Browsing by Subject "Digital media"
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Item Alternative Pedagogy : the One Room Schoolhouse and the Trojan Experiment(2012-05) Younse, Dustin Seth; Straubhaar, Joseph D.; Stone, Allucquère Rosanne“We are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are cyborgs.” -- Donna Haraway, A Manifesto for Cyborgs As we stand beyond the brink of the 21st Century, we are outside of the boundaries where the Ivory Tower approach to education is applicable, particularly in regards to the teaching of practical knowledge and the acquisition of necessary technical skills. We must also, however, address the very real scalability issues inherit in the One Room Schoolhouse approach, as the numbers of students who need education are not likely to shrink anytime soon. We are no longer apes on the savannah and we can no longer afford to act as robotic vessels in search of knowledge from academia’s font of knowledge. Technology is the future of our society and it is only growing in complexity. If we are to efficiently instruct our students in the ever-growing fields of general study and technology they face, we need to find a hybrid, or cyborg, approach, melding the ape and the robot.Item Bottom-up technology transmission within families : how children influence their parents in the adoption and use of digital media(2012-12) Correa, Teresa; Gil de Zúñiga, Homero; Straubhaar, Joseph D.This dissertation investigated the bottom-up technology transmission process in a country with varied levels of technology diffusion, such as Chile. In particular, I explored how children act as technology brokers within their families by influencing their parents' adoption of and learning about digital media, so as to include older generations in the digital environment. In order to do this, I measured to what extent this process occurs, I proposed a typology of factors that intervene in the process and analyzed the outcomes variables related to the phenomenon. Methodologically, I used a mixed-methods research approach by combining in-depth interviews with a self-administered paper-and-pencil survey taken by dyads of one parent and one child. I analyzed 28 interviews involving one 12 to 18-year-old child and one parent or legal guardian (14 dyads) stratified by socioeconomic background, age, and gender. In addition, I conducted the parent-child survey among school-aged children and their parents in three schools, stratified by socioeconomic status. One class per cohort from 7th to 11th grades was randomly surveyed. In total, 381 students and 251 parents completed the surveys. The analyses showed that bottom-up technology transmission occurs at some degree for all the technologies investigated in this study. However, children's influence should not be overstated because they play only one part among a number of factors involved in the digital inclusion of older generations. It also established a typology of factors related to the process at different levels, including structural influences, family structure, strategies employed by youth, and psychological dispositions of parents. Specifically, the analyses consistently found that this process was more likely to occur among people from a lower socioeconomic status. Also, the transmission was associated with more fluid parent-child interactions and occurred among parents who perceived the technology to be useful. Regarding the outcome variables, it demonstrated that this phenomenon is linked, although weakly, to greater levels of perceived competence among parents and higher esteem among young people. Finally, it suggested that bottom-up technology transmission is associated with the reduction of some socioeconomic gaps in digital media use.Item From "disentangling the subtle soul" to "ineluctable modality" : James Joyce's transmodal techniques(2011-05) Mulliken, Jasmine Tiffany; Friedman, Alan Warren; Bremen, Brian A.; Hodgson, Justin D.; Staley, Thomas F.; Antokoletz, Elliott M.This study of James Joyce's transmodal techniques explores, first, Joyce's implementation of non-language based media into his works and, second, how digital technologies might assist in identifying and studying these implementations. The first chapter introduces the technique of re-rendering, the artistic practice of drawing out certain characteristics of one medium and, by then depicting those characteristics in a new medium, calling attention to both media and their limitations and potentials. Re-rendering can be content-based or form-based. Joyce employs content-based re-rendering when he alludes to a piece of art in another medium and form-based re-rendering when he superimposes the form of another medium onto his text. The second chapter explores Dubliners as a panoramic catalog of the various aspects involved in re-rendering media. The collection of stories, or the fragmented novel, shows synaesthetic characters, characters engaged in repetition and revision, and characters translating art across media by superimposing the forms, materials, and conventions of one medium onto another. Dubliners culminates in the use of coda, a musical structure that commonly finalizes a multi-movement work. The third chapter analyzes of A Portrait of the artist as a young man, focusing on its protagonist who exhibits synaesthetic qualities and a penchant for repeating phrases. With each repetition he also revises, a practice that foreshadows the form-based re-rendering Joyce employs in Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. The fourth chapter explores the "Sirens" episode of Ulysses. In this episode, Joyce isolates the structure of the musical medium and transfers it to a literary medium. This technique shows his advanced exploration of the effects of one artistic medium on another and exemplifies his innovative technique of re-rendering art forms. Finally, the fifth chapter explores how we might use digital technologies to visualize Joyce's techniques of re-rendering. Based on these visualizations, we might identify further connections Joyce makes across his works.Item Hecho con ganas : Latin@ alternative and activist media(2015-05) Rodriguez, Vittoria Nicole; Beltrán, MaryThe proliferation of independently produced Latin@ media has only intensified with the rise of new media technologies and saliency of online user-generated content in our present media culture. As online platforms become more open and new media technologies and devices make the creation and accessing of information easier, Latin@s and other minorities who have traditionally been marginalized within mainstream media culture and largely excluded from participating in media industries, are turning to the web to launch their own media projects. In more recent years, Latin@s have utilized new media to resist and challenge the mainstream. As a result, we have witnessed the appearance of Latin@-produced, non-commercial and/or activist oriented websites, videos, audio, and blogs that this thesis argues act as alternative and activist media. Latin@ alternative and activist media may be understood as typically small-scale projects that posses little to no budget and that generally critique the marginalization and exclusion of Latin@s in mainstream media and U.S. society. In addition to contesting the mainstream, Latin@ alternative and activist media express and question in-group identity and enact varying degrees of in-group civic participation and empowerment, resulting is the constitution of a multitude of Latinidades and the formation of Latin@ online communities and social media groups. Using Latino Rebels and Dreamers Adrift as case studies, this thesis examines the ways in which these particular examples of Latin@ alternative and activist media express divergent and/or radical perspectives of society through their processes and content while also connecting these media texts to the current social and political realities of Latin@s.Item The influence of audience agency in digital media: A model adjustment in the hierarchy of influences(2015-12) Knight, Lewis Clinton; Coleman, Renita; Lasorsa, Dominic; Royal, Cindy; Chyi, Iris; Johnson, Thomas JThe hierarchy of influences is a theory that models the underlying forces or influences that guide journalists during their decision-making processes as gatekeepers of news and information (Shoemaker & Reese, 1996, 2014). As part of this model there are a group of influences originally described as extra-media influences: some are now labeled “social institutions” and others have been moved to the “routines” level that includes competition, advertisers, community leaders and, audiences, which in the treatise now are considered in both levels to some extent. Technological innovation in digital media has changed some of the ways journalists gather, produce, publish, present and disseminate the news. Digital media innovation has also affected the way audiences or users now consume, discuss, debate and share the news. As digital media technological innovation continues to rapidly expand and change, its use by journalists and consumers could have implications that have caused shifts on the forces or influences in this hierarchy, particularly on the levels of social institutions and routines. This study seeks to test the idea that changes in the digital media environment have sufficiently shifted audience agency to a degree that it warrants further examination as it relates to other influences. To date, this has been documented mainly in correlational studies (Lee, 2013; Lee, Lewis, & Powers, 2014; Vu, 2013) or qualitative research (Shoemaker & Vos, 2009, 2009) . This study agrees that the hierarchy model needs to account for the greater agency digital media affords audiences. It goes beyond the research to date that primarily uses self-reports to strengthen the case by documenting a cause-and-effect relationship with an experiment. The experiment tests if knowing what storytelling forms audiences want will lead to journalists choosing that storytelling form. This study uses an experiment with 144 professional journalists, by giving them four scenarios that they are likely to encounter in their work – how to cover a story about a dangerous storm, for example. Half of the participants are told which storytelling forms – video, Tweets, in-depth stories, interactive graphics, etc. – are preferred by audiences, advertisers, the competition, and community leaders; half are not. Journalists select the storytelling form that they would use to tell the story. Influence is measured by how often participants choose storytelling forms that are preferred by audiences compared with how often they choose forms preferred by others. If journalists choose audience-preferred storytelling forms significantly more often than the preferred forms of other influences that will provide support for the idea that audiences now have an elevated influence in the decision-making process in the newsroom. One strength of this experiment is that is shows what journalists would actually do when faced with these situations, rather than asking them what they think is the most important influence on their decisions. That is, it gets closer to seeing what journalists do as opposed to what they think they do. Findings show that knowing the storytelling preferences of the different influences matters; participants selected significantly different storytelling forms when they knew which forms were preferred by the influences than when they did not. Furthermore, these journalists chose audience preferred storytelling forms significantly more often than the forms preferred by other influences it was tested against. In a practical sense, however, they did not overwhelmingly choose audience preferred forms – between 48% and 62% of the decisions were for audience preferred story forms. Findings also show that participants think they choose audiences far more often than they actually do. One would have expected far more decisions favoring audiences considering how high participants placed audiences in both their ranking of the influences, where audiences were most important in both online and offline platform decisions, and in their qualitative comments. This cautions about confirming the findings of self-reports with other methods, as people are not always aware of the actual influences on their own behavior. The qualitative comments were instructive in helping explain this attitude-behavior gap as these participants exhibited paternalistic attitudes toward the audience. Participants believed that the audience needed journalistic guidance on what they really wanted because they were not capable of knowing for themselves. They justified this as being in the best interest of the audiences. The platform that the stories are told on also mattered. While participants said audiences were their number one concern for both online and offline platforms, the similarities end there. The competition was more important in online platforms while community leaders were more influential in offline storytelling, for example. The role of influences from other levels, specifically resources and financial influences from the organizational level, were incorporated by having participants make decisions under the real-world conditions as if they were in their own newsrooms, and under ideal conditions, as they were in a perfect world where there were no constraints. This also mattered, as journalists chose audiences’ storytelling forms significantly more often when the conditions were ideal than when they were real. Theoretical contributions of this study include the statement that audiences do deserve stronger consideration in the newsroom decision- making. It is also accurate to say that the audience is much higher in the minds of journalists than in their actions.Item A journalistic chasm? normative perceptions and participatory and gatekeeping roles of organizational and entrepreneurial health journalists(2013-12) Holton, Avery; Coleman, RenitaAn emerging body of media scholarship has examined the changing norms and routines of professional journalists, suggesting they are slowly adapting their practice to meet changes in audience expectations brought on by the widespread adoption of social media. Much of this scholarship has focused on traditional news producers, giving attention to journalists and other news producers who work in newsrooms. However slowly, journalists are beginning to welcome more audience participation in the process of news creation, hinting at a more reciprocal form of journalism and a loosening of traditional gatekeeping practices. In an effort to advance the theoretically conceptual research of the moment, this study considers how the perceived journalistic norms and participatory and gatekeeping roles of an emerging journalistic actor may be aligning with and/or deviating from more traditional journalists. The work of entrepreneurial journalists, or those who are not affiliated with or tied to a single news organization but instead freelance their work, is helping to fill major content gaps left by staff cutbacks that came on the heels of news media’s economic downturn. Most notably, specialized areas of journalism such as health reporting are increasingly calling upon entrepreneurial journalists to work aside more traditional journalists. Against the backdrop of health journalism, this study advances by employing semi-structured interviews with traditional journalists, entrepreneurial journalists, and their editors, analyzing recent changes in their journalistic norms and participatory and gatekeeping roles. The findings suggest an ideological split between organizational and entrepreneurial journalists and indicate that organizational journalists and editors alike may be relying on entrepreneurial journalists as innovators. For their part, entrepreneurial journalists may demonstrating an extension of participatory journalism—reciprocal journalism—that could enhance network connectivity and community building for journalists, news organizations, and other mass media practitioners. Though traditionally perceived as outsiders, these journalists may be serving as intrapreneurials, informing innovation in journalism and beyond. The impact of this and other observations on mass communication theory and practice are explored.Item Relational reinvention : writing, engagement, and mapping as wicked response(2012-08) McCarthy, Seán Ronan; Syverson, Margaret A., 1948-; Davis, Diane; Ferreira-Buckley, Linda; Hodgson, Justin; Selfe, Cynthia LThis multimedia dissertation, situated in Rhetoric and Composition, Digital Media Studies, and Civic Engagement, articulates a sustainable, agile approach to “wicked problems.” These complex, definition-resistant, interlocking problems (such as racism or climate change) aren’t ultimately solvable; rather than wicked problems being “acted upon,” they can only be creatively and rigorously “responded to” by networks of committed individuals and institutions. This dissertation posits that a wicked problem necessitates a “wicked response”: a sustained, emergent, and fluid strategy that focuses on changing relationships – to people, to space, and to knowledge. In order, to make this argument, I present the case of Mart, a small, formerly prosperous town in East Texas that has been in decline over the last half of a century. Throughout this dissertation, I analyze the ongoing efforts of the Mart Community Project (MCP), a cohort of Mart residents, international artists, and students and instructors from a variety of departments at the University of Texas at Austin. Over the past two years, the MCP has engaged in over twenty-five discrete projects, all with the aim of helping the Mart Community reimagine itself in the face of its primary wicked problem: a lack of civic cohesion. In the first chapter I explore how language fails to define or describe a wicked problem, yet is still necessary in order to transform it. I illustrate this contradiction in part through the Chambless Field mural, a successful MCP community arts project that by “writing community” became a productive response. My second chapter examines service learning and demonstrates how university/community partnerships and “participatory engagement” can be part of a nuanced approach to a wicked problem. Using the work of UT students in design-oriented and civic engagement classes, I demonstrate in the third chapter how “mapping” can be both a savvy pedagogical tool and a key element in reinventing the relationships of people to space and to one another. This dissertation offers up these diverse strategies with the sincere hope that the particulars of the MCP’s wicked response might be productively generalized to aid others participating in similarly challenging civic engagement work on wicked problems.Item "Still alive and kicking" : girl bloggers and feminist politics in a "postfeminist" age(2013-05) Keller, Jessalynn Marie; Kearney, Mary Celeste, 1962-This dissertation refutes the notion that contemporary girls are uninterested in feminism by exploring how teenage girls are engaging in feminist activism as bloggers. Using a feminist cultural studies approach I analyze how girl bloggers produce feminist identities and practices that challenge hegemonic postfeminist and neoliberal cultural politics. I employ feminist ethnographic methods, including a series of in-depth interviews with U.S. -based girl feminist bloggers and an online collaborative focus group, as well as a discursive and ideological textual analysis of girl-produced feminist blogs. Using these methods, I privilege girls' voices while proposing a model for conducting feminist ethnography online. In doing so, I demonstrate how girls' feminist blogging functions as an activist practice through networked counterpublics, intervening in mainstream and sometimes even commercial public space. I position this activism within a lengthy tradition of American feminism, analyzing how my participants remain in conversation with feminist history while simultaneously responding to their unique cultural climate. Finally, I argue that we must recognize the political importance of girls' feminist blogging by theorizing it as an emergent citizenship practice that makes feminism an accessible discourse to contemporary teenage girls.Item Worth the risk : the role of regulations and norms in shaping teens’ digital media practices(2012-08) Vickery, Jacqueline Ryan; Watkins, S. Craig (Samuel Craig); Kearney, Mary C.; Straubhaar, Joseph; Stein, Laura; Thiel-Stern, ShaylaThis dissertation analyzes how discourses of risk shape teens’ digital media practices. The purpose is to understand the relationship between discourses of risk, policy regulations, informal learning, and teens’ everyday experiences. This research serves to combat discourses that construct technology as a threat and youth as ‘at-risk’ in two ways. One, it demonstrates the agentive ways teens manage risks and two, it provides empirical evidence of the ways technologies and literacies function as risk reduction strategies. From a Foucauldian perspective of governmentality, this study considers risk to be an always already historically, socially, and politically constructed phenomenon; as such, policies serve as risk intervention strategies. The first part of this dissertation traces how risk discourses are mobilized through moral panics and federal policies regulating young people’s use of the internet. Despite research to the contrary, policies reify anxieties associated with the threat of pornography and predators. As such, policies rely on constructions of young people as passive victims and technologies as risks; such regulations unintentionally limit learning opportunities. The second part analyzes how schools regulate subjects of risk and digital media, as well as how teens themselves manage risks. Ethnographic research was conducted in a large, ethnically diverse, low-income high school in Texas. As part of a team, the researcher spent eight months observing two after-school digital media clubs. The ethnography also consisted of 18 case studies with diverse high school students. Researchers conducted individual, semi-structured, qualitative interviews with the students on a regular basis for an entire academic school year. Findings suggest discourses of risk were mobilized through school district policies which regulated teens’ use of digital media. Specifically, regulations limited students’ opportunities to develop a) social, b) network, and c) critical digital media literacies. However, students generated agentive ways to resist regulations in order to maintain robust peer and learning ecologies. The clubs constructed technologies as interventions for ‘at-risk’ youth. Within informal learning spaces teens a) developed skills, b) acquired social capital, and c) negotiated empowered identities. Lastly, the study considers how teens acknowledged and negotiated risks associated with privacy. Teens demonstrated three strategies for managing consumer and social privacy: a) informational, b) audience management, and c) spatial strategies.