It’s just amazing, no more emails in my inbox, no more things to do on my list! It’s fabulous. I feel like I can breath again and get some determination back for the PhD. So tomorrow is the start of the last bit, with no more interruptions and additional noise. I may even enjoy it. And beyond that life seems blissfully empty.
Have been dragging myself through my day. The weather has been really uncomfortable today, warm and humid and cold at the same time. I am not sure how that’s possible, but Manchester seems to be able to come up with the worst combinations of rain, grey, hot and cold. Anyway got my bit done for today, which was completing the analysis of the email dialogue. It’s all in nice neat numbers now, so let’s see how it goes. I have to say this bit has been very boring. I want to immerse myself in all the data now over the next two weeks to create that storyline finally, and maybe then I’ll stop feeling listless. Maybe there is an end to it after all?
Everything looks ok, although there are still always small changes. The good news is we had quite a few sales this last week and our bounce rate has gone down to 39.15%, which is great. Not much in the big scheme of things, but still great as a sign. Our external back link count is just below 800 and our visitor numbers are really stable. The home page still looks the same, so Rod probably won’t have put his new guide up there yet. I’ll ring him later on today to see what’s happening. All is well for now in the cyberverse.
Beginning of the last round! Gave my notice to UKCP yesterday as its still been demanding and I’ve not really managed to focus back on the PhD again. It’s good! That’s the last bit of extra work I had going on besides normal work and without it my inbox should be empty most of the time, no more extra stuff to do, bliss. I hop eI will be able to finish the data analysis for the email dialogue today, should be easy and then a have the next few days to read things through again and decide on my story line. This feels much better. Finally, progress again!
Have now completed going through all the email dialogue I’ve had with Rod! It’s been quite a slog I have to say, but I think also useful. I really got a sense again of how the whole site developed, the issues we talked about and what happened between us. Some of the emails are just really sweet, and they show how hard we worked on things. I certainly want to go back asap to the site and I’ve got plenty of good ideas now. I am sure that for the long term success of the project it will have been really useful for me to take step back for this year and look at all the literature and data. Will see Clare for supervision today so let’s see what she says….
This is it now, space, well some space at least to do more work on the PhD. Everything else is pretty much done, and there shouldn’t be too much ahead till mid October. It’s great, I really needed some space. Just need to recover from this cold now and keep working at the data analysis. It all feels ok, although seems like the whole PhD will still be a while yet.
Fisher, W.A., Barak, A. (2001) Internet Pornography: A Social Psychological Perspective on Internet Sexuality. The Journal of Sex Research 38, 4, 312-323 Very good article, as can be expected from those two authors. They very much argue against the hype about internet porn and some common sense. They look at what has been learned from research on porn in other media and then apply it to the internet. They use the Sexual Behavior sequence by Byrne 1977 as a model to predict what might happen for an individual in response to exposure to internet porn.
They categorize online porn into three sets: erotica (Consensual, non-degrading sex), degrading pornography (sexually explicit content which degrades, debases or dehumanises people, often women, in a fashion that endorses that degradation), violent pornography (depiction of sexual violence). However, these categories have not been established via a clear consensus. Therefore, its hard to establish whether porn on the internet is changing, i.e. getting worse etc.
They quote Bogeart 1993, who emphasises that watching porn is a self-regulating choice, whereas a lot of teh research done on internet porn that endorses the hype didn’t give participants any choices. What they get to is that one needs to study self-directed use of internet porn by individuals in the natural setting to learn anything about it.
The Sexual behaviour sequence by Byrne may come in handy at some point to discuss sexual functioning on the website.
Binik, Y., Sexuality and the Internet : Lots of Hyp(Otheses): Only a Little Data. The Journal of Sex Research 38, 4, 281-282 Editorial to what should have been a theme issue of Journal of sex research, but which ended up only as a section due to lack of contributions. One good quote: ‘It appears that entrepreneurs can make more money from misinformation and hype than from the delivery of high-quality education and therapy.’ 282 I hope we can prove him wrong.
Fisher, W.A., Barak, A. (2001) Internet Pornography: A Social Psychological Perspective on Internet Sexuality. The Journal of Sex Research 38, 4, 312-323 This is a good article, laying out a very nice vision of what’s possible, but its not very likely to happen. The authors don’t concern itself with how such an approach to sex education could be implemented or who would pay for it.
They use a thoeretical model, the Information-Motivation-Behavioural Skills model to underpin their approach, which sounds very good. They also build on the quin A engine, here they call it Pent-A- engine of the internet (anonymity, availability, affordability, acceptability (King 1999) and aloneness). What I don’t like about their approach is that they want to do an assessment of the learners needs and then offer tailored interventions. I think this disenfranchises the learner and I believe it should be up to the individual to select what they need to learn. Ok one could give some guidance, but then life does anyway.
The authors critique current sex education by saying normally motivational factors are excluded as to why individuals may want to apply what they have learned. They go back to the statement that due to lack of good sex education sites it is to pornographic industry that educates people, p. 326, here attributed to Fisher and Barak 2000 and Cooper, Scherer, Boies and Gordon 1999.
The IMP model has been shown empirically to effect behaviour change. Sexuality related information: info for sexual problem prevention and sexual well-being promotion. Sexuality related motivation: personal motivation to practice behaviour. ..and there was this stuff somewhere else that positive motivators are good for one thing, negative ones for another. Sexuality related behavioral skills: skills to put knowledge into place.
Then the authors go into assessing learners, which I am not so fond of. Their whole vision is nice, but seems very unrealistic to achieve, plus does not account for what users want. There is no acknowledgment of how such a sex education website needs to evolve or be maintained.
Mustanski, B.S. (2001) Getting Wired: Exploiting the Internet for the Collection of Valid Sexuality Data. The Journal of Sex Research 38, 4, 292-301Good introductory article to data collection on the internet. There isn’t anything new in here though, but the paper is worth mentioning somewhere in my literature review. Positive aspects are anonymity, data collection from an otherwise unreachable sample, sample may end up being more representative than an offline one. Risks are about lying and sabotage.
Issues relating to internet research: Cost, it’s cheap. lack of incentive to keep anonymity may produce a self-selected sample. Ease of use and lack of experimental control: Subjects can complete study at any time, but researcher can’t control the state they do it in. Sample size: Internet as an ‘erotic oasis’ (Ross, Tikkanen and Mansson 2000) However, representativeness in internet sample might be better than the representativeness of the average psychology research as those normally use only students. There is more stuff here on validity according to quantitative principles… The internet may be especially useful to collect sensitive data on sexuality, more anonymity and less social desirability behaviour. Very good stuff and very quantitative.
Coleman, E. (2002) Promoting Sexual Health and Responsible Sexual Behavior: An Introduction. The Journal of Sex Research 39, 1, 3-6 Nice history of sexual health promotion. This article starts with a WHO document from 1975 after the sexual revolution which calls for sexuality education, counselling and training for health professionals. Coleman gives a definition of sexual health at that point and later on the WHO in 1983 also defined sexuality. On a global level the next step was the International Conference on Population and Development ICPD in Cairo which called for a Programme of Action or POA, which sought the inclusion of sexual health into general reproductive health. It contained two important objectives:
‘To promote adequate development of responsible sexuality, permitting relations of equity and mutual respect between the genders and contributing to improving the quality of life of individuals’. and ‘To ensure that women and men have access to the information, education and services needed to achieve good sexual health and exercise their reproductive rights and responsibilities.’ The regional Pan American Health Organization subsequently adopted he SIECUS List of Life Behaviors of Sexually Healthy Adults and there is also a Declaration of sexual Rights from the World Association for sexology 1999. Finally, there is a definition for responsible sexual behaviour which emphasizes both individual and community responsibility. This is really quite interesting in terms of following up on the main stream ideas and developments in the history of sexual health promotion. I think this will be really good for a web page on what does being sexually responsible mean?
It’s very interesting to read other people’s stuff! This piece of work seems much more ethnographic and qualitative then mine, although I think the chapters I have read aren’t really about methodology strictly speaking. It’s really about learning is constructed in the contact zone (Pratt 1992) where differences come to the fore and need to be negotiated. The way Howes discusses his work also seems very narrative, free flowing compared to a classical research report. I think its really reassuring for me to know I don’t need to go overboard on structure here, but will really need to focus on what I have learned and the critical reflection bit to give my work depth.
Thornburn Bird, S., Harvey, M.S., Beckman, L.T., Johnson, C.H (2001) Getting Your Partner to Use Condoms: Interviews with Men and Women at Risk of HIV/STDs: The Partners Project. The Journal of sex Research 38, 3, 233-240 Quite and interesting and thorough piece of research on what strategies men and women would use to get their partner to use a condom. From their interviews of 90 couples they identified verbal and nonverbal strategies. Verbal strategies were persuasion/suggesting, commanding/asserting, and threatening to withhold sex. Nonverbal strategies involving condoms themselves were putting a condom on, buying or getting them or presenting a condom to your partner.
The authors start off by stating that an inability to negotiate condom use is a barrier to practicing safer sex, especially for women. Issues surrounding trust and commitment can interfere with condom use in heterosexual relationships. Proposing condom use can be seen as a breach of trust and may result in abusive responses. Being able to talk about condom use is one of the most important predictors of condom use. Pregnancy prevention may be emphazised in negotiations rather than disease prevention. There is also the ‘you’ strategy: I care about you very much and don’t want anything to happen to you.
In this study participants reported that they would use different strategies for pregnancy prevention as compared to disease prevention. There are bilateral verbal strategies such as negotiation, unilateral verbal ones such as commanding or refusing sex. Nonverbal strategies involve condoms themselves. Participants believed it would be easier to get their partner to use condoms for pregnancy prevention. Another useful verbal strategy could be “it’s not that I don’t trust you, I don’t trust the last person you were with’.
Most people used verbal, bilateral strategies suggesting that communication and negotiation skills are essential. People need to have accurate info about STDs and HIV to be able to argue their case. Safer sex techniques also need to address skills such as buying condoms and putting them on. Good stuff!
Bay-Cheng, L.Y. (2001) SexEd.com: Values and Norms in Web-based Sexuality Education. The Journal of Sex Research 38, 3, 241-251 This is a really interesting article, just a shame I didn’t have access to it earlier. Bay-Cheng investigates the norms and values shown in sex education websites for teenagers. This is based on the fact that school based sex education programmes have been critiqued heavily for being problem focused, delivering strongly gendered norms and values and for narrowly defining sexuality as genital intercourse. These programmes can furthermore be split into three groups: advocating abstinence, which teach nothing but abstinence, abstinence plus, teaching abstinence and some useful stuff and comprehensive programmes, which allow pupils to define their own values. 80% of school based formal sex education programmes in the US in 2001 where either abstinence or abstinence plus.
Bay-Cheng uses the work of Fine 1988 really well. She found that sex education programmes had three predominant themes: 1) Sexuality as Violence, sex is portrayed as inherently coercive and violent. Sexuality as Victimization, sex isn’t necessarily violent but involves a high possibility of victimization through unwanted pregnancy, disease and psychological harm. Sexuality as morality, infused with moral ideals such as will power, self-control and purity. Fine also found that what tends to be absent is a Discourse of Desire.
This discourse is also heavily gendered, which miseducates adolescent women. ‘Indeed via the discourses of sex as victimazation and morality, adolescent women are instructed in ways to say “no”, but are rarely allowed to engage in discussions and explorations of their own desire.’ (p. 243) Teen sexuality is also normally defined in heterosexual terms. ‘Homosexual disclaimer’ (Whitlock and DiLapi 1983) ‘Although overt homophobia may be decreasing in some environments, heterosexist biases clearly maintain a separate but equal stance toward sexual orientation.’ (p. 243).
The study itself investigated 52 teen orientated sexuality education websites looking for the themes: sexuality as violence, sexuality as victimazation, sexaulity as morality, sexaulity as desire, sexual orientation diversity as split into queer positive (inclusion of queer images and positive reference to LGBT identities) and presumed heterosexuality (implicit assumption that audience is heterosexual) and broad definition of sex.
Over 95% of the abstinence only sites and almost 80% of the comprehensive sites were coded for evidence of sexuality as victimization. Young women are the primary target for messages of risk and fear. Significantly more comprehensive sites are affirming of sexual desire and present sex-positive information. Those sites that include info on non-heterosexual issues often do it in a specific section, therefore showing the homosexual disclaimer strategy. ‘..there is a strong need for sex-positive research and programming that accurately reflects the actual experiences and expressed needs of adolescents.’ 248. ‘Conventional sex education programmes rely heavily on gendered sexual scripts and negative, fear based discourses of sexuality.’ 248
This is really affirming of our perspective!
Back at the screen after my few days away. Everything seems fine and maybe, just maybe I am making some progress. Rod is away in Malta just now, lucky guy, and I’ll also be off soon again. Just slogging my way through our two year long email conversation coding for themes. I am so bored with work just now, so have to really make myself do stuff, and I’ll be very glad when I am done with it. I still want to do it properly though… And its lovely to read some of those emails again, the ideas we had and tried, no highs and lows of it all, Rod can be so funny, wow, it’s been a good journey.
Cook, I. (2006) Western Heterosexual Masculinity, Anxiety, and Web Porn. The Journal of Men’s Studies 14, 1, 47-63 Interesting article, but the psychodynamics of anxiety that according to the author underpins Western masculinity seem for from convincing to me. Cook suggests that web porn through its increased availability and the triple A engine affects many more men than porn did previously. He states that anxiety for men comes through their early relationship with mother, personally I think that’s rubbish, the otherness of the female and female body and the questioning of gender roles through feminism. An interesting idea he introduces is homo-heterosexuality, which means that men really compete for recognition by other men, whilst being strictly heterosexual. ‘Homo-heterosexuality reflects the extent to which other men are the real audience for the expression of Western heterosexual masculinity.’ p. 55. So really, if one wants to go all Freudian surely men have a problem with their fathers not their mothers.
However, porn may also increase the underlying male anxieties with respect to the performance of masculinity, due to its emphasis on a range of available and libidinous women, the need to provide satisfaction to all these women, and the fact that this can only be achieved with supersized male genitals. It’s really sad men believe all this crap actually.., anyway another good quote from a guy called Seidler 1998: ‘men can feel good about themselves only by putting other men down…(so that) I can feel good about myself only by knowing that I am doing better than others. (page 57 in Cooks article).
This is it, last tricky task done, now I am on holiday. Well probably a rainy holiday, but still free time and more ahead over summer. And I am picking up a bit of energy to tackle the last major task for the PhD. I want it to be a good thesis at the end of it, it won’t have to be perfect, but I want to be happy with it, so want to do it properly. And, not much further to go. Tomorrow ill be my start of the last ap.
Not really getting anything done for the PhD here, but at least I am relaxing, recharging my batteries and getting other things completed. From Sunday onwards I hope to be doing stuff in little steps again, moving forward rather than standing still.
Howes, A. (2007) Learning in the contact zone: revisiting neglected aspects of development through analysis of volunteer placements in Indonesia. Compare: A journal of comparative education 38, 23-38 This must be Andy Howes most recent article and its based on his PhD. It doesn’t quite fit with my stuff, but is certainly interesting. It feels similar to Jo Frankham’s writing to me.
Howes analysis 4 case studies of volunteers in Indonesia to see where the learning occurred, namely through relationships, activities and events that the volunteers are involved in, which is normally not accounted for the the development discourse. Learning is determined by difference between volunteers and colleagues, which makes for a conflictual learning process. Learning happens through contradictions, transgression and negotiation around important boundaries. These boundaries show up in the contact zone between difference and may be hidden or clearly visible to different participants. Contradictions give rise to awareness about difference, which is a crucial step in learning. Transgression is inevitable, may be intentional or not, ad is a visible social act to which people will respond in unpredictable ways. Negotiation is an ongoing process. Acts of transgression can shrink or enlarge the possibilities for negotiation. Howes concludes that this process of learning through participation is more significant than suggested in the development discourse.
It’s a great article and seems much more post-modern than my stuff. I am wondering now whether I am going overboard with the structure in my PhD. Howes has also referenced his own thesis in the references for this article and I have downloaded it from the Manchester Uni site which is fab. It looks fascinating all together! I will have a look at his methodology chapter, which seems much more alternative then mine.I guess I am ultimately a very structured person so no wonder my PhD looks actually very traditional. Here is the link to Howes’ thesis.
After much humming and ahming I did decide to not go through all the emails from my dialogue with Rod on the first go, but to go back to the beginning after looking at 1/3 of the data and to start specifying categories. Seems like this is working out ok now and the procedure is making sense to me. I am keeping a log as to which themes come up in each email and any interesting quotes or things happening in the text. I may need to take this on holiday as it could take me quite a while to get through the 150 pages print out.
I think the email queries for 2007 will be easier to analyse and the rest just needs reading through and making sense of. All together, I should get some clarity as to what I want to write about in th last chapter in August. I’ve said to Rod that I will send him each bit I write about the chronological periods to let him comment on it. That should work out really well for the thesis.
So I think I am getting there, much calmer (and really quite tired now that Rod mentioned it), but on track and ok. More soon.
Seems like we are both worse for wear, but also quite ok. I’ll be going to Wales first, then Rod to Malta, then me to Vienna. Seems like a very nice itinerary. Rod will do the sales figures for the second quarter, but he already said it won’t be much. That’s not surprising, and really quite ok too,w hat with the credit crunch and all. Once he is back from Malta, he will have some time to put the new ads on our site. I’ve also let him know he will need to check webmaster central as Google has put a warning up for something or other there.
When I checked the site today, everything looked fine. Our back links are down again, but so be it. Everything else seems to be pottering along fine.
For now, have cleared my to do list, just a couple of phone calls to make with Rod being one of them. I can hardly call that a business call can I! So should be happy, but the stress is only slowly subsiding. I will take the rest of my day as it is free to me to bumble and empty out my head. I have also now declined on the article again, which I feel guilty about, but that’s still easier to handle than having it lurking there in the back of my head needing to be done. I just need 3 empty months to finish writing.
What I have realised is that this last third of the thesis will need some proper prep, looking through everything and developing a proper storyline, before I can sit down and write. This is the thinking and analysis part I haven’t done so far and it is essential. I must give myself more time for this bit, even if it takes me until mid September and I’ll only continue writing after my holiday. I would still finish by x-mas or be able to finish the thesis over the holidays, so it’s really all in hand, contained and as it should be. I just need to let it go a bit in my own head and not get too neurotic about the imaginary deadlines I have in my head. This should be the fun bit and I need to give myself time to have fun with it.
Started to go through and code my 150 pages of email exchanges between Rod and me. I got through one third today and it wasn’t even too painful. And I have learned a lot about how to do it. So now will start from the beginning again and define the categories I will be using beforehand, or through the work I have done so far. I can then highlight text in each category and also make soem notes about what info I would like to further extract from the text. This is all making so much more sense now. On some level I know I should be able to finish teh PhD still within my time limit, but then again I stress myself and don’t want to rush. However, it will really take me time to pull together what Terry called the story line to make myself a script from which to write. I will need to give myself time for that.
Also, had acall today about writing an article for the TAJ on a theme issue on sexuality. It’s really good and I coudl write about the online advice service, but on the otehr hand I feel stressed about it. Another consideration is that I shouldn’t really publish my main data there as it won’t get me academic browny points, so I am very ambivalent about. Still its my community and it shouldn’t be much work as I will have all the bits and pieces already written up for the PhD anyway. Well look slike a deadline would be beginnign of October. We’ll see. Carole said she would talk to BIll about this today so we’ll see. When will I ever get ime to do nothing?
this is remote blogging again from Edinburgh. I have managed to read all of my reflective journal, which covers the first 8 months of the project. I think there is enough in there, together with the first status report and Rod’s comments to that (version 1.5) to do that bit for the thesis. Also, will need to introduce all of the data collection tools I am using and there was quite a bit about the email advice service too that I can talk about. I will need to be clear to write about the historical process, the observed data and then my interpretations of it and be quite clear about keeping those apart. Maybe at the end of each historial section I need to summarise what I have learned from this process and what I have taken forward. That should be quite a good structure really. I am getting through stuff ok and will now start reading through all my emails with Rod. I am sure that will be loads! However, then I have done quite a bit of analysis, at least covering everything for 2006, with the 2007 emails, I will be able to leave them till the end to analsye. Would just liek to get goign with writing somethign as that would make me feel more settled. So, seems to be progressing ok, but still stressy.
Terry had time for lunch so I did end up going to the viva. It was an interesting process and very helpful to watch. I don’t think I need to go to one again though. And as always I do think the PhD is easy, still hard work, but ok once you are clear about your own personal process that gets linked to it. So here is what the examiners asked:
Our aim is to 1) satisfy ourselves it is your work, 2) explore areas that need expanding, 3) dialogue about materials. Question 1: What has it been about? Here the examiner looked for basic definitions. 1) Did respondents answer your questions or did they answer the questions they heard? I guess that’s a particular point on methodology. 3) What’s different about how you see things, unique about this piece of work? 4) Main subject topic, 5) What’s your stance as a researcher, rather than a practitioner, 6) ethical issues, 7) How did you arrive at the questions you asked? State data, but then talk about interpretation, i.e. what does it mean to you? Potentially go back to participants and check your interpretation with them. Justify your interpretations. 
Where do you go from here? 9) Summary of findings, potentially on one A4 page.
So yes, many things learned and I will need to keep my notes from this as to helpful and unhelpful processes. However, it does look very, very similar to the psychotherapy oral exam so it should really be fine, just will need to manage my nerves.
It’s doing quite ok, even in our absence, well for the time being anyway. Somehow, we’ve gone another step up, maybe Google has changed its algorithm again a bit. ON the 7.7.07 we went up to nearly 2000 visitors that day and yesterday it was a bit down from that, but still ok. When I had a look in webmaster tools, we are actually down on the back links to 780, so doesn’t seem it was us who changed, but rather google. This is really quite good, just hope it stays stable until I can do soem proper work again on the site.
Seems like I am really getting my head round the next step, unconscious and all. But I will again chicken out of going to watch the viva today, I just have too much work on the PhD I still want to do. I am putting that on hold as I don’t want to waste my time. I am sure it would be great to go, but that’s my student life all over, i.e. non-existent because I want to get the thesis finished. Priorities are priorities. I hope to print off all the 2007 email queries and continue reading what I have from the reflective journal pre-blog. I am really pleased about my progress, so maybe it won’t take too long until things come together.
I guess it’s just the next stage in the journey. I’ve organised myself a bit and that feels much better. Maybe I won’t have to do the survey analysis the hard way either, so that’s hopeful. Just need to print off all those email queries from 2007 now, there are loads, and then re-read the blog and other materials to get started. Maybe with enough time this could be fun too.
..does it really have to be that painful? After days of frustration and worrying, I now have finally completely finished the other sections and started at organising myself for the results and discussion. Well, it feels bad, chaotic, sooo much stuff to still pull together, and just even finding what I have done or haven’t done yet is painful. I wish I had kept better track of things, just that I probably have in my blog. This will still take me some serious time and I don’t know whether it’s feasible to push myself to complete the final draft by x-mas. We’ll see. Feel rather stressed and disheartened right now, but I am sure as I get more into it, I’ll get more positive about it all.
So, what I need to do next is 1) print off all 2007 emails and analyse them, 2) analyse the email feedback survey 2007, 3) analyse the site survey 1, analyse my email dialogue with Rod. And then start pulling it all together in some way. Well, while I am writing I am starting to wonder now, maybe it’s not going to be so bad after all. I could write 2006 up before I’ll do any of the tasks above, maybe that would be helpful as I am then able to write from the perspective of only having the data I’ve had till then in my head.I will take the email dialogue I’ve had with Rod along to Edinburgh so hope to analyse stuff then, count out email, phone calls and meetings and generate categories. I could then start writing about the beginnings. We’ll see, this still feels quite heavy.
Busy as usual, still other stuff floating about and not leaving me any time for the PhD, its so annoying. But I am getting closer. And my blog is back, so that’s fantastic. I have missed it. It’s all updated to wordpress 2.5, more secure and all the interface looks different too, so a bit weird, but I am sure I will get used to it.
I am hoping to finish off the tables I still want to include in the methods section tonight when I get in, and then I am all set for results and discussion. I am hoping to organise myself tomorrow, although might not be able to print stuff off because too noise during the day. Anyway, hoping to be able to take some work back to Edinburgh for the weekend. I finally want to move forward with this, its been really frustrating not having time for it.
Hi Gudrun,
The Wordpress hack was widespread!
Here are some links that tell you more:
http://www.jammersix.com/archives/more-info-on-the-wordpress-anyresultsnet-hack-for-hijacking-search-traffic/
the hackers are trying to get traffic by hijacking searches for the sites they have hacked - it’s not worked in your case, as when you go to google.com and type in sex-and-phd.com the link that comes up does click through to your site - but note the description of the site underneath it…..(idea is that blogs have high traffic, so if they hack a 1000 or so blogs getting say 100 searches a day they have 100,000 hits for as long as the hack goes undetected. a very crude device, so when people hit the link on google the hack takes them to the hackers’ site and not the blog)
the original hack that placed links to cwvine.com on the blog was a crude attempt to hijack your traffic for a pharmacy site. they had hijacked that domain or bought it - impossible to tell ownership as the domain reg info is not public - but I assume they own it as they have a pharmacy shop there (selling prescription drugs to poor americans without a prescription is big business)
1.7.08
Spoke to Rod today, finally. His dad has been seriously ill again so he’s been out of contact. It’s been really good to talk to him and it made me realize how much I miss him. Seems ages since we last spoke! I am so looking forward to doing stuff with him again once I got this PhD over and done with.
As to the site, some really good news! Rod said we now have PR 5!!! Which accounts for our extra visitors. Rod said there had been a shift round about the 16th of May and I said there was one on the 26th of June. I also let Rod know that many or our outstanding pages had been indexed, so that’s all really exciting and shows how the site is maturing at the moment even without much input.
And the blog, yes the blog! Well, it’s safe and sound in storage. Rod had asked your service provider to upgrade WordPress to 2.5 and this was once of the consequences that could have happened. So It’s just a case of Rod getting them to fix it. I am missing it quite a lot, my blog. There is much interesting stuff happening just now, I want to write about it. But soon, I will put all these posts on retrospectively, and the ones about the blog hacking too. Soon.
More Howes vioa Ainscow et al 2003
Ainscow, M., Howes, A., Farrell, P. Frankham, J. (2003) Making sense of the development of inclusive practices. European Journal of Special Needs Education Vol.18, No. 2, pp. 227-242
I’ve already had this reference in my bibliography file, so have probably read this article already and commented on it. But, my blog has gone missing so can’t check it out.
This article is really good as it advocates for practitioner research and it looks for an ongoing, open stance of curiosity, engagement and dialogue rather than end results of research. The process and stance of enquiry become the main result of the research. This is really, really good for my work. The paper is on setting up a collaborative action research network. As such it attempts at articulating the social processes behind learning. They use the idea of community of practice by Etienne Wenger and come to the conclusion that development inclusive practices involve a) collaborative working arrangements, b) various forms of evidence which disrupt routine ways of thinking, c) space through interruptions can give rise to new possibilities.
They really are interested in the reflexive stream of data, looking into their contribution as researcher to how the research is conducted. They see their role as assisting the school to develop the capacity to generate meaningful data, which can guide action. This is mostly via the use of working relationships, dialogue and critical reflection. They suggest that researchers need to trust practitioners and how much they know, on the other hand they also acknowledge ‘false consciousness’ as practitioners being too lost in their own assumptions. It’s important to be clear about ones assumptions so that the findings one gets aren’t just confirming ones expectations.
Communities of practice: social learning process, best explained as an intertwining between reification and participation. Practice is based in shared experience. Within my frame of reference, the therapeutic relationship is a dyadic community of practice par excellence. What matters is curiosity, willing ness to take risks, it’s a community of memories, retelling its own story. The development of a shared language is important. ‘Interruptions’ ..help to ‘make the familiar unfamiliar’ in ways that stimulate self-questioning, creativity and action p.238, inquiring stance
Reading Kaplan and Howes 2004
Kaplan, I., Howes, A. (2004) ‘Seeing through different eyes’: Exploring the value of participative research using images in schools. Cambridge Journal of Education 34, 2, 143-155
Interesting project about inviting pupils and teachers to make photos of a school and then to comment in little monologues on their own and each other’s photos. This is very post modern and beyond my prefernce for research, but it’s good that Andyy Howes is willing to do this kind of stuff. That fits really nice with Kim Etheringtons’ work. I might need to watch that I am being post modern enough ☺ ‘Where research is part of a potentially transformative process, the value of both intended and unintended consequences should be considered together in coming to judgements about how that research process is to be made worthwhile, valuable, and ethically justified.’ (151)
30.6.08
My blog has disappeared! Well, I am very much hoping Rod is updating it just now, which would explain why its disappeared. But even if somebody did delete it all now, it is backed up and I should only lose the posts from the last week, should the worst come to the worst. Still, I like me blog and its not there!
Howes, A., Kaplan, I. (2004) A School Responding to its Cultural Setting. Improving Schools 7, 35-48 More writing by Andy Howes. This article is an evaluation of a change in a school, namely shifting to single sex teaching. The teaching side of things isn’t in my remit at all, but it’s nice to see their focus on process again, on building relationships, dialogue and not giving and easy answers at the end. They worked out the different, ambiguous responses from individuals in the different ‘camps’ to show that the camps didn’t really exist and stereotypes weren’t helpful. They aimed at creating space for critical reflection, ongoing dialogue, with the evaluation just continuing the dialogue that was already present before the researchers turned up arriving at a ‘contentious resolution’ i.e. a work in progress, an ongoing dialogue, which had been strengthened by the evaluation, but not necessarily found any definitive answers. ‘…that a participative evaluation of the engagement can assist in building greater social cohesion, not in resolving differences, but through greater, shared confidence that the communities of the school can move forward together.’ 47
Really quite good and may fit into my thesis somewhere. It will certainly be great to have him and Kim Etherington as examiners. I think they will go together really well.
Howes, A. (2001) School level action research – creating critical space in school communities. Improving Schools 4, 43-48 Have had a look today at articles by Andy Howes, to get more of a sense of what his work is like. This article is brief, very good and seems to be a companion to the one he wrote with Jo Frankham together. He is again underlining the importance of dialogue and building up trust in relationships as a core feature of action research. His focus is on collaborative action research and he seems to veer more towards the practical, pragmatic side of action rather than big research. which is really good for me. He seems to have a clear understanding that process sis more important, or as important as content.
‘In many descriptions of research …, there is no mention of the complex social processes through which change happens in these communities.’ (44). ‘Yet dialogue has developed; a conversation about practice in which it is possible for both teachers and university staff to ask questions, admit mistakes and learn together.’ (45) ‘Mutual respect and trust are probably critical ingredients.’ 45. Collaborative action research is about opening up space for critical reflection. Research is about social processes, which cannot be fit into one ‘whole’ story. It needs relationships with a high degree of trust where people can discuss things that are not working. ‘…the quality of relationship is significant.’ (46) This is really quite good and will fit in nicely somewhere in my PhD, either into the bit about my relationship with Rod or into the results section.
Also, the doctorate is moving forward, Thanks to the wind and rain, I could spend quite a bit of time proofreading my thesis, as it stands so far. I am really happy with the changes I’ve made as I am really pulling it together now into one structure. There has been quote a bit missing still from the literature review, so that’s all done, plus the link section 3 where I clarify the research question is now also clear. I should get time on Monday to type up all the amendments and changes, and then I will still need to proofread and link in the methods section, before I can move on. All in all, I am really happy as I can see it working as a whole thesis now. Also, tomorrow, still need to write a 300 word summary of the PhD for Andy Howes to send to Clare as I’ve forgotten about that bit. I ma definitively on the last lap now!
Well, back home, after a fairly rainy few days in Wales. But to my amazement good things have happened for S-and-R! On the 26th of June our visitor numbers have gone back up to 1,700 and our back link count is up again to 863. That’s really good news. Now Rod may have something to do with this or maybe it was just Google by itself: Googlebot seems to have, finally, indexed most of our outstanding pages, which is fab. We’ve now nearly filled up the bar saying ‘low’ priority, so looking forward to what happens when its completely full. So all quite ok on the web front.
I am clocking of now for the next week. Well, at least logging off. Everything seems fine in my cyber-verse, and I’ll be going back to nature and minimal electricity for while. But, will take the printed last version of the thesis along for proof reading and general maintenance. I hope to be able to do amendments and library visit next Monday, and then I’ll be ready and willing for the last lap. Writing should be easy and stress free over summer, but I guess that’s still open. Looking forward to my week with Frank now.
I’ve run out of jobs! It has finally happened, and there is still plenty of day left and I am not really tired either. This is just so strange. My holiday is setting in, end of academic year, I am starting to wonder round the house aimlessly. I thought it would never happen. So, just a bit of the PhD left to do pretty much for the next months till mid October…. I can’t quite get it yet.
Well, but I am looking at the next tasks. This is my old PhD task list:
Print off emails 2007 and analyse them.
Analyse email feedback survey
Analyse last quater site survey
Analyse dialogue between Rod and me
..and from now first of all:
Proof read all of existing PhD, finish off summary for literature review and finalise research questions. Spoke to Kieran today too and he gave me some feedback on the methodology chapter. Overall really good, but he found the bit about data collection and analysis less clear, so will check that in particular. So, here I am, just need to get back into stuff again. It’s been ages. After my holiday, I am planning to go to the library (finally, finally) to copy those last articles I still want. Must remember though I am far from finished yet and will still need quite a bit of stamina to really finish it properly. I am very happy!
Everything looks ok from what I could see of my brief tour of my cyber world. Of course the existence of the blog is still precarious until Rod comes back, but so far so good, and he will be back soon. Let’s hope for the best. I’ve updated the page on vaginismus yesterday and included a post on the article on sexual health below, so all is done for now. It’s really full power forward to finish the thesis, last and third round of writing and plenty of time stretching before me now over summer. I want to have plenty of peace, long empty days to sit at the computer and write and write. For now, I will take the manuscript away with me on holiday to read everything through again and bring it all up to scratch, as well as maybe pull it together a bit more. I would then be ready to move on and continue writing. It’s really quite amazing that I have come so far. Not that much further to go. I am happy!
Wellings K., Collumbien, M., Slaymaker, E., Singh, S., Hodges, Z., Patel, D., Bajos, N. (2006) Sexual behaviour in context: a global perspective. The Lancet 368, 1706-28 The definitive guide to global sexual behaviour. Quite useful and with a nice summary of all the main points.
‘Conventionally, public health has focused on adverse outcomes of sexual behaviour.’ (p.1706). They advocate for sexual rights based on the values of dignity, respect and choice. From the main points one of them is: ‘Marriage does not reliably safeguard sexual-health status. Married women find negotiation of safer sex and use of condoms for family planning more difficult than do single women. Very early sexual experience within marriage can be coercive and traumatic.’ (1706) Sad to see it spelled out so clearly in black and white!
The article pulls together date from over 50 countries on sexual behaviour and sexual health. It also compares older surveys with more recent ones and concludes that sexual behaviour isn’t changing that much. Young people do not have sex earlier, married people have the most sex, and sex outside of marriage is growing due to later marriages.
‘The Polarity of views on abstinence, be faithful, and use condoms (ABC) strategies, about which of these three elements has contributed most to reductions in rates of HIV in Uganda and teenage pregnancy in the USA, stems from a search for single- factor explanations to support ideological positions. Th preoccupation with ABC strategies has the negative effect of distracting attention from the need for broader, integrated programmes in which all components are mutually reinforcing.’ (1721) The authors very much advocate for a multifaceted approach looking for interaction and synergy between different interventions on an individual and a social level. ‘The data make a powerful case for an intervention focus on the broader determinants of sexual health, such as poverty and mobility, but especially gender equality.’ (1723). ‘The greatest challenge to sexual-health promotion in almost all countries comes from opposition from conservative forces to harm-reduction strategies.’ (1723)
‘Sexuality is an essential part of human nature and its expression needs to be affirmed rather than denied if public-health messages are to be heeded.’ (1724). ‘Strategies used should enable people to make heir own choices, rather than have them imposed on them.’ (1724) May reason one day prevail over ideology and ignorance!
ell, all formalities and jobs done for now. Not quite sure what to do with myself. There are some longstanding summer admin jobs open of course, but let’s not think about them yet. It will be good to stop, although I really won’t know what to do with myself or the PhD. I have to pick up all the pieces again now. I guess I’ll start by editing and reading through things again. Working my way through what I have already and then starting at the new sections. I hope it will be ok from here on in, just a bit worried that it might get difficult. But that’s my normal reaction when I haven’t had any time for the PhD and had to put it down for a while. So we’ll see, more soon.
Comment in the New Scientist this week by Pratima Gupta ‘America’s abortion scandal’. It’s scary how ideologists start subverting evidence based medicine and endangering women’s health in the process. The creation of ‘post abortion stress syndrome’ to restrict access to abortion on the grounds that it poses a risk to women’s mental health is an chauvinistic insult that is utterly hypocritical. What about post-patriarchal or post-ideology stress syndrome? Women can decide for themselves what’s best for their mental health.
Well, still trying to sort stuff out, but hopefully, I will get everything finished by tomorrow evening, and would then have a week off plus time to review the PhD. Finally. Rod got some more info on the blog incident, but everything is on hold till he comes back from holiday. Will try to finally clear some space, where is all this to do stuff coming from?
Bearinger, L.H., Sieving, R.E., Ferguson, J., Sharma, V. (2007) Global perspectives on the sexual and reproductive health of adolescents: patterns, prevention and potential. The Lancet 369, 1220-31 Really good article on sexual health and adolescents. This is really the background data I need in sexual health. It also shows that adolescents do get a worse deal than adults and run higher risks of adverse effects. Knowledge is key.
Have ben reading stuf on adolescents sexual health globally, which is really fascinating, so have had soem new ideas from that: Firstly, yes I must write stuff on sexual negotiation skills as soon as I can. This is really important. Secondly, I thought it would be fantastic to find an organisation in each continent in the developing world, so Africa, Asia and Latin America to work with. We could have peopel reviewing teh site and letting me know what I need to adapt to make it usable for their literacy skills, cuture and back ground knowledge. That would just be so amazing! I could contact people via Judith’s link to Zambia, Clare’s connection to Kenya or via the Drum or Soul Beat mailing lists, at least that’s just the avenues that come to mind easily. Shame I never heard back from that organisation in South Africa where I wrote to for links. There would also be the South African TA therapist, I could write to her. And Pearl Drego in New Delhi working with poor Bengali women, maybe I could write to hear quite soon…. So much to do, that would just be really amazing.
Nice to catch up again and sounds like life is ok again for Rod. I am very pleased for you! So much to say though: So your sites are going ok again, with mostly focusing on more and new content and revising stuff, not even with doing the links. That’s really great and I can’t wait till I can do this for our site again. Also, new website on orgasmic disorder for men, so that’s a really exciting angle. Rod mentioned that new websites in Google get ranked first under the content, so with a site on a unique topic, they come in at number one with a first part of their algorithm focusing on content. Then sites tend to drop down slowly. At some point a second part of their algorithm seems to kick in, which is about back links and as Google picks up the links the site rises again. Sounds all quite exciting.
Also, checked with Rod about picture banks for medical pics, that we could potentially buy. However, they said these exist but are hugely expensive so we won’t be able to buy stuf from them. That’s a real shame. Maybe we need to hotlink to pics on the net, so that we can have pictures included, even though we can’t afford them. Rod will go on hols and then week after next so will I, but he will look into the distrubance on the blog today. I am really looking forward to workign with him again, once the PhD is written! Yippeh.
I have finally finished marking course work! Feels like it was a hige pile of stuff to get through, and it was, but now its done. I feel like a free person again. So, one more trainign weekend and then I can continue with my PhD. It’s been ages and ages since I have had any real time for it. I am really looking forward to have some time time to start on my results and dicussion. I am worried about how it will be writing that bit, but I always am when I am starting a new section. Really this bit should be the fun part!
Have read more on sexual health, namely Donovan, B. (2004) Sexually transmitted infections other than HIV, and Low et al 2006: Global control of sexually transmitted infections. As well as Krug et al 2002: The world report on violence and health. Seems good to find out more and useful for my literature review. For some strange reason my computer isn’t copying and pasting the complete references over just now, no idea why. I am still very busy, so more on the PhD next week.
Chatted to Rod today, who is having a tough time with life in general. Can’t wait till I got the PhD done so we can work together again as a proper team. I am sure the PhD was a great idea and hope I will benefit from it in the future, as will Sex-and-Relationships, but it has really taken up loads of my time too. Soon, very soon, the thesis will be done as a first draft, the rest will be mainly editing and polishing, so shouldn’t take up much of my head space any more.
Things are moving quite fast now. My internal examiner has changed as Jo Frankham has left. Andy Howes has now agreed to examine me and seems like he will be a better choice then Jo. He will check on my methodology so that’s fine. Clare introduced me briefly so that’s fab and I will have a look at his papers when I get a minute.
Otherwise Clare was happy with my literature review and introduction. I seem to be doing ok with the word counts on everything. Clare said that I can close my literature review with December, so will do a last sweep for new studies before I finalise the first draft. I hope to write up most of my findings and discussion before I go on holiday in mid September and then continue to edit to hand in a final draft to Clare and William in December. They will need one month to read and edit it and then I will need to make corrections and then, I will submit it!!! Which means I am hoping to submit maybe by February or March and would then have a chance to make the June exam board. That would be fantastic! So onwards and upwards, just need to get through the next two weeks of teaching.
Neuhauser, L., Kreps, G.L. (2003) Rethinking Communication in the E-health Era. Journal of Health Psychology 8, 1, 7-13 Very interesting paper, however, also spooky to find this now, but I guess new literature will always still come up, it’s such a vast topic. Good paper though!
They discuss the great potential of e-health is supposed to have. Firstly they state that health prevention messages are often not taken up even if people are sick and need to manage their condition. Current models of behaviour change are ineffective and do not model people’s behaviour correctly. There is an increasing disparity in health provision, meaning minority groups are affected more. Overall health communication shows poor outcomes.
They state the classic models for behaviour change on page 9, for example the transtheoretical model built on the cycle of change. Health interventions have focused on expert driven risk based information and rational decision making by individuals, this isn’t working. Social ecology model: People are embedded in social networks and cultural contexts, has led to new generation multi level communication interventions.
What we do know so far: 1) Health communication is more effective when it reaches people on an emotional as well as a rational level; self-efficacy and sense of control seems important. 2) It is more effective when it relates to people’s life contexts. 3) A combination of interpersonal communication and mass media is needed, both kinds of communication are important and interrelated. 4) Tailored communication is more effective than generic. Often interventions are ‘inappropriately generalised’. 5) Interactive is more effective than one way. Sociology: ‘agency-robbing discourse’ that’s very good and fits the empowerment model! Also, patronising discourse from P invites child response, which is disempowering, best to have A-A communication. Social influence theory suggests communication needs to be ‘a spiral of changing feelings and beliefs’ and a participatory process. It is best if communication is dependent on the receiver not the sender. This is fabulous!!! Interactivity seems to be related to user’s control of content and responsiveness to user’s prior actions. ‘Experts have messages to send, but people have lives to lead.’ (12)
E-health: could address some of the above points through improved customization, contextuality, interactivity and mixed media. The authors state the benefits of e-health. 1) Psychological factors which mediate change: empathy is important and often part of online support groups. 2) promoting interactivity and participation, medium allows for this. 3) providing customized and contextualized information, medium allows messages to be tailored –> create health just like learning is constructed, messages need to fit receiver. 4) expanding mixed media channels ‘hyperpersonal communication’ internet is a completely new medium and allows for a different discourse. All seems to suggest e-health will work, but authors still do not address the question what happens when peopel are not motivated and do not want to take responsibility.
Can e-health interventions improve health?
not much experimental evidence yet. Tailored info works best (14) They quote two analytic reviews which might eb worth chasing up Revere and Dunbar 2001 and Lewis 1999.
Bridging the gap between ehealth potential and reality:
Few websites have interactive tools 15, digital divide persists, plus rich multimedia might be beyond bandwidth of some users. Most ehealth websites are for profit companies.
Summary:
To effect behaviour change communication must be participatory, deeply meaningful, empathic, empowering, interactive, personally relevant, contextually situated, credible and convenient. ‘Perhaps what we will learn, eventually, is that the key to behaviour change is for people to be in charge of the learning, deciding and sharing of health communication - that our ‘messages’ play only a small role.’ p. 18 very good! I fully agree!!!
Have been away for the weekend so this is the usual rush to get everything straighted out again. I have spoken to Rod briefly last week and he was going to check out the burglary of the blog. I will ring him tomorrow to see what he has found out. Everything else seems fine…
Well, doing ok with sanitising my blog. I am on page 6 with deleting unwanted additions and will slowly work my way through the whole thing. In some way its really interesting, like a ghost authorship, very post modern to have these strange growths on my blog. On the other hand, Its sad to lose some of what I have written. Why couldn’t the person just leave my text in place? Otherwise things are good. Will take the PhD and new article along and hope to make some more amendments on the train.
So, have cleared 5 pages of blog posts from vandalised blog posts, but there is more. This will take me a little while, but I hope to do a little bit at a time. I guess it shows how alive the internet is, weed grows everywhere as soon as you are not looking. This is another interesting bit of info for the PhD. Its also an indicator of how desperate people must be to get links if they are willing to pay somebody to do this. The links for stuff thats been inserted isn’t even for porn or illegal stuff, but everyday house hold goods. Somebody must be paying somebody to do this as a job!
Have started to delete the hidden links from my blog! It’s obviously annoying and a waste of my time, but they are easy to spot. However, what’s more complicated is that the vandal deleted all the text in those posts, so some of my stuff is gone. Of course I have it as a paper copy, but the search function will now not pick up everything anymore that I have written. I guess this is life, and its not that important anymore. I have better things to do than waste any more energy on this. Just hope the person didn’t mess with too many other things here or can break in again. We’ll see, worst case scenario I will abandon the blog. It has served its function and has done so well. All things die one day.
That is really quite amazing, somebody did break into my blog and delete posts and add in html links. That is seriously astonishing that somebody should go to that length to get a few lousy links!!! What a boring and fruitless life they must have. I guess it does create more work for me to go through everything again and delete the shit. Strange, honestly. Thank god this blog isn’t really that important to me anymore.
Was just going to come and write an update for my blog, but something else has happened: I’ve been noticing that my last blog post seemed empty, but I thought something was wrong about the homepage of the blog and the server. What was really the case was that the blog post had been changed to include only html and links. That is exceedingly weird. Of course I could have done this by mistake last time I edited something, and I really hope this is the case, otherwise, somebody has broken into my blog and added links in it and deleted posts! How annoying! Will change the password and have a general look around as to what has happened.