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‘A Shared Reality between a Journalist and the Audience’: How Live Journalism Reimagines News Stories
Get PDFLive journalism is a new journalistic genre in which journalists present news stories to a live audience. This article investigates the journalistic manuscripts of live journalism performances. With the focus on texts, the article reaches beyond the live performance to explore the wider implications and potentials pioneered by live journalists. The data were gathered from Musta laatikko (‘Black Box’) manuscripts, a live journalism production by the Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat. The manuscripts were analysed as eudaimonic journalism through four conceptual dimensions: self-transcendence, autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The results show how eudaimonic journalism can contemplate history, the future, and the meaning of finite human life. Moreover, by describing self-determinant individuals and communal social relationships, eudaimonic news stories can foster a sense of meaning and agency in audience members. By employing eudaimonia, journalists at large can reflect on the meaning and purpose of contemporary life and offer a more comprehensive understanding of the world. Such understanding includes not only facts and analysis, but also values, affects, and collective meanings mediated through the subjectivity of a journalist
Covid-19: A Different Economic Crisis but the Same Paradigm of Democratic Deficit in the EU
Get PDFBased on a normative orientation and an interdisciplinary perspective, this is a comparative study, using the process tracing methodology, between the EU responses to Eurozone and Covid-19 crises to assess if, despite different outcomes, institutional decision-making processes evidence a change. The study concluded that the EU democratic deficit remains, which assumes special features in economic crises, providing a political oversize power to the economically hegemonic states, thus constraining ideological debate and making national interest prevail over politicisation. This perpetuates the conversion of structural economic positions into political power at the expense of political representative power and democracy
Nature-Based Deployment Strategies for Multiple Paces of Change: The Case of Oimachi, Japan
Get PDFIn this article a planning approach is proposed to accommodate different paces of urbanisation. Instead of responding to a single problem with a Pavlov-type of response, analysis shows that the transformational tempi of different urban landscapes require multiple deployment strategies to develop urban environments that are sustainable and resilient. The application of nature-based solutions, enhancing both human and natural health in cities, is used as the foundation for the design of deployment strategies that respond to different paces of urban change. The results show that urban characteristics, such as population density and built space is, partly, dependent on the underlying landscape characteristics, therefore show specific development pathways. To create liveable and sustainable urban areas that can deal holistically with a range of intertwined problems, specific deployment strategies should be used in each specific urban context. This benefits the city-precinct as a whole and at the local scale. Even small nature-based solutions, applied as the right deployment strategy in the right context, have profound impact as the starting point of a far-reaching urban transformation. The case-study for Oimachi in Japan illustrates how this planning approach can be applied, how the different urban rhythms are identified, and to which results this leads
Just Adapt: Engaging Disadvantaged Young People in Planning for Climate Adaptation
Get PDFThe visibility of young people in climate change debates has risen significantly since the inception of the Fridays for Future movement, but little is known about the diversity of positions, perspectives and experiences of young people in Ireland, especially with respect to climate change adaptation planning. To close this knowledge gap, this article first interrogates key emergent spaces of public participation within the arena of climate action in Ireland in order to identify the extent of young people’s participation and whether any specific consideration is given to disadvantaged groups. It then tests the impacts of workshops specifically designed to support disadvantaged young people’s engagement with climate change adaptation which were rolled out with a designated Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools school in inner-city Dublin, Ireland. We found limited attention to public participation in climate change adaptation planning generally, with even less consideration given to engaging young people from disadvantaged communities. However, positive impacts with respect to enhanced knowledge of climate change science and policy processes emerged following participation in the workshops, providing the bedrock for a greater sense of self-efficacy around future engagement with climate action amongst the young people involved. We conclude that what is needed to help ensure procedural justice around climate action in Ireland are specific, relevant and interactive educational interventions on the issue of climate change adaptation; interventions which are sensitive to matters of place and difference
Promoting Interculture in Participation in German Urban Planning: Fields of Action for Institutional Change
Get PDFGermany has been a host country for immigrants for a long time, but an institutional transformation to promote interculture in urban public administration in general, and participation in urban planning in particular, has only just begun. This article addresses institutional frameworks and proposes strategic elements for interculture in participation, based on transdisciplinary, participatory, and transformative research in two German cities. Interculture means overcoming access barriers, based on cultural norms and stereotypes, to open up participation for groups who have been underrepresented so far. The article presents four types of barriers to interculture: a selective implementation of interculture guidelines, an institutional culture that leaves room for ‘othering’ of immigrant groups, top-down definitions of participation procedures, and an inter-departmental division of labour. In response to these barriers, we elaborate two fields of action: the establishment of spaces for reflexivity and of a ‘phase zero’ that helps to build trust and long-term relationships with immigrant communities. These fields of action do not offer any concrete road map. Instead, they focus on the institutional context for action, its structures, self-understandings, and the scope for individual action, and are thus much harder to address. The transformative, participatory, and transdisciplinary research setting bears both challenges and potential, but the article argues that it is beneficial for urban studies in light of the challenges that cities are facing
The Role of Institutional and Structural Differences for City-Specific Arrangements of Urban Migration Regimes
Get PDFIn recent years, an increasing influx of migrants to Europe has led to a heated public discourse about integration capacities within receiving countries such as Germany. During this period, German society, with its changeful immigration history, is again challenged to provide policy responses and foster migrant integration, especially in urban areas. The efforts of cities along that path, however, vary greatly. Complementing locality approaches on immigration and integration policies, which are focused on metropolises and the U.S.-American context, this article is an empirical application for understanding institutional and structural conditions for local variations in integration strategies in Germany by presenting a comparative analysis of four mid-sized cities. The particular research interest lies on discourses from interviews with local authorities and civil society actors. Our analysis reveals city-specific streamlines: For instance, discourses at a center of the ‘knowledge society’ focused on a strong municipal power structure that allowed communally-financed, sustainable projects to evolve from a historically-grounded commitment to welcome migrants and from high financial capacities at its disposal. In another case, discourses revolved around a city’s financially constraints, which were equalized by compensatory civil society networks. In other cities, progress was associated with spontaneous local happenings or individual innovative leadership. These street-level patterns create a degree of locality within the global migration discourse, since they emerge from the interplay of financial, economic, and demographic features; historical concepts; or local events. We therefore contend that urban planning initiatives would profit from considering place-specific institutions that influence integration stakeholders, which are regime-makers and foster institutional, migration-led changes
Scientific Knowledge Integration and the Implementation of the SDGs: Comparing Strategies of Sustainability Networks
Get PDFAlthough there is a broad agreement on the importance of scientific knowledge for the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, high levels of uncertainty and debate about what counts as knowledge challenge the use of research for political decision-making. Hence, the question arises, which strategies of scientific knowledge integration are adopted by science-based actor-networks that seek to enhance evidence in sustainability governance. In this article, I study the Sustainable Development Solution Network (SDSN) engaged in different institutional settings and policy fields. With a qualitative document analysis, I compare the overall structure, objectives, thematic focus, formal knowledge processes, and outputs of 22 national sub-networks of the global SDSN in order to elucidate how these initiatives integrate contested sustainability knowledge underpinning the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. My findings suggest that most SDSNs adopt solution-oriented knowledge integration strategies but also that networks in countries with better overall SDG performance tend to adopt assessment-oriented and learning-oriented strategies. In reflecting on these results in the context of the current literature on knowledge integration in sustainability governance, I argue that science–policy interfaces are shaped by the intentional and dynamic interactions of actors within their institutional setting and policy environment, and propose pathways for further research
Bridging the Gap: Making Sense of the Disaccord between Migrants’ Education and Occupation
Get PDFSocial mobility is a central topic of interest within sociology and whilst it has been theoretically linked to spatial mobility, there is still little empirical research on the interplay between the two. Using a subsample of highly educated family migrants from a German mixed-methods project, this study qualitatively analyses the impact of geographical mobility on objective social position and on its subjective perception. Six qualitative interviews are analysed and supplemented with descriptive quantitative data from the German Socio-Economic Panel to firstly, reconstruct the spatial mobility trajectories of the individuals and secondly, determine their social position in Germany and ascertain whether they experienced occupational downgrading. These two analyses are integrated to explore how respondents experienced their change in social position. Across the board, respondents migrated as young adults, before or shortly after labour market entry. Five of the participants experienced occupational downgrading. Strikingly, this objective downgrading, whilst acknowledged, was not perceived negatively. The participants constructed a narrative that employed three legitimation strategies to cast their current social position in a positive light: (1) emphasising the rights, stability and security that they experience in Germany, (2) drawing attention to the economic improvement that they experienced and (3) displaying an inner attitude that is marked by modest life aspirations and a high regard for leisure time. By drawing on multinational frames of reference and thus drawing comparisons between their home country and Germany, participants highlighted the experienced benefits
Trade-Offs between Urban Green Space and Densification: Balancing Outdoor Thermal Comfort, Mobility, and Housing Demand
Get PDFUrban green spaces reduce elevated urban temperature through evaporative cooling and shading and are thus promoted as nature-based solutions to enhance urban climates. However, in growing cities, the supply of urban green space often conflicts with increasing housing demand. This study investigates the interplay of densification and the availability of green space and its impact on human heat stress in summer. For the case of an open-midrise (local climate zone 5) urban redevelopment site in Munich, eight densification scenarios were elaborated with city planners and evaluated by microscale simulations in ENVI-met. The chosen scenarios consider varying building heights, different types of densification, amount of vegetation and parking space regulations. The preservation of existing trees has the greatest impact on the physical equivalent temperature (PET). Construction of underground car parking results in the removal of the tree population. Loss of all the existing trees due to parking space consumption leads to an average daytime PET increase of 5°C compared to the current situation. If the parking space requirement is halved, the increase in PET can be reduced to 1.3°C–1.7°C in all scenarios. The addition of buildings leads to a higher gain in living space than the addition of floors, but night-time thermal comfort is affected by poor ventilation if fresh air circulation is blocked. The protection of mature trees in urban redevelopment strategies will become more relevant in the changing climate. Alternative mobility strategies could help to reduce trade-offs between densification and urban greening
Disinformation in Facebook Ads in the 2019 Spanish General Election Campaigns
Get PDFAs fake news elicits an emotional response from users, whose attention is then monetised, political advertising has a significant influence on its production and dissemination. Facebook ads, therefore, have an essential role in contemporary political communication, not only because of their extensive use in international political campaigns, but also because they address intriguing questions about the regulation of disinformation on social networking sites. This research employs a corpus of 14,684 Facebook ads published by the major national political parties during their campaigns leading up to the two Spanish general elections held in 2019. A manual content analysis was performed on all the visually identical ads so as to identify those containing disinformation and those denouncing it. The topics addressed in these ads were then examined. The results show that the political parties’ Facebook ad strategies were akin to those of conventional advertising. Disinformation messages were infrequent and mainly posted by Ciudadanos and VOX. Nonetheless, it is striking that the main topic addressed in the ads was the unity of Spain—precisely the issue of Catalonia’s independence. In light of this, it can be deduced that ‘traditional’ parties are taking longer to renounce classical forms of campaigning than their ‘new’ counterparts, thus demonstrating that the actors implementing disinformation strategies are not only restricted to the extreme right of the ideological spectrum