Medicine on the line? Computer‐mediated social support and advice for people with diabetes

The advent of thousands of Usenet groups on the Internet, covering a vast range of medical and welfare issues and ostensibly devoted to the mutual social support of participating members, has raised the potential for the development of new forms of 'virtual' health care. This article critically analyses the use by people with diabetes of one such Usenet group. It seeks to establish, first, the extent to which such a site provides some demonstrable measure of social support to its participants. This is approached by undertaking a structural analysis of the site to identify the extent of usage, and the nature of supporting interventions using a fivefold classification (instrumental, informational, esteem and social companionship and other). Second, the article attempts to identify any disparity between the lay health-knowledge in evidence and biomedical opinions proffered by the use of a panel of consultant diabetiologists. The results of the analysis suggest that the diabetes newsgroup provides an example of an active forum for largely well-informed participants who routinely use the media as an aid to the reflexive management of their medical condition. It also raises the prospect of a renegotiated relationship between medical knowledge and lay experience based upon shared learning     

Trends in online media relations: Web-based corporate press rooms in leading international companies

An analysis of 120 corporate websites from Denmark, France, Germany, Norway, Singapore, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States reveals, for the first time, international results about the implementation and use of virtual press rooms. This article shows the importance that large international companies attribute to Web-based media centers to achieve organizational objectives and to meet journalists’ demands for information and audiovisual resources. The study also shows, however, that most press rooms are far from being complete, efficient, easy-to-use, reliable and updated on a daily basis. In fact, there is not a single country from those analyzed that consistently stands out from the rest. In most of them, good results in certain areas coexist with significant shortcomings in others, resulting in some cases in poor press rooms that may not achieve the desired public relations objectives.     

Border Crossings and Diasporic Identities: Media Use and Leisure Practices of an Ethnic Minority

The diaspora of peoples whose origins were in the Indian subcontinent (South Asia) and who are now living in Western countries (especially the U.S. and UK) provides an interesting example of processes of negotiation of new hybrid cultures and identities, using new technologies, such as the Internet, and older technologies like the video player, cable or satellite television, radio, and telephone. These developments may require a revision of the classic sociological picture of assimilation as a zero sum model of acculturation, in which the acculturation of immigrants and their children involves the gradual replacement of their ethnic culture by that of the culture of the host nation. The electronic media, in the context of policies of multiculturalism, may lead to an accentuation of religio-ethnic differences. Contrary to previous assumptions, middle-class immigrants may be more inclined to resist cultural assimilation than their lower-class counterparts.     

网络化的课程CAI设计开发

介绍素质教育带给教育改革和课程改革巨大影响的基础上 ,详细地论述网络课程设计与开发的意义、基本过程及关键环节 ,文章认为具备了易用性、高效性、专业性及可扩充性等特点的网络课程对于实现自主创新性教育有极大的推进作用。     

数字图书馆的属性范畴及相关词义分析

分析了数字图书馆的本质属性 ,认为具有图书馆功能 ,以比特做为信息资源的载体是数字图书馆的基本特征 ,在此基础上给出简明定义。同时讨论数字图书馆的类型、范围以及同电子图书馆、网上图书馆、虚拟图书馆等相关词义的联系与区别。     

EFFECTS OF INTERNET USE AND SOCIAL RESOURCES ON CHANGES IN DEPRESSION

We examine how people's different uses of the Internet predict their later scores on a standard measure of depression, and how their existing social resources moderate these effects. In a longitudinal US survey conducted in 2001 and 2002, almost all respondents reported using the Internet for information, and entertainment and escape; these uses of the Internet had no impact on changes in respondents' level of depression. Almost all respondents also used the Internet for communicating with friends and family, and they showed lower depression scores six months later. Only about 20 percent of this sample reported using the Internet to meet new people and talk in online groups. Doing so changed their depression scores depending on their initial levels of social support. Those having high or medium levels of social support showed higher depression scores; those with low levels of social support did not experience these increases in depression. Our results suggest that individual differences in social resources and people's choices of how they use the Internet may account for the different outcomes reported in the literature.     

Communicating Global Activism

Many observers doubt the capacity of digital media to change the political game. The rise of a transnational activism that is aimed beyond states and directly at corporations, trade and development regimes offers a fruitful area for understanding how communication practices can help create a new politics. The Internet is implicated in the new global activism far beyond merely reducing the costs of communication, or transcending the geographical and temporal barriers associated with other communication media. Various uses of the Internet and digital media facilitate the loosely structured networks, the weak identity ties, and the patterns of issue and demonstration organizing that define a new global protest politics. Analysis of various cases shows how digital network configurations can facilitate: permanent campaigns; the growth of broad networks despite relatively weak social identity and ideology ties; transformation of individual member organizations and whole networks; and the capacity to communicate messages from desktops to television screens. The same qualities that make these communication-based politics durable also make them vulnerable to problems of control, decision-making and collective identity.     

论国际互联网对旅行社业的冲击

进入 2 1世纪以后 ,旅游越来越被普通老百姓所接受 ,旅行社作为旅游业的三大支柱之一 ,前景光明。但随着国际互联网的出现和广泛使用 ,给传统旅行社带来了巨大威胁。本文在详细论述互联网给旅行社带来冲击的基础上 ,指出在互联网影响下旅行社存在发展的机遇 ,提出旅行社生存发展的具体对策。     

Internet环境下的网络教学

Internet环境下的网络教学已成为人类进行终身教育和创新教育的最佳平台。文章着重论述了Internet环境下的多模式教学———讲授模式、个别辅导模式、讨论学习模式、探索学习模式、协作学习模式     

网络条件下高校学生思想教育工作的现状及对策

网络由于其特有的传播方式 ,对高校学生的思想观念和精神世界产生了巨大影响。它既为高校学生思想教育工作提供了新的方式、手段和方法 ,同时也对其提出了严峻的挑战。应适时抓住时机、更新观念、转变角色 ,重视建立网上学生思想教育工作阵地 ,加强思想教育工作者的素质建设 ,并采取有效措施加强网上信息的管理和监控 ,在网上唱好主旋律 ,打好主动仗