Media advocates,Latino citizens and niche cable The limits of ‘no limits’ TV

In Shot in America, Chon Noriega calls for the study of media activism’s work ‘within the system’ of state institutions and for analysis of the relationships between media activism, the television industry and government policies. This article uses a cultural policy studies focus to answer this call and map the deregulated terrain upon which media advocacy groups must now operate. Liberal governance demands that media advocates find means other than state-directed appeals to advance their agendas. As such, this essay examines the efforts of several Latino advocacy groups to garner viewer support for a Latino-themed cable television show, Resurrection Boulevard, and to use the series as a vehicle for increased Latino participation in the television industry. This article focuses on the issue of access for Latinos to professional positions that affect television programming, and it presents tools for advocacy efforts within political spheres to achieve more socially equitable access to media technologies. First, the paper traces the regulatory history of the broadcasting and cable television industries to show how the federal government narrowly conceives of ‘the public interest’ as a specifically consumerist one. The article then analyses the structures that led to cable television’s ‘narrowcasting’ format, such as Showtime’s ‘No Limits’ programming, and argues that liberalism has created a context wherein several media advocates normalise the ‘citizen-consumer’ model. Having established this groundwork, the author then conducts a case study of the economic and social forces that shape Resurrection Boulevard, which is written, produced and acted by Latinos. Through this study, the author maintains that advocacy groups’ consumer-based appeals to Latinos as ‘citizen-consumers’ fail to serve as effective instruments for achieving increased minority representation in the television industry.     

Transnational status and cosmopolitanism: are dual citizens and foreign residents cosmopolitan vanguards?

Empirically growing transnationalism and normatively demanded cosmopolitanism may be closely connected when considered as different elements of new forms of citizenship beyond the single nation‐state. Do individuals with either full (dual citizenship) or partial (foreign resident) transnational status exhibit more cosmopolitanism than mono citizens? This article decodes the multidimensional character of cosmopolitanism using major democratic theories – liberalism, republicanism, and communitarianism. Multivariate regression analyses of data from a survey among mono citizens, dual citizens and foreign residents in Switzerland reveal that a transnational status is associated with cosmopolitanism in a differentiated way. Dual citizens and especially foreign residents are more likely than mono citizens to exhibit liberal cosmopolitanism; but only dual citizens having full political rights and opportunities in two countries are more likely to exhibit republican cosmopolitanism and only foreign residents excluded from the political community of residence are more likely to exhibit communitarian cosmopolitanism. Each of them can thus be considered as vanguards in specific ways. Our study furthermore demonstrates the added value of disaggregating both cosmopolitanism and transnationalism.     

Female narratives of ‘new’ citizens’ belonging(s) and identities in Europe: case studies from the Netherlands and Britain

Public discourses on citizenship, identity and nationality, which link geographical borders and the political boundaries of a community, are infused with tensions and contradictions. This paper illustrates how these tensions are interwoven with multilayered notions of home, belonging, migration, citizenship and individual's ‘longing just to be’, focusing on the Dutch and the British context. The narratives of a number of Dutch and British women, who either immigrated to the respective countries or were born to immigrants, illustrate how the growing rigid integration and assimilative discourses in Europe contradict an individual anchoring in national and local communities. The narratives of women participating in these studies show multilayered angles of belonging presenting an alternative to the increasing strong argument for a fixed notion of positioning and national belonging. The female ‘new’ citizens in our study tell stories of individual choices, social mobility and a sense of multiple belonging in and across different communities.     

Brexit and precarity: Polish female workers in the UK as second-class citizens?

Immigration was a decisive factor in pre-Brexit-vote debates and it remains one of the most divisive topics globally; therefore, it is worthy of attention. Whilst the British people had an opportunity to have their say on Brexit, EU migrant workers have not. This article gives them a voice as it is based on original data from 40 qualitative interviews with female EU citizens to the UK, conducted before and after the Brexit-vote. This article further develops the notion of precarity in relation to EU migrants to the UK in light of Brexit and adds to debates on gender in migration. This paper provides wider policy implications for the British and other EU countries' authorities as it engages with debates on Brexit from the point of view of the UK labour force as voices of economic women migrants from Poland are presented.     

Forward-looking activities: incorporating citizens’ visions

Looking back on the many prophets who tried to predict the future as if it were predetermined, at first sight any forward-looking activity is reminiscent of making predictions with a crystal ball. In contrast to fortune tellers, today??s exercises do not predict, but try to show different paths that an open future could take. A key motivation to undertake forward-looking activities is broadening the information basis for decision-makers to help them actively shape the future in a desired way. Experts, laypeople, or stakeholders may have different sets of values and priorities with regard to pending decisions on any issue related to the future. Therefore, considering and incorporating their views can, in the best case scenario, lead to more robust decisions and strategies. However, transferring this plurality into a form that decision-makers can consider is a challenge in terms of both design and facilitation of participatory processes. In this paper, we will introduce and critically assess a new qualitative method for forward-looking activities, namely CIVISTI (Citizen Visions on Science, Technology and Innovation; www.civisti.org), which was developed during an EU project of the same name. Focussing strongly on participation, with clear roles for citizens and experts, the method combines expert, stakeholder and lay knowledge to elaborate recommendations for decision-making in issues related to today??s and tomorrow??s science, technology and innovation. Consisting of three steps, the process starts with citizens?? visions of a future 30?C40?years from now. Experts then translate these visions into practical recommendations which the same citizens then validate and prioritise to produce a final product. The following paper will highlight the added value as well as limits of the CIVISTI method and will illustrate potential for the improvement of future processes.     

When police patrols matter. The effect of police proximity on citizens’ crime risk perception

Crime risk perception is known to be an important determinant of individual well-being. It is therefore crucial that we understand the factors affecting this perception so that governments can identify the (public) policies that might reduce it. Among such policies, public resources devoted to policing emerge as a key instrument not only for tackling criminal activity but also for impacting on citizens’ crime risk perception. In this framework, the aim of this study is to analyze both the individual and neighbourhood determinants of citizens’ crime risk perception in the City of Barcelona (Spain) focusing on the effect of police proximity and taking into account the spatial aspects of neighbourhood characteristics. After controlling for the possible problems of the endogeneity of police forces and crime risk perception and the potential sorting of individuals across neighbourhoods, the results indicate that crime risk perception is reduced when non-victims exogenously interact with police forces. Moreover, neighbourhood variables, such as proxies of social capital and the level of incivilities, together with individual characteristics have an impact on citizens’ crime risk perception.     

Generating productive citizens or supporting the weak? Ambivalences and contradictions in working with young welfare recipients

Since 1990, the social investment paradigm has been gaining importance within the social policy of Western industrialised countries. Investments are made in human capital to shape productive citizens capable of satisfying the demands of flexible labour markets. This article adopts an ethnographic perspective to analyse the current transformations of everyday practice within the context of the investment paradigm. Investigating such a practice in selected welfare institutions, it focuses on the work done with young adults, a client segment of interest from a social investment perspective already owing to its age. The article explores the techniques and strategies of professional action and discusses their implications for social work, which is active in this field along with other professional groups. The findings presented here show that the action taken by social workers moves between different rationales and is shaped by various ambivalences and force fields.     

Lay actions in the face of crisis—Swedish citizens’ actions in response to the global financial crisis of 2008

This study goes beyond attitudes and behavioral indications as response to risk perceptions and focuses on actual behavior of laypeople. We report the results from a survey, conducted among a sample of Swedish citizens in the spring of 2009, looking at lay actions as responses to the financial crisis of 2008.In total, 3138 respondents were asked whether they had done something to protect their money during the recent financial crisis or not. The total sample, 1053 respondents, was divided into two comparable groups and a binary logistic regression tested a model with nine factors hypothesized to be predicting the choice to act or not as a response to the financial crisis. Among the eight factors predicting likelihood to act were gender, age, education, ethnicity, possession of assets affected of the financial crisis, worrying about the everyday household finances, the perception of others’ actions, and importance put on being knowledgeable and up-dated about financial matters. The ninth factor—respondents’ perception of the crisis to be a greater threat to the U.S. and global economy than to their own personal finances—did not contribute significantly to the model.A second aim of the study was to determine whether any individuals acted rashly and, if so, whether this group differed in any statistically significant way from the group of individuals that acted in a more financially circumspectly manner. In the group of individuals that acted rashly there is a higher propensity of: individuals who do not think they have assets affected by the crisis: individuals who have a lower level of education; and individuals who consider it important to be knowledgeable and up-to-date about financial matters. It should be of interest to policymakers and researchers to further explore features of this group of laypeople because it is the most important target group for consumer information and protection.     

Citizen Bodies: embodying citizens – a feminist analysis

The starting point for this paper is that bodies give substance to citizenship and that citizenship matters for bodies. However, the growing literatures on the body and on citizenship rarely 'speak to each other' in any straightforward sense. Feminist theory has made a significant contribution to both fields of thought,but once again the connections between these fields tend to be passing and underdeveloped. Feminist literature on citizenship – for example in discussions of participation – increasingly offers a critique of the model of the disembodied (supposedly universal) citizen as exclusionary and advocates taking bodies seriously (Lister; Yuval-Davis). Yet bodies appear in such discussions in quite limited ways and remain instrumentally conceived. On the other hand,the growing work on the body fromcontemporary feminist theorists has designated the body a political site par excellence (Grosz). Nevertheless, these writings are typically relatively abstract and philosophical, tend to perceive corporeal politics in circumscribed ways, and are positioned at a distance from political theorizing about implications for citizenship. We intend to consider how to flesh out the bodily element in feminist citizenship literature and how to interrogate the contextual sociality of the political in recent feminist theorizing of the body, in order to suggest ways of thinking about citizen bodies and related future directions for policy-making.     

Fish and Soup of Hubei Cuisine

I was very impressed by the delicious freshwater fish dish from the well-known Changjiang River and Dongting Lake, the first time I travelled to Hubei Province. Hubei is famous for its freshwater fish dishes since it has so many lakes. The steamed Wuchang fish is one. Wuchang fish is pure, tender and fat and is considered a first-class freshwater fish. Waiters in local restaurants usually bring the fresh Wuchang fish to the     

Improving citizens’ online engagement via community managers: an explanatory study

The role of community manager is gaining importance as the proper usage of social media becomes a key factor for achieving more active involvement of citizens in social and political issues. Focused on Spanish local governments and in line with the literature of Excellence Theory, this paper aims to analyze whether some characteristics of the community manager function are determinant in their fostering of citizens’ online engagement via social media. In particular ‘independence’, ‘having access to the dominant coalition’, ‘gender diversity’, ‘continuous training’ and ‘culture of the organization’ are the characteristics considered in this paper. As to the main findings, this study confirms that community managers have not as yet achieved their goal of embedding the use of social media by citizens as a means of establishing more direct contact with their local governments. Moreover, in line with Excellence Theory, community managers of local governments should be aware of the importance of having direct access to key managers of the organization in order to better achieve the objectives of the organization and, more specifically, to increase citizens’ engagement. Furthermore, continuous training in issues related to social media truly helps develop the skills and potential of community managers. Likewise, an excellent communication department should rely on good professionals no matter their gender, and, in this sense, the gender of community managers is not a significant factor in their performance. However, the results of this study also reveal that in the case of public sector community managers, an authoritarian culture seems to be a determining factor for obtaining better results in enhancing citizens’ engagement.     

Philosophy of Communication and Umberto Eco’s Infinity of Lists: The Interplay of the Poetic and Pragmatic

This article conceptualizes the importance of Umberto Eco’s understanding of lists for philosophy of communication. Philosophy of communication is understood as the necessary and insightful interplay of the poetic and pragmatic through which meaning emerges. In The Infinity of Lists, Eco offers an essay-length interpretation of lists presented alongside a collection of art and literature that represent his theoretical work in action. Eco articulates lists as a means for cultural order and form in the attempt to convey what is otherwise beyond articulation. Although philosophers of communication have recognized the importance of Eco’s philosophical and semiotic project for human communication, his work on lists has received little attention within and outside of the field of communication. This article assumes that lists are significant to Eco’s project and to philosophy of communication, situated in the interplay of the poetic and the pragmatic.     

Mid-Adolescents’ and Adults’ Recognition of Vocal Cues of Emotion and Social Intent: Differences by Expression and Speaker Age

Previous research has suggested that the ability to recognize vocal portrayals of socio-emotional expressions improves with age throughout childhood and adolescence. The current study examined whether stimulus-level factors (i.e., the age of the speaker and the type of expression being conveyed) interacted with listeners’ developmental stage to predict listeners’ recognition accuracy. We assessed mid-adolescent (n = 50, aged 13–15 years) and adult (n = 87, 18–30 years) listeners’ ability to recognize basic emotions and social expressions in the voices of both adult and youth actors. Adults’ emotional prosody was better recognized than that of youth, and adult listeners were more accurate overall than were mid-adolescents. Interaction effects revealed that youths’ accuracy was equivalent to adult listeners’ when hearing adult portrayals of anger, disgust, friendliness, happiness, and meanness, and youth portrayals of disgust, happiness, and meanness. Our findings highlight the importance of speaker characteristics and type of expression on listeners’ ability to recognize vocal cues of emotion and social intent.     

Same-Sex Marriage and the Boundaries of Diversity: Will Marriage and Family Therapy Remain Inclusive of Religious and Social Conservatives?

The expanding legalization of same-sex marriage in the Western World may pose significant challenges for the relationship between many religious and socially conservative marriage and family therapists and their professional associations. In the present analysis, I look to the field of moral psychology, particularly Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory, to provide greater clarity regarding the nature of this tension and a resultant tightening of the boundaries of acceptable diversity that could ensue. I then outline some concerning indicators from mental health associations relative to their potential willingness to tolerate conservative perspectives in meaningful ways and identify some specific areas of possible tension for conservative therapists trying to integrate their deeply held moral values into ethical practice with same-sex couples, with a specific reference to the viability of “conscience clauses” and values-based referrals. I conclude with some recommendations through which the field of marriage and family therapy can reduce the potential for conflicts and thereby reassure these clinicians that they continue to be welcomed even if their vision of marriage differs from that which is formally endorsed by their professional associations.     

The Joys and Sorrows of Educating Children

Different families have different views about educating children. But teaching methods reflect the economic and cultural level of society. As society develops, the traditional Chinese patriarchal method to educate children encounters many objections. However, when parents treat their children democratically, children are spoiled to different degrees and "Little Emperors" appear, which proves the patriarchal method still exists in disguised form.     

‘So few of us and so many of them’

Public protest against the Persian Gulf War in 1990–1 was only part of the story of US American women's resistance to war in general and to that war specifically. Although the gendering of war is seldom discussed outside feminist scholarship, the events of 11 September 2001 and its aftermath as well as all events and processes having to do with war are gendered events and processes. Both women and men participate in war in various ways, some of which, particularly in the case of women, are either not noticed, are deliberately ignored or made invisible. In this essay, the stories of some women who protested the Persian Gulf War are represented alongside questions that their narratives prompted about what constitutes anti-war work, and what the ramifications of such work are in the present international context.     

Problems and Countermeasures of Town Women's Employment

THE employment of women living in towns is a substantial problem in China. Introduction to Town Women's Employment Issues Today, the Chinese workforce is undergoing tremendous changes. When rural residents poured into the cities or shifted to the local manufacturing and service industries, the number of unemployed people and town-dwellers without a state-run unit increased. The employment of women also has become a serious issue. According to     

Latino Parents’ and Adolescents’ Perceptions of the Needs and Issues of Adolescents in Their Community

Data from The Community Needs Assessment Survey were examined to understand the issues parents and adolescents felt were most important to address for the adolescents in their community. The sample of 1,784 Latino respondents consisted of 892 parent/adolescent dyads. Factor analyses found parents and adolescents identified and prioritized the same six factors: education and career planning, abuse and victimization, adolescent behavior problems, adolescent sexuality, socioeconomic stressors, and relationships. However, parent ratings for all factors were higher, indicating a higher level of concern. The article analyzes differences by age/generation (parents versus adolescents), by immigrant versus native status, and by type of dyad based on the latter (i.e., US born adolescent/US born parent, US born adolescent/immigrant parent, immigrant adolescent/immigrant parent). The authors discuss the complex interaction of these factors and the implications for practice and research.