Journal articles on the topic 'Storytelling conference'

In this article, I discuss the potential of digital storytelling as a site where feminist scholars in academia can get together to reflect upon their concerns about neoliberal burdens in academia. I rely on the recent literature about the feminist interventions in higher education in addition to giving an account of the grass-roots digital storytelling movement around the world and its feminism oriented journey in Turkey. Focusing on the digital stories told at the pre-conference digital storytelling workshop in EMU (Eastern Mediterranean University) immediately before the 5th International Conference on Gender Studies in March 2015, the aim of that digital storytelling workshop was not only to facilitate the creation of digital stories told by feminist academics but also to carry these digital stories into the program of the conference in a special session that hosted both the screening of these digital stories and an open discussion about our neoliberal concerns in academia and everyday life. This article also provides an account of the main discussions and attempts to suggest the digital storytelling workshop as a tool for broadening the interactions between academic and activist feminisms.

There is a renewed interest amongst science communication practitioners and scholars to explore the potential of storytelling in public communication of science, including to understand how science storytelling functions (or could fail) in different contexts. Drawing from storytelling as the core theme of the 2018 conference of the Public Communication of Science and Technology (PCST) Network, we present a selection of papers, essays and practice insights that offer diverse perspectives. Some contributions focus on the cultural and structural qualities of science stories and its key success factors, while others explore new formats, platforms and collaborators in science storytelling activities.

With the intention of disrupting and re-imagining traditional conference spaces, this article is a poetic compilation developed from a Curriculum Studies conference symposium that took place on a school bus. During the School Bus Symposium, in situ poetry writing and reading, song and storytelling occurred in response to open ended prompts and facilitation of creative activities. After the symposium, a call was issued to invite participants to submit any poetry or stories produced during, or inspired by the session. Consisting of 18 submissions including poetry, story, photography and creative essays, infused by curriculum theory and poetic inquiry, this collection offers an inclusive, reflective, participatory, and experiential rendering where participants are living and journeying poetically. Emphasizing creative engagement with personal memories, the authors collectively aimed to promote art education through imaginative approaches to curriculum studies, poetic inquiry and academic conferences.

Based on the storytelling tradition and analyses of conference material, this article provides an overview of the evolving Nordic Health Promotion Research Network (NHPRN) and its conferences over the last 20 years. The story goes from the planning of the first conference in Bergen, Norway, back in 1996 to the eighth conference in Jyväskylä, Finland, in 2016. There have been three phases of development. During the first phase, 1996–2007, the five first conferences were initiated and implemented by departments of public health in the Nordic countries. The World Health Organization (WHO) collaborative centres of Health Promotion in Bergen University and a group at Karolinska Institute, Department of Social Medicine, creating supportive environments for health in Stockholm played key roles in initiating and supporting NHPRN. During the second phase, 2007–2014, the network was strengthened and supported by the Nordic School of Public Health (NHV) in Gothenburg. The third phase started when NHV closed down in 2015 and networking activities were transferred to the European Office of WHO in Copenhagen. The Nordic Health Promotion Research Conference series has served several purposes and will continue to do so. They are important Nordic meeting places, stimulating Health Promotion research, as well as explicitly managing ongoing concerns in the international Health Promotion community. This is reflected in the shift of foci over time. The content of the conferences has been highly responsive to whatever challenges are particularly relevant at different points in time, while also contributing to developing Health Promotion as a discipline, given that every conference has built on the previous ones.

BOOK REVIEWSThierry Groensteen, M. Töpffer invente la bande dessinéeOle Frahm, Die Sprache des Comics [The Language of the Comic]Daniela Petrini, ed., Die Sprache(n) der Comics: Kollokium in Heidelberg, 16.–17. Juni 2009 [The Language(s) of Comics: A Symposium Held in Heidelberg, 16–17 June 2009]Hannah Miodrag, Comics and Language: Reimagining Critical Discourse on the FormIan Hague, Comics and the Senses: A Multisensory Approach to Comics and Graphic NovelsEXHIBITION REVIEWAlbums: Bande dessinée et immigration, 1913–2013, Musée de l'histoire de l'immigration, Paris, 16 October 2013 to 27 April 2014 Catriona MacLeodCONFERENCE REVIEWGraphisches Erzählen: Neue Perspektiven auf Literaturcomics Graphic Storytelling: New Perspectives on Literature and Comics], University of Düsseldorf, Germany, 5–7 March 2014 Carolin Kirchhoff

The present paper analyzes an innovative teaching experience, Transmedia Narrative, in the field of Higher Education. This experience based on the Project-Based Learning (PBL) method and collaborative processes, that has a solid constructivist framework, is proposed as a fertile ground for creative experimentation and the production of interesting pieces and exemplary transmediation strategies. The innovative teaching project was conducted between 2013 and 2017 at the Faculty of Communication, Catholic University of Murcia (Spain). Part of the results at this project were presented at the ‘International Conference on Communication in the profession and the university of today: contents, research, innovation and teaching’ (CUICIID) in 2014, in order to make the premier disclosure of preliminary data and test the design of the project. So far, the project created works in progress of immense professional and academic value. Results of this project are not only relevant, but also provide a significant and original contribution to the international literature related to contemporary education.

Selected themes presented in this article were presented at the 16th International Conference on Information Visualization (IV 2012) and the Computer Graphics, Imaging, and Visualization Conference (CGIV 2012), which gather artists, scientists, mathematicians, and other participants using digital imagery and data or involved in visual storytelling, art, and graphics. Figures show art works presented at an online virtual exhibition, the Symposium and Gallery of Digital Art (D-Art), which complements these events. The article examines selected theoretical approaches and recent technology sessions related to data, information, and knowledge visualization, among other current issues in the visualization domain.

Abstract The aim of this paper is to analyze how Indigenous communities in the United States have been engaging in trans-Indigenous cooperation in their struggle for food sovereignty. I will look at inter-tribal conferences regarding food sovereignty and farming, and specifically at the discourse of the Indigenous Farming Conference held in Maplelag at the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota. I will show how it: (1) creates a space for Indigenous knowledge production and validation, using Indigenous methods (e.g., storytelling), without the need to adhere to Western scientific paradigms; (2) recovers pre-colonial maps and routes distorted by the formation of nation states; and (3) fosters novel sites for trans-indigenous cooperation and approaches to law, helping create a common front in the fight with neoliberal agribusiness and government. In my analysis, I will use Chadwick Allen’s (2014) concept of ‘trans-indigenism’ to demonstrate how decolonizing strategies are used by the Native American food sovereignty movement to achieve their goals.

RESUMO: Nos dias de hoje, o termo storytelling explode numa miríade de aceções. Para muitos, reporta ao contador de tempos ancestrais; para outros, pode ser a nova descoberta na área do marketing e da publicidade (MILLER, 2014) para outros, ainda, convoca à reflexão o conceito de narrativas digitais (JENKINS, 2001). Aqui consideramos o storytelling enquanto ferramenta de aprendizagem. Como esperamos demonstrar, ignorar o potencial das narrativas digitais como ferramenta de aprendizagem é, a limite, ignorar o potencial da linguagem como performativa da identidade. Para isso, convocámos a experiência da Modelagem Empírica (Empirical Modelling) que tem vindo a ser desenvolvida na Warwick University, Conventry com expressão na conferência CONSTRUIT 2017 e pretendemos demonstrar que a narrativa digital interativa transmídia pode, com sucesso, ser utilizada pela Modelagem Empírica (M.E.) na aprendizagem e literacia tecnológica dos seniores. Para tal, tomámos como referência, o projeto europeu SLIDE. A nossa premissa é que o ato comunicacional e as narrativas digitais sustentam, com sucesso, estes modelos de aprendizagem independendo da idade do aprendente. PALAVRAS-CHAVE: narrativas digitais; storytelling; modelo empírico; literacia. ABSTRACT: Nowadays, the term storytelling explodes in a myriad of meanings. For many, it reports to ancestral times; for others, maybe it is a new discovery in the field of marketing and advertising (MILLER, 2014). For others, yet, it implies the reflection under the concept of digital narratives (JENKINS, 2006). Here we consider storytelling as a learning tool. As we hope to demonstrate, ignoring the potential of digital narratives as a learning tool is, in the end, ignoring the potential of language as performative of identity. Being so, we have summoned the experience of Empirical Modeling (E.M.) developed at Warwick University, Conventry, namely, the outputs presented at the CONSTRUIT 2017 conference and we intend to demonstrate that interactive digital narrative transmigration can successfully be used by the Empirical Modeling (M.E.) in the learning and technological literacy of seniors. To this end, we have taken as a reference the European SLIDE project. Our premise is that the communicational act and the digital narratives are successful models of learning regardless of the age of the learner. KEYWORDS: digital narratives; storytelling; empirical modeling; literacy.

To conclude this Special Issue ‘Re-Fashioning Stories for Celebrity Counterpublics’ of the Journal of Applied Journalism & Media Studies (AJMS), I am delighted to share an interview with Samita Nandy, celebrity scholar, filmmaker and director of the Centre for Media and Celebrity Studies (CMCS). Her research focuses on the cultural dimensions of fame, with a specific interest in celebrity activism, storytelling and the performance of authenticity and intimacy in glamorous narratives. In addition to her academic work, Nandy is also a certified broadcast journalist from Canada and media critic. I had the opportunity to assist her and Kiera Obbard with the organization of the 8th CMCS Conference, which inspired this Special Issue. This interview is thus an opportunity to further expand our reflection on the political possibilities of storytelling and celebrity counterpublics. Our discussion builds on the themes and arguments developed throughout this issue to further explore what popular storytelling means in practice. She reflects on her engagement with celebrity culture and life-writing in her feminist research and artistic endeavours, and how it has empowered her to tell personal and collective stories. The interview format and its themes provide a unique opportunity to contemplate the affordances of a reflective practice paradigm and the artistic applications of disciplinary knowledge, one which bridges academic work with media professions, and which we hope will resonate with AJMS readers.

AbstractThe interface between Indigenous knowledge systems and Western scientific knowledge systems is a contested space where the difficult dialogue between us and them is often reduced to a position of taking sides. Storytelling is however a very familiar tradition in Indigenous families where we can and do translate expertly difficult concepts from one generation to the next. This article is based on my attempt to story our way through the difficult dialogue and to posit opportunities for more productive engagements about the place of Indigenous knowledge in our future deliberations at the Indigenous Studies and Indigenous Knowledge Conference series.

In 2016, the Pacific Media Centre responded to the devastation and tragedy wrought in Fiji by Severe Tropical Cyclone Winston by initiating the Bearing Witness journalism project and dispatching two postgraduate students to Viti Levu to document and report on the impact of climate change (Robie & Chand, 2017). This was followed up in 2017 in a second phase of what was hoped would become a five-year mission and expanded in future years to include other parts of the Asia-Pacific region. This project is timely, given the new 10-year Strategic Plan 2017-2026 launched by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) in March and the co-hosting by Fiji of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP23) climate change conference in Bonn, Germany, during November. The students dispatched in 2017 on the ‘bearing witness’ journalism experiential assignment to work in collaboration with the Pacific Centre for the Environment and Sustainable Development (PaCE-SD) and the Regional Journalism Programme at the University of the South Pacific included a report about the relocation of a remote inland village of Tukuraki. They won the 2017 media and trauma prize of the Asia-Pacific Dart Centre, an agency affiliated with the Columbia School of Journalism. This article is a case study assessing the progress with this second year of the journalism project and exploring the strategic initiatives under way for more nuanced and constructive Asia-Pacific media storytelling in response to climate change.

The computer science (CS) unplugged approach intends to teach CS concepts and computational thinking skills without employing any digital tools. The current study conducted a systematic literature review to analyze research studies that conducted investigations related to implementations of CS unplugged activities. A systematic review procedure was developed and applied to detect and subsequently review relevant research studies published from 2010 to 2019. It was found that 55 research studies (17 articles + 38 conference proceedings) satisfied the inclusion criteria for the analysis. These research studies were then examined with regard to their demographic characteristics, research methodologies, research results, and main findings. It was found that the unplugged approach was realized and utilized differently among researchers. The majority of the studies used the CS unplugged term when referring to “paper–pencil activities,” “problem solving,” “storytelling,” “games,” “tangible programming,” and even “robotics.”

Using celebrity narratives as a starting point, this Special Issue explores the social significance of storytelling for social change. It builds on the 8th Centre for Media and Celebrity Studies conference, which brought together scholars and media practitioners to explore how narratives inspired by the lives of celebrities, public intellectuals, critics and activists offer useful rhetorical tools to better understand dominant ideologies. This editorial further problematizes what it means to be a popular ‘storyteller’ using the critical lens of celebrity activism and life-writing. Throughout the issue, contributors analyse the politics of representation at play within a wide range of glamourous narratives, including documentaries, memoirs, TED talks, stand-up performances and award acceptance speeches in Hollywood and beyond. The studies show how we can strategically use aesthetic communication to shape identity politics in public personas and bring urgent social change in an image-driven celebrity culture.

We live in a digitalized world, where social media have become an integral part of scholarly life. Digital tools like blogs can facilitate various research-related activities, from recruitment, to data collection, to communication of research findings. In this article, we analyze our experience of blogging to suggest that they provide a useful resource for qualitative researchers working with reflexive accounts of personal experience. Through our personal story of engaging with blogging while traveling abroad to participate in a conference, we explore how we used the blog in different ways to concretize transitional processes, to engage in public storytelling, and to form a network of relationships (self, others, and blog). We argue that the technology of blogging is particularly suited to creating sense-making narratives from liminal or discombobulating experiences, and highlight the usefulness of understanding the production of data through blogging as culturally located within networks of relationships and normative discourses.

AbstractThe marriage of storytelling and spiritual formation is as old as the religious spirit of humankind. Farid Ud-Din Attar, a twelfth-century Persian poet and mystic, offers an imaginative example of this union in his Conference of the Birds, a tale describing the pilgrimage of all feathered creatures to their king. It is a spiritual journey that moves in five stages from a sense of longing for the inaccessible splendor of the royal court, through hope, boldness, and despair, to a final, shocking encounter with a majesty elusive as it is grand. The use of metaphor in describing passages of the spiritual life is demonstrated here at its best, as Attar explores the metaphors of impassioned love, the mirrored majesty of the king, and God as a treasure hidden in the world. His work suggests many parallels to the language of Christian and Jewish spirituality and his stories richly deserve retelling.

The article analyzes main mechanisms of the relationship between the Catholic Church and believers in Italy in the context of the coronavirus crisis. The author concludes that Italy has showed itself as a country in which, despite the processes of secularization, the religious feeling is still alive. Interest in the «message» of the Vatican testifies to the preservation of the trust of the Church among the majority of Italian Catholics, including those who were disappointed with her position at certain stages of the pandemic. This was facilitated by the fact that the Catholic Church avoided association with the authorities of order and sanitary authorities, accepting the necessary, but not allowed lary measures of supervision and restrictions. The program of pastoral and psychotherapeutic assistance offered by the Italian Episcopal Conference undoubtedly contributed to the strengthening of the authority of the Church in extraordinary circumstances. It also seems that the techniques of psychological rehabilitation for victims of covid – narrative and storytelling – will be developed as an effective way of communication between believers in post-covid Europe.

The Art House Convergence conference annually brings together hundreds of independent theater owners and supporters of arthouse cinema during the days preceding the Sundance Film Festival. When the organizers invited James Schamus to deliver the keynote address at their 2016 gathering, it was a commission he did not relish. The expected argument of such speeches is pretty much set in stone these days: cinema, understood primarily as feature films meant initially for theatrical exhibition, is under attack, and the keynote speaker's task is to rally the troops in its defense, soliciting applause for recent victories on the battlefield, and railing against the encroachments of the enemies of film, in particular the digital streaming services whose assaults on the sanctity of the theatrical viewing experience, and thus on the aesthetic object known as the theatrical film, grow ever more ferocious with each passing year. Schamus took on the task of delivering that speech, and then transforming it into this article for FQ. He concludes with a rousing plea to all regarding what he terms, “This vicious spiral of longer movies, higher costs and higher ticket prices,” that can only spell disaster for the supporter of truly independent American cinema. Schamus urges readers to stand with him (and all who love the genuine American film experience), to advocate for vibrant, varied, open-ended, hybrid, serial and ongoing open storytelling and entertainment.

This pilot project undertook an effort to understand how the pre-production plans on designing a promotional video in a project-based language learning classroom could be unveiled with undergraduate EFL computer science junior-level students. The central idea of the project was to explore the efficacy of digital storytelling as a method for developing professional communication skills in English. The specific case study chosen for the project was on intelligent toilets, and the pre-production movie design activities as assignments were designed in the syllabus as a community outreach effort in trying to promote awareness about intelligent toilets as a commercial product, and the necessity and benefits of intelligent toilets for consumers who might not be aware of it’s reach. Assignments such as designing storyline and screenplay, print and video poster design, visual storyline with concept mapping, storyboarding and conference presentation design and delivery not only focused on understanding how students handle different design and analysis software, and technical documentation in a group setting, but also the extent to which they could successfully work with their team collaboratively, and in the process improve professional communication. The project could not explicitly and objectively measure the learning outcomes for professional communication, but it helped us explore the extent to which the group assignments requiring substantial group communication and coordination could be worked through successfully, and students’ self-reported impression about the course materials, in general, and the working dynamics of the group. It’s an established fact that successful group communication and coordination, and such group-based technical communication activities require multiple interactions, iterations and repeated and prolonged exposure. However, within the limited scope of this pilot project, the researchers could identify moderately successful efforts being made both for the assignments and in terms of the team effort.

ABSTRACTThai mural paintings have played a significant role in Thai society since The Sukhothai Kingdom period (1238-1438 AD) until the present. Wattana Boonjub (2009) points out that Mural painting was used for teaching the Thai people in the past. Throughout history, temples have become a crucial part of Thai' lives; for example, Wat Phumin in Nan Province. Wat Phumin has exceptional architecture, beautiful visual presentations of Buddhist storytelling on the walls which depict scenes from the Buddhist Jataka tales, and scenes of everyday life in Nan. These unique characteristics have attracted many visitors to this temple over the years. Also, when those interested visit Wat Phumin, they experience this temple as a Museum. Loïc Tallon et al. (2008) suggests that the museum experience provides an appropriate situation for learning history in an unconventional setting. As a result, previous research titled “Visual Research Practices on Thai Lanna Mural Painting: A Case Study of Wat Phumin, Nan Province” was presented at The 4th International Conference for Asia Pacific Arts Studies (ICAPAS 2016). The results indicated that the information concerning the Lanna mural paintings inside the temples was overwhelming. However, no directions are facilitating Thai and foreign visitors in viewing and understanding at the first episode of storytelling on Lanna mural paintings inside Wat Phumin. Therefore, this research is the result of finding a solution to facilitating visitors in viewing Buddhist Jataka tales through digital arts and digital technology (such as responsive web design, QR codes, etc.) with practice-based design research. ABSTRAK Lukisan mural Thailand telah memainkan peran penting dalam masyarakat Thailand sejak periode Kerajaan Sukhothai (1238-1438 M) hingga saat ini. Wattana Boonjub (2009) menunjukkan bahwa lukisan Mural digunakan untuk mengajar orang-orang Thailand di masa lalu. Sepanjang sejarah, kuil telah menjadi bagian penting dari kehidupan Thailand; misalnya, Wat Phumin di Provinsi Nan. Wat Phumin memiliki arsitektur yang luar biasa, presentasi visual yang indah dari cerita Buddha di dinding yang menggambarkan adegan dari kisah Buddha Jataka, dan adegan kehidupan sehari-hari di Nan. Karakteristik unik ini telah menarik banyak pengunjung ke kuil ini selama bertahun-tahun. Juga, ketika mereka yang tertarik mengunjungi Wat Phumin, mereka merasakan candi ini sebagai Museum. Loïc Tallon et al. (2008) menunjukkan bahwa pengalaman museum memberikan situasi yang tepat untuk belajar sejarah dalam lingkungan yang tidak konvensional. Sebagai hasilnya, penelitian sebelumnya yang berjudul “Praktik Penelitian Visual pada Lukisan Mural Lanna Thailand: Studi Kasus Wat Phumin, Provinsi Nan” dipresentasikan pada Konferensi Internasional ke-4 untuk Studi Seni Asia Pasifik (ICAPAS 2016). Hasilnya menunjukkan bahwa informasi mengenai lukisan mural Lanna di dalam kuil sangat banyak. Namun, tidak ada arahan yang memfasilitasi pengunjung Thailand dan wisatawan asing dalam melihat dan memahami episode pertama pada cerita tentang lukisan mural Lanna di dalam Wat Phumin. Oleh karena itu, penelitian ini adalah hasil dari menemukan solusi untuk memfasilitasi pengunjung dalam melihat cerita Buddha Jataka melalui seni digital dan teknologi digital (seperti desain web responsif, kode QR, dll.) dengan penelitian desain berbasis praktik.

Purpose Take the word “research,” combine it with the words “experiences around hair,” and you inevitably get a personal story. Whether it’s concerns about too much hair, complaints about one’s lack of hair, or the ability of hair to intimidate or convey authority, questions related to hair appear to provoke passionate responses in the form of narratives. The authors believed “hair” stories would provide a unique method for examining employment realities in nonprofit and public sector workplaces. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach Attendees at the 2009 Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) conference were invited to a symposium discussing what “hair” might indicate about the lived experiences of individuals employed in nonprofit and public sector workplaces. A participatory action research methodology was used to engage 24 academics and practitioners in structured small group conversations about workplace hair-related image management issues. A storytelling framework was used to guide the content analysis of the 305 narratives generated by two focus groups. Findings The interview questions were literal ones, yet the responses that were elicited were figurative. As the process unfolded, it became clear the focus group participants had to tell their own individual stories, in their own way, before they could answer the research questions. Hence, the storytelling dimension became a critical component of this research as a vehicle for conveying the power behind what may have initially appeared to be a simple set of questions and answers. Research limitations/implications Selection bias in this study was unavoidable, given the voluntary nature of participation and the transparency of the study’s purpose. Given the chosen research approach, the project findings may also lack generalizability. However, since the so-called “subjects” of the investigation are the same persons found in sector workplaces, there is no way to avoid this limitation in any related assessment. Practical implications This project allowed for a new understanding of how the direct and literal approach often used by social scientists to investigate the impact of attitudes and perceptions on social outcomes might best be replaced or augmented by methods that uncover the ways in which subjects frame the effects under examination within the context of their personal experiences. Social implications One’s appearance takes on professional and, often, political ramifications whether the individuals involved desire this or not. Ironically, one’s ability to appear more casual may be one of the benefits of working in the nonprofit or public sectors as a means of connecting to constituents and stakeholders. However, given the need to serve multiple and competing audiences, this ability to identify and connect with others may have unintended consequences that may not be experienced in the private sector, where stakeholders may have a more unified set of goals. Originality/value This project focused on a relatively under-researched audience and subject: hair and image management. Each day, individuals make a choice about their appearance, which includes their hair. For those working in the nonprofit and public sectors, especially women and people of color, there appear to be implicit areas of concern that manifest themselves in the workplace, many of which were identified through this research.

The article is dedicated to the phenomenon of storytelling and its evolution in the context of globalization and digitalization. The choice of Nigeria as an object of study is not accidental. The oral tradition in Nigeria has developed dynamically over the centuries. Nigerian literature is considered to be a successor of the traditions of world classics. It was the writers - the «children of Herodotus» - who assumed the function of recording and relaying stories that, being biased, led to the destruction of a number of stereotypes regarding Africa and Africans. The traditions of storytelling appeared in literature and journalism, in television and radio broadcasting, across In-ternet. Nigerians have become active participants in TED conferences. Storytelling in Nigeria has become a profession. Within its framework, famous writers, including women, found application, overthrowing gender inequality.

This round-table discussion, edited by Eva Urban and Lisa FitzGerald, took place on 5 July 2019 as part of the conference ‘New Romantics: Performing Ireland and Cosmopolitanism on the Anniversary of Human Rights’ organized by the editors at the Brian Friel Theatre, Queen’s University Belfast. Lisa FitzGerald is a theatre historian and ecocritic who completed postdoctoral fellowships at the Centre de Recherche Bretonne et Celtique (CRBC), Université Rennes 2 and the Rachel Carson Centre for Environment and Society, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. She is the author of Re-Place: Irish Theatre Environments (Peter Lang, 2017) and Digital Vision and the Ecological Aesthetic (forthcoming, Bloomsbury, 2020). Eva Urban is a Senior Research Fellow at the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security, and Justice, Queen’s University Belfast, and an Associate Fellow of the Institute of Irish Studies, QUB. She is the author of Community Politics and the Peace Process in Contemporary Northern Irish Drama (Peter Lang, 2011) and La Philosophie des Lumières dans le Théâtre Breton: Tradition et Influences (Université de Rennes, 2019). Rosemary Jenkinson is a Belfast playwright and writer of five short story collections. Her plays include The Bonefire (Rough Magic), Planet Belfast (Tinderbox), White Star of the North, Here Comes the Night (Lyric), Lives in Translation (Kabosh Theatre Company), and Michelle and Arlene (Accidental Theatre). Her writing for radio includes Castlereagh to Kandahar (BBC Radio 3) and The Blackthorn Tree (BBC Radio 4). She has received a Major Individual Artist Award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland to write a memoir. Tom Maguire is Head of the School of Arts and Humanities at Ulster University and has published widely on Irish and Scottish theatre and in the areas of Theatre for Young Audiences and Storytelling Performance. His heritage research projects include the collection Heritage after Conflict: Northern Ireland (Routledge, 2018, co-edited with Elizabeth Crooke). David Grant is a former Programme Director of the Dublin Theatre Festival and was Artistic Director of the Lyric Theatre in Belfast. He has worked extensively as a theatre director throughout Ireland and is co-investigator of an AHRC-funded research project into Arts for Reconciliation. He lectures in drama at Queen’s University Belfast.

Immersive reality (XR) encompasses the spectrum of enhancing learning through augmented reality to virtual reality. Although there has been much hype around the transformative potential of AR and VR the adoption of these technologies in higher education learning environments has been limited (Cochrane, 2016). With a lack of models of how to integrate XR in higher education AR has fallen into the trough of disillusionment on the Gartner hype cycle for emerging technologies 2018, while VR is on the ‘slope of enlightenment’ (Daniel, 2018). In response, this workshop will provide participants with a hands on experience of creating their own simple immersive reality scenario using the web-based VR platform SeekBeak (https://seekbeak.com). The workshop is a generic version of a workshop run with Journalism students that introduced them to the concepts of immersive journalism practice and the implications for immersive storytelling (Sissons & Cochrane, 2019a, 2019b). The workshop will introduce participants to the state of the art of immersive journalism, and demonstrate a BYOD approach to user-generated virtual reality in higher education as a model of integrating authentic learning within the curriculum. Schedule (100 mins) Introductions (5 min) Participant survey (5 min) Introduction to 360 video and VR (10 min) XR Journalism examples Demo of initial Media Centre VR https://seekbeak.com/v/kvPq47DpjAw (5 min) VR project development (60 min) Google Cardboard Headsets, using participants’ own smartphones Introduction to the Toolkit Participants create SeekBeak accounts Hands on with the 360 cameras Participants choose a topic to work on as a mobile VR production team Sharing and review of participant projects(participants share SeekBeak links) (10 min) Reflections via brief SurveyMonkey survey, and sharing of project URLs and reflections via Twitter and the #SOTELNZ hashtag (5 min) END References Cochrane, T. (2016). Mobile VR in Education: From the Fringe to the Mainstream. International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning (IJMBL), 8(4), 45-61. doi:10.4018/IJMBL.2016100104 Daniel, E. (2018, 21 August 2018). Gartner hype cycle 2018: Mixed reality to overtake VR and AR. Retrieved from https://www.verdict.co.uk/gartner-hype-cycle-2018-mixed-reality/ Sissons, H., & Cochrane, T. (2019a, 22 November). Immersive Journalism: Playing with Virtual Reality. Paper presented at the AUT Teaching and Learning Conference: Authentic Assessment - Time to Get Real?, Auckland University of Technology. Sissons, H., & Cochrane, T. (2019b). Newsroom Production: XRJournalism Workshop. Retrieved from https://tinyurl.com/XRJournalism

ABSTRACT This is a tribute to a wonderful Native American elder who generously shared his wisdom at the Annual Conferences on Native American Nutrition, held in 2017, 2018, and 2019 at Mystic Lake Center in Prior Lake, Minnesota. Ernie Whiteman's kindness, sense of humor, brilliant storytelling, and many talents are difficult to capture in words. In addition to being an artist, he was a passionate advocate for Native American food sovereignty, working to pass on his deep knowledge and experience of Native culture and the significance of traditional foods to youth in Minnesota.

IntroductionThere is a growing trend to use storytelling as a research tool to extract information and/or as an intervention to effect change in the public knowledge, attitudes and behaviour (KAB) in relation to public health issues, primarily those with a strong element of disease prevention. However, evidence of its use in either or both capacities is limited. This protocol proposes a systematic narrative review of peer-reviewed, published literature on the use of storytelling as a research tool within the public health arena.Methods and analysisMedline, EMBASE, PsycINFO, ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center), Web of Science, Art and Humanities database (ProQuest), Scopus and Google Scholar will be searched for studies that look at the use of storytelling in the research of pressing current public health issues, for example, vaccinations, antimicrobial resistance, climate change and cancer screening. The review will synthesise evidence of how storytelling is used as a research tool to (a) gain insights into KAB and (b) to effect change in KAB when used as an intervention. Included studies will be selected according to carefully defined criteria relevant to public health issues of interest, and data from qualitative, quantitative and mixed-methods studies will be extracted with a customised data extraction form. A narrative synthesis will be performed according to Economic and Social Research Council guidance from Popay, J, 2006.The study protocol follows the recommendations by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocols (PRISMA-P).Ethics and disseminationFormal ethical approval is not required for this study, as no primary data will be collected. Dissemination will involve publishing results of this study in relevant peer-reviewed journal(s). Where possible, the study results will also be presented as posters or talks at relevant medical conferences and meetings.PROSPERO registration numberCRD42019124704

The aim of this article is to present the work carried out by communication researchers within a biomedical engineering group that works against breast cancer at the University of Girona (Spain). It will gradually detail how the identity of the group was developed, how the storytelling was built, how we construct a Strategic Communication Plan, and the concrete and specific actions to achieve two objectives: to be visible and to obtain extra funding. It was assumed that one objective should be linked to the other. This paper is a real world application. It is based on the theoretical perspective of Institutional Theory as understood by Macagnan (2013), and the philosophy put forward by Abratt and Kleyn (2011). They state that corporate identity and corporate branding are inseparable elements that shape the reputation of an organisation, in the same way as the role played by the public. Thus, the strategic communication plan that was developed followed the guidelines outlined by Scheinsohn (2009), the flexibility outlined by Matilla (2009) and following Capriotti (2009) in relation to the phases of strategic management and its relationship with the public. First, we focused on seeking notoriety. The assumption was that by achieving visibility and awareness it would be more accessible to secure more funding. In other words, we tried to ensure that the biomedical contributions based on 3D engineering, developed within the team, did not go unnoticed. The mission of the project, called ONCOen3D, is to test new therapeutic targets against Triple Negative breast cancer, one of the most aggressive cancers, with a high degree of recurrence, which mostly affects young patients. The drug tests, which is one of the team's tasks, are tested, in our case, on matrices printed with 3D systems that, with low cost, allow many tests. This creative idea, the basis of the project, was absolutely unknown outside of academic walls, until this multidisciplinary research team incorporated experts from the area of communication. Thus, communicative actions were devised, scheduled and focused on different audiences to achieve notoriety. To begin with, the name and visual identity of ONCOen3D was created: a logo, a graphic identity embodied in communicative elements of dissemination (flyers, roll-ups) and institutional videos hosted on the corporate website. The videos explain and present the work both to a more specialized and scientific public, or to a more generalist public: patients, families and organizations supporting breast cancer patients. Other actions were aimed at achieving the second objective: to seek funding outside the usual channels of the university. Visits to the laboratories were scheduled to introduce the institutions and organizations with which we normally collaborate, and to engage new potential sponsors. Another event planned was the organization of a solidarity market for emerging talented designers. In addition, the informative story was constructed to present ONCOen3D in society through a classic technique of Public Relations: the press conference. The results were more than 50 impacts in national and international media; a remarkable publicity was obtained. This international presence prompted ONCOen3D to compete in the 3D Printing Academy Awards 2019 and win the Best Healthcare Application 2019 award. Therefore, these initial responses show that, with the multidisciplinary nature of the teams, dissemination is more effective in terms of both positioning and reputation. This project conceived and implemented with a Spanish public university is serving to give visibility to science.

IntroductionChronic conditions impact indigenous peoples of Australia at a much higher rate than non-indigenous Australians. Attendance at the Medicare Benefits Scheme (MBS) supported indigenous health checks are crucial to improve prevention and management of chronic health conditions. However, in conjunction with lifestyle and environmental factors, attendance rates at primary healthcare services for screening and treatment have fallen in Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aims to explore the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on preventive health behaviours of indigenous Australians and the associated barriers to, and enablers of, engagement with health services to formulate a targeted intervention strategy.Methods and analysisA concurrent mixed-methods study (comprising quantitative and qualitative data collection methods) will be employed. Descriptive analysis of MBS data about the characteristics of indigenous peoples of Australia claiming health assessment services will be performed. Generalised estimating equation regression models will be used to examine the use of health assessment services over time. Qualitative interviews informed by indigenous research methods will be conducted. Interviews will investigate barriers to, and enablers of, engagement with health services. Thematic approach guided by the principles of indigenist praxis, storytelling and collaborative research will be used to analyse the interview data. The project commenced in July 2020 and will be completed by July 2022.Ethics and disseminationThe project received ethics approval from the Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council of New South Wales and the University of New England Human Research Ethics Committee. Findings will be disseminated via peer-reviewed journal articles, conferences, government and relevant stakeholder reports, and infographics.

From educational gaming through portable e-readers to cell phones, media are interpenetrating educational spaces and activities. Accordingly, understanding media in environmental or ecological terms has become increasingly important for education internationally. In North America, for example, the centenary of McLuhan’s birth has focused attention on approaches to media – whether oral, textual, electronic or digital– as a kind of environment in which education takes place. In parts of Europe, the so-called mediatic turn – following on the linguistic and iconic turns – has similarly emphasized the role of media as a condition for the possibility of educational activities and programs. With a few exceptions1 the papers in this special issue were first presented at the conference «Educational Media Ecologies: International Perspectives» which took place at the University of Paderborn, Germany, on March 27–28, 2012.2 The event was an interdisciplinary and transatlantic endeavor to bring together a wide range of perspectives on various issues relevant to educational media ecologies,3 and on related debates on mediation, medialization, mediatization, and mediality.4 The purpose of this volume, like the conference, is to foster and deepen international dialogue in the area of educational media. Areas of research and scholarship relevant to this dialogue include educational media, media literacy, educational philosophy, and media and cultural studies. The contributions, described below, put conceptual issues as well as social practices and applications at the center of the debate. Klaus Rummler opens the issue by clarifying the concept of ecology itself. Referencing a range of work over the past 50 years, Rummler describes how ecological models have been cast in sociological, semiotic, cultural, mediatic and other terms, and he explains the implications of these various perspectives for the study of educational contexts. Rummler also briefly introduces the reader to the triangular model used by Bachmair, Pachler and Cook in this issue (and in other publications) to analyse the socio-cultural and cognitive possibilities opened up by various mobile media. Sandra Aßmann and Bardo Herzig discuss three theoretical approaches – a network perspective, systems theory and semiotics – in order to conceptualize and analyze learning with media in a range of formal and informal settings. They use the example of «friending» someone via Facebook, a context in which the formal and informal often intersect in unexpected ways. In this way, Aßmann and Herzig demonstrate the manifest complexities of communication analysis and pragmatics in these relatively new networked, mediated contexts. Judith Seipold provides an extensive overview of the burgeoning literature on the use and potential of mobile technologies in learning and educational ecologies. The research perspectives or frameworks covered by Seipold include critical, ethical, resource-centered, learning process-centered as well as ecological frames of reference. In her coverage of the last of these, not only does Seipold help to reframe the theme of this special issue as a whole, she also provides an excellent segue to the ecologically oriented analysis of «mobile learning» that follows. Ben Bachmair and Norbert Pachler’s contribution, «A Cultural Ecological Frame for Mobility and Learning», reflects the work of the London Mobile Learning Group, examining mobile resources and affordances from the ecological perspectives of Gibson, Postman and the seminal German media-pedagogue, Dieter Baacke. Using the structuration theory of Anthony Giddens, Bachmair, Norbert and Cook elaborate the aforementioned triangular model for understanding both the agency and the cultural and structural constraints offered by mobile technologies. In «Building as Interface: Sustainable Educational Ecologies», Suzanne de Castell, Milena Droumeva and Jen Jenson connect learning and media ecologies with the material, global and ecological challenges that have become a part of the anthropocene. They do so by examining the mediation of a physical, architectural environment, their own departmental environment at Simon Fraser University. De Castell, Droumeva and Jenson uncover a range of practical and theoretical challenges, and explore the implications for both body and mind. Markus Deimann takes the reader back into the history of continental educational theory, to Humboldt’s (and others‘) expansive understanding of Bildung, to suggest a conceptual ecology germane to the manifold possibilities that are now on offer through open education. Deimann sees the «open paradigm» as changing education utterly – and for the better. It will do so, Deimann predicts, by «unbundling» resource and service provision, and assessment and accreditation functions that have for too long been monopolized by the educational monoliths known as «universities». Theo Hug’s contribution, «Media Form School – A Plea for Expanded Action Orientations and Reflective Perspectives» similarly looks to the past to envision possibilities for the future. Hug’s concern is with the narrow confines in which media are conceptualized and operationalized in many K-12 educational ecologies, and in the corresponding policy and curricular documents that further constrain and direct this action. Hug suggests looking to the recent past, the 1970s and 1960s, in which alternatives were envisioned not only by figures like McLuhan and Illich, but also intimated in the works of Austrian poets and artists. Norm Friesen provides the third «rearview mirror» perspective in his examination of the lecture as a trans-medial pedagogical form. From the late medieval university through to today’s IGNITE and TED talks, the lecture has accommodated and reflected a wide range of media ecologies, technical conditions and epistemological patterns. New media technologies –from the (data) projector to lecture capture media– have not rendered the lecture obsolete, but have instead foregrounded its performative aspects and its ongoing adaptability. Michael Kerres and Richard Heinen take as their starting point Deimann’s, Hug’s and Friesen’s stress on the manifold possibilities presented digital and open educational resources. They then seek to answer the question: How can this embarrassment of riches be put to good use in K-12 educational contexts? Their answer: «Edutags», a way of making resources more accessible and usable by providing descriptive and evaluative information along with such resources. Heinz Moser and Thomas Hermann present the concept and first results of the project «Visualized Vocational Aspirations: Potentials of photography for career counselling and vocational preparation».5 The research project is a cooperation between the Zurich University of Teacher Education (Pädagogische Hochschule Zürich) and the «Laufbahnzentrum» (Centre of Vocational Counselling) Zürich. Based on an ecological approach of narrative career education and a design-based research methodology the undertaking aims at creative applications of visual storytelling in career counselling. Rainer Leschke and Norm Friesen conclude the issue with what might be called an aesthetic- or formal-ecological perspective. The digital convergence of textual and other media forms, Leschke and Friesen maintain, means the erasure of formal and material distinctions traditionally embedded in separate media. Educational (and other) institutions have oriented long themselves on the basis of such distinctions; and what is now left are distinctions based only on recombinant, virtual aesthetic markers. ——————————— The exceptions are the papers by Rainer Leschke and Norm Friesen, Michael Kerres and Richard Heinen, and Theo Hug. See: http://kw.uni-paderborn.de/institute-einrichtungen/mewi/arbeitsschwerpunkte/prof-dr-dorothee-m-meister/tagungen/educational-media- ecologies-international-perspectives/ (2014-7-8). Cf. definitions of the Media Ecology Association (MEA): http://www.media-ecology.org/media_ecology/index.html (2014-7-8). For more about these variations on the terms «media» and «mediation», see: Norm Friesen and Theo Hug. 2009. «The Mediatic Turn: Exploring Consequences for Media Pedagogy.» In Mediatization: Concept, Changes, Consequences, edited by Knut Lundby, 64–81. New York: Peter Lang. http://learningspaces.org/papers/Media_Pedagogy_&_Mediatic_Turn.pdf The project is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (project 136617, duration: March 1, 2012 – February 28, 2015).

Religious tolerance is a supporter of social harmony and brings a country to a better life. Instilling tolerance in early childhood is a challenge for early childhood educators. This study aims to describe the transformation of religious tolerance values ​​by teachers in early childhood education. This research is a type of qualitative case study research model with researchers as observer participants. This research produces the following findings, that (1) transformation of tolerance values ​​among religious communities, is explicitly not taught in Early Childhood Education (ECE) on the grounds that all students are of the same religion, (2) transformation of tolerance of values among religious students taught through learning integrated with other lessons, (3) although explicitly the values ​​of tolerance among religious students are not taught, but the values ​​of togetherness such as greeting, sharing something that is owned, and helping the needs of other students are taught by practicing at the same time. Keywords: Early Childhood Education, Tolerance Values in Religion References: Adams, K. (2019). Navigating the spaces of children’s spiritual experiences: influences of tradition(s), multidisciplinarity and perceptions. International Journal of Children’s Spirituality, 24(1), 29–43. https://doi.org/10.1080/1364436X.2019.1619531 Adams, K., Bull, R., & Maynes, M. L. (2016). Early childhood spirituality in education: Towards an understanding of the distinctive features of young children’s spirituality. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 24(5), 760–774. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2014.996425 Atamturk, N. (2018). The role of English as a foreign language classes in tolerance education in relation to school management practices. Quality and Quantity, 52, 1167–1177. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-017-0575-7 Banerjee, K., & Bloom, P. (2015). “Everything Happens for a Reason”: Children’s Beliefs About Purpose in Life Events. Child Development, 86(2), 503–518. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12312 Bano, M., & Ferra, E. (2018). Family versus school effect on individual religiosity: Evidence from Pakistan. International Journal of Educational Development, 59(August 2017), 35–42. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2017.10.015 Coleman, E. B., & Eds, K. W. (2011). Religious Tolerance, Education and the Curriculum. In Religious Tolerance, Education and the Curriculum. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6091-412-6 Elza, Y., Handini, M. C., & Abdurrahman, M. (2018). The Effects of Storytelling Method with Audiovisual Media and Religiosity toward Clean and Healthy Living Program Behaviour ( CHLB ) of Early Childhood. International Journal of Multidisciplinary and Current Research, 6(June), 547–552. Ene, I., & Barna, I. (2015). Religious Education and Teachers’ Role in Students’ Formation towards Social Integration. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 180(November 2014), 30–35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.02.081 Ergun, S. J., & Rivas, M. F. (2019). The effect of social roles, religiosity, and values on climate change concern: An empirical analysis for Turkey. Sustainable Development, 27(4), 758–769. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.1939 Faas, D., Smith, A., & Darmody, M. (2018). Children’s Agency in Multi-Belief Settings: The Case of Community National Schools in Ireland. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 32(4), 486–500. https://doi.org/10.1080/02568543.2018.1494645 Firdaus, E. (2018). The Learning of Religious Tolerance among Students in Indonesia from the Perspective of Critical Study. IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 145(1). https://doi.org/10.1088/1755-1315/145/1/012032 Ganjvar, M. (2019). Islamic Model of Children’s Spiritual Education (CSE); its influence on improvement of communicational behaviour with non-coreligionists. International Journal of Children’s Spirituality, 24(2), 124–139. https://doi.org/10.1080/1364436X.2019.1624254 Granqvist, P., & Nkara, F. (2017). Nature meets nurture in religious and spiritual development. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 35(1), 142–155. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjdp.12170 Heiphetz, L., Lane, J. D., Waytz, A., & Young, L. L. (2016). How Children and Adults Represent God’s Mind. Cognitive Science, 40(1), 121–144. https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12232 King, U. (2013). The spiritual potential of childhood: Awakening to the fullness of life. International Journal of Children’s Spirituality, 18(1), 4–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/1364436X.2013.776266 Kirschenbaum, H. (2019). Models of Values Education and Moral Education in the Era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. 8(2), 103–109. Lehtonen, M. (2019). The Development of Religious Tolerance: Co-operative Board Games with Children and Adolescents. IATL Reinvention: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research, 2(2). Retrieved from https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iatl/reinvention/ Łowicki, P., & Zajenkowski, M. (2019). Empathy and Exposure to Credible Religious Acts during Childhood Independently Predict Religiosity. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 00(00), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508619.2019.1672486 Maussen, M., Bader, V., Dobbernack, J., Modood, T., Olsen, T. V., Fox, J., & Vidra, Z. (2012). Tolerance and cultural diversity in schools Comparative report. Amsterdam. Miedema, S., & Bertram-Troost, G. (2008). Democratic citizenship and religious education: Challenges and perspectives for schools in the Netherlands. British Journal of Religious Education, 30(2), 123–132. https://doi.org/10.1080/01416200701830970 Moore, D. . (2007). Overcoming Religious Illiteracy: A Cultural Studies Approach to the Study of Religion in Secondary Education. US: Palgrave Macmillan. Niculescu, R. M., & Norel, M. (2013). Religious Education an Important Dimension of Human’s Education. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 93, 338–342. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.09.200 Pandya, S. P. (2019). Spiritual education programme (SEP) for enhancing the quality of life of kindergarten school children. Pastoral Care in Education, 37(1), 59–72. https://doi.org/10.1080/02643944.2018.1562493 Parekh, B. (2019). Ethnocentric Political Theory. Ethnocentric Political Theory, 263–284. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11708-5 Sari, A. D. P., & Indartono, S. (2019). Teaching Religious Tolerance Through Social Studies Education Based On Multicultural Approach. 323(ICoSSCE 2018), 214–219. https://doi.org/10.2991/icossce-icsmc-18.2019.40 Scheiner, P. (2015). Crossings and Crosses: Borders, Educations, and Religions in Northern Europe. Boston/Berlin: Walter de Gruyter Inc. Scott, K. (2014). Inviting young adults to come out religiously, institutionally and traditionally. Religious Education, 109(4), 471–484. https://doi.org/10.1080/00344087.2014.924790 Stockinger, H. (2019). Developing spirituality–an equal right of every child? International Journal of Children’s Spirituality, 24(3), 307–319. https://doi.org/10.1080/1364436X.2019.1646218 Thibodeau, R. B., Brown, M. M., Nancarrow, A. F., Elpers, K. E., & Gilpin, A. T. (2018). Conceptual Similarities among Fantasy and Religious Orientations: A Developmental Perspective. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 18(1–2), 31–46. https://doi.org/10.1163/15685373-12340021 Tratner, A. E., Sela, Y., Lopes, G. S., Ehrke, A. D., Weekes-Shackelford, V. A., & Shackelford, T. K. (2017). Individual differences in childhood religious experiences with peers. Personality and Individual Differences, 119, 73–77. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2017.06.045 UNESCO. (2015). Second UNESCO Forum on Global Citizenship Education: Building Peaceful and Sustainable Societies (Paris, 28-30 January 2015). Final Report. (January), 1–22. Retrieved from http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/ED/pdf/FinalReport-GCED_21April.pdf Uzefovsky, F., Döring, A. K., & Knafo-Noam, A. (2016). Values in Middle Childhood: Social and Genetic Contributions. Social Development, 25(3), 482–502. https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12155 Van Der Walt, J. L. (2014). Towards an instrument for measuring religious tolerance among educators and their students worldwide (Potchefstroom Campus-North-West University). Retrieved from https://www.driestar-educatief.nl/medialibrary/Driestar/Engelse-website/Documenten/2014-VanderWalt-Measuring-religious-tolerance-in-education.pdf Yulianti, E., Sutarto, J., & Sugiyo. (2019). Sentra Nasima Learning Strategies to Enhance Religious Nationalist Characters in Kindergarten. Journal of Primary Education, 8(69), 238–247.

Computer- und Videospiele sind heute ein selbstverständlicher Bestandteil der Lebenswelt vieler Kinder und Jugendlicher, aber auch von (jüngeren) Erwachsenen, die mit diesen neuen Medien aufgewachsen sind. Lange Zeit haben elektronische Bildschirmspiele allenfalls sporadische Beachtung gefunden. Weder in der Medienforschung oder Medienpädagogik noch in der breiteren Öffentlichkeit waren sie ein Gegenstand von breiterem Interesse.* In den letzten knapp zehn Jahren sind Video- und Computerspiele allerdings zunehmend in den Fokus der Aufmerksamkeit gerückt. Dabei sind in der massenmedial vermittelten Öffentlichkeit vor allem Amokläufe in Schulen in einen direkten Zusammenhang mit den Vorlieben (der Täter) für bestimmte Computerspiele gebracht worden. Die auch von prominenten Politikern aufgegriffene These lautete, dass gewalthaltige Spiele wie der First Person Shooter «Counterstrike» ein virtuelles Trainingsprogramm für das Töten und daher als wesentliche Ursache solcher Schulmassaker anzusehen seien. Auf der Basis dieser kausalen Wirkungsannahmen bzw. der unterstellten negativen Lern- und Trainingseffekte werden seither immer wieder Forderungen nach einem Verbot solcher «Killerspiele» oder gar nach der Verbannung aller Bildschirmmedien aus den Kinderzimmern abgeleitet. Neben solcher skandalisierter Thematisierung ist aber zunehmend auch eine nüchterne wissenschaftliche Auseinandersetzung zu konstatieren. So haben sich seit Beginn des neuen Jahrtausends die «digital game studies» als interdisziplinäres Forschungsfeld etabliert. Im Jahr 2000 wurde innerhalb der Gesellschaft für Medienwissenschaft z.B. die AG Games gebildet, die sich zu einem wichtigen deutschsprachigen Forum für die wissenschaftliche Beschäftigung mit Computerspielen entwickelt hat, und im Jahr 2002 entstand die internationale Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA), die im September 2009 ihre vierte grosse Konferenz nach 2003, 2005 und 2007 durchgeführt hat (vgl. www.digra.org). Seit 2001 gibt es mit der «Game Studies» eine primär kulturwissenschaftlich ausgerichtete Online-Zeitschrift (vgl. gamestudies.org), und daneben sind zahlreiche Publikationen zu verzeichnen, die zur Strukturierung und Systematisierung des Forschungsfeldes beigetragen haben, etwa die transdisziplinär angelegten Sammel- und Tagungsbände von Wolf & Perron (2003); Fritz & Fehr (2003), Copier & Raessens (2003), Neitzel, Bopp & Nohr (2004), Raessens & Goldstein (2005), Kaminski & Lorber (2006), Vorderer & Bryant (2006), de Castell & Jenson (2007), Kafai et al. (2008), Quandt, Wimmer & Wolling (2008). Ausserdem liegen Monografien vor, die sich um Orientierung sowie empirische oder theoretische Klärungen bemühen (etwa Fromme, Meder & Vollmer 2000, Newman 2004, Juul 2005, Klimmt 2005, Mäyrä 2008, Pearce & Artemesia 2009). Diese wissenschaftlichen Entwicklungen und Arbeiten zeigen, dass die Phase der blossen Skandalisierung oder akademischen Ignorierung der Computerspiele zu Ende geht. Stattdessen kann von einer zunehmenden Normalisierung und Ausdifferenzierung der akademischen Auseinandersetzung mit diesen neuen Medien und ihren Verwendungsweisen ausgegangen werden, wie sie bei anderen, etablierteren Gegenstandsbereichen (etwa der Film- oder Fernsehforschung) schon länger selbstverständlich ist. Zur Normalisierung und Differenzierung der Debatte soll auch dieses Themenheft der Online-Zeitschrift «MedienPädagogik» auf www.medienpaed.com beitragen, das sich mit den digitalen Spielen und Spielkulturen aus einer primär medienpädagogischen Perspektive befasst und nach den Chancen und Potentialen für informelle wie auch formelle Lern- und Bildungsprozesse fragt. Die Beiträge fokussieren in diesem Spannungsfeld von Spielen und Lernen, von Unterhaltung und Bildung unterschiedliche Aspekte. Die Mehrzahl greift dabei aktuelle Diskussionen über Einsatzmöglichkeiten digitaler Spiele im Bereich des Lernens und der Ausbildung auf, die unter dem Label «Serious Games» oder auch «Game-based Learning» geführt werden (Petko; Bopp; Berger/Marbach; Lampert/Schwinge/Tolks; Malo/Neudorf/Wist; Pfannstiel/Sänger/Schmidt). Daneben widmen sich Beiträge der Frage, wie die Lern- und Bildungsrelevanz der medial-kulturellen Praxen, die sich weitgehend unabhängig von pädagogischer Intervention entfalten, untersucht und verstanden, aber auch pädagogisch unterstützt werden können (Fromme/Jörissen/Unger; Schrammel/Mitgutsch). In einem Beitrag geht es schliesslich darum, Computerspiele selbst zum Gegenstand der pädagogischen Reflexion machen (Biermann). Diese Verteilung spiegelt das Gewicht der Schwerpunkte innerhalb des aktuellen Diskurses über den Zusammenhang von Computerspielen und Lernen/Bildung durchaus angemessen wider. Dominik Petko fokussiert auf formelle Lern- und Bildungskontexte und behandelt die Frage, welche didaktischen Potenziale Computerspiele für den gezielten Einsatz in Schule und Ausbildung aufweisen. Ausgangspunkt ist die Überlegung, dass es für den schulischen Bereich nicht ausreicht, die allgemeinen Lernpotenziale der Spiele auszuweisen und die Muster des spielimmanenten Lernens nachzuzeichnen, wie dies in einigen Publikationen der letzten Jahre geschehe. Um einen Schritt weiterzukommen und zu erreichen, dass digitale Spiele tatsächlich vermehrt in den Unterricht integriert werden, komme es darauf an, den Lehrpersonen zu zeigen, dass der Einsatz solcher Spiele einerseits mit einem vertretbaren Aufwand möglich ist und andererseits zu einem erkenn- und begründbaren Mehrwert führt. Dazu sei im ersten Schritt eine genauere Analyse und Typisierung der Spiele und anschliessend eine Konkretisierung der didaktischen Strategien und Arrangements für die sinnvolle Einbettung in den Unterricht erforderlich. Der Beitrag vermittelt einen ersten systematischen Überblick über entsprechende mediendidaktische Ziele und Ansätze für den Einsatz von Computerspielen in Schule und Unterricht. Matthias Bopp geht aus von der Überlegung, dass Computerspiele die Spielenden generell mit Aufgaben und Herausforderungen konfrontieren, die nur im Rahmen von spielbezogenen Lernprozessen bewältigt werden können. Zudem unterstützen aktuelle Spiele die Spielenden in der Regel systematisch beim Erwerb der erforderlichen Kenntnisse und Fähigkeiten, weisen also ein (zumindest implizites) didaktisches Design auf. Wenn man in Rechnung stellt, dass Video- und Computerspiele für Kinder, Jugendliche und zunehmend auch Erwachsene trotz – oder gerade wegen – der hohen Anforderungen, die sie stellen, höchst faszinierend und motivierend sind, dann bietet es sich an, die Lehr-Lern-Designs digitaler Spiele genauer zu untersuchen, um ihre erfolgreichen Prinzipien auf Lernspiele zu übertragen. Der Beitrag konzentriert sich in diesem Kontext auf die Frage, welche Bedeutung zum einen Rahmengeschichten (Storytelling) und zum anderen parasoziale Interaktionen zwischen Spielenden und virtuellen Spielfiguren für die Spielmotivation haben und welche Rolle ihre gezielte Verwendung beim Design von Lernspielen zur Steigerung oder Aufrechterhaltung der Lernmotivation spielen kann. Daraus werden Empfehlungen für die Gestaltung motivierender Lernspiele abgeleitet und abschliessend an Hand zweier Beispiele veranschaulicht. Johannes Fromme, Benjamin Jörissen und Alexander Unger plädieren dafür, die Bildungspotenziale von Computerspielen – und der neuen, computerbasierten Medien überhaupt – nicht nur in ihrer Verwendung bzw. Verwendbarkeit als didaktische und motivationssteigernde Hilfsmittel für die Vermittlung dieser oder jener Lehrinhalte zu sehen, sondern die Perspektive in verschiedenen Hinsichten zu erweitern. Eine prinzipielle Erweiterung bestehe darin, bei der Frage nach Bildungspotenzialen in der Tradition der humanistischen Bildungstheorie nicht primär den Wissenserwerb, sondern die Steigerung von Reflexivität im Selbst- und Weltverhältnis in den Blick zu nehmen und somit zu fragen, in welcher Weise der Umgang mit Medien hierzu beitragen kann. Und weil Bildung in dieser Tradition grundsätzlich als Selbstbildung verstanden werde, liege es nahe, neben der formellen, institutionalisierten Bildung dem Bereich der informellen Bildung eine entsprechende Beachtung zu schenken. Der Artikel fragt daher nach dem Beitrag, den Computerspiele – und vor allem community-basierte Praxen – für eine Flexibilisierung von Selbst- und Weltsichten sowie für den Aufbau von Orientierungswissen leisten können, und diskutiert abschliessend, inwiefern solche informellen Bildungspotenziale pädagogisch aufgegriffen und unterstützt werden können. Florian Berger und Alexander Marbach gehen davon aus, dass es angesichts der Popularität und hohen Motivationskraft der Computerspiele zwar nahe liege, ihre pädagogische Verwertbarkeit zu prüfen, dass für den pädagogischen Einsatz der digitalen Spiele aber bisher weder theoretisch fundierte Konzepte noch eine hinreichende Forschung existiere. Insbesondere würden Fragen der technischen Machbarkeit zu wenig beachtet, wobei die Schwierigkeit darin bestehe, dass der jeweilige «State of the Art» für Lernspiele als Massstab schon wegen der begrenzten (finanziellen) Ressourcen ausscheide, andererseits aber ein Mindeststandard erreicht werden müsse, um die notwendige Akzeptanz beim Anwender zu finden. Vor diesem Hintergrund geht der Beitrag zunächst der Frage nach, was die technische, die kulturelle und die pädagogische Qualität eines digitalen Spiels ausmacht, um dann – aus einer primär ingenieurwissenschaftlichen Perspektive – zu diskutieren, wie bei der Gestaltung von Lernspielen eine gute Balance erreicht werden kann. Ralf Biermann betrachtet Computerspiele in seinem Beitrag nicht aus mediendidaktischer, sondern aus medienpädagogischer Perspektive und stellt ein Konzept vor, mit dem die digitalen Spiele selbst zum Gegenstand einer lernorientierten Auseinandersetzung werden. Die leitende Idee ist es, Wege aufzuzeigen und zu erproben, wie Computerspiele in den Bereich der aktiven, projektorientierten Medienarbeit eingebunden werden können, die sich dieser neuen Medien – im Unterschied zu Radio, Presse oder Film – bisher kaum angenommen hat. Das Konzept des Video Game Essays knüpft an der Film- und Videoarbeit an, erweitert es aber um einige neue Elemente, die mit den technischen Besonderheiten der Spiele zu tun haben. Der Ansatz kann als innovative Form der Medienanalyse angesehen werden, bleibt aber bei der Analyse nicht stehen, sondern eröffnet auch weitergehende Handlungs- und Lernpotenziale. Als Einsatzgebiete des Video Game Essays werden die ausserschulische Medienarbeit, die Schul- und die Hochschulausbildung genauer betrachtet. Claudia Lampert, Christiane Schwinge und Daniel Tolks zeichnen in ihrem Beitrag die bisherigen Entwicklungen im Bereich der Serious Games nach, die von anderen Ansätzen des mediengestützten Lernens wie E-Learning, Edutainment und Game-Based Learning abgegrenzt werden, und arbeiten den aktuellen Diskussions- und Forschungsstand auf. Die Potenziale und Grenzen werden am Beispiel zweier Spiele aus dem Gesundheitsbereich (Games for Health) detaillierter diskutiert, für die auch erste empirische Befunde vorliegen. Serious Games gewinnen zwar – nach Ansicht der Autoren/innen vor allem aus Marketinggründen – zunehmend an Bedeutung, allerdings bestehe noch ein erheblicher Forschungs- und Evaluationsbedarf. Sabrina Schrammel und Konstantin Mitgutsch kritisieren, dass im medienpädagogischen Diskurs über Computerspiele der Umstand vernachlässigt werde, dass Spielen eine kulturell geprägte, aktive Auseinandersetzung mit einem Spielgegenstand sei. Ihnen geht es im vorliegenden Beitrag daher darum, die spezifische medial- kulturelle Praktik des Computerspielens zu erfassen bzw. dafür einen geeigneten methodischen und theoretischen Zugang zu entwickeln und vorzustellen. Das Spielen von Computerspielen wird in Anlehnung an den internationalen Diskurs als Transformation und Produktion kultureller Erfahrungen interpretiert, auch um aus den Engführungen der im deutschsprachigen Raum noch dominierenden Mediennutzungs- und Medienwirkungsforschung herauszugelangen. Für die pädagogische Auseinandersetzung wird daraus abgeleitet, dass nicht die didaktische Nützlichkeit, sondern die bildungstheoretische Bedeutung von Computerspielen zu fokussieren sei. Den bisher vorherrschenden teleologischen Lernkonzepten wird hier ein genealogischer Ansatz gegenübergestellt, bei dem die Erfahrungen und Lernprozesse im Zuge der Spielhandlungen selbst thematisiert werden. An einem Beispiel wird abschliessend verdeutlicht, wie das theoretisch-methodische Vorgehen einer hierauf ausgerichteten Analyse ausgestaltet und wie bei einer solchen Analyse die medial-kulturelle Praktik des Computerspielens pädagogisch rekonstruiert werden kann. Steffen Malo, Maik Neudorf und Thorben Wist ordnen ihren Beitrag in den Kontext des Game-based Training (GBT) ein und berichten über das Projekt Alphabit, bei dem es darum geht, computerbasierte Lern- bzw. Trainingsspiele als ergänzendes methodisches Mittel für Alphabetisierungs- bzw. Grundbildungsprogramme einzusetzen. Vorgestellt werden die im Projekt entwickelten konzeptionellen Überlegungen zu den Rahmenbedingungen, zur Auswahl der Inhalte, zu unterstützenden instruktionalen Hilfen, zu den Entwicklungsprozessen und zu methodischen Aspekten des spielerischen Lernens in virtuellen Umgebungen. Ausserdem werden erste Ansätze für die Umsetzung präsentiert und offene Forschungsfragen aufgezeigt. Auch Jochen Pfannstiel, Volker Sänger und Claudia Schmitz berichten über ein Projekt, das für die Bildungspraxis konzipiert wurde und auch bereits erprobt wird. Hier geht es um Game- based Learning im Hochschulbereich, genauer: um ein Lernspiel, das ergänzend zu einer Pflichtvorlesung in der Informatik eingesetzt wird, um Studierende dazu zu motivieren, sich während des Studiums intensiver und vertiefend mit der Vorlesungsthematik zu befassen. Ziel ist also ein verbessertes und vor allem nachhaltigeres Verständnis der Vorlesungsinhalte durch spielerische Mittel zu erreichen. Der Beitrag beschreibt das dazu entwickelte Lernspiel und berichtet über die bisherigen Erfahrungen und erste Evaluationsergebnisse. * Eine Ausnahme erscheint allerdings erwähnenswert: In der ersten Hälfte der 1980er Jahre gab es in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland eine Debatte (und einige Forschungsarbeiten) zum Videospiel in Spielhallen mit dem Ergebnis, dass 1985 ein geändertes Jugendschutzgesetz in Kraft trat, das den Zugang zu Glücks- und Videospielautomaten in der Öffentlichkeit neu regulierte und unter 18-Jährigen nicht mehr gestattete. Diese Regelung ist – anders als die 2003 obligatorisch gewordenen Altersfreigaben der USK für Computerspiele auf Datenträgern – unabhängig vom Inhalt der Spiele, und sie ist bis heute in Kraft. Literatur Copier, Marinka/Raessens, Joost (Eds.) (2003): Level Up. Digital Games Research Conference, 4–6 November 2003, Utrecht University, Conference Proceedings. De Castell, Suzanne/Jenson, Jennifer (Eds.) (2007): Worlds in Play. International Perspectives on Digital Games Research. New York et al.: Peter Lang. Fritz, Jürgen/Fehr, Wolfgang (Hrsg.) (2003): Computerspiele. Virtuelle Spiel- und Lernwelten. Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung. Fromme, Johannes, Meder, Norbert; Vollmer, Nikolaus (2000). Computerspiele in der Kinderkultur. Opladen: Leske + Budrich. Juul, Jesper (2005). Half-real. Video games between real rules and fictional worlds. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Kafai, Yasmin B./Heeter, Carrie/Denner, Jill/Sun, Jennifer Y. (Eds.) (2008): Beyond Barbie and Mortal Kombat. New Perspectives on Gender and Gaming. Cambridge, Mass./London: MIT Press. Kaminski, Winfred/Lorber, Martin (Hrsg.) (2006): Clash of Realities. Computerspiele und soziale Wirklichkeit. München: Kopäd. Klimmt, Christoph (2005): Computerspielen als Handlung. Dimensionen und Determinanten des Erlebens interaktiver Unterhaltungssoftware. Köln: Herbert von Halem. Mäyrä, Frans (2008): An Introduction to Game Studies. Games in Culture. Los Angeleos u.a.: SAGE. Neitzel, Britta/Bopp, Matthias/Nohr, Rolf F. (Hrsg.) (2004): «See? I’m real …» Multidisziplinäre Zugänge zum Computerspiel am Beispiel von ‹Silent Hill›. Münster: Lit. Newman, James (2003): Videogames. London/New York: Routledge. Pearce, Celia/Artemesia (2009): Communities of Play. Emergent Cultures in Multiplayer Games and Virtual Worlds. Cambridge, Mass./London: MIT Press. Quandt, Thorsten/Wimmer, Jeffrey/Wolling, Jens (Hrsg.) (2008): Die Computerspieler. Studien zur Nutzung von Computergames. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag. Raessens, Joost; Goldstein, Jeffrey (2005) (Ed). Handbook of Computer Game Studies. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Vorderer, Peter; Bryant, Jennings (2006) (Ed). Playing Video Games. Motives, Responses, and Consequences. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Wolf, Mark J./Perron, Bernard (Eds.) (2003): The Video Game Theory Reader. New York/London: Routledge.

The best conference presentations tell a story with an interesting introduction, details in the middle, and a conclusion that leads to new research, questions or answers about practice, and perhaps further research on the topic. So, too, do journal articles, and this publication is dependent on the rigors of quality research to tell stories about our patients and their experiences and make suggestions on how we can effect change.

In this article, I combine an experiential account of creative conference disruptions with conceptual ideas for inclusive formats in researcher–activist gatherings. Decelerated storytelling sessions to “miss out” on conventional conference flows were facilitated around the wood burner of a shepherd’s hut at the European Congress of Qualitative Inquiry (ECQI) 2019 in Edinburgh. Installed as a conference fringe with a counter-temporality, the Welcome Hut entered the program as a “game changer”: a novel pathway for abstract submission offered by ECQI. New ideas to structure events of qualitative research are expressed in order to respond to the challenges for organizers, delegates, and overall conference coherence arising when a major event for nonmainstreamed inquiry grows in scale, popularity, and ambition. As a result of their success, conferences that promise qualitative nonstandardization face the ambiguities that come with growing delegate numbers. I reflect on conference formats that enable rather than disable activist spaces and temporalities. Researcher–activists are invited to explore their personal agency in order to make space for utopian imagination, to allow time for rhythmic contestation, and to experiment with alternative ways to gather, within temporal conference commons. Inclusive pluritemporalities in academia then do not have to remain a privilege for the lucky few.

AbstractThis article has been developed from a keynote address given at the June 2015 Faces of English conference held at the University of Hong Kong. The article examines the trajectory of Bonny Norton’s research on identity and language learning, highlighting her construct of investment, developed as a sociological complement to the psychological construct of motivation (Norton, 2013). An important focus of the paper is the expanded 2015 model of investment (Darvin & Norton, 2015), which responds to the changing communicative landscape of an increasingly digital world, and locates investment at the intersection of identity, capital, and ideology. Norton exemplifies her theories with data drawn from her collaborative research on English language learning in Canada, Pakistan, Uganda, and Iran. With reference to digital storytelling as a promising classroom practice, she argues that the challenge for English language teachers internationally is to promote learner investment in the language and literacy practices of classrooms by increasing the range of identities available to English language learners.

News and Announcements1) Canadian Children's Book News, Spring 2015 IssueIn recognition of the TD Canadian Children's Book Week and its theme "Hear Our Stories: Celebrating First Nations, Métis and Inuit Literature," this issue explores several facets of this vibrant part of children's literature. It includes a profile of author David Alexander Robertson and a look at the publishers and market for First Nations, Métis, and Inuit stories.2) TD Canadian Children's Book Week (May 2- May 9, 2015) is the single most important national event celebrating Canadian children’s books and the importance of reading. More than 28,000 children, teens, and adults participate in activities held in every province and territory across the country. Hundreds of schools, public libraries, bookstores, and community centres host events as part of this major literary festival. It is organized by the Canadian Children’s Book Centre, in partnership with the Storytellers of Canada/Conteurs du Canada.3) Free Comic Book Day (May 2, 2015) takes place annually on the first Saturday in May. It is a single day when participating comic book specialty shops and public libraries across North America and around the world give away comic books absolutely free to anyone who comes into their shops! For more information: http://www.freecomicbookday.com/Home/1/1/27/9924) Canadian Authors for Indies Day (May 2, 2015)Authors across Canada support independent bookstores by volunteering as guest book sellers. To see who may be in your local indie book store, go to http://www.authorsforindies.com/5) Storytellers of Canada/Conteurs du Canada conference: Where Languages Meet (July 2-5, 2015). This year’s conference is in Lévis, Quebec where a rich storytelling tradition awaits. La Maison Natale Louis Fréchette – birthplace of one of Quebec’s most celebrated poets – hosts the SC-CC conference which proudly brings a range of vibrant programming in both official languages storytellers and listeners. http://www.storytellers-conteurs.ca/en/conference/storytellers-conference-2015.html6) Words in 3 Dimensions Conference 2015: Intersections (May 22 to 24, 2015)Held at the Chateau Lacombe Hotel in Edmonton for this second edition, the conference connects writers, editors, publishers, and agents from across Canada. This weekend focuses on how and where a writer’s work with words intersects with other disciplines. http://www.wordsin3d.com/7) The 2015 Storytelling World Resource Awards (storytellingworld.com/2015/) includes the following Canadian titles :Stories for Pre-Adolescent Listeners: Not My Girl: the True Sotry of a Daughter's Cultural Adjustmentsby Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton (Annick Press)Stories for Adolescent Listeners: Hope Springs: a Story of Complassion and understanding by Eric Walters (Tundra Books)8) IBBY Canada (International Board on Books for Young People, Canadian section). Stop, Thief!, illustrated by Pierre Pratt and written by Heather Tekavec (Kids Can Press, 2014), is the winner of the Elizabeth Mrazik-Cleaver Canadian Picture Book Award. Pierre was also nominated [again] by IBBY Canada for the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Award.” www.ibby-canada.org/elizabeth-mrazik-cleaver-pratt/And now, a plethora of shortlist announcements:1) The 2015 Alberta Literary Awards ShortlistWinners will be announced and awards presented at the Alberta Literary Awards Gala on Saturday, May 23, 2015. The celebration will take place at the Chateau Lacombe Hotel (10111 Bellamy Hill Road) in Edmonton alongside the 2015 Words in 3 Dimensions Conference: Intersections (see above).A full list of award categories and nominees can be found at http://writersguild.ca/2015-alberta-literary-awards-shortlist/2) R. Ross Annett Award for Children's Literature (www.bookcentre.ca/awards/r_ross_annett_award_childrens_literature) Victor Lethbridge– You're Just Right (Tatanka Books)Leanne Shirtliffe– The Change Your Name Store (Sky Pony Press)Richard Van Camp– Little You (Orca Book Publishers) 3) 2014 Science in Society Book Awards Shortlists. Two annual book awards honour outstanding contributions to science writing. One is for books intended for children ages 8-12; the other for book aimed at the general public. Winners will be announced on Canada Book Day, April 23, 2015. http://sciencewriters.ca/awards/book-awards/Zoobots by Helaine Becker, Kids Can Press.Starting from Scratch by Sarah Elton, Owl Kids Books.It’s Catching by Jennifer Gardy, Owl Kids Books.The Fly by Elise Gravel, Penguin Random House.If by David J. Smith, Kids Can Press.4) 2015 Atlantic Book Awards ShortlistThe full shortlist for the eight different book prizes comprising the 2015 Atlantic Book Awards can be found www.atlanticbookawards.ca. Below are the nominees for the Ann Connor Brimer Award for Children’s Literature and the Lillian Shepherd Award for Excellence in Illustration. Winners will be announced Thursday, May 14, 2015.Ann Connor Brimer Award for Children’s LiteratureJack, the King of Ashes by Andy Jones (Running Goat Books & Broadsides)Flame and Ashes: The Great Fire Diary of Triffie Winsor (Dear Canada series) by Janet McNaughton (Scholastic Canada Ltd.)The End of the Line by Sharon E. McKay (Annick Press Ltd.)Lillian Sheperd Award for Excellence in IllustrationSydney Smith (nominee) Music is for Everyone by Jill Barber (Nimbus Publishing)Michael Pittman (nominee) Wow Wow and Haw Haw by George Murray(Breakwater Books)Nancy Rose (nominee) The Secret Life of Squirrels by Nancy Rose (Penguin Canada)5) Newfoundland and Labrador Book Award shortlist.During even-numbered years, these awards honour fiction and children’s/young adult fiction books; odd-numbered years recognise poetry and non-fiction. The winners will be announced May 27, 2015. This year’s list of finalists for the Newfoundland and Labrador Non-fiction Award are all first-time authors (http://wanl.ca/literary_awards)Alan Doyle for Where I Belong: From Small Town to Great Big Sea (Doubleday Canada)Janet Merlo for No One to Tell: Breaking My Silence on Life in the RCMP (Breakwater Books)Andrew Peacock for Creatures of the Rock (Doubleday Canada)Three acclaimed Newfoundland poets are shortlisted for the E.J. Pratt Poetry Award:Michael Crummey for Under the Keel(House of Anansi Press)Mary Dalton for Hooking (Véhicule Press)Carmelita McGrath for Escape Velocity (Goose Lane Editions)6) 2015 Information Book Award Shortlist announced by the Children’s Literature Roundtables of Canada. Voting Deadline: Saturday October 31, 2015.Any Questions? by Marie-Louise Gay.(Groundwood Books). A Brush Full of Colour: The World of Ted Harrison. by Margriet Ruurs & Katherine Gibson (Pajama Press).Do You Know Komodo Dragons? by Alain M. Bergeron, Michel Quintin, and Sampar. Illustrations by Sampar. Translated by Solange Messier (Fitzhenry & Whiteside).Dreaming in Indian: Contemporary Native American Voices. edited by Lisa Charleyboy and Mary Beth Leatherdale (Annick Press). Not My Girl. by Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton. Illustrated by Gabrielle Grimard (Annick Press). The Rat. by Elise Gravel (Tundra Books). Shapes in Math, Science and Nature: Squares, Triangles and Circles. by Catherine Sheldrick Ross. Illustrated by Bill Slavin (Kids Can Press). Take Shelter: At Home Around the World. by Nikki Tate and Dani Tate-Stratton (Orca Books). Tastes Like Music: 17 Quirks of the Brain and Body. by Maria Birmingham. Illustrated by Monika Melnychuk (Owl Kids). We All Count: A Book of Cree Numbers. by Julie Flett (Native Northwest).For more information about voting and submissions please contact the Information Book Award Chair, Kay Weisman at weismankay@gmail.com7) IBBY Canada (International Board on Books for Young People, Canadian section).Stop, Thief! illustrated by Pierre Pratt and written by Heather Tedavec (Kids Can Press, 2014) is the winner of the Elizabeth Mrazik-Cleaver Canadian Picture Book Award. Pierre was also nominated [again] by IBBY Canada for the prestigious ans Chrisitan Andersen Award. (www.ibby-canada.org/elizabeth-mrazik-cleaver-pratt/)-----Presented by Gail de Vos. Gail is an adjunct professor who teaches courses on Canadian children's literature, young adult literature, and commic books and graphic novels at the School of Library and Information Studies (SLIS) at the University of Alberta and is the author of nine books on storytelling and folklore. She is a professional storyteller and has taught the storytelling course at SLIS for over two decades.

Colleagues,I am delighted to present to you the summary abstracts and presentations from the 2019 International Society of Disease Surveillance (ISDS) Conference which was held San Diego, CA from January 30th – February 2nd, 2019. Over the past several years, the concept of investing in data science and data scientists has been touted as a transformational endeavor for governmental organizations, non-profits, as well as private sector and commercial markets. How “true” data science is harnessed to influence and improve public health surveillance and population health remains to be seen. Data science has great potential to provide a new lens to inform and improve public health surveillance and population health. However, this lens needs to focus upon more than just “Big Data” analytics and information technology. It must also focus on fostering organizational environments and multi-agency collaborations that invigorate curiosity and experimentation and development of cross-disciplinarian partnerships to address multifactorial and multidimensional health and disparity challenges. It also must hone in on producing evidence-based analytic results to improve measurable health outcomes. Analysis and summary results are not the end products for surveillance. The concept of data science needs to be leveraged across public health to better communicate the findings of disease surveillance through the “storytelling of illness and disease” to influence public health policy, and ultimately improve population health.This year, with these ideas in mind, and with the support of a dynamic, engaged, and multi-disciplinary Scientific Planning Committee (SPC) - ISDS has expanded its conference scope beyond traditional tracks which historically focused on surveillance, informatics, and analysis, to include tracks related to:One HealthNon – Human Health SurveillanceEcologyCommunications, Medical Rhetoric, Visualization, and ReportingChronic Disease / Mental HealthSubstance AbuseData QualityInjury SurveillanceSubstance Abuse – Opioid SurveillanceRecognizing that Public Health is a collaborative and multi-disciplinary team sport, we have expanded our outreach efforts to include new partners across academia, the private sector, state, local, and tribal partners, as well as federal agencies. During the 2019 ISDS Conference, we had a significant increase in overall attendance (~375) and abstracts submissions compared to prior years; with 29 countries represented and 130 oral presentations and 95 poster presentations provided over the three-day conference. We held a number of sessions on Opioid Use and Prescribing Surveillance as well as Medical Rhetoric, Communications, and Visualization that were standing-room only and beyond.Our keynote speakers on the intersection of Data Science and Public Health included: William J. Kassler, MD, MPH, IBM Watson Health – Deputy Chief Health OfficerWilma J. Wooten, MD, MPH, Public Health Officer for the County of San DiegoMichael Hogarth, MD, FACP, FACMI, Chief Clinical Research Information Officer for University of California San Diego HealthSome of the key take-aways from the presentations at the 2019 ISDS Conference were that data science and the act of data collections and analysis are NOT the end goals of public health surveillance; they are just the beginning. Data do NOT speak for themselves; they require context, curation, interpretation, and ultimately need to effectively communicating findings through the story telling of illness and disease to officials, policy makers, and the public with the objective to inform and influence public health policy, motivate health behavior change, drive public health action, and ultimately improve population health.I encourage you to review the abstracts submitted here in the Online Journal of Public Health Informatics which were presented at the 2019 International Society for Disease Surveillance 2019 Conference and to engage multi-dimensional and multi-disciplinary conversations (reach out directly to authors and presenters) around these important topics, expand your networks and opportunities in the public health community. Regards,Peter Hicks, MA, MPHScientific Program Chair International Society for Disease Surveillance (ISDS) 2019Centers for Disease Control and Prevention**Information included in this statement are those of the author and do not represent the official position of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Unconventional, uncommon, irregular, off-beat, counter to as in contradistinction to the popular. Here we look to the margins of film and media, practice and industry to explore alternative approaches to popular modes of thinking and doing. The theme of ‘alternative’ was borne from the 2016 Revelation Perth International Film Festival’s academic conference, a wonderful two days of discussion with an emphasis on fringe film and media. A number of the authors who have contributed to this issue were a part of this conference, with others contributing from the wider academic community.Finding the alternative can come to mean a number of discursive approaches in its collision with film and media more broadly – from alternative modes of storytelling, alternative ways of producing and consuming film and media, to alternative and oppositional ideologies. Subversions of the mainstream, wherever that may be found by scholar and critic alike, lead to an astonishing array of alternative voices in the film and media landscape. This issue of M/C Journal presents a number of diverse takes on the word ‘alternative’. Ian Dixon’s feature article, “Film Writing Adapted for Game Narrative: Myth of Error?” asks if the writers of video games can learn from traditional film storytelling in navigating alternative rules for new media. Following on for this, Stuart Bender’s article “You Are Not Expected to Survive: Affective Friction in the Combat Shooter Game Battlefield 1” looks at alternative narrative structures in popular shooter games drawing on affect and phenomenology. Turning to other media modes, Wes Hill explores the turning alternative cultural tides in Harmony Korine’s film Trash Humpers. Sean Tiffee’s “The Rhetorical Alternative in Neurocinematics” explores the emerging interdisciplinary field of neurocinematics, combing neuroscience and film studies to find an alternative way of understanding audience. In “Emotional Memory Forever: The Cinematography of Paul Ewing”, Andrew Ewing takes an alternative approach to ethnography in looking to his father’s home movies as an example of amateur image making and its lasting legacy. From film to television, Bridgette Glover’s article “Alternative Pathway to Television: Negotiating Female Representation in Broad City’s Transition from YouTube to Cable” explores the uninhibited landscape of the web to the more traditional medium of television. From television to music, Adam Haupt’s “Mix En Meng It Op: Emile YX?’s Alternative Race and Language Politics in South African Hip-Hop” breaks down Emile YX?’s work as an alternative take on mainstream U.S. and South African hip-hop. In line with alternative takes on the traditional, Katie Lavers and Jon Burtt ‘s article “Briefs and Hot Brown Honey: Alternative Bodies in Contemporary Circus” explores how conventional notions of the body in circus/cabaret are challenged and subverted in the work of two Brisbane-based companies. Looking to print media, in “Before Alternative Voices: The Sydney Gazzette and New South Wales Advertiser”, Rachel Franks writes on the early singular voice in Australian news media that paved the way for the alternative and multiple voices in the industry today. In “The Uses of Hate: On Hate as a Political Category”, Pansy Duncan draws on recent work in affect theory to assess the value of the labour of hate-attribution in which many liberal commentators, both in media studies and in the media proper, have become caught up. Concluding the issue is Lelia Green and Kylie Stevenson’s article “A Ten-Year-Old’s Use of Creative Content to Construct an Alternative Future for Herself”. This article investigates the alternative power of engaging with creative media as a means of inspiring innovative visions for a satisfying and potent future for disadvantaged children. The articles in this issue of M/C Journal harness some of those voices that explore the ‘alternative’ in a range of media.

Have you been following Amy’s Marathon of books? Inspired by by Terry Fox’s and Rick Hansen’s Canadian journeys, Amy Mathers is honouring her passion for reading and Canadian teen literature while working around her physical limitations through a Marathon of Books. Amy will be reading teen fiction books from every province and territory, exploring Canada and promoting Canadian teen authors and books by finishing a book a day for each day of 2014, writing a review for each book she reads. The goal is to raise money for the Canadian Children’s Book Centre (CCBC) in order to endow a Canadian teen book award to be presented at the yearly Canadian Children’s Literature Awards gala. Amy will collect fundraising pledges (which are eligible for a charitable tax receipt). http://amysmarathonofbooks.ca/The National Reading Campaign (NRC) is thrilled to announce the inaugural week-long event READING TOWN CANADA. For one week, May 3-10th, 2014, the National Reading Campaign will turn Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan into an exemplary model of what a reading Canada would look like. Reading will be woven into every feature of life through a series of exciting events: Imagine having a poem delivered with your pizza, wandering into a fully-stocked ‘reading glen’ in Crescent Park, discovering a book by a local author in your Welcome Wagon package, or finding a tiny lending library at the end of your street. http://www.nationalreadingcampaign.ca/about-reading-town-canada/IBBY Canada (the Canadian national section of the International Board on Books for Young People) named Bonnie Tulloch as the Frances E. Russell Grant recipient. Bonnie is a graduate student in the children’s literature program of the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies at the University of British Columbia. She is doing an analysis of contemporary Canadian children’s and young adult novels that focus on island adventures; the resulting work will be titled “No ‘Man’ is an Island: Examining Island Imagery and its Relation to Female Identity in a Selection of Canadian Children’s and Young Adult Fiction.” http://www.ibby-canada.org/?p=2080CANSCAIP is presenting two upcoming workshops: Imagine a Story, a day of workshops for those interested in writing, illustrating and performing for children, will be held May 31 at Dawson College in Montreal; Packaging Your Imagination, Canada's oldest and largest conference on the craft and business of writing, illustrating and performing for children, will be held October 18 at Humber College Lakeshore Campus in Toronto. Registration for the latter conference will commence in late May. http://www.canscaip.org/Award Season is soon to be blossoming along with spring and summer. Recent announcements for shortlists include the 2014 Atlantic Book Awards and The Canadian Science Writers’ Association (CSWA).The shortlists for the Atlantic Book Awards are:Ann Connor Brimer Award for Children’s LiteratureNix Minus One, by Jill MacLean (Pajama Press)The Power of Harmony, by Jan L. Coates (Red Deer Press)The Stowaways, by Meghan Marentette, Illustrated by Dean Griffiths (Pajama Press)Lillian Shepherd Award for Excellence in IllustrationLasso the Wind: Aurélia’s Verses and Other Poems Illustrated by Susan Tooke and written by George Elliott Clarke (Nimbus Publishing)Pisim Finds her Miskanow Illustrated by Leonard Paul and written by William Dumas (Portage & Main Press)Singily Skipping Along, Illustrated by Deanne Fitzpatrick and written by Sheree Fitch (Nimbus Publishing)In addition two other children’s titles were also shortlisted:Ghost Boy of MacKenzie House by Patti Larsen (Acorn Press) for the Prince Edward Island Book Award (fiction category)Formac Publishing was nominated for the APMA Best Atlantic-Published Book Award (sponsored by Friesens Corporation), for Bluenose Adventure by Jacqueline Halsey with illustrations by Eric Orchard.http://atlanticbookawards.ca/ The shortlist for the Canadian Science Writers’ Association for outstanding youth book:Au labo, les Debrouillards! written by Yannick Bergeron (Bayard jeunesse)Before the World Was Ready written by Claire Eamer and illustrated by Sa Boothroyd (Annick Press)Buzz About Bees written by Kari-Lynn Winters (Fitzhenry & Whiteside)Dirty Science: 25 Experiments with Soil written by Shar Levine and Leslie Johnstone, illustrated by Lorzeno Del Bianco (Scholastic Canada)A History of Just About Everything: 180 Events, People and Inventions That Changed the World written by Elizabeth MacLeod and Frieda Wishinsky, illustrated by Qin Leng (Kids Can Press)Pandemic Survival: It's Why You're Alive written by Ann Love and Jane Drake, illustrated by Bill Slavin (Tundra Books).http://sciencewriters.ca/2014/04/01/cswa-book-awards-shortlist-2/Gail de VosGail de Vos, an adjunct instructor, teaches courses on Canadian children's literature, Young Adult Literature and Comic Books and Graphic Novels at the School of Library and Information Studies for the University of Alberta and is the author of nine books on storytelling and folklore. She is a professional storyteller and has taught the storytelling course at SLIS for over two decades.

The concept of transmedia storyworlds unfolding across complex serial narrative structures has become increasingly important to the study of modern media industries and audience communities. Yet, the precise connections between transmedia networks, serial structures, and narrative processes often remain underdeveloped. The dispersion of potential story elements across a diverse collection of media platforms and technologies prompts questions concerning the function of seriality in the absence of fixed instalments, the meaning of narrative when plot is largely a personal construction of each audience member, and the nature of storytelling in the absence of a unifying author, or when authorship itself takes on a serial character. This special issue opens a conversation on the intersection of these three concepts and their implications for a variety of disciplines, artistic practices, and philosophies. By re-thinking these concepts from fresh perspectives, the collection challenges scholars to consider how a wide range of academic, aesthetic, and social phenomena might be productively thought through using the overlapping lenses of transmedia, seriality, and narrativity. Thus, the collection gathers scholars from life-writing, sport, film studies, cultural anthropology, fine arts, media studies, and literature, all of whom find common ground at this fruitful crossroads. This breadth also challenges the narrow use of transmedia as a specialized term to describe current developments in corporate mass media products that seek to exploit the affordances of hybrid digital media environments. Many prominent scholars, including Marie-Laure Ryan and Henry Jenkins, acknowledge that a basic definition of transmedia as stories with extensions and reinterpretations in numerous media forms includes the oldest kinds of human expression, such as the ancient storyworlds of Arthurian legend and The Odyssey. Yet, what Jenkins terms “top-down” transmedia—that is, pre-planned and often corporate transmedia—has received a disproportionate share of scholarly attention, with modern franchises like The Matrix, the Marvel universe, and Lost serving as common exemplars (Flanagan, Livingstone, and McKenny; Hadas; Mittell; Scolari). Thus, many of the contributions to this issue push the boundaries of what has commonly been studied as transmedia as well as the limits of what may be considered a serial structure or even a story. For example, these papers imagine how an autobiography may also be a digital concept album unfolding in reverse, how participatory artistic performances may unfold in unpredictable instalments across physical and digital space, and how studying sports fandom as a long series of transmedia narrative elements encourages scholars to grapple with the unique structures assembled by audiences of non-fictional story worlds. Setting these experimental offerings into dialogue with entries that approach the study of transmedia in a more established manner provides the basis for building bridges between such recognized conversations in new media studies and potential collaborations with other disciplines and subfields of media studies.This issue builds upon papers collected from four years of the International Transmedia Serial Narration Seminar, which I co-organized with Dr. Claire Cornillon, Assistant Professor (Maîtresse de Conférences) of comparative literature at Université de Nîmes. The seminar held sessions in Paris, Le Havre, Rouen, Amsterdam, and Utrecht, with interdisciplinary speakers from the USA, Australia, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. As a transnational, interdisciplinary project intended to cross both theoretical and physical boundaries, the seminar aimed to foster exchange between academic conversations that can become isolated not only within disciplines, but also within national and linguistic borders. The seminar thus sought to enhance academic mobility between both people and ideas, and the digital, open-access publication of the collected papers alongside additional scholarly interlocutors serves to broaden the seminar’s goals of creating a border-crossing conversation. After two special issues primarily collecting the French language papers in TV/Series (2014) and Revue Française des Sciences de l’Information et de la Communication (2017), this issue seeks to share the Transmedia Serial Narration project with a wider audience by publishing the remaining English-language papers, accompanied by several other contributions in dialogue with the seminar’s themes. It is our hope that this collection will invite a broad international audience to creatively question the meaning of transmedia, seriality, and narrativity both historically and in the modern, rapidly changing, global and digital media environment.Several articles in the issue illuminate existing debates and common case studies in transmedia scholarship by comparing theoretical models to the much more slippery reality of a media form in flux. Thus, Mélanie Bourdaa’s feature article, “From One Medium to the Next: How Comic Books Create Richer Storylines,” examines theories of narrative complexity and transmedia by scholars including Henry Jenkins, Derek Johnson, and Jason Mittell to then propose a new typology of extensions to accommodate the lived reality expressed by producers of transmedia. Because her interviews with artists and writers emphasize the co-constitutive nature of economic and narrative considerations in professionals’ decisions, Bourdaa’s typology can offer researchers a tool to clarify the marketing and narrative layers of transmedia extensions. As such, her classification system further illuminates what is particular about forms of corporate transmedia with a profit orientation, which may not be shared by non-profit, collective, and independently produced transmedia projects.Likewise, Radha O’Meara and Alex Bevan map existing scholarship on transmedia to point out the limitations of deriving theory only from certain forms of storytelling. In their article “Transmedia Theory’s Author Discourse and Its Limitations,” O’Meara and Bevan argue that scholars have preferred to focus on examples of transmedia with a strong central author-figure or that they may indeed help to rhetorically shore up the coherency of transmedia authorship through writing about transmedia creators as auteurs. Tying their critique to the established weaknesses of auteur theory associated with classic commentaries like Roland Barthes’ “Death of the Author” and Foucault’s “What is an Author?”, O’Meara and Bevan explain that this focus on transmedia creators as authority figures reinforces hierarchical, patriarchal understandings of the creative process and excludes from consideration all those unauthorized transmedia extensions through which audiences frequently engage and make meaning from transmedia networks. They also emphasize the importance of constructing academic theories of transmedia authorship that can accommodate collaborative forms of hybrid amateur and professional authorship, as well as tolerate the ambiguities of “authorless” storyworlds that lack clear narrative boundaries. O’Meara and Bevan argue that such theories will help to break down gendered power hierarchies in Hollywood, which have long allowed individual men to “claim credit for the stories and for all the work that many people do across various sectors and industries.”Dan Hassler-Forest likewise considers existing theory and a corporate case study in his examination of analogue echoes within a modern transmedia serial structure by mapping the storyworld of Twin Peaks (1990). His article, “‘Two Birds with One Stone’: Transmedia Serialisation in Twin Peaks,” demonstrates the push-and-pull between two contemporary TV production strategies: first, the use of transmedia elements that draw viewers away from the TV screen toward other platforms, and second, the deployment of strategies that draw viewers back to the TV by incentivizing broadcast-era appointment viewing. Twin Peaks offers a particularly interesting example of the manner in which these strategies intertwine partly because it already offered viewers an analogue transmedia experience in the 1990s by splitting story elements between TV episodes and books. Unlike O’Meara and Bevan, who elucidate the growing prominence of transmedia auteurs who lend rhetorical coherence to dispersed narrative elements, Hassler-Forest argues that this older analogue transmedia network capitalized upon the dilution of authorial authority, due to the distance between TV and book versions, to negotiate tensions between the producers’ competing visions. Hassler-Forest also notes that the addition of digital soundtrack albums further complicates the serial nature of the story by using the iTunes and TV distribution schedules to incentivize repeated sequential consumption of each element, thus drawing modern viewers to the TV screen, then the computer screen, and then back again.Two articles offer a concrete test of these theoretical perspectives by utilizing ethnographic participant-observation and interviewing to examine how audiences actually navigate diffuse, dispersed storyworlds. For example, Céline Masoni’s article, “From Seriality to Transmediality: A Socio-narrative Approach of a Skilful and Literate Audience,” documents fans’ highly strategic participatory practices. From her observations of and interviews with fans, Masoni theorizes the types of media literacy and social as well as technological competencies cultivated through transmedia fan practices. Olivier Servais and Sarah Sepulchre’s article similarly describes a long-term ethnography of fan transmedia activity, including interviews with fans and participant-observation of the MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) Game of Thrones Ascent (2013). Servais and Sepulchre find that most people in their interviews are not “committed” fans, but rather casual readers and viewers who follow transmedia extensions sporadically. By focusing on this group, they widen the existing research which often focuses on or assumes a committed audience like the skilful and literate fans discussed by Masoni.Servais and Sepulchre’s results suggest that these viewers may be less likely to seek out all transmedia extensions but readily accept and adapt unexpected elements, such as the media appearances of actors, to add to their serial experiences of the storyworld. In a parallel research protocol observing the Game of Thrones Ascent MMORPG, Servais and Sepulchre report that the most highly-skilled players exhibit few behaviours associated with immersion in the storyworld, but the majority of less-skilled players use their gameplay choices to increase immersion by, for example, choosing a player name that evokes the narrative. As a result, Servais and Sepulchre shed light upon the activities of transmedia audiences who are not necessarily deeply committed to the entire transmedia network, and yet who nonetheless make deliberate choices to collect their preferred narrative elements and increase their own immersion.Two contributors elucidate forms of transmedia that upset the common emphasis on storyworlds with film or TV as the core property or “mothership” (Scott). In her article “Transmedia Storyworlds, Literary Theory, Games,” Joyce Goggin maps the history of intersections between experimental literature and ludology. As a result, she questions the continuing dichotomy between narratology and ludology in game studies to argue for a more broadly transmedia strategy, in which the same storyworld may be simultaneously narrative and ludic. Such a theory can incorporate a great deal of what might otherwise be unproblematically treated as literature, opening up the book to interrogation as an inherently transmedial medium.L.J. Maher similarly examines the serial narrative structures that may take shape in a transmedia storyworld centred on music rather than film or TV. In her article “You Got Spirit, Kid: Transmedial Life-Writing Across Time and Space,” Maher charts the music, graphic novels, and fan interactions that comprise the Coheed and Cambria band storyworld. In particular, Maher emphasizes the importance of autobiography for Coheed and Cambria, which bridges between fictional and non-fictional narrative elements. This interplay remains undertheorized within transmedia scholarship, although a few have begun to explicate the use of transmedia life-writing in an activist context (Cati and Piredda; Van Luyn and Klaebe; Riggs). As a result, Maher widens the scope of existing transmedia theory by more thoroughly connecting fictional and autobiographical elements in the same storyworld and considering how serial transmedia storytelling structures may differ when the core component is music.The final three articles take a more experimental approach that actively challenges the existing boundaries of transmedia scholarship. Catherine Lord’s article, “Serial Nuns: Michelle Williams Gamaker’s The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten as Serial and Trans-serial,” explores the unique storytelling structures of a cluster of independent films that traverse time, space, medium, and gender. Although not a traditional transmedia project, since the network includes a novel and film adaptations and extensions by different directors as well as real-world locations and histories, Lord challenges transmedia theorists to imagine storyworlds that include popular history, independent production, and spatial performances and practices. Lord argues that the main character’s trans identity provides an embodied and theoretical pivot within the storyworld, which invites audiences to accept a position of radical mobility where all fixed expectations about the separation between categories of flora and fauna, centre and periphery, the present and the past, as well as authorized and unauthorized extensions, dissolve.In his article “Non-Fiction Transmedia: Seriality and Forensics in Media Sport,” Markus Stauff extends the concept of serial transmedia storyworlds to sport, focusing on an audience-centred perspective. For the most part, transmedia has been theorized with fictional storyworlds as the prototypical examples. A growing number of scholars, including Arnau Gifreu-Castells and Siobhan O'Flynn, enrich our understanding of transmedia storytelling by exploring non-fiction examples, but these are commonly restricted to the documentary genre (Freeman; Gifreu-Castells, Misek, and Verbruggen; Karlsen; Kerrigan and Velikovsky). Very few scholars comment on the transmedia nature of sport coverage and fandom, and when they do so it is often within the framework of transmedia news coverage (Gambarato, Alzamora, and Tárcia; McClearen; Waysdorf). Stauff’s article thus provides a welcome addition to the existing scholarship in this field by theorizing how sport fans construct a user-centred serial transmedia storyworld by piecing together narrative elements across media sources, embodied experiences, and the serialized ritual of sport seasons. In doing so, he points toward ways in which non-fiction transmedia may significantly differ from fictional storyworlds, but he also enriches our understanding of an audience-centred perspective on the construction of transmedia serial narratives.In his artistic practice, Robert Lawrence may most profoundly stretch the existing parameters of transmedia theory. Lawrence’s article, “Locate, Combine, Contradict, Iterate: Serial Strategies for PostInternet Art,” details his decades-long interrogation of transmedia seriality through performative and participatory forms of art that bridge digital space, studio space, and public space. While theatre and fine arts have often been considered through the theoretical lens of intermediality (Bennett, Boenisch, Kattenbelt, Vandsoe), the nexus of transmedia, seriality, and narrative enables Lawrence to describe the complex, interconnected web of planned and unplanned extensions of his hybrid digital and physical installations, which often last for decades and incorporate a global scope. Lawrence thus takes the strategies of engagement that are perhaps more familiar to transmedia theorists from corporate viral marketing campaigns and turns them toward civic ends (Anyiwo, Bourdaa, Hardy, Hassler-Forest, Scolari, Sokolova, Stork). As such, Lawrence’s artistic practice challenges theorists of transmedia and intermedia to consider the kinds of social and political “interventions” that artists and citizens can stage through the networked possibilities of transmedia expression and how the impact of such projects can be amplified through serial repetition.Together, the whole collection opens new pathways for transmedia scholarship, more deeply explores how transmedia narration complicates understandings of seriality, and constructs an international, interdisciplinary dialogue that brings often isolated conversations into contact. In particular, this issue enriches the existing scholarship on independent, artistic, and non-fiction transmedia, while also proposing some important limitations, exceptions, and critiques to existing scholarship featuring corporate transmedia projects with a commercial, top-down structure and a strong auteur-like creator. These diverse case studies and perspectives enable us to understand more inclusively the structures and social functions of transmedia in the pre-digital age, to theorize more robustly how audiences experience transmedia in the current era of experimentation, and to imagine more broadly a complex future for transmedia seriality wherein professionals, artists, and amateurs all engage in an iterative, inclusive process of creative and civic storytelling, transcending artificial borders imposed by discipline, nationalism, capitalism, and medium.ReferencesAnyiwo, U. Melissa. "It’s Not Television, It’s Transmedia Storytelling: Marketing the ‘Real’World of True Blood." True Blood: Investigating Vampires and Southern Gothic. Ed. Brigid Cherry. New York: IB Tauris, 2012. 157-71.Barthes, Roland. "The Death of the Author." Image, Music, Text. Trans. Stephen Heath. Basingstoke: Macmillian, 1988. 142-48.Bennett, Jill. "Aesthetics of Intermediality." Art History 30.3 (2007): 432-450.Boenisch, Peter M. "Aesthetic Art to Aisthetic Act: Theatre, Media, Intermedial Performance." (2006): 103-116.Bourdaa, Melanie. "This Is Not Marketing. This Is HBO: Branding HBO with Transmedia Storytelling." Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA Postgraduate Network 7.1 (2014).Cati, Alice, and Maria Francesca Piredda. "Among Drowned Lives: Digital Archives and Migrant Memories in the Age of Transmediality." a/b: Auto/Biography Studies 32.3 (2017): 628-637.Flanagan, Martin, Andrew Livingstone, and Mike McKenny. The Marvel Studios Phenomenon: Inside a Transmedia Universe. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016.Foucault, Michel. "Authorship: What Is an Author?" Screen 20.1 (1979): 13-34.Freeman, Matthew. "Small Change – Big Difference: Tracking the Transmediality of Red Nose Day." VIEW Journal of European Television History and Culture 5.10 (2016): 87-96.Gambarato, Renira Rampazzo, Geane C. Alzamora, and Lorena Peret Teixeira Tárcia. "2016 Rio Summer Olympics and the Transmedia Journalism of Planned Events." Exploring Transmedia Journalism in the Digital Age. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2018. 126-146.Gifreu-Castells, Arnau. "Mapping Trends in Interactive Non-fiction through the Lenses of Interactive Documentary." International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling. Berlin: Springer, 2014.Gifreu-Castells, Arnau, Richard Misek, and Erwin Verbruggen. "Transgressing the Non-fiction Transmedia Narrative." VIEW Journal of European Television History and Culture 5.10 (2016): 1-3.Hadas, Leora. "Authorship and Authenticity in the Transmedia Brand: The Case of Marvel's Agents of SHIELD." Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA Postgraduate Network 7.1 (2014).Hardy, Jonathan. "Mapping Commercial Intertextuality: HBO’s True Blood." Convergence 17.1 (2011): 7-17.Hassler-Forest, Dan. "Skimmers, Dippers, and Divers: Campfire’s Steve Coulson on Transmedia Marketing and Audience Participation." Participations 13.1 (2016): 682-692.Jenkins, Henry. “Transmedia 202: Further Reflections.” Confessions of an Aca-Fan. 31 July 2011. <http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2011/08/defining_transmedia_further_re.html>. ———. “Transmedia Storytelling 101.” Confessions of an Aca-Fan. 21 Mar. 2007. <http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2007/03/transmedia_storytelling_101.html>. ———. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York University Press, 2006.Johnson, Derek. Media Franchising: Creative License and Collaboration in the Culture Industries. New York: New York UP, 2013.Karlsen, Joakim. "Aligning Participation with Authorship: Independent Transmedia Documentary Production in Norway." VIEW Journal of European Television History and Culture 5.10 (2016): 40-51.Kattenbelt, Chiel. "Theatre as the Art of the Performer and the Stage of Intermediality." Intermediality in Theatre and Performance 2 (2006): 29-39.Kerrigan, Susan, and J. T. Velikovsky. "Examining Documentary Transmedia Narratives through The Living History of Fort Scratchley Project." Convergence 22.3 (2016): 250-268.Van Luyn, Ariella, and Helen Klaebe. "Making Stories Matter: Using Participatory New Media Storytelling and Evaluation to Serve Marginalized and Regional Communities." Creative Communities: Regional Inclusion and the Arts. Intellect Press, 2015. 157-173.McClearen, Jennifer. "‘We Are All Fighters’: The Transmedia Marketing of Difference in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC)." International Journal of Communication 11 (2017): 18.Mittell, Jason. "Playing for Plot in the Lost and Portal Franchises." Eludamos: Journal for Computer Game Culture 6.1 (2012): 5-13.O'Flynn, Siobhan. "Documentary's Metamorphic Form: Webdoc, Interactive, Transmedia, Participatory and Beyond." Studies in Documentary Film 6.2 (2012): 141-157.Riggs, Nicholas A. "Leaving Cancerland: Following Bud at the End of Life." Storytelling, Self, Society 10.1 (2014): 78-92.Ryan, Marie-Laure. “Transmedial Storytelling and Transfictionality.” Poetics Today, 34.3 (2013): 361-388. <https://doi.org/10.1215/03335372-2325250>.Scolari, Carlos Alberto. "Transmedia Storytelling: Implicit Consumers, Narrative Worlds, and Branding in Contemporary Media Production." International Journal of Communication 3 (2009).Scott, Suzanne. “Who’s Steering the Mothership: The Role of the Fanboy Auteur in Transmedia Storytelling.” The Participatory Cultures Handbook. Eds. Aaron Delwiche and Jennifer Henderson. New York: Routledge, 2013. 43-53.Sokolova, Natalia. "Co-opting Transmedia Consumers: User Content as Entertainment or ‘Free Labour’? The Cases of STALKER. and Metro 2033." Europe-Asia Studies 64.8 (2012): 1565-1583.Stork, Matthias. "The Cultural Economics of Performance Space: Negotiating Fan, Labor, and Marketing Practice in Glee's Transmedia Geography." Transformative Works & Cultures 15 (2014).Waysdorf, Abby. "My Football Fandoms, Performance, and Place." Transformative Works & Cultures 18 (2015).Vandsoe, Anette. "Listening to the World. Sound, Media and Intermediality in Contemporary Sound Art." SoundEffects – An Interdisciplinary Journal of Sound and Sound Experience 1.1 (2011): 67-81.

Awards, Announcements, and News HarperCollinsCanada announced that Sandy Nichols from Calgary, AB, was the winner of the Illustrate “Alligator Pie “Competition that launched in October 2013. Nichols’ proposal was the unanimous choice of the competition judges, who selected it from more than 60 entries. Nichols has officially signed on with HarperCollinsCanada to illustrate the special anniversary board book edition of Dennis Lee’s famous poem “Alligator Pie.” You may wish to follow Amy’s Marathon (and if so moved, contribute to her fund raiser as well). Amy Mathers’ goal is to raise money for the Canadian Children’s Book Centre (CCBC) to endow a Canadian teen book award to be presented at the yearly Canadian Children’s Literature Awards gala. Amy will collect fundraising pledges for which donors will receive a charitable tax receipt. As stated on her website: "Inspired by Terry Fox’s and Rick Hansen’s Canadian journeys, Amy Mathers decided to honour her passion for reading and Canadian teen literature while working around her physical limitations through a Marathon of Books. Realising that Terry Fox could run a kilometre in six minutes during his Marathon of Hope, she figured out that she could read ten pages in the same amount of time. Thus, on her journey, ten pages will represent one kilometre travelled across Canada. Amy will be reading teen fiction books from every province and territory, exploring Canada and promoting Canadian teen authors and books by finishing a book a day for each day of 2014. She will write a review for each book she reads, and invites people to share their thoughts on the books she reads too." http://amysmarathonofbooks.ca/ Consider attending the upcoming Serendipity conference in Vancouver: Children’s Literature in a Digital Age ( Saturday, March 8 2014 at UBC). Presenters include illustrator Paul Zelinsky, Canadian authors Arthur Slade and Hadley Dyer, two high profile teacher-librarian bloggers John Schumacher (Library Journal) and Travis Jonker (School Library Journal) and author Tim Federle. “From practical advice on using literature-based apps with children to learning how authors and illustrators are using social media and electronic publishing, Serendipity 2014 is a must-attend event for educators, librarians, researchers and literature lovers looking to the future of books for young people.” http://vclr.ca/events-2013-14/serendipity-saturday-march-8-2014/ Saturday, May 3, 2014 is another day to mark on the calendar; the University of British Columbia will host “I Will Be Myself”: Identity in Children’s and Young Adult Literature, Media and Culture. This is a one-day conference showcasing graduate student research that explores, questions, and analyzes the issues surrounding identity in various elements of children’s and young adult literature. Keynote speaker is Dr. Phillip Serrato. The conference fee is very reasonable and includes refreshments and a catered lunch. http://blogs.ubc.ca/iwillbemyself/ For those of you in the Calgary area, plan on attending "When Worlds Collide 2014" from August 8-10, 2014 at the Carriage House Inn. This is a festival for readers, writers, artists and publishers of commercial and literary fiction, including genre, YA, Children’s books, and Poetry. Guests of honor include Diana Gabaldon, Jacqueline Guest, Mark Leslie, D.J. McIntosh and Brandon Sanderson. http://www.whenwordscollide.org/ The 2014 Alberta Readers’ Choice Award (ARCA) has now received 45 titles from a variety of Alberta authors, all vying for a $10,000 prize provided by the Edmonton Public Library (EPL). With this submission list finalized, EPL is now turning to its colleagues across the province for help in shaping a ten-item longlist that will be provided to our jury in February. If you are a staff member in an Alberta library—whether public, academic, government, law, school system or other—we want to hear from you. We’ve set up a poll at the following site: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/QXZCCRZ. Please note that we are only counting ballots that have institutional e-mail addresses listed, so please make sure that you’re listing your work e-mail. This vote will remain open until end-of-day, February 5th and results will be made public on Thursday, February 13th.www.epl.ca/2014-ARCA-submissions. The ALAN Review posted the following Calls for Papers and Proposals which may be of interest for those of you working with young adult materials. Fall 2014: Stand Your Ground: Fostering Independent Thought and Action. We believe that, as educators, we sometimes need to be our own best allies as we fight to teach in ways we know to be good and right and true-and increasingly uncommon in an age of commonality. We need to know how to defend our selection of materials and our practices as we stand our ground in the face of scripts and censors, standards and accompanying tests. In this issue, we invite educators to band together and unite around our shared commitment to kids and stories, to offer our own evidence-based support for the innovative work we do in our classrooms and libraries, to celebrate the ways in which we encourage our own students to think independently and act in good conscience, even when the odds feel daunting. Please send manuscripts to: alan-review@uconn.edu . General submissions are also welcome by the deadline of March 31, 2014. The ALAN Review also notes that "Stories from the Field" invites readers to share a story about young adult literature. This section features brief vignettes (approximately 300 words) from practicing teachers and librarians who would like to share their interactions with students, parents, colleagues, and administrators around young adult literature. Please send your stories to:alan-review@uconn.edu. That is it for this time around. Last word (reminder/suggestion): Become actively involved with the National Reading Campaign, celebrating the joy of reading in all kinds of ways. “Tell us why reading matters to you, and learn what you can do for reading! Because when Canada reads, Canada grows.” http://www.nationalreadingcampaign.ca/Gail de VosGail de Vos, an adjunct instructor, teaches courses on Canadian children's literature, Young Adult Literature and Comic Books and Graphic Novels at the School of Library and Information Studies for the University of Alberta and is the author of nine books on storytelling and folklore. She is a professional storyteller and has taught the storytelling course at SLIS for over two decades.