Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Mobile 2d And 3d Spatial Query Techniques For The Geospatial Web, Junjun Yin

Doctoral

The increasing availability of abundant geographically referenced information in the Geospatial Web provides a variety of opportunities for developing value-added LBS applications. However, large data volumes of the Geospatial Web and small mobile device displays impose a data visualization problem, as the amount of searchable information overwhelms the display when too many query results are returned. Excessive returned results clutter the mobile display, making it harder for users to prioritize information and causes confusion and usability problems. Mobile Spatial Interaction (MSI) research into this “information overload” problem is ongoing where map personalization and other semantic based filtering mechanisms are essential …

Rationalizing Creativity—Rationalizing Public Service: Is Scheduling Management Fit For The Digital Era?, Ann-Marie Murray

Articles

In public broadcast organizations across Europe, scheduling has been transformed from a marginal, administrative activity to a highly strategic management tool (Hellman, 1999; Hujanen, 2002; Meier, 2003;Ytreberg, 2000) Ellis (2000)described it as “the locus of power in television,” organizing production and managing budgets (p. 26). The role of scheduling in public broadcast organizations today reflects the demands of increasing competition and political pressure for efficiency and accountability. However, new challenges have emerged in the transition from public service broadcasting to public service media (PSM). PSM providers must redefine their mission for the digital era and find …

What Do Users Need? Exploring Influences On The Adoption Of Mobile Content And The Differences Among Categories Of Adopters, Janaina Maia Gonzaga De Oliveira

Doctoral

Businesses develop products and services with the goal of earning a satisfactory return on their original investment of time and capital. For their part, consumers seek out products and services that meet a recognized need. However, predicting the adoption rate of any new technology is an inexact science, and some businesses find themselves on the wrong side of the curve. The variables factoring into consumers’ purchasing decisions are manifold and contingent on a wider network of influences. This research suggests that a primary variable that influences consumers’ adoption of a technological innovation (in this case, mobile content) is the perception …

Exploration Of The Reputation Of The Nightclub Industry In Ireland, Anthony Friel

Masters

The purpose of the exploration was to research the reputation and public relations practised within the nightclub industry. This is achieved through exploring the public relations practices of the Irish Nightclub Industry Association (INIA) and individual nightclubs. The specific areas examined are public relations as a management function, communications, relationship management, an understanding of publics, issue management and crisis management. Reputation and the reputation management process are also assessed. These areas of practice combined give an understanding of how the nightclub industry’s reputation can be explored. Publics affected by the nightclub industry give their opinion on these practices by the …

Cyberbullying Among 9-16 Year Olds In Ireland, Brian O'Neill, Thuy Dinh

Reports

• Almost a quarter (23%) of 9-16 year olds surveyed experienced some form of bullying, online or offline. Bullying online or by mobile is less common (4%) than face to face. Levels of bullying in Ireland are a little above the average reported by the 25 countries (23% vs. 19%) but lower for cyberbullying (4% vs. 6%).
• Bullying face to face is experienced by younger children (under 12) as well as by older teens. Online bullying is much less common among younger 9-12 olds and happens mostly to teenagers.

Bullying In A New Ground: Cyberbullying Among 9-16 Year Olds In Ireland, Thuy Dinh, Brian O'Neill

Articles

This paper builds on the data collected in Ireland by the cross-national EU Kids Online II project- a large 25 country survey which investigated children’s experiences of the internet, focusing on issues of use, activities, risks, and safetyi . This article explores incidences, forms and consequences of cyberbullying among Irish children, as well as discussing possible prevention and intervention strategies.

Sheridan's Promising Tale Is Half Told, Ian Kilroy

Articles

Review of 'Break a Leg', the memoir by Irish theatre artist Peter Sheridan. First published in the Sunday Business Post Magazine.

Who Cares?:Practical Ethics And The Problem Of Underage Users On Social Networking Sites, Brian O'Neill

Articles

Internet companies place a high priority on the safety of their services and on their corporate responsibility towards protection of all users, especially younger ones. However, such efforts are undermined by the large numbers of children who circumvent age restrictions and lie about their age to gain access to such platforms. This paper deals with the ethical issues that arise in this not-so-hypothetical situation. Who, for instance, bears responsibility for children’s welfare in this context? Are parents/carers ethically culpable in failing to be sufficiently vigilant or even facilitating their children’s social media use? Do industry providers do enough to enforce …

E-Society And Children's Participation: Risks, Opportunities And Barriers, Brian O'Neill

Books/Book chapters

Children are important subjects of information society policy, particularly in the context of digital learning opportunities and e-inclusion. However, their participation is also a cause of concern and anxiety for policy makers. With ever-earlier adoption of new internet technologies and services by children, concerns arise as to how to ensure adequate protection whilst seeking to encourage and foster online opportunities. A delicate balancing act is required to manage risks while promoting better participation in e-society. To better inform this policy field, EU Kids Online conducted a pan-European survey of children’s use of the internet, resulting in the first fully comparable …

The Evolution Of Media Development: The Media Development Model In A Changing World, Daire Higgins

Articles

The origins of Media Development can be found in Post WW2 Europe and the industry grew as a more significant aspect of international aid work in the 1980s and the 1990s, following the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the former Soviet Union. It was hoped that exporting the concept of a free and independent press would foster democracy in post-communist and transitional countries. While it is debated on how successful these projects were, questions are now being asked about the relevance of media development model itself, the liberal press ideology behind the training projects and what …

Risks And Safety On The Internet: Comparing Brazilian And European Children, Alexander Barbosa, Brian O'Neill, Cristina Ponte, Simões Simões, Tatiana Jereissati

Articles

A child’s home and school are the most frequently reported locations of internet use in Brazil: 60% of Brazilian children aged 9 to 16 who used the internet claimed to access it from home, and 42% from school, whereas in Europe this proportion is 87% for home access and 63% for schools.

However, when it comes to accessing the network from publicly sponsored internet access centres such as Local Area Network (LAN) Houses or cybercafés, the value in Brazil is considerably higher when compared to Europe, 35% against 12% respectively. Access from public libraries is far more popular in Europe …

Manual Evaluation Of Synthesised Sign Language Avatars, Robert G. Smith Mr, Brian Nolan Dr.

Conference Papers

The evaluation discussed in this paper explores the role that underlying facial expressions might have regarding understandability in sign language avatars. Focusing specifically on Irish Sign Language (ISL), we examine the Deaf community’s appetite for sign language avatars. The work presented explores the following hypothesis: Augmenting an existing avatar with various combinations of the 7 widely accepted universal emotions identified by Ekman [1] to achieve underlying facial expressions, will make that avatar more human-like and consequently improve usability and understandability for the ISL user. Using human evaluation methods [2] we compare an augmented set of avatar utterances against a baseline …

The Press, Democracy And History: Journalism And Democracy In Transitional Societies, Michael Foley

Doctoral

In 1989 the Berlin Wall came down signalling the beginning of the end of the post World-War-Two settlement that had divided Europe and created the Cold War. The communist world crumbled over a few years, but at a cost. There was a bitter war in the Balkans, shorter, but equally bitter conflicts in the Caucuses as well as in Central Asia. The Soviet Union fell apart leaving in its place new states varying in size from huge countries like Ukraine to the tiny states of the Baltic coast and Kyrgyzstan in far Central Asia. There was also enormous poverty as …

Internet Policies: Online Child Protection And Empowerment In A Global Context, Brian O'Neill

Books/Book chapters

Children’s use of the internet has in the first decade of the twenty-first century become a matter of major policy concern. With increasing numbers of young people going online at ever-younger ages and through diverse platforms, governments, NGOs and industry stakeholders have demonstrably increased the attention given to matters of safety and child protection online whilst grappling with rapidly changing trends and technological developments. Policy in this area is most often framed in terms of the need to balance the hugely important opportunities the internet offers children whilst recognising that as minors they require protection. In addition, internet policy for …

New Perspectives On Audience Activity: ‘Prosumption’ And Media Activism As Audience Practices, Brian O'Neill, J. Ignacio Gallego, Frauke Zeller

Books/Book chapters

Until relatively recently, the subject of social relationships, constituted in and through audience practices, has been a minor part of audience research studies. This chapter explores how social relationships and forms of audience agency change and / or evolve, through the usage of both traditional and ‘new’ media. In a media environment where traditional and new media worlds collide, the potential of audience practices to rework, not only media-audience relationships, but also wider social relationships, is now an important research theme. Two key examples of mediated relationships between social actors in conditions brought about through transformations in media culture are …