activities in 2013

Associate Professor Sigrid Norris

9 April -- presentation -- 12:00 - 12:30 -- WF 604

Whispers in the workplace: Malicious gossip

Have you ever wondered what it means when a co-worker tells you what someone else has said about you? Sociolinguists have answers that may surprise you when it comes to reported speech; and socio-cultural psychologists have answers that may surprise you when it comes to how you experience malicious gossip.

Reported speech is one form of malicious gossip that I will discuss in detail in this presentation.

While malicious gossip has largely been discussed in the business sector as undermining leadership, I will focus on how malicious gossip undermines the listener’s self confidence and well-being.
This is an area that is fruitful ground for further research.

Jesse Pirini (AUT)

26 March -- 12:00 -- 13:00 -- WF 604

Power in Coaching

In this talk Jesse describes a coaching session multimodally, considering how coach and client express power. Coaching is an interesting site to study power because the client is supposed to generate their own solutions, rather than seek for the coach to provide them. Self generated solutions are suggested to promote independence, and are likely to be more coherent with the client's life, and therefore more effective.
Power in coaching has not been studied previously, and coaches have suggested that either there is no power in coaching, or that the client has all the power. Jesse presents his research into coaching conversations showing that this is not the case, in fact the coach wields considerable power over some elements of the coaching conversation. This finding has been translated into a conceptual tool that coaches can use to examine their own expressions of power in coaching. This talk is relevant for those interested in coaching, mentoring and management, and research into social interaction.

Bio

Jesse Pirini is a PhD candidate in the School of Communication at AUT and is a member of the MRC. His research focuses on agency in health lifestyles. His research investigates the extent to which people diagnosed with heart disease express choice over their actions, and how their choices interact with the social and physical environment. Jesse has a strong interest in multimodal theory and methodology.

Olanrewaju Olotu (AUT)

19 March -- PGR9 presentation -- 12:30-13:30 -- WG 606

In connection with the Institute of Public Policy (AUT) and the School of Sport & Recreation (AUT)

What are the correlates of sedentary behaviour in driving occupations?

Professional drivers are one of the occupational groups most disposed to health risks associated with sedentary behaviour. The nature of tasks associated with driving occupations demand drivers to sit for long periods without breaks or regular physical movement outside the vehicle. Despite emerging evidence of the health implications of prolonged sitting associated with driving professions very few studies have addressed the correlation between professional driving and health among New Zealand professional drivers.
This PhD study seeks to critically examine the relationship between driving occupations as sedentary occupations and health risks associated with sedentary behaviour. The research thesis question is:

What are the correlates of sedentary behaviour in driving occupations?
This investigation will consist of three stages:
(i) Review the literature to understand the nature of professional driving occupations and the way  bus driving occupations are organised
(ii) Observe professional bus drivers during work, which will consist of worksite visits to gain insight into professional drivers’ daily work activities, and
(iii) A cross-sectional study to assess the health risks associated with professional driving. This will be undertaken using survey questionnaire, interviews and focus group discussions to identify health risks that bus drivers are exposed to.

Bio

Olotu is a young and aspiring researcher, born and raised in Nigeria. He has background in Microbiology and the Public Health disciplines. Olotu is eager to learn and contribute his growing wealth of experience to the community he finds himself. He is privileged to be under tutelage and PhD supervision of Associate Professors Love Chile (Institute of Public Policy) and Erica Hinckson (School of Sport & Recreation). In the duration of his doctoral studies at AUT University’s Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Olotu will be exploring workplace and health related issues of New Zealand professional drivers.

Jarret Geenen, PhD Candidate

12 March -- presentation -- 12:30 - 1:00 -- WF 603

Teaching and Learning Trough Means

Beginning in the early 70’s applied linguists and those interested in academic rhetoric began to investigate the nature of literacy teaching and learning. Concentration in this area has persisted to the present with more comprehensive efforts dedicated to understanding teaching and learning of rhetoric utilising contemporary linguistic frameworks and methods. As disciplinary orientation proceeded throughout paradigmatic stages of text as product (Britton, 1970), text as process (Emig, 1977)and text as social action (Miller, 1984; Freedman 1994), more recent attention has be allocated to the teaching and learning process in its complexity with reference to multimodal pedagogy and non-text based facets of the phenomenon (Fox & Artemeva, 2011).

This approach to investigating teaching and learning and contemporary advances in social semiotics has opened up new ways of understanding the process in a phenomenological manner. While current endeavours seek to understand teaching and learning by acknowledging the function of multiple modes of communication, text and text oriented practices continue to dominate investigative sites. The research presented herein departs from text based phenomena and looks at teaching and learning with a focus on real-time social action, mediational means, perception and creativity in the sport of kitesurfing. Paramount in this discussion is the ways in which individuals come to realise the interrelationship of mediational means through the phenomenon of touch/response-feel (Norris, 2012).
Multimodality: An introduction
Teaching and Learning Trough Means

Associate Professor Sigrid Norris

12 March -- presentation -- 12:00 - 12:30 -- WF 603

Multimodality: An introduction

Our world is highly multimodal. This means that every aspect in this world is produced and instantiated through many different channels (or modes): from writing to drawing to prototyping and hands-on care to communicating through adverts, film, or music. Any form of design is necessarily multimodal, any interaction is necessarily multimodal, and any production is necessarily multimodal.

In recent years, strong frameworks for the analysis of these multimodal complexes have been developed and in this presentation, I will map put the breadth of Multimodality.

I begin with an outline of the various directions in multimodality – from focus on multimodal texts and a focus on multimodal images and image/text relations to multimodal action.

Dr. Thomas Metten

5 March -- presentation and discussion -- 12:00 – 1:00 WF603

Schools as agencies of cultural memory

Schools have mostly been described as agencies of socialisation but they can also be described as agencies of cultural memory work. Since its origins in the historical sciences the concept of cultural memory has become a transdisciplinary phenomenon describing how people use multimodal resources for meaning making from the past. As the cultural memory does not transmit itself into the present, societies have to develop institutions such as schools to make sure that knowledge is time resistant within the change of generations. Thus, the project focuses on schools as institutions of trans-generational knowledge mediation. The complex dynamics of these processes include media and modes, practices and techniques, resources and instruments. To gain a better understanding of the actual cultural memory work, the project follows an approach combining media theory, ethnology and multimodal analysis. This presents the basic idea of this research and first insights.

Bio

Dr. Thomas Metten studied German Language and Literature, Philosophy and History of Art at the University Koblenz‐Landau in Germany. In his Ph.D. Thesis he developed a media theory of language based on ideas of the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. At present, he works as a Lecturer in the Department of German Language and Literature Studies as well as in the Department for Cultural Studies at the University of Koblenz‐Landau. His research interests include language and media theory, discourse analysis, visual studies, and cultural memory work. He is a member of the research network “Language and Knowledge“ (Heidelberg, Germany) as well as the international research network “Multimodality and embodied interaction“ (supported by the German Research Foundation).

Associate Professor Sigrid Norris (AUT)

26 Feb -- presentation and discussion

Whispers in the Workplace

This presentation investigates gossip in the workplace. First, gossip is defined. Then, drawing on extensive literature, I elucidate the positive and negative functions of gossip. With this we develop a basic understanding of good gossip, harmless gossip, and bad gossip. In doing this, I examine two extremes: the gossip queen and the malicious gossip.
After the presentation, there will be ample time to discuss gossip and possible research projects that can be developed to study gossip in various settings.

Bio

Dr Sigrid Norris is Associate Professor of Communication Studies and Director of the Multimodal Research Centre at Auckland University of Technology. She is the author of Analyzing multimodal interaction: A methodological framework (2004), rosarot und schwarz. Gedichte (2008), and Identity in (inter)action: Introducing multimodal interaction analysis (2011). Further, she is the co-editor of Discourse in Action: Introducing mediated discourse analysis (2005) and editor of Multimodality in practice: Investigating theory-in-practice-through-methodology (2011). Besides these books, Sigrid has published on multimodality and on identity production in a great variety of Journals and edited volumes. Her main research interests are the theoretical/methodological development of multimodality and multimodal identity production.

Associate Professor Craig Hight (Waikato)

19 Feb -- presentation and workshop

SOFTWARE TOOLS WITHIN THE DIGITAL VIDEO ECOLOGY

This presentation and workshop presents research from a project exploring emerging documentary video practices operating through online platforms such as YouTube. This project draws from the paradigm of software studies, which investigates the significance of software within contemporary cultural, social, political and economic practices. A key assumption of the project is the need to map and analyse the nature and implications of the software (and hardware) tools which are central to the digital video ecology. The focus of the presentation is on the proliferation of software editing tools designed for novice video practitioners; low-budget, freeware and open source applications available across various platforms. These are part of a long line of technologies whose 'democratisation' is associated with profound changes within the fabric of everyday creative activity. The emergence of these tools sits in parallel with the broader history of the digitisation of editing systems used within high-end professional practice, but the significance of the continuum of ‘entry-level’ forms of editing software is more difficult to assess. Software manufacturers have reduced, simplified and even automated the editing of moving image sequences to make their tools more user-friendly, in the process favouring intuitive, accessible and efficient forms of practice.

The workshop will consider software tools associated with digital video ecology. Some key questions for the workshop:

• What are the implications of emerging software tools for digital videography?
• How does software empower and discipline video practices?
• What literacies are in play within the tools underlying UGC?
• What is the nature of video material within UGC?
• What constitutes ‘creativity’ within software culture?

Bio

Dr Craig Hight is an Associate Professor in Screen and Media Studies at the University of Waikato. His research has been based within documentary theory, addressing aspects of the production, construction and reception of documentary hybrids (in particular mockumentary). His most recent book was on television mockumentary series, titled Television Mockumentary: Reflexivity, satire and a call for play (Manchester University Press, 2010). His current research focuses on the relationships between digital media technologies and documentary practice, especially the variety of factors shaping online documentary culture.

Journal: multimodal communication 1 (3)