9441 research outputs found
Sort by
Creativity, Fame and Power: A Critical Political Economy of Social Media Comedy Skit in Nigeria
Get PDFThis study explores social media comedy skits in Nigeria as a novel type of creativity that is both an economic and cultural activity with political and social implications within the context of the rapidly expanding global ecosystem of online content creation. Academic interest in social media comedy skits has grown as a result of their emergence as a popular culture within Nigeria\u27s entertainment landscape. However, most research has focused on understanding this form of humour through its positive societal correlates. Hence, within the notion of industrialization of culture, which suggests that various methods of financing and arranging communication resources have implications on the range of discourse and representation in the content of such communicative space, the study attempts a critical study of social media comedy skit in Nigeria from the vantage point of its mode of economic organization. The study is situated within the theoretical framework of the critical political economy of communication and culture, as well as the central debate about humour and politics in Africa, which sees humour as functioning as a communication space of resistance to state power on the one hand and as part of the ensembles of discourses that reify the status quo on the other hand. Guided by two research questions that sought to locate the comedy skit production and circulation within the broader economic interest, and examine the discourses of selected skits in relation to power structures in Nigeria, the study used two research methods: Critical political economic analysis through discursive reading and reflexive engagement with relevant secondary data about the industry, and multimodal critical discourse analysis which combines the social semiotics and Foucauldian approaches to analyze texts and visuals of the selected skits. Pattern mapped out in the critical political economy analysis suggests that the social media comedy skit Nigeria is organized informally within a hyper-commercial drive to accumulate capital through \u27dollars\u27 payout from various platform partnership programs as well as cultivation of huge fanbases, which then elevates creators to microcelebrity status, which in turn opens further doors of capital accumulation, mostly through influencer marketing and backdoor entry into money-spinning mainstream cultural productions in the country. This mode of organization, in which frivolities appear to have higher returns within the logic of attention economy on Web 2.0, is therefore argued to be liable for the marginalization of the common good in comedy skits. In the same vein, patterns from the multimodal critical discourse analysis of selected skits, reveal that the social acts depicted in the skits are identifiable within commonly accepted social knowledge on the power relations addressed in the skit with the skits’ discursive frames reinforcing rather than challenging the social knowledge thereby contributing to conditions within which Nigerians amuse themselves to submission. Consistent with these patterns, it was then concluded that the social media comedy skit industry in Nigeria is best described as a rapidly growing culture industry structured within user-driven micro-informational capitalism on Web 2.0, where creators primarily geared their creativity to fortune and fame, and of which the dynamics of creativity and fame lead to cultural power to create, define, shape, reinforce, or challenge social knowledge but with the pendulum of such cultural power being controlled by the dominant capital interests that form the base of the industry and thereby aligning it discourses with dominant discourses that sustain conditions of social homeostasis in the country
From Cuffs to Compassion: The Impact of Relational Policing De-escalation Approaches on Public Perceptions of Safety, Satisfaction, Procedural Justice, and Police Legitimacy.
Get PDFAcademics, policy makers, and the public have called for the prioritization of de- escalation training and use in public-police interactions to reduce police use of force (PUoF) (e.g., Dubé, 2016; Iacobucci, 2014; Todak, 2017; Wortley et al., 2021). In response to various calls to action, the Ministry of the Solicitor General launched the Ontario Public-Police Interactions Training Aid Framework in 2023, which emphasizes the importance of utilizing a relational policing approach in public-police interactions (see Lavoie et al., 2022). However, despite changes in police training frameworks, relatively little is known about PUoF in Canada (Wortley et al., 2021), with similarly minimal research evaluating public perceptions of police de-escalation (Todak & White, 2019). This experimental study therefore focused on examining public perceptions of police following the observation of a brief, animated, ambiguous public- police interaction involving elevated risks to public safety. This study consisted of a 2x2 factorial design (suspect threat: weapon present, weapon absent; policing approach: relational, standard authoritative) to evaluate whether the type of police approach, namely a relational or standard authoritative approach, given variations in the presence of safety risks, shaped participants’ perceptions of safety, police legitimacy, procedural justice, and satisfaction in public-police interactions. The sample consisted of 217 participants, who completed a 42-question survey related to the dependent measures and participant demographic information. Results indicated that participants perceived relational policing to be a more safe, legitimate, procedurally just, and satisfactory policing approach, compared to a standard authoritative approach in an ambiguous public-police interaction with elevated risks to public safety. These findings present optimistic opportunities to enhance public perceptions of the police and foster more positive public-police interactions in the future, using relational policing approaches
Influence of Temperature on TFM Tolerance in Lake Sturgeon
No full textThe lampricide, 3-trifluoromethyl-4-nitrophenol (TFM), has been used to successfully control invasive sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) in the Laurentian Great Lakes for over 50 years. TFM’s effectiveness is due to the relatively low capacity of sea lamprey to detoxify TFM. Water temperature has been shown to increase TFM tolerance in larval sea lamprey. However, the effects of temperature on TFM sensitivity in non-target species such as the endangered lake sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens) are poorly understood, particularly during their early life stages. To determine how temperature affected TFM sensitivity, age 1-year-plus (1+) lake sturgeon acclimated to 8, 16, or 20℃ were exposed to a field-relevant concentration of TFM (4 mg L-1). Survivorship was then monitored over 12 h and found to be lowest at 16℃ compared to cooler (8℃) and warmer (20℃) waters. Fish acclimated to 8°C and 20° accumulated less TFM than those at 16℃. Subsequent exposure to a sub-lethal TFM concentration (1 mg L-1) at each temperature was conducted to compare the effects of TFM accumulation and mRNA abundance of heat shock proteins (hsps) and biotransformation enzymes, including UDP glucuronosyltransferases (ugts) and sulfotransferases (sults). Sturgeon acclimated to 20℃ had significantly lower TFM accumulation in the muscle, suggesting more efficient TFM elimination. Fish acclimated to lower temperatures had greater mRNA abundance of inducible hsps, biotransformation, and oxidative stress enzymes than those at 16 and 20℃, while lake sturgeon at 16 and 20℃ had comparable mRNA abundance. In conclusion, TFM tolerance in lake sturgeon varies with temperature in a bimodal fashion, where tolerance is greatest at 8°C, decreases as temperatures rise to the mid-teens, and increases approaching 20°C. Thus, delaying lampricide treatments until late August or early September when fish are larger and have greater capacity to detoxify TFM would mitigate lake sturgeon mortality
Defending Democracy from Its Christian Enemies
No full textGushee, D. P. (2023). Defending democracy from its Christian enemies. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. ISBN: 978146746621
A Window into International Relations in the Pacific Region: The Institute of Pacific Relations during the Interwar Period 1925-1937
No full textThis dissertation focuses the interwar period of the Institute of Pacific Relations from its founding in 1925 to the beginning of the second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 to examine the importance of the institute to interwar international relations. The IPR’s interwar years have received modest attention from scholars since the institute’s dissolution in the 1960s but the IPR in general has become a more popular area of research in recent times as the discipline of internationalism has sought to broaden its scope beyond traditional Atlantic-centric histories. Through the biannual conferences and research articles published in Pacific Affairs the IPR offers a unique glimpse into the course of Pacific relations from the end of the First World War to Japan’s invasion of China in 1937, seen as the opening of the Second World War in the Pacific. Conference agendas, opening addresses, articles in the IPR journal Pacific Review, and IPR research between conferences show how the institute’s member groups reflected the changing political landscape of the region. This dissertation traces the gradual shift from post-First World War idealist internationalism to the rise of an isolationist nationalism that fostered conflict and war in the 1930s. At its founding the IPR sought to bring what they saw as a unique system of conflict resolution created by Hawaiian multiculturalism and cultural education to the greater Pacific region, but idealists within the IPR were quickly faced with the realism of international politics and the persistent strength of nationalism. Determined to show an unofficial private organization based on fact-based research could be a viable alternative to the back door dealings and stifling expectations of formal international gatherings, the IPR was never willing to support the topics most Asian Pacific nations considered important, topics that inconvenienced a Pacific status quo that favoured Western nations. By the 1929 Kyoto Conference, the IPR agenda became dominated by Sino-Japanese relations and the IPR’s idealism was challenged by the nationalist Japanese member group (JIPR) who supported their government’s claim to special rights in Manchuria after the 1931 Manchurian Incident. Unable to reconcile with the JIPR, who combined internationalism with nationalism, the IPR fractured during the 1936 Yosemite conference leading to the JIPR’s withdrawal from the IPR and effectively the end of the institute in the interwar period. In this dissertation I have used Japanese names in the Japanese convention of family name first, followed by given name. Most of the Chinese persons mentioned in this dissertation were well known in IPR and western media by their western style names (Sun Yat-sen, Hu Shi) so for the sake of consistency I kept these versions. Only for Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin and his son Zhang Xueliang have I used pinyin romanization. Most Chinese place names are in pinyin, except for Hangchou (pinyin Hangzhou) almost the location of an IPR conference. I have left it in the Wade-Giles romanization used in IPR records
Evaluating the credibility of online websites: A digital information literacy program
No full textThe plethora of information currently available via the internet is greater than ever before. Given this, finding credible information is an exceedingly complex task for any information consumer, but especially so for children. Research shows that children have difficulty evaluating the credibility of online information and are more susceptible to believing misinformation compared to adolescents. While a growing body of research addresses children’s internet use, most research focuses on technology safety rather than the evaluation of online information. Several studies have found digital information literacy (DIL) interventions to be successful at increasing critical thinking and awareness of the criteria to use when evaluating online web sources for children between the ages of 10- and 14-years. However, these scarce DIL interventions have not included children under the age of 10 years. Yet, children are using the internet for information-gathering at an earlier age and therefore, DIL interventions that target younger children are needed. In the current study, a DIL intervention was created that teaches children how to evaluate the credibility of online information. Sixty children between the ages of 8-12 years participated in a digital information literacy intervention that taught them how to evaluate the credibility of online websites. Children participated in three short Zoom sessions where they completed a pre-test, three lessons, and a post-test. Results showed that children significantly improved upon their credibility evaluation skills from pre- to post-test after having participated in the intervention. Additionally, younger and older children’s degree of improvement from pre- to post-test and overall performance on the credibility evaluation tasks did not differ. The results of this study highlight the need for digital information literacy interventions targeted towards children under the age of 10 years.
Key Words: Children, digital information literacy, website credibilit
No. 36: ‘Going to the Supermarket was Hard’: Pandemic Foodscapes and Unsettled Food Practices of Refugees in the Waterloo Region
No full textIn this paper, we examine how the ‘new normal’ of pandemic-living transformed the local food environment in Ontario as pandemic foodscapes. Using selected findings from mixed methods research with a small sample of recently resettled refugees in the Waterloo region, we evaluated how these changes affected their grocery shopping and food-sourcing habits. We identify the distinctive ways the pandemic-related restrictions altered our participants’ interactions with their local food environment and influenced their food availability and accessibility. Our study found that participants spent more time acquiring food from a reduced number of food sources and experienced an overall weakening of their household food security. The decline in food access and availability was most pronounced for the ethnocultural foods that immigrants and refugees preferred to consume. We offer a nuanced understanding of how the broad set of circumstances of our respondents and their household members shaped their mobility experiences about food provisioning. Most participants attempted to minimize their trips to purchase groceries due to the risk of coronavirus but were unable to do so, especially in large households. An insignificant segment of the study cohort successfully followed new adaptation modes, such as grocery delivery, because of associated costs. Moreover, vulnerable sections of our research cohort drastically limited their food provisioning and remained greatly dependent on their social networks’ assistance, generosity, and circumstances in acquiring groceries
Through the Eyes of a Guard: Watson Kirkconnell and Great War Internment in Canada
Get PDFHistories of internment in Canada have paid much attention to internees’ experiences but far less to those of the guards. Correcting this trend, this article offers a detailed case study of one soldier, Watson Kirkconnell, who worked at the Fort Henry and Kapuskasing internment camps. Drawing on his valuable but heretofore unutilised archive of material, this article provides a vivid social history of the camps through Kirkconnell’s eyes. Nuancing the historiography of wartime internment, this article demonstrates how commandants determined the experiences of both internees and guards alike and, at the same time, that staff could sometimes mitigate their superior’s cruelty
Development of a stress response framework for understanding SOGIE refugee health
Get PDFAs an increasing number of individuals flee persecution on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity expression (SOGIE), Canada has become a prominent destination for SOGIE refugees. The chronic stressors encountered by this marginalized population remain insufficiently studied, particularly in relation to physical health outcomes. This qualitative study investigates the cumulative health impacts of chronic stress among SOGIE refugees through the application of a cell-to-society framework, underpinned by Minority Stress Theory (MST). The study seeks to develop a SOGIE-specific stress response framework that theorizes the processes by which social and environmental stressors become biologically embedded, thereby contributing to elevated allostatic load. In doing so, it extends the existing literature on the intersections of stress with both physical and mental health outcomes. The findings aim to inform evidence-based policy interventions that more effectively address the unique health challenges confronting SOGIE refugees in Canada
Negotiated Cultural Identity and Belonging of Self-Identified Indo-Guyanese Immigrant Women
Get PDFThis dissertation examines how young, self-identified Indo-Guyanese women who immigrated to Southwestern Ontario in the 1970s negotiate cultural identity and belonging. Utilizing a bio-ethnographic bricolage narrative methodology, the study explores the impact of postcolonial diaspora and social displacement on these women’s experiences within the third space or borderlands. Grounded in relativist ontology and constructivist epistemology, storytelling serves as the primary data collection method through a critical theory lens. Interviews with 12 participants were analyzed thematically and reflexively, revealing how participants construct meaning and navigate cultural identities. The analysis, conducted through feminist, decolonial, and trauma-informed perspectives, offers insights into psychological homelessness resulting from otherness. Considering the dual migrations across continents, the study employs a bricolage approach, integrating theological, epistemological, and psychological perspectives to understand generational implications and cultural straddling. As philosopher John O\u27Donohue (2002) expressed, the hunger to belong is at the heart of our nature (p. xxi). This research resonates with those exploring the generational effects of negotiated cultural identity and aims to document these lived experiences for future generations, emphasizing the preservation of diasporic cultural heritage