Studying social media as semiotic technology: a social semiotic multimodal framework

ABSTRACT

How do we study social media technology? While social semiotics provides an extensive toolkit for analysing multimodal texts and semiotic practices, the study of social media as semiotic technology poses a significant challenge to existing research methodologies. In this article, we present a social semiotic framework that allows us to describe in analytical details the multimodal meaning potentials offered by digital social media technology and connect these to multimodal text-making and semiotic practices while underscoring the role of technology. Our framework is organized around seven interrelated and inherently informed dimensions: (1) multimodality, (2) practice, (3) the social, (4) medium, (5) the material, (6) the historical, and (7) the critical. This framework could pertain to most types of semiotic technologies, but will here be developed for accounting for social media technologies, and its viability will be illustrated with examples from Instagram. By developing this framework, we aim at elaborating the theoretical basis and analytical tools of social semiotics, and thereby contributing to bringing forward increased understanding of how social media technology enables making, enacting and managing meaning.     

国际植物新品种保护制度的变革发展与我国应对

植物新品种保护制度发展历史表明,育种技术和农业商业化是推动植物育种创新保护制度发展与变革的重要因素。文章从育种技术和种业发展对植物新品种保护制度影响的角度,分析国际植物新品种保护制度的发展与变革,以及我国植物新品种保护的实践探索与面临挑战,认为制定《植物新品种保护法》是我国种业现代化的必然选择。《植物新品种保护法》既是种业企业基本的产权保障法,也是种业领域最重要的“反不正当竞争法”。唯有制定《植物新品种保护法》,才能有效解决品种权保护中的“取证难、周期长、成本高、保护弱”的问题,才能有效完善现行法律法规之不足,为我国种业发展的现代化、开启种业发展新纪元提供法治保障。     

Science and Technology for Economic Growth. New Insights from when the Data Contradicts Desktop Models1

Science and technology policy initiatives in the early 1980s have focused in both the United States and Western Europe on improving capacity to apply a good science base in practice, expecting increases in technological advancement, improved market presence and enhanced economic growth. Results varied broadly in the United States and Europe. Even more puzzling, Japan charged ahead in technological advancement without that strong of a science base of its own. Some industrialized economies do not conform to the expected science–technology relationship, whereby strong performance in science shall lead to strong technological performance. The puzzling science–technology relationship in advanced countries has plausible explanations. (1) Science–technology relationship is much interdependent or symbiotic. Its strength and primary direction at a given time varies largely by field of science or technological innovation and across long periods of time. (2) Science–technology link in a country may depend on the overall scientific and technological level of development in that country. The strength and interdependent nature of this link evolves historically and varies across fields of science and technology. The strength of the link is affected by scientific and technological specialization in a country. Different technological fields have different scientific intensities, or degrees of building upon the science base. (3) Specialization of countries across scientific and technological fields varies. Hence, the strength of science–technology link differs between countries. High technological specialization of a country may impact its technological performance more than its immediately current scientific performance does. History, tradition and knowledge transfers may affect more returns on R&D expenditures than the actual value of R&D funds spent in science or technology. Explanations of puzzling behavior of science–technology link may become policy recommendations.     

全面理解和把握科学技术是第一生产力

科学技术是为自然科学、社会科学和技术的有机统一。科学技术在生产力中的作用应是 :生产力=人×(社会科学理论 +自然科学理论) +(生产工具 +生产对象)×技术。只有这样理解科学技术及其在生产力发展中的作用 ,才能避免重技术而忽视科学、重自然科学而忽视社会科学的偏向。     

疫情防控视域下社区媒介参与社区治理的路径优化:演进韧性与技术嵌入

演进韧性强调系统在危机中变化、适应和转变的能力,为现代风险社会中社区媒介参与社区治理的路径优化提供了新的理论资源和视角.据此审视疫情防控中邻里互助、技术嵌入下以信任与合作为基础的多元交叉网络、社区中“隐私悖论”负面性的消解及微基建项目的推进发现,疫情防控期间社区的内部边界并未封闭,居民主导的治理模式在强调社区韧性的背景...     

Why university inventions rarely produce income? Bottlenecks in university technology transfer

As intended, universities have gained ownership to an increased number of inventions from their labs after the enactment of Bayh-Dole act in 1980. But, how well are the universities taking advantage of the provisions of this Act? One aspect of this question is addressed empirically in this study. An analysis of the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) periodic Licensing Activity Surveys of 1995–2004 indicated that the annual income generated by licensing university inventions was 1.7% of total research expenditure in 1995 and 2.9% in 2004. Some consider this and the rate of commercialization of university inventions to be too low. A premise of this study is that the slow rate of commercialization of university inventions may be due to the lack of adequate trained staff and inventions processing capacity in University Offices of Technology Transfer (UOTT). This paper describes an empirical study of the non-legal, technical, and legal invention processing capacity of US UOTT and its implications. A survey questionnaire was sent to 99 randomly selected US research universities. Seventy-five percent of the respondents mentioned shortage of staff for non-legal and legal processing of inventions. More than a third of the respondents claimed that, in 2006, they failed to process more than 26% of the inventions due to insufficient processing capacity in the UOTT. The study includes multiple regression models to estimate the effect of staffing on performance variables (i.e., Provisional Applications Filed, Patent [non-provisional] Applications and Licenses Executed) and “Inventions Not Processed” by the UOTTs due to staff/budget shortages. It is argued that, when short of staff and budget, UOTTs will be reduced to devoting their resources to ensuring patent applications are filed and patents are issued at the expense of marketing of inventions. Further, high-tech inventions are difficult to market because, often, there are no ready markets for them, especially if the inventor had no pre-invention contacts with a potential licensee. High-tech inventions originating from university labs may need market space/niche identification, new market creation, and the translation of the lab result into an “investor friendly” business plan; most UOTTs may be significantly short on these skills. Recommendations of this study are: first, an in-depth study of universities that are prolific in licensing inventions (40 or more licenses a year) is necessary to understand the reasons for their success in the context of UOTTs capacity to process inventions. Further, all federal agencies sponsoring university research must earmark a small percentage of each grant exclusively for commercialization purposes at the university. The paper offers multiple options for the effective use of these funds. The paper also offers several avenues for future research.     

我国省域科技投入产出效率的实证分析

科技是经济发展的推动力.为促进我国各地区科技资源的合理配置,必须尽快建立科学合理的科技投入产出效率评价机制.运用数据包络分析方法(DEA),对我国各省域2004-2006年科技投入的总体效率、纯技术效率、规模效率和规模收益进行实证分析,并在此基础上利用改进的DEA模型对各省域的效率进行排序,可以为采取相应的政策措施提供依据,以促进各地区经济持续、均衡和协调发展.     

科学技术现代化与犯罪

科学技术现代化的发展,在有利于打击和控制犯罪的同时,也对犯罪产生了多方面的消极影响。在科技现代化发展进程中,犯罪主体、犯罪危害、犯罪手段等都出现了一些新特点。由于科技现代化能加剧引发犯罪的社会矛盾,强化犯罪的利益动机,创造新的犯罪条件,造成控制犯罪的法律的不适应,所以造成犯罪的大量增多。针对科技现代化进程中犯罪增多的现实,必须采取多方面的对策加以控制。     

Adaptive governance for the Internet of Things: Coping with emerging security risks

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a disruptive innovation known for its socio-economic potential, but also for generating unprecedented vulnerabilities and threats. As a dynamic sociotechnical system, the IoT comprises well-known cybersecurity risks and endemic uncertainties that arise as IoT adoption increases and the system evolves. We highlight the impact of these challenges by analyzing how insecure IoT devices pose threats to both consumer protection and the Internet's infrastructure. While recent regulatory responses are starting to target IoT security risks, crucial deficiencies – especially related to the feedback necessary to keep pace with emerging risks and uncertainties – must be addressed. We propose a model of adaptive regulatory governance that integrates the benefits of centralized risk regulatory frameworks with the operational knowledge and mitigation mechanisms developed by epistemic communities that manage day-to-day Internet security. Rather than focusing on the choice of regulatory instruments, this model builds on the “planned adaptive regulation” literature to highlight the need to systematically plan for a knowledge-sharing interface in regulatory governance design for disruptive technologies, facilitating the feedback necessary to address evolving IoT security risks.