Examining the use of YouTube as a Learning Resource in higher education: Scale development and validation of TAM model

The teaching–learning activity was a perishable service which was to be consumed as it was being delivered. It was also constrained previously by geographical location – teacher and learner being at the same place. The advent of technology has allowed some leeway for these time and space constraints. The printed books, recorded lectures, specific learning aids, etc. allow learner’s the freedom to determine the learning speed. YouTube is a content community with provision for individuals to post their own User Generated Content (UGC) for use by other users. Though, popular as an entertainment medium, it has become a valuable learning resource and is being considered as an alternative to written text hosted by different websites and blogs. However, there is no scale to measure the behavioral intentions of the users to use YouTube as a Learning Resource and no model to understand the factors influencing this behavioral intention. This paper aims at two objectives: scale development, and validating the basic Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). It defined constructs and developed scales to measure the factors explaining the behavioral intention and established the significance of relationship between different variables and the behavioral intention validating the TAM.     

Beyond the Flatline

High Post-Modernism with its understanding of the significance of the image anticipated the flattening of culture, first in advertising and the printed media, and more recently online. Sam Jacob of FAT speculates on architecture's relationship with the Internet, ‘a flatland of undifferentiated information’, and how Radical Post-Modernism might be best placed to resist the ubiquity of global culture while reanimating the social and cultural agenda of Modernism and Post-Modernism. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Does source matter? Examining source effects in online product reviews

Drawing on the literature about online source classification, source credibility, and attribution theory, this study examines how the source of a product review influences people’s product judgments. Results from a between-subjects experiment suggest that the perceived source of a message (the visible source) impacts how people evaluate actual reviewer (the original source) and product. Reviews made by regular Internet users (visible sources) lead to greater trust in the actual reviewer (the original source), compared to product reviews from product makers. Results further indicate that visible sources play a crucial role in helping people judge the credibility of online reviews. Particularly, the identity of a visible source is used to consider the intention of original source of the message, which in turn determines message persuasiveness. The authors conclude that evaluating the intentions of online reviewers is a critical antecedent to forming opinions about online reviews and products.     

Understanding the YouTube Partners and Their Data： Measurement and Analysis

User generated content,e.g.,from YouTube,the most popular online video sharing site,is one of the major sources of today＇s big data and it is crucial to understand their inherent characteristics.Recently,YouTube has started working with content providers（known as YouTube partners） to promote the users＇ watching and sharing activities.The substantial benefit is to further augment its service and monetize more videos,which is crucial to both YouTube and its partners,as well as to other providers of relevant services.In this paper,our main contribution is to analyze the massive amounts of video data from a YouTube partner＇s view.We make effective use of Insight,a new analytics service of YouTube that offers simple data analysis for partners.To provide the practical guidance from the raw Insight data,we enable more complex investigations for the inherent features that affect the popularity of the videos.Our findings facilitate YouTube partners to re-design current video publishing strategies,having more opportunities to attract more views.     

YouTube and intergenerational communication: the case of Geriatric1927

This paper presents a case study of a 79 year old video blogger called ‘Geriatric1927’, and his use of the video sharing website, YouTube. Analysis of his first eight video blogs, and the subsequent text responses, reveals opportunities of this medium for intergenerational contact, reminiscence, reciprocal learning and co-creation of content, suggesting that older people can be highly motivated to use computers for social contact. The paper concludes by noting the importance of technologies that are socially engaging and meaningful for older people, and pointing to ways in which the social life of YouTube might be better promoted on its interface.

Creating a conversational context through video blogging: A case study of Geriatric1927

Web-based communication technologies such as YouTube can provide opportunities for social contact, especially between older and younger people, and help address issues of social isolation. Currently our understanding of the dynamics of social interaction within this context (particularly for older people) is limited. Elaborating upon this understanding will make it possible to proactively facilitate and support this form of intergenerational social contact. This study focuses on the experiences of an 80-year-old video blogger (vlogger), Geriatric1927, and a video dialogue that develops between himself and three of his younger viewers on a particular topic. Through a multimodal interactional analysis, we show how vloggers create a conversational context between one another through the YouTube website. In particular we describe how vloggers use different communicative modes to establish eye contact, take turns in conversation, share embodied gestures, share their understandings and negotiate simultaneous audiences. Despite a disconnected and ambiguous sense of the other, YouTube is able to facilitate a conversational context in which common ground is shared and social contact and intergenerational communication can occur.     

Arup Associates

A specialist architectural division of the wider Arup group, Arup Associates has a unique composition and ethos. In its studios, teams of architects, structural engineers, environmental engineers, urban designers and product designers work alongside each other on the design of buildings from a project's inception. It is an interdisciplinary approach that the practice pioneered in the 1960s, and which has been reinvigorated in the last few years by a new emphasis on ‘unified design’ – a radical wholeness in thinking and execution. Here, Jay Merrick talks to Arup Associates' principal Declan O'Carroll and considers his vision of an architecture capable of addressing complexity and sustaining humanity in the face of modernity. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Combinatorial Commons: Social Remixing in a Sharing Economy

We have entered an era of prosumer culture, where consumers have become producers. This democratisation impacts on all scales of production, including that of architecture. The Polyomino research agenda at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles has been developed by architect, programmer and gaming designer Jose Sanchez to explore ethical forms of participation through growth of the commons, and to reconsider the role of parts in production. Here he explains the issues at stake, as illustrated by some of Polyomino's outcomes.     

User adaptation to interactive advertising formats: The effect of previous exposure,habit and time urgency on ad skipping behaviors

Due to commercial information loss of efficacy, social media advertising introduced skippable formats as an interactive function to attract customers. This empowerment of users could also favor the development of their skills and strategies to deal with online advertising, which may result in a lower advertising effectiveness. A study with 286 YouTube users was carried out to investigate this adaptation process to an advertising format by focusing on pre-roll skippable video ads. In contrast to advertisers’ approach (e.g. improving the persuasiveness of the ad), our research deepens on the ad skipping phenomenon from a human and context based perspective. In favor of an ad avoidance training effect, the findings show that participants previously exposed to a skippable ad are faster in taking the decision to watch or skip a subsequent ad. Participants’ skipping habits and time urgency are also revealed as main determinants of different ad skipping behaviors. This innovative research provides empirical support for the adaptation process leading people’s interrelation with interactive advertising formats. Practical and theoretical consequences are discussed for advancing on this underexplored topic.