Mark Balnaves

Introduction to Quantitative Research Methods

Introduction to quantitative research methods , Introduction to quantitative research methods , کتابخانه دیجیتال جندی شاپور اهواز

Rating the Audience : the Business of Media

Knowing, measuring and understanding media audiences have become a multi-billion dollar business. But the convention that underpins that business, audience ratings, is in crisis. Rating the Audience is the first book to show why and how audience ratings research became a convention, an agreement, and the first to interrogate the ways that agreement is now under threat. Taking a historical approach, the book looks at the evolution of audience ratings and the survey industry. It goes on to analyse todays media environment, looking at the role of the internet and the increased difficulties it presents for measuring audiences. The book covers all the major players and controversies, such as Facebooks privacy rulings and Googles alliance with Nielsen. Offering the first real comparative study, it will be critical for media students and professionals.

Corporate constructs: To what extent are personal constructs personal?

Abstract We propose the existence of corporate constructs (specialized techniques and forms of thought). Corporate constructs are not social constructs, and the idea of a corporate construct does not contradict Kellys requirement that an individual is a site of decision making. We explore the differences between conceptions of personal and social constructs, highlighting some of their limitations. Corporate constructs are suggested as a way of dealing with these limitations.

The politics and practice of television ratings conventions: Australian and American approaches to broadcast ratings

As we now know, once you introduce audience ratings, as China has done, you have not just introduced ‘a measure’; you have introduced a huge apparatus that brings with it certain types of agreements, values and behaviours. No doubt, Chinas leaders saw the ratings as a neutral mechanism in mapping broadcast audiences. The history of ratings, however, is quite the opposite. It is a set of standards, values and conventions that drives particular kinds of expectations in organizations, technology and content. Audience ratings first provided a coordination rule for advertiser-supported media and then became a convention, harnessed by TV to change media economics. In this paper the authors provide an insight into how audience ratings, as a convention – a compact – emerged in Australia and America, and some of the major differences between them.

A THEORY OF SOCIAL ACTION: WHY PERSONAL CONSTRUCT THEORY NEEDS A SUPERPATTERN COROLLARY

Kellys Commonality and Sociality corollaries deal with shared meanings. In this article, the authors revisit Kellys early work on superpatterns to demonstrate the relationship between superpatterns and the concept of corporate construing (Balnaves & Caputi, 1993) as a way of extending the Commonality and Sociality corollaries. The authors argue that corporate construing is joint action. Constructs in such an action originate from corporate, not personal, agents. Corporate agency entails anticipation in joint action of the mode of representation of everyone else (sensus communis), justification of the joint action (reasons as good reasons), recognition that a personal action is corporate (the same) within a style of reasoning (a system of specialized techniques or corporate constructs). It is not the individual patterns of personal constructs, or an individuals interpretations of his or her own actions, that is relevant in an explanation of personal actions. It is an understanding of the genre, the over...Kellys Commonality and Sociality corollaries deal with shared meanings. In this article, the authors revisit Kellys early work on superpatterns to demonstrate the relationship between superpatterns and the concept of corporate construing (Balnaves & Caputi, 1993) as a way of extending the Commonality and Sociality corollaries. The authors argue that corporate construing is joint action. Constructs in such an action originate from corporate, not personal, agents. Corporate agency entails anticipation in joint action of the mode of representation of everyone else (sensus communis), justification of the joint action (reasons as good reasons), recognition that a personal action is corporate (the same) within a style of reasoning (a system of specialized techniques or corporate constructs). It is not the individual patterns of personal constructs, or an individuals interpretations of his or her own actions, that is relevant in an explanation of personal actions. It is an understanding of the genre, the overall template, the superpattern.

The Australian finance sector and social media: Towards a history of the new banking

The names iGrin and Lending Hub might not raise eyebrows, but they are the first peer-to-peer lending companies in Australias internet history. Peer-to-peer lending is a new category of lending organisation – a part of the new banking distribution layer – that provides alternative ways of organising the relationship between borrower and lender, alternative ways of distributing money and alternatives ways of making decisions about finance using social networks. Its ethos is mutual aid, crowd funding, collaborative consumption, social lending and social sharing, moving away from traditional banks as ‘trusted agents’. New currency platforms are also emerging that take advantage of peer-to-peer networks. Google as a hyper-giant – an aggregator – has taken out a banking licence in the Netherlands and bought a currency platform. These new players are called ‘disruptors’ because they are perceived simultaneously as creators of new opportunity and a threat to the traditional banking value chain. There is a change of ‘game’, in a Bourdieuian sense, underway in the finance sector. Peer-to-peer lending, mutual aid, signifies a move towards remutualisation, something not missed in the international policy domains. This article covers the history of peer-to-peer lending and the differences that are emerging between social media as ‘mutual aid’ (new lending organisations deploying social media in mutual support) and social media as ‘customer intimacy’ (traditional banking deploying social media to gain sophisticated engagement).

Practising on plastic people: Can I really care?

Purposes: This study evaluated the experiences of undergraduate student nurses with high-fidelity Human Patient Simulation Mannequins (HPSMs) and their perceptions of empathy. Methods: An exploratory case-study method was used to investigate the literature on empathy and the use of high-fidelity mannequins in nurse education. Two focus groups were conducted with eight third-year undergraduate nursing students in order to elicit responses to their experiences with HPSMs in their learning, especially in relation to empathy. Findings: Undergraduate nurses found it challenging when using HPSMs in the learning environment to relate to the mannequins as real. Students reported that in their experience, the use of mannequins was not conducive currently to the development of skills necessary for positive interpersonal development of the nurse–patient relationship. Conclusions: Focus group data and the empirical literature suggest that more research needs to be conducted into the use of mannequins in the development of nurse–patient interpersonal skills. Educators need to make evidence-based and pedagogically sound decisions about the use and limitations of HPSMs in undergraduate nursing.

INFORMATION, COMMUNICATION AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS: A PILOT STUDY OF THE BEHAVIOUR OF CITIZENS

Information, communication and telecommunications are all important to the lives of citizens. This paper reviews the literature on the information-seeking, communication and telecommunications behaviour of citizens and then reports on a pilot study to test empirical measures being developed by the Telecommunications Policy Research Group at RMIT As a result of the pilot study, an information-communication continuum is proposed to overcome the problems of definition of information and communication needs. There is also a suggestion that a distinction between purposeful information seeking and incidental information acquisition is required. The role of telecommunications in meeting information and communication needs is explored. Policy implications are included.

Domestication of Anglo-Saxon Conventions and Practices in Australia

Media ratings systems have provided an economic foundation for advertiser-supported media. Consequently, the nature of the audience measurement process affects the structure and behaviour of media companies and regulators alike. So when the techniques and technologies of the ratings change, these changes can have ‘a significant effect on the economics of media industries (because these changes can affect advertiser behaviour), the relative economic health of various segments of the media industry, and the nature of the content that media organizations provide’ (Napoli, 2003: p. 65). Although changes to the ‘ratings convention’ governing audience measurement can be disruptive, these changes are driven by the inevitable gap between the measured audience and the actual audience for a service or programmes. With the advent of a more diverse and fragmented media environment and audience groups increasingly demographically defined, this gap has become even more evident, with the validity of ratings as currency for buying and selling media being challenged in the United States. Napoli (2003) suggests that this is leading to a decline in quality and value of the ‘audience product’ — data on who is watching when — because of changes in technology and audiences. The provision of reliable third-party syndicated and customized audience measurement technology for the production of ratings, however, remains essential to good media management nationally and internationally.

E-Democracy: Media-Liminal Space in the Era of Age Compression

In this chapter, the authors will look at the ideas of e-government and e-governance and practical examples of how new media are being used to enhance decision-making in democratic societies. The authors argue that the learning environments that have emerged from interactive entertainment and other contexts signal a change in the nature and role of liminality-the transition to citizen and civic engagement-in modern society.