Journal articles: 'NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATION – INFORMATION MANAGEMENT - INTERNET' – Grafiati (2024)

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This paper explores the debates around civil society and corporatism as ways of understanding changes in social association, including non-governmental organisations and protest groups, and information management in relation to the development of the Internet. Both concepts have been used to examine the changes that have taken place since the implementation of the Open Door Policy and more recently the development of the Internet, and have shed light on the way in which new forms of social association operate, and on their relationship to the government. However, both concepts tend to be deterministic and reductionist positions. Instead, I use a centre-margin analysis based on medium theory to explore the relationship between the state and society as a way of shedding light on the interaction between the government and NGOs and on how the state manages the flow of information in order to shape public discourse.

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Purpose The World Health Organisation estimates that 92 per cent of the world’s population does not have access to clean air. The World Bank in 2013 estimated that only air pollution (AP) was responsible for a $225bn cost in lost productivity. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the current scholarly debate on the value of Big Data for effective healthcare management. Its focus on cardiovascular disease (CVD) in developing countries, a major cause of disability and premature death and a subject of increasing research in recent years, makes this research particularly valuable. Design/methodology/approach In order to assess the effects of AP on CVD in developing countries, the city of Bangalore was selected as a case study. Bangalore is one of the fastest growing economies in India, representative of the rapidly growing cities in the developing world. Demographic, AP and CVD data sets covering more than 1m historic records were obtained from governmental organisations. The spatial analysis of such data sets allowed visualisation of the correlation between the demographics of the city, the levels of pollution and deaths caused by CVDs, thus informing decision making in several sectors and at different levels. Findings Although there is increasing concern in councils and other responsible governmental agencies, resources required to monitor and address the challenges of pollution are limited due to the high costs involved. This research shows that with developments in the domains of Big Data, Internet of Things and smart cities, opportunities to monitor pollution result in high volumes of data. Existing technologies for data analytics can empower decision makers and even the public with knowledge on pollution. This paper has demonstrated a methodological approach for the collection and visual representation of Big Data sets allowing for an understanding of the spread of CVDs across the city of Bangalore, enabling different stakeholders to query the data sets and reveal specific statistics of key hotspots where action is required. Originality/value This research has been conducted to demonstrate the value of Big Data in generating a strategic knowledge-driven decision-support system to provide focused and targeted interventions for environmental health management. This case study research is based on the use of a geographic information system for the visualisation of a Big Data set collected from Bangalore, a region in India seriously affected by pollution.

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Geographical Information Science (GIS) is now graduated from traditional desktop system to Internet system. Internet GIS is emerging as one of the most promising technologies for addressing Emergency Management. Web services with different privileges are playing an important role in dissemination of the emergency services to the decision makers. Spatial database is one of the most important components in the successful implementation of Emergency Management. It contains spatial data in the form of raster, vector, linked with non-spatial information. Comprehensive data is required to handle emergency situation in different phases. These database elements comprise core data, hazard specific data, corresponding attribute data, and live data coming from the remote locations. Core data sets are minimum required data including base, thematic, infrastructure layers to handle disasters. Disaster specific information is required to handle a particular disaster situation like flood, cyclone, forest fire, earth quake, land slide, drought. In addition to this Emergency Management require many types of data with spatial and temporal attributes that should be made available to the key players in the right format at right time. The vector database needs to be complemented with required resolution satellite imagery for visualisation and analysis in disaster management. Therefore, the database is interconnected and comprehensive to meet the requirement of an Emergency Management. This kind of integrated, comprehensive and structured database with appropriate information is required to obtain right information at right time for the right people. However, building spatial database for Emergency Management is a challenging task because of the key issues such as availability of data, sharing policies, compatible geospatial standards, data interoperability etc. Therefore, to facilitate using, sharing, and integrating the spatial data, there is a need to define standards to build emergency database systems. These include aspects such as i) data integration procedures namely standard coding scheme, schema, meta data format, spatial format ii) database organisation mechanism covering data management, catalogues, data models iii) database dissemination through a suitable environment, as a standard service for effective service dissemination. <br><br> National Database for Emergency Management (NDEM) is such a comprehensive database for addressing disasters in India at the national level. This paper explains standards for integrating, organising the multi-scale and multi-source data with effective emergency response using customized user interfaces for NDEM. It presents standard procedure for building comprehensive emergency information systems for enabling emergency specific functions through geospatial technologies.

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Background: Low health literacy, low levels of positive belief and privacy and security concerns have been identified as a significant barrier to personal electronic health record uptake and use. An important tool for overcoming these barriers is the consumer-facing information which accompanies the system. My Health Record (MyHR) is the Australian national e-health record system, for which a large suite of online resources exists to facilitate consumer registration and use. This study uses a number of different measures of health resource quality to assess the MyHR online consumer-facing information and identify any gaps or areas for improvement. Objective: To analyse the quality and content of the online consumer-facing resources which support the uptake and use of MyHR. Method: Australian information resources aimed at healthcare consumers about the MyHR were included in this study. A comprehensive search using Internet search engines was conducted to locate all online consumer-facing resources about MyHR from both government and non-government sources. Readability (measured by Flesch–Kincaid grade level), year of publication/review, publishing organisation type, presentation style, linked websites, target audience, and themes were identified as important measures of health information quality, and these were recorded and reported on for each resource. Results: Eighty resources met the inclusion criteria. The mean Flesch–Kincaid grade level was 11.8. Most resources were created by Australian government sources ( n = 55), and the most common target audience was the general public ( n = 65). Registration ( n = 51), privacy/security ( n = 49), and benefits of use ( n = 46) were the most common resource themes. Conclusion: The authors identified a number of gaps and areas for improvement in the provision of consumer-facing information about MyHR. Readability is too high for the general Australian population, and there are few translated resources, which means that the information provided does not cater to people with low literacy levels, communication disability, and/or difficulties in understanding written English. The target audiences for resources do not reflect priority groups that were identified during the MyHR development processes. There are also gaps in information provision about how consumers can use MyHR as a tool to meaningfully engage with health professionals and services to support their own person-centred care.

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to diagnose two types of causal relationships from the perspective of the structural equations model. First, the relationship is analysed between managers’ beliefs regarding the use of marketing information in making decisions and the rational premises of decision validity. Next, the rational premises of decision validity are considered in reference to managers’ abilities to select appropriate information from marketing research reports. Taking into account all of the above premises, the author in the empirical research conducted here introduced the following two research hypotheses which state that: H1: the high level of managers’ beliefs about the usefulness of information from marketing research does not yet positively influence their way of reasoning and making decisions in the light of the bounded-rationality theory. H2: managers who do not use the bounded-rationality criteria of decision assessment, lack of the analytical approach in solving decision problems, also reflect the inability of selecting proper information from a marketing research report. Design/methodology/approach In the conducted empirical research, that is, in the process of gathering the information, the internet questionnaire survey was used, which included the author’s own version of items measuring respective latent variables. Next, to the chosen group of the respondents (invited to the survey through the two social networking sites: LinkedIn and Golden Line), a direct link to the questionnaire was sent via personal e-mails. The method of providing answers to the questions in the online survey included indicating by the respondents the answers on a seven-point Likert scale for the statements which were expressed in agree/disagree format. The whole empirical research was conducted between March 1 and August 31 in 2014, and the process of choosing the appropriate respondents to the sample was conducted with the use of the two techniques: judgemental sampling and snowball sampling. The final size of sample equalled n=213 and its structure included the individuals in companies, who have borne the responsibility mainly for the organisation and planning of strategic and tactic marketing activities. In short, the sample structure consisted of the respondents responsible for decision-making processes and included: marketing directors (45 per cent), product managers (27 per cent), managing directors and chief executive officers (20 per cent), as well as marketing executives (8 per cent). Findings On the basis of findings and the obtained empirical results it is argued that decision makers in companies, despite their strong declarations regarding the use of marketing information, in reality prefer to act in a non-analytical way when making choices. Managers, when faced with difficulties in information processing, adopt simple solutions in solving decision problems which are much closer to the irrational sphere of making choices. Thus the full potential of information that is available to them from marketing research is not even considered. This irrational behaviour in decisions as well as the lack of analytical thinking result in further consequences pertaining to the way that information is selected. Practical implications In spite of all theoretical arguments supporting the bounded-rational theory of making choices, the irrationality or, simply, the non-analytical thinking in decision-making processes in organisations takes place. The inability to use effectively information by managers in companies and failure to scrutinise their own processes of decision making on the basis of logic and reasoning is admittedly the Achille’s heel of many information users. Using information from marketing research in decisions, as well as undertaking the sequence of steps to ensure the valid decision-making process, seems to be a huge problem for managers. Taking into account, the empirical research findings, one can argue now that in spite of the managers’ conviction about the usefulness of the information from marketing research, that is, despite their declarations pertaining to use of information in decision-making processes, such information is in practice often ignored and not taken into account. Originality/value In the paper the author explains why, as is supported by empirical evidence, managers in companies decide to conceal their real beliefs concerning the usefulness of marketing information. Taking this into consideration, the indirect question of the empirical research conducted here is whether managers ever seriously consider marketing research results when making decisions?

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Purpose This paper aims to investigate the intersection between corporate governance and management accounting information within the board meeting of an English further education college. Design/methodology/approach The empirical fieldwork uses an interventionist approach. Board members’ mental models of a management accounting boundary object are analysed. Findings The paper supports Parker (2007) and Cornforth and Edward’s (1999) observation that within a board meeting, collaborative “micro-management” type talk is considered to lie outside the acceptable remit of non-executive and executive board member interaction. Such an attitude can prevent an intertwining of management accounting information and other mental models of an organisation occurring. This can preclude management accounting information from rendering an organisation visible, in an expansive manner, within a boardroom. Research limitations/implications Interventionist researchers working within the black box of the board are encouraged to design more radical and collaborative interventions than the interview/report format used here. Practical implications Non-executive directors might benefit from being offered the opportunity to interact with management accounting information outside the formal board meeting and committee structure. Originality/value A deeper understanding of how directors’ mental models, boardroom behaviours and attitudes influence their interaction with management accounting information is offered. Insight into the limitations of using management accounting information in the boardroom is developed.

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Introduction Health information is one of the most frequently searched topics on the internet. In this observational cross-sectional study, we evaluated the content of the highest indexed Google search results related to migraine management. Methods We identified the five most used search terms related to migraine management via Google Trends in the time period 1 January 2004 to 2 October 2019. We entered each search term into Google’s search engine and retrieved the search results from the first three pages from each search query. We stratified the recommended treatment options and evaluated the websites using the DISCERN tool. Results In total, 73 unique websites recommended a total of 77 different migraine treatment options, consisting of 35 (45%) acute and 42 (55%) preventive treatments. For acute treatments, pharmacological options were more frequently recommended (88% of websites), whereas non-pharmacological options were more frequent among preventive treatments (67%). Evaluation of the consumer health information using the DISCERN tool showed that non-governmental organizations had the highest mean total score with 3.8 (±0.19). Conclusions Googling when looking for migraine treatments reveals a multitude of management proposals of varying quality. Non-governmental organizations provide the overall highest quality of written consumer health information on migraine treatments among search results. We encourage stakeholders to optimize and distribute high-quality and peer-reviewed information on migraine management.

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This paper presents design experiences for two Non-Governmental organizations and one day-labour organisation working for the informal job seekers and employers—day-labour market. The authors present the three design architectures implemented for the organisations and show that, even when users are portrayed as similar in the way they work and what they do, their Information Management Systems (IMS) functional software requirements remain contextual up to the details. The authors argue that, although non-functional requirements may be the same for seemingly similar users, there is need to focus on the different functional information needs, including the ones that may seem insignificant. They noted that designers need to know more about their users beyond the “about us” information. The authors conclude that there exists no “one size fits all” IMS, even for seemingly similar organisations.

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The notion of accountability in nonprofits suggests that these organisations should disclose financial and non-financial practices following a holistic model. In practice, the interest of both managers and researchers has focused primarily on donors and financial disclosures, for funding and methodological reasons respectively. From the perspective of impact investment, all of them, government, beneficiaries, private donors, managers and volunteers are expected to make their decisions based on non-financial information as investors expecting social returns. However, to what extent does project information that demonstrates that the non-profit organisation has achieved its social mission actually matter? The main objective of this paper is to analyse whether the donations received by non-governmental organisations NGOs are related to the information disclosed on the projects undertaken. We perform our analysis separately for individual, private and public donors. Our results show that public donors are more interested in financial disclosures, private donors find information about outcomes and impacts to be most useful and individual donors do not tend to use non-financial information when it comes to making decisions about whether to donate or not.

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Ecological problems of the Republic of Bashkortostan are connected with the oil, petrochemical and chemical refinery plants and unfair fulfilling of the ecological requirements by the owners. Environment protection, preservation and far-sighted use of resources are due to a low level of the population’s ecological world outlook and information awareness. The author notes that social participation in the solution of the environmental problems is the important stage in forming ecological world outlook as a necessary element of strategic management of natural resources. Highlighting the activities of the non-governmental environmental organizations, mass media system development in this aspect especially use of the modern IT-technologies, Internet, mobile applications are required.

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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review current knowledge, research and thinking about the difficulties facing public libraries offering internet access to their users in ensuring legally compliant and non-offensive use of this facility whilst still adhering to the professional value of freedom of access to information. Design/methodology/approach – A range of recently published sources (1997-2013) relating to the technical and organisational measures used to manage public internet access primarily in public libraries in the UK with some limited international examples were reviewed and analysed. This work was undertaken as the underpinning research for an AHRC-funded project, MAIPLE (Managing Access to the internet in Public Libraries). Findings – The provision of public internet access is a well-established component of the role of public libraries, but is seen as a potential problem due to the possibility of misuse, and it appears that simplistic technical solutions have disappointed. Legislation increases the need for more effective solutions that can provide a balance between the need for legal compliance, a welcoming environment for users, and the protection of key freedoms. A range of measures are being adopted worldwide in response to this dilemma. Originality/value – Research exploring internet access in public libraries and its management in the UK is numerically small and much of it dates back to the start of the twenty-first century. This review presents a comprehensive analysis of the available literature and is of relevance to practitioners and academics in the fields of public librarianship.

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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop an extended model of technology acceptance to include behavioural beliefs (perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use), subjective norms, management support (at institutional and governmental levels) to examine the academics’ internet acceptance behaviour within the Pakistan and Turkish context. In addition to this, impact of cultural dimension individualism-collectivism (IC) is also examined on the basis of moderator construct. Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from 380 academics’ using a cross-sectional survey. Data were analysed using structural equation modelling (partial least squares) in conjunction with multiple group analysis. Findings – The results revealed that proposed model achieved acceptable fit with the data (i.e. R2=39 per cent in intention) and most of the hypothesised relationships were supported. The results also revealed that culture showed a moderating effect on hypothetical relationships. Specifically, the effects of management support were stronger for the respondents having high on collectivist society (i.e. Pakistan). Originality/value – The study is useful in non-western cultural contexts. Specifically, in contrast to previous studies, diversity of individuals’ acceptance behaviour is examined in Turkey and Pakistan. Additionally, this study had examined moderating impact of cultural dimension (i.e. IC) over academic’s behavioural intention to accept the internet technology.

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A scoping project was funded by the Food and Agriculture Organization in 2017 on the health and safety of aquaculture workers. This project developed a template covering basic types of aquaculture production, health and safety hazards and risks, and related data on injuries and occupational ill health, regulations, social welfare conditions, and labour and industry activity in the sector. Profiles using the template were then produced for key aquaculture regions and nations across the globe where information could be obtained. These revealed both the scale and depth of occupational safety and health (OSH) challenges in terms of data gaps, a lack of or poor risk assessment and management, inadequate monitoring and regulation, and limited information generally about aquaculture OSH. Risks are especially high for offshore/marine aquaculture workers. Good practice as well as barriers to improving aquaculture OSH were noted. The findings from the profiles were brought together in an analysis of current knowledge on injury and work-related ill health, standards and regulation, non-work socioeconomic factors affecting aquaculture OSH, and the role of labour and industry in dealing with aquaculture OSH challenges. Some examples of governmental and labour, industry and non-governmental organisation good practice were identified. Some databases on injury and disease in the sector and research initiatives that solved problems were noted. However, there are many challenges especially in rural and remote areas across Asia but also in the northern hemisphere that need to be addressed. Action now is possible based on the knowledge available, with further research an important but secondary objective.

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Reliable & easily accessible health information is needed before, during, and after disasters. The U.S. National Library of Medicine's Disaster Information Management Research Center has developed a portal linking to resources, guides, and tools for use by disaster/emergency personnel in preparing for, responding, to and recovering from disasters (http://disasterinfo.nlm.nih.gov). This session will introduce you to many of the disaster health information sources available on the Internet. Disaster information tools, such as the Wireless Information System for Emergency Responders (WISER) and the Radiation Emergency Medical Management (REMM) resource will be demonstrated. WISER assists responders in HazMat/CBRN incidents. Capabilities include support for substance identification, on-site incident management, and health management/guidance. The REMM tool provides guidance for health care personnel about clinical diagnosis & treatment of radiation injury during radiological & nuclear emergencies. WISER and REMM are available on the Web and as apps for a variety of mobile devices including the Blackberry and iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad. In addition how to access the disaster health literature from PubMed, the Resource Guide for Public Health Preparedness, and other sources will be discussed. Social medial tools for keeping up-to-date will be presented. Topics to be presented: NLM and other US resources for disaster health information. Other sources of disaster health information, including associations; non-governmental organizations, and international organizations. Databases and information aggregators. Disaster information tools and mobile applications Evaluating/assessing information on the web. How to stay up-to-date: listservs, RSS feeds, blogs, Twitter, etc.

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Historically, the Government of Bangladesh has faced serious challenges in urban sanitation while public policy continuously bypasses questions related to the overall condition of the urban slums and their complex and filthy neighbourhood environment. Considering the diverse local settings of the urban slums, this paper attempts to explore the varied dynamics of ‘social-technological-governance’ (STG) systems from different categories of government (GO) and non-governmental organisation-managed slums where sanitation projects have been implemented. The analysis of STG systems not only uncovers different factors that affect sanitation projects but also offers a guideline that could address the overwhelming slum sanitation agenda in the context of metropolitan cities. The paper adopts a qualitative stance to explore the STG system and compare dynamics across the study areas. As is widely understood, local contextual issues are important in implementing sanitation projects and first-hand qualitative information has therefore been gathered and analysed to make sense of on-the-ground realities.

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Intelligent computer-aided design is impossible without the object of design, component parts, participants of the process and analysis of their relations. The control of these relations was performed without computer. Therefore the processes flew without optimal criteria and technics of optimisation. Renovation of a building will depend on three most important concerned groups involved in the process: customers; designing organisations; building and constructing organisations. The entire process of design—from the idea to complete documentation—must be planned and executed with consideration of goals aspired by the interested parties—customers, designers and construction organisations. This process should realise the cycles of design, co-ordination and expertise of final solution. There are one-stage or two-stage design processes in traditional design process (Fig 2). Development of the project by one or two stages is pointed out by the design task of customer and depends upon technical complexity of the object. Complex objects are designed by a two-stage design process. One-stage design (Fig 3) is used, when the object is not complicated and includes many typical constructions. A great deal of graphics, economical data, accepted standards, rules are used in today's design process. While designing a building, the information flow could be controlled with the help of intelligent systems of design. Some information systems can be applied to different parts of a building. Fig 4 represents the structure of information system for roof design. Any part of information system is a complex object. Parts of information system for roof design are related to graphical-geometrical information. Relations between elements of roof intelligent design system are represented in Fig 5. Structure of some elements of information system (Fig 6) and internal relations are complex and manifold, so managing is possible only by intelligent design system. During the process of intelligent system design the same participants take part as in the traditional process: customers, design organisations, building and constructing organisations, but the relations between these participants are of a new quality. Fig 7 represents the relations between traditional participants and the flow of up-to-date information. The process of intelligent design differs from the traditional one by the following features: the intelligent system includes features of traditional design (design, expertise, coordination, renewing), but it is the system of new technology and quality due to the possibility of real optimisation; the process of renovation of dwelling houses roofs has an important feature, namely, a possibility for the unification of the design process. Rational composition of unificated projects can and must be supported by computer aided graphical and non-graphical databases with possibilities of the intelligent design; relations between data groups of a design object (Fig 7—A, B, C and D) can be managed by computer intelligent software. The intelligent process has some problems: the main stages of the roof design are related to considerations and financial possibilities of customers, aesthetical and architectural evaluation. These stages are related by three main interested groups (customers, design organisations, building and constructing organisations) and other institutions of the government. They can be optimised only by computer at intelligent level; the problem of information flowing, because methods of presentation of data must be co-ordinated with customers, design organisations, building and constructing organisations. Control techniques must be provided for its managing; data and knowledge bases must be continuously formed and renewed until using “Internet” and other modern methods for information transmission.

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Background The NHS policy of constructing multispecialty community providers (MCPs) rests on a complex set of assumptions about how health systems can replace hospital use with enhanced primary care for people with complex, chronic or multiple health problems, while contributing savings to health-care budgets. Objectives To use policy-makers’ assumptions to elicit an initial programme theory (IPT) of how MCPs can achieve their outcomes and to compare this with published secondary evidence and revise the programme theory accordingly. Design Realist synthesis with a three-stage method: (1) for policy documents, elicit the IPT underlying the MCP policy, (2) review and synthesise secondary evidence relevant to those assumptions and (3) compare the programme theory with the secondary evidence and, when necessary, reformulate the programme theory in a more evidence-based way. Data sources Systematic searches and data extraction using (1) the Health Management Information Consortium (HMIC) database for policy statements and (2) topically appropriate databases, including MEDLINE, MEDLINE In-Process & Other Non-Indexed Citations, PsycINFO, the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) and Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts (ASSIA). A total of 1319 titles and abstracts were reviewed in two rounds and 116 were selected for full-text data extraction. We extracted data using a formal data extraction tool and synthesised them using a framework reflecting the main policy assumptions. Results The IPT of MCPs contained 28 interconnected context–mechanism–outcome relationships. Few policy statements specified what contexts the policy mechanisms required. We found strong evidence supporting the IPT assumptions concerning organisational culture, interorganisational network management, multidisciplinary teams (MDTs), the uses and effects of health information technology (HIT) in MCP-like settings, planned referral networks, care planning for individual patients and the diversion of patients from inpatient to primary care. The evidence was weaker, or mixed (supporting some of the constituent assumptions but not others), concerning voluntary sector involvement, the effects of preventative care on hospital admissions and patient experience, planned referral networks and demand management systems. The evidence about the effects of referral reductions on costs was equivocal. We found no studies confirming that the development of preventative care would reduce demands on inpatient services. The IPT had overlooked certain mechanisms relevant to MCPs, mostly concerning MDTs and the uses of HITs. Limitations The studies reviewed were limited to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries and, because of the large amount of published material, the period 2014–16, assuming that later studies, especially systematic reviews, already include important earlier findings. No empirical studies of MCPs yet existed. Conclusions Multidisciplinary teams are a central mechanism by which MCPs (and equivalent networks and organisations) work, provided that the teams include the relevant professions (hence, organisations) and, for care planning, individual patients. Further primary research would be required to test elements of the revised logic model, in particular about (1) how MDTs and enhanced general practice compare and interact, or can be combined, in managing referral networks and (2) under what circ*mstances diverting patients from in-patient to primary care reduces NHS costs and improves the quality of patient experience. Study registration This study is registered as PROSPERO CRD42016038900. Funding The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Services and Delivery Research programme and supported by the NIHR Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care South West Peninsula.

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The purpose of the work is to analyze the network and bandwidth of the Automobile Roads of the Poltava region in order to establish the possibility of planning regional waste management systems. Methodology. In this paper, methods of finding information using modern digital technologies, systematization and analytical processing of statistical information, as well as methods of inductive logic to establish the possibility of using the Internet resources in logistical planning processes. Results. Within the framework of the tasks of the Regional Waste Management Plan in the Poltava region by 2030, the main attention is focused on the analysis of the possibility of organizing all stages of transport provided by the plan. In this context, the structure of the road network of the region is analyzed, indicated possible ways of using roads of various categories (from local to national) to organize waste transportation at all stages of the logistics process (from collecting waste in areas of settlements to the main transportation of waste between objects of the regional structure of handling with waste. Possible technological complications and technical and economic consequences of unsatisfactory road surface in most rural areas of the region are observed. These variants of possible partial and priority solution to the problem of unsatisfactory state of roads with prospective planning of the development of the waste transportation system are characterized. state of road covering from Internet resources of state specialized institutions and organizations and specialized sites of non-governmental organizations. Originality. Regional Planning Process Systems of waste management and logistics schemes for collecting solid household waste as the main structural and technological elements of these systems for the regions of Ukraine are currently located at the stage of becoming. The use of operational and promising information from open source resources for the purpose of medium-term and long-term planning is currently practically not applicable, although it has certain prospects. Practical value. The results of the research will be used in the development of a regional waste management plan in the Poltava region by 2030.

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ObjectivesIn Germany, healthcare for people lacking legal residency status and European Union citizens without health insurance is often provided by non-governmental organisations. Scientific studies assessing the situation of the patients with chronic diseases in this context are scarce. We aimed to characterise medical care for chronically ill migrants without health insurance and outline its possibilities and limitations from the treating physicians’ perspective.DesignQualitative semi-structured interviews; qualitative content analysis.SettingOrganisations and facilities providing healthcare for uninsured migrants: free clinics, medical practices and public health services.Participants14 physicians working regularly in healthcare for uninsured migrants.ResultsDelayed contact to the healthcare system was frequently addressed in the interviews. Care was described as constrained by a scarcity of resources that often impedes adequate treatment for many conditions, most pronounced in the case of oncological diseases or chronic viral infections (HIV, hepatitis). For other chronic conditions such as cardiovascular diseases or diabetes, some diagnostics and basic medications were described as partially available, while management of complications or rehabilitative measures are frequently unfeasible. For the patients with mental health problems, attainability of psychotherapeutic treatment is reported as severely limited. Care is predominantly described as fragmented with limitations to information flow and continuity. Which level of care a patient receives appears to depend markedly on the respective non-governmental organisation and the individual commitment, subjective decisions and personal connections of the treating physician.ConclusionsRestrictions in medical care for uninsured migrants have even more impact on chronically ill patients. Volunteer-based care often constitutes an inadequate compensation for regular access to the healthcare system, as it is strongly influenced by the limitation of its resources and its arbitrariness.

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The study examined the effectiveness of a community-operated land record system (CRS), a product of an evolutionary information system planning approach under hybrid governance arrangements in Monwabisi Park informal settlement in Cape Town. To structure the analysis, the authors adapted an analytical framework for analysing land registration effectiveness to community records systems. It serves as a tool for analysing, designing and managing similar information systems. The CRS is an element of a participatory planning and development project involving a triad: (a) community-based organisations (CBOs); (b) a non-governmental organisation (NGO), which has acted as a change agent, facilitator and resource provider; and (c) the City of Cape Town. The hybrid governance institutions comprised a set of local community and government protocols. Of further significance are the organisational cultures of the CBOs, and the NGO’s information system team differs markedly from that of most land registries. The researchers examined the CRS database and operations management, interviewed key-informants and interviewed shack residents door-to-door. The CRS was effective because residents used it and largely adhered to the associated documented community protocols to defend their tenure and to effect transactions in shacks. Further contributors were the NGO and CBOs continually managed the institutional and leadership dynamics relevant to the CRS, factors often ignored in similar projects.

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Category: Midfoot/Forefoot Introduction/Purpose: The internet has grown into one of the biggest resource of easy accessible health information for the general public. Hallux rigidus (HR) is the most common arthritic disease pattern of the foot. There is no mutual consent on the ideal operative intervention for this disease. State of knowledge is essential for a decision to proceed with a HR specific treatment, since this decision is ultimately a shared one between the patient and the physician. Therefore, many patients comb through the internet for medical information related to this specific topic. The purpose of this study was to assess the quality and integrity of the online available informative content about HR using acknowledged scoring instruments, proven quality markers and a novel designed specific HR score. Methods: In December 2016 the search term “hallux rigidus” was used to search Google (Google Inc., Mountain View, CA, USA) by three independent reviewers (two experienced orthopedic surgeons and one trained medical student). The content of the first 50 hits were analyzed by the use of specific scores including the DISCERN score, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) benchmark criteria and the Health On the Net code (HONcode) as a seal of quality for providing complete and transparent health-related information. Also the Flesch Reading Ease (FRE), the Flesch Kincaid Grade Level (FKGL), and the Gunning Fog Index (GFI) were recorded as indicators for readability. Websites were classified as follows: academic, commercial, government or non-profit organization (NPO), physician or group, and unspecified. A HR-specific content score was developed consisting of 19 specified items to evaluate the overall aspects about the procedure, management and potential complications. Results: Of the 50 screened websites, 37 (74%) were included for analysis. Of these 37 websites, 20 were from a physician or group, 8 were commercial, 6 were academic, 3 were governmental or NPO and 1 was unspecified. The mean DISCERN score of the websites was 46±10. The highest score was 65 points, whereas the lowest was 21. HON Code certification was present in six (16%) and HON seal in two websites (5%). The FRE, RKGL and GFI were 43,2±14, 8,1±2, and 6,7±2 respectively. The HR specific content score was 7±3. Conclusion: Quality and content of accessible information on the internet on HR was analyzed by three individuals by various objective scores. 37 websites were included in the analysis. The majority of websites provided poor information on the management of HR. Patients need to be aware of this fact. In the future measures need to be taken to improve quality and content of HR related websites.

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Background: Patients seeking information and advice on treatment of scaphoid fractures unknowingly confront longstanding medical controversies surrounding the management of this condition. However, there are no studies specifically looking into the quality and reliability of online information on scaphoid fractures. Methods: We identified 44 unique websites for evaluation using the term “scaphoid fractures”. The websites were categorized by type and assessed using the DISCERN score, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) benchmark criteria and the Health on the net (HON) code. Results: The majority of websites were commercial (n = 13) followed by academic (n = 12). Only seven of the websites were HON certified. The mean DISCERN score was 43.8. Only 4 websites scored 63 or above representing excellent quality with minimal shortcomings but 13 websites scored 38 or below representing poor or very poor quality. The mean JAMA benchmark criteria score was 2.2. The Governmental and Non-Profit Organizations category websites had the highest mean JAMA benchmark score. The websites that displayed the HON-code seal had higher mean DISCERN scores and higher mean JAMA benchmark scores compared to websites that did not display the seal. Conclusions: Good quality health information is certainly available on the Internet. However, it is not possible to predict with certainty which sites are of higher quality. We suggest clinicians should have a responsibility to educate their patients regarding the unregulated nature of medical information on the internet and proactively provide patients with educational resources and thus help them make smart and informed decisions.

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Purpose English social housing providers are increasingly turning to social impact measurement to assess their social value. This paper aims to understand the contextual factors causing this rise in the practice, specifically within this sector; the mechanisms that enable it to be effectively implemented within an individual organisation and the outcomes of successful implementation for individual organisations and more widely across the sector and beyond. Design/methodology/approach A realist theory-based approach is applied to the study of a small number of social housing organisations and leaders within the sector to explore the use of social impact measurement. The paper addresses three questions: Why is social impact measurement being adopted in this sector? How is it successfully implemented? And what happens (outcomes) when it is successfully implemented? Addressing these questions necessitates deeper insight into the contextual pressures that have brought to the fore social impact measurement within the sector and the beneficial outcomes the practice provides (or is anticipated to provide) to social housing providers. The methodological approach of Realist Evaluation (Pawson and Tilley, 1997, 2004) is used to structure and analyse the empirical data and findings into a programme theory for social impact measurement. Realist Evaluation provides a programme theory perspective, seeking to answer the question “what works, for whom and in what circ*mstances?”. In this research, the “whom” refers to English social housing providers and the circ*mstances are the contextual conditions experienced by the sector over the past decade. The programme theory aims to set out the links between the contextual drivers for social impact measurement, the mechanisms that bring about its implementation and the outcomes that occur as a result. Within this, greater detail on the implementation perspective is provided by developing an implementation theory using a Theory of Change approach (Connell et al., 1995; Fulbright-Anderson et al., 1998). The implementation theory is then embedded within the wider programme theory so as to bring the two elements together, thereby creating a refinement of the overall theory for social impact measurement. In turn, this paper demonstrates its importance (the outcomes that it can achieve for organisations and the sector) and how it can effectively be implemented to bring about those outcomes. Findings Social housing providers use social impact measurement both internally, to determine their organisational priorities and externally, to demonstrate their value to local and national governments and cross-sector partners then to shape and influence resource allocation. The practice itself is shown to be an open and active programme, rather than a fixed calculative practice. Research limitations/implications The intensive nature of the research means that only a limited number of cases were explored. Further research could test theories developed here against evidence collected from a wider range of cases, e.g. other types of providers or non-adopters. Practical implications The research makes a strong contribution to practice in the form of a re-conceptualisation of how social impact measurement can be shown to be effective, based on a deeper understanding of causal mechanisms, how they interact and the outcomes that result. This is of value to the sector as such information could help other organisations both to understand the value of social impact measurement and to provide practical guidance on how to implement it effectively. Social implications As the practice of impact measurement continues to develop, practitioners will need to be aware of any changes to these contextual factors and consider questions such as: is the context still supportive of impact measurement? Does the practice need to be adjusted to meet the needs of the current context? For instance, the recent tragedy at Grenfell Tower has led to a reconsideration of the role of social housing; a new Green Paper is currently being drafted (Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government, 2018). This may have a number of implications for social impact measurement, such as a rebalancing of emphasis on outcomes relating to environmental improvements, towards outcomes relating to the well-being of tenants. Originality/value Existing literature is largely limited to technical guides. This paper links theory-based evaluation to practice contributing to social housing practice.

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The expert reports state that Bosnia and Herzegovina, despite the presence of diverse and valuable natural resources, lacks systematic, coordinated and harmonized pipeline for biomonitoring. Successful solutions to serious problems regarding environmental protection, management and research rely on the efficient use of exhaustive and unfailing information on the nature around us. However, more often than not, transitional and developing countries lack any centralized, nationally funded databases that could be used as dependable source of information in decision making process. University of Sarajevo-Institute for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (INGEB) developed the Regional Biodiversity Database – REBIDA with the aim to collate all known biological data on wild and domesticated natural resources of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This internet-based database represents a comprehensive, searchable and open access platform for science community, academia, governmental and non-governmental stakeholders and general public. Besides its scientific value, REBIDA will serve as an educational tool for discovering the diversity and importance of natural resources, with special emphasis on indigenous and endemic flora, fungia and fauna from the Balkans. It is the only such database in the country, consisting of three functionally connected segments: tissue database, DNA database and digital genetic database on plant, animal and human samples. To complement REBIDA, a mobile application called REBIDA SCANNER was also developed. It will be free to download for IOS and Android platforms and will enable professionals, nature enthusiasts and any other interested parties to contribute to REBIDA through data collection, field sampling and documentation of B&H wild life.

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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to challenge the traditional placement of CCTV within the realm of crime prevention technologies and to propose a conceptualisation of surveillance cameras that takes into account how different elements interact to shape how these are understood, defined and used in the day-to-day practices of the police. Design/methodology/approach – Methodologically, the research draws on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in two medium-sized Italian cities where open-street CCTV systems have been recently implemented and is based on a combination of non-participant observations and interviews with police officers in both forces. Findings – Overall, two main findings emerge from the fieldwork. First, cameras are rarely used and not for reasons pertaining to crime control; rather, they have become a tool for the efficient management of scarce policing resources, with particular emphasis on the co-ordination and real-time tracking of patrolling personnel. Second, this shift is understood in radically different ways by officers in the two cities, so that what is experienced as a benign form of peer-to-peer co-ordination in Central City becomes a form of undue surveillance on the part of higher ranks in Northern City. Originality/value – The value of the present work is twofold. On one hand, it provides relevant information to police practitioners on how organisational and structural factors impact on the use of surveillance cameras in policing. On the other, embracing the idea that CCTV is constructed through the interaction of several distinct, yet related, processes can explain why the same technology is implemented, defined and used in different ways in comparable organisations.

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Abstract. Regional landslide assessments and mapping have been effectively pursued by research institutions, national and local governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and different stakeholders for some time, and a wide range of methodologies and technologies have consequently been proposed. Land-use mapping and hazard event inventories are mostly created by remote-sensing data, subject to difficulties, such as accessibility and terrain, which need to be overcome. Likewise, landslide data acquisition for the field navigation can magnify the accuracy of databases and analysis. Open-source Web and mobile GIS tools can be used for improved ground-truthing of critical areas to improve the analysis of hazard patterns and triggering factors. This paper reviews the implementation and selected results of a secure mobile-map application called ROOMA (Rapid Offline–Online Mapping Application) for the rapid data collection of landslide hazard and risk. This prototype assists the quick creation of landslide inventory maps (LIMs) by collecting information on the type, feature, volume, date, and patterns of landslides using open-source Web-GIS technologies such as Leaflet maps, Cordova, GeoServer, PostgreSQL as the real DBMS (database management system), and PostGIS as its plug-in for spatial database management. This application comprises Leaflet maps coupled with satellite images as a base layer, drawing tools, geolocation (using GPS and the Internet), photo mapping, and event clustering. All the features and information are recorded into a GeoJSON text file in an offline version (Android) and subsequently uploaded to the online mode (using all browsers) with the availability of Internet. Finally, the events can be accessed and edited after approval by an administrator and then be visualized by the general public.

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Business continuity at any circ*mstances is the most important practice to be done by companies and organizations in order to survive, especially when a disaster event suddenly occurs. Today, almost every sector uses information technology and telecom services to run and advance their business and compete in the 21st century’s environment. The dependency of the telecom sector makes it very important sector since all sectors run their business based on the telecom sector during this interconnected and global business world. Although turbulence times and wars affect all sectors, its effects on the telecom sector is more severe. Since 2014, the Republic of Yemen is going through a civil and regional war which it consequently effects all companies in the country. The war effects were more sever on TeleYemen, the company chosen for this case study. The company needed to overcome these effects challenges by adopting business continuity management best practices and standards. TeleYemen is the most critical telecom service provider in Yemen as it is the main international gateway for telecom and Internet services in Yemen. Therefore, any disruption in TeleYemen will affect not just any company but the whole country, including all governmental and non-governmental sectors since they use TeleYemen services locally and globally. To evaluate the current business continuity situation in TeleYemen during turbulence times, this study evaluates the readiness of business continuity in IT departments. The main objective of the study is to find to what extent BC implementation meets the international standard’s requirements and offers appropriate recommendations to management. A single embedded case study used, with a combination of descriptive quantitative and descriptive qualitative approaches.

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Along with the development of information technology which is now increasingly rapid, thus changing the way humans human ways of conveying information. At present various information has used internet media as a supporting medium between humans and other humans. Following these developments, Pulokambing Archipelago United Creative House (RKBN) also utilizes by changing the promotion system and conventional community empowerment system using a website as a promotional medium in empowering the community to disseminate information about the Non Governmental Organization (NG) which aims to promote its products and services. By carrying out the Public Relations strategy in managing the website, This NGO hopes that there will be progress in terms of promotion and community empowerment. The purpose of this study is to determine the utilization and strategies used by Public Relations to increase the number of website visitors. The object in this study is the website www.pulokambing.com with a research approach using (IMC) Integrated Marketing Communication Theory, Qualitative case study methods, constructivist paradigms, while for data collection techniques using interviews, observation and documentation.The results of the study indicate that the use of the www.pulokambing.com website as a promotional medium in introducing products and services online. And improve the image of the NGO. In addition, community empowerment programs at Pulokambing RKBN such as the Unified KSPSS Cooperative in Pulokambing relatives, Pulokambing kinship farmers (PKPK), Waste Bank Management and Pulokambing Education Tourism strengthen the Website www.pulokambing.com.

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Reporting on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is complex given the wide variety of governmental and NGO actors involved in development projects as well as the increased number of targets and indicators. However, data on the wide variety of indicators must be collected regularly, in a robust manner, comparable across but also within countries and at different administrative and disaggregated levels for adequate decision making to take place. Traditional census and household survey data is not enough. The increase in Small and Big Data streams have the potential to complement official statistics. The purpose of this research is to develop and evaluate a framework to characterize a data ecosystem in a developing country in its totality and to show how this can be used to identify data, outside the official statistics realm, that enriches the reporting on SDG indicators. Our method consisted of a literature study and an interpretative case study (two workshops with 60 and 35 participants and including two questionnaires, over 20 consultations and desk research). We focused on SDG 6.1.1. (Proportion of population using safely managed drinking water services) in rural Malawi. We propose a framework with five dimensions (actors, data supply, data infrastructure, data demand and data ecosystem governance). Results showed that many governmental and NGO actors are involved in water supply projects with different funding sources and little overall governance. There is a large variety of geospatial data sharing platforms and online accessible information management systems with however a low adoption due to limited internet connectivity and low data literacy. Lots of data is still not open. All this results in an immature data ecosystem. The characterization of the data ecosystem using the framework proves useful as it unveils gaps in data at geographical level and in terms of dimensionality (attributes per water point) as well as collaboration gaps. The data supply dimension of the framework allows identification of those datasets that have the right quality and lowest cost of data extraction to enrich official statistics. Overall, our analysis of the Malawian case study illustrated the complexities involved in achieving self-regulation through interaction, feedback and networked relationships. Additional complexities, typical for developing countries, include fragmentation, divide between governmental and non-governmental data activities, complex funding relationships and a data poor context.

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Rapid dissemination of critical and accurate information to low-resource and poorly literate people in crisis situations has long been a challenge. Historically, print media as well as radio and television have served as major delivery channels. With the advent of cellphones, SMS (texting), and the Internet, these digital technologies now afford enhanced opportunities for reaching this poorly literate, low-resource client group quickly and efficiently. Here, we describe a two-step, rapid response approach to the Fall Armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda), an invasive noctuid pest newly causing havoc on maize production in Africa and Asia. First, we developed a science-based, animated video – now being localized further into various languages across Africa and Asia – intended to aid semi-literate, smallholder farmers in identifying and scouting for fall armyworm effectively. Second, we made the animation easily available for (re)distribution in affected areas via the Internet and copying/sharing with Bluetooth®, thereby exponentially increasing the animation's reach across a wide spectrum of diverse languages and literacy levels. In this way, this form of asymmetrical communication hybridizes and combines the educational qualities of print dissemination with the range of radio/television delivery. An urgent need now exists to place the existing mobile ESD FAW animation into as many local languages as needed/possible to improve management of this pest. Such language variants will also increase the usefulness of the FAW animation for governments, intergovernmental institutions, non-government organizations, and civil society groups intent of working with farmers in Africa (and Asia) as it pertains to FAW IPM. The USAID, CIMMYT, IITA, and SAWBO teams will continue to foster awareness around mobile ESD as a FAW resource through each of their respective networks, but we also encourage other research and development organizations to do the same. More broadly, there is also the need to develop and disseminate further SAWBO mobile ESD animations on other aspects of FAW management to assist farmers in their attempts to control this pest. Making sure that target audiences have access to this animation, and any future animations, is undoubtedly a considerable challenge. It will be critical to inform intergovernmental, governmental, and non-governmental organizations, working directly or indirectly with farmers, that this resource exists, such that they can be the direct conduit to its deployment in the field. Thus, this (and any future FAW) animation(s) represent(s) a supporting tool for other organizations to use. It will also require that they develop localized pathways for deployment. However, it is important to note that training local educational deployment agents (e.g., extension agents) in the use of the SAWBO Deployer App allows for a highly effective approach to make SAWBO animations available for deployment with farmers in real time as new animations and language variants become available.

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IntroductionProlonged inpatient multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) treatment for all patients is not sustainable for high-burden settings, but there is limited information on community-based treatment programme outcomes for MDR-TB.MethodsThe Cambodian Health Committee, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), launched the Cambodian MDR-TB programme in 2006 in cooperation with the National Tuberculosis Program (NTP) including a community-based treatment option as a key programme component. The programme was transferred to NTP oversight in 2011 with NGO clinical management continuing. Patients electing to receive home-based treatment were followed by a dedicated adherence supporter and a multidisciplinary outpatient team of nurses, physicians and community health workers. Patients hospitalised for >1 month of treatment (hospital based) received similar management after discharge. All patients received a standardised second-line MDR-TB regimen and were provided nutritional and adherence support. Outcomes were reviewed for patients completing 24 months of treatment and predictors of treatment success were evaluated using logistic regression.ResultsOf 582 patients with MDR-TB who initiated treatment between September 2006 and June 2016, 20% were HIV coinfected, 288 (49%) initiated community-based treatment and 294 (51%) received hospital-based treatment. Of 486 patients with outcomes available, 364 (75%) were cured, 10 (2%) completed, 28 (6%) were lost to follow-up, 3 (0.6%) failed and 77 (16%) died. There was no difference between treatment success in community versus hospital-based groups (adjusted OR (aOR) 1.0, p=0.99). HIV infection, older age and body mass index <16 were strongly associated with decreased treatment success (aOR 0.33, p<0.001; aOR 0.40, p<0.001; aOR 0.40; p<0.001).ConclusionsCambodia’s NGO–NTP partnership successfully developed and scaled up a model MDR-TB treatment programme. The first large-scale MDR-TB programme in Asia with a significant community-based component, the programme achieved equally high treatment success in patients with community-based compared with hospital-based initiation of MDR treatment.

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National level experiences, lessons learnt from the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) era coupled with the academic evidence and proposals generated by the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery (LCoGS) together with the economic arguments and recommendations from the World Bank Group’s "Essential Surgery" Disease Control Priorities (DCP3) publication, provided the impetus for political commitments to improve surgical care capacity at the primary level of the healthcare system in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) as part of their drive towards universal health coverage (UHC) in the form of World Health Organization (WHO) Resolution A68.15. This global commitment from governments must be followed up with development of a Global Action Plan and a global coordination mechanism supported by regional implementation frameworks on the part of the WHO in order for the organisation to better coordinate all stakeholders and sustain the technical support needed to develop and implement national surgical health policy in the form of National Surgical Obstetric and Anaesthesia Plans (NSOAPs). As expounded by Gajewski et al, data and research output on surgical care is essential to informing policy development and programme implementation. This area still remains a challenge in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) but it is envisaged that countries will include this key component in their ongoing national surgical healthcare policy development and programme implementation. In the Zambian case study, research in the area of Global Surgery investment-the surgical workforce scale-up is used to demonstrate the important role of implementation research in the development and implementation of the Zambian NSOAP as well as the need for international collaborations to this end. Scale-up reviews informed by implementation research to evaluate progress on the commitments contained in Resolution A68.15 and Decision A70.22 are essential to sustain the momentum and to help maintain focus on the gaps in all countries. There are opportunities for non-state actors especially local sub-regional academic institutions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and private sector to play a key role in surgical healthcare policy development and implementation research. Collection of and better information management of standardised surgical care indicators is essential for such research, for bi-annual WHO progress reporting and for demonstration of impact to justify and encourage further investments in surgical care.

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Purpose This paper aims to examine the adoption of conventional and emergent analysis techniques in Strategic Investment Decision-Making (SIDM) practices in large UK manufacturing companies. It aims to update the current knowledge on SIDM practices in large manufacturing companies. The research question underlying this study: Are recently developed analysis techniques (i.e. those that aim to integrate strategic and financial analyses) being used to evaluate strategic investment projects? Design/methodology/approach The research evidence underpinning this study was made up of primary and secondary data, quantitative and qualitative. Firstly, a survey consisting of a mailed formal standard questionnaire was conducted where each respondent is required to answer the same questions based on the same system of coded responses. Secondly, qualitative data was collected using the annual reports of selected companies. Disclosures were used as supplementary source of information using the explanatory notes and parenthetical disclosures accompanying companies’ financial reporting. Sources for these disclosures included management discussions, analyses of company strategy and risk and forward-looking reports regarding future performance and growth opportunities (such as mergers and acquisitions activities). Accordingly, companies’ disclosures were used in this study as an alternative method to semi-structured interviews to collect qualitative data. More recently, companies such as Rio Tinto have prepared strategic annual reports for 2017 against the UK Corporate Governance Code (version 2016). Findings The choice and use of financial analysis techniques and risk analysis techniques depend on the type of project being evaluated. Decision makers in large UK companies do not appear to use emergent analysis techniques widely. Pre-decision control mechanisms have significant influence on SIDM practices. This includes the changes of internal and external contextual factors, including organisational culture, organisational strategies, financial consideration, comprising formal approval governance mechanisms, regulatory and other compliance policies interact with companies’ internal control systems. Companies incorporate non-financial factors alongside quantitative analysis of strategic investments opportunities. Energy efficiency and carbon reduction are key imperatives of companies’ environmental management. These factors viewed by decision makers as significant factors relevant for compliance with legislation as well as maintaining companies’ legitimacy issues, sustainable business, experience with new technology and improved company image. Research limitations/implications High risk, ambiguity and complexity are key characteristics embedded in SIDM processes. Macroeconomic issues remain crucial factors in scanning and screening investment opportunities, as reported by this study. The early stage of SIDM processes requires modelling under macroeconomic scenarios and assumptions of both internal and external parameters. Key assumptions include: projections of economic growth; commodity prices and exchange rates, introduction of technological and productivity advancements; cost and supply parameters for major inputs. SIDM practices rooted on comprehensive knowledge and experience of the industry and markets to draw subjective judgements about the riskiness of prospective projects, but these are rarely formalized into their SIDM processes. Findings of this study, however, remain within the context of UK companies. This study has its own limitations due to its time, location, respondents and sample selection, the size and the sector of the selected companies and questions addressed. Findings of this study raise a call for future research to examine SIDM processes in different settings to explore the relative impact of various organisational control mechanisms on SIDM practices. Also, to examine the influence of contextual factors (such as national culture, political, legal and social factors) on organisational control mechanisms. SIDM practices and processes have received significant attention from researchers, yet there is a lack of evidence in the literature about how companies approach strategic decision-making regarding divestments of some of their strategic investments. This type of strategic decision-making is not less important than other types of SIDM practices. Practical implications SIDM practices reflect the art and science of steering and controlling organisational resources to achieve a desired strategy. To understand the factors that shape SIDM practices and align them to organisational strategy, more attention is required to the choice and design of pre-decision controls and to the important role of strategic management accounting tools over the more traditional financial analysis techniques that have formed the focus of much prior empirical research. Social implications Key environmental issues viewed by decision makers as significant factors relevant for compliance with legislation as well as maintaining companies’ legitimacy issues and company image. Originality/value Despite their perceived importance in this study, quantitative accounting controls may fail to connect with the kind of investment decision-making required to bring strategic success. Indeed, it has been widely noted that financial evaluation techniques are inadequate for assessing strategic investment proposals; they can only function as a guideline, as SIDM practices involve so many uncertainties, risks and judgements. A key insight from this study is that the achievement of integration between the firm’s strategic investment projects and the overall organizational strategy forms a critical pre-decision control on managerial behaviour at an early stage in SIDM practices. As many strategic investment decisions are one-off, non-repeatable decisions, the information needed to support their evaluation is likely to be similarly unique. Sound SIDM practices require the support of a large amount of varied information, a significant proportion of which is collected and analysed prior to potential capital investment projects being considered, such as information related to strategic goal setting, risk-adjusted hurdle rates and the design of appropriate organisational decision hierarchies.

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Savings and Credit Co-operative Societies (Saccos) in Kenya have realised a tremendous growth in the subsector and are investing huge amount of their scarce financial resources in digital technology to enhance services delivery and offer a wide variety of products and services range, increased membership mobilisation and size, ensure better structure and effective financial performance. Digital financial Services as used in the Saccos industry is as a result of Information Communication Technology revolution commonly referred to as digital commerce. Many Saccos are steadily changing from manual banking system of operations to providing digital Financial (e-banking) services that include internet banking, M-banking and Automated Teller machine support. The adoption of digital financial Services by the Saccos is a strategic attempt to deal with increased cut throat competition from traditional banking institutions and non-banking financial institutions, to cut costs and add value to their services in order to optimise benefits to the shareholders. Despite the fact that Saccos have rapidly adopted digital financial services to provide services, and that they drive a huge section of the financial sector savings of the economy, they have experienced various challenges such as uncertainty and risk due to digital financial services. The study sought to establish the influence of digital financial services on the financial performance of SACCOs in Kakamega County, Kenya. The specific objectives was to determine the effect of the mobile banking, internet banking, use of credit cards and digital funds transfer on the financial performance of SACCOs in Kakamega County, Kenya. The research was guided by three theories of innovation and technology: Diffusion of Innovation Theory, The Theory of Task-Technology Fit Theory and the Technological context, Organisational context and Environmental context Theory.The study used a descriptive research design. The population of study were staff at the three SACCOs operating in Kakamega County. This consisted of 162 respondents who are the staff of the SACCOs. A sample of 49 respondents was taken which forms 30% of the target population which shall be evenly spread across the three SACCOs. The primary data was collected by use of self-administered semi-structured questionnaire.Collected data was analysed through descriptive and inferential statistics by the use of SPSS. Findings were presented by use of tables, frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviation.The study found that the financial performance of the SACCOs was significantly influenced by the digital financial services instituted by the SACCO managements. They demonstrated to have reliable mobile banking system where most of their customers had enrolled on the mobile banking platform and most of customer queries and updates were sorted via the mobile platform.Given the limitations and findings of this study, the researcher recommends that since there exists a positive relationship between digital financial services and bank performance and that e-banking has brought services closer to bank customer’s hence improving banking industry performance, SACCOs must also enhance the dynamics of the sector and embrace digital banking fully and extensively. Mobile banking faces various challenges among them being, system delays by the mobile money transfer service providers, slow processing of transactions, high transactions costs, limit on the amount of money that can be withdrawn in a day and fraud.

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One of the crucial issues of our decades is how to stop the loss of biodiversity. Policy–makers need reliable data to base their decisions on. Managing wildlife populations requires, first of all, science–based knowledge of their abundance, dynamics, ecology, behaviour and dispersal capacities based on reliable qualitative data. The importance of dialogue and communication with the local actors should be stressed (Sennerby Forsse, 2010) as bag statistics and other monitoring data in wildlife management could be more precise if local actors, notably hunters, were better informed and aware of their importance, especially in supporting existing and emerging policies at national and international levels. Another essential issue in wildlife management is the conflicts generated by humans and their activities when they interact with wildlife (Heredia & Bass, 2011). A sociologic approach is required to take into account those human groups whose interests are divergent, facilitating communication and collaborative learning among these users of the same ecosytem. Obstacles should be addressed and solutions devised to protect and encourage a sustainable use of this ecosystem in, as much as possible, a win–win relationship. Policy objectives and mana-gement strategies should be discussed and debated among the stakeholders involved, then formulated. Policies can be translated into different types of instruments, economic and legislative, but also informative and educa-tive. As awareness of the actors is a key factor of successful regulation, the regulations should be sufficiently explained and stakeholders should be involved in the implementation of these regulations as much as possible. Finally, the effectiveness of the regulations should be evaluated in light of their objectives, and where necessary, the regulations should be strengthened or adapted to improve their performance (Van Gossum et al., 2010).The various aspects of the processes described above were highlighted in the plenary talk and the five oral communications presented during the session on wildlife law and policy. In his plenary talk, Dr Borja Heredia, Head of the Scientific Unit of the Secretariat of the CMS/UNEP in Bonn, pointed out different sources of human–wildlife conflicts, such as the logging activities in subtropical forests that induce overexploitation and poaching for bushmeat consumption; the problem of predators on livestock and the poisoning of lions in the Masaï Reserve; animals invading the human territory; and game species as a vector of diseases in humans and livestock (Heredia & Bass, 2011). Heredia stressed the importance for wildlife managers to deal with the human dimension; he stressed the importance of successful conflict management based on principles such as a non–adversial framework, an analytical approach, a problem–solving orientation, the direct participation of the conflicting parties, dialogue as a basis for mutual understanding and facilitation by a trained third party. Heredia explained how the Convention on Migratory Species of Wild Animals (UNEP/CMS) contributes to confict resolution and in this way increases the chance of survival of these species. The CMS (see CMS website) works for the con-servation of a wide array of endangered migratory animals worldwide through the negotiation and implementation of agreements and action plans. Migratory species threatened with extinction are listed in Appendix I of the Con-vention. CMS parties strive towards strictly protecting these animals, conserving or restoring the places where they live, mitigating obstacles to migration and controlling other factors that might endanger them. Besides establishing obligations for each State joining the CMS, CMS promotes concerted action among the Range States of many of these species. Migratory species that need, or would significantly benefit from, international co–operation are listed in Appendix II of the Convention. For this reason, the Convention encourages the Range states to reach global or regional agreements. The Convention acts, in this res-pect as a framework convention. The Agreements may range from legally binding treaties (called agreements, there are seven) to less formal instruments, such as Memoranda of Understanding, or actions plans (there are 20), and they can be adapted to the requirements of particular regions. The development of models tailored according to the conservation needs throughout the migratory range is a unique capacity to CMS. Heredia detailed inter alia the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, the Great Apes Survival Part-nership, the Agreement on the Conservation of Gorillas and their Habitats, the MoU on the Saïga Antelope, and the Programme for the Conservation and sustainable use of the wild saker falcon (Falco cherrug) in Mongolia.The talk of Sarah Wilks, research fellow at the School of Law, University of Western Sydney, illus-trated the importance of adequate transparency and public consultation in environmental and conservation law and decision making. Wilks (2012) examined the Australian legislation concerning animal welfare and the export of Australian wildlife products and, as a case study, explored the Tasmanian State Government’s recent decision to promote the com-mercial harvest and export of brushtail possums She pointed out that although the Enviromment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation 1999 (EPBC) process intended to be open and co–operative, it is not, in prac-tice, co–operative, public and transparent. The export of possum products requires Australian Government approval under the Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment (EPBC). Wilks (2012) assessed the Tasmanian Wildlife Trade Management Plan for Common Brushtail Possums developed by the EPBC, the public submissions to the Austra-lian Government, and the Australian Government’s response against the provisions of the EPBC. As a result, she deplored that welfare outcomes, like that of back or pouch juveniles whose mother had been trapped or killed have not been adequately considered either at Tasmanian State or at Australian Govenment level. She concluded by deploring that submissions on ethical grounds could not yet be considered by the Australian Government because the decision to harvest or not to harvest is made at State level, and yet the Tasmanian State legislation is deficient in mandating public consultation.Data on hunting and game resources provide quan-titative and qualitative information on game species, but moreover, game monitoring has shown to be efficient in identifying threats to biodiversity, such as biodiversity problems in agriculture and forest ecosystems, and also to be an early warning in assessing threats from invasive alien species (Sennerby Forsse, 2010). They are an essential tool for game managers, scientists and policy–makers, and hunters and hunter organisations are key resources in the collection of this information.The ARTEMIS data bank was initiated by the Federation of Asssociations of Hunting and Conservation of the Euro-pean Union FACE (see ARTEMIS website) to improve information about game in support of existing and emer-ging European policies. The objective of ARTEMIS is to centralise and analyse, in a coordinated and coherent Animal Biodiversity and Conservation 35.2 (2012)161extending the ban to all waterfowl hunting and not only that undertaken in protected wetlands.The presentation of K. E. Skordas, from the Hunting Federation of Macedonia and Thrace, Research Divi-sion, Greece, illustrated the contribution of the Hellenic Hunters Confederation (HHC) to law enforcement for wildlife protection. It showed how stakeholders, hun-ters, set up heir own Game Warden Service in 1999, through their Hunting Associations, in order to assume responsibility for the control of illegal hunting and wil-dlife protection, in collaboration with the local Forest Service. These game wardens carry out repressive and preventive controls and prosecutions. Besides this initiative, information campaigns are organised by the HHC to improve hunters’ awareness (see website of the Hellenic Hunters Confederation, HHC). Skordas & Papaspyropoulos (2011) analysed the relation between law enforcement, hunter awareness and infringement categories, classed in degree of influencing wildlife protection. They observed a strong reduction in the number of infringements; particularly, they found that hunting out of season and hunting without a license decreased from 23.4% to 7.31% and from 30.12% to 11.8%, respectively.All the talks presented in this session stressed the importance of dialogue in wildlife management as a basis for mutual understanding. Communication and involvement of the local actors/stakeholders are key factors at different stages of wildlife management: when collecting reliable data on which policy–makers may draw up their decisions, when debating policy objectives and strategies, and when implementing regulations and administrative acts

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<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> This paper is focussed on the work and remit of the ICA’s Commission on Education and Training (CET), presenting a reflection by the retiring chair of the current issues which affect the work of Commission members and all engaged in current education and training of students of cartography around the world.</p><p> The nature and development of cartography as an academic and professional discipline has been discussed through many presentations, both conceptual and applied, and in various arenas and communities, over the past half century. As cartographic practice became standardised in the 20th century, so educational and instructional materials describing and analysing the discipline conveyed a relatively uniform message, ensuring that the audience of learners were educated and trained positively to an agreed agenda. In effect, a subtle, as yet unwritten, ‘Body of Knowledge’ was developed and elucidated in educational materials, notably textbooks on cartography, in the last few decades of the last century (Kessler, 2018).</p><p> It was during these years, however, that cartography developed as a discipline far beyond its initial roots as a map-making technology. The technology of map-making certainly changed completely, and a host of other aspects were incorporated, from metrical analysis of historical map documents to gender-oriented investigations of mapping activity; from the integration and importance of cartography in contemporary geospatial data handling to the role of volunteer map-making; from the psychology of map interaction and decision making to the mathematics of map projections and multi-dimensional data representation; and many, many other activities and issues which must be included in educational programmes in cartography.</p><p> It is the establishment, adoption and maintenance of a Body of Knowledge (BoK) which is one of the main <strong>challenges</strong> (this paper presents 11, in <strong>bold</strong> below) and, if successfully met, it can assist in ensuring that cartographic education and training develops as required in the next few decades (Fairbairn, 2017). The further challenges highlighted in this paper can form the basis for further investigation by the CET in the future. This listing of issues is informed by a number of contemporary changes in technology, by closer integration of cartography with other geospatial sciences, by research achievements and investigations in the field, by advances in educational praxis, by demands on cartography by a host of other activities, and by consequent recognition of the discipline by learned and professional bodies.</p><p> One of the main purposes in developing a <strong>Body of Knowledge</strong> is to encompass and facilitate curriculum design. As the widening scope of cartography will be reflected in the developing BoK (most notably in cartography’s contribution to GIS), <strong>curriculum design</strong> must be flexible and innovative enough to cope with more numerous and wider, though focussed and integrated, topics. The admirable, existing BoK in Geographic Information Science and Technology, already being reviewed and enhanced, but omitting many <strong>specific cartographic principles</strong>, is a possible framework for incorporating these. Alternatively there are sound arguments for a uniquely cartographic BoK, and this enterprise is certainly an ICA-approved pursuit.</p><p> Also within the BoK, the <strong>theoretical foundations for the study of cartography</strong> must be elucidated and moved from the research agenda to the educational curriculum. A revised <i>Research Agenda</i> developed under ICA auspices and a focussed <i>Body of Knowledge</i> are synergistic documents, with interdependent content in one directing content in the other. Such documents may be perceived by many to be overly conceptual, un-related to everyday mapping activity. In terms of cartographic production in the past 50 years, we have moved far from the standardised methods mentioned earlier, applied by every commercial and governmental mapping organisation. The activity of map-making has adopted a host of alternative methods, and artefacts, data-sets and representations are created and ‘mashed-up’ by an increasingly wide range of individuals and groups with highly variable experiences, expertise and understanding of cartographic procedures. In terms of ‘organised’ cartography in multi-employee companies, government and non-government agencies, academic and research groups, and associated industrial and environmental companies, a further challenge is <strong>understanding what employers want from graduates in cartography and GIS</strong>. The delivery of education in cartography is an academic activity, but it must be done in a manner which demonstrates relevance to the community which relies on the skills of an educated workforce.</p><p> In some cases the cartographic community, notably its educators, may have to direct their attention outside the classroom and convince the fragmenting industry that cartographic principles are vital for effective management and communication of information, and that the products of cartographic education (the graduates from educational programmes) are serious and informed potential employees with much to offer a wide range of human activity. Such recognition by those outside the academy can be encouraged by seeking and receiving <strong>professional accreditation</strong> from awarding bodies such as industry associations, learned societies, educational authorities and public bodies. The landscape of professional recognition in the disciplines of cartography and GIS is highly varied, geographically, institutionally, legally, and pedagogically. The fluid nature of the disciplines, and in particular their fuzzy distinction from a host of other geomatics, geospatial, engineering, environmental, and social activities means that cartographic education must acknowledge and address its interaction with education in many other sciences. <strong>Linking cartographic education and its principles with related education in other closely related geo-disciplines</strong> is particularly important. Common messages must be presented stressing cartography’s importance and relevance.</p><p> At the possible wider levels mentioned above, experiences and <strong>lessons learned from teaching cartography and GIS to a broad range of non-specialists</strong> must be documented: cartographic principles must be shown to be important and relevant to all those engaged in handling maps and mapping data. Stressing the importance of such principles is especially vital when education is done at a distance: the Commission has long been interested in those activities which <strong>develop on-line educational resources</strong> and look at innovative ways of delivering education widely to large audiences outside formal educational establishments. We already have reports on mature and effective resources in the form of MOOCs, distance learning courses, and online training modules (e.g. Robinson and Nelson, 2015). Such methods of delivery for cartographic education have proven popular and efficient: educators must ensure continued relevance, update, and diligence, in managing these activities.</p><p> In addition to content development and assessment frameworks, it is technical requirements which are often perceived as major blocks to effective use of in-line educational resources. <strong>Technical support requirements</strong> are critical in every form of cartographic education: in the past replication of map reproduction labs was prohibitive for most educational establishments; today it is the acquisition of a full range of software which mitigates against full exposure to the varied range of cartographic and geospatial data handling activity as practised in the ‘real world’. The generosity of some software providers is widely acknowledged in educational institutions, and many of the software products are generic enough to be able to demonstrate the required cartographic principles in a non-partisan manner. However, in many cases employers are seeking specific training skills in particular packages and this can be difficult to provide within a formal educational programme.</p><p> Recent additions to the ‘wish-list’ of employers, however, have been related to abilities in coding and computer programming. Luckily, the most commonly sought skill is ability to write code in Python or Javascript. These are open source, rather than a commercial, products, and hence can be acquired by any educational establishment. The <strong>use of open source software and datasets in geospatial and cartographic education</strong> is becoming increasingly important, and their effective integration with traditional (and indeed contemporary) curricula in cartographic education is clearly a further challenge.</p><p> This paper has outlined a number of challenges facing cartographic education. Like the wider discipline, education in cartography is delivered by capable and dedicated individuals, each with interests in the development of the discipline in an increasingly diverse and varied educational arena. The Commission is intent on addressing the challenges outlined, promoting effective and high-quality cartographic education.</p>

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Abstract Background the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately affected care home residents’ and staffs’ access to health care and advice. Health and social care professionals adapted rapidly to using video consultation (videoconferencing) technology without guidance. We sought to identify enablers and barriers to their use in supporting care home residents and staff. Methods a scoping review of the evidence on remote consultations between healthcare services and care homes. Interviews with English health and social care professionals about their experiences during the pandemic. Findings were synthesised using the non-adoption, abandonment, scale-up, spread, sustainability framework. Results 18 papers were included in the review. Twelve interviews were completed. Documented enablers and barriers affecting the uptake and use of technology (e.g. reliable internet; reduced travelling) resonated with participants. Interviews demonstrated rapid, widespread technology adoption overcame barriers anticipated from the literature, often strengthening working relationships with care homes. Novel implementation issues included using multiple platforms and how resident data were managed. Healthcare professionals had access to more bespoke digital platforms than their social care counterparts. Participants alternated between platforms depending on individual context or what their organisation supported. All participants supported ongoing use of technologies to supplement in-person consultations. Conclusions the evidence on what needs to be in place for video consultations to work with care homes was partly confirmed. The pandemic context demolished many documented barriers to engagement and provided reassurance that residents’ assessments were possible. It exposed the need to study further differing resident requirements and investment in digital infrastructure for adequate information management between organisations.

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This study examined the factors affecting use of information and communication technology (ICT) in the management of emergency situations in Lagos, Nigeria. The study adopted the qualitative approach in data gathering. Face-to-face interview was conducted with 15 key informants at 12 emergency management agencies which were selected out of a total of 43 agencies through multistage sampling. The agencies were first stratified into federal, state and non-governmental agencies and the selection of agencies as well as respondents was done using purposive sampling method. The selected respondents consisted of ICT personnel, risk management officers and other top management officers, such as directors, assistant directors/heads of department, and supervisors. The result showed that there were no suitable organisational or operational structures that could assist the deployment of ICT in emergency situations at the selected agencies; however, there was a high level of basic appreciation of simple ICT tools and facilities. The study recommended that agencies with no presence on the social media should create accounts through which they can share information and also interact with citizens as well as other agencies. Furthermore, there is a need to have additional policies at the state government level with regards to emergency management. It was also recommended that government agencies should acquire and use sophisticated technology equipments which can promote emergency management.

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IntroductionIn July 1997, the Mackay campus of Central Queensland University hosted a conference with the theme Regional Australia: Visions of Mackay. It was the first academic conference to be held at the young campus, and its aim was to provide an opportunity for academics, business people, government officials, and other interested parties to discuss their visions for the development of Mackay, a regional community of 75,000 people situated on the Central Queensland coast (Danaher). I delivered a presentation at that conference and authored a chapter in the book that emerged from its proceedings. The chapter entitled “Mackay Online” explored the potential impact that the Internet could have on the Mackay region, particularly in the areas of regional business, education, health, and entertainment (Pace). Two decades later, how does the reality compare with that vision?Broadband BluesAt the time of the Visions of Mackay conference, public commercial use of the Internet was in its infancy. Many Internet services and technologies that users take for granted today were uncommon or non-existent then. Examples include online video, video-conferencing, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), blogs, social media, peer-to-peer file sharing, payment gateways, content management systems, wireless data communications, smartphones, mobile applications, and tablet computers. In 1997, most users connected to the Internet using slow dial-up modems with speeds ranging from 28.8 Kbps to 33.6 Kbps. 56 Kbps modems had just become available. Lamenting these slow data transmission speeds, I looked forward to a time when widespread availability of high-bandwidth networks would allow the Internet’s services to “expand to include electronic commerce, home entertainment and desktop video-conferencing” (Pace 103). Although that future eventually arrived, I incorrectly anticipated how it would arrive.In 1997, Optus and Telstra were engaged in the rollout of hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC) networks in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane for the Optus Vision and Foxtel pay TV services (Meredith). These HFC networks had a large amount of unused bandwidth, which both Telstra and Optus planned to use to provide broadband Internet services. Telstra's Big Pond Cable broadband service was already available to approximately one million households in Sydney and Melbourne (Taylor), and Optus was considering extending its cable network into regional Australia through partnerships with smaller regional telecommunications companies (Lewis). These promising developments seemed to point the way forward to a future high-bandwidth network, but that was not the case. A short time after the Visions of Mackay conference, Telstra and Optus ceased the rollout of their HFC networks in response to the invention of Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL), a technology that increases the bandwidth of copper wire and enables Internet connections of up to 6 Mbps over the existing phone network. ADSL was significantly faster than a dial-up service, it was broadly available to homes and businesses across the country, and it did not require enormous investment in infrastructure. However, ADSL could not offer speeds anywhere near the 27 Mbps of the HFC networks. When it came to broadband provision, Australia seemed destined to continue playing catch-up with the rest of the world. According to data from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), in 2009 Australia ranked 18th in the world for broadband penetration, with 24.1 percent of Australians having a fixed-line broadband subscription. Statistics like these eventually prompted the federal government to commit to the deployment of a National Broadband Network (NBN). In 2009, the Kevin Rudd Government announced that the NBN would combine fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP), fixed wireless, and satellite technologies to deliver Internet speeds of up to 100 Mbps to 90 percent of Australian homes, schools, and workplaces (Rudd).The rollout of the NBN in Mackay commenced in 2013 and continued, suburb by suburb, until its completion in 2017 (Frost, “Mackay”; Garvey). The rollout was anything but smooth. After a change of government in 2013, the NBN was redesigned to reduce costs. A mixed copper/optical technology known as fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) replaced FTTP as the preferred approach for providing most NBN connections. The resulting connection speeds were significantly slower than the 100 Mbps that was originally proposed. Many Mackay premises could only achieve a maximum speed of 40 Mbps, which led to some overcharging by Internet service providers, and subsequent compensation for failing to deliver services they had promised (“Optus”). Some Mackay residents even complained that their new NBN connections were slower than their former ADSL connections. NBN Co representatives claimed that the problems were due to “service providers not buying enough space in the network to provide the service they had promised to customers” (“Telcos”). Unsurprisingly, the number of complaints about the NBN that were lodged with the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman skyrocketed during the last six months of 2017. Queensland complaints increased by approximately 40 percent when compared with the same period during the previous year (“Qld”).Despite the challenges presented by infrastructure limitations, the rollout of the NBN was a boost for the Mackay region. For some rural residents, it meant having reliable Internet access for the first time. Frost, for example, reports on the experiences of a Mackay couple who could not get an ADSL service at their rural home because it was too far away from the nearest telephone exchange. Unreliable 3G mobile broadband was the only option for operating their air-conditioning business. All of that changed with the arrival of the NBN. “It’s so fast we can run a number of things at the same time”, the couple reported (“NBN”).Networking the NationOne factor that contributed to the uptake of Internet services in the Mackay region after the Visions of Mackay conference was the Australian Government’s Networking the Nation (NTN) program. When the national telecommunications carrier Telstra was partially privatised in 1997, and further sold in 1999, proceeds from the sale were used to fund an ambitious communications infrastructure program named Networking the Nation (Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts). The program funded projects that improved the availability, accessibility, affordability, and use of communications facilities and services throughout regional Australia. Eligibility for funding was limited to not-for-profit organisations, including local councils, regional development organisations, community groups, local government associations, and state and territory governments.In 1998, the Mackay region received $930,000 in Networking the Nation funding for Mackay Regionlink, a project that aimed to provide equitable community access to online services, skills development for local residents, an affordable online presence for local business and community organisations, and increased external awareness of the Mackay region (Jewell et al.). One element of the project was a training program that provided basic Internet skills to 2,168 people across the region over a period of two years. A second element of the project involved the establishment of 20 public Internet access centres in locations throughout the region, such as libraries, community centres, and tourist information centres. The centres provided free Internet access to users and encouraged local participation and skill development. More than 9,200 users were recorded in these centres during the first year of the project, and the facilities remained active until 2006. A third element of the project was a regional web portal that provided a free easily-updated online presence for community organisations. The project aimed to have every business and community group in the Mackay region represented on the website, with hosting fees for the business web pages funding its ongoing operation and development. More than 6,000 organisations were listed on the site, and the project remained financially viable until 2005.The availability, affordability and use of communications facilities and services in Mackay increased significantly during the period of the Regionlink project. Changes in technology, services, markets, competition, and many other factors contributed to this increase, so it is difficult to ascertain the extent to which Mackay Regionlink fostered those outcomes. However, the large number of people who participated in the Regionlink training program and made use of the public Internet access centres, suggests that the project had a positive influence on digital literacy in the Mackay region.The Impact on BusinessThe Internet has transformed regional business for both consumers and business owners alike since the Visions of Mackay conference. When Mackay residents made a purchase in 1997, their choice of suppliers was limited to a few local businesses. Today they can shop online in a global market. Security concerns were initially a major obstacle to the growth of electronic commerce. Consumers were slow to adopt the Internet as a place for doing business, fearing that their credit card details would be vulnerable to hackers once they were placed online. After observing the efforts that finance and software companies were making to eliminate those obstacles, I anticipated that it would only be a matter of time before online transactions became commonplace:Consumers seeking a particular product will be able to quickly find the names of suitable suppliers around the world, compare their prices, and place an order with the one that can deliver the product at the cheapest price. (Pace 106)This expectation was soon fulfilled by the arrival of online payment systems such as PayPal in 1998, and online shopping services such as eBay in 1997. eBay is a global online auction and shopping website where individuals and businesses buy and sell goods and services worldwide. The eBay service is free to use for buyers, but sellers are charged modest fees when they make a sale. It exemplifies the notion of “friction-free capitalism” articulated by Gates (157).In 1997, regional Australian business owners were largely sceptical about the potential benefits the Internet could bring to their businesses. Only 11 percent of Australian businesses had some form of web presence, and less than 35 percent of those early adopters felt that their website was significant to their business (Department of Industry, Science and Tourism). Anticipating the significant opportunities that the Internet offered Mackay businesses to compete in new markets, I recommended that they work “towards the goal of providing products and services that meet the needs of international consumers as well as local ones” (107). In the two decades that have passed since that time, many Mackay businesses have been doing just that. One prime example is Big on Shoes (bigonshoes.com.au), a retailer of ladies’ shoes from sizes five to fifteen (Plane). Big on Shoes has physical shopfronts in Mackay and Moranbah, an online store that has been operating since 2009, and more than 12,000 followers on Facebook. This speciality store caters for women who have traditionally been unable to find shoes in their size. As the store’s customer base has grown within Australia and internationally, an unexpected transgender market has also emerged. In 2018 Big on Shoes was one of 30 regional businesses featured in the first Facebook and Instagram Annual Gift Guide, and it continues to build on its strengths (Cureton).The Impact on HealthThe growth of the Internet has improved the availability of specialist health services for people in the Mackay region. Traditionally, access to surgical services in Mackay has been much more limited than in metropolitan areas because of the shortage of specialists willing to practise in regional areas (Green). In 2003, a senior informant from the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons bluntly described the Central Queensland region from Mackay to Gladstone as “a black hole in terms of surgery” (Birrell et al. 15). In 1997 I anticipated that, although the Internet would never completely replace a visit to a local doctor or hospital, it would provide tools that improve the availability of specialist medical services for people living in regional areas. Using these tools, doctors would be able to “analyse medical images captured from patients living in remote locations” and “diagnose patients at a distance” (Pace 108).These expectations have been realised in the form of Queensland Health’s Telehealth initiative, which permits medical specialists in Brisbane and Townsville to conduct consultations with patients at the Mackay Base Hospital using video-conference technology. Telehealth reduces the need for patients to travel for specialist advice, and it provides health professionals with access to peer support. Averill (7), for example, reports on the experience of a breast cancer patient at the Mackay Base Hospital who was able to participate in a drug trial with a Townsville oncologist through the Telehealth network. Mackay health professionals organised the patient’s scans, administered blood tests, and checked her lymph nodes, blood pressure and weight. Townsville health professionals then used this information to advise the Mackay team about her ongoing treatment. The patient expressed appreciation that the service allowed her to avoid the lengthy round-trip to Townsville. Prior to being offered the Telehealth option, she had refused to participate in the trial because “the trip was just too much of a stumbling block” (Averill 7).The Impact on Media and EntertainmentThe field of media and entertainment is another aspect of regional life that has been reshaped by the Internet since the Visions of Mackay conference. Most of these changes have been equally apparent in both regional and metropolitan areas. Over the past decade, the way individuals consume media has been transformed by new online services offering user-generated video, video-on-demand, and catch-up TV. These developments were among the changes I anticipated in 1997:The convergence of television and the Internet will stimulate the creation of new services such as video-on-demand. Today television is a synchronous media—programs are usually viewed while they are being broadcast. When high-quality video can be transmitted over the information superhighway, users will be able to watch what they want, when and where they like. […] Newly released movies will continue to be rented, but probably not from stores. Instead, consumers will shop on the information superhighway for movies that can be delivered on demand.In the mid-2000s, free online video-sharing services such as YouTube and Vimeo began to emerge. These websites allow users to freely upload, view, share, comment on, and curate online videos. Subscription-based streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime have also become increasingly popular since that time. These services offer online streaming of a library of films and television programs for a fee of less than 20 dollars per month. Computers, smart TVs, Blu-ray players, game consoles, mobile phones, tablets, and other devices provide a multitude of ways of accessing streaming services. Some of these devices cost less than 100 dollars, while higher-end electronic devices include the capability as a bundled feature. Netflix became available in Mackay at the time of its Australian launch in 2015. The growth of streaming services greatly reduced the demand for video rental shops in the region, and all closed down as a result. The last remaining video rental store in Mackay closed its doors in 2018 after trading for 26 years (“Last”).Some of the most dramatic transformations that have occurred the field of media and entertainment were not anticipated in 1997. The rise of mobile technology, including wireless data communications, smartphones, mobile applications, and tablet computers, was largely unforeseen at that time. Some Internet luminaries such as Vinton Cerf expected that mobile access to the Internet via laptop computers would become commonplace (Lange), but this view did not encompass the evolution of smartphones, and it was not widely held. Similarly, the rise of social media services and the impact they have had on the way people share content and communicate was generally unexpected. In some respects, these phenomena resemble the Black Swan events described by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (xvii)—surprising events with a major effect that are often inappropriately rationalised after the fact. They remind us of how difficult it is to predict the future media landscape by extrapolating from things we know, while failing to take into consideration what we do not know.The Challenge for MackayIn 1997, when exploring the potential impact that the Internet could have on the Mackay region, I identified a special challenge that the community faced if it wanted to be competitive in this new environment:The region has traditionally prospered from industries that control physical resources such as coal, sugar and tourism, but over the last two decades there has been a global ‘shift away from physical assets and towards information as the principal driver of wealth creation’ (Petre and Harrington 1996). The risk for Mackay is that its residents may be inclined to believe that wealth can only be created by means of industries that control physical assets. The community must realise that its value-added information is at least as precious as its abundant natural resources. (110)The Mackay region has not responded well to this challenge, as evidenced by measures such as the Knowledge City Index (KCI), a collection of six indicators that assess how well a city is positioned to grow and advance in today’s technology-driven, knowledge-based economy. A 2017 study used the KCI to conduct a comparative analysis of 25 Australian cities (Pratchett, Hu, Walsh, and Tuli). Mackay rated reasonably well in the areas of Income and Digital Access. But the city’s ratings were “very limited across all the other measures of the KCI”: Knowledge Capacity, Knowledge Mobility, Knowledge Industries and Smart Work (44).The need to be competitive in a technology-driven, knowledge-based economy is likely to become even more pressing in the years ahead. The 2017 World Energy Outlook Report estimated that China’s coal use is likely to have peaked in 2013 amid a rapid shift toward renewable energy, which means that demand for Mackay’s coal will continue to decline (International Energy Agency). The sugar industry is in crisis, finding itself unable to diversify its revenue base or increase production enough to offset falling global sugar prices (Rynne). The region’s biggest tourism drawcard, the Great Barrier Reef, continues to be degraded by mass coral bleaching events and ongoing threats posed by climate change and poor water quality (Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority). All of these developments have disturbing implications for Mackay’s regional economy and its reliance on coal, sugar, and tourism. Diversifying the local economy through the introduction of new knowledge industries would be one way of preparing the Mackay region for the impact of new technologies and the economic challenges that lie ahead.ReferencesAverill, Zizi. “Webcam Consultations.” Daily Mercury 22 Nov. 2018: 7.Birrell, Bob, Lesleyanne Hawthorne, and Virginia Rapson. The Outlook for Surgical Services in Australasia. Melbourne: Monash University Centre for Population and Urban Research, 2003.Cureton, Aidan. “Big Shoes, Big Ideas.” Daily Mercury 8 Dec. 2018: 12.Danaher, Geoff. Ed. Visions of Mackay: Conference Papers. Rockhampton: Central Queensland UP, 1998.Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts. Networking the Nation: Evaluation of Outcomes and Impacts. Canberra: Australian Government, 2005.Department of Industry, Science and Tourism. Electronic Commerce in Australia. Canberra: Australian Government, 1998.Frost, Pamela. “Mackay Is Up with Switch to Speed to NBN.” Daily Mercury 15 Aug. 2013: 8.———. “NBN Boost to Business.” Daily Mercury 29 Oct. 2013: 3.Gates, Bill. The Road Ahead. New York: Viking Penguin, 1995.Garvey, Cas. “NBN Rollout Hit, Miss in Mackay.” Daily Mercury 11 Jul. 2017: 6.Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. Reef Blueprint: Great Barrier Reef Blueprint for Resilience. Townsville: Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, 2017.Green, Anthony. “Surgical Services and Referrals in Rural and Remote Australia.” Medical Journal of Australia 177.2 (2002): 110–11.International Energy Agency. World Energy Outlook 2017. France: IEA Publications, 2017.Jewell, Roderick, Mary O’Flynn, Fiorella De Cindio, and Margaret Cameron. “RCM and MRL—A Reflection on Two Approaches to Constructing Communication Memory.” Constructing and Sharing Memory: Community Informatics, Identity and Empowerment. Eds. Larry Stillman and Graeme Johanson. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007. 73–86.Lange, Larry. “The Internet: Where’s It All Going?” Information Week 17 Jul. 1995: 30.“Last Man Standing Shuts Doors after 26 Years of Trade.” Daily Mercury 28 Aug. 2018: 7.Lewis, Steve. “Optus Plans to Share Cost Burden.” Australian Financial Review 22 May 1997: 26.Meredith, Helen. “Time Short for Cable Modem.” Australian Financial Review 10 Apr. 1997: 42Nassim Nicholas Taleb. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. New York: Random House, 2007.“Optus Offers Comp for Slow NBN.” Daily Mercury 10 Nov. 2017: 15.Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. “Fixed Broadband Subscriptions.” OECD Data, n.d. <https://data.oecd.org/broadband/fixed-broadband-subscriptions.htm>.Pace, Steven. “Mackay Online.” Visions of Mackay: Conference Papers. Ed. Geoff Danaher. Rockhampton: Central Queensland University Press, 1998. 111–19.Petre, Daniel and David Harrington. The Clever Country? Australia’s Digital Future. Sydney: Lansdown Publishing, 1996.Plane, Melanie. “A Shoe-In for Big Success.” Daily Mercury 9 Sep. 2017: 6.Pratchett, Lawrence, Richard Hu, Michael Walsh, and Sajeda Tuli. The Knowledge City Index: A Tale of 25 Cities in Australia. Canberra: University of Canberra neXus Research Centre, 2017.“Qld Customers NB-uN Happy Complaints about NBN Service Double in 12 Months.” Daily Mercury 17 Apr. 2018: 1.Rudd, Kevin. “Media Release: New National Broadband Network.” Parliament of Australia Press Release, 7 Apr. 2009 <https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id:"media/pressrel/PS8T6">.Rynne, David. “Revitalising the Sugar Industry.” Sugar Policy Insights Feb. 2019: 2–3.Taylor, Emma. “A Dip in the Pond.” Sydney Morning Herald 16 Aug. 1997: 12.“Telcos and NBN Co in a Crisis.” Daily Mercury 27 Jul. 2017: 6.

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Although I'm a rich white guy, I'm also a feminist anti-racism activist who fights for the rights of the poor and oppressed. (Carl Kenner)Systemic bias is a scourge to the pillar of neutrality. (Cerejota)Count me in. Let's leave the bias to the mainstream media. (Orcar967)Because this is so important. (CuttingEdge)These are a handful of comments posted by online editors who have banded together in a virtual coalition to combat Western bias on the world’s largest digital encyclopedia, Wikipedia. This collective action by Wikipedians both acknowledges the inherent inequalities of a user-controlled information project like Wikpedia and highlights the potential for progressive change within that same project. These community members are taking the responsibility of social change into their own hands (or more aptly, their own keyboards).In recent years much research has emerged on Wikipedia from varying fields, ranging from computer science, to business and information systems, to the social sciences. While critical at times of Wikipedia’s growth, governance, and influence, most of this work observes with optimism that barriers to improvement are not firmly structural, but rather they are socially constructed, leaving open the possibility of important and lasting change for the better.WikiProject: Countering Systemic Bias (WP:CSB) considers one such collective effort. Close to 350 editors have signed on to the project, which began in 2004 and itself emerged from a similar project named CROSSBOW, or the “Committee Regarding Overcoming Serious Systemic Bias on Wikipedia.” As a WikiProject, the term used for a loose group of editors who collaborate around a particular topic, these editors work within the Wikipedia site and collectively create a social network that is unified around one central aim—representing the un- and underrepresented—and yet they are bound by no particular unified set of interests. The first stage of a multi-method study, this paper looks at a snapshot of WP:CSB’s activity from both content analysis and social network perspectives to discover “who” geographically this coalition of the unrepresented is inserting into the digital annals of Wikipedia.Wikipedia and WikipediansDeveloped in 2001 by Internet entrepreneur Jimmy Wales and academic Larry Sanger, Wikipedia is an online collaborative encyclopedia hosting articles in nearly 250 languages (Cohen). The English-language Wikipedia contains over 3.2 million articles, each of which is created, edited, and updated solely by users (Wikipedia “Welcome”). At the time of this study, Alexa, a website tracking organisation, ranked Wikipedia as the 6th most accessed site on the Internet. Unlike the five sites ahead of it though—Google, Facebook, Yahoo, YouTube (owned by Google), and live.com (owned by Microsoft)—all of which are multibillion-dollar businesses that deal more with information aggregation than information production, Wikipedia is a non-profit that operates on less than $500,000 a year and staffs only a dozen paid employees (Lih). Wikipedia is financed and supported by the WikiMedia Foundation, a charitable umbrella organisation with an annual budget of $4.6 million, mainly funded by donations (Middleton).Wikipedia editors and contributors have the option of creating a user profile and participating via a username, or they may participate anonymously, with only an IP address representing their actions. Despite the option for total anonymity, many Wikipedians have chosen to visibly engage in this online community (Ayers, Matthews, and Yates; Bruns; Lih), and researchers across disciplines are studying the motivations of these new online collectives (Kane, Majchrzak, Johnson, and Chenisern; Oreg and Nov). The motivations of open source software contributors, such as UNIX programmers and programming groups, have been shown to be complex and tied to both extrinsic and intrinsic rewards, including online reputation, self-satisfaction and enjoyment, and obligation to a greater common good (Hertel, Niedner, and Herrmann; Osterloh and Rota). Investigation into why Wikipedians edit has indicated multiple motivations as well, with community engagement, task enjoyment, and information sharing among the most significant (Schroer and Hertel). Additionally, Wikipedians seem to be taking up the cause of generativity (a concern for the ongoing health and openness of the Internet’s infrastructures) that Jonathan Zittrain notably called for in The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It. Governance and ControlAlthough the technical infrastructure of Wikipedia is built to support and perhaps encourage an equal distribution of power on the site, Wikipedia is not a land of “anything goes.” The popular press has covered recent efforts by the site to reduce vandalism through a layer of editorial review (Cohen), a tightening of control cited as a possible reason for the recent dip in the number of active editors (Edwards). A number of regulations are already in place that prevent the open editing of certain articles and pages, such as the site’s disclaimers and pages that have suffered large amounts of vandalism. Editing wars can also cause temporary restrictions to editing, and Ayers, Matthews, and Yates point out that these wars can happen anywhere, even to Burt Reynold’s page.Academic studies have begun to explore the governance and control that has developed in the Wikipedia community, generally highlighting how order is maintained not through particular actors, but through established procedures and norms. Konieczny tested whether Wikipedia’s evolution can be defined by Michels’ Iron Law of Oligopoly, which predicts that the everyday operations of any organisation cannot be run by a mass of members, and ultimately control falls into the hands of the few. Through exploring a particular WikiProject on information validation, he concludes:There are few indicators of an oligarchy having power on Wikipedia, and few trends of a change in this situation. The high level of empowerment of individual Wikipedia editors with regard to policy making, the ease of communication, and the high dedication to ideals of contributors succeed in making Wikipedia an atypical organization, quite resilient to the Iron Law. (189)Butler, Joyce, and Pike support this assertion, though they emphasise that instead of oligarchy, control becomes encapsulated in a wide variety of structures, policies, and procedures that guide involvement with the site. A virtual “bureaucracy” emerges, but one that should not be viewed with the negative connotation often associated with the term.Other work considers control on Wikipedia through the framework of commons governance, where “peer production depends on individual action that is self-selected and decentralized rather than hierarchically assigned. Individuals make their own choices with regard to resources managed as a commons” (Viegas, Wattenberg and McKeon). The need for quality standards and quality control largely dictate this commons governance, though interviewing Wikipedians with various levels of responsibility revealed that policies and procedures are only as good as those who maintain them. Forte, Larco, and Bruckman argue “the Wikipedia community has remained healthy in large part due to the continued presence of ‘old-timers’ who carry a set of social norms and organizational ideals with them into every WikiProject, committee, and local process in which they take part” (71). Thus governance on Wikipedia is a strong representation of a democratic ideal, where actors and policies are closely tied in their evolution. Transparency, Content, and BiasThe issue of transparency has proved to be a double-edged sword for Wikipedia and Wikipedians. The goal of a collective body of knowledge created by all—the “expert” and the “amateur”—can only be upheld if equal access to page creation and development is allotted to everyone, including those who prefer anonymity. And yet this very option for anonymity, or even worse, false identities, has been a sore subject for some in the Wikipedia community as well as a source of concern for some scholars (Santana and Wood). The case of a 24-year old college dropout who represented himself as a multiple Ph.D.-holding theology scholar and edited over 16,000 articles brought these issues into the public spotlight in 2007 (Doran; Elsworth). Wikipedia itself has set up standards for content that include expectations of a neutral point of view, verifiability of information, and the publishing of no original research, but Santana and Wood argue that self-policing of these policies is not adequate:The principle of managerial discretion requires that every actor act from a sense of duty to exercise moral autonomy and choice in responsible ways. When Wikipedia’s editors and administrators remain anonymous, this criterion is simply not met. It is assumed that everyone is behaving responsibly within the Wikipedia system, but there are no monitoring or control mechanisms to make sure that this is so, and there is ample evidence that it is not so. (141) At the theoretical level, some downplay these concerns of transparency and autonomy as logistical issues in lieu of the potential for information systems to support rational discourse and emancipatory forms of communication (Hansen, Berente, and Lyytinen), but others worry that the questionable “realities” created on Wikipedia will become truths once circulated to all areas of the Web (Langlois and Elmer). With the number of articles on the English-language version of Wikipedia reaching well into the millions, the task of mapping and assessing content has become a tremendous endeavour, one mostly taken on by information systems experts. Kittur, Chi, and Suh have used Wikipedia’s existing hierarchical categorisation structure to map change in the site’s content over the past few years. Their work revealed that in early 2008 “Culture and the arts” was the most dominant category of content on Wikipedia, representing nearly 30% of total content. People (15%) and geographical locations (14%) represent the next largest categories, while the natural and physical sciences showed the greatest increase in volume between 2006 and 2008 (+213%D, with “Culture and the arts” close behind at +210%D). This data may indicate that contributing to Wikipedia, and thus spreading knowledge, is growing amongst the academic community while maintaining its importance to the greater popular culture-minded community. Further work by Kittur and Kraut has explored the collaborative process of content creation, finding that too many editors on a particular page can reduce the quality of content, even when a project is well coordinated.Bias in Wikipedia content is a generally acknowledged and somewhat conflicted subject (Giles; Johnson; McHenry). The Wikipedia community has created numerous articles and pages within the site to define and discuss the problem. Citing a survey conducted by the University of Würzburg, Germany, the “Wikipedia:Systemic bias” page describes the average Wikipedian as:MaleTechnically inclinedFormally educatedAn English speakerWhiteAged 15-49From a majority Christian countryFrom a developed nationFrom the Northern HemisphereLikely a white-collar worker or studentBias in content is thought to be perpetuated by this demographic of contributor, and the “founder effect,” a concept from genetics, linking the original contributors to this same demographic has been used to explain the origins of certain biases. Wikipedia’s “About” page discusses the issue as well, in the context of the open platform’s strengths and weaknesses:in practice editing will be performed by a certain demographic (younger rather than older, male rather than female, rich enough to afford a computer rather than poor, etc.) and may, therefore, show some bias. Some topics may not be covered well, while others may be covered in great depth. No educated arguments against this inherent bias have been advanced.Royal and Kapila’s study of Wikipedia content tested some of these assertions, finding identifiable bias in both their purposive and random sampling. They conclude that bias favoring larger countries is positively correlated with the size of the country’s Internet population, and corporations with larger revenues work in much the same way, garnering more coverage on the site. The researchers remind us that Wikipedia is “more a socially produced document than a value-free information source” (Royal & Kapila).WikiProject: Countering Systemic BiasAs a coalition of current Wikipedia editors, the WikiProject: Countering Systemic Bias (WP:CSB) attempts to counter trends in content production and points of view deemed harmful to the democratic ideals of a valueless, open online encyclopedia. WP:CBS’s mission is not one of policing the site, but rather deepening it:Generally, this project concentrates upon remedying omissions (entire topics, or particular sub-topics in extant articles) rather than on either (1) protesting inappropriate inclusions, or (2) trying to remedy issues of how material is presented. Thus, the first question is "What haven't we covered yet?", rather than "how should we change the existing coverage?" (Wikipedia, “Countering”)The project lays out a number of content areas lacking adequate representation, geographically highlighting the dearth in coverage of Africa, Latin America, Asia, and parts of Eastern Europe. WP:CSB also includes a “members” page that editors can sign to show their support, along with space to voice their opinions on the problem of bias on Wikipedia (the quotations at the beginning of this paper are taken from this “members” page). At the time of this study, 329 editors had self-selected and self-identified as members of WP:CSB, and this group constitutes the population sample for the current study. To explore the extent to which WP:CSB addressed these self-identified areas for improvement, each editor’s last 50 edits were coded for their primary geographical country of interest, as well as the conceptual category of the page itself (“P” for person/people, “L” for location, “I” for idea/concept, “T” for object/thing, or “NA” for indeterminate). For example, edits to the Wikipedia page for a single person like Tony Abbott (Australian federal opposition leader) were coded “Australia, P”, while an edit for a group of people like the Manchester United football team would be coded “England, P”. Coding was based on information obtained from the header paragraphs of each article’s Wikipedia page. After coding was completed, corresponding information on each country’s associated continent was added to the dataset, based on the United Nations Statistics Division listing.A total of 15,616 edits were coded for the study. Nearly 32% (n = 4962) of these edits were on articles for persons or people (see Table 1 for complete coding results). From within this sub-sample of edits, a majority of the people (68.67%) represented are associated with North America and Europe (Figure A). If we break these statistics down further, nearly half of WP:CSB’s edits concerning people were associated with the United States (36.11%) and England (10.16%), with India (3.65%) and Australia (3.35%) following at a distance. These figures make sense for the English-language Wikipedia; over 95% of the population in the three Westernised countries speak English, and while India is still often regarded as a developing nation, its colonial British roots and the emergence of a market economy with large, technology-driven cities are logical explanations for its representation here (and some estimates make India the largest English-speaking nation by population on the globe today).Table A Coding Results Total Edits 15616 (I) Ideas 2881 18.45% (L) Location 2240 14.34% NA 333 2.13% (T) Thing 5200 33.30% (P) People 4962 31.78% People by Continent Africa 315 6.35% Asia 827 16.67% Australia 175 3.53% Europe 1411 28.44% NA 110 2.22% North America 1996 40.23% South America 128 2.58% The areas of the globe of main concern to WP:CSB proved to be much less represented by the coalition itself. Asia, far and away the most populous continent with more than 60% of the globe’s people (GeoHive), was represented in only 16.67% of edits. Africa (6.35%) and South America (2.58%) were equally underrepresented compared to both their real-world populations (15% and 9% of the globe’s population respectively) and the aforementioned dominance of the advanced Westernised areas. However, while these percentages may seem low, in aggregate they do meet the quota set on the WP:CSB Project Page calling for one out of every twenty edits to be “a subject that is systematically biased against the pages of your natural interests.” By this standard, the coalition is indeed making headway in adding content that strategically counterbalances the natural biases of Wikipedia’s average editor.Figure ASocial network analysis allows us to visualise multifaceted data in order to identify relationships between actors and content (Vego-Redondo; Watts). Similar to Davis’s well-known sociological study of Southern American socialites in the 1930s (Scott), our Wikipedia coalition can be conceptualised as individual actors united by common interests, and a network of relations can be constructed with software such as UCINET. A mapping algorithm that considers both the relationship between all sets of actors and each actor to the overall collective structure produces an image of our network. This initial network is bimodal, as both our Wikipedia editors and their edits (again, coded for country of interest) are displayed as nodes (Figure B). Edge-lines between nodes represents a relationship, and here that relationship is the act of editing a Wikipedia article. We see from our network that the “U.S.” and “England” hold central positions in the network, with a mass of editors crowding around them. A perimeter of nations is then held in place by their ties to editors through the U.S. and England, with a second layer of editors and poorly represented nations (Gabon, Laos, Uzbekistan, etc.) around the boundaries of the network.Figure BWe are reminded from this visualisation both of the centrality of the two Western powers even among WP:CSB editoss, and of the peripheral nature of most other nations in the world. But we also learn which editors in the project are contributing most to underrepresented areas, and which are less “tied” to the Western core. Here we see “Wizzy” and “Warofdreams” among the second layer of editors who act as a bridge between the core and the periphery; these are editors with interests in both the Western and marginalised nations. Located along the outer edge, “Gallador” and “Gerrit” have no direct ties to the U.S. or England, concentrating all of their edits on less represented areas of the globe. Identifying editors at these key positions in the network will help with future research, informing interview questions that will investigate their interests further, but more significantly, probing motives for participation and action within the coalition.Additionally, we can break the network down further to discover editors who appear to have similar interests in underrepresented areas. Figure C strips down the network to only editors and edits dealing with Africa and South America, the least represented continents. From this we can easily find three types of editors again: those who have singular interests in particular nations (the outermost layer of editors), those who have interests in a particular region (the second layer moving inward), and those who have interests in both of these underrepresented regions (the center layer in the figure). This last group of editors may prove to be the most crucial to understand, as they are carrying the full load of WP:CSB’s mission.Figure CThe End of Geography, or the Reclamation?In The Internet Galaxy, Manuel Castells writes that “the Internet Age has been hailed as the end of geography,” a bold suggestion, but one that has gained traction over the last 15 years as the excitement for the possibilities offered by information communication technologies has often overshadowed structural barriers to participation like the Digital Divide (207). Castells goes on to amend the “end of geography” thesis by showing how global information flows and regional Internet access rates, while creating a new “map” of the world in many ways, is still closely tied to power structures in the analog world. The Internet Age: “redefines distance but does not cancel geography” (207). The work of WikiProject: Countering Systemic Bias emphasises the importance of place and representation in the information environment that continues to be constructed in the online world. This study looked at only a small portion of this coalition’s efforts (~16,000 edits)—a snapshot of their labor frozen in time—which itself is only a minute portion of the information being dispatched through Wikipedia on a daily basis (~125,000 edits). Further analysis of WP:CSB’s work over time, as well as qualitative research into the identities, interests and motivations of this collective, is needed to understand more fully how information bias is understood and challenged in the Internet galaxy. The data here indicates this is a fight worth fighting for at least a growing few.ReferencesAlexa. “Top Sites.” Alexa.com, n.d. 10 Mar. 2010 ‹http://www.alexa.com/topsites>. Ayers, Phoebe, Charles Matthews, and Ben Yates. How Wikipedia Works: And How You Can Be a Part of It. San Francisco, CA: No Starch, 2008.Bruns, Axel. Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage. New York: Peter Lang, 2008.Butler, Brian, Elisabeth Joyce, and Jacqueline Pike. Don’t Look Now, But We’ve Created a Bureaucracy: The Nature and Roles of Policies and Rules in Wikipedia. Paper presented at 2008 CHI Annual Conference, Florence.Castells, Manuel. The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001.Cohen, Noam. “Wikipedia.” New York Times, n.d. 12 Mar. 2010 ‹http://www.nytimes.com/info/wikipedia/>. Doran, James. “Wikipedia Chief Promises Change after ‘Expert’ Exposed as Fraud.” The Times, 6 Mar. 2007 ‹http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article1480012.ece>. Edwards, Lin. “Report Claims Wikipedia Losing Editors in Droves.” Physorg.com, 30 Nov 2009. 12 Feb. 2010 ‹http://www.physorg.com/news178787309.html>. Elsworth, Catherine. “Fake Wikipedia Prof Altered 20,000 Entries.” London Telegraph, 6 Mar. 2007 ‹http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1544737/Fake-Wikipedia-prof-altered-20000-entries.html>. Forte, Andrea, Vanessa Larco, and Amy Bruckman. “Decentralization in Wikipedia Governance.” Journal of Management Information Systems 26 (2009): 49-72.Giles, Jim. “Internet Encyclopedias Go Head to Head.” Nature 438 (2005): 900-901.Hansen, Sean, Nicholas Berente, and Kalle Lyytinen. “Wikipedia, Critical Social Theory, and the Possibility of Rational Discourse.” The Information Society 25 (2009): 38-59.Hertel, Guido, Sven Niedner, and Stefanie Herrmann. “Motivation of Software Developers in Open Source Projects: An Internet-Based Survey of Contributors to the Linex Kernel.” Research Policy 32 (2003): 1159-1177.Johnson, Bobbie. “Rightwing Website Challenges ‘Liberal Bias’ of Wikipedia.” The Guardian, 1 Mar. 2007. 8 Mar. 2010 ‹http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/mar/01/wikipedia.news>. Kane, Gerald C., Ann Majchrzak, Jeremaih Johnson, and Lily Chenisern. A Longitudinal Model of Perspective Making and Perspective Taking within Fluid Online Collectives. Paper presented at the 2009 International Conference on Information Systems, Phoenix, AZ, 2009.Kittur, Aniket, Ed H. Chi, and Bongwon Suh. What’s in Wikipedia? Mapping Topics and Conflict Using Socially Annotated Category Structure. Paper presented at the 2009 CHI Annual Conference, Boston, MA.———, and Robert E. Kraut. Harnessing the Wisdom of Crowds in Wikipedia: Quality through Collaboration. Paper presented at the 2008 Association for Computing Machinery’s Computer Supported Cooperative Work Annual Conference, San Diego, CA.Konieczny, Piotr. “Governance, Organization, and Democracy on the Internet: The Iron Law and the Evolution of Wikipedia.” Sociological Forum 24 (2009): 162-191.———. “Wikipedia: Community or Social Movement?” Interface: A Journal for and about Social Movements 1 (2009): 212-232.Langlois, Ganaele, and Greg Elmer. “Wikipedia Leeches? The Promotion of Traffic through a Collaborative Web Format.” New Media & Society 11 (2009): 773-794.Lih, Andrew. The Wikipedia Revolution. New York, NY: Hyperion, 2009.McHenry, Robert. “The Real Bias in Wikipedia: A Response to David Shariatmadari.” OpenDemocracy.com 2006. 8 Mar. 2010 ‹http://www.opendemocracy.net/media-edemocracy/wikipedia_bias_3621.jsp>. Middleton, Chris. “The World of Wikinomics.” Computer Weekly, 20 Jan. 2009: 22-26.Oreg, Shaul, and Oded Nov. “Exploring Motivations for Contributing to Open Source Initiatives: The Roles of Contribution, Context and Personal Values.” Computers in Human Behavior 24 (2008): 2055-2073.Osterloh, Margit and Sandra Rota. “Trust and Community in Open Source Software Production.” Analyse & Kritik 26 (2004): 279-301.Royal, Cindy, and Deepina Kapila. “What’s on Wikipedia, and What’s Not…?: Assessing Completeness of Information.” Social Science Computer Review 27 (2008): 138-148.Santana, Adele, and Donna J. Wood. “Transparency and Social Responsibility Issues for Wikipedia.” Ethics of Information Technology 11 (2009): 133-144.Schroer, Joachim, and Guido Hertel. “Voluntary Engagement in an Open Web-Based Encyclopedia: Wikipedians and Why They Do It.” Media Psychology 12 (2009): 96-120.Scott, John. Social Network Analysis. London: Sage, 1991.Vego-Redondo, Fernando. Complex Social Networks. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007.Viegas, Fernanda B., Martin Wattenberg, and Matthew M. McKeon. “The Hidden Order of Wikipedia.” Online Communities and Social Computing (2007): 445-454.Watts, Duncan. Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 2003Wikipedia. “About.” n.d. 8 Mar. 2010 ‹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About>. ———. “Welcome to Wikipedia.” n.d. 8 Mar. 2010 ‹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page>.———. “Wikiproject:Countering Systemic Bias.” n.d. 12 Feb. 2010 ‹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias#Members>. Zittrain, Jonathan. The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 2008.

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This article uses the case of a regional intermediary organisation to investigate organisational memory (OM) and its contribution to knowledge management and activities in evaluations. Understanding of, and accessing OM is critical for participatory evaluations. The aim of the article is to reflect on the OM of a non-governmental organisation (NGO) and what implicationsthe structural changes in OM over the organisation’s life cycle have for evaluators. It further aims to advocate an awareness of OM and explains how evaluators can access and utilise it more effectively. Evaluators need to have an understanding of OM, and to take more responsibility for disseminating results to enhance it. This case study reflects on a retrospective case example of a regional NGO. The report reflects the development and structure of the life cycle of the organisation. The data collection included in-depth interviews with staff members and other key stakeholders, engagement with beneficiary organisations and donors, and analyses of documents, electronic files and audio-visual material. Since OM survives after the demise of an organisation, and is accessible through directories, it is important for the evaluator to include historical information. Specific implications for evaluators include the ability to access OM through directories and networks of the organisation. As evaluators hold OM of all the organisations they have engaged with, they also have a responsibility to share knowledge. The key findings of this study illustrate the importance of accessing the memory and historical information of the organisation. Understanding OM enhances the in-depth comprehension of the activity, project or programme under investigation, and the collective knowledge generated as a result of it.

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Land degradation is a major cause of declining yields and loss of dryland ecosystems resilience in the Lake Baringo Basin in Kenya. One of the solutions to land degradation in drylands is the application of Sustainable Land Management (SLM) technologies. Improving farmers’ capacity to adopt SLM technologies has been an important strategy of the Kenyan government and her development partners to addressing land degradation. State agricultural extension services are charged with the role of building this capacity. Unfortunately, such extension services have had little impact in the Kenyan drylands. To counter this inadequacy in extension services, farmers have formed grass-root organisations to foster networks of support and information sharing. In this paper, we analysed the effect of participation in farmers organisation in promoting adoption of SLM practices by agropastoralists in the Lake Baringo Basin. Data were collected through in-depth household interviews with 150 farmers, 79 of them group members and 71 non-group members. Level of knowledge, sources of information and challenges of SLM adoption were studied. The study revealed significant and positive association between group participation and adoption of SLM practices at X2 (3, N=150=63.209, P=0.000). Additionally, group partnering with development agencies like Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and government departments was reported to have significant influence on household adoption of SLM practices at X2 (3, N=79=13.147, P=0.004). The results indicated that farmer groups can effectively be used to leverage farmers' adoption of SLM innovations and potentially improve household income and food security in the Kenyan drylands. We recommended organizational and resource capacity building for farmer groups to promote their effectiveness in provision of resources and services to their members. In addition, government research and extension agencies and academia should consider forming collaborations with farmer groups in generation of SLM technologies that are suited to the farmers location and prevailing context.

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One of the great issues for governments and related organisations everywhere is that of staying close to their citizens and maintaining accountability through the provision of accurate, trustworthy and complete information. The size of an organisation can often impede open and timely information delivery, and the complexity of government structures can cause frustration and suspicion. Given the size and complexity of the EU, it could be considered reasonable to suppose that the EU would have institutional barriers to the integrity of the information provided to the public. Indeed, criticism of the EU is frequently framed in terms of its supposed lack of accountability and the claim that it is out of touch with its citizens (Gehrke 2019). To counter this, the EU makes increasing use of online systems to render its working practices visible to the public to facilitate scrutiny and improve transparency. However, these online systems have frequently been introduced without reliable and consistent quality assurance (QA) processes to ensure the accuracy of the information in the public domain in order to promote the institutional trust that the EU seeks. Furthermore, the EU ministerial declaration of 2005 argues for promoting ‘public confidence’ in information provision for e-government. Confidence and trust are inextricably linked, as this article shows. Drawing on 22 qualitative interviews with EU officials and representatives of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), this article demonstrates that low QA is in fact a deliberate policy, with the European Commission openly acknowledging its reliance on public control to police the information it provides through its online systems. This creates a transparency paradox by allowing CSOs to take advantage of the weakness in information QA to weaponise their information to attack the EU. This is a key consideration, not only for the EU but for all governments and non-governmental organisations across the world. A perceived weakness in information provision which subverts the building of trust, particularly political trust, increases the scope for individual or state actors to exploit the internet to weaken and undermine citizen participation. This article tackles the issue through primary research to demonstrate the dangers of weaponised information in the modern political arena.

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The use of RFID (radio frequency identification), also called “smart tags”, is on the rise in the retail industry. In short, RFID are tiny microchips using short range radio signals to emit information and can be used to tag goods, buildings, cars, pets, people etc. Unlike bar-code scanners, which must be held directly in front of the item being scanned, one of the benefits of RFID tags is that they can be scanned from a distance. It is expected that RFID will eventually replace the bar code and its use is likely to save companies like Wal-Mart, Procter & Gamble and Gillette millions of dollars as they can track every bottle of shampoo or packet of razor blades from the factory floor to the store shelf (Baard, “Lawmakers”). Most agree that using RFID to track goods from the point of manufacture to the location of sale in order to prevent goods being lost, stolen or handled inappropriately, is acceptable and not cause for privacy concerns. But as marketers often take every opportunity to learn more about consumers and their purchasing behaviours, some fear that tags embedded in clothing, membership cards, mobile phones etc. may be scanned inappropriately and used to target individuals with cleverly tailored marketing messages. In the effort to provide a more customised experience, business is at risk of becoming increasingly intrusive – something that will not be universally acceptable. But is it all bad? Privacy concerns aside, smart tags can add new functions as well as enable a whole range of innovative products and services when joined with other technologies. RFID beyond Traditional Value Chain Management Prada is often mentioned as an example of how RFID can be taken beyond the traditional value chain management. Prada has implemented some ground-breaking technology in their Manhattan (New York) store, all based around RFID. RF-receivers automatically detect and scan garments brought into the dressing room. Via a touch screen the customers view tips on how to mix and match, access information about available sizes, colours, fabrics and styles, and watch video clips of models wearing the very outfit they are trying on (Grassley, ”Prada’s”). Eventually customers will be able to create virtual closets and store information about what they have tried on or bought on their Prada Web account (”Prada’s”). Customers’ details, including notes made by sales assistants, e.g. preferences, can be stored automatically in customer cards, readable by sales assistants’ handhelds or at the cash register (”Prada’s”) – information that could be used by the assistant to spur further sales by suggesting for example: “Last time you were here, you bought a black skirt. We have a sweater that matches that skirt” (Batista). Another example is Precision Dynamics Corp (PDC), which developed an automatic identification wristband incorporating RFID technology. One application is the AgeBand which is used to verify the bearer’s age when purchasing alcohol. ID is checked when entering the venue and the customer receives a plastic wristband printed with personal details that cannot be removed without being damaged or destroyed (Swedberg). The embedded chip can be linked to a customer’s credit card number or a cash deposit to pay for purchases while on the premises. “It is also an easy way to collect statistics for marketing”, says PDC’s senior marketing communications specialist, Paula Maggio (qtd. in Swedberg). Although the RFID clearly provides benefits and new opportunities to business operations, there is an argument over whether consumers will ultimately gain or suffer when smart tags become more commonplace. Certainly it may be convenient to have smart hangers that project virtual clothes onto a customer’s reflection in the mirror so they can try on a range of outfits without having to remove their clothes, but the collection of personal information necessary to provide this convenience also raises complex privacy issues. Fear of Intrusive Marketing Hesseldahl believes that our homes, workplaces, shops, malls, cars, trains, planes and bicycles will all be environments that constantly notice who we are and what we are doing, and which – according to a detailed profile of our habits – will try to service us in ways we can hardly even imagine today (25). This may be helpful to us in many ways, but there are concerns that organisations will use RF-technology to connect product information to individuals in order to create personal profiles which can then be used for pin-pointed marketing purposes, or even for tracking individuals, without their knowledge or consent. A possible scenario is one where consumers are bombarded with intrusive advertising based on what they are wearing, what they are purchasing, their history of past purchases, demographics and more. “Kill Machines” Fearing that the technology will be abused, many privacy advocates suggest that RFID must only be used to keep track of goods in the supply chain and thus be deactivated as soon as they leave the store. For example, consumer organisations such as CASPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering), the American Civil Liberties Union, and Electronic Frontiers Australia, lobby for the obligatory deactivation of the tags at the point of purchase. But companies such as Procter & Gamble and Wal-Mart would prefer to keep the tags active after checkout, rather than disabling them with so called “kill machines”, so they can match the unique codes emitted by RF-tags to shopper’s personal information (Baard “Watchdog”). They will want to use RF technology to support the sales process and to provide the consumer with new and better services than what is otherwise possible. And without doubt, if the tags are deactivated some genuinely helpful applications would be lost to the consumer, e.g. being able to call your refrigerator from the supermarket to check if you need milk or your washing machine alerting you if you have accidentally put a delicate garment in your white wash. Looking at the Bright Side Privacy concerns aside, RFID technology, in fact, has the potential to empower consumers as it will put more information about products at consumers’ fingertips. Consumers will for example be able to go into competing supermarkets and scan items with an RF-receiver embedded in their mobile phone, record prices, store and process the information to evaluate which store offers better value. The information can then be shared with other shoppers via the Internet, and suddenly we have a powerful “shopping bot” which transcends the online world. Consequently, RFID has the potential to make competition between retailers tougher than ever before and to benefit consumers through lower and more transparent pricing. In addition, RFID tags may also make possible faster and more accurate services, particularly in supermarkets. Shopping carts are mounted with computers which automatically register all items put into the cart and enable the customer to keep track of items, their prices and their total amount (Blau). RFID can also be used to find the location of items in the store and show more detailed information on a product (origin, use by date, content etc.) and as the customer passes through the checkout, all purchases are registered automatically in a matter of seconds. Privacy Protection In Australia, the Privacy Amendment (Private Sector) Act 2000, with its ten National Privacy Principles (NPP), has been highly criticised over the last few years as being much to open for interpretation and thus difficult to reinforce. In short, the NPP allows for marketers to use non-sensitive personal information for direct marketing purposes without seeking the individual’s consent if it is impracticable to do so (“Guidelines”). That is, as long as they make available a privacy policy explaining why the data is collected and who will have access, they ensure that the data is correct and up to date, protected from unauthorised access, and that individuals are given access to their data upon request (“Guidelines”). In 2003 the Spam Act was introduced in order to take a tougher stand on the escalating problem with massive amounts of unsolicited emails filling up inboxes, threatening the whole concept of the Internet and its many benefits. In essence, the Spam Act will not allow commercial electronic messages to be sent without the recipient’s prior consent or without a possibility to unsubscribe (“Spam”). In the same manner that the Spam Act was passed to regulate the collection of Internet users’ contact information, it may become necessary to regulate the collection and use of data obtained via RFID if the NPP are deemed inadequate. The difficulty will be to do so and at the same time safeguard many of the positive side-effects the technology may have for businesses and consumers. As argued by Roger Clarke, privacy has to be balanced against many other, often competing interests: “The privacy interest of one person may conflict with that of another person, or of a groups of people, or of an organisation, or of society as a whole. Hence: Privacy Protection is a process of finding appropriate balances between privacy and multiple competing interests.” It is therefore recommended that legislators and policy makers keep up with the development and undertake significant research into both sides before any legislation is passed so that the best interests of consumers and business are catered for. Can There Be a Win-Win Situation? Although business can expect some significant gains from the use of RFID, particularly through a more effective value chain management but also from more substantial and better quality business intelligence, consumers may in fact be the real winners as new and better business concepts, products and services are made available. Further, with the increased transparency in business, consumers can use the vast amounts of information available to find the best products and services, at the best price, and from the best provider. With the aid of smart software, such as search agents, it will be a rather effortless task and will provide consumers with a real advantage. But this assumes consumers are aware of the benefits and how they can be exploited, and have the means to do so – something that will require some skill, interest, money and time. Consumers will also have to give up some privacy in order to take full advantage of the new technology. For the industry, the main challenge will be communicating what these advantages are, as acceptance, adoption and thus also return on investment will depend upon it. For legislators and policy makers, the major dilemma will be to provide a regulatory framework that is flexible but distinct, and that will prevent abuse and at the same time enable positive outcomes for both business and consumers. A fine line that should be treaded wisely in order to create a future where everyone can gain from the benefits of using this technology. References Baard, Mark. “Lawmakers Alarmed by RFID Spying.” Wired News 26 Feb. 2004. 9 Mar. 2004 http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,62433,00.html>. Baard, Mark. ”Watchdog Push for RFID Laws.” Wired News 5 Apr. 2004. 6 Apr. 2004 http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,62922,00.html>. Batista, Elisa. ”What Your Clothes Say about You.” Wired News 12 Mar. 2003. 8 Mar. 2004 http://www.wired.com/news/wireless/0,1382,58006,00.html>. Blau, John. ”Så fungerar det digitala snabbköpet.” PC för Alla 1 (2004). 8 Mar. 2004 http://www.idg.se/ArticlePages/200402/27/20040227165630_IDG. se760/20040227165630_IDG.se760.dbp.asp>. Clarke, Roger. Beyond the OECD Guidelines: Privacy Protection for the 21st Century. 4 Jan. 2000. 15 Mar. 2004 http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/DV/PP21C.html>. Grassley, Tanya. ”Retailers Outfit Stores with Tech.” Wired News 18 Dec. 2002. 8 Mar. 2004 http://www.wired.com/news/holidays/0,1882,56885,00.html>. “Guidelines to the National Privacy Principles.” The Office of the Federal Privacy Commissioner 2001. 4 Apr. 2004 http://www.privacy.gov.au/publications/nppgl_01.html#sum>. Hessledahl, Peter. Den globale organisme. Copenhagen: Aschehoug, 2002. 24 Apr. 2004 http://www.global-organisme.dk/e-bog/den_globale_organisme.pdf>. ”Prada’s Smart Tags Too Clever?” Wired News 27 Oct. 2002. 9 Mar. 2004 http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,56042,00.html>. “Spam” DCITA 2004. 4 Apr. 2004 http://www2.dcita.gov.au/ie/trust/improving/spam>. Swedberg, Claire. ”Putting Drinks on the Cuff.” RFID Journal 15 Jun. 2004. 15 Jun. 2004 http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/987/1/1/>. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Melchior, Angelika. "Tag & Trace Marketing." M/C Journal 8.4 (2005). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0508/03-melchior.php>. APA Style Melchior, A. (Aug. 2005) "Tag & Trace Marketing," M/C Journal, 8(4). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0508/03-melchior.php>.

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Complex systems are an invention of the universe. It is not at all clear that science has an a priori primacy claim to the study of complex systems. (Galanter 5) Introduction In popular dialogues, describing a system as “complex” is often the point of resignation, inferring that the system cannot be sufficiently described, predicted nor managed. Transport networks, management infrastructure and supply chain logistics are all often described in this way. In socio-cultural terms “complex” is used to describe those humanistic systems that are “intricate, involved, complicated, dynamic, multi-dimensional, interconnected systems [such as] transnational citizenship, communities, identities, multiple belongings, overlapping geographies and competing histories” (Cahir & James). Academic dialogues have begun to explore the collective behaviors of complex systems to define a complex system specifically as an adaptive one; i.e. a system that demonstrates ‘self organising’ principles and ‘emergent’ properties. Based upon the key principles of interaction and emergence in relation to adaptive and self organising systems in cultural artifacts and processes, this paper will argue that complex systems are cultural systems. By introducing generic principles of complex systems, and looking at the exploration of such principles in art, design and media research, this paper argues that a science of cultural systems as part of complex systems theory is the post modern science for the digital age. Furthermore, that such a science was predicated by post structuralism and has been manifest in art, design and media practice since the late 1960s. Complex Systems Theory Complexity theory grew out of systems theory, an holistic approach to analysis that views whole systems based upon the links and interactions between the component parts and their relationship to each other and the environment within they exists. This stands in stark contrast to conventional science which is based upon Descartes’s reductionism, where the aim is to analyse systems by reducing something to its component parts (Wilson 3). As systems thinking is concerned with relationships more than elements, it proposes that in complex systems, small catalysts can cause large changes and that a change in one area of a system can adversely affect another area of the system. As is apparent, systems theory is a way of thinking rather than a specific set of rules, and similarly there is no single unified Theory of Complexity, but several different theories have arisen from the natural sciences, mathematics and computing. As such, the study of complex systems is very interdisciplinary and encompasses more than one theoretical framework. Whilst key ideas of complexity theory developed through artificial intelligence and robotics research, other important contributions came from thermodynamics, biology, sociology, physics, economics and law. In her volume for the Elsevier Advanced Management Series, “Complex Systems and Evolutionary Perspectives on Organisations”, Eve Mitleton-Kelly describes a comprehensive overview of this evolution as five main areas of research: complex adaptive systems dissipative structures autopoiesis (non-equilibrium) social systems chaos theory path dependence Here, Mitleton-Kelly points out that relatively little work has been done on developing a specific theory of complex social systems, despite much interest in complexity and its application to management (Mitleton-Kelly 4). To this end, she goes on to define the term “complex evolving system” as more appropriate to the field than ‘complex adaptive system’ and suggests that the term “complex behaviour” is thus more useful in social contexts (Mitleton-Kelly). For our purpose here, “complex systems” will be the general term used to describe those systems that are diverse and made up of multiple interdependent elements, that are often ‘adaptive’, in that they have the capacity to change and learn from events. This is in itself both ‘evolutionary’ and ‘behavioural’ and can be understood as emerging from the interaction of autonomous agents – especially people. Some generic principles of complex systems defined by Mitleton Kelly that are of concern here are: self-organisation emergence interdependence feedback space of possibilities co-evolving creation of new order Whilst the behaviours of complex systems clearly do not fall into our conventional top down perception of management and production, anticipating such behaviours is becoming more and more essential for products, processes and policies. For example, compare the traditional top down model of news generation, distribution and consumption to the “emerging media eco-system” (Bowman and Willis 14). Figure 1 (Bowman & Willis 10) Figure 2 (Bowman & Willis 12) To the traditional news organisations, such a “democratization of production” (McLuhan 230) has been a huge cause for concern. The agencies once solely responsible for the representation of reality are now lost in a global miasma of competing perspectives. Can we anticipate and account for complex behaviours? Eve Mitleton Kelly states that “if organisations are understood as complex evolving systems co-evolving as part of a social ‘ecosystem’, then that changed perspective changes ways of acting and relating which lead to a different way of working. Thus, management strategy changes, and our organizational design paradigms evolve as new types of relationships and ways of working provide the conditions for the emergence of new organisational forms” (Mitleton-Kelly 6). Complexity in Design It is thus through design practice and processes that discovering methods for anticipating complex systems behaviours seem most possible. The Embracing Complexity in Design (ECiD) research programme, is a contemporary interdisciplinary research cluster consisting of academics and designers from architectural engineering, robotics, geography, digital media, sustainable design, and computing aiming to explore the possibility of trans disciplinary principles of complexity in design. Over arching this work is the conviction that design can be seen as model for complex systems researchers motivated by applying complexity science in particular domains. Key areas in which design and complexity interact have been established by this research cluster. Most immediately, many designed products and systems are inherently complex to design in the ordinary sense. For example, when designing vehicles, architecture, microchips designers need to understand complex dynamic processes used to fabricate and manufacture products and systems. The social and economic context of design is also complex, from market economics and legal regulation to social trends and mass culture. The process of designing can also involve complex social dynamics, with many people processing and exchanging complex heterogeneous information over complex human and communication networks, in the context of many changing constraints. Current key research questions are: how can the methods of complex systems science inform designers? how can design inform research into complex systems? Whilst ECiD acknowledges that to answer such questions effectively the theoretical and methodological relations between complexity science and design need further exploration and enquiry, there are no reliable precedents for such an activity across the sciences and the arts in general. Indeed, even in areas where a convergence of humanities methodology with scientific practice might seem to be most pertinent, most examples are few and far between. In his paper “Post Structuralism, Hypertext & the World Wide Web”, Luke Tredennick states that “despite the concentration of post-structuralism on text and texts, the study of information has largely failed to exploit post-structuralist theory” (Tredennick 5). Yet it is surely in the convergence of art and design with computation and the media that a search for practical trans-metadisciplinary methodologies might be most fruitful. It is in design for interactive media, where algorithms meet graphics, where the user can interact, adapt and amend, that self-organisation, emergence, interdependence, feedback, the space of possibilities, co-evolution and the creation of new order are embraced on a day to day basis by designers. A digitally interactive environment such as the World Wide Web, clearly demonstrates all the key aspects of a complex system. Indeed, it has already been described as a ‘complexity machine’ (Qvortup 9). It is important to remember that this ‘complexity machine’ has been designed. It is an intentional facility. It may display all the characteristics of complexity but, whilst some of its attributes are most demonstrative of self organisation and emergence, the Internet itself has not emerged spontaneously. For example, Tredinnick details the evolution of the World Wide Web through the Memex machine of Vannevar Bush, through Ted Nelsons hypertext system Xanadu to Tim Berners-Lee’s Enquire (Tredennick 3). The Internet was engineered. So, whilst we may not be able to entirely predict complex behavior, we can, and do, quite clearly design for it. When designing digitally interactive artifacts we design parameters or co ordinates to define the space within which a conceptual process will take place. We can never begin to predict precisely what those processes might become through interaction, emergence and self organisation, but we can establish conceptual parameters that guide and delineate the space of possibilities. Indeed this fact is so transparently obvious that many commentators in the humanities have been pushed to remark that interaction is merely interpretation, and so called new media is not new at all; that one interacts with a book in much the same way as a digital artifact. After all, post-structuralist theory had established the “death of the author” in the 1970s – the a priori that all cultural artifacts are open to interpretation, where all meanings must be completed by the reader. The concept of the “open work” (Eco 6) has been an established post modern concept for over 30 years and is commonly recognised as a feature of surrealist montage, poetry, the writings of James Joyce, even advertising design, where a purposive space for engagement and interpretation of a message is designated, without which the communication does not “work”. However, this concept is also most successfully employed in relation to installation art and, more recently, interactive art as a reflection of the artist’s conscious decision to leave part of a work open to interpretation and/or interaction. Art & Complex Systems One of the key projects of Embracing Complexity in Design has been to look at the relationship between art and complex systems. There is a relatively well established history of exploring art objects as complex systems in themselves that finds its origins in the systems art movement of the 1970s. In his paper “Observing ‘Systems Art’ from a Systems-Theroretical Perspective”, Francis Halsall defines systems art as “emerging in the 1960s and 1970s as a new paradigm in artistic practice … displaying an interest in the aesthetics of networks, the exploitation of new technology and New Media, unstable or de-materialised physicality, the prioritising of non-visual aspects, and an engagement (often politicised) with the institutional systems of support (such as the gallery, discourse, or the market) within which it occurs” (Halsall 7). More contemporarily, “Open Systems: Rethinking Art c.1970”, at Tate Modern, London, focuses upon systems artists “rejection of art’s traditional focus on the object, to wide-ranging experiments al focus on the object, to wide-ranging experiments with media that included dance, performance and…film & video” (De Salvo 3). Artists include Andy Warhol, Richard Long, Gilbert & George, Sol Lewitt, Eva Hesse and Bruce Nauman. In 2002, the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, New York, held an international exhibition entitled “Complexity; Art & Complex Systems”, that was concerned with “art as a distinct discipline offer[ing] its own unique approache[s] and epistemic standards in the consideration of complexity” (Galanter and Levy 5), and the organisers go on to describe four ways in which artists engage the realm of complexity: presentations of natural complex phenomena that transcend conventional scientific visualisation descriptive systems which describe complex systems in an innovative and often idiosyncratic way commentary on complexity science itself technical applications of genetic algorithms, neural networks and a-life ECiD artist Julian Burton makes work that visualises how companies operate in specific relation to their approach to change and innovation. He is a strategic artist and facilitator who makes “pictures of problems to help people talk about them” (Burton). Clients include public and private sector organisations such as Barclays, Shell, Prudential, KPMG and the NHS. He is quoted as saying “Pictures are a powerful way to engage and focus a group’s attention on crucial issues and challenges, and enable them to grasp complex situations quickly. I try and create visual catalysts that capture the major themes of a workshop, meeting or strategy and re-present them in an engaging way to provoke lively conversations” (Burton). This is a simple and direct method of using art as a knowledge elicitation tool that falls into the first and second categories above. The third category is demonstrated by the ground breaking TechnoSphere, that was specifically inspired by complexity theory, landscape and artificial life. Launched in 1995 as an Arts Council funded online digital environment it was created by Jane Prophet and Gordon Selley. TechnoSphere is a virtual world, populated by artificial life forms created by users of the World Wide Web. The digital ecology of the 3D world, housed on a server, depends on the participation of an on-line public who accesses the world via the Internet. At the time of writing it has attracted over a 100,000 users who have created over a million creatures. The artistic exploration of technical applications is by default a key field for researching the convergence of trans-metadisciplinary methodologies. Troy Innocent’s lifeSigns evolves multiple digital media languages “expressed as a virtual world – through form, structure, colour, sound, motion, surface and behaviour” (Innocent). The work explores the idea of “emergent language through play – the idea that new meanings may be generated through interaction between human and digital agents”. Thus this artwork combines three areas of converging research – artificial life; computational semiotics and digital games. In his paper “What Is Generative Art? Complexity Theory as a Context for Art Theory”, Philip Galanter describes all art as generative on the basis that it is created from the application of rules. Yet, as demonstrated above, what is significantly different and important about digital interactivity, as opposed to its predecessor, interpretation, is its provision of a graphical user interface (GUI) to component parts of a text such as symbol, metaphor, narrative, etc for the multiple “authors” and the multiple “readers” in a digitally interactive space of possibility. This offers us tangible, instantaneous reproduction and dissemination of interpretations of an artwork. Conclusion: Digital Interactivity – A Complex Medium Digital interaction of any sort is thus a graphic model of the complex process of communication. Here, complexity does not need deconstructing, representing nor modelling, as the aesthetics (as in apprehended by the senses) of the graphical user interface conveniently come first. Design for digital interactive media is thus design for complex adaptive systems. The theoretical and methodological relations between complexity science and design can clearly be expounded especially well through post-structuralism. The work of Barthes, Derrida & Foucault offers us the notion of all cultural artefacts as texts or systems of signs, whose meanings are not fixed but rather sustained by networks of relationships. Implemented in a digital environment post-structuralist theory is tangible complexity. Strangely, whilst Philip Galanter states that science has no necessary over reaching claim to the study of complexity, he then argues conversely that “contemporary art theory rooted in skeptical continental philosophy [reduces] art to social construction [as] postmodernism, deconstruction and critical theory [are] notoriously elusive, slippery, and overlapping terms and ideas…that in fact [are] in the business of destabilising apparently clear and universal propositions” (4). This seems to imply that for Galanter, post modern rejections of grand narratives necessarily will exclude the “new scientific paradigm” of complexity, a paradigm that he himself is looking to be universal. Whilst he cites Lyotard (6) describing both political and linguistic reasons why postmodern art celebrates plurality, denying any progress towards singular totalising views, he fails to appreciate what happens if that singular totalising view incorporates interactivity? Surely complexity is pluralistic by its very nature? In the same vein, if language for Derrida is “an unfixed system of traces and differences … regardless of the intent of the authored texts … with multiple equally legitimate meanings” (Galanter 7) then I have heard no better description of the signifiers, signifieds, connotations and denotations of digital culture. Complexity in its entirety can also be conversely understood as the impact of digital interactivity upon culture per se which has a complex causal relation in itself; Qvortups notion of a “communications event” (9) such as the Danish publication of the Mohammed cartoons falls into this category. Yet a complex causality could be traced further into cultural processes enlightening media theory; from the relationship between advertising campaigns and brand development; to the exposure and trajectory of the celebrity; describing the evolution of visual language in media cultures and informing the relationship between exposure to representation and behaviour. In digital interaction the terms art, design and media converge into a process driven, performative event that demonstrates emergence through autopoietic processes within a designated space of possibility. By insisting that all artwork is generative Galanter, like many other writers, negates the medium entirely which allows him to insist that generative art is “ideologically neutral” (Galanter 10). Generative art, like all digitally interactive artifacts are not neutral but rather ideologically plural. Thus, if one integrates Qvortups (8) delineation of medium theory and complexity theory we may have what we need; a first theory of a complex medium. Through interactive media complexity theory is the first post modern science; the first science of culture. References Bowman, Shane, and Chris Willis. We Media. 21 Sep. 2003. 9 March 2007 http://www.hypergene.net/wemedia/weblog.php>. Burton, Julian. “Hedron People.” 9 March 2007 http://www.hedron.com/network/assoc.php4?associate_id=14>. Cahir, Jayde, and Sarah James. “Complex: Call for Papers.” M/C Journal 9 Sep. 2006. 7 March 2007 http://journal.media-culture.org.au/journal/upcoming.php>. De Salvo, Donna, ed. Open Systems: Rethinking Art c. 1970. London: Tate Gallery Press, 2005. Eco, Umberto. The Open Work. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1989. Galanter, Phillip, and Ellen K. Levy. Complexity: Art & Complex Systems. SDMA Gallery Guide, 2002. Galanter, Phillip. “Against Reductionism: Science, Complexity, Art & Complexity Studies.” 2003. 9 March 2007 http://isce.edu/ISCE_Group_Site/web-content/ISCE_Events/ Norwood_2002/Norwood_2002_Papers/Galanter.pdf>. Halsall, Francis. “Observing ‘Systems-Art’ from a Systems-Theoretical Perspective”. CHArt 2005. 9 March 2007 http://www.chart.ac.uk/chart2005/abstracts/halsall.htm>. Innocent, Troy. “Life Signs.” 9 March 2007 http://www.iconica.org/main.htm>. Johnson, Jeffrey. “Embracing Complexity in Design (ECiD).” 2007. 9 March 2007 http://www.complexityanddesign.net/>. Lyotard, Jean-Francois. The Postmodern Condition. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1984. McLuhan, Marshall. The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1962. Mitleton-Kelly, Eve, ed. Complex Systems and Evolutionary Perspectives on Organisations. Elsevier Advanced Management Series, 2003. Prophet, Jane. “Jane Prophet.” 9 March 2007 http://www.janeprophet.co.uk/>. Qvortup, Lars. “Understanding New Digital Media.” European Journal of Communication 21.3 (2006): 345-356. Tedinnick, Luke. “Post Structuralism, Hypertext & the World Wide Web.” Aslib 59.2 (2007): 169-186. Wilson, Edward Osborne. Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. New York: A.A. Knoff, 1998. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Cham, Karen, and Jeffrey Johnson. "Complexity Theory: A Science of Cultural Systems?." M/C Journal 10.3 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0706/08-cham-johnson.php>. APA Style Cham, K., and J. Johnson. (Jun. 2007) "Complexity Theory: A Science of Cultural Systems?," M/C Journal, 10(3). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0706/08-cham-johnson.php>.

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Since the mid-eighties, personality and mood have undergone vigorous surveillance and repair across new populations in the United States. While government and the psy-complexes 1 have always had a stake in promoting citizen health, it is unique that, today, State, industry, and non-governmental organisations recruit consumers to act upon their own mental health. And while citizen behaviours in public spaces have long been fodder for diagnosis, the scope of behaviours and the breadth of the surveyed population has expanded significantly over the past twenty years. How has the notion of behavioural illness been successfully spun to recruit new populations to behavioural diagnosis and repair? Why is it a reasonable proposition that our personalities might be sick, our moods ill? This essay investigates the cultural promotion of a 'script' that assumes sick moods are possible, encourages the self-assessment of risk and self-management of dysfunctional mood, and has thus helped to create a new, adjustable subject. Michel Foucault (1976, 1988) contended that in order for subjects to act upon their selves -- for example, assess themselves via the behavioural health script -- we must view the Self as a construction, a work in progress that is alterable and in need of alteration in order for psychiatric action to seem appropriate. This conception of the self constitutes an extreme theoretical shift from the early modern belief (of Rousseau or Kant) that a core soul inhabited and shaped being, or the moral self.2 Foucault (1976) insisted that subjects are 'not born but made' through formal and informal social discourses that construct knowledge of the 'normal' self. Throughout the 19th century and the modern era, as medical, juridical, and psychiatric institutions gained increasing cultural capital, the normal self became allegedly 'knowable' through science. In turn, the citizen became 'professionalised' (Funicello 1993) -- answerable to these constructed standards, or subject to what Foucault termed biopower. In order to avoid punishments wrested upon the 'deviant' such as being placed in asylum or criminalised, citizens capitulated to social norms, and thus helped the State to achieve social order. 3 While 'technologies of power' or domination determined the conduct of individuals in the premodern era, 'technologies of the self' became prominent in the modern era.4 (Foucault, 'Technologies of the Self') These, explained Foucault, permit individuals to act upon their 'bodies, souls, thoughts, conduct and ways of being' to transform them, to attain happiness, or perfection, among other things (18). Contemporary psychiatric discourses, for example, call upon citizens to transform via self-regulation, and thus lessened the State's disciplinary burden. Since the mid-twentieth century, biopsychiatry has been embraced nationally, and played a key role in propagating self-disciplining citizens. Biopsychiatric logic is viewed culturally as common sense due to a number of occurrences. The dominant media have enthusiastically celebrated so-called biotechnical successes, such as sheep cloning and the development of better drugs to treat Schizophrenia. Hype has also surrounded newer drugs to treat depression (i.e. Prozac) and anxiety (i.e. Paxil), as well as the 'cosmetic' use of antidepressants to allegedly improve personality.5 Citizens, then, are enlisted to trust in psychiatric science to repair mood dysfunction, but also to reveal the 'true' self, occluded by biologically impaired mood. Suggesting that biopsychiatry's 'knowledge' of the human brain has revealed the human condition and can repair sick selves, these discourses have helped to launch the behavioural health script into the national psyche. The successful marketing of the script was also achieved by the diagnostic philosophy encouraged by revisions of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual or Mental Disorders(the DSM; these renovations increased the number of affective (mood) and personality diagnoses and broadened diagnostic criteria. The new DSMs 6 institutionalised the pathologisation of common personality and mood distresses as biological or genetic disorders. The texts constitute 'knowledge' of normal personality and behaviour, and press consumers toward biotechnical tools to repair the defunct self. Ian Hacking (1995) suggests that new moral concepts emerge when old ones acquire new connotations, thereby affecting our sense of who we are. The once moral self, known through introspection, is thus transformed via biopsychiatry into a self that is constructed in accordance with scientific 'knowledge'. The State and various private industries have a stake in promoting this Sick Self script. Promoting Diagnosis of the Sick Self Employing the DSM's broad criteria, research by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), contends that a significant percentage of the population is behaviourally ill. The most recent Surgeon General report on Mental Health (from 1999) which also employed broad criteria, argues that a striking 50 million Americans are afflicted with a mental illness each year, most of which were non-major disorders affecting behaviour, personality and mood.7 Additionally, studies suggest that behavioural illness results in lost work days and increases demand for health services, thus constituting a severe financial burden to the State. Such studies consequently provide the State with ample reason to promote behavioural illness. In predicting an epidemic in behavioural illness and a huge increase in mental health service needs, the State has constructed health policy in accordance with the behavioural sickness script. Health policy embraces DSM diagnostic tools that sweep in a wide population by diagnosing risk as illness and links diagnosis with biotechnical recovery methods. Because criteria for these disorders have expanded and diagnoses have become more vague, however, over-diagnosis of the population has become common . 8 Depression, for example, is broadly defined to include moods ranging from the blues to suicidal ideation. Yet, the Sick Self script is ubiquitously embraced by NGO, industry, and State discourses, calling for consumer self-scrutiny and strongly promoting psychopharmaceuticals. These activities has been most successful; to wit: personality disorders were among the most common diagnoses of the 80's, and depression, which was a rare disorder thirty-five years ago, became the most common mental illness in the late 90's (Healy). Consumer Health Groups & Industry Promotions Health institutions and drug industries promote mood illness and market drug remedies as a means of profit maximisation. Broad spectrum diagnoses are, by definition, easy to sell to a wide population and create a vast market for recovery products. Pharmaceutical and insurance companies (each multibillion dollar industries), an expanding variety of self-help industries, consumer health web sites, and an array of psy-complex workers all have a stake in promoting the broad diagnosis of mood and behavioural disorders. 9 In so doing, consumer groups and the health and pharmaceutical industries not only encourage self-discipline (aligning themselves with State productivity goals), but create a vast, ongoing market for recovery products. Promoting Illness and Recovery So strong is the linkage between illness and recovery that pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly sells Prozac by promoting the broad notion of depression, rather than the drug itself. It does so through depression brochures (advertised on TV) and a web page that discusses depression symptoms and offers a depression quiz, instead of product information. Likewise, Psych Central, a typical informational health site, provides consumers standard DSM depression definitions and information (from the biopsychiatric-driven American Psychiatric Association (APA) or the NIMH, and liberal behavioural illness quizzes that typically over-diagnose consumers. 10The Psych Central site also lists a broad range of depression symptoms, while its FAQ link promotes the self-management of mood ailments. For example, the site directs those who believe that they are depressed and want help to contact a physician, obtain a diagnosis, and initiate antidepressant treatment. Such web sites, viewed as a whole, appear to deliver certified knowledge that a 'normal' mood exists, that mood disorders are common, and that abiding citizens should diagnosis and treat their mood ailment. Another essential component of the behavioural script is the suggestion that the modern self's mood is interminably sick. Because common mood distresses are fodder for diagnosis, the self is always at risk of illness, and requires vigilant self-scrutiny. The self is never a finished product. Moreover, mood sickness is insidious and quickly spirals from risk to full-blown disorder. 11 As such, behavioural illness requires on-going self-assessment. Finally, because mood sickness threatens social productivity and State financial solvency, a moral overtone is added to the mix -- good citizens are encouraged to treat their mood dysfunctions promptly, for the common good. The script thus constructs citizenship as a motive for behavioural self-scrutiny; as such, it can naturally recommend that individuals, rather than experts, take charge of the surveillance process. The recommendation of self-determined illness is also a sales feature of the script, appealing to the American ethic of individualism -- even, paradoxically, as the script proposes that science best directs us to our selves. Self-Managed Recovery Health institutions and industries that deploy this script recommend not only self-diagnosis, but also self-managed treatment as the ideal treatment. Health information web sites, for example, tend to displace the expert by encouraging consumers to pre-diagnose their selves (often via on-line quizzes) and to then consult an expert for formal diagnosis and to organise a treatment program. Like governmental heath organisation's web sites, these commonly link consumer-driven, broad-spectrum diagnosis to psycho-pharmaceutical treatment, primarily by listing drugs as the first line of treatment, and linking consumers to drug information. Unsurprisingly, pharmaceutical companies support or own many 'informational' sites. Depression-net.com, for example, is owned by Organon, maker of Remeron, an SSRI in competition with Prozac.12 Still, even sites that receive little or no funding tend to display drugs prominently; for example, Internet Mental Health, which accepts no drug funding lists drugs immediately after diagnosis on the sidebar. This trend illustrates the extent to which drugs are viewed by consumers as a first step in addressing all types of mood sicknesses. Consumer health sites, geared toward Internet users seeking health care information (estimated to be 43% of the 120 million users) promote the illness-recovery link more aggressively. Dr.koop.com, one of the most visited sites on the Internet, describes itself as 'consumer-focused' and 'interactive'. Yet, the homepage of this site tends to include 'news' stories that relay the success of drugs or report on new biopsychiatric studies in depression or mental health. Some consumer sites such as Consumer health sites, geared toward Internet users seeking health care information (estimated to be 43% of the 120 million users) promote the illness-recovery link more aggressively. Dr.koop.com, one of the most visited sites on the Internet, describes itself as 'consumer-focused' and 'interactive'. Yet, the homepage of this site tends to include 'news' stories that relay the success of drugs or report on new biopsychiatric studies in depression or mental health. Some consumer sites such as WebMD prominently display links to drugstores, (such as Drugstore.com), many of which are owned in part or entirely by pharmaceutical companies.13 Similar to the common practices of direct-to-consumer advertising, both informational and consumer sites by-pass the expert, promote recovery via drugs, and direct the consumer to a doctor in search of a prescription, rather than health care advice. State, informational and consumer web sites all help to construct certain populations as at-risk for behavioural sickness. The NIMH information page on depression -- uncanny in its likeness to consumer health and pharmaceutical sites -- utilises the DSM definition of depression and recommends the standard regime of diagnosis and biotechnical treatments (highlighting antidepressants) most appropriate for a diagnosis of major, rather than minor, depression. The site also elaborates the broad approach to mood illness, and recommends that women, children and seniors -- groups deemed at-risk by the broad criteria -- be especially scrutinised for depression. By articulating the broad DSM definition of depression, a generalisable 'self' -- anyone suffering common ailments including sadness, lethargy or weight change -- is deemed at risk of depression or other behavioural illness. At the same time, at-risk groups are constructed as populations in need of more urgent scrutiny, namely society's less powerful individuals, rather than middle-aged males. That is, society's decision-makers--psychiatric researchers, State policy-makers, pharmaceutical CEO's, (etc) are considered least at risk for having defunct selves and productivity functioning. Selling Mood Sickness These brief examples illustrate the standard presentation of behavioural illness information on the Web and from traditional resources such as mailings, brochures, and consumer manuals. Presenting the ideal self as knowable and achievable with the help of bio-psychiatric science, these discourses encourage citizens to self-scrutinise, self-define, and even self-manage the possibility of mood or behavioural dysfunction. Because the individual gathers information, determines her pre-diagnosis, and seeks out a recovery technology, the many choices involved in behavioural scrutiny make it appear to be a free and 'democratic' activity. Additionally, as individuals take on the role of the expert, self-diagnosing via questionnaires, the highly disciplinary nature of the behavioural diagnosis appears unthreatening to individual sovereignty. Thus, this technology of the self solves an age-old problem of capitalist democracy -- how to simultaneously instill citizen's faith in absolute individual liberty (as a source of good government), and, at the same time, the need to achieve the absolute governance of the individual (Miller). Foucault contended that citizens are brought into the social contract of citizenship not simply through social and governmental contracts but by processes of policing that become embedded in our notions of citizenship. The process of self-management recommended by the ubiquitous behavioural script functions smoothly as a technology of surveillance in this era, where the ideal self is known and repaired through biopsychiatric science, the democratic responsibility of a good citizen. The liberal contract has always entailed an exchange of rights for freedoms -- in Rousseau's terms 'making men free by making them subjects.' (Miller xviii) When we make ourselves subjects to ongoing behavioural scrutiny, the resulting Self is not freed, rather it is constrained by a perpetual sickness. Notes 1 This term is used in a Foucaultian sense, to refer to all those who work under and benefit or profit from the dominant biological model of psychiatry dominant since the 1950's in the U.S. 2 For more discussion, see Ian Hacking, Rewriting the Soul; Multiple Personality and the Sciences of Memory. (1995) 3 In his essay 'Technologies of the Self' (1988) Foucault outlines the four major types of technologies that function as practical reason and entice citizens to behave according to constructed social standards. Among these are technologies of production (that permit us to produce things), technologies of sign systems (permitting us to use symbols), and the technologies of power and self mentioned in the above text. Through these technologies, operations of individuals become highly regulated, some visible and some difficult to perceive. The less visible technologies of the self became essential to the smooth functioning of society in the modern era. 4 'Technologies' is used to refer to mechanisms and actions of institutions or simply social norms and habits, that work, ultimately, to govern the individual, or create behaviour that serves desires of the State and dominant social bodies. 5 Peter Kramer, author of the best-selling book Listening to Prozac (1995) contends that his patients using Prozac often credited the drug with helping their true personalities to surface. 6 The two revisions occurred in 1987 and 1994. 7 Of that group, only five percent of that group suffers a 'severe' form of mental illness (such as schizophrenia, or extreme form of bipolar or obsessive compulsive disorder), while the rest suffer less severe behavioural and mood disorders. Similar research (also based on broad criteria) was published throughout the 90's suggesting an American epidemic of behavioural illness; it was claimed that 17% of the population is neurotic, while 10-15% of the population (and 30-50% of those seeking care) was said to possess a personality disorder. (Hales and Hales, 1995) 8 The most widely assigned diagnoses in this category today are: depression, multiple personality, adjustment disorder, eating disorders and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), which have extremely broad criteria, and are easily assigned to a wide segment of the population. 9The quizzes offered at these sites are standard in psychiatry; the difference here is that these are consumer-conducted. Lilly uses the Zung Self-Assessment Tool, which asks 20 broad questions regarding mood, and overdiagnoses individuals with potential depression. By responding to vague questions such as 'Morning is when I feel the best', 'I notice that I am losing weight', and 'I feel downhearted, blue and sad' with the choice of 'sometimes', individuals are thereby pre-diagnosed with potential depression. (https://secure.prozac.com/Main/zung.jsp) Psych central uses the Goldberg Inventory that is similarly broad, consumer-operated, and also tends to overdiagnose. 10 The DSM and other psychiatric texts and consumer manuals commonly suggest that undiagnosed depression will lead, eventually, to full-blown major depression. While a minority of individuals who suffer ongoing episodes of major depression will eventually suffer chronic major depression, it has not been found that minor depression will snowball into major depression or chronic major depression. This in fact, is one of the many suspicions among researchers that is referred to as fact in psychiatric literature and consumer manuals. A similar case in point is the suggestion that depression is a brain disorder, when in fact, research has not determined biochemistry or genetics to be the 'cause' of major depression. 11 Increasingly, Pharmaceutical sites are indistinguishable from consumer sites, as in the case of Bristol-Meyers Squibb's depression page, (http://www.livinglifebetter.com/src/htdo...) offering a layperson's depression definition and, immediately thereafter, information on its antidepressant Serzone. 12 Like the informational and State sites, these also link consumers to depression information (generally NIMH, FDA or APA research), as well as questionnaires. References American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 4th ed. Washington, D.C: American Psychiatric Press, Inc., 1994. Cruikshank, Barbara. The Will to Empower: Democratic Citizens and Other Subjects. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999. Foucault, Michel. Madness and Civilization; A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. New York: Vintage, 1961. - - - . The Order of Things; An Archaeology of the Human Science., New York: Vintage, 1966. - - - . The History of Sexuality; An Introduction, Volume I. New York: Vintage, 1976. - - - . 'Technologies of the Self', Technologies of the Self; A Seminar with Michel Foucault. Ed. Luther Martin, Huck Gutman, and Patrick H. Hutton. Amherst: University of Amherst Press, 1988. 16-49. Funicello, Theresa. The Tyranny of Kindness; Dismantling the Welfare System to End Poverty in America. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1993. Hales, Dianne R. and Robert E. Hales. Caring For the Mind: The Comprehensive Guide to Mental Health. New York: Bantam Books, 1995. Healy, David. The Anti-Depressant Era. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1997. Kramer, Peter D. Listening to Prozac; A Psychiatrist Explores Antidepressant Drugs and the Remaking of the Self. New York: Viking, 1993. Miller, Toby. The Well-Tempered Self; Citizenship, Culture and the Postmodern Subject. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1993. - - - . Technologies of Truth: Cultural Citizenship and the Popular Media. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998. Office of the Surgeon General. Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General. 1999. <http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/me...> Rose, Nickolas. Governing the Soul; The Shaping of the Private Self. London: Routledge, 1990. Links http://www.drugstore.com http://psychcentral.com/library/depression_faq.htm http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/DSM-IV http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/depression.cfm http://www.livinglifebetter.com/src/htdocs/index.asp?keyword=depression_index http://my.webmd.com http://www.mentalhealth.com http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/mentalhealth/home.html http://www.prozac.com http://my.webmd.com/ http://www.a-silver-lining.org/BPNDepth/criteria_d.html#MDD http://psychcentral.com/depquiz.htm Citation reference for this article Substitute your date of access for Dn Month Year etc... MLA Style Gardner, Paula. "The Perpetually Sick Self" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5.5 (2002). [your date of access] < http://www.media-culture.org.au/mc/0210/Gardner.html &gt. Chicago Style Gardner, Paula, "The Perpetually Sick Self" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5, no. 5 (2002), < http://www.media-culture.org.au/mc/0210/Gardner.html &gt ([your date of access]). APA Style Gardner, Paula. (2002) The Perpetually Sick Self. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5(5). < http://www.media-culture.org.au/mc/0210/Gardner.html &gt ([your date of access]).

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In a light-speed economy of communication, the only thing that moves faster than information is imagination. And in a time when, more than ever before, information is the currency of global politics, economics, conflict, and conquest what better way to critique and crinkle the global-social than to combine the two - information and imagination - into an hilarious mockery of, and a brief incursion into the vistas of the globalitarian order. This is precisely the reflexive and rhetorical pot-pourri that the group 'the Yes Men' (www.theyesmen.org) have formed. Beginning in 2000, the Yes Men describe themselves as a "network of impostors". Basically, the Yes Men (no they're not all men) fool organisations into believing they are representatives of the WTO (World Trade Organisation) and in-turn receive, and accept, invitations to speak (as WTO representatives) at conferences, meetings, seminars, and all manner and locale of corporate pow-wows. At these meetings, the Yes Men deliver their own very special brand of WTO public address. Let's walk through a hypothetical situation. Ashley is organising a conference for a multinational adult entertainment company, at which the management might discuss ways in which it could cut costs from its dild* manufacturing sector by moving production to Indonesia where labour is cheap and tax non-existent (for some), rubber is in abundance, and where the workers hands are slender enough so as to make even the "slimline-tickler" range appear gushingly large in annual report photographs. Ashley decides that a presentation from Supachai Panitchpakdi - head of the WTO body - on the virtues of unrestrained capitalism would be a great way to start the conference, and to build esprit de corps among participants - to summon some good vibrations, if you will. So Ashley jumps on the net. After the obligatory four hours of trying to close the myriad p*rn site pop-ups that plague internet users of the adult entertainment industry, Ashley comes across the WTO site - or at least what looks like the WTO site - and, via the email link, goes about inviting Supachai Panitchpakdi to speak at the conference. What Ashley doesn't realise is that the site is a mirror site of the actual WTO site. This is not, however, grounds for Ashley's termination because it is only after careful and timely scrutiny that you can tell the difference - and in a hypercapitalist economy who has got time to carefully scrutinize? You see, the Yes Men own the domain name www.gatt.org (GATT [General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade]being the former, not so formalised and globally sanctioned incarnation of the WTO), so in the higgledy-piggeldy cross-referencing infosphere of the internet, and its economy of keywords, unsuspecting WTO fans often find themselves perusing the Yes Men site. The Yes Men are sirens in both senses of the word. They raise alarm to rampant corporatism; and they sing the tunes of corporatism to lure their victims – they signal and seduce. The Yes Men are pull marketers, as opposed to the push tactics of logo based activism, and this is what takes them beyond logoism and its focus on the brand bullies. During the few years the Yes Men have been operating their ingenious rhetorical realignment of the WTO, they have pulled off some of the most golden moments in tactical media’s short history. In May 2002, after accepting an email invitation from conference organisers, the Yes Men hit an accountancy conference in Sydney. In his keynote speech, yes man Andy Bichlbaum announced that as of that day the WTO had decided to "effect a cessation of all operations, to be accomplished over a period of four months, culminating in September". He announced that "the WTO will reintegrate as a new trade body whose charter will be to ensure that trade benefits the poor" (ref). The shocking news hit a surprisingly receptive audience and even sparked debate in the floor of the Canadian Parliament where questions were asked by MP John Duncan about "what impact this will have on our appeals on lumber, agriculture, and other ongoing trade disputes". The Certified Practicing Accountants (CPA) Australia reported that [t]he changes come in response to recent studies which indicate strongly that the current free trade rules and policies have increased poverty, pollution, and inequality, and have eroded democratic principles, with a disproportionatly large negative effect on the poorest countries (CPA: 2002) In another Yes Men assault, this time at a Finnish textiles conference, yes man Hank Hardy Unruh gave a speech (in stead of the then WTO head Mike Moore) arguing that the U.S. civil war (in which slavery became illegal) was a useless waste of time because the system of imported labour (slavery) has been supplanted now by a system of remote labour (sweatshops)- instead of bringing the "labour" to the dild*s via ships from Africa, now we can take the dild*s to the "labour", or more precisely, the idea of a dild* - or in biblical terms - take the mount'em to Mohammed, Mhemmet, or Ming. Unruh meandered through his speech to the usual complicit audience, happy to accept his bold assertions in the coma-like stride of a conference delegate, that is, until he ripped off his business suit (with help from an accomplice) to reveal a full-body golden leotard replete with a giant golden phallus which he proceeded to inflate with the aid of a small gas canister. He went on to describe to the audience that the suit, dubbed "the management leisure suit", was a new innovation in the remote labour control field. He informed the textiles delegates that located in the end of the phallus was a small video interface through which one could view workers in the Third World and administer, by remote control, electric shocks to those employees not working hard enough. Apparently after the speech only one objection was forwarded and that was from a woman who complained that the phallus device was not appropriate because not only men can oppress workers in the third world. It is from the complicity of their audiences that the Yes Men derive their most virulent critique. They point out that the "aim is to get people to think more seriously about the sort of bullsh*t they are prepared to swallow, if and when the information comes from a suitably respected authority. By appearing, for example, in the name of the WTO, one could even make out a case for justifying homicide, irrespective of the target audience's training and intellect" (Yes men) Unruh says. And this is the real statement that the Yes Men make, their real-life, real-time theatre hollows-out the signifer of the WTO and injects its own signified to highlight the predominant role of language - rhetoric - in the globalising of the ideas of neo-liberalism. In speaking sh*t and having people, nay, experts, swallow it comfortably, the Yes Men punctuate that globalisation is as much a movement of ideas across societies as it is a movement of things through societies. It is a movement of ideals - a movement of meanings. Organisations like the WTO propagate these meanings, and propagandise a situation where there is no alternative to initiatives like free trade and the top-down, repressive regime espoused buy neoliberal triumphalists. The Yes Men highlight that the seemingly immutable and inevitable charge of neoliberalism, is in fact simply the dominance of a single way of structuring social life - one dictated by the market. Through their unique brand of semiotic puppetry, the Yes Men show that the project of unelected treaty organisations like the WTO and their push toward the globalisation of neoliberalism is not inevitable, it is not a fait accompli, but rather, that their claims of an inexorable movement toward a neo-liberal capitalism are simply more rhetorical than real. By using the spin and speak of the WTO to suggest ideas like forcing the world's poor to recycle hamburgers to cure world hunger, the Yes Men demonstrate that the power of the WTO lies on the tip of their tongue, and their ability to convince people the world over of the unquestionable legitimacy of that tongue-tip teetering power. But it is that same power that has threatened the future of the Yes Men. In November 2001, the owners of the gatt.org website received a call from the host of its webpage, Verio. The WTO had contacted Verio and asked them to shut down the gatt.org site for copyright violations. But the Yes Men came up with their own response - they developed software that is freely available and which allows the user to mirror any site on the internet easily. Called "Reamweaver", the software allows the user to instantly "funhouse-mirror" anyone's website, copying the real-time "look and feel" but letting the user change any words, images, etc. that they choose. The thought of anyone being able to mimic any site on the internet is perhaps a little scary - especially in terms of e-commerce - imagine that "lizard-tongue belly button tickler" never arriving! Or thinking you had invited a bunch of swingers over to your house via a swingers website, only to find that you'd been duped by a rogue gang of fifteen tax accountants who had come to your house to give you a lecture on the issues associated with the inclusion of pro-forma information in preliminary announcements in East Europe 1955-1958. But seriously, I'm yet to critique the work of the Yes Men. Their brand of protest has come under fire most predictably from the WTO, and least surprisingly from their duped victims. But, really, in an era where the neo-liberal conservative right dominate the high-end operations of sociality, I am reticent to say a bad word about the Yes Men's light, creative, and refreshing style of dissent. I can hear the "free speech" cry coming from those who'd charge the Yes Men with denying their victims the right to freely express their ideas - and I suppose they are correct. But can supra-national institutions like the WTO and their ilk really complain about the Yes Men’s infringement on their rights to a fair communicative playing field when daily they ride rough-shod over the rights of people and the people-defined "rights" of all else with which we share this planet? This is a hazardous junction for the dissent of the Yes Men because it is a point at which personal actions collide head-on with social ethics. The Yes Men’s brand of dissent is a form of direct action, and like direct action, the emphasis is on putting physical bodies between the oppressor and the oppressed – in this case between the subaltern and the supra-national. The Yes Men put their bodies between and within bodies – they penetrate the veneer of the brand to crawl around inside and mess with the mind of the host company body. Messing with anybody’s body is going to be bothersome. But while corporations enjoy the “rights” of embodied citizens, they are spared from the consequences citizens must endure. Take Worldcom’s fraudulent accounting (the biggest in US history) for instance, surely such a monumental deception necessitates more than a USD500 million fine. When will “capital punishment” be introduced to apply to corporations? As in “killing off” the corporation and all its articles of association? Such inconsistencies in the citizenry praxis of corporations paint a pedestrian crossing at the junction where “body” activism meets the ethic (right?) of unequivocal free-speech for all – and when we factor-in crippling policies like structural adjustment, the ethically hazardous junction becomes shadowed by a glorious pedestrian overpass! Where logocentric activism literally concentrates on the apparel – the branded surface - the focus of groups like the Yes Men is on the body beneath – both corporate and corporeal. But are the tactics of the Yes Men enough? Does this step beyond logocentric focused activism wade into the territory of substantive change? Of course the answer is a resounding no. The Yes Men are culture jammers - and culture jamming exists in the realm of ephemera. It asks a question, for a fleeting moment in the grand scheme of struggle, and then fades away. Fetishising the tactics of the Yes Men risks steering dissent into a form of entertainment - much like the entertainmentised politics it opposes. What the Yes Men do is creative and skilful, but it does not express the depth of commitment displayed by those activists working tirelessly on myriad - less-glamorous - campaigns such as the free West Papua movement, and other broader issues of social activism like indigenous rights. If politics is entertainment, then the politics of the Yes Men celebrates the actor while ignoring the hard work of the production team. But having said that, I believe the Yes Men serve an important function in the complex mechanics of dissent. They are but one tactic - they cannot be expected to work with history, they exist in the moment, a transitory trance of reason. And provided the Yes Men continue to use their staged opportunities as platforms to suggest BETTER IDEAS, while also acknowledging the depth and complexity of the subject matter with which they deal, then their brand of protest is valid and effective. The Yes Men ride the cusp of a new style of contemporary social protest, and the more people who likewise use imagination to counter the globalitarian regime and its commodity logic, the better. Through intelligent satire and deft use of communication technologies, the Yes Men lay bare the internal illogic (in terms of human and ecological wellbeing) of the fetishistic charge to cut costs at all costs. Thank-Gatt for the Yes Men, the chastisers of the global eco-social pimps. Works Cited CPA. (2002). World Trade Organisation to Redefine Charter. http://theyesmen.org/tro/cpa.html Yes Men: http://theyesmen.org/ * And thanks to Phil Graham for the “capital punishment” idea. Links http://theyesmen.org/ http://theyesmen.org/tro/cpa.html http://www.gatt.org http://www.theyesmen.org/ Citation reference for this article Substitute your date of access for Dn Month Year etc... MLA Style Pace, John. "The Yes Men" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0306/05-yesmen.php>. APA Style Pace, J. (2003, Jun 19). The Yes Men. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 6,< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0306/05-yesmen.php>

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PurposeRapid technological advancements and the ever-increasing demand for Internet and social networking sites worldwide have increased the opportunity for extensive use and misuse of these platforms. Research and practice have typically focused on the brighter side of social networking sites due to the adoption of EHRM (Electronic Human Resource Management). However, less is known about the dark side of EHRM, especially the drawbacks associated with the use of social networking (SNs) platforms in organisations. In addition, most of such studies have primarily involved the western country context, and in an emerging country scenario, these kinds of studies are limited. Hence, the study aims to investigate the complexities of the use of SNs as an e-HRM strategy in organisations in an emerging country context.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on 26 in-depth interviews of HR practitioners and analysing their narratives surrounding employees' use of social networking (both enterprise social networks [ESNs] and social networking sites [SNSs]), this study illuminates the dark or the adverse side of EHRM. Specifically, it focuses on the link between employees' deviant workplace behaviour and their usage of social networking (SN) platforms in organisations (i.e. SNs at workplaces influencing employee's unethical behaviour at work).FindingsThe empirical findings reveal the subtle intentional and unintentional indulgence of employees via SNs in various types of deviant behaviours such as sharing confidential information, bullying, harassment, breaching colleagues' privacy, etc., at the workplace in the emerging market context of India. Utilising the social networking perspective and the 4Ps of deviant theory, this article describes deviance behaviours in detail and explains the inadvertent complexities of leveraging SNs as an EHRM tool at the workplace. These insights then provide a starting point for discussing the theoretical and managerial implications of the research findings.Research limitations/implicationsDerived from the current research, this model offers an integrative frame-work for understanding DWBs in SNs platforms in general. This also shows that use of SNs at workplace often leads the employee engaging in non-productive activity. Hence future studies can explore the application of this framework in organizations in detail, thus further highlighting the usefulness of EHRM to understand the employee behaviours at the workplace by the organisations.Practical implicationsThe research offers several managerial implications concerning the use of SNs as EHRM strategy at the workplace, which is perceived as a global challenge nowadays. Primarily it offers suggestions for the social media professionals and HR practitioners regarding the use of SNs in organisations.Originality/valueThe study's findings highlight the complex process that explains how SNs as an EHRM strategy affect employee deviance behaviours in the workplace. Till date, no known study has considered the possible effect of SNs on deviance behavior at the workplace in an emerging country context.

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Abstract Vietnam's Cyber Security Law, which officially came into effect on the first day of 2019, is considered by the Vietnamese authorities to be an important advance of the Vietnamese legal system in catching up with new information technology issues and addressing the challenges of the Revolution 4.0. The legislation, however, did not come without opposition. Specifically, international dissatisfaction with the law was clearly articulated in January 2019 in the Universal Periodic Review—a major human rights protection mechanism under the management of the UN Human Rights Council; and also, in the Human Rights Committee hearing on Vietnam's implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in March of that year. Within its limited resources, this article first tries to identify and evaluate recommendations and comments during the two events in relation to the Cyber Security Law, made by international actors including states, non-governmental organizations, and authoritative United Nations institutions. With the data, the article can then categorize three vital human rights concerns regarding the law, according to international perception. They comprise (1) the legal philosophy of ‘national security’; (2) obligations imposed on internet businesses; and (3) judicial review/remedy. Finally, the research engages in an extensive comparative analysis between these concerns and international practices to reach different conclusions on their compatibility and possible solutions. The authors believe that constructive criticisms from the international community can be carefully garnered in order to contribute to the refinement of Vietnam’s cyber-security laws in the future.