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Left Behind? Migration Stories of Two Women in Rural China
Get PDFWomen being left behind in the countryside by husbands who migrate to work has been a common phenomenon in China. On the other hand, over time, rural women’s participation in migration has increased precipitously, many doing so after their children are older, and those of a younger generation tend to start migrant work soon after finishing school. Although these women may no longer be left behind physically, their work, mobility, circularity, and frequency of return continue to be governed by deep-rooted gender ideology that defines their role primarily as caregivers. Through the biographical stories of two rural women in Anhui, this article shows that traditional gender norms persist across generations. Yingyue is of an older generation and provided care to her husband, children, and later grandchildren when she was left behind, when she participated in migration, and when she returned to her village. Shuang is 30 years younger and aspires to urban lifestyle such as living in apartments and using daycare for her young children. Yet, like Yingyue, Shuang’s priority is caregiving. Her decisions, which are in tandem with her parents-in-law, highlight how Chinese families stick together as a safety net. Her desire to earn wages, an activity much constrained by her caregiving responsibility to two young children, illustrates a strong connection between income-generation ability and identity among women of the younger generation. These two stories underscore the importance of examining how women are left behind not only physically but in their access to opportunities such as education and income-generating activity
Popular Music as Entertainment Communication: How Perceived Semantic Expression Explains Liking of Previously Unknown Music
Get PDFOur contribution addresses popular music as essential part of media entertainment offerings. Prior works explained liking for specific music titles in ‘push scenarios’ (radio programs, music recommendation, curated playlists) by either drawing on personal genre preferences, or on findings about ‘cognitive side effects’ leading to a preference drift towards familiar and society-wide popular tracks. However, both approaches do not satisfactorily explain why previously unknown music is liked. To address this, we hypothesise that unknown music is liked the more it is perceived as emotionally and semantically expressive, a notion based on concepts from media entertainment research and popular music studies. By a secondary analysis of existing data from an EU-funded R&D project, we demonstrate that this approach is more successful in predicting 10000 listeners’ liking ratings regarding 549 tracks from different genres than all hitherto theories combined. We further show that major expression dimensions are perceived relatively homogeneous across different sociodemographic groups and countries. Finally, we exhibit that music is such a stable, non-verbal sign-carrier that a machine learning model drawing on automatic audio signal analysis is successfully able to predict significant proportions of variance in musical meaning decoding
A Computational Approach to Analyzing the Twitter Debate on Gaming Disorder
Get PDFThe recognition of excessive forms of media entertainment use (such as uncontrolled video gaming or the use of social networking sites) as a disorder is a topic widely discussed among scientists and therapists, but also among politicians, journalists, users, and the industry. In 2018, when the World Health Organization (WHO) decided to include the addictive use of digital games (gaming disorder) as a diagnosis in the International Classification of Diseases, the debate reached a new peak. In the current article, we aim to provide insights into the public debate on gaming disorder by examining data from Twitter for 11 months prior to and 8 months after the WHO decision, analyzing the (change in) topics, actors, and sentiment over time. Automated content analysis revealed that the debate is organic and not driven by spam accounts or other overly active ‘power users.’ The WHO announcement had a major impact on the debate, moving it away from the topics of parenting and child welfare, largely by activating actors from gaming culture. The WHO decision also resulted in a major backlash, increasing negative sentiments within the debate
Boundary Spanning in Sport for Development: Opening Transdisciplinary and Intersectoral Perspectives
Get PDFWe can no longer claim that academic interest in the area of sport and social inclusion is lacking. Dedicated books, special issues, commissioned reports, and landmark articles on the topic of social inclusion and sport have been produced by devoted scholars. The same can be said for the burgeoning area of sport for development and peace. These relatively young academic fields seem to be struggling to create new fundamental theoretical insights about how organized sport can both act as an inclusive space and as a vehicle for broader developmental outcomes. Despite scholarly advancements, there remains a number of empirical and theoretical gaps. The aim of this special issue is to critically reflect on issues related to sport, development, and inclusion, and to do so via transdisciplinary and intersectoral perspectives. By making such a contribution, we aim to open up new research pathways
Young People’s Perceptions of the Influence of a Sport-for-Social-Change Program on Their Life Trajectories
Get PDFSport-for-social-change programs focusing on enhancing young people’s personal and social development emerged in the early to mid-2000s. Children and adolescents who participated in early programs are now adults, providing an opportunity to examine whether these programs have had any influence on their life trajectories. The Football United program has been operating in Sydney, Australia, since 2006 and is used as a case study in this article. This qualitative study draws on 20 interviews conducted in 2018 with a diverse sample of past participants of the program. Key findings were that participants perceived that the relationships they formed at Football United have had a substantial impact on their life trajectories, including influencing education and career decisions. These relationships were found to increase participants’ social capital, creating diverse connections with people and institutions within and external to their geographical communities. This study also found participants embraced a long-term commitment to ‘give back’ to their local geographical, cultural, and ethnic communities, which they attributed to their participation in the program
Negotiated Autonomy: The Role of Social Media Algorithms in Editorial Decision Making
Get PDFSocial media platforms have increasingly become an important way for news organizations to distribute content to their audiences. As news organizations relinquish control over distribution, they may feel the need to optimize their content to align with platform logics to ensure economic sustainability. However, the opaque and often proprietary nature of platform algorithms makes it hard for news organizations to truly know what kinds of content are preferred and will perform well. Invoking the concept of algorithmic ‘folk theories,’ this article presents a study of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 18 U.S.-based news journalists and editors to understand how they make sense of social media algorithms, and to what extent this influences editorial decision making. Our findings suggest that while journalists’ understandings of platform algorithms create new considerations for gatekeeping practices, the extent to which it influences those practices is often negotiated against traditional journalistic conceptions of newsworthiness and journalistic autonomy
Youth Digital Participation: Now More than Ever
Get PDFOne of the far-reaching implications of the current global COVID-19 pandemic has been the sudden boost in use of digital media due to social distancing and stay-at-home orders. In times of routine, youth are often the first to adopt new technologies and platforms, to experiment with modes of production and practices of sharing, and often spend significant time and energy socializing online. Now such digital practices have become common among much wider demographics. Moreover, the move to online learning in schools and the spurt of innovative digital experiences offered has abruptly shifted the rhetoric of concern often associated with youth’s so-called “screen time.” The articles in this thematic issue—though written long before the COVID-19 pandemic—address many of the questions that now are significantly brought to the forefront. What are the potentials and opportunities offered by youth digital participation for learning, for self-expression, for identity formation, and for social connection? How does digital participation shape civic and political life? And finally, especially when digital participation is so ever-present, what are barriers to youth participation online, and what are the challenges and risks it poses
Corruption Risks in Renewable Resource Governance: Case Studies in Iceland and Romania
Get PDFIn this research, we attempt to shed light on the question of where corruption risks in the governance of renewable resources are located and how they have been addressed in European countries that have different levels of corruption. A comparative case study design was chosen, looking into the fisheries sector in Iceland and the forestry sector in Romania. We conducted 25 semi-structured interviews with various stakeholders sampled through a snowball method. Qualitative coding and systems analysis were used to analyse the interviews. The results indicate that comprehensive and ambitious legislation does not necessarily translate into successful resource governance systems. In general, the institutions that were put in place to enforce and monitor the legal codes and regulations did not have the capacity to carry out their role. Additionally, interviewees were generally found to have a widespread perception of there being a corrupt relationship between politics and big companies operating in their sectors. Our findings suggest that when people hold such perceptions, it undermines anti-corruption policy efforts in the resource sectors, which can then impede sustainable resource management
Policy Debates and Discourse Network Analysis: A Research Agenda
Get PDFDiscourse network analysis (DNA) is a combination of network analysis and qualitative content analysis. DNA has been applied to various policy processes and debates to show how policy actors are related at the discursive level, complementing coordination relations among them that are often analysed in the application of the policy networks approach. This editorial takes stock of the theoretical and methodological research frontiers in DNA and summarises the contributions of the eleven articles in the thematic issue on “Policy Debates and Discourse Network Analysis” in Politics and Governance
When Populist Leaders Govern: Conceptualising Populism in Policy Making
Get PDFThe rise of populist governance throughout the world offers a novel opportunity to study the way in which populist leaders and parties rule. This article conceptualises populist policy making by theoretically addressing the substantive and discursive components of populist policies and the decision-making processes of populist governments. It first reconstructs the implicit ideal type of policy making in liberal democracies based on the mainstream governance and policy making scholarship. Then, taking stock of the recent populism literature, the article elaborates an ideal type of populist policy making along the dimensions of content, procedures and discourses. As an empirical illustration we apply a qualitative congruence analysis to assess the conformity of a genuine case of populist governance, social policy in post-2010 Hungary with the populist policy making ideal type. Concerning the policy content, the article argues that policy heterodoxy, strong willingness to adopt paradigmatic reforms and an excessive responsiveness to majoritarian preferences are distinguishing features of any type of populist policies. Regarding the procedural features populist leaders tend to downplay the role of technocratic expertise, sideline veto-players and implement fast and unpredictable policy changes. Discursively, populist leaders tend to extensively use crisis frames and discursive governance instruments in a Manichean language and a saliently emotional manner that reinforces polarisation in policy positions. Finally, the article suggests that policy making patterns in Hungarian social policy between 2010 and 2018 have been largely congruent with the ideal type of populist policy making