bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Sağlık İşletmelerinde Müşteri Odaklı Pazarlama Anlayışı İle Hizmet Kalite Algısı Arasındaki İlişki; Bir Hastane Örneği
Authors: Soysal Ayşe Nur , Koçoğlu Duygu
Published: April 2018

Müşteri odaklılık,
işletmelerin yürütmekte olduğu pazarlama faaliyetlerinde müşteri istek ve
ihtiyaçlarını göz önünde bulunduran bir pazarlama anlayışıdır. Günümüzde artan
rekabet ile birlikte sağlık sektöründe müşteri memnuniyeti ve hizmet
kalitesinin önemi her geçen gün artmaktadır ve müşteri memnuniyetinin
sağlanması işletme yönetiminin ve çalışanlarının müşteri odaklı olarak hizmet
vermeleriyle mümkün olmaktadır. Bu araştırmanın amacı; sağlık işletmelerinde
müşteri odaklı pazarlama anlayışı ile müşteri memnuniyeti ve hizmet kalite
algısı arasındaki ilişkiyi tespit etmektir. Araştırmada veri toplama aracı
olarak anket yönteminden yararlanılmıştır ve sağlık sektöründe hizmet veren
özel bir hastane çalışanları ve hastalarından araştırmaya yönelik veriler elde
edilmiştir. Araştırmanın bulguları sonucunda sağlık personelinin müşteri
odaklılık anlayışları ve hastaların müşteri odaklılık algıları arasında
istatiksel olarak anlamlı bir farklılık olduğu ortaya çıkmıştır.
Prevalencia de trastornos mentales y uso de servicios. Resultados preliminares del estudio nacional de salud mental, Colombia, 2003.
Authors: Posada  Villa José
Published: April 2018

En el estudio nacional de salud mental, realizado mediante CIDI y el CIE-10 se éncontro que de 4.544 colombianis de cinco regiones urbanas, de 18 a 65 años; 40.1% presentó como mínimo un trastorno algunavez, el 16,0% en el último año y el 7,4 el último mes. Los más frecuentes fueron los trastornos de ansiedad ( 19,3% alguna vez),  los afectivos (15,0%) los fóbicos (12,6 alguna vez), el episodio depresivo mayor ( 12,1%), ansiedad de separación del adulto (8,2%), abuso de alchol (6,7%) trastornos de conducta (5,5%) y los de uso de sustancias (10,6%) de inico temprano el déficit de trastornos de conducta ( 5 años), la fobia específica (7años), el de ansiedad de separación (8 años), el de conducta y negativista desafiante (10 años). Bogotá tiene mayor prevalencia de los tratornos de estado de ánimo ( 476,7%) los trastornos de sustancias (12,3) la región pacifica. El 4,9% de la población ha intentado suicidarse alguna vez, el 1,3 en el último mes.
Modelo de rehabilitación integral
Authors: Valero Pérez Mercedes Del Pilar
Published: April 2018

El propósito de este artículo es dar a conocer el modelo de rehabilitación integral siendo el que logra hasta nuestros días el mayor acercamiento como parte de la solución al complejo mundo del usuario con discapacidad. enfatizando en los aspectos multidimensionales que hacen parte de las necesidades axiológicas existenciales del ser humano, desde las habilitades físicas que facilitan las actividades básicas cotidianas y las de la vida diaria. las emociones que retoman la personalidad, autoestima, relaciones afectivas y manejo de dificultades entre otros. hasta los trazos sociales que marcan el aislamiento, el cambio de rol laboral, familiar, social y recreativo. El modelo es facilitador de la autonomía. la integración, el reconocimiento de capacidades y derechos humanos. permitiendo apoyos intrínsecos y extrínsecos por parte de la comunidad . los profesionales en la salud y las políticas gubernamentales llevando al individuo rehabilitado a la reinserción familiar; social, y laboral dentro del contexto y medio ambiente en el cual se ha desempeñado. Es importante anotar que através de todas las épocas se han formulado muchos modelos los cuales se harà remembranza dentro del artículo analizado sus aspectos positivos y negativos ya que permitieron en su momento el favorecimiento de la persona con discapacidad. y muchos modelos aún está vigentes.
Trauma del nervio periférico en pacientes que asistieron a medicina electodiagnóstica en el servicio de medicina física y rehabilitación del hospital Militar Central entre enero de 2004 y diciembre de 2005
Authors: Massaza Guido
Published: April 2018

Entre 2004 y 2005 en el servicio de medicina física y rehabilitación del Hospital Militar Central se examinaron 213 pacientes y 313 nervios con sospecha de lesión de nervio periférico por trauma. El objetivo fue determinar la severidad de las lesiones, su evolución, las causas más comunes y los nervios más lesionados mediante estudios de neuroconducción y  electromiografia. En promedio re realizó el 3xamen 9.7 meses (295 días) después de la lesión. La edad promedio fue de 26.8 años. 6,5% de ellos eran mujeres y 93,5 hombres, La mayor parte de los pacientes fueron soldados. Los nervios más lesionados fueron el nervio cubital (68 sin combinación con mediano y/o radial, 80en total), el mediano (52), y en miembros inferiores el ciático políteo externo (36). La causa más común fue la herida por arma de fuego. Los nervios examinados en control mostraron en su mayor parte evolución positiva.
La prescripción del ejercicio físico en el niño y el adolescente
Authors: Correa Jorge
Published: April 2018

El ejercicio físico tiene beneficios en cualquier etapa de la vida; Sin embargo, la prescripción de éste varía más si se tiene en cuenta las diferencias morfofisiológicas de los sujetos sobre todo en las primeras etapas del ciclo vital. El presente artículo tiene como objetivo presentar los resultaods de la revisión documental, alrededor de los lineamientos geenerales propuestos en la litetatura cientifica, en cuanto a los principios de la prescripción aplicados al niño y al adolescente, describiendo aspectos distintivos de su condición en cada etapa, de los beneficios del ejercicio físico regular, de la evaluación de los fitness físico y de las recomendaciones para la prescripción.
Visual scale and Naturalness of Roadside Vegetation Landscape. An exploratory study at Pargua Highway, Puerto Montt – Chile
Authors: Ojeda Carolina G.
Published: April 2018

Over the last few decades, the Chilean Government has constantly promoted the construction of private highways in order to increase the effectiveness in terms of transportation of goods and people all along the country. In this way, heavy road infrastructures, landscape fragmentation, loss of endangered animals’ habitat, loss of visual quality, and a decrease of biodiversity patches have emerged. Despite this, some greenery – native and introduced flora/fauna, natural elements, colors, lines, patterns, among others- can be partly seen in certain areas of Chilean highways. In particular, this paper focuses on the main route connecting Puerto Montt and Pargua cities in Los Lagos region.The objectives of this qualitative research are threefold. Firstly, to measure main Landscape attributes and Visual scale characteristics through a fieldwork by the roadside of Pargua highway (Alto Bonito Area) using a scale of attributes adapted from Tveit et al. (2007). Secondly, to measure the type of vegetation through an environmental inventory (phytosociological analysis). Thirdly, to measure the degree of management of the highway considering its maintenance and human intervention.Wilderness and Naturalness are scarcely observed on the roadside due to a concentrated presence of human interventions such as landfills and overpasses. The visual scale is checked in fieldwork from several scopes. On the southeast side of the road, Las Canchas Area is covered by high trees, houses, and industries which hinder the view of the natural surrounding landscape. On the right side of the road, it presents a clear skyline of Calbuco and Osorno volcanoes. Finally, any management of high quality of the visual scenery of this type of landscape from the route concessionaire is is randomly done. However, the vegetation surface itself has been working out a way to protect the land from erosion and desertification.
Wind Interference Effect for Overall Design Load on Mid-Rise Building
Authors: Al-Zaidee Salah Rohaima , Kasim Alfadhel Basil
Published: April 2018

The constructed building in the urban area is subject to wind characteristics due to the influence of surrounding buildings. The residential complexes currently being built in Iraq represent a case study for the subject of this research. Therefore, the objective of this study is to identify the interference effect because of adjacent buildings effects on the mid-rise building. The speed and pressure of the wind have been numerically simulated as well as wind load has been simulated by using a virtual wind tunnel which is available in Autodesk Robot Structural Analysis, RSA, software. Two identical adjacent buildings have been simulated and many coefficients were included in this study such as the spacing, directionality, and elevation of adjacent building coefficients. The results of the study showed that the neighboring building could increase or decrease the wind pressure significantly so that it cannot be neglected.
Structure and scheme of touristic products. Case of Uzbekistan
Authors: Tursunova Gulmira Rabbonovna , Tursunov Eldor Rabbonovich
Published: April 2018

This paper provides theoretical points and structural policy of touristic products in the case of Uzbekistan. On this way, major elements and components of this term were discussed and analyzed in this paper. Moreover, determinants of touristic packages and creation of tours were also observed in the question. Finally, major points of touristic products with its overall shape in Uzbek tourism market were mentioned as whole
A Study of Living Godess Kumārī: The Source of Cultural Tourism in Nepal
Authors: Ghimire Him Lal
Published: April 2018

The Kumārī- living goddess, as the spirit of the goddess of power believed to be embodied in a long succession of Nepali virgin girls, has been worshiped for centuries. The Kumārī is a prepubescent girl who is hailed as manifestations of divine and spiritual energy, the living incarnation of the Hindu goddess of power; for Buddhist devotees, the Kumārī is a manifestation of Vajradevi or Tara. The most important requirement is that the girl has never menstruated. Hindu and Buddhist devotees bow their forehead on the toes of the living goddesses the Kumārī with high level of respect to fulfil their wishes. The Kumārī is commonly “Mother Deity or Kumārī ma”. As a Mother Deity it is believed that the Kumārī can transmit power or śakti directly into the bodies of those devotees who come to have her audience (darśana). The Kumārī culture is Nepali’s identity and historical cultural heritage. The Kumārī culture has a huge potential to develop cultural tourism in Nepal however, it has not been well-known to the rest of the world adequately. It is one of the country’s oldest tradition and should be preserved.The Gaze: Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Vol.9 2018 p.23-42
Tourism Education, Curriculum Spaces, Knowledge Production, and Disciplinary Pluralism
Authors: Kunwar Ramesh Raj
Published: April 2018

In course of designing the courses, the present author in the phase of curriculum coordination, consulted various research papers and books based on the theoretical models of tourism and hospitality education. The review of those works not only have broadened the mind of curriculum designer but also has given knowledge education on various fields of tourism education. It is strongly believed that tourism education will become the backbone and impetus for making tourism as an institution and industry stronger. One of the most important aspects of studying tourism is disciplinarian approach. The sources of knowledge production are based on monodiscipline, multidiscipline, interdiscipline, transdiscipline, extradiscipline, postdiscipline, antidiscipline, metadiscipline and nomadology also coined as disciplinary pluralism or plurydisciplines that have created a disciplinary dilemma. The curriculum should be designed on the basis of praxis and phronesis (Aristotalian thought based on application and theory), Tourism Education Future Initiative’s ( TEFI ) model, John Tribe’s (1997) model ( TF1 and TF2) , Echtner’s (1995) three pronged approach, Mayaka and Akama’s (2007 & 2015) curriculum space model and Koh’s (1994) marketing approach and others. All the above mentioned theoretical models and approaches will help in thinking of and thinking for tourism and hospitality. Simultaneously, it will also help for knowing, seeing, doing and being in the field of education in relation with tourism, hospitality and events (THE). But in this study, only tourism education has been prioritized.Tourism academic world has debated and advocated regarding different approaches, concepts, models, theories and paradigms developed by different scholars of tourism and hospitality.The scientific and reliable arguments have been occurred in different timelines, centralized on tourism education, research, knowledge, phenomena, normative and existential knowledge, successful intelligence, learning, life-long learning, collaboration, professionalism competences, scholarship, disciplines, academic territory, academic tribe, field, forcefield, studies, knowledge production, philosophic practitioner, curriculum space, management, social sciences, disciplinary pluralism, liberal and vocational balance in the field of tourism and hospitality subjects that have become the force for understanding tourism education in a better way.The Gaze: Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Vol.9 2018 p.83-155
Needle Stick Injuries: A study Among Health Care Workers Tertiary Care Centre Nepal
Authors: Bajracharya Manjari , Bhandari Sushila
Published: April 2018

Introduction: A needle stick injury is a percutaneous piercing wound typically set by a needle point but possibly also by other sharp instruments or objects commonly encountered by health care professionals because of the risk to transmitting blood borne diseases like Hepatitis B Virus (HBV), Hepatitis C (HCV) and Human Immuno Deficiency Virus (HIV). The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence, causes, awareness and knowledge regarding Needle Stick Injury among health care workers Tertiary Care Centre of Nepal.Methods: A descriptive cross sectional study was conducted in 350 staffs of Tertiary Care Centre Nepal, from June to August 2013. Data was collected through semi-structured self-administered questionnaire. All the collected data was processed and analyzed by using descriptive statistics namely the frequency and percentage. Results: The study showed that out of the 350 respondents, 65.1% had there medicinal years of practices extended to five years. Among the responses 44.8% mentioned, highest number of needle prick was observed when recapping the needles due to long working hours. About 64.6% respondents washed their hands with soap, water or other antiseptics for effective post exposure preventive measures and 24.9% had access to infection control protocol.Conclusions: Despite the awareness regarding needle stick injury and its preventive measures, health care workers are yet bound to face it often during their surgical or medicinal area of practice due to monotonous and long working hours.
Laparoscopic Groin Hernia Repair with TAPP: Experience at a Tertiary Level Hospital
Authors: Malla Srijan , Rayamajhi Jyoti , Bhat Pawan Singh , Amatya Bishwo Ram , Rawal Sushil Bahadur
Published: April 2018

Background: Groin hernia represents a significant volume of workload at the department of surgery, Shree Birendra Hospital constituting about 25% of total general surgical operations annually. Regular laparoscopic repair is now being done at the hospital. Hence, a retrospective study was performed to assess safety, feasibility, return to work and associated complication during the learning curve.

Method: A single institution, single unit retrospective study of all TAPP hernia repair performed at the department of surgery from Dec 2016 to Nov 2017. Data of all patients undergoing TAPP were obtained from a proforma attached to the case file during patients’ admission and retrospectively analyzed.

Results: A total number of 41 patients underwent the surgery including three bilateral hernias giving a total of 44 TAPPs being performed during the study period. Age group varied from 19 years to 72 years and a male dominance with 40 males to one female. Four patients underwent surgery for recurrent hernia following open surgery. Per operative findings of indirect hernia was noted in 39, direct in 4 and femoral in the only female patient. Duration of surgery ranged from 128 mins to 47 mins with progressively decreasing time in the second half of the study period. Complications encountered in the post-operative period were seroma in four patients, peritonitis in one and recurrence in one patient. Patients were discharged in median two days with the serving soldiers sent back to their respective units in median 7 days.

Conclusion:   Laparoscopic repair of groin hernias can safely be carried out in our settings with the TAPP method with all the established advantages of a minimal access surgery.
Needle Stick Injuries: A study Among Health Care Workers Tertiary Care Centre Nepal
Authors: Bajracharya Manjari , Bhandari Sushila
Published: April 2018

Introduction: A needle stick injury is a percutaneous piercing wound typically set by a needle point but possibly also by other sharp instruments or objects commonly encountered by health care professionals because of the risk to transmitting blood borne diseases like Hepatitis B Virus (HBV), Hepatitis C (HCV) and Human Immuno Deficiency Virus (HIV). The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence, causes, awareness and knowledge regarding Needle Stick Injury among health care workers Tertiary Care Centre of Nepal.

Methods: A descriptive cross sectional study was conducted in 350 staffs of Tertiary Care Centre Nepal, from June to August 2013. Data was collected through semi-structured self-administered questionnaire. All the collected data was processed and analyzed by using descriptive statistics namely the frequency and percentage. 

Results: The study showed that out of the 350 respondents, 65.1% had there medicinal years of practices extended to five years. Among the responses 44.8% mentioned, highest number of needle prick was observed when recapping the needles due to long working hours. About 64.6% respondents washed their hands with soap, water or other antiseptics for effective post exposure preventive measures and 24.9% had access to infection control protocol.

Conclusions: Despite the awareness regarding needle stick injury and its preventive measures, health care workers are yet bound to face it often during their surgical or medicinal area of practice due to monotonous and long working hours. 
Persona Rights for User-Generated Content: A Normative Framework for Privacy and Intellectual Property Regulation
Authors: Shepherd Tamara
Published: April 2018

This article introduces the term “persona rights” as a normative conceptual framework for analyzing the language of regulatory debates around privacy and intellectual property online, mainly from a Canadian perspective. In using the concept of persona rights to interrogate and critique the current limitations of regulatory discourses in protecting user rights online, the legal implications of persona rights law are translated into more conceptual terms. As a normative framework, persona rights is shown to be useful in addressing the gaps in regulatory understandings of privacy and intellectual property – particularly in spaces for user-generated content (UGC) – and in suggesting how policy might be written to account for user rights to the integrity of identity in commercial UGC platforms.
Which Alternative? A Critical Analysis of YouTube-Comments in Anti-Fascist Protest
Authors: Neumayer Christina
Published: April 2018

This article examines the critical potential of YouTube-comments to foster the development of counter public (Negt and Kluge 1972). The argument is based on an analysis of YouTube-comments in anti-fascist protests taking place in East Germany in 2011. The comments represent political positions across the political spectrum and are analyzed as: [1] form of the comments; [2] different political positions as friend-enemy constellations; [3] the struggle for attention in the mass media; [4] the critical potential of the different alternatives represented in the comments. The article concludes with a discussion of the emancipative potential of social web platforms such as YouTube to support the struggle from below and to give voice to oppressed political positions.
Review: Migration and New Media: Transnational Families and Polymedia (Mirca Madianou and Daniel Miller)
Authors: Faith Becky
Published: April 2018

Review of Migration and New Media: Transnational Families and Polymedia (Mirca Madianou and Daniel Miller)
How Less Alienation Creates More Exploitation? Audience Labour on Social Network Sites.
Authors: Fisher Eran
Published: April 2018

Abstract: The notion of audience labour has been an important contribution to Marxist political economy of the media. It revised the traditional political economy analysis, which focused on media ownership, by suggesting that media was also a site of production, constituting particular relations of production. Such analysis highlighted the active role of audience in the creation of media value as both commodities and workers, thus pointing to audience exploitation. Recently, in light of paradigmatic transformations in the media environment – particularly the emergence of Web 2.0 and social network sites – there has been a renewed interest in such analysis, and a reexamination of audience exploitation. Focusing on Facebook as a case-study, this article examines audience labour on social network sites along two Marxist themes – exploitation and alienation. It argues for a historical shift in the link between exploitation and alienation of audience labour, concurrent with the shift from mass media to social media. In the mass media, the capacity for exploitation of audience labour was quite limited while the alienation that such work created was high. In contrast, social media allows for the expansion and intensification of exploitation. Simultaneously, audience labour on social media – because it involves communication and sociability – also ameliorates alienation by allowing self-expression, authenticity, and relations with others. Moreover, the article argues that the political economy of social network sites is founded on a dialectical link between exploitation and alienation: in order to be de-alienated, Facebook users must communicate and socialize, thus exacerbating their exploitation. And vice-versa, in order for Facebook to exploit the work of its users, it must contribute to their de-alienation.
Emergent Information. When a Difference Makes a Difference…
Authors: Hofkirchner Wolfgang
Published: April 2018

Gregory Bateson’s famous saying about information can be looked upon as a good foundation of a Unified Theory of Information (UTI). Section one discusses the hard and the soft science approaches to information. It will be argued that a UTI approach needs to overcome the divide between these approaches and can do so by adopting an historical and logical account of information. Section two gives a system theoretical sketch of such an information concept. It is based upon assuming a co-extension of self-organisation and information. Information is defined as a tripartite relation such that (1) Bateson’s “making a difference” is the build-up of the self-organised order; (2) Bateson’s “difference” that makes the difference is the perturbation that triggers the build-up; (3) Bateson’s difference that is made is made to the system because the perturbation serves a function for the system’s self-organisation. In semiotic terms, (1) a sign (= the self-organised order) relates (2) a signified (= the perturbation) (3) to a signmaker (= the system). In a third section, consequences of this concept for the knowledge about techno-social information processes and information structures will be focused on.
The Construction of Platform Imperialism in the Globalization Era
Authors: Jin Dal Yong
Published: April 2018

In the early 21st century, platforms, known as digital media intermediaries, have greatly influenced people’s daily lives. Due to the importance of platforms for the digital economy and culture, including intellectual property and participatory culture, several countries have developed their own social network sites and Web portals. Nonetheless, a handful of Western countries, primarily the U.S., have dominated the global platform market and society. This paper aims to historicize the concept of imperialism in the globalized 21st century. It investigates whether the recent growth of American-based platforms has resulted in a change to the fundamental idea of the imperialism thesis by analyzing the evolutionary nature of imperialism towards platform imperialism. It then addresses whether we are experiencing a new notion of imperialism by mapping out several core characteristics that define platform imperialism, including the swift growth and global dominance of SNSs and smartphones. It pays close attention to the capitalization of platforms and their global expansion, including the major role of intellectual property rights as the most significant form of capital accumulation in the digital age. It eventually endeavors to make a contribution to the platform imperialism discourse as a form of new imperialism, focusing on the nexus of great powers.
Editorial: tripleC’s 10th Anniversary and Its New Title tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique. Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society
Authors: Fuchs Christian
Published: April 2018

This editorial introduces the background for tripleC’s name change to tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique. Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society.
Is All Reification Forgetting?: On Connerton’s Types of Forgetting
Authors: Timcke Scott
Published: April 2018

Drawing upon the Frankfurt School Critical Theory tradition, I offer a defence of Connerton’s version of collective forgetting against recent detractors. This defence, however, is qualified and pertains strictly to geography and material culture aspects of collective forgetting. In this respect, the paper argues that models of individual and collective memory must attend to the historical forces that combine to (re)produce a particular environment, and further, they should consider the subsequent role the reproduction process plays on triggering moments of recollection or collective memory actions. To explicate this claim, I draw upon a Marxist inspired account of the labour process to show that variations in types of consciousness are related to particular modes of production. It is my intent to explicate Connerton’s theoretical reasoning such that readers from diverse backgrounds are better informed about his underlying set of assumptions. In this respect, this paper aims to contribute to advancing a political economy of memory.
Ideology, Politics, and Opinion Journalism: A Content Analysis of Spanish Online-Only Newspapers
Authors: Pineda Antonio , Almiron Núria
Published: April 2018

This study examines the ideological slant of Spanish digital-native opinion journalism. Political-ideological pluralism is a well-researched topic in media and journalism studies, yet there is less research regarding this topic when it comes to exclusively online media. This paper addresses that gap concerning the ways online-only opinion journalism can be defined in terms of their political ideology, and to what extent extreme ideological positions are represented in online journalism. Evidence from a content analysis of opinion columns appearing in the most widely-read Spanish online newspapers, during the month of May 2011 shows a general anti-left bias in the opinion sections of the newspapers , as well as a representation of the political extremes that is slightly more lenient with the far right. In line with Hallin and Mancini’s theory of polarized political news environments in countries like Spain, our results show that this polarization is characterized by a strong—but not always explicit—dominance of right-wing views.
Hacking in the University: Contesting the Valorisation of Academic Labour
Authors: Winn Joss
Published: April 2018

In this article I argue for a different way of understanding the emergence of hacker culture. In doing so, I outline an account of ‘the university’ as an institution that provided the material and subsequent intellectual conditions that early hackers were drawn to and in which they worked. I argue that hacking was originally a form of academic labour that emerged out of the intensification and valorisation of scientific research within the institutional context of the university. The reproduction of hacking as a form of academic labour took place over many decades as academics and their institutions shifted from an ideal of unproductive, communal science to a more productive, entrepreneurial approach to the production of knowledge.  A such, I view hacking as a peculiar, historically situated form of labour that arose out of the contradictions of the academy: vocation vs. profession; teaching vs. research; basic vs. applied research; research vs. development; private vs. public; war vs. peace; institutional autonomy vs. state dependence; scientific communalism vs. intellectual property.
How the New World Order and Imperialism Challenge Media Studies
Authors: Nordenstreng Kaarle
Published: April 2018

This article first reviews the notion of the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) and lessons that can be learned from it. It then discusses how to best conceptualize a) imperialism and b) media and cultural imperialism today, mainly based on the works of Christian Fuchs. The paper takes issue with Colin Sparks’ article “Media and Cultural Imperialism Reconsidered”, published in the Chinese Journal of Communication in 2012. Both Sparks and Fuchs argue that we have to reconsider the concept of cultural and media imperialism, but they do it in fundamentally different ways. The article exposes the problems of a revisionist approach, as taken by Sparks, but it also advocates a radical approach that is analytical and reflective rather than straightforward and action-oriented.
Complexity, Relatedness and Uncertainty in Contemporary Social Science: A Preliminary Reflection
Authors: Tsekeris Charalambos , Papadopoulou Olga
Published: April 2018

This concise preliminary reflection seeks to offer a fresh transdisciplinary lens to comprehensively discern and evaluate the various interlinks and overlaps between theory and methodology in current social scientific thought. A brief elaboration on the metatheoretical issues of complexity, relatedness and uncertainty encourages a suitable and sustainable analytic framework for generating, developing and cultivating a more open, dialogical and critical-reflexive way of perceiving social science and the precarious social world in general.
Open Access Publishing from the Legal Point of View. Why Freedom of Information Rules and Other Legal Principles Matter. Towards A New Fair Open Access Model.
Authors: Kolman Jiří , Kolman Petr
Published: April 2018

This article focuses on aspects that, as far as we know, have never been discussed in previous debates dealing with open access. The EU and national competition legal rules ensuring fair competition are a rather neglected aspect of open access. Another crucial topic is the unfairness of the current publication system. Why should commercial publishers be paid by publicly supported research such as EU or national research programmes? In the article a new publication model is suggested. The proposed model is trying to keep high research standards, to be fair to researchers and the public and to take into account the actual costs of the new open access model.
Socialist Licenses? A Rejoinder to Michel Bauwens and Vasilis Kostakis
Authors: Meretz Stefan
Published: April 2018

This article is a critical reflection on Michael Bauwens and Vasilis Kostakis’ paper “From the Communism of Capital to Capital for the Commons: Towards an Open Co-operativism” (tripleC 12 (1): 356-361)
Circuits of Labour: A Labour Theory of the iPhone Era
Authors: Qiu Jack Linchuan , Gregg Melissa , Crawford Kate
Published: April 2018

This paper questions the binary of material and immaterial labour in the information era. Instead, we propose a “circuits of labour” model, a holistic framework that helps connect various concepts and traditions in the study of labour and ICT (information and communication technology). Inspired by du Gay et al’s “circuit of culture”, we argue conventional frameworks need to be synthesized and updated to reflect fundamental changes and persisting issues of labor in our contemporary era, of which the iPhone is emblematic. On the one hand, our model consists of formal circuits, in which hierarchical domination is imposed by capital over the body of labour. On the other hand, it consists of informal circuits where relationships are defined communally between embodied practices and social and communicative capital. The informal and formal circuits of labour are “short-circuited” by survival labour and ‘playbour’, meaning either circuit may absorb productive energy from the other. This article then uses the case of Foxconn, the world’s largest electronic manufacturer that also produces iPhones, to illustrate the usefulness of the “circuits of labour” model. We finally discuss the broader implications and questions for future research.
From Apprenticeship to Internship: The Social and Legal Antecedents of the Intern Economy
Authors: Frenette Alexandre
Published: April 2018

This article looks towards the future of the intern economy by focusing on its past. What led to recent debates about the intern economy? How did it become legally possible for interns to work for free? Using the United States as my case study, I draw parallels between the current intern economy and its closest historical antecedent, the apprenticeship system. By providing a brief overview of the history of work-based learning and the unpaid internship’s legal underpinnings, this article ultimately frames current lawsuits and debates as a correction to today’s insufficiently scrutinized youth labour regime not unlike the apprenticeship systems of the past. In the attempt to facilitate youth transitions from school to work, yet maintain minimum wage standards, government intervention and—more imminently likely—legal decisions will, I anticipate, eventually transform the intern economy much like the Fitzgerald Act of 1937 drastically formalized apprenticeships in the United States.
The Digital Spatial Fix
Authors: Greene Daniel Marcus , Joseph Daniel
Published: April 2018

This article brings distinct strands of the political economy of communication and economic geography together in order to theorise the role digital technologies play in Marxian crisis theory. Capitalist advances into digital spaces do not make the law of value obsolete, but these spaces do offer new methods for displacing overaccumulated capital, increasing consumption, or accumulating new, cheaper labour. We build on David Harvey’s theory of the spatial fix to describe three digital spatial fixes, fixed capital projects that use the specific properties of digital spaces to increase the rate of profit, before themselves becoming obstacles to the addictive cycle of accumulation: the primitive accumulation of time in the social Web, the annihilation of time by space in high-frequency trading, and affect rent in virtual worlds. We conclude by reflecting on how these digital spatial fixes also fix the tempo of accumulation and adjust the time-scale of Marxian crisis theory.
Towards a (De)centralization-Based Typology of Peer Production
Authors: Dulong de Rosnay Melanie , Musiani Francesca
Published: April 2018

Online peer-production platforms facilitate the coordination of creative work and services. Generally considered as empowering participatory tools and a source of common good, they can also be, however, alienating instruments of digital labour. This paper proposes a typology of peer-production platforms, based on the centralization/decentralization levels of several of their design features. Between commons-based peer-production and crowdsourced, user-generated content “enclosed” by corporations, a wide range of models combine different social, political, technical and economic arrangements. This combined analysis of the level of (de)centralization of platform features provides information on emancipation capabilities in a more granular way than a market-based qualification of platforms, based on the nature of ownership or business models only. The five selected features of the proposed typology are: ownership of means of production, technical architecture/design, social organization/governance of work patterns, ownership of the peer-produced resource, and value of the output.
Anger in Academic Twitter: Sharing, Caring, and Getting Mad Online
Authors: Gregory Karen , Singh Sava Saheli
Published: April 2018

This article examines two different cases or “events” in Twitter to understand the role that negative emotions play in online discussions of academic labor. As academic labor conditions deteriorate and academics take to online spaces, they do so to critique, connect, and organize. We suggest that negative emotions may play a productive role in raising awareness of labor issues, as well as serving as a site for organizing across academic hierarchies and beyond the university. Additionally, negative emotions may fuel the production of new networks, personal, and professional connections. However, as we show, anger online can also provoke substantive repercussions, both personally and institutionally. We suggest that paying attention to the role that negative emotions play on Twitter can help academics gain a better sense of how to use their digital labor for collective action.
Computing and the Crisis: The Significant Role of New Information Technologies in the Current Socio-economic Meltdown
Authors: Hakken David
Published: April 2018

There is good reason to be concerned about the long-term implications of the current crisis for the reproduction of contemporary social formations. Thus there is an urgent need to understand it character, especially its distinctive features. This article identifies profound ambiguities in valuing assets as new and key economic features of this crisis, ambiguities traceable to the dominant, “computationalist” computing used to develop new financial instruments. After some preliminaries, the article identifies four specific ways in which computerization of finance is generative of crisis. It then demonstrates how computationalist computing is linked to other efforts to extend commodification based on the ideology of so-called “intellectual property” (IP). Several other accounts for the crisis are considered and then demonstrated to have less explanatory value. After considering how some commons-oriented (e.g., Free/Libre and/or Opening Source Software development projects) forms of computing also undermine the IP project, the article concludes with a brief discussion of what research on Socially Robust and Enduring Computing might contribute to fostering alternative, non-crisis generative ways to compute.
A Preliminary Inquiry into the Methodologies Employed in Research on ICTs and Society: Prologue (“An Alternate View of Knowledge Negotiation”)
Authors: Robbin Alice
Published: April 2018

This paper originates in a commitment to write a panel presentation on the methodologies employed in published research on ICTs and society for the 2009 ICTs, Society, and Human Beings conference. The author recognized that this task was not feasible without a rethinking of how to proceed. This paper describes how the author reconceptualized her thinking about how to fulfill her original commitment and offers an example of how we begin to understand what our research question is about.
Anglo-American Credit Scoring and Consumer Debt in the Subprime Mortgage Crisis of 2007 as Models for Other Countries?
Authors: Ruddy Thomas Fay
Published: April 2018

The system of credit scoring has been built up in recent times on the basis of a compromise struck between individuality and surveillance in ways that boosted consumption through consumer debt. This paper considers the role of credit scoring in the recent financial crisis, concluding that even if credit scoring had worked as intended under its own terms, the practice would not have been enough to limit the defaulting of mortgage borrowers under conditions of falling house prices. The broader economic problem is the crippling amount of consumer debt involved; hence the paper places credit scoring in the larger explanatory framework of consumer debt and, more generally, consumerism in its more problematic form. The sorting accomplished by credit scoring is open to abuses in the marketplace, unless it is tempered by the application of guardrails by a regulatory authority. As cultures beyond the Anglo-American sphere adopt this practice, guardrails like those applied to credit scoring in America are needed; as even the current U.S. Administration has acknowledged, the existing guardrails will have to be complemented by stricter social standards. The paper provides a derivation of the theoretical background on credit scoring as surveillance, and includes a literature survey.
From Financialization to Low and Non-Profit: Emerging Media Models for Freedom
Authors: Almiron-Roig Nuria
Published: April 2018

In the midst of what is probably the worst economic and financial crisis the capitalist world has ever experienced, professional journalistic structures and news organizations are disintegrating. While mainstream current economic and media gurus –and the whole media executive class around the globe– are claiming for a business model change that allows them to go on making lots of money, many voices have been raised in unison to ask for a true radical change: money cannot be the first goal, but rather public interest. This paper presents the outcome of a research on the non-profit alternatives currently under debate destined to help journalism survive.
Computer Science is not Enough
Authors: Bennett John , Sterling Revi
Published: April 2018

Despite huge investment, and the best of intentions, most development projects fail. This is particularly true of Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICTD) projects. We contend that a significant contributor to this failure is the lack of breadth in project design and implementation, and in the training of project implementers. Successful ICTD interventions, in addition to being based on the best computer science research has to offer, must be guided by the relevant social, cultural, political, economic and gender factors that underlie the interaction of the technology with the community into which it is being placed. We therefore argue that efforts to distance computer science from the broader context of ICTD scholarship and practice are misguided. ICTD should be recognized as a truly interdisciplinary area of research and practice. We further argue that ICTD as a discipline has a particular need for academic practitioners. We close with a compilation of current known ICTD academic efforts worldwide.
Institutional Innovation: Re-invigorating the University through Transdisciplinary Engagement
Authors: Moore Gale
Published: April 2018

The view that ICTs-and-Society is a transdiscipline offers great potential as a way forward. As the community moves toward a shared understanding of what constitutes transdisciplinary engagement a series of new questions are raised. This paper reflects on one of them – the question of how transdisciplinarity can be accomplished in the university. The argument advanced is that by re-framing the challenges of accommodating transdisciplinarity as an opportunity for institutional innovation there is potential to increase the support for research on ICTs-and-Society in the university, and to provide university administrators with a way to demonstrate leadership by adopting a broader innovation agenda that could re-invigorate the university and strengthen its relationship with the broader community in which it is situated.
Can Online Forums Be Designed to Empower Local Communities?
Authors: Dunne Kerill
Published: April 2018

There has been a growing concern regarding political disengagement among citizens within western representative democracies. This concern has brought about calls for local communities to be empowered by giving citizens more control over local decision making. The objective of this paper is to examine if local political online forums can be built to empower local communities. That is to say, this paper will test if the E-Democracy.org’s Local Issues Forum Guidebook recommendations (A to do list for building successful online forums) actually work and produce forums which facilitate citizens to have a greater say on local decision making and thus, induce empowerment. In order to test these recommendations a two-pronged methodological approach was taken. Firstly, using these recommendations an online forum was constructed in-conjunction with a local authority within the UK. Secondly, the recommendations were tested again except in this second approach a sample of online forums from around the world was examined. This paper argues that the E-Democracy.org’s recommendations do not always produce forums which empower local communities - Based on lessons learned from both experiments new guidelines are provided.
Information: Concept Clarification and Theoretical Representation
Authors: Burgin Mark
Published: April 2018

The general theory of information is a synthetic approach, which organizes and encompasses all main directions in information theory. It is developed on three levels: conceptual, methodological and theoretical. On the conceptual level, the concept of information is purified and information operations are separated and described. On the methodological level, it is formulated as system of principles, explaining what information is and how to measure information. On the theoretical level, mathematical models of information are constructed and studied. The goal of this paper is to clarify the concept of information and discuss its mathematical models, establishing relations with physics as the most developed science.
Physical Informatics – Information Methods of Natural Systems Research
Authors: Gurevich Igor
Published: April 2018

The work confirms the priority of information laws, which are the basis of physical informatics: the information laws (informatics laws) are defined and restrict the physical laws; the informatics laws have a general, universal character, and operate in all possible universes with different physical laws. Physical Informatics is the science of modern Information in physical and chemical systems, including Quantum Informatics, and is the basis for Informatics of the Living Systems.
How a Bacillus “Sees” the World: Information Needs and Signaling Resources of Mycobacterium Tuberculosis
Authors: Navarro Jorge , Marijuán Pedro C.
Published: April 2018

Any living cell parasitizing a host organism is immersed into a molecular environment of unfathomable complex- ity. For the advancement of its life cycle in such “hostile” a territory, the cell has to carefully sense its environment, “see” the ongoing physiological processes taking place, and guide subsequently its own network of self-construction processes, pathological responses included. We will discuss how this informational matching occurs in the bacillus Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and how transcriptional programs within the global transcriptional regulatory network are deployed in response to specific signals from the environment and from within the cell itself. In the era of the bioinformatic revolution and of sys- tems biology, it is perhaps surprising that the functional interconnection between the transcription network and the signaling system is far from clarified yet. In the extent to which the living cell can be considered as one of the central paradigms of the nascent information science, this discussion also becomes one about the essential cluster of concepts which should poten- tially apply to the analysis of other information-based entities.