Alliance
Authors: Ashbrook John
Published: October 2006

Most scholars of the recent history of Yugoslavia and its successor states tend to focus on nationalism and its hegemonic role in the region. However, it is prudent to examine the role of subnational regionalism on the politics of the region as well. This article analyzes Istrian regionalism in Croatian politics during the 1990s. It investigates the struggle between the Croatian ruling nationalist party, the Croatian Democratic Alliance (HDZ), and its primary regionalist opponent, the Istrian Democratic Assembly (IDS). While the HDZ generally maintained a hegemonic position in much of Croatia, the IDS resisted with a hegemonic hold on the region of Istria. Ultimately, both parties’ popularity fell in the late 1990s with the upswing in the Croatian economy. The article concludes that in specific regions and under particular circumstances, regionalism can be as hegemonic as nationalism and should be taken into consideration when studying modern politics and the politicization of identities.
The Encounter between Jews and Poles in Lublin District after Liberation, 1944-1945
Authors: Blatman Daniel
Published: October 2006

In recent years, the historiography of Jewish-Polish relations after the Holocaust has often shown a marked tendency to trace the conflict between these peoples to the central role of Jews in the new communist ruling system. Poles murdered hundreds of Jews, mainly in 1944 to 1946, for various reasons—some ideological, others economic. The collective guilt that the Polish political right and some of Polish society assigned to the Jews, however, proves to be inaccurate when one examines the community of Jewish survivors who gathered in the Lublin district, the first area to be liberated from Nazi occupation (summer of 1944). Most survivors were roundly disinterested, let alone involved, in politics, and the issue of communism in Poland was totally alien to them. Their main concerns had to do with family property that had been abandoned during the deportations, an attempt to locate lost family members, and, above all, an effort to reengage with the life that the Nazi bloodbath had broken off. They were stunned to confront the intensity of Polish society’s resentment and hostility toward them and the governing authorities’ bureaucratic indifference. The conflation of these two factors prompted many to abandon their prior places of residence, to move to new areas of settlement, or to leave Poland forever.
The environmental impact of cities
Authors: Newman Peter
Published: October 2006

Cities are growing inexorably, causing many to think that inevitably their environmental impact will worsen. In this paper, three approaches to understanding the environmental impact of cities are analyzed, namely population impact, Ecological Footprint and sustainability assessment. Although the population impact model provides some perspective on local impact, and the Ecological Footprint model on global impact, only the sustainability assessment approach allows us to see the positive benefits of urban growth and provides policy options that can help cities reduce their local and global impact while improving their live-ability and opportunity, which continue to drive their growth. This approach is then applied in the city of Sydney.
Collaborative governance for sustainable water resources management: the experience of the Inter-municipal Initiative for the Integrated Management of the Ayuquila River Basin, Mexico
Authors: Montero Sergio Graf , Castellón Eduardo Santana , Rivera Luis Manuel Martínez , Ruvalcaba Salvador García , Llamas Juan José
Published: October 2006

This paper describes how ten municipalities within the Ayuquila river basin in Mexico formed a collaborative association to reduce river pollution and, more generally, to work together to improve living conditions and promote more sustainable management of natural resources within and across their administrative boundaries. It describes the improvements achieved and discusses the institutional arrangements for this association, including the involvement of local universities and state- and federal-level institutions, and provision for citizen participation. It also discusses the measures taken to ensure the association’s continued effectiveness, especially ensuring support from municipal politicians (who only have three-year terms of office), strengthening municipal-level technical capacity and what is needed to ensure the association’s effectiveness in the future.
The definition of child poverty: a discussion of concepts and measurements
Authors: Minujin Alberto , Delamonica Enrique , Davidziuk Alejandra , Gonzalez Edward D
Published: October 2006

This paper presents and discusses different concepts of child poverty, alternative definitions of children living in poverty, and measurement efforts in this regard. It addresses such questions as: who are the children living in poverty? Is the issue of children living in poverty recognized by and incorporated into anti-poverty strategies? Have governments, civil society organizations and international organizations identified and adopted policies to reduce child poverty? And is the situation of girls living in poverty taken into account? Several organizations have recently adopted human rights-based approaches to defining children living in poverty, and these definitions are included here. In general, however, the assessment finds that there is a lack of consideration of children’s issues in the debate on poverty. The lack of visibility has negative implications for anti-poverty strategies, which seldom consider that children and their rights are central to their design and implementation. In this paper, we argue that the lack of conceptualization and debate on the specificities of child poverty has enormous consequences for policy and, vice versa, that the income generation and sectoral focus of poverty reduction policies discourages a holistic response to children and families.
The missing population at the 2006 World Urban Forum
Authors: Chawla Louise , Bartlett Sheridan , Driskell David , Hart Roger , Olofsson Gabriella
Published: October 2006

This comment discusses the lack of attention given to children at the June 2006 World Urban Forum in Vancouver. Although progress was made in terms of the recognition given to youth at this Forum, only two out of 162 events focused on the concerns of children under the age of 15 - a group that constitutes almost one-third of the world’s population. This failure is not unique to this Forum, but reflects a broader failure to integrate attention to the priorities and involvement of children within development practice. The paper explains why this failure is significant, not only for children themselves but also for the successful implementation of the Forum’s more general concern with “urban sustainability”.
A Monkey Looking at a Watch
Authors: Morrison David E. , Svennevig Michael
Published: October 2006

Abtract: This paper proposes that to understand the meanings that technological innovation holds for social life, empirical evidence must accompany theoretical analysis. Using data from the large-scale and longitudinal UK-wide futura.com survey conducted by the University of Leeds (UK), the key questions of emergent technologies' relationships to the formation of social solidarity and identity, and the patterns of social activities found among IT users are addressed. The evidence to date does not support the argument that technological innovation is directly linked to changes in identity, or is resulting in declining levels of social activity. IT uptake is an evolutionary rather than revolutionary process.
Visual Forms of Representation and Simulation
Authors: Spielmann Yvonne
Published: October 2006

Chris Marker in his feature film Level 5 combines formal and structural elements of two different types of media: film and computer. Visually and narratively, he compares the essential characteristics of the analogue (film) and digital (computer) media. The feature film functions like a fictional documentary based on historical documents about the battle of Okinawa at the end of the Second World War. Within this narrative Marker develops a complex structure of media discourses where he interrelates, merges, and layers elements of different media and thereby gives an insight into the structure of intermedia and hypermedia and aesthetically differentiates between fiction and simulation.
Parallel Histories
Authors: Punt Michael
Published: October 2006

This article suggests ways in which research into a nineteenth- century technology such as early cinema might be valid in understanding digital technology. It identifies a number of stylistic resemblances between early cinema, personal computing and the internet. It also claims that there is some value in applying one analytical methodology to both 'old' and 'new' media. By looking at digital technology through the filter of an extremely well developed discourse in early film history, softer determinist accounts of digital technology can emerge which are not dependent on the premises of progress nor those of various forms of Postmodernist criticism. In a reverse angle, so to speak, it also argues that a close tracking of digital technology and its critical discourses as they unfold in various entertainment forms can tell us much about the attractions and fascinations that early cinema had a century ago had for its audiences. In short it claims a continuity in audio-visual history and criticism which is a valuable addition, even antedote, to the hyperbole and unsupportable technological determinism that digital media has attracted both in academic and commercial commentary.
Out and About on Japan's Gay Net
Authors: McLelland Mark
Published: October 2006

This paper looks at the development of media aimed at same- sex desiring men in Japan. The development of 'gay' magazines in the early 1970s is outlined, although terms such as 'gay' and 'homosexual' which were produced in a Western context are shown to have undergone a shift of meaning when imported to Japan. Many of the functions of these Japanese gay magazines are shown to have been taken over by gay sites on the internet. The variety of gay material on the internet is described, and, using interview information derived from Japanese gay men over the internet, the different ways in which these men use the internet is discussed. Finally, the role the internet is playing in the process of 'global queering' in which a variety of western discourses about homosexuality confront and interact with non-western indigenous constructions is questioned.
Hypertext and Association
Authors: Barnet Belinda
Published: October 2006

Contemporary debates concerning hypertext theory often question the place of the written word in visual media. Contrary to this, I argue that hypertext is first and foremost a visual, graphical medium. It is a way of spatialising ideas into discrete units which might be grasped by the mind and efficiently retrieved along lines of connections: association. This technique has a long history. There is a strange continuity in metaphor between early associationist models of memory, classical Greek systems of place-memory loci, sixteenth and seventeenth century philosophies of memory retrieval and the history of hypertext. I argue that hypertext belongs to this lineage.
Academic Computing and Beyond
Authors: Morbey Mary Leigh
Published: October 2006

Research studies, statistical reports, and popular press releases report the small numbers of women and minority populations involved with computer-based information technologies. This study examines the epistemological structure of computer science, analyses the historical development of computing with implications for current theory and practice, and explicates field data from a 1994-1996 qualitative survey questionnaire and interview research study searching out barriers particularly in academic computing. The paper summarises the theoretical framework of the inquiry, delineates a three strand methodology, reports findings, suggests strategies for breaking barriers taking into account developing countries, and outlines specific implications and opportunities for the new media arts.
Machines Drumming
Authors: Valsomis Peter
Published: October 2006

If 'groove' was originally a representation of the joy of human physical experience expressed through physical motion, then what has happened to the concept of groove since we have delegated this task to machines? Initially, drumming and musical groove were interactive, interpersonal phenomena rooted in one's physical experiences and memories. The introduction, and subsequently, widespread use of automatic rhythmical devices, such as the drum machine and music sequencing software, has problematised the definition of groove.
Viral Bodies, Virtual Practices
Authors: Hulsbus Monica
Published: October 2006

An additional measure of protection can be obtained by care in the way one uses a computer. Analogies with food and drug safety are helpful. Just as one would not consider purchasing food or capsules in unsealed containers or from untrusted sources, one can refuse to use any unsealed software or software from untrusted sources.... Never use a program borrowed from someone who does not practice digital hygiene to your own standards.1
Regulating Communications in the UK
Authors: Wheeler Mark
Published: October 2006

On the 12 December 2000, the British government presented its Communications White Paper A New Future for Communications. This document, which sets out the government's plans for a communications act, was jointly produced by the Departments of Trade and Industry (DTI) and Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and was published after the protracted period of consultation which followed the 1998 Green Paper entitled Regulating Communications: Approaching Convergence in the Information Age. Within the White Paper, the government envisaged that its recommendations should ensure that the UK would become home to the most dynamic and competitive marketplace in the world. Simultaneously, it suggested that these industrial objectives could be reconciled with social goals such as ensuring citizens and consumer rights to a universal access of diverse, high quality services and materials.1
Active Users and Active Objects
Authors: Caron André H. , Caronia Letizia
Published: October 2006

The purpose of this study was to focus on the subjective construction of the meaning people give to technologies and their uses within the family. The adoption and use of new communication technologies are interpreted as series of social actions undertaken by its members, under precise conditions, for specific motives. For this reason this research took us inside the homes of nine families (with and without children and teenagers), in a natural, everyday-life context of uses of communication technologies. We looked closely at the cumulating effects of household technologies in a contextualist-interactionist theoretical perspective and concentrated on analysing the synergy between three families of technology: telephone, television and the computer-internet.
Lessons from a 'Predictive History'
Authors: Kyrish Sandy
Published: October 2006

This study presents a history of videotex and online services as seen through predictions and forecasts made at different stages. It presents the primarily optimistic expectations for what was then a 'new technology' created by merging the television, telephone, and the computer. In the USA, videotex is often perceived as a major market failure that should have been easy to foresee. However, success was constrained by the centralised-services architecture and applications of the time, and by undue belief in the revolutionary potential of the technology. A decentralised approach, both in technology and in applications, enabled the success of the World Wide Web - and proved many early predictors to be prescient about applications that would be popular on an interactive network.
In Love with our Technology: Virtual Reality
Authors: Lauria Rita
Published: October 2006

The intellectual history suggests that desire for intelligence augmentation underlies the idea of virtual reality (VR). The assumption underlying this teleological thrust towards intelligence augmentation is that intellectual advances are made by improving and facilitating human thinking and problem solving. This was thought possible only if computers were integrated effectively into the whole ecology of thought by virtue of a human-computer partnership, or symbiosis. VR media are seen as augmenting intelligence by more direct, intuitive channelling of information through the senses to establish a more direct interface, or experience with knowledge. The history of the idea of virtuality shows that policy, personnel choice and placement, and research and development aimed to implement this vision for VR. Related work led to the internet as focus was placed on networked, cooperative interaction - computers and people working together to augment human intelligence.
Pioneers of the Early Digital Era
Authors: Aikat Debashis 'Deb'
Published: October 2006

This paper examines the innovative ideas and inventions that shaped and defined the evolution of early computing from 1833 to 1945. It documents the contribution of automatic digital computing by Charles Babbage in 1833; logician George Boole's concept of digital computer circuit design in the 1850s; Herman Hollerith's punch cards of the 1890s; Alan Turing's conceptual computing of the 1930s; and Vannevar Bush's 1945 vision of modern computing and 'Memex', the theoretical precursor of hypertext. Guided by actor-network theory and diffusion of innovation theory, this paper concludes that innovations are influenced by needs and effects of the age, the power of the printed word and the evolutionary process of diffusion are inevitable aspects of adoption and diffusion of new technologies, and 'lead users' and dominant technological designs shape media technologies.
Regulatory Change and Telecommunications Governance
Authors: Simpson Seamus , Wilkinson Rorden
Published: October 2006

Drawing on perspectives from telecommunications policy and neo-Gramscian understandings of international political economy this paper offers an explanation and analysis of the shifting patterns of regulation which have been evident in the telecommunications sector in recent years. It aims to illustrate, explain and explore the implications of the movement of regulatory sovereignty away from the nation-state, through regional conduits, to global organisations in the crystallisation of a world system of telecommunications governance.
The Debate over Universal Service in the European Union
Authors: Michalis Maria
Published: October 2006

This article looks at the concept of 'universal service' in the European Union (EU). It starts by placing the evolution of universal service policies into their national and EU contexts. The implications of liberalisation are then examined, followed by the more recent factors which have raised questions about the definition and delivery of universal service. Convergence in communication technologies, the prominent position that the vision of 'information society' occupies in the EU and national policy agendas, the internet and its commercialisation have all combined to bring renewed interest in the concept of universal service, in policy rhetoric at least. It is maintained that the focus of 'information society' and 'digital divide' policy frameworks has been misplaced. Drawing from a synthesis of former sector specific approaches, it is argued that the emphasis needs to shift from access to infrastructure (a traditional telecommunications consideration) to content issues. In turn, content regulation will continue to be important whilst intervention for the attainment of public policy objectives has already been proved necessary. Taking into consideration the weakness of the European Commission in dealing with content matters, it is suggested that reliance on the subsidiarity principle can assist member states to effectively perform their universal service policies.
Testing the Space of the Virtual
Authors: Lonsway Brian
Published: October 2006

Recently availed modes of mediated communication and perception, generally categorised as 'virtual experiences', have offered the designer of space a new array of spatial conditions to contend with. Each variety of virtual experience, from text-based discussion forum to immersive virtual reality environment presents challenges to traditional assumptions about space and its inhabitation. These challenges require design theorisation which extends beyond the notions of design within the virtual, or projected, space (the layout of the chat forum, the appearance of the virtual realm etc), and require a reconsideration of the entire apparatus of the mediating devices (the physical spaces which facilitate the interaction, the connection between them and the virtual space etc). This paper presents both an experimental framework for understanding the space of the virtual and outlines a current research project addressing these theoretical challenges through the spatial implementation of a synthetic environment.
Passages Across Thresholds
Authors: Fornäs Johan
Published: October 2006

This essay examines concepts of multimodality, intermediality and intertextuality within a wider cultural context of boundaries and transgressions. Earlier concepts of passages and thresholds may enrich today's understanding of recent mixtures and flows across borders within contemporary digital media culture. Charting traces from Walter Benjamin's Arcades Project through the borderlands of a contemporary shopping centre, this study explores late modern thinking about flows across borders in media culture and cultural studies, in which contextualising, dialogic and critical interpretation assume crucial functions. The combination of 'multi' and 'inter' stresses plurality and interrelations rather than monolithic and essentialist reductions. The first section presents sociological, anthropological and philosophical ideas of passages and borderlands. The second part outlines important kinds of media passages through real and virtual spaces. The third segment discusses interrelations between multi- and inter-concepts that have taken on a crucial significance for cultural theory, suggesting new ways of understanding their mutual connections.
Keeping Watch of Time
Authors: Mak Monica
Published: October 2006

Linking the concept of performance to spectatorship (eg the act of screening a film before an audience) and to craftsmanship (eg the act of suturing together filmic sequences), my paper will demonstrate that digital technology's impact on time within the cinematic realm has been promoting two concurrent phenomena, over the last decade: First, the digital, in the form of covert and overt digital special effects, has been influencing movie spectators' direct relationship to narrative time and space. Simultaneously, it has, in the form of digital non-linear editing (NLE), been leading to the rise of theoretical misconceptions about film editing's effect on thematic coherence, human agency, and film aesthetic, in relation to narrative chronology.
Digital Cinema
Authors: Culkin Nigel , Randle Keith
Published: October 2006

While the process of distributing and exhibiting a film has changed little over the past century, Digital Cinema, the process of using digitally stored data instead of strips of acetate, has arrived. With technology continuing to develop it is expected that d-cinema will overtake the quality of conventional cinema has within the next two years. This paper considers how the film industry might effect the transition from film to digital product.
Cyberporn, Sexuality, and the Net Apparatus
Authors: McCreadie Lillie Jonathan James
Published: October 2006

This article presents theoretical considerations based on cultural analysis approaches to studying pornography and sexuality as a means of starting to suggest new areas of cyberporn research. By bringing to the forefront concepts of how subjectivity and sexuality are produced within the computer/internet apparatus, I hope to diversify the focus in cyberporn research away from social science approaches and pre-Foucauldian assumptions of the subject that obscure understandings of new media and cyberporn use. Through a summary of visual culture studies and reception studies of pornography, I argue that cyberporn must be understood as contingent within the encoding and decoding processes and discourses of sexuality in which it is produced and consumed. My focus here is the home office/terminal as the site of reception/cyberporn use. While there is potential for a great variety of critical cultural approaches to the study of new media, pornography, and sexuality, I end with specific suggestions for researching cyberporn reception.
Online Personals and Narratives of the Self: Australia's RSVP
Authors: Smaill Belinda
Published: October 2006

Abstact: Online personals, also known as internet dating sites, are a fast growing phenomena on the web. This article focuses on one Australian site, RSVP, and seeks to understand the modes of subjectivity that are engendered by the practices and discourses of this cultural form. Central to this discussion are the construction of personal profiles, the processes of contacting other users online and in real space, and the way users of the site negotiate the codes and systems that govern RSVP. The ways in which the self is narrated through the use of online personals is structured both by the spatiality and the ordering of everyday life and the increasing intimacy of the computer/user relationship. It is also fundamentally bound up with the ideologies of consumer culture and the interpellation of the self-actualising, or enterprising, individual. This analysis works to locate the self of online personals within the current phase of modernity and its articulation in cultural theory.
d-Cinema — d-Déjà vu
Authors: Punt Michael
Published: October 2006

This essay is a response to the special issue on Digital Cinema. It is intended as a deconstructive contribution to the debates and argues that a reductive approach to the relationship between technology and culture leads to a skewed notion of how new technologies and the public interact. It suggests that a more sophisticated engagement with the academic discourse of Technology and Culture is called for in order to gain a fuller understanding of how technologies reach the state of mutual intelligibility necessary for successful innovation.
Constructing a Specific Culture: Young People's Use of the Mobile Phone as a Social Performance
Authors: Caronia Letizia , Caron André H.
Published: October 2006

This paper presents the main results of an exploratory qualitative study on the functions and meanings of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in young people's everyday life. Specifically, this study concerns teenagers' cultural ways of interpreting the mobile phone and its uses, as they become part of their social world. Through their accounts and narratives about 'young people's use of the mobile phone', teenagers construct their specific cultural model of this communication technology: it is seen as a radically social performance. Insofar as it is conceived as such, the mobile phone (MP) becomes a detonator of social thinking: it provokes reflective thinking on the ethics, etiquette and aesthetics of everyday action and social life. Reflecting upon the forms of use of the mobile phone, teenagers also explore the identity-making processes involved in the presentation of oneself on a public scene. In other words, they interpret and make the uses of the MP work as a social grammar through which people are supposed to define themselves and those around them. In this sense, using an MP in a teenage-appropriate way is not a matter of technical competence; it requires larger communicative skills that are cultural knowledge of when, where, why and, moreover, how to use this technology. Interpreted in the frames of teenagers' specific culture, the uses of the MP are also a tool for constructing the main dimensions of this culture and are used as a laboratory for the development of the skills needed to become competent members of their own community.
'You said I was not a man': Performing Gender and Sexuality on the Internet
Authors: Nyboe Lotte
Published: October 2006

The Turing Game was created by Joshua Berman and Amy Bruckman and was meant to provide people with an increased awareness of identity in online settings. Despite the fact that the mathematician Alan Turing lends his name to the game, Berman and Bruckman do not consider the machine's role in the interaction. In my analyses of gender games played in The Turing Game in the fall of 1999, I will go against the grain and produce a reading in which I emphasise the interface between interlocutor and machine as a vital circumstance for the production of identity. I focus on two issues in particular: gender as a technology and the relationship between enacted and represented bodies. In other words, I will in my discussion of The Turing Game and the performance of gender and sexuality on the internet strongly emphasise Turing and his thinking machines.
Convergence in North American TV Newsrooms: A Nationwide Look
Authors: Duhe Sonya Forte , Mortimer Melissa Marie , Chow San San
Published: October 2006

This article reveals that nine out of the ten television newsrooms surveyed in the USA are practising some type of convergence. The majority said they converged by sharing news content with other news organisations. When respondents were asked how they defined convergence, their responses virtually mirrored the way their organisations practise convergence. Interestingly, less than half of the respondents defined convergence as the use of one fully integrated newsroom. The researchers found the most common medium that convergent television news operations are producing content for is online, followed by radio, then newspaper. Those practising convergence reported it to be a positive experience.
The Changing Role of Broadcasters within Digital Communications Networks
Authors: Callanan Ronan
Published: October 2006

This paper examines the distribution requirements for digital services on separate content distribution systems. With the launch of digital broadcasting in many European states, the key drivers were considered to be its subscription and pay-per-view components. Little attention has been given to content policy. This article suggests that broadcasters and their associated interactive services will require national and European regulation to prevent the disenfranchisement of audiences who may not be able to pay for the full range of public and commercial television services. Such provisions will be subject to equitable and non-discriminatory access on each network. The paper explores the main difficulties facing the transmission of multiplex terrestrial content over digital cable, satellite and fixed line networks.
The Concept of Narrative: An Analysis of Requiem for a Dream(.com) and Donnie Darko(.com
Authors: Beck James C.
Published: October 2006

This article will discuss the concept of narrative and how this idea has been defined by writers from various academic specialisations such as film studies, literary studies, narratology and new media studies. This initial discussion of how narrative has variously been conceptualised leads to an analysis of several test case examples of 'official' websites from the films Donnie Darko (dir. Richard Kelly II, USA, 2001) and Requiem for a Dream (dir. Darren Aronofsky, USA, 2000), both still available at www.donniedarko.com and www.requiemforadream.com. The issue of establishing narrative in terms of its defining qualities and limits becomes important in assessing whether these particular test case websites qualify as narratives themselves and how they extend, supplement, reorient and supplant the cinematic texts. The analysis will apply various approaches and techniques from film/literary studies and narratology in an in-depth, close reading of the websites and films. In probing cases that are liminal in terms of the boundaries of narrative, the article suggests that some websites and films may be considered types of non-narrative assemblages that however still retain the emotionality and catharsis usually associated with narrative. The affective power of mainstream cinema and other media is usually assumed to be conveyed by patterns of narrative development through an arc-like, three-act structure and a highly-expected, final outcome, but this emotionalism may not be connected to narrative elements themselves. Lastly, the article will explore some of the methodological problems of analysing both film and computer media, as some writers tend to see the latter as ameliorating the supposed deficiencies of the former in way that instantiates and furthers a progressivist ideology and a technological determinism.
'Participation TV': Early Games, Video Art, Abstraction and the Problem of Attention
Authors: Wilson Jason
Published: October 2006

This paper examines early videogames as part of a tradition in twentieth-century art. Looking at Pong (Atari, 1972) alongside works of Barnett Newman and Nam June Paik, I argue that this tradition grapples with the problem of attention: how to engender a deeper relationship, or an intimacy, between a playing body, mediating spaces or technologies and a pictorial surface. It is this relationship which is the locus of aesthetic practice - flattened, abstract depiction grounds experimentation with new media in visual, cognitive and haptic consumption, production and, progressively, co-production. Shading this with ambiguity is the consideration that games, and the rest of the tradition, can be seen as part of a disciplinary reconfiguration of attention along the lines of postindustrial production.
An Intersection of Ideals: Journalism, Profits, Technology and Convergence
Authors: Quinn Stephen
Published: October 2006

Journalism needs advertising and advertising needs journalism: advertising pays for good reporting just as good reporting attracts customers for advertising. Problems arise when the equation becomes unbalanced, such as during the recessions in the early part of the twenty-first century. This paper asks the key question of whether editorial managers and journalists are embracing convergence at this time for business reasons or to do better journalism. It begins from the perspective that media organisations around the world are adopting various forms of convergence, and along the way embracing a range of business models. Several factors are influencing and driving the adoption of convergence - also known as multiple-platform publishing. Principal among them are the media's desire to reach as wide an audience as possible, consumers who want access to news in a variety of forms and times (news 24/7), and editorial managers' drive to cut costs. The availability of relatively cheap digital technology facilitates the convergence process. Many journalists believe that because that technology makes it relatively easy to convert and distribute any form of content into another, it is possible to produce new forms of storytelling and consequently do better journalism. This paper begins by defining convergence (as much as it is possible to do so) and describing the key competing models. It then considers the environments that lead to easy introduction of convergence, followed by the factors that hinder it. Examples of converged media around the world are provided, and suggestions offered on how to introduce convergence. The paper concludes that successful convergence satisfies the twin aims of good journalism and good business practices.
The Spanish Film Industry: New Technologies, New Opportunities
Authors: Kogen Lauren
Published: October 2006

Spain, like other countries of Western Europe, has struggled against Hollywood to maintain its national film industry. Most of the films that are produced lose money, and producers are increasingly reliant on state subsidies. This article outlines the potential benefits of digital technologies to Spanish cinema and recommends changes in government film policy to take advantage of these benefits. State subsidies, in Spain as well as elsewhere in Europe, have created a weak national film market. Most Spaniards view national cinema as low-grade, and consistently opt for foreign fare. This article argues that the government should decrease production subsidies in favour of an investment in digital theatre projectors, thus permitting all productions to take advantage of the cost-saving aspects of digital filmmaking. In the course of researching this article, interviews were conducted with among others Bigas Luna (director of Jamon, Jamon, 1992 and La Teta y la Luna, 1994); Tomás Pladevall (President of the Spanish Association of Cinematographers); José-María Aragonés (Artistic Director of Filmtel, the post-production arm of Filmax production company); Ricardo Gil (Marketing and PR Director of UCl/Cinesa theatres in Spain and Portugal); and J.M. Caparrós Lera (Director of the Center for Cinematic Research in Barcelona). All were interviewed about the audience appeal, artistic merit and technical advantages or disadvantages of the digital medium.
Mobile Performances of a Teenager: A Study of Situated Mobile Phone Activity in the Living Room
Authors: Tutt Dylan
Published: October 2006

This article emphasises the situated character of domestic mobile phone interactions. It investigates the importance of the mobile phone as both a communications and performance tool to Western teenagers in their formation of identity. Sociological research into the use of mobile phones by young people often neglects the domestic realm, from where a large proportion of text messages are sent. Combining theory with video data analysis of mobile phone interactions in the living room, the changing role performance of a teenager is traced as he attempts to negotiate his way to a party on a 'school night.' This video ethnography offers readings of how a mobile phone is used by a teenager to strike a 'stance-taking self' amid the contradictions of postmodern home life: the competing attentions of peer and 'family' group, the confusion of public/private spaces, conflicting household rules and moralities, and independence from and dependence on the 'family.'
The MediaMOO Project
Authors: Bruckman Amy , Resnick Mitchel
Published: October 2006

MediaMOO is a text-based, networked, virtual reality environment designed to enhance professional community among media researchers. MediaMOO officially opened on 20 January 1993 and as of December 1994 has more than 1000 members from 29 countries. An application is required to join, and only those actively engaged in media research are admitted
Beyond Images
Authors: Bove V. Michael
Published: October 2006

The idea of the image - a still two-dimensional projection of a moving three-dimensional scene - enabled the creation of electronic visual communications. But now that the capture, transmission, and display of visual information is mediated by very powerful computational devices, perhaps designing systems around images is hindering advanced thinking about, and applications for, visual communications.
Calling The Tune
Authors: Czencz Ian , Hayward Philip
Published: October 2006

This article follows-up a previous study - in the Spring 1995 issue of Convergence1 - which analysed the early development of music CD-ROMs with particular regard to Australian music industry initiatives. The 1995 study signalled the emergence of the Internet as a threat to the further development and exploitation of music CD-ROMs and noted that 'predictions as to when the Internet will effectively render music CD- ROMs redundant tend to opt for a five to 15-year period'.2 It also suggested that 'the two forms will be able to co-exist and complement each other (at least during a transitional stage).3 This article analyses these characterisations and conclusions with reference to the production and consumption of music CD-ROMs in Australia in the period 1995- 96. While the case studies offered here are specifically national, the analyses and prognoses are more generally applicable to the international music/media industry.
The Mortality of the Virtual
Authors: Mackenzie Adrian
Published: October 2006

The question 'what is virtual culture?' touches on the general limits of culture, and specifically on those limits concerned with mortality and death. Here, the virtual culture of information is characterised as an interaction between two different socio-technical drives and processes- the archive and real-time drives. The question of how this interaction can be culturally signified is discussed firstly in terms of various tendencies to integrate the two processes on the basis of pre-existing limits of culture, and secondly in terms of a concept of 'dead-time' which is implicit to the interplay between technology and culture. The latter concerns the ways in which the limits of culture can never be fully experienced or represented within culture except as an irreparable loss of presence.
Digitising the Beat
Authors: Chesher Chris
Published: October 2006

How do databases change policing? Police work is simultaneously heavily physical and highly bound by abstraction. Police exercise coercive power with the mandate of abstractions of law, regulations and record-keeping. In making an arrest, an officer acts physically, but also in language: transforming the subject into one in a state of being under arrest. This paper specifically examines the recently implemented Computerised Operational Policing System (COPS) to explore how computers affect the interplay of the abstractions of law and regulations with bodies in space.
Typologies for the Analysis of Computer Media
Authors: Mayer Paul A.
Published: October 2006

The present article discusses analytical typologies for communications research in the area of computer media. A critical position is taken to the general trend of communication science research on computer media, which tends to focus on technological form and theoretical distinctions stemming from the study of mass communication. An alternative description of computer media is developed which focuses on a) the computer's inherent semiotic nature and their capacities for symbol manipulation and b) the responsive context of reception characteristic of computer media. Four analytic typologies for research treating computer media are reviewed. A new typology which responds to the Peircean category of representation is introduced. This typology evaluates 'representational character' - differentiating common computer media by content scope, and temporal and spatial qualities.
Spatial Perception and Technologies of Cinema Sound
Authors: Langkjær Birger
Published: October 2006

Most film analysis features discussions and explorations of the visual track, while marginalising the soundtrack. In addition, soundtrack analysis itself can be limited to formalist descriptions of sound production or musical structures. This article argues for the incorporation in film analysis of theories concerning viewer perception, cognition and emotional response, particularly in relation to the soundtrack. It discusses sound space and perception through a brief study of technologies such as stereo sound, Dolby SR (Spectral Recordings) and digital sound. It examines the ways in which the development and introduction of these technological advances in film sound recording, mixing and cinema reproduction have affected the role of sound in film diegesis. 'Open' and 'compact' sound spaces are explored in relation both to these technologies and to the way in which film spectators respond to the events on the screen.
In the Slow Lane on the Information Superhighway: Hungary and The Information Revolution
Authors: Gulyás Ágnes
Published: October 2006

This article examines Hungary's response to the opportunities of the information revolution since the end of communism from an economic point of view reflecting on cultural aspects as well. It will argue that there have been significant advances in the development of the information sector in the country. However, because of the legacy of communism, economic difficulties and the unclear policies and disconcerted efforts of the first post-communist governments, the information revolution has made limited progress.
Waiting to X-Hale
Authors: Bury Rhiannon
Published: October 2006

In this paper, the author looks at the practices of community making on an electronic mailing list made up of female fans of the popular American television series, The X-Files. Based on ethnographic data collected over a one year period, the author argues that gender continues to be performed, albeit linguistically, in cyberspace, the members of the research list articulating both 'feminine' and 'feminist' identities when discussing both the television show and their lived experiences. Thus, the desire to create a space in which to share both the pleasures and pains of the often devalued 'feminine' remains a powerful one. The data also reveals, however, that this desire for commonality results in its own forms of exclusion and containment of difference.
Spider in the Web Free-Speech Faith vs. Parental Fears
Authors: Somerville Richard W. , Perry Earnest L. , Horvit Beverly , Wood-Turley Sharon , Sanders Keith P.
Published: October 2006

The debate over control of cyberspace is as much about how a society deals with the new digital world as it is about safeguarding the young from pornography on the internet. For the news industry, in the midst of its own debate over the role of 'new media' in its future, the stakes are high. This study uses Q methodology to illuminate two divergent views on the internet, one emphasising the First Amendment and the other stressing parental control. A Q study yielded two types: the 'Cyber-Jeuersonian', who firmly believes the government should not restrict cyberspace; and the 'Pragmatic Guardian', who has a greater interest in protecting children and less faith in the marketplace of ideas, and who believes some control is necessary. Recent polls and an apparent reinvigoration of the mass society theory indicate the Pragmatic Guardian's views are likely to be accommodated as legislation is crafted, industry response negotiated and parental action demanded.
The Day After Net Day
Authors: Bruckman Amy
Published: October 2006

To date, popular enthusiasm for educational applications of computer networking has outpaced scholarly research on their educational value. This article reviews a variety of approaches to educational use of the internet, and divides them into four categories: information delivery, information retrieval, information sharing, and technological samba schools. The pedagogical foundations of each approach are analysed. As we move through these approaches in order, the emphasis shifts from information to ways of knowing, and there is an increasing emphasis on community.