Search results

The purpose of this paper is to explore the factor structure of the Resiliency Scales for Children and Adolescents (RSCA, Prince-Embury, 2006, 2007) and to provide supporting evidence that this is a psychometrically sound measure for practitioners and researchers to use to assess resilience in incarcerated male adolescent offenders in the UK.

Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to determine if the factor structure could be replicated among incarcerated male adolescent offenders. Concurrent validation of the measure was also conducted, utilising the Beck Youth Inventory, second edition (BYI-II-II; Beck et al., 2005).

CFA of the RSCA was unable to confirm the structure of the measure at an item level, therefore parcelling techniques were utilised similarly to Prince-Embury and Courville (2008), using the subscales for the factors as indicators for the factors. While a three-factor model was found to be an acceptable fit to the data, there was also some support for a two-factor model. Despite this, there was more statistical support for the three-factor model and arguments are made for retaining this structure. Expected associations between the three subscales of sense of mastery, sense of relatedness and emotional reactivity were found with the Beck Youth Inventory demonstrating support for the concurrent validity of the measure in incarcerated male adolescent offenders.

This paper provides support for the internal structure of the RSCA with incarcerated male adolescent offenders within the UK, although some caution should be used when interpreting scores from the subscales. The findings suggest that the RSCA can be utilised by practitioners to identify young people who may benefit from additional support and also in assessment and treatment/intervention planning. This may be particularly useful when practitioners wish to explore the potential protective nature of resilience.

The current study is the first of its kind to formally explore the factor structure of the RSCA with incarcerated male adolescent offenders.

More than two million older home owners have housing assets worth over £50,000, but incomes so low that they qualify for means‐tested benefits. Drawing on housing equity could improve their quality of life significantly, helping them to live more comfortably in their own homes for longer. But only about 25,000 home owners (of all ages and incomes) conclude equity release deals each year. This paper identifies the obstacles that deter asset‐rich, income‐poor older home owners from drawing on their housing equity, and suggests ways of overcoming them. The focus is on paying for additional care at home, home improvements and repairs.

This service evaluation study aimed to demonstrate the impact of implementing ward‐based multidisciplinary therapy input on an acute psychiatric ward in a London hospital for a six‐month period. The results indicated a high level of patient engagement with the project and referrals facilitated for patients following discharge. A reduction of incidents on the ward was reported over the project period compared to the previous year and there was less use of containment measures by staff by the end of the project. Recommendations are made for service improvement.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the emergence of blogging in the news sphere. If blogs represent a genuinely new breed of news provision, then they should adhere to some of the founding principles of mainstream news and journalism. A key principle in this respect is news credibitility.

This paper presents a review of recent literature about news blogging and assesses whether news blogs manifest many of the core attributes of mainstream news and journalism. The review considers the attributes that have previously been identified as defining good quality news and competent journalism and then applies some of these principles to “news” blogging.

There is no doubt that blogs have emerged as news sources of increasing significance and there have been occasions when they can be influential in setting news agendas. The essential qualities of credibitiltiy and capturing public trust in the news sphere, however, often depends upon the established reputation of known news “brands”. Although some blogs have emerged as reliable information sources in some specialist areas, they have yet generally to assume the key characteristics of mainstream news that drive public trust.

This paper provides an up‐to‐date review of a topic that is rapidly developing and attempts to set out some foundations on which further analysis of news blogging can be constructed.

The purpose of this paper is to present a systematic literature review of empirical studies into online platforms for political participation. The objective was to diagnose the relationship between different types of digital participatory platforms, the real possibilities of participation generated by those initiatives and the impact of such participation on the decision-making process of governmental representatives.

A systematic literature review was conducted using pre-defined terms, expressions and criteria. A total of 434 articles from 1995 to 2015 were gathered from the Web of Science database. And, 32 studies were selected from those articles for meta-synthesis, and the cases investigated were evaluated according to the e-participation ladder model (Smyth, 2001).

The results indicated that online political participation worldwide remains timid both in quantity and quality. We have witnessed the growth of a kind of “rhetorical participation” promoted by policy-makers and the rise of a “participatory despotism”, in which only the privileged partake, while the majority remains silent.

The solutions found to promote increased participation and ensure its effectiveness ranged from shaping the platform design in accordance with citizens’ capacities and interests to a need for profound political–administrative change, which includes the world’s public agencies adopting a more transparent, inclusive and collaborative approach to decision-making.

This paper proposes a systematic review, mapping the studies on online platforms for political participation, analysing the questions, methods and conclusions found by the authors and evaluating each case study with a participation ladder.

The purpose of this paper is to show how blogging has grown as an online phenomenon.

Examines the way that blogs have become a phenomenon that embrace private authors who go online to write personal diaries through to representatives from different types of commercial, political and voluntary organisations who utilise them for a range of information exchange, debating, promotional and support purposes.

As blogging grows as an online phenomenon its impact in areas such as news, politics, and social networking is being taken ever more seriously. While the internet has been held up by governments as holding great economic and political promise, acting as a vehicle that can enhance public services, empower and engage citizens, and trigger new ways of doing business, the reality in terms of how it is actually applied can be poles apart from the ideal.

The paper provides an overview of blogging and introduces the papers in this special issue.

This paper aims to examine social media communication that may consist of a database for online research and may create an online imagined community that follows special language symbols and shares common beliefs in a similar way to Anderson’s imagined communities.

Well-known databases were searched in the available literature for specific keywords which were associated with the imagined community, and methodological tools such as online interviews, content analysis, archival analysis and social media.

The paper discusses the use of multiple measures, such as document and archival analysis, online interviews and content analysis, which may derive from the online imagined community that social media create. Social media may in fact provide useful data that are available for research, yet are relatively understudied and not fully used in communication research, not to mention in archival services. Comparison takes place between online community’s characteristics and traditional communication research. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) and social media’s use of special language requirements may categorise discussion of these potential data, based on specific symbols, topical threads, purposeful samples and catering for longitudinal studies.

Social media have not been fully implemented for online communication research yet. Online communication may offer significant implications for marketers, advertisers of a company or for an organisation to do research on or for their target groups. The role of libraries and information professionals can be significant in data gathering and the dissemination of such information using ICTs and renegotiating their role.

The theoretical contribution of this paper is the examination of the creation of belonging in an online community, which may offer data that can be further examined and has all the credentials to do so, towards the enhancement of online communication research. The applications of social media to research and the use by and for information professionals and marketers may in fact contribute to the management of an online community with people sharing similar ideas. The connection of the online imagined community with social media for research has not been studied, and it would further enhance understanding from organisations or marketers.

If ‘income‐poor’ older home‐owners could draw on their housing equity easily and with confidence, then they could afford practical help that would improve their quality of life and make it possible for them to continue to live for longer in their own homes. This article reports on three local authorities that are now piloting equity release schemes, and the plans for monitoring and assessing them.

To report on longitudinal change in corporate real estate (CRE) practice in the last two decades, in particular, monitoring significant changes in CRE policy, function and activities through the statistical analysis of annual survey data.

A literature review revealed the major themes that have influenced CRE practice in the last 20 years. Applying principal components analysis the annual survey of CRE practice dataset was analysed to identify significant tends in the CRE practices reported by organizations.

A significant overlap was observed between the activities used in practice and the CRE literature, and new working practices were identified as a significant theme. Based on these analyses comment is made on the impact of changes in CRE practice over the timescale of the survey and it was predicted that new working practices will continue to influence CRE practices in the future.

This paper fulfils a need for evidence‐based monitoring of CRE practices to give insight into the relationship between past, present and indicative directions for future CRE practice.