Digital Dialogue and Community 2.0: After avatars, trolls and puppets explores the communities that use digital platforms, portals, and applications from daily life to build relationships beyond geographical locality and family links. The book provides detailed analyses of how technology realigns the boundaries between connection, consciousness and community. This book reveals that alongside every engaged, nurturing and supportive group are those who are excluded, marginalised, ridiculed, or forgotten. It explores the argument that community is not an inevitable result of communication. Following an introduction from the Editor, the book is then divided into four sections exploring communities and resistance, structures of sharing, professional communication and fandom and consumption. Digital Dialogues and Community 2.0 combines ethnographic methods and professional expertise to open new spaces for thinking about language, identity, and social connections. - Provides innovative interdisciplinary research, incorporating Library and Information Management, Internet Studies, Cultural Studies, Media Studies, Disability Studies and Community Management - Offers a balanced approach between the 'bottom up' and 'top down' development of online communities - Demonstrates the consequences on the configuration of a community when consumers become producers and their lives and experiences are commodified

This book demonstrates how data from participatory visual methods can take people and communities beyond ideological engagement, initiating new conversations and changing perspectives, policy debates, and policy development. These methods include, for example, photo-voice, participatory video, drawing/mapping, and digital storytelling. Organised around a series of tools that have been used across health, education, environmental, and sociological research, Participatory Visual Methodologies illustrates how to maintain participant engagement in decision-making, navigate critical issues around ethics, track policies, and maximize the potential of longitudinal studies. Tools discussed include: Pedagogical screenings Digital dialogue devices Upcycling and ‘speaking back’ interventions Participant-led policy briefs An authoritative and accessible guide to how participatory visual methods and arts-based methods can influence social change, this book will help any postgraduate researcher looking to contribute to policy dialogue.

The Wales Office and the Welsh Assembly Government must ensure UK digital inclusion initiatives meet Welsh needs and build on existing good work to deliver on Welsh digital ambitions, says the Welsh Affairs Committee in a report published today. This report "Digital Inclusion in Wales", examines the use of digital technologies in Wales, highlights the urgent need for the eradication of broadband ’notspots' - areas with limited or no access to high speed internet connections - and says this issue must continue to receive priority attention. There should be more support to help a wider range of people use technology effectively. Employers told the Committee they need staff with better IT skills and more training opportunities. The Committee recommends the Welsh Assembly Government explicitly includes this issue in its digital inclusion strategy. The digital inclusion agenda is a complex mix of reserved and devolved matters. This brings a risk that key issues can be overlooked, for example no account has been taken of Welsh language speakers' needs in the Government's Digital Inclusion Action Plan. The Secretary of State for Wales must ensure that bodies in Wales across all sectors are fully engaged with initiatives and that the next stage of Digital Britain adequately reflects Welsh needs. Higher education institutions also have a vital role to play and should be involved in any new research opportunities. The Welsh Assembly already has successful digital inclusion projects in Wales and it should find a way to become fully involved with the UK digital inclusion and Digital Britain work so it does not miss out on policy developments and funding opportunities. The Committee also recommends the creation of a one-stop shop providing advice on the risks for young people using technology, and commends the Assembly's work tackling internet related crimes which it says should be promoted as part of the economic development strategy in Wales.

This book explores globally-informed, culturally-rooted approaches to dialogue in the classroom. It seeks to fill gaps in communication and education literature related to decolonizing dialogue and breaking binaries by decentering Eurocentric perspectives and providing space for dialogic practices grounded in cultural wealth of students and teachers. We first describe the book’s genesis, contextualize dialogue within the global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and share guiding concepts of inclusion, intersectionality, and authenticity in dialogue and pedagogy. We also distinguish dialogue from other practices and times in which dialogue may not be possible. The book brings fresh and urgent perspectives from authors across different disciplines, including ceramics, religious studies, cultural studies, communication, family therapy, and conflict resolution. The chapters distill the idea of dialogue within contexts like a bible circle, university sculpture studio, trauma and peacebuilding program, and connect dialogue to teaching, learning, and emerging ideas of power disruption, in-betweenness, and relationality.

This handbook provides a systematic overview of the present state of international research in digital public history. Individual studies by internationally renowned public historians, digital humanists, and digital historians elucidate central issues in the field and present a critical account of the major public history accomplishments, research activities, and practices with the public and of their digital context. The handbook applies an international and comparative approach, looks at the historical development of the field, focuses on technical background and the use of specific digital media and tools. Furthermore, the handbook analyzes connections with local communities and different publics worldwide when engaging in digital activities with the past, indicating directions for future research, and teaching activities.

Though women have been objects more often than subjects of interreligious dialogue, they have nevertheless contributed in significant ways to the dialogue, just as the dialogue has also contributed to their own self-understanding. This volume, the fifth in the Interreligious Dialogue Series, brings together historical, critical, and constructive approaches to the role of women in the dialogue between religions. These approaches deal with concrete examples of women's involvement in dialogue, critical reflections on the representation of women in dialogue, and the important question of what women might bring to the dialogue. Together, they open up new avenues for reflection on the nature and purpose of interreligious dialogue.

Female scientists, technologists, engineers, and mathematicians worldwide are making historic contributions to their fields. The modern workforce is closer to gender-equal than it has ever been, and many efforts are in place to support further progress. The Internet of Women provides an exciting look at personal narratives and case studies of female leaders and cultural shifts around the globe that illustrate this promising trend. From the United Nations' emphasis on girls and technology education in the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) to the increased female labor force in Zambia, a policy change that was inspired by the MDGs (UN Millennial Development Goals), The Internet of Women captures stunning examples of progress from around the world and men working hand in hand with women advocating for cultural change. Scholars and practitioners lament the lack of women leading and working in leading organizations in the technology industry. Gender equality and female participation in the tech field is critical to both developing and developed economies; nevertheless, this gap remains a global phenomenon. The lack of female leadership is particularly extreme at the highest echelons of leading technology organizations. Few publicly traded tech companies have female CEOs - in fact, most nations have zero female leadership in the tech industry. This gap does indicate a slow pace of progress for gender equality in tech employment. Women's pay still lags nearly a decade behind, according to the World Economic Forum, meaning that women's on average pay today is the equivalent to that of similarly qualified and similarly employed men in 2006. Without significant progress, the current rate of change will not lead to parity for 118 years, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF). However there's significant work being done to shift this tide. Take for instance Michelle Lee, the first female Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), reflects on her childhood Girl Scout badge in sewing and cooking and how that memory inspired to create an IP badge that exposes young women to the process of invention. Social entrepreneur, investor, and Malala Fund co-founder Shiza Shahid shares her efforts beginning from mentoring young women in Pakistan to her current work directing more investment to women innovators around the globe. And Elizabeth Isele, a senior fellow in Social Innovation at Babson College, shares her research on women and ageism saying we need to retire the word retirement. The book is divided into six parts, each with unique areas of focus:• Millennials Leading: Exploring Challenges and Opportunities Facing the Next Generation of Women in Technology• Men and Women Empowering One Another• Bold Leadership: Women Changing the Culture of Investment and Entrepreneurship• Educating for the 21st Century• Breaking the Glass Ceiling: A Generation of Women Forging into Technology Leadership• Emerging Fields of TechnologyThe Internet of Women gathers examples about the increasingly inclusive and progressive gender culture in technology from over 30 countries. Stories range from an entrepreneur in Dubai partnering with private and public sector entities to accelerate blockchain technology to a young British woman moving to Silicon Valley to launch an artificial intelligence platform and incubator. The book is intended for corporations, academic institutions, the private sector, government agencies, gender experts, and the general public, and its key benefit is to let the reader understand a path towards implementing diversity overall globally. It also showcases the strategies, tools, and tactical execution on how create cultural change in all parts of the world.