“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.     

Educational TV Consumption and Children’s Interest in Leisure Reading and Writing: A Test of the Validated Curriculum Hypothesis

The relationship between children’s TV consumption and literacy outcomes is currently unclear, as past research has identified both linear and curvilinear trends. One explanation for the contradictory results is the varying content children consume; specifically, researchers have argued that research-based educational TV programming should be positively related to literacy outcomes whereas non research-based programming should be negatively related to literacy outcomes (what we refer to as the validated curriculum hypothesis). To test this hypothesis, students in grades 4 and 5 N = 120) completed a survey assessing educational TV consumption and leisure reading/writing behaviors. The results upheld the validated curriculum hypothesis and revealed several key moderators including composite TV consumption and parents’ reading behavior.     

Improved learning efficiency and increased student collaboration through use of virtual microscopy in the teaching of human pathology

The implementation of virtual microscopy in the teaching of pathology at the Bloomington, Indiana extension of the Indiana University School of Medicine permitted the assessment of student attitudes, use and academic performance with respect to this new technology. A gradual and integrated approach allowed the parallel assessment with respect to both the virtual and optical microscopes. Student survey data indicated that the virtual imaging technology was enthusiastically received, and aggregate grade comparisons with the previous classes showed no decrease in content mastery. Survey questions assessing a variety of parameters reveal improved time and resource utilization, as well as increased student collaboration. Even so, 50% of the respondents indicated having both optical and virtual microscopes available was preferable. Anat Sci Ed 1:240–246, 2008. © 2008 American Association of Anatomists.     

Parallel assessment of nutrition and activity in athletes: validation against doubly labelled water, 24-h urea excretion, and indirect calorimetry

The assessment of nutrition and activity in athletes requires accurate and precise methods. The aim of this study was to validate a protocol for parallel assessment of diet and exercise against doubly labelled water, 24-h urea excretion, and respiratory gas exchange. The participants were 14 male triathletes under normal training conditions. Energy intake and doubly labelled water were weakly associated with each other (r = 0.69, standard error of estimate [SEE] = 304 kcal x day(-1)). Protein intake was strongly correlated with 24-h urea (r = 0.89) but showed considerable individual variation (SEE = 0.34 g kg(-1) x day(-1)). Total energy expenditure based on recorded activities was highly correlated with doubly labelled water (r = 0.95, SEE = 195 kcal x day(-1)) but was proportionally biased. During running and cycling, estimated exercise energy expenditure was highly correlated with gas exchange (running: r = 0.89, SEE = 1.6 kcal x min(-1); cycling: r = 0.95, SEE = 1.4 kcal x min(-1)). High exercise energy expenditure was slightly underestimated during running. For nutrition data, variations appear too large for precise measurements in individual athletes, which is a common problem of dietary assessment methods. Despite the high correlations of total energy expenditure and exercise energy expenditure with reference methods, a correction for systematic errors is necessary for the valid estimation of energetic requirements in individual athletes.     

Surveillance,Governmentality and moving the goalposts: The influence of Ofsted on the work of schools in a post-panoptic era

This paper asks the question: to what extent do inspection regimes, particularly the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted), influence the work of a school, and how might that influence be conceptualised? It draws on an ESRC-funded study of ‘policy enactments in secondary schools’, which was based on case-study work in four ‘ordinary’ schools. Here the data set is re-examined to understand the extent to which Ofsted had an ongoing influence on the work of the leadership, management and teachers in these schools. We undertook a process of secondary analysis of the data from the project and found that the influence of the inspection agenda was strong in the schools, policy decisions were often being made to conform to Ofsted’s expectations and the influence on leadership and management was clearly apparent. In resisting this agenda we also found that schools to some extent performed ‘the good school’ for inspections. Finally, we relate this empirical evidence to conceptions of governmentality and post-panopticism to shed new light on their theoretical relevance to contemporary inspection regimes.     

An analysis of the effects of geographic-demographic factors on college attendance

Geographic and demographic characteristics of the 120 Kentucky counties were utilized to group counties with similar characteristics. Factor analysis and then cluster analysis were used to establish four county groupings. ACT test results and demographic data, and enrollment data for 1977, 1978, 1979, and 1980 for those 1977 high school graduates enrolled in Kentucky state-supported colleges and universities, fall semester 1977, were analyzed to determine whether geographic origin influenced college attendance. Four hypotheses tested enrollment, persistence, and transfer activities; college-going rates; and academic achievement of students. Test results revealed significant differences and the null hypotheses were rejected.     

Being a parent's eyes and ears: emotional literacy and empathy of children whose parents have a sensory disability

Children of parents with sensory disability may feel that their experience helped nurture their sense of empathy. The study was designed to examine the connection between parents’ sensory disability (visual disability to blindness and hearing disability to deafness) and the empathy and emotional literacy of their non‐sensory‐disabled children. Participants were 77 children aged 7–17 – 37 children of parents with a sensory disability and 40 children of parents with no such disability. Questionnaires to check empathy and emotional literacy were accompanied by a demographic questionnaire. Findings revealed that levels of empathy and emotional awareness of others (a measure of emotional literacy) were higher among children of parents with a sensory disability than among children of parents without a disability. The results expand the literature on that subject and shed light on the important issues of empathy and emotional literacy in families with disability.