4.2.1 Figure 9a: A selection of 35 mm SLR film cameras Learning outcomes After studying this unit you should be able to: appreciate the importance of technological change, costs of production and consumer preferences to the changing organisation of production; understand the relation between the quantity demanded of a good and its price as represented by the demand curve; understand economic models of the relation between firms’ costs and output; analyse the role of technology and costs in influencing in 4.3 Live fast, die young Both the automobile and PC industries were characterised by a great deal of turbulence in the first 20 to 30 years of their existence. In both cases, many new firms entered the industry, introduced new varieties of the product, and soon left the industry, leaving only a few dozen firms to compete during the growth phase. By 1926 only 33 per cent of the firms that had started producing automobiles during the previous 22 years had survived. In the case of PCs, by 1999 only 20 per cent of the fi Learning outcomes After studying this unit you should be able to: understand the relationship between technological change and industrial revolutions; appreciate the pervasive effect that new technologies can have on the economy and, in particular, on productivity; understand how industry dynamics can be analysed using the ‘industrial life cycle’ model; use data and historical examples to support economic arguments. Introduction The material presented here focuses on the politics of racial violence in Britain. The material is an audio file, originally 30 minutes in length, and examines the issues around this subject. It was recorded in 1995. This material is from our archive and is an adapted extract from Crime, order and social control (D315) which is no longer taught by The Open University. If you want to study formally with us, you may wish to explore other courses we offer in this Author(s): Learning outcomes On completion of this unit, you should be able to: identify criteria to evaluate whether prison works. Learning outcomes After studying this unit you should be able: define social construction and social constructionism. 1.6.4 Blogs The founder of Technorati claims that the number of ‘blogs’ doubles every five months and that the creation rate is approaching two per second. One estimate I read in July 2010 put the number at 400 million blogs. Because these online diaries offer instant publishing opportunities, you potentially have access to a wealth of knowledge from commentators and experts (if they blog) in a wide ra 1.5.9 Plagiarism Referencing is not only useful as a way of sharing information, but also as a means of ensuring that due credit is given to other people’s work. In the electronic information age, it is easy to copy and paste from journal articles and web pages into your own work. But if you do use someone else’s work, you should acknowledge the source by giving a correct reference. Taking someone's work and not indicating where you took it from is termed plagiarism and is regarded as an infringemen 1.5.7 Referencing We mentioned above that we need to reference sources to ensure we abide by copyright legislation. But there is another reason we need to give accurate references to items we use – so we can share it. Consider this scenario. A friend says they’ve just read an interesting article where Joshua Schachter, founder of Delicious has spoken about why it isn’t a faceted search system, and you should read it. How would you go about finding it? Would you start looking in a news database, a s 1.5.3 Desktop search tools Finding your paperwork or electronic files can be a problem. You may find that even if you do have some sort of filing system, your structure soon gets quite large with files in multiple locations, which can be hard to navigate. You may find yourself making arbitrary decisions about which folder to place a document in. It may make sense now but in the future, when you look where you think it should be, it’s not there. At times like this you may resort to the search command from the Wi 1.4.7 T is for Timeliness The date when information was produced or published can be an important aspect of quality. This is not quite as simple as saying that 'good' information has to be up to date. Here is an example of a news item from an on 1.4.3 R is for Relevance Relevance is an important factor to consider when you are evaluating information. It isn’t so much a property of the information itself but of the relationship it has with your question or your ‘information need’. For example,if you are writing an essay about the geography of Chile, a book or website about Chilean political history would not be relevant. So there are a number of ways in which a piece of information may not be relevant to your query: 1.3.10 Choosing the right tool for the job Before searching it is always a good idea to check what the source you have chosen covers to make sure it will unearth information that matches your search need (you will notice that all the resources we’ve covered in this guide have short descriptions to enable you to decide which to use). Some of the decision makers, depending on the context of your search might be: Does it have full text? Does it cover the right subject? 1.3.6 Journals Journals and articles written by academics or experts are an excellent source of information. Journals are usually published monthly or quarterly, and contain a selection of articles providing details of recent research. Often they will also contain reviews of relevant books. They are usually published more quickly than books, and so are often more up to date. To access content of journals, most publishers require a subscription. There are, however, some journals which you can freely ac 1.3.2 Search engines and subject gateways Although both search engines and subject gateways will help you find the resources that you need, the types of information that you find will differ. Search engines such as Google and Yahoo! search the internet for keywords or phrases, and then show you the results. These results are not mediated by the search engines, and th 2.2 Postscript A headline-grabbing weekend of ‘midsummer madness’, when six murders occurred in (parts of) Glasgow over the weekend of 5–6 August 1995, reinforced the ongoing nature of contestation and debate about the issues discussed in the programme. As noted in The Scotsman (8 August 1995), the legacy of the imagery of No Mean City was quickly resurrected by the press – for example, ‘a darker side to that much-vaunted transformation of Glasgow from No Mean City to Culture City’ 2.4 Information and communication technologies The new economy is much more than a shift from manufacturing to services and the increased integration of economies on a global scale. It is also strongly linked to the development of ICT, which has facilitated the development of new processes and products, especially ‘knowledge goods’ which are described below. The internet has increased the ‘connectivity’ or interconnectedness between economies by making textual communication possible in real time as well as providing a new me 2.3 The representation of ‘celebrity’ We have already seen the way in which texts gain meaning from other texts by the operation of contrast, but multiple texts are useful to the textual analyst in another way. Looking at a large number of texts dealing with the same subject – celebrity – enables us to detect common themes and narratives (stories), to the extent that with enough repetition we become able to talk about the representation of that subject. Working through a large number of texts about celebrities, we beco Learning outcomes After studying this unit you should be able: describe New Labour's approach to Welfare Reconstruction.

Activity 9













