Pub Date : 2017-10-01DOI: 10.1177/0270467618819685
J. Burgess, C. Jones
The interaction between the concepts of character attachment, agency, and choice in a video game narrative was investigated using BioWare’s Mass Effect trilogy. Posts on a BioWare forum discussing the depiction of their player characters in the ending sequences of Mass Effect 3, the final game in the trilogy, were downloaded and analyzed using thematic analysis. Players demonstrated emotional attachment for the characters and narrative and expected to see the consequences of their choices play out, as in the previous games. Furthermore, players conflated winning the game with achieving a narratively satisfactory ending for the game world and its characters indicating emotional consequences for players that developers should consider when designing games with a high degree of player choice and agency. However, for some players character attachment is incongruous as they described Shepard as “acting out of character,” which needs further research.
{"title":"“Is It Too Much to Ask That We’re Allowed to Win the Game?”: Character Attachment and Agency in the Mass Effect 3 Ending Controversy","authors":"J. Burgess, C. Jones","doi":"10.1177/0270467618819685","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0270467618819685","url":null,"abstract":"The interaction between the concepts of character attachment, agency, and choice in a video game narrative was investigated using BioWare’s Mass Effect trilogy. Posts on a BioWare forum discussing the depiction of their player characters in the ending sequences of Mass Effect 3, the final game in the trilogy, were downloaded and analyzed using thematic analysis. Players demonstrated emotional attachment for the characters and narrative and expected to see the consequences of their choices play out, as in the previous games. Furthermore, players conflated winning the game with achieving a narratively satisfactory ending for the game world and its characters indicating emotional consequences for players that developers should consider when designing games with a high degree of player choice and agency. However, for some players character attachment is incongruous as they described Shepard as “acting out of character,” which needs further research.","PeriodicalId":38848,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society","volume":"37 1","pages":"146 - 158"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0270467618819685","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49353470","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-10-01DOI: 10.1177/0270467618819682
William R. Beaver
The nation’s nuclear power industry is in trouble. The number of operating reactors continues to decline, while only one new plant is scheduled to open and it is well behind schedule and 50% over budget. The article will investigate the possibility of a nuclear revival in this country by first analyzing the troubled history of the light water reactor, a technology that dates back to the 1950s, and one the federal government choose to pursue to ensure America’s technological leadership, and one the nuclear manufactures heavily promoted to ensure profitability. All of this resulted in a rush to nuclear power in the 1960s, but abruptly ended a little more than a decade later, due largely to the exorbitant costs of constructing a nuclear plant. The article then discusses the chances of a nuclear comeback, focusing on new reactor designs, which are less complex and cheaper to construct but will be dependent upon how seriously global warming is viewed by the public and elected officials.
{"title":"Can Nuclear Power Come Back?","authors":"William R. Beaver","doi":"10.1177/0270467618819682","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0270467618819682","url":null,"abstract":"The nation’s nuclear power industry is in trouble. The number of operating reactors continues to decline, while only one new plant is scheduled to open and it is well behind schedule and 50% over budget. The article will investigate the possibility of a nuclear revival in this country by first analyzing the troubled history of the light water reactor, a technology that dates back to the 1950s, and one the federal government choose to pursue to ensure America’s technological leadership, and one the nuclear manufactures heavily promoted to ensure profitability. All of this resulted in a rush to nuclear power in the 1960s, but abruptly ended a little more than a decade later, due largely to the exorbitant costs of constructing a nuclear plant. The article then discusses the chances of a nuclear comeback, focusing on new reactor designs, which are less complex and cheaper to construct but will be dependent upon how seriously global warming is viewed by the public and elected officials.","PeriodicalId":38848,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society","volume":"37 1","pages":"138 - 145"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0270467618819682","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45108611","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-10-01DOI: 10.1177/0270467618824027
Y. Tomkiv, A. Liland, D. Oughton, B. Wynne
The idea of public or stakeholder engagement in governance of science and technology is widely accepted in many policy and academic research settings. However, this enthusiasm for stakeholder engagement has not necessarily resulted in changes of attitudes toward the role of stakeholders in the dialogue nor to the value of public knowledge, practical experience, and other inputs (like salient questions) vis-à-vis expert knowledge. The formal systems of evaluation of the stakeholder engagement activities are often focused on showing that the method is efficient and works. In this article, we argue that every stakeholder engagement process should be evaluated beyond a simple assessment of the methodology and that the wider context of the stakeholder engagement activity should also be addressed. We evaluate two different stakeholder engagement activities against the existing method evaluation criteria and demonstrate their limitations for assessing the quality of a stakeholder engagement. We argue that these criteria need to be extended so that engagement processes will have a chance to improve not only policies but also their democratic legitimacy.
{"title":"Assessing Quality of Stakeholder Engagement: From Bureaucracy to Democracy","authors":"Y. Tomkiv, A. Liland, D. Oughton, B. Wynne","doi":"10.1177/0270467618824027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0270467618824027","url":null,"abstract":"The idea of public or stakeholder engagement in governance of science and technology is widely accepted in many policy and academic research settings. However, this enthusiasm for stakeholder engagement has not necessarily resulted in changes of attitudes toward the role of stakeholders in the dialogue nor to the value of public knowledge, practical experience, and other inputs (like salient questions) vis-à-vis expert knowledge. The formal systems of evaluation of the stakeholder engagement activities are often focused on showing that the method is efficient and works. In this article, we argue that every stakeholder engagement process should be evaluated beyond a simple assessment of the methodology and that the wider context of the stakeholder engagement activity should also be addressed. We evaluate two different stakeholder engagement activities against the existing method evaluation criteria and demonstrate their limitations for assessing the quality of a stakeholder engagement. We argue that these criteria need to be extended so that engagement processes will have a chance to improve not only policies but also their democratic legitimacy.","PeriodicalId":38848,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society","volume":"37 1","pages":"167 - 178"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0270467618824027","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49466279","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-06-01DOI: 10.1177/0270467618774978
D. Kera
Open science hardware (OSH) are prototypes of laboratory instruments that use open source hardware to extend the purely epistemic (improving knowledge about nature) and normative (improving society) ideals of science and emphasize the importance of technology. They remind us of Zilsel’s 1942 thesis about the artisanal origins of science and instrument making that bridged disciplinary and social barriers in the 16th century. The emphasis on making, tinkering, and design transcends research, reproducibility, and corroboration in science and pushes to the forefront educational, emancipatory, and aesthetic and exploratory uses. I will use two recent projects, OpenDrop electrowetting platform and Open Source Estrogen that make but also reflect OSH’s playful, expressive, and performative strategies and define the present practices as “artisanal science.” These hybrid and ambiguous practices bridge divides between present disciplines and skills but they also define science as an everyday activity directly connected to the private and public interests of the citizens. To describe this epistemic and normative ambiguity of artisanal science, I employ Hannah Arendt’s 1958 critique of homo laborans and homo faber and claim that science artisans (citizen scientists, geeks, makers, and hackers) offer an alternative to professionalization of science as practiced in the university and R&D laboratories. Science artisans design and build instruments to engage in civic “vita activa” over instruments but also leisurely “otium” outside of the work and science labor. OSH in this sense empowers individuals and communities to explore new connections between scientific practices, public actions, and private interests (leisure). The science artisans strive for and explore sovereignty, dignity, and freedom in an age immersed in science and technology controversies by bridging the divides between art, science, engineering, and humanities.
{"title":"Science Artisans and Open Science Hardware","authors":"D. Kera","doi":"10.1177/0270467618774978","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0270467618774978","url":null,"abstract":"Open science hardware (OSH) are prototypes of laboratory instruments that use open source hardware to extend the purely epistemic (improving knowledge about nature) and normative (improving society) ideals of science and emphasize the importance of technology. They remind us of Zilsel’s 1942 thesis about the artisanal origins of science and instrument making that bridged disciplinary and social barriers in the 16th century. The emphasis on making, tinkering, and design transcends research, reproducibility, and corroboration in science and pushes to the forefront educational, emancipatory, and aesthetic and exploratory uses. I will use two recent projects, OpenDrop electrowetting platform and Open Source Estrogen that make but also reflect OSH’s playful, expressive, and performative strategies and define the present practices as “artisanal science.” These hybrid and ambiguous practices bridge divides between present disciplines and skills but they also define science as an everyday activity directly connected to the private and public interests of the citizens. To describe this epistemic and normative ambiguity of artisanal science, I employ Hannah Arendt’s 1958 critique of homo laborans and homo faber and claim that science artisans (citizen scientists, geeks, makers, and hackers) offer an alternative to professionalization of science as practiced in the university and R&D laboratories. Science artisans design and build instruments to engage in civic “vita activa” over instruments but also leisurely “otium” outside of the work and science labor. OSH in this sense empowers individuals and communities to explore new connections between scientific practices, public actions, and private interests (leisure). The science artisans strive for and explore sovereignty, dignity, and freedom in an age immersed in science and technology controversies by bridging the divides between art, science, engineering, and humanities.","PeriodicalId":38848,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society","volume":"37 1","pages":"111 - 97"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0270467618774978","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43448153","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-06-01DOI: 10.1177/0270467618766995
Yannick Rumpala
To a large extent and one that is highly structuring, energy choices that are made in a society are political choices. This article aims at studying how these choices can be redirected by technological developments associated with renewable energy, thus contributing to a redistribution of opportunities and correspondingly to social reorganizations. In order to show that the development of alternative energies not only depends on technological advances but can also, in the process, reveal political potentialities, three steps are proposed. The first step will clarify the theoretical arguments in favor of an approach in terms of “technological potentialism.” Second, we will extend this approach by identifying a set of potentialities linked with renewable energies and the model that could arise from these alternative forms or approaches. Finally, we will examine how these potentialities could find paths to become effective.
{"title":"Alternative Forms of Energy Production and Political Reconfigurations: Exploring Alternative Energies as Potentialities of Collective Reorganization","authors":"Yannick Rumpala","doi":"10.1177/0270467618766995","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0270467618766995","url":null,"abstract":"To a large extent and one that is highly structuring, energy choices that are made in a society are political choices. This article aims at studying how these choices can be redirected by technological developments associated with renewable energy, thus contributing to a redistribution of opportunities and correspondingly to social reorganizations. In order to show that the development of alternative energies not only depends on technological advances but can also, in the process, reveal political potentialities, three steps are proposed. The first step will clarify the theoretical arguments in favor of an approach in terms of “technological potentialism.” Second, we will extend this approach by identifying a set of potentialities linked with renewable energies and the model that could arise from these alternative forms or approaches. Finally, we will examine how these potentialities could find paths to become effective.","PeriodicalId":38848,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society","volume":"37 1","pages":"85 - 96"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0270467618766995","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44893027","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-06-01DOI: 10.1177/0270467618783944
T. Dessewffy, Zsófia Nagy, Dániel Váry
This article presents findings of a research carried out among pro-refugee individuals in social media in Hungary. During the so-called refugee crisis that emerged in the summer of 2015, anti-immigrant sentiments in the Hungarian public were fueled by a strong governmental campaign. This unusually strong propaganda campaign created a strong hegemonic discourse. Nevertheless, a pro-refugee counterpublic opposing the hegemonic discourse also emerged. The article discusses existing scholarly literature on the phenomenon and how it appears in and is shaped by the digital sphere. The empirical findings focus on two characteristics of the pro-refugee counterpublic. First, we look at the political affiliations of this counterpublic. Second, we ask if the different digital affordances used by the counterpublic and their combinations indicate the formation of a community. The methodological ambition of the article is to present a digital data-driven approach, based on data provided by Facebook, which allows the individual profiling of each user. The connections and schemata of these profiles provide the analytical background of the present research. We aim to illustrate that such a digital approach has a number of advantages over traditional sociological methods, especially in the research of subaltern counterpublics.
{"title":"Where Are Those Better Angels of Our Society? Subaltern Counterpublics in Hungary During the Refugee Crisis","authors":"T. Dessewffy, Zsófia Nagy, Dániel Váry","doi":"10.1177/0270467618783944","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0270467618783944","url":null,"abstract":"This article presents findings of a research carried out among pro-refugee individuals in social media in Hungary. During the so-called refugee crisis that emerged in the summer of 2015, anti-immigrant sentiments in the Hungarian public were fueled by a strong governmental campaign. This unusually strong propaganda campaign created a strong hegemonic discourse. Nevertheless, a pro-refugee counterpublic opposing the hegemonic discourse also emerged. The article discusses existing scholarly literature on the phenomenon and how it appears in and is shaped by the digital sphere. The empirical findings focus on two characteristics of the pro-refugee counterpublic. First, we look at the political affiliations of this counterpublic. Second, we ask if the different digital affordances used by the counterpublic and their combinations indicate the formation of a community. The methodological ambition of the article is to present a digital data-driven approach, based on data provided by Facebook, which allows the individual profiling of each user. The connections and schemata of these profiles provide the analytical background of the present research. We aim to illustrate that such a digital approach has a number of advantages over traditional sociological methods, especially in the research of subaltern counterpublics.","PeriodicalId":38848,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society","volume":"37 1","pages":"112 - 123"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0270467618783944","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47731899","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-06-01DOI: 10.1177/0270467617751826
Dilshani Sarathchandra
Scientists’ risk perceptions play a critical role in determining the risks that they are willing to accept in their work. This study investigates academic bioscientists’ risk perceptions by examining the judgments working scientists employ in day-to-day research decisions. The study draws from theoretical and methodological underpinnings of Sociology of Science and Risk Analysis. Using data gathered from 694 survey responses of bioscientists at a land grant research university in the U.S. Midwest, this study identifies four dimensions of perceived risk (i.e., intellectual challenges, competition, career risks, and societal risks) and demonstrates how these dimensions are associated with a series of demographic, life-course, and contextual factors. Findings indicate that university bioscientists’ subjective risk judgments are shaped by their professional experience, sources of funding, research orientation, professional networks, and perceived significance of research, which in turn may affect their research decisions.
{"title":"Risky Science? Perception and Negotiation of Risk in University Bioscience","authors":"Dilshani Sarathchandra","doi":"10.1177/0270467617751826","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0270467617751826","url":null,"abstract":"Scientists’ risk perceptions play a critical role in determining the risks that they are willing to accept in their work. This study investigates academic bioscientists’ risk perceptions by examining the judgments working scientists employ in day-to-day research decisions. The study draws from theoretical and methodological underpinnings of Sociology of Science and Risk Analysis. Using data gathered from 694 survey responses of bioscientists at a land grant research university in the U.S. Midwest, this study identifies four dimensions of perceived risk (i.e., intellectual challenges, competition, career risks, and societal risks) and demonstrates how these dimensions are associated with a series of demographic, life-course, and contextual factors. Findings indicate that university bioscientists’ subjective risk judgments are shaped by their professional experience, sources of funding, research orientation, professional networks, and perceived significance of research, which in turn may affect their research decisions.","PeriodicalId":38848,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society","volume":"37 1","pages":"71 - 84"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0270467617751826","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47984687","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-02-01DOI: 10.1177/0270467617736219
C. Rathnayake, Wayne Buente
The role of automated or semiautomated social media accounts, commonly known as “bots,” in social and political processes has gained significant scholarly attention. The current body of research discusses how bots can be designed to achieve specific purposes as well as instances of unexpected negative outcomes of such use. We suggest that the interplay between social media affordances and user practices can result in incidental effects from automated agents. We examined a Twitter network data set with 1,782 nodes and 5,640 edges to demonstrate the engagement and outreach of a retweeting bot called Siripalabot that was popular among Sri Lankan Twitter users. The bot served the simple function of retweeting tweets with hashtags #SriLanka and #lk to its follower network. However, the co-use of #Sri Lanka and/or #lk with #PresPollSL, a hashtag used to discuss politics related to Sri Lanka’s presidential election in 2015, resulted in the bot incidentally amplifying the political voice of less engaged actors. The analysis demonstrated that the bot dominated the network in terms of engagement (out-degree) and the ability to connect distant clusters of actors (betweenness centrality) while more traditional actors, such as the main election candidates and news accounts, indicated more prestige (in-degree) and power (eigenvector centrality). We suggest that the study of automated agents should include designer intentions, the design and behavior of automated agents, user expectations, as well as unintended and incidental effects of interaction.
{"title":"Incidental Effects of Automated Retweeting: An Exploratory Network Perspective on Bot Activity During Sri Lanka’s Presidential Election in 2015","authors":"C. Rathnayake, Wayne Buente","doi":"10.1177/0270467617736219","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0270467617736219","url":null,"abstract":"The role of automated or semiautomated social media accounts, commonly known as “bots,” in social and political processes has gained significant scholarly attention. The current body of research discusses how bots can be designed to achieve specific purposes as well as instances of unexpected negative outcomes of such use. We suggest that the interplay between social media affordances and user practices can result in incidental effects from automated agents. We examined a Twitter network data set with 1,782 nodes and 5,640 edges to demonstrate the engagement and outreach of a retweeting bot called Siripalabot that was popular among Sri Lankan Twitter users. The bot served the simple function of retweeting tweets with hashtags #SriLanka and #lk to its follower network. However, the co-use of #Sri Lanka and/or #lk with #PresPollSL, a hashtag used to discuss politics related to Sri Lanka’s presidential election in 2015, resulted in the bot incidentally amplifying the political voice of less engaged actors. The analysis demonstrated that the bot dominated the network in terms of engagement (out-degree) and the ability to connect distant clusters of actors (betweenness centrality) while more traditional actors, such as the main election candidates and news accounts, indicated more prestige (in-degree) and power (eigenvector centrality). We suggest that the study of automated agents should include designer intentions, the design and behavior of automated agents, user expectations, as well as unintended and incidental effects of interaction.","PeriodicalId":38848,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society","volume":"37 1","pages":"57 - 65"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0270467617736219","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43528969","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-02-01DOI: 10.1177/0270467617738902
J. Vaterlaus
Publically launched in 2013 and discontinued in 2017, Yik Yak was an anonymous and geographically restricted social media application. A uses and gratifications theoretical framework and a mixed-methods research design were selected for this exploratory study regarding differences between Yik Yak users and nonusers. College students (n = 264) from a western university completed online surveys regarding Yik Yak in November of 2015. Results indicated that Yik Yak users were significantly younger than nonusers, and no significant differences were identified between Yik Yak users’ and nonusers’ reported time spent with other social media platforms (i.e., Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat). Qualitative results indicated that college students who used Yik Yak did so for informational, entertainment, agency-enhancement, and community-building purposes. Nonusers chose not to use Yik Yak because the application did not meet their needs, they were unaware of Yik Yak, and because of unfavorable content.
{"title":"Yik Yak: An Exploratory Study of College Student Uses and Gratifications","authors":"J. Vaterlaus","doi":"10.1177/0270467617738902","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0270467617738902","url":null,"abstract":"Publically launched in 2013 and discontinued in 2017, Yik Yak was an anonymous and geographically restricted social media application. A uses and gratifications theoretical framework and a mixed-methods research design were selected for this exploratory study regarding differences between Yik Yak users and nonusers. College students (n = 264) from a western university completed online surveys regarding Yik Yak in November of 2015. Results indicated that Yik Yak users were significantly younger than nonusers, and no significant differences were identified between Yik Yak users’ and nonusers’ reported time spent with other social media platforms (i.e., Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat). Qualitative results indicated that college students who used Yik Yak did so for informational, entertainment, agency-enhancement, and community-building purposes. Nonusers chose not to use Yik Yak because the application did not meet their needs, they were unaware of Yik Yak, and because of unfavorable content.","PeriodicalId":38848,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society","volume":"37 1","pages":"23 - 33"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0270467617738902","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44832748","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-02-01DOI: 10.1177/0270467617738463
Meghna Sabharwal, R. Varma
Studies on skilled return migration from developed to developing countries have focused on the industrial sector. This article focuses on why academic engineers and scientists from developing countries leave developed countries to return to their countries of birth. Data for this study comes from a National Science Foundation funded study with 83 engineers and scientists who returned to India after study and work in U.S. universities. Better career prospects in India namely ample funding available for research, less competition for grants, ability to work on theoretical topics, and freedom in research objectives emerged as the key factors that prompted return. These findings, therefore, differ with return migration of industrial engineers and scientists who moved back primarily to start companies in India and immigration challenges in the United States. With very little scholarly work on return migration of academic engineers and scientists, this study expands the understanding of high skilled migration in a globalized world.
{"title":"Grass Is Greener on the Other Side: Return Migration of Indian Engineers and Scientists in Academia","authors":"Meghna Sabharwal, R. Varma","doi":"10.1177/0270467617738463","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0270467617738463","url":null,"abstract":"Studies on skilled return migration from developed to developing countries have focused on the industrial sector. This article focuses on why academic engineers and scientists from developing countries leave developed countries to return to their countries of birth. Data for this study comes from a National Science Foundation funded study with 83 engineers and scientists who returned to India after study and work in U.S. universities. Better career prospects in India namely ample funding available for research, less competition for grants, ability to work on theoretical topics, and freedom in research objectives emerged as the key factors that prompted return. These findings, therefore, differ with return migration of industrial engineers and scientists who moved back primarily to start companies in India and immigration challenges in the United States. With very little scholarly work on return migration of academic engineers and scientists, this study expands the understanding of high skilled migration in a globalized world.","PeriodicalId":38848,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society","volume":"37 1","pages":"34 - 44"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0270467617738463","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49467291","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：