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1 – 10 of over 32000Patrick Hopkinson, Mats Niklasson, Peter Bryngelsson, Andrew Voyce and Jerome Carson
The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis of the life of the musician Brian Wilson from five different perspectives.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis of the life of the musician Brian Wilson from five different perspectives.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used a mixed method of collaborative autoethnography, psychobiography and digital team ethnography to try and better understand the life and contributions of Brian Wilson.
Findings
Each of the five contributors provides different insights into the life and music of Brian Wilson.
Research limitations/implications
While the focus of this paper is on a single individual, a case study, the long and distinguished life of Brian Wilson provides much material for discussion and theorising.
Practical implications
Each individual presenting to mental health services has a complex biography. The five different contributions articulated in this paper could perhaps be taken as similar to the range of professional opinions seen in mental health teams, with each focusing on unique but overlapping aspects of the person’s story.
Social implications
This account shows the importance of taking a biological-psychological-social-spiritual and cultural perspective on mental illness.
Originality/value
This multi-layered analysis brings a range of perspectives to bear on the life and achievements of Brian Wilson, from developmental, musical, psychological and lived experience standpoints.
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Guthrie Wilson (1914‐1984) was one example of the trend of migration of teachers from New Zealand public schools to Australian private schools. The purpose of this paper is to…
Abstract
Purpose
Guthrie Wilson (1914‐1984) was one example of the trend of migration of teachers from New Zealand public schools to Australian private schools. The purpose of this paper is to explore this particular case with a view to revealing some of the dynamics involved and challenges facing certain types of Australasian schools in the 1950s and 1960s.
Design/methodology/approach
This article is essentially founded on empirical historical research and on analysis of data from published and archival sources and from interviews with participants and observers. It is placed in the context of the literature on both educational change in Australasia and trans‐Tasman migration at the time.
Findings
Although Guthrie Wilson craved recognition as a novelist, he excelled as a school Principal, partly because he seemed to fit certain notions of education, leadership and manhood which suited the Council of The Scots College Sydney. In the 1960s, the Council wanted to maintain traditions which appeared to have been weakened by Wilson's progressive predecessor and challenged by social change. Though he fulfilled the Council's expectations, Wilson also proved to be a mediator between traditional and progressive education. Thus, Wilson could be both an honourable representative of the “Old School” and modestly progressive.
Originality/value
Biographical studies can reveal unsuspected patterns as well as challenge casual generalizations. Images of schools and of their leadership, held by both contemporaries and later observers, can prove to be subtly misleading on closer inspection. In particular, the article confronts a number of school myths which affect not only the schools involved but all schools, mutatis mutandis.
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Some reference books are not only useful but a pleasure to read. For anyone interested in literature, the outstanding example is the Wilson Authors Series, which, for over fifty…
Abstract
Some reference books are not only useful but a pleasure to read. For anyone interested in literature, the outstanding example is the Wilson Authors Series, which, for over fifty years, has provided excellent summaries of the lives and works of critically acclaimed or popular writers known to English‐speaking readers. Through their coverage of minor writers and inclusion of the autobiographical statements of many twentieth‐century writers, these volumes have constituted a valuable record of the literary scene. Despite the proliferation of literary reference works in recent years, some covering more authors, others providing lengthier articles, the Wilson series has remained a cornerstone of the reference collections of libraries of all sizes and a model of concise biographical writing.
Jihong Zhao, Ling Ren and Nicholas Lovrich
Over the course of the past 40 years Wilson's theory of local political culture has influenced many students of policing. Wilson argued that variation in structural arrangements…
Abstract
Purpose
Over the course of the past 40 years Wilson's theory of local political culture has influenced many students of policing. Wilson argued that variation in structural arrangements in police organizations can be explained largely by the form of municipal government structure in place. For example, police departments using a strict law enforcement style of policing tend to work within a more bureaucratic structure (e.g. hierarchically differentiated) than their counterparts employing a watchman style of policing. The purpose of this study is to test the application of Wilson's theory of local political culture in today's police organizations.
Design/methodology/approach
Longitudinal agency survey data for 280 police departments collected through the 1990s were analyzed using a random‐effects panel technique.
Findings
The findings observed suggest that there was only a very limited relationship between local political culture and the five principal dimensions of organizational structure — formalization, centralization, functional differentiation, specialization differentiation, and occupational differentiation derived from Peter Blau's measures among these police agencies during the 1990s.
Research limitations/implications
The theory of local political culture may have limited utility in the analysis of the structural arrangements in contemporary police organizations. At the same time, a longer period of time is required in the study of local political culture.
Practical implications
The identification of key determinants of structural arrangements in police organizations is an important issue because there is a lack of consensus on the role of local political culture. The research used two approaches and found that organizational structure in police agencies is largely determined by socioeconomic factors.
Originality/value
The study represented an original study of police organization, using panel data collected by the authors during the 1990s.
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This paper aims to examine Patrick Wilson’s 1977 essay, Public Knowledge, Private Ignorance, which emphasizes practice rooted in theory. Modern reference work ought to look back…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine Patrick Wilson’s 1977 essay, Public Knowledge, Private Ignorance, which emphasizes practice rooted in theory. Modern reference work ought to look back to this 35-year-old essay to be reminded of the intent of reference practice by considering Wilson’s discussion.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper examines Wilson’s decades-old thesis and applies it to reference work and reference resources for today’s information professionals.
Findings
The crux of Wilson’s essay remains relevant today when applied to reference work and information-seeking.
Originality/value
This essay leaves readers with practical tips for reference work rooted in theory, and also expands on Wilson’s 1977 essay from a contemporary viewpoint, providing guidance for modern reference librarianship.
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C.A. Beverley, P.A. Bath and R. Barber
The purpose of this study is to determine the extent to which two existing models of information behaviour could explain the information behaviour of visually impaired people…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to determine the extent to which two existing models of information behaviour could explain the information behaviour of visually impaired people seeking health and social care information.
Design/methodology/approach
The research was conducted within a constructivist paradigm. A total of 28 semi‐structured interviews (face‐to‐face or telephone) with 31 visually impaired people were conducted. Framework analysis was used to analyse the results.
Findings
This study identified several factors that may affect a visually impaired person's information behaviour. These related to the presence of other health conditions or disabilities, participants' understanding of the word “information”, their interactions with information providers, their degree of independence, the support they received from friends and family, their acceptance of their own visual impairment, as well as their awareness of other visual impairments, their registration status and their willingness and ability to pay for aids, adaptations and equipment.
Originality/ value
This study provides a new and valuable insight into the information behaviour of visually impaired people, as well as testing the applicability of a specific and generic information model to the information behaviour of visually impaired people seeking health and social care information.
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Tara Zimmerman, Millicent Njeri, Malak Khader and Jeff Allen
This study aims to recognize the challenge of identifying deceptive information and provides a framework for thinking about how we as humans negotiate the current media…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to recognize the challenge of identifying deceptive information and provides a framework for thinking about how we as humans negotiate the current media environment filled with misinformation and disinformation.
Design/methodology/approach
This study reviews the influence of Wilson’s (2016) General Theory of Information Behavior (IB) in the field of information science (IS) before introducing Levine’s Truth-Default Theory (TDT) as a method of deception detection. By aligning Levine’s findings with published scholarship on IB, this study illustrates the fundamental similarities between TDT and existing research in IS.
Findings
This study introduces a modification of Wilson’s work which incorporates truth-default, translating terms to apply this theory to the broader area of IB rather than Levine’s original face-to-face deception detection.
Originality/value
False information, particularly online, continues to be an increasing problem for both individuals and society, yet existing IB models cannot not account for the necessary step of determining the truth or falsehood of consumed information. It is critical to integrate this crucial decision point in this study’s IB models (e.g. Wilson’s model) to acknowledge the human tendency to default to truth and thus providing a basis for studying the twin phenomena of misinformation and disinformation from an IS perspective. Moreover, this updated model for IB contributes the Truth Default Framework for studying how people approach the daunting task of determining truth, reliability and validity in the immense number of news items, social media posts and other sources of information they encounter daily. By understanding and recognizing our human default to truth/trust, we can start to understand more about our vulnerability to misinformation and disinformation and be more prepared to guard against it.
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L. Janelle Dance, Dae Young Kim and Thomas Bern
Urban sociological research posits a strong correlation between social isolation and the growth in illicit activities of street culture, namely the drug trade and violent gang…
Abstract
Urban sociological research posits a strong correlation between social isolation and the growth in illicit activities of street culture, namely the drug trade and violent gang activities. However, in this article we offer an explanation for why, even in the absence of extreme poverty and social isolation from mainstream institutions, youths in Cambridge, Massachusetts feel vulnerable to illicit street cultural activities. We also offer an explanation for why these youths perceive the effects of social dislocation to be similar to that experienced by youths from larger central cities. As we will elaborate below, some students in Cambridge are affected by illicit street cultural activities because: (1) social dislocation is a relative phenomenon and not merely an absolute phenomenon as described by William J. Wilson; (2) there is a social dislocation spill‐over effect from larger central cities that intensifies or amplifies the experiences of youths in the relatively poorer neighborhoods of Cambridge; (3) and some youths, from stable working‐class or wealthier neighborhoods in Cambridge, view involvement in the illicit activities of street culture as a reputable means of gaining peer respect through status group affiliation.
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Mary Ellen Kyger Davis and John F. Riddick
Since 1901 the public has relied on H.W. Wilson's Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature to locate articles of general interest related to its information needs. For nearly…
Abstract
Since 1901 the public has relied on H.W. Wilson's Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature to locate articles of general interest related to its information needs. For nearly seventy years, the Readers' Guide (RG) was virtually unchallenged by other general indexing tools. In its long years of service, RG earned a respected place in the library and became the index most known to the public. Bill Katz described it as the “closest thing to mom in the library — soft, all embracing, ready to educate us for anything.”
Andrew Robson and Lyn Robinson
This paper aims to gain insights from existing models of information behaviour, building on them to develop a new model which, unlike most others, encompasses both information…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to gain insights from existing models of information behaviour, building on them to develop a new model which, unlike most others, encompasses both information seeking and communication. By identifying key factors affecting the successful communication and use of information, it is hoped that the model will be of practical value both to information providers and to users.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on a literature search and analysis of well‐established models of information seeking and of communication, from which a new conceptual model is constructed.
Findings
Existing models have elements in common, though most models in library and information science focus on information seeking and the information user, while those from the field of communications focus on the communicator and the communication process. A new model is proposed that includes key elements of existing models and takes into account not just the information seeker but also the communicator or information provider.
Originality/value
The model developed in this paper is the first to combine elements from both information seeking and communication models. Being built on previous research, it can be used to investigate the practical value of the model itself and the elements that it has in common with other models.
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