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1 – 10 of over 4000Theo J.D. Bothma and Ina Fourie
Needs for information literacy, disparities in society, bridging digital divides, richness of information sources in electronic (e-)environments and the value of dictionaries have…
Abstract
Purpose
Needs for information literacy, disparities in society, bridging digital divides, richness of information sources in electronic (e-)environments and the value of dictionaries have often been propagated. To improve information sources and information literacy training, information behaviour must be understood (i.e. all information activities). This paper conceptualises new opportunities for information sources (e.g. electronic dictionaries) to all society sectors, dictionary literacy and research lenses such as lexicography to supplement information literacy and behaviour research.
Design/methodology/approach
A scoping review of information literacy and behaviour, lexicography and dictionary literature grounds the conceptualisation of dictionary literacy, its alignment with information literacy, information activities and information behaviour and lexicography as additional research lens.
Findings
Research lenses must acknowledge dictionary use in e-environments, information activities and skills, meanings of information and dictionary literacy, the value of e-dictionaries, alignment with information behaviour research that guides the development of information sources and interdisciplinary research from, e.g. lexicography – thus contextualisation.
Research limitations/implications
Research implications – information behaviour and information literacy research can be enriched by lexicography as research lens. Further conceptualisation could align information behaviour, information literacy and dictionary literacy.
Practical implications
Dictionary training, aligned with information literacy training, can be informed by this paper.
Social implications
The value of dictionary literacy for all sectors of societies can be improved.
Originality/value
Large bodies of literature on information behaviour and lexicography individually do not cover combined insights from both.
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This paper aims to explore the topic of adaptive reuse referring to urban open spaces into a more-than-human perspective. It underlines that dealing with heritage means being part…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the topic of adaptive reuse referring to urban open spaces into a more-than-human perspective. It underlines that dealing with heritage means being part of an inherent and ongoing process of transformation and so that reuse is inextricably an adaptive practice, constantly facing mutations, and that adaptation is a coral practice that involves different kinds of users and makers, inclusive of human and not human livings.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper looks at the lexicon of abandonment, in search of the more essential and intense meanings of words, and at some pioneering practices in Europe to comprehend the aesthetic and ethical implications of adaptive reuse of neglected landscapes.
Findings
Processes of reuse involve many different communities of users who in turn continuously redesign the site, into a comprehensive, coral and conflicting collaboration, whose results are never given once for all and are both uncanny and beautiful, scaring and marvellous, like a monster.
Practical implications
Accepting the idea that humans are not the only users and makers of urban sites can widen the range of tools, methods and values involved in heritage adaptive reuse.
Originality/value
This paper tries to widen the meanings of adaptation into a multispecies perspective. It intends to broaden the range of agents that can be involved as users and makers, assuming a more-than-human point of view that is not yet commonly applied.
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Muthmainnah, Ahmad Al Yakin, Muhammad Massyat, Luís Cardoso and Andi Asrifan
Purpose: This study aims to identify communication speech acts and transaction terms in online stores (Olshop) during live streaming on Facebook amid the COVID-19 pandemic and to…
Abstract
Purpose: This study aims to identify communication speech acts and transaction terms in online stores (Olshop) during live streaming on Facebook amid the COVID-19 pandemic and to understand communication patterns between sellers and buyers when shopping on Facebook live streaming in Indonesia.
The Need for Research: This research is motivated by the skill gap arising from increasing buying and selling transactions through live streaming on Facebook. Cultural and demographic shifts, along with the widespread availability of modern technologies and marketing 2.0 have resulted in the global population adopting social media at rates far beyond our use of the Internet, making a compelling case by example and analogy that social media has the potential to level the playing field and is effective in reaching their target market.
Methodology: The type of research is descriptive-qualitative using corpus data instruments. The data collection technique in this study was carried out by reading and observing the data and listening to speeches about buying and selling women’s equipment from various online stores on Facebook. Then select and sort the data designated as forms, strategies, and functions of speech acts in buying and selling transactions during live streaming on Facebook. The data analysis technique has three steps: (1) reducing the amount of data; (2) presenting the data; and (3) concluding.
Findings: The results show that there are four types of speech acts between sellers and buyers in the live-streaming online shop on Facebook, namely, assertive, directive, expressive, and commissive speech acts.
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Vasileios Georgiadis and Lazaros Sarigiannidis
The paper redefines workplace spirituality (WS/WPS) by transcending the existential vacuum (in psychiatric terms a sense of lack of meaning of human existence and thus of work)…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper redefines workplace spirituality (WS/WPS) by transcending the existential vacuum (in psychiatric terms a sense of lack of meaning of human existence and thus of work), leading to the development of workplace creativity, productivity and satisfaction, targeting operational profitability and organizational optimization.
Design/methodology/approach
Spirituality is analyzed philosophically, following the Nietzschean definition in response to Schopenhauer’s primordial suffering. Philosophical syncretism yields a viable organizational culture change model of spiritualizing the workplace. For this purpose, specific techniques are proposed which are combined with those already applied to various large companies and organizations.
Findings
Spirituality in the workplace acts as a catalyst for developing beneficial qualities by increasing employee job satisfaction, organizational efficiency and business profitability, when equally responding to stakeholders’ needs.
Practical implications
The suggested change model holistically fosters organizational, operational, individual and collective effectiveness through work place spirituality redefined.
Originality/value
For the first time spirituality in the workplace is discussed under a brand new perspective, resulting in an interdisciplinary emerging model, contributing to the field by providing guidance to academics and practitioners to its auspicious implementation through organizational culture change.
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Hajira Liaqat, Ishfaq Ahmed and Sheikh Usman Yousaf
This study aims to explore the phenomenon of Islamic religious communication and how Islamic banks in Pakistan use religion-based communication, along with its expected outcomes.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the phenomenon of Islamic religious communication and how Islamic banks in Pakistan use religion-based communication, along with its expected outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach
Transcendental phenomenology approach is opted using a multi-stage data collection strategy consisting of observations, documentary reviews and semi-structural interviews to get deep into the phenomenon in a particular context.
Findings
Findings highlight Islamic religious communication as workplace Islamic da’wah that is majorly categorized into compulsive da’wah, objectics da’wah and impulsive da’wah, serving its role in bringing spirituality to work through work-faith integration.
Research limitations/implications
The finding of the study can be used in planning, formulating and implementing Islamic da’wah-based model to induce spirituality at work.
Originality/value
This study is the first of its type exploring Islamic da’wah in an organizational context as a mean to bring spirituality at work.
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This paper aims to analyze the implications of orality for management practices in a developing country such as Iran.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to analyze the implications of orality for management practices in a developing country such as Iran.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper relies on the seminal theory of Walter Ong (1982) and a leading line of anthropological research to analyze the implications of orality/literacy for management practices in Iran. The authors first define orality and literacy as distinct modes of communication and examine their conceptual properties. Then, the authors draw on the existing literature to analyze the five main management functions impacted by orality.
Findings
The analyses suggest that the predominance of orality in Iran is associated with a wide range of management practices, including short-term or unstructured planning, spontaneous decision-making, fluid organizational structure, the prevalence of interpersonal relations, authoritarian and traditional leadership and behavior-based controlling mechanisms.
Originality/value
While most studies have focused on the impacts of cultural dimensions and economic variables, this paper offers a novel approach to analyzing management practices. More specifically, the paper suggests that in addition to the implications of cultural dimensions and economic variables, the mode of communication, namely, orality/literacy, could have significant implications for management practices.
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Aminuddin Haji Marzuki and Sharifah Nurul Huda Alkaff
The current study investigates perceptions of street harassment from a linguistic perspective. With regard to the theory of speech acts, some may deem street remarks as…
Abstract
Purpose
The current study investigates perceptions of street harassment from a linguistic perspective. With regard to the theory of speech acts, some may deem street remarks as compliments instead of catcalls. There is a lack of linguistic research regarding the issue conducted with a Bruneian demographic. This study recognises the difference in the use of language by men and women and aims to find whether there is a difference in their perceptions of street remarks.
Design/methodology/approach
A method of triangulation between questionnaire surveys and focus group interviews was carried out to actualise these aims. Thirty-two female and thirty-two male respondents from the survey were used to conclude quantitative findings, whereas three male and three female participants were recruited for the focus group interview. Data were analysed through a t-test and discourse analysis consecutively.
Findings
Quantitative data (p = 0.398) reveal that both men and women perceive street remarks almost equally as a form of street harassment. However, qualitative data reveal that male language and behaviour portray a more positive and tolerant attitude.
Practical implications
This study provides evidence of the difference in perceptions between men and women towards street harassment.
Originality/value
This study explores a relatively unexplored area, that is investigating street remarks in a non-Western context, where the demographic could have different perceptions towards street remarks.
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Color psychology theory reveals that complex images with very varied palettes and many different colors are likely to be considered unattractive by individuals. Notwithstanding…
Abstract
Purpose
Color psychology theory reveals that complex images with very varied palettes and many different colors are likely to be considered unattractive by individuals. Notwithstanding, web content containing social signals may be more attractive via the initiation of a social connection. This research investigates a predictive model blending variables from these theoretical perspectives to determine crowdfunding success.
Design/methodology/approach
The research is based on data from 176,614 Kickstarter projects. A number of machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques were employed to analyze the listing images for color complexity and the presence of people, while specific language features, including socialness, were measured in the listing text. Logistic regression was applied, controlling for several additional variables and predictive model was developed.
Findings
The findings supported the color complexity and socialness effects on crowdfunding success. The model achieves notable predictive value explaining 56.4% of variance. Listing images containing fewer colors and that have more similar colors are more likely to be crowdfunded successfully. Listings that convey greater socialness have a greater likelihood of being funded.
Originality/value
This investigation contributes a unique understanding of the effect of features of both socialness and color complexity on the success of crowdfunding ventures. A second contribution comes from the process and methods employed in the study, which provides a clear blueprint for the processing of large-scale analysis of soft information (images and text) in order to use them as variables in the scientific testing of theory.
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Daniel Šandor and Marina Bagić Babac
Sarcasm is a linguistic expression that usually carries the opposite meaning of what is being said by words, thus making it difficult for machines to discover the actual meaning…
Abstract
Purpose
Sarcasm is a linguistic expression that usually carries the opposite meaning of what is being said by words, thus making it difficult for machines to discover the actual meaning. It is mainly distinguished by the inflection with which it is spoken, with an undercurrent of irony, and is largely dependent on context, which makes it a difficult task for computational analysis. Moreover, sarcasm expresses negative sentiments using positive words, allowing it to easily confuse sentiment analysis models. This paper aims to demonstrate the task of sarcasm detection using the approach of machine and deep learning.
Design/methodology/approach
For the purpose of sarcasm detection, machine and deep learning models were used on a data set consisting of 1.3 million social media comments, including both sarcastic and non-sarcastic comments. The data set was pre-processed using natural language processing methods, and additional features were extracted and analysed. Several machine learning models, including logistic regression, ridge regression, linear support vector and support vector machines, along with two deep learning models based on bidirectional long short-term memory and one bidirectional encoder representations from transformers (BERT)-based model, were implemented, evaluated and compared.
Findings
The performance of machine and deep learning models was compared in the task of sarcasm detection, and possible ways of improvement were discussed. Deep learning models showed more promise, performance-wise, for this type of task. Specifically, a state-of-the-art model in natural language processing, namely, BERT-based model, outperformed other machine and deep learning models.
Originality/value
This study compared the performance of the various machine and deep learning models in the task of sarcasm detection using the data set of 1.3 million comments from social media.
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The purpose of this paper is to explore teacher candidates’ response to young adult literature (prose and comics) featuring fat identified protagonists. The paper considers the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore teacher candidates’ response to young adult literature (prose and comics) featuring fat identified protagonists. The paper considers the textual and embodied resources readers use and reject when imagining and interpreting a character’s body. This paper explores how readers’ meaning making was influenced when reading prose versus comics. This paper adds to a corpus of scholarship about the relationships between young adult literature, comics, bodies and reader response theory.
Design/methodology/approach
At the time of the study, participants were enrolled in a teacher education program at a Midwestern University, meeting monthly for a voluntary book club dedicated to reading and discussing young adult literature. To examine readers’ responses to comics and prose featuring fat-identified protagonists, the author used descriptive qualitative methodologies to conduct a thematic analysis of meeting transcripts, written participant reflections and researcher memos. Analysis was grounded in theories of reader response, critical fat studies and multimodality.
Findings
Analyses indicated many readers reject textual clues indicating a character’s body size and weight were different from their own. Readers read their bodies into the stories, regarding them as self-help narratives instead of radical counternarratives. Some readers were not able to read against their assumptions of thinness (and whiteness) until prompted by the researcher and other participants.
Originality/value
Although many reader response scholars have demonstrated readers’ tendencies toward personal identification in the face of racial and class differences, there is less research regarding classroom practices around the entanglement of physical bodies, body image and texts. Analyzing reader’s responses to the constructions of fat bodies in prose versus comics may help English Language Arts (ELA) educators and students identify and deconstruct ideologies of thin-thinking and fatphobia. This study, which demonstrates thin readers’ tendencies to overidentify with protagonists, suggests ELA classrooms might encourage readers to engage in critical literacies that support them in reading both with and against their identities.
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