Snap Judgments: How Students Search the Web for Their Rights to Photograph in Public

ABSTRACT

China’s distinct development of the Internet has provided religious populations within its mainland access, allowing them to create practices and resources related to the development of religion online. Yet this phenomenon has been understudied both within the current Chinese research on the Internet and international studies of digital religion online. This article provides an overview of digital religion in the Chinese context by identifying and exploring the main characteristics of Buddhism, Islam, and Protestantism manifest online. This is done by providing an overview of current research and profiling the development of different forms of digital religious expression found in China. Through this we show how the concept of digital religion is manifest in China and how this compares to Western understandings of such practices, and we highlight the unique characteristics defining the Chinese religious digital landscape.     

Religiosity and the digital divide in Canada

The digital divide refers to the differential patterns of Internet access adoption and usage across different segments of populations. The digital divide has been linked to demographic variables such as age and gender, and socioeconomic characteristics such as education and income. Using a nationally representative Canadian survey (N = 27,223) conducted in 2013, this paper investigates whether religiosity has an independent effect on the digital divide, accounting for the previously validated predictors of Internet use. Religiosity is found to negatively associate with Internet access and activity, controlling for a large set of characteristics such as age, ethnicity, education, and income. The religiosity-related gaps in the usage patterns appear to indicate lifestyle differences for those without any tie with religion compared with the individuals of average religiosity. For the very religious, the gaps indicate that they utilize the Internet for social networking less than others. Various implications are discussed.     

A study of digital curator competences: A survey of experts

Abstract

The aim of this research was to define competences for digital curators, and to validate a Delphi process in the context of Library, Archives, Museum curriculum development. The objective for the study was to obtain consensus regarding competence statements for Library, Archives and Museum digital curators.

The Delphi method, a research technique, typically used to develop a consensus of opinion for topic areas in which there is little previously documented knowledge, was used in specifying the digital curator competences in LAM context. Three rounds of questionnaires with controlled feedback with space for comments and/or suggestions were sent to panel members. Five point Likert scale was employed in the questionnaire. Consensus was determined when a competence statement received a mode higher than 3, an average mean more than 3.5, and a standard deviation smaller than 1.0.

Response rates for rounds I, II and III were: 70% (n = 16), 87.5% (n = 14), and 94% (n = 15) respectively. Of the 18 digital curator competences listed in the first round questionnaire, 13 (70%) achieved consensus as being necessary digital curator competences required of advanced level digital curator. Other inputs of respondents like comments and suggestions were also analyzed. An additional 23 digital curator competence statements were also suggested by the panel in round I and further developed in subsequent rounds. In round II, 12 (30%) competence statements achieved consensus. The final round and editing of competence statements led to 20 statements that describe what a well-prepared digital curator trained to participate in digital curation work should be able to do.     

The Digital Humanities Summer Scholarship: A model for library-led undergraduate digital scholarship

ABSTRACT

The article offers a model for library-centered undergraduate engagement with digital scholarship based on two years of successful implementation at Lafayette College. Librarians designed a competitive six-week summer internship where undergraduate students built their own digital research projects. Through their original projects, students practiced traditional research methods and simultaneously explored subfields of digital scholarship. The article's topics include the relationship between digital scholarship and information literacy, the library's role in facilitating digital scholarship, and the internship's design and execution. The article also includes reflections and recommendations for sustainable implementation.     

From service to synergy: Embedding librarians in a digital humanities project

ABSTRACT

Definitions of the term digital humanities vary, and its place in the academic library is still being explored. Yet exploration is indeed taking place, at large research institutions as well as, increasingly, at smaller colleges and undergraduate libraries. This article details an innovative digital humanities project carried out at an institution of 2,300 undergraduates, where a creative institutional partnership was the key to its success. The project has provided an outstanding opportunity to address the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, while embracing the growing trend on many campuses to showcase student research.     

Digital humanities and the emerging framework for digital curation

ABSTRACT

Digital humanities (DH) represents an emerging framework for digital curation. This study focuses on the evolving relationship of the DH (including history) to digital curation and archives and describes the models of collaboration in the digital environment. A conceptual framework is presented, followed by discussions of scarcity and abundance, archival frameworks, models of collaboration, and a review of selected DH projects. Despite the semantic disagreements over the term archives, researchers and curators should consider each other's perspectives for continued collaboration.     

Project management for digital projects with collaborators beyond the library

ABSTRACT

Librarians are increasingly embracing project management to guide their work outside of routine library operations. Some humanities scholars, too, especially within the digital humanities community, are bringing project management techniques to bear on scholarly digital projects. We argue that librarians and their diverse collaborators can apply project management practices to a broad range of research, teaching, and learning projects with collaborators beyond the library. Two case studies illustrate this argument, one from each author's experience: creating a community biodiversity wiki for West-Central Florida and redesigning an interdisciplinary first-year seminar around creating 3-D models of historic Venetian buildings.     

Community-Enhanced Repository for Engaged Scholarship: A case study on supporting digital humanities research

ABSTRACT

Building digital curation and sustainability into digital humanities project development is challenging, and engaging digital humanities researchers fully as partners in curation practices with the library is even more so. How can we represent the longevity and sustainability of digital humanities research projects as a shared responsibility between faculty and student researchers and library staff? Northeastern University Libraries Digital Scholarship Group has designed a series of tools and workflows to ease the burden of sustainable development, support community engagement with digital materials, and enable the library and its partners to work together to build sustainable digital projects.     

“The first combat meme brigade of the Slovak internet”: hybridization of civic engagement through digital media trolling

ABSTRACT

This paper analyzes a locally bound and hybridized form of civic engagement through digital media. Based on an explorative case study of a Slovak Facebook page called Zomri, engaged mostly in both mockery and denunciation of societal and political actors, the paper aims to challenge existing conceptual definitions of social media-based civic engagements, pointing to its hybridization. Through in-depth interviews with its founders and a survey of its supporters, we position the group and its activities through three separate lenses (trolling, digital vigilantism, and citizen journalism) that constitute an emergent category of dynamic and politically influential civic society actor.     

Convergence,connectivity, ephemeral and performed: new characteristics of digital photographs

The recent convergence of digital cameras into mobile phones with Internet connectivity has provided the opportunity for individuals and organisations to adopt new image-making practices. The widespread use of photo-sharing and social networking platforms for sharing, accessing and storing digital photographs is presenting scholars in the social sciences with new areas of research that address the nature of digital photography. By examining the technological, social and cultural factors involved in contemporary image-making practices, scholars are presenting new concepts regarding the characteristics of digital photographs that impact archival activities aimed at managing and preserving trustworthy digital records. This article identifies and discusses the key concepts emerging from social science research on digital photography that are most relevant to the archival field. Analysis of the findings of these studies suggests that new technologies and social practices are changing how people use digital photographs and their expectations of permanence. Therefore, archivists need to be engaged in interdisciplinary discussions regarding the evolution of photographic practices and emerging characteristics of digital photographs in order to anticipate the management and preservation activities required to protect contemporary visual records for future use.     

From Grand Narratives of Democracy to Small Expectations of Participation

This article critically examines the invocation of democracy in the discourse of audience participation in digital journalism. Rather than simply restate the familiar grand narratives that traditionally described journalism's function for democracy (information source, watchdog, public representative, mediation for political actors), we compare and contrast conceptualisations of the audience found within these and discuss how digital technologies impact these relationships. We consider how “participatory” transformations influence perceptions of news consumption and draw out analytic distinctions based on structures of participation and different levels of engagement. This article argues that the focus in digital journalism is not so much on citizen engagement but rather audience or user interaction; instead of participation through news, the focus is on participation in news. This demands we distinguish between minimalist and maximalist versions of participation through interactive tools, as there is a significant distinction between technologies that allow individuals to control and personalise content (basic digital control) and entire platforms that easily facilitate the storytelling and distribution of citizen journalism within public discourse (integrative structural participation). Furthermore, commercial interests tend to dominate the shaping of digital affordances, which can lead to individualistic rather than collective conceptualisations. This article concludes by considering what is gained as well as lost when grand visions of journalism's roles for democracy are appropriated or discarded in favour of a participation paradigm to conceptualise digital journalism.     

Hiding homoeroticism in plain view: the Fight Club DVD as digital closet

–The DVD format has emerged as the dominant digital means of repackaging films for home consumption. In this essay, we theorize this new viewing experience and identify some of the challenges it poses for the media critic. We argue that the additional material DVDs typically offer, coupled with the format's interactivity, constitute a rhetorically powerful means of directing the consumer's viewing experience and protecting the commercial viability of the product. To illustrate, we offer a critical analysis of the DVD release of the controversial film Fight Club. Our analysis suggests that Fight Club's DVD “extra text” dissuades the viewer from acknowledging the film's homoerotic elements as representing homosexual experience.     

Formation of a talking space and gender discourses in digital diaspora space: Case of a female Korean im/migrants online community in the USA

This article explores an online community of female Korean im/migrants in the USA in order to investigate the formation of a digital diaspora of women on the web. Employing multiple research methods including in-depth interviews, textual analysis, and participatory observation, this article examines the largest online community of female Korean im/migrants in the USA (www.MissyUSA.com), focusing on how their unique talking space was created on this site and the ways in which the relevant gender discourses are presented and constructed in relation to their diasporic conditions. The findings show that these women's shared identity (i.e. being Korean, married, female, and living in the USA) is an important element in the formation and development of this online community, especially in the creation of a candid talking space – sokpuri – where they vent their innermost feelings about their lives in the USA. The Missy and ajuma are the two salient identity discourses and selective use and flexible appropriation of the terms are found. The ajuma image (less individualistic, more active in sharing information and helping others) is adopted when these women identify their online community as a place where the empowering ajuma spirit is alive; meanwhile, they still adopt the Missy image of a young, independent, and modern woman for their individual identities, despite its consumerist origin. Although the issues of housewifization and having an enhanced gender relationship are quite often discussed, this online community has a limitation in that it does not produce a consistent and systematic challenging voice.     

The Slavist in the Digital World: Creating Scholarly Resources in Partnership with Librarians at the University of Virginia

ABSTRACT. This article offers a brief discussion of two projects—the creation of a set of digital images of Russian art and an exhibit of modern Russian children's books—developed in collaborative partnership between a Slavist and librarians at the University of Virginia. Both of these projects were designed to create shareable, flexible, and sustainable resources for research and educational use. The challenges and benefits of collaborative partnerships between scholars and librarians are discussed, and models for conceptualizing the relationships are also proposed.     

Extending the Digital Divide Conversation: Examining the Knowledge Gap Through Media Expectancies

As long as scholars have studied media, issues of access have been of great concern. Recent advancements in digital technology have framed disparities in access within the digital divide research and knowledge gap frameworks. While early digital divide research looked at access, more recent research has focused on how media are used differently across populations. The current research extends this literature by examining media expectancies across ethnic subgroups for a broad range of media (i.e., local newspapers, national newspapers, network television, cable television, radio, magazines, and Internet). Data indicate expectancies differ among African Americans, Caucasians, and Hispanics.     

Gessoes in Portuguese Baroque Gilding Grounds: Part 2: Analytical Study of Historical Samples and Archaeological Reconstructions

This paper arises from a wider research project focussed on Portuguese gilded altarpieces and sculptures of the Baroque period, which also involved research into contemporary documents and into historical context, as well as into the history of use of materials and practices in gilding technology. It focuses on the results from analyses of historical samples and samples from archaeological reconstructions of gessoes and gilded surfaces. Analytical and experimental research shed light on diverse aspects of the technology of gilding grounds, such as range and composition of materials within historical objects, methods of production of gilding materials, gilding practices, actual performance of materials and gilded surfaces, and the science underlying the artists’ empirical choice of materials and practices. The documentary research (discussed in Part 1) elucidated the analytical and experimental research presented here, and vice-versa, resulting in a richer and more balanced understanding of the gessoes and of the motives of the people involved in their production. It is hoped that the results will inform future technological studies and conservation decisions.