1,720,972 research outputs found
Methodological challenges of researching riots in small geographical communities
No full textThe paper draws on an empirical study of the 2011 English Riots. In the aftermath of these riots, the media and political discourse spotlighted ‘contagion’ as the main explanation for the outbreak of disorder across 66 different locations, implying that context was irrelevant. This research used the case study method to explore the role of local contextual factors, especially local policing, partnership relations and community engagement, in promoting and preventing unrest. The paper outlines how the contentious nature of ‘riots’ as a subject-matter for empirical research and the focus on small geographical areas presented particular challenges that affected the research design, the research experience, and possibly the impact of the findings. Methodological challenges included the unwillingness of people to participate in the research; pressures for them to re-write history in particular ways; risks to the anonymity of individuals and neighbourhoods involved in the research, with the potential for social harm
'Beyond the loot' : social disorder and urban unrest
No full textThe article looks at current explanations for the 2011 English riots. It critiques one dominant view that, beyond the micro-political protest in Tottenham, people primarily participated to loot lifestyle items they could not afford to buy. Empirical data is used to challenge the extent and nature of the looting in 2011, concluding that the proportion of riot events that were not focused on looting, directly contradicts the argument that criminal acquisition and consumerism were primary drivers of the unrest. Social disorder is more likely to manifest as looting in commercial areas, but it does not naturally follow that participants originally set out to loot, and economics may not be their primary motive. The article moves on to explore the role the police may have played in promoting ‘contagion’ and to reflect on the role of policing in preventing and limiting unrest, even where foregrounded by other precipitating factors
'Beyond the Riots' – Policing in Partnership to Prevent and Contain Urban Unrest
Get PDFFor four days in August 2011 there were widespread public disturbances in 66 locations across the country. Known as the ‘2011 English Riots’, they were estimated to have involved 15,000 participants, cost half a billion pounds and were associated with five deaths (Bridges 2012). The Prime Minister described them as ‘criminality, pure and simple’ (Cameron 2011). Consequently, there was no major official inquiry. An academic literature emerged, but this was theoretically driven and London-centric.
The lack of an empirical evidence-base provided the rationale for this study. The aims were to understand why the riots occurred in some places outside London, but not others; to explore the role of police and partners in preventing and containing unrest; and, recognising that policing rarely takes place in a vacuum, to identify other contextual factors undermining and promoting social order at local levels.
The case study method was selected for its ability to capture context. Cases included a riot affected city and an ‘at risk’ city, which were characteristically similar, to support a compare and contrast approach. Neighbourhood 'sub-cases' were used as a methodological tool to access community-level variables. The study drew on quantitative and qualitative data, but was primarily based on 45 interviews with police and partners involved in the public order response or working with affected communities.
The study found that inequality, exclusion and poor treatment of communities provided motivation for rioting. However, the activities of police and partners were able to prevent and contain unrest. The involvement of neighbourhood police officers and practitioners in the main public order response offered greater chance of success, due to their local knowledge and rapport, but was dependent on pre-existing partnerships and the mind-set of police commanders. Informal social controls, underpinned by community attachment, played an important role in inhibiting violence, especially where supported by formal controls
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
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