On the bright side of the screen: Material-world interactions surrounding the socialization of outsiders to digital spaces

Internet technologies are generally characterized as deriving from Western mindsets—the assumptions, values, and beliefs that determine how individuals perceive, interpret, and communicate experience. For composition instructors, the Internet's Western accent raises concerns about how students who do not identify with IT's dominant discourse can find a voice that is their own and that also empowers them as participants in online spaces. Numerous studies have explored how outsiders adopt, transform, and resist Internet discourses; at the same time, few studies have used participant observation to explore offline interactions that support the socialization of newcomers and/or outsiders in the use of digital technologies. This essay extends existing research through reporting findings from a reflective, ethnographic study of material-world interactions surrounding the socialization of outsiders to digital spaces.     

Dicing with Deception: People with Disabilities'' Strategies for Managing Safety and Identity Online

In the global struggle over discourse and knowledge after 9/11, the voices of otherwise silenced women in Afghanistan were significantly amplified on the Internet. RAWA.org demonstrates how a Web site contended with discourses of fundamentalism and war while envisioning democracy and constructing new leadership identities for women.     

Design Thinking: Past,Present and Possible Futures

This paper takes a critical look at the design thinking discourse, one that has different meanings depending on its context. Within the managerial realm, design thinking has been described as the best way to be creative and innovate, while within the design realm, design thinking may be partly ignored and taken for granted, despite a long history of academic development and debate. In the design area, we find five different discourses of ‘designerly thinking’, or ways to describe what designers do in practice, that have distinctly different epistemological roots. These different discourses do not stand in competition with each other but could be developed in parallel. We also observe that the management discourse has three distinct origins, but in general has a more superficial and popular character and is less academically anchored than the designerly one. Also, the management design thinking discourse seldom refers to designerly thinking and thereby hinders cumulative knowledge construction. We suggest further research to link the discourses.     

Distinguishing knowledge-sharing, knowledge-construction, and knowledge-creation discourses

The study reported here sought to obtain the clear articulation of asynchronous computer-mediated discourse needed for Carl Bereiter and Marlene Scardamalia’s knowledge-creation model. Distinctions were set up between three modes of discourse: knowledge sharing, knowledge construction, and knowledge creation. These were applied to the asynchronous online discourses of four groups of secondary school students (40 students in total) who studied aspects of an outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and related topics. The participants completed a pretest of relevant knowledge and a collaborative summary note in Knowledge Forum, in which they self-assessed their collective knowledge advances. A coding scheme was then developed and applied to the group discourses to obtain a possible explanation of the between-group differences in the performance of the summary notes and examine the discourses as examples of the three modes. The findings indicate that the group with the best summary note was involved in a threshold knowledge-creation discourse. Of the other groups, one engaged in a knowledge-sharing discourse and the discourses of other two groups were hybrids of all three modes. Several strategies for cultivating knowledge-creation discourse are proposed.

One Social Movement,Two Social Media Sites: A Comparative Study of Public Discourses

Social media have become central places where public discourses are generated, sustained, and circulated around public events. So far, much research has examined large-scale dissemination patterns of prominent statements, opinions, and slogans circulated on social media, such as the analysis of keywords and hashtags on Twitter regarding a political event. However, little attention has been paid to understanding how local socio-cultural-political conditions influence the formation and development of public discourses on social media. To explore this question, we analyzed public discourses about Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement on two distinct social media sites, Facebook and Weibo, the largest micro-blogging service in China. Facebook topped Hong Kong citizens’ usage of social media sites, while Weibo’s primary user base is mainland Chinese. The social movement and these two social media sites provide a unique opportunity to explore the commonalities and differences between social media discourses generated by two different cultures. Using grounded theory and discourse analysis, we reveal how people on two sites reasoned about the many incidents of the movement and developed sometimes similar but other times strikingly different discourses. We trace the links between different discourses and the socio-cultural-political conditions of Hong Kong and mainland China. We discuss how this study may contribute deeper understandings of public discourses on social media to the CSCW literature.     

Learning through online peer discourse: Structural equation modeling points to the role of discourse activities in individual understanding

Although learning through discourse activities seems well-documented, it is unclear which mechanisms and behavioral variables are involved. What exactly contributes to learning when two or more learners interact in online learning environments? To analyze interrelations between central discourse activities and individual learning outcomes at the level of constructs, we applied structural equation modeling to data collected from 160 dyads engaging in written online learning discourses within a series of homogeneous experiments. We analyzed three theory-based indicators of conceptual elaboration activities during online discourse: the number of questions asked to receive information and expand knowledge, the number of explanations formulated to express individual knowledge, and the amount of on-task discourse. Individual conceptual understanding was represented by objective learning parameters that varied in each particular experimental task. These measured general understanding of the topic addressed and particular understanding of conceptual terms, complemented by the gain in individual self-assessed knowledge. Results of structural equation modeling revealed a strong effect of dyadic conceptual elaboration on individual understanding at the construct level, demonstrating that dyadic elaboration fosters the development of an elaborated individual understanding of specialist concepts and general content knowledge. Moreover, conceptual elaboration was best measured by the number of explanations during discourse. Implications regarding which features of collaborative learning settings promote mutual conceptual elaboration are discussed.     

Learning the language of the market: Information systems strategy formation in a UK district health authority

In this paper we seek to show that the process of strategy formation may be viewed at four different “levels,” that of strategic resources, of the strategy process, of the discourse of strategy and of broader social discourses. The mainstream strategy literature addressed only the first of these. Processual approaches to strategy research extend the analysis to consider the second level, but have recently been criticized as neglecting the role of strategy as a form of social discourse. Explanations at the third level address the specific power effects of this discourse and its role in constituting the subjectivity of strategic actors and the problems to which it is applied. We also suggest, however, that strategic discourse may itself be considered a part of the broader social discourses of entrepreneurialism and managerialism. A case study of information systems strategy formation in the UK National Health Service is used to illustrate this argument and to show that the strategy process may be seen as involving learning in terms of each of the perspectives.     

Modeling L2 Writer Voice: Discoursal Positioning in Fanfiction Writing

Of various online discourses, distinctive design features of fanfiction discourse have given rise to a new social space that holds great potential for the negotiation of identity. In this study, I propose that fanfiction discourse creates a social space that helps shape the voice construction of the L2 writer. In order to understand how the L2 writer's multiple social positions within fanfiction discourse affect voice construction, I analyze a popular online culture-based writing website, <www.fanfiction.net>. Three dominant design features are identified that allow various forms of participation and levels of engagement by its members: intertextuality, dialogic interaction, and electronic text. These three features are actualized in three different positionings (ideational, interpersonal, and textual) that Ivani? and Camps (2001) believe writers take on when constructing a voice. Results suggest that the two L2 participants in my study created voices in multiple positionings made available by re-purposing a pop-culture storyline or characters, communication with audiences, and digital resources. Overall, this study offers a nuanced view of how voice is projected and negotiated within the intersections of multiple online discourses and how it relates to L2 writing in the digital era.     

Knowledge sharing using IT service management tools: conflicting discourses and incompatible practices

ICT applications that include functionality for knowledge sharing are routinely used by IT service providers even though their implementation is known to be problematic and the reasons for such problems not well understood. To shed light on the issue, we collected data at two organisations where managers had provided IT service support workers with IT service management (ITSM) tools incorporating functionality for knowledge sharing. Using critical discourse analysis and rhetorical analysis techniques, we contrasted primary data representative of IT service support practice with other primary and publicly available secondary data reflecting the prevailing discourse of IT service managers. Through this analysis, we identify an apparent dissonance between ITSM managerial and worker discourses that reflect opposing epistemologies. Managers are optimistic about the benefits of ICT‐based knowledge sharing, whereas the practice of workers is revealed to privilege self‐reliance and interpersonal knowledge sharing. By taking a dual, management–worker, perspective, we provide fresh insight into why ICT‐based knowledge sharing is problematic. As a theoretical contribution, we propose that dysfunctional intra‐organisational conflict can arise where incompatible management and worker practices become institutionalised through the simultaneous diffusion of conflicting discourses.     

基于汉语框架语义网的篇章关系识别

篇章关系识别是篇章分析中一项具有挑战性的子任务。传统的篇章关系分析主要是用篇章的局部特征对篇章关系进行分析,但是局部特征无法直接诠释篇章单元的外部语义关系,因此该文基于汉语框架语义网识别篇章关系,在框架语义层面对篇章单元进行分析。该文主要利用汉语框架语义网中的目标词,对篇章单元进行分析,从而识别出篇章关系。实验结果表明,核心目标词能更完整地表达篇章单元的核心语义,对篇章关系的识别有较好的效果。     

Temporal Contexts for Discourse Representation: An Extension of the Conceptual Graph Approach

A discourse is composed of a sequence of sentences that must be interpreted with respect to the context in which they are uttered and to the actions that produce them: locutors' speech acts. The analysis of discourse content must be based on a pragmatic approach to the study of language in use. Some of the most obvious linguistic elements that require contextual information for their representation are deictic forms such as here, now, I, you, this , and verb tenses.Several authors have recognized a need for introducing contextual structures in knowledge representation models such as semantic networks. Sowa's Conceptual Graph Theory is a powerful approach to conceptually represent knowledge contained in discourses. However, it must be extended in order to represent several semantic and pragmatic mechanisms related to the expression of time in natural language. In this paper we present such an extension as a framework for modeling temporal knowledge in discourses integrating several features borrowed from speech act theory.First, we introduce the notions of time interval, temporal object, temporal situation, and temporal relation. Then, we discuss the importance of explicitly introducing the concept of time coordinate system in a discourse representation and we present different kinds of temporal contexts: narrator's perspective, agent's perspective and temporal localization. We show how this conceptual framework can be used to represent various referential mechanisms in discourse such as anaphoras, indexicals, direct and indirect styles. We also discuss how to model several linguistic phenomena such as speech act characteristics and the specification of performative and attitude utterances. Finally, we briefly discuss how verb tenses can be determined in a discourse on the basis of this temporal approach.     

中文篇章级句间语义关系体系及标注

篇章句间关系(Discourse Relation)是篇章级语义分析的重要内容,该文在英文篇章句间关系研究的基础上分析了中英文间的差异,总结了中文篇章级语义分析的特点,并在此基础上提出面向中文篇章句间关系的层次化语义关系体系,对句间关系类型进行详细描述。为了验证体系的合理性和完备性,我们在互联网新闻语料上进行了标注实践,分析了标注中遇到的难点并给出解决方案,为进一步的中文篇章级语义分析工作奠定基础。     

Negotiation of identity and power in a Japanese online discourse community

The study of electronic discourse in the computers and composition field has thus far focused mostly on the English language while electronic discourse practices in non-European languages have received relatively little attention. This article examines the discursive construction of identity and power in a Japanese online discourse community by focusing on an email list for Japanese professionals in the field of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). Through the analysis of Japanese linguistic features—including formal verb endings, address terms, and honorifics—as well as metaphors for characterizing relationships, this study shows how social relations among the list members were transformed as the emphasis shifted from conventional criteria for establishing social relations (age, gender, and social status) to other criteria available online, that is, the amount of knowledge one demonstrated through discourse. Based on this analysis, I argue that online discourse communities do not diminish hierarchical social relations found in offline discourses but may allow the negotiation of criteria for hierarchical relations, thus, providing an alternative site for the negotiation of identity and power.     

Moving closer to the fabric of organizing visions: The case of a trade show

This paper examines the fabric of authorized discourses about Information Technology (IT), i.e. of “organizing visions” (OVs), through the investigation of the discourses, practices, and sociomaterial contexts that make up their micro-social underpinnings. The case of a trade show allows us to explore the production of everyday discourses and practices about IT by gathering many of the parties involved in the fabric of organizing visions. Through a combination of direct observations, interviews, pictures, documents and a survey, we identify and analyze a number of micro-social practices related to the fabric of IT discourses. The trade show we studied was not a context in which new IT buzzwords and concepts emerged, but, rather, it was a setting where existing discourses about IT were repeated, refreshed, and materialized. Our three main findings reveal intriguing relationships between practices, discourses, and sociomaterial contexts: (1) practices and artifacts contribute to enclose the production of discourses; (2) practices and discourses aim at refining and updating an existing discourse about IT; and (3) many actors in the trade shows engage in discourses and practices that materialize the IT artifact. This research adds to the conceptualization of the dynamics of OVs through a better understanding of how they are affected by the relationships between the discourses and practices of multiple actors and by the sociomaterial context in which they take place. It draws several strategic implications concerning the dynamics of OVs at the industry level, how actors influence the fabric of OVs, as well as the roles and combination of artifacts, discourses and practices to build OVs.     

Knowledge, power and action: towards an understanding of implementation failures in a government scheme

Conceptual knowledge inspires imagination. On the other hand, it is a claim to power as well. Multiple knowledge claims often, therefore, are engaged in a contest. This contest can take the form of several discourses. Extant power structures play a significant role in lending (or not lending) a voice to one or several such discourses. To one with the power to govern, knowledge claims flowing from abstract concepts generated in an elite discourse not only inspires imagination but also often leads to ‘norms’ and ‘rules’ that drive governance in the system which leads to action. Norms and rules define actionability of the conceptual knowledge claim. However, for the one weighed by powerlessness in being governed, knowledge claims often get generated only in action, since an autonomous discourse is often lacking. Yet the sheer powerlessness of the authors of such knowledge claims generated in action leads to its non-celebration. It fails to get elevated. It might also wither away. Such actionable knowledge claims of the powerless often then gets manifested as something like an ‘unvoiced’ or an ‘unvoicable’ discourse, in macabre forms of subversion of ‘norms’ and ‘rules’ of the system that leads to a sense of failure in governance among those with power as well. Power, thus, brings actionable knowledge to the fore, but in two different forms. For the power-holder, it takes the form of a ‘deviation’ from norms and rules in the actionable domain through subversion by the powerless, revealing a gap between knowledge in the conceptual and actionable domain that is reluctantly (often tacitly) tolerated. For the powerless, on the other hand, actionable knowledge is living; negotiating on the ‘deviation’ is an existential requirement. This paper is an attempt to explore these dichotomies, how power (and the lack of it) alters the significance and implications of actionable knowledge.     

State Legislators'' Perceptions of the Use of E-mail in Constituent Communication

The metaphor of "Frankenfood" rapidly spread into popular use at the end of the 1990s, to the extent that it was even added to the New Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable , 2000 edition. The metaphor gained wide popularity at least partly because of the active campaigns of various NGOs on their Web pages. The metaphor was also widely used in more informal e-mail and newsgroups on the Web, and seemed to provide common ground for different discourses. In this article, I explore the way metaphors relate different discourses on the Internet. This approach may open up new ways of analyzing both the network structure on the Internet, and the substantial aspects of the debate within the network. I first follow the development of the metaphor of "Frankenfood" over time, and then I map the uses of the metaphor by various sites on the Web. The aim is to discuss the role of metaphors as tools of communication by combining diachronic analysis of the expanding network around the metaphor with the static snapshots of the main sites' textual structure.     

The deep structure of organizational online networking – an actor‐oriented case study

While research on organizational online networking recently increased significantly, most studies adopt quantitative research designs with a focus on the consequences of social network configurations. Very limited attention is paid to comprehensive theoretical conceptions of the complex phenomenon of organizational online networking. We address this gap by adopting a theoretical framework of the deep structure of organizational online networking with a focus on their emerging meaning for the employees. We apply and assess the framework in a qualitative case study of a large‐scale implementation of a corporate social network site (SNS) in a global organization. We reveal organizational online networking as a multi‐dimensional phenomenon with multiplex relationships that are unbalanced, primarily consist of weak ties and are subject to temporal change. Further, we identify discourse drivers and information retrievers as two mutually interdependent actor roles as an explanation for uneven levels of user contributions to the SNS. Based on our analysis, we elicit abstract order principles, such as topical discourses, and identify transactive memory theory as a potent explanation of the evolving interaction structures. We finally discuss how the deep structure framework can contribute to future research on organizational networks.     

汉语语篇理解中元指代消解初步

指代消解是语篇机器理解中的重要一环.研究发现,由于表示语篇本身某一部分而非语篇内容的元指代现象普遍存在,语篇元指代消解也就成为困扰着语篇机器理解实现的困难之一.对语篇中的元指代现象进行了分析,提出句焦点的概念,并在句焦点集的基础上,用优先和过滤算法实现了元指代的消解.在使用自然语料的实验中表明,句焦点集的作用对于元指代机器消解有重要作用.它丰富了语篇分析和表述理论,对汉语语篇分析理解中寻找元指代关系,从而完成连贯语篇意义具有重要意义.     

Exploring the types and reasons of Internet-triggered academic dishonesty among Turkish undergraduate students: Development of Internet-Triggered Academic Dishonesty Scale (ITADS)

Internet contributes to the development of science and facilitates scientific demeanors while it also serves as a ground for academic misdemeanors. Recent studies indicate that Internet facilitates and spreads academic dishonesty. The purpose of the current study is to investigate the extent of involvement of Turkish university students in academic dishonesty practices facilitated through Internet (i.e. e-dishonesty) and to question the conditions which lead to e-dishonesty. Three hundred and forty nine education faculty students from the most populated state university in Turkey were administered two Likert-Scale questionnaires developed by the researchers. After the reliability and validity conditions were met, two exploratory factor analyses were conducted. The first one revealed the factors constituting common types of e-dishonesty among undergraduate students which were fraudulence, plagiarism, falsification, delinquency, and unauthorized help. The second factor analysis exhibited individual and contextual factors triggering e-dishonesty which were named as individual factors, institutional policies and peer pressure. Results of both analyses are discussed and suggestions for further research are provided.     

Proposing a Survey Instrument for Measuring Operational,Formal, Information,and Strategic Internet Skills

Observational studies prove to be very suitable to provide a realistic view of people's Internet skills. However, their cost and time are a strong limitation for large-scale data gathering. A useful addition to the measurement of Internet skills would be the development of survey questions for measuring Internet skills. In this contribution, potential survey measures for operational, formal, information, and strategic Internet skills were analyzed. Three steps were followed to obtain valid items; coherences between, on one hand, frequency and agreement scales and, on the other hand, the results of two large-scale performance tests (assignment completion and time spent) are measured, the Fornell and Larcker discriminant validity criterion was used to test discriminant validity of these Internet skills items, and the items are analyzed using a first-order confirmatory factor analysis. The items that resulted from the three steps might be used in future survey measures.