scholarly journals Complaints about technology as a resource for identity-work

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica S. Robles ◽  
Elizabeth S. Parks
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
Word Choice ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Focus Group Interviews ◽  
Social Actions ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Group Interviews

AbstractThis article examines how people complain about technology. Using discourse analysis, we inspect sixteen hours of video-recorded focus-group interviews and focused one-on-one discussions where technology was topicalized. We investigate these conversations paying attention to (i) features of language and its situated delivery, including emphasis, word choice, metaphor, and categorizations; and (ii) how these accomplish social actions. We show how interactants use narratives of complaint-like activities about hypothetical categories of people and confessions of their own complainable participation to accomplish a ‘bemoaning’ speech act that manages competing affiliations, demands, and disagreements to construct reasonable moral identities in the situated interaction. By engaging in specific micro-level discursive practices in interaction, participants produce and reproduce what new technologies ‘mean’ to them and for contemporary society. This shows how important it is to examine opinions as situated actions rather than as simple facts about what people believe. (Complaints, accounts, stance, technology, discourse analysis, identity)*

scholarly journals The Digital Competences and Agency of Older People Living in Rural Villages in Finnish Lapland

Seminar.net ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Päivi Rasi ◽  
Arja Kilpeläinen
Keyword(s):  
Older People ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Informal Networks ◽  
Digital Competence ◽  
Focus Group Interviews ◽  
Rural Villages ◽  
Finnish Lapland ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Digital Competencies ◽  
Group Interviews

Older people’s digital competencies are a means to minimise their possible risks for being excluded from society. Therefore, the research in this field needs to be strengthened. This paper examines the digital competences and agency of older people who live in remote rural villages in Finnish Lapland. We argue that older people’s agency is the key factor that keeps them included in contemporary society. Hence, our theoretical viewpoint rests on the theory of the modalities of agency. Our data consist of three focus group interviews that were conducted in small, remote villages during the spring of 2015. We analysed our data deductively, and the results showed that elderly villagers interpret their digital competencies through their personal needs and desires. History, the present and the future are intertwined in the villagers’ conceptions. Our respondents’ digital competencies are diverse; older people living in villages are not a homogenous group. Based on our results, we argue that digital competence is very much a distributed competence of elderly dyads, families with three generations and informal networks of villagers and that it should not, therefore, be assessed solely as an individual characteristic.

Communicative leadership

2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Solange Hamrin ◽  
Catrin Johansson ◽  
Jody L. S. Jahn
Keyword(s):  
Discursive Construction ◽  
Business Organizations ◽  
Leadership Communication ◽  
Work Processes ◽  
Focus Group Interviews ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Discursive Leadership ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Sharing Responsibility ◽  
Group Interviews

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to enhance the knowledge of how leadership concepts are embraced by leadership actors and perceived to influence relationships between leaders and co-workers. Specifically, the authors aim to investigate how leaders and co-workers discursively construct the concept of “communicative leadership” and its practices and perceive that communicative leadership influences relationships, work processes, and agency. Design/methodology/approach – The authors analyzed interviews with leaders and co-workers in two Swedish business organizations about their understandings and experiences of leadership. Findings – Communicative processes that enhance co-worker agency, defined as a capacity to act; include: facilitating autonomy, sharing responsibility, and mutual participation. Relational and discursive leadership processes such as responsiveness and dialogue were seen to enhance mutual participation in both organizations. Broader Swedish cultural macro discourses shaped the leader/co-worker relationship, making agency a relational accomplishment rather than an individual phenomenon. Research limitations/implications – This study relies on data from individual and focus group interviews, rather than direct observation of leadership processes. Practical implications – Findings suggest that organizations would benefit from making explicit their goals and expectations for communicative leadership in their respective social and cultural contexts. Originality/value – The authors provide new theoretical and empirical knowledge of leaders’ and co-workers’ discursive construction of a leadership concept; leadership communication research in the Swedish context; empirical research on communicative leadership as an empowering form of leadership communication; and how leadership communication discourse on a micro level is connected to organizational and macro-social cultural levels.

scholarly journals Designing a Waterless Toilet Prototype for Reusable Energy Using a User-Centered Approach and Interviews

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 919 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyun-Kyung Lee
Keyword(s):  
Water Scarcity ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Resource Scarcity ◽  
User Engagement ◽  
Focus Group Interviews ◽  
Public Issues ◽  
Natural Resource Scarcity ◽  
Scientists And Engineers ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Group Interviews

User-oriented community engagement can reveal insights into ways of improving a community and solving complex public issues, such as natural resource scarcity. This study describes the early process of co-designing a novel, waterless toilet to respond to the water scarcity problem in the Republic of Korea. It presents how we designed a toilet focusing on three factors—a sanitization function, an ergonomic posture, and clean aesthetics—by conducting focus group interviews as part of a user engagement approach to understand what community users want from a toilet and ways of improving their toilet experiences. The results not only supported the development of an experiential service design project to raise community awareness of water scarcity but also supported scientists and engineers in experimenting with and developing new technologies by collaborating closely with designers.

scholarly journals What are the key contextual factors when preparing for successful implementation of assistive living technology in primary elderly care? A case study from Norway

BMJ Open ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (9) ◽  
pp. e015455 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martha Therese Gjestsen ◽  
Siri Wiig ◽  
Ingelin Testad
Keyword(s):  
Contextual Factors ◽  
Healthcare Personnel ◽  
Focus Group Interviews ◽  
Policy Documents ◽  
Individual Interviews ◽  
Technology Intervention ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Assistive Living ◽  
Group Interviews

ObjectiveTo identify contextual factors at different organisational levels to guide the implementation of an assistive living technology intervention in Norwegian primary home care.DesignA single embedded case study design was carried out in an urban municipality in Western Norway to get an overview of key contextual factors from the municipality’s perspective.Data collection and analysisThe data collection was based on a triangulation of methods involving document analysis, semi-structured individual interviews and focus group interviews to get a broad insight when preparing for an intervention. Data were collected on three levels of the healthcare system: (1) national policy documents and regulations (macro), (2) five individual interviews with senior managers and municipal strategy documents (meso) and (3) two focus group interviews with nurses and nurse managers in direct patient care (micro). The Model for Understanding Success in Quality framework was used as a guide in the data analysis.ResultsThe main contextual factors identified were external motivators and project sponsorship (macro level); leadership, workforce focus and maturity (meso level);and motivation to change and maturity (micro level). Strategies developed in policy documents affected upper management in the municipality, but healthcare personnel at the micro level were not so familiar with strategies and emphasis on assistive living technologies. Healthcare personnel in our study were motivated to use technological solutions, but lack of data infrastructure and resource availability hindered this.ConclusionsAligning interests across multiple stakeholders remain a challenge when planning for an assistive living technology intervention in primary care. In the studied municipality, integration of technological solutions into healthcare services was more a vision than a reality because of a low level of organisational readiness.

Our Stage, Our Streets

2018 ◽  
pp. 453-470
Author(s):  
Jessa Lingel
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Focus Group Interviews ◽  
Queer Identity ◽  
Group Interviews

Forming a convergence of digital media, urban life, and queer identity, Brooklyn’s drag community provides a case study for thinking about different means of theorizing space. Space not only matters for the content of communication, but also shapes practices of and different needs for communication. Drawing on participant observation and focus group interviews with drag queens in Brooklyn, New York, the chapter describes the narratives and practices of representation that emerge in accounts of how their community came to be and what their collective identity work means in a larger context of queerness, media, and the urban. The discussion focuses particularly on the ways that authenticity and visibility are bound up in practices of mediated representation and identifies the different scales (neighborhood, city, and countercultural imaginary) that emerge in practices of queer identity work as tied to space.

scholarly journals Building Inner Motivation among FL Learners in the Age of Education Globalization with the Help of New Technologies

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. p18
Author(s):  
Dominika Walczak ◽  
Krzysztof Polok
Keyword(s):  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Focus Group Interviews ◽  
Essential Information ◽  
Internal Motivation ◽  
Role Of Teachers ◽  
Group Interviews ◽  
Modern Technologies ◽  
Lesson Observation

The main aim of this article is to present essential information concerning the correlation between building students’ inner motivation and using modern technologies for teaching and learning purposes. Mixed research was conducted including questionnaires, tests, lesson observation sheets, and focus group interviews. The respondents were divided into three age categories. However, all the students agree that lessons using modern technologies significantly affect the level of their internal motivation to work independently. The role of teachers is significant, as they should constantly deepen their knowledge in this field and teach their students how to use new technologies effectively.

Is technological change a devourer of jobs?

2017 ◽  
pp. 111-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Kapeliushnikov
Keyword(s):  
Technological Change ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Employment Growth ◽  
Foreseeable Future ◽  
Employment Effects ◽  
Technological Unemployment ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Task Sets ◽  
The Impact

The paper provides a critical analysis of the idea of technological unemployment. The overview of the existing literature on the employment effects of technological change shows that on the micro-level there exists strong and positive relationship between innovations and employment growth in firms; on the sectoral level this correlation becomes ambiguous; on the macro-level the impact of new technologies seems to be positive or neutral. This implies that fears of explosive growth of technological unemployment in the foreseeable future are exaggerated. Our analysis further suggests that new technologies affect mostly the structure of employment rather than its level. Additionally we argue that automation and digitalisation would change mostly task sets within particular occupations rather than distribution of workers by occupations.

Management Strategy for Distributing Questionnaires and Interview Guidelines in the Research Data Collection Process

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 104-111
Author(s):  
Po. Abas Sunarya ◽  
George Iwan Marantika ◽  
Adam Faturahman
Keyword(s):  
Focus Group ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Management Strategy ◽  
Research Data ◽  
Accurate Information ◽  
Focus Group Interviews ◽  
Good Management ◽  
Research Activities ◽  
Data Collection Process ◽  
Group Interviews

Writing can mean lowering or describing graphic symbols that describe a languageunderstood by someone. For a researcher, management of research preparation is a veryimportant step because this step greatly determines the success or failure of all researchactivities. Before a person starts with research activities, he must make a written plan commonlyreferred to as the management of research data collection. In the process of collecting researchdata, of course we can do the management of questionnaires as well as the preparation ofinterview guidelines to disseminate and obtain accurate information. With the arrangement ofplanning and conducting interviews: the ethics of conducting interviews, the advantages anddisadvantages of interviews, the formulation of interview questions, the schedule of interviews,group and focus group interviews, interviews using recording devices, and interview bias.making a questionnaire must be designed with very good management by giving to theinformation needed, in accordance with the problem and all that does not cause problems at thestage of analysis and interpretation.

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