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Keywords: Connection

There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.

  • AUSTRALIA

    Gamification nation

    • Cherie Gilmour
    • 03 November 2022
    1 Comment

    Gamification affects almost all our online activities, from communicating to shopping, with gaming elements omnipresent in the form of points, avatars, badges, leader boards, and real-life rewards. Stripping activities of their intrinsic value, virtually any online activity could be transformed into a challenge to win. Yet users make the mistake of focusing on the game rewards without seeing how the game itself is subtly changing  behaviour.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Seeking meaning behind the monsters in Dahmer

    • Paul Mitchell
    • 27 October 2022
    1 Comment

    At the end of the third episode of the Netflix biopic Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, as the ‘Watch Next Episode’ timer ran down, I turned it off and haven’t returned. At time of writing, Dahmer was the number three-ranked show on Netflix Australia. Why are viewers willing to watch? And against the scale of such horror, can there be any redemption?

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Making My Island Home

    • Paul Mitchell
    • 18 October 2022

    ‘My Island Home’ was first recorded 35 years ago, a song that emerged from a journey and conversation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous voices. It’s helped Australians better understand our home and place in it, and points to the value of enshrining Indigenous voices in our constitution so they can continue to speak to us all. 

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The book corner: The Escape Artist

    • Gillian Bouras
    • 11 October 2022

    Jonathan Freedland’s book is an extremely harrowing tour de force: at one stage I could read only a chapter at a time. But by the end I had been reminded of the power of the human spirit, and of the way in which some people, those with a sense of mission, can endure almost any trial. Resilience is a great gift.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    A different logic of encounter

    • Michael McVeigh
    • 30 September 2022

    Too often our society’s approach, and our Church’s approach, to First Nations people is to judge, to destroy, and to impose. But there’s a different logic that sees any encounter between cultures as a gift. That logic seeks understanding rather than offering judgement; it looks for mutual growth rather than destruction; and it gives each person autonomy in choosing their own path forward.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    The empty echo chamber: A conversation with Dr Axel Bruns

    • David Halliday, Axel Bruns
    • 22 September 2022

    Despite our differing social and cultural beliefs, we can mostly agree that we live in highly polarised times. But what divides us? ARC Laureate Fellow Prof. Axel Bruns studies social polarisation, and in this discussion we explore the drivers of polarisation, examining the role that digital and social media and broader social and political contexts play in intensifying social conflicts, threatening economic prosperity, undermining public trust, and ultimately destabilising societies.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The book corner: Reappropriating stolen memory

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 16 September 2022
    1 Comment

    Joel Birnie’s short and admirable book provokes reflection both on what should have mattered in the relationships between colonial invaders and Indigenous peoples in the nineteenth century and on what matters in the relationships that constitute Australia today. 

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  • FAITH DOING JUSTICE

    The spirit of The Way

    • Michael McGirr
    • 09 September 2022
    5 Comments

    The Way had been a community of homeless people, built around difficult but wonderful characters. It taught me more than I can easily say. It was a world where things were not always as they seemed and people did not fit into little boxes. We had many challenging days and relationships with our guys were seldom easy, but there was an energy that found light in unexpected places.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Live, learn, forget, repeat

    • Barry Gittins
    • 05 September 2022
    2 Comments

    Philosopher George Santayana sagely pronounced, ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ Yet that repetition is part of being human. We are creatures of habit and don’t necessarily notice or learn from our thoughts and deeds. Nor do we necessarily want to be made aware of that lack of learning.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The book corner: Telltale

    • Gillian Bouras
    • 02 September 2022
    1 Comment

    Australian cultural icon and erstwhile publisher Hilary McPhee calls Telltale ‘a rare thing, an ingenious memoir,’ and she is right. It is interesting and reassuring to note that books about reading and recollections of reading habits seem to be proliferating. Perhaps such writing is a defence measure against worrying developments like universities in England, for example, axing their English Literature courses.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Is social media harmful? A Roundtable

    • David Halliday, Beth Doherty, Tim Dunlop, Matthew Howard
    • 26 August 2022

    When former Facebook employee Frances Haugen released a trove of documents revealing internal research on the negative effects its social media products were having on mental health, the darker side of social media became hard to ignore. So how might the harmful effects of social media be mitigated into a social benefit for a saner, more coherent society? 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The constant remaking of a nation

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 17 August 2022
    4 Comments

    Few Australians of Irish descent will now be familiar with this history and the experience that accompanied it. They would see themselves as simply Australian. But the emphasis on social justice, the recognition of the value of community, and the concern for people who are marginal that are communicated through Catholic schools and the sympathy with the underdog owe much to the Irish heritage.

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