austraLasia
1379
Analysis of
austraLasia 2005
ROME: 5th January 2006
-- Most readers would be aware that in the course of the past year, some
fairly sophisticated content analysis software has been applied, with useful and
interesting results, to some important material - the total set of responses to
the Brother's Questionnaire in preparation for the 2006 Assembly in the Region,
for example (this analysis can be downloaded and read from the Brother's page on
Bosconet). The same process was actually applied here at the Pisana to the
complicated set of responses given by 60+ community members to their community
project. It certainly helped the process to clarify the key ideas and
people's 'drift'.
So, I thought I would apply the same
software to austraLasia, the full set of items for the year 2005, to see if we
are anywhere near meeting our stated aim which is to provide news from/for and
create bonds amongst the far-flung entities, circumscriptions and more
importantly, people belonging to the Salesian Family in our Region.
Herewith some results.
Firstly some basic statistics:
there were 391 editions of austraLasia in 2005. One doesn't need to be
Mandrake to work out that this offers a frequency of one a day and a teeny bit
more. It seems to be a good frequency to maintain. It is possible to
tell exactly what these items applied to - if we go by province or similar
grouping, here's how it looks: Between the two Philippines provinces plus
Pakistan - 43; Thailand-Cambodia - 42; Vietnam-Mongolia - 31; Japan - 29;
Australia-Samoa-Fiji - 26; China-Taiwan - 25; Papua New Guinea-Solomon Islands -
22; Indonesia-East Timor - 19; Korea - 16; in addition to our own area, South
Asia recorded 51 items (the provinces of India plus Myanmar), and a further 106
had no particular application to a place but were general news items, 'Salesian'
general - 80, and other general (as distinct from Mother General!) - 26.
That all adds up to a little over 400 - some of the items applied to more than
one place so were recorded in both, some items referred to specific entities
within the Salesian Family rather than an SDB province.
Altogether I have noted 43 correspondents who have provided at least one item in
the course of the year. I may have missed a couple along the way. 10 of
those are quite regular and have adopted a pattern of one new item (or more) per
month. This seems to be a winning formula and I would encourage others to
consider it. It results in a good overall flow of news and
views.
In terms of content anlaysis, it is not possible
here to go into the details available, but it is an interesting picture, a
scattergram, if you like, showing not only frequency of concepts but
relationships and inter-relationships. It can be viewed from several
angles. One of these turns up 6 main concept clusters: Salesian
(which includes young people, confreres, work, community, the RM, Salesian
Family); school (which also includes parish, children, home, studies and
- I haven't yet worked out why - novitiate house!); news - news is news,
enough said; life (includes mission, group); then a cluster of time
and place locators (province, region, world, day, year...); finally -
English, which probably reflects a fascination of the coordinator, but
also the fact that this language has been chosen as the lingua franca of
the region. Another angle on this identified Salesian, Community,
Region as the three key concepts around which the rest clustered. Yet
another way of seeing all the above was to identify a Salesian-young
people-work pattern, a Don Bosco-life-world-community pattern, and a
students-school-English-group pattern. Over to you to determine
whether or not all the above adequately reflects Salesian Life and Mission in
the psyche and the reality of our readers and
contributors!
In the course of 2005 austraLasia introduced
several improvements: most significant was RSS, which enables people to be more
selective and discerning in reading choice. Another was the occasional
introduction of a glossary for difficult or unusual words - which many have
commented on as helpful. A third was the listing of all items in Bosconet
under their various province groupings, so readers can gain the kind of overall
picture I have just outlined above. austraLasia also links in neatly
enough with other similar Salesian e-letter distribution networks like
Rualink, Boscolink, BIS, and of course ANS which it feeds into
almost daily. This makes for a powerful set of connections in the
English-speaking Salesian world. Occasionally this 'power' is discernible
in other ways. Within three hours of the most recent austraLasia on the
B&W Don Bosco DVD, Ireland had received orders for nine copies. What a
pity we are not in this game for filthy
lucre!!
VOCABLULARY
filthy lucre:
money
____________________
AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of
Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome.
For RSS feeds, subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/rssala.xml