The study provides a historical inquiry into online journalism newsroom arrangements in the context of the Slovenian media environment. The author concentrates on two leading Slovenian newspapers, Delo and Dnevnik, and explores spatial organisation, editorial decision-making and news-making routines by adopting three qualitative methods: observation, interviews and document analysis. The study shows that online journalism at respective newspapers developed through three phases: (1) from one-man bands where individual online staffers performed as multifunctional all-rounders having the technical tasks of shovelling print content online (mid- 1990s to early 2000s); (2) through organisationally and spatially separate online departmentswhere standardisation of news-making routines was mainly defined bythe principle of speed (mid-2000s to late 2000s); and (3) to newsroom integration with distinct models of decisionmaking, spatial organisation and print-online relations (late 2000s onwards).
COBISS.SI-ID: 32401757
This article seeks to identify who in Slovenia remains digitally offline and how such a status relates to socio-demographic factors (e.g. gender, age and education), class and cultural capital. The author assumes that the absence of new technology should be addressed in relation to existing patterns of cultural consumption and media preferences, and she attempts to understand the problem of digital exclusion within the context of other types of structural inequalities. Since digital technology is understood not just as a technical tool but as a social phenomenon directly related to everyday practices, the individuals class position and cultural capital, digital exclusion is not viewed simply as a narrow problem of access. Instead of looking at the binary gap between technology haves and have-nots, the author takes the multilevel structure of digital access into account. The findings of a quantitative survey involving a representative sample of 820 residents in the two biggest Slovenian cities Ljubljana and Maribor show that, first, three types of digital exclusion exist: digitally unmotivated with high cultural capital; overall excluded with weak cultural capital; and digitally self-excluded with moderate cultural capital. Second, the study suggests that all three digital exclusion groups are, more than by class, divided by cultural engagement and media taste, which provides important possibilities for future research.
COBISS.SI-ID: 32482653
The problem of abusing the opportunity of participatory online journalism through the use of offensive speech has generally been neglected in scholarly research. This study tries to fill this research gap: a textual analysis of comments containing offensive speech posted under nine news items, written by influential Slovenian journalists in the nine most-visited Slovenian online news media, was combined with semi-structured interviews with journalists and editors. Offensive comments mostly included general attacks on human dignity, attacks based on the supposed political orientation of a journalist, attacks based on the supposed belonging of journalists to social minorities, and attacks based on the political orientation of a media company. Journalists and editors did not share homogenous views on the use of offensive speech in comments. The majority of interviewed journalists cited commentatorsʼ anonymity as the main reason for offensive speech. The crucial conclusion of this study was that editors abused the idea of participatory journalism; with the excuse of audience participation, they allowed personal attacks on journalists in comments under news items, as their actual goal was to maximize profits. The reasons for the relatively frequent occurrence of offensive speech commentary in online news media can be attributed to the market orientation of media companies, the low level of common political culture in Slovenia and a general dissatisfaction with the political, economic and wider social situation.
COBISS.SI-ID: 32426845
Since existing research has failed to consider how primary school pupils use Facebook for informal learning and enhancing social capital, we attempted to fill this research gap by conducting 60 in-depth interviews and think-aloud sessions with Slovenian primary school pupils. Furthermore, we used content analysis to evaluate their Facebook profiles. The results of the study show that Slovenian pupils regularly use Facebook for informal learning. Pupils are aware that they use Facebook for learning and they use it primarily as social support, which is seen as exchanging practical information, learning about technology, evaluation of their own and other peopleʼs work, emotional support, organis-ing group work and communicating with teachers. In using Facebook, pupils acquire bridging and bonding social capital; they maintain an extensive network of weak ties that are a source of bridging capital, and deeper relationships that provide them with emo-tional support and a source of bonding capital. Key differences between the participants were found in the expression of emotional support. Female participants are more likely to use Facebook for this purpose, and more explicitly express their emotions. This study also showed that our participants saw a connection between the use of Facebook and the knowledge and skills they believed their teachers valued in school.
COBISS.SI-ID: 32059741
This book chapter deals with the economic, social and political implications of globalization, especially the issue of structural unemployment as a very probable consequence of automatization and informatization of production. These changes should have significant consequences throughout the educational system and, in particular, at the university level. Commitment to the university as a democratic cultural and educational institution that should not be submitted to the market forces, derives from the belief that the society that repudiates free and cosmopolitan development of men and ideas based on knowledge, humanistic ethics and promotion of the most creative individuals, will necessary face regression.
COBISS.SI-ID: 32599645