Popular Culture and the New Journalism.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fishwick, Marshall W.

This paper discusses the concept of popular culture, relating it to new journalism as a phenomenon which reflects the popular images of society. Style is the essential element of popular culture so that the kind of writing presently known as new journalism is the ultimate example of the philosophy that style is supreme. But the style of the best…

Popularizing dissent: A civil society perspective.

PubMed

Motion, Judy; Leitch, Shirley; Weaver, C Kay

2015-05-01

This article theorizes civil society groups' attempts to popularize opposition to genetic modification in New Zealand as deliberative interventions that seek to open up public participation in science-society governance. In this case, the popularization strategies were designed to intensify concerns about social justice and democratic incursions, mobilize dissent and offer meaningful mechanisms for navigating and participating in public protest. Such civic popularization efforts, we argue, are more likely to succeed when popularity and politicization strategies are judiciously integrated to escalate controversy, re-negotiate power relations and provoke agency and action. © The Author(s) 2014.

Social Costs for Wannabes: Moderating Effects of Popularity and Gender on the Links between Popularity Goals and Negative Peer Experiences.

PubMed

Breslend, Nicole Lafko; Shoulberg, Erin K; McQuade, Julia D; Murray-Close, Dianna

2018-02-05

Youth in early adolescence are highly concerned with being popular in the peer group, but the desire to be popular can have maladaptive consequences for individuals. In fact, qualitative work suggests that youth with high popularity goals who are nonetheless unpopular have negative experiences with their peers. However, little quantitative work has examined this possibility. The purpose of the current study was to examine if popularity goals were linked with physical (e.g., being hit) and relational (e.g., being excluded) victimization and peer rejection, particularly for individuals who strived for popularity but were viewed by their peers as unpopular. Late elementary and early middle school participants (N = 205; 54% female) completed self-reports of popularity goals and peer nominations of popularity and peer rejection. Teachers reported on students' experiences of relational and physical victimization. Peer nominated popularity and gender were moderators of the association between popularity goals and negative peer experiences. Consistent with hypotheses, girls who were unpopular but wanted to be popular were more likely to experience peer rejection and relational victimization. Unexpectedly, boys who were unpopular but did not desire to be popular were more likely to be rejected and relationally victimized. The findings suggest that intervention and prevention programs may benefit from addressing the social status goals of low status youth in a gender-specific manner.

Popularity and Novelty Dynamics in Evolving Networks.

PubMed

Abbas, Khushnood; Shang, Mingsheng; Abbasi, Alireza; Luo, Xin; Xu, Jian Jun; Zhang, Yu-Xia

2018-04-20

Network science plays a big role in the representation of real-world phenomena such as user-item bipartite networks presented in e-commerce or social media platforms. It provides researchers with tools and techniques to solve complex real-world problems. Identifying and predicting future popularity and importance of items in e-commerce or social media platform is a challenging task. Some items gain popularity repeatedly over time while some become popular and novel only once. This work aims to identify the key-factors: popularity and novelty. To do so, we consider two types of novelty predictions: items appearing in the popular ranking list for the first time; and items which were not in the popular list in the past time window, but might have been popular before the recent past time window. In order to identify the popular items, a careful consideration of macro-level analysis is needed. In this work we propose a model, which exploits item level information over a span of time to rank the importance of the item. We considered ageing or decay effect along with the recent link-gain of the items. We test our proposed model on four various real-world datasets using four information retrieval based metrics.

Rethinking Popular Culture and Media

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Marshall, Elizabeth, Ed.; Sensoy, Ozlem, Ed.

2011-01-01

"Rethinking Popular Culture and Media" is a provocative collection of articles that begins with the idea that the "popular" in classrooms and in the everyday lives of teachers and students is fundamentally political. This anthology includes outstanding articles by elementary and secondary public school teachers, scholars, and activists who…

Popular science publishing in contemporary China.

PubMed

Wu, Guosheng; Qiu, Hui

2013-07-01

Since the 1950s China's popular science publishing has been the business of the government, and subject to its will. China adopted a system of planned economies, as the Soviet Union did, until the 1980s when a policy of reform and opening-up was adopted. During the period of the planned economies, popular science publishing was not a commercial but a governmental enterprise. More than 100 million copies of the most representative publication of this period, One Hundred Thousand Whys, have been distributed. The Unmoved Mover Series of the 1990s was a milestone in the new era. What is significant about this series is that it broke through the prevailing mode of science-popularization as 'serving for industrial and agricultural production, serving for ideology'. China's popular science publishing has its defects, genetically and culturally. In an age of marketization, popular science books are frequently applauded by the experts, but not enjoyed by general readers.

New Dimensions in Popular Culture.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nye, Russel B., Ed.

This document contains fifteen essays which study some of the didactic, moralistic literature which was popular in nineteenth century America, and speculate about the culture from which the literature evolved. The essays include "Millions of Moral Little Books: Sunday School Books in Their Popular Context"; "Nineteenth Century Gift Books: A…

Popularity versus similarity in growing networks.

PubMed

Papadopoulos, Fragkiskos; Kitsak, Maksim; Serrano, M Ángeles; Boguñá, Marián; Krioukov, Dmitri

2012-09-27

The principle that 'popularity is attractive' underlies preferential attachment, which is a common explanation for the emergence of scaling in growing networks. If new connections are made preferentially to more popular nodes, then the resulting distribution of the number of connections possessed by nodes follows power laws, as observed in many real networks. Preferential attachment has been directly validated for some real networks (including the Internet), and can be a consequence of different underlying processes based on node fitness, ranking, optimization, random walks or duplication. Here we show that popularity is just one dimension of attractiveness; another dimension is similarity. We develop a framework in which new connections optimize certain trade-offs between popularity and similarity, instead of simply preferring popular nodes. The framework has a geometric interpretation in which popularity preference emerges from local optimization. As opposed to preferential attachment, our optimization framework accurately describes the large-scale evolution of technological (the Internet), social (trust relationships between people) and biological (Escherichia coli metabolic) networks, predicting the probability of new links with high precision. The framework that we have developed can thus be used for predicting new links in evolving networks, and provides a different perspective on preferential attachment as an emergent phenomenon.

Technology, Sound and Popular Music.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jones, Steve

The ability to record sound is power over sound. Musicians, producers, recording engineers, and the popular music audience often refer to the sound of a recording as something distinct from the music it contains. Popular music is primarily mediated via electronics, via sound, and not by means of written notes. The ability to preserve or modify…

Popular Culture in the Junior College Library

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lonergan, David; Ayers, Meredith

2015-01-01

Popular culture is extremely influential in both academe and society at large. However, formal disciplinary study of popular culture lags far behind that influence. Anthropology, film studies, history, musicology, and sociology are only some of the disciplines that frequently include popular culture as a research focus. This article advises on how…

Issues in the Popularization of Science.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kapitza, Sergei P.

1988-01-01

Discusses the objectives, problems, and difficulties involved in the popularization of science. Describes popular scientific journals, scientists, journalists, exhibitions, museums, science-related social problems, the role of the mass media, and global problems. (RT)

Characterizing and modeling the dynamics of online popularity.

PubMed

Ratkiewicz, Jacob; Fortunato, Santo; Flammini, Alessandro; Menczer, Filippo; Vespignani, Alessandro

2010-10-08

Online popularity has an enormous impact on opinions, culture, policy, and profits. We provide a quantitative, large scale, temporal analysis of the dynamics of online content popularity in two massive model systems: the Wikipedia and an entire country's Web space. We find that the dynamics of popularity are characterized by bursts, displaying characteristic features of critical systems such as fat-tailed distributions of magnitude and interevent time. We propose a minimal model combining the classic preferential popularity increase mechanism with the occurrence of random popularity shifts due to exogenous factors. The model recovers the critical features observed in the empirical analysis of the systems analyzed here, highlighting the key factors needed in the description of popularity dynamics.

Cases of good and bad popularizing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pekkola, Marko

2010-05-01

Scientific articles in average are read by few people and the impact of individual paper in the society may remain small. A typical press release might not help much. Simultaneously popular science magazines are seeking for news, but by reading the same channels it is easy to end up printing yesterdaýs digital news in predictable format. Yet an author who knows how and what to popularize, may win thousands of readers and simultaneously help the popular science magazine to win the news competition.

[Popular education in health and nutrition: literature review].

PubMed

Mueses De Molina, C

1993-01-01

This literature review of popular education in health and nutrition is intended to provide the necessary theoretical framework for proposals and programs for human resource development in food and nutrition. The work contains a summary of the objectives, purposes, and methodology of popular education in general, a discussion of applications of popular education techniques to health and nutrition education, and a description of some projects based on popular education. Popular education was developed in Latin America by Paulo Freire and others as a response to political domination. Its basic objective was to make the oppressed masses aware of their condition and able to struggle for the transformation of society. Popular education views community participation, development of consciousness, and integration with social and economic activity as fundamental attributes. Participation should be developed through community organizations and should continue for the duration of the educational intervention. The right of all persons to participate in a plane of equality should be recognized. Community or popular education should be conceived as a process of permanent education that will continue throughout the lifetime of individuals and groups. Popular education is directed toward population sectors excluded from participation in employment, family, community, mass communications, education, and leisure activities. Such population sectors are concentrated in the urban periphery and in rural areas. Abandonment of traditional educational techniques and assumption of an active role by community members are elements in development of the methodology of popular education. Steps in the methodology include investigation of possible themes, selection of themes to serve as points of departure, definition of the problem, and action programs. Popular education in nutrition and health begins by asking what problems need to be remedied. The entire process of training and education in

Popularity Modeling for Mobile Apps: A Sequential Approach.

PubMed

Zhu, Hengshu; Liu, Chuanren; Ge, Yong; Xiong, Hui; Chen, Enhong

2015-07-01

The popularity information in App stores, such as chart rankings, user ratings, and user reviews, provides an unprecedented opportunity to understand user experiences with mobile Apps, learn the process of adoption of mobile Apps, and thus enables better mobile App services. While the importance of popularity information is well recognized in the literature, the use of the popularity information for mobile App services is still fragmented and under-explored. To this end, in this paper, we propose a sequential approach based on hidden Markov model (HMM) for modeling the popularity information of mobile Apps toward mobile App services. Specifically, we first propose a popularity based HMM (PHMM) to model the sequences of the heterogeneous popularity observations of mobile Apps. Then, we introduce a bipartite based method to precluster the popularity observations. This can help to learn the parameters and initial values of the PHMM efficiently. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the PHMM is a general model and can be applicable for various mobile App services, such as trend based App recommendation, rating and review spam detection, and ranking fraud detection. Finally, we validate our approach on two real-world data sets collected from the Apple Appstore. Experimental results clearly validate both the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed popularity modeling approach.

Popularity and adolescent friendship networks: selection and influence dynamics.

PubMed

Dijkstra, Jan Kornelis; Cillessen, Antonius H N; Borch, Casey

2013-07-01

This study examined the dynamics of popularity in adolescent friendship networks across 3 years in middle school. Longitudinal social network modeling was used to identify selection and influence in the similarity of popularity among friends. It was argued that lower status adolescents strive to enhance their status through befriending higher status adolescents, whereas higher status adolescents strive to maintain their status by keeping lower status adolescents at a distance. The results largely supported these expectations. Selection partially accounted for similarity in popularity among friends; adolescents preferred to affiliate with similar-status or higher status peers, reinforcing the attractiveness of popular adolescents and explaining stability of popularity at the individual level. Influence processes also accounted for similarity in popularity over time, showing that peers increase in popularity and become more similar to their friends. The results showed how selection and influence processes account for popularity dynamics in adolescent networks over time.

Popularity versus similarity in growing networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Krioukov, Dmitri; Papadopoulos, Fragkiskos; Kitsak, Maksim; Serrano, Mariangeles; Boguna, Marian

2012-02-01

Preferential attachment is a powerful mechanism explaining the emergence of scaling in growing networks. If new connections are established preferentially to more popular nodes in a network, then the network is scale-free. Here we show that not only popularity but also similarity is a strong force shaping the network structure and dynamics. We develop a framework where new connections, instead of preferring popular nodes, optimize certain trade-offs between popularity and similarity. The framework admits a geometric interpretation, in which preferential attachment emerges from local optimization processes. As opposed to preferential attachment, the optimization framework accurately describes large-scale evolution of technological (Internet), social (web of trust), and biological (E.coli metabolic) networks, predicting the probability of new links in them with a remarkable precision. The developed framework can thus be used for predicting new links in evolving networks, and provides a different perspective on preferential attachment as an emergent phenomenon.

Neural mechanisms tracking popularity in real-world social networks.

PubMed

Zerubavel, Noam; Bearman, Peter S; Weber, Jochen; Ochsner, Kevin N

2015-12-08

Differences in popularity are a key aspect of status in virtually all human groups and shape social interactions within them. Little is known, however, about how we track and neurally represent others' popularity. We addressed this question in two real-world social networks using sociometric methods to quantify popularity. Each group member (perceiver) viewed faces of every other group member (target) while whole-brain functional MRI data were collected. Independent functional localizer tasks were used to identify brain systems supporting affective valuation (ventromedial prefrontal cortex, ventral striatum, amygdala) and social cognition (dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, precuneus, temporoparietal junction), respectively. During the face-viewing task, activity in both types of neural systems tracked targets' sociometric popularity, even when controlling for potential confounds. The target popularity-social cognition system relationship was mediated by valuation system activity, suggesting that observing popular individuals elicits value signals that facilitate understanding their mental states. The target popularity-valuation system relationship was strongest for popular perceivers, suggesting enhanced sensitivity to differences among other group members' popularity. Popular group members also demonstrated greater interpersonal sensitivity by more accurately predicting how their own personalities were perceived by other individuals in the social network. These data offer insights into the mechanisms by which status guides social behavior.

Spanish Federation of Popular Universities (FEUP)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Serrano, Isabel Garcia-Longoria

2006-01-01

This article features the Spanish Popular Universities, which are defined as "a project of cultural development that acts in the municipality, whose objective is to promote social participation, education, training, and culture in order to improve life quality" (Federation of Popular Education Universities, 2000). A century of history of…

Living-History Villages as Popular Entertainers.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Geist, Christopher D.

1994-01-01

Discusses the furor created when Walt Disney Studios announced plans to develop a "historic amusement park" near the Manassas (Virginia) National Battlefield Park. Maintains that the public debate over the popular understanding of history reflects an ongoing tension between academic historians and the purveyors of popular history. (CFR)

Bullying, Social Power and Heteronormativity: Girls' Constructions of Popularity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Duncan, Neil; Owens, Larry

2011-01-01

Literature on girls' popularity posits a strong association between popularity, social power and bullying behaviours, some of which conflate the concepts "bully" and "popular". This study explores that association through links to concepts of popularity among girls in two demographically different high schools. Data are presented that were derived…

A Guide to Using Popular Culture to Teach Composition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smelstor, Marjorie, Ed.

The purpose of this guide is to offer possible answers to questions concerning popular culture that teachers might have and to offer suggestions on utilizing popular culture materials that are available. Lesson plans are presented using materials from advertising, newspapers, comics, film, television, popular music, radio, popular literature,…

Popularity Trajectories and Substance Use in early Adolescence.

PubMed

Moody, James; Brynildsen, Wendy D; Osgood, D Wayne; Feinberg, Mark E; Gest, Scott

2011-05-01

This paper introduces new longitudinal network data from the "Promoting School-Community-University Partnerships to Enhance Resilience" or "PROSPER" peers project. In 28 communities, grade-level sociometric friendship nominations were collected from two cohorts of middle school students as they moved from 6(th), to 9(th) grade. As an illustration and description of these longitudinal network data, this paper describes the school popularity structure, changes in popularity position, and suggests linkages between popularity trajectory and substance use. In the cross-section, we find that the network is consistent with a hierarchical social organization, but exhibits considerable relational change in both particular friends and position at the individual level. We find that both the base level of popularity and the variability of popularity trajectories effect substance use.

What types of astronomy images are most popular?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Allen, Alice; Bonnell, Jerry T.; Connelly, Paul; Haring, Ralf; Lowe, Stuart R.; Nemiroff, Robert J.

2015-01-01

Stunning imagery helps make astronomy one of the most popular sciences -- but what types of astronomy images are most popular? To help answer this question, public response to images posted to various public venues of the Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) are investigated. APOD portals queried included the main NASA website and the social media mirrors on Facebook, Google Plus, and Twitter. Popularity measures include polls, downloads, page views, likes, shares, and retweets; these measures are used to assess how image popularity varies in relation to various image attributes including topic and topicality.

Subtle Nonlinearity in Popular Album Charts

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bentley, R. Alexander; Maschner, Herbert D. G.

Large-scale patterns of culture change may be explained by models of self organized criticality, or alternatively, by multiplicative processes. We speculate that popular album activity may be similar to critical models of extinction in that interconnected agents compete to survive within a limited space. Here we investigate whether popular music albums as listed on popular album charts display evidence of self-organized criticality, including a self-affine time series of activity and power-law distributions of lifetimes and exit activity in the chart. We find it difficult to distinguish between multiplicative growth and critical model hypotheses for these data. However, aspects of criticality may be masked by the selective sampling that a "Top 200" listing necessarily implies.

Marriage and Retirement: Advice to Couples in Popular Literature.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Harbert, Ellen M.; And Others

Though academic research has shown retirement to be viewed by retirees as a satisfying time in life, popular opinion holds that retirement is a difficult adjustment for a couple. This study was undertaken to find out more about one source of popular opinion, the popular press. All popular books and magazine articles on the topic of marriage and…

Popularity in Early Adolescence: Prosocial and Antisocial Subtypes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

de Bruyn, Eddy H.; Cillessen, Antonius H. N.

2006-01-01

The present study was designed to examine early adolescents' stereotypical descriptions of two types of youth who are seen as popular by their peers. Participants were 13- to 14-year-old early adolescents (N = 287). The results indicated that early adolescents distinguished two types of popular peers: a "populistic" (popular but not…

Behavioral Changes Predicting Temporal Changes in Perceived Popular Status

PubMed Central

Bowker, Julie C.; Rubin, Kenneth H.; Buskirk-Cohen, Alison; Rose-Krasnor, Linda; Booth-LaForce, Cathryn

2009-01-01

The primary objectives of this investigation were to determine the extent to which young adolescents are stable in high perceived popular status across the middle school transition and to examine whether changes in social behaviors predict the stability, gain, and loss of perceived popular status after the transition. The sample included 672 young adolescents (323 boys) who completed peer-nomination assessments of social behavior and perceived popularity at the end of elementary school (5th grade) and the beginning of middle school (6th grade). Findings indicated that 62 percent of perceived popular adolescents remained stable in their high popular status across the middle school transition. Multinomial logistic regression analyses revealed that a combination of aggression and arrogance/conceit was associated with stable and newly-gained perceived popular status after the middle school transition. Taken together, findings highlight the significance of contextual and temporal changes in adolescents’ perceived popular status. PMID:20209113

Conflict behaviors and their relationship to popularity.

PubMed

Tezer, E

2001-01-01

This study examined conflict behaviors (self, other) among 127 Turkish college students. Differences in five conflict behaviors (forcing, avoiding, accommodating, compromising, and collaborating) were then explored in relation to popularity and unpopularity. Results indicated that the students engaged in more avoiding and compromising behaviors, while perceiving more forcing behavior in others. Further, the unpopular group was found to engage in more compromising behavior, and perceived more forcing behavior in others, as compared with the popular group. Constructive and destructive conflict strategies, and their implications for popularity, are discussed.

Developmental trajectories of adolescent popularity: a growth curve modelling analysis.

PubMed

Cillessen, Antonius H N; Borch, Casey

2006-12-01

Growth curve modelling was used to examine developmental trajectories of sociometric and perceived popularity across eight years in adolescence, and the effects of gender, overt aggression, and relational aggression on these trajectories. Participants were 303 initially popular students (167 girls, 136 boys) for whom sociometric data were available in Grades 5-12. The popularity and aggression constructs were stable but non-overlapping developmental dimensions. Growth curve models were run with SAS MIXED in the framework of the multilevel model for change [Singer, J. D., & Willett, J. B. (2003). Applied longitudinal data analysis. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press]. Sociometric popularity showed a linear change trajectory; perceived popularity showed nonlinear change. Overt aggression predicted low sociometric popularity but an increase in perceived popularity in the second half of the study. Relational aggression predicted a decrease in sociometric popularity, especially for girls, and continued high-perceived popularity for both genders. The effect of relational aggression on perceived popularity was the strongest around the transition from middle to high school. The importance of growth curve models for understanding adolescent social development was discussed, as well as specific issues and challenges of growth curve analyses with sociometric data.

Characterizing and modeling the dynamics of activity and popularity.

PubMed

Zhang, Peng; Li, Menghui; Gao, Liang; Fan, Ying; Di, Zengru

2014-01-01

Social media, regarded as two-layer networks consisting of users and items, turn out to be the most important channels for access to massive information in the era of Web 2.0. The dynamics of human activity and item popularity is a crucial issue in social media networks. In this paper, by analyzing the growth of user activity and item popularity in four empirical social media networks, i.e., Amazon, Flickr, Delicious and Wikipedia, it is found that cross links between users and items are more likely to be created by active users and to be acquired by popular items, where user activity and item popularity are measured by the number of cross links associated with users and items. This indicates that users generally trace popular items, overall. However, it is found that the inactive users more severely trace popular items than the active users. Inspired by empirical analysis, we propose an evolving model for such networks, in which the evolution is driven only by two-step random walk. Numerical experiments verified that the model can qualitatively reproduce the distributions of user activity and item popularity observed in empirical networks. These results might shed light on the understandings of micro dynamics of activity and popularity in social media networks.

Characterizing and Modeling the Dynamics of Activity and Popularity

PubMed Central

Zhang, Peng; Li, Menghui; Gao, Liang; Fan, Ying; Di, Zengru

2014-01-01

Social media, regarded as two-layer networks consisting of users and items, turn out to be the most important channels for access to massive information in the era of Web 2.0. The dynamics of human activity and item popularity is a crucial issue in social media networks. In this paper, by analyzing the growth of user activity and item popularity in four empirical social media networks, i.e., Amazon, Flickr, Delicious and Wikipedia, it is found that cross links between users and items are more likely to be created by active users and to be acquired by popular items, where user activity and item popularity are measured by the number of cross links associated with users and items. This indicates that users generally trace popular items, overall. However, it is found that the inactive users more severely trace popular items than the active users. Inspired by empirical analysis, we propose an evolving model for such networks, in which the evolution is driven only by two-step random walk. Numerical experiments verified that the model can qualitatively reproduce the distributions of user activity and item popularity observed in empirical networks. These results might shed light on the understandings of micro dynamics of activity and popularity in social media networks. PMID:24586586

Neural mechanisms tracking popularity in real-world social networks

PubMed Central

Zerubavel, Noam; Bearman, Peter S.; Weber, Jochen; Ochsner, Kevin N.

2015-01-01

Differences in popularity are a key aspect of status in virtually all human groups and shape social interactions within them. Little is known, however, about how we track and neurally represent others’ popularity. We addressed this question in two real-world social networks using sociometric methods to quantify popularity. Each group member (perceiver) viewed faces of every other group member (target) while whole-brain functional MRI data were collected. Independent functional localizer tasks were used to identify brain systems supporting affective valuation (ventromedial prefrontal cortex, ventral striatum, amygdala) and social cognition (dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, precuneus, temporoparietal junction), respectively. During the face-viewing task, activity in both types of neural systems tracked targets’ sociometric popularity, even when controlling for potential confounds. The target popularity–social cognition system relationship was mediated by valuation system activity, suggesting that observing popular individuals elicits value signals that facilitate understanding their mental states. The target popularity–valuation system relationship was strongest for popular perceivers, suggesting enhanced sensitivity to differences among other group members’ popularity. Popular group members also demonstrated greater interpersonal sensitivity by more accurately predicting how their own personalities were perceived by other individuals in the social network. These data offer insights into the mechanisms by which status guides social behavior. PMID:26598684

Altruism and Popularity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Egilmez, Eda; Naylor-Tincknell, Janett

2017-01-01

Popularity, as a manifestation of social status, has been widely researched and determined by group members. Prosocial behaviors are actions with intention of benefiting others or society as whole with little or no personal gain and may include helping, cooperating, and other voluntary works. Altruism is a type of prosocial behavior that could…

Using Popular Culture to Teach Quantitative Reasoning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hillyard, Cinnamon

2007-01-01

Popular culture provides many opportunities to develop quantitative reasoning. This article describes a junior-level, interdisciplinary, quantitative reasoning course that uses examples from movies, cartoons, television, magazine advertisements, and children's literature. Some benefits from and cautions to using popular culture to teach…

Popularity differentially predicts reactive and proactive aggression in early adolescence.

PubMed

Stoltz, Sabine; Cillessen, Antonius H N; van den Berg, Yvonne H M; Gommans, Rob

2016-01-01

Previous research has indicated that peer popularity is associated with aggressive behavior. However, it is not yet clear whether popularity is uniquely related to different functions of aggression. In this study, we examined associations between peer-perceived popularity, and reactive and proactive aggression using a cross-sectional and a longitudinal design. Yearly sociometric measures of popularity, and reactive and proactive aggression were gathered from 266 seventh and eight grade adolescents (Mage grade 7 = 12.80, SDage  = .40). Popularity was positively correlated with proactive aggression and negatively correlated with reactive aggression, both concurrently as over time. Curvilinear trends indicated that a significant minority of low versus high popular adolescents showed both functions of aggression. Somewhat stronger effects of popularity on proactive aggression were found for boys than girls. Stably popular adolescents showed the highest levels of proactive aggression, whereas stably unpopular youth showed the highest levels of reactive aggression. Implications and directions for future research are discussed. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Popularity in Wonderland.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nist, J.S.

Specialists in the field of children's literature, who publish research and decide on awards for individual books, should give serious study to what children themselves choose to read. Among the children's books that were not originally awarded top honors by critics but that have proved extremely popular with children are the Oz books by L. Frank…

Significance and popularity in music production

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Monechi, Bernardo; Gravino, Pietro; Servedio, Vito D. P.; Tria, Francesca; Loreto, Vittorio

2017-07-01

Creative industries constantly strive for fame and popularity. Though highly desirable, popularity is not the only achievement artistic creations might ever acquire. Leaving a longstanding mark in the global production and influencing future works is an even more important achievement, usually acknowledged by experts and scholars. `Significant' or `influential' works are not always well known to the public or have sometimes been long forgotten by the vast majority. In this paper, we focus on the duality between what is successful and what is significant in the musical context. To this end, we consider a user-generated set of tags collected through an online music platform, whose evolving co-occurrence network mirrors the growing conceptual space underlying music production. We define a set of general metrics aiming at characterizing music albums throughout history, and their relationships with the overall musical production. We show how these metrics allow to classify albums according to their current popularity or their belonging to expert-made lists of important albums. In this way, we provide the scientific community and the public at large with quantitative tools to tell apart popular albums from culturally or aesthetically relevant artworks. The generality of the methodology presented here lends itself to be used in all those fields where innovation and creativity are in play.

Significance and popularity in music production.

PubMed

Monechi, Bernardo; Gravino, Pietro; Servedio, Vito D P; Tria, Francesca; Loreto, Vittorio

2017-07-01

Creative industries constantly strive for fame and popularity. Though highly desirable, popularity is not the only achievement artistic creations might ever acquire. Leaving a longstanding mark in the global production and influencing future works is an even more important achievement, usually acknowledged by experts and scholars. 'Significant' or 'influential' works are not always well known to the public or have sometimes been long forgotten by the vast majority. In this paper, we focus on the duality between what is successful and what is significant in the musical context. To this end, we consider a user-generated set of tags collected through an online music platform, whose evolving co-occurrence network mirrors the growing conceptual space underlying music production. We define a set of general metrics aiming at characterizing music albums throughout history, and their relationships with the overall musical production. We show how these metrics allow to classify albums according to their current popularity or their belonging to expert-made lists of important albums. In this way, we provide the scientific community and the public at large with quantitative tools to tell apart popular albums from culturally or aesthetically relevant artworks. The generality of the methodology presented here lends itself to be used in all those fields where innovation and creativity are in play.

Evolution of popularity in given names

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, Mi Jin; Jo, Woo Seong; Yi, Il Gu; Baek, Seung Ki; Kim, Beom Jun

2016-02-01

An individual's identity in a human society is specified by his or her name. Differently from family names, usually inherited from fathers, a given name for a child is often chosen at the parents' disposal. However, their decision cannot be made in a vacuum but affected by social conventions and trends. Furthermore, such social pressure changes in time, as new names gain popularity while some other names are gradually forgotten. In this paper, we investigate how popularity of given names has evolved over the last century by using datasets collected in Korea, the province of Quebec in Canada, and the United States. In each of these countries, the average popularity of given names exhibits typical patterns of rise and fall with a time scale of about one generation. We also observe that notable changes of diversity in given names signal major social changes.

Lights, Camera, Action: Integrating Popular Film in the Health Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Diez, Keri S.; Pleban, Francis T.; Wood, Ralph J.

2005-01-01

This article discusses the benefits as well as the important considerations that should be taken into account in integrating popular films in health education classes. Use of popular films in the classroom, termed "cinema education," is becoming increasingly popular in teaching health education. As a matter of convenience, popular films are easy…

Implicit associations with popularity in early adolescence: an approach-avoidance analysis.

PubMed

Lansu, Tessa A M; Cillessen, Antonius H N; Karremans, Johan C

2012-01-01

This study examined 241 early adolescents' implicit and explicit associations with popularity. The peer status and gender of both the targets and the perceivers were considered. Explicit associations with popularity were assessed with sociometric methods. Implicit associations with popularity were assessed with an approach-avoidance task (AAT). Explicit evaluations of popularity were positive, but implicit associations were negative: Avoidance reactions to popular peers were faster than approach reactions. Interactions with the status of the perceiver indicated that unpopular participants had stronger negative implicit reactions to popular girls than did popular participants. This study demonstrated a negative reaction to popularity that cannot be revealed with explicit methods. The study of implicit processes with methods such as the AAT is a new and important direction for peer relations research.

Popular democracy and waste management

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Wallis, L.R.

1986-01-01

The US has moved from representative democracy to popular democracy and public scrutiny is unrelenting. Any hope of success on their part in resolving the nuclear waste question hinges on their ability to condition themselves to operate in a popular democracy environment. Those opposed to the siting of high- and low-level waste repositories have already developed a set of recurring themes: (1) the siting criteria are fatally flawed; (2) the criteria are not adequate; (3) the process is driven by politics not science; (4) unrealistic deadlines lead to dangerous shortcuts; (5) transportation experience is lacking; (6) the scientific community doesmore » not really know how to dispose of the wastes. They must continue to tell the public that if science has brought us problems, then the answer can be only more knowledge - not less. Failure by their profession to recognize that popular democracy is a fact and that nuclear issues need to be addressed in humanistic terms raises the question of whether America is philosophically suited for the expanded use of nuclear power in the future - or for that matter for leadership in the world of tomorrow.« less

Popularity Trajectories and Substance Use in early Adolescence1

PubMed Central

Moody, James; Brynildsen, Wendy D.; Osgood, D. Wayne; Feinberg, Mark E.; Gest, Scott

2010-01-01

This paper introduces new longitudinal network data from the “Promoting School-Community-University Partnerships to Enhance Resilience” or “PROSPER” peers project. In 28 communities, grade-level sociometric friendship nominations were collected from two cohorts of middle school students as they moved from 6th, to 9th grade. As an illustration and description of these longitudinal network data, this paper describes the school popularity structure, changes in popularity position, and suggests linkages between popularity trajectory and substance use. In the cross-section, we find that the network is consistent with a hierarchical social organization, but exhibits considerable relational change in both particular friends and position at the individual level. We find that both the base level of popularity and the variability of popularity trajectories effect substance use. PMID:21765588

Predicting item popularity: Analysing local clustering behaviour of users

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liebig, Jessica; Rao, Asha

2016-01-01

Predicting the popularity of items in rating networks is an interesting but challenging problem. This is especially so when an item has first appeared and has received very few ratings. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to predicting the future popularity of new items in rating networks, defining a new bipartite clustering coefficient to predict the popularity of movies and stories in the MovieLens and Digg networks respectively. We show that the clustering behaviour of the first user who rates a new item gives insight into the future popularity of that item. Our method predicts, with a success rate of over 65% for the MovieLens network and over 50% for the Digg network, the future popularity of an item. This is a major improvement on current results.

La cultura popular anglofona en el curriculum del ingles a nivel superior (Popular Anglophone Culture in the English Curriculum at the College Level).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zoreda, Margaret Lee

This paper examines the rationale for introducing popular culture into college-level English-as-a-Second-Language instruction in Mexico, drawing on research and theory in second language instruction, and it offers specific suggestions for classroom presentation of popular cultural content. It is argued that content in popular culture can enhance…

Women in Popular Culture: A Reference Guide.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fishburn, Katherine

This book explores how women have been portrayed in various forms of American popular culture over the years. In an introductory section, it is suggested that popular culture has generally used women to represent a social mythology that is built around women's subordinate status, a position that current feminists reject. Chapter 1 reviews books…

Popularity and user diversity of online objects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Jia-Hua; Guo, Qiang; Yang, Kai; Zhang, Yi-Lu; Han, Jingti; Liu, Jian-Guo

2016-11-01

The popularity has been widely used to describe the object property of online user-object bipartite networks regardless of the user characteristics. In this paper, we introduce a measurement namely user diversity to measure diversity of users who select or rate one type of objects by using the information entropy. We empirically calculate the user diversity of objects with specific degree for both MovieLens and Diggs data sets. The results indicate that more types of users select normal-degree objects than those who select large-degree and small-degree objects. Furthermore, small-degree objects are usually selected by large-degree users while large-degree objects are usually selected by small-degree users. Moreover, we define 15% objects of smallest degrees as unpopular objects and 10% ones of largest degrees as popular objects. The timestamp is introduced to help further analyze the evolution of user diversity of popular objects and unpopular objects. The dynamic analysis shows that as objects become popular gradually, they are more likely accepted by small-degree users but lose attention among the large-degree users.

Significance and popularity in music production

PubMed Central

Gravino, Pietro; Servedio, Vito D. P.; Tria, Francesca; Loreto, Vittorio

2017-01-01

Creative industries constantly strive for fame and popularity. Though highly desirable, popularity is not the only achievement artistic creations might ever acquire. Leaving a longstanding mark in the global production and influencing future works is an even more important achievement, usually acknowledged by experts and scholars. ‘Significant’ or ‘influential’ works are not always well known to the public or have sometimes been long forgotten by the vast majority. In this paper, we focus on the duality between what is successful and what is significant in the musical context. To this end, we consider a user-generated set of tags collected through an online music platform, whose evolving co-occurrence network mirrors the growing conceptual space underlying music production. We define a set of general metrics aiming at characterizing music albums throughout history, and their relationships with the overall musical production. We show how these metrics allow to classify albums according to their current popularity or their belonging to expert-made lists of important albums. In this way, we provide the scientific community and the public at large with quantitative tools to tell apart popular albums from culturally or aesthetically relevant artworks. The generality of the methodology presented here lends itself to be used in all those fields where innovation and creativity are in play. PMID:28791169

Popular Astronomy in the World and in Armenia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mickaelian, A. M.

2014-10-01

A review on the popular astronomy and astronomy outreach in the world and in Armenia is given. Various ways and methods of popularization of astronomy are described. The International Year of Astronomy (IYA-2009), amateur astronomy, publication of books and other materials, the database of astronomical books, AstroBook exhibition, science-popular articles, "Astghagitak" online science-popular astronomical journal, calendar of astronomical events, databases of Solar and Lunar eclipses 2001-2050, planetary triple conjunctions 2001-2050, and of periodic comets at ArAS webpage, ArAS School Lectures Program, public lectures, "Universe" club at "Mkhitar Sebastatsi" educational ensemble, the online database of Armenian astronomers, biographies of famous Armenian astronomers, astronomers' anniversaries, scientific journalism of Armenia, and "Mass media news" section at ArAS webpage are described and discussed.

The Association between Valuing Popularity and Relational Aggression: The Moderating Effects of Actual Popularity and Physiological Reactivity to Exclusion

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shoulberg, Erin K.; Sijtsema, Jelle J.; Murray-Close, Dianna

2011-01-01

The association between having a reputation for valuing popularity and relational aggression was assessed in a sample of 126 female children and adolescents (mean age=12.43 years) at a 54-day residential summer camp for girls. Having a reputation for valuing popularity was positively related to relational aggression. This association was moderated…

Space activities and global popular music culture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wessels, Allison Rae; Collins, Patrick

During the "space age" era, space activities appear increasingly as a theme in Western popular music, as they do in popular culture generally. In combination with the electronics and tele-communications revolution, "pop/rock" music has grown explosively during the space age to become an effectively global culture. From this base a number of trends are emerging in the pattern of influences that space activities have on pop music. The paper looks at the use of themes and imagery in pop music; the role of space technology in the modern "globalization" of pop music; and current and future links between space activities and pop music culture, including how public space programmes are affected by its influence on popular attitudes.

Substance Use in Popular Movies and Music.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Roberts, Donald F.; Henriksen, Lisa; Christenson, Peter G.

This study examines the frequency and nature of substance use in the most popular movie rentals and songs of 1996 and 1997. The intent was to determine the accuracy of public perceptions about extensive substance use in media popular among youth. Because teenagers are major consumers of movies and music, there is concern about the potential for…

Anthropology and Popular Culture: A Case Study.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Estes, Jack

The study of popular culture in the United States is an appropriate anthropological endeavor, as evidenced in a case study of the volcanic eruption of Mt. St. Helens in Oregon. By examining its popular arts, anthropologists gain understanding of the culture and its people. For example, an analysis of reactions to the Mt. St. Helens eruption…

Popular Science Writing:Why? Who? How?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

von Baeyer, Hans Christian

1998-04-01

Why? Under the threats of anti-science, pseudo-science, and indifference to science, popularization of physics is changing from a genteel art to a necessity for survival. Science writing is one element in a campaign that includes TV, museums, lectures, school visits, etc. Who? Five percent of the total effort of every physics department should be devoted to popularization. The academic reward system should reflect this obligation. How? Hints and suggestions for effective science writing, based on extensive experience, will be presented.

Social intelligence and academic achievement as predictors of adolescent popularity.

PubMed

Meijs, Noortje; Cillessen, Antonius H N; Scholte, Ron H J; Segers, Eliane; Spijkerman, Renske

2010-01-01

This study compared the effects of social intelligence and cognitive intelligence, as measured by academic achievement, on adolescent popularity in two school contexts. A distinction was made between sociometric popularity, a measure of acceptance, and perceived popularity, a measure of social dominance. Participants were 512, 14-15 year-old adolescents (56% girls, 44% boys) in vocational and college preparatory schools in Northwestern Europe. Perceived popularity was significantly related to social intelligence, but not to academic achievement, in both contexts. Sociometric popularity was predicted by an interaction between academic achievement and social intelligence, further qualified by school context. Whereas college bound students gained sociometric popularity by excelling both socially and academically, vocational students benefited from doing well either socially or academically, but not in combination. The implications of these findings were discussed.

Peer status and aggression as predictors of dating popularity in adolescence.

PubMed

Houser, John J; Mayeux, Lara; Cross, Cassandra

2015-03-01

Research has identified links between dating and aversive behavior such as aggression and bullying in adolescence, highlighting the need for studies that further our understanding of romantic relationships and their dynamics during this period. This study tested the associations between dating popularity and overt and relational aggression, social preference, and peer popularity. Of particular interest were the moderating roles of social preference and peer popularity in the association of aggression with dating popularity. Further moderation by gender was also explored. Participants were 478 ninth-graders (48% girls) with peer nomination scores for peer status, aggression, and dating popularity. Dating popularity was positively correlated with popularity, social preference, and overt and relational aggression. Regression models indicated that popular, overtly aggressive girls were seen as desirable dating partners by their male peers. Relational aggression was associated with dating popularity for both boys and girls, especially for youths who were well-liked by peers. These findings are interpreted in light of developmental-contextual perspectives on adolescent romantic relationships and Resource Control Theory.

Vocal handicap index in popular and erudite professional singers.

PubMed

Loiola-Barreiro, Camila Miranda; Silva, Marta Assumpção de Andrada E

To compare the voice handicap index of popular and erudite professional singers according to gender, age, professional experience time, and presence or absence of self-reported vocal complaints. One hundred thirty-two professional singers, 74 popular and 58 erudite, who responded to a questionnaire with regards to identification, age, gender, professional experience time in singing, musical genres (for popular singers), vocal classification (for erudite singers), presence of self-reported vocal complaints, and the specific protocols for popular (Modern Singing Handicap Index - MSHI) and erudite (Classical Singing Handicap Index - CSHI) singing. Higher proportion of women and higher incidence of vocal complaints were observed in the popular singers compared with the erudite singers. Most of the popular singers belonged to the genre of Brazilian Popular Music. Regarding the classification of erudite singers, there was greater participation of sopranos and tenors. No statistical differences were observed with respect to age and professional experience time between the groups. Comparison of the MSHI and CSHI scores showed no statistically significant difference between these scores and genre or age in both groups of singers. Professional experience time was related to the total score and the subscales disability and impairment in the MSHI, only for popular singers with vocal complaints. There was no correlation between these variables and the CSHI for erudite singers. The impact of vocal difficulty/problem interferes differently in these two musical genres when related to vocal complaint and professional experience time. The MSHI and CSHI protocols proved to be important tools not only for the identification of problems, but also for the understanding of how these individuals relate their voices with this occupational activity.

Popular Education and Social Movements in Scotland Today.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Crowther, Jim, Ed.; Martin, Ian, Ed.; Shaw, Mae, Ed.

The following papers are included: "Foreword" (Colin Kirkwood); "Introductory Essay: Popular Education and Social Movements in Scotland Today" (Ian Martin); "Popular Education and the Struggle for Democracy" (Jim Crowther); "Social Movements and the Politics of Educational Change" (Lindsay Paterson);…

Predicting the future trend of popularity by network diffusion.

PubMed

Zeng, An; Yeung, Chi Ho

2016-06-01

Conventional approaches to predict the future popularity of products are mainly based on extrapolation of their current popularity, which overlooks the hidden microscopic information under the macroscopic trend. Here, we study diffusion processes on consumer-product and citation networks to exploit the hidden microscopic information and connect consumers to their potential purchase, publications to their potential citers to obtain a prediction for future item popularity. By using the data obtained from the largest online retailers including Netflix and Amazon as well as the American Physical Society citation networks, we found that our method outperforms the accurate short-term extrapolation and identifies the potentially popular items long before they become prominent.

Predicting the future trend of popularity by network diffusion

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zeng, An; Yeung, Chi Ho

2016-06-01

Conventional approaches to predict the future popularity of products are mainly based on extrapolation of their current popularity, which overlooks the hidden microscopic information under the macroscopic trend. Here, we study diffusion processes on consumer-product and citation networks to exploit the hidden microscopic information and connect consumers to their potential purchase, publications to their potential citers to obtain a prediction for future item popularity. By using the data obtained from the largest online retailers including Netflix and Amazon as well as the American Physical Society citation networks, we found that our method outperforms the accurate short-term extrapolation and identifies the potentially popular items long before they become prominent.

The Role of Respect in the Relation of Aggression to Popularity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kuryluk, Amanda; Cohen, Robert; Audley-Piotrowski, Shannon

2011-01-01

Can aggressive children be popular with peers? Generally, sociometric popularity (liking nominations) has been shown to be negatively associated with aggression, and perceived popularity (popularity nominations) has been shown to be positively associated with aggression. The thesis of the present research was that being respected by peers…

Prosocial tendencies predict friendship quality, but not for popular children.

PubMed

Poorthuis, Astrid M G; Thomaes, Sander; Denissen, Jaap J A; van Aken, Marcel A G; Orobio de Castro, Bram

2012-08-01

Is prosocial behavior a prerequisite for having good-quality friendships? This study (N = 477, mean age = 12.2 years) examined whether the link between children's prosocial tendencies and their perceived friendship quality was dependent on children's level of popularity in the peer group. Children's prosocial tendencies were assessed both as observed behavior in a standardized setting and as a self-reported predisposition to act in prosocial ways. Across measures, the results showed that prosocial tendencies are associated with higher perceived friendship quality among nonpopular children (i.e., children holding average or lower levels of popularity), but not among popular children. Thus, even if they lack prosocial qualities, popular children are still able to hold good-quality friendships. Popular children may have other compensating characteristics, such as popularity by association, that make them attractive for peers to be friends with. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Popular cinema and lesbian interpretive strategies.

PubMed

Dobinson, C; Young, K

2000-01-01

In its examination of the relationship between popular film and lesbian viewing practices, this study attempts to more fully elucidate current ideas around audience engagement and forms of cultural reception. Drawing on 15 in-depth interviews conducted in Western Canada in 1996, the results clearly demonstrate the existence of active lesbian viewers, whose interpretations of popular film are intimately informed by lesbian-specific life experiences and cultural competencies. Although the social conditions which create the need for resistant viewing are themselves oppressive, subversion of mainstream film holds out some possibility of empowerment for lesbian viewers.

The Popularization of Science in Nineteenth Century America.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kuritz, Hyman

1981-01-01

Explores the social context surrounding the popularization of science in nineteenth century America. The author argues that the popularization process was inseparable from the general democratization of Western society which was going on simultaneously. Increased public access to new scientific information was supposed to stimulate…

The Role of Attractiveness and Aggression in High School Popularity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Borch, Casey; Hyde, Allen; Cillessen, Antonius H. N.

2011-01-01

This study examines the effects of physical attractiveness and aggression on popularity among high school students. Previous work has found positive relationships between aggression and popularity and physical attractiveness and popularity. The current study goes beyond this work by examining the interactive effects of physical attractiveness and…

Bridging the Gap: Popular Music and Music Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rodriguez, Carlos Xavier, Ed.

2004-01-01

This versatile and insightful book discusses trends and issues related to popular music in the classroom. Topics covered include the definition of popular music, the "us versus them" dilemma, teacher education, effective teaching methods, and choosing quality repertoire. Fourth in the Northwestern University Music Education Leadership…

Composing, Songwriting, and Producing: Informing Popular Music Pedagogy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tobias, Evan S.

2013-01-01

In forwarding comprehensive popular music pedagogies, music educators might acknowledge and address expanded notions of composition in popular music that include processes of recording, engineering, mixing, and producing along with the technologies, techniques, and ways of being musical that encompass these processes. This article advances a…

Social Intelligence and Academic Achievement as Predictors of Adolescent Popularity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Meijs, Noortje; Cillessen, Antonius H. N.; Scholte, Ron H. J.; Segers, Eliane; Spijkerman, Renske

2010-01-01

This study compared the effects of social intelligence and cognitive intelligence, as measured by academic achievement, on adolescent popularity in two school contexts. A distinction was made between sociometric popularity, a measure of acceptance, and perceived popularity, a measure of social dominance. Participants were 512, 14-15 year-old…

The Use of Popular Science Articles in Teaching Scientific Literacy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Parkinson, Jean; Adendorff, Ralph

2004-01-01

This article considers the use of popular science articles in teaching scientific literacy. Comparing the discourse features of popular science with research article and textbook science--the last two being target forms for students--it argues that popular science articles cannot serve as models for scientific writing. It does, however, suggest…

Competition-Induced Criticality in a Model of Meme Popularity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gleeson, James P.; Ward, Jonathan A.; O'Sullivan, Kevin P.; Lee, William T.

2014-01-01

Heavy-tailed distributions of meme popularity occur naturally in a model of meme diffusion on social networks. Competition between multiple memes for the limited resource of user attention is identified as the mechanism that poises the system at criticality. The popularity growth of each meme is described by a critical branching process, and asymptotic analysis predicts power-law distributions of popularity with very heavy tails (exponent α <2, unlike preferential-attachment models), similar to those seen in empirical data.

Competition-induced criticality in a model of meme popularity.

PubMed

Gleeson, James P; Ward, Jonathan A; O'Sullivan, Kevin P; Lee, William T

2014-01-31

Heavy-tailed distributions of meme popularity occur naturally in a model of meme diffusion on social networks. Competition between multiple memes for the limited resource of user attention is identified as the mechanism that poises the system at criticality. The popularity growth of each meme is described by a critical branching process, and asymptotic analysis predicts power-law distributions of popularity with very heavy tails (exponent α<2, unlike preferential-attachment models), similar to those seen in empirical data.

Question Popularity Analysis and Prediction in Community Question Answering Services

PubMed Central

Liu, Ting; Zhang, Wei-Nan; Cao, Liujuan; Zhang, Yu

2014-01-01

With the blooming of online social media applications, Community Question Answering (CQA) services have become one of the most important online resources for information and knowledge seekers. A large number of high quality question and answer pairs have been accumulated, which allow users to not only share their knowledge with others, but also interact with each other. Accordingly, volumes of efforts have been taken to explore the questions and answers retrieval in CQA services so as to help users to finding the similar questions or the right answers. However, to our knowledge, less attention has been paid so far to question popularity in CQA. Question popularity can reflect the attention and interest of users. Hence, predicting question popularity can better capture the users’ interest so as to improve the users’ experience. Meanwhile, it can also promote the development of the community. In this paper, we investigate the problem of predicting question popularity in CQA. We first explore the factors that have impact on question popularity by employing statistical analysis. We then propose a supervised machine learning approach to model these factors for question popularity prediction. The experimental results show that our proposed approach can effectively distinguish the popular questions from unpopular ones in the Yahoo! Answers question and answer repository. PMID:24837851

Question popularity analysis and prediction in community question answering services.

PubMed

Liu, Ting; Zhang, Wei-Nan; Cao, Liujuan; Zhang, Yu

2014-01-01

With the blooming of online social media applications, Community Question Answering (CQA) services have become one of the most important online resources for information and knowledge seekers. A large number of high quality question and answer pairs have been accumulated, which allow users to not only share their knowledge with others, but also interact with each other. Accordingly, volumes of efforts have been taken to explore the questions and answers retrieval in CQA services so as to help users to finding the similar questions or the right answers. However, to our knowledge, less attention has been paid so far to question popularity in CQA. Question popularity can reflect the attention and interest of users. Hence, predicting question popularity can better capture the users' interest so as to improve the users' experience. Meanwhile, it can also promote the development of the community. In this paper, we investigate the problem of predicting question popularity in CQA. We first explore the factors that have impact on question popularity by employing statistical analysis. We then propose a supervised machine learning approach to model these factors for question popularity prediction. The experimental results show that our proposed approach can effectively distinguish the popular questions from unpopular ones in the Yahoo! Answers question and answer repository.

Popular Media, Critical Pedagogy, and Inner City Youth

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Leard, Diane Wishart; Lashua, Brett

2006-01-01

In this article, we explored ways youth, traditionally silenced, engaged with popular culture to voice experiences and challenge dominant narratives of public schools and daily lives. We also considered how educators use popular culture as critical pedagogy with inner city youth. Through ethnographic bricolage and case study methods, and drawing…

Fashion vs. function in cultural evolution: the case of dog breed popularity.

PubMed

Ghirlanda, Stefano; Acerbi, Alberto; Herzog, Harold; Serpell, James A

2013-01-01

We investigate the relationship between characteristics of dog breeds and their popularity between years 1926 and 2005. We consider breed health, longevity, and behavioral qualities such as aggressiveness, trainability, and fearfulness. We show that a breed's overall popularity, fluctuations in popularity, and rates of increase and decrease around popularity peaks show typically no correlation with these breed characteristics. One exception is the finding that more popular breeds tend to suffer from more inherited disorders. Our results support the hypothesis that dog breed popularity has been primarily determined by fashion rather than function.

Fashion vs. Function in Cultural Evolution: The Case of Dog Breed Popularity

PubMed Central

Ghirlanda, Stefano; Acerbi, Alberto; Herzog, Harold; Serpell, James A.

2013-01-01

We investigate the relationship between characteristics of dog breeds and their popularity between years 1926 and 2005. We consider breed health, longevity, and behavioral qualities such as aggressiveness, trainability, and fearfulness. We show that a breed's overall popularity, fluctuations in popularity, and rates of increase and decrease around popularity peaks show typically no correlation with these breed characteristics. One exception is the finding that more popular breeds tend to suffer from more inherited disorders. Our results support the hypothesis that dog breed popularity has been primarily determined by fashion rather than function. PMID:24040341

The sociology of popular music, interdisciplinarity and aesthetic autonomy.

PubMed

Marshall, Lee

2011-03-01

This paper considers the impact of interdisciplinarity upon sociological research, focusing on one particular case: the academic study of popular music. 'Popular music studies' is an area of research characterized by interdisciplinarity and, in keeping with broader intellectual trends, this approach is assumed to offer significant advantages. As such, popular music studies is broadly typical of contemporary intellectual and governmental attitudes regarding the best way to research specific topics. Such interdisciplinarity, however, has potential costs and this paper highlights one of the most significant: an over-emphasis upon shared substantive interests and subsequent undervaluation of shared epistemological understandings. The end result is a form of 'ghettoization' within sociology itself, with residents of any particular ghetto displaying little awareness of developments in neighbouring ghettos. Reporting from one such ghetto, this paper considers some of the ways in which the sociology of popular music has been limited by its positioning within an interdisciplinary environment and suggests two strategies for developing a more fully-realized sociology of popular music. First, based on the assumption that a sociological understanding of popular music shares much in common with a sociological understanding of everything else, this paper calls for increased intradisciplinary research between sociologists of varying specialisms. The second strategy, however, involves a reconceptualization of the disciplinary limits of sociology, as it argues that a sociology of popular music needs to accept musical specificity as part of its remit. Such acceptance has thus far been limited not only by an interdisciplinary context but also by the long-standing sociological scepticism toward the analysis of aesthetic objects. As such, this paper offers an intervention into wider debates concerning the remit of sociological enquiry, and whether it is ever appropriate for sociological

Answers to Student's Most Popular Questions about Drug Abuse and Addiction

MedlinePlus

... Day / Popular Chat Day Q & A Popular Chat Day Q & A Print Read students’ most popular questions ... from NIDA scientists. For more information about Chat Day, go to https://teens.drugabuse.gov/national-drug- ...

Patterns in Popular Culture: The Use of Popular Art in the Composition Course.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schechter, Harold; Semeiks, Jonna Gormely

The popular arts are useful resources in college composition courses both because of their appeal for students and because they embody the fundamental patterns, or archetypes, found in myths, fairy tales, and classic literature. The nine basic archetypes examined in certain composition classes at Queens College (Flushing, New York) are the Shadow,…

Popular Music in Malaysia: Education from the outside

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shah, Shahanum Mohamad

2006-01-01

The musical preference of most Malaysian young people, their knowledge of music in general and popular music in particular are shaped through informal music education. Factors that contribute to this include the wide dissemination of popular music, the status of music in the school curriculum, and the perception of most Malaysians towards music.…

The Unembarressed Muse: The Popular Arts in America.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nye, Russel

This book is a study of certain of the popular arts in American society, that is, the arts in their customarily accepted genres. "Popular" is interpreted to mean "generally dispersed and approved"--descriptive of those artistic productions which express the taste and understanding of the majority and which are free of control, in content and…

Personalized Popular Blog Recommender Service for Mobile Applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tsai, Pei-Yun; Liu, Duen-Ren

Weblogs have emerged as a new communication and publication medium on the Internet for diffusing the latest useful information. Providing value-added mobile services such as blog articles is increasingly important to attract mobile users to mobile commerce. There are, however, a tremendous number of blog articles, and mobile users generally have difficulty in browsing weblogs. Accordingly, providing mobile users with blog articles that suit their interests is an important issue. Very little research, however, focuses on this issue. In this work, we propose a Customized Content Service on a mobile device (m-CCS) to filter and push blog articles to mobile users. The m-CCS can predict the latest popular blog topics by forecasting the trend of time-sensitive popularity of weblogs. Furthermore, to meet the diversified interest of mobile users, m-CCS further analyzes users’ browsing logs to derive their interests, which are then used to recommend their preferred popular blog topics and articles. The prototype system of m-CCS demonstrates that the system can effectively recommend mobile users desirable blog articles with respect to both popularity and personal interests.

Life Expectancy and Cause of Death in Popular Musicians: Is the Popular Musician Lifestyle the Road to Ruin?

PubMed

Kenny, Dianna T; Asher, Anthony

2016-03-01

Does a combination of lifestyle pressures and personality, as reflected in genre, lead to the early death of popular musicians? We explored overall mortality, cause of death, and changes in patterns of death over time and by music genre membership in popular musicians who died between 1950 and 2014. The death records of 13,195 popular musicians were coded for age and year of death, cause of death, gender, and music genre. Musician death statistics were compared with age-matched deaths in the US population using actuarial methods. Although the common perception is of a glamorous, free-wheeling lifestyle for this occupational group, the figures tell a very different story. Results showed that popular musicians have shortened life expectancy compared with comparable general populations. Results showed excess mortality from violent deaths (suicide, homicide, accidental death, including vehicular deaths and drug overdoses) and liver disease for each age group studied compared with population mortality patterns. These excess deaths were highest for the under-25-year age group and reduced chronologically thereafter. Overall mortality rates were twice as high compared with the population when averaged over the whole age range. Mortality impacts differed by music genre. In particular, excess suicides and liver-related disease were observed in country, metal, and rock musicians; excess homicides were observed in 6 of the 14 genres, in particular hip hop and rap musicians. For accidental death, actual deaths significantly exceeded expected deaths for country, folk, jazz, metal, pop, punk, and rock.

Books and the popularization of science

USGS Publications Warehouse

Buchanan, R.

1991-01-01

This article discusses best-selling science books, the characteristics of the audience for popular science books, and the role of books within science popularization and science education. Best-selling science books have been rare, but generally readable. Regional books, also important sources of scientific information, aim at much smaller, far more price-sensitive audiences. Many successful regional, nontechnical science books are readable, heavily illustrated, and in some cases, cross-disciplinary. To increase the attentive audience for scientific information, improvement in science education is necessary, and the most efficacious role for scientific institutions may be the production of materials that can be easily incorporated into school curricula. ?? 1991 Springer.

Astronomy Popularization via Sci-fi Movies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Qingkang

2015-08-01

It is astronomers’ duty to let more and more young people know a bit astronomy and be interested in astronomy and appreciate the beauty and great achievements in astronomy. One of the most effective methods to popularize astronomy to young people nowadays might be via enjoying some brilliant sci-fi movies related to astronomy with some guidance from astronomers. Firstly, we will introduce the basic information of our selective course “Appreciation of Sci-fi Movies in Astronomy” for the non-major astronomy students in our University, which is surely unique in China, then we will show its effect on astronomy popularization based on several rounds of teaching.

Balancing the popularity bias of object similarities for personalised recommendation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hou, Lei; Pan, Xue; Liu, Kecheng

2018-03-01

Network-based similarity measures have found wide applications in recommendation algorithms and made significant contributions for uncovering users' potential interests. However, existing measures are generally biased in terms of popularity, that the popular objects tend to have more common neighbours with others and thus are considered more similar to others. Such popularity bias of similarity quantification will result in the biased recommendations, with either poor accuracy or poor diversity. Based on the bipartite network modelling of the user-object interactions, this paper firstly calculates the expected number of common neighbours of two objects with given popularities in random networks. A Balanced Common Neighbour similarity index is accordingly developed by removing the random-driven common neighbours, estimated as the expected number, from the total number. Recommendation experiments in three data sets show that balancing the popularity bias in a certain degree can significantly improve the recommendations' accuracy and diversity simultaneously.

American Popular Music 1950-2000

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lonergan, David

2011-01-01

This article describes and discusses some of the chief resources in the study of post-World War II mainstream popular music. In addition to indicating major areas of research, it can serve as a guide to collection development in the discipline.

Popular misconceptions: agricultural biotechnology.

PubMed

McHughen, Alan; Wager, Robert

2010-12-31

Agricultural biotechnology, especially genetic engineering or genetic modification (GM), is a topic of considerable controversy worldwide. The public debate is fraught with polarized views and opinions, some are held with religious zeal. Unfortunately, it is also marked with much ignorance and misinformation. Here we explore some popular misconceptions encountered in the public debate. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Temporal Associations of Popularity and Alcohol Use Among Middle School Students

PubMed Central

Tucker, Joan S.; Miles, Jeremy N. V.; D’Amico, Elizabeth J.; Zhou, Annie J.; Green, Harold D.; Shih, Regina A.

2012-01-01

Purpose The goal of this study is to better understand the longitudinal cross-lagged associations between popularity, assessed through self-rating and peer nominations, and alcohol use among middle school students. Methods The analytic sample is 1,835 6th–8th grade students who were initially recruited from three California middle schools and surveyed in the fall and spring semesters of two academic years. Students reported on their background characteristics, past month alcohol use, and perceived popularity. Additionally, students provided school-based friendship nominations, which were used to calculate peer-nominated popularity. A cross-lagged regression approach within a structural equation modeling framework was used to examine the longitudinal relationship between popularity (self-rated and peer-nominated) and alcohol use. Results There was a statistically significant (p = 0.024) association between peer-nominated popularity and the probability of alcohol consumption at the subsequent survey, but not vice versa. Our results suggest that in a scenario where 8% of students are past month drinkers, each increase of 5 friendship nominations is associated with a 30% greater risk of being a current drinker at the next wave. We found no evidence of longitudinal associations between past month alcohol consumption and self-rated popularity. Conclusions Popularity is a risk factor for drinking during the middle school years, with peer-nominated popularity being more predictive of use than self-perceptions of popularity. To inform alcohol prevention efforts for middle school students, additional research is needed to better understand why adolescents with a larger number of school-based friendship ties are more inclined to drink. PMID:23260843

Analysis of user activities on popular medical forums

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kamalov, M. V.; Dobrynin, V. Y.; Balykina, Y. E.; Martynov, R. S.

2017-10-01

The paper is devoted to detailed investigation of users’ behavior and level of expertise on online medical forums. Two popular forums were analyzed in terms of presence of experts who answer health related questions and participate in discussions. This study provides insight into the quality of medical information that one can get from the web resources, and also illustrates relationship between approved medical experts and popular authors of the considered forums. During experiments several machine learning and natural language processing methods were evaluated against to available web content to get further understanding of structure and distribution of information about medicine available online nowadays. As a result of this study the hypothesis of existing correlation between approved medical experts and popular authors has been rejected.

Autism Spectrum Disorder in Popular Media: Storied Reflections of Societal Views

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Belcher, Christina; Maich, Kimberly

2014-01-01

This article explores how storied representations of characters with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are typified in a world that is increasingly influenced by popular media. Twenty commercially published children's picture books, popular novels, mainstream television programs, and popular movies from 2006-2012 were selected using purposive,…

Popularity Prediction Tool for ATLAS Distributed Data Management

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Beermann, T.; Maettig, P.; Stewart, G.; Lassnig, M.; Garonne, V.; Barisits, M.; Vigne, R.; Serfon, C.; Goossens, L.; Nairz, A.; Molfetas, A.; Atlas Collaboration

2014-06-01

This paper describes a popularity prediction tool for data-intensive data management systems, such as ATLAS distributed data management (DDM). It is fed by the DDM popularity system, which produces historical reports about ATLAS data usage, providing information about files, datasets, users and sites where data was accessed. The tool described in this contribution uses this historical information to make a prediction about the future popularity of data. It finds trends in the usage of data using a set of neural networks and a set of input parameters and predicts the number of accesses in the near term future. This information can then be used in a second step to improve the distribution of replicas at sites, taking into account the cost of creating new replicas (bandwidth and load on the storage system) compared to gain of having new ones (faster access of data for analysis). To evaluate the benefit of the redistribution a grid simulator is introduced that is able replay real workload on different data distributions. This article describes the popularity prediction method and the simulator that is used to evaluate the redistribution.

Black Popular Music: First Scorned, Then Copied and Admired.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jones, Regina; Spiegelman, Judy

1991-01-01

Black popular music has its roots in African music that was a way of preserving history. A brief social and cultural history traces black popular music in the United States, focusing on the music blacks listened to, rather than just the music blacks played. (SLD)

Implicit Associations with Popularity in Early Adolescence: An Approach-Avoidance Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lansu, Tessa A. M.; Cillessen, Antonius H. N.; Karremans, Johan C.

2012-01-01

This study examined 241 early adolescents' implicit and explicit associations with popularity. The peer status and gender of both the targets and the perceivers were considered. Explicit associations with popularity were assessed with sociometric methods. Implicit associations with popularity were assessed with an approach-avoidance task (AAT).…

Does Humor Explain Why Relationally Aggressive Adolescents Are Popular?

PubMed Central

Bowker, Julie C.; Etkin, Rebecca G.

2013-01-01

The association between relational aggression and popularity during early adolescence is well established. Yet, little is known about why, exactly, relationally aggressive young adolescents are able to achieve and maintain high popular status among peers. The present study investigated the mediating role of humor in the association between relational aggression and popularity during early adolescence. Also considered was whether the association between relational aggression and humor varies according to adolescents’ gender and their friends’ levels of relational aggression. Participants were 265 sixth-grade students (48% female; 41% racial/ethnic minority; Mage = 12.04 years) who completed peer nomination and friendship measures in their classrooms at two time points (Wave 1: February; Wave 2: May). The results indicated that Wave 1 relational aggression was related to Wave 1 and 2 popularity indirectly through Wave 1 humor, after accounting for the effects of Wave 1 physical aggression, ethnicity, and gender. Additional analyses showed that relational aggression and humor were related significantly only for boys and for young adolescents with highly relationally aggressive friends. The results support the need for further research on humor and aggression during early adolescence and other mechanisms by which relationally aggressive youth achieve high popular status. PMID:24136377

Temporal associations of popularity and alcohol use among middle school students.

PubMed

Tucker, Joan S; Miles, Jeremy N V; D'Amico, Elizabeth J; Zhou, Annie J; Green, Harold D; Shih, Regina A

2013-01-01

The goal of this study is to better understand the longitudinal cross-lagged associations between popularity, assessed through self-rating and peer nominations, and alcohol use among middle school students. The analytical sample comprises 1,835 sixth- to eighth-grade students who were initially recruited from three California middle schools and surveyed in the fall and spring semesters of 2 academic years. Students reported on their background characteristics, past-month alcohol use, and perceived popularity. Additionally, students provided school-based friendship nominations, which were used to calculate peer-nominated popularity. A cross-lagged regression approach within a structural equation modeling framework was used to examine the longitudinal relationship between popularity (self-rated and peer-nominated) and alcohol use. There was a statistically significant (p = .024) association between peer-nominated popularity and the probability of alcohol consumption at the subsequent survey, but not vice versa. Our results suggest that in a scenario where 8% of students are past-month drinkers, each increase of five friendship nominations is associated with a 30% greater risk of being a current drinker at the next wave. We found no evidence of longitudinal associations between past-month alcohol consumption and self-rated popularity. Popularity is a risk factor for drinking during the middle school years, with peer-nominated popularity being more predictive of use than self-perceptions of popularity. To inform alcohol prevention efforts for middle school students, additional research is needed to better understand why adolescents with a larger number of school-based friendship ties are more inclined to drink. Copyright © 2013 Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Popular Fiction as Liberal Art.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stowe, William W.

1986-01-01

Analyzes popular fiction, particularly the detective novel, using Ruth Rendell's "An Unkindness of Ravens" as an example. Calls detective fiction political literature and claims that it gives readers a chance to affirm or criticize the dynamics of the confrontation of society and crime. (SRT)

Donkeys and Superteachers: Structural Adjustment and Popular Education in Latin America.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fischman, Gustavo

1998-01-01

Explores the challenges and possibilities of popular education by examining the educational field after the application of structural adjustment programs in Latin America. Presents a critique of Gramsci's model of the organic intellectual as understood by many within popular education. Offers the specific example of a popular-education workshop in…

Popular Education: Adult Education for Social Change. ERIC Digest No. 185.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kerka, Sandra

Popular education is a form of adult education that encourages learners to examine their lives critically and take action to change social conditions. Popular education's goal is to develop people's capacity for social change. Although it may assume diverse forms, popular education usually involves a cycle described as action/reflection/action or…

Popular NREL-Developed Transportation Mobile App Launches on Android

Science.gov Websites

Platform | News | NREL Popular NREL-Developed Transportation Mobile App Launches on Android Platform Popular NREL-Developed Transportation Mobile App Launches on Android Platform May 23, 2017 More . Department of Energy's (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory developed the new mobile application for

Chilean English Teacher Identity and Popular Culture: Three Generations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Menard-Warwick, Julia

2011-01-01

Recent discussions on English as an International Language have highlighted the important role played by English language popular culture for the identities and bilingual development of diverse global citizens who learn and use English. However, there has been little attention to connections between popular culture and "teacher"…

Indexing of Popular Periodicals: The State of the Art

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Aveney, Brian; Slade, Rod

1978-01-01

Nine indexing services of popular periodicals are discussed in terms of content, coverage, and characteristics: Access, Consumers Index, Index to Free Periodicals, New York Times Information Bank, Magazine Index, Monthly Periodicals Index, New Periodicals Index, Popular Periodical Index, and Readers Guide. A table indicates coverage for each index…

Anglophone Popular Culture in the Mexican University English Curriculum.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zoreda, Margaret Lee

This essay proposes instances of how Anglophone popular culture can offer a place for nurturing critical encounters in the context of learning English. It delineates the theoretical bases that reveal popular culture as a fundamental indicator of society and, using Anglophone movies and stories, analyzes the pedagogical possibilities for…

Social goals, aggression, peer preference, and popularity: longitudinal links during middle school.

PubMed

Ojanen, Tiina; Findley-Van Nostrand, Danielle

2014-08-01

Social goals are associated with behaviors and adjustment among peers. However, it remains unclear whether goals predict adolescent social development. We examined prospective associations among goals, physical and relational aggression, social preference, and popularity during middle school (N = 384 participants, ages 12-14 years). Agentic (status, power) goals predicted increased relational aggression and communal (closeness) goals predicted decreased physical aggression. Popularity predicted increases and preference predicted decreases in both forms of aggression. Goals moderated longitudinal links between aggression and popularity: Aggression predicted increases in popularity and vice versa for youth with higher agentic goals, and popularity predicted increases in physical aggression for youth with higher agentic and lower communal goals. Implications for research on social goals, aggression, and popularity are discussed. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

Scientific Discovery through Citizen Science via Popular Amateur Astrophotography

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nemiroff, Robert J.; Bonnell, Jerry T.; Allen, Alice

2015-01-01

Can popular astrophotography stimulate real astronomical discovery? Perhaps surprisingly, in some cases, the answer is yes. Several examples are given using the Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) site as an example venue. One reason is angular -- popular wide and deep images sometimes complement professional images which typically span a more narrow field. Another reason is temporal -- an amateur is at the right place and time to take a unique and illuminating image. Additionally, popular venues can be informational -- alerting professionals to cutting-edge amateur astrophotography about which they might not have known previously. Methods of further encouraging this unusual brand of citizen science are considered.

Popularity and Adolescent Friendship Networks: Selection and Influence Dynamics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dijkstra, Jan Kornelis; Cillessen, Antonius H. N.; Borch, Casey

2013-01-01

This study examined the dynamics of popularity in adolescent friendship networks across 3 years in middle school. Longitudinal social network modeling was used to identify selection and influence in the similarity of popularity among friends. It was argued that lower status adolescents strive to enhance their status through befriending higher…

Arab Stereotypes in Popular Fiction.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Terry, Janice J.

1983-01-01

Most popular fictional plots involving the Middle East--adventure stories, espionage, and themes of Western dependency on Arab oil--portray the Israelies as the good guys and the Arabs as the villians. People must be made aware that fictional literature is prejudiced and racially biased against Arabs. (RM)

Popular Music in Early Adolescence.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Christenson, Peter G.; Roberts, Donald F.

This paper examines young adolescents' involvement with popular music and the health implications of that involvement. Initial discussion explores three central concepts: music media, adolescence, and mass media effects. A summary of research on music media in adolescence is offereed in two sections discussing exposure to, and gratifications and…

Popular Musician Responses to Mental Health Treatment.

PubMed

Berg, Lloyd; King, Benjamin; Koenig, Jessica; McRoberts, Roger L

2018-06-01

Popular (i.e., nonclassical) musicians have higher rates of mental health disorders and mental health service utilization than the general population. Little is known, however, about how popular musicians perceive mental health interventions in terms of overall satisfaction and therapeutic benefit. An online client satisfaction survey was sent to all musicians and family members who received mental health services through a nonprofit mental health organization in Austin, Texas, between July 2014 and June 2015 (n=628). 260 individuals (41.4%) responded to the survey, of whom 94% (n=244) were musicians. A majority of musician respondents were male (60%) and white (82%). 87% received counseling, 32% received psychiatric medication treatment, and 8% received addiction recovery services. 97% of musicians (205/211) rated their counselor as 'very good' or 'excellent,' 88% (64/79) rated their psychiatric providers as 'very good' or 'excellent,' and 94% (17/19) rated their addiction recovery specialists as 'very good' or 'excellent' (nonsignificant between all categories, p>0.05). 89% of musicians receiving counseling, 84% receiving psychiatric medication treatment, and 95% receiving addiction recovery services agreed or strongly agreed that their symptoms and overall functioning improved as a result of their treatment (nonsignificant between all categories, p>0.05). Popular musicians express strong provider satisfaction and overall benefit when mental health interventions are accessible, affordable, and delivered by professionals familiar with their concerns. More research is needed to understand the unique psychosocial stresses popular musicians face to inform treatment planning for this high-risk, underserved population.

Teaching Popular Music: Investigating Music Educators' Perceptions and Preparation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Springer, D. Gregory

2016-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate in-service music teachers' perceptions of popular music in the classroom and to examine their own preparation to teach popular music. A sample of music teachers, drawn from two regional chapters of the American Orff-Schulwerk Association, completed a researcher-designed survey instrument. Results…

Social Influences on Paranormal Belief: Popular versus Scientific Support

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ridolfo, Heather; Baxter, Amy; Lucas, Jeffrey W.

2010-01-01

Paranormal claims enjoy relatively widespread popular support despite by definition being rejected by the scientific community. We propose that belief in paranormal claims is influenced by how popular those claims are as well as by dominant scientific views on the claims. We additionally propose that individuals will be most likely to be…

The Popularization of Science in the People's Republic of China.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smith, John P.

1981-01-01

Discusses ways in which the study of science is being popularized at all educational levels in Chinese society. Describes efforts of popularization through newspapers, gifted student programs, public schools, book publications, and audiovisual media. (CS)

Teaching through Film: Utilizing Popular Criminology in the Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Atherton, M.

2013-01-01

As technology and media become more popular pedagogical tools for instructors, the discussion of using films as a way to help students understand criminological concepts is also growing. Using a conceptual framework of popular criminology, the author set out to explore the ways in which films can be incorporated into a unique course aimed at…

Use of Popular Culture Texts in Mother Tongue Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bal, Mazhar

2018-01-01

The aim of this study was to associate popular culture texts with Turkish language lessons of middle school students. For this purpose, a model was proposed and a suitable curriculum was prepared for this model. It was aimed to determine how this program, which was the result of associating popular culture texts with Turkish language lesson…

Popularity of Russian information sources of medical education.

PubMed

Vasilyeva, Irina V; Arseniev, Sergey B

2014-01-01

The aim of the present study is to analyze the popularity of information sources of medical educational sites <webmedinfo.ru>, medical information portal <meduniver.com>, medical portal for students <6years.net>, electronic library of medical literature <booksmed.com>, <medliter.ru> and <medbook.net.ru>. Three sites (<www.webmedinfo.ru>, <meduniver.com> and <6years.net>) provide sources of medical literature, educational videos, medical histories, medical papers and medical popular literature. And three other sites (<www.booksmed.com>, <www.medliter.ru> and <www.medbook.net.ru>) provide sources for electronic medical books on various subjects. Using on-line programs Alexa and Cy-pr we have analyzed the website's rating and identified the main data and time-varying data of the sites. Calculated Alexa Rank rating was determined for each site. Our study has shown that the most popular information sources of medical education among the six studied sites for Russian users is <meduniver.com>; the site <booksmed.com> is at the second place referring to the Alexa Rank rating and the site <webmedinfo.ru> is at the second place referring to the citation index in Yandex. The most popular medical site of electronic medical books is <booksmed.com>.

The social image of food: Associations between popularity and eating behavior.

PubMed

König, Laura M; Giese, Helge; Stok, F Marijn; Renner, Britta

2017-07-01

One factor that determines what we eat and why we eat is our social environment. In the present research, two online studies examined the relationship between food intake and social images. Specifically, the present research assessed the relationship between the food intake university students ascribed to peers who varied in popularity and own self-reported food intake, and whether this relationship was moderated by identification with the peer group. Participants (N = 97 in Study 1; N = 402 in Study 2) were randomly presented with one of four (Study 1) or two of eight (Study 2) vignettes describing a popular or unpopular student (male or female) from their university without receiving any information about the peer's eating behavior. Subsequently, healthy and unhealthy eating ascribed to the peers and own self-reported eating behavior were assessed. Results indicated that popular peers were perceived to eat more healthily than unpopular peers. Moreover, eating behavior ascribed to popular peers were associated with own healthy and unhealthy eating. Importantly, the relationship between healthy eating behavior ascribed to popular peers and own healthy eating behavior was moderated by identification with the student group - the more participants identified with their peers, the more their own eating was aligned with the healthy eating ascribed to a popular peer. Hence, the popularity of others seems to shape perceptions of the food they eat and may facilitate healthy eating via social influence. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Popular Education in Solidarity Economy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

de Melo Neto, José Francisco; da Costa, Francisco Xavier Pereira

2015-01-01

This article seeks to show the relation between popular education and solidarity economy in experiences of solidarity economy enterprises in Brazil. It is based on diverse experiences which have occurred in various sectors of this economy, highlighting those experiences which took place in João Pessoa with the creation of a Cooperative of Workers…

Archaeoastronomical Concepts in Popular Culture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Krupp, Edwin C.

Broad public embrace of archaic astronomy probably began in the eighteenth century with awareness of the summer solstice sunrise's affiliation with Stonehenge. Since that time, Stonehenge has retained an astronomical mystique that attracts crowds mobilized by the monument's supposed cosmic purpose. They are committed to witness prehistoric heritage operating in real time and with enduring function. More recently, mass media have intermittently thrown a spotlight on new archaeoastronomical discoveries. While the details, ambiguities, and nuances of disciplined study of astronomy in antiquity do not usually infiltrate popular culture, some astronomical alignments, celestial events, sky-tempered symbols, and astral narratives have become well known and referenced in popular culture. Places and relics that command public interest with astronomical connotations are transformed into cultural icons and capture visitors on a quest for the authenticity the past is believed to possess. Monuments and ideas that successfully forge a romantic bond with the past and inspire an imagined sense of sharing the experience, perspective, and wisdom of antiquity persist in the cultural landscape.

Structure of Science Popularizations: A Genre-Analysis Approach to the Schema of Popularized Medical Texts.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nwogu, Kevin N.

1991-01-01

Attempts to characterize one discourse type of science popularization, the Journalistic Reported Version (JRV) of research articles in science magazines and newspapers. Results indicate that the JRV has an identifiable schema by which the information it contains is structured, and a typical JRV text may have as many as nine schematic structures.…

Spreading Chaos: The Role of Popularizations in the Diffusion of Scientific Ideas

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Paul, Danette

2004-01-01

Scientific popularizations are generally considered translations (often dubious ones) of scientific research for a lay audience. This study explores the role popularizations play within scientific discourse, specifically in the development of chaos theory. The methods included a review of the popular and the semipopular books on chaos theory from…

Understanding Adolescent Delinquency: The Role of Older Siblings’ Delinquency and Popularity with Peers

PubMed Central

Craine, Jessica L.; Tanaka, Teri A.; Nishina, Adrienne; Conger, Katherine J.

2009-01-01

The present study examined delinquency concordance and the moderating effects of younger sibling perceptions of older sibling popularity in a sample of 587 adolescent sibling pairs. Using a social learning framework, and taking dyad composition into account, perceptions of popularity were hypothesized to strengthen siblings’ concordance for delinquency. Older sibling delinquency significantly predicted younger sibling delinquency. Older sibling popularity was not important in predicting boys’ delinquency. However, perceptions of older sibling popularity directly predicted reduced delinquency for girls with older sisters. A significant interaction effect was found for girls with older brothers. Older brother delinquency predicted girls’ delinquency for girls who perceived their older brother to be relatively popular. There was no delinquency concordance for girls who perceived their older brothers to be less popular. PMID:20305731

Predicting Key Events in the Popularity Evolution of Online Information.

PubMed

Hu, Ying; Hu, Changjun; Fu, Shushen; Fang, Mingzhe; Xu, Wenwen

2017-01-01

The popularity of online information generally experiences a rising and falling evolution. This paper considers the "burst", "peak", and "fade" key events together as a representative summary of popularity evolution. We propose a novel prediction task-predicting when popularity undergoes these key events. It is of great importance to know when these three key events occur, because doing so helps recommendation systems, online marketing, and containment of rumors. However, it is very challenging to solve this new prediction task due to two issues. First, popularity evolution has high variation and can follow various patterns, so how can we identify "burst", "peak", and "fade" in different patterns of popularity evolution? Second, these events usually occur in a very short time, so how can we accurately yet promptly predict them? In this paper we address these two issues. To handle the first one, we use a simple moving average to smooth variation, and then a universal method is presented for different patterns to identify the key events in popularity evolution. To deal with the second one, we extract different types of features that may have an impact on the key events, and then a correlation analysis is conducted in the feature selection step to remove irrelevant and redundant features. The remaining features are used to train a machine learning model. The feature selection step improves prediction accuracy, and in order to emphasize prediction promptness, we design a new evaluation metric which considers both accuracy and promptness to evaluate our prediction task. Experimental and comparative results show the superiority of our prediction solution.

Popular Music: An Untapped Resource for Teaching Contemporary Black History.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cooper, B. Lee

1979-01-01

This essay suggests two innovative instructional approaches for using popular Black music as a model for historical study in the classroom: (1) biographies of popular music artists; and (2) lyrical demonstration of social themes. A list of lyric and album resources is provided. (Author/EB)

Alcohol brand appearances in US popular music.

PubMed

Primack, Brian A; Nuzzo, Erin; Rice, Kristen R; Sargent, James D

2012-03-01

The average US adolescent is exposed to 34 references to alcohol in popular music daily. Although brand recognition is an independent, potent risk factor for alcohol outcomes among adolescents, alcohol brand appearances in popular music have not been assessed systematically. We aimed to determine the prevalence of and contextual elements associated with alcohol brand appearances in US popular music. Qualitative content analysis. We used Billboard Magazine to identify songs to which US adolescents were most exposed in 2005-07. For each of the 793 songs, two trained coders analyzed independently the lyrics of each song for references to alcohol and alcohol brand appearances. Subsequent in-depth assessments utilized Atlas.ti to determine contextual factors associated with each of the alcohol brand appearances. Our final code book contained 27 relevant codes representing six categories: alcohol types, consequences, emotional states, activities, status and objects. Average inter-rater reliability was high (κ = 0.80), and all differences were easily adjudicated. Of the 793 songs in our sample, 169 (21.3%) referred explicitly to alcohol, and of those, 41 (24.3%) contained an alcohol brand appearance. Consequences associated with alcohol were more often positive than negative (41.5% versus 17.1%, P < 0.001). Alcohol brand appearances were associated commonly with wealth (63.4%), sex (58.5%), luxury objects (51.2%), partying (48.8%), other drugs (43.9%) and vehicles (39.0%). One in five songs sampled from US popular music had explicit references to alcohol, and one-quarter of these mentioned a specific alcohol brand. These alcohol brand appearances are associated commonly with a luxury life-style characterized by wealth, sex, partying and other drugs. © 2011 The Authors, Addiction © 2011 Society for the Study of Addiction.

Lone Geniuses in Popular Science: The Devaluation of Scientific Consensus

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Charney, Davida

2003-01-01

Popular accounts of scientific discoveries diverge from scholarly accounts, stripping off hedges and promoting short-term social consequences. This case study illustrates how the "horse-race" framing of popular accounts devalues the collective sharing, challenging, and extending of scientific work. In her best-selling "Longitude," Dava Sobel…

Is popularity associated with aggression toward socially preferred or marginalized targets?

PubMed

Peets, Kätlin; Hodges, Ernest V E

2014-08-01

This study was designed to test whether aggression toward easy or challenging targets is more likely to be associated with popularity. More specifically, we tested two alternative hypotheses with a sample of 224 adolescents (12- and 13-year-olds): (a) whether aggression toward highly disliked peers is associated with popularity (the easy target hypothesis) or (b) whether aggression toward highly liked peers is associated with popularity (the challenging target hypothesis). Support was found only for the challenging target hypothesis. In particular, our results indicate that aggressiveness toward peers who are liked by many others has social benefits in the form of greater popularity (particularly for highly preferred adolescents) without social costs (i.e., is unrelated to social preference). In contrast, aggressiveness toward peers who are disliked by many others is associated with lower social preference but bears no association with popularity. These results highlight the importance of studying contextualized aggression in order to understand the conditions under which aggression is most, and least, likely to be associated with social power and dominance. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Situating Educational Leaders as Prophetic Critics in Black Popular Culture

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Prier, Darius D.

2017-01-01

This article situates educational leaders as prophetic critics in Black popular culture. These leaders merge cultural criticism with moral and political judgment, analyzing urban youths' lived experiences and representational practices as well as analyzing counter-narrative texts in Black popular culture that have implications for urban education.…

Popular Theatre and Participatory Research. Bosele Tshwaraganang Publications No. 12.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kraai, Ziki; And Others

The use of popular theatre to overcome community development problems in underdeveloped countries through adult education is introduced and its relationship to the concept of participatory research is explored. Material is arranged in four sections. The first of these presents an introduction to popular theatre and participatory research. Stemming…

"But Where Are the Cossacks?": An Alternative Strategy for Popularization.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fayard, Pierre

1991-01-01

Proposes methods for the optimal popularization of science and technology to shape and influence public opinion about the utility of associated policies and goals. Emphasizes that such popularization should concentrate on enabling laypeople to acquire an adequate level of scientific and technological literacy, applicable to their everyday lives.…

The Popularity of P&P

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ruffins, Paul

2006-01-01

"Principles and Practices" (P&P), a real estate pre-licensing class, is one of the most popular courses in adult education, because it can literally be the key to the dual American dreams: striking it rich and owning a home. One of the things that makes the P&P class unique is that it is taught in so many different venues. The…

Substance Use among Middle School Students: Associations with Self-Rated and Peer-Nominated Popularity

PubMed Central

Tucker, Joan S.; Green, Harold D.; Zhou, Annie J.; Miles, Jeremy N. V.; Shih, Regina A.; D'Amico, Elizabeth J.

2010-01-01

Associations of popularity with adolescent substance use were examined among 1,793 6th-8th grade students who completed an in-school survey. Popularity was assessed through both self-ratings and peer nominations. Students who scored higher on either measure of popularity were more likely to be lifetime cigarette smokers, drinkers, and marijuana users, as well as past month drinkers. Self-rated popularity was positively associated with past month marijuana use and heavy drinking, and peer-nominated popularity showed a quadratic association with past month heavy drinking. These results extend previous work and highlight that popularity, whether based on self-perceptions or peer friendship nominations, is a risk factor for substance use during middle school. Given the substantial increase in peer influence during early adolescence, prevention program effectiveness may be enhanced by addressing popularity as a risk factor for substance use or working with popular students to be peer leaders to influence social norms and promote healthier choices. PMID:20580420

Predicting Key Events in the Popularity Evolution of Online Information

PubMed Central

Fu, Shushen; Fang, Mingzhe; Xu, Wenwen

2017-01-01

The popularity of online information generally experiences a rising and falling evolution. This paper considers the “burst”, “peak”, and “fade” key events together as a representative summary of popularity evolution. We propose a novel prediction task—predicting when popularity undergoes these key events. It is of great importance to know when these three key events occur, because doing so helps recommendation systems, online marketing, and containment of rumors. However, it is very challenging to solve this new prediction task due to two issues. First, popularity evolution has high variation and can follow various patterns, so how can we identify “burst”, “peak”, and “fade” in different patterns of popularity evolution? Second, these events usually occur in a very short time, so how can we accurately yet promptly predict them? In this paper we address these two issues. To handle the first one, we use a simple moving average to smooth variation, and then a universal method is presented for different patterns to identify the key events in popularity evolution. To deal with the second one, we extract different types of features that may have an impact on the key events, and then a correlation analysis is conducted in the feature selection step to remove irrelevant and redundant features. The remaining features are used to train a machine learning model. The feature selection step improves prediction accuracy, and in order to emphasize prediction promptness, we design a new evaluation metric which considers both accuracy and promptness to evaluate our prediction task. Experimental and comparative results show the superiority of our prediction solution. PMID:28046121

Popular theatre and nonformal education in the Third World: Five strands of experience

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kidd, Ross

1985-09-01

Popular theatre is gaining increasing attention in the Third World as a tool for popular education and community organizing. It finds expression in a number of forms including drama, music dance, puppetry and poetry and is performed for — and often by — ordinary peasants and workers. Popular theatre is used as a means of bringing people together, building confidence and solidarity, stimulating discussion, exploring alternative options for action, and building a collective commitment to change: starting with people's urgent concerns and issues, it encourages reflection on these issues and possible strategies for change. Popular theatre, however, is not a unified discipline. It is used by different groups for different interests, ranging from a technocratic, message-oriented `domestication theatre' at one end of the spectrum to a process of consciousness-raising, organization-building and struggle at the other end. Five main strands of popular theatre can be distinguished: (a) the struggle for national liberation; (b) mass education and rural extension; (c) community or participatory development; (d) `conscientization' or popular education; and (e) popular education and organizing. At its best, popular theatre is not an isolated performance or a cathartic experience, but part of an ongoing process of education and organizing, aimed at overcoming oppression and dependence, and at securing basic rights.

Resources for Popular Culture in Ancient, Medieval and Renaissance Humanities.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schroeder, Fred E. H.

1996-01-01

Notes that there are few readily accessible resources for teachers who wish to include popular culture in their ancient, medieval, or renaissance history lessons. Goes on to partially remedy this situation by providing a review of print sources of information on popular culture. Also mentions useful films and artifacts. (DSK)

Overcoming Impossible Bodies: Using Media Literacy to Challenge Popular Culture.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Graydon, Shari

1997-01-01

Media education can be taught by analyzing the ways popular media represent the sexes. Discusses stereotyped gender images in popular culture and outlines classroom activities investigating modeling poses, images of ideal and successful males and females, gender sensitive language, sex role portrayal, and violence for a media literacy unit using…

Gender and the Rhetoric of Reproduction in Popular Science Texts.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lurkis, Elisa

In academia, theorists in rhetoric are interested in viewing how race, gender, and class come into play in the language of literature. The same might be done with popular science texts. A rhetorical analysis of "Sperm Wars," a popular science article published in "Discover" magazine, suggests that cultural assumptions inform…

Composition and Popular Culture: From Mindless Consumers to Critical Writers.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Boyd, Veleda; Robitaille, Marilyn

1987-01-01

Presents a model for a composition workshop using topics generated from the popular media. Designed to help students explore the mimetic characteristics of popular culture and to analyze the appeals, claims, and techniques used in advertising. Grouped under thematic guidelines of social roles, assignments are flexible in length but easily changed…

Noninsect Arthropods in Popular Music

PubMed Central

Coelho, Joseph R.

2011-01-01

The occurrence of noninsect arthropods in popular music was examined in order to explore human attitudes toward these species, especially as compared to insects. Crustaceans were the most commonly referenced taxonomic group in artist names, album titles and cover art, followed by spiders and scorpions. The surprising prevalence of crustaceans may be related to the palatability of many of the species. Spiders and scorpions were primarily used for shock value, as well as totemic qualities of strength and ferocity. Spiders were the most abundant group among song titles, perhaps because of their familiarity to the general public. Three noninsect arthropod album titles were found from the early 1970s, then none appear until 1990. Older albums are difficult to find unless they are quite popular, and the resurgence of albums coincides with the rise of the internet. After 1990, issuance of such albums increased approximately linearly. Giant and chimeric album covers were the most common of themes, indicating the use of these animals to inspire fear and surprise. The lyrics of select songs are presented to illustrate the diversity of sentiments present, from camp spookiness to edibility. PMID:26467627

Noninsect Arthropods in Popular Music.

PubMed

Coelho, Joseph R

2011-05-26

The occurrence of noninsect arthropods in popular music was examined in order to explore human attitudes toward these species, especially as compared to insects. Crustaceans were the most commonly referenced taxonomic group in artist names, album titles and cover art, followed by spiders and scorpions. The surprising prevalence of crustaceans may be related to the palatability of many of the species. Spiders and scorpions were primarily used for shock value, as well as totemic qualities of strength and ferocity. Spiders were the most abundant group among song titles, perhaps because of their familiarity to the general public. Three noninsect arthropod album titles were found from the early 1970s, then none appear until 1990. Older albums are difficult to find unless they are quite popular, and the resurgence of albums coincides with the rise of the internet. After 1990, issuance of such albums increased approximately linearly. Giant and chimeric album covers were the most common of themes, indicating the use of these animals to inspire fear and surprise. The lyrics of select songs are presented to illustrate the diversity of sentiments present, from camp spookiness to edibility.

Fiestaware as an Icon in the Popular Culture of America.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dale, Sharon; Dale, J. Alexander

Fiestaware, the brightly colored dinnerware first introduced in the United States in 1936, has been a cultural phenomenon from its inception. This paper seeks to explain the extraordinary popularity of Fiestaware and to understand the role the ware occupies in U.S. popular culture. Fiestaware achieved enormous success, in spite of its introduction…

Freedom, Constraint, or Both? Readings on Popular Music and Gender

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bjorck, Cecilia

2011-01-01

This article examines how notions of freedom are linked to popular music practices in previous research literature. The author discusses how two competing discourses depict popular music practices on the one hand as "freedom," and on the other hand as "constraint," and how these ideas relate to gender. She also argues that…

"Sounds Good to Me": Canadian Children's Perceptions of Popular Music

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bosacki, Sandra; Francis-Murray, Nancy; Pollon, Dawn E.; Elliott, Anne

2006-01-01

This cross-sectional study explored the role of age and socioeconomic status (SES) in relation to children's popular musical preferences. As part of a larger, multi-method, longitudinal study on children's and adolescents self-views and media preference, the present study investigated the popular music section of a self-report questionnaire. Data…

Disability and Popular Common Sense in India: Noun versus Adjective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shahid, Mohd; Raza, Md. Shahid; Alam, Md. Aftab

2016-01-01

Reflecting through the Indian experiences, a brief attempt is made to explore how disability as a noun takes shape in popular common sense "call names" (adjectives) and how does the popular common sense legitimise and normalise the oppressive language and the oppressed reality of the persons with disabilities? In the Indian context, the…

`Popular' journals and community in American astronomy, 1882 - 1951

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Marché, Jordan D.

2005-06-01

Popularization fulfils several important roles beyond those recognized in the culturally-dominant view. Apart from its intended purpose of diffusing scientific knowledge among various audiences, popularization serves practitioners, especially when exercised in the format of a disciplinary `trade' journal. `Trade' journals inform researchers about developments occurring in areas of knowledge production beyond their immediate specialties. Such journals offer routine assessments and reviews of current investigations, innovations, and issues facing researchers and educators alike. These outlets attract new recruits into the profession, through encouragement of research methods and the explication of lingering problems. Most importantly, they serve to shape, direct, and influence peer-level dialogues and decisions upon future courses of action, including the research process itself. In an inversion of the culturally-dominant view of popularization, such trade journals comprise an essential, if little-recognized, component of disciplinary professionalization.

Studying Popular Culture in the Public Library: Suggestions for Cooperative Programs.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schroeder, Janet K.

1980-01-01

Offers suggestions for cooperative sharing of resources and expertise between public librarians and their academic colleagues to establish access to popular cultural materials at academic institutions. Listings of materials for popular culture courses are included. (RAA)

Dark victory: cancer and popular Hollywood film.

PubMed

Lederer, Susan E

2007-01-01

This paper explores the cultural representations of cancer in popular Hollywood films released between 1930 and 1970. These cinematic treatments were not representative of the types of cancer that increasingly afflicted Americans, nor were filmmakers and studios concerned with realistic representations of the disease, its treatment, and its outcomes. As in the "epidemic entertainments" of the early twentieth century that portrayed diseases as cultural commodities, popular filmmakers selectively projected some cancers rather than others, favoring those that were less offensive and more photogenic. Although the characters became weak and died, they did so without gross transformations of their bodies. This paper argues that such representations nonetheless informed American attitudes about cancer and the role of medical research in overcoming the disease.

Substance use among middle school students: associations with self-rated and peer-nominated popularity.

PubMed

Tucker, Joan S; Green, Harold D; Zhou, Annie J; Miles, Jeremy N V; Shih, Regina A; D'Amico, Elizabeth J

2011-06-01

Associations of popularity with adolescent substance use were examined among 1793 6-8th grade students who completed an in-school survey. Popularity was assessed through both self-ratings and peer nominations. Students who scored higher on either measure of popularity were more likely to be lifetime cigarette smokers, drinkers, and marijuana users, as well as past month drinkers. Self-rated popularity was positively associated with past month marijuana use and heavy drinking, and peer-nominated popularity showed a quadratic association with past month heavy drinking. These results extend previous work and highlight that popularity, whether based on self-perceptions or peer friendship nominations, is a risk factor for substance use during middle school. Given the substantial increase in peer influence during early adolescence, prevention program effectiveness may be enhanced by addressing popularity as a risk factor for substance use or working with popular students to be peer leaders to influence social norms and promote healthier choices. Copyright © 2010 The Foundation for Professionals in Services for Adolescents. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Caveat Lector: Reviewing Popular Social Science.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hixson, Vivian Scott

1981-01-01

Discusses problems with reviews and criticisms of popular social science books: the quality and background of reviewers, the difficulty of distinguishing between fact and opinion, and the scarcity of competent reviewers. Analyzes reviews of Robert Ardrey's "African Genesis" and "The Territorial Imperative," Konrad Lorenz's "On Aggression," and…

The Rhetorical Dimensions of Popular Song.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Winebrenner, T. C.

Communication scholars have recently focused attention on songs as artifacts of popular culture. Current literature implies that the contexts of music communication are defined by the relationships that songs establish between artists and their audience: persuasive, expressive, and commercial. As the commercialization of music is an inherently…

The portrayal of migraine in popular music: observations and implications.

PubMed

Roberts, Daniel L; Vargas, Bert B

2012-01-01

To describe the manner in which migraine and migaineurs are depicted in popular music. Prior studies have elucidated the ways in which the popular perception of neurological disorders is shaped by popular culture, from the inflated expectations of the prognosis of coma patients in television dramas to the association of intractable headaches with demonic possession and death by violence in the cinema. searched popular online music sites for songs with the word "migraine" in their titles. Song lyrics were studied for tone, content, and the light in which they portrayed migraine sufferers. One hundred thirty-four songs met inclusion criteria, representing the work of 126 artists. The majority of the recording artists were male (112 of 126 artists, 89%). One hundred seven of the 134 songs (80%) were recorded since 2000. Of the 79 songs that contained lyrics, 16 (20%) included explicit content; 43 (54%) make reference to hopelessness, despair, or severe pain; and 27 (34%) contained references to killing or death. Only 9 songs (11%) made any reference to successful treatment, resolution, or hope of any sort, the same number that made lyrical references to explosions or bombs. The portrayal of a disease in popular music can reflect the artist's perceptions, anxieties, and prejudices about the disease and its victims. The public, including patients, may accept these portrayals as accurate. Clinicians familiar with the portrayal of headache sufferers in cinema will not be surprised that popular musicians (both migraineurs and non-migraineurs) portray migraines as intractable, violent, and all-consuming. The lack of any balancing view is disheartening, especially in light of the advances in migraine awareness and treatment over the past decade. Perhaps the most surprising finding is that the vast majority of migraine songs are written and performed by men. © 2012 American Headache Society.

Characteristics, content, and significance of the popular health periodicals literature.

PubMed Central

Rees, A M

1987-01-01

An analysis of the content of sixty popular health periodicals covered in 1986 by the Consumer Health & Nutrition Index was made to identify the characteristics and concerns of popular health magazines and newsletters. The literature mirrors the health values and anxieties of the American public. While some of the literature diverges from mainstream allopathic medicine, most popular publications succeed in presenting coherent, reasoned, and documented viewpoints. Because there is no consensus on many medical problems, it is important that individuals have the freedom to read dissenting and alternative points of view and consider multiple options before making informed and reasoned health decisions. The popular literature is a valuable yet inexpensive source of reliable information on topics of current concern. The publications are not as well known as they deserve to be because they have not been adequately indexed, while they have not been indexed because they are not well known. The Consumer Health & Nutrition Index now provides expanded subject access to sixty health-related periodicals plus all health-related articles in sixteen general interest magazines. PMID:3450343

Malt Beverage Brand Popularity Among Youth and Youth-Appealing Advertising Content.

PubMed

Xuan, Ziming; DeJong, William; Siegel, Michael; Babor, Thomas F

2017-11-01

This study examined whether alcohol brands more popular among youth are more likely to have aired television advertisements that violated the alcohol industry's voluntary code by including youth-appealing content. We obtained a complete list of 288 brand-specific beer advertisements broadcast during the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) men's and women's basketball tournaments from 1999 to 2008. All ads were rated by a panel of health professionals using a modified Delphi method to assess the presence of youth-appealing content in violation of the alcohol industry's voluntary code. The ads represented 23 alcohol brands. The popularity of these brands was operationalized as the brand-specific popularity of youth alcohol consumption in the past 30 days, as determined by a 2011 to 2012 national survey of underage drinkers. Brand-level popularity was used as the exposure variable to predict the odds of having advertisements with youth-appealing content violations. Accounting for other covariates and the clustering of advertisements within brands, increased brand popularity among underage youth was associated with significantly increased odds of having youth-appeal content violations in ads televised during the NCAA basketball tournament games (adjusted odds ratio = 1.70, 95% CI: 1.38, 2.09). Alcohol brands popular among underage drinkers are more likely to air television advertising that violates the industry's voluntary code which proscribes youth-appealing content. Copyright © 2017 by the Research Society on Alcoholism.

Popular perceptions of Galileo

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sobel, Dava

2010-01-01

Among the most persistent popular misperceptions of Galileo is the image of an irreligious scientist who opposed the Catholic Church and was therefore convicted of heresy-was even excommunicated, according to some accounts, and denied Christian burial. In fact, Galileo considered himself a good Catholic. He accepted the Bible as the true word of God on matters pertaining to salvation, but insisted Scripture did not teach astronomy. Emboldened by his discovery of the Medicean Moons, he took a stand on Biblical exegesis that has since become the official Church position.

Donkeys and Superteachers: Structural Adjustment and Popular Education in Latin America

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fischman, Gustavo

1998-03-01

In the past two decades Latin American governments have carried out dramatic social and economic transformations. The application of different programs of structural adjustment and decentralization has promoted deep changes, not only in the economic and social arenas, but also within the educational systems. The dominant tendency is to look for all the answers to educational problems in the realm of the "free market". However, contrary to what this situation may suggest, practitioners of "popular education" in the region have not lost all their vitality. This paper explores the challenges and possibilities of popular education by examining the educational field after the application of structural adjustment programs, presenting a critique of Gramsci's model of the organic intellectual as understood by many within popular education, and offering the specific example of a popular education workshop in Argentina.

Popularizing the ancestry of man: Robert Ardrey and the killer instinct.

PubMed

Weidman, Nadine

2011-06-01

This essay examines Robert Ardrey (1908-1980)-American playwright, screenwriter, and prolific author-as a case study in the popularization of science. Bringing together evidence from both paleoanthropology and ethology, Ardrey became in the 1960s a vocal proponent of the theory that human beings are innately violent. The essay shows that Ardrey used his popular scientific books not only to consolidate a new science of human nature but also to question the popularizer's standard role, to reverse conventional hierarchies of scientific expertise, and to test the boundaries of professional scientific authority. Understanding how he did this can help us reassess the meanings and uses of popular science as critique in Cold War America. The essay also shows that E. O. Wilson's sociobiology was in part a reaction to the subversive political message of Ardrey's science.

Popular Music as a Learning Tool in the Social Studies.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Litevich, John A., Jr.

This teaching guide reflects the belief that popular music is an effective tool for teachers to use in presenting social studies lessons to students. Titles of songs representative of popular music from 1955 to 1982 are listed by subject matter and suggest a possible lesson to be used in teaching that particular issue. Subject areas listed…

Using Popular Culture in Developmental Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barnes, Sharon L.

2006-01-01

Using popular culture in my developmental writing course has prompted me to reconsider what it means to create successful developmental writing assignments. Having slipped into the questionable habit of assuming that removing complexity makes an assignment appropriate for developing writers, I pared down a fairly open-ended "media…

Hedging becomes popular in electricity sector

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

NONE

1997-07-01

Electricity price hedging is getting popular among many energy companies due to the onslaught of deregulation in the electricity sector. Price hedging most often is used to manage power supply costs or to engage in arbitrage opportunities and is becoming a major ingredient in companies` risk management strategies.

Is Being Popular a Risky Proposition?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mayeux, Lara; Sandstrom, Marlene J.; Cillessen, Antonius H. N.

2008-01-01

Longitudinal associations between social preference, perceived popularity, and risk behaviors (smoking, alcohol use, and sexual activity) were examined in a sample of high school students. Social preference did not predict any of the risk behaviors assessed, although the interaction between gender and social preference was predictive of sexual…

Effects of individual popularity on information spreading in complex networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gao, Lei; Li, Ruiqi; Shu, Panpan; Wang, Wei; Gao, Hui; Cai, Shimin

2018-01-01

In real world, human activities often exhibit preferential selection mechanism based on the popularity of individuals. However, this mechanism is seldom taken into account by previous studies about spreading dynamics on networks. Thus in this work, an information spreading model is proposed by considering the preferential selection based on individuals' current popularity, which is defined as the number of individuals' cumulative contacts with informed neighbors. A mean-field theory is developed to analyze the spreading model. Through systematically studying the information spreading dynamics on uncorrelated configuration networks as well as real-world networks, we find that the popularity preference has great impacts on the information spreading. On the one hand, the information spreading is facilitated, i.e., a larger final prevalence of information and a smaller outbreak threshold, if nodes with low popularity are preferentially selected. In this situation, the effective contacts between informed nodes and susceptible nodes are increased, and nodes almost have uniform probabilities of obtaining the information. On the other hand, if nodes with high popularity are preferentially selected, the final prevalence of information is reduced, the outbreak threshold is increased, and even the information cannot outbreak. In addition, the heterogeneity of the degree distribution and the structure of real-world networks do not qualitatively affect the results. Our research can provide some theoretical supports for the promotion of spreading such as information, health related behaviors, and new products, etc.

Popularity as a Predictor of Early Alcohol Use and Moderator of Other Risk Processes

PubMed Central

Guyll, Max; Madon, Stephanie; Spoth, Richard; Lannin, Daniel G

2014-01-01

Objective: This study tested the relationship between popularity and early adolescent alcohol use and examined whether popularity moderated the influence of several risk processes. Method: Longitudinal data provided by 1,196 youth (590 girls) were analyzed to assess main and interactive effects of popularity, friends’ alcohol use attitudes, own alcohol use attitude, risk taking, and aggressive–disruptive behavior on changes in alcohol use during seventh grade. Results: When we controlled for demographic variables and baseline alcohol use, popularity and the other predictors of interest exhibited linear main effects on alcohol use, with popularity and the attitude variables also demonstrating curvilinear relationships. Further analysis indicated that popularity moderated the effect of aggressive–disruptive behavior, the latter being associated with greater alcohol use among more popular adolescents. Additional moderation results revealed that friends’ favorable attitudes toward alcohol use also potentiated aggressive–disruptive behavior’s relationship with alcohol use and that male youth were more likely than female youth to use alcohol, but only among low risk takers. Conclusions: Popular youth may attempt to maintain status through early alcohol use, and their social competencies may facilitate risk processes associated with aggressive–disruptive behavior. Findings suggest the utility of providing universal prevention at developmentally crucial times to address substance use overall, and particularly to decrease early use among popular youth, which may serve to slow the growth of substance use in the larger cohort. Although aggressive–disruptive youth who are popular seem to be at particular risk, they may resist traditional interventions, indicating the potential value of less obvious intervention strategies. PMID:25343648

Popularity as a predictor of early alcohol use and moderator of other risk processes.

PubMed

Guyll, Max; Madon, Stephanie; Spoth, Richard; Lannin, Daniel G

2014-11-01

This study tested the relationship between popularity and early adolescent alcohol use and examined whether popularity moderated the influence of several risk processes. Longitudinal data provided by 1,196 youth (590 girls) were analyzed to assess main and interactive effects of popularity, friends' alcohol use attitudes, own alcohol use attitude, risk taking, and aggressive-disruptive behavior on changes in alcohol use during seventh grade. When we controlled for demographic variables and baseline alcohol use, popularity and the other predictors of interest exhibited linear main effects on alcohol use, with popularity and the attitude variables also demonstrating curvilinear relationships. Further analysis indicated that popularity moderated the effect of aggressive-disruptive behavior, the latter being associated with greater alcohol use among more popular adolescents. Additional moderation results revealed that friends' favorable attitudes toward alcohol use also potentiated aggressive-disruptive behavior's relationship with alcohol use and that male youth were more likely than female youth to use alcohol, but only among low risk takers. Popular youth may attempt to maintain status through early alcohol use, and their social competencies may facilitate risk processes associated with aggressive-disruptive behavior. Findings suggest the utility of providing universal prevention at developmentally crucial times to address substance use overall, and particularly to decrease early use among popular youth, which may serve to slow the growth of substance use in the larger cohort. Although aggressive-disruptive youth who are popular seem to be at particular risk, they may resist traditional interventions, indicating the potential value of less obvious intervention strategies.

Teaching Theory through Popular Culture Texts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Trier, James

2007-01-01

In this article, the author describes a pedagogical approach to teaching theory to pre-service teachers. This approach involves articulating academic texts that introduce theoretical ideas and tools with carefully selected popular culture texts that can be taken up to illustrate the elements of a particular theory. Examples of the theories…

Popular Education in Latin America. Synthesis of the Discussion Themes. Verhandelingen no. 50.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dam, Anke van; And Others

The objective of popular education has been associated with the creation of identity of popular groups in society. Education has been considered a key in the process to reform and modernize social structures. In the 1990s, democratic governments have promoted popular participation to solve development problems. This context poses new challenges…

Effects of Popularity and Gender on Peers' Perceptions of Prosocial, Antisocial, and Jealousy-Eliciting Behaviors

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mayeux, Lara

2011-01-01

Perceived popularity is associated with both positive and negative characteristics, and adolescents' stereotypes associated with popularity reflect this paradox. The current study investigated adolescents' stereotypes associated with popularity and gender, as well as their liking for popular peers who engage in prosocial, antisocial, and…

Misrepresentation of UK homicide characteristics in popular culture.

PubMed

Brown, J; Hughes, N S; McGlen, M C; Crichton, J H M

2014-03-01

The homicide statistics of a popular UK television fictional crime series and the former Lothian & Borders police force region, Scotland were compared. This comparison was used to consider the implications for public attitudes which may influence the adoption of public health interventions to reduce homicide. 217 homicides were identified by 105 perpetrators in the television series 'Midsomer Murders' between 1997 and 2011; these were compared to 55 homicides by 53 perpetrators in the regional sample between 2006 and 2011. The numbers of serial killings (p < 0.0001), planned homicides, female perpetrators (p < 0.0001), shootings (p = 0.0456) and poisonings (p = 0.0289) were higher in the fictional sample. Lothian & Borders cases were almost all single killings, mostly unplanned, with a far greater rate of homicide by kitchen knives (p < 0.0001) and hitting/kicking (p = 0.0005) by intoxicated perpetrators. Control of access to pointed kitchen knives by members of certain groups may reduce homicide rates. If the popular perception of UK homicides is influenced by popular culture, the importance of such a public health intervention may not be apparent. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd and Faculty of Forensic and Legal Medicine. All rights reserved.

The complex network of the Brazilian Popular Music

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

de Lima e Silva, D.; Medeiros Soares, M.; Henriques, M. V. C.; Schivani Alves, M. T.; de Aguiar, S. G.; de Carvalho, T. P.; Corso, G.; Lucena, L. S.

2004-02-01

We study the Brazilian Popular Music in a network perspective. We call the Brazilian Popular Music Network, BPMN, the graph where the vertices are the song writers and the links are determined by the existence of at least a common singer. The linking degree distribution of such graph shows power law and exponential regions. The exponent of the power law is compatible with the values obtained by the evolving network algorithms seen in the literature. The average path length of the BPMN is similar to the correspondent random graph, its clustering coefficient, however, is significantly larger. These results indicate that the BPMN forms a small-world network.

Science communication on YouTube: Factors that affect channel and video popularity.

PubMed

Welbourne, Dustin J; Grant, Will J

2016-08-01

YouTube has become one of the largest websites on the Internet. Among its many genres, both professional and amateur science communicators compete for audience attention. This article provides the first overview of science communication on YouTube and examines content factors that affect the popularity of science communication videos on the site. A content analysis of 390 videos from 39 YouTube channels was conducted. Although professionally generated content is superior in number, user-generated content was significantly more popular. Furthermore, videos that had consistent science communicators were more popular than those without a regular communicator. This study represents an important first step to understand content factors, which increases the channel and video popularity of science communication on YouTube. © The Author(s) 2015.

Write It So They'll Read It: Popular Annual Financial Reporting.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Anderson, Richard T.; Piotrowski, Craig L.

1994-01-01

Waukesha County Technical College (Wisconsin) received the Governmental Financial Officers Association "Popular Annual Financial Reporting Award" in 1993 and became the first educational entity to do so. Popular annual financial reporting is an effective way for schools to present reader-friendly reports that stress graphics and…

Antecedents and Correlates of the Popular-Aggressive Phenomenon in Elementary School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rodkin, Philip C.; Roisman, Glenn I.

2010-01-01

This study identified correlates and developmental antecedents that distinguish popular-aggressive elementary school children from other youth. Drawing on the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (N = 1022), popular-aggressive children were identified through teacher ratings over…

School engagement trajectories in adolescence: The role of peer likeability and popularity.

PubMed

Engels, Maaike C; Colpin, Hilde; Van Leeuwen, Karla; Bijttebier, Patricia; Den Noortgate, Wim Van; Claes, Stephan; Goossens, Luc; Verschueren, Karine

2017-10-01

This accelerated longitudinal study examined how peer status (i.e., peer likeability and popularity) is involved in adolescents' school engagement trajectories. A large sample of students was followed from Grades 7 to 11 (N=1116; M age =13.79years). Students' school engagement and peer status were assessed using self-reports and peer nominations, respectively. Latent growth curve modeling revealed that different engagement dimensions were differentially associated with peer status. Likeability was positively related to both behavioral and emotional engagement in Grade 7, but not to behavioral and emotional disaffection. In contrast, popularity was related to less behavioral engagement and more behavioral disaffection at the start of secondary education, but not to emotional engagement and disaffection. Moreover, students' aggressive behavior moderated the relation between popularity and behavioral engagement in Grade 7, denoting the risk of popularity in combination with average and high levels of aggression. Results suggest that adolescents' popularity may interfere with meeting academic demands in general and with showing engagement in particular. Copyright © 2017 Society for the Study of School Psychology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Popular Culture and Critical Media Literacy in Adult Education: Theory and Practice

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tisdell, Elizabeth J.

2007-01-01

This chapter introduces the volume, provides an overview of the theory and literature on popular culture and critical media literacy in education, and discusses ways to use popular culture in adult education.

Popular Music, Television, and Generational Identity.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Burns, Gary

Although previous generations have by no means been disloyal to the popular music of their youth, the tenacious attachment of the Baby Boomers to the music of the 1960s seems unprecedented. Three main reasons account for this constantly widening musical reclamation project. First, the Baby Boomers have a clearer sense of generational identity that…

Lexical Cohesion and Specialized Knowledge in Science and Popular Science Texts.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Myers, Greg

1991-01-01

Examines cohesion in the introductions to some scientific articles and compares the patterns to those from popularizations. Discusses a computational model of cohesion. Argues that readers of scientific articles must have a knowledge of lexical relations to see the implicit cohesion, whereas readers of popularizations must see the cohesive…

Alcohol Brand Appearances in U.S. Popular Music

PubMed Central

Primack, Brian A.; Nuzzo, Erin; Rice, Kristen R.; Sargent, James D.

2011-01-01

Aims The average US adolescent is exposed to 34 references to alcohol in popular music daily. Although brand recognition is an independent, potent risk factor for alcohol outcomes among adolescents, alcohol brand appearances in popular music have not been systematically assessed. We aimed to determine the prevalence of and contextual elements associated with alcohol brand appearances in U.S. popular music. Design Qualitative content analysis. Setting We used Billboard Magazine to identify songs to which US adolescents were most exposed in 2005-2007. For each of the 793 songs, two trained coders independently analyzed the lyrics of each song for references to alcohol and alcohol brand appearances. Subsequent in-depth assessments utilised Atlas.ti to determine contextual factors associated with each of the alcohol brand appearances. Measurements Our final code book contained 27 relevant codes representing 6 categories: alcohol types, consequences, emotional states, activities, status, and objects. Findings Average inter-rater reliability was high (κ=0.80), and all differences were easily adjudicated. Of the 793 songs in our sample, 169 (21.3%) explicitly referred to alcohol, and of those, 41 (24.3%) contained an alcohol brand appearance. Consequences associated with alcohol were more often positive than negative (41.5% vs. 17.1%, P<.001). Alcohol brand appearances were commonly associated with wealth (63.4%), sex (58.5%), luxury objects (51.2%), partying (48.8%), other drugs (43.9%), and vehicles (39.0%). Conclusions One-in-five songs sampled from U.S. popular music had explicit references to alcohol, and one quarter of these mentioned a specific alcohol brand. These alcohol brand appearances are commonly associated with a luxury lifestyle characterised by wealth, sex, partying, and other drugs. PMID:22011113

Release the Dragon: The Role of Popular Culture in Children's Stories

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Urbach, Jennifer; Eckhoff, Angela

2012-01-01

Young learners come to the school environment with myriad literacy experiences, some of which are inevitably based in popular culture. While literacy knowledge drawn from experiences with popular culture has traditionally been viewed as less important than academic literacy, educators wishing to create classrooms that value all children need to…

Preservice Music Teachers' Attitudes toward Popular Music in the Music Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Springer, D. Gregory; Gooding, Lori F.

2013-01-01

The purpose of this study was to examine preservice music educators' attitudes toward popular music in the music classroom. On a survey instrument designed by the investigators, participants ("N" = 82) rated (a) the effectiveness of popular music in addressing the National Standards for Music Education, (b) the appropriateness of popular…

Imagining the Mathematician: Young People Talking about Popular Representations of Maths

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Epstein, Debbie; Mendick, Heather; Moreau, Marie-Pierre

2010-01-01

This paper makes both a critical analysis of some popular cultural texts about mathematics and mathematicians, and explores the ways in which young people deploy the discourses produced in these texts. We argue that there are particular (and sometimes contradictory) meanings and discourses about mathematics that circulate in popular culture, that…

Popular Education and the "Party Line"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Boughton, Bob

2013-01-01

Popular education, by which is meant adult education within and in support of radical social movements, has become a major topic in academic adult education in recent times. This paper criticises the lack of attention paid in most of this writing to the history, theory and practice of revolutionary parties in the communist and socialist tradition.…

Using Popular Children's Films in Science

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wadsworth, Elle; Croker, Stev; Harrison, Tim

2012-01-01

Watching films is a common activity for children outside of school, and incorporating popular films that contain scientific references has the potential to spark interest in the classroom. Clips rather than entire films can be used, as the children will maintain focus on the lesson objectives while being excited by the appeal of the film. The use…

Using Popular Media to Build Literacy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Heuer, Barbara P.

2007-01-01

When an adult student from China says he learned English from listening to the radio or a literacy teacher mentions that she is reading a book recommended on "Oprah", they are illustrating how popular media are used for informal adult learning. This chapter examines some of the issues and implications surrounding how a sector of adult learners,…

The Role of Popular Girls in Bullying and Intimidating Boys and Other Popular Girls in Secondary School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dytham, Siobhan

2018-01-01

Despite a large amount of research focusing on bullying and exclusion in secondary schools, there is far less research focusing on cross-gender bullying and 'popular' students who experience bullying. This research provides an analysis of interactions between male and female students (aged 13-14) in a school in England. The data provides multiple…

Condom use and the popular press in Nigeria.

PubMed

Renne, E P

1993-04-01

The increased acceptability and use of condoms by men in southwestern Nigeria is reflected in joking references to condoms in the comic-style popular press. Yet these references display an ambivalence about condoms that is mirrored in survey data and in interviews regarding condom use by rural Ekiti Yoruba men. This ambivalence, which is often couched in terms of health, has implications for the acceptance of government-sponsored HIV/AIDS-related educational programs. Because of the irreverence of comic-style newspapers and the 'unofficial' nature of their authority which coincides with popular attitudes about health programs, they have a credibility that could be useful in educating adolescents about sexually-transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS.

A mechanistic explanation of popularity: genes, rule breaking, and evocative gene-environment correlations.

PubMed

Burt, Alexandra

2009-04-01

Previous work has suggested that the serotonergic system plays a key role in "popularity" or likeability. A polymorphism within the 5HT-sub(2A) serotonin receptor gene (-G1438A) has also been associated with popularity, suggesting that genes may predispose individuals to particular social experiences. However, because genes cannot code directly for others' reactions, any legitimate association should be mediated via the individual's behavior (i.e., genes-->behaviors-->social consequences), a phenomenon referred to as an evocative gene-environment correlation (rGE). The current study aimed to identify one such mediating behavior. The author focused on rule breaking given its prior links to both the serotonergic system and to increased popularity during adolescence. Two samples of previously unacquainted late-adolescent boys completed a peer-based interaction paradigm designed to assess their popularity. Analyses revealed that rule breaking partially mediated the genetic effect on popularity, thereby furthering our understanding of the biological mechanisms that underlie popularity. Moreover, the present results represent the first meaningfully explicated evidence that genes predispose individuals not only to particular behaviors but also to the social consequences of those behaviors. (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved.

Walking the Talk: Expectations and Intentions of a Popular Education Workshop

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Glowacki-Dudka, Michelle; Mullett, Cathy; Griswold, Wendy; Baize-Ward, Amy; Vetor-Suits, Crissy; Londt, Susan Cole; Williams-Hawkins, Maria

2017-01-01

Popular education programs allow for collective agenda setting and flexibility, and also to carefully and respectfully design activities that bring in all voices and level the power in the room. Popular education methods help to raise awareness and engage with stakeholders to support topics, such as social justice, human rights, collective power,…

Popular Science Writing Bringing New Perspectives into Science Students' Theses

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pelger, Susanne

2018-01-01

This study analyses which perspectives occur in science students' texts at different points in time during the process of writing a popular science article. The intention is, thus, to explore how popular science writing can help students discover and discuss different perspectives on science matter. For this purpose, texts written by 12 bachelor…

Narrative theory and the dynamics of popular movies.

PubMed

Cutting, James E

2016-12-01

Popular movies grab and hold our attention. One reason for this is that storytelling is culturally important to us, but another is that general narrative formulae have been honed over millennia and that a derived but specific filmic form has developed and has been perfected over the last century. The result is a highly effective format that allows rapid processing of complex narratives. Using a corpus analysis I explore a physical narratology of popular movies-narrational structure and how it impacts us-to promote a theory of popular movie form. I show that movies can be divided into 4 acts-setup, complication, development, and climax-with two optional subunits of prolog and epilog, and a few turning points and plot points. In 12 studies I show that normative aspects in patterns of shot durations, shot transitions, shot scale, shot motion, shot luminance, character introduction, and distributions of conversations, music, action shots, and scene transitions reduce to 5 correlated stylistic dimensions of movies and can litigate among theories of movie structure. In general, movie narratives have roughly the same structure as narratives in any other domain-plays, novels, manga, folktales, even oral histories-but with particular runtime constraints, cadences, and constructions that are unique to the medium.

On the Prediction of Flickr Image Popularity by Analyzing Heterogeneous Social Sensory Data.

PubMed

Aloufi, Samah; Zhu, Shiai; El Saddik, Abdulmotaleb

2017-03-19

The increase in the popularity of social media has shattered the gap between the physical and virtual worlds. The content generated by people or social sensors on social media provides information about users and their living surroundings, which allows us to access a user's preferences, opinions, and interactions. This provides an opportunity for us to understand human behavior and enhance the services provided for both the real and virtual worlds. In this paper, we will focus on the popularity prediction of social images on Flickr, a popular social photo-sharing site, and promote the research on utilizing social sensory data in the context of assisting people to improve their life on the Web. Social data are different from the data collected from physical sensors; in the fact that they exhibit special characteristics that pose new challenges. In addition to their huge quantity, social data are noisy, unstructured, and heterogeneous. Moreover, they involve human semantics and contextual data that require analysis and interpretation based on human behavior. Accordingly, we address the problem of popularity prediction for an image by exploiting three main factors that are important for making an image popular. In particular, we investigate the impact of the image's visual content, where the semantic and sentiment information extracted from the image show an impact on its popularity, as well as the textual information associated with the image, which has a fundamental role in boosting the visibility of the image in the keyword search results. Additionally, we explore social context, such as an image owner's popularity and how it positively influences the image popularity. With a comprehensive study on the effect of the three aspects, we further propose to jointly consider the heterogeneous social sensory data. Experimental results obtained from real-world data demonstrate that the three factors utilized complement each other in obtaining promising results in the

On the Prediction of Flickr Image Popularity by Analyzing Heterogeneous Social Sensory Data

PubMed Central

Aloufi, Samah; Zhu, Shiai; El Saddik, Abdulmotaleb

2017-01-01

The increase in the popularity of social media has shattered the gap between the physical and virtual worlds. The content generated by people or social sensors on social media provides information about users and their living surroundings, which allows us to access a user’s preferences, opinions, and interactions. This provides an opportunity for us to understand human behavior and enhance the services provided for both the real and virtual worlds. In this paper, we will focus on the popularity prediction of social images on Flickr, a popular social photo-sharing site, and promote the research on utilizing social sensory data in the context of assisting people to improve their life on the Web. Social data are different from the data collected from physical sensors; in the fact that they exhibit special characteristics that pose new challenges. In addition to their huge quantity, social data are noisy, unstructured, and heterogeneous. Moreover, they involve human semantics and contextual data that require analysis and interpretation based on human behavior. Accordingly, we address the problem of popularity prediction for an image by exploiting three main factors that are important for making an image popular. In particular, we investigate the impact of the image’s visual content, where the semantic and sentiment information extracted from the image show an impact on its popularity, as well as the textual information associated with the image, which has a fundamental role in boosting the visibility of the image in the keyword search results. Additionally, we explore social context, such as an image owner’s popularity and how it positively influences the image popularity. With a comprehensive study on the effect of the three aspects, we further propose to jointly consider the heterogeneous social sensory data. Experimental results obtained from real-world data demonstrate that the three factors utilized complement each other in obtaining promising results in the

Broken Glass Everywhere: Deconstructing Popular Identities through Critical Hip Hop Literacy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kelly, Lauren Leigh

2016-01-01

In a society consumed by ever-increasing media and technology, it is more important now than ever that public schools provide their students with the skills and tools necessary to analyze, interpret, deconstruct, and construct popular media images and messages. Consequently, it is the role of educators to engage with popular media in the…

The Usefulness of the Popular Social Interactive Media in the Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sofowora, Olaniyi Alaba

2013-01-01

The paper is an investigation into the possibility of using the popular social interactive media in the classroom in the developing world. There has been different school of thoughts about the usefulness of the interactive social media. The question being widely asked today is, can these popular social media be used constructively in the…

Geographies of American Popular Music: Introducing Students to Basic Geographic Concepts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McClain, Stephen S.

2010-01-01

Popular music can be used to study many subjects and issues related to the social sciences. "Geographies of American Popular Music" was a workshop that not only examined the history and development of select genres of American music, it also introduced students to basic geographic concepts such as the culture hearth and spatial diffusion. Through…

University Faculty Perceptions and Utilization of Popular Culture in the Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Peacock, Jessica; Covino, Ralph; Auchter, Jessica; Boyd, Jennifer; Klug, Hope; Laing, Craig; Irvin, Lindsay

2018-01-01

This article discusses results of a survey on the utilization of and attitudes and beliefs towards the use of popular culture among faculty in higher education. A total of 212 faculty members from a mid-sized public regional university provided responses, with the majority indicating that they utilize popular culture in their classroom teaching…

The Trajectory of Popularity Goal during the Transition to Middle School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dawes, Molly; Xie, Hongling

2017-01-01

The trajectory of early adolescents' popularity goal during the transition to middle school was examined in a diverse sample of 401 students. Popularity goal was assessed at five time points from the spring semester of fifth grade through the spring semester of seventh grade with the transition to middle school occurring between the fifth and…

Cognitive science in popular film: the Cognitive Science Movie Index.

PubMed

Motz, Benjamin

2013-10-01

HAL 9000. Morpheus. Skynet. These household names demonstrate the strong cultural impact of films depicting themes in cognitive science and the potential power of popular cinema for outreach and education. Considering their wide influence, there is value to aggregating these movies and reflecting on their renderings of our field. The Cognitive Science Movie Index (CSMI) serves these purposes, leveraging popular film for the advancement of the discipline. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Coupling effect of nodes popularity and similarity on social network persistence

PubMed Central

Jin, Xiaogang; Jin, Cheng; Huang, Jiaxuan; Min, Yong

2017-01-01

Network robustness represents the ability of networks to withstand failures and perturbations. In social networks, maintenance of individual activities, also called persistence, is significant towards understanding robustness. Previous works usually consider persistence on pre-generated network structures; while in social networks, the network structure is growing with the cascading inactivity of existed individuals. Here, we address this challenge through analysis for nodes under a coevolution model, which characterizes individual activity changes under three network growth modes: following the descending order of nodes’ popularity, similarity or uniform random. We show that when nodes possess high spontaneous activities, a popularity-first growth mode obtains highly persistent networks; otherwise, with low spontaneous activities, a similarity-first mode does better. Moreover, a compound growth mode, with the consecutive joining of similar nodes in a short period and mixing a few high popularity nodes, obtains the highest persistence. Therefore, nodes similarity is essential for persistent social networks, while properly coupling popularity with similarity further optimizes the persistence. This demonstrates the evolution of nodes activity not only depends on network topology, but also their connective typology. PMID:28220840

Coupling effect of nodes popularity and similarity on social network persistence

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jin, Xiaogang; Jin, Cheng; Huang, Jiaxuan; Min, Yong

2017-02-01

Network robustness represents the ability of networks to withstand failures and perturbations. In social networks, maintenance of individual activities, also called persistence, is significant towards understanding robustness. Previous works usually consider persistence on pre-generated network structures; while in social networks, the network structure is growing with the cascading inactivity of existed individuals. Here, we address this challenge through analysis for nodes under a coevolution model, which characterizes individual activity changes under three network growth modes: following the descending order of nodes’ popularity, similarity or uniform random. We show that when nodes possess high spontaneous activities, a popularity-first growth mode obtains highly persistent networks; otherwise, with low spontaneous activities, a similarity-first mode does better. Moreover, a compound growth mode, with the consecutive joining of similar nodes in a short period and mixing a few high popularity nodes, obtains the highest persistence. Therefore, nodes similarity is essential for persistent social networks, while properly coupling popularity with similarity further optimizes the persistence. This demonstrates the evolution of nodes activity not only depends on network topology, but also their connective typology.

Coupling effect of nodes popularity and similarity on social network persistence.

PubMed

Jin, Xiaogang; Jin, Cheng; Huang, Jiaxuan; Min, Yong

2017-02-21

Network robustness represents the ability of networks to withstand failures and perturbations. In social networks, maintenance of individual activities, also called persistence, is significant towards understanding robustness. Previous works usually consider persistence on pre-generated network structures; while in social networks, the network structure is growing with the cascading inactivity of existed individuals. Here, we address this challenge through analysis for nodes under a coevolution model, which characterizes individual activity changes under three network growth modes: following the descending order of nodes' popularity, similarity or uniform random. We show that when nodes possess high spontaneous activities, a popularity-first growth mode obtains highly persistent networks; otherwise, with low spontaneous activities, a similarity-first mode does better. Moreover, a compound growth mode, with the consecutive joining of similar nodes in a short period and mixing a few high popularity nodes, obtains the highest persistence. Therefore, nodes similarity is essential for persistent social networks, while properly coupling popularity with similarity further optimizes the persistence. This demonstrates the evolution of nodes activity not only depends on network topology, but also their connective typology.

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence in the 1960s: Science in Popular Culture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Smith, Sierra

2012-01-01

Building upon the advancement of technology during the Second World War and the important scientific discoveries which have been made about the structure and components of the universe, scientists, especially in radio astronomy and physics, began seriously addressing the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence in the 1960s. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) quickly became one of the most controversial scientific issues in the post Second World War period. The controversy played out, not only in scientific and technical journals, but in newspapers and in popular literature. Proponents for SETI, including Frank Drake, Carl Sagan, and Philip Morrison, actively used a strategy of engagement with the public by using popular media to lobby for exposure and funding. This paper will examine the use of popular media by scientists interested in SETI to popularize and heighten public awareness and also to examine the effects of popularization on SETI's early development. My research has been generously supported by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

The Electric Humanities; Patterns for Teaching Mass Media and Popular Culture.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Allen, Don; Warren, Brent

For generations teachers have tried to teach the approved "classics" of our culture. Today, with the mass media claiming so much of students' time and interest, this approach is more than ever doomed to failure. A better plan is to focus on popular culture: comic books, popular fiction (westerns, horror tales, and science fiction), movies, and…

Life after High School: Adjustment of Popular Teens in Emerging Adulthood

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sandstrom, Marlene J.; Cillessen, Antonius H. N.

2010-01-01

This project examines the adjustment sequelae of perceived popularity beyond high school, and the moderating role of relational aggression (RA) in this process. Yearly sociometric measures of popularity and RA were gathered across grades 9-12 for a sample of 264 adolescents in a lower-middle-class high school. In addition, data on post-high school…

Bolivian Currents: Popular Participation and Indigenous Communities.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dudley, Mary Jo

1997-01-01

Describes the effects on indigenous communities of Bolivia's recent Popular Participation Laws, which relocated political and financial decision making to the municipal level; community efforts toward cultural maintenance and nonformal agricultural education; the activism of indigenous university students; and the dual discrimination suffered by…

Understanding and Developing Black Popular Music Collections.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Murray, James Briggs

1983-01-01

Enumerates types of black popular music (work songs, spirituals, gospel music, blues, race records, rock and roll, soul, funk, disco, Caribbean, and African) and discusses collection development (current, retrospective, monographs, periodicals, sheet music, motion picture film, photographs, oral history), cataloging, and preservation. A 229-item…

Substance Use among Middle School Students: Associations with Self-Rated and Peer-Nominated Popularity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tucker, Joan S.; Green, Harold D., Jr.; Zhou, Annie J.; Miles, Jeremy N. V.; Shih, Regina A.; D'Amico, Elizabeth J.

2011-01-01

Associations of popularity with adolescent substance use were examined among 1793 6-8th grade students who completed an in-school survey. Popularity was assessed through both self-ratings and peer nominations. Students who scored higher on either measure of popularity were more likely to be lifetime cigarette smokers, drinkers, and marijuana…

The Difference between Aesthetic Appreciation of Artistic and Popular Music: Evidence from an fMRI Study

PubMed Central

Luo, Qiuling; Mo, Lei

2016-01-01

To test the hypothesis that pleasure from artistic music is intellectual while that from popular music is physiological, this study investigated the different functional mechanisms between aesthetic appreciation of artistic and popular music using fMRI. 18 male non-musicians were scanned while they performed an aesthetic rating task for excerpts of artistic music, popular music and musical notes playing and singing (control). The rating scores of artistic and popular music excerpts were both significantly higher than that of control materials while the scores of them were not different. The fMRI results showed both artistic and popular conditions activated the VS and vmPFC, compared with control condition. When contrasted popular and artistic condition directly, we found popular music activated right putamen, while artistic music activated right mPFC. By parametric analysis, we found the activation of right putamen tracked the aesthetic ratings of popular music, whereas the BOLD signal in right mPFC tracked the aesthetic ratings of artistic music. These results indicate the reward induced by popular music is closer to a primary reward while that induced by artistic music is closer to a secondary reward. We also found artistic music activated ToM areas, including PCC/PC, arMFC and TPJ, when compared with popular music. And these areas also tracked aesthetic ratings of artistic music but not those of popular music. These results imply that the pleasure from former comes from cognitive empathy. In conclusion, this study gives clear neuronal evidences supporting the view that artistic music is of intelligence and social cognition involved while the popular music is of physiology. PMID:27814379

The Difference between Aesthetic Appreciation of Artistic and Popular Music: Evidence from an fMRI Study.

PubMed

Huang, Ping; Huang, Hanhua; Luo, Qiuling; Mo, Lei

2016-01-01

To test the hypothesis that pleasure from artistic music is intellectual while that from popular music is physiological, this study investigated the different functional mechanisms between aesthetic appreciation of artistic and popular music using fMRI. 18 male non-musicians were scanned while they performed an aesthetic rating task for excerpts of artistic music, popular music and musical notes playing and singing (control). The rating scores of artistic and popular music excerpts were both significantly higher than that of control materials while the scores of them were not different. The fMRI results showed both artistic and popular conditions activated the VS and vmPFC, compared with control condition. When contrasted popular and artistic condition directly, we found popular music activated right putamen, while artistic music activated right mPFC. By parametric analysis, we found the activation of right putamen tracked the aesthetic ratings of popular music, whereas the BOLD signal in right mPFC tracked the aesthetic ratings of artistic music. These results indicate the reward induced by popular music is closer to a primary reward while that induced by artistic music is closer to a secondary reward. We also found artistic music activated ToM areas, including PCC/PC, arMFC and TPJ, when compared with popular music. And these areas also tracked aesthetic ratings of artistic music but not those of popular music. These results imply that the pleasure from former comes from cognitive empathy. In conclusion, this study gives clear neuronal evidences supporting the view that artistic music is of intelligence and social cognition involved while the popular music is of physiology.

Adventures with Text and beyond: Popular Culture--The New Literacy Challenge for English Teachers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Page, Melissa A.

2012-01-01

The classroom dynamic has become a competition of whose information is more important: the quickly accessed and popular digital texts or the perhaps less popular print texts. Whether or not teachers or school systems sanction the reading or teaching of popular culture texts in the classroom, students are reading--are even bombarded with--messages…

The Common History and Popular Uses of Roots

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rost, Thomas L.; Sandler, Maureen L.

1978-01-01

Describes the historical uses of popular plant roots such as mandrake, ginseng, chicory, belladonna, and blood root. Besides the text, information is organized into a table presenting use, application, and constituents. (MA)

Teaching India with Popular Feature Films: A Guide for High School and College Teachers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Parameswaran, Gowri

2010-01-01

Popular films say a lot about the culture where they are seen and enjoyed even though they may not reflect "reality" in the way that academics may want to portray a country. Popular films get at the deepest longings and fears of their viewership and their biggest hopes for the future. Teaching India through popular films is particularly…

Behavioral, Personality, and Communicative Predictors of Acceptance and Popularity in Early Adolescence

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wolters, Nina; Knoors, Harry; Cillessen, Antonius H. N.; Verhoeven, Ludo

2014-01-01

This study examined the behavioral, personality, and communicative predictors of acceptance and popularity in 608 early adolescents. Data were collected with sociometric methods and ratings in 30 sixth-grade classrooms. Hierarchical regressions were run to predict acceptance and popularity from prosocial, antisocial, and withdrawn behavior,…

Teaching American Popular Culture: History and Economic Reasoning Are Only the Beginning.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kraig, Beth

1994-01-01

Argues that students seldom understand the history of U.S. popular culture, although such cultural attributes as shopping malls and advertising can be used to teach economic and historical understanding. Presents a model that indicates the interrelationship between U.S. popular culture and economic concepts. (CFR)

Popular Media and the Teenage Sexual Agenda.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Strover, Sharon

A qualitative study examined how teenagers react to and interpret certain popular media messages. In addition it explored the relationship between content containing various sexual messages and teenagers' responses to those messages, with particular attention to the critical abilities this audience exhibits. Fifty male and female teenagers aged…

Predicting Bullying: Maladjustment, Social Skills and Popularity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Postigo, Silvia; Gonzalez, Remedios; Mateu, Carmen; Montoya, Inmaculada

2012-01-01

In order to prevent bullying, research has characterised the adolescents involved in terms of their social skills, maladjustment and popularity. However, there is a lack of knowledge concerning the relationships between these variables and how these relationships predict bullying involvement. Moreover, the literature has focused on pure bullies…

Importance and Perspectives of the Earth Sciences Popularization in Mexico

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Flores-Estrella, H.; Yussim, S.

2007-05-01

In our days the scientific popularization in Mexico has not a promising future and with the earth sciences is not better; most of the papers in the popularization magazines deal with subjects as earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, meteorite impacts and the massive extensions associated with them (e.g. Chicxulub). However, these subjects have not been enough to create conscience about the importance of earth sciences in the society and it has even motivated the idea of a community distant scientific with no social obligation, the idea that the earth scientists are responsible for all the problems in the planet (global warming, catastrophes) is wide spread. In these days that we need a change in our consumption, mainly in the energetic one, it's compulsory to change the relation between the subject and its environment; then, as we can not take care of something that we don't know, the scientific popularization has a fundamental role that we must start to pay attention to.

Disk storage management for LHCb based on Data Popularity estimator

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hushchyn, Mikhail; Charpentier, Philippe; Ustyuzhanin, Andrey

2015-12-01

This paper presents an algorithm providing recommendations for optimizing the LHCb data storage. The LHCb data storage system is a hybrid system. All datasets are kept as archives on magnetic tapes. The most popular datasets are kept on disks. The algorithm takes the dataset usage history and metadata (size, type, configuration etc.) to generate a recommendation report. This article presents how we use machine learning algorithms to predict future data popularity. Using these predictions it is possible to estimate which datasets should be removed from disk. We use regression algorithms and time series analysis to find the optimal number of replicas for datasets that are kept on disk. Based on the data popularity and the number of replicas optimization, the algorithm minimizes a loss function to find the optimal data distribution. The loss function represents all requirements for data distribution in the data storage system. We demonstrate how our algorithm helps to save disk space and to reduce waiting times for jobs using this data.

The two pathways to being an (un-)popular narcissist.

PubMed

Küfner, Albrecht C P; Nestler, Steffen; Back, Mitja D

2013-04-01

Narcissism affects social relationships from the very first interactions. The overall positivity of social impressions narcissists evoke is, however, unclear-with previous research reporting positive, negative, or null effects on popularity at short-term acquaintance. Here we postulate a dual-pathway model, which explains the effects of narcissism on (un-)popularity as the result of two opposing behavioral pathways: assertiveness and aggressiveness. In two studies, unacquainted German college students (N = 100; N = 68) met in groups of four to six persons and engaged in group discussions. Afterward, they provided ratings of each other's assertiveness, aggressiveness, and likeability. In Study 2, we additionally videotaped the sessions and assessed participants' actual behavior. Results of both studies confirm our dual-pathway hypothesis: There was a "positive" and a "negative" path from targets' narcissism to being liked or not-dependent upon being seen as assertive or aggressive. Behavioral observations showed that expressive and dominant behaviors mediated the positive path, whereas arrogant and combative behaviors mediated the negative path. Initial (un-)popularity of narcissists at early stages of interpersonal interactions depends on the behavioral pathway that is triggered in the given situational context. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The Infatuation With Biotin Supplementation: Is There Truth Behind Its Rising Popularity? A Comparative Analysis of Clinical Efficacy versus Social Popularity.

PubMed

Soleymani, Teo; Lo Sicco, Kristen; Shapiro, Jerry

2017-05-01

Biotin, also known as Vitamin B7 or vitamin H, is a water-soluble B vitamin that acts as an essential cofactor for several carboxylases involved in the cellular metabolism of fatty acids, amino acids, and gluconeogenesis. Although there exists an incredible amount of social media hype and market advertising touting its efficacy for the improvement of hair quantity and quality, biotin's efficacy for hair remains largely unsubstantiated in scientific literature. We reviewed all pertinent scientific literature regarding the efficacy of biotin supplementation for hair growth and quality improvement, and we also investigated its popularity in society defined as a function of market analytics. To date, there have been no clinical trials conducted to investigate the efficacy of biotin supplementation for the treatment of alopecia of any kind, nor has there been any randomized controlled trial to study its effect on hair quality and quantity in human subjects. Because of the lack of clinical evidence, its use to improve hair quantity or quality is not routinely recommended. However, societal infatuation with biotin supplementation is not only propagated by its glamorization in popular media, its popularity is vastly disproportionate to the insufficient clinical evidence supporting it's efficacy in hair improvement. In other words, biotin supplements are quite "in vogue", without there being any real reason to be so.

J Drugs Dermatol. 2017;16(5):496-500.

Astronomy popularization at the University of Wrocław

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Preś, Paweł; Cader-Sroka, Barbara; Berlicki, Arkadiusz

2016-06-01

Science popularization found many expressions in the history of the Astronomical Institute of the University of Wrocław. The long-lasting is the tradition of popular astronomy lectures. Occasional celestial events are the base of public observations. Since 1998 the Institute boldly participates in the Lower-Silesian Science Festival. The rising public interest in astronomy encouraged us to establish ''Planetarium'' laboratory in 2008. Together with the Astronomical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic we established in 2009 the very first trans-border dark-sky park in the location of Izera Mountains, where since then the public can benefit from excellent observational conditions and the astronomers' support.

Classroom Contradictions: Popular Media in Ontario Schools' Literacy and Citizenship Education Policies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ferguson, Susan

2011-01-01

In 2003, the Ontario Ministry of Education in Canada began promoting popular media as a pedagogical tool, especially for "reluctant" readers. This "pedagogy of the popular" is instituted within a critical media literacy framework that draws on the values and codes of multiculturalism to counter the consumerist messages students…

Popular Literature: Its Compatibility with the Basics.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Matthews, Dorothy, Ed.

1983-01-01

This special journal issue contains nine articles on the subject of using popular literature in the classroom. Subjects covered in the articles include (1) using vernacular supernatural literature to teach the skills of literary analysis, (2) teaching Agatha Christie's "Curtain," (3) pairing the classics with detective fiction, (4) using fantasy…

Social Concerns, Political Protest, and Popular Music.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cooper, B. Lee

1988-01-01

Demonstrates how the use of rock-era music images of political protest and social criticism can provide teachers with a forceful and entertaining introduction to the examination of controversial issues in U.S. society. Includes chronologically and thematically arranged lists of recordings which represent popular themes in U.S. music between…

Associations of group level popularity with observed behavior and influence in a dyadic context.

PubMed

Lansu, Tessa A M; Cillessen, Antonius H N

2015-12-01

This study examined the association between popularity in the peer group and adolescents' behavior in a dyadic context. After collecting peer nominations for popularity, 218 early adolescents (M(age) = 11.0 years) in 109 randomly composed same-sex dyads participated in a discussion task where they planned a party for their classroom. From digital recordings of the sessions, each participant's influence, involvement, skillful leadership, coercive resource control, submissiveness, positivity, and negativity were observed. Analyses with the actor-partner interdependence model (APIM) demonstrated that for girls high group level popularity was associated with a socially sensitive interaction style and influence in the dyadic context. For both boys and girls, the interaction partner's group level popularity negatively predicted their use of coercive resource control strategies and negative behavior in the dyad. For girls, in addition, the interaction partner's group level popularity also positively predicted their submissiveness and negatively predicted their task influence. These results indicate that, in particular for girls, adolescents' group level popularity plays an important role in the behavior of both peers in a cooperative dyadic context. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

[The most popular poisons from Graeco-Roman world].

PubMed

Siek, Bartlomiej; Rys, Anna; Sein Anand, Jacek

2013-01-01

Article presents the most popular antique poisons. Information from encyclopaedic literature and literary texts of the Roman Empire period has been compared with the etymology of the names of some poisons of plant and animal origin.

Conflict and Co-Operation between "Popular" and "State" Education in Latin America

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kane, Liam

2007-01-01

During the Latin American oppression of the 1970s, as the rapidly increasing number of grassroots "popular" social movements sought to profit from and expand the ideas of the radical Brazilian educationist Paulo Freire, there developed, in its own right, a "popular education" movement which engaged in radical education for…

Longitudinal Investigation of the Associations between Adolescents' Popularity and Cyber Social Behaviors

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wright, Michelle F.

2014-01-01

As adolescents become increasingly immersed in electronic technologies, popular adolescents may act in similar ways online as they do offline. This longitudinal study employed peer nominations and self-reports to examine perceived popularity and social preference in relation to cyber social behaviors among 256 adolescents during the fall (T1) and…

The scientific authorship of Doctor Chernoviz, from the popularization of medicine to professional training: the Dicionário de medicina popular, 1842-1890.

PubMed

Medeiros, Aline da Silva

2018-03-01

This article reflects on the scientific authorship of Pedro Luiz Napoleão Chernoviz, based on his Dicionário de medicina popular, which was published in six editions between 1842 and 1890. The first part of the text discusses Chernoviz's position within the regimes of scientific authorship which were present in the medical community in Rio de Janeiro. Next, we analyze the author's arguments justifying a text that popularized medical science while this field strove for exclusivity in the practice of medicine. Finally, we suggest new meanings around Chernoviz's scientific authorship based on how the Dicionário was used and read by an initiated public.

UWP 011: Popular Science and Technology Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Perrault, Sarah

2012-01-01

UWP 011: Popular Science & Technology Writing is a sophomore-level course designed as an introduction to rhetoric of science at UC Davis, a science-focused land-grant university. The course fulfills the general education requirements for written literacy and for topical breadth in arts and humanities. The catalog describes the course as…

Composition and the Study of Popular Culture.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mulcaire, Terry; Grady, Frank

A required freshman English course at Berkeley was designed on the assumption that: (1) students have already developed a set of sophisticated skills for reading popular culture texts--movies, television, and commercial literary genres--against and in terms of one another; and (2) these skills are not categorically different from those inculcated…

A Comparison of "Popular Music Pedagogy" Discourses

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mantie, Roger

2013-01-01

The purpose of this study was to interrogate discourses of "popular music pedagogy" in order to better understand music education practices generally and specifically those in the United States. Employing a conceptual framework based on the work of Jan Blommaert (2005), a content analysis was conducted on a sample of 81 articles related…

Batman and Batwoman Go to School: Popular Culture in the Literacy Curriculum.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Marsh, Jackie

1999-01-01

This case study investigated the introduction of a theme from popular culture into a sociodramatic role-play area in a northern England Nursery Infant school, focusing on its effects on 6- to 7-year olds' literacy activities. Findings indicated that the incorporation of themes from popular culture into the curriculum motivated children whose…

Examining Multiple Readings of Popular Culture by ESL Students in Hong Kong

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Luk, Jasmine; Hui, Diane

2017-01-01

The integration of popular culture into English language learning has recently been formalised in the Hong Kong New Senior Secondary curriculum, with the development of critical reading indicated as one of the key objectives. Whether and how students respond to popular culture texts is, however, under-researched. The present paper reports findings…

Differences between Non-Aggressive, Rejected Children and Popular Children during Peer Collaboration

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Crosby, Kimberly A.; Fireman, Gary D.; Clopton, James R.

2011-01-01

This study examined the communication of non-aggressive, rejected (NAR) children and popular children during peer interaction. The participants were 80 fifth and sixth graders recruited from a larger sociometric sample (40 boys and 40 girls; 20 NAR children and 60 non-aggressive, popular children). Participants were assigned to 40 same-gender…

The Popularization of Astronomy in Canada

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Trudel, J.-L.

1996-12-01

In Canada, astronomy has a longer history than most other sciences. The European settlers had to master the rudiments of astronomical practice, while the natural setting promoted geophysical observations of all kinds. In the nineteenth century, astronomy was part of natural theology and a resource for timekeepers and cartographers, but was increasingly pursued for its own sake by laymen. The creation of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada marks a turning point. Though it appeared to unite professionals and amateurs, it became early on a conduit for the knowledge of the former to flow to the latter, supplementing the purely academic stream. It followed upon the success of new publications meant to acquaint readers with the facts of astronomy, for the hitherto unsuspected pleasures they might bring. In fact, some Canadian works of this kind reached a wide audience, in Canada and abroad, and the post-WWII period saw an almost complete disjunction between the formerly utilitarian aspects of popularization a nd the catering to interested laypeople, distinct from the professionals. By 1976, the transformation was complete. The science mastered by explorers and appealed to by believers had become both a field for professional investigations and a widely popularized corpus of star lore

Analysis of popular press articles concerning postpartum depression: 1998-2006.

PubMed

Schanie, Carrie L; Pinto-Foltz, Melissa D; Logsdon, M Cynthia

2008-11-01

The purpose of the study was to analyze the content of popular press magazine articles that focused on postpartum depression, published from 1998-2006. Replicating earlier research by Martinez, Johnson-Robledo, Ulsh, and Chrisler, 2000, 47 articles were identified and their content analyzed in the areas of etiology, symptoms, treatment, resources, and demographic assumptions about readers. Popular press magazines contained contradictory information about the definition, prevalence, onset, duration, symptoms, and treatment of postpartum mood disorders. Health care providers should be proactive in directing childbearing women to factual sources of information on postpartum depression.

[Popular wisdom: its existence in the university environment].

PubMed

Barbosa, Maria Alves; de Melo, Marcia Borges; Júnior, Raul Soares Silveira; Brasil, Virginia Visconde; Martins, Cleusa Alves; Bezerra, Ana Lúcia Queiroz

2004-01-01

Nowadays, myths and superstitions are present in spite of scientific and technological developments, especially when trying to solve problems that escape human understanding. This study was aimed at determining the existence of superstitions and myths in the university community, investigating their origins, influences, adoption and credibility, correlating them with people's level of knowledge. It is a descriptive/analytical research conducted at Teaching Units in the Area of Health of the Federal University of Goiás. The technique of content analysis was utilized for data analysis. Two categories have been created: Personal Attitudes related to Superstitions and Influences and Destruction of Superstitions. It was found out that there is a clash between popular and scientific knowledge, either leading to the exclusion of popular wisdom, to its 'veiled' maintenance, or even to an alliance between the two types of knowledge.

Can Google Searches Predict the Popularity and Harm of Psychoactive Agents?

PubMed

Jankowski, Wojciech; Hoffmann, Marcin

2016-02-25

Predicting the popularity of and harm caused by psychoactive agents is a serious problem that would be difficult to do by a single simple method. However, because of the growing number of drugs it is very important to provide a simple and fast tool for predicting some characteristics of these substances. We were inspired by the Google Flu Trends study on the activity of the influenza virus, which showed that influenza virus activity worldwide can be monitored based on queries entered into the Google search engine. Our aim was to propose a fast method for ranking the most popular and most harmful drugs based on easily available data gathered from the Internet. We used the Google search engine to acquire data for the ranking lists. Subsequently, using the resulting list and the frequency of hits for the respective psychoactive drugs combined with the word "harm" or "harmful", we estimated quickly how much harm is associated with each drug. We ranked the most popular and harmful psychoactive drugs. As we conducted the research over a period of several months, we noted that the relative popularity indexes tended to change depending on when we obtained them. This suggests that the data may be useful in monitoring changes over time in the use of each of these psychoactive agents. Our data correlate well with the results from a multicriteria decision analysis of drug harms in the United Kingdom. We showed that Google search data can be a valuable source of information to assess the popularity of and harm caused by psychoactive agents and may help in monitoring drug use trends.

Popular Education and the Logics of Schooling

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rockwell, Elsie

2011-01-01

In this article, I compare two distinct uses of "Popular Education" that emerged in Tlaxcala in the wake of the Mexican Revolution. I examine archival and oral evidence to reconstruct the situated meanings and political rationales that led to the use of the term in each case, beyond their contrasting pedagogical content. In 1917, a…

Rómulo de Carvalho's Work on the Popularization of Science During Salazarism

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Galamba, Arthur

2013-10-01

This article provides an account of Rómulo de Carvalho's most prominent works on the popularization of science during the Salazarist regime in Portugal. Carvalho has been praised for his `unique' writing style, for his uncommon ability to communicate scientific knowledge with clarity to a wide audience: he wrote to teachers, to secondary students, to the layman and even to the rural peasantry. Most of his books and articles on popularization explored the History and Philosophy of Science, and it has been claimed that he influenced many youngsters to pursue scientific careers. Given the repressive political context imposed by Salazarism, it is argued that Carvalho's work on the popularization of science had a humanist and libertarian connotation. However, intriguingly, different from some of his contemporaries who also promoted humanistic education for all, Carvalho was never targeted by the Dictatorship. The article seeks to shed light on this matter. It points out the educational reach of Carvalho's writings and suggests that popularization of science in repressive regimes is not necessarily a problematic issue as long as it does not threat the status quo.

The Popularization of China's Higher Education and Its Influence on University Mathematics Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jing, Tang

2007-01-01

This paper introduces the current situation of the popular Chinese university education, points out the impact of popularized Chinese higher education on its university mathematics education, and presents the actualities and existing problems of university mathematics education research in China.

Popular Theatre: A Useful Process for Adult Educators.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bates, Reid A.

1996-01-01

Four types of theatre uses in adult education are theatre for education, for development, for conscientization, and popular theatre. The latter involves a group's interpretive study of its own social, economic, cultural, and political conditions, leading to collective action. (SK)

Hua Loo-Keng's Popularization of Mathematics and the Cultural Revolution.

PubMed

Hudeček, Jiří

2017-09-01

Before 1966, Chinese mathematician Hua Loo-Keng had singled out "Two Methods" as a way to truly applied and useful mathematics. The Overall Planning Method, based on the Critical Path Method widely used in USA, mostly appealed to middle and upper management. This limited its spread during the Cultural Revolution. The Optimum Selection Method, also of US origin, was more mass-oriented and ready for popularization. Nevertheless, Hua met resistance from leftist radicals, whose ideological objections sprang from an underlying power struggle. Hua built popularization teams, mostly from talented younger people whose careers were disrupted by the Cultural Revolution, and thus opened a path for many of them to important roles in China's scientific infrastructure after 1976. Hua Loo-Keng's efforts, while interrupted during the Cultural Revolution and the subsequent political campaigns, were also helped by the populist ethos of the movement, and by the lack of other non-political endeavors at that time. In this sense, the Cultural Revolution gave Hua Loo-Keng's popularization its importance and long-term impact. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Behavior change techniques in popular alcohol reduction apps: content analysis.

PubMed

Crane, David; Garnett, Claire; Brown, James; West, Robert; Michie, Susan

2015-05-14

Mobile phone apps have the potential to reduce excessive alcohol consumption cost-effectively. Although hundreds of alcohol-related apps are available, there is little information about the behavior change techniques (BCTs) they contain, or the extent to which they are based on evidence or theory and how this relates to their popularity and user ratings. Our aim was to assess the proportion of popular alcohol-related apps available in the United Kingdom that focus on alcohol reduction, identify the BCTs they contain, and explore whether BCTs or the mention of theory or evidence is associated with app popularity and user ratings. We searched the iTunes and Google Play stores with the terms "alcohol" and "drink", and the first 800 results were classified into alcohol reduction, entertainment, or blood alcohol content measurement. Of those classified as alcohol reduction, all free apps and the top 10 paid apps were coded for BCTs and for reference to evidence or theory. Measures of popularity and user ratings were extracted. Of the 800 apps identified, 662 were unique. Of these, 13.7% (91/662) were classified as alcohol reduction (95% CI 11.3-16.6), 53.9% (357/662) entertainment (95% CI 50.1-57.7), 18.9% (125/662) blood alcohol content measurement (95% CI 16.1-22.0) and 13.4% (89/662) other (95% CI 11.1-16.3). The 51 free alcohol reduction apps and the top 10 paid apps contained a mean of 3.6 BCTs (SD 3.4), with approximately 12% (7/61) not including any BCTs. The BCTs used most often were "facilitate self-recording" (54%, 33/61), "provide information on consequences of excessive alcohol use and drinking cessation" (43%, 26/61), "provide feedback on performance" (41%, 25/61), "give options for additional and later support" (25%, 15/61) and "offer/direct towards appropriate written materials" (23%, 14/61). These apps also rarely included any of the 22 BCTs frequently used in other health behavior change interventions (mean 2.46, SD 2.06). Evidence was mentioned by 16

Behavior Change Techniques in Popular Alcohol Reduction Apps: Content Analysis

PubMed Central

Garnett, Claire; Brown, James; West, Robert; Michie, Susan

2015-01-01

Background Mobile phone apps have the potential to reduce excessive alcohol consumption cost-effectively. Although hundreds of alcohol-related apps are available, there is little information about the behavior change techniques (BCTs) they contain, or the extent to which they are based on evidence or theory and how this relates to their popularity and user ratings. Objective Our aim was to assess the proportion of popular alcohol-related apps available in the United Kingdom that focus on alcohol reduction, identify the BCTs they contain, and explore whether BCTs or the mention of theory or evidence is associated with app popularity and user ratings. Methods We searched the iTunes and Google Play stores with the terms “alcohol” and “drink”, and the first 800 results were classified into alcohol reduction, entertainment, or blood alcohol content measurement. Of those classified as alcohol reduction, all free apps and the top 10 paid apps were coded for BCTs and for reference to evidence or theory. Measures of popularity and user ratings were extracted. Results Of the 800 apps identified, 662 were unique. Of these, 13.7% (91/662) were classified as alcohol reduction (95% CI 11.3-16.6), 53.9% (357/662) entertainment (95% CI 50.1-57.7), 18.9% (125/662) blood alcohol content measurement (95% CI 16.1-22.0) and 13.4% (89/662) other (95% CI 11.1-16.3). The 51 free alcohol reduction apps and the top 10 paid apps contained a mean of 3.6 BCTs (SD 3.4), with approximately 12% (7/61) not including any BCTs. The BCTs used most often were “facilitate self-recording” (54%, 33/61), “provide information on consequences of excessive alcohol use and drinking cessation” (43%, 26/61), “provide feedback on performance” (41%, 25/61), “give options for additional and later support” (25%, 15/61) and “offer/direct towards appropriate written materials” (23%, 14/61). These apps also rarely included any of the 22 BCTs frequently used in other health behavior change

Misreading Masculinity: Boys, Literacy, and Popular Culture.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Newkirk, Thomas

This book takes an up-close and personal look at elementary school boys and their relationship to sports, movies, video games, and other avenues of popular culture. The book views these media not as enemies of literacy, but as resources "for" literacy. It contains a series of interviews with young boys and girls who describe the pleasure…

Nectar for the taking: the popularization of scientific bee culture in England, 1609-1809.

PubMed

Ebert, Adam

2011-01-01

This essay expands and refines academic knowledge of English beekeeping during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Scientific beekeeping focused on improvement, which, in turn, depended on the dissemination of ideas and practices. This analysis, therefore, encompasses the mentalities and tactics of popularizers. The article also identifies two neglected concepts in the popularization campaign. First, popularizers saw scientific beekeeping as a way to end the tradition of killing the bees in order to safely harvest. Second, they sought to promote a rural industry for the economic welfare of the nation. The case study of Exeter's Western Apiarian Society reveals precisely how popularization functioned in reality. The result is a more thorough history of scientific beekeeping and how the rhetoric of improvement related to the culture of practice.

Turn up that Radio, Teacher: Popular Cultural Pedagogy in New Century Urban Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Duncan-Andrade, Jeffrey M. R.; Morrell, Ernest

2005-01-01

Synthesizing literature from critical pedagogy, sociocultural psychology, and cultural studies with popular cultural texts and experiences from actual classroom practice, this article conceptualizes the critical teaching of popular culture as a viable strategy to increase academic and critical literacies in urban secondary classrooms. Relying on…

Putting Pop in Its Place: Using Popular Music in the Teaching of Geography.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Paterson, John L.

1991-01-01

Provides ideas and resources for using popular music to teach geography. Discusses social values, conservation and land issues, and developmental issues in Latin America. Concludes that popular music reflects the character of a place as well as the perspective and values of the musician. (DK)

Measuring the Evolution of Contemporary Western Popular Music

PubMed Central

Serrà, Joan; Corral, Álvaro; Boguñá, Marián; Haro, Martín; Arcos, Josep Ll.

2012-01-01

Popular music is a key cultural expression that has captured listeners' attention for ages. Many of the structural regularities underlying musical discourse are yet to be discovered and, accordingly, their historical evolution remains formally unknown. Here we unveil a number of patterns and metrics characterizing the generic usage of primary musical facets such as pitch, timbre, and loudness in contemporary western popular music. Many of these patterns and metrics have been consistently stable for a period of more than fifty years. However, we prove important changes or trends related to the restriction of pitch transitions, the homogenization of the timbral palette, and the growing loudness levels. This suggests that our perception of the new would be rooted on these changing characteristics. Hence, an old tune could perfectly sound novel and fashionable, provided that it consisted of common harmonic progressions, changed the instrumentation, and increased the average loudness. PMID:22837813

Complementary and alternative medicine - representations in popular magazines.

PubMed

Dunne, Alexandra; Phillips, Christine

2010-09-01

More than half the patients who use complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in Australia do not discuss it with their doctors. Many consumers use popular media, especially women's magazines, to learn about CAM. To explore representations of CAM in popular Australian women's magazines. Content analysis of three Australian magazines: Australian Women's Weekly, Dolly and New Idea published from January to June 2008. Of 220 references to CAM (4-17 references per issue), most were to biologically based practices, particularly 'functional foods', which enhance health. Most representations of CAM were positive (81.3% positive, 16.4% neutral, 2.3% negative). Explanations of modes of action of CAM tended to be biological but relatively superficial. Australian magazines cast CAM as safe therapy which enhances patient engagement in healthcare, and works in ways analogous to orthodox medical treatments. General practitioners can use discussions with their patients about CAM to encourage health promoting practices.

Measuring the Evolution of Contemporary Western Popular Music

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Serrà, Joan; Corral, Álvaro; Boguñá, Marián; Haro, Martín; Arcos, Josep Ll.

2012-07-01

Popular music is a key cultural expression that has captured listeners' attention for ages. Many of the structural regularities underlying musical discourse are yet to be discovered and, accordingly, their historical evolution remains formally unknown. Here we unveil a number of patterns and metrics characterizing the generic usage of primary musical facets such as pitch, timbre, and loudness in contemporary western popular music. Many of these patterns and metrics have been consistently stable for a period of more than fifty years. However, we prove important changes or trends related to the restriction of pitch transitions, the homogenization of the timbral palette, and the growing loudness levels. This suggests that our perception of the new would be rooted on these changing characteristics. Hence, an old tune could perfectly sound novel and fashionable, provided that it consisted of common harmonic progressions, changed the instrumentation, and increased the average loudness.

Measuring the evolution of contemporary western popular music.

PubMed

Serrà, Joan; Corral, Alvaro; Boguñá, Marián; Haro, Martín; Arcos, Josep Ll

2012-01-01

Popular music is a key cultural expression that has captured listeners' attention for ages. Many of the structural regularities underlying musical discourse are yet to be discovered and, accordingly, their historical evolution remains formally unknown. Here we unveil a number of patterns and metrics characterizing the generic usage of primary musical facets such as pitch, timbre, and loudness in contemporary western popular music. Many of these patterns and metrics have been consistently stable for a period of more than fifty years. However, we prove important changes or trends related to the restriction of pitch transitions, the homogenization of the timbral palette, and the growing loudness levels. This suggests that our perception of the new would be rooted on these changing characteristics. Hence, an old tune could perfectly sound novel and fashionable, provided that it consisted of common harmonic progressions, changed the instrumentation, and increased the average loudness.

Popularity and Resource Control Goals as Predictors of Adolescent Indirect Aggression.

PubMed

Dyches, Karmon D; Mayeux, Lara

2015-01-01

Resource Control Theory conceptualizes aggression as a behavior that allows access to, and control of, limited resources (P. H. Hawley, 1999 ). This study investigated the associations of adolescents' indirect aggression with their resource control goals, or goals related to controlling social resources such as dating opportunities and peer status, and with their levels of popularity and social intelligence. Participants were 109 seventh-graders (52% girls) who completed a resource control goals measure, the Tromsø Social Intelligence Scale, and peer nominations of popularity and indirect aggression. Results indicated positive associations between resource control goals and peer-nominated indirect aggression, with popularity further moderating these associations. These findings suggest that the resource control goals of adolescents can be a motivating force to engage in hurtful behaviors. They provide a context from which peer relations researchers can improve their understanding and prevention of adolescents' indirect aggression.

Aggression, conflict resolution, popularity, and attitude to school in Russian adolescents.

PubMed

Butovskaya, Marina L; Timentschik, Vera M; Burkova, Valentina N

2007-01-01

The objective of the present study was to examine the effects of aggression and conflict-managing skills on popularity and attitude to school in Russian adolescents. Three types of aggression (physical, verbal, and indirect), constructive conflict resolution, third-party intervention, withdrawal, and victimization were examined using the Peer-Estimated Conflict Behavior (PECOBE) inventory [Bjorkquist and Osterman, 1998]. Also, all respondents rated peer and self-popularity with same-sex classmates and personal attitude to school. The sample consisted of 212 Russian adolescents (101 boys, 111 girls) aged between 11 and 15 years. The findings attest to significant sex differences in aggression and conflict resolution patterns. Boys scored higher on physical and verbal aggression, and girls on indirect aggression. Girls were socially more skillful than boys in the use of peaceful means of conflict resolution (they scored higher on constructive conflict resolution and third-party intervention). The attributional discrepancy index (ADI) scores were negative for all three types of aggression in both sexes. Verbal aggression is apparently more condemned in boys than in girls. ADI scores were positive for constructive conflict resolution and third-party intervention in both genders, being higher in boys. In girls, verbal aggression was positively correlated with popularity. In both sexes, popularity showed a positive correlation with constructive conflict resolution and third-party intervention, and a negative correlation with withdrawal and victimization. Boys who liked school were popular with same-sex peers and scored higher on constructive conflict resolution. Girls who liked school were less aggressive according to peer rating. They also rated higher on conflict resolution and third-party intervention. Physical aggression was related to age. The results are discussed in a cross-cultural perspective. Copyright 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

From science to popularization, and back--the science and journalism of the Belgian economist Gustave de Molinari.

PubMed

Van Dijck, Maarten

2008-09-01

Sociologists and historians of science, such as Richard Whitley and Stephen Hilgartner, identified a culturally dominant discourse of science popularization in the broader society. In this dominant view, a clear distinction is maintained between scientific knowledge and popularized knowledge. Popularization of science is seen as the process of transmitting real science to a lay public. This discourse on science popularization was criticized by Whitley and Hilgartner as an inadequate simplification. Yet, the battered traditional model of popularization remains remarkably resistant to these theoretical attacks. In this paper I will argue, based on research of the output of the Belgian economist Gustave de Molinari (1819-1912), and more specifically, his opinion on the role of government in economic life, that the boundary between science and popularization in political economy is not clear and that the status of scientists fluctuates over time and in different contexts. It is therefore impossible for historians or economists to distinguish science from popularization based on the essential characteristics or intrinsic quality of the work. De Molinari's ideas are followed through the different media of science and journalism. Although de Molinari himself differentiated between his scientific and "popular" work, the boundary between science and popularization proves to be highly permeable, in both directions.

Alcohol brand references in U.S. popular music, 2009-2011.

PubMed

Siegel, Michael; Johnson, Renee M; Tyagi, Keshav; Power, Kathryn; Lohsen, Mark C; Ayers, Amanda J; Jernigan, David H

2013-12-01

This study aimed to assess the prevalence and context of alcohol brand references in popular music. Billboard Magazine year-end charts from 2009 to 2011 were used to identify the most popular songs in four genres: Urban, Pop, Country, and Rock. Of the 720 songs, 23% included an alcohol mention, and 6.4% included an alcohol brand mention. Songs classified as Urban had the highest percentage of alcohol mentions and alcohol brand mentions. The context associated with alcohol brand mentions was almost uniformly positive or neutral. Public health efforts may be necessary to reduce youth exposure to these positive messages about alcohol use.

Local Variation of Hashtag Spike Trains and Popularity in Twitter

PubMed Central

Sanlı, Ceyda; Lambiotte, Renaud

2015-01-01

We draw a parallel between hashtag time series and neuron spike trains. In each case, the process presents complex dynamic patterns including temporal correlations, burstiness, and all other types of nonstationarity. We propose the adoption of the so-called local variation in order to uncover salient dynamical properties, while properly detrending for the time-dependent features of a signal. The methodology is tested on both real and randomized hashtag spike trains, and identifies that popular hashtags present regular and so less bursty behavior, suggesting its potential use for predicting online popularity in social media. PMID:26161650

Multiplex congruity: friendship networks and perceived popularity as correlates of adolescent alcohol use.

PubMed

Fujimoto, Kayo; Valente, Thomas W

2015-01-01

Adolescents interact with their peers in multiple social settings and form various types of peer relationships that affect drinking behavior. Friendship and popularity perceptions constitute critical relationships during adolescence. These two relations are commonly measured by asking students to name their friends, and this network is used to construct drinking exposure and peer status variables. This study takes a multiplex network approach by examining the congruity between friendships and popularity as correlates of adolescent drinking. Using data on friendship and popularity nominations among high school adolescents in Los Angeles, California (N = 1707; five schools), we examined the associations between an adolescent's drinking and drinking by (a) their friends only; (b) multiplexed friendships, friends also perceived as popular; and (c) congruent, multiplexed-friends, close friends perceived as popular. Logistic regression results indicated that friend-only drinking, but not multiplexed-friend drinking, was significantly associated with self-drinking (AOR = 3.51, p < 0.05). However, congruent, multiplexed-friend drinking also was associated with self-drinking (AOR = 3.10, p < 0.05). This study provides insight into how adolescent health behavior is predicated on the multiplexed nature of peer relationships. The results have implications for the design of health promotion interventions for adolescent drinking. Copyright © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Multiplex congruity: Friendship networks and perceived popularity as correlates of adolescent alcohol use

PubMed Central

Fujimoto, Kayo; Valente, Thomas W.

2014-01-01

Adolescents interact with their peers in multiple social settings and form various types of peer relationships that affect drinking behavior. Friendship and popularity perceptions constitute critical relationships during adolescence. These two relations are commonly measured by asking students to name their friends, and this network is used to construct drinking exposure and peer status variables. This study takes a multiplex network approach by examining the congruity between friendships and popularity as correlates of adolescent drinking. Using data on friendship and popularity nominations among high school adolescents in Los Angeles, California (N = 1707; five schools), we examined the associations between an adolescent's drinking and drinking by (a) their friends only; (b) multiplexed friendships, friends also perceived as popular; and (c) congruent, multiplexed-friends, close friends perceived as popular. Logistic regression results indicated that friend-only drinking, but not multiplexed-friend drinking, was significantly associated with self-drinking (AOR = 3.51, p < 0.05). However, congruent, multiplexed-friend drinking also was associated with self-drinking (AOR = 3.10, p < 0.05). This study provides insight into how adolescent health behavior is predicated on the multiplexed nature of peer relationships. The results have implications for the design of health promotion interventions for adolescent drinking. PMID:24913275

Teaching ethics using popular songs: feeling and thinking.

PubMed

O'Mathúna, Dónal P

2008-01-01

A connection has long been made between music and moral education. Recent discussions have focused on concerns that certain lyrics can lead to acceptance of violence, suicide, inappropriate views of women, and other unethical behaviour. Debate over whether such connections exist at least illustrates that popular songs engage listeners with ethical issues; this arises from the unique blend of emotional and cognitive reactions to music. And while the emotional side of ethics has received less attention than other aspects of ethics, it is important and music can be a powerful and unique tool to introduce the emotional aspects of ethics. Music appeals to almost everyone. Throughout history songs have rallied people to action and drawn people into deeper reflection. Music engages our emotions, our imagination and our intellect. Students already spend many hours listening to songs, some of which address ethical issues; it is thus an ideal pedagogic aid in teaching subjects like ethics. This article will discuss how carefully selected songs can encourage thoughtful reflection and critical thinking about ethical issues: a number of specific examples will be described, along with a discussion of the general practicalities of using popular songs in teaching ethics and a demonstration of how students learn to listen critically and actively reflect on the ethical messages they receive. The enjoyment of music helps to engage students with ethics and its relevance for their lives and careers. This article aims to share some of the excitement and enthusiasm that popular songs have brought to my teaching of ethics.

Chinese and American Children's Perceptions of Popularity Determinants: Cultural Differences and Behavioral Correlates

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Li, Yan; Xie, Hongling; Shi, Junqi

2012-01-01

The present study aimed to investigate cultural construction of children's perceptions of popularity determinants using a cross-cultural approach. This study examined 327 Chinese and 312 American fifth-graders' perceptions of what individual characteristics and peer relationships would make a peer popular. Consistent with cultural emphases,…

Understanding Adolescent Delinquency: The Role of Older Siblings' Delinquency and Popularity with Peers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Craine, Jessica L.; Tanaka,Teri A.; Nishina, Adrienne; Conger, Katherine J.

2009-01-01

The present study examined delinquency concordance and the moderating effects of younger sibling perceptions of older sibling popularity in a sample of 587 adolescent sibling pairs. Using a social learning framework and taking dyad composition into account, perceptions of popularity were hypothesized to strengthen siblings' concordance for…

Temporal effects in trend prediction: identifying the most popular nodes in the future.

PubMed

Zhou, Yanbo; Zeng, An; Wang, Wei-Hong

2015-01-01

Prediction is an important problem in different science domains. In this paper, we focus on trend prediction in complex networks, i.e. to identify the most popular nodes in the future. Due to the preferential attachment mechanism in real systems, nodes' recent degree and cumulative degree have been successfully applied to design trend prediction methods. Here we took into account more detailed information about the network evolution and proposed a temporal-based predictor (TBP). The TBP predicts the future trend by the node strength in the weighted network with the link weight equal to its exponential aging. Three data sets with time information are used to test the performance of the new method. We find that TBP have high general accuracy in predicting the future most popular nodes. More importantly, it can identify many potential objects with low popularity in the past but high popularity in the future. The effect of the decay speed in the exponential aging on the results is discussed in detail.

Temporal Effects in Trend Prediction: Identifying the Most Popular Nodes in the Future

PubMed Central

Zhou, Yanbo; Zeng, An; Wang, Wei-Hong

2015-01-01

Prediction is an important problem in different science domains. In this paper, we focus on trend prediction in complex networks, i.e. to identify the most popular nodes in the future. Due to the preferential attachment mechanism in real systems, nodes’ recent degree and cumulative degree have been successfully applied to design trend prediction methods. Here we took into account more detailed information about the network evolution and proposed a temporal-based predictor (TBP). The TBP predicts the future trend by the node strength in the weighted network with the link weight equal to its exponential aging. Three data sets with time information are used to test the performance of the new method. We find that TBP have high general accuracy in predicting the future most popular nodes. More importantly, it can identify many potential objects with low popularity in the past but high popularity in the future. The effect of the decay speed in the exponential aging on the results is discussed in detail. PMID:25806810

Environmental Popular Education and Indigenous Social Movements in India.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kapoor, Dip

2003-01-01

Environmental popular education helps shape indigenous social movements in India through a continual process of reflection and action that connects concerns about ecological degradation, subsistence, and marginalization. (Contains 56 references.) (SK)

What Is Popular Music Studies? Some Observations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cloonan, Martin

2005-01-01

Popular Music Studies (PMS) is now taught in over 20 higher education institutions (HEIs) in the UK and numerous others across the world. This article outlines the constituent parts of PMS in the UK and questions its status as a discipline in its own right. It concludes by arguing that, having established itself, PMS will need to deal with two key…

Student Voice and the Perils of Popularity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rudduck, Jean; Fielding, Michael

2006-01-01

In this article we suggest that the current popularity of student voice can lead to surface compliance--to a quick response that focuses on "how to do it" rather than a reflective review of "why we might want to do it". We look at the links between student consultation and participation and the legacy of the progressive democratic tradition in our…

Popular Theatre and Non-Formal Education in Botswana: A Critique of Pseudo-Participatory Popular Education. Working Paper No. 5 (Revised).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kidd, Ross; Byram, Martin

Designed to show that highly participatory, engaging, entertaining, and locally understandable communication forms can be used not only to liberate but also to domesticate, this paper presents case studies of several nonformal education projects in Botswana that attempted to follow the approach of Paulo Freire by using popular theatre to encourage…

Secondary School Students' Preferences for Popular Music and Perceptions of Popular Music Learned in School Music Education in Mainland China

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ho, Wai-Chung

2017-01-01

This study examined popular music and school music education as cultural constructs of teenage students amid the shifting cultural and social dynamics of contemporary China. Data were drawn from questionnaires completed by 6,780 secondary students (mainly ages 12 through 17) from three cities--Beijing, Changsha, and Shanghai. The survey results…

Do Narcissism and Emotional Intelligence Win Us Friends? Modeling Dynamics of Peer Popularity Using Inferential Network Analysis.

PubMed

Czarna, Anna Z; Leifeld, Philip; Śmieja, Magdalena; Dufner, Michael; Salovey, Peter

2016-09-27

This research investigated effects of narcissism and emotional intelligence (EI) on popularity in social networks. In a longitudinal field study, we examined the dynamics of popularity in 15 peer groups in two waves (N = 273). We measured narcissism, ability EI, and explicit and implicit self-esteem. In addition, we measured popularity at zero acquaintance and 3 months later. We analyzed the data using inferential network analysis (temporal exponential random graph modeling, TERGM) accounting for self-organizing network forces. People high in narcissism were popular, but increased less in popularity over time than people lower in narcissism. In contrast, emotionally intelligent people increased more in popularity over time than less emotionally intelligent people. The effects held when we controlled for explicit and implicit self-esteem. These results suggest that narcissism is rather disadvantageous and that EI is rather advantageous for long-term popularity. © 2016 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

Speech-Language Pathology production regarding voice in popular singing.

PubMed

Drumond, Lorena Badaró; Vieira, Naymme Barbosa; Oliveira, Domingos Sávio Ferreira de

2011-12-01

To present a literature review about the Brazilian scientific production in Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology regarding voice in popular singing in the last decade, as for number of publications, musical styles studied, focus of the researches, and instruments used for data collection. Cross-sectional descriptive study carried out in two stages: search in databases and publications encompassing the last decade of researches in this area in Brazil, and reading of the material obtained for posterior categorization. The databases LILACS and SciELO, the Databasis of Dissertations and Theses organized by CAPES, the online version of Acta ORL, and the online version of OPUS were searched, using the following uniterms: voice, professional voice, singing voice, dysphonia, voice disorders, voice training, music, dysodia. Articles published between the years 2000 and 2010 were selected. The researches found were classified and categorized after reading their abstracts and, when necessary, the whole study. Twenty researches within the proposed theme were selected, all of which were descriptive, involving several musical styles. Twelve studies focused on the evaluation of the popular singer's voice, and the most frequently used data collection instrument was the auditory-perceptual evaluation. The results of the publications found corroborate the objectives proposed by the authors and the different methodologies. The number of studies published is still restricted when compared to the diversity of musical genres and the uniqueness of popular singer.

Music therapy students' recognition of popular song repertoire for geriatric clients.

PubMed

Vanweelden, Kimberly; Juchniewicz, Jay; Cevasco, Andrea M

2008-01-01

Previous research has found that music therapists, who work with geriatric clients in singing activities, indicated they know and use 3 times more popular or popular style music (songs from musicals) than folk songs. The purposes of the current study were to determine music therapy majors' recognition of popular songs and songs from musicals by asking whether they: (a) had heard the songs before, (b) could "name the tune" of each song, and (c) list the decade each song was composed. Results showed that students had previously heard many of the songs; however, this was not an indication of whether they could name the song title or the decade in which it was composed. Additionally, percentage data indicated that My Favorite Things and You Are My Sunshine were the most heard/recognized songs, Over the Rainbow was the most correctly named song title, and Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue was the song most correctly identified by decade. Further results and discussion are included.

Case Studies in Environmental Adult and Popular Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Clover, Darlene E., Ed.; Follen, Shirley, Ed.

Following an introduction by Darlene E. Clover and Rene Karottki, this booklet provides 16 case studies about nonformal environmental adult education: "Environment and Development in Argentina: Innovative Experiences in Adult Learning" (Raul A. Montenegro); "Learning for Environmental Action: Environmental Adult and Popular Education in Canada"…

Link Prediction in Evolving Networks Based on Popularity of Nodes.

PubMed

Wang, Tong; He, Xing-Sheng; Zhou, Ming-Yang; Fu, Zhong-Qian

2017-08-02

Link prediction aims to uncover the underlying relationship behind networks, which could be utilized to predict missing edges or identify the spurious edges. The key issue of link prediction is to estimate the likelihood of potential links in networks. Most classical static-structure based methods ignore the temporal aspects of networks, limited by the time-varying features, such approaches perform poorly in evolving networks. In this paper, we propose a hypothesis that the ability of each node to attract links depends not only on its structural importance, but also on its current popularity (activeness), since active nodes have much more probability to attract future links. Then a novel approach named popularity based structural perturbation method (PBSPM) and its fast algorithm are proposed to characterize the likelihood of an edge from both existing connectivity structure and current popularity of its two endpoints. Experiments on six evolving networks show that the proposed methods outperform state-of-the-art methods in accuracy and robustness. Besides, visual results and statistical analysis reveal that the proposed methods are inclined to predict future edges between active nodes, rather than edges between inactive nodes.

Organizing Science Popularization and Teacher Training Workshops : A Nigerian Experience

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Okpala, Kingsley; Okere, Bonaventure

Funding for science popularization has become a huge challenge in recent times especially for developing countries like Nigeria. However, a change in the school system from the 6-3-3-4 system (6 years primary, 3 years Junior secondary, 3year senior secondary, and 4 years tertiary education) to the 9-3-4 system ( 9 years junior basic, 3 years secondary, and 4 tertiary education) has made it even more convenient to strategically target the students through their teachers to attain the desired quality of education since the introduction of space science into the curriculum at the primary and secondary levels. Considering the size of Nigeria, there Is need for a shift in paradigm for sourcing resources to tackle this deficiency in a sustainable manner. Recently a teacher training and science popularization workshop was organized as a first in a series of subsequent workshops geared towards having a sustainable means of popularizing Science in Nigeria. Principally, the key lies in the partnership with the colleges of education which produce the teachers for primary schools in addition to the usual governmental actions. Experiences from this workshop will be enumerated with the hope of inspiring the same success in similar societies.

Popular culture and the "new human condition": Catastrophe narratives and climate change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bulfin, Ailise

2017-09-01

Striking popular culture images of burnt landscapes, tidal waves and ice-bound cities have the potential to dramatically and emotively convey the dangers of climate change. Given that a significant number of people derive a substantial proportion of their information on the threat of climate change, or the ;new human condition;, from popular culture works such as catastrophe movies, it is important that an investigation into the nature of the representations produced be embedded in the attempt to address the issue. What climate change-related messages may be encoded in popular films, television and novels, how are they being received, and what effects may they have? This article adopts the cultural studies perspective that popular culture gives us an important means by which to access the ;structures of feeling; that characterise a society at a particular historic juncture: the views held and emotional states experienced by significant amounts of people as evident in disparate forms of cultural production. It further adopts the related viewpoint that popular culture has an effect upon the society in which it is consumed, as well as reflecting that society's desires and concerns - although the nature of the effect may be difficult to quantify. From this position, the article puts forward a theory on the role of ecological catastrophe narratives in current popular culture, before going on to review existing critical work on ecologically-charged popular films and novels which attempts to assess their effects on their audiences. It also suggests areas for future research, such as the prevalent but little studied theme of natural and environmental disaster in late-Victorian science fiction writing. This latter area is of interest because it reveals the emergence of an ecological awareness or structure of feeling as early as the late-nineteenth century, and allows the relationship of this development to environmental policy making to be investigated because of the

Facial Attractiveness as a Moderator of the Association between Social and Physical Aggression and Popularity in Adolescents

PubMed Central

Rosen, Lisa H.; Underwood, Marion K.

2010-01-01

This study examined the relations between facial attractiveness, aggression, and popularity in adolescence to determine whether facial attractiveness would buffer against the negative effects of aggression on popularity. We collected ratings of facial attractiveness from standardized photographs, and teachers provided information on adolescents’ social aggression, physical aggression, and popularity for 143 seventh graders (70 girls). Regression analyses indicated that facial attractiveness moderated the relations between both types of aggression and popularity. Aggression was associated with a reduction in popularity for adolescents low on facial attractiveness. However, popularity did not decrease as a function of aggression for adolescents high on facial attractiveness. Aggressors with high facial attractiveness may experience fewer negative consequences to their social standing, thus contributing to higher overall rates of aggression in school settings. PMID:20609852

Popular education for health promotion and community empowerment: a review of the literature.

PubMed

Wiggins, Noelle

2012-09-01

While there is now general agreement that the most effective way to promote health and decrease health inequities is by creating more just economic, social and political conditions, there is much less agreement about concrete ways in which public health practitioners can work with communities to address inequities such as poverty, racism and powerlessness. Practical strategies are desperately needed. Popular education, also known as Freirian and empowerment education, has been used successfully to create more equitable conditions around the world for >50 years. Its use to improve health has been documented in the public health literature since the early 1980s. Nonetheless, it remains largely unknown and its potential unrealized in mainstream public health circles in the industrialized world. In order to explore the potential of popular education as a tool to address inequities and improve health, a systematic review of the peer-reviewed international literature was conducted. Findings revealed that popular education is an effective method for enhancing empowerment and improving health. However, the existing literature does not provide empirical evidence that popular education is more effective than traditional education at increasing health knowledge and empowerment and changing health behavior. In order to fully understand the potential of popular education as a tool to eliminate health inequities and to advocate effectively for its use, further studies are needed that utilize mixed methods, participatory approaches and experimental or quasi-experimental designs.

Notes on the Changing Nature of Popular French.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Curnow, Maureen Cheney

This paper provides examples of a variety of phonological, orthographical, and morphological changes in current popular French are noted. They include: dropping of silent vowels in spelling, particularly in advertising and product names; changes in the pronunciation of vowels due to manipulation for product names; combinations of otherwise…

Teaching for Social Change--Mission "Possible"? Cultural Studies Approaches to Teaching Popular Culture.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Banning, Marlia

It is an open question whether popular culture courses are effective sites in which to instill the kinds of critical media literacies that might contribute to students acting in support of social justice in their everyday lives. A course called "The Uses of Popular Culture" focuses on contemporary multicultural American society to…

Costs of Public Pharmaceutical Services in Rio de Janeiro Compared to Farmácia Popular Program

PubMed Central

da Silva, Rondineli Mendes; Caetano, Rosângela

2016-01-01

ABSTRACT OBJECTIVE To analyze the costs of public pharmaceutical services compared to Farmácia Popular Program (Popular Pharmacy Program). METHODS Comparison between prices paid by Aqui Tem Farmácia Popular Program (Farmácia Popular is available here) with the full costs of medicine provision by the Municipal Health Department of Rio de Janeiro. The comparison comprised 25 medicines supplied by both the municipal pharmaceutical service and Aqui Tem Farmácia Popular Program. Calculating the cost per pharmaceutical unit of each medicine included expenditure by Municipal Health Department of Rio de Janeiro with procurement (price), logistics, and local dispensation. The reference price of medicines paid by Aqui Tem Farmácia Popular was taken from the Brazilian Ministry of Health standard in force in 2012. Comparisons included full reference price; reference price minus 10.0% copayment by users; and maximum reference paid by the Ministry of Health (minus copayment and taxes). Simulations were carried out of the differences between the costs of Municipal Health Department of Rio de Janeiro with the common medicines and those potentially incurred based on the reference price of Aqui Tem Farmácia Popular. RESULTS The Municipal Health Department of Rio de Janeiro spent R$28,526,526.57 with 25 medicines of the common list in 2012; 58.7% accounted for direct procurement costs. The estimated costs of the Health Department were generally lower than the reference prices of the Aqui Tem Farmácia Popular Program for 20 medicines, regardless of reference prices. The potential costs incurred by Health Department if expenditure of its consumption pattern were based on the reference prices of Aqui Tem Farmácia Popular would be R$124,170,777.76, considering the best scenario of payment by the Brazilian Ministry of Health (90.0% of the reference price, minus taxes). CONCLUSIONS The difference in costs between public provision by Municipal Health Department of Rio de Janeiro and

Facial attractiveness as a moderator of the association between social and physical aggression and popularity in adolescents.

PubMed

Rosen, Lisa H; Underwood, Marion K

2010-08-01

This study examined the relations between facial attractiveness, aggression, and popularity in adolescence to determine whether facial attractiveness would buffer against the negative effects of aggression on popularity. We collected ratings of facial attractiveness from standardized photographs, and teachers provided information on adolescents' social aggression, physical aggression, and popularity for 143 seventh graders (70 girls). Regression analyses indicated that facial attractiveness moderated the relations between both types of aggression and popularity. Aggression was associated with a reduction in popularity for adolescents low on facial attractiveness. However, popularity did not decrease as a function of aggression for adolescents high on facial attractiveness. Aggressors with high facial attractiveness may experience fewer negative consequences to their social standing, thus contributing to higher overall rates of aggression in school settings. Copyright 2010 Society for the Study of School Psychology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Neural mechanisms of the influence of popularity on adolescent ratings of music.

PubMed

Berns, Gregory S; Capra, C Monica; Moore, Sara; Noussair, Charles

2010-02-01

It is well-known that social influences affect consumption decisions. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to elucidate the neural mechanisms associated with social influence with regard to a common consumer good: music. Our study population was adolescents, age 12-17. Music is a common purchase in this age group, and it is widely believed that adolescent behavior is influenced by perceptions of popularity in their reference group. Using 15-s clips of songs from MySpace.com, we obtained behavioral measures of preferences and neurobiological responses to the songs. The data were gathered with, and without, the overall popularity of the song revealed. Song popularity had a significant effect on the participants' likability ratings of the songs. fMRI results showed a strong correlation between the participants' rating and activity in the caudate nucleus, a region previously implicated in reward-driven actions. The tendency to change one's evaluation of a song was positively correlated with activation in the anterior insula and anterior cingulate, two regions that are associated with physiological arousal and negative affective states. Sensitivity to popularity was linked to lower activation levels in the middle temporal gyrus, suggesting a lower depth of musical semantic processing. Our results suggest that a principal mechanism whereby popularity ratings affect consumer choice is through the anxiety generated by the mismatch between one's own preferences and others'. This mismatch anxiety motivates people to switch their choices in the direction of the consensus. Our data suggest that this is a major force behind the conformity observed in music tastes in some teenagers. Copyright (c) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Neural Mechanisms of the Influence of Popularity on Adolescent Ratings of Music

PubMed Central

Berns, Gregory S.; Capra, C. Monica; Moore, Sara; Noussair, Charles

2009-01-01

It is well-known that social influences affect consumption decisions. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to elucidate the neural mechanisms associated with social influence with regard to a common consumer good: music. Our study population was adolescents, age 12–17. Music is a common purchase in this age group, and it is widely believed that adolescent behavior is influenced by perceptions of popularity in their reference group. Using 15-second clips of songs from MySpace.com, we obtained behavioral measures of preferences and neurobiological responses to the songs. The data were gathered with, and without, the overall popularity of the song revealed. Song popularity had a significant effect on the participants’ likability ratings of the songs. fMRI results showed a strong correlation between the participants’ rating and activity in the caudate nucleus, a region previously implicated in reward-driven actions. The tendency to change one’s evaluation of a song was positively correlated with activation in the anterior insula and anterior cingulate, two regions that are associated with physiological arousal and negative affective states. Sensitivity to popularity was linked to lower activation levels in the middle temporal gyrus, suggesting a lower depth of musical semantic processing. Our results suggest that a principal mechanism whereby popularity ratings affect consumer choice is through the anxiety generated by the mismatch between one’s own preferences and others’. This mismatch anxiety motivates people to switch their choices in the direction of the consensus. Our data suggest that this is a major force behind the conformity observed in music tastes in some teenagers. PMID:19879365

Toothdrawers in English popular literature prior to 1700.

PubMed

Hargreaves, A S

1993-07-01

Historical evidence about toothdrawers in England can be supplemented by references to these men in popular contemporary literature. Poetic and dramatic sources from the late medieval period to the close of the 17th century have been examined to this end, with some attempt made to distinguish satire from historical fact.

Charting Relationships in American Popular Film. Part I.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Burke, Ken

1997-01-01

Explains several diagrams showing the evolution of significant film genres in context of each other and relevant historical trends. Figures present: (1) relationships of decades of U.S. history to popular film genres; (2) hero types by genre and decade; and (3) hero types as exemplified by various genres. (AEF)

The origin of the criticality in meme popularity distribution on complex networks.

PubMed

Kim, Yup; Park, Seokjong; Yook, Soon-Hyung

2016-03-24

Previous studies showed that the meme popularity distribution is described by a heavy-tailed distribution or a power-law, which is a characteristic feature of the criticality. Here, we study the origin of the criticality on non-growing and growing networks based on the competition induced criticality model. From the direct Mote Carlo simulations and the exact mapping into the position dependent biased random walk (PDBRW), we find that the meme popularity distribution satisfies a very robust power- law with exponent α = 3/2 if there is an innovation process. On the other hand, if there is no innovation, then we find that the meme popularity distribution is bounded and highly skewed for early transient time periods, while it satisfies a power-law with exponent α ≠ 3/2 for intermediate time periods. The exact mapping into PDBRW clearly shows that the balance between the creation of new memes by the innovation process and the extinction of old memes is the key factor for the criticality. We confirm that the balance for the criticality sustains for relatively small innovation rate. Therefore, the innovation processes with significantly influential memes should be the simple and fundamental processes which cause the critical distribution of the meme popularity in real social networks.

The origin of the criticality in meme popularity distribution on complex networks

PubMed Central

Kim, Yup; Park, Seokjong; Yook, Soon-Hyung

2016-01-01

Previous studies showed that the meme popularity distribution is described by a heavy-tailed distribution or a power-law, which is a characteristic feature of the criticality. Here, we study the origin of the criticality on non-growing and growing networks based on the competition induced criticality model. From the direct Mote Carlo simulations and the exact mapping into the position dependent biased random walk (PDBRW), we find that the meme popularity distribution satisfies a very robust power- law with exponent α = 3/2 if there is an innovation process. On the other hand, if there is no innovation, then we find that the meme popularity distribution is bounded and highly skewed for early transient time periods, while it satisfies a power-law with exponent α ≠ 3/2 for intermediate time periods. The exact mapping into PDBRW clearly shows that the balance between the creation of new memes by the innovation process and the extinction of old memes is the key factor for the criticality. We confirm that the balance for the criticality sustains for relatively small innovation rate. Therefore, the innovation processes with significantly influential memes should be the simple and fundamental processes which cause the critical distribution of the meme popularity in real social networks. PMID:27009399

The origin of the criticality in meme popularity distribution on complex networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kim, Yup; Park, Seokjong; Yook, Soon-Hyung

2016-03-01

Previous studies showed that the meme popularity distribution is described by a heavy-tailed distribution or a power-law, which is a characteristic feature of the criticality. Here, we study the origin of the criticality on non-growing and growing networks based on the competition induced criticality model. From the direct Mote Carlo simulations and the exact mapping into the position dependent biased random walk (PDBRW), we find that the meme popularity distribution satisfies a very robust power- law with exponent α = 3/2 if there is an innovation process. On the other hand, if there is no innovation, then we find that the meme popularity distribution is bounded and highly skewed for early transient time periods, while it satisfies a power-law with exponent α ≠ 3/2 for intermediate time periods. The exact mapping into PDBRW clearly shows that the balance between the creation of new memes by the innovation process and the extinction of old memes is the key factor for the criticality. We confirm that the balance for the criticality sustains for relatively small innovation rate. Therefore, the innovation processes with significantly influential memes should be the simple and fundamental processes which cause the critical distribution of the meme popularity in real social networks.

Communicating meteorology through popular music

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Brown, Sally; Aplin, Karen; Jenkins, Katie; Mander, Sarah; Walsh, Claire; Williams, Paul

2015-04-01

Previous studies of weather-inspired classical music showed that all forms of music (as well as visual arts and literature) reflect the significance of the environment in society. Here we quantify the extent to which weather has inspired popular musicians, and how weather is represented in English-language pop music. Our work is in press at Weather. Over 750 songs have been identified which were found to refer to meteorological phenomena, mainly in their lyrics, but also in the title of the song, name of the band or songwriter and occasionally in the song's music or sound effects. Over one third of the songs analysed referred to either sun or rain, out of a possible 20 weather categories. It was found that artists use weather to describe emotion, for example, to mirror the changes in a relationship. In this context, rain was broadly seen negatively, and might be used to signify the end of a relationship. Rain could also be perceived in a positive way, such as in songs from more agricultural communities. Wind was the next most common weather phenomenon, but did not represent emotions as much as sun or rain. However, it was the most frequently represented weather type in the music itself, such as in instrumental effects, or non-verbally in choruses. From the limited evidence available, we found that artists were often inspired by a single weather event in writing lyrics, whereas the outcomes were less clearly identifiable from longer periods of good or bad weather. Some artists were influenced more by their environment than others, but they were often inspired to write many songs about their surroundings as part of every-day life, rather than weather in particular. Popular singers and songwriters can therefore emotionally connect their listeners to the environment; this could be exploited to communicate environmental science to a broad audience.

Wanting to See People Like Me? Racial and Gender Diversity in Popular Adolescent Television

PubMed Central

Ellithorpe, Morgan E.; Bleakley, Amy

2016-01-01

Media are one source for adolescent identity development and social identity gratifications. Nielsen viewing data across the 2014–2015 television season for adolescents ages 14–17 was used to examine racial and gender diversity in adolescent television exposure. Compared to U.S. Census data, mainstream shows underrepresent women, but the proportion of Black characters is roughly representative. Black adolescents watch more television than non-Black adolescents and, after taking this into account, shows popular with Black adolescents are more likely than shows popular with non-Black adolescents to exhibit racial diversity. In addition, shows popular with female adolescents are more likely than shows popular with males to exhibit gender diversity. These results support the idea that adolescents seek out media messages with characters that are members of their identity groups, possibly because the characters serve as tools for identity development and social identity gratifications. PMID:26759131

Wanting to See People Like Me? Racial and Gender Diversity in Popular Adolescent Television.

PubMed

Ellithorpe, Morgan E; Bleakley, Amy

2016-07-01

Media are one source for adolescent identity development and social identity gratifications. Nielsen viewing data across the 2014-2015 television season for adolescents ages 14-17 was used to examine racial and gender diversity in adolescent television exposure. Compared to US Census data, mainstream shows under represent women, but the proportion of Black characters is roughly representative. Black adolescents watch more television than non-Black adolescents and, after taking this into account, shows popular with Black adolescents are more likely than shows popular with non-Black adolescents to exhibit racial diversity. In addition, shows popular with female adolescents are more likely than shows popular with males to exhibit gender diversity. These results support the idea that adolescents seek out media messages with characters that are members of their identity groups, possibly because the characters serve as tools for identity development and social identity gratifications.

An Examination of Reciprocal Associations Between Social Preference, Popularity, and Friendship during Early Adolescence.

PubMed

Stotsky, Miriam T; Bowker, Julie C

2018-04-03

Getting along with peers becomes increasingly important to health and well-being during early adolescence (10-14 years). Young adolescents may succeed with peers when they are well-liked by and popular among the larger peer group (or at the group-level of social complexity). They might also fare well with peers when they are able to form numerous mutual and high quality friendships (at the dyadic-level of social complexity). Theory emphasizes the interrelatedness of different types of peer experiences, but few longitudinal studies have examined the interplay among and between group- and dyadic-level peer experiences in the same study. As a result, it is not known whether group-level peer experiences are predictors of dyadic-level peer experiences, and/or vice versa. To address this limitation, this study examined the prospective and reciprocal relations between four indices of peer experiences, preference (or being highly liked and not disliked by peers), popularity (or having a reputation as popular), friendship quantity (or having many mutual friends), and friendship or relationship quality, during early adolescence. Participants were 271 adolescents (49% girls; M age  = 11.52 years) who completed peer nominations of preference and popularity, a self-report measure of friendship quality, and nominated friends at two waves (Wave 1: November, Grade 6; Wave 2: October, Grade 7). Structural equation modeling indicated that friendship quantity predicted increases in preference and popularity and that friendship quality predicted increases in friendship quantity. Initial popularity was associated with decreases in preference. The importance of these findings for future research is discussed along with study limitations.

Popular Media Representations of Physical Activity among Mothers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sanders, Margaret P.; Dlugonski, Deirdre

2016-01-01

Purpose: Many mothers fail to meet the recommended guidelines for physical activity. Popular media magazines targeting mothers provide information about physical activity and health, but little is known about the framing and content of physical activity messages within these sources. The aim of this content analysis was to analyze the framing and…

Popular Culture Studies under Attack at American Universities.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Burns, Gary; Donath, Jackie; Harpole, Charles; Kizer, Elizabeth; Sullivan, Peggy

This paper is an edited transcript of a panel discussion which took place at an educational conference about the current state of popular culture studies at American colleges and universities. First touching on the number of university media departments being disbanded in general across the country, the discussion focuses on several questions:…

The Two Faces Of Adolescents’ Success With Peers: Adolescent Popularity, Social Adaptation, and Deviant Behavior

PubMed Central

Allen, Joseph P.; Porter, Maryfrances R.; McFarland, F. Christy; Marsh, Penny; McElhaney, Kathleen Boykin

2006-01-01

This study assessed the hypothesis that popularity in adolescence takes on a twofold role, both marking high levels of concurrent psychosocial adaptation, but also predicting increases over time in both positive and negative behaviors sanctioned by peer norms. This hypothesis was tested with multi-method, longitudinal data obtained on a diverse community sample of 185 adolescents. Sociometric popularity data were examined in relation to data from interview-based assessments of attachment security and ego development, observations of mother-adolescent interactions, and repeated self- and peer-report assessments of delinquency and alcohol use. Results indicated that popular adolescents displayed higher concurrent levels of ego development, secure attachment and more adaptive interactions with mothers and best friends. Longitudinal analyses supported a “popularity-socialization” hypothesis, however, in which popular adolescents were more likely to increase in behaviors that receive approval in the peer group (e.g., minor levels of drug use and delinquency) and decrease in behaviors unlikely to be well-received by peers (e.g., hostile behavior with peers). PMID:15892790

Popular Education: An Appropriate Educational Strategy for Community-Based Organizations.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Beder, Hal

1996-01-01

Popular education has three essential, integrated components: praxis, a collective and participatory orientation, and action. Also important are systematization, communication, and attention to participants' everyday needs. (SK)

Does lamellar surgery for keratoconus experience the popularity it deserves?

PubMed

Wisse, Robert P L; van den Hoven, Célinde M L; Van der Lelij, Allegonda

2014-08-01

To analyse developments in surgical treatment for keratoconus (KC) by assessing rates and types of corneal surgery from 2005 to 2010. The Dutch Transplantation Foundation supplied data on all keratoplasty procedures for KC performed from 2005 to 2010 in the Netherlands. Registration was carried out by the eyebank at allocation and by the surgeon at the time of surgery. The type of surgery was categorized as either a penetrating or a lamellar procedure. Five hundred and seventy-five anonymized records were received, with excellent data completion (99%). Patients undergoing penetrating surgery had on average a lower visual acuity, higher k-readings and were slightly older compared with the lamellar group. A previous corneal hydrops was recorded for 19.1% of patients. Regular penetrating keratoplasty decreased in popularity from 79.7% in 2005 to 43.7% in 2010, due to the increased rate of lamellar surgery (42.5% in 2010) and 'mushroom' penetrating keratoplasty (13.8% in 2010). When hydrops cases were excluded, popularity became equal (47.6% penetrating versus 52.4% lamellar surgery, in 2010). Lamellar surgery is gaining in popularity, although regular penetrating keratoplasty is still the more commonly performed procedure. Only when hydrops cases are excluded do transplant rates become comparable. © 2013 Acta Ophthalmologica Scandinavica Foundation. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Food advertising on children's popular subscription television channels in Australia.

PubMed

Hebden, Lana; King, Lesley; Chau, Josephine; Kelly, Bridget

2011-04-01

Trends on Australian free-to-air television show children continue to be exposed to a disproportionate amount of unhealthy food advertising. This study describes the nature and extent of food marketing on the Australian subscription television channels most popular with children. Advertisements broadcast on the six subscription television channels most popular with children were recorded over four days in February 2009. Advertised foods were coded as core/healthy, non-core/unhealthy or miscellaneous/other, and for persuasive marketing techniques (promotional characters, premium offers and nutrition claims). The majority of foods advertised were non-core (72%), with a mean rate of 0.7 non-core food advertisements broadcast per hour, per channel. The frequency of non-core food advertisements differed significantly across channels. Persuasive techniques were used to advertise non-core foods less frequently than core and miscellaneous foods. Non-core foods make up the majority of foods advertised on children's popular subscription channels. However, Australian children currently view less non-core food advertising on subscription television compared with free-to-air. Unlike free-to-air television, subscription services have the unique opportunity to limit inappropriate food marketing to children, given they are less reliant on advertising revenue. © 2011 The Authors. ANZJPH © 2011 Public Health Association of Australia.

Popular Music Pedagogy: Band Rehearsals at British Universities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pulman, Mark

2014-01-01

There has been little published pedagogical research on popular music group rehearsing. This study explores the perceptions of tutors and student pop/rock bands about the rehearsals in which they were involved as a part of their university music course. The participants were 10 tutors and 16 bands from eight British tertiary institutions. Analysis…

Exoskeletons: Generating Content for Popular Music in 2016

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hayward, Casey Ann

2016-01-01

People all over the world are engaging with popular music, particularly through social media platforms, where views are often in the billions and climbing. Sacks (2007), a world-renowned neurologist, coined the term "earworms" to refer to songs that play repetitively in one's head for no apparent reason, sometimes for days, even years,…

The Asian Financial Crisis, Globalisation and Popular Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brown, Tony

1998-01-01

Globalization is a confused and confusing term being used to explain a wide range of phenomena. It is presented as being outside anyone's control, neutral, and free of class interests. The Asian financial crisis illustrates that human agency still plays a role. Popular educators can help reinforce the idea that collective action does make a…

Using Popular Movies in Teaching Cross-Cultural Management

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pandey, Satish

2012-01-01

Purpose: The present study aims to understand context and dynamics of cognitive learning of students as an outcome of the usage of popular movies as a learning tool in the management classroom and specifically in the context of a course on cross-cultural management issues. Design/methodology/approach: This is an exploratory study based on…

Popular Music and Classical Musicians: Strategies and Perspectives

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Allsup, Randall Everett

2011-01-01

In recent years, popular music has become a growing area of music study and is increasingly accepted in schools and universities around the world. Despite this general enthusiasm, classically trained music teachers bring a certain hesitation to this art form, perhaps because too few have had formal hands-on experience with it. This article…

Bridging the Gap: Science for a Popular Audience.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dowdey, Diane

This paper was based on a study of the writings of six scientists for lay readers and discussions with the authors on their concepts of audience and audience adaptation. Scientists who write popular or literary essays use several devices and methods that allow the successful transference of technical or scientific information to a general…

Dimensions of Social Status in Preadolescent Peer Groups: Likability, Perceived Popularity, and Social Dominance.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lease, A. Michele; Musgrove, Karen T.; Axelrod, Jennifer L.

2002-01-01

This study developed and examined a multidimensional, interdisciplinary model of social status among 487 fourth- through sixth-grade students. Seven subtypes were identified based on dimensions of likability, perceived popularity, and social dominance (high status, perceived popular/dominant, well-liked/dominant, average, low dominant/unpopular,…

From Keats to Kanye: Romantic Poetry and Popular Culture in the Secondary English Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bowmer, Megan E.; Curwood, Jen Scott

2016-01-01

This case study examined a Romanticism unit within a Year 9 English class in Sydney, Australia. It considered whether popular culture could build connections between students' lives and Romanticism, and whether the process of remixing "high" Romantic poetry with "low" popular culture could foster student engagement. Thematic…

Drawing a Line in Water: Constructing the School Censorship Frame in Popular Music Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kallio, Alexis Anja

2015-01-01

The apparent ideological tensions between popular musics and formal school contexts raise significant issues regarding teachers' popular repertoire selection processes. Such decision-making may be seen to take place within a school censorship frame, through which certain musics and their accompanying values are promoted, whilst others are…

Adolescents' Perceptions of Popularity-Motivated Behaviors, Characteristics, and Relationships in Cyberspace and Cyber Aggression: The Role of Gender.

PubMed

Wright, Michelle F

2017-06-01

Research is increasingly revealing that adolescents utilize electronic technologies to promote and/or maintain their social standing among their peer group. Little is known about whether adolescents' perceptions of popularity-motivated behaviors, characteristics, and relationships in cyberspace are associated with popularity-motivated cyber relational aggression. It is also unclear how gender might impact these associations, especially considering that adolescent girls and boys differ in regard to the type of behaviors, characteristics, and relationships they believe contribute to popularity. To this end, this study examined the potential moderating effect of gender on the association between adolescents' perceptions of popularity-motivated behaviors, characteristics, and relationships in cyberspace and their engagement in popularity-motivated cyber relational aggression over 1 year, from seventh to eighth grade. There were 217 eighth graders (51 percent female; M age = 12.13) from three middle schools in a large Midwestern city in the United States included in this research. They completed questionnaires on their popularity-motivated behaviors, characteristics, and relationships in cyberspace and their perpetration of popularity-motivated cyber relational aggression during the seventh grade. One year later, they completed the perpetration of popularity-motivated cyber relational aggression questionnaire. The results revealed that the association between popularity-motivated behaviors, characteristics, and relationships in cyberspace and the perpetration of popularity-motivated cyber relational aggression was stronger for girls, while such an association was not found for boys. These findings indicate the importance of considering cyberspace as an environment in which adolescents can enhance their social standing among peers from their school.

When science becomes too easy: Science popularization inclines laypeople to underrate their dependence on experts.

PubMed

Scharrer, Lisa; Rupieper, Yvonne; Stadtler, Marc; Bromme, Rainer

2017-11-01

Science popularization fulfills the important task of making scientific knowledge understandable and accessible for the lay public. However, the simplification of information required to achieve this accessibility may lead to the risk of audiences relying overly strongly on their own epistemic capabilities when making judgments about scientific claims. Moreover, they may underestimate how the division of cognitive labor makes them dependent on experts. This article reports an empirical study demonstrating that this "easiness effect of science popularization" occurs when laypeople read authentic popularized science depictions. After reading popularized articles addressed to a lay audience, laypeople agreed more with the knowledge claims they contained and were more confident in their claim judgments than after reading articles addressed to expert audiences. Implications for communicating scientific knowledge to the general public are discussed.

Medieval Literacy Outside the Academy: Popular Practice and Individual Technique.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Glenn, Cheryl

1993-01-01

Argues that medieval popular literacy can provide a crucial link for understanding alternative literacies. Claims that medieval practices explain some contemporary literacy practices, especially those outside the academy. (HB)

Scientific Knowledge, Popularisation, and the Use of Metaphors: Modern Genetics in Popular Science Magazines

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pramling, Niklas; Saljo, Roger

2007-01-01

The article reports an empirical study of how authors in popular science magazines attempt to render scientific knowledge intelligible to wide audiences. In bridging the two domains of "popular" and "scientific" knowledge, respectively, metaphor becomes central. We ask the empirical question of what metaphors are used when communicating about…

Associations of Peer Acceptance and Perceived Popularity with Bullying and Victimization in Early Adolescence

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

de Bruyn, Eddy H.; Cillessen, Antonius H. N.; Wissink, Inge B.

2010-01-01

This study examined the role of peer acceptance and perceived popularity in bullying and victimization in early adolescent peer groups. Peer acceptance is the degree to which adolescents are well liked by their peers; perceived popularity indicates visibility, dominance, and prestige. It was hypothesized that acceptance negatively predicts…

A Research on the Influence of Contemporary Popular Music upon Youths' Self-Identity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jing, Wang

2017-01-01

"Emotion" is a key to exploring the relationship between contemporary popular music and youths. In reality, youths exercise the identity construction centering on self-identity by the unconscious use of ritualization towards popular music (cultures). The article analyzes the conversion in identity construction of youths in the course of…

Becoming popular: interpersonal emotion regulation predicts relationship formation in real life social networks.

PubMed

Niven, Karen; Garcia, David; van der Löwe, Ilmo; Holman, David; Mansell, Warren

2015-01-01

Building relationships is crucial for satisfaction and success, especially when entering new social contexts. In the present paper, we investigate whether attempting to improve others' feelings helps people to make connections in new networks. In Study 1, a social network study following new networks of people for a 12-week period indicated that use of interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) strategies predicted growth in popularity, as indicated by other network members' reports of spending time with the person, in work and non-work interactions. In Study 2, linguistic analysis of the tweets from over 8000 Twitter users from formation of their accounts revealed that use of IER predicted greater popularity in terms of the number of followers gained. However, not all types of IER had positive effects. Behavioral IER strategies (which use behavior to reassure or comfort in order to regulate affect) were associated with greater popularity, while cognitive strategies (which change a person's thoughts about his or her situation or feelings in order to regulate affect) were negatively associated with popularity. Our findings have implications for our understanding of how new relationships are formed, highlighting the important the role played by intentional emotion regulatory processes.

Becoming popular: interpersonal emotion regulation predicts relationship formation in real life social networks

PubMed Central

Niven, Karen; Garcia, David; van der Löwe, Ilmo; Holman, David; Mansell, Warren

2015-01-01

Building relationships is crucial for satisfaction and success, especially when entering new social contexts. In the present paper, we investigate whether attempting to improve others’ feelings helps people to make connections in new networks. In Study 1, a social network study following new networks of people for a 12-week period indicated that use of interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) strategies predicted growth in popularity, as indicated by other network members’ reports of spending time with the person, in work and non-work interactions. In Study 2, linguistic analysis of the tweets from over 8000 Twitter users from formation of their accounts revealed that use of IER predicted greater popularity in terms of the number of followers gained. However, not all types of IER had positive effects. Behavioral IER strategies (which use behavior to reassure or comfort in order to regulate affect) were associated with greater popularity, while cognitive strategies (which change a person’s thoughts about his or her situation or feelings in order to regulate affect) were negatively associated with popularity. Our findings have implications for our understanding of how new relationships are formed, highlighting the important the role played by intentional emotion regulatory processes. PMID:26483718

India's Music: Popular Film Songs in the Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sarrazin, Natalie

2006-01-01

Indian film industry is the largest film industry in the world, with an output roughly three times that of Hollywood. This popular world music could easily be an exciting part of a multicultural music education curriculum. This music not only exposes students to an entirely new musical genre and cultural industry, but can also change their…

Explaining the Popularity of Psychology at A-Level

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Walker, Kevin

2010-01-01

The sustained rise in popularity of psychology both at degree and A-level in the UK over the last two decades is a remarkable event, not only because it is indicative of wider cultural changes but because it is understudied by psychologists themselves and not predicted by curriculum planners. The aim of this article is to offer a theoretical…

Revisioning Premodern Fine Art as Popular Visual Culture

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Duncum, Paul

2014-01-01

Employing the concept of a rhetoric of emotions, European Premodern fine art is revisioned as popular culture. From ancient times, the rhetoric of emotion was one of the principle concepts informing the theory and practice of all forms of European cultural production, including the visual arts, until it was gradually displaced during the 1700s and…

Popular Science: Introductory Physics Textbooks for Home Economics Students

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Behrman, Joanna

2014-03-01

For many decades now there has been an ongoing debate about the way and extent to which physics ought to be popularized by appealing to a student's every day experience. Part of this debate has focused on how textbooks, a major factor shaping students' education, ought to be written and presented. I examine the background, passages, and problems of two examples drawn from the special genre of ``Household Physics'' textbooks which were published largely between 1910 and 1940. The pedagogy of applying or relating physics to the everyday experience engenders values defining how and by whom science is to be applied. These books are particularly evocative, as well, of the extent to which gender can be tied to differing everyday experiences and the consequences therefore of using experiential examples. Using popular science textbooks can alienate students by drawing an implicit division between the reader and the practicing scientist.

A Conspicuous Gap in Cultural Studies: Popular Music in the English Studies Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Knippling, Jim

2013-01-01

For the author, the key analytic question about a popular song is not "What does it mean?" or "What hidden or coded meaning does it express?" but "What does its popularity tell us about the cultural moment when it resonated with its public?" How did the song "create its audience," so to speak? Obviously, a 1973 hit song, if it could time-travel,…

EIT and the Popular Imagination

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gurman, J. B.

2005-01-01

The Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope on board SOHO, designed and built by Principal Investigator Jean-Pierre Delaboudiniere and his French/Belgan/US team, has produced numerous scientific breakthroughs, and has become both the standard coronal finder telescope and the determinant of whether halo coronal mass ejections are earthward-directed. Due to the dramatic nature of the images produced by EIT over the last nearly ten years, those images have been adopted worldwide in a manner no one could have foreseen before the launch of SOHO. I examine a small sample of the many scientific, commercial, and cultural uses of EIT imagery from the last decade in order to demonstrate how well-visualized, scientific imagery can first penetrate and then become an accepted part of the popular imagination.

Tainted love: Gothic imaging of nurses in popular culture.

PubMed

McAllister, Margaret; Brien, Donna Lee; Piatti-Farnell, Lorna

2018-02-01

To discuss representations of nursing in popular culture using the Contemporary Gothic theory. Nursing is stereotypically known as a caring profession. Caring in both the natural and professional perspectives is inextricably attached to love and love, we are told, is universal. In popular culture, however, there are numerous examples of nurses being portrayed in ways where love-its expression and its practice-has been transgressed or tainted. Exploring this dark side of nursing, even if fictitious, is significant because it illuminates social and cultural tensions. Discussion paper. CINAHL, Scopus and Humanities International Databases were searched for terms related to nursing, love, abject and the gothic, published between 1990-2016. Four popular culture texts which ranged in genre and gothic elements were selected for analysis. The types of transgressive love these nurses express to patients ranges from the obsessive and the pornographic, to the monstrous. We suggest this positioning illuminates a hidden reality that nursing work is at once intimate and personal but also hidden, profane, repellent, horrifying and feared. Nursing's allure for storytellers may rest in its association with the abject. How nurses find redemption, satisfaction and meaning in these locations is relevant for how we can imbue our lives and work with greater humanity. The Contemporary Gothic is a useful tool in exposing and exploring ambiguous, challenging and taboo aspects of nursing in society. Such and analysis helps to explain phenomena-including nursing itself-which exists in the shadow of dominant and often stereotyped discourses. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

The Popular Profile of the Digital Learner: Technology Use Patterns and Approaches to Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thompson, Penny Marie

2012-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate the claims made in the popular press about the "digital native" generation as learners. Because students' lives today are saturated with digital media at a time when their brains are still developing, many popular press authors claim that this generation of students thinks and learns…

Evangelizing Eugenics: A Brief Historiography of Popular and Formal American Eugenics Education (1908-1948)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kohlman, Michael J.

2012-01-01

This article examines the history of the American Eugenics movement's penetration into the formal and popular educational milieu during the first half of the 20th Century, and includes a review of some recent scholarly research on eugenic themes in education and popular culture. Apologists have dismissed the American Eugenics movement as a…

How Superstition Won and Science Lost. Popularizing Science and Health in the United States.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Burnham, John C.

This book studies the history of changing patterns in the dissemination, or popularization of scientific findings, to the general public since 1830. It focuses on three different areas of science: (1) health; (2) psychology; and (3) the natural sciences. The document explores the ways in which this process of popularization has deteriorated. It…

Media-Constructed Anti-Intellectualism: The Portrayal of Experts in Popular US Television Talk Shows.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Holderman, Lisa B.

2003-01-01

Examines the popular portrayal of intellectual expertise through a content analysis of 200 of the 10 top-rated popular US television talk shows. Shows that experts in this sample were typically brought on late in the program, allotted little speaking time, placed among non-experts, frequently interrupted, and sometimes challenged. Indicates that…

Degrading and non-degrading sex in popular music: a content analysis.

PubMed

Primack, Brian A; Gold, Melanie A; Schwarz, Eleanor B; Dalton, Madeline A

2008-01-01

Those exposed to more degrading sexual references in popular music are more likely to initiate intercourse at a younger age. The purpose of this study was to perform a content analysis of contemporary popular music with particular attention paid to the prevalence of degrading and non-degrading sexual references. We also aimed to determine if sexual references of each subtype were associated with other song characteristics and/or content. We used Billboard magazine to identify the top popular songs in 2005. Two independent coders each analyzed all of these songs (n = 279) for degrading and non-degrading sexual references. As measured with Cohen's kappa scores, inter-rater agreement on degrading vs. non-degrading sex was substantial. Mentions of substance use, violence, and weapon carrying were also coded. Of the 279 songs identified, 103 (36.9%) contained references to sexual activity. Songs with references to degrading sex were more common than songs with references to non-degrading sex (67 [65.0%] vs. 36 [35.0%], p < 0.001). Songs with degrading sex were most commonly Rap (64.2%), whereas songs with non-degrading sex were most likely Country (44.5%) or Rhythm & Blues/Hip-Hop (27.8%). Compared with songs that had no mention of sexual activity, songs with degrading sex were more likely to contain references to substance use, violence, and weapon carrying. Songs with non-degrading sex were no more likely to mention these other risk behaviors. References to sexual activity are common in popular music, and degrading sexual references are more prevalent than non-degrading references. References to degrading sex also frequently appear with references to other risky behaviors.

Representation of age and ageing identities in popular music texts.

PubMed

Kelly, Jacinta; Watson, Roger; Pankratova, Marina; Pedzeni, Ann-Marie

2016-06-01

To critically examine the representation of ageing identities in popular music texts. Having a positive outlook provides both short-term benefits and has been proven to help people live longer. Music is capable of conveying positive and negative emotion towards ageing, however, only a limited number of unpublished studies exist on how age and ageing is represented in popular music. Qualitative discourse analysis. In July 2014, a search without time limits was completed of the music lyrics databases, The Music Lyric Database, Songfacts, The Macronium and Absolute lyrics for English language music texts relating to age and ageing. Findings revealed (N = 76) relevant music texts offering up negative and positive discourses of age and ageing, with negative predominating. Identities of age and ageing were categorized as 'contented and celebrated aged', 'pitiful and petulant pensioners' and 'frail and flagging old folks'. From this study, it is evident that mainly negative representations of age and ageing are available in popular music texts. It is imagined that the negative representations of age and ageing can be dispiriting, confidence and esteem lowering for older people and their potential impact might be considered carefully by artists. However, while evidence exists that negative and positive emotions can influence health and well-being, further qualitative research is needed to explore what impact precisely the negative texts have on those experiencing ageing. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Finding the top influential bloggers based on productivity and popularity features

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Khan, Hikmat Ullah; Daud, Ali

2017-07-01

A blog acts as a platform of virtual communication to share comments or views about products, events and social issues. Like other social web activities, blogging actions spread to a large number of people. Users influence others in many ways, such as buying a product, having a particular political or social opinion or initiating new activity. Finding the top influential bloggers is an active research domain as it helps us in various fields, such as online marketing, e-commerce, product search and e-advertisements. There exist various models to find the influential bloggers, but they consider limited features using non-modular approach. This paper proposes a new model, Popularity and Productivity Model (PPM), based on a modular approach to find the top influential bloggers. It consists of popularity and productivity modules which exploit various features. We discuss the role of each proposed and existing features and evaluate the proposed model against the standard baseline models using datasets from the real-world blogs. The analysis using standard performance evaluation measures verifies that both productivity and popularity modules play a vital role to find influential bloggers in blogging community in an effective manner.

Breast cancer on the world wide web: cross sectional survey of quality of information and popularity of websites

PubMed Central

Meric, Funda; Bernstam, Elmer V; Mirza, Nadeem Q; Hunt, Kelly K; Ames, Frederick C; Ross, Merrick I; Kuerer, Henry M; Pollock, Raphael E; Musen, Mark A; Singletary, S Eva

2002-01-01

Objectives To determine the characteristics of popular breast cancer related websites and whether more popular sites are of higher quality. Design The search engine Google was used to generate a list of websites about breast cancer. Google ranks search results by measures of link popularity—the number of links to a site from other sites. The top 200 sites returned in response to the query “breast cancer” were divided into “more popular” and “less popular” subgroups by three different measures of link popularity: Google rank and number of links reported independently by Google and by AltaVista (another search engine). Main outcome measures Type and quality of content. Results More popular sites according to Google rank were more likely than less popular ones to contain information on ongoing clinical trials (27% v 12%, P=0.01 ), results of trials (12% v 3%, P=0.02), and opportunities for psychosocial adjustment (48% v 23%, P<0.01). These characteristics were also associated with higher number of links as reported by Google and AltaVista. More popular sites by number of linking sites were also more likely to provide updates on other breast cancer research, information on legislation and advocacy, and a message board service. Measures of quality such as display of authorship, attribution or references, currency of information, and disclosure did not differ between groups. Conclusions Popularity of websites is associated with type rather than quality of content. Sites that include content correlated with popularity may best meet the public's desire for information about breast cancer. What is already known on this topicPatients are using the world wide web to search for health informationBreast cancer is one of the most popular search topicsCharacteristics of popular websites may reflect the information needs of patientsWhat this study addsType rather than quality of content correlates with popularity of websitesMeasures of quality correlate with accuracy

Popular Music in a 21st Century Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rodriguez, Carlos Xavier

2012-01-01

In this paper, the author shares his thoughts regarding the future role of popular music in music education at a moment when there seems to be greater receptiveness to this idea than ever before. What is the reason for this increased receptiveness? It may be that music educators have sensed that a new playing field has evolved. There is now some…

Alcohol Brand References in U.S. Popular Music, 2009–2011

PubMed Central

Siegel, Michael; Johnson, Renee M.; Tyagi, Keshav; Power, Kathryn; Lohsen, Mark C.; Ayers, Amanda J.; Jernigan, David H.

2013-01-01

This study aimed to assess the prevalence and context of alcohol brand references in popular music. Billboard Magazine year-end charts from 2009–2011 were used to identify the most popular songs in four genres: Urban, Pop, Country, and Rock. Of the 720 songs, 23% included an alcohol mention, and 6.4% included an alcohol brand mention. Songs classified as Urban had the highest percentage of alcohol mentions and alcohol brand mentions. The context associated with alcohol brand mentions was almost uniformly positive or neutral. Public health efforts may be necessary to reduce youth exposure to these positive messages about alcohol use. PMID:23971875

Popular Music and School Music Education: Chinese Students' Preferences and Dilemmas in Shanghai, China

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Law, Wing-Wah; Ho, Wai-Chung

2015-01-01

This empirical study investigates Chinese students' popular music preferences in daily life and to what extent and in what ways they prefer learning popular music in school in Shanghai, China. Data were drawn from questionnaires completed by 1,730 secondary students (aged 12-17) and interviews with 60 students from 10 secondary schools, between…

What Would Buffy Do? The Use of Popular Culture Examples in Undergraduate Library Instruction.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Marshall, Jerilyn

This paper presents results of a survey that gathered information on the use of popular culture examples in college library instruction sessions, including the types of popular culture materials currently being used as examples, the types of courses in which they are used, the librarians' purposes in using the examples, and the librarians'…

Visions Unite through the Concept of Democracy: The School and the Popular Adult Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Johansson, Lotta; Bergstedt, Bosse

2015-01-01

With a point of departure in the concept of democracy, this article aims to show how Swedish Popular Adult Education influenced the content of the established school system in Sweden. The Popular Adult Education and established school systems are studied through their relation to democracy, based on curricula, as well as on visionary and political…

Transforming Traditions: Taking Popular Culture Seriously in Religious Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hess, Mary

2004-01-01

Making traditions "accessible" and making the connections between traditions and transformation ?manifest? (this is Boys's definition of religious education), is a challenging endeavor in mass mediated popular culture contexts. Although definitions of "tradition" may differ from community to community, there is generally a sustained pattern …

Popular Medicine and Empirics in Greece, 1900-1950: An Oral History Approach.

PubMed

Hionidou, Violetta

2016-10-01

Western literature has focused on medical plurality but also on the pervasive existence of quacks who managed to survive from at least the eighteenth to the twentieth century. Focal points of their practices have been their efforts at enrichment and their extensive advertising. In Greece, empirical, untrained healers in the first half of the twentieth century do not fit in with this picture. They did not ask for payment, although they did accept 'gifts'; they did not advertise their practice; and they had fixed places of residence. Licensed physicians did not undertake a concerted attack against them, as happened in the West against the quacks, and neither did the state. In this paper, it is argued that both the protection offered by their localities to resident popular healers and the healers' lack of demand for monetary payment were jointly responsible for the lack of prosecutions of popular healers. Moreover, the linking of popular medicine with ancient traditions, as put forward by influential folklore studies, also reduced the likelihood of an aggressive discourse against the popular healers. Although the Greek situation in the early twentieth century contrasts with the historiography on quacks, it is much more in line with that on wise women and cunning-folk. It is thus the identification of these groups of healers in Greece and elsewhere, mostly through the use of oral histories but also through folklore studies, that reveals a different story from that of the aggressive discourse of medical men against quacks.

Passionate Virtue: Conceptions of Medical Professionalism in Popular Romance Fiction.

PubMed

Miller, Jessica

2015-01-01

Medical romance fiction is a subgenre of popular romance fiction that features medical professionals in their work environment. This essay explores the way professionalism is portrayed in popular medical romance fiction written during the early twenty-first century, a period of significant disruption in both the public image and self-understanding of organized medicine. I analyze a selection of contemporary medical romance novels, published between 2008 and 2012, demonstrating that medical romance fiction is a form of public intervention in apparently insular debates over medical professionalism. I conclude that they promote "nostalgic professionalism," a vision of physicians as a select group of highly educated, self-regulated experts who provide, with a caring and altruistic attitude, a vitally important service to society, while at the same time generating implicit critiques of it.

Most Likely to Succeed: Long-Run Returns to Adolescent Popularity

PubMed Central

Shi, Ying; Moody, James

2016-01-01

Sociological explanations for economic success tend toward measures of embeddedness in longstanding social institutions, such as race and gender, or personal skills represented mainly by educational attainment. In this paper we seek a distinctively social foundation for success by investigating the long-term association between high school popularity and income. Using rich longitudinal data, we find a clear and persistent association between the number of friendship nominations received and adult income, even after accounting for the mediating influences of diverse personal, family, and work characteristics. This skill is distinct from conventional personality measures such as the Big Five, and persists long into adulthood. We hypothesize that popularity encapsulates a socioemotional skill recognized by peers as the practice of being a good friend rather than an indicator of social status. PMID:28439525

Most Likely to Succeed: Long-Run Returns to Adolescent Popularity.

PubMed

Shi, Ying; Moody, James

2017-02-01

Sociological explanations for economic success tend toward measures of embeddedness in longstanding social institutions, such as race and gender, or personal skills represented mainly by educational attainment. In this paper we seek a distinctively social foundation for success by investigating the long-term association between high school popularity and income. Using rich longitudinal data, we find a clear and persistent association between the number of friendship nominations received and adult income, even after accounting for the mediating influences of diverse personal, family, and work characteristics. This skill is distinct from conventional personality measures such as the Big Five, and persists long into adulthood. We hypothesize that popularity encapsulates a socioemotional skill recognized by peers as the practice of being a good friend rather than an indicator of social status.

Dynamics of movie competition and popularity spreading in recommender systems.

PubMed

Yeung, C H; Cimini, G; Jin, C-H

2011-01-01

We introduce a simple model to study movie competition in recommender systems. Movies of heterogeneous quality compete against each other through viewers' reviews and generate interesting dynamics at the box office. By assuming mean-field interactions between the competing movies, we show that the runaway effect of popularity spreading is triggered by defeating the average review score, leading to box-office hits: Popularity rises and peaks before fade-out. The average review score thus characterizes the critical movie quality necessary for transition from box-office bombs to blockbusters. The major factors affecting the critical review score are examined. By iterating the mean-field dynamical equations, we obtain qualitative agreements with simulations and real systems in the dynamical box-office forms, revealing the significant role of competition in understanding box-office dynamics.

Effect of recent popularity on heat-conduction based recommendation models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Wen-Jun; Dong, Qiang; Shi, Yang-Bo; Fu, Yan; He, Jia-Lin

2017-05-01

Accuracy and diversity are two important measures in evaluating the performance of recommender systems. It has been demonstrated that the recommendation model inspired by the heat conduction process has high diversity yet low accuracy. Many variants have been introduced to improve the accuracy while keeping high diversity, most of which regard the current node-degree of an item as its popularity. However in this way, a few outdated items of large degree may be recommended to an enormous number of users. In this paper, we take the recent popularity (recently increased item degrees) into account in the heat-conduction based methods, and propose accordingly the improved recommendation models. Experimental results on two benchmark data sets show that the accuracy can be largely improved while keeping the high diversity compared with the original models.

Dynamics of movie competition and popularity spreading in recommender systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yeung, C. H.; Cimini, G.; Jin, C.-H.

2011-01-01

We introduce a simple model to study movie competition in recommender systems. Movies of heterogeneous quality compete against each other through viewers’ reviews and generate interesting dynamics at the box office. By assuming mean-field interactions between the competing movies, we show that the runaway effect of popularity spreading is triggered by defeating the average review score, leading to box-office hits: Popularity rises and peaks before fade-out. The average review score thus characterizes the critical movie quality necessary for transition from box-office bombs to blockbusters. The major factors affecting the critical review score are examined. By iterating the mean-field dynamical equations, we obtain qualitative agreements with simulations and real systems in the dynamical box-office forms, revealing the significant role of competition in understanding box-office dynamics.

The Part Played by Popular Education in Local Development Processes in Suburban and Rural Areas of Sweden

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Eriksson, Lisbeth; Forsberg, Anette

2010-01-01

On the basis of a three-year study of the role of popular education in local development processes in Sweden (2006-2008), this paper sets out to outline the role of popular education as a development actor in rural and urban contexts. Two different scenarios and approaches are discussed. One is the role of popular education in rural areas, which…

The Portrayal of Mathematicians and Mathematics in Popular Culture

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barba, Kimberly

2018-01-01

Mathematicians are often inimically portrayed in popular culture, resulting in an abundance of non-mathematical identities in the classroom. Various tropes are propagated by the media that dominate our mental schemas of what makes a mathematician: the eccentric Einstein-like old man; the young, tortured genius; and the "genetically…

Point of View: Does Popular Music Have Educational Value?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Music Educators Journal, 1979

1979-01-01

Eight music educators offer their views on the pros and cons of including pop/rock music in the curriculum. Some participants describe methods they've developed to highlight or to integrate contemporary music in their courses. This article is part of a theme issue on popular music. (SJL)

Romantic Love: The Great Equalizer? Sexism in Popular Music

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wilkinson, Melvin

1976-01-01

Songs that were popular between 1954 and 1968 (N=200) were examined for sexism. Some of the findings were in accord with traditional sex-role expectations, but others were not. Men were described often as being emotional and submissive, while women were almost as active as the men. (Author)

Satisfaction Analysis of Experiential Learning-Based Popular Science Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dzan, Wei-Yuan; Tsai, Huei-Yin; Lou, Shi-Jer; Shih, Ru-Chu

2015-01-01

This study employed Kolb's experiential learning model-specific experiences, observations of reflections, abstract conceptualization, and experiment-action in activities to serve as the theoretical basis for popular science education planning. It designed the six activity themes of "Knowledge of the Ocean, Easy to Know, See the Large from the…

Teaching Popular Culture in a Second Language University Context

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pierson-Smith, Anne; Chik, Alice; Miller, Lindsay

2014-01-01

This article examines an established course on Popular Culture which is framed within the general educational model in an English-medium university. The article is organized into three parts: the underlining educational rationale for general educational courses, the course description, and the students' perspectives of their learning experience.…

Popularization of Science in Denmark in Relation to Women.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Olesen, Dorte

1988-01-01

Describes the diversity of channels through which the cause of science is being promoted and the special efforts being made to involve females in science and technology. Topics include the background of science popularization, tradition, innovation, television programs, science museums, the role of universities, youth activities, computers, and…

Popularizing Space Education in Indian Context

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yalagi, Amrut

Indians have many mythological stories about many constellations and stars. Hindu months are based on MOON and 27 stars on Zodiac. They are very important for many Indians in ritual, religious functions. By prompting them to identify their birth star, really makes them elevated. Similarly conveying them the importance of star gazing with respect to their day today life makes them to take interest and active participation in Space Activities. Space activities should be driven by public; their requirements; their dreams and imaginations. Their active participation definitely gives valuable inputs to space scientists. Hence, there is a need of involving common man or public mass by appropriate motivation by organising sky gazing sessions, exhibitions, workshops, etc. In this connection, even if the some organisation are able to attract a small percent of qualified engineers/scientists,, enthusiastic students, it would result in the creation of a sizable pool of talent in space sciences,which may well determine the future mankind on this planet. Some simple motivation acts have made the people to take interest in space. we have been using certain methodologies to popularize space science - 1] Conducting theory sessions on basics of star gazing and conveying importance of sky gazing with respect to day-today life. 2] Organising seminars, workshops, lectures and other academic/popular science activities with special reference to space science 3] Projects - a] Cubsat Missions b] Automatic Weather Station Facility c] Model making d] Creating and simulating space models and rover making competitions. The 50 year's of Exploration has left tremendous impact on many society's working towards space education and exploration.

Transactional links between teacher-child relationship quality and perceived versus sociometric popularity: a three-wave longitudinal study.

PubMed

De Laet, Steven; Doumen, Sarah; Vervoort, Eleonora; Colpin, Hilde; Van Leeuwen, Karla; Goossens, Luc; Verschueren, Karine

2014-01-01

This study examined how peer relationships (i.e., sociometric and perceived popularity) and teacher-child relationships (i.e., support and conflict) impact one another throughout late childhood. The sample included 586 children (46% boys), followed annually from Grades 4 to 6 (M(age.wave1) = 9.26 years). Autoregressive cross-lagged modeling was applied. Results stress the importance of peer relationships in shaping teacher-child relationships and vice versa. Higher sociometric popularity predicted more teacher-child support, which in turn predicted higher sociometric popularity, beyond changes in children's prosocial behavior. Higher perceived popularity predicted more teacher-child conflict (driven by children's aggressive behavior), which, in turn and in itself, predicted higher perceived popularity. The influence of the "invisible hand" of both teachers and peers in classrooms has been made visible. © 2014 The Authors. Child Development © 2014 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.

Content Analysis of Tobacco, Alcohol, and Other Drugs in Popular Music

PubMed Central

Primack, Brian A.; Dalton, Madeline A.; Carroll, Mary V.; Agarwal, Aaron A.; Fine, Michael J.

2010-01-01

Objective To perform a comprehensive content analysis of substance use in contemporary popular music. Design We analyzed the 279 most popular songs of 2005 according to Billboard magazine. Two coders working independently used a standardized data collection instrument to code portrayals of substance use. Outcome Measures Presence and explicit use of substances and motivations for, associations with, and consequences of substance use. Results Of the 279 songs, 93 (33.3%) portrayed substance use, with an average of 35.2 substance references per song-hour. Portrayal of substance use varied significantly (P<.001) by genre, with 1 or more references in 3 of 35 pop songs (9%), 9 of 66 rock songs (14%), 11 of 55 R&B/hip-hop songs (20%), 22 of 61 country songs (36%), and 48 of 62 rap songs (77%). While only 2.9% of the 279 songs portrayed tobacco use, 23.7% depicted alcohol use, 13.6% depicted marijuana use, and 11.5% depicted other or unspecified substance use. In the 93 songs with substance use, it was most often motivated by peer/social pressure (45 [48%]) or sex (28 [30%]); use was commonly associated with partying (50 [54%]), sex (43 [46%]), violence (27 [29%]), and/or humor (22 [24%]). Only 4 songs (4%) contained explicit antiuse messages, and none portrayed substance refusal. Most songs with substance use (63 [68%]) portrayed more positive than negative consequences; these positive consequences were most commonly social, sexual, financial, or emotional. Conclusions The average adolescent is exposed to approximately 84 references to explicit substance use daily in popular songs, and this exposure varies widely by musical genre. The substance use depicted in popular music is frequently motivated by peer acceptance and sex, and it has highly positive associations and consequences. PMID:18250243

Content analysis of tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs in popular music.

PubMed

Primack, Brian A; Dalton, Madeline A; Carroll, Mary V; Agarwal, Aaron A; Fine, Michael J

2008-02-01

To perform a comprehensive content analysis of substance use in contemporary popular music. We analyzed the 279 most popular songs of 2005 according to Billboard magazine. Two coders working independently used a standardized data collection instrument to code portrayals of substance use. Presence and explicit use of substances and motivations for, associations with, and consequences of substance use. Of the 279 songs, 93 (33.3%) portrayed substance use, with an average of 35.2 substance references per song-hour. Portrayal of substance use varied significantly (P < .001) by genre, with 1 or more references in 3 of 35 pop songs (9%), 9 of 66 rock songs (14%), 11 of 55 R & B/hip-hop songs (20%), 22 of 61 country songs (36%), and 48 of 62 rap songs (77%). While only 2.9% of the 279 songs portrayed tobacco use, 23.7% depicted alcohol use, 13.6% depicted marijuana use, and 11.5% depicted other or unspecified substance use. In the 93 songs with substance use, it was most often motivated by peer/social pressure (45 [48%]) or sex (28 [30%]); use was commonly associated with partying (50 [54%]), sex (43 [46%]), violence (27 [29%]), and/or humor (22 [24%]). Only 4 songs (4%) contained explicit antiuse messages, and none portrayed substance refusal. Most songs with substance use (63 [68%]) portrayed more positive than negative consequences; these positive consequences were most commonly social, sexual, financial, or emotional. The average adolescent is exposed to approximately 84 references to explicit substance use daily in popular songs, and this exposure varies widely by musical genre. The substance use depicted in popular music is frequently motivated by peer acceptance and sex, and it has highly positive associations and consequences.

Teaching Sexual Matters in Taiwan: The Analytical Framework for Popular Culture and Youth Sexuality Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yang, Hsing-Chen

2014-01-01

Although most teachers realize the potential of using popular culture within the sexuality education classroom, incorporating it successfully is complex. Especially, how can teachers critically analyse the ideology contained in popular culture without lapsing into moralizing and design motivating activities? For teachers in Taiwan, whose training…

Dog movie stars and dog breed popularity: a case study in media influence on choice.

PubMed

Ghirlanda, Stefano; Acerbi, Alberto; Herzog, Harold

2014-01-01

Fashions and fads are important phenomena that influence many individual choices. They are ubiquitous in human societies, and have recently been used as a source of data to test models of cultural dynamics. Although a few statistical regularities have been observed in fashion cycles, their empirical characterization is still incomplete. Here we consider the impact of mass media on popular culture, showing that the release of movies featuring dogs is often associated with an increase in the popularity of featured breeds, for up to 10 years after movie release. We also find that a movie's impact on breed popularity correlates with the estimated number of viewers during the movie's opening weekend--a proxy of the movie's reach among the general public. Movies' influence on breed popularity was strongest in the early 20th century, and has declined since. We reach these conclusions through a new, widely applicable method to measure the cultural impact of events, capable of disentangling the event's effect from ongoing cultural trends.

Dog Movie Stars and Dog Breed Popularity: A Case Study in Media Influence on Choice

PubMed Central

Ghirlanda, Stefano; Acerbi, Alberto; Herzog, Harold

2014-01-01

Fashions and fads are important phenomena that influence many individual choices. They are ubiquitous in human societies, and have recently been used as a source of data to test models of cultural dynamics. Although a few statistical regularities have been observed in fashion cycles, their empirical characterization is still incomplete. Here we consider the impact of mass media on popular culture, showing that the release of movies featuring dogs is often associated with an increase in the popularity of featured breeds, for up to 10 years after movie release. We also find that a movie's impact on breed popularity correlates with the estimated number of viewers during the movie's opening weekend—a proxy of the movie's reach among the general public. Movies' influence on breed popularity was strongest in the early 20th century, and has declined since. We reach these conclusions through a new, widely applicable method to measure the cultural impact of events, capable of disentangling the event's effect from ongoing cultural trends. PMID:25208271

Organizing Astronomy Popularization and Teacher Training Workshops in Nigeria: A paradigm shift in Sourcing funds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chukwudi Okpala, Kingsley; Iheanyi Okere, Bonaventure

2015-08-01

Funding for astronomy popularization and workshops has become a huge challenge in recent times especially for developing countries like Nigeria. However, a modification of the primary and secondary school curriculum to include space science topics in the school system has led to a ripe desire by the relevant agencies/corporate bodies to make commitments towards the astronomy popularization activities as part of their social responsibility. Considering the size of Nigeria, there is need for a shift in paradigm for sourcing resources to tackle the dart of funds for organizing educational activities in a sustainable manner. Recently a teacher training and science popularization workshop was organized as a first in a series of subsequent workshops geared towards having a sustainable means of popularizing astronomy for development in Nigeria. Principally, the key lies in the partnership with schools and other corporate bodies in addition to the usual governmental actions. Experiences from this workshop will be enumerated with the hope of inspiring the same success in similar societies.

Sinister Storytellers, Magic Flutes and Spinning Tops: The Links between Play and "Popular" Culture

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smidt, Sandra

2004-01-01

Much has been written about literacy and popular culture but less about the role, if any, of popular culture in children's play. In view of the fact that play is recognized by many as a primary mode of learning, particularly in the early years, and also as an essential process in the representation of ideas and feelings, this is something that…

The Role of "Popular" Books in Informal Chemical Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Afonso, Ana Sofia; Gilbert, John K.

2013-01-01

"Popular science books" can contribute to enhancing public engagement with chemistry, yet there has been no systematic study of the availability, use, and educational significance of these books. This paper identifies titles in the catalogues of some major publishers, the content of these books, the criteria that readers might use in…

English 177: Literature and Popular Culture, The Graphic Novel

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Misemer, Leah

2015-01-01

This section of English 177: Literature and Popular Culture, The Graphic Novel was designed to teach students to "make compelling arguments about and in various media" and to produce a "professional-like final product that represents their work to the world at large." While twice weekly lectures by Professor Robin Valenza…

Queering Informal Pedagogy: Sexuality and Popular Music in School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abramo, Joseph Michael

2011-01-01

This qualitative case study explores how students' perceptions of sexual identity affect how they participate in popular music processes used in school. Seventeen high school students were invited to form five single-gendered and mixed-gendered rock bands. The data collected included fieldnotes and audio recordings of observed rehearsals and…

Gender Differences of Popular Music Production in Secondary Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abramo, Joseph Michael

2011-01-01

In this case study, the author investigated how students' gender affected their participation in a secondary popular music class in which participants wrote and performed original music. Three same-gendered rock groups and two mixed-gendered rock groups were observed. Would students of different genders rehearse and compose differently? How would…

Teaching for Change: Popular Education and the Labor Movement.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Delp, Linda, Ed.; Outman-Kramer, Miranda, Ed.; Schurman, Susan J., Ed.; Wong, Kent, Ed.

These 28 essays recount popular education's history and its multiple uses in the labor movement today: to organize the unorganized, to develop new leaders and activists, and to strengthen labor and community alliances. They explore its other facets: theater and culture, economics education, workplace safety and health, and classroom use and…

Evaluating Understanding of Popular Press Reports of Health Research.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yeaton, William H.; And Others

1990-01-01

A sample of 144 college students responded to content- and application-based questions derived from popular newspaper and magazine articles on contemporary health topics. Overall rate of reader misunderstanding was nearly 40 percent, with a uniform error rate for each of 16 articles, leading to a conclusion that consumer misunderstanding of…

Popular Culture in the Literacy Curriculum: A Bourdieuan Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Marsh, Jackie

2006-01-01

This article discusses data arising from a longitudinal study of the attitudes, beliefs, and experiences of preservice teachers regarding the use of popular culture in the primary literacy curriculum in England. Eighteen students took part in a series of interviews throughout their three-year initial teacher education course. Data were inductively…

Maintaining connections in children's grief narratives in popular film.

PubMed

Sedney, Mary Anne

2002-04-01

Children's grief narratives in popular films were examined for their portrayal of connection-maintaining strategies with the deceased. Comparisons were made between strategies found in actual parentally bereaved children and in child characters in films. Implications of these filmed grief narratives for models of grieving and for practice are discussed.

Popular Nutrition-Related Mobile Apps: A Feature Assessment

PubMed Central

Fallaize, Rosalind; Lovegrove, Julie A; Hwang, Faustina

2016-01-01

Background A key challenge in human nutrition is the assessment of usual food intake. This is of particular interest given recent proposals of eHealth personalized interventions. The adoption of mobile phones has created an opportunity for assessing and improving nutrient intake as they can be used for digitalizing dietary assessments and providing feedback. In the last few years, hundreds of nutrition-related mobile apps have been launched and installed by millions of users. Objective This study aims to analyze the main features of the most popular nutrition apps and to compare their strategies and technologies for dietary assessment and user feedback. Methods Apps were selected from the two largest online stores of the most popular mobile operating systems—the Google Play Store for Android and the iTunes App Store for iOS—based on popularity as measured by the number of installs and reviews. The keywords used in the search were as follows: calorie(s), diet, diet tracker, dietician, dietitian, eating, fit, fitness, food, food diary, food tracker, health, lose weight, nutrition, nutritionist, weight, weight loss, weight management, weight watcher, and ww calculator. The inclusion criteria were as follows: English language, minimum number of installs (1 million for Google Play Store) or reviews (7500 for iTunes App Store), relation to nutrition (ie, diet monitoring or recommendation), and independence from any device (eg, wearable) or subscription. Results A total of 13 apps were classified as popular for inclusion in the analysis. Nine apps offered prospective recording of food intake using a food diary feature. Food selection was available via text search or barcode scanner technologies. Portion size selection was only textual (ie, without images or icons). All nine of these apps were also capable of collecting physical activity (PA) information using self-report, the global positioning system (GPS), or wearable integrations. Their outputs focused

Popular Nutrition-Related Mobile Apps: A Feature Assessment.

PubMed

Franco, Rodrigo Zenun; Fallaize, Rosalind; Lovegrove, Julie A; Hwang, Faustina

2016-08-01

A key challenge in human nutrition is the assessment of usual food intake. This is of particular interest given recent proposals of eHealth personalized interventions. The adoption of mobile phones has created an opportunity for assessing and improving nutrient intake as they can be used for digitalizing dietary assessments and providing feedback. In the last few years, hundreds of nutrition-related mobile apps have been launched and installed by millions of users. This study aims to analyze the main features of the most popular nutrition apps and to compare their strategies and technologies for dietary assessment and user feedback. Apps were selected from the two largest online stores of the most popular mobile operating systems-the Google Play Store for Android and the iTunes App Store for iOS-based on popularity as measured by the number of installs and reviews. The keywords used in the search were as follows: calorie(s), diet, diet tracker, dietician, dietitian, eating, fit, fitness, food, food diary, food tracker, health, lose weight, nutrition, nutritionist, weight, weight loss, weight management, weight watcher, and ww calculator. The inclusion criteria were as follows: English language, minimum number of installs (1 million for Google Play Store) or reviews (7500 for iTunes App Store), relation to nutrition (ie, diet monitoring or recommendation), and independence from any device (eg, wearable) or subscription. A total of 13 apps were classified as popular for inclusion in the analysis. Nine apps offered prospective recording of food intake using a food diary feature. Food selection was available via text search or barcode scanner technologies. Portion size selection was only textual (ie, without images or icons). All nine of these apps were also capable of collecting physical activity (PA) information using self-report, the global positioning system (GPS), or wearable integrations. Their outputs focused predominantly on energy balance between dietary

Costs of Public Pharmaceutical Services in Rio de Janeiro Compared to Farmácia Popular Program.

PubMed

Silva, Rondineli Mendes da; Caetano, Rosângela

2016-12-22

To analyze the costs of public pharmaceutical services compared to Farmácia Popular Program (Popular Pharmacy Program). Comparison between prices paid by Aqui Tem Farmácia Popular Program (Farmácia Popular is available here) with the full costs of medicine provision by the Municipal Health Department of Rio de Janeiro. The comparison comprised 25 medicines supplied by both the municipal pharmaceutical service and Aqui Tem Farmácia Popular Program. Calculating the cost per pharmaceutical unit of each medicine included expenditure by Municipal Health Department of Rio de Janeiro with procurement (price), logistics, and local dispensation. The reference price of medicines paid by Aqui Tem Farmácia Popular was taken from the Brazilian Ministry of Health standard in force in 2012. Comparisons included full reference price; reference price minus 10.0% copayment by users; and maximum reference paid by the Ministry of Health (minus copayment and taxes). Simulations were carried out of the differences between the costs of Municipal Health Department of Rio de Janeiro with the common medicines and those potentially incurred based on the reference price of Aqui Tem Farmácia Popular. The Municipal Health Department of Rio de Janeiro spent R$28,526,526.57 with 25 medicines of the common list in 2012; 58.7% accounted for direct procurement costs. The estimated costs of the Health Department were generally lower than the reference prices of the Aqui Tem Farmácia Popular Program for 20 medicines, regardless of reference prices. The potential costs incurred by Health Department if expenditure of its consumption pattern were based on the reference prices of Aqui Tem Farmácia Popular would be R$124,170,777.76, considering the best scenario of payment by the Brazilian Ministry of Health (90.0% of the reference price, minus taxes). The difference in costs between public provision by Municipal Health Department of Rio de Janeiro and Farmácia Popular Program indicates that some

Popular Culture as a Teaching Strategy in the Secondary School History Classroom: The Depression Years.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chilcoat, George W.

The document provides United States history teachers with suggested teaching techniques from a variety of popular culture genre used during the thirties to help secondary students examine various social, cultural, economic, and political events, that encompass the Great Depression era. The popular culture forms described and discussed as…

The Cosmos in Portuguese Popular Tradition: A Bibliographic and Fieldwork Approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Oliveira, Catarina

2015-05-01

Shepherds, farmers and fishermen knew the sky, the stars and constellations, by the same names as did their ancestors. Their observations often provided orientation clues to find their way at sea or inland, predict the weather, and to reckon time, particularly for sowing, harvesting or fishing.Also, Iberian popular tradition, in the form of talismans, prayers and recitations, testifies to former beliefs about the Moon and its malignant influence on children. This lunar determinism also found its way into popular awareness of its influence on vegetation growth, weather, tides or childbirth. Also, the Sun persisted in rural societies as an object of cult worship in the form of prayers or festivities. From the sky man also derived the various cycles, organized calendars and celebrated ritual festivities at solstices and equinoxes. Popular astronomy and meteorology were relevant topics in pioneer Portuguese ethnography between late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and valuable documents were then produced. Presently, systematic fieldwork amongst shepherds, farmers and fishermen, in defined regional areas, will contribute to an evaluation of the present stage of this knowledge about the sky and of its relation to ancient beliefs, and on how social groups have perceived and integrated it into their daily lives and cosmovision.

How popular is waterpipe tobacco smoking? Findings from internet search queries

PubMed Central

Salloum, Ramzi G; Osman, Amira; Maziak, Wasim; Thrasher, James F

2015-01-01

Objectives Waterpipe tobacco smoking (WTS), a traditional tobacco consumption practice in the Middle East, is gaining popularity worldwide. Estimates of population-level interest in WTS over time are not documented. We assessed the popularity of WTS using World Wide Web search query results across four English-speaking countries. Methods We analysed trends in Google search queries related to WTS, comparing these trends with those for electronic cigarettes between 2004 and 2013 in Australia, Canada, the UK and the USA. Weekly search volumes were reported as percentages relative to the week with the highest volume of searches. Results Web-based searches for WTS have increased steadily since 2004 in all four countries. Search volume for WTS was higher than for e-cigarettes in three of the four nations, with the highest volume in the USA. Online searches were primarily targeted at WTS products for home use, followed by searches for WTS cafés/lounges. Conclusions Online demand for information on WTS-related products and venues is large and increasing. Given the rise in WTS popularity, increasing evidence of exposure-related harms, and relatively lax government regulation, WTS is a serious public health concern and could reach epidemic levels in Western societies. PMID:25052859

A content analysis of cognitive health promotion in popular magazines.

PubMed

Friedman, Daniela B; Laditka, Sarah B; Laditka, James N; Price, Anna E

2011-01-01

Health behaviors, particularly physical activity, may promote cognitive health. The public agenda for health behaviors is influenced by popular media. We analyzed the cognitive health content of 20 United States magazines, examining every page of every 2006-2007 issue of the highest circulating magazines for general audiences, women, men, African Americans, and the health conscious (n = 178). Diet was the greatest focus. Physical activity coverage was limited. Important behavior-related cognitive health risks, including hypertension and diabetes, were not mentioned. Publications for African Americans had little cognitive health content. Coverage of cognitive health was not commensurate with growing evidence that health behaviors may help to maintain it. Findings may be useful to public health officials, health care providers, non-profit organizations that promote cognitive health, individuals evaluating cognitive health information in popular media, and those responsible for magazines or other media.

Potential hazard of hearing damage to students in undergraduate popular music courses.

PubMed

Barlow, Christopher

2010-12-01

In recent years, there has been a rapid growth in university courses related to popular and commercial music, with a commensurate increase in the number of students studying these courses. Students of popular music subjects are frequently involved in the use of electronically amplified sound for rehearsal and recording, in addition to the "normal" noise exposure commonly associated with young people. The combination of these two elements suggests a higher than average noise exposure hazard for these students. To date, the majority of noise studies on students have focused on exposure from personal music players and on classical, orchestral, and marching band musicians. One hundred students across a range of university popular music courses were surveyed using a 30-point questionnaire regarding their musical habits both within and external to their university courses. This was followed by noise dosimetry of studios/recording spaces and music venues popular with students. Questionnaire responses showed 76% of subjects reported having experienced symptoms associated with hearing loss, while only 18% reported using hearing protection devices. Rehearsals averaged 11.5 hrs/wk, with a mean duration 2 hrs 13 mins and mean level of 98 dB LAEQ. Ninety-four percent of subjects reported attending concerts or nightclubs at least once per week, and measured exposure in two of these venues ranged from 98 to 112 dB LAEQ with a mean of 98.9 dB LAEQ over a 4.5-hr period. Results suggested an extremely high hazard of excessive noise exposure among this group from both their social and study-based music activities.

A Survey of Popular R Packages for Cluster Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Flynt, Abby; Dean, Nema

2016-01-01

Cluster analysis is a set of statistical methods for discovering new group/class structure when exploring data sets. This article reviews the following popular libraries/commands in the R software language for applying different types of cluster analysis: from the stats library, the kmeans, and hclust functions; the mclust library; the poLCA…

University-Community Engagement: A Case Study Using Popular Theatre

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Feagan, Robert; Rossiter, Katherine

2011-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of popular theatre (PT) as a pedagogical tool around which a community service learning (CSL) senior undergraduate course was oriented, specifically assessing the university student learning experience from this work relative to PT processes and CSL objectives. Design/methodology/approach:…

Curriculum and Popular Culture: Building Bridges and Making Waves.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Morrell, Ernest

This paper explores the potential of incorporating elements of popular culture such as music, film, and court trials as a bridge to help students traditionally alienated by the canonical texts they confront in the "standard" curriculum to conquer and gain a critical understanding of those texts. Sometimes complex, canonical texts can be…

Popular Culture in Transglossic Language Practices of Young Adults

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sultana, Shaila; Dovchin, Sender

2017-01-01

Based on virtual conversations drawn from two separate intensive ethnographic studies in Bangladesh and Mongolia, we show that popular cultural texts play a significant role in young adults' heteroglossic language practices. On the one hand, they borrow voices from cultural texts and cross the boundaries of language, i.e., codes, modes, and…

Considering Popular Fiction and Library Practices of Recommendation: The Literary Status of "The Clique" and Its Historical Progenitors

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pattee, Amy

2008-01-01

The Clique, a contemporary popular series for girls, has been criticized in the popular and professional media but includes thematic content similar to some of the more lauded mid-nineteenth-century domestic fiction for girls. By making a formal comparison of this popular series with domestic fiction for girls (much of which is now considered…

Popular Education in Brazil. A Report on the LASG/WEA 1985 Study Visit to Brazil.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Workers Educational Association, Sunderland (England). Northern District.

The 11 "themes" in this report describe the three-week study visit of 11 adult education workers from Northern England to Brazil. The report describes contacts with Brazilian colleagues in workers' and popular education and in related support services and trade and popular organizations they serve. "Organization of the Visit"…

Prevalence of Misconceptions, Dogmas, and Popular Views about Giftedness and Intelligence: A Case from Turkey

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sak, Ugur

2011-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence of misconceptions, dogmas and popular views about giftedness and intelligence among Turkish lay people. A survey questionnaire consisting of 12 forced-choice items about global misconceptions, dogmatic beliefs and popular views related to giftedness and intelligence was used to collect…

Enhancing the Popular Music Ensemble Workshop and Maximising Student Potential through the Integration of Creativity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hall, Richard

2015-01-01

Ensemble work is a key part of any performance-based popular music course and involves students replicating existing music or playing "covers". The creative process in popular music is a collaborative one and the ensemble workshop can be utilised to facilitate active learning and develop musical creativity within a group setting. This is…

When Elementary Students Change Peer Groups: Intragroup Centrality, Intergroup Centrality, and Self-Perceptions of Popularity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jones, Martin H.; Estell, David B.

2010-01-01

The current study follows two cohorts of fourth and fifth graders across 1 school year to better understand why some students change peer groups. The study focuses on popularity and intragroup social status. We examined whether differences between individuals' and group members' self-perceptions of popularity were related to changing peer groups.…

Writer Construction in English and German Popularized Academic Discourse: The Uses of "We" and "Wir"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Baumgarten, Nicole

2008-01-01

The present article investigates writer-reader interaction through the construction of writer and reader personae in English and German popular scientific writing by means of first person plural pronouns in subject position. Popular scientific writing only became firmly established as a German-language genre in the last quarter of the 20th century…

Emotions in the History of Latin American Popular Education: Constructions for a Thinking-Feeling Pedagogy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Streck, Danilo R.

2015-01-01

The purpose of this paper is to identify the presence of emotions in the constitution of popular education in Latin America, thus contributing to understand popular education as a thinking-feeling practice. It starts from the assumption that emotions are also historical and cultural expressions that mark societies and their understanding of…

Popular music scenes and aging bodies.

PubMed

Bennett, Andy

2018-06-01

During the last two decades there has been increasing interest in the phenomenon of the aging popular music audience (Bennett & Hodkinson, 2012). Although the specter of the aging fan is by no means new, the notion of, for example, the aging rocker or the aging punk has attracted significant sociological attention, not least of all because of what this says about the shifting socio-cultural significance of rock and punk and similar genres - which at the time of their emergence were inextricably tied to youth and vociferously marketed as "youth musics". As such, initial interpretations of aging music fans tended to paint a somewhat negative picture, suggesting a sense in which such fans were cultural misfits (Ross, 1994). In more recent times, however, work informed by cultural aging perspectives has begun to consider how so-called "youth cultural" identities may in fact provide the basis of more stable and evolving identities over the life course (Bennett, 2013). Starting from this position, the purpose of this article is to critically examine how aging members of popular music scenes might be recast as a salient example of the more pluralistic fashion in which aging is anticipated, managed and articulated in contemporary social settings. The article then branches out to consider two ways that aging members of music scenes continue their scene involvement. The first focuses on evolving a series of discourses that legitimately position them as aging bodies in cultural spaces that also continue to be inhabited by significant numbers of people in their teens, twenties and thirties. The second sees aging fans taking advantage of new opportunities for consuming live music including winery concerts and dinner and show events. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

St. George Mivart as Popularizer of Zoology in Britain and America, 1869-1881.

PubMed

Swain, Emma E

2017-12-01

Recent scholarly attentions have shifted from key actors within the scientific elite and religious authorities to scientific practitioners and popularizers who used science to pursue a wide variety of cultural purposes. The Roman Catholic zoologist St. George Mivart (1827-1900) has typically been cast as a staunch anti-Darwinian ostracized by Darwin's inner circle of scientific naturalists. Understood as a popularizer of science, his position can be re-thought. Mivart did not operate on the periphery of Victorian science. Instead, his notable contributions to the fields of zoology and anatomy and his participation in debates about the origin of the human mind, consciousness, and soul made him a central figure in the changing landscape of late-Victorian scientific culture. Through the popular periodical press and his anatomy textbook for beginners, Mivart secured a reputation as a key spokesman for science and gained authority as a leading critic of agnostic scientific naturalism. Crown Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Popularity among same-sex and cross-sex peers: a process-oriented examination of links to aggressive behaviors and depressive affect.

PubMed

Troop-Gordon, Wendy; Ranney, John D

2014-06-01

Popularity has been linked to heightened aggression and fewer depressive symptoms. The current study extends this literature by examining the unique contributions of same-sex and cross-sex popularity to children's development, as well as potential mediating processes. Third- and 4th-graders (212 boys, 250 girls) provided data at 3 time points over 2 school years. Data included peer-reported popularity, social exclusion, friendships, peer victimization, and aggression and self-reported social self-esteem and depressive affect. Same-sex and cross-sex popularity independently contributed to the prediction of aggression and depressive affect. Popularity was associated with heightened aggression through reduced social exclusion and was indirectly related to lower levels of depressive affect through increased friendships. For boys only, same-sex popularity was further associated with dampened depressive affect through reduced social exclusion and peer victimization and increased social self-esteem. Findings are discussed in light of the potential tradeoffs associated with popularity in preadolescence. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

Popularity among same-sex and cross-sex peers: A process-oriented examination of links to aggressive behaviors and depressive affect

PubMed Central

Troop-Gordon, Wendy; Ranney, John D.

2014-01-01

Popularity has been linked to heightened aggression and fewer depressive symptoms. The current study extends this literature by examining the unique contributions of same-sex and cross-sex popularity to children’s development, as well as potential mediating processes. Third-and fourth-graders (212 boys, 250 girls) provided data at three time points over two school years. Data included peer-reported popularity, social exclusion, friendships, peer victimization, and aggression, and self-reported social self-esteem and depressive affect. Same-sex and cross-sex popularity independently contributed to the prediction of aggression and depressive affect. Popularity was associated with heightened aggression through reduced social exclusion and was indirectly related to lower levels of depressive affect through increased friendships. For boys only, same-sex popularity was further associated with dampened depressive affect through reduced social exclusion and peer victimization and increased social self-esteem. Findings are discussed in light of the potential tradeoffs associated with popularity in preadolescence. PMID:24684714

The Popular Commercialisation of Space - Human Factor Issues

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Harrison, M. H.

Radiation, vacuum, extremes of temperature, and absence of gravity have not prevented humans from living and working in space. Neither have confinement and isolation in a fragile habitat, a vulnerable life support system, the remoteness of medical aid, or the difficulties of rescue, proved to be serious obstacles. But those humans who have succeeded in overcoming the physical and psychological challenges presented by the uniquely hostile environment of space have, mostly, been highly trained, physically fit, committed professional astronauts, all of whom have accepted that theirs is the ultimate high-risk profession. Yet already the popular commercialisation of space is regarded by many as being inevitable, with speculation that “space hotels” may be in orbit around the Earth within the next twenty years. Today few give thought to the risks involved in air travel - most are much more concerned about the discomfort! For the forseeable future space travel is, by compari- son, going to remain high risk and very uncomfortable. This paper considers the human factor issues involved in the popular commercialisation of space, focusing on implications for non-astronaut space travellers. These include hazards of ascent and descent, the physiological and psychological consequences of spending just a few days in space, and the more mundane issues surrounding simply living in space.

Pulp Poets and Superhero Prophets: A Case for Popular Culture in Academic Library Collection Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Blick, William M.

2015-01-01

For decades, popular culture was neglected and frowned upon by academics. In recent years, cultural critics, including librarians, have found popular culture materials to be didactic tools, and vital to the study of society and the zeitgeist that has prevailed at the time of their production. As a result, many academic librarians have found it…

Academic performance, popularity, and depression predict adolescent substance use.

PubMed

Diego, Miguel A; Field, Tiffany M; Sanders, Christopher E

2003-01-01

Eighty-nine high school seniors completed a questionnaire on their feelings and activities, including their use of drugs. Adolescents with a low grade point average, high popularity, and high depression were more likely to smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, and smoke marijuana than were their peers. Cigarette and alcohol use predicted marijuana use, which in turn predicted cocaine use.

Popular Education for Peasant Communities in Chile. Chapter 21.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Infante R., Isabel; Letelier G., Eugenia

The rural population of Chile has been served poorly by the formal educational system, rural educational attainment lags behind that of urban areas, and outmigration and alienation of rural youth are high. In the past decade, popular education has attempted to educate rural people and put them in control of their destinies by drawing on popular…

Full Text Psychology Journals Available from Popular Library Databases

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Joswick, Kathleen E.

2006-01-01

The author identified 433 core journals in psychology and investigated their full text availability in popular databases. While 62 percent of the studied journals were available in at least one database, access from individual databases ranged from 1.4 percent to 38.1 percent of the titles. The full text of influential psychology journals is not…

Discovering the Unequal Interest in Popular Online Educational Games and Its Implications: A Case Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zhang, Meilan

2016-01-01

Despite the growing scholarly interest in educational computer games, research on popular online educational games is rare. Little is known about which online educational games are popular and to what extent, what kind of users are more interested in these games and how interest in the games is related to academic performance. To fill this gap,…

Taking Criticism to the Streets in Print: Teaching Students to Write Criticism for Popular Consumption.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kidd, Virginia V.

A systematic review of 3 years of popular magazines sought to determine if articles are published that constitute rhetorical criticism of the mass media. The survey revealed that rhetorical criticism was published in a wide variety of popular magazines, but was not labelled as such. Television (TV) was the focus of most of these critical analyses,…

Clinical and Epidemiological Profile of Breast Cancer in Mexico: Results of the Seguro Popular.

PubMed

Reynoso-Noverón, Nancy; Villarreal-Garza, Cynthia; Soto-Perez-de-Celis, Enrique; Arce-Salinas, Claudia; Matus-Santos, Juan; Ramírez-Ugalde, María Teresa; Alvarado-Miranda, Alberto; Cabrera-Galeana, Paula; Meneses-García, Abelardo; Lara-Medina, Fernando; Bargalló-Rocha, Enrique; Mohar, Alejandro

2017-12-01

Purpose One half of the Mexican population lacks comprehensive health care coverage. In 2003, a reform to the General Health Law was approved that led to the creation of the System of Social Protection in Health and made universal health coverage mandatory. The main innovation of this reform was Seguro Popular, which provided coverage for breast cancer. Here we report the outcomes of women with breast cancer treated at a cancer center in Mexico under Seguro Popular. Materials and Methods This was a retrospective cohort study that included all patients with breast cancer treated in the Instituto Nacional de Cancerología in Mexico City between January 2007 and December 2013 with Seguro Popular coverage. Demographic and clinical information were collected and survival outcomes were analyzed. Results A total of 4,300 women with breast cancer were included in this analysis. Most patients had locally advanced disease at diagnosis (53%, n = 2,293), and 13% (n = 558) presented with stage IV disease. Neoadjuvant chemotherapy was administered to 1,834 patients (52%), with a pathologic complete response in 25.1% (n = 460). Median follow-up was 40.5 months. Five-year survival for the entire cohort was 82% (95% CI, 81% to 84%). Five-year survival was 97% for early-stage disease (95% CI, 95% to 98%), 82% for locally advanced disease (95% CI, 80% to 84%), and 36% for metastatic disease (95% CI, 30% to 42%). Conclusion This represents the first description of a cohort of patients with breast cancer treated in Mexico under Seguro Popular. Seguro Popular has allowed our institution, and other Mexican centers, to establish efficient standardized mechanisms to treat patients with breast cancer.

Popular Music as a Foundation for a French Culture Course.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abrate, Jayne

1988-01-01

Described an advanced college-level course on contemporary French culture which used popular songs, supplemented by readings and news articles, as the focus for presentations on cultural phenomena relating to geography and travel, the family, education, work and leisure, government, and daily life. (CB)

Affective associations with negativity: Why popular peers attract youths' visual attention.

PubMed

Lansu, Tessa A M; Troop-Gordon, Wendy

2017-10-01

Visual attention to high-status peers is well documented, but whether this attentional bias is due to high-status individuals' leadership and prosocial characteristics or due to their more agonistic behaviors has yet to be examined. To identify the affective associations that may underlie visual attention for high-status versus low-status peers, 122 early adolescents (67 girls; M age =11.0years, SD=0.7) completed a primed attention paradigm. Visual attention was measured using eye tracking as participants looked simultaneously at photographs of two classmates: one nominated by peers as popular and one nominated by peers as unpopular. Prior to each trial, the early adolescents were presented with a positive prime, the word "nice"; a negative prime, the word "stupid"; or no prime. Primary analyses focused on first-gaze preference and total gaze time The results showed a stronger first gaze preference for popular peers than for unpopular peers in the no-prime and negative prime trials than in the positive prime trials. The visual preference for a popular peer, thus, was attenuated by the positive prime. These findings are consistent with the notion that youths may visually attend to high-status peers due to their association with more negative characteristics and the threat they may pose to youths' own social standing and ability to gain interpersonal resources. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

How popular is waterpipe tobacco smoking? Findings from internet search queries.

PubMed

Salloum, Ramzi G; Osman, Amira; Maziak, Wasim; Thrasher, James F

2015-09-01

Waterpipe tobacco smoking (WTS), a traditional tobacco consumption practice in the Middle East, is gaining popularity worldwide. Estimates of population-level interest in WTS over time are not documented. We assessed the popularity of WTS using World Wide Web search query results across four English-speaking countries. We analysed trends in Google search queries related to WTS, comparing these trends with those for electronic cigarettes between 2004 and 2013 in Australia, Canada, the UK and the USA. Weekly search volumes were reported as percentages relative to the week with the highest volume of searches. Web-based searches for WTS have increased steadily since 2004 in all four countries. Search volume for WTS was higher than for e-cigarettes in three of the four nations, with the highest volume in the USA. Online searches were primarily targeted at WTS products for home use, followed by searches for WTS cafés/lounges. Online demand for information on WTS-related products and venues is large and increasing. Given the rise in WTS popularity, increasing evidence of exposure-related harms, and relatively lax government regulation, WTS is a serious public health concern and could reach epidemic levels in Western societies. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.

[Popular Health Insurance: key piece of inequity in health in Mexico].

PubMed

Tamez González, Silvia; Eibenschutz, Catalina

2008-12-01

This work is aimed at presenting an analysis of the Mexican health systems current situation resulting from successive reforms which have been carried out since the 1980s. Special interest is placed on the role which the Seguro Popular de Salud (SPS--a 'popular', meaning universal, health insurance plan) has played, being a key piece in commercializing medical attention. The first part of this work thus presents the main antecedents for the changes made during the last two decades of the last century and analyses the current situation since the start of the new millennium. Such analysis is centred on an initial evaluation of the Seguro Popular de Saluds scope and limitations from the perspective of equity in gaining access to medical attention. The analysis concludes that due to a medical perspective not having been present in the structural reforms, then this insurance policy represents a discretional, presidential and focalised programme taking funds away from the large social security institutions, obligating them (in many cases) to make budgetary adaptations to the detriment of providing quality attention. This situation will constitute (in the immediate future) a segmentation of the National Health System which will determine new conditions regarding the populations differential access to medical services, increase inequity in health and contribute towards increasing the great social inequality prevailing in México.

The presence of academic health sciences libraries on Facebook: the relationship between content and library popularity.

PubMed

Garcia-Milian, Rolando; Norton, Hannah F; Tennant, Michele R

2012-01-01

Social networks such as Facebook allow libraries to be proactive in reaching their users. While some libraries have popular Facebook pages, it remains unclear what attracts users to these pages. This study evaluates relationships between libraries' Facebook page content and popularity. An analysis of 72 academic health sciences libraries' Facebook pages showed positive correlations between number of library fans and number of tabs, photos, events, and wall posts on Facebook. Libraries posting videos had significantly more fans than libraries without them. This study contributes to an understanding of correlations between content and popularity on Facebook, with implications for library outreach.

Teaching the "People's Music" at the "People's College": A Historical Study of American Popular Music in the American Junior

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Krikun, Andrew H.

2014-01-01

Although the teaching and learning of popular music in formal educational institutions remains a controversial issue in the United States and abroad, historical research studies on the development of popular music education have been scarce. This study examines the introduction of popular music education into the American public junior college…

Agentic or Communal? Associations between Interpersonal Goals, Popularity, and Bullying in Middle Childhood and Early Adolescence

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Caravita, Simona C. S.; Cillessen, Antonius H. N.

2012-01-01

This study investigated whether perceived popularity mediates and/or moderates the association between agentic goals and bullying, and whether sociometric popularity mediates and/or moderates the association between communal goals and bullying. Age and gender differences were also examined. Participants were 276 fourth and fifth graders (middle…

Queer Girls and Popular Culture: Reading, Resisting, and Creating Media

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Blackburn, Mollie V.

2010-01-01

This article reviews Driver's monograph, "Queer Girls and Popular Culture: Reading, Resisting, and Creating Media," reporting on queer girls' active engagement with television characters, films, lesbian magazines, online communities, and music. She explores the consequences of their engagements with these media on their lives and their…

Teaching Popular Culture with a Computer-Assisted Instruction (CAI) Program.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

del Pozo, Ivania

The foreign language student must experience popular culture to fully comprehend the framework in which the foreign language functions. Traditional language learning, preoccupied with words, syntax, and pronunciation, has ignored this element, leaving students unprepared to interact with individuals in the target culture. Classroom activities to…

Neglected issues concerning teaching human adrenal steroidogenesis in popular biochemistry textbooks.

PubMed

Han, Zhiyong; Elliott, Mark S

2017-11-01

In the human body, the adrenal steroids collectively regulate a plethora of fundamental functions, including electrolyte and water balance, blood pressure, stress response, intermediary metabolism, inflammation, and immunity. Therefore, adrenal steroidogenesis is an important biochemistry topic for students to learn in order for them to understand health consequences caused by deficiencies of enzymes in the adrenal steroidogenic pathways. However, popular biochemistry textbooks contain insufficient information and may sometimes give students a misimpression about certain aspects of human adrenal steroidogenesis. This article highlights two neglected issues in teaching human adrenal steroidogenesis in popular biochemistry textbooks. The purpose of this article is to draw attention to these issues. © 2017 by The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 45(6):469-474, 2017. © 2017 The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Two thumbs up: using popular films in introductory aging courses.

PubMed

Karasik, Rona J; Hamon, Raeann; Writz, Jennifer; Moddu Reddy, Anand

2014-01-01

Good teaching requires thoughtful planning and creative thinking, especially when trying to engage students in material that is unfamiliar to them or encumbered by stereotypes, like aging. Classic and contemporary media can provide unique teaching opportunities in gerontology classrooms. Popular films can have a powerful influence over viewers' attitudes and perceptions, and spur in-depth discussions of aging-related topics common to introductory aging courses (e.g., ageism, abuse, inequality, caregiving, healthy aging, and intimate relationships). Additionally, films appeal to multiple learning styles, engaging a variety of learners. This article examines the value of using films in introductory aging courses, offers strategies for incorporating films in the gerontology classroom, suggests sample activities and assignments that pair popular films with aging course topics, identifies challenges of using film in various classrooms settings, and provides a detailed typology of films on each of the following aging topics: ageism and stereotypes, cognitive impairment, death and dying, diversity, family relationships, health and wellness, sexuality and intimacy, and work and retirement.

Between training and popularization: Regulating science textbooks in secondary education.

PubMed

Shapiro, Adam R

2012-03-01

Recruitment into the scientific community is one oft-stated goal of science education--in the post-Sputnik United States, for example--but this obscures the fact that science textbooks are often read by people who will never be scientists. It cannot be presupposed that science textbooks for younger audiences, students in primary and secondary schools, function in this way. For this reason, precollegiate-level science textbooks are sometimes discussed as a subset of literature popularizing science. The high school science classroom and the textbook are forums for exposing the public to science. The role of governments and educational institutions in regulating the consumption of these texts not only determines which books are used; it influences how they are written, read, and deemed authoritative. Therefore such science textbooks should not be seen as (at best) the disjunction of texts-for-training and books-for-popularization. A changing sense of what "textbooks" are compels a different understanding of their use in the history of science.

This view of science: Stephen Jay Gould as historian of science and scientific historian, popular scientist and scientific popularizer.

PubMed

Shermer, Michael B

2002-08-01

Science historian Ronald Numbers once remarked that the two most influential historians of science of the 20th century were Thomas Kuhn and Stephen Jay Gould. All historians are deeply familiar with Kuhn's work and influence, and most know of the remarkable impact Gould has had on evolutionary theory through both his professional and popular works. But little attention has been paid to the depth, scope, and importance of Gould's rôle as historian and philosopher of science, and his use of popular science exposition to reinforce old knowledge and generate new. This paper presents the results of an extensive quantitative content analysis of Gould's 22 books, 101 book reviews, 479 scientific papers, and 300 Natural History essays, in terms of their subject matter (Evolutionary Theory, History and Philosophy of Science, Natural History, Paleontology/Geology, Social Science/Commentary), and thematic dichotomies (Theory-Data, Time's Arrow-Time's Cycle, Adaptationism- Nonadaptationalism, Punctuationism-Gradualism, Contingency-Necessity). Special emphasis is placed on the interaction between the subjects and themata, how Gould has used the history of science to reinforce his evolutionary theory (and vice versa), and how his philosophy of science has influenced both his evolutionary theory and his historiography. That philosophy can best be summed up in a quotation from Charles Darwin, frequently cited by Gould: 'All observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service'. Gould followed Darwin's advice throughout his career, including his extensive writings on the history and philosophy of science.

Exploring the Political Dimensions of Information Literacy through Popular Film

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Detmering, Robert

2010-01-01

Certain popular films contextualize the access, use, and interpretation of information within a political and social framework. As a result, these films function as alternative pedagogical sites for analysis and critique, facilitating critical thinking about information beyond the library and the classroom, and leading students to a deeper…

Ethnic Identity and Cultural Achievement: Popular Mythology and Archeological Realities.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wallace, Ron

The difficulties faced by ethnic groups today are related not only to widespread unfamiliarity with the cultural evolution of specific groups, but to an inadequate popular understanding of the processes of cultural evolution itself, i.e., man's prehistory. Archeology can make significant contributions in this regard by counteracting the…

Reading Relationships: Parents, Adolescents, and Popular Fiction by Stephen King.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chandler, Kelly

1999-01-01

Describes a collective case study of 12 high school juniors who identified themselves as avid readers of popular fiction. Finds strong reading relationships between parents and high school students. Describes the different roles that parents played in their adolescent children's reading lives. Looks at implications for secondary English classrooms…

Uses of wonder in popular science: Cosmos: A Personal Voyage and the origin of life

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Helsing, Daniel

2016-10-01

This paper analyses the use of wonder in the TV-series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1980). Popular science has been studied extensively (e.g. Broks 2006; Leane 2007; Perrault 2013), and wonder has been studied moderately (e.g. Daston & Park 1998; Fuller 2006; Vasalou 2015). However, there are very few studies of wonder in popular science. This paper explores how and why wonder is used in Cosmos, with the wider aim of understanding uses of wonder in popular science. The studies that discuss wonder in popular science (Fahnestock 1986; Perrault 2013) argue that wonder is used to enthuse the audience about science, but they do not discuss why wonder has this ability, nor whether wonder has other functions. This paper argues that Fuller's (2006) psychological and evolutionary account of wonder can elucidate why wonder has the ability to enthuse; it discerns three senses of 'wonder' (related to objects, emotions and attitudes); and it discusses other functions of wonder (existential, aesthetic and ethical). Due to the centrality of astrobiological questions in Cosmos, this paper also highlights the relation of these questions to the senses and functions of wonder in Cosmos.

The Role of Photographs and Films in Kettlewell's Popularizations of the Phenomenon of Industrial Melanism

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wÿss Rudge, David

H.B.D. Kettlewell's investigations on the phenomenon of industrial melanism are generally referred to in textbooks and other popularizations of science as the classic demonstration of natural selection (Majerus 1989). A central question for historians of this episode is accounting for why public perceptions of the importance of Kettlewell's work have diverged from those of researchers who actually work on the phenomenon. In a recent paper published in Biology and Philosophy, Joel Hagen draws attention to the role Kettlewell and his colleagues played in idealizing his investigations as an example of controlled experimentation in their several retrospective popular accounts. The present essay discusses the important role photographic and film depictions of differential bird predation played in Kettlewell's popularizations. This analysis supports Hagen's contentions that Kettlewell deftly and strategically used these visual representations to command assent to his interpretation of the phenomenon and shore up claims about the scientific legitimacy and importance of his work. It nevertheless disputes that these images were intended to portray Kettlewell's experiments as an example of controlled experimentation. In a concluding section, the essay draws several morals from this analysis regarding the use of popularized articles and visual images to teach science.

A Hybrid Neural Network Model for Sales Forecasting Based on ARIMA and Search Popularity of Article Titles

PubMed Central

Omar, Hani; Hoang, Van Hai; Liu, Duen-Ren

2016-01-01

Enhancing sales and operations planning through forecasting analysis and business intelligence is demanded in many industries and enterprises. Publishing industries usually pick attractive titles and headlines for their stories to increase sales, since popular article titles and headlines can attract readers to buy magazines. In this paper, information retrieval techniques are adopted to extract words from article titles. The popularity measures of article titles are then analyzed by using the search indexes obtained from Google search engine. Backpropagation Neural Networks (BPNNs) have successfully been used to develop prediction models for sales forecasting. In this study, we propose a novel hybrid neural network model for sales forecasting based on the prediction result of time series forecasting and the popularity of article titles. The proposed model uses the historical sales data, popularity of article titles, and the prediction result of a time series, Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) forecasting method to learn a BPNN-based forecasting model. Our proposed forecasting model is experimentally evaluated by comparing with conventional sales prediction techniques. The experimental result shows that our proposed forecasting method outperforms conventional techniques which do not consider the popularity of title words. PMID:27313605

A Hybrid Neural Network Model for Sales Forecasting Based on ARIMA and Search Popularity of Article Titles.

PubMed

Omar, Hani; Hoang, Van Hai; Liu, Duen-Ren

2016-01-01

Enhancing sales and operations planning through forecasting analysis and business intelligence is demanded in many industries and enterprises. Publishing industries usually pick attractive titles and headlines for their stories to increase sales, since popular article titles and headlines can attract readers to buy magazines. In this paper, information retrieval techniques are adopted to extract words from article titles. The popularity measures of article titles are then analyzed by using the search indexes obtained from Google search engine. Backpropagation Neural Networks (BPNNs) have successfully been used to develop prediction models for sales forecasting. In this study, we propose a novel hybrid neural network model for sales forecasting based on the prediction result of time series forecasting and the popularity of article titles. The proposed model uses the historical sales data, popularity of article titles, and the prediction result of a time series, Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) forecasting method to learn a BPNN-based forecasting model. Our proposed forecasting model is experimentally evaluated by comparing with conventional sales prediction techniques. The experimental result shows that our proposed forecasting method outperforms conventional techniques which do not consider the popularity of title words.

Popular Music Celebrity Endorsements in Food and Nonalcoholic Beverage Marketing.

PubMed

Bragg, Marie A; Miller, Alysa N; Elizee, Juleen; Dighe, Shatabdi; Elbel, Brian D

2016-07-01

Food and beverage marketing has been associated with childhood obesity. We quantified the number and type of food or beverage brands promoted by music celebrities, assessed the nutritional quality of the products, and examined Teen Choice Award data to assess the celebrities' popularity among adolescents. This was a descriptive study. A list of music celebrities associated with the 2013 and 2014 Billboard Hot 100 Chart, which ranks songs according to sales and radio impressions, was compiled. Data on celebrity endorsements were gathered from official company Web sites, YouTube commercials, an advertising database, and media reports. Nutritional quality of foods was assessed according to the Nutrient Profile Index, whereas nonalcoholic beverages were evaluated based on calories from added sugar. Teen Choice Award nominations were used to measure the celebrities' popularity among adolescents. Of the 590 endorsements made by the 163 celebrities in the sample, consumer goods (eg, fragrances, makeup) represented the largest endorsement category (26%), followed by food and beverage (18%) and retail (11%). Sixty-five celebrities were collectively associated with 57 different food and beverage brands owned by 38 parent companies. Of these 65 celebrities, 53 (81.5%) had ≥1 Teen Choice Award nomination. Forty-nine (71%) of the 69 nonalcoholic beverage references promoted sugar-sweetened beverages. Twenty-one (80.8%) of the 26 endorsed foods were energy dense and nutrient poor. Baauer, will.i.am, Justin Timberlake, Maroon 5, and Britney Spears had the most food and beverage endorsements. This study demonstrates that music celebrities who are popular among adolescents endorse energy-dense, nutrient-poor products. Copyright © 2016 by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Popular Music Celebrity Endorsements in Food and Nonalcoholic Beverage Marketing

PubMed Central

Miller, Alysa N.; Elizee, Juleen; Dighe, Shatabdi; Elbel, Brian D.

2016-01-01

BACKGROUND: Food and beverage marketing has been associated with childhood obesity. We quantified the number and type of food or beverage brands promoted by music celebrities, assessed the nutritional quality of the products, and examined Teen Choice Award data to assess the celebrities’ popularity among adolescents. METHODS: This was a descriptive study. A list of music celebrities associated with the 2013 and 2014 Billboard Hot 100 Chart, which ranks songs according to sales and radio impressions, was compiled. Data on celebrity endorsements were gathered from official company Web sites, YouTube commercials, an advertising database, and media reports. Nutritional quality of foods was assessed according to the Nutrient Profile Index, whereas nonalcoholic beverages were evaluated based on calories from added sugar. Teen Choice Award nominations were used to measure the celebrities’ popularity among adolescents. RESULTS: Of the 590 endorsements made by the 163 celebrities in the sample, consumer goods (eg, fragrances, makeup) represented the largest endorsement category (26%), followed by food and beverage (18%) and retail (11%). Sixty-five celebrities were collectively associated with 57 different food and beverage brands owned by 38 parent companies. Of these 65 celebrities, 53 (81.5%) had ≥1 Teen Choice Award nomination. Forty-nine (71%) of the 69 nonalcoholic beverage references promoted sugar-sweetened beverages. Twenty-one (80.8%) of the 26 endorsed foods were energy dense and nutrient poor. Baauer, will.i.am, Justin Timberlake, Maroon 5, and Britney Spears had the most food and beverage endorsements. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates that music celebrities who are popular among adolescents endorse energy-dense, nutrient-poor products. PMID:27273712

A real-time method to predict social media popularity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, Xiao; Lu, Zhe-Ming

How to predict the future popularity of a message or video on online social media (OSM) has long been an attractive problem for researchers. Although many difficulties are still ahead, recent studies suggest that temporal and topological features of early adopters generally play a very important role. However, with the increase of the adopters, the feature space will grow explosively. How to select the most effective features is still an open issue. In this work, we investigate several feature extraction methods over the Twitter platform and find that most predictive power concentrates on the second half of the propagation period, and that not only a model trained on one platform generalizes well to others as previous works observed, but also a model trained on one dataset performs well on predicting the popularity for other datasets with different number of observed early adopters. According to these findings, at least for the best features by far, the data used to extract features can be halved without loss of evident accuracy and we provide a way to roughly predict the growth trend of a social-media item in real-time.

Ataques de nervios in Puerto Rico: culture-bound syndrome or popular illness?

PubMed

Guarnaccia, P J

1993-04-01

Ataque de nervious is a popular illness category among Puerto Ricans and other Latinos written about in anthropological and psychiatric literature for over thirty years. This paper discusses the issue of categorizing ataque de nervios as a "culture-bound syndrome" using data from the first community-based study of this phenomena using epidemiological methods. The paper summarizes the social and psychological correlates of ataques de nervios and provides a preliminary overview of the situations which provoke ataques and the symptoms people experience. The paper critically examines the use of the "culture-bound syndrome" framework analyzing ataques de nervios and suggests that the term "popular illness" is a more effective label for categorizing this syndrome.

Internet food marketing on popular children's websites and food product websites in Australia.

PubMed

Kelly, Bridget; Bochynska, Katarzyna; Kornman, Kelly; Chapman, Kathy

2008-11-01

The aim of the present study was to describe the nature and extent of food marketing on popular children's websites and food product websites in Australia. Food product websites (n 119) and popular children's websites (n 196) were selected based on website traffic data and previous research on frequently marketed food brands. Coding instruments were developed to capture food marketing techniques. All references to food on popular children's websites were also classified as either branded or non-branded and according to food categories. Websites contained a range of marketing features. On food product websites these marketing features included branded education (79.0% of websites), competitions (33.6%), promotional characters (35.3%), downloadable items (35.3%), branded games (28.6%) and designated children's sections (21.8%). Food references on popular children's websites were strongly skewed towards unhealthy foods (60.8% v. 39.2% healthy food references; P<0.001), with three times more branded food references for unhealthy foods. Branded food references displayed similar marketing features to those identified on food product websites. Internet food marketing uses a range of techniques to ensure that children are immersed in brand-related information and activities for extended periods, thereby increasing brand familiarity and exposure. The relatively unregulated marketing environment and increasing use of the Internet by children point to the potential increase in food marketing via this medium. Further research is required to investigate the impact of Internet food marketing on children's food preferences and consumption, and regulatory options to protect children.

Popular Medicine and Empirics in Greece, 1900–1950: An Oral History Approach

PubMed Central

Hionidou, Violetta

2016-01-01

Western literature has focused on medical plurality but also on the pervasive existence of quacks who managed to survive from at least the eighteenth to the twentieth century. Focal points of their practices have been their efforts at enrichment and their extensive advertising. In Greece, empirical, untrained healers in the first half of the twentieth century do not fit in with this picture. They did not ask for payment, although they did accept ‘gifts’; they did not advertise their practice; and they had fixed places of residence. Licensed physicians did not undertake a concerted attack against them, as happened in the West against the quacks, and neither did the state. In this paper, it is argued that both the protection offered by their localities to resident popular healers and the healers’ lack of demand for monetary payment were jointly responsible for the lack of prosecutions of popular healers. Moreover, the linking of popular medicine with ancient traditions, as put forward by influential folklore studies, also reduced the likelihood of an aggressive discourse against the popular healers. Although the Greek situation in the early twentieth century contrasts with the historiography on quacks, it is much more in line with that on wise women and cunning-folk. It is thus the identification of these groups of healers in Greece and elsewhere, mostly through the use of oral histories but also through folklore studies, that reveals a different story from that of the aggressive discourse of medical men against quacks. PMID:27628859

From the West Wing to Pink Floyd to Einstein Advertising: Astronomy in Popular Culture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fraknoi, Andrew

2007-12-01

In what popular movie does Darryl Hannah play an astronomer? What Japanese car company is named after a well-known star cluster? Can you name at least two murder mysteries that take place at an observatory? What national astronomy education project was mentioned on The West Wing television show (which had several "stealth astronomy” episodes)? What piece of classical music begins with a Big Bang and has the players expanding on stage and into the concert hall? Can you recite the most famous neutrino poem and name the poet? What science fiction story, written by an astronomer under a pseudonym, features an H-R diagram? What rock group had its members’ names included in a reference in the Astrophysical Journal, unbeknownst to the editor? How many astronomy related operas can you name? How many astronomers does it take to screw in a light bulb? Join in on an exploration of astronomy in popular culture, from stamp collecting to advertising, from science fiction (with accurate astronomy) to rock music, from Broadway musicals to modern poetry. Learn which astronomy colleagues have been writing fiction and poetry while you were busy publishing in the research literature. Bring your favorite example of astronomy in popular culture and we'll take the time at the end to share ideas and have some fun. A resource guide for exploring astronomy and popular culture will be available.

Optimal and Scalable Caching for 5G Using Reinforcement Learning of Space-Time Popularities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sadeghi, Alireza; Sheikholeslami, Fatemeh; Giannakis, Georgios B.

2018-02-01

Small basestations (SBs) equipped with caching units have potential to handle the unprecedented demand growth in heterogeneous networks. Through low-rate, backhaul connections with the backbone, SBs can prefetch popular files during off-peak traffic hours, and service them to the edge at peak periods. To intelligently prefetch, each SB must learn what and when to cache, while taking into account SB memory limitations, the massive number of available contents, the unknown popularity profiles, as well as the space-time popularity dynamics of user file requests. In this work, local and global Markov processes model user requests, and a reinforcement learning (RL) framework is put forth for finding the optimal caching policy when the transition probabilities involved are unknown. Joint consideration of global and local popularity demands along with cache-refreshing costs allow for a simple, yet practical asynchronous caching approach. The novel RL-based caching relies on a Q-learning algorithm to implement the optimal policy in an online fashion, thus enabling the cache control unit at the SB to learn, track, and possibly adapt to the underlying dynamics. To endow the algorithm with scalability, a linear function approximation of the proposed Q-learning scheme is introduced, offering faster convergence as well as reduced complexity and memory requirements. Numerical tests corroborate the merits of the proposed approach in various realistic settings.

Rethinking Sponge Bob and Ninja Turtles: Popular Culture as Funds of Knowledge for Curriculum Co-Construction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hedges, Helen

2011-01-01

Children's interest in popular culture was clear in my study of interests-based curriculum. Yet, perhaps unsurprisingly, it was a contentious site of curriculum co-construction. This article explores this tension. It argues that interpreting popular culture as "funds of knowledge" might assist teachers to consider a different view of this interest…

Popular Music Education in and for Itself, and for "Other" Music: Current Research in the Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Green, Lucy

2006-01-01

This article considers some ways in which the school classroom enters into, changes and complicates musical meanings, focusing particularly on the role of popular music and how it relates to classical music. I suggest that in bringing popular music into the curriculum, educators have largely ignored the informal learning practices of popular…

Beyond Popular Cultural and Structural Arguments: Imagining a Compass to Guide Burgeoning Urban Achievement Gap Scholars

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hughes, Sherick A.; North, Connie E.

2012-01-01

This manuscript begins by distinguishing the common structural and cultural arguments that tend to guide popular urban achievement gap research. It highlights Jencks and Phillips, and Payne, as two cases of popular texts followed by critical responses to them. It concludes by imagining a compass to guide burgeoning scholars toward reading into…

Popular Culture, Cultural Resistance, and Anticonsumption Activism: An Exploration of Culture Jamming as Critical Adult Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sandlin, Jennifer A.

2007-01-01

This chapter examines popular culture as a site of cultural resistance. Specifically, it explores how "culture jamming," a cultural-resistance activity, can be a form of adult education. It examines adult education and learning as it intersects with both consumerism and popular culture. Focus is placed on a growing social movement of individuals…

You Sunk My Constitution: Using a Popular Off-the-Shelf Board Game to Simulate Political Concepts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bridge, Dave

2014-01-01

Using an example, this article demonstrates how instructors can make use of popular off-the-shelf board games to model politics. I show how the rules of the popular board game "Battleship" can be manipulated to simulate centralization of power and, more specifically, the differences between the Articles of Confederation and the…

Popular Culture and Moral Panics about "Children at Risk": Revisiting the Sexualisation-of-Young-Girls Debate

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tsaliki, Liza

2015-01-01

In an attempt to resist moral panics over children's media consumption, and especially girls' consumption of hyper-sexualised popular media, this paper aims to offer a more positive account of popular culture and young children's, especially girls', engagement with it. By adopting a historical approach to modern childhood and the moral panics…

Classical Pop: Documenting Popular Musical Culture in Library Audio Collections.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tarakan, Sheldon Lewis

1983-01-01

Discusses the library's role in developing a classical pop collection (defined as that music which is best representative of an era, event, or recognizable cultural trend). Popular culture, establishing the collection, funding, and archives are highlighted. A 230-item discography, addresses of five record companies, and 14 references are appended.…

Using Popular Nonfiction in Organic Chemistry: Teaching More than Content

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Amaral, Katie E.; Shibley, Ivan A., Jr.

2010-01-01

Assigning a popular nonfiction book as a supplemental text in organic chemistry can help students learn valuable skills. An analysis of student feedback on assignments related to a nonfiction book in two different organic courses revealed that students applied the information from the book, improved their communication skills, and were more…

Towards an Epistemology of Authenticity in Higher Popular Music Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Parkinson, Tom; Smith, Gareth Dylan

2015-01-01

Popular music education is becoming firmly established as an academic field, in the UK and internationally. In order to help ensure that scholarship and practice within the field develop in reflexive and ethical ways appropriate to particular traditions, musics, people and institutional contexts, the authors advocate a discursive and iterative…

Same- and Other-Sex Popularity and Preference during Early Adolescence

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bowker, Julie C.; Adams, Ryan E.; Bowker, Matthew H.; Fisher, Carrie; Spencer, Sarah V.

2016-01-01

This study examined the longitudinal and bidirectional relations between same-sex (SS) and other-sex (OS) popularity and preference across one school year. Participants were 271 sixth-grade students who completed peer nomination measures at three time points in their schools. Tests of cross-lagged autoregressive models indicated that SS popularity…

Prosocial Tendencies Predict Friendship Quality, But Not for Popular Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Poorthuis, Astrid M. G.; Thomaes, Sander; Denissen, Jaap J. A.; van Aken, Marcel A. G.; de Castro, Bram Orobio

2012-01-01

Is prosocial behavior a prerequisite for having good-quality friendships? This study (N=477, mean age=12.2 years) examined whether the link between children's prosocial tendencies and their perceived friendship quality was dependent on children's level of popularity in the peer group. Children's prosocial tendencies were assessed both as observed…

A Content Analysis of Cognitive Health Promotion in Popular Magazines

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Friedman, Daniela B.; Laditka, Sarah B.; Laditka, James N.; Price, Anna E.

2011-01-01

Health behaviors, particularly physical activity, may promote cognitive health. The public agenda for health behaviors is influenced by popular media. We analyzed the cognitive health content of 20 United States magazines, examining every page of every 2006-2007 issue of the highest circulating magazines for general audiences, women, men, African…

Using a Popular Pet Fish Species to Study Territorial Behaviour

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abante, Maria E.

2005-01-01

The colourful, vigorous territorial display behaviour of the Siamese fighting fish, "Betta splendens", has great appeal for both pet enthusiasts and animal behaviourists. Their beauty, longevity, easy maintenance and rearing make them a popular pet and an ideal science laboratory specimen. This investigation utilises "B. splendens" to test for the…

Liberated and inclusive? An analysis of self-representation in a popular lesbian magazine.

PubMed

Gonsoulin, Margaret E

2010-01-01

Comparisons of a popular lesbian lifestyle magazine to a popular heterosexual women's magazine show that lesbian-controlled media do indeed expand representation when it comes to weight, age, and degree of femininity/masculinity, but not in terms of racial representation. An examination of the textual material and visual images also shows that the lesbian publication gives women a more active role, while the heterosexual magazine depicts females as more passive. However, the evidence also shows that the lesbian and heterosexual magazines have similar rates of objectification, but substantively, the lesbian magazine is less severe in degree of objectification.

The Portrayal of Black Women in the Ads of Popular Magazines.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shepherd, Juanita M.

1980-01-01

Black women are underrepresented and stereotyped in advertising in the popular press. Both their physical characteristics, which run counter to the American ideals of beauty, and their relatively limited buying power are factors in this underrepresentation and misrepresentation. (GC)

Using Popular Culture in the Social Studies. How to Do It Series, Series 2, No. 9.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Turner, Thomas N.

The booklet offers a variety of suggestions for integrating a study of popular culture into the high school social studies classroom. Popular culture is described as those elements in society which have the primary function of entertaining or selling and which are becoming a familiar, recognizable, and identifiable entity for a large number of…

Mexico's Seguro Popular Appears To Have Helped Reduce The Risk Of Preterm Delivery Among Women With Low Education.

PubMed

Strouse, Carly; Perez-Cuevas, Ricardo; Lahiff, Maureen; Walsh, Julia; Guendelman, Sylvia

2016-01-01

Beginning in 2001 Mexico established Seguro Popular, a health insurance scheme aimed at providing coverage to its large population of uninsured people. While recent studies have evaluated the health benefits of Seguro Popular, evidence on perinatal health outcomes is lacking. We conducted a population-based study using Mexican birth certificate data for 2010 to assess the relationship between enrollment in Seguro Popular and preterm delivery among first-time mothers with singleton births in Mexico. Seguro Popular enrollees with no formal education had a far greater reduction in risk of preterm delivery, while enrollees with any formal education experienced only slight reduction in risk, after maternal age, marital status, education level, mode of delivery, and trimester in which prenatal care was initiated were controlled for. Seguro Popular appears to facilitate access to health services among mothers with low levels of education, reducing their risk for preterm delivery. Providing broad-scale health insurance coverage may help improve perinatal health outcomes in this vulnerable population. Project HOPE—The People-to-People Health Foundation, Inc.

Geometric comparison of popular mixture-model distances.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Mitchell, Scott A.

2010-09-01

Statistical Latent Dirichlet Analysis produces mixture model data that are geometrically equivalent to points lying on a regular simplex in moderate to high dimensions. Numerous other statistical models and techniques also produce data in this geometric category, even though the meaning of the axes and coordinate values differs significantly. A distance function is used to further analyze these points, for example to cluster them. Several different distance functions are popular amongst statisticians; which distance function is chosen is usually driven by the historical preference of the application domain, information-theoretic considerations, or by the desirability of the clustering results. Relatively littlemore » consideration is usually given to how distance functions geometrically transform data, or the distances algebraic properties. Here we take a look at these issues, in the hope of providing complementary insight and inspiring further geometric thought. Several popular distances, {chi}{sup 2}, Jensen - Shannon divergence, and the square of the Hellinger distance, are shown to be nearly equivalent; in terms of functional forms after transformations, factorizations, and series expansions; and in terms of the shape and proximity of constant-value contours. This is somewhat surprising given that their original functional forms look quite different. Cosine similarity is the square of the Euclidean distance, and a similar geometric relationship is shown with Hellinger and another cosine. We suggest a geodesic variation of Hellinger. The square-root projection that arises in Hellinger distance is briefly compared to standard normalization for Euclidean distance. We include detailed derivations of some ratio and difference bounds for illustrative purposes. We provide some constructions that nearly achieve the worst-case ratios, relevant for contours.« less

Investigation of Relationship between Aggression and Sociometric Popularity in Adolescents

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yavuzer, Yasemin

2013-01-01

In this study, it was aimed to determine the linear and curvilinear relationships between adolescent aggression and sociometric popularity. 524 adolescents randomly selected from 20 elementary schools in Nigde city center formed the study group. The participants were from 8th grade in 20 different classrooms. The research data were collected by…

Popular Nonfiction Authors for Children. A Biographical and Thematic Guide.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wyatt, Flora R.; Coggins, Margaret; Imber, Jane Hunter

This sourcebook provides brief biographies of 65 popular children's nonfiction authors. Each profile focuses on how authors go about writing information books by giving a firsthand account of the challenges and rewards of nonfiction writing. Each biography provides a selected bibliography of the author's work, a photo, and a message to the student…

Predicting acceptance and popularity in early adolescence as a function of hearing status, gender, and educational setting.

PubMed

Wolters, Nina; Knoors, Harry E T; Cillessen, Antonius H N; Verhoeven, Ludo

2011-01-01

This study examined associations of communicative skills, social behavior, and personality with acceptance and popularity as a function of hearing status, gender, and educational setting. Participants were 87 deaf and 672 hearing early adolescents of 52 6th grade classrooms in mainstream and special education. Acceptance varied as a function of hearing status by gender; popularity varied as a function of hearing status and educational setting. Deaf boys in mainstream education were less accepted and popular than their hearing classmates and than deaf peers in special education. Deaf girls in mainstream education were also less popular but not less accepted. Communicative skills varied as a function of hearing status, whereas social behavior varied as a function of educational setting. Deaf mainstreamed children showed less developed pragmatic and strategic communicative skills (monitoring, improvisation, initiating/maintaining) than their hearing classmates, but more social adjustment than deaf peers in special education (more prosocial behavior, less antisocial or withdrawn behavior, and more agreeableness). For acceptance, deaf girls in mainstream education compensated the lack of improvisation with higher levels of prosocial behavior, agreeableness, monitoring, and pragmatic skills, and lower levels of antisocial behavior than deaf boys. Monitoring and pragmatic skills negatively affected a deaf mainstream boy's acceptance. In special education, gender differences in prosocial behavior explained deaf boys' lower acceptance. Popularity was explained by pragmatic skills and improvisation as a function of hearing status. Voter population difference and different social behavior norms are considered as an explanation for popularity differences as a function of educational setting. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Learning, Aesthetics, and Schooling: The Popular Arts as Textbook on America

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Arnstine, Donald

1977-01-01

The popular arts in music, advertising, television, and movies reflect American culture as it is today, and the impact they make upon students can be an important factor in arousing aesthetic appreciation for art in all of its forms. (JD)

Encuentros esteticos deweyanos con la cultura popular anglofona en la ensenanza de ingles como lengua extranjera (EILE). Working Paper (Deweyan Aesthetic Encounters with Anglophone Popular Culture in the Teaching of English as a Foreign Language. Working Paper).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zoreda, Margaret Lee

This paper discusses how the introduction of Anglophone popular culture in the English-as-a-foreign-language class can serve to foster critical aesthetic experiences. It is argued that the popular culture of the hegemonic Anglophone countries is already part of students' lives and for that reason should be included in any critical Anglophone…

Facial Attractiveness as a Moderator of the Association between Social and Physical Aggression and Popularity in Adolescents

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rosen, Lisa H.; Underwood, Marion K.

2010-01-01

This study examined the relations between facial attractiveness, aggression, and popularity in adolescence to determine whether facial attractiveness would buffer against the negative effects of aggression on popularity. We collected ratings of facial attractiveness from standardized photographs, and teachers provided information on adolescents'…

Popular Berkeley Lab X-ray Data Booklet reissued

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Robinson, Art

2001-03-02

X-ray scientists and synchrotron-radiation users who have been patiently waiting for an updated version of the popular X-Ray Data Booklet last published in 1986 by the Center for X-Ray Optics at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory can breathe a sigh of relief. The venerable ''little orange book'' has now been reissued under the auspices of CXRO and the Advanced Light Source (ALS) with an April printing of 10,000 paper copies and the posting of a Web edition at http://xdb.lbl.gov.

Mainstreaming kink: the politics of BDSM representation in U.S. popular media.

PubMed

Weiss, Margot D

2006-01-01

This article explores nonpractitioners' understandings of and responses to the increasingly mainstream representation of BDSM in U.S. media, focusing on the film Secretary (Shainberg, 2002). Survey, focus group, and interview data indicate that popular images of SM promote the acceptance and understanding of sexual minorities through two mechanisms: acceptance via normalization, and understanding via pathologizing. Rather than challenging the privileged status of normative sexuality, these mechanisms reinforce boundaries between protected/privileged and policed/pathological sexualities. Instead of celebrating increased representation, this article argues that political energy might be directed toward the desire that the popularity of BDSM representations signifies: the desire to encounter authentic, undisciplined, and noncommodified representations that would transgress the sexual norms of American postmodern consumer culture.

Ethnic differences in associations among popularity, likability, and trajectories of adolescents' alcohol use and frequency.

PubMed

Choukas-Bradley, Sophia; Giletta, Matteo; Neblett, Enrique W; Prinstein, Mitchell J

2015-01-01

Two-part latent growth models examined associations between two forms of peer status (popularity, likability) and adolescents' alcohol use trajectories throughout high school; ethnicity was examined as a moderator. Ninth-grade low-income adolescents (N = 364; Mage = 15.08; 52.5% Caucasian; 25.8% African American; 21.7% Latino) completed sociometric nominations of peer status and aggression at baseline, and reported their alcohol use every 6 months. After controlling for gender, aggression, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, popularity-but not likability-prospectively predicted alcohol use trajectories. However, these effects were moderated by ethnicity, suggesting popularity as a risk factor for alcohol use probability and frequency among Caucasian and Latino, but not African American adolescents. Results suggest that developmental correlates of peer status should be considered within cultural context. © 2015 The Authors. Child Development © 2015 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.

Teaching the Sociology of Popular Music with the Help of Feature Films: A Selected and Annotated Videography.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Groce, Stephen B.

1992-01-01

Discusses the use of feature films for courses on popular culture and the sociology of popular music. Suggests that films can illustrate topics such as culture, social groups, deviant behavior, racism, and sexism. Lists a selection of Hollywood feature films with accompanying readings and students' evaluations. (DK)

High Peer Popularity Longitudinally Predicts Adolescent Health Risk Behavior, or Does It?: An Examination of Linear and Quadratic Associations

PubMed Central

Choukas-Bradley, Sophia C.; Helms, Sarah W.; Brechwald, Whitney A.; Rancourt, Diana

2011-01-01

Objective In contrast to prior work, recent theory suggests that high, not low, levels of adolescent peer popularity may be associated with health risk behavior. This study examined (a) whether popularity may be uniquely associated with cigarette use, marijuana use, and sexual risk behavior, beyond the predictive effects of aggression; (b) whether the longitudinal association between popularity and health risk behavior may be curvilinear; and (c) gender moderation. Methods A total of 336 adolescents, initially in 10–11th grades, reported cigarette use, marijuana use, and number of sexual intercourse partners at two time points 18 months apart. Sociometric peer nominations were used to examine popularity and aggression. Results Longitudinal quadratic effects and gender moderation suggest that both high and low levels of popularity predict some, but not all, health risk behaviors. Conclusions New theoretical models can be useful for understanding the complex manner in which health risk behaviors may be reinforced within the peer context. PMID:21852342

High peer popularity longitudinally predicts adolescent health risk behavior, or does it?: an examination of linear and quadratic associations.

PubMed

Prinstein, Mitchell J; Choukas-Bradley, Sophia C; Helms, Sarah W; Brechwald, Whitney A; Rancourt, Diana

2011-10-01

In contrast to prior work, recent theory suggests that high, not low, levels of adolescent peer popularity may be associated with health risk behavior. This study examined (a) whether popularity may be uniquely associated with cigarette use, marijuana use, and sexual risk behavior, beyond the predictive effects of aggression; (b) whether the longitudinal association between popularity and health risk behavior may be curvilinear; and (c) gender moderation. A total of 336 adolescents, initially in 10-11th grades, reported cigarette use, marijuana use, and number of sexual intercourse partners at two time points 18 months apart. Sociometric peer nominations were used to examine popularity and aggression. Longitudinal quadratic effects and gender moderation suggest that both high and low levels of popularity predict some, but not all, health risk behaviors. New theoretical models can be useful for understanding the complex manner in which health risk behaviors may be reinforced within the peer context.

Spiderman and science: How students' perceptions of scientists are shaped by popular media.

PubMed

Tan, Aik-Ling; Jocz, Jennifer Ann; Zhai, Junqing

2017-07-01

This study addresses the influence of popular media on how young children perceive science and the work of scientists. Using an adapted version of the Draw-A-Scientist Test, 15 classes of fourth graders (9-10 years old) at three different schools in Singapore were sampled ( n =  266). The students' drawings as well as their identification of three sources from which they obtained inspiration for their drawings were analyzed. Our results showed a strong relationship between students' drawings of scientists and their reported sources of inspiration. The results suggest that popular media play a large role in shaping how young children view scientists.

Challenges of the Democratization of Popular Education from the Perspective of Gender.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rosero, Rocio

1993-01-01

Economic crises in the Andean region countries have helped deepen and intensify sex discrimination. The contributions of feminism to popular education may enable active participation of women in the democratizing process. (SK)

Popular education, work training, and the path to women's empowerment in Chile.

PubMed

Bosch, A E

1998-05-01

The program 'Educacion y Trabajo' (Education and Work) in Chile was designed to help train unskilled workers and to facilitate their entrance into the labor market. Employing a participatory educational approach, the program provided personal and vocational training for men and women aged 15-30 years. Both technical and personal development training, which are embedded in Popular Education methodology, emphasize interaction among students and between students and teachers using games, videos, slides, manuals, cartoons, and worksheets. Interviews with female participants confirmed the program's empowering effects on the personal, as well as economic situation of women. The study further demonstrates how Popular Education is applied and adapted to promote self-esteem and self-reliance among female participants. Process-oriented, participatory learning, and horizontal relationships between the learner and teacher, allowed for the development of interactive structures in the classroom. This approach has especially benefited married women. Central to this empowerment process is awareness raising. By emphasizing the sociocultural origin of social structures, Popular Education helps demystify the social sphere and shows the importance of each individual in contributing to its improvement. However, while this program helps enhance women's self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-promotion, it only represents an initial step. To continue the path to full empowerment, negotiating powers must go beyond the household level and into the formal economy.

2015 Hans O. Mauksch Address: How Departments Can Respond to the Changing Popularity of the Sociology Major

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sweet, Stephen

2016-01-01

While the popularity of the psychology major and the sociology major were comparable in 1970, sociology witnessed a decline while psychology witnessed expansion. This article considers strategies of expanding the popularity of the sociology major, considering data from a variety of sources. Primary recommendations are to configure programs to…

Queer Breeding: Historicising Popular Culture, Homosexuality and Informal Sex Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Marshall, Daniel

2013-01-01

Through an analysis of gay protest music (1975) and an educational kit for students (1978), both sponsored by the Campaign for Homosexual Equality in the UK, this paper brings into focus a history of gay rights activists' efforts to marshal popular culture in the development of informal sex education for young people in the second half of the…

Mining the Popular Culture: The Mass Media and Freshman Composition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McRae, M. W.

The study of mass media and popular culture in a composition class allows students and teachers together to develop a critical awareness of television and advertising. Jerzy Kosinski's book, "Being There," a novel about the impact of television, is a beginning point for the study of television. Using that book as if it were a collection of events,…

Transforming Early Childhood Educators' Conceptions of "Dark Play" and Popular Culture

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bjartveit, Carolyn; Panayotidis, E. Lisa

2017-01-01

In an online graduate-level early childhood education course, the authors sought to playfully disrupt and transform educators' conceptions of children's "dark play," as provoked by contemporary popular culture. Embracing the imaginative potential of darkness and liminality, the course participants problematized and expanded their…

A historical perspective of the popular use of electric and magnetic therapy.

PubMed

Basford, J R

2001-09-01

To review the history of the therapeutic use of static electric and magnetic fields and to understand its implications for current popular and medical acceptance of these and other alternative and complementary therapies. Comprehensive MEDLINE (1960-2000) and CINAHL (1982-2000) computer literature searches by using key words such as electricity, magnetism, electromagnetic, therapy, medicine, EMF, history of medicine, and fields. Additional references were obtained from the bibliographies of the selected articles. In addition, discussions were held with curators of medical history museums and supplemental searches were made of Internet sources through various search engines. Primary references were used whenever possible. In a few instances, secondary references, particularly those requiring translations of early texts, were used. The use of electric and magnetic forces to treat disease has intrigued the general public and the scientific community since at least the time of the ancient Greeks. The popularity of these therapies has waxed and waned over the millennia, but at all times the popular imagination, often spurred by dynamic and colorful practitioners of pseudoscience, has been more excited than the medical or political establishment. In fact, a pattern seems to reappear. In each era, unsophisticated public acceptance is met first with medical disdain, then with investigation, and, finally, with a failure to find objective evidence of efficacy. This pattern continues today with the public acceptance of magnetic therapy (and alternative and complementary medicine in general) far outstripping acceptance by the medical community. The therapeutic implications of applying electrical and magnetic fields to heal disease have continually captured the popular imagination. Approaches thousands of years apart can be remarkably similar, but, in each era, proof has been lacking and the prevailing medical establishment has remained unconvinced. Interest persists today

[Brazilian nursing and the democratization of health: notes on the National Policy of Popular Education in Health].

PubMed

David, Helena Maria Scherlowski Leal; Bonetti, Osvaldo Peralta; da Silva, Maria Rocineide Ferreira

2012-01-01

This essay discusses the role of Brazilian nursing as a socially committed practice, in the political and pedagogic plan. The concepts of popular participation, representative and participatory democracy, and education in health are recovered, enlightened by the recent history of the constitution of social network of practices and reflections called Popular Education and Health. The construction process and the ethical-political principles of a National Policy of Popular Education in Health are presented, discussing the participation of nursing in the changes of educational practices, in spaces of political representation and formulation of public policies, with a perspective of achieving a fair and equal social order.

[Seguro popular: achievements and perspectives].

PubMed

Chertorivski-Woldenberg, Salomón

2011-01-01

Healthcare systems are organized following one of two basic models: social security systems, which link access to health services to labor status, and national health systems, which grant access to health as a citizen's right. Mexico adopted, since the institutionalization of social security and healthcare services in 1943, a mixed system. Social security institutions covered the salaried workers and public assistance was granted to the remaining of the population. At the beginning of the XXI century the Mexican health system entered a crisis as the conditions to expand health coverage through social security were not met and public assistance services were insufficient. In order to address these developments, the Healthcare Social Protection System was founded (2004) as a mechanism to effectively guarantee every person's right to health as established after the constitutional amendment of article fourth in 1983. Seguro Popular is the mechanism that through federal and states' contributions seeks to financially protect the population without access to social security's health services, and thus prevent impoverishment due to out of pocket and catastrophic health expenditures.

"That Ain't No Ninja Turtles": The Prevalence and Influence of Popular Culture in the Talk and Writing of Prekindergarten Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kissel, Brian T.

2011-01-01

This article describes how 2 classrooms of 4-year-old children incorporated popular media (cartoons, television shows, video games, movies, and music) into their conversations with peers during writing. The findings assert that (a) children naturally incorporate popular culture into their writing, (b) children include popular culture in their…

The visual theology of Victorian popularizers of science. From reverent eye to chemical retina.

PubMed

Lightman, B

2000-12-01

This essay examines the use of visual images during the latter half of the nineteenth century in the work of three important popularizers of science. J. G. Wood, Richard Proctor, and Agnes Clerke skillfully used illustrations and photographs to establish their credibility as trustworthy guides to scientific, moral, and religious truths. All three worked within the natural theology tradition, despite the powerful critique of William Paley's argument from design set forth in Charles Darwin's Origin of Species (1859). Wood, Proctor, and Clerke recognized that in order to reach a popular audience with their message of divine wonder in nature, they would have to take advantage of the developing mass visual culture embodied in the new pictorial magazines, spectacles, and entertaining toys based on scientific gadgets emblematic of the reorganization of vision. But in drawing on different facets of the emerging visual culture and in looking to the images produced by the new visual technologies to find the hand of God in nature, these popularizers subtly transformed the natural theology tradition.

[Focus on popular science education of glaucoma and reduce glaucomatous low vision and blindness].

PubMed

Sun, X H

2017-02-11

The prevention of blindness caused by glaucoma is a difficult task. In order to accomplish the task better, we need the participation of whole society and popularize relevant medical knowledge. Popular science and related knowledge of glaucoma are needed to the people especially for high risk population. If people know glaucoma better and actively join the screening of glaucoma, we can find and diagnose glaucoma earlier, avoid late treatment and reduce the glaucomatous visual function impairment. For patients who had been diagnosed with glaucoma, they should aware and accept new medical concept and technique through systemic popular science education. They should actively participate the whole procedure of the disease management and improve their compliance and confidence. Academic organization of ophthalmology should participate and guide the patient education, improve the individualized comprehensive health care for the diagnosis and treatment and third-order health care system that is suitable for the condition of our country, help improving the prognosis of glaucoma and life quality related to vision for advanced and late glaucoma. (Chin J Ophthalmol, 2017, 53: 81-84) .

“They Like Me, They Like Me Not”: Popularity and Adolescents’ Perceptions of Acceptance Predicting Social Functioning Over Time

PubMed Central

McElhaney, Kathleen B.; Antonishak, Jill; Allen, Joseph P.

2011-01-01

This study examined the dual roles of adolescents’ perceptions of social acceptance and sociometric popularity in predicting relative changes over time in adolescents’ social functioning. Observational, self-report, and peer report data were obtained from 164 adolescents who were interviewed at age 13 years and then again at age 14 years, as well as their same-sex close friends. Adolescents who felt positively about their own social standing fared well over time, regardless of their level of sociometric popularity. Further, low popularity was particularly problematic for adolescents who failed to see themselves as fitting in. Results suggest that during adolescence, when it becomes increasingly possible for teens to choose their own social niches, it is possible to be socially successful without being broadly popular. PMID:18489423

"Those Anime Students": Foreign Language Literacy Development through Japanese Popular Culture

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fukunaga, Natsuki

2006-01-01

Using multiliteracies and sociocultural perspectives on language and literacy learning, this article describes three Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) students' literacy development through involvement with Japanese popular culture. As part of a larger qualitative ethnographic study, the author interviewed JFL learners who have a particular…

A Popularized Version of 21 Doctoral Dissertations. R & D Monograph 70.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Klein, Lawrence R.; Ghozeil, Susan

This volume makes available to a broad readership dissertation findings from social and behavioral sciences research supported by the Employment and Training Administration. Each of twenty-one dissertations, rewritten in the vernacular, is presented in condensed form for primarily nonacademic readers. These popularized selections, which have been…

Contribution to the popularization of the astronomy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Markishki, Pencho

The purpose of this report is the representation of a WEB-book, related to astronomy, astro-photography, optics and some additional areas that have direct practice for the amateur astronomers. The popularization of astronomy worldwide is the purpose of many amateur astronomers. It is interesting and maybe fascinated, requires often innovative solutions from the hobby star observers. Today it is possible to share the science information by different methods, using the modern information technologies - a possibility used by the amateur astronomers too. In Internet existing currently thousands of WEB- sites, related to astronomy, completed training programs developed by amateur astronomers are included. They are addressed often to the schools, to the hobby beginners or to the wide audience.

Exploring the Outcomes of Rock and Popular Music Instruction in High School Guitar Class: A Case Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Seifried, Scott

2006-01-01

The purpose of this study was to better understand the impact of rock and popular teenage music on public school music education programs. "Frankstown Secondary School" is a large suburban public school offering a guitar program that includes a strong popular music component. Subjects in this study were selected from students enrolled in…

Constructions of Mathematicians in Popular Culture and Learners' Narratives: A Study of Mathematical and Non-Mathematical Subjectivities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moreau, Marie-Pierre; Mendick, Heather; Epstein, Debbie

2010-01-01

In this paper, based on a project funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council considering how people position themselves in relation to popular representations of mathematics and mathematicians, we explore constructions of mathematicians in popular culture and the ways learners make meanings from these. Drawing on an analysis of popular…

Exploring the effect of power law social popularity on language evolution.

PubMed

Gong, Tao; Shuai, Lan

2014-01-01

We evaluate the effect of a power-law-distributed social popularity on the origin and change of language, based on three artificial life models meticulously tracing the evolution of linguistic conventions including lexical items, categories, and simple syntax. A cross-model analysis reveals an optimal social popularity, in which the λ value of the power law distribution is around 1.0. Under this scaling, linguistic conventions can efficiently emerge and widely diffuse among individuals, thus maintaining a useful level of mutual understandability even in a big population. From an evolutionary perspective, we regard this social optimality as a tradeoff among social scaling, mutual understandability, and population growth. Empirical evidence confirms that such optimal power laws exist in many large-scale social systems that are constructed primarily via language-related interactions. This study contributes to the empirical explorations and theoretical discussions of the evolutionary relations between ubiquitous power laws in social systems and relevant individual behaviors.

It is all about being popular: the effects of need for popularity on social network site use.

PubMed

Utz, Sonja; Tanis, Martin; Vermeulen, Ivar

2012-01-01

Prior research on predictors of social network site (SNS) use has mainly focused on the Big Five, narcissism, and self-esteem. Results have been inconsistent, and variance explained was rather low. Need for popularity (NfP) might be a better predictor of SNS use, because SNSs are ideal venues for people with a high NfP. Study 1 tested NfP, self-esteem, need to belong, entitlement, and vanity as predictors for a range of SNS behaviors; Study 2 replaced entitlement and vanity with narcissism and added the Big Five as predictors. SNS behaviors assessed were grooming, strategic self-presentation, profile enhancement, disclosure of feelings, routine use of SNS, and number of friends. Results showed that NfP was the strongest and most consistent predictor of SNS behaviors. This pattern indicates that NfP plays an important role in SNSs.

Seen Any Good Movies?: Creating Space to Talk about Popular Culture.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bach, Hedy

1997-01-01

Argues that the concerns and reactions of young girls to popular culture often are deemed superficial and irrelevant in social studies. Recalls an incident where a 13-year-old's journal entry regarding her fascination with horror films was poorly graded. Includes transcripts of the girl talking about films. (MJP)

Becoming Economic Subjects: Agency, Consumption and Popular Culture in Early Childhood

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Saltmarsh, Sue

2009-01-01

This paper considers how young children in early childhood education draw on popular texts and consumer goods in their constitution of subjectivities and social relations. The paper draws on poststructuralist theories of subjectivity, agency, consumption and power, to explore how performative practices of consumption figure in the constitution of…