What’s not to Like?: A Qualitative Study of Young Women Politicians’ Self-Framing on Twitter

ABSTRACT

Twitter provides women politicians with a platform for practising political public relations and the opportunity to circumvent traditional barriers to their visibility. To explore how young women use Twitter to frame themselves during election campaigns, this study undertook a thematic analysis of tweets sent by politicians Nikki Kaye and Jacinda Ardern during New Zealand’s 2014 general election campaign. A likability frame dominated their messaging, supported by subsidiary frames of the busy local MP and the relational politician. Choices of interpersonal and intimized situations showcased these attributes. Although the messaging was arguably effective, there are longer-term consequences for women with respect to the likability/competence double bind. Further and systematic incorporation of gender into the field of political public relations would strengthen this emerging discipline and add value to existing research around women’s electoral viability.     

‘The Rule of Men Entirely Great’: Republicanism,Ritual, and Richelieu in Melville’s ‘The Two Temples’

Abstract

This article explores the complex and multifarious reasons behind Herman Melville’s decision to refer to the English playwright Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s 1839 work Richelieu, or The Conspiracy in his 1854 diptych ‘The Two Temples’. It responds to a critical consensus that has seen the reference merely as a sarcastic attack on William Macready (whose rivalry with the American actor Edwin Forrest was the nominal cause of the bloody 1849 Astor Place Riot in New York), by contextualizing the play within traditions of antebellum American Anglophilia. By using a combination of new critical work on Anglo-Americanism and anthropological ritual theory, I show how Bulwer-Lytton’s play was significant to Melville’s artistic development. In particular, I demonstrate how the play influenced his increasing engagement with republican and theatrical forms of expression that emphasized the importance of filial relationships between America and Britain in a period of increasing hostility between the two nations.     

Young Mothers’ Experiences of Receiving the Baby Bonus: A Qualitative Study

The year 2014 marked the abolition of the Baby Bonus and its replacement with a substantially reduced parenting payment. While often criticised as “middle-class welfare,” or publicly denounced due to its purported misuse by disadvantaged mothers, this paper argues that the Baby Bonus provided valuable financial assistance to families experiencing high financial stress. To investigate young women's experience of receiving the Baby Bonus, 19 semistructured interviews were conducted with young mothers in Melbourne who had recently had babies. Many were experiencing financial stress and this payment provided much needed financial support for the basic costs arising from having a baby. Several mothers perceived work as a luxury that was out of reach due to high childcare costs relative to their earning capacity and therefore saw Paid Parental Leave as a further privilege unavailable to them. Our results suggest that while the concerns of policymakers to achieve the best use of scarce resources are critical, it should also be acknowledged that the policy change may have serious implications for many young mothers and may exacerbate disadvantage, and young mothers’ sense of alienation, ultimately leading to greater inequalities.     

Understanding health inequalities: from ‘Transmitted Deprivation’ to ‘Social Capital’

This article examines the conceptualisation and use of memory in the social sciences, both as a methodological tool and as an object of research. The article situates memory as a vast potential resource for the social sciences in the exploration of relations between public and private life, agency and power, and the past, present and future. It goes on to recognise that the methodological issues surrounding the use of memory have, with few exceptions, rarely received sustained attention. The article argues for, and moves towards, developing a coherent account of the variety of practical techniques of using memory in data collection and analysis, and their appropriate use within a clear epistemological framework which distinguishes itself from conventional historiography and it’s criteria of validity. It is argued that without this attention to method, memory will remain on the margins of social science research.     

Exploring the ‘craftedness’ of multimedia narratives: from creation to interpretation

This paper emerges from a comparative study of two community-based multimedia storytelling projects in Toronto and Montreal, and the multimedia narratives participants produced in those projects. Following current scholarship in visual methods that acknowledges the significance for research of the medium’s formal qualities, the authors offer the concept of ‘craftedness’ as one which might help researchers grapple with the significance of the processes of both creating and interpreting visual data. Through a study of the visual data produced in these two projects, they examine three qualities of this aesthetic experience captured in the notion of craftedness, which seem to both complicate and enable processes of self-representation and interpretation: aesthetic distance, visual excess and the visualisation of the unrepresentable. Taking seriously the craftedness of multimedia works highlights the complexities of interpreting visual data and the dilemmas of representing ourselves and others.     

Longitudinal Event-Level Analysis of Gay and Bisexual Men’s Anal Sex Versatility: Behavior,Roles, and Substance Use

Gay and bisexual Men Who Have Sex with Men (GBM) are sexually unique in that they can practice penile-anal sex versatility, i.e. engage in insertive and receptive anal sex. Individual-level versatility is extensively researched both as a sexual behavior linked to HIV/STI transmission, and as a GBM identity that can change over time. However, there is a dearth of research on event-level versatility (ELV), defined as taking the receptive and insertive role in the same sexual encounter. We analyzed event-level data from 644 GBM in the Momentum Health Study from February 2012-February 2017 to identify factors associated with ELV prevalence, the relationship between ELV and anal sex role preference, and sero-adaptive and sexualized drug use strategies. Univariate analysis revealed ELV prevalence rates between 15% and 20%. A multivariate generalized linear mixed model indicated ELV significantly (p < .05) associated with versatile role preference and condomless sex. However, the majority of ELV came from GBM reporting insertive or receptive role preferences, and there was significantly higher condom use among sero-discordant partners, indicating sero-adaptation. Multivariate log-linear modeling identified multiple polysubstance combinations significantly associated with ELV. Results provide insights into GBM sexual behavior and constitute empirical data useful for future HIV/STI transmission pattern modeling.     

From ‘for’ to ‘of’: a typology of Maltese disability organisations

The main aim of this article is to adapt the Typology of Disability Organisations that Oliver devised, and subsequently developed further in 1990, to a different context, in this case the Maltese disability sector. The paper first traces the history of the disabled people’s movement and presents Oliver’s Typology, which makes a clear distinction between organisations for and of disabled persons. The article then highlights the main characteristics of the Maltese disability sector and develops the Typology of the organisations operating within that sector. It shows how it is non-disabled people that are mostly in control of disability organisations, and suggests ways in which there can be a stronger movement towards the development and strengthening of disabled people’s organisations. The article shows how Oliver’s Typology can be used flexibly and adapted to various contexts. It also shows how drawing up a Typology of Disability Organisations can shed light on the environment within which these organisations operate, identifying areas of strength and possible areas for growth.     

Accounting for Men’s Refusal of Heterosex: A Story-Completion Study With Young Adults

In the present study we bring together theory regarding the construction of heterosexuality and masculinities to understand the shifting and changing terrain of heterosexual sex (heterosex). We use inductive qualitative content analysis of story completion data to discover the different ways that heterosex is constructed by the male and female respondents in scenarios where women initiate sex and men, at first, refuse. The stories represented a spectrum of responses that reify and subvert dominant understandings of heterosex. Five major themes were generated from the current data (1) men should initiate sex, (2) he wants to take it slowly, (3) it is natural for men to want sex, (4) it is men’s job to look after women, and (5) coercion. We discuss in detail the dominant narratives described by women and men and how they may be shifting. The study thus provides a rich, experience-based representation of heterosexual sexual activity and suggests subtle shifts in how masculinity is managed within heterosexual relationships.     

Young British religious ‘nones’: findings from the Youth On Religion study

This article contributes to an understanding of diversity in beliefs and practices among young religious ‘nones’ who report the absence of a specific religious faith. It focuses on those describing themselves as atheist, agnostic or otherwise of ‘no religion’ within (a) a large-scale survey of over ten thousand 13–17-year-olds, and (b) interviews, discussion groups and eJournal entries involving one hundred and fifty-seven 17–18-year-olds, in three British multi-faith locations. Compared to the study population as a whole, the young religious ‘nones’ were particularly likely to be white and born in Britain. There was, nonetheless, considerable diversity among this group in beliefs and practices: almost half the survey members mentioned some level of belief in God and most of the interview participants pointed to some presence of religion in their lives. Being a religious ‘none’ is, furthermore, not necessarily a stable identity and some young people had already shown considerable fluidity over their life cycles. Around half the survey members said they had maintained similar religious views to their mothers, but participants in both quantitative and qualitative studies pointed to the impact of their experiences and interactions, as well as the role of science, as factors affecting their beliefs and practices.     

Contradictions of the ‘New Green Revolution’: A View from South America's Southern Cone

This paper is an examination of the social, economic, and environmental problems created by the search for and application of biotechnological solutions to global hunger that are also protected by a system of globally harmonized intellectual property rights. These contradictions are illustrated by the example of South America's Southern Cone region (Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay) where the ‘New Green Revolution’ has since 1996 been vigorously introduced, led by genetically modified (GM) soybeans. It is argued that the ‘New Green Revolution’ is not a solution either to the problem of agro-ecological sustainability or to that of hunger and malnutrition.

Este artículo examina los problemas sociales, económicos y del medio ambiente, creados en busca de soluciones biotecnológicas para el hambre global, soluciones que también son protegidas por el sistema global armónico de derechos de propiedad intelectual. Estas contradicciones quedan claramente ilustradas utilizando el ejemplo de la región del Cono Sur en Suramérica (Argentina, Brasil y Paraguay) donde la “Nueva Revolución Verde” ha sido fuertemente introducida desde 1996, liderada por la utilización de soya genéticamente modificada (GM). Se argumenta que la “La nueva revolución verde” no es la solución para el problema de la sustentabilidad agro-ecológica ni para el hambre y la desnutrición.

     

Young people in a city of culture: ‘Ultimate beneficiaries’ or ‘Economic migrants’?

There is burgeoning literature on cities that host major cultural events. However, there is surprisingly very little empirical research focusing specifically on young people and cities of culture, so we have limited knowledge in terms of how young people actually experience and interpret cultural events. Given this, we offer an important and timely contribution to such debates. Our spatial focus is Derry/Londonderry (D/L) in Northern Ireland. During 2013 D/L was the UK’s inaugural City of Culture (CoC). The bid document and legacy plans for CoC stated that young people would be ‘cultural assets’ during 2013 and the ‘ultimate beneficiaries’ of the CoC legacy [Derry City Council 2010. Cracking the Code. City of Culture 2013. Derry: Derry City Council, 2013a. Our Legacy Promise. Building on the Success of 2013. Derry: Derry City Council, 2013b. Legacy Plan 2013–2023. Derry: Derry City Council]. This paper unpacks and analyses the extent to which young people in D/L related to and engaged with CoC and, arguably more importantly, how CoC affected their plans and aspirations for the future. Our research problematises the claim that young people were the ‘ultimate beneficiaries’ of CoC; most strikingly, it shows that young people, despite offering very positive views, both expect and desire to live in cities other than D/L. As such, the debilitating long-standing trend of economic migration of young people will continue raising important issues for local stakeholders.     

‘Indigenous Rights’ or ‘Racial Privileges’: The Rhetoric of ‘Race’ in New Zealand Politics

The New Zealand parliamentary election campaign of 2005 was marked by a significant break in the consensus between the two major political parties, Labour and National, in the area of Maori affairs: a consensus that had previously been articulated in terms of a shared commitment to ‘biculturalism’ and the Treaty of Waitangi. In January 2004, the National Party launched an attack on government policies, describing them as giving unfair privileges to Maori based purely on ‘race’. The present paper examines the National Party's adoption of the rhetoric of ‘race’ and the conceptual, political and ideological considerations behind it. It also examines attitudinal, social policy and socioeconomic factors to explain the widespread acceptability of this rhetoric among the New Zealand public. These events are considered within the context of a growing academic and political critique of ‘culturalism’ in New Zealand social policy and social science.     

Thinking ‘Outside the Box’: A New Approach to Integration of Learning for Practice

The integration of learning is a central goal for all professions. The question of how to bridge the gap between theory and practice, and between the classroom and the field, is one which has preoccupied social work education since its very beginnings in universities in the United Kingdom and the United States in the early twentieth century. Between 2003 and 2005, the Scottish Institute for Excellence in Social Work Education funded a project which piloted a new approach to the integration of learning for practice. This paper reports on the findings of that project, and suggests ways of taking its findings forward in the future.     

Enhancing Longitudinal Studies by Linkage to National Databases: Growing Up in Australia,the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children†

Growing Up in Australia is a national longitudinal study of the development and wellbeing of 10,000 Australian children. The study has been committed since inception to support data linkage to other datasets, to value‐add to the primary modes of data collection from parents and others. It can increase the efficiency of data collection by reducing respondent and interviewer burden as well as adding new dimensions to addressing key research questions. The viability of data linkage needs to take into account the relevance of the data for research and policy, as well as data quality and cost, privacy and consent issues and the ease of access. This article documents the various sources for data linkage considered for Growing Up in Australia, including government health and education records, child care accreditation data, and community‐level data, and examines the strengths and challenges associated with each.     

Promoting ‘Healthy Childhoods’ and Keeping Children ‘At Home’: Beninese Anti-Trafficking Policy in Times of Neoliberalism

This article offers the first examination of its kind of the content and nature of anti-trafficking policy as it is pursued in Benin. The article draws on data gathered from policy and project documents and from interviews and participant observation with actors integral to the constitution of policy in (and with influence over) the Beninese anti-trafficking community. It attempts to bridge the oft-lamented gap between page and practice by conducting analysis not only of the representation of policy in text, but also of its lived manifestations in processes, interactions and structures. It argues that the various different actors that comprise Benin's anti-trafficking pantheon seek to accomplish one fundamental goal – to protect children from trafficking – through two overarching strategies – the promotion of ‘healthy’ childhoods and the pre-emptive prevention of child movement. The article examines each of the main strands of policy and concludes by offering a Foucauldian analysis of their operation. It thus fills a major gap in the academic understanding of anti-trafficking policy in the Beninese context.     

Assessing Young Caregivers’ Feelings About Helping: Pilot Test of a New Scale

Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal - Millions of young people under age 18 assist family members with basic activities of daily living. Current research focuses on how caregiving contributes...     

Adaptations to Traditional Familial Roles: Examining the Challenges of Grandmothers’ Counterlife Transitions

Grandmothers-raising-grandchildren narratives challenge normative familial preconceptions. Utilizing the life-course theory to examine the turbulence and time-disordered role orientations, this study showcases the familial development punctuated by transitions and highlights the transformations experienced in grandparent relationships. This qualitative phenomenological study investigates six grandmothers’ experiences about their unforeseen life circumstances and their renegotiation of normal age-appropriate transitions that cause them to reconstruct their life plans. Five themes (obligation, desperation, intervention, salvation, and normalization) emerged from their experiences that underscore the transformative generational structures and explore adaptive life-course trajectories.     

Ramon Llull: from ‘Ars electionis’ to social choice theory

Ramon Llull (Majorca c.1232–1316) is one of the earliest founding fathers of voting theory and social choice theory. The present article places Llull’s contributions and discussion in the historical context of elections in the medieval Church and the emergence of majority rule as a new general principle for making enforceable collective decisions in replacement of traditional unanimous requirements. To make the majority principle operational, Llull initially proposed a system of exhaustive binary comparisons that is more efficacious in producing a winner than the Condorcet system, in anticipation to the so called Copeland procedure. In contrast to some previous tentative suggestions, careful reading of Llull’s papers demonstrates that he did not propose a rank-order count system, such as those proposed later on by Cusanus and Borda. A new hypothesis is presented to explain Llull’s later proposal of an eliminatory system of partial binary comparisons. Some performance of Llull’s voting systems is estimated by innovative analysis of results in certain modern sports tournaments.