One-dimensional times: a dialectical response to the Irish Times’ coverage of the global financial crisis

A growing literature claims that critique of neoliberal capitalism after the global financial crisis (GFC) has been ‘captured’ within the logic of capital. Such research argues that ‘capture’ is achieved through a process whereby critique of neoliberalism is transformed into arguments for more neoliberalism. This creates a one-dimensional ‘recovery’ discourse. Drawing on Marcuse’s theory outlining ‘one-dimensional society’ and critical discourse analysis, this study assesses the relevancy of such claims for an Irish medium, the Irish Times, through an examination of GFC-related discourse during 2009–2010. This study finds that economic discourse in the Irish Times is captured when organisational bias allows pro-neoliberal actors from business and government privileged access to discourse production. We engage a call from organisation studies for a dialectical reading of captured discourse. We end with a discussion of the limits of this reflexive approach to capitalism’s contradictions for disrupting its ongoing hegemony.     

How did the financial crisis affect the transnationality of the global financial elite? One step forward and one step back

Over the last few decades, transnational elite formation progressed hand in hand with a deterioration in national business elites. Most studies regard this process as progressive and linear. However, we argue that transnational elite formation is subject to a variety of opposing forces, and the assumed progression is not a given fact. As an intriguing case, we analyse the financial business elite with a focus on the financial crisis of 2008. This international event had substantial ramifications, including a possible external shock to transnational elite formation. To study the consequences of the crisis, we collected the board composition data of the 48 largest transnational financial companies for the period 2006–11. Changes in board composition show opposing effects. For example, transnationality increased during the crisis, but reversals appeared when national governments intervened.     

From ‘Employab-ility’ to ‘Entrepreneurial-ity’ in Spain: youth in the spotlight in times of crisis

This paper discusses the processes of individualisation of work and redefinition of the referential category of worker fostered by youth employability schemes in Spain. Employability measures proposed by the recent Spanish Youth Guarantee Implementation Plan and its antithetical youth representations (as a group ‘without qualities’ – the ‘NEETS’– while at the same time as a referential value and cultural model – ‘the young entrepreneur’-) will be analysed. These paradoxes strengthened by employability policies, and further aggravated in the wake of the current economic crisis, do not give rise to political contradictions due to the depolitisation promoted by employability policies: social problems are converted into individual deficits. These processes of psychologisation of work are further discussed on the basis of a recent study on employment counselling and career guidance to help to enhance the employability of jobless people in three Spanish cities, Seville, Madrid and Valencia. These tools are aimed at fostering employability of unemployed people with a high risk of social exclusion and are emblematic concerning the principle of employability (new governance tools, different intervention logics/principles). Some paradoxes concerning employability policies (entrepreneuriality) in the current labour market crisis will be outlined.     

Visual social media and affectivity: the impact of the image of Alan Kurdi and young people’s response to the refugee crisis in Oslo and Sheffield

This article focuses on the reception of the image of Alan Kurdi by a group of young volunteers in Oslo and Sheffield, and their understanding of the subsequent civic and political engagement. Methodologically, the study draws on a series of in-depth interviews conducted with a group of young volunteers who saw the photograph when it went viral on Twitter and who had followed the media coverage and participated in on- and offline activities related to the case. To analyse the views of the research participants on the Alan Kurdi case, I draw on feminist theoretical perspectives on affectivity, theoretical literature relating to news images and iconic photography, and online social movement theories. The study shows that the iconic image of Alan Kurdi offered a way of transforming complex and unsettled aspects of the refugee crisis into something concrete and understandable, contributing to galvanize affective resonance and immediate public response among the involved subjects. The infrastructure of social media, enabling the rapid global circulation of the image, contributed to shaping social assemblages to which connective emotions and common meanings were ascribed.     

A public health crisis in the university: Impact of crisis response strategies on universities’ transparency and post-crisis relationships during COVID 19 pandemic

During the COVID 19 pandemic, one of the most critical tasks of the university was to effectively communicate with students, faculty, and staff members. This study aims to explore perceived universities’ crisis response messages during the pandemic and examine the effectiveness of each response strategy on public relations outcomes. A survey with 346 university students in the U.S., results showed how defensive and accommodative response strategies differently affected PR outcomes. Accommodative strategies generated higher OPR and greater perceived transparency efforts among students, while several defensive strategies affected students’ negative evaluations on post-crisis OPR and perceived transparency of their universities. Such results revealed valuable insights that make significant contributions to theory and practices in university crisis communication and management, especially when dealing with public health crises that are seen as external locus of control.     

Supervision in the face of no cure— working on the boundary

Abstract

This paper considers how the trauma of child sexual abuse and the roles of victim and abuser affect not only those directly involved in the abuse but also those who work with it, their institutions and the wider network. It suggests that the emotional impact of such work should not be underestimated and that good supervision which considers the emotional impact of this and similar life crisis interventions, is vital for everyone working in this field     

Causes of the financial crisis: Risk misperception,policy mistakes,and banks’ bounded rationality

This article describes important determinants of the current financial crisis. In particular, the text focuses on the bounded rationality of banks which contributes to the credit cycle. The credit cycle is the mechanism that links the present financial crisis with earlier crisis. Shortcomings on the side of monetary policy, rating agencies, and bank regulation are also discussed. We propose measures to strengthen the stabilizing effect of market forces, banks’ risk management, as well as possible changes to regulation and monetary policy.     

Married women’s added worker effect during the 2008 economic crisis—The case of Turkey

This paper analyzes the labor supply response of married women as a result of their husbands’ job losses (‘added worker effect’). The study uses panel data from Turkey to test the presence of an added worker effect during the global economic crisis of 2008. Identification is achieved by an instrumental variable approach. In particular, an exogenous variation in the output of male-dominated sectors induced by the crisis is used as an instrument for the husbands’ unemployment. Results show that the probability of a woman participating in the labor force increases by 15–28% in response to her husband’s unemployment. However, the effect is not contemporaneous; rather, it appears with a lag of one quarter and only operates for two quarters. The effect is mainly driven by financially-constrained (less-educated and young) couples, which suggests the prevalence of an income effect in spousal labor supply decisions.     

From ‘moments of madness’ to ‘the politics of mundanity’ - researching digital media and contentious collective actions in China

Abstract

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have become an essential part of contentious politics and social movements in contemporary China. Although quite a few scholars have explored ICTs, contentious politics, and collective action in China, they largely focus on the event-based analysis of discrete contentious events, failing to capture, reflect, and assess most of the political ferment in and around the routine use of digital media in people’s everyday lives. This study proposes a broader research agenda by shifting the focus from contentious events – ‘moments of madness’ – to ‘the politics of mundanity’: the political dynamics in the mundanity of digitally mediated, routine daily life. The agenda includes, first, the investigation of the dynamics underlying the mundane use of digital media, which not only places the use of ICTs in contentious moments into ‘a big picture’ to understand the political potential of mundane use of ICTs, but also reveals ‘everyday resistance,’ or less publicly conspicuous tactics, as precursors of open, confrontational forms of contentious activity. Second, the agenda proposes the examination of mundane experiences to understand the sudden outburst of contention and digital media as the ‘repertoire of contention.’ Third, the agenda scrutinizes the adoption of mundane expressions of contentious challenges to authoritarian regimes, as they allow for the circumvention of the heavy censorship of collective action mobilization. Mundane expressions have thereby emerged as a prominent part of the mobilization mechanism of contention in China. Addressing ‘the politics of mundanity’ will provide a nuanced understanding of ICTs and contentious collective action in China.     

Ethical injunctions: the University of the Western Cape in the face of the ‘here and now’

This essay poses the question of the ethical in relation to the work of memorialising the University of the Western Cape (UWC) after apartheid. Drawing on Gilles Deleuze’s statement on the ethical in The Logic of Sense and reading its implications through Walter Benjamin’s ‘Theses on the Philosophy of History’ and Jeremy Cronin’s ‘Even the Dead’, I argue that the ethical entails becoming adequate to the fracturing of event, leading to an understanding of the subject effect prior to its stamping by race, gender and identity. The ethical, in this formulation, reckons with the materiality of the past as its weight orders the present. It is this possibility of becoming adequate, of ‘not being unworthy of what happens to us’, which is offered in Ingrid Masondo’s photo-essay on UWC. I read Masondo as offering an encounter with images of the Leibnizian world as they appear at UWC, an encounter that registers alternate trajectories as they are expressed in ‘point of view’. Becoming adequate, here, involves registering the role of UWC (both conscious and unconscious) in the subjectification of persons during and after apartheid. This essay punctuates the rhythm of the memorialisation of UWC, by asking that this weight of the past be reckoned with while articulating alternate trajectories for both the university (and particularly the disciplines of the humanities) and for the understandings of subjectivity that attend to it, a demand that cannot be settled cheaply.     

Are crisis communicators practicing what we preach?: An evaluation of crisis response strategy analyzed in public relations research from 1991 to 2009

Quantitative content analysis is used to evaluate crisis response strategy analyzed in more than 18 years of research published in crisis communication literature in public relations to reveal its effectiveness, nature, and contextual application. Analysis of 51 articles published in 11 different journals using two dominant theories in public relations crisis communication literature, Benoit's Image Restoration Theory and Coombs’ Situational Crisis Communication Theory, indicates a lack of diversity in cases analyzed by scholars, gaps between theory and practice, and pressing directions for future research in crisis communication.     

Understanding publics’ perception and behaviors in crisis communication: Effects of crisis news framing and publics’ acquisition,selection, and transmission of information in crisis situations

This study aims to better understand publics’ perception and communicative behaviors in crisis communication. The extant research has overlooked how framing factors and different publics’ communicative behaviors directly influence crisis outcomes, including reputation and behavioral intentions. An online experiment with 1,113 participants was conducted to fill the gap. The findings demonstrated that preventable crisis news framing was a strong negative predictor for crisis outcomes. Another finding based on Communicative Action in Problem Solving (CAPS) in Situational Theory of Problem Solving (STOPS) revealed that information attending, forwarding, and seeking are positively associated with reputation and behavioral intentions.     

Lifestyle enterprising: the ‘ambiguity work’ of Swedish horse-farmers

This article introduces the concept of ambiguity work as a specific form of work–life balancing performed when making a livelihood based on leisure interests and a personal lifestyle. The study focuses on female self-employed horse-farmers in Sweden involved in service work with and through horses. Through an analysis of narratives and practices of this service work, based on ethnographic interviews and observations, boundary negotiations of various social spheres are discernible: work and life, and the commercial and the personal. The analysis shows that the horse-farmers perform a delicate and ongoing balancing act between family interests, individual leisure and paid work. Drawing on the notion of sociological ambivalence, it is suggested that this balancing act does not strive for demarcations, but rather to stay betwixt and between social spheres. It is argued that lifestyle enterprising is enacted and confirmed through ongoing boundary negotiations, or ambiguity work, that sustain a tension between keeping and blurring social boundaries. It is further argued that ambiguity work in this type of lifestyle enterprising both reinforces and questions ideals and norms concerning small business management and professional versus nonprofessional relationships.     

On the limits of “wired identity” in the age of global media

Spaces of Identity: Global Media, Electronic Landscapes, and Cultural Boundaries. David Morley and Kevin Robins. London: Routledge, 1995.257pp.; $55.00 (cloth) $17.95 (paper).

Virtual Geography: Living with Global Media Events. McKenzie Wark. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994.253 pp.; $29.95 (cloth) $14.95 (paper).     

Too sick to move: distant ‘crisis’ care in transnational families

This paper examines the crisis of acute and chronic illness, death, and dying in transnational families. These are the stages in the family life-course when physical co-presence is required to deliver hands-on care and intimate emotional support for the sick family member. It is a time when distant kin feel they need ‘to be there’, including for their own sense of well-being. This period of ‘crisis’ (in the anthropological sense) makes visible all of the impediments to transnational family caregiving that often remain hidden during those periods when ‘routine’ forms of distant care are adequate. Of particular relevance are the macro-level factors generated by national borders and the policies that define them, including those that govern employment, travel, visa, health, and aged care provisions. It is in these family life phases of crisis that nation-state structures can work to constrain individual agency and rights, making compellingly evident the growing need for transnational structures and policy. At issue are the largely invisible (in a policy sense) but increasingly common micro-level responses of family and individuals that characterize ‘crisis distant care’, which are characterized by the urgent need to visit and to intensify use of ICTs. The paper examines the experiences of migrants living in Australia who are trying to care for acutely unwell family members abroad.     

From concerned citizens to activists: a case study of 2015 South Korean MERS outbreak and the role of dialogic government communication and citizens’ emotions on public activism

ABSTRACT

This study investigated the cognitive-affective-behavioral sequence of public activism by examining the role of citizens’ perception of government dialogic communication during a national pandemic crisis. Through a case study of the 2015 Middle-East respiratory syndrome (MERS) outbreak in South Korea, the results of a survey of 400 South Korean citizens showed that distrust in government and a high level of situational uncertainty were significantly mitigated by citizens’ perceptions of government efforts for dialogic communication during the crisis. Conversely, when the perception of dialogic government communication was low, high distrust in government increased cynicism, anger, and anxiety among citizens; high situational uncertainty led to higher levels of anger and anxiety, but not cynicism. Consequently, the findings showed that anger, anxiety, and cynicism significantly motivated citizens’ intentions to take actions against the government. Direct and positive effects of anger, anxiety, and cynicism on activism participation were not found and were mediated by the citizens’ activism intentions.     

How to turn your friends into enemies: Causes and outcomes of customers’ sense of betrayal in crisis communication

Crises are violations of customers’ expectations for a company. Loyal customers who feel betrayed due to the violations of expectations often become the company’s worst enemies. To extend the line of research of situational crisis communication theory (SCCT), this study explored how attributed responsibility, customer-company relationship (CCR), and their interaction affect betrayal. A company’s defining attributes and customer-company identification (CCI) shape customers’ expectations for a company. This study also examined how a direct threat to a company’s defining attribute in a crisis and CCI affect betrayal. A total of 395 Whole Foods customers participated in an online quasi-experiment.The antecedent concepts from SCCT all affect betrayal, with the attributed responsibility being the strongest predictor. Customers also feel more betrayed when the crisis directly threatens the company’s defining attribute and when they strongly identify with the company. Consequently, sense of betrayal has strong effects on customers’ attitudinal, emotional, and intentional responses.