OBJECTIVE To explore the influences of rurality on small business owner mental well-being and approaches to managing stress and mental well-being. DESIGN Semistructured interviews with small businesspeople. Concepts of salutogenesis and pathogenesis were used to interpret rurality influences on business and mental well-being. A stress-coping framework was used to categorise approaches to managing mental well-being. SETTING Central Western New South Wales. PARTICIPANTS Eleven female and male rural small businesspeople across sectors, including farming, allied health, beauty care and retail businesses. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Interviewee descriptions of experiences of small business and rurality and approaches to managing mental well-being. FINDINGS Rurality influenced mental well-being in four main ways: Business integration with community and owner identity; Visibility and being known; Different financial pressures; and Options for specialised support and casual relief. Rurality can be salutogenic and pathogenic, depending on circumstances, and pressures arising from rurality may differ for 'locals' and recent arrivals. High visibility in a small community can lead to a satisfying sense of belonging and connection. It can also create unwanted feelings of obligation and being watched. Most commonly the interviewees used emotional supports or distraction to adapt to stressors. This may be due to limited options to change or disengage from stressors in rural contexts. CONCLUSION Rurality brings its own benefits and challenges to small businesspeople's mental well-being. Given the immense contributions of small business to rural society and economies, investments in understanding and supporting the mental well-being of rural small businesspeople should be a high priority for communities and all levels of government.

Little is known about relationships between features of shark-human interactions and community expectations of authorities to respond. Previous research reports attitudes to wildlife management are influenced by context. This study comprised three phases. Phase one analysed social media related to shark management, identifying five commonly discussed variables in shark-human interaction contexts likely to influence attitudes towards management response. These context variables were: Level of human use of location; recency of other bites at the location; activity of victim; time of day; severity of harm to victim. Phase two used focus groups with ocean users to validate the Phase one context variables, and refine scenarios and management response options for Phase three, an experimental survey measuring the influence of context variables on New South Wales ocean user attitudes to management responses. The article focuses on Phase three, which randomly assigned participants (N = 1769) one of 48 shark-human interaction scenarios comprising different manipulations of the five context variables. Participants rated support for 20 shark management response options. Contrary to expectations, context variables did not influence attitudes to shark management responses. There was almost unanimous support for education and research as preferred response to managing risk from sharks, and little support for invasive strategies perceived to harm marine life, such as shark nets and drumlines. Support for shark management responses decreased as invasiveness of the response increased. The findings reflect community dislike of 'knee-jerk' policy making, indicating that attitudes to shark management are relatively stable, and do not fluctuate in response to specific incidents.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how upstream social marketing may benefit from social media citizensourcing and improve understanding of community preferences and attitudes to policy. Using the case of shark management in New South Wales, Australia, this paper aims to understand community attitudes toward shark management policy-making and policymakers. Design/methodology/approach In February 2017, more than 11,200 comments were sourced from Facebook and Twitter using Netvizz, a data extraction tool. To analyze these comments, the study used an abductive framework using social marketing, wildlife and coexistence and policy literature, to determine context, themes and sub-themes. This was combined with Appraisal, a systemic functional linguistics framework, advocating a social reference for coding and analyzing community attitudes and preference. Findings Preferences for non-lethal measures over lethal or potentially lethal measures were noted, with new technologies highly favored. The online communities wanted a policy that was respectful of human and marine life and focused on patrolled or popular beaches. The main negative comments made related to perceived knee-jerk reactions and poor communication surrounding decision-making. People held little confidence in politicians' skills and abilities to solve complex and multi-faceted problems, demanding less top-down decision-making and greater community input into policy formation. Practical implications This approach could assist upstream social marketers better understand social and community attitudes and preferences toward policy. Originality/value The study demonstrated that listening to community through digital channels can assist upstream social marketing understand community preferences and attitudes to policies and the policy-making process. Using abduction further broadens the perspective of the researchers in assigning meaning to commentary.

There are heated debates in Australia for and against culling kangaroos. Understanding community attitudes to wildlife management may aid strategic communication, leading to better outcomes for humans and wildlife. For decision-makers, social media present tantalizingly available attitude data. Using the appraisal framework, this study analyzed attitudes toward kangaroo culling expressed in Facebook discussions. Scholarly wildlife attitude models provide useful descriptors and categories but do not account for the complexity and contradictions within individuals' attitudes to culling kangaroos. The findings reveal conflation of human interests and attitudes to culling; proponents generally justified culling with reference to financial cost or harm reduction. Opponents of culling argued that human convenience and economics do not justify taking the lives of kangaroos. Proponents and opponents often attacked each other based on perceived personal and ideological differences, ignoring the substance or validity of others' comments. An urban-rural divide promulgated by some culling proponents may fuse cultural/political allegiances with attitudes to culling in ways that undermine kangaroo welfare. Humans charged with wildlife management and decision-making should aim to make assessments that benefit wildlife as well as humans. Future research on decision-making should elucidate relationships between human interest and decisions and communication concerning animal welfare.

Communication is central to managing perceptions of fairness and performance in sport officiating. Most of the few studies that focus on sport official communication have been limited to 'one-way' impressions and decision communication and tend to neglect more dynamic, dialogic interactions with players. This study explored sport officials' identity concerns and motivations and ways officials adapt and accommodate 'face' in interactions with players. Design: Qualitative methodology. Method: Video elicitation interviews using an allo-confrontation approach were conducted with 8 male and 6 female sport officials from 7 different team sports representing novice to professional levels. Goffman's (1959; 1967) dramaturgical sociology of interaction was used to frame identity projections and context in officials' communication management strategies. Findings: Analysis of interview transcripts revealed three distinct ways officials' face concerns emerge and are managed in interactions with players including (1) anticipating players' reactions and modifying presentation of self, (2) asserting and preserving the officials' own face, and (3) giving and restoring players' face. When incompatible interactional exchanges occur in sport matches, officials use different defensive and corrective face work strategies to assert, re-establish, or appropriate face statuses for themselves and players. Conclusions: The findings highlight the importance of dynamics and context in sport official communication. They also emphasise the need to maintain relationships, preserve and protect identities, whilst being strategic in interactions with players. We conclude that new conceptualisations are needed in sport official communication to build on current 'one-way' concepts that dominate officiating research and training.

Shark management is contested and community support often influences policy. Decision makers are unlikely to be comfortable explaining policy solely based on expert advice, scientific data, or any information, if they feel out of touch with important stakeholder thinking. This study explored community attitudes to shark management and also reasons for preferences. It used Appraisal to analyse comments related to the NSW Shark Management Strategy in Twitter and public Facebook sites over one year, and focus groups with beach and ocean end-users. Most harm mitigation and research strategies were supported, with drones and Clever Buoys the preferred concepts. Mesh nets were widely criticised. The most common reasons given for strategy preferences emphasised the likelihood of harm to sharks and other marine species, cost efficiency, and likelihood that a strategy would generate fear or reassurance. Findings emphasised hope that detection, deterrent and surveillance technologies will improve efficacy of shark harm mitigation in the future. Importantly for policy makers, the findings elaborate simple preference information, revealing multidimensionality in attitudes concerning shark harm mitigation strategies, and explaining associations and thinking. The study highlights the importance of listening to communities and carefully planning and adapting policy communication.

All countries manage human and wildlife coexistence. Where traditionally humans may have killed animals perceived to be a problem, this is often no longer legal or socially acceptable. Decision-makers tend to feel less strongly about coexistence issues than the people who attempt to influence them on behalf of human or wildlife interests. It has been argued that links between human interests and decisions affecting wildlife should be transparent, and that open decision making processes involving a range of local stakeholders will improve outcomes for humans and wildlife. This paper examines one case incident in an ongoing conflict between an international car racing track and kangaroos that have occasionally been found on the track during a race, causing danger to themselves and race participants. A secret local government report and plan to cull kangaroos was obtained using Freedom of Information legislation. When released to the media the subsequent public discussion showed a much greater concern for kangaroo stress, harm and right to live than the official report, and called for consideration of a range of alternatives to culling. This led to postponement of culling plans, and commitment to a more open community discussion of options. The case clearly supports claims that greater transparency and local stakeholder participation in management decision processes can improve welfare outcomes for non-human animals.

Purpose The aim of the study was to identify the extent to which social media are perceived by local government communicators as an opportunity to facilitate dialogue with communities, and the barriers that prevent dialogue occurring. Design/methodology/approach In-depth qualitative interviews were held with 11 communication practitioners and managers from 8 metropolitan and one regional council in South Australia who actively used social media. Findings Social media are used and valued more for transmission of information and promotion than engaging in dialogue. Limited understanding of social media by risk averse councillors and management, practitioner competencies in interactive technologies, and lack of guidance for meeting mandatory record-keeping through social media were key factors inhibiting its use for dialogue. Research limitations/implications The South Australian sample limits generalisability to other locations. However, the findings generally accord with previous, mostly quantitative, studies, and enrich understanding of beliefs and perceptions that limit dialogic use of Web 2.0 technology. Practical implications Work needs to be done to align the law, community expectations, and policy guidance for local government in their use of social media communication and data storage. Achievement of the dialogic potential for social media requires an investment in people and training and updating of communication record policies. Originality/value This paper broadens discussions about social media and dialogue in organisational communication by focusing on local government and articulating communicator, organisational culture, policy, and legal considerations.

Traditional approaches to identifying and classifying subcultures (such as class and demographics) are limited in their applicability online. Social media provide an abundant source of insight into subcultures, but the irregular and natural presentation of data often defies systematic analysis and traditional tools. To identify and understand subcultures this study uses appraisal method to analyse comments in public Facebook discussions. It focuses on a contentious issue in Australian society, the culling of kangaroos. The findings are consistent with existing theories about wildlife attitudes and subcultures, suggesting credibility in the sample and findings. Two main groups were identified, referred to here as Cullers , who favour culling and reflect a more general attitude of human dominance over wildlife, and Guardians , who oppose culling and reflect a more general attitude of mutuality in rights and relations for humans and other species. The study supports previous research assertions that attitudes and values are integral to the development of subcultures. The appraisal method provided valuable insight into the complexity of attitudes within the two main groups. The analysis using attitudes helped to reveal economic, environmental, patriotic and rights influences on positions taken by subcultures, and suggests merit in future research using appraisal to identify and account for ‘ sub-subcultures ’.

Communication and player management are central to officiating, but player-official interaction is difficult to train and unresearched. This study interviewed team captains from different sports and used video elicitation and Goffman’s (The presentation of self in everyday life, 1959, Interaction ritual: Essays in face-to-face behaviour, 1967) dramaturgical sociology of social interaction to explore ways players interact and attempt to influence officials. Players were found to behave irrationally sometimes, but mostly they are strategic. Player attitudes to interactions range from fatalistic acceptance to whatever the official decides, through selective complaint, to continuous opportunism. Players attempt to influence officials directly and indirectly through complaining, questioning, flattery or praise. These findings deepen our understanding of the balance – between authority, accountability and respectfulness – that characterises effective communication and interaction with players.

The study explored social media activity during two peacetime natural disasters in Saudi Arabia, a country where citizen participation in public matters is minimized and communication with government is characterised by restraint. A qualitative thematic analysis using concepts from public sphere, online public sphere and previous studies of social media was used with 5000 threads taken from YouTube, Facebook, Al-Saha Al-Siyasia and Al Arabiya. Social media helped users to communicate the gravity of the damage of the floods; discuss rationally what really happened, and why and who was responsible; criticize the government and call for action to be taken to remedy the situation; and express deep emotions of sadness over the loss of lives in a way that united people. Rational discussion was evident on Facebook and Al-Saha Al-Siyasia, but social media was more useful for reading the emotional state of the people than as a vehicle for communicating the deliberative and rational aspirations of the public sphere. Social media is unlikely to produce social change on its own, but is likely to facilitate social and political trends for change already occurring in countries, and this may be accelerated during times of disaster when heightened emotions embolden people. Governments may regard social media as a vehicle for undesirable pressure, or positively as a window on the emotional state of their people that helps them to respond more appropriately.

Communication and player management are integral to effective sport officiating, but most research has focused on physical performance and decision making. The few previous studies of officiating communication tended to use “transmission” conceptualizations of communication (e.g., decision communication, impression management). Eleven officiating-development managers and coaches from 7 peak Australian sport bodies were interviewed to explore conceptualizations of communication and player management, the way officials improve, and the role of the sport bodies in improvement. Four salient themes emerged in conceptualizations of effective officiating communication and player management: personal qualities of the official, 1-way-communication direction giving and impression management, situation monitoring (interpreting player and context), and skilled interaction (adapting communication appropriately for context). The findings highlight a mismatch between (a) interpretive and interactive communication skills perceived to be most important and challenging and (b) the training that is currently provided to officials. There was general commonality in practice and training issues across sport codes. The article makes theoretical contributions to the study of sport-official communication and practical recommendations for improving approaches to training skilled communication and player management.

Local governments (LGOVs) are ubiquitous institutions for human cooperation and all need to communicate with their communities. Most Australian LGOVs employ at least one communicator but there are few principles to guide practice. This paper examines ‘responsible flexibility’, ‘soft governance’ and trends driving LGOV to enhance dialogue with communities and share ownership of problems and solutions. The paper argues that communicators are well placed to clarify and enhance their role in LGOV of the future by shifting communication focus from telling to listening, advocating the importance of transparency and communication in government, and developing expertise in facilitating community participation.

Insect larvae clearly react to visual stimuli, but the ability of any visual neuron in a newly hatched insect to respond selectively to particular stimuli has not been directly tested. We characterised a pair of neurons in locust larvae that have been extensively studied in adults, where they are known to respond selectively to objects approaching on a collision course: the lobula giant motion detector (LGMD) and its postsynaptic partner, the descending contralateral motion detector (DCMD). Our physiological recordings of DCMD axon spikes reveal that at the time of hatching, the neurons already respond selectively to objects approaching the locust and they discriminate between stimulus approach speeds with differences in spike frequency. For a particular approaching stimulus, both the number and peak frequency of spikes increase with instar. In contrast, the number of spikes in responses to receding stimuli decreases with instar, so performance in discriminating approaching from receding stimuli improves as the locust goes through successive moults. In all instars, visual movement over one part of the visual field suppresses a response to movement over another part. Electron microscopy demonstrates that the anatomical substrate for the selective response to approaching stimuli is present in all larval instars: small neuronal processes carrying information from the eye make synapses both onto LGMD dendrites and with each other, providing pathways for lateral inhibition that shape selectivity for approaching objects.

Many arthropods possess escape-triggering neural mechanisms that help them evade predators. These mechanisms are important neuroethological models, but they are rarely investigated using predator-like stimuli because there is often insufficient information on real predator attacks. Locusts possess uniquely identifiable visual neurons (the descending contralateral movement detectors, DCMDs) that are well-studied looming motion detectors. The DCMDs trigger ‘glides’ in flying locusts, which are hypothesised to be appropriate last-ditch responses to the looms of avian predators. To date it has not been possible to study glides in response to stimuli simulating bird attacks because such attacks have not been characterised. We analyse video of wild black kites attacking flying locusts, and estimate kite attack speeds of 10.8±1.4 m/s. We estimate that the loom of a kite’s thorax towards a locust at these speeds should be characterised by a relatively low ratio of half size to speed (l/|v|) in the range 4–17 ms. Peak DCMD spike rate and gliding response occurrence are known to increase as l/|v| decreases for simple looming shapes. Using simulated looming discs, we investigate these trends and show that both DCMD and behavioural responses are strong to stimuli with kite-like l/|v| ratios. Adding wings to looming discs to produce a more realistic stimulus shape did not disrupt the overall relationships of DCMD and gliding occurrence to stimulus l/|v|. However, adding wings to looming discs did slightly reduce high frequency DCMD spike rates in the final stages of object approach, and slightly delay glide initiation. Looming discs with or without wings triggered glides closer to the time of collision as l/|v| declined, and relatively infrequently before collision at very low l/|v|. However, the performance of this system is in line with expectations for a last-ditch escape response.

This article brings together two established fields of organizational study, organizational justice (OJ) and public relations (PR), in a search for potential benefits. The 'fair process effect' says that people tend to behave more cooperatively and prosocially when they perceive fairness in a situation, and less cooperatively when they perceive unfairness. Scholars have stressed the potential benefits of understanding perceptions of fairness in a range of contexts including policing, sport refereeing, management and teaching. Some have also challenged OJ scholars to use that field's understanding of what people find to be fair to better help the victims of injustice.The article reports that PR and OJ have developed bodies of knowledge that enhance organizations' capacity to influence change for greater fairness, but both fields have been criticized because their knowledge has more often been applied to increasing the perception of fairness (resulting in greater stakeholder cooperation with organizations and their decisions), than to increasing fair outcomes for a range of stakeholders. The article also shows that PR could benefit in several ways from a deeper understanding of OJ, and that OJ could be very usefully integrated in tertiary PR and professional inservice courses. First, OJ may provide a meta- language and evidence basis for planning, framing and evaluating organizational communication and processes that would help PR focus on the frames and drivers of fairness. Second, PR, like OJ, needs a better understanding of power if it is to recognize subtle forms of domination and exercise influence that advances fairness for the most vulnerable. Third, OJ highlights the importance of independence in decision making if those affected by decisions are to trust decision makers and perceive decisions to be fair. Stakeholder mistrust limits PR agency and capacity to advance fairness, but independence would represent a profound shift from the existing paradigm of relations that PR practitioners have with organizations, as employees or consultants. The article introduces PR to OJ's impressive body of empirical evidence from organizations, and sophisticated theories and models to frame and clarify concepts for advancing practice and scholarship of fairness. Although it may be tempting to apply the power of procedural and interactional justice effects to influence perceptions of fairness and reactions to privately determined decisions, the article cautions that stakeholders will best be served where PR ensures that multiple voices are heard and acted on in matters of distribution.

PurposeTeachers have access to a growing range of online tools to support course delivery, but which ones are valued by students? Expectations and satisfaction are important constructs in the delivery of a service product, and how these constructs operate in a service environment, such as education where the student can also take on the role of the customer is unknown. This study focuses on the student perspective of online tools. The aim of this paper is to measure students' expectations and perceived importance of, and satisfaction with, a range of tools available in a virtual learning environment.Design/methodology/approachA quantitative survey (n=396) was conducted and descriptive measures and statistical analysis were produced.FindingsResults show that the tools that enable instructors to communicate with students and vice versa are more important to students and more satisfying to them than tools that enable students to interact with each other. Also, business students appear to be different from non‐business students, with respect to desired communications tools.Practical implicationsThe findings help us to understand business students' communication preference, which in turn helps teachers to create an educationally meaningful learning environment.Originality/valueThis work connects an established model for online interactions with students' expectations and level of satisfaction with tools that are currently being used in the online education environment.

In Schistocerca gregaria ocellar pathways, large second-order L-neurons use graded potentials to communicate signals from the ocellar retina to third-order neurons in the protocerebrum. A third-order neuron, DNI, converts graded potentials into axonal spikes that have been shown in experiments at room temperature to be sparse and precisely timed. I investigated effects of temperature changes that a locust normally experiences on these signals. With increased temperature, response latency decreases and frequency responses of the neurons increase. Both the graded potential responses in the two types of neuron and the spikes in DNI report greater detail about a fluctuating light stimulus. Over a rise from 22 to 35°C the power spectrum of the L-neuron response encompasses higher frequencies and its information capacity increases from about 600 to 1,700 bits/s. DNI generates spikes more often during a repeated stimulus but at all temperatures it reports rapid decreases in light rather than providing a continual measure of light intensity. Information rate carried by spike trains increases from about 50 to 185 bits/s. At warmer temperatures, increased performance by ocellar interneurons may contribute to improved aerobatic performance by delivering spikes earlier and in response to smaller, faster light stimuli.