Communication // Current

A Big Win For Experimental Poetry

If you read a review of Keith Waldrop's "Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy," this... more

atomiclegion
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A Kinder Gentler Capitalism

Greetings!

It's official. Japan's long recession has finally ended. The small but highly productive nation has suffered enormous economic set-backs over the past two decades. To pull themselves out of the downturn, the Japanese business community and its government have followed a consistent and socially responsible course to economic recovery. The Japanese business model has emerged as an important example for how to create long-term profits while maintaining a clear code of ethics and honor.

No Apeing of America

Japan's new Financial Services Minister, Shizuka Kamei took office this past month and vowed that, "There would be no apeing of America." Kamei declared the official Japanese business model would embrace "social meaning." Mr. Kamei called for Japanese corporations to turn away from the American model of "self-interest" and return to the old spirit of "unity and cooperation" that once made Japan's economy great. "Japan became No 1 in the world and it is an objective and historical fact that Japan achieved that because of a typically Japanese style of corporate management...I insist that we should return to the traditional Japanese style of management."
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Sampoh-Yoshi: Happiness Times Three

Sampoh-Yoshi, loosely translated as the "Trinity of Bliss...of buyers, sellers, and the general public" is a business code for Japanese merchants dating back to the 12th century. In the medieval district of Ohmi, an area near Kyoto, the ancient business model of "Sampoh-Yoshi" lasted over eight hundred years." The code declared that Ohmi merchants were honor bound to customers and society alike to sell items of quality at a fair price. If customers were not happy, then merchants had failed in their basic responsibility. Equally important was the seller's obligation to the community it served. A product or business service must serve the greater society or the promise of "Sampoh-Yoshi" was unfulfilled.
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Jobs for Life

Jobs for life are becoming as quaint and old-fashioned an idea in modern Japan as they are in the United States. For three decades, the old concept of "Jobs for Life" has eroded in the U.S. only to be replaced with a brutally harsh job-cutting culture that is corporate America. In the US, companies increase earnings by slicing staff with abandon. Long term employees are famously given 10-20 minutes to pack up years of belongings and "exit the premises." To ensure compliance, uniformed security guards escort them to the door. Not so in socially conscientious Japanese corporate culture where dignity remains the word of the day.

http://3blmedia.com/theCSRfeed/Kinder-Gentler-CapitalismGreetings! It's official. Japan's long recession has finally ended. The small... more

3BLMedia
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Will the Internet soon be Regulated beyond recognition?

"The ACTA juggernaut continues to roll ahead, despite public indignation about an... more

claybird121
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NSA Helps Microsoft with Windows 7

"The National Security Agency has been working with Microsoft Corp. to help improve... more

rodstradamus
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The Current's Flow

The recent string of layoffs have me wondering what exactly is the master plan here,... more

copperdragon
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http://www.stady.fr/

Coussin léger et durable, auto-gonflant permettant le réglage du confort d’assise,... more

stady
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About your avatar

Although often seen as an inconsequential feature of digital technologies, one's self-representation, or avatar, in a virtual environment can affect the user's thoughts, according to research by a University of Texas at Austin communication professor.

In the first study to use avatars to prime negative responses in a desktop virtual setting, Jorge Peña, assistant professor in the College of Communication, demonstrated that the subtext of an avatar's appearance can simultaneously prime negative (or anti-social) thoughts and inhibit positive (or pro-social) thoughts inconsistent with the avatar's appearance. All of this while study participants remained unaware they had been primed. The study, co-written with Cornell University Professor Jeffrey T. Hancock and University of Texas at Austin graduate student Nicholas A. Merola, appears in the December 2009 issue of Communication Research.

In two separate experiments, research participants were randomly assigned a dark- or white-cloaked avatar, or to avatars wearing physician or Ku Klux Klan-like uniforms or a transparent avatar. The participants were assigned tasks including writing a story about a picture, or playing a video game on a virtual team and then coming to consensus on how to deal with infractions.

Consistently, participants represented by an avatar in a dark cloak or a KKK-like uniform demonstrated negative or anti-social behavior in team situations and in individual writing assignments.

Previous studies have demonstrated these uniform types to have negative effects on people's behaviors in face-to-face interactions. For example, Cornell researchers Mark Frank and Tom Gilovich showed that dark uniforms influence professional sports teams to play more aggressively on the playing field and in the laboratory. Peña's research demonstrates how these effects operate in desktop-based video games, and sheds light on the automatic cognitive processes that explain this effect.

"When you step into a virtual environment, you can potentially become 'Mario' or whatever other character you are portraying," said Peña, who studies how humans think, behave and feel online. "Oftentimes, the connotations of our own virtual character will subtly remind us of common stereotypes, such as 'bad guys wear black or dress up in hooded robes.' This association may surreptitiously steer users to think and behave more antisocially, but also inhibit more pro-social thoughts and responses in a virtual environment."

According to Peña, these findings can be particularly useful to video game and combat simulation developers.

"By manipulating the appearance of the avatar, you can augment the probability of people thinking and behaving in predictable ways without raising suspicion," said Peña. "Thus, you can automatically make a virtual encounter more competitive or cooperative by simply changing the connotations of one's avatar."

Source:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091110211037.htmAlthough often seen as an inconsequential feature of digital technologies, one's... more

pjacobs51
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What promising new communication experiments have you seen?

I think it's kind of sad that it takes people, or organizations, to donate their money... more

e_young
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balancing the holiday mayhem with class!

gmelott
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Beck Wins..... Anita Dunn...... Done!

White House Communications Director Anita Dunn will step down by the end of November... more

vincius
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The Greatest Generation (of Networkers)

A 17-year-old boy, caught sending text messages in class, was recently sent to the vice principal's office at Millwood High School in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The vice principal, Steve Gallagher, told the boy he needed to focus on the teacher, not his cellphone. The boy listened politely and nodded, and that's when Mr. Gallagher noticed the student's fingers moving on his lap.

He was texting while being reprimanded for texting.

"It was a subconscious act," says Mr. Gallagher, who took the phone away. "Young people today are connected socially from the moment they open their eyes in the morning until they close their eyes at night. It's compulsive."

Because so many people in their teens and early 20s are in this constant whir of socializing—accessible to each other every minute of the day via cellphone, instant messaging and social-networking Web sites—there are a host of new questions that need to be addressed in schools, in the workplace and at home. Chief among them: How much work can "hyper-socializing" students or employees really accomplish if they are holding multiple conversations with friends via text-messaging, or are obsessively checking Facebook?

Some argue they can accomplish a great deal: This generation has a gift for multitasking, and because they've integrated technology into their lives, their ability to remain connected to each other will serve them and their employers well. Others contend that these hyper-socializers are serial time-wasters, that the bonds between them are shallow, and that their face-to-face interpersonal skills are poor.

"The unspoken attitude is, 'I don't need you. I have the Internet,'" says P.M. Forni, the 58-year-old director of the Civility Initiative at Johns Hopkins University, which studies politeness and manners. "The Net provides an opportunity to play hide-and-seek, to say and not say, to be truthful and to pretend. There is a lot of communication going on that is futile and trivial."

That's far too harsh an assessment, says Ben Bajarin, 32, a technology analyst at Creative Strategies, a consulting firm in Campbell, Calif. He argues that because young people are so adept at multimedia socializing, their social skills are actually strengthened. They're good at "managing conversations" and getting to the pithy essence of an issue, he says, which will help them in the workplace.

While their older colleagues waste time holding meetings or engaging in long phone conversations, young people have an ability to sum things up in one-sentence text messages, Mr. Bajarin says. "They know how to optimize and prioritize. They will call or set up a meeting if it's needed. If not, they text." And given their vast network of online acquaintances, they discover people who can become true friends or valued business colleagues—people they wouldn't have been able to find in the pre-Internet era.

It's hard to quantify whether the abbreviated interchanges of text messaging are beneficial in the workplace, but this much is known: Young workers spend more time than older workers socializing via their devices or entertaining themselves online. In a 2008 survey for Salary.com, 53% of those under age 24 said this was their primary "time wasting" activity while at work, compared to just 34% for those between ages 41 and 65.

More schools are now allowing students to use their cellphones between classes, or even as a learning tool in the classroom. Some teachers are having students text their friends during classes to share feedback on what's being taught. The mantra among educators who try to be enlightened: It's no longer about attention span. It's about attention scope—being able to concentrate on many things at once.

(Much more to the article, I shortened it a bit.)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704746304574505643153518708.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_lifestyleA 17-year-old boy, caught sending text messages in class, was recently sent to the... more