READING THE ALCOHOLIC FILM: Analysis of The Country Girl

This article offers an interpretive, interactional reading of the film The Country Girl (1954). It argues that such texts serve as empirical materials for cultural studies. The beliefs and themes about alcoholism which the film represents are discussed, and it is shown how these are a product of the era in which they were created. Bateson's theory of the double bind is applied to the dyadic and triadic interactions that make up the film's text. Unraveling the double bind in the alcoholic relationship better reveals how this particular form of social relationship destructively perpetuates itself through time. Films like The Country Girl reflect society back to itself, and in so doing contribute to the popular culture's understanding of alcoholism.     

A Girl Is a Girl,Is a Girl,Is a Girl

ABSTRACT

Before I did not know I was the other in my country, before I did not know it was not safe to be the other in this, before I did not know my existence was a series of ellipses, owing to mispronunciations and a smothering absence of words, before I did not know that the past will, unfailingly, be subsumed by its past and fantasies of a future will become present torments, before I did not know all of that, I did not know I was to be a woman. … Thirty-odd years in, having married a man and birthed children, I was made to look at myself and pronounce the most foreign of words. The sound was deafening. The sound left me speechless. These writings are an attempt at puncturing the silence enveloping the most dangerous of (my) words.     

Momma's Girl

Abstract

Using data from the 1998 Youth Survey conducted by the Institute for Social Science Research, this paper examines the correlation between perceived maternal figure support and hope for future success among 866 African-American adolescent girls. The majority of girls in this sample perceive themselves as receiving high levels of support from their maternal figures. The oldest girls, ages 18 and 19 years, represented the largest percentage of respondents who reported receiving no maternal support, over twice the percentage for the entire sample. The impact of higher levels of maternal support on hope development in the girls of this sample was less influential than hypothesized. Implications for practice include the need to consider development of programs that support or promote enrichment of formal and informal support systems for African-American girls considered to be at risk for potentially     

Mapping the Bit Girl

This paper examines the fan movement surrounding Lara Croft, a computer- generated character who has appeared in computer games, comic books, men' s magazines, promotional tours, music videos, calendars, action figures and motion pictures. A fixture of the pop-culture landscape since 1996, Croft embodies or incarnates a nexus of cultural, economic, and technological forces, whose shared characteristic is their powerful hold on a vast audience base. Lara Croft is nothing without her fans. As the founding member of a new mode of celebrity system featuring female digital stars, Croft's essentially technological nature - the mode of her signification and circulation - produces continuities and ruptures with traditional fan practices, reframing our understandings of categories such as "fan', "audience', "character', and "text' in relation to a mediascape whose speed and multiplicity mark not just postmodernism, but adaptive responses to postmodernity. From this perspective, Lara Croft is less a singular entity than a coping strategy, a mediation of media. The concerns of this project are, first, to examine Lara Croft as a conjunction of industrial and representational forces intended to promote certain types of reception and consumption; second, to assess the ways in which her peculiar semiotic status - simultaneously open-ended and concrete - renders her available for appropriation and elaboration by fans; and, finally, to discuss the ways in which Croft's fandom opens up new debates about the relationship between texts, audiences, and technology.     

From armed group to movement: armed struggle and movement formation in Northern Ireland and the Basque Country

In recent decades, social movement scholars have expanded our understanding of ‘terrorism’ by analyzing a particular trajectory, movement to armed group, whereby movement demobilization spurs armed struggle. This article analyzes an alternative trajectory: armed group to movement. Once armed struggle’s limitations become apparent, armed groups often adopt an attritional military strategy suited to their capacities. To securely wage an attritional campaign, groups disembed through the adoption of insular structures, removing them from their milieux and from recruits and resources needed for organizational reproduction. To offset this, armed groups reembed through the development of politico-military movement structures: forming allied aboveground movement organizations; coordinating armed and unarmed activism; and creating a ‘movement’ identity. This offsets disembedding in three ways. First, collective action augments armed groups’ violence by expanding the struggle into new domains. Second, mobilized support provides armed groups political legitimacy, countering the ‘terrorist’ label. Third, aboveground movement organizations assist in recruitment, alliance-formation, public communication, and mobilization, facilitating armed groups’ organizational reproduction. This paper investigates the strategic decision to adopt movement structures by analyzing documents produced by militants linked to the IRA and to rival ETAs, ETA Politico-Military and ETA Military, allowing for the exploration of different aspects of the decision to adopt movement structures. From Irish republican texts, insights into the basic benefits of movement development are gleaned. Basque separatist documents, on the other hand, provide perspectives on the nature of interorganizational centralization and coordination within politico-military movements.     

Xinjiang Girl World Super Model

Leading Chinese model Yue Mei won thetitle of World Super Model at the '98 WorldSuper Model Competition held in FranceSeptember 6 - 17. Yue, a university studentfrom the Xinjiang Uygur AutonomousRegion, had won the top title at '98 ChinaSuper Model Competition held in Beijingone month earier.After that, she underwentone month's professional modeling trainingwith the New Silk Road ModelingManagement Company before setting off forthe world competition. In France, Yueimpressed the judges with her strikingfeatures, and display of oriental elegance and     

Boy Talk/Girl Talk

Abstract

Using data from a comprehensive database of political advertisements broadcast during the 1998 congressional election cycle, this study assesses whether male and female candidates follow different campaign communications strategies. The results of the analysis demonstrate that there are systematic differences between the ways that male and female candidates communicate with voters, but that these differences are typically not sizeable. In other words, gender seems to matter in campaign communications strategies but not always for very much. Where we do observe differences, however, the findings show that they tend to reinforce gender-based stereotypes more so than work to counteract them. Thus, these differences may be partly accountable for the electoral results we observe.     

The Boat Girl in the Photo

The Little Boat Girl THIS picture was taken at dusk, onestormy day, half a century ago. On April 21, 1949, one million soldiersof the Chinese People's Liberation Army, alongmore than 500-kilometers of riverbank, quicklybroke through the thousand-Li line of defence,which had been painstakingly built up by theKuomintang, and forced the Changjiang River. At dusk on April 22, boatmen from Yangzhong,an island in the Changjiang River, hurried to thebank to row the follow-up units across. Despitearduous weather, the boatmen's skill in fightingagainst wind and waves was considerable and, inthe soft lights of sunset, the rows of old woodenboats appeared to be flying on the ChangjiangRiver. A most impressive scene. Among the officers waiting on the riverbank tobe ferried across was one tall soldier, deeplyabsorbed in the sight of a young girl, not far away,     

From the Editor: From Scholarship to Practice

Sociological Forum -     

Moral Panic and the Nasty Girl*

Dans cet article, nous examinons pourquoi les récents incidents de violence commis par des filles sont interprétés comme un signe qu'aujourd'hui les adolescentes sont de plus en plus dangereuses. Nous démontrons que cette interprétation est le produit d'une panique morale centrée sur le concept du risque. Les politiques de réforme sociale et criminelle résultant de cette panique créent des mécanismes disciplinaires agissant sur le corps de l'adolescente délinquante et encou-ragent le développement d'une culture fondée sur la gestion du risque.
We examine why, despite evidence to the contrary, recent incidents of female violence have been interpreted as sign that today's girls are increasingly nasty. We argue that the Nasty Girl phenomenon is the product of a moral panic. We show that while girl violence always existed, today's discussion is dominated by the concept of risk. Reform initiatives resulting from the panic consist of disciplinary mechanisms acting on the body of the individual delinquent, and techniques that regulate individuals through the fostering of a culture of risk management and security consciousness. Finally, we situate the panic in the current backlash against feminism.     

From Pupa to Butterfly

IN front of me is the Floating Stone, an autobiography-like novel written by a farmer writer. With a not very eye-catching cover and a somewhat baffling name, the book is not quite interesting to me. Care-freely, I took up the book and scanned it. Unexpectedly, I was attracted and finished reading the     

From Communities to Neighbourhoods-I

Increasing confusion and dissatisfaction with so-called 'care in the community' and 'community care' initiatives has prompted a search for greater clarity and accuracy in human services. An attempt has been made to specify some of the means and ends required to establish local comprehensive services for a range of client groups. The first of two papers describes some of the skills required by workers for successful involvement and examines methods of developing individual neighbourhoods. Tensions between clients, users, residents, planners and workers are examined within the context of integrative neighbourhood services. A subsequent paper describes the means by which this transition to local neighbourhood services is planned, recorded and evaluated.     

From Fragmentation to Integration

Abstract

Within the mental health field, there is an increased attention to issues of diversity. However, this awareness has not yet been applied to racially and culturally diverse gays and lesbians who are chronically mentally ill. Some of the reasons for this include the long history of homogeneity of American institutions; the underutilization of mental health services by minority groups; the stigmatization of the mentally ill; and homophobia, within both the psychiatric community and society at large. As a result, there is a need for mental health professionals to acknowledge minority gays and lesbians with chronic mental illness, and begin to provide programs that affirm their sexual orientation, race, and cultural identities.     

From Invisibility to Voice

The purpose of this article is to articulate the salient issues of gay and lesbian employees, both in the workplace and in general. Hence, it also serves to sensitize Employee Assistance professionals and their interventions to the problems and needs of gays and lesbians. As less research and fewer publications have been focused on lesbian issues, this article offers a specific focus on the problems and needs lesbians experience in the workplace. Within the last year, there has been more visibility focused on lesbians and gays due to both state referenda seeking to curtail their civil rights protections and Federal initiatives to lift the military ban on homosexuals. Therefore, it is pertinent and timely for EAP professionals to become familiar with the issues that confront this group of employees, to ensure that Employee Assistance interventions can be developed which will be both appropriate and effective.     

From genes to societies

Research on model organisms has substantially advanced our understanding of aging. However, these studies collectively lack any examination of the element of sociality, an important feature of human biology. Social insects present a number of unique possibilities for investigating social influences on aging and potentially detecting new mechanisms for extremely prolonged, healthy life spans that have evolved naturally. Social evolution has led to life spans in reproductive females that are much longer (up to over 100-fold) than those of males or of nonreproductive worker castes. These differences are particularly dramatic because they are due to environmental influences, as all individuals develop from the same genomes. Social insect colonies consist of semi-autonomous individuals, and the relationship between the colony and the individual creates many interesting predictions in the light of the common theories of aging. Furthermore, the variety of lifestyles of social insects creates the potential for crucial comparative analyses across distinct social systems.     

From consensus to credibility

The development of consensual science has greatly influenced the international environmental negotiation processes. This is not least the case for the Convention on Long‐range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP). Negotiators as well as regime analysts regard CLRTAP as a successful example of how scientists have succeeded in influencing international policy making through consensus‐building strategies. Drawing on Ulrich Beck's work on reflexive scientization and the concept of ‘stage management’ from the field of the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (SSK), this paper critically analyzes the role of science in the regulation of transboundary air pollution. It discusses the consensus‐building strategies developed by scientists as well as contemporary strategies for making science matter in regulative work. It is argued that scientific credibility is crucial for attracting political and public attention, but that credibility does not necessarily have to be based on scientific consensus. The challenge for science is not so much to create consensus but to strengthen its credibility by elaborating new relations with its stakeholders.