Landscape Of Mind Research Articles

Orchestrated Outrage: Athletic Activism, Anger, and Media Narratives of WNBA Player’s Engagement in the Political Sphere

This paper examines how WNBA players collectively marshaled their anger against WNBA team owner, Kelly Loeffler, into positive political support of senate candidate, Raphael Warnock. While many scholars link anger with isolation, depression, and volatility, in this project, engaging Audre Lorde’s theorization of the uses of anger, I examine the WNBA’s public support for Warnock as a contemporary case study of women’s collective political momentum and productivity when driven by anger and rejection of the existing conditions. With this cultural landscape in mind, Critical Discourse Analysis was employed to examine how national and local news represented and covered the relationship between the WNBA’s endorsement of Warnock and his political success. From this, a critical-cultural record was built considering both how these WNBA players mobilized their collective anger to achieve their political goals, but also how the news media made these actions legible to the American public.

Maintaining the Free Flow of Information. A Manifesto-like Intervention for Practice-Based Research in Academic Training Programs for Multimedia Journalism

With a changing media landscape in mind, this article takes a closer look at academic training standards for journalists. Focusing on multimedia production and innovative science, it analyses the impact on business models, resources and working conditions. As an interventionist appeal, it argues in favour of practice-based research and new training methods. Key demands include a greater awareness of the democratic role of journalism, ethical sensitivity and sustainable funding. By interweaving theory, practice and politics, this Manifesto-like paper aims to strengthen the profession of journalism and build a bridge between academia and practical training.

Embedding digital agriculture into sustainable Australian food systems: pathways and pitfalls to value creation

ABSTRACT Digital agriculture is exciting attention because of an expectation that food systems will be disrupted by new digital technologies through improvements in precision, efficiency, volume, speed of process or identity of product. This is against the background of the drive for sustainability in food systems. A diversity of technology applications is unilaterally emerging in all food chains with benefits realized through human acceptance and adoption in business processes. This paper focuses on Australia but the lessons apply to digital agriculture globally. We propose that sustainable food systems frameworks identify the relation of individual changes to broader systemic change, to relate individual changes to one another and to understand how multiple changes within a system can trigger major shifts in entire agri-food chains. With this rapidly-changing landscape in mind, we argue that food system frameworks cover five domains: production, market, capitals, governance and data technologies. We analyse experience from agricultural systems, compare it to digitization in non-agricultural systems and conclude that change will be both disruptive and cumulative. We consider the role of systems governance to be under-reported. Governance will prove critical in areas of IP legislation, policy harmonization and targeted investment.

Compositionwork: A Method for Self-Investigation

This article presents compositionwork as a method based on dialogical self theory, according to which the self is understood as a multiplicity of I-positions (different sides of the self) in the landscape of the mind. The person making the composition uses language and stones to represent relevant I-positions of her- or himself self, thus externalizing these and creating a personal landscape of mind. As a result a meta-position is taken to this landscape, which facilitates its overview and understanding and may stimulate its further development. The method relates to the two basic dimensions of the self: verbal/reflexive and nonverbal/sensory, the integration of which forms an optimal condition for the development of the self. The idea of representing I-positions by using stones is inspired by Japanese rock gardens, which often represent the organization or development of the self. By their abstract and sensory quality, stones help to evoke and symbolize nonverbal aspects of the I-positions. First, we present the theoretical concepts relevant for compositionwork, and then we elaborate on the meaning of Japanese gardens as a representation of the mind and the use of stones as symbols. Finally, we present the method itself and examples of its application.

Climate Science and the Broadcast Meteorologist

in final form 11 may 2012 ©2012 american meteorological Society n eed for A WeAtherCAsters’ Workshop on ClimAte sCienCe. Despite the many and varied platforms from which individuals currently get weather information, local television weathercasters remain a trusted source because of their familiarity and proximity to viewers. A recent national survey found that 54% of Americans watch local television news for most of their weather information (Rasmussen Reports 2011). In addition, television weathercasters are increasingly viewed as station scientists, called on to provide information to their viewers on a wide variety of sciencerelated issues, including climate science and climate change (American Meteorological Society 2010). However, a significant percentage of television weathercasters hold views inconsistent with the scientific consensus about climate change (Wilson 2002, 2008, 2009). For example, 41% of American Meteorological Society (AMS) weathercasters surveyed indicated that their main obstacle to reporting on the topic was “too much uncertainty” in climate science (Wilson 2009, p. 1457), while 29% agreed with the statement (made by a well-known television weathercaster) that “global warming is a scam.” In addition, the unauthorized release of e-mails between climate scientists and the news coverage that followed (collectively known as “Climategate”) further eroded television weathercasters’ confidence in climate change science (Maibach et al. 2011). In short, when compared to the general population of atmospheric science professionals, television weathercasters are disproportionately wary of climate science and anthropogenic climate change. With this landscape in mind, the Department of Meteorology at The Pennsylvania State University hosted a workshop for broadcast meteorologists entitled “Understanding the Science of Climate Change.” The stated goal was to empower weathercasters by enhancing their ability to deliver climate science to their audiences while also building lines of communication between broadcasters and climate scientists. Weathercasters from 31 television stations were invited, representing all television markets in Pennsylvania as well as Youngstown and Steubenville, Ohio, and Elmira and Binghamton, New York.

Natural Resource Damages for Climate Change—An Idea Whose Time Is Not Yet Come, Part I: NRD Claims Are Not Currently Viable under CERCLA

As the effects of climate change are felt, affected parties will seek redress in the legal system. Numerous suits have already been filed and this may only be the beginning of a trend. One type of suit that has not yet been filed is the natural resource damage (NRD) claim under CERCLA. While it is unlikely that climate change-based NRD claims could succeed under current law, it may only be a matter of time before they are brought. With the present legal landscape in mind, this article examines statutory requirements under CERCLA to bring a climate change related NRD claim.

States Show Wide Discrepancies in Quality of Health Care for US Children

THE QUALITY OF HEALTH CARE SYStems for children differs widely across the United States, according to a report released May 28. The report, US Variations In Child Health System Performance: A State Scorecard (available at http://www .commonwealthfund.org/publications /publications_show.htm?doc_id= 687113), ranks the states based on 13 indicators of child health system performance, grouped into 5 categories: access, quality, costs, equity, and potential of the state’s children to lead healthy lives. The report, issued by the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation that supports independent research on health care issues, compared the care systems of all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The researchers argued that if all states reached benchmarks achieved in the top-performing states, an additional 4.6 million children would have health insurance; 11.8 million more children would get their recommended annual medical and dental checkups; 1.6 million fewer children would be at risk for developmental delays; and almost 800 000 more children would be up to date on their vaccines. In general, states in the Northeast and the upper Midwest performed better than those in the South and West. The top 3 states were Iowa, Vermont, and Maine. Oklahoma was the lowest ranked, followed by Florida and Mississippi. The report was issued with the changing political landscape in mind, said report coauthor Edward Schor, MD, a Commonwealth Fund vice president who heads the organization’s Child Development and Preventive Care program. “There’s going to be a new administration next year which gives us an opportunity to raise awareness of some of the issues,” Schor said. Although child health care tends to be a state function, the federal government plays a role through the funding of

Cumulative impacts on wetlands: Linking scientific assessments and regulatory alternatives

This article is an extension and application of Preston and Bedford (1988), especially as relevant to bottomland hardwood (BLH) forests of the southeastern United States. The most important cumulative effects in BLH forests result from incremental forest loss (nibbling) and from synergisms resulting from this nibbling. Present regulatory procedures are ineffective in preventing incremental forest loss because of the focus on permit site evaluation, rather than on large landscapes. Three examples are given to illustrate the need for a landscape focus. This perspective requires preplanning or goal-setting to establish the desired conditions to be maintained in the regulated landscape unit. Spatial and temporal scales are of particular concern for landscape impact assessment. Natural drainage basins of about 106 ha, as identified in U.S. Geological Survey hydrologic units, appear to appropriate spatial units: they have fairly natural boundaries, are of sufficient size to support populations of large, wide-ranging mammals, and are compatible with existing maps and databases. Time scales should be sufficiently long to include recovery of wetland ecosystems from human perturbations. In practice, available data sets limit analysis to no longer than 50 yr. Eight indicators of landscape integrity are identified, based on generally available long-term data sets. Linking technical information concerning cumulativeeffects on landscapes to the evaluation of cumulativeimpacts in regulatory programs (i.e., goal-setting) is a serious issue that can benefit from precedents found in the field of epidemiology, and in the establishment of clean air and clean water standards. We suggest that reference data sets must be developed, relating BLH function to structure (forest area). These can be used to set goals for individual watersheds, based on their present conditions and the magnitude and type of perceived development pressures. Thus the crucial steps in establishing a successful program appear to be (1) establish study unit boundaries, (2) assess the condition of study unit landscape integrity, (3) set goals, and (4) consider the impacts of permit proposals with both goals and the existing condition of the study unit landscape in mind.