The article deals with the metaphysics of cognitive processes in media reality formation. Metaphysics reveals being and nothingness. Processes and discourse practices are regarded as cognitive processes. There is a distinction between media reality, hyper reality and virtual reality. The relationship between reality and information processes is being explored. The metaphysics of media-reality influences the existence of man and society, touches upon the value foundations of being and introduces the way (...) to transform them. The metaphysical dimension of cognitive processes opens up new forms of media reality impact on society. It is considered to be an integrative form uniting the representatives of different groups in achieving a specific goal. (shrink)

This article develops a sociology of worth that blurs the traditional disciplinary divide between economic value and social values. Through ethnographic study of a new media startup in Manhattan's Silicon Alley, we examine how a new firm in an emerging industry negotiates an uncertain environment where metrics gauging performance remain illusive as the industry itself gropes toward a clearer definition of its content and contours. Faced with complex foresight horizons, new media firms must develop an organizational capacity (...) for learning, innovation, and flexible adaptation to constantly changing requirements. We examine how the clash of evaluative criteria guiding the work of cross-disciplinary project teams becomes a source for innovation and a resource for learning when deliberation across evaluative principles is combined with an organizational and administrative structure that relies on lateral accountability. (shrink)

In the article, the semantics of image text in media discourse is reviewed. The authors describe the growing influence of media on society as well as its means in formation of the certain opinion on events or stereotyping in one single social group. They draw attention to the process of globalization typical for modern society and emphasize that the potential of media is turned to unification of society, presentation of common standards, values and all humankind’s fashion. The (...) authors of the article are concerned with the problem of ethnical identity and the need to develop and promote the image of different ethnic groups. One of the tools for creating an image is an image text. In image text, the information is presented in a way that the audience perceives all events and persons mentioned in it positively. The significant quality of the image text is an estimated lexicon. There are several types of such material, for example: note, interview, report, biography etc. In addition, the authors of the article explore the image texts based on the materials published in mass media of the Republic of Buryatia. These materials make the positive image of Buryats, representing the smallest ethnic group of Baikal Region. In conclusion, the authors note that the media discourse of the image texts have considerable influence on the objective reality and human behavior. Taking into consideration the experience of using the image texts in politics, business, and other spheres of human activities, they can become one of effective means of development the image of ethnic group. (shrink)

What is reality? It is postmodern or poststructuralist philosophers like Roland Barthes, who realized that it only seems that the media present reality in the form of facts, because they actually spread myths. Accordingly, Jacques Derrida made it clear that communication via media is not based on logic, but is characterized by a significant “différance” between a “marque” (trace) of the past and the expectations of the future. Both agreed, that the initial misunderstanding of the concept (...) of reality must be uncovered or "deconstructed". This is more than necessary for them, because media, be it pictures or language, in truth convey values that are culturally and socially significant. They ‘iterate’ these values subliminally, because what shows up are only placeholders and thus mere forms (“structures of graphematic”) that are superficially realised as facts (“stereotypes”). In this way, according to Barthes, we all accept without question the values hidden behind them, so that they can gain a normative power that unconsciously guides our thinking, our decisions and our actions. Afterwards, it is Judith Butler who critically asked: How can we ever escape from this? Given the power of the subliminal dominant discourses, she saw the only effective solution “im Umdeuten” (in reinterpretation) of their subliminal values. In order to finally escape this “parasitic existence at the ritual”, the media philosopher Walter Benjamin already suggested to trigger "Chockwirkungen” (shock effects) in the viewer. It is the German painter Karin Kneffel, so it shall be shown, who has realized this with her series Fruits and Interiors in the most beautiful photorealistic strategy. (shrink)

This paper introduces the basic principle and application process of simulated annealing algorithm and improves the simulated annealing algorithm so that it can converge faster to get the new parameters of cultural and creative product design and make it more in line with the reality of engineering optimization. In the cultural creative industry, it is necessary to use the creatorʼs creativity and technology to derive and develop the original cultural resources with the help of various materialization means, to refine (...) the abstract and profound contents of cultural resources to make them more visualized, and to produce products with both spiritual and economic values through the multiple development and utilization of their intellectual property contents. By studying the feasibility analysis of the cultural and creative design, the design positioning of the cultural and creative products is determined. In this article, we use the simulated annealing method to simulate and analyse the condition values in the design process of cultural creative products. As the Internet era progresses, people have more diversified requirements for cultural and creative products, and they need to have innovative ideas to follow the trend, so the design of cultural and creative products can spread culture through different design expressions and media. As one of the important pillar industries for future development, cultural and creative products are characterized by a wide range of styles and practicality, which meet the aesthetic needs and fashion trends of modern people. (shrink)

In this paper, I relate values-based practice (VBP) to clinical judgment more generally. I consider what claim, aside from the fundamental difference of facts and values, lies at the heart of VBP. Rather than, for example, construing values as subjective, I argue that it is more helpful to construe VBP as committed to the uncodifiability of value judgments. It is a form of particularism rather than principlism, but this need not deny the reality of values. Seen in this (...) light, however, VBP is part of a broader conception of clinical judgment that can be compared with Kant’s conception of reflective judgment. This is a useful way of marking similarities between a number of issues raised in philosophy, which can inform a better understanding of clinical judgment. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that the objections that have been raised against the view that equality is intrinsically valuable also provide objections to the view that all practical reasons can be explained in terms of value. Plausible egalitarian principles entail that under certain conditions people have claims to an equal share. These claims entail reasons to distribute goods equally that cannot be explained by value if equality has no intrinsic value.

The discrepancy between children’s actual amount of viewing time and parents’ accounts of their concerns, rules, and parental mediation choices has been documented in empirical research, and typically interpreted through the lens of the Uses and Gratifications theory – showing how parents change their attitudes towards screen media in order to satisfy their own needs. Based on a qualitative longitudinal research project, including app-based media diaries, with 20 families with at least one child aged eight or younger, we (...) aim to make two contributions to the literature. With regard to theory, we aim to highlight the heterogeneous and contingent ways of balancing the place of digital media in children’s lives that arise from parents navigating screen time discourses, social pressures, and daily schedules. With regard to methods, we argue for the combination of qualitative data and app-based media diaries to contextualise and interpret potential discrepancies between reported screen time and parental anxieties or hopes about digital media. (shrink)

Social projects are based on ethical values that members defend, incorporate in their life and want to implement. Identity and mission play an important role in the transmission of values within or...

The fire safety of industrial buildings has always been a great concern. An excellent evacuation indicator system can guide the personnel to escape quickly, thus reducing the casualties. In this study, we present a virtual simulation fire scene based on virtual reality to explore the impact of different colors, brightness values, and flashing frequencies on escape time in case of fire emergencies. The presented scene can help shorten the time required for evacuation in an industrial plant by identifying the (...) escape path under the fire and smoke environment and improve the escape efficiency. The results show that the green color is the most suitable color for evacuations; the escape efficiency increases with an increase in brightness, and there is no significant difference between the escape times under high and medium brightness; the evacuation time decreases with an increase in the flicker frequency. Based on these experimental results, the fire evacuation indicating system is designed. A virtual reality verification experiment is used to compare the escape efficiency of the improved design with an original factory’s indicating system. The verification results show that the improved scheme reduces the evacuation time and significantly improves the psychological stress on the evacuees. This work provides a theoretical basis for safe evacuation designs. (shrink)

The concept of media accountability is widely used but remains inadequately defined in the literature and often is restricted to a 1-dimensional interpretation. This study explores perceptions of accountability as manifestations of claims to responsibility, based on philosophical conceptions of the 2 terms, and suggests media accountability be more broadly understood as a dynamic of interaction between a given medium and the value sets of individuals or groups receiving media messages. The shape-shifting nature of the concept (...) contributes to the volatility of debate surrounding conflicting notions of press freedom and responsibility. (shrink)

In recent years, the translation of Debray’s writings and the study of his media thoughts have become increasingly popular in China, but the ‘medium’ in his media discourse has never been clarified. Debray pointed out that the focus of the media is ‘mediation’, which actually reveals a new way of thinking and reasoning. He then proposed four stages of mediological reasoning: Message, Medium, Milieu and Mediation. This article believes that based on this framework (i.e. 4M), Debray used (...) McLuhan’s theory as a hub for analysis and launched a set of research methods and tools aimed at exploring the multiple nature of medium and message on the sense of interaction between culture and technology, which also involved the utility of ‘mediasphere’ as an exploration principle to question the past and future of mankind and the media conditions. This approach provides an avenue for us to understand ourselves and transmissions in different space-time categories at both practical and theoretical levels. This article emphasizes that it is better not to interpret Debray’s thoughts as a theory parallel to the existing medium theories because its focus is on research approaches rather than arguments. Besides, although Debray’s medium theory is based on his experience and thinking in Europe and Latin America, there are reasons for the publicity of Debray’s ideology in China. From the perspective of history, culture and human geography, Chinese civilization can be said to contain rich ideological resources of mediation. This is of great significance to re-understand China’s history and reality in the new context of globalization, and to discover the global value of China’s experience. (shrink)

This is the first book to present an aesthetics of virtual reality media. It situates virtual reality media in terms of the philosophy of the arts, comparing them to more familiar media such as painting, film and photography. When philosophers have approached virtual reality, they have almost always done so through the lens of metaphysics, asking questions about the reality of virtual items and worlds, about the value of such things, and indeed, (...) about how they may reshape our understanding of the "real" world. Grant Tavinor finds that approach to be fundamentally mistaken, and that to really account for virtual reality, we must focus on the medium and its uses, and not the hypothetical and speculative instances that are typically the focus of earlier works. He also argues that much of the cultural and metaphysical hype around virtual reality is undeserved. But this does not mean that virtual reality is illusory or uninteresting; on the contrary, it is significant for the altogether different reason that it overturns much of our understanding of how representational media can function and what we can use them to achieve. The Aesthetics of Virtual Reality will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in aesthetics, philosophy of art, philosophy of technology, metaphysics, and game studies. (shrink)

In the article, a value as the universal anthropological phenomenon acting as the constituting basis and the integrative beginning of human being as conscious and motivated subject activity is studied. The following aspects of the phenomenon were analyzed: ratios of value and valuation, object and subject determination of value, fundamental anthropological characteristics of value as constituting factors of human being and its attributes, value structure as subject and object relation, problem of a ratio of values (...) and human requirements. It agrees with the offered semantic understanding of value are thought by the center of all semantic definiteness of human being as subject valuable relation to reality. The axiology as the philosophical theory of value is thought of the center of a philosophical and anthropological perspective, in which the essence and specifics of human being reveals. (shrink)

Social media is changing social accountability practices. The release of the Panama Papers on April 3, 2016 by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) unleashed a tsunami of over 5 million tweets decrying corrupt politicians and tax-avoiding business elites, calling for policy change from governments, and demanding accountability from corporate and private tax avoiders. The current study uses 297,000+ original English-language geo-codable tweets with the hashtags #PanamaGate, #PanamaPapers, or #PanamaLeaks to examine the trajectory of Twitter-based social accountability conversations (...) and the potential for the emergence of a longer-term social accountability user network. We propose that it is the combination of financial inscriptions and evaluative ethical utterances that incite and sustain social accountability conversations and social accountability networks. Financial inscriptions simultaneously remind audiences of both the information event that fomented the initial public reaction and the monetary magnitude of the event. Value-based ethical messaging, in turn, enunciates an ethical stance that simultaneously evaluates existing practices and emphasizes the need for accountability. It is the combining of these two types of messaging that helps to construct and sustain a normative narrative about social accountability. The results illustrate how the repetition and re-working of these two forms of messaging facilitated the construction of a normative narrative that coalesced into a social accountability network which persisted beyond the initial Panama Paper information event and which was re-activated in 2017 when the ICIJ published the Paradise Papers. (shrink)

Network and related network technology limit the traditional online teaching activities, making teaching activities only limited to asynchronous teaching, limiting the advantages of real-time, interactive, and vivid online teaching. As a new online teaching network technology, streaming media technology can realize flexible and efficient two-way communication between teachers and students, simulate virtual face-to-face teaching environment, and produce enough emotional resonance for both sides in the corresponding time and space. In view of the poor communication quality and flexibility of current (...) streaming media technology, this paper will build a selective streaming media online teaching architecture based on animation media service platform. The system innovatively uses DXSDK filtering technology to realize real-time audio acquisition and filtering processing and solves the communication quality problem of streaming media online teaching. Aiming at the flexibility of streaming media online teaching, the system adds online auxiliary teaching function, which can realize online text communication, file information management, and learning tracking interaction between teaching and learning. The experimental part is applied to the online teaching activities of a training institution. From the experimental results, the stability and flexibility of the system are greatly improved within a certain range of users, which has obvious practical value. It has high stability and application value. (shrink)

This article critically investigates the potential confrontation that exists between mixed reality in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) artworks that are, respectively, based on the concepts of phenomenology and Chinese Qi. My proposal is exemplified by the Industrial Technology Research Institute of Taiwan’s Flow of Qi (2007), which uses ultra wide band technology that instantly transforms the data of a pair of participants’ real-time breath into the replication of calligraphy masterworks projected onto the floor in front of the participants. To explore (...) how efficiency of breath constitutes mixed reality in Flow of Qi, I draw a parallel between Qi, which is embodied as breath, and agency whereby, as discussed by Murray and Hansen, the notion of the perception-action relationship is emphasized. However, compared to agency, Qi is characterized as evoking ‘the unity of the cosmos with humanity’ (t’ien-jen ho-yi) because the participants are involved in a process wherein the masters used their brushstrokes to grasp the respiration of the cosmos. Therefore, employing the concepts of Chinese Qi draws out an anthropocosmic vision of mixed reality that links participants with the cosmos and manifests a Qi world-view through digital media. (shrink)

Is age discrimination ethically objectionable? One puzzle is that we sometimes assume that the target of both age discrimination and ageism must be older people, yet in poorer nations, older people are generally shown more respect. This article explores the ethical question. It looks first at ethical arguments favoring age discrimination toward younger people in low‐income, less industrialized countries of the global South, using sub‐Saharan Africa as an illustration. It contrasts these with arguments favoring age discrimination toward older people in (...) high‐income, more industrialized countries of the global North, particularly the United States and United Kingdom. Finally, it considers what role, if any, differences in life expectancy, infant and child mortality, and prospects for healthy lives should play in the moral embrace of a particular view by a community. It argues that there can be reasons to favor different types of discrimination in different parts of the world. (shrink)

Ethical reasoning of all types is anthropocentric, in that it is addressed to agents, but anthropocentric starting points vary in the preference they accord the human species. Realist claims about environmental values, utilitarian reasoning and rights-based reasoning all have difficulties in according ethical concern to certain all aspects of natural world. Obligation-based reasoning can provide quite strong if incomplete reasons to protect the natural world, including individual non-human animals. Although it cannot establish all the conclusions to which anti-speciesists aspire, it (...) may establish many of them with some clarity. (shrink)

Using a purposive sample with an even distribution of 299 non-Hispanic Whites, 294 African Americans, 292 Asian Americans and 295 Hispanics, we test a moderated mediation model that examines the relationship between self-reported news media consumption (e.g., non-conservative and conservative) and environmental behavioural intentions. Our study found evidence supporting the mainstreaming hypothesis (converging attitudes) across key variables within the theory of planned behaviour (TPB). Our results also reveal non-conservative outlets to be associated with more favourable environmental attitudes, subjective norms (...) and perceived behavioural control, while conservative outlets are associated with less favourable levels for two of these three variables. Results also indicate conditional indirect relationships between non-conservative news use on behavioural intentions through our TPB variables, which vary by race/ethnicity. (shrink)

Purpose Digital India’s attempts to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. This research examines three questions: What is the educational importance of social media in Indian higher education? What gains and dangers does it pose when used for formal learning? Could informal learning via technology powerfully supplement learning through the formal system? Design/methodology/approach In total, 640 students were contacted through email lists provided by their institutions after these institutions had obtained their consent to participate in (...) the study. The response rate is worked out at 44.84 per cent. Telephone interviews were conducted with 22 “veterans” in the field of higher education in India. All this provided areas of importance on which this study is based. Findings India is no doubt experimenting with more creative methods of learning and teaching. Educational technology is at embryonic stage compared to many of the advanced countries. The results show that even when all facilities are present, students are not fully taking advantage of the benefits technology affords for formal learning. Not only is there a digital divide between generations but also within generations. How the technology is integrated into the learning process is important. The entire learning infrastructure is certainly available in India and it is struggling to meet student expectations and offer a more dynamic and appropriate pedagogy. Practical implications This paper throws light on models explicit to the Indian scene in how students can benefit from social media beyond the classroom. It discusses challenges in its adoption in Indian higher education and ways to meet these challenges. Social implications Technology-led learning brings about a difference and the present generation in India is better equipped to tackle the challenges of the workplace, will be helpful to their employers and would fit well into a global business environment. Originality/value Because of the relative newness of the approach in India and fairly restricted use in the Indian higher education system, the impact of social media on student engagement in the higher education sector in India is not fully known. (shrink)

Here is the first book to present Karl Marx as one of the great systematic philosophers, a man who went beyond the traditional bounds of the discipline to work out a philosophical system in terms of a concrete social theory and politico-economic critique. Basing her work on the Grundrisse (probably Marx's most systematic work and only translated into English for the first time in 1973), Gould argues that Marx was engaged in a single enterprise throughout his works, specifically the construction (...) of a systematic and philosophical theory of society. Gould examines five basic themes of Marx's social ontology: society, labor, causality, freedom, and justice, in five separate chapters, preceded by an introductory chapter explicating thesis and methods. The book shows how Marx's ontology, or theory of social reality, may be reconstructed from concrete details of his account of the historical stages of social development and from his analyses and critiques of capitalist economy. It clarifies further the value theory underlying Marx's critique of modern society and explores the question of how philosophy can play a major role in understanding and resolving social issues. This book will be of interest to all students of society, since it raises issues of the relationship of technologies to society and of the forms and prospects for socialism as a possible future society. It has deliberately been written in a style that makes the difficult, technical issues accessible to undergraduates just beginning to read Marx, as well as, of course, graduate students of social theory and specialized scholars. The lay reader will also be drawn to the particular content of this book and will enjoy the lucid, straightforward presentation. Marx's Social Ontology proposes a solution to a long-standing problem in interpretations of Marx: the apparent dilemma of his insistence on the ideal of full self-realization of the individual and his equal insistence on the ideal of full self-realization of the community. This is a book of major significance dealing with topics of enduring and current interest. (shrink)

This paper studies the influence of entrepreneurial spirit on college students’ entrepreneurial ability and entrepreneurial values. Firstly, the impact of entrepreneurial psychology and entrepreneurial spirit on entrepreneurial values is analyzed. Secondly, the role of entrepreneurial values in Innovation and Entrepreneurship Education is analyzed and summarized under new media. Then, based on entrepreneurial psychology and entrepreneurial spirit, a Questionnaire Survey is designed to investigate the entrepreneurial values of students in one university in Shaanxi Province, China. The QS analysis suggests that (...) most respondents hold a positive attitude, and their attitude is on the rise. The QS results of “Reasons for entrepreneurial failure” show that 40.37, 31.9, 25.98, and 11.75% of respondents think they lack financial support, business skills, ability, and understanding of policies and laws, respectively. The QS results of “What factors influence entrepreneurial values?” reveal that 39.43% of the respondents chose the “Models of successful entrepreneurs,” successful entrepreneur models can effectively encourage students to receive IEE, followed by 28.94% who choose “Achieve their own life goals.”. In terms of “Solutions against entrepreneurial risks,” nearly 70% of the students have chosen the negative options. In terms of “Which is the most important entrepreneurial quality?”, more students choose entrepreneurial values rather than entrepreneurial quality, proving that students generally lack entrepreneurial values. Given these problems, corresponding countermeasures are put forward to strengthen entrepreneurial psychology and IEE, in an attempt to cultivate college students’ entrepreneurial values and entrepreneurial ability under the new media. The results provide some data support for the impact of college students’ entrepreneurial values and entrepreneurial ability. (shrink)

This article looks through a critical media lens at mediated effects and ethical concerns of virtual reality applications that explore personal and social issues through embodiment and storytelling. In recent years, the press, immersive media practitioners and researchers have promoted the potential of virtual reality storytelling to foster empathy. This research offers an interdisciplinary narrative review, with an evidence-based approach to challenge the assumptions that VR films elicit empathy in the participant—what I refer to as the (...) VR-empathy model. A review of literature from the fields of psychology, computer science, embodiment, medicine, and virtual reality was carried out to question and counter these claims through case studies of both fiction and non-fiction VR experiences. The results reveal that there is little empirical evidence of a correlation between VR exposure and an increase in empathy that motivates pro-social behavior, and a lack of research covering VR films exposure eliciting empathy. Furthermore, the results show an alarming lack of research into the long-term effects of VR films and other VR immersive experiences. This contribution aims to understand and demystify the current “empathy machine” rhetoric and calls for more rigorous, scientific research that can authenticate future claims and systemize ethical best practices. (shrink)

Despite worsening material realities of the climate, discursive tensions between a need to popularize climate issue and an increasing politicization trend in climate change communication continue to unfold. Politicizing climate change as an ideological conflict may mislead the public to perceive it as essentially a topic about politics rather than science and health. It also creates discursive and real political space for local governments and intergovernmental organizations to defray responsibilities and delay action. To closely examine the ways popularization and politicization (...) are localized, this article focuses how the same issue was discursively constructed as different newsworthy events vis-à-vis news voices of different power status in People’s Daily and Sydney Morning Herald, the most read newspaper in China and Australia respectively. Findings demonstrate that while People’s Daily tends to globalize China’s local climate efforts and polarizes the climate issue as international conflicts between developed and developing countries in general, and between China and the US in particular, Australia’s media tends to localize global climate efforts and represents it as domestic conflicts between the Coalition government and the rest of domestic society. Findings were explained by recourse to different societal functions of news media and changing power dynamics. (shrink)

This study compares the balance of newspaper and television news coverage about migration in two countries that were differently affected by the so-called “refugee crisis” in 2015 in terms of the geopolitical involvement and numbers of migrants being admitted. Based on a broad consensus among political elites, Germany left its borders open and received about one million migrants mainly from Syria during 2015. In contrast, the conservative British government was heavily attacked by oppositional parties for closing Britain’s borders and, thus, (...) restricting immigration. These different initial situations led to remarkable differences between the news coverage in both countries. In line with news value theory, German media outlets reported much more on migration than did their British counterparts. In line with indexing theory, German news coverage consonantly reflected the consensual view of German political elites, while British news media reported along their general editorial lines. (shrink)

Our paper addresses the question of what exactly the contribution of the humanities to management education could or should be, suggesting the concept of Literacy as both this contribution’s goal and method. Though there seems to emerge a consensus in the debate about the future of management education that the humanities should be involved with shaping it, some misconceptions about the humanities obscure the understanding of the why and how of it, most notably as to the manner in which they (...) are to provide for ethical values. Our paper in a first step endeavours to clear those misconceptions up drawing on some historical aspects of their development. It then proceeds to introducing the concept of Literacy and, based on it, the teaching framework of Critical Management Literacy we designed to operationalize the concept towards management students` needs. Our leading hypothesis is that the contribution of the humanities should focus on the cultivation of the capacity for epistemological doubt in order to prepare students for the complexity and indeterminacy of reality, thus at the same time laying the groundwork for ethical reflectivity. (shrink)

People share their emotions on social media and evidence suggests that in times of crisis people are especially motivated to post emotional content. The current Coronavirus pandemic is such a crisis. The online sharing of emotional content during the Coronavirus crisis may contribute to societal value change. Emotion sharing via social media could lead to emotional contagion which in turn could facilitate an emotional climate in a society. In turn, the emotional climate of a society can influence (...) society’s value structure. The emotions that spread in the current Coronavirus crisis are predominantly negative, which could result in a negative emotional climate. Based on the dynamic relations of values to each other and the way that emotions relate to values, a negative emotional climate can contribute to societal value change towards values related to security preservation and threat avoidance. As a consequence, a negative emotional climate and the shift in values could lead to a change in political attitudes that has implications for rights, freedom, privacy and moral progress. Considering the impact of social media in terms of emotional contagion and a longer-lasting value change is an important perspective in thinking about the ethical long-term impact of social media technology. (shrink)

This article is devoted to presenting the intermedia journalistic project called Out of Eden Walk and launched by American reporter Paul Salopek. Based on values such as journalistic reliability and the in-depth view of the reality, the project can be situated within the framework of the popular strands of slow journalism and slow travel. Salopek’s intention was to present Out of Eden Walk as an alternative to the rapidity of mass media communication and popular travel writing. The purpose (...) of this paper is to demonstrate the way in which Salopek uses media convergence mechanisms for creating an intermediary journalistic message, which is then distributed via various communication platforms based on both new media and traditional media. (shrink)

In the tradition stemming from Aristotle through Aquinas, rational decision making is seen as a complex structure of distinct phases in which reasoning and will are interconnected. Intention, deliberation, and decision are regarded as the fundamental steps of the decision-making process, in which an end is chosen, the means are specified, and a decision to act is made. Based on this Aristotelian theoretical background, we show how the decision-making process can be modeled as a net of several patterns of reasoning, (...) involving the classification of an action or state of affairs, its evaluation, the deliberation about the means to carry it out, and the decision. It is shown how argumentation theory can contribute to our understanding of the mechanisms involved by formalizing the steps of reasoning using argumentation schemes, and setting out the value-based criteria underlying the evaluation of an action. Representing each phase of the decision-making process as a separate scheme allows one to identify implicit premises and bring the roots of ethical dilemma to light along with the means to resolve them. In particular, we will show the role of framing and classification in triggering value-based reasoning, and how argumentation theory can be used to represent and uproot the grounds of possible manipulations. (shrink)

Experience value is positively associated with user voice toward social media, but existing research lacks an examination of its mechanisms of action. Based on value co-creation theory, this paper explores the relationship between experience value and customer voice, and explains the specific influence mechanism through the mediating role of user loyalty. The results of the empirical tests show that social value, entertainment value and information value have significant effects on user loyalty; user loyalty (...) has a significant effect on promotive voice but not on prohibitive voice; user loyalty mediates the relationship between body social value, entertainment value, information value and promotive voice. The findings of this research reveal the important role of experience value on customer voice, which is an important guide for social media to achieve sustainable development. (shrink)

Customers’ declining receptivity to conventional marketing tools has been a challenge for convenience stores. To overcome this, retailers are turning to social media as a new, potent marketing tool for creating business prospects and encouraging direct customer interaction. However, it is still unknown how social media marketing affects the shifts in customer behavior. This paper expands on the relationship of “loyalty program + virtual community experience → perceived value → customer loyalty” in the traditional convenience store scenario, (...) refining the variables of virtual community experience, perceived value, and customer loyalty. It also compares the effectiveness of different LP design structures and explores the mediation impact of program loyalty and the moderation effect of alternative attractiveness. The results demonstrate the superior performance of LPs with an expiry policy and differential returns and highlight the importance of enhancing members’ virtual community experiences in fostering customer perceived value and loyalty. The results also show the minor negative moderation impact of community group buying and prove that emotional value significantly impacts customer loyalty. Still, the social value does not affect program loyalty. The recommendations are offered, such as designing growing-oriented and periodical zeroing LPs, as well as using new social media marketing tools to empower traditional marketing techniques and constructing a “convenience store + community group buying” model. The findings have substantial theoretical and practical implications for traditional convenience stores in properly implementing loyalty and social media marketing tactics to maximize customer value and loyalty with a limited budget. (shrink)

Problem: First-order scientific research is often not aware of the hidden assumptions provided by an epistemological perspective based upon realism. Beyond philosophical considerations about the epistemological foundations, some practical normative implications deriving from them are crucial: in the field of communication and media studies, some scholars criticize media coverage, e.g., on climate change, as biased and distorted from reality. Method: From a constructivist perspective, the article presents a detailed meta-analysis of the course of argumentation provided by two (...) empirical communication studies that follow an objectivist approach. Result: With the help of a second-order research strategy, it is possible to uncover their ontological assumptions and criticize their normative implications. Implications: Social scientists should be careful with normative suggestions for the system under study unless they are applied within these systems themselves. (shrink)

Adopting Fairclough's multidimensional approach, this corpus-based study explores discursive changes in current Taiwanese society, with a particular focus on conversationalization in printed media. Data were collected from three major newspapers catering to different readerships during three time periods. The analyzed linguistic features include noun phrases, Chinese four-character set expressions, mixing of local dialect, and slang. My analysis shows that over the past two decades there has been an increase of conversational features in all three newspapers. In addition, a cross-sectional (...) comparison has revealed that soft news texts include more conversational features than hard news texts. It is also found that the newspaper which stresses local values and advocates an independent Taiwan identity tends to adopt more conversational features, particularly the mixing of Taiwanese in Mandarin news texts. Finally, I suggest that this trend of conversationalization in the Taiwanese press can be linked to substantive democratization and marketization of the Taiwanese society as well as the change and development of modern written Chinese. (shrink)

Though the rise of social media has provided countless advantages and possibilities, both within and without the domain of sports, recent years have also seen some more detrimental aspects of these technologies come to light. In particular, the widespread social media culture surrounding fitness – ‘fitspiration’ – warrants attention for the way it encourages self-sexualization and -objectification, thereby epitomizing a wider issue with photo-based social media in general. Though the negative impact of fitspiration has been well documented, (...) what is less understood are the ways it potentially impacts and molds moral psychology, and how these same aspects may come to influence digital sports subcultures more broadly. In this theoretical paper, I rely on the insights of Friedrich Nietzsche to analyze the moral significance of a culture like fitspiration becoming normalized and influential in structuring and informing self-understanding, notions of value, and how to flourish in life. Using two doctrines central to Nietzsche’s philosophy—The Last Man and his conception of the ’higher self’ – I argue that fitspiration involves a form of hedonism that is potentially harmful to the pursuit and achievement of human flourishing. Through fitspiration, desire is elevated to a central moral principle, underlying the way users both consume and produce its content, catering simultaneously to their desires for external validation and instant gratification. It thereby creates conditions which foster a culture in adherence to the ethos of The Last Man. In doing so, I argue it impedes the cultivation of the virtues and higher values which define the higher individual, regarded by Nietzsche as essential for human flourishing. However, drawing on the ethical framework of the higher individual provides the philosophical and psychological resources with which resisting and overcoming the more harmful temptations of these trends may be possible. (shrink)

This article presents a quantitative analysis of how different socio-cultural factors, including lifestyle, affect the extent to which different media are perceived as indispensable for maintaining close relations with family and friends. Through applying ‘indispensability’ as an indicator of the mediatization of social life, the study provides a concrete illustration of how mediatization is continuously molded through socio-cultural processes in everyday life. The results are based on a national survey conducted in Sweden and show that e-mail and video calls (...) constitute a culturally distinctive ensemble of communication, especially in comparison to online chat functions and Facebook. E-mail is valued especially among people with higher education who lead globally oriented lifestyles thus testifying to the enduring status of text-based communication in the longer format as a cultural marker. The study thus suggests that the modalities of communication that certain media make possible are important to how these media are perceived as cultural properties as well as social technics. (shrink)

Although artificial intelligence has been given an unprecedented amount of attention in both the public and academic domains in the last few years, its convergence with other transformative technologies like cloud computing, robotics, and augmented/virtual reality is predicted to exacerbate its impacts on society. The adoption and integration of these technologies within industry and manufacturing spaces is a fundamental part of what is called Industry 4.0, or the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The impacts of this paradigm shift on the human (...) operators who continue to work alongside and symbiotically with these technologies in the industry bring with it novel ethical issues. Therefore, how to design these technologies for human values becomes the critical area of intervention. This paper takes up the case study of robotic AI-based assistance systems to explore the potential value implications that emerge due to current design practices and use. The design methodology known as Value Sensitive Design (VSD) is proposed as a sufficient starting point for designing these technologies for human values to address these issues. (shrink)

. The article substantiates the relevance of complex researches aimed at expert understanding of the humanistic potential of ethical ideas of different religious traditions and clarifying the conditions of their effectiveness in modern reality. Methodological guidelines for such studies are Kant's ethicotheology; ethical doctrine of N. Hartmann; Berdyaev's ethics of creativity; E.Fromm’s demarcation of the foundations of authoritarian and humanistic religiosity; D.Ikeda's ideas about the primacy of cultural dialogue of religions over their dogmatic or corporate isolationism. The author models (...) the possibilities of synthesis of comparative, dialectical, phenomenological, hermeneutic, synergetic methodological strategies in understanding of the value vectors of religious ethics. It is noted that the content of the term "religious ethics" is not limited to a system of canonized, "once and for all" formulations, norms and prohibitions of a particular religion. Religious ethics is a broad value and social space of human interaction and cultural creation. No less than canons and dogmas, it is also defined by practical patterns of forming relationships in a particular religious community as a hotbed of intense value exchange. The specificity of the principle of humanistic synergy of different traditions religious-ethical ideas is substantiated. It is proved that in the conditions of a globalized, post-information society there are many opportunities for constructive action of this principle. After all, religious meanings are penetrating to the consciousness of people not only within the confessional upbringing and “catechization”. Often they are mastered through individual, autonomous forms of socialization of the individual. That is, the level of cultural development, education and self-education, and involvement in one or another information "field of attraction" are important here. The author of the report identifies a specific vision of the value core of a number of religious traditions of the world, which can be productively used for the humanistic synergy of relevant religious and ethical ideas. He summarizes this core with the example of humanist ideas and practical examples of Hinduism, Jainism, Confucianism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. At the same time, he identifies the value antipodes of humanistic virtues present in these religious traditions and analyzes the ways of their social cultivation preventing The emphasis of the study is extrapolated to the Ukrainian context of the functioning of religious and religious education, as well as to the issues of applied ethics and civil responsibility of religious communities, their leaders and activists. It is concluded that among the important conditions for the humanization of the functioning of religious structures in modern society – the optimization of the communicative "climate" of educational projects, the development of practical dialogue with respect to other religions and worldviews, the active introduction of philosophical and academic religious and religious studies, which educates future religious leaders. Accordingly, the prospects for further research in this methodological key lead to a detailed reflection on the educational, communicative, media, cultural and aesthetic, legal conditions of harmonizing the humanistic value orientations of the ethics of religions and the practice of living of confessions and religious communities. (shrink)

This paper argues that the still-emerging paradigm of situated cognition requires a more systematic perspective on media to capture the enculturation of the human mind. By virtue of being media, cultural artifacts present central experiential models of the world for our embodied minds to latch onto. The paper identifies references to external media within embodied, extended, enactive, and predictive approaches to cognition, which remain underdeveloped in terms of the profound impact that media have on our mind. (...) To grasp this impact, I propose an enactive account of media that is based on expansive habits as media-structured, embodied ways of bringing forth meaning and new domains of values. We apply such habits, for instance, when seeing a picture or perceiving a movie. They become established through a process of reciprocal adaptation between media artifacts and organisms and define the range of viable actions within such a media ecology. Within an artifactual habit, we then become attuned to a specific media work that engages us. Both the plurality of habits and the dynamical adjustments within a habit require a more flexible neural architecture than is addressed by classical cognitive neuroscience. To detail how neural and media processes interlock, I will introduce the concept of neuromediality and discuss radical predictive processing accounts that could contribute to the externalization of the mind by treating media themselves as generative models of the world. After a short primer on general media theory, I discuss media examples in three domains: pictures and moving images; digital media; architecture and the built environment. This discussion demonstrates the need for a new cognitive media theory based on enactive artifactual habits—one that will help us gain perspective on the continuous re-mediation of our mind. (shrink)

Phenomenographic research about teachers’ conception of teaching has consistently revealed that teachers’ conception of teaching influence their classroom practices, which in turn shape students’ learning experiences. This paper reports teachers’ conceptions of teaching with regards to the use of interactive spherical video-based virtual reality in Chinese descriptive composition writing. Twenty-one secondary teachers in Hong Kong involved in an ISV-VR-supported Chinese descriptive writing program participated in this phenomenographic study. Analyses of the semi-structured interviews establish seven conception categories that are specifically (...) related to the use of ISV-VR for descriptive Chinese composition writing: offering students more observational opportunities; improving students’ writing skills; promoting students’ learning participation and motivation; shifting learning from teacher-centric to student-centric, enhancing collaborative learning among students; cultivating students’ positive values and moral character, and shaping students’ self-identity as “writers.” The concurrent and convenient access to the ISV-VR resources was for the teachers an enriched and supportive environment for them to cultivate students’ writer identity. In addition, it was discovered that the structural relationships of the conceptions may be better organized along three axes of continuum: conception’s orientation, teaching attention locus, and understanding of writing. These categories form a hierarchy from skill-oriented to community-oriented, and finally to identity-oriented conception. The findings may provide researchers and practitioners with novel insight into the teaching of composition writing in the contexts of L1 acquisition supported by virtual reality technology. (shrink)

This thesis aims to clarify the intrinsic characteristics of ‘image’ of everything for the image in the society of the fourth industrial revolution by the phenomenological dimention based on Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, and to clarify the value of image, the intrinsic characteristics of ‘painting-image’, ‘photo-image’ and ‘film-image’. It will reveal that ‘thing-image’, ‘artifact-image’, ‘digital image’, ‘robot-image’ become the images for society of humanities by these clarifications. The image of everything is ‘appearance-image’ to reveal itself, ‘expression-image’ from the phenomenological, ontic point (...) of view, and ‘image-being’ as ‘being as image and being image’ from the phenomenological, ontological point of view. The augmented reality-image is the image of fusion of virtual image+real image+body-subject image. Things-images in the world of Internet of Things(IoT) become things-images of digital communication. Painting-image, photo-image, film-image are text-images. The painting to paint a correspondence of perceptive phenomena and natural affairs themselves means the painting of the image to fuse the diverse images on horizon-image of natural affairs themselves by the multilateral, intentional vision. The sense of the intentional photo-image, the meaning of being of body-subject, and the facticity and singularity of object itself of photo shoot reveal the intrinsic characteristics of photo-image. The film-images in film manifest the intrinsic characteristics of the connective flesh between them mutually. Finally, it is necessary that the value of the intrinsic characteristics of image in the society of the fourth industrial revolution becomes the value for the righteous personality. (shrink)

This article uses a 36-million word corpus of news reporting on Hurricane Katrina in the United States to explore how computer-based methods can help researchers to investigate the construction of newsworthiness. It makes use of Bednarek and Caple’s discursive approach to the analysis of news values, and is both exploratory and evaluative in nature. One aim is to test and evaluate the integration of corpus techniques in applying discursive news values analysis. We employ and evaluate corpus techniques that have not (...) been tested previously in relation to the large-scale analysis of news values. These techniques include tagged lemma frequencies, collocation, key part-of-speech tags and key semantic tags. A secondary aim is to gain insights into how a specific happening – Hurricane Katrina – was linguistically constructed as newsworthy in major American news media outlets, thus also making a contribution to ecolinguistics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Message to Buddhists for the Feast of Vesakh 2007:Christians and Buddhists: Educating Communities to Live in Harmony and PeacePaul Cardinal Poupard, President and Archbishop Pier Luigi Celata, SecretaryDear Buddhist Friends,1. On the occasion of the festival of Vesakh, I am writing to Buddhist communities in different parts of the world to convey my own good wishes, as well as those of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.2. We, Catholics (...) and Buddhists, enjoy a good relationship and our contacts, collaboration and implementation of diverse programmes have helped to deepen our understanding of each other. Dialogue is the sure path to fruitful interreligious relations. It deepens respect and nurtures the desire to live in harmony with others.3. The Second Vatican Council teaches that the entire human race shares a common origin and a common destiny: God, our Creator and the goal of our earthly pilgrimage. Similarly, Pope Benedict XVI, in his 2007 Message for the World Day of Peace, observed: "As one created in the image of God, each individual human being has the dignity of a person; he or she is not just something, but someone, capable of self-knowledge, self-possession, free self-giving and entering into communion with others" (n. 2).4. Building a community requires concrete gestures which reflect the respect for the dignity of others. Furthermore, as religious people, we are convinced that "there is a moral logic which is built into human life and which makes possible dialogue between individuals and peoples" (ibid, n. 3). Yet, there are people today who still need to learn about others and other people's beliefs in order to overcome prejudices and misunderstandings. This sad reality, if it is to be overcome, demands much effort [End Page 131] on the part of both civic and religious leaders. Even in places where people experience daily the ravages of war, fueled by sentiments of hatred and vengeance, trust can be restored. Together we can help to create the space and the opportunities for people to talk, listen, share regrets and offer forgiveness for each other's past mistakes.5. Education for peace is a responsibility which must be borne by all sectors of society. Of course, this starts in ordinary homes where the family, the fundamental pillar of society, strives to transmit traditional and sound values to children by a deliberate effort to inform their consciences. The younger generations deserve and indeed thrive upon value-based education which reinforces respect, acceptance, compassion and equality. It is important therefore that schools, both government and faith-based, do all possible to support parents in the delicate but satisfying task of raising children to appreciate all that is good and true.6. The media's power to shape minds, especially of the young, cannot be underestimated. While the irresponsible elements within it are increasingly being recognized for what they are, it is also the case that much good can be effected through quality productions and educational programmes. When people working within the media exercise their moral conscience, it is possible to dispel ignorance and impart knowledge, preserve social values, and portray the transcendental dimension of life which arises from the spiritual nature of all people. Religious believers serve society admirably by collaborating in such projects for the common good.7. Ultimately, the aim of true education is to bring the individual to encounter the ultimate purpose of life. This motivates the person to serve broken humanity. Together may we continue to contribute toward peace and harmony in our society and the world. We Catholics join you with our heartfelt greetings as you celebrate this feast and I wish you once again a happy Vesakh. [End Page 132]Paul Cardinal Poupard, President and Archbishop Pier Luigi Celata, SecretaryPontifical Council for Interreligious DialogueCopyright © 2007 The University of Hawai'i Press... (shrink)

Introduction. The development of legal culture and a culture of human rights in the modern world through media technologies, is acquiring special significance in connection with the processes of globalization and the spread of media in recent decades. The purpose of the article is to study the prospects for the use of media education in the formation of the legal social culture and a culture of human rights. Materials and methods. Based on a study of domestic and (...) foreign sources, issues of media education, media literacy, spiritual and moral education, the legal culture of society, the phenomenon of post-truth and ways of forming critical, creative thinking are considered. The use of general scientific, philosophical, and socio-pedagogical methods has made it possible to study media education as a dialogue of learning, stimulating the development of rational, critical thinking, focused on the search for the value foundations of intellectual and social activity. Results. The development of the field of information and communication technologies determines the principles for the formation of the content and orientation of modern education. Media education is interlinked with the development of democracy and human rights. It influences the formation of a culture of citizen participation, their active social position, civic and political culture. Media education plays a significant role in shaping the legal culture of society since critical media research and information research focuses on the analysis of power structures and structures of dominance in the media. A study of the interpretations of the concepts of "media education" and "media literacy" made it possible to show that media education focuses a person on a critical approach to media content. One of the main issues of media education is teaching a person the skills to critically study media and media technologies, which involves addressing the technological, cultural and historical specifics of specific media used at a specific time and place. Information and communication technologies have changed the way of life, work, communication, and ways of selfpresentation, the formation of values, participation in socially significant events. Therefore, a critical approach to mass media should be based on knowledge of socio-philosophical theories, ethics and research in the field of mass media. Discussion. Mass media are constructing a history of human rights, which updates the topic of the media policy of human rights, combining socio-legal, cultural and media theories. Education in the field of acquiring information perception skills, the ability to correctly understand the importance of audiovisual images, to competently handle and navigate information flows are necessary for the life of a modern person in society. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the characteristics of immersive media technology and the advantages, problems and solutions in applying this technology to improve the teaching effectiveness of ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities. Firstly, it introduces the current development and characteristics of immersive media technology. Secondly, it analyzed the outstanding advantages of immersive media technology in teaching from the following perspectives: virtual reality and augmented reality; sensory stimulation and emotional experience; and human-computer interaction (...) and self-harmony. Thirdly, it puts forward the ways to improve the teaching effectiveness based on immersive media technology from the aspects of theoretical study, history study, and practical study of ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities. Finally, it discusses the problems in applying immersive media technology to teaching the above courses and puts forward some solutions. (shrink)