http://utsescholarship.lib.uts.edu.au:80/scholarly-works The Scholarly Works digital repository system captures, stores, indexes, preserves, and distributes digital research material. http://hdl.handle.net/2100/1289 Refashioning the romantics : contemporary Japanese culture- aspects of dress Monden, Masafumi Clothing is often perceived as a device to create, define and demarcate the gender binary. Accordingly, there are sets of preconceptions regarding ways in which men and women are assumed to engage with fashion. The research presented here reviews three of these ideas, some of which have been challenged by scholars but which are, still persistently, present in popular culture. Such preconceptions assume that men prioritize functionality over aesthetics and are the bearers, not the objects of the gaze, while women’s fashion is represented through multiple binaries of sexualisation and restriction, and female sartorial ornamentation is seen as symbolic of subservience. I investigate these presumptions via three contemporary Japanese cultural texts –(a) Japanese young men’s fashion magazines, (b) Japanese female performers’ appropriations of Lewis Carroll’s “Alice” in their music videos, and (c) Lolita fashion and Tetsuya Nakashima’s film Kamikaze Girls (2004), respectively. My study of these three selected texts explores the following possibilities that: (a) through negotiating the male reader’s desire to attract admirers and narcissistic impulse, young men’s fashion magazines endorse an idea that “crafting” the pleasant “look” is a part of quintessence of self-assurance and the idea of a good, successful life; that (b) kinds of Japanese cute (kawaii) and girlish aesthetics demonstrated by the Japanese singers allow them to accentuate their “cute” femininity without a hint of sexualisation, and; that (c) one of the heroines in Kamikaze Girls engages in both conventionally “masculine” and “feminine” activities while almost always dressed in the highly elaborate, girlish Lolita fashion. My examinations of these texts arguably renders the cultural and socialpsychological conceptions of “gender performativity” and “androgyny” effective and credible. The Japanese context is appropriate for this aim because this is where, particularly since 1868, European sartorial styles have been actively promoted, both politically and aesthetically. Consequently, Japan has become an ethnographically unique space where the subtle marriage of European dress style and Japanese aesthetics has taken place. Along with the theme of fashion and gender, this research attempts to unearth the meanings behind processes of Japanese adaptation, appropriation and restylisation of European sartorial and aesthetic concepts. Japanese appropriation and refashioning of European sartorial concepts, this research argues, offers a unique interpretive illustration of the aesthetics of fashion and transnationality. Tue, 07 Feb 2012 05:21:11 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2100/1288 Researching Journalists, Journalists' Research, Journalism as Research Morton, Tom Price, Jenna Henninger, Maureen Olsson, Michael An effective free press has been considered an essential feature of enlightened civil society since the 18th century. An independent ‘fourth estate’ has been considered a key component of Western, liberal democracy, ensuring an informed citizenry and acting as a watchdog against the abuses of government or other entrenched interests. Yet how relevant are such Enlightenment ideals in a 21st century media landscape dominated by trans-national media conglomerates where the rise of online resources, the blogosphere and Web 2.0 are widely seen as leading to the decline of both the power and the prestige of the traditional news media? This seminar brings together both information and journalism researchers, educators and practitioners to provide insights into the changing nature of journalists’ professional practice. Topics covered will include: journalists’ use of personal sources to add credibility to their story and add human interest to engage the reader; the impact of the new digital environments and technologies on journalists’ information discovery and analysis; the impact of new digital social networking sites on journalistic practice; and journalism as research. Finding the ‘Hook’: The Social Information World of Freelance Journalists Speaker: Dr Michael Olsson, Senior Lecturer, Communication Studies, UTS Journalism in a Digital World Speaker: Maureen Henninger, Senior Lecturer, Communication Studies, UTS Journalism in a Virtual World: Social Media Speaker: Jenna Price, Lecturer, Social and Political Change Group, UTS Journalism as Research Speaker: Dr Tom Morton, Associate Professor, Social and Political Change Group, UTS Tue, 07 Feb 2012 03:23:13 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2100/1287 The diffusion of sustainable practices within the Australian housing industry : implications for future change management Reardon, Christopher Charles A substantial barrier to sustainable change arises from reliance on positivist, disciplinary science and neo-classical economic theory to create the new knowledge that underpins policies intended to deliver such change. This barrier is particularly evident within the core focus of this research, change strategies to reduce or eliminate adverse net lifecycle environmental emissions and depletions by the cost sensitive, risk averse built environment sector. While recognising the role and importance of traditional disciplinary knowledge in this field, this thesis suggests that such knowledge creation processes are self-defeating in terms of creating sustainable futures because the only truly positivist proof of a threat to sustainable futures is the irreversible failure of biospheric life support systems. Accordingly, an alternative, transdisciplinary (TD) approach to knowledge creation is adopted. An Action Research (AR) methodology applied within a social constructivist epistemological stance is used to generate ‘temporary knowledge’ to inform the change agendas of AR partners in their attempts to apply the ‘precautionary principle’. This temporary knowledge is created through AR monitoring and explanation of sustainable change strategies being implemented in the Australian Housing Industry (AHI) and is framed within Diffusion of Innovations theory (DoI). The knowledge is temporary in that it provides useful insights and understandings that are valid or relevant at specific stages of an evolving change process. In successive cycles of AR and reflective practice, multiple case studies and examples drawn from a variety of change agendas are used to test and refine hypotheses and develop arguments that explain successes and failures. AR observations and temporary knowledge are ‘retrospectively’ analysed through an innovative combination of DoI and Actor Network Theory (ANT) to develop deeper or more ‘permanent’ understandings of effective processes of sustainable change in the AHI. These explanations are presented as a series of generalisations to inform the subsequent ‘prospective’ analysis that underpins concluding recommendations for future management of sustainable change within the AHI. The generalisations also form the basis of theoretical contributions with potential for adaptive application in other sustainable change agendas. This thesis makes contributions to knowledge at several levels. Key industry recommendations address the need for: fresh approaches to regulation, skill and information provision drawn from DoI and ANT; a shift in focus from new to existing housing stock; strategies to engage the finance and marketing sectors; greater emphasis on the role of networks in change planning and management and a shift in regulatory focus to encourage innovation and technology transfer between the custom and volume housing sectors. Additionally, the research contributed to the significant, practical, sustainable change outcomes that occurred during its currency. Finally, theoretical contributions are embodied in the evolution of ANT and DoI through their application as complementary analytical frameworks. Tue, 03 Jan 2012 03:42:31 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2100/1286 The Insider's Guide to Getting Published Grahame, Emma Grafton, Daniel Allatson, Paul Chelliah, Janet Jay, Barry Lally, Elaine Chelliah, John Linacre, Simon Note: Due to technical difficulties, session 3 is missing the first five minutes of the introduction by Janet Chelliah. We apologise for any inconvenience. UTS Library, in collaboration with Emerald Group Publishing Limited, held a free workshop 'The Insider's guide to getting published' on 10 November 2011, which provided advice, tips and ideas for getting published in a highly competitive research and publishing environment. Approx 80 researchers from different UTS faculties attended the seminar, some people joined the online chat to make comments. The workshop consisted of three sessions: 1. The insiders guide to getting published in international journals; 2. A Panel discussion; 3. Open Access Publishing. For more: http://research-blog.lib.uts.edu.au/2011/12/insiders-guide-of-getting-published-in.html Fri, 09 Dec 2011 05:10:12 GMT