Diverse techniques in international broadcasting

The question of “who is to supply programs” to television networks is one that affects viewers, advertisers, and licensees as well as networks and program producers and packagers. The revolutionary change that took place in the early 1950's, when the advertising agency was supplanted by the network as the primary source of programming, cured many then‐existing problems, but led to complaints that the networks could and did prevent “outside” creative program agencies from having an outlet for their productions. These complaints, added to those presented in Congress and elsewhere about the present quality of television programming, led to the proposal discussed in the following article. Often mislabeled, and still more often misunderstood, the FCC's proposal is intended to “preserve intact the present structure of television network broadcasting, but seeks within that structure to improve conditions of competition in the program process.”     

Product Differentiation in Cable Programming: The Case in the Cable National All-News Networks

Product competition for news viewers in the cable national all-news market was examined. As the cable news networks do not directly compete with each other on price to consumers, it was expected that they would compete for audience by differentiating programming. A content analysis identifies program differentiation among the competing cable all-news networks. Each offered a distinctive style of programming. The different program formats and substantive content in each have the effect of counterprogramming, giving viewers a choice.     

Bias in television news coverage of political events: A methodological analysis

Scholars have long debated the adequacy of women's images on television. This study traced the development of trends and economic influences in serial programming devoted to single working women since 1966. Results suggest that the networks have made considerable progress in the quantity and status of roles presénted, but minority females continue to be underrepresented. Individual network contributions also vary, suggesting that role characterizations are more a function of program economics than social advocacy.     

Going the Extra Mile

Abstract

Even though every library, whether research, academic, public, special, or school will tailor their service to accommodate the specific needs of their customers or community, a common thread-our attitude toward customer service-bonds all librarians. How can we improve our desire to serve with a smile? Does a smile make a difference in customer service? What are some libraries doing to motivate their employees? How can we help one another on the job? This article will explore these and other related questions. Today's libraries are competing with a variety of information sources, some of which are easily available to the user through the Internet. In order to help preserve our most valued asset-our customers-libraries need to incorporate a well-developed, quality customer service program in their operational plan and budget.     

The nature and development of commentary

The caution with which the broadcaster views editorializing is interesting, when considered in light of the broadcaster's willingness to allow “strangers” (people not associated with station or network ownership) to comment on topics of the day. Today, the commentary is undergoing change in form and personnel, but it remains an important program type. Dr. Smith is Instructor in the Department of Speech at Bowling Green (Ohio) State University.     

Investigating relationships within and between category networks in Wikipedia

This work maps and analyses cross-citations in the areas of Biology, Mathematics, Physics and Medicine in the English version of Wikipedia, which are represented as an undirected complex network where the entries correspond to nodes and the citations among the entries are mapped as edges. We found a high value of clustering coefficient for the areas of Biology and Medicine, and a small value for Mathematics and Physics. The topological organization is also different for each network, including a modular structure for Biology and Medicine, a sparse structure for Mathematics and a dense core for Physics. The networks have degree distributions that can be approximated by a power-law with a cut-off. The assortativity of the isolated networks has also been investigated and the results indicate distinct patterns for each subject. We estimated the betweenness centrality of each node considering the full Wikipedia network, which contains the nodes of the four subjects and the edges between them. In addition, the average shortest path length between the subjects revealed a close relationship between the subjects of Biology and Physics, and also between Medicine and Physics. Our results indicate that the analysis of the full Wikipedia network cannot predict the behavior of the isolated categories since their properties can be very different from those observed in the full network.     

Exploring the link between culture and strategy in media organisations: The cases of the BBC and CNN

Abstract

This study employs participant observation methodology to examine the U.S. broadcast industry's cognitions of its external environment. Previous research has documented a tendency among industry participants to operate under outdated mental models of their environment. This tendency ‐ labeled ‘cognitive inertia’ ‐ provides the analytical framework for this study. The results provide indications that broadcasters operate under what appear to be outdated mental models of their external environment, with broadcasters appearing to pay inadequate attention to competing program sources and failing to account for the changing demographic composition of the television audience. However, these conclusions are tempered by the broadcast industry's dual‐product marketplace characteristics, wherein cognitions that would appear to reflect inadequate assessment of the content market may in fact reasonably reflect the contemporary realities of the audience market.     

Information Resources Centers for Community-Based Organizations: A Field Study of an AIDS-HIV Service Agency

SUMMARY

The culture and structure of each organization are unique. A successful fee-based service will take into account the critical features of its own organization, understanding that strong internal support will be vital for long-term success. Whether the business environment is local, regional, or global, an information provider must understand the overall needs of that environment and be able to satisfy them. Providing services for which costs are not fully recoverable may attract business but be unsustainable in the long run; finding and developing the right niche will build a solid base and lead to long-term success. This paper addresses these issues and identifies strategies for success in both internal and external environments. Since neither environment is static, the issues should be re-examined frequently; since neither environment exists totally independent of the other, it will be beneficial to take advantage of the situations where they overlap or exert influence on each other.     

On the Fly BI

Abstract

Today's reference librarians are constantly faced with the challenge of orienting users to the complex, ever changing world of the electronic library. A well-structured library instruction program is one important approach to the overall goal of educating users. But library instruction sessions cannot and do not reach all students. Studies indicate that students are most receptive to learning research techniques at the point of need, which most often occurs at the reference desk. Although many reference librarians are committed to “teaching students to fish,” they are frequently faced with students whose research needs require in-depth lessons that exceed the time available for most reference desk transactions. This paper offers a way to close the gap by providing a set of techniques and strategies, utilizing behaviors and props, which can be used in those short, one-on-one instruction-based situations.     

The development of compromising as an alternative to persuasion

Children's responses to situations in which their interests conflicted with those of the other interactant were investigated to determine whether children would attempt to persuade the other or to initiate compromise. One hundred twenty‐seven third, fourth, and sixth graders constructed messages in such situations. There was a tendency for more of the older children than young ones to spontaneously initiate compromise. Results were interpreted in terms of development and communicative skills reflecting the pursual of multiple goals. In this case, older children were concerned not only with their own primary interests, but with those of the other interactant.     

Leadership Reflections: It is Not About the Perks

Abstract

Our guest columnist is Karl Bridges who has served in a variety of leadership roles in academic libraries. I have gotten to know Karl over the past few years as he was asked to serve in an interim dean role and then hired into the permanent dean positions. At the time, I was at the University of Wyoming and serving as a leader in sparsely populated state where everyone knows your name. Western leaders have to form a tight bond – there are fewer of us and the distances are great. But regardless of geographical situations, leaders need and depend on peer networks that provide a safe space for frank conversations and sharing ideas that help all libraries achieve their goals. Karl has dealt with changing university leadership, library transformations, and dire budget situations. Well, pretty much what every library leader must face. Despite these challenges, library leaders have an opportunity to make a real difference. Karl draws upon his years of experience to provide a thought piece about library leadership noting the complexity, the importance of leadership, and the real joy of making a difference in someone’s life. I hope you enjoy this raw look at leadership and that it reminds you of the purpose of leadership.     

Exploring the Evidence in Evidence-Based Acquisition

ABSTRACT

This article explores the University of Colorado (CU) Libraries’ experiences with evaluating a patron-driven (PDA) program with Kanopy and an evidence-based (EBA) program with Alexander Street for streaming videos. The article includes a thorough comparison of EBA and PDA models, workflows, and outcomes. Three separately administered libraries within the CU system support campuses of different budgets, student and faculty demographics, programs, and exposure to streaming collections. Lessons in implementing and assessing streaming videos at each library and across the consortia are shared along with details on how to implement similar analysis at other libraries.     

Neighborhood storytelling networks,Internet connectedness,and civic participation after the Great East Japan Earthquake

This study examines how the neighborhood storytelling network, which is conceptualized in communication infrastructure theory and includes interpersonal, organizational and community media connectedness, and an individual's Internet connectedness affected participation in civic activities in the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake, which occurred on 11 March 2011. Responses from 544 randomly selected people residing in Tokyo reveal that connectedness to a neighborhood storytelling network and one's Internet connectedness have positive effects on participation in civic activities in response to the earthquake. However, the two independent factors (neighborhood storytelling and Internet connectedness) do not exhibit a significant relationship with each other. The result suggests the existence of two different conduits for civic engagement in disaster situations – neighborhood storytelling networks and Internet connectedness – mainly distinguished by age.     

The selectors of television programs

Difficulties in indexing the degree of motivation or attention to television by people in the same room with a “live” television set have long been recognized. One element of this problem has been the question of determining which member of the household actually makes the selection of specific program or channel, and whether there are differences between types of households or socio‐economic classes that are related to different patterns of channel or program selection.     

Ancient Mural Classification Method Based on Improved AlexNet Network

ABSTRACT

As an important part of art and culture, ancient murals depict a variety of different artistic images, and these individual images have important research value. For research purposes, it is often important to first determine the type of objects represented in a painting. However, the mural painting environment makes datasets difficult to collect, and long-term exposure leads to underlying features that are not distinct, which makes this task challenging. This study proposes a convolutional neural network model based on the classic AlexNet network model and combines it with feature fusion to automatically classify ancient mural images. Due to the lack of large-scale mural datasets, the model first expands the dataset by applying image enhancement algorithms such as scaling, brightness conversion, noise addition, and flipping; then, it extracts the underlying features (such as fresco edges) shared by the first stage of a dual channel structure. Subsequently, a second-stage deep abstraction is conducted on the features extracted by the first stage using a two-channel network, each of which has a different structure. The obtained characteristics from both channels are merged, and a loss function is constructed to obtain the classification result. This approach improves the model's robustness and feature expression ability. The model achieves an accuracy of 84.24%, a recall rate of 84.15%, and an F1-measure of 84.13% when applied to a constructed mural image dataset. Compared with the AlexNet model and other improved convolutional neural network models, the proposed model improves each evaluation index by approximately 5%, verifying the rationality and effectiveness of the model for automatic mural image classification. The mural classification model proposed in this paper comprehensively considers the influences of network width and depth and can extract rich details from mural images from multiple local channels. An effective classification method could help researchers manage and protect mural images in an orderly fashion and quickly and effectively search for target images in a digital mural library based on a specified image category, aiding mural condition monitoring and restoration efforts as well as archaeological and art historical research.     

Evaluating Summary Measures of Heterogeneous Political Discussion: The Critical Roles of Excluded Cases and Discussion with People Holding Extreme Views

ABSTRACT

Summary network heterogeneity measures are frequently used and often-cited in work on interpersonal political disagreement, but their properties are not well documented and they produce anomalous results relative to other measures of socially supplied disagreement. This study deconstructs the familiar summary network heterogeneity measure to examine why it produces incongruous results relative to other measures used in the literature. This study pays particular attention to the multiple strategies that exist for handling non-partisans when creating the measure. Additionally, it focuses on the “extreme views” items included in its construction, which are conceptually and methodologically distinct from other items and rarely theoretically justified. Results demonstrate that summary network heterogeneity is best thought of an as index, rather than as a scale, which has implications for how scholars should approach it. Critically, inclusion of the extreme views items and decisions about data exclusion also have substantive consequences; this highlights the need for further inquiry into extremity and for explicit reporting about data-handling decisions.     

Facilitating research amongst radiographers through information literacy workshops

Background:Despite a strong research presence in Lancashire Teaching Hospitals National Health Service (NHS) Foundation Trust (LTHTR), allied health professionals from the organization are underrepresented in developing and publicizing research that is inspired by day-to-day clinical practice and staff experiences. Two LTHTR departments, Library and Knowledge Services (LKS) and Research and Innovation (R&I), came together to enable a group of staff to develop the knowledge and skills that they needed to access information and create new “home grown” research.Case Presentation:A clinical librarian and an academic research nurse created a research engagement program in the diagnostic radiography department at LTHTR, which included the development, delivery, and evaluation of 6 workshops. Sixteen individuals took part in these workshops, and data were collected on library usage, self-efficacy in information literacy, and research output before and after their delivery. Library membership increased by 50% among diagnostic radiography staff, literature search requests from this department increased by 133%, and all participants who attended at least 1 workshop reported an increased Information Literacy Self Efficacy Scale (ILSES) score. An increase in research activity and outputs was also attributed to the program.Conclusions:This project has resulted in a set of freely available workshop plans and support resources that can be customized for other health care professionals and has won several awards for its innovative use of departmental collaboration. Through the evaluation of the program from workshop attendees and non-attenders, we have identified impacts, outputs, and barriers to engagement in order to continue to deliver this content to other departments and embed a home grown research culture at LTHTR.     

Development and test of a cognitive rules model of interaction goals

Although scholars frequently describe communication as goal oriented, they offer limited detail about how people form interaction goals in situations. This paper presents a “Cognitive Rules” model which specifies assumptions about the structures and processes underlying goal formation. According to the model, people represent their knowledge about goals within an associative network model of memory, which contains cognitive rules linking situational features and desired outcomes. People's likelihood of forming a goal depends on the accessibility of relevant cognitive rules as well as the fit between perceived situational features and rules. An experiment testing these assumptions is reported. As predicted, a priming manipulation influenced interaction goals in attributionally ambiguous but not in attributionally clear compliance‐gaining situations. Unexpectedly, the effect of priming on goals occurred only for people high in construct differentiation. Implications of these findings for accounts of goal formation and message production are discussed.     

Exploring data management content in doctoral nursing handbooks

Objective:While data management (DM) is an increasing responsibility of doctorally prepared nurses, little is understood about how DM education and expectations are reflected within student handbooks. The purpose of this study was to assess the inclusion of DM content within doctoral nursing student handbooks.Methods:A list of 346 doctoral programs was obtained from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN). Program websites were searched to locate program handbooks, which were downloaded for analysis. A textual review of 261 handbooks from 215 institutions was conducted to determine whether DM was mentioned and, if so, where the DM content was located. Statistical analysis was performed to compare the presence of DM guidance by type of institution, Carnegie Classification, and the type of doctoral program handbook.Results:A total of 1,382 codes were identified across data life cycle stages, most commonly in the handbooks’ project requirements section. The most frequent mention of DM was in relation to collecting and analyzing data; the least frequent related to publishing and sharing data and preservation. Significant differences in the frequency and location of codes were identified by program type and Carnegie Classification.Conclusions:Nursing doctoral program handbooks primarily address collecting and analyzing data during student projects. Findings suggest limited education about, and inclusion of, DM life cycle content, especially within DNP programs. Collaboration between nursing faculty and librarians and nursing and library professional organizations is needed to advance the adoption of DM best practices for preparing students in their future roles as clinicians and scholars.