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The Complicated Digital Fandom: Empowerment and Exploitation of Fans in Digital Media Era
Issue:
Volume 8, Issue 2, March 2020
Pages:
45-50
Received:
18 February 2020
Accepted:
5 March 2020
Published:
17 March 2020
Abstract: Over the past several decades, the once despised fans have been introduced to the central stage of audience study, challenging people’s stereotype about fans. Fans are considered as the most active and visible audiences since they are active producers rather than passive consumers. With the pervasiveness of the digital media, fans are provided with more opportunities to engage with the media production and challenge the authority of media industry. However, there are still some scholars argue that fans in digital era are prone to be exploited by media industry as free labor. These two contradictory aspects illustrate the main characteristics of fans in digital media era. This research aims to explore the reconfigured relationships between fans and professional media producers, critically discussing the extent to which fans are empowered and exploited in the digital media era. The analysis in this paper is organized from three main aspects: first, the transformation of fans’ images in the ever-changing media landscapes is illustrated, emphasizing the trend that fans are increasingly considered to be more active and influential in the media production process; second, the ways that fans engage with media production in the digital media era are explored in details, which supports the opinion that fans are empowered in digital media era; third, the emerging exploitations of fans online practice are demonstrated by employing the concept of free labor. By critically discussing both the empowerment and exploitation of fans in digital media era, in this paper, it is concluded that although the increasing productivity and influence of fans imply the reconfigured relationships between fans and media producers, the emerging exploitation of fans’ free labor should not be ignored which indicates that the power discrepancy between fans and media producers still exists. The empowerment and exploitation of fans in digital media era should not be considered as a zero-gum game. Since the digital fandom is more complicated than before, the binary opposition between empowerment and exploitation should be revisited and revised. Within the context of the emerging digital economy, fans and media producers are continuously negotiating with each other.
Abstract: Over the past several decades, the once despised fans have been introduced to the central stage of audience study, challenging people’s stereotype about fans. Fans are considered as the most active and visible audiences since they are active producers rather than passive consumers. With the pervasiveness of the digital media, fans are provided with...
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Children’s Understanding of Identity - The Kind of Referent That Children Have in Mind When Understanding Identity Arguments
Paul Weingartner,
Silvia Haring
Issue:
Volume 8, Issue 2, March 2020
Pages:
51-62
Received:
26 March 2020
Accepted:
12 May 2020
Published:
27 May 2020
Abstract: In order to conduct the reader to several important features of the old concept of identity we use a dialogue between two brothers of age 14 and 10 (ch.2). These boys point to important problems for children’s understanding identity. These are, for example, children’s ability to use two different names for one object (referent) or how to understand that the same referent is described by different properties (morning/evening star problem) or how can the referent of a name (name of their grandmother) be identical with the referent of a description (woman living 2nd floor, door 13) etc. Such identity situations occur in the test with children described in ch.6. After some preliminaries concerning the used language (ch.3) we offer a classification of identity-statements (ch.4) since several forms of these are used in the identity test (ch.6). Chapter 5 is a detailed study of different types of referents which are used when children understand identity: thought-referent, discourse-referent, perspective-referent are the most important ones. The last - perspective-referent - has many ramifications because of the different types of “perspective”. The last chapter describes an experimental test that has been done with 62 children of age between 3 and 4 years. The test included two identity stories accompanied by two preceding control stories. The result of the tests are as follows: 1. The correlation between age and the solution of the identity tasks is significant. 2. There is a significant difference between 3-years old and 4-years old children concerning both the identity tasks and that of the false belief task. 3. There is a significant correlation between the solution of the identity tasks and the false belief task. Acknowledgement: We would like to thank Josef Perner for several valuable remarks.
Abstract: In order to conduct the reader to several important features of the old concept of identity we use a dialogue between two brothers of age 14 and 10 (ch.2). These boys point to important problems for children’s understanding identity. These are, for example, children’s ability to use two different names for one object (referent) or how to understand...
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Prison Staff and Family Visits: United Kingdom Case Study
Avon Hart-Johnson,
Geoffrey Johnson
Issue:
Volume 8, Issue 2, March 2020
Pages:
63-72
Received:
19 April 2020
Accepted:
13 May 2020
Published:
27 May 2020
Abstract: Recent studies have illuminated how families are affected by prison staff engagement during prison visits. Prison staff, by virtue of their positions, exercise power and authority over families during prison visits processes and potentially play a vital role in shaping inmate-family experiences. Although some interactions with prison staff may be cordial, others have been reported as stressful for visitors, especially families with children. Yet many family visitors endure stressful encounters since visits can serve as portals for bonding between inmates and their families. Over the past two decades, some prisons in the United Kingdom (UK) have invested in developing family-oriented practices and visits protocol, where prison staff oversee the visits process. This is in contrast to prison staff who tend to take on a police-officer mentality whereby policing behaviors or personal philosophies are aligned with implied suspicion, mistrust, and apprehension towards inmates and families. Given such, prison staff interpretation of their roles and engagement with families is of research interest. The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to understand how UK prison staff interpreted their roles during family visits and determine why this evolution towards family-focus visiting took place. To answer the research inquiry, a heterogeneous sample of prison staff from private and public sector prisons and advocacy center contractors employed at two prisons in the United Kingdom were recruited to provide broad perspectives on staff roles during the process of the visit. Within these facilities, we interviewed a total of 13 (n=13) staff members. Data collection and semi-structured interviews occurred at two prison facilities and two advocacy centers. Three researchers conducted cross-case analyses and applied triangulation methods to establish a clear chain of evidence documented through step-by-step processes: audit trails; flexible and parallel data analysis during data collection, and first- and second-order coding processes. Findings from this study indicate that prison staff perceives their roles during the visiting processes as an evolution from traditional corrections-based punitive practices (i.e. policing) to a visiting program capable of accommodating three goals: low-stress family visits, inmate conformance, and reduced recidivism. This study adds to the literature on detailing how prison staff dichotomous roles were interpreted as balancing tensions between institutional controls and minimizing traumatic experiences for visiting families through prison-based interventions.
Abstract: Recent studies have illuminated how families are affected by prison staff engagement during prison visits. Prison staff, by virtue of their positions, exercise power and authority over families during prison visits processes and potentially play a vital role in shaping inmate-family experiences. Although some interactions with prison staff may be c...
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Research on the Economic Development Effect of Human Capital Investment
Shan Song,
Huiliang Zhang,
Ke Gao
Issue:
Volume 8, Issue 2, March 2020
Pages:
73-77
Received:
11 March 2020
Published:
29 May 2020
Abstract: With the rapid development of knowledge economy and information age, human capital has gradually become the key factor to support the sustainable development of economy in modern society. It is an important part of government and social investment, which directly affects the strategy of building a strong country with talents and the coordinated development of economy and society. China is rich in labor resources, but due to the difference of natural endowment and economic development level, there are different levels of development imbalance of human capital among provinces and cities. This paper uses the data of 31 provinces, cities and autonomous regions from 2007 to 2017 to build a model, specifically demonstrates the impact of human capital investment on regional economic growth, analyzes the relationship between investment income and regional economic growth, and finally concludes that the level of human capital investment has a significant positive impact on the growth of regional per capita GDP, and puts forward suggestions on increasing the level of regional education investment, improving the policy of talent introduction, strengthening the investment in scientific and technological research and development, and deepening the reform and opening up, which can provide useful reference for scientific planning of China's future human capital development strategy and regional social and economic development.
Abstract: With the rapid development of knowledge economy and information age, human capital has gradually become the key factor to support the sustainable development of economy in modern society. It is an important part of government and social investment, which directly affects the strategy of building a strong country with talents and the coordinated dev...
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The Practical Logic and Countermeasures of Community Home-based Elderly Care Service Under the Dimension of Innovative Big Data
Issue:
Volume 8, Issue 2, March 2020
Pages:
78-85
Received:
27 May 2020
Accepted:
10 June 2020
Published:
17 June 2020
Abstract: Under the background of accelerating the integrative development of big data technology, fiscal finance, and public services to the community home-based care industry model, with the continuous acceleration of China’s social aging process, the government uses public finance to provide a basic community home care services for elderly residents. This paper analyzes the development status of community home care services, analyzes the root sources of the problems on insufficient supply, imbalance and unequalization of care services caused by China's financial system, and proposes a reasonable division of financial and administrative rights for community home care services, optimize the expenditure structure of public finance for community home-based elderly care, improve the use efficiency of financial funds for community home-based elderly care services, effectively supervise financial transfer payments, introduce the market mechanism to cultivate the policies and suggestions of the market main body of community home-based elderly care services. The state formulates fiscal policies and laws and regulations to strongly support the construction of community home-based care services. Promote the fiscal system reform of community elderly care service industry and cultivate the market main body of community home-based elderly care service. Develop a professional, branded and chained community home-based care service system, accelerate the healthy development of community home-based elderly care, and achieve good elderly care.
Abstract: Under the background of accelerating the integrative development of big data technology, fiscal finance, and public services to the community home-based care industry model, with the continuous acceleration of China’s social aging process, the government uses public finance to provide a basic community home care services for elderly residents. This...
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