Anti-Market Research: Piracy,New Media Metrics,and Commodity Communities

Over a decade after Napster’s introduction, file sharing programs still shoulder much of the blame for music and other media’s declining sales. Although labels and industry associations point their fingers at the harm digital piracy and file-sharing cause, they are less likely to admit the extent to which these anti-markets inform everyday decisions. File-sharing technologies create networks of users that serve as profitable data for ratings and metrics agencies. Using a case study of BigChampagne and its relationship to Napster, this article considers how the look, structure, and function of file-sharing software helped turn an economically threatening community into a commodity and how piracy’s disruptive potential is always in tension with processes of commodification.     

Okinawa's ‘postwar’: some observations on the formation of American military bases in the aftermath of terrestrial warfare1

Abstract

By looking at Muhammdiyah's educational programme and examining the discourse of its thinkers concerning modern conditions, this paper explores the ways in which this modernist Islamic movement deals with modernity. The different curricula that Muhammadiyah schools and colleges adopt reflect the tension of its efforts of reconciling religious requirements with those of modernity. The need to prepare students for life in modern times has led Muhammadiyah schools and universities to emphasize the teaching of modern general knowledge and skills, often at the expense of religious subjects. The difficulties of reconciling Islam and modern science, as well as making Islam remain a viable system of values in the midst of industrialization, however, has become a source of energy for Muhammadiyah thinkers to keep searching for new formulations. The fact that the public sphere seems to need an even greater dosage of infusion of Islamic values as Indonesia industrializes and modernizes itself does not discourage them. Their debate indicates a critical understanding of modernity and the challenges and opportunities it offers Muhammadiyah in 21st century Indonesia. Their disagreements show unresolved difficulties as to how modernism and Islam can be fused. They also show, however, a confidence that Islam can be a basis to think of ways of how to confront and shape modernity in Islamic terms.     

Poetry

As teacher-education programs across the United States seek to comply with the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) standards to provide accountability and improve teacher preparation, they are challenged by two NCATE standards in particular: composition of candidates for licensure and the composition of the faculty. This article describes 1 large university's activities during the last 10 years in their attempts to increase their faculty's levels of awareness and to enhance their accomplishments for infusing culturally responsive and responsible pedagogy across the curriculum. Their educational journey provides a map that can be followed by other faculty as all teacher-education programs meet the NCATE challenge.     

Mapping cultural assets and evaluating significance: theory,methodology and practice

Over the last decade in the UK, there has been a notable shift in the popularity and use of cultural mapping as a methodology for policy making at a regional and local level. This follows increased demand for an informed framework for planning arts and cultural facilities from local and regional government and from within the cultural sector (Evans, 2008: p. 65). The article begins with an exploration of cultural mapping within cultural policy, which explores the context for the growth in this area of activity, and why this kind of activity appeals to policy makers and organisations. It then goes on to examine four cultural mapping exercises which have been undertaken in recent years in the UK. These studies have been chosen because although they all focus the mapping of cultural assets within a specific geographic area, they differ to one degree or another in purpose, context, definition, geographic scale and methodology. They illustrate the narrow range of approaches deployed in the cultural mapping field in the UK, and as such provide a useful means of critically reviewing their limits as well as highlighting the issues and challenges faced by cultural cartography in practice. The article concludes by considering the type of mapping research that is “allowed” within the discursive confines of consultancy based cultural policy research.     

Materials Research in France: A Short-lived National Initiative (1982–1994)

This paper describes the French initiative in materials research against both a national and an international background, in an attempt to disentangle the local circumstances, which prompted this governmental initiative, and to characterize the specific profile of materials research in France. In presenting a biography of the interdisciplinary program in materials research (PIRMAT), we argue that: i) the PIRMAT denotes a failure of the French science policy in materials research; ii) the leadership of the CNRS led to a specific style of research, quite different from the engineering approach of Materials Science and Engineering, and characteristic of a French style in materials research.     

National,Regional and Global Perspectives of Higher Education and Science Policies in the Arab Region

In this paper we discuss the interaction between science policies (and particularly in the area of scientific research) and higher education policies in Gulf and Mediterranean Arab countries. Our analysis reveals a discrepancy between the two sub-regions with respect to integration in the global market, cooperation in scientific research and international mobility of students. The paper discusses the implications of the analysis of reform policies and higher education restructuring.