“I Am Who I Am”: Black Masculinity and the Interpretation of Individualism in the Film Barbershop

This essay will provide further insight into how Black audiences interpret a popular culture text by focusing upon how a group of young black men construct Black masculinity as depicted in the film Barbershop. Interestingly, a rhetorical community of young Black men discussed the representations of the characters in the film from a perspective of Black individualism rather than reaffirming identity through a collective orientation toward the culture. This reading contrasts with much of the “ghettocentric” film literature by highlighting how a Black audience's interpretation of a text can focus on individualism rather than on cultural representations and stereotypes.     

Who Am I and Where Do I “Stand?”

Objective: Students can reflect upon and articulate how they have been shaped by their “standpoints” in life. This assignment allows students to truly see themselves reaching out (understanding others) and reaching in (examining selves) to reflect upon their standpoint in society. Secondary goals are to dispel stereotypes of various standpoints and create more openness in class discussions.

Potential courses: Gender Communication, Communication Theory, Cultural Communication, and Introduction to Public Speaking     

“I Got the Job! Now What Do I Do?”

Abstract

New reference librarians should not expect to be passive participants in their orientations. As evidenced in current literature, few libraries are able to provide the time and resources needed to fully orient and train their staff. Therefore, librarians should take an active role in planning and implementing their own training. This article provides tips for developing a self-training plan for new reference librarians.     

“I Said What?” Partner Familiarity,Resistance, and the Accuracy of Conversational Recall

We examined the influence of two structural parameters on the content and valence of conversational recall. 144 females had two conversations defined by relationship type (close friend or stranger) and partner resistance (resistance or none). Conversational recall statements were coded for accuracy of content (self, partner, or neutral) and valence (positive, negative, or neutral). Overall, respondents were less accurate in recalling the content of stranger conversations than friend exchanges, and when partners were agreeable compared to resistant. However, those who experienced little partner resistance more accurately recalled positively valenced information than respondents who encountered resistance. When partners resisted, friend interactions were recalled less accurately in terms of positivity, but more accurately for negative information, compared to the recall of stranger conversations.     

Can I Have Your Attention? Implications of the Research on Distractions and Multitasking for Reference Librarians

The media have identified the past decade as “the age of distraction.” People today find it harder to work on long, sustained tasks because distractions are eroding their attention spans, fostering a culture of discontinuity. Fields as diverse as psychology, business, education, human-computer interaction, and communication studies have produced a wealth of studies on interruptions, distractions, and multitasking—research that has important implications for reference librarians. The nature of our jobs invites interruptions by the public, requires familiarity with the latest technology, stimulates curiosity about a broad range of subjects, and demands adeptness at multitasking—all factors that can atomize attention.     

“Sentences like these:” Multicultural information dynamics and international diversity of thought

Multicultural information dynamics is exploratory cross-cultural research of the information-seeking behavior of a group of eighty-four Egyptian and American reference librarians asked to choose from websites in different languages. This paper, the fourth in a series, focuses on national, monolingual, and multilingual subgroups, and provides multi-tiered analyzes of websites clicked, reasons given for clicking, preferences for machine translations vs. original foreign language websites, decision making when choosing non-native language hits, and foreign language anxiety. Findings of the research show that information seekers of both nationalities are reluctant to cross cultural lines at the basic level of retrieved Internet information hits. Further results delineate differences and similarities in motivations, circumstantial preferences for original languages or machine translations, and comparative information-seeking behavior of subgroups. The research has implications for improving search performance in the fields of global knowledge dissemination via website and search engine design, library science, and international scholarship.     

“Since this is the editorial section I intend to express my opinion”: Inequality and expressivity in letters to the editor

This paper analyzes the argumentative style and the characteristics of writers of newspaper letters to the editor. Writers are more likely to be White, male, older, more politically active, and less likely to be politically moderate than the local population. Inequality in political participation persists in this forum. Gender and sense of local political efficacy influence how letter writers make their points. Letters to the editor mostly display inequalities similar to other forms of political participation.     

What does better peer review look like? Underlying principles and recommendations for better practice

We conducted a literature review of best practice in peer review. Following this research, we identified five principles for better peer review: Content Integrity, Content Ethics, Fairness, Usefulness, and Timeliness. For each of these principles, we have developed a set of recommendations to improve peer review standards. In this article, we describe the role of peer review and how our five principles support that goal. This article is intended to continue the conversation about improving peer review standards and provide guidance to journal teams looking to improve their standards. It is accompanied by a detailed checklist, which could be used by journal teams to assess their current peer review standards.     

Information Provision and the Carceral State: Race and Reference beyond the Idea of the “Underserved”

This article addresses an approach to library services for people who are incarcerated that meets the situated information needs and desires of people within jails and prisons. By creating a flow of information between LIS students and individuals who are incarcerated through a Reference by Mail program, resources available to incarcerated people are increased while students engage in a humanizing and self-reflexive project, with the understanding that the regulation of information within jails and prisons has lasting effects for the life chances of incarcerated people.     

Pattern-welding and Damascening of Sword-blades—Part I Pattern-Welding

Abstract

Marble specimens were impregnated with epoxy resins by first soaking the specimens in a solvent and then treating them, in steps, with increasing concentrations of the resin in the resin-solvent mixture. This resulted in impregnation to several centimeters’ depth into the specimen. Both impregnated and non-impregnated specimens were subjected to 3000 ppm SO₂ atmospheres in a dynamic system. X-ray diffraction and fluorescence studies to determine the deterioration quantitatively, revealed that transformation of the outer layer of non-impregnated marble into primarily calcium sulfite stopped after a maximum of 15 mole percent conversion under normal conditions of humidity. While certain impregnated marble specimens showed significant protection from SO₂ attack, other impregnated specimens revealed more reactivity than the controls. A partial explanation of this has been obtained by scanning electron microscopy which showed that the resin films on the surface were perforated. Coatings of certain acrylics provided some additional protection to impregnated specimens.     

Hide and Seek: Neoliberalizing the State and “Stating” the Neoliberal in the Italian Media System

The author claims that neoliberal discourse plays “hide and seek” with the state, which appears at the same time absent and present, negated, and necessitated. In order to test its limits, the paper historicizes such discourse by engaging with the Italian case. More specifically, this study examines the most representative figure of Italian neoliberalism, former prime minister and media tycoon, Silvio Berlusconi, and his ambiguous relationship with the state. Drawing on Marx and Gramsci's conceptualization of the state, the paper sheds light on the Italian context as well as the more general characteristics of the neoliberal state.     

“Hello,How May I Offend You Today?” NBC's Outsourced and the Discourse of Cultural Authenticity

Cultural authenticity is a fluid construct in an era in which globalization is celebrated and vilified. The author examines how cultural authenticity is discursively ascribed, legitimized, and negotiated among creators and viewers of the short-lived NBC series Outsourced within the overlapping contexts of globalization, outsourcing, and fake Indian accents. Findings indicate that authenticity materialized around country of origin, and the author explores whether cultural artifacts conformed to iconic signifiers. The implications are contextualized within Arjun Appadurai's globalization framework.     

Open Access and the Developing World

Till about 15 years ago, almost all information exchange among scientists and scholars was mediated by print and even then researchers in the developing countries were at a great disadvantage as their libraries did not have the resources to subscribe in comparison with even a small fraction of journals libraries in advanced countries. But the Internet and the World Wide Web initially exacerbated the gap between the rich and the poor countries, as many poor countries were slow to acquire these technologies and the infrastructure (especially bandwidth). Soon it became clear that thanks to these technologies we now have the unprecedented opportunity of having a level playing field in the matter of accessing scientific and scholarly information. Transforming this opportunity into reality is entirely in the hands of the researchers themselves. Imagine a world where every scientist places his/ her research papers, which (s)he wants to give away so others can read and make use of, in a public archive. Anyone anywhere in the world, of course having an Internet connection, can access, download, and read those papers. This is a win-win situation for all: the reader gets to read what he wants to read at very little cost; the author gains greater visibility for his work and the work reported is likely to have greater impact than if it were to be made available only through a toll-access journal. Although the logic is so simple, in reality such archives were not coming up for a very long time. In spite of the fact that computer scientists and physicists had shown about 15 years ago the great advantages of such archives. Recent studies by Alma Swan and others have shown that a very large proportion of scientists are not aware of open access and therefore what we need is focused advocacy. Even among those who know of OA, many are not depositing their papers in archives but say they would if they are asked by their bosses or their funding agencies. Clearly the ball is in the court of scientists and policy makers. OA is especially advantageous to the developing countries as the current access to literatures is poorest in these countries.     

What causes the similarities and differences among the social sciences in different cultures? Focusing on Japan and the West

As the title suggest, this article attempts to account for variations in the approach to the social sciences between Japan and the West. Ito identifies and provides examples for two categories of research that are peculiar to Japan: (1) A tradition of academic interest in long‐term longitudinal social surveys; and (2) Theories that are based on words and concepts that are unique to the Japanese language and experience. He also covers the special focus that Disaster Communication research has had in the country.

The second half of the paper deals with the great deal of similarities in approach to research between the West and Japan by looking at the significance and impact of key developments in the histories of the two cultures.     

How Do I Get a Campus ID? The Other Role of the Academic Library in Student Retention and Success

Academic libraries have long gathered data at the reference desk to facilitate informed development of services and collections, and have long known that regardless of whether questions are related to doing research, the library is a safe place a student may go to find answers. This article highlights the role of the library and information commons service desks as valuable windows into the student experience. The authors suggest that librarians share with campus stakeholders information about students’ non-research-related questions to aid in the development of programs and services designed to help students adjust to campus life and, ultimately, succeed.     

‘I stared at him in defiance:’ Hollaback! movement and the enactment of reflexive,resilient countervisuality

Hollaback! is an international movement seeking to end street harassment. Its website invites women to share narratives of their experience of street harassment as well as photos of the men who harassed them. We treat Hollaback! as an exemplar of feminist online activism and aim to identify lessons for other feminist online activists and organizations. In particular, we argue that the site’s narrative-image posts provide a powerful means of enacting countervisuality in public spaces. After analyzing 26 narrative-image postings on the Hollaback! website, we identify three collective rhetorical effects of countervisuality: Altering the traditional dichotomy of male/observer and female/observed, enacting feminist rhetorical agency through mobility in public spaces, and generating women’s solidarity through shared experience. We then argue that Hollaback!’s strategy of countervisuality insufficiently enacted the core principles of feminist rhetorical resilience, especially the concept of mêtis. We conclude by offering recommendations for feminist online activists and scholars.     

Understanding the “Heroes” and “It Getters”: Fandom and the Colbert Nation

The Colbert Report, an innovative American satirical news show, and the show's dedicated viewers, known as “the Colbert Nation,” redefined fan engagement through audience participation, mediated culture jamming, and ironic political spectacle. Yet very little is known about this fan group. This survey of The Colbert Report's devoted followers finds that the fans are distrustful of political and media elites, highly cynical, very politically involved, not apathetic, and moderately efficacious. Further analysis reveals that viewers have different motivations, some seeing the show as primarily entertainment, some mainly as a trusted source of political information, and others as a mix of entertainment and information. The fans are also found to be highly sophisticated consumers of satire and news, and watch the show as an alternative to mainstream media and as a form of comic relief from current events. Several implications are discussed.     

Radio and Localism: Has the FCC Dropped the Ball?

Although no news of the FCC task force initiative on localism came forth between 2004 and 2006, members of Congress have taken an interest in the effects of localism in radio broadcasting. This interest can be attributed to the view that radio consolidation has minimized local radio service. As well, satellite-delivered radio has begun to encroach on local radio as it now provides traffic and weather updates in selected metropolitan markets. This article investigates the status of radio and localism, an issue that affects listeners across the nation.