Research universities on the ResearchGate social networking site: An examination of institutional differences,research activity level,and social networks formed

As one of the largest active academic social networking sites, ResearchGate (RG) has been utilized by scholars to share publications, seek collaborators, communicate work in progress, and build scholarly reputation. This study collects data from RG users from 61 U.S. research universities at different research activity levels, as categorized by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, to examine the impact of institutional differences on RG reputational metrics. The results confirm that RG is a research-oriented academic social networking site that closely and realistically mirrors the research activity level of institutions. With an increase in the research activity level of a university, its affiliated RG users tend to have higher RG scores, more publications and citations, and more profile views and followers, while the average number of reads of their publications and followees tend to be lower and fluctuant. In addition, RG users primarily follow others from institutions of a higher research activity level, forming virtual social networks centered around esteemed institutions. The study suggests academic social networks can serve as indicators in evaluation of research activities among research institutions, and such sites can be helpful and credible for acquiring resources, keeping informed about research, and promoting academic influence.     

Nurturing Authority

When considering the role of local journalism in a networked media environment, it is crucial to examine how audiences attribute news with the power to define social knowledge. In particular, television news programs need to appeal to audiences by reinforcing a sense of local journalistic authority to assert the parameters of who and what is worthy of coverage. This article presents the findings from interviews with a range of commercial television news viewers in Sydney, Australia. It positions viewership in the context of people’s wider engagement with news, and in relation to their interpersonal and digital social interactions. The paper argues that local audiences have conflicting attitudes to the role of television news, both contesting and re-inscribing the programs with the power to demarcate social, political, and cultural knowledge. It traces how local audiences challenge the ability of news to convey boundaries within the community through processes of exclusion, connecting the contestations to the lived experiences of the individuals. It identifies that television news programs nurture journalistic authority in terms of their local relevance, and it contributes insights on the significance of local news by engaging with the means by which audiences themselves attach social power to journalism.     

Contesting Communities

This introductory article to the combined special issue of Journalism Studies and Journalism Practice provides an overview of some of the key contemporary approaches to studying journalism and social order. It argues the need to step beyond a functionalist framework when considering the news media’s central role in shaping social connections, community and cohesion. To advance our understandings of social order, our paper suggests a greater emphasis of the significance of journalism’s relationship to the wider social sphere along with three other key considerations, including (1) a critical focus on the relationship between media, politics and social order, especially in defining and/or negotiating “anti-social” practices and social disintegration; (2) a more refined focus on the “imagined” and geographic boundaries of news audiences in digital spaces; and (3) the changing relationship to norms and conventions of journalism practice from trust and legitimacy to the role of journalists as arbiters and connectors across social spaces.     

A Follower-Centric Approach to Leadership in the Newsroom

This article analyses leadership in the newsroom of the Spanish newspaper El País as well as its impact on the craft of journalism more generally. Through 23 in-depth interviews, we try to elucidate how the newsroom constructs its leaders (in the newsroom, what does it mean to be a leader?), paying particular attention to the main skills considered to be necessary. According to our newsroom findings, not all heads of section or editors-in-chief are leaders, a fact that questions formal authority relations and proclaims expertise and know-how as discriminatory skills. This study emphasizes that the collective recognition of a leader is not an ultimate disposition, but can vary over time: consequently leaders who do not achieve the professional requirements of the newsroom can be denied the status, despite their expertise and experience. Our findings indicate that leaders at El País are those journalists (no matter what their positions) with strong capacities and skills (fundamentally experience, expertise and creativity) to manage form (relationships) and substance (contents) in the daily work of the newsroom. In short, journalists seen as leaders combine reiterated and strong qualities and merit, graphically reflected in the texts they have published for years in the newspaper.     

From Inarticulacy to Care

This article seeks to critically re-open the closed structure of news coverage of ethnic minorities by proposing a dialogical model of representation, which evokes mutual understanding across differences through well-crafted narratives of minority experiences. Informed by Mikhail Bakhtin and Charles Taylor, it explores the notion of “dialogue” within journalistic narratives and delineates two dialogical approaches, namely the evaluative articulation of moral values and the polyphonic incorporation of different voices. The former suggests that journalists should employ nuanced languages to situate ethnic minorities’ aspirations and experiences in a common “horizon of significance”. The latter challenges the hegemonic monologue of an ostensibly objective narration and accentuates the manifold voices from ordinary people, urging the journalists to rethink their positionality as narrators. Two cases are analyzed to reveal how the dialogic representation can be realized in news reporting, calling for a transition from “ethics of inarticulacy” to ethics of care in journalism practices.     

Placing Facebook

Facebook is challenging professional journalism. These challenges were evident in three incidents from 2016: the allegation that Facebook privileged progressive-leaning news on its trending feature; Facebook’s removal of the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Napalm Girl” photo from the pages of prominent users; and the proliferation of “fake news” during the US presidential election. Using theoretical concepts from the field of boundary work, this paper examines how The Guardian, The New York Times, Columbia Journalism Review and Poynter editorialized Facebook’s role in these three incidents to discursively construct the boundary between the value of professional journalism to democracy and Facebook’s ascendant role in facilitating essential democratic functions. Findings reveal that these publications attempted to define Facebook as a news organization (i.e., include it within the boundaries of journalism) so that they could then criticize the company for not following duties traditionally incumbent upon news organizations (i.e., place it outside the boundaries of journalism). This paper advances scholarship that focuses on both inward and outward conceptions of boundary work, further explores the complex challenge of defining who a journalist is in the face of rapidly changing technological norms, and advances scholarship in the field of media ethics that positions ethical analysis at the institutional level.     

网络健康社区中的主题特征研究

[目的/意义] 探究不同类型网络社区中健康主题特征分布,促使各网站平台能够更好地提供在线健康信息服务。[方法/过程] 以糖尿病为例,选取来自健康论坛的社会化标签和社会化问答社区的问答记录作为研究对象;通过数据编码和文本处理的方法,得到八大类主题,并比较两种网络社区中该八大主题分布情况的异同。[结果/结论] 两种网络社区中糖尿病主题冷热分布大体趋于一致。在最为用户所关注的主题上,两类社区各有侧重,分别是“诊断和检查”、“社会生活”。以上探讨和发现对在线健康信息服务质量的提升有诸多启示。     

Forward view: advancing health library and knowledge services in England

This article is the fourth in a series on New Directions. The National Health Service is under pressure, challenged to meet the needs of an ageing population, whilst striving to improve standards and ensure decision making is underpinned by evidence. Health Education England is steering a new course for NHS library and knowledge services in England to ensure access to knowledge and evidence for all decision makers. Knowledge for Healthcare calls for service transformation, role redesign, greater coordination and collaboration. To meet user expectations, health libraries must achieve sustainable, affordable access to digital content. Traditional tasks will progressively become mechanised. Alongside supporting learners, NHS librarians and knowledge specialists will take a greater role as knowledge brokers, delivering business critical services. They will support the NHS workforce to signpost patients and the public to high‐quality information. There is a need for greater efficiency and effectiveness through greater co‐operation and service mergers. Evaluation of service quality will focus more on outcomes, less on counting. These changes require an agile workforce, fit for the future. There is a bright future in which librarians’ expertise is used to mobilise evidence, manage and share knowledge, support patients, carers and families, optimise technology and social media and provide a keystone for improved patient care and safety.     

微博信息可信度分析研究综述

简述微博信息可信度研究的背景和意义,并对微博信息可信度分析等相关概念进行界定;对微博信息可信度的研究成果进行梳理,指出这些研究的不足,并认为微博信息可信度分析的关键问题是微博信息特征的提取和可信度分析方法的设计;结合微博信息的特点及已有研究成果,指出微博信息可信度分析的核心技术包括自然语言处理、社会网络分析、机器学习与数据挖掘等;最后总结全文,对微博信息可信度分析的未来发展方向进行展望,为进一步研究提供参考。