User Experiences with Editorial Control in Online Newspaper Comment Fields

This article investigates user experiences with editorial control in online newspaper comment fields following the public backlash against online comments after the 2011 terror attacks in Norway. We analyze data from a survey of online news consumers focusing on experiences and attitudes towards editorial control set against a spectrum between “interventionist” and “noninterventionist” positions. Results indicate that interventionist respondents rate the quality of online comments as poor, whereas noninterventionist respondents have most often experienced being the target of editorial control measures and feel that editorial control has intensified after the terror attacks. We conclude that newspapers should pay attention to the different needs of participants when devising strategies for editorial control. Media professionals should also consider changes to increase the transparency of moderation practices.     

Blurred Boundaries or Conflicting Epistemologies

In this article, I discuss how information activists and journalists in Egypt claimed to acquire knowledge about the world, looking particularly at the period of 2012 and 2013, during which the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and Mohammed Morsi in turn were leading the country. Taking a point of departure in anthropological fieldwork with information activists and journalists in Egypt, I show that information activists and journalists often had very similar practices and goals, which at times made the boundaries very blurry. Yet I argue that there was a significant distinction between the epistemologies of information activists and journalists. Information activists claimed to acquire knowledge about events from being part of them, whereas journalists claimed to acquire knowledge about events from observing them without taking part. Relatedly, information activists and journalists had significantly different relationships with their audiences.     

Protection or Participation?

Children’s status as a particularly vulnerable group in society implies a journalistic obligation to shed light on children’s stories and listen to their perspectives, but their vulnerable position also means they deserve protection from potentially harmful news coverage. Based on a close-reading of two extensively covered news serials concerning irregular migrant children facing deportation, and on in-depth interviews with journalists, editors, and key actors working on behalf of irregular migrant children, the present article sheds light on how journalists balance competing, ethical, professional, and organizational concerns when reporting on issues concerning children. The article shows that while journalists say they are aware of the ethical aspects concerning extensive media exposure of young children, they justify the reporting by foregrounding children as innocent victims of the immigration system and by highlighting the journalistic obligation of shedding light on the wrongdoings of this system. The potential burden of media exposure is relativized as less harmful than the alternative—deportation. Theoretically, the article contributes to the literature on children in the news media, human-interest stories and journalism, and the role of journalism reporting vulnerable groups.     

Effects of two physical education programmes on health- and skill-related physical fitness of Albanian children

This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of two school-based physical education (PE) programmes (exercise-based and games-based) compared with traditional PE, on health- and skill-related physical fitness components in children in Tirana, Albania.

Participants were 378 first-grade (6.8 years) and 389 fourth-grade (9.8 years) children attending four randomly selected schools in Tirana. Twenty-four school classes within these schools were randomly selected (stratified by school and school grade) to participate as exercise group (EG), games group (GG) and control group (CG). Both EG and GG intervention programmes were taught by professional PE teachers using station/circuit teaching framework while CG referred to traditional PE school lessons by a general teacher. All programmes ran in parallel and lasted 5 months, having the same frequency (twice weekly) and duration (45 min). Heart rate (HR) monitoring showed that intensity during PE lessons was significantly higher in the intervention groups compared with control (P < 0.001). Both PE exercise- and games programmes significantly improved several health- and skill-related fitness indicators compared with traditional PE lessons (e.g. gross motor skill summary score: 9.4 (95% CI 7.9; 10.9) for exercise vs. control and 6.5 (95% CI 5.1; 8.1) for games vs. control, cardiorespiratory fitness: 2.0 ml O₂ · min^?1 · kg^?1 (95% CI 1.5; 2.4) for exercise vs. control and 1.4 ml O₂ · min^?1 · kg^?1 (95% CI 1.0; 1.8) for games vs. control). Furthermore, compared to games-based PE, exercise-based PE showed more positive changes in some gross motor coordination skills outcomes, coordination skills outcomes and cardiorespiratory fitness. The results from this study show that exercise- and games-based PE represents a useful strategy for improving health- and skill-related physical fitness in Albanian elementary school children. In addition, the study shows that exercise-based PE was more effective than games-based PE in improving gross motor function and cardiorespiratory fitness.     

Assessment of indoor air quality and the risk of damage to cultural heritage objects using MEMORI® dosimetry

Air pollution is one of the environmental influences that degrade cultural heritage objects situated indoors. Other essential influences, such as temperature, relative humidity, and light are often well monitored. The presence of air pollutants is less often measured or included in risk assessment. The MEMORI^® technology presented in this paper was developed as a tool for easy measurement and assessment of the general risk of degradation of heritage objects situated indoors due to indoor exposure to air pollutants. MEMORI dosimetry was performed in locations belonging to English Heritage and Tate (both located in London) and the National Archives of Norway in Oslo, to assess air quality. The related damage risk for collection objects and the protection offered by display and storage designs was assessed. A high level of acidic effect was observed inside a number of showcases, and a high level of oxidizing effect was observed in some room locations. Relatively simple mitigation measures, such as constructing tightly sealed showcases using low emitting materials, installing active carbon absorbing media inside a ‘microclimate’ frame, and using cardboard storage boxes for paper, significantly improved air quality. Overall, implementation of such measures is likely to improve the preservation of objects and reduce conservation costs.     

A critique of John Hattie’s theory of Visible Learning

In this paper, I work out a five-stringed criticism of John Hattie’s theory of Visible Learning. First, I argue that the theory is a theory of evaluation that denies education as such. Second, I show that there are problems with the dependent variable, learning, i.e. the effect of a given intervention. Thirdly, I show that Hattie's theory belongs to the radical constructivist paradigm. Thus, the problems of constructivism, i.e. problems of normativity and the outside world, walks directly into Hattie’s concept of teaching, resulting in a double breakdown of the essence of teaching. Fourth, I argue that Hattie’s concept of feedback has a centralizing trend which ultimately has the potential to transform the country’s educational activities into a big hierarchical and data-driven organism. Finally, I show that Hattie’s reference to Karl Popper’s theory of “three worlds” is based on a highly problematic reading, where Popper’s objective world is reduced to a subset of a radical subjectivity.     

Instructional and motivational classroom discourse and their relationship with teacher autonomy and competence support—findings from teacher professional development

European Journal of Psychology of Education - The present study investigates whether productive classroom discourse in the form of instructional and motivational classroom discourse (Turner et al.,...     

The discourse and nature of creativity and innovation: Ways of relating to the novel

In the discourse of the knowledge-based economy, the link between creativity and innovation is usually taken for granted. However, not only is this link of recent date, it joins together two diametrically opposed concepts: the economic concept of innovation and the humanistic concept of creativity. In research too, there is a lack of enquiry into the nature of the processes of creativity and innovation and into how these processes are similar yet different. Building on the original insights of Henri Poincaré and Joseph Schumpeter, I present the hypothesis that creativity and innovation are similar in nature, not in regard to knowledge or skills, but in that both are ways of relating to the novel. My findings suggest, meanwhile, that creativity and innovation differ in that creativity is about experiencing the novel in the creative process, whereas innovation is about willing the novel as a strategy for the innovative process. Furthermore, my findings suggest that there exists a structural similarity between creativity and innovation and Aristotle’s concepts of practical and philosophical wisdom, in that innovation is a form of practical wisdom in regard to the novel, whereas creativity is a form of philosophical wisdom in regard to the novel.     

‘Peer social capital’ and networks of migrants and minority ethnic youth in England and Spain

This article discusses friendships and peer groups of migrant and minority ethnic youth in schools in England and Spain, and critically considers them in relation to existing notions of ‘peer social capital’ and bridging (heterogeneous) and bonding (homogeneous) peer networks. The article argues for an extended understanding of peer social capital and discusses the complex composition and outcomes of bridging and bonding peer networks. It critically discusses both facilitators and barriers to friendships experienced by migrant and minority ethnic youth in schools, and considers them in relation to school practices.     

Facebook for supervision? Research education shaped by the structural properties of a social media space

This study analyses the use of a group space on the social networking site Facebook as a way to facilitate research supervision for teams of learners. Borrowing Lee’s framework for research supervision, the goal was to understand how supervision and learning was achieved in, and shaped by, the properties of a social networking space. For this purpose, the discourse between supervisor and learners was analysed along with the structural properties afforded by the space. Using the empirical findings and further literature, a conceptual framework was developed that illustrates the ways in which functional supervision, enculturation, emancipation, critical thinking and relationship development are achieved and formed by the interplay of the technological, functional, multimodal and the wider sociocultural, political and sociolinguistic structures associated with social media space.