If Only They Knew: Audience Expectations and Actual Sourcing Practices in Online Journalism

ABSTRACT

This article answers the question “Are the sourcing practices in Finnish online journalism trustworthy?” Here, trustworthiness is operationalized as the fulfillment of audience expectations towards sourcing practices. To this end, expectations of young Finnish adults (aged 18–28) were compared to the observed practices of Finnish online journalists. A total of 36 news items (from 12 journalists working in three newsrooms, published in 2013 and 2017) were analyzed. The analysis indicates that online journalists’ sourcing practices largely do not conform to this audience segment's expectations. Namely, the audience expects more comprehensive investigation and thorough verification than what is common practice in online journalism. The use of high-credibility sources is both expected and commonplace. The results imply that transparency may be harmful rather than beneficial to journalism's credibility, as the unveiled practices do not always meet audience expectations.     

Rationalising public support for private early childhood education and care: the case of Finland

ABSTRACT

In Finland, early childhood education and care (ECEC) is traditionally publicly provided. However, private ECEC provision has increased during the past decade, largely as a result of financial support from the public sector. Drawing on qualitative interviews with municipal decision-makers, this article identifies three frames within which publicly subsidised private ECEC provision and marketisation are rationalised: the pragmatic frame, the government frame and the choice frame. The results show that even though market logics and tendencies seem to have gained a strong foothold in local policies, there is a keen interest in universalism and maintaining public control over local ECEC provision.     

Learning mechanisms in multidisciplinary teamwork with real customers and open-ended problems

Recently, there has been a trend towards adding a multidisciplinary or multicultural element to traditional monodisciplinary project courses in computing and engineering. In this article, we examine the implications of multidisciplinarity for students' learning experiences during a one-semester project course for real customers. We use a qualitative research approach and base our analysis on students' learning reports on three instances of a project course titled Multidisciplinary working life project. The main contribution of this article is the unified theoretical picture of the learning mechanisms stemming from multidisciplinarity. Our main conclusions are that (1) students generally have a positive view of multidisciplinarity; (2) multidisciplinary teams enable students to better identify their own expertise, which leads to increased occupational identity; and (3) learning experiences are not fixed, as team spirit and student attitude play an important role in how students react to challenging situations arising from introduction of the multidisciplinarity.     

Hate and harassment in academia: the rising concern of the online environment

Higher Education - Hostile online communication is a global concern. Academic research and teaching staff are among those professionals who routinely give public comments and are thus vulnerable to...     

Successful design of learning solutions being situation aware

Education is increasingly enhanced by technology, and at the same time, the rapid pace of technology innovation and growing demand of consumers introduces challenges for providers of technological learning solutions. This paper investigates Finnish small and medium size companies who either develop or deliver technological solutions for education. Twelve companies were interviewed in order to capture the entrepreneurial narratives of successful design of learning solutions. Data was analyzed based on a conceptual framework. The framework draws on the situation awareness concept, meaning that we seek to answer the question how the participant enterprises examine relevant elements in their environment with regard to their development process. The results show that all the mature companies included in the study have well balanced situation awareness, but amongst the incubating and accelerating enterprises, balanced profiles are rare.     

Visualising the Interdisciplinary Research Field: The Life Cycle of Economic History in Australia

Interdisciplinary research is frequently viewed as an important component of the research landscape through its innovative ability to integrate knowledge from different areas. However, support for interdisciplinary research is often strategic rhetoric, with policy-makers and universities frequently adopting practices that favour disciplinary performance. We argue that disciplinary and interdisciplinary research are complementary, and we develop a simple framework that demonstrates this for a semi-permanent interdisciplinary research field. We argue that the presence of communicating infrastructures fosters communication and integration between disciplines and the interdisciplinary research field to generate innovative knowledge. We apply this to the experience of economic history in Australia in the second half of the twentieth century to demonstrate the life cycle of a semi-permanent interdisciplinary research field.     

Transnational advocacy network opposing DRM ‐ A technical and legal challenge to media companies

Abstract

Organized transnational political and technological activism ‐ here referred to as transnational advocacy networks ‐ has an increasingly strong role in giving images of how one should behave and what to consume. This article analyses transnational advocacy networks that oppose digital rights management (DRM) systems and related regulations. We suggest the potential impact of this activity to the consumption of content products. We start with defining and describing the most relevant advocacy networks. We provide the characterization of existing organizations and their work both the United States and Europe. Then, we discuss four case studies where media companies have experimented with different strategies against DRM circumvention initiated and endorsed by transnational advocacy networks Our argument is that because of the economics of copying on the Internet it is not a sound strategy to use legal actions to remove any circumventing information from the internet. Any circumvention information published on the Internet will be mirrored out of the reach of legal enforcement mechanisms. So far, the only working strategy seems to be to implement a DRM‐system, which can be updated without user intervention after the security is breached. This might be also the most efficient way to control the impact of transnational advocacy networks opposing DRM systems.     

A multidimensional adapted process model of teaching

Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability - In the present study, we aimed to specify the key competence domains perceived to be critical for the teaching profession and depict them as...     

Fatigue in a simulated cross-country skiing sprint competition

Abstract

The aim of this study was to assess fatigue during a simulated cross-country skiing sprint competition based on skating technique. Sixteen male skiers performed a 30-m maximal skiing speed test and four 850-m heats with roller skies on a tartan track, separated by 20 min recovery between heats. Physiological variables (heart rate, blood lactate concentration, oxygen consumption), skiing velocity, and electromyography (EMG) were recorded at the beginning of the heats and at the end of each 200-m lap during the heats. Maximal skiing velocity and EMG were measured in the speed test before the simulation. No differences were observed in skiing velocity, EMG or metabolic variables between the heats. The end (820–850 m) velocities and sum-iEMG of the triceps brachii and vastus lateralis in the four heats were significantly lower than the skiing velocity and sum-iEMG in the speed test. A significant correlation was observed between mean oxygen consumption and the change in skiing velocity over the four heats. Each single heat induced considerable neuromuscular fatigue, but recovery between the heats was long enough to prevent accumulation of fatigue. The results suggest that the skiers with a high aerobic power were less fatigued throughout the simulation.     

Oxygen and nitrogen plasma hydrophilization and hydrophobic recovery of polymers

PLASMA HYDROPHILIZATION AND SUBSEQUENT HYDROPHOBIC RECOVERY ARE STUDIED FOR TEN DIFFERENT POLYMERS OF MICROFABRICATION INTEREST: polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), polymethylmethacrylate, polycarbonate, polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, epoxy polymer SU-8, hybrid polymer ORMOCOMP, polycaprolactone, and polycaprolactone/D,L-lactide (P(CL/DLLA)). All polymers are treated identically with oxygen and nitrogen plasmas, in order to make comparisons between polymers as easy as possible. The primary measured parameter is the contact angle, which was measured on all polymers for more than 100 days in order to determine the kinetics of the hydrophobic recovery for both dry stored and rewashed samples. Clear differences and trends are observed both between different polymers and between different plasma parameters.