“Freedom Edition”: Considering Sony Pictures and The Interview

Culture Digitally is a community of scholars, originally convened by Tarleton Gillespie (Cornell University) and Hector Postigo (Temple University). With generous support from the National Science Foundation, the group supports scholarly inquiry into new media and cultural production through a wide range of projects and collaborations, including a scholarly blog and periodic workshops. For more information on projects and researchers affiliated with Culture Digitally, visit culturedigitally.org or follow @CultureDig on Twitter.

This is the latest in the series of Culture Digitally’s “dialogues.” On occasion, we invite two or more participants to engage in an intellectual back-and-forth, on a point of interest that emerges from discussions at our meetings, around blog posts, or based on evident, shared interests. In these dialogues, scholars are encouraged to grapple with contemporary issues in media, but to do so quite a bit faster than the glacial pace of publishing typically allows. We imagine them as the digital equivalent of the scholarly exchange of letters between pre-eminent scientists. The thinking is meant to be raw and provocative, a chance for the dialogue participants to prod each other beyond their own certainties.

The scholars in this dialogue were convened by Joshua Braun in response to the recent public and media discourse surrounding the security breach at Sony Pictures Entertainment and its film, The Interview.     

‘Success’ and ‘Failure’ in the Education Marketplace: An Example from New Zealand

This paper details the impact of market policies in New Zealand on one low socio-economic school, raising questions about the underlyingassumptions of the programmes designed to turn around so called failing schools. The impact of macro policies on disadvantaged schoolsin the market place is documented, as is recent evidence on the impactof schools entering a spiral of decline on their examination outcomes.It is argued that school success and failure cannot be understood inisolation but needs to be placed in the wider context of stateeducational policy. Consequently, change strategies which ignore thewider policy settings risk failure.     

Student Academic Dishonesty: The Potential for Situational Prevention

Approximately one-half to three-quarters of university students commit some form of cheating, plagiarism, or collusion. Typical university responses are policy statements containing definitions plus punishment procedures. This paper collates a portfolio of strategies and tactics that seek to design-out, deter, and discourage academic misconduct. It finds many routine tactics exist, from silence and the use of large halls for major exams, to restrictions on electronic devices. Others are less consistently adopted, such as splitting lengthy exams in two to discourage washroom-visits where cheating takes place. The portfolio of tactics is framed in the context of crime opportunity theory and the 25 techniques of situational crime prevention. It is proposed that more consistent application of tactics focusing on environmental design, curricular design, and class management offer significant potential for reducing misconduct. Future research should seek to evaluate and enhance such interventions.     

"东"写"西"说(二)

英语是我所在的跨国公司的共同工作语言。除了英国人和美国人外,公司的每位成员都用自己特有的风格书写英语。英国女王用简练树立了英语标准,而其他国家的人书写英语时却反映出其特有的民族背景:如法国人着重细节,德国人喜欢直爽,西班牙人爱好夸张,荷兰人表现倔强,日本人乐于重     

‘Just a Minute ...’—managing interruptions in the junior school classroom

This study uses a continuum to exemplify the range of interruptions experienced by teachers in junior schools. Further clarification is supplied by the matrix, showing sources and types of interruptions.

Reasons for the transformation of ‘interruptions’ into ‘disruptions’ are also discussed, substantiated where possible by selection from the available literature. Further illustrative material is taken from interviews with 12 head teachers and 13 class teachers. Non‐participant observations of 16 of these teachers, working in 11 schools, over a period of six months, provide the data about actual interruptions.

Analyses of these data provide information about the types and frequency of interruptions and evidence of how teachers manage them. Teachers’ ‘coping strategies’ are thus identified and ways of minimising interruptions are examined. The differences between ‘proactive’ and ‘reactive’ class management are considered and the effects of both upon teachers’ effectiveness is debated.     

Learning from Ninjas: young people’s films as a lens for an expanded view of literacy and language

ABSTRACT

This article examines young people’s films to provide insights about language and literacy practices. It offers a heuristic for thinking about how to approach data that is collectively produced. It tries to make sense of new ways of knowing that locate the research in the field rather than in the academic domain. The authors develop a lens for looking at films made by young people that acknowledge multiple modes and materiality within their meaning-making practices. We make an argument about the cultural politics of research, to consider how the language and literacy practices of young people are positioned. We argue for more consideration of how language and literacy appear entangled within objects and other stuff within young people’s media productions, so as to trouble disciplinary boundaries within and beyond literacy and language studies.