Pretend that it is real!: Convergence Culture in Practice

Media convergence has mainly been defined and explained as a technological and industrial phenomenon; as the process where new technologies are accommodated by existing media and communication industries and their cultures of production. One consequence of convergence in today’s hybrid media landscape is that the previously distinct borders between production and consumption have become blurred. This means that convergence also takes place as a bottom-up social process initiated by media users that move almost anywhere and everywhere in search of entertainment experiences of their liking. This thesis sheds light on the different types of media convergence that took place in the process of making the transmedia storytelling production Sanningen om Marika. The Swedish public service provider, SVT, and the pervasive games upstart company, The company P, combined their expertise in broadcasting and games development to craft this ‘participation drama’. During five months in 2007, the production offered Swedes nationwide rich possibilities to interact and participate, or just to watch or lurk on the production’s various platforms. Using an ethnographic approach, field studies were conducted throughout the design, implementation and production phases. The analysis shows that even if instances of convergence could be identified, the collaboration did not proceed smoothly. The companies’ different media logics with their differing cultures of production created tensions and frictions. The different logics of television, internet and games - different in quality demands and with different audience participation models - made it difficult to create a hybrid production. Television genres blurred fiction and facts, and the ordinary was blurred with activities of games and play in the production, making the audience reception and interpretations differ extensively. Lastly, the designed audience participation did not remove the asymmetrical relationship between producers and users in media, but instead highlighted issues of hierarchies, lack of participant empowerment and inequality between participants

Experiences of Resilient Military Veterans Transitioned to Education: A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Study

The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological study was to understand the lived experiences leading to high resilience in military veteran teachers employed in education roles in an international setting. The central research question of this study is: What are the resilience-building experiences of military veteran teachers? Deci and Ryan’s self-determination theory guided the study of veteran resilience, exploring the roles of competence, choice, and connection related to authentic learning, performance, and resilience. This study makes use of rich data collected from in-depth and multiple individual and focus-group interviews as well as a letter-writing prompt to generate themes, develop textural and structural data, and report the essence of high performance and resilience in the lives of a purposeful and representative sample of 10 military veteran teachers with a combined total of over 280 years of honorable and exemplary service to the nation. Hermeneutic reflexive data analysis procedures informed by Saldana and other researchers\u27 discussions of the qualitative approach led to a greater understanding of resilience-building experience, yielding the four themes of networking relationships, development training, decision-making, and adversity experience. Implications for education policy and professional teaching practice call for greater investment and devotion to building student resilience that may result in performance improvement and higher levels of individual readiness and well-being

Så mycket mer än vanligt sex: En studie av meningsskapande kring BDSM

The aim of this study was to examine the meaning constructed in BDSM sexuality, a sexuality predominantly composed of dominance and submission, and also to relate these findings to existing theory. A semi-structured interview guide was constructed. Then seven interviews were conducted with individuals self-identified as sexually submissive and/or dominant. The interviews were interpreted with IPA (Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis). The interpretation resulted in six different themes: individual sexual development, BDSM and normative society, the subculture, to define and accept ones sexuality and identity, sexual practice and core meaning. The results indicate that the subculture and relation to society at large is important for self-esteem and sexual identity. The core meaning revolves around giving up and receiving control and agency and also around the illusion of coercion. These meanings exist in a space between reality and fantasy. These findings corroborate to a high degree with existent theory on the subject. “Sadomasochism” has until recently been a psychiatric diagnosis in the Swedish version of ICD-10

Leaf breakdown rates : a measure of water quality?

The breakdown rates of Alnus glutinosa leaves and the structure of macroinvertebrate communities were used to evaluate the impact of the village of Montalegre (Portugal) on the water quality of the Cávado river. Chemical and microbial analyses of stream water indicated a high organic load in the vicinity of the village. The abundance of macroinvertebrates associated with leaves increased along the pollution gradient, whereas richness of the community decreased. Biotic indices and multivariate analysis applied to aquatic macroinvertebrate communities discriminated polluted from non-polluted sites. Exponential breakdown rates of alder leaves were high (0.014 to 0.060 day-1) and the differences observed among sites suggested that nutrient enrichment stimulated leaf breakdown significantly. Leaf breakdown rates have not reflected improved biotic conditions as assessed by biotic indices at the most downstream site. These results suggest that both data from the structure and function of a stream are important for assessing water quality

Shedding light on plant litter decomposition: Advances, implications and new directions in understanding the role of photodegradation

Litter decomposition contributes to one of the largest fluxes of carbon (C) in the terrestrial biosphere and is a primary control on nutrient cycling. The inability of models using climate and litter chemistry to predict decomposition in dry environments has stimulated investigation of non-traditional drivers of decomposition, including photodegradation, the abiotic decomposition of organic matter via exposure to solar radiation. Recent work in this developing field shows that photodegradation may substantially influence terrestrial C fluxes, including abiotic production of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and methane, especially in arid and semi-arid regions. Research has also produced contradictory results regarding controls on photodegradation. Here we summarize the state of knowledge about the role of photodegradation in litter decomposition and C cycling and investigate drivers of photodegradation across experiments using a meta-analysis. Overall, increasing litter exposure to solar radiation increased mass loss by 23% with large variation in photodegradation rates among and within ecosystems. This variation was tied to both litter and environmental characteristics. Photodegradation increased with litter C to nitrogen (N) ratio, but not with lignin content, suggesting that we do not yet fully understand the underlying mechanisms. Photodegradation also increased with factors that increased solar radiation exposure (latitude and litter area to mass ratio) and decreased with mean annual precipitation. The impact of photodegradation on C (and potentially N) cycling fundamentally reshapes our thinking of decomposition as a solely biological process and requires that we define the mechanisms driving photodegradation before we can accurately represent photodegradation in global C and N models. © 2012 US Government