“In the good old days”: Insidious nostalgia and the constitution of old age identity

In this paper older people are studied through qualitative in-depth interviews regarding the constitution of identity. This is based on their participation in specific projects where they take part in schoolwork. The point of departure is that these more or less organised projects provide older people with a physical as well as a social space in which such a constitution can take place. Specific attention is not only directed toward the productive use of nostalgia, but also at the rhetorical use of already established subject positions drawn from the fields of production and reproduction, and from discourses on productive ageing and participation. The intersection of these discourses was not only found to be normative and excluding, but also liberating and a necessity.     

Negative connotations in the use of the term “public relations” in the print media

A taxonomy of the connotative meanings of the term “public relations” was developed using 100 articles chosen from the popular press that yielded 254 uses of the term. Eight categories evolved: public relations used correctly, public relations as a corrupter of the channels of communication, public relations as a corrupter of the democratic process, public relations as sleight of hand, public relations and winners and losers, public relations misused as a synonym, and public relations used as an identifier. Less than 5 percent of the citings were judged to use the term correctly; 37 percent were negative, and only 17 percent were positive.Henderson is an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.     

“Classic ageism” or “brutal economy”? Old age and older people in the Polish media

This article explores media discourse of ageing, taking the example of Poland and relating it to a broader discussion of ageing policy. The discourse in news magazines appears both to reflect and create attitudes towards older people, which in turn has implications for ageing policy. To reveal the nature of these attitudes, we use a method of attitudinal positioning. The study analyzes articles that appeared in the four largest Polish weekly opinion news magazines, in the 2004–2007 period. Various domains in the discourse of ageing are identified, yet only the family and market domains seem to be described in exclusively positive terms: the authors discuss the implications of this for ageing policy.     

Reporting disability in the age of austerity: the changing face of media representation of disability and disabled people in the United Kingdom and the creation of new ‘folk devils’

Following its election in 2010 the UK’s Coalition Government has sought to implement radical restructuring of disability-related benefits justified by reference to the financial crises of 2007/08. In this article we examine how these changes have impacted on coverage of disability in the UK media comparing and contrasting coverage of disability in newspapers in 2010/11 with a similar period in 2004/05. Our analysis suggests that disabled people have become a ‘folk devil’ and that there has been a significant change in the way that disability is reported. Newspaper coverage in 2010/11 was less sympathetic and there was an increase in articles that focused on disability benefit and fraud, and an increase in the use of pejorative language to describe disabled people. An audience reception study suggests that this coverage is having an impact on the way that people think about disabled people.     

Testing the acculturation of the 1.5 generation in the United States: Is there a “critical” age of migration?

Review of Economics of the Household - Existing research shows that on average first-generation immigrants earn less than native-born workers in the United States, especially during their first...     

On the Analyses of ”reader-friendly” Between the Graphs and Diagrams in Two Economics Textbooks

There exist many differences in the process of compiling reader-friendly between the two textbooks, including the method of illustrating graphs and language style. In the former part, the foreign authors tend to illustrate a graph in a dynamic way, while the domestic authors tend to explain it with logical words in a statics way. Meanwhile, in the style of language, the foreign economics textbooks tend to use humorous words, while the language style of domestic textbooks seems stuffier. This paper selects two domestic and foreign economics textbooks to find out the application of the principle of reader-friendly and the functions of the principles in textbook compiling through the analysis of the comparison of graph compiling.     

Toward transnational identity? The reconstruction of Hakka identity in Thailand

The Hakka people (Hakkas) are a global cultural ethnic group. This article explored the experiences of the Hakkas in Thailand. One major ethnic minority in Thailand is the Chinese people (14 percent of the total population) who engage in businesses and commerce throughout the country. Fifty-six percent of the Chinese are Chaozhounese, and 16 percent are Hakkas. This article argued that the Thai-Hakka identity is a transnational construction mobilized by multiple agencies at the local, national, and global levels. This identity is a result of the negotiation from the common motherland (China) in the past, the new modern Hakka discourse and the multicultural policy (Taiwan), and the complex ethnic experiences and interactions in everyday life (Thailand). Compared to the traditional diaspora viewpoint (pluri-locally distributed, with a strong identity to the motherland), the Thai-Hakka identity has gravitated towards a new path of transnational identity (pluri-locally distributed, without a clear centre–periphery relation).     

Male collective identity in the People’s Liberation Army of Nepal

This paper examines how participation in insurgency during conflict impacts notions of collective gender identity among low-level male combatants, using Nepal as a critical case. In addressing the research question, the paper focuses on changes in attitudes toward gender-specific roles and conduct, notions of acceptable behavior within male–female interaction, and perceptions of gender hierarchies. Male low-level combatants are defined in terms of a collective identity and the analysis utilizes the concept of relational comparisons of other identity groups as a tool through which to explore gendered meanings and perceptions of the “masculine self,” “the collective,” and the “gendered other.” Using empirical data from qualitative interviews with former members of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), relational comparisons are applied to three out-groups: (1) state forces, (2) female PLA members, and (3) the rural population. Contrary to other studies on men and insurgency, this research strives to move beyond a focus only on masculinity and violence, and places particular emphasis on how men engage with a more gender-equal ideology within the movement than exists in society. By presenting fresh insights into this area of study, the paper also discusses normally disregarded possibilities for former combatants as agents for change in post-conflict transformative agendas.     

Sex references in the mass media∗

This study investigates the mass media's coverage of sexual topics during the years 1950, 1960, and 1970. An examination is made of the quantity of references to sex, the percentage of liberal references, and the coverage of specific sexual activities. It is ascertained that specific references to extramarital sex and noncoital sex decreased from 1950 to 1970. References both to sex relations leading to pregnancy and to sexual deviance have doubled in the number and percentage of total sexual references in this same period. The possible effects of the activities of special interest groups in altering the mass media's coverage of sexual activities is also taken into consideration.     

Beyond the certainty of security: On dominant and latent conceptions of “security” in modern societies

While other political programs have a relatively short history, the programatic logic of security is rather long-standing. This article argues that security as a product is a conception of modernity which came to its limits. The question arises, which kind of conception could be beyond those limits.     

Corruptus interruptus: the limits of transactional imaginaries in Moi’s Kenya

This article attempts to unsettle treatments of sovereignty that assume an intrinsic relationship between violence and the law even while critiquing the capacity of the law to ground social order through violence. In such discussions, the police become the embodiment of the force of law without content, especially in totalitarian contexts. In contrast, this article explores other conceptions of the police and by extension, sovereignty, at work in Kenya through an examination of police/citizen interactions at a marked political moment – the end of the 24-year rule of Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi in 2002. Through a particular example of the complicated conviviality that pervades state/society relations in many patrimonial political contexts – in this case between a policeman, a bus driver, and the bus diver’s wife – I attempt to reframe normative conceptions about the police and of enforcement in the context of Kenya’s failing patrimonial economy of circulation and capture in the early 2000s.     

Beyond the Certainty of Security: On Dominant and Latent Conceptions of “Security” in Modern Societies

While other political programs have a relatively short history, the programatic logic of “security” is rather long-standing. This article argues that “security as a product” is a conception of modernity which came to its limits. The question arises, which kind of conception could he beyond those limits.     

On the semantics of the motif “three hares chasing each other in a circle” on Jewish monuments in Eastern Europe

“Three hares chasing each other in a circle” is one of the most common and peculiar motifs in the murals of Eastern European wooden synagogues. This motif was not an invention of Jewish craftsmen, but rather was borrowed and adapted by them from European art. In the late eighteenth to early nineteenth century this motif appears in various Ashkenazi ritual objects and on the tombstones of Eastern European Jews in the same region, and even in those places where there were painted synagogues. What is the reason for the appearance of this strange motif on Jewish monuments? On some monuments the motif of the “three hares” paradoxically replaces the “three overlapping fish” which are depicted as the zodiacal sign of the month Nisan. On the tombstones the image hints at the name of the deceased. But its central place in the composition of murals is evidence that this motif has an important universal meaning. This analysis of the motif shows that it became an integral part of an artistic tradition and that its semantics were determined within a well-defined geographical and chronological framework.     

Analysis of the Racial Ambiguity of the Characters in “Recitatif ”

Recitatif was the only published short story by Toni Morrison. It is seemingly about the development of friendship and internal growth of Twyla and Roberta, but it is at core a work closely related to racial issue. The whole story does not show us how African Americans are discriminated, or suffered in a White and male dominated society. Instead, it presents racial issue in a more subtle, psychological and ideological way. Twyla and Roberta's racial identity are never clearly revealed. Even Maggie's racial identity remains ambiguous. Why Tony Morrison chose to blur her characters' racial identity? By analyzing main characters' racial identity based on the signs and clues in the story, I will come to a conclusion that the signs and hints are society's racialized codes and readers' unconscious stereotype toward racial issue.     

Beyond “identity”

Theory and Society -     

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.     

International news coverage and the problems of media globalization. In search of a ‘new global‐local nexus’

A variety of counter trends seem to call the idea of a linear process of media globalization into question. Many of the arguments against it have concentrated on the growth on national media markets throughout the world or on the information gap between developed and developing countries. Amazingly, though, the topic of foreign reporting has not attained a very prominent place in the globalization debate, although numerous content analyses of international news show that foreign reporting in all media systems is usually heavily influenced by particularist views. The content level of the media globalizes much slower than technical and economic aspects of media development make us think. The system of foreign reporting is not an integrated part of the international system of political and societal relations but is still closely connected to the nation‐state. Further international and intercullural conflicts and crises might be reinforced by a growing gap between globalization and particularizalion of international mass communication. A new global‐local nexus’ is needed, based on a new culture of international media criticism and a reform of the system of foreign reporting.