The Ethical Implications of an Elite Press

Newspaper publishers are well into the process of bifurcating what once was a single mass-market product. Particularly for larger papers, website versions are taking over the mass-market role, while remaining print products are moving toward targeting a much smaller and more elite readership. This article explores theoretical and ethical issues raised by such a two-tiered newspaper structure and suggests directions for empirical study. Broadly, concerns center on the widening knowledge gap between print and online newspaper readers and its implications for civic discourse and democratic vitality. More narrowly, issues encompass a potential bifurcation of normative standards, including diverging markers of credibility, accuracy, and privacy

Computer-based technology and student engagement: a critical review of the literature

Computer-based technology has infiltrated many aspects of life and industry, yet there is little understanding of how it can be used to promote student engagement, a concept receiving strong attention in higher education due to its association with a number of positive academic outcomes. The purpose of this article is to present a critical review of the literature from the past 5 years related to how web-conferencing software, blogs, wikis, social networking sites (Facebook and Twitter), and digital games influence student engagement. We prefaced the findings with a substantive overview of student engagement definitions and indicators, which revealed three types of engagement (behavioral, emotional, and cognitive) that informed how we classified articles. Our findings suggest that digital games provide the most far-reaching influence across different types of student engagement, followed by web-conferencing and Facebook. Findings regarding wikis, blogs, and Twitter are less conclusive and significantly limited in number of studies conducted within the past 5 years. Overall, the findings provide preliminary support that computer-based technology influences student engagement, however, additional research is needed to confirm and build on these findings. We conclude the article by providing a list of recommendations for practice, with the intent of increasing understanding of how computer-based technology may be purposefully implemented to achieve the greatest gains in student engagement. © 2017, The Author(s)

Revisiting the Twentieth Century Through the Lens of Generation X and Digital Games: A Scoping Review

Video games have been around since the 1960s and have impacted upon society in a myriad of different ways. The purpose of this scoping review is to identify existing literature within the domain of video games which recruited participants from the Generation X (1965–1980) cohort. Six databases were searched (ACM, CINHAL Google Scholar, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science) focusing on published journal papers between 1970 and 2000. Search results identified 3186 articles guided by the PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR); 4 papers were irretrievable, 138 duplicated papers were removed, leaving 3048 were assessed for eligibility and 3026 were excluded. Articles (n = 22) were included into this review, with four papers primarily published in 1997 and in 1999. Thematic analysis identified five primary themes: purpose and objectives, respective authors’ reporting, technology, ethics and environment) and seven secondary themes: populations, type of participants (e.g. children, students), ethical approval, study design, reimbursement, language, type of assessments. This scoping review is distinctive because it primarily focuses on Generation X, who have experienced and grown-up with videogames, and contributes to several disciplines including: game studies, gerontology and health, and has wider implications from a societal, design and development perspective of video games