Search

Abstract: Advancing hypotheses derived from social identity theory, we investigated the influence of gamer identity affiliation on affective responses to identity threats and enhancements. Participants viewed a message that either devalued (i.e., threatened) or elevated (i.e., enhanced) the status of gamers when associating them with a mass shooting event. Relative to a control condition that neither threatened nor enhanced identity, our data demonstrated that gamer identity affiliation moderated affect. Specifically, greater gamer affiliation increased negative affect experienced after a threatening message. By contrast, greater gamer affiliation increased positive affect and reduced negative affect experienced after an enhancement message. Analyses of participants’ emotional reactions to the messages revealed that individuals with stronger gamer identity affiliation reported relatively more homogeneous emotions relative to individuals less affiliated with gamer identity. We discuss these response patterns with respect to how emotions may shape intergroup interaction in online communication.

While visiting a science museum, mothers (N = 125) and their 4- to 7-year-old children were recruited to read one of four versions of an educational storybook. These storybooks detailed either male...

This ethnodrama is a script writing project based on qualitative research that explores deaf people’s experience of working as interpreter in Ireland. A collection of interview data was used to develop the ethnodrama by constructing scenes that reveal a series of interactive moments that capture the challenges faced by deaf interpreters. Framed within Sontag’s (1997) conceptualization of “translation,” the authors offer a critique of the term translation and discuss its significance from the perspective of deaf interpreters. Participants were invited to read and comment on aspects of the scenes and contribute to the script writing process. Their statements were integrated into the script to generate meaningful dialogue which appear in the final part of the play. The discussion indicated a positive response to this ethnodrama which was generally successful in producing realistic dramatized scenarios which stimulated reflective discussions in the epilogue.

In this paper, the authors consider issues relating to hearing interpreter teams, and deaf-hearing interpreter teams. A small-scale investigation of team interpreting in Ireland was conducted, considering where interpreters are working throughout Ireland and in what settings they are operating as a team. An anonymous survey was circulated to the interpreters of Ireland. From this it was observed that hearing interpreters tend to be the lead parties in organising interpreter teams. Furthermore it is interesting to note that Deaf Interpreters (referred to as DIs) report rarely working as part of a team. There is very little guidance for DIs, which further disadvantages them, as they cannot then easily advocate for their own position in the Irish context. The authors concluded by stating the need for guidance policies and/or toolkits surrounding how to decide who should be on an interpreter team. This would be beneficial for all interpreters, interpreting agencies and any organisation looking to book interpreters, whether they be public bodies or private sector.

This paper presents a first snapshot of what we know about how the Irish justice system responds to deaf signers. We look specifically at engagement with An Garda Síochána, the District Court and the Irish Prison Service. We draw on a body of data that stems from (i) the European Commission funded Justisigns Project, (ii) the ‘grey literature’, and (iii) a small study of how equally deaf prisoners access services available to hearing prisoners. We set out to document and benchmark provisions, mapping current practice against the requirements of the European Directives, and reflecting on how these sit with respect to the obligations outlined in the Irish Sign Language Act (2017) and the UNCRPD (2006). We identify a number of gaps arising from systemic issues such as the siloed manual recording of requests for interpreting, quality assurance protocols where interpreters are provided (e.g. the video recording of all parties), and arising from this, the limited opportunities for true evidence-led practice for all those engaged with deaf signers in the Irish justice system.

How do physical digital inequalities persist as technology becomes commonplace? We consider this question using surveys and focus groups with U.S. college students, a group that has better than average connectivity. Findings from a 748-person nonrepresentative survey revealed that ownership and use of cellphones and laptops were nearly universal. However, roughly 20% of respondents had difficulty maintaining access to technology (e.g., broken hardware, data limits, connectivity problems, etc.). Students of lower socioeconomic status and students of color disproportionately experienced hardships, and reliance on poorly functioning laptops was associated with lower grade point averages. Focus group and open-ended data elaborate these findings. Findings quantitatively validate the technology maintenance construct, which proposes that as access to information and communication technology peaks, the digital divide is increasingly characterized by the (in)ability to maintain access. Data highlight overlooked nuances in digital access that may inform social disparities and the policies that may mitigate them.

The present study investigated how task demand (cognitive load and interactivity) and avatar sexualization in a video game influenced rape myth acceptance (RMA), hostile sexism, and self-objectification. In a between-subjects design, 300 U.S. college students either played or watched someone else play a videogame as either a sexualized or non-sexualized female avatar under high (memorize 7 symbols) or low (memorize 2 symbols) cognitive load. Hypotheses were derived from the limited capacity model of motivated mediated message processing (LC4MP) and perspectives on stereotype processing. Results contradicted hypotheses that greater task demands and sexualization would produce greater RMA, hostile sexism, and self-objectification. Instead, we found that sexualization did not affect these variables. Greater cognitive load reduced rape myth acceptance and hostile sexism for those in the sexualized avatar condition, but it did not affect self-objectification. We discuss these results with respect to the LC4MP and suggest that the processing of stereotype-inconsistent information might be the underlying cause of these unexpected findings. These results provide tentative evidence that cognitively demanding video game environments may prompt players to focus on stereotype-inconsistent, rather than stereotype-consistent, social information.

Game developers potentially convey socio-cultural values about gender through design choices. This study interpreted the designs of 11 purposively selected female game characters, developed by studios located in the United States and Japan, through the lens of ambivalent sexism. This social psychological theory posits that sexism consists of hostile and benevolent attitudes about women. Two themes emerged across characterizations: bodies as objects, bodies as weapons and (in)dependence. Both consisted of empowering qualities paired with problematic beliefs about women. This analysis contributes to interdisciplinary literature by using an empirical perspective to interpret gender representations in video games.

In the United States, medical crowdfunding is an increasingly common response to overwhelming healthcare costs. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 individuals crowdfunding for health (e.g. cancer, paralysis, brain injury) on behalf of themselves or others, to better understand this new phenomenon as it informs theory on social support, identity, and privacy. First, findings suggest that crowdfunding is often a resource for both instrumental and emotional social support. Second, many crowdfunders weighed the need for support against perceived privacy risks, which is consistent with and extends privacy calculus theory. Finally, highly vulnerable self-disclosures were often reinterpreted to be empowering, which also supports and extends work on identity shift. Using crowdfunding as a context for inquiry, findings point to new theoretical frameworks to describe how users navigate needs for both privacy and support online and the often positive consequences of that negotiation for identity.

We analyzed in-game content from titles released between 1983 and 2014 (n = 571) featuring playable female characters. Results indicate that sexualization has diminished since an observed height in the 1990s. Traditionally male-oriented genres (e.g. fighting) have more sexualized characters than role-playing games. Games rated Teen or Mature did not differ in sexualization and featured more sexualization than Everyone games. Despite an increase in games featuring playable female characters, games still depict female characters more often in secondary roles and sexualized them more than primary characters. A positive relationship emerged between the sexualization of female characters and their physical capability. Critical success of games was unrelated to sexualization. We discuss these findings in light of social identity and objectification theories.

Media commonly feature imagery that celebrates idealized bodies and researchers have observed the adverse effects of such depictions. Although video games commonly feature idealized bodies, experimental work investigating the effects of game characters on body image disturbance remains underrepresented. This trend is surprising as the preponderance of hyper-muscular male and hyper-sexualized female characters speaks to the heteronormative, masculine fantasies often given prominence in game content. Using social comparison theory, the current work investigated how ideal and hyper-ideal video game bodies affected women's (study 1) and men's (study 2) body image dissatisfaction. The study also compared these outcomes to a non-exposure control condition. Generally, the data provided evidence that hyper-idealized game characters negatively affected men but positively affected women. Tested how ideal and hyper-ideal bodies affected body image dissatisfaction.Conducted separate experiments for men and women.Hyper-ideal bodies reduced body image dissatisfaction for women.Hyper-ideal bodies increased body image dissatisfaction for men.

Listeners exhibit orienting responses to voice changes in audio messages. However, the impact of pitch similarity between voices on the nature of the OR has not been explored. We conducted a 3 (Vocal Pitch) × 2 (Location of Change in Message) × 2 (Repetition) within-subjects experiment to address this question. Four non-professional announcers were selected based on differences in vocal pitch. Twelve radio commercials were produced using these announcers to include a single voice change—with either Low-, Medium-, or High-Pitch Differences. The voice changes occurred either within the first or last 20 seconds of the commercial. Heart rate and recognition memory data were collected from 41 subjects. Results show that vocal-pitch difference between speakers impacts automatic attention allocation via the orienting response, and recognition memory for the message is thereby affected. Furthermore, results suggest that having voice changes occur early in an audio message produces the best attentional result.

This study presents the results of a survey of 269 undergraduate students conducted to examine fright experiences caused by video games. Over half of the participants reported game-induced fear. Sex, sensation-seeking, and empathy all emerged as important individual differences in terms of enjoyment of frightening content, consumption of frightening content, and frequency of fright experience. Interactivity and presentations of realism also predicted fear. This work identifies titles, stimuli, and features that caused fright experience.

Research has used the cardiac orienting response (OR) to show that structural changes in the auditory environment cause people to briefly but automatically pay attention to messages such as radio broadcasts, podcasts, and web streaming. The voice change—an example of an auditory structural feature—elicits orienting across multiple repetitions. This article reports two experiments designed to investigate whether automatic attention allocation to repeated instances of other auditory structural features—namely production effects, jingles, and silence—is a robust phenomenon or if repetition leads to habituation. In Study 1 we show that listeners of a simulated radio broadcast exhibit ORs following the onset of auditory structural features that differ in semantic content. The prediction that listeners would not habituate to feature repetition was not supported. Instead, both jingles and synthesized production effects result in more iconic ORs to the second repetition compared with the first. However, orienting...

Digital games are a medium in which new forms of representations are possible and where new, imagined rules can be created and established. Unfortunately, many representations and rules within digital game worlds reinforce harmful sexist beliefs and attitudes belonging to the real social world. Male and female digital game characters are portrayed as sexist archetypes, and some games feature sexist themes and rulesets which depict women as objects. Yet the question remains if sexualized and sexist portrayals influence players of digital games. In this chapter, we will draw on social psychological theories as well as evidence from empirical research (e.g., Behm-Morawitz and Mastro, Sex Roles, 61(11–12):808–823, 2009; Fox and Bailenson, Sex Roles, 61(3–4):147–157, 2009; Fox et al. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(3):930–938, 2013) to argue that critiques of sexist character portrayals have legitimacy and that this content may undesirably influence some players’ cognition, attitudes, and behaviors both during and after gameplay. We provide a dispassionate, evidence-supported argument that sexist content in games does contribute problematically to perceptions of women and their status in contemporary society. We also provide some suggestions for future research, such as asking scholars to carefully consider and distinguish sexist imagery from the game mechanics which may contribute to sexist thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors.

The objective of this study was to ascertain some of the issues affecting uptake of IT in Fiji through an examination of the secondary and tertiary education programs. The study recognises the importance of the cultural issues which intersect with IT uptake, as well as issues of infrastructure, access, and cost. A qualitative methodology was used to draw on the experience of a range of staff and students who were interviewed. Information on IT uptake and the education system as experienced by its participants is not easily obtainable in Fiji. Hence this study looks to assist in filling this gap. It allows the voices of the participants to emerge and through them a story of the issues of IT education emerges. Because of infrastructure and cost problems for IT in Fiji, considerable weight falls on the education system in the adoption of IT. At this stage the education system struggles both in terms of resources, curriculum, and ethnic divides in providing adequate levels of provision. This affects the ability of communities to evaluate, adopt, adapt, or resist information technologies to their advantage. It is concluded that there is significant potential for Fiji to become an IT literate society that is not being developed. Cultural issues do affect this process, but in the end changes to curriculum and teaching processes could make very real differences, if adapted to the current needs and conditions of the country.

Despite the widely held view that systems are more likely to be successful if users are involved during systems development, there is uncertainty about the exact nature of the relationship between user participation and system outcomes. There has been considerable research activity in this area but findings are inconclusive. Comparatively little qualitative research has been reported. This paper reports an interpretive study that examined the development process for 38 decision support systems in the Australian agricultural sector. The relationship between user participation and system outcome was explored. The degree of user influence in the design process was found to be an important component of this relationship. Degree of user influence was a result of both the type and depth of user participation. Much previous research has focused on whether users were involved in development without detailed consideration of the degree of influence on design features resulting from this participation. The results from this study are significant in that they yield theoretical insights into the phenomenon of user participation and related system outcomes. In addition, the results have practical significance for practitioners developing decision support software.

Prostate Cancer UK's nurse-led service is outlined by Teresa Lynch, Patricia Smith and John Robertson

In the late eighties, the participation rate of women in Information Technology courses in most Australian Universities was around 25%. This low level of women's participation in computing courses occurs not only in Australia but also overseas [1], [2]. More studies that are recent indicate that the participation rates have not improved and in fact may be even further in decline [3]. Participation rates in the workforce also appear to be in decline [4], [5].Concerned at the imbalance within Australia, the Federal government directed all Australian Universities to increase the number of women in courses leading to a professional computing qualification (i.e., information technology courses) to 40% of students by 1995 [6].This paper details one Australian university's approach, over a 10-year period (1991 - 2001), to redress this imbalance. We provide examples of intervention strategies developed and the outcomes for these strategies. We present the outcomes against a background frame of the Australian Higher Education scene of that decade which was influenced by funding levels to universities in general and to equity programs in particular. We present data related to the participation of women in computing programs along with snapshots of the overall changing student demographics over this period.

Nurse Teresa Lynch spent a day on the set of the BBC television drama Silk, advising the programme makers on the portrayal of character with advanced prostate cancer. She ensured equipment and procedures were accurate, and encouraged the script writer to make the storyline more hopefull.

Colorectal cancer is an important public health problem and one of the most common cancers registered in New Zealand. In 2009 the New Zealand Guidelines Group were commissioned to produce and evidence-based summary of current New Zealand and international data to inform best practice in the management of people with early bowel cancer. A guideline development team was convened, representing a range of stakeholder groups who met to discuss and agree on the recommendations for a clinical practice guideline. This article summarises the guideline methods and reports the recommendations from the Management of Early Bowel Cancer guideline, published in 2011.

This article examines recent progress at assigning monetary values to what are normally considered “hard to quantify” benefits of transportation projects. It focuses on three types of impacts – environmental quality, health and wider economic impacts – to examine how transportation project evaluation methods have evolved in recent years and how they compare to methods used for evaluation of non-transportation programs. Examples of recent practice are provided to show how transport agencies are continuing to refine performance measures to include broader impacts in project evaluation. A classification is provided to distinguish direct traveler effects from indirect effects on non-travelers, a step important to maximize coverage and minimize double-counting of impacts. For each type of impact, the paper discusses the range of variation in monetized values and shows that the variation is due less to imprecision in measurement than to fundamental issues about whether to use damage compensation, impact avoidance costs, stated preferences or behavioral valuation perspectives to define those values. Case studies as diverse as Australian roads, Wisconsin energy programs and Appalachian economic development programs are used to show how common methods are evolving among transport and non-transport agencies to improve impact measurement and its use in project evaluation.

This is the second of a two-part unit on the Mental Capacity Act 2005. Part 1 explored the concept and definition of mental capacity, advance treatment decisions, independent mental capacity advocates and the act's code of practice. This part discusses possible ethical and legal dilemmas in the interpretation of both the act and its code of practice.

This is the first of a two-part unit on the Mental Capacity Act 2005. Part 1 outlines the act's key principles and implications. Healthcare professionals' responsibilities are examined in relation to advance decisions.

Little is known about what it is like to live in adolescence with a chronic inflammatory bowel disease. This article reports the findings of a small qualitative study that explored the experience of four New Zealand youth aged between 16 and 21 years, who had been recently diagnosed with Crohn disease. Semistructured interviews focused on discovering the youth' thoughts, feelings, and perceptions of living with this condition. Analysis of the transcribed data is presented thematically. The findings reveal stress as integral to living with Crohn disease. They illuminate the paradoxical relationship between fear and hope and provide insight into what helps and what hinders young people's ability to cope with the disease and its treatments. Collectively, these three themes describe the ways in which the lives of young adults are drastically and almost irreparably changed by Crohn disease. The findings contribute to the "promoting wellness" literature and will inform those who support the increasing number of young people living and coping with a chronic inflammatory bowel disease.

There are problems with the adoption and use of many organizational implementations of Web-Based Education (WBE). This paper puts forward the view that the problems stem from a misfit between the development methodologies commonly used to implement these systems and the context in which they are being applied. This misfit contributes to a number of the problems and shortcomings faced with implementing WBE. The paper describes the application and use of emergent development methodologies of WBE and suggests that such methodologies are a better fit for many organizational level developments in WBE. The focus of this paper is WBE within the University sector.

Nurse Teresa Lynch spent a day on the set of the BBC television drama Silk, advising the programme makers on the portrayal of character with advanced prostate cancer. She ensured equipment and procedures were accurate, and encouraged the script writer to make the storyline more hopefull.

There has been considerable effort and money spent in the development of intelligent support systems (decision support systems and expert systems) for use by farmers, but few systems appear to be adopted for regular use. An examination of the conceptual issues concerning the adoption of innovations, with particular reference to software products, identifies major factors that appear to influence the adoption of these systems by farmers. The conceptual frameworks used for this analysis include Rogers’ diffusion theory, the perceived usefulness and ease-of-use of software, software development methods with a focus on the adopter-based approach to technology, and user involvement in the development of an innovation. As a result of this approach, we argue that the low adoption rate of intelligent support systems is understandable and could have been predicted. Different approaches are needed if we are to do better in the future. These include participatory approaches, using ‘softer’ systems methodologies that acknowledge the importance of involving the user early in the development process and that pay attention to the decision-making styles and social context of potential users.