bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The International Face of Australian Television
Authors: Moran Albert
Published: March 2018

Australian television has always been part of an international cultural system. Programming, personnel, material resources, ideas and knowledge are among the elements that, historically, have moved between an audiovisual space, both here and elsewhere. Media executive Reg Grundy has been an important figure in this system. Over nearly 40 years, he built a television empire of considerable international significance. After sketching out this career, the article proceeds to outlines three moments in his company's development. The first occurred in the 1960s and early 1970s when it imported and remade many successful television game shows from the United States. A second occasion occurred in the mid-1970s when Reg Grundy Enterprises imported a small team from the United Kingdom who were highly experienced in the production of daily drama serials. The third moment happened in the very early 1990s, when Grundy World Wide began adapting drama serials that it had originally devised and produced in Australia to be remade elsewhere. These three occasions were important points where the national met the international. Collectively, they highlight not only the outwardlooking dimension of Australian television, but the need for home-based media historians to make such a perception central to their investigations of a pre ‘media globalisation’ past.
Crumbling Pillars?
Authors: Beecher Eric
Published: March 2018

This article argues that the October 2006 Australian media reforms will almost certainly ensure that Australia's media will become less free and less sceptical. It suggests that the debate almost entirely centred on commercial factors, and ignored questions about the social role of journalism and its importance to a functioning democracy. With the internet now seeing the decoupling of journalism from advertising and the availability of free content online, there are fundamental questions about how good journalism will be funded and protected that the new laws do nothing to answer.
Media Reforms: Telstra's Perspective
Authors: van Beelen Jane
Published: March 2018

Jane van Beelen outlines Telstra's perspective on the media reforms in the context of convergence. Telstra has argued that allocation of an unassigned 700MHz channel for mobile TV is consistent with the government's policy objectives of harnessing the opportunities from convergence to achieve diversity in Australia's media sector, and will enable the efficient provision of mobile TV services. Telstra cautions that these benefits will only manifest if the regulatory settings are right. The regulatory framework for Channel B will need to provide for competitive neutrality, up-front clarity of rights and obligations, market-based outcomes and a ‘light-touch’ regulatory framework.
Disabled Access and Media Reform
Authors: Varley Alex
Published: March 2018

The recent media reforms were not just about ownership. The quiet revolution was the changes to the captioning provisions of the Broadcasting Services Act. Whilst the amendments tightened up some previous loopholes, they also opened up a range of new areas of potential dispute. There is no quick fix and one thing is clear: if you are disabled, access to the expanding possibilities of digital television is less assured than a firm date for analogue switch-off.
Australian TV News Revisited: News Ecology and Communicative Frames
Authors: Cottle Simon , Rai Mugdha
Published: March 2018

There is, we contend, considerably more complexity in the differentiated field and communicative structures delivering television news today than has so far has been acknowledged or explored. These complexities have direct bearing on debates about ‘democracy’, whether approached through the conceptual prisms of critical rationalism or cultural populism. This article reports on recent research which secures added empirical purchase on Australian TV journalism, and does so by analytically identifying, systematically mapping and pursuing into the production domain the repertoire of communicative frames that characterise Australian TV news. We elaborate a new conceptual framework for the study of ‘communicative frames’ and examine how these are deployed differentially within and across the daily news programmes delivered by the ABC, SBS, and Channels Seven, Nine and Ten. These communicative structures, we argue, prove consequential for the public elaboration and engagement of contentious issues and contending identities. They need to be taken seriously in debates about media democracy.
Unholy Wars: Media Representations of the First Bali Bombings and Their Aftermath
Authors: Lewis Jeff , de Masi Sonya
Published: March 2018

Over the past three decades, the Indonesian tourist island of Bali has been appropriated into the Australian national imaginary. For Australians, Bali has become a neighbourhood playground and psycho-cultural land-bridge to Indonesia and the Asian region. With the emergence of a global ‘war on terror’, Bali has also become a primary battleground, dividing the symbolic claims of the Islamist militants against the Western economic and hedonistic empire. This divide becomes crystallised in the Australian news reporting of the Islamist attacks in Bali of 2002 and 2005. Our research has found a common frame of reference in the reporting of the attacks, most particularly as Australian journalists’ reference to a sense of national history, the ‘9/11 wars’ and Australia's adherence to US foreign policy and cultural hegemony. News reporting tended to subsume the details of ‘Islam’ and Islamic grievance within a more xenophobic rendering of Australian identity and an apocalyptic vision of good and evil.
Hanging Her Laundry in Public: Talkback Radio, Governmentality and the Housewife, 1967–73
Authors: Tebbutt John
Published: March 2018

This article addresses the way in which talkback radio and women radio listeners were implicated in and shaped by social changes in 1960s and 1970s Australia. Two-way, open-line or talkback became a venue where the housewife, as a social figure or subject, was encouraged to voice her opinions: it was crucial in managing the contradictory representations of this figure as the changing conditions of capital, including increased work opportunities for women, moves for equal pay and new forms of consumerism, created new modern identifications for women.
Mornings with Radio 774: Can John Howard's Medium of Choice Enhance Public Sphere Activity?
Authors: Lee Carolyne
Published: March 2018

This paper addresses the necessity for program-specific analysis in radio research by focusing on Jon Faine's Morning Program on ABC Radio 774 (Melbourne). After establishing the present prime minister's preference for radio appearances over all other types of media, I examine the extent to which Faine's particular iteration of talkback has the capacity to enhance public sphere activity, given the view that this medium is strategically being utilised by politicians to gain virtually uncontested access to listeners. My examination occurs principally through a morning's observation of Faine's program, supported by information from recordings of a constructed week of the program from the previous two months. My findings suggest that, while a certain amount of ‘top-down’ flow of information is unavoidable, some contestation of ideas often occurs, mitigating politicians’ exploitation of at least this particular program. Faine's program does, moreover, seem to give the impression of an acceptance of listeners’ calls on topics that affect their daily lives, even though only a small number of ‘ordinary’ callers are featured each day. My observations suggest this program does offer processes that enhance public sphere activity, although with some qualifications.
Talkback, Community and the Public Sphere
Authors: Fitzgerald Richard , Housley William
Published: March 2018

This paper explores the relationship between the audience of commercial talkback radio and the actual existing democratic public sphere in Australia. Drawing upon Anderson's (1987) notion of an imagined community and Warner's (2002) discussion of publics, the paper suggests that two different but entwined modes of address operate around the talkback audience. The first centres on the active creation of an imagined community brought into being and maintained through host and caller interaction, whilst the second, which is dependent on this prior formation, involves the audience being treated as a political public within the public sphere.
The Interactive Audience: A Radio Experiment in Community-Building
Authors: Phillips Gail
Published: March 2018

The internet has provided us with a global laboratory to watch community-building in action. However, its role in the virtual universe is one that the more humble radio has had at the local community level since its inception. As soon as one-to-one communication gave way to one-to-many broadcasting, community-building began, based on the shared listening experience — ranging from families gathering around the wireless to local or national audiences tuning in simultaneously. Talkback made radio interactive by bringing the listener into the program, but it also gave program-makers the chance to gain first-hand experience of who was actually out there. This paper describes a radio talkback experiment which unexpectedly exposed the power of the relationship audiences can build with radio. Based on a ‘can you help’ formula, the program found passionate drivers within its audience members to belong, to bond, and to do good works that contribute to the social good.
Classic Hits in a Digital Era: Music Radio and the Australian Music Industry
Authors: Homan Shane
Published: March 2018

Often the ‘forgotten’ form in media and cultural studies, contemporary music radio remains a significant presence in the daily pleasures of Australians. This paper briefly explores the current regulatory, technological and cultural challenges confronting the local music radio industry. The music format is taken as the key source of engagement between station, advertiser and audience, at the intersection of relationships with the music industry. As the music radio industry is forced to question its traditional modes of delivery and reception, it is argued that a re-examination of the role of contemporary music formats within wider local music infrastructure is needed, particularly in the development and presentation of new artists and music genres, and radio's role in the maintenance of ‘heritage’/canonical artists and genres.
Global Marketing and the New Hollywood: The Making of the ‘Always Coca-Cola’ Campaign
Authors: Meyers Cynthia B.
Published: March 2018

In 1992, the globally distributed soft drink maker Coca-Cola jettisoned its long-time advertising strategy of ‘one sight, one sound, one sell’. Looking to tap into the American youth culture Zeitgeist and shore up its market among youth worldwide, Coca-Cola hired a Hollywood talent agency, Creative Artists Agency, because it would provide an ‘enormous resource to popular culture’. CAA shaped the initial ‘Always Coca-Cola’ campaign as a diverse array of images ‘style-sorted’ in order to attract and retain remote control-wielding audiences. Despite advertising industry concerns that a talent agency was encroaching on its turf, Coca-Cola continues to pursue the CAA-originated strategy of diverse, clever, high-concept advertising (now managed by former CAA staff members) in order to stay relevant to American youth culture and its international variants.
The Development of Digital Television in Europe
Authors: Papathanassopoulos Stylianos
Published: March 2018

This paper discusses the recent development of digital television in Western Europe. It traces the players and the outcome of the new television revolution as it is considered in Europe and argues that, as in the case of cable and satellite TV in the 1980s, the development of digital television is mostly associated with hype and ‘technorazzamatazz’ rather than with realistic estimates and most importantly not taking into account the reaction of the viewers.
Community, Demagogues and the South Pacific News Media
Authors: Robie David
Published: March 2018

On 19 October 1995, the Governor-General of Papua New Guinea issued the terms of reference for a Constitutional Review Committee's (CRC) Subcommittee on Media Accountability: to examine ‘whether changes need to be made to ensure that, while freedom of the press is maintained, owners, editors and journalists of all elements of the media are accountable and that persons aggrieved by media abuses have reasonable redress’. The CRC held a public seminar in January 1996 to explore the issues and the Media Council of Papua blew Guinea held a ‘freedom at the crossroads’ seminar the following month. Public responses were overwhelmingly in favour of the traditional ‘free’ press in Papua New Guinea, as guaranteed under Section 46 of the Constitution. The report of the Subcommittee on Media Accountability to Parliament in June 1996 essentially came to the same conclusion. However, the CRC introduced three draft media laws in November which introduced a controversial system involving a Media Commission, registration of journalists, licensing of media organisations and serious penalties for transgressors. The proposed legislation was widely condemned and was eventually shelved in February 1997, A general view is that the media debate was manipulated by a small group of politicians out of self-interest. This paper examines the developments in the context of the erosion of the news media and free expression in the South Pacific generally.
From Arts Policy to Creative Economy
Authors: Greenhalgh Liz
Published: March 2018

This article considers the may the Labour Party, since its election in May 1997, has promoted ideas about the value of the creative economy to Britain's industrial future. It argues that the Party's approach to the creative economy has more in common with new business and management theories, rather than being a fully worked-out approach to cultural policy. There is now a disjunctive between the recognition of the creative economy and the continued existence of traditional arts policy-making institutions. New government initiatives around the idea of re-branding Britain and promoting Britain's creative economies through the public spectacle and millennium celebrations have opened up this incipient gap between traditional arts policies and new thinking about the creative economy. The article notes that much of the pioneering work developing the idea of cultural industries was carried out more than a decade ago by city councils in Britain, which sought to sustain their small cultural businesses with limited programs of investment and business support. At the time, this work was largely ignored by traditional arts policy bodies. The paper concludes by speculating about whether the Labour Party can turn its rhetoric about the creative economy into a more substantive policy which brings together the mixed economy of public and private in the cultural sector.
Monitoring the Establishment: The Development of the Alternative Press in Australia
Authors: Forde Susan
Published: March 2018

The mainstream press in Australia, and indeed most Western nations, claims a strong and romantic history. But our alternative press also has a strong past, harking back to the days of the great general strikes and the anti-conscription movement, which were all captured in detail by the radical working-class press. Similarly, the counter-culture publications of the late 1960s and 1970s recorded and reflected a time of major social change and upheaval in our nation. This paper is principally an overview of the Australian alternative press, past and present, and is part of a larger study of the contemporary Australian alternative press. The study identifies 28 alternative publications and surveys editors' and journalists' attitudes to issues of objectivity, news values, ethics and news-gathering practices. A look at the alternative press industry has revealed publications with an overwhelming commitment to ‘filling in the gaps’ left by the mainstream, and providing context to issues which are generally given cursory treatment by the dailies.
(Not) Using the Remote Commercial Television Service to Dispel Distance in Rural and Remote Western Australia
Authors: Green Lelia
Published: March 2018

This paper addresses issues of ‘distance’ between remote and metropolitan audiences, and the use of communications technologies as tools to dispel such distance. Using the satellite-delivered RCTS broadcasting as a case study — given that this was part of the thrust to ‘dispel’ this distance — the research reported here interrogates notions of difference and inclusion as perceived, experienced and expressed by people resident in remote and regional Western Australia. The argument advanced is that new communications technologies do not dispel distance; rather, they act as catalysts through which distance is re-experienced and redefined. These distinctions are of continuing and growing importance in a climate within which Networking the Nation and digital TV again promise more equalisation of differences and services, and more dispelling of distance.
ABC Radio Spaces: Region, State, Nation
Authors: Wilson Helen
Published: March 2018

In contrast to the ‘high communication policy’ of most of Australian television, recent developments in ABC radio have exhibited an opposing tendency, towards multiple centres of transmission. This came about through an imperative to provide equity for rural listeners, with the establishment of a Second Regional Radio Network in the 1980s. The network has resulted in a complex layering of radio's ‘spaces of communication’ on regional stations, which broadcast local, regional, state and national programs. This paper outlines the regional structure of the ABC in three states and begins to explore the nature of radio space.
Niche Markets or Monopolies? Regional Media, Government Policy and the Cross-Media Review
Authors: Cryle Denis
Published: March 2018

This article examines the neglected field of regional media in the 1990s, with special reference to the Howard government's ineffectual Cross-Media Review of 1996–97. It identifies major players and developments during the previous decade and critically examines claims about increased regional diversity in the context of the 1992 and 1994 media inquiries. In conclusion, the article reviews the submissions of regional players to the Cross-Media Review in the context of its stated concerns with preserving media diversity and localism.
From Censorship to Policy: Rethinking Media Content Regulation and Classification
Authors: Flew Terry
Published: March 2018

Debates about media content regulation have tended to be dominated by pro-censorship and anti-censorship arguments. This paper argues for a shift in understanding towards a more policy-oriented and empirical approach, which recognises that the field has been characterised not so much by the ‘prohibition model’, but by complex and multifaceted techniques of institutional governance, and less by censorship than by restriction and classification. This has implications for the value of empirical research into the relationship between media representations and audiences. The recent ABA Report on content issues with on-line services is considered in order to show how regulation and classification issues are continuing to be important in the on-line environment, although they are likely to take different forms to the regulation of traditional media of print, film and television.
Between Cultural Studies and Critical Sociology
Authors: Jones Paul
Published: March 2018

This essay reviews John Hartley's Popular Reality: Journalism, Modernity, Popular Culture. The significance of this text is that it provides one of the most developed engagements with the public sphere literatures from an author within cultural studies. The article necessarily addresses the considerable weaknesses in Hartley's understanding of the public sphere case. However, the aim is not to dismiss Popular Reality out of hand. Rather, the critique highlights the methodological and ethical differences between analyses based in cultural studies and ‘critical sociology’. Hartley does partially recognise the significance of recent feminist critiques to the much-needed critical reconstruction of the public sphere thesis. The article acknowledges this insight and then moves to a discussion of the ways in which a reconstructed conception of the public sphere thesis might not only be of value to media studies but also to a settlement between cultural studies and ‘critical sociology’.
Ecologies of Meaning
Authors: Warner Gary , Gibson Ross
Published: March 2018

Museums and ‘interpreted’ public spaces have become important sites for the deployment of new multimedia systems. Given that these locations areimbued with historical, architectural and aesthetic complexities, it is becoming ever more apparent that standard information technology approaches to data systems are inadequate to the tasks of evoking and interpreting such sites. For 20 years now, Gary Warner has worked to introduce lucidity and nuance into the public deployment of multimedia. His work at the Australian Film Commission, the Museum of Sydney, and more recently as Director of CDP Media has led him to understand that he is practising a kind of electronic ecology. He discusses this idea — and many others — with Ross Gibson.
That Way Habermadness Lies
Authors: Hartley John
Published: March 2018

This journal has kindly offered me the opportunity to respond to an article by Paul Jones in Media and Culture Review incorporating Culture and Policy, No. 88: ‘Between cultural studies and critical sociology’ (Jones, 1998). That essay is a review of my book Popular Reality: Journalism, Modernity, Popular Culture (Hartley, 1996). This essay is my reply.
What is Journalism? The View from under a Stubbie Cap
Authors: Hartley John
Published: March 2018

Researchers into journalism have expressed fears about the decline of the public sphere and the rise of tabloid journalism; the old certainties about what counts as journalism at all, never mind good journalism, can no longer be taken for granted. Meanwhile, the teaching of journalism in universities has some difficult issues to face, and not only because of new technologies in a rapidly internationalising industry. Technical integration goes hand in hand with institutional convergence between government, media and education, while the cultural form of journalism evolves into something not always even recognisable as such. Should journalism educators be teaching or resisting shifts in news from power to identity, word to image, government to entertainment, serious to trivial, public to private?

This paper looks at journalism from the point of view of the reading public rather than a political one, and asks what is at stake in considering journalism in the context of everyday life, personal routines, the private consumption of corporate entertainment … and stubbie caps. In this banal but democratic context, journalism competes with other media, and with other knowledge institutions from government to education, to teach critical literacy to publics. Both journalism education itself and cultural research into journalistic forms might benefit from a perspective that focuses on the ‘ethics of reading’ for publics, and not solely on the power and control of producers.
Journalism, Corporatism, Democracy
Authors: Davies Chris Lawe
Published: March 2018

The corporatising of journalists has been an issue in the United States for most of the current decade. Journalists find themselves increasingly drawn into the commercial strategies of their employers. Indeed, the role of the editor is increasingly also one of publisher. News value is as much a question of how to pursue and capture audience demographics and psychographics as it is about servicing the general democratic needs of citizens.

Similar trends and concerns are evident in Australia. The question is whether this constitutes some kind of crisis for democracy or an evolving communication industry. What is certain is that the work of journalists increasingly needs to be analysed in terms of the ‘communications industry’ as a whole. It is Windschuttle's failure to any longer look at the industry as a whole, and to insist that journalism is some kind of scientifically pure practice, which leads off this discussion of the corporatisation of journalists.
Development and ‘Désétatisation’ in European Cultural Policy
Authors: Beale Alison
Published: March 2018

An analysis of European cultural policy supports the argument that the European Union (EU) is first and foremost an economic union. This paper traces two policy styles in European cultural policy: one oriented to deregulation and privatisation; the other concentrating on social development. It argues that the creation of de facto cultural policy by the European Commission in its audiovisual policy is an important indicator of the direction of EU cultural policy. The paper examines some of the implications for national cultural sovereignty of both audiovisual policy and the move to deregulation and privatisation in the wider cultural sector. It looks at initiatives of the Council of Europe and UNESCO to establish international cultural policies for social development to counter the effects of globalisation on the cultures of Europe. It concludes that this counter-effort is lagging in the European context, and that the tendency to describe culture as a resource does not help to distance the social agenda from the dominant commercial one.
The Press Cable Monopoly 1895— 1909: A Case Study of Australian Media Policy Development
Authors: Putnis Peter
Published: March 2018

In 1909, the Australian Senate conducted a Select Committee of Inquiry on Press Cable Services to Australia in response to claims that a monopoly of such services was in operation and had been organised by a cartel of key Australian newspapers in conjunction with Reuters Telegraph Company. Its report, and the extensive transcripts of evidence that accompany it, provide a detailed insight into arrangements for the receipt and distribution of overseas news in Australia between 1895 and 1909. The Inquiry, in its majority report, declared the arrangements to be ‘a complete monopoly’ in that they ensured that there was only one source of supply in Australia of press cables from the outside world. This paper analyses the findings of the Australian Senate Inquiry and the evidence put before it in terms of the light these shed on Reuters' modus operandi in Australia. It also provides an early case study of Australian government media policy development.
Cleaning up the Grunge
Authors: Webb Jen
Published: March 2018

In 1996, Triple J's ‘Unearthed’ competition awarded the Central Queensland prize to Andalusion, a grunge band of four young high school students. Since winning this award, the band has been transformed from a group of musical amateur-enthusiasts to a semi-professional band with an industry manager, recording contracts, video and CD recordings, steady (paid) gigs in public venues and a clear career trajectory. The band's music is also changing from semi-heavy grunge, deeply inflected by teenage angst, to a more reflective and developed sound. In other words, it seems that they have been relocated from the private sphere to a position as one of the providers of public culture.

This paper focuses on the conditions under which, and the institutional arrangements through which, relatively marginalised subjects can become legitimated as agents of the cultural industries and creators of authorised cultural products. By drawing on discussions with the band members and a reading of their audio and visual work, and through theoretical perspectives offered by Pierre Bourdieu, it investigates the logic of creative production and its agents, and identifies the capital necessary to enter the field. The paper also discusses the extent to which artists operating within the cultural industries are necessarily products of its discourses.
Children's Television: A Barometer of the Australian Media Policy Climate
Authors: Keys Wendy
Published: March 2018

In relation to media policy, children's television is ‘special’ on a number of levels. The ways in which childhood is constructed and defined are complex and often contradictory; the state of children's television can be used as a barometer of the broader media policy climate; and the subject of children's television has mobilised strong, active and ‘successful’ interest groups. The following discussion is based on analysis of the introduction, development and trajectory of children's television policy and production practices in Australia from the 1945 ‘List of Principles to Govern Children's Programs' (radio) to the debates, issues and policy initiatives raised in the Australian Commonwealth Government Productivity Commission Inquiry into Broadcasting in 1999.
Public Service Goes to Market: British Children's Television in Transition
Authors: Buckingham David , Davies Hannah , Jones Ken , Kelley Peter
Published: March 2018

This article analyses recent moves towards a more commercial, multi-channel environment in British broadcasting, and the consequences of such an environment for children. Contrary to those who have feared for the abandonment of a ‘Great Tradition in children's broadcasting, the article suggests that the situation is more complex and ambivalent. The new environment has seen an increase in the amount of provision for children, both on terrestrial and cable/satellite channels, although whether this increase will be maintained over the longer term is less certain. The article also challenges nostalgic conceptions of cultural value, and argues that the opposition between commercialism and ‘auality’ needs to be re-thought: the growing commercial role of the BBC, for example, may result in it becoming more responsive to its audience. Ultimately, however, there remains a need for greater accountability, and for greater public involvement (not least by children) in the practice of media regulation.
Misreading the Crisis: Issues in Australian Media Representations of Indonesian Politics
Authors: Fredman Nick
Published: March 2018

This article critiques differing approaches to analysing Australian media representations of Indonesia, and argues that an analysis of ideology and language is key to understanding this discourse. Many mass media commentators have been caught by surprise at the rapid development and severity of the economic and political crisis in Indonesia, and there has been ongoing confusion in media accounts of the crisis. The article explains this in terms of the contradictions that representing an authoritarian political system has created for the Australian media, which is underpinned by liberal-democratic ideology. These contradictions were held in check by the creation of several myths around Indonesia's apparent economic successes, the possibilities of peaceful change and Australia's national interest. The onset of a major crisis, however, has brought these contradictions to breaking point. The article also suggests some connections between the liberal discourse of a closer engagement with Asia and Australia's racist history.
Celebrating the health literacy skills of parents: A photovoice study
Authors: Estacio Emee Vida , Nathan Lavinia , Protheroe Joanne
Published: March 2018

Parents play a vital role in promoting children’s health. The parental health literacy skills are important since the decisions they make can have an impact on other family members’ health and well-being. Using an assets-based approach, this project aimed to explore the skills parents use to communicate health messages with their children and how they manage their family’s health. Six adult parents of children aged 0–16 years old took part in this photovoice study. The thematic analysis suggests that tapping into the creativity of parents through the gamification of health messages and encouraging children’s independence are effective ways to promote healthy behaviors. Trusting their instincts and developing good relationships with healthcare providers were also seen as important. However, there is still a need to improve confidence and skills, particularly on how to critically appraise information, especially in this digital age where sources of information are vast and conflicting messages could arise.
Cognitive control and language ability contribute to online reading comprehension: Implications for older adult bilinguals
Authors: Zirnstein Megan , van Hell Janet G , Kroll Judith F
Published: March 2018

Aims:

Previous research has indicated that young adults form predictions for the meaning of upcoming words when contexts are highly constrained. This can lead to processing benefits when expectations are met, but also costs, as indicated by a late, frontally distributed and positive event-related potential (ERP), when an unexpected word is encountered. This effect has been associated with the conflict that arises for prediction errors, as well as attempts to suppress a previously formed prediction. However, individual differences have been found for young adult bilingual and older adult monolingual readers, whereby only those who exhibited better language regulation and executive function skill showed this pattern. The goal of the current study was to investigate how these executive functions influence comprehension skill and behavior for elderly bilinguals.

Approach:

We asked whether older adult monolinguals and bilinguals were capable of generating predictions online, and whether cognitive control and language regulation ability were related to the magnitude of prediction costs.

Data and Analysis:

Participants ( N = 27) read sentences while their electroencephalogram was recorded, and completed a battery of language and cognitive performance tasks.

Findings:

While older adult monolinguals showed some sensitivity to prediction error, older adult bilinguals produced greater prediction costs, an effect that was significantly correlated with both age and control ability.

Originality:

This study is the first to show ERP evidence that bilinguals are capable of forming predictions during comprehension in older adulthood.

Significance:

These results have important implications for the ways in which bilingualism may influence comprehension across the lifespan. While healthy aging has been proposed to lead to declines in executive function these declines may be mitigated for bilinguals, who have a wealth of experience in negotiating language-related conflict.
The adaptation process of mothers raising a child with complex congenital heart disease
Authors: Ahn Jeong-Ah , Lee Sunhee
Published: March 2018

Mothers of children with congenital heart disease (CHD) tend to be concerned about their child’s normal life. The majority of these mothers tend to experience negative psychological problems. In this study, the adaptation process of mothers raising a child with complex CHD was investigated based on the sociocultural context of Korea. The data collection was conducted by in-depth interviews and theoretical sampling was performed until the data were saturated. The collected data were analyzed using continuous theoretical comparisons. The results of the present study showed that the core category in the mothers’ adaptation process was ‘anxiety regarding the future’, and the mothers’ adaptation process consisted of the impact phase, standing against phase, and accepting phase. In the impact phase, the participants emotionally fluctuated between ‘feelings of abandonment’ and ‘entertaining hope’. In the standing against phase, participants tended to dedicate everything to child-rearing while being affected by ‘being encouraged by support’ and ‘being frustrated by tasks beyond their limits’. In the accepting phase, the subjects attempted to ‘accept the child as is’, ‘resist hard feelings’, and ‘share hope’. Health-care providers need to develop programs that include information regarding CHD, how to care for a child with CHD, and effective child-rearing behaviors.
System-based probabilistic optimization of fluid viscous dampers equipped in cable-stayed bridges
Authors: Zhong Jian , Hu Zhangliang , Yuan Wancheng , Chen Liang
Published: March 2018

This study presents a methodology to evaluate the optimal parameters of fluid viscous damper for cable-stayed bridges using the system-level fragility assessment approach. Instead of investigating the impact of different isolation devices on the component’s vulnerability separately, this study focuses on evaluating the optimal parameters of fluid viscous damper to achieve the best overall performance of cable-stayed bridge as a system. Numerical model of a cable-stayed bridge with the most common configuration in China is established using OpenSEES that can account for their nonlinear response and uncertainty treatment. A joint probabilistic seismic demand model and Monte Carlo simulation are employed to obtain the system fragility of cable-stayed bridges by accounting for the contribution of multicomponents to the global damage state. The system-level fragility curves and component fragility curves are compared before and after the application of fluid viscous damper with different parameters. The results indicate that a given parameter of the fluid viscous damper may have a negative impact on some components, yet lead to a better performance of the bridge as a system. Thus, in order to obtain comprehensive knowledge of bridge performance and derive the accurate optimal parameters of fluid viscous damper, it is necessary to consider the fragility based on bridge system.
Contribution of perforated steel ribs to load-carrying capacities of steel and concrete composite slabs under negative bending
Authors: Xu Xiaoqing , Liu Yuqing , Zuo Yize
Published: March 2018

To attain a better understanding of the contribution of perforated steel ribs to the load-carrying capacities of steel and concrete composite slabs, six specimens with different shear connectors and areas of steel bars were tested under negative bending. Applied load, deformation, location and subsequent trajectory of cracks, strains, and failure mode of each specimen were recorded during the tests. Shear cracks were observed in two specimens, while in the other specimens only bending cracks were found. The perforated L-shaped ribs were proved to reduce the shear crack risk of composite bridge deck slabs and have a larger contribution to the loading-carrying capacities of composite slabs than plain ribs. Based on the experimental results, calculation methods were proposed to evaluate the flexural and shear strength of composite slabs. The calculated methods can quantitatively show the favorable influence of perforated steel ribs on the loading-carrying capacities of composite slabs, and the failure modes can be well predicted.
Examining the legal safeguards against the environmental impact of land grabbing in African countries
Authors: Ajala Taiwo
Published: March 2018

Large-scale land acquisitions in African countries by foreign investors who use such lands for agricultural purposes that have negative socio-economic and environmental impact in host countries is considered as ‘land grabbing in Africa’. In the context of the environment, the type of crops and monoculture practices undertaken by the foreign investors led to changes in land use, deforestation, exposure of land to soil erosion, depletion of water sources, pollution of surface water and contamination of ground water as a result of the intense use of agro-chemicals. Collectively, these have had a deleterious environmental impact in host countries. This article examines the phenomenon of ‘land grabbing in Africa’ by identifying the type of land-based agricultural investments by foreign entities and the environmental impact of such investments in African countries like Nigeria. The article argues that the prevailing Nigerian environmental law cannot ensure sustainable development as it does not address the environmental impact of land-based agricultural investments by foreign enterprises in the country. The article proposes that suitable environmental laws must contain the concepts of Community Participation in environmental impact assessment process of land based foreign investments and Environmental Justice for victims of environmental degradation of such investments.
Temporal reflexivity in journalism studies: Making sense of change in a more timely fashion
Authors: Carlson Matt , Lewis Seth C
Published: March 2018

Journalism studies is a relatively young field trying to make sense of a relatively fast-moving scholarly object – news. The matter of time is emerging as a particularly vexing challenge: When so much seems to be changing, and so quickly, how are journalism studies researchers to discern meaningful developments as opposed to short-term ephemera? This essay argues for ‘temporal reflexivity’, a way of fostering critical judgment about whether some phenomenon is indeed a break from what came before, a continuation of what has existed, or some middle-ground mutation. Such thinking reveals how temporality is embedded within journalism studies, driving assumptions and incentives about how and what to research – as well as what not to research. In particular, we apply the lens of temporal reflexivity to discuss issues of time and attention across three key areas of concern for journalism studies’ development as a field: first, the need for an analytical approach that balances change and stasis; second, the need to address issues of scale in which it is difficult to discern passing fads from deeper shifts that may lead to new institutional forms; and third, the need to understand the complicated and circular role of journalism education, both in reinforcing discourses of ‘crisis’ and ‘innovation’ and in lending stability to the boundaries of journalism as professionalized practice. In all, this essay opens up ways of considering the taken-for-granted temporal implications of research questions and pedagogical practices in journalism studies.
Experiences of being, and working with, young people with disabilities as peer researchers in Senegal: The impact on data quality, analysis, and well-being
Authors: Burke Eva , le May Alex , Kébé Fatou , Flink Ilse , van Reeuwijk Miranda
Published: March 2018

The ‘insider’ status of peer researchers can increase access to study informants, enhance data quality and empower them, but comes with challenges related to their ability to collect and analyse quality data and ethical challenges. We piloted a peer research methodology in Senegal as part of a qualitative study on access to sexual and reproductive health services for young people with disabilities (YPWD) to assess how working with YPWD as peer researchers influences the quality of data and data analysis alongside understanding the experiences of being a peer researcher. Our study reveals that peer researchers facilitated building rapport with study informants, but they lacked experience in effectively probing. Some demonstrated potential to be involved in data analysis, but further research is needed to explore their contribution to the analysis and quality of data. We recommend considering peers throughout the whole research cycle, beyond data collection, and providing the necessary training and tools to allow them to effectively participate in the process, especially regarding exploration of sensitive research topics. Reflexivity tools can provide insights into the experiences of peer researchers, as well as monitor their well-being during the process, and contribute to data quality, but must be accompanied by clear guidance.
Multi-scaled secularization or postsecular present? Christianity and migrant workers in Shenzhen, China
Authors: Gao Quan , Qian Junxi , Yuan Zhenjie
Published: March 2018

This article provides a multi-scaled, grounded understanding of how secularization and re-sacralization occur simultaneously in a context of rapid modernization. Recent geographical scholarship in the geography of religion have exhibited deficient reflection over the geo-historical contingencies and complexities of secularization and secularity. This article seeks to re-conceptualize secularization as a multi-scaled, grounded and self-reflective process through an empirical study of the hybrid, contradictory processes of secularization and postsecular religious revival in a ‘gospel village’ in Shenzhen, China. In this rapidly urbanizing village, Christian belief inherited from Western missionary work has gradually lost its hold amidst modernization and urbanization. However, the inflow of rural migrant workers has re-invigorated the church. Christianity has created possibilities for postsecular ethics and resistances, enabling migrant workers to materially, symbolically and emotionally settle in a new socio-economic environment. Also, new situated religiosities arise as theological interpretations are used to negotiate and even legitimize social inequalities and alienation. This article therefore argues that the postsecular turn in human geography needs to consider how the postsecular articulates, and co-evolves with, secular conditions of being in the world. It highlights the hybrid and contested nature of the secularization process, which gives rise not only to disengaged belief and immanent consciousness but also to new aspirations for, and formations of, religiosities.
Carotenoid supplementation and retinoic acid in immunoglobulin A regulation of the gut microbiota dysbiosis
Authors: Lyu Yi , Wu Lei , Wang Fang , Shen Xinchun , Lin Dingbo
Published: March 2018

Dysbiosis, a broad spectrum of imbalance of the gut microbiota, may progress to microbiota dysfunction. Dysbiosis is linked to some human diseases, such as inflammation-related disorders and metabolic syndromes. However, the underlying mechanisms of the pathogenesis of dysbiosis remain elusive. Recent findings suggest that the microbiome and gut immune responses, like immunoglobulin A production, play critical roles in the gut homeostasis and function, and the progression of dysbiosis. In the past two decades, much progress has been made in better understanding of production of immunoglobulin A and its association with commensal microbiota. The present minireview summarizes the recent findings in the gut microbiota dysbiosis and dysfunction of immunoglobulin A induced by the imbalance of pathogenic bacteria and commensal microbiota. We also propose the potentials of dietary carotenoids, such as β-carotene and astaxanthin, in the improvement of the gut immune system maturation and immunoglobulin A production, and the consequent promotion of the gut health.

Impact statement

The concept of carotenoid metabolism in the gut health has not been well established in the literature. Here, we review and discuss the roles of retinoic acid and carotenoids, including pro-vitamin A carotenoids and xanthophylls in the maturation of the gut immune system and IgA production. This is the first review article about the carotenoid supplements and the metabolites in the regulation of the gut microbiome. We hope this review would provide a new direction for the management of the gut microbiota dysbiosis by application of bioactive carotenoids and the metabolites.