Dingo media? The persistence of the “trial by media” frame in popular,media, and academic evaluations of the Azaria Chamberlain case

In the bulk of popular, media, and scholarly discourse on Azaria Chamberlain’s disappearance there is overwhelming consensus that the sensationalist reporting of the event convicted parents Michael and Lindy of their daughter’s murder outside official court processes. In feminist scholarship in particular, the infant’s disappearance in August 1980 has been read according to a “trial by media” frame. This frame persists despite altered perspectives about the role of the Australian public whose punitive and collectively hostile response to a media-driven hysteria has been replaced with the portrait of a kinder and more compassionate nation. The objectives of this article are threefold: to demonstrate the persistence of the trial by media frame in popular, media, and academic discourse; to consider assumptions of a monolithic and hostile media; and by examining a previously unanalysed archive to suggest that these arguments overlook the existence of sympathetic voices in mainstream media as well as the dialogic connection between media and counter-publics mutually supporting the Chamberlains’ bid for innocence. This research offers an alternative view to scholarship on a landmark event in Australian history and has broader implications for the way we view the media in trial by media situations.     

Employment transitions in the Netherlands, 1980–2004: Are low educated men subject to structural or cyclical crowding out?

This article addresses whether low educated men are displaced from their jobs by higher educated workers in the Netherlands in the period 1980–2004. In particular, we test whether structural or cyclical crowding out is predominant in the Dutch labor market. In order to do so, we try to explain the observed trends in education-specific transition rates to entry into first employment from education, exit from employment into unemployment or inactivity, and re-entry into employment from unemployment or inactivity for men by both business cycle effects (that is, changes in aggregate unemployment rates) and structural effects (that is, changes in labor supply–demand ratios for high educated). Discrete-time event history models are estimated using the OSA Labor Supply Panel 1985–2004. Retrospective information enables to study trends from 1980 onwards, so that structural effects can be distinguished from cyclical effects. The results show that structural crowding out exists at both the worker in- and outflow. First of all, it was observed that a growth in the oversupply of high educated increases the employment exit risk of low educated workers more so than that of higher educated ones. In addition, it was shown that an increase in the oversupply of high educated especially reduces the re-employment chances of low educated unemployed men. There is no evidence found for cyclical crowding out among low educated workers in the Dutch labor market.     

Up and on or down and out? Gender, immigration and the consequences of temporary employment in Canada

What happens to temporary workers when their jobs end? Is temporary employment a fleeting way station to a better job, or does it herald an ongoing cycle of precariousness? What are the implications of temporary employment dynamics for broader patterns of inequality in labour markets? European researchers have focused increasing attention on these issues in the context of concern about the relationship between inequality and insecurity in labour markets with strong regulatory protections for insiders. However, research on the outcomes of temporary employment in the less regulated labour markets of North America remains limited. This paper draws on rich representative panel data from Statistics Canada's Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) and competing risks Cox regression to assess the outcomes and dynamics of temporary employment in this understudied context. Key contributions include more precise estimates of transitions, consideration of multiple theoretically relevant outcomes (permanent jobs; new temporary jobs; and periods of unemployment and labour force withdrawal), and situation of the effect of gender and immigration status on temporary employment transitions in the context of the dynamics of permanent jobs. Findings present a more pessimistic picture of overall temporary job outcomes than prior research but suggest that the dynamics of temporary work do not magnify inequalities of gender and immigration status.     

Cyberbullying,conflict management or just messing? Teenage girls’ understandings and experiences of gender,friendship, and conflict on Facebook in an Irish second-level school

In recent years, there have been growing concerns worldwide about young people’s safety online, much of which focuses on social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram. Moral panics about sexting and cyberbullying have constructed public discourses about social media as dangerous to adolescents’ safety and relationships. In the academic literature, there are conflicting perspectives on the nature of online relationships, behaviour, and risks, and on the causes and nature of cyberbullying. Less attention is paid—in both public and academic debates—to the role played by gender in online aggression, in spite of the fact that existing scholarship demonstrates that it is an important factor in the dynamics of young people’s online friendships and conflicts. This article presents the findings of an empirical, qualitative and quantitative study of teenage girls’ experiences and understandings of online friendship, conflict, and bullying in an Irish, single-sex secondary school. Questionnaires (n=116), individual in-depth interviews with students (n=26), and a focus group with teachers were used. Our study indicates that significant communicative phenomena within girls’ everyday lives remain unreported and frequently misunderstood.     

Economic Stress and the Great Recession in Ireland: Polarization,Individualization or ‘Middle Class Squeeze’?

Following an unprecedented boom, since 2008 Ireland has experienced a severe economic and labour market crisis. Considerable debate persists as to where the heaviest burden of the recession has fallen. Conventional measures of relative income poverty and inequality have a limited capacity to capture the impact of the recession in terms of social exclusion. This is exacerbated by a dramatic increase in the scale of debt problems including significant negative equity issues. Our analysis provides no evidence for individualization or class polarization of risk. Instead, while economic stress level is highly stratified in class terms in both boom and bust periods, the changing impact of class is highly contingent on life course stage. An income based classification showed that the affluent income class saw its advantage relative to the income poor class decline at the earliest stage of the life-course and remain stable across the rest of the life course. At the other end of the hierarchy, the income poor class experienced a relative improvement in their situation in the earlier life-course phase and no significant change at the later stages. For the remaining income classes, life-course stage was even more important. At the earliest stage the precarious class experienced some improvement in its situation while the outcomes for the middle classes remain unchanged. In the mid-life course the precarious and lower middle classes experienced disproportionate increases in their stress levels while at the later stage it is the combined middle classes that lost out. Additional effects over time relating to social class are restricted to the deteriorating situation of the petit bourgeoisie at the middle stage of the life-course. The pattern is clearly a good deal more complex than that suggested by conventional notions of ‘middle class squeeze’ and points to the distinctive challenges relating to welfare and taxation policy faced by governments in the Great Recession.     

Rank-Optimal Weighting or “How to be Best in the OECD Better Life Index?”

We present a method of rank-optimal weighting which can be used to explore the best possible position of a subject in a ranking based on a composite indicator by means of a mathematical optimization problem. As an example, we explore the dataset of the OECD Better Life Index and compute for each country a weight vector which brings it as far up in the ranking as possible with the greatest advance of the immediate rivals. The method is able to answer the question “What is the best possible rank a country can achieve with a given set of weighted indicators?” Typically, weights in composite indicators are justified normatively and not empirically. Our approach helps to give bounds on what is achievable by such normative judgments from a purely output-oriented and strongly competitive perspective. The method can serve as a basis for exact bounds in sensitivity analysis focused on ranking positions. In the OECD Better Life Index data we find that 19 out the 36 countries in the OECD Better Life Index 2014 can be brought to the top of the ranking by specific weights. We give a table of weights for each country which brings it to its highest possible position. Many countries achieve their best rank by focusing on their strong dimensions and setting the weights of many others to zero. Although setting dimensions to zero is possible in the OECD’s online tool, this contradicts the idea of better life being multidimensional in essence. We discuss modifications of the optimization problem which could take this into account, e.g. by allowing only a minimal weight of one. Methods to find rank-optimal weights can be useful for various multidimensional datasets like the ones used to rank universities or employers.     

The McMansionization of America? Income stratification and the standard of living in housing, 1960–2000

Consumption patterns and living standards are relatively neglected in stratification research even though they are important indicators of material well-being. Consumption inequality is related to income and wealth disparities through complex processes not yet well understood. This paper addresses this gap by analyzing a striking shift in the standard of living in housing in the US that occurred at the same time as a substantial increase in income inequality. Houses became significantly bigger in the 1980s and 1990s just as inequalities deepened, reversing an earlier trend towards smaller houses. Diverse theoretical traditions in the consumption and housing stratification literatures explain this shift differently, and in particular posit very different effects of rising income inequality. I derive several alternative expectations from these traditions: two predicting that the increasing size of houses was broadly shared across income levels, while another expects it represented increasing divergence in living standards, paralleling the trend in income inequality. I use US Census and American Housing Survey data and several different methods to adjudicate between these theories. The results provide some support for each of the alternative expectations, but the most significant finding is that big house ownership became more concentrated among the affluent. A focus on living standards thus uncovers a key source of rising disparities at the turn of the 21st century with important implications for wealth stratification too since houses are the major debt and asset held by most Americans.     

“You Bring Great Masculinity and Truth”: Sexuality,whiteness, and the regulation of the male body in motion

This study contributes to analyses of how heterosexuality and whiteness work together in the embodied social practice of dance and the representational realm of television. It does so by attempting to destabilize theories of sexual difference dependent upon the concept of a stable, “natural,” and unitary body by highlighting the representational work that underpins heteronormative (white) masculinity within the first season of the syndicated reality dance television series So You Think You Can Dance Canada. The paper argues that though the presence of male dancers in the (often feminized) representational realm has the potential to challenge simple heteronormative dichotomies of masculine/feminine, reality dance television in this case plays with, yet ultimately reaffirms, heteronormative masculinity and does so relationally, through the juxtaposition of racialized male and female dance contestants over the span of a series. While it is not surprising that a reality show depends heavily upon heteronormative stereotypes, these discursive mechanisms are rendered invisible, in this case, when couched in a discourse of authenticity, technical ability, and dance aesthetics, resonating beyond the context of television, into the ways we think about dance practice.     

Who is the “She” in the Pandemic “She-Cession”? Variation in COVID-19 Labor Market Outcomes by Gender and Family Status

Population Research and Policy Review - The sharp decline in employment after the COVID-19 lockdown was not uniformly felt across demographic groups. Utilizing the 2017 to 2020 monthly Current...     

Do Social Workers Apply “Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself” to Gay,Lesbian, Bisexual,and Transpersons in the South?

ABSTRACT

Across the United States there has been a spate of legislative bills and initiatives that blatantly stigmatize and discriminate against the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. This study was a cross-sectional, exploratory survey designed to measure the attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors of Tennessee social workers and future social workers toward the LGBT population and toward proposed discriminatory legislation. A 3-way factorial ANOVA investigated the effects of political affiliation, religious affiliation, and social contact on the dependent measures. Significant main effects were found. Self-reported political affiliation was found to be the most important factor predicting LGBT acceptance and LGBT respect among this sample.     

“Grow the Beard,Wear the Costume”: Resisting Weight and Sexual Orientation Stigmas in the Bear Subculture

ABSTRACT

Being gay and being overweight are two stigmatized statuses in the United States. A range of work has considered the experience of being stigmatized and the consequences of stereotypes for overweight individuals and sexual minorities, but less research has examined the intersection of these two stigmas among larger gay men or collective efforts to resist such stigma. This study qualitatively examines a subculture of gay men, the bears, to test theoretical models of stigma resistance. The analysis demonstrates the transferability of stigma resistance among multiple stigmatized attributes and the use of multiple strategies to resist one stigma. At the same time, it shows how subcultural dynamics both aid and undermine the resistance toward stigma, and the risk of reinforcing stigma’s effect through criticizing others who embody a stereotype. The results also demonstrate how resistance strategies are both empowering and psychologically taxing for stigmatized individuals.     

Early traces of the Second Demographic Transition in Bulgaria: A joint analysis of marital and non-marital union formation, 1960–2004

We explore trends in first-union formation in Bulgaria from 1960, using data from the national Gender and Generations Survey of 2004. We analyse jointly the transition into cohabitation and directly into marriage. The standardized marriage rate falls dramatically from the early 1980s; the corresponding rate of entry into cohabitation has already increased from the early 1960s but (surprisingly) falls moderately toward the end of our period. Cohabitation also tends to last progressively longer in more recent periods. The analysis shows that a pregnancy leads to a dramatic increase in the rate of both kinds of union formation: the increase is by a factor of almost 20 for marriage formation and about 10 for entry into cohabitation, ceteris paribus. Our findings suggest that, in Bulgaria at least, some manifestations of the Second Demographic Transition can be detected as early as the 1980s.     

Legal Protections and Advocacy for Contingent or “Casual” Workers in the United States: A Case Study in Day Labor

Contingent, non-standard or “casual” work is present in large numbers in virtually every sector of the United States economy. Staffing strategies that use subcontracted or contingent work – strategies that once characterized only some low-wage workers such as garment and agriculture – have now spread to virtually every area of industry, including high tech and finance. United States law is a patchwork of provisions in separate federal statutes – and sometimes in each of the 50 states – governing whether a particular individual is an “employee.” Day laborers in the United States have particular challenging enforcing their limited rights. To address the issues of vulnerable low-wage workers being locked out of labor protections, activists have developed a number of strategies, including litigation and legislative campaigns. These strategies have more recently been broadened to facilitate developing leadership in a new social movement. In this article I draw a portrait of the day labor workforce from city- and state-based surveys of day laborers themselves. I then discuss strategies employed by day laborers to advance their workplace rights.

A Call to Focus on Racial Domination and Oppression: A Response to “Racial and Ethnic Inequality in Poverty and Affluence, 1959–2015″

Population Research and Policy Review - In this essay, I respond to Racial and Ethnic Inequality in Poverty and Affluence, 1959–2015 (hereafter Racial and Ethnic Inequality). I argue that...     

Polarization or “Squeezed Middle” in the Great Recession?: A Comparative European Analysis of the Distribution of Economic Stress

This paper analyses variation in the impact of the Great Recession on economic stress across income classes for a range of advanced European countries. Our analysis shows Iceland, Ireland and Greece to be quite distinctive in terms of increases in their multidimensional income, material deprivation and economic stress profiles. Between 2008 and 2012 these countries moved from being predictably located within anticipated welfare regimes to becoming clear outliers. For this set of counties, each of which was exposed to different but severe forms of economic shock, trends in income class polarisation versus middle class squeeze were variable. Each exhibited substantial increases in levels of economic stress. However, changes in the pattern of income class differentiation were somewhat different. In Iceland a form of middle class squeeze was observed. For Ireland income class polarization did not exclude middle class squeeze. Greece came closest to fitting the polarization profile. Changes in the distribution of household equivalent income had no effect on stress levels once the impact of material deprivation was taken into account. Changes in levels of material deprivation played a significant role in accounting for changing stress levels but only for the three lowest income classes. These findings bring out the extent to which the impact of the Great Recession on the distribution of economic stress across classes varied even among the hardest-hit countries. They also serve to highlight the advantages of a multidimensional approach that goes beyond reliance on income in seeking to understand the impact of such shocks.     

Reply to “A Call to Focus on Racial Domination and Oppression: A Response to ‘Racial and Ethnic Inequality in Poverty and Affluence, 1959–2015’”

Population Research and Policy Review - The comment raises some thoughtful points but offers an approach to research on racial and ethnic differences in poverty and affluence guided by ideology...     

Sadistic scopophilia in contemporary rape culture: I Spit On Your Grave (2010) and the practice of “media rape”

This article revisits earlier theorisations of cinematic voyeurism and gender-based violence in considering the cross-media connections between cinema and non-consensual pornography online. In particular, it looks at how the remake of a significant rape-revenge film, I Spit On Your Grave (1978/2010), explores the role of technology in the perpetuation of female victimisation. By making a visible connection between the female character’s physical rape and the violation of her subjectivity performed through filming her without her consent, the film raises a larger social/media issue, which I call media rape. In offering a theorisation of this phenomenon, the article analyses the operation of the website creepshots.com, which distributes non-consensual photos of women. The comparison between these two texts promotes an understanding of the visual and discursive continuities between cinema and online spaces in relation to media rape and rape culture more generally. At a time when the distinction between the creators of and audiences for media content is less straightforward within the context of online media, sadistic scopophilia needs to be reconsidered in relation to medium specificity. Although it is already problematic in the cinematic context, when it extends to online media sadistic scopophilia becomes a human rights violation.     

Housewife, “gold miss,” and equal: the evolution of educated women’s role in Asia and the U.S.

The fraction of U.S. college graduate women who ever marry has increased relative to less educated women since the mid-1970s. In contrast, college graduate women in developed Asian countries have had decreased rates of marriage, so much so that the term “Gold Misses” has been coined to describe them. This paper argues that the interaction of rapid economic growth in Asia combined with the intergenerational transmission of gender attitudes causes the “Gold Miss” phenomenon. I present a simple dynamic model then test its implications using U.S. and Asian data on marriage and time use.