1,720,986 research outputs found
International development NGOs, representations in fundraising appeals and public attitudes in UK–Africa relations
No full textThis chapter examines how the images and representations used in fundraising appeals by international development non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have shaped UK public attitudes towards Africa, Africans and UK–Africa relations. Despite efforts at change, many charity appeals make widespread use of shocking images of African children, devoid of any broader context, in order to induce the viewer to donate. In doing so, they have helped produce a narrative around UK–Africa relations in which the UK public is cast as the ‘powerful giver’ and Africans are portrayed as ‘grateful receivers’. NGOs face a dilemma: negative representations allow organisations to raise funds that enable them to support vulnerable people in Africa and around the world; but they also negatively influence and shape attitudes of the British public towards poverty in Africa more generally. Through an analysis of a recent Oxfam campaign and reporting on new research using survey experiments, the chapter shows that by appealing to more positive emotions, such as hope and solidarity, NGOs can both raise funds for development work, and help to change the narrative around UK–Africa relations
African Agency in a Changing Security Environment: Sources, Opportunities and Challenges
Get PDFThis special issue contributes to the growing debate on the nature and limits of African
agency. It does so by focusing on the possibilities of and constraints on agency in the
security sphere. This is a sphere traditionally characterised as dominated by existential
threats and the imperative of survival. Hence it is often considered to present an especially
restrictive environment for agency, particularly of the transformative kind.We do not take
this traditional understanding of security for granted, but adopt a constructivist
viewpoint. The articles included in this special issue have in common that they all aim to
critically explore the way in which security threats and appropriate responses are
perceived, defined and pursued by African actors, whether multilateral institutions, states,
communities or individuals.
We argue in favour of an understanding of agency which is relational and
contextualised, where structures and agency are continuously reproduced over time and
co-constitutive, a theme reflected across the studies presented. Through this approach we
aim to challenge narrow, structure-dominated and overly restrictive approaches to
understanding the responses of African actors to contemporary security challenges.
We define security in a broad manner. Some studies are concerned with traditional
security threats to states and regions, while others focus on the human security needs of
individuals to not just survive on the margins of existence but to exercise their agency to
improve, or at least attempt to improve, their lives
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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