Exceptions to the Rule: Chabad-Lubavitch and the Digital Sphere

This article explores the tension between the inside and the outside in Chabad practice as represented by the digital sphere. Drawing on a close reading of Chabad Web sites, as well as archival and theoretical sources and biblical and rabbinic analysis, Chabad's relationship to media generally and the Internet specifically is explored. I find that Chabad's institutional use of the Internet is as a space to disseminate information rather than create community. The Internet is, for Chabad, a temporary space designed to bring people together in the real world rather than to create a virtual community. The Web site is designed to encourage people to seek out in-person encounters with Chabad Rabbis, whose recruitment techniques rest largely on personal charisma and interactions.     

Masculinity and the Biographical Meanings of Management Theory: Lyndall Urwick and the Making of Scientific Management in Inter‐war Britain

This article explores the biographical shaping of management theory. Using the British management theorist Lyndall Urwick (1891–1983) as a case study, it argues that existing understandings of the history of management studies are limited by their lack of attention to the emotional a priori of theory production. For men such as Frederick Taylor or Urwick, the work of composing management theory for a public audience was intimately connected to events and experiences in the private life. Theorizing addressed emotional dilemmas even while it strove to construct a separation between the personal and the organizational. Management theories are not only historically, socially or discursively constructed, but can be read in terms of the evidence they provide about individual subjectivity. Psychoanalytic concepts can help illuminate such relations. Theorizing can be seen as a form of play: as something which, in D.W. Winnicott's terms, takes place in the space between the psychic reality of the ‘me’ and the external world of the ‘not me’. The ‘classical’ administrative theory represented by Taylor, Fayol and Urwick sought to create organizational structures which could stand apart from, and allow the management of, individual personalities. It simultaneously insisted on the status of theory as the ‘not me’; that is, as a product which was not shaped by personal experience, but which constituted objective knowledge. The illusion of theory as a largely external, social product persists in much management and organization studies today. This article challenges that social determinism, first, by showing how Urwick's theories addressed issues of separation and intimacy, and second, by placing Urwick's work in the context of his relations with women.     

Training research-minded social workers: experience from Estonia*

ABSTRACT

Social work education in its modern sense started to develop after Estonia regained independence from the collapsing Soviet Union. The aim of this article is to introduce good practices of teaching research-mindedness, this being one of the main principles in teaching social workers-to-be in the University of Tartu in Estonia. We have been inspired by the academic tradition of university teaching in general, the new international definition of social work and, not least, the realisation of social workers in practice of not being able to apply academic knowledge to everyday social work practices. This article revisits the term research-mindedness and examines how it has been integrated into the university level teaching process. Our purpose is to discuss the methods students of bachelor’s and master’s programmes can learn to ‘translate’ social issues into research questions, critically appraise the findings and ‘translate’ them back as new research evidence for social work practice.     

Research,policy and funding – academic treadmills and the squeeze on intellectual spaces1

In recent years, there has been a great deal of collective rumination about social scientists' role in society. In the post‐1997 UK context, public policy commitments to ‘evidence‐based policy’ and ‘knowledge transfer’ have further stimulated such reflections. More recently, Michael Burawoy's 2004 address to the American Sociological Association, which called for greater engagement with ‘public sociology’ has reverberated throughout the discipline, motivating a series of debates about the purpose of sociological research. To date, most such contributions have been based on personal experience and anecdotal evidence. In contrast, this paper responds directly to Burawoy's suggestion that we should ‘apply sociology to ourselves,’ in order that we ‘become more conscious of the global forces’ driving our research ( Burawoy 2005 : 285). Drawing on an empirical research project designed to explore of the relationship between health inequalities research and policy in Scotland and England, in the period from 1997 until 2007, this paper discusses data from interviews with academic researchers. The findings suggest that the growing pressure to produce ‘policy relevant’ research is diminishing the capacity of academia to provide a space in which innovative and transformative ideas can be developed, and is instead promoting the construction of institutionalized and vehicular (chameleon‐like) ideas. Such a claim supports Edward Said's (1994 ) insistence that creative, intellectual spaces within the social sciences are increasingly being squeezed. More specifically, the paper argues we ought to pay far greater attention to how the process of seeking research funding shapes academic research and mediates the interplay between research and policy.     

Sources,Characteristics and Effects of Mass Media Communication on Science: A Review of the Literature,Current Trends and Areas for Future Research

A significant amount of science coverage can be found nowadays in the mass media and is the main source of information about science for many. Accordingly, the relation between science and the media has been intensively analyzed within the social scientific community. It is difficult to keep track of this research, however, as a flurry of studies has been published on the issue. This article provides such an overview. First, it lays out the main theoretical models of science communication, that is, the ‘public understanding of science’ and the ‘mediatization’ model. Second, it describes existing empirical research. In this section, it demonstrates how science’s agenda‐building has improved, how science journalists working routines are described, how different scientific disciplines are presented in the mass media and what effects these media representations (might) have on the audience. Third, the article points out future fields of research.     

Demotic or demonic? Race,class and gender in ‘Gypsy’ reality TV

An intriguing shift in the public interest of Roma, Gypsy and Traveller minorities has been the rise of the ‘Gypsy’ reality TV star in shows across Europe (‘Gypsy’ is the word most often used in popular media culture). The latest phenomenon to hit the UK has been the Channel 4 series Big Fat Gypsy Weddings (Firecracker Films, Channel 4, 2010–2013), a flamboyant production that has garnered both huge audience shares and fierce criticism, with commentators berating its narrow, sensationalist focus. Drawing on both specialized literature on Roma minorities and current sociological debates on reality TV formats, this article raises questions about how the politics of the ‘demotic turn’ of such formats (as noted by Turner in 2004) can lean towards the demonic through emphasizing such groups as spectacular, extraordinary and above all, negatively different. Furthermore, this article shows how the series not only reproduces old stereotypes of Gypsies and Travellers as different, ethnicized others but is also heavily embroiled in UK gender and class discourses. Whilst the series claims to be a unique insight into a marginalized community, this close analysis discusses the wider politics within which it is embedded and how such representations can both popularize and undermine marginalized or minority groups.     

Behaviour under the condition of anonymity: a visual analysis

Analysing photographs of abandoned hotel rooms, we forensically classify hotel guests who left their rooms into three ideal types. Goffman’s idea of impression management is central for indicating ideal-type specific behavioural motivations. Under the condition of relative anonymity provided in hotel rooms, the audience for which guests manage impressions is either absent or the guests themselves who construct it. In the case of an audience to be seen as relevant it is either an internalised audience, guiding one’s behaviour, or it is a real audience. We demonstrate that it is possible to classify guests according to forensic analysis of the clues that identify their behaviours as (1) authentic, that is independent from an audience; (2) guided internally by an imagined audience; or (3) influenced by the perception of a real audience. The sociological categories of power and status are used to systematically differentiate behaviours of our three ideal-typical classes of hotel guests.     

Poetry of the Swamp: Blok’s “Folks” Cycle Bubbles of the Earth

Gogol'’s “A Few Words about Pushkin” has traditionally been viewed as evidence that Gogol' idolized Pushkin as a national poet par excellence. This article argues that behind Gogol'’s deference for Russia’s greatest poet lie layers of polemic and subversive iconoclasm. Though he initially proclaims Pushkin Russia’s national poet, Gogol' goes on to use his trademark rhetorical tools to effectively strip the poet of the honour. In doing so, he attempts to influence the reception of his own writings, which at the time predominantly concerned Ukrainian themes, in ways that would encourage his Russian audience to consider him—and not Pushkin—as Russia’s premier national writer. Countering Pushkin’s Russocentric model of national culture, Gogol' champions instead a centrifugal conception of national-imperial identity that places Russia’s imperial periphery at the center of the “Russian” experience.     

Global citizens,exotic others,and unwanted migrants: mobilities in and of Europe

This article reflects on Europe’s problematic relationship with its ‘others’, asking in particular how the idea of the ‘exotic’ – constituting one of Europe’s ‘imperial ruins’ – intersects with the figure of the Muslim migrant. The Muslim migrant has in the present become in Europe a potent marker of otherness, which reflects how some cosmopolitan aspirations are perceived negatively in European discourses, revealing how mobility itself is racilized and gendered. WoDaaBe Fulani migrants from Niger have historically occupied a subject position in Europe as identified with ‘the exotic’. The article discusses WoDaaBe temporary migration to Europe to supplement their income back home, and their intersecting positions as ‘exotic’, as Muslims and black Africans. While contemporary discourses tend to highlight Europe’s status as a site of equality, human rights, and cradle of civilization, some bodies are welcome within the space of Europe while others are not.     

Telling it like it is: news websites and online newspapers

This article examines the content and possible uses of four online news providers: , aimed at the potential clients of a major transnational information corporation; , aimed at ‘alternative globalization’ activists; , intended for transnational businesspeople and , directed at both local newspaper readers and members of the Irish diaspora. It suggests that the form, content and multimedia use of each is determined by its target audience and by the use this audience makes of the potential of the Internet for developing cross‐border networks. Furthermore, it suggests that it is not necessarily the size, extensity and power of this audience that determines the degree of sophistication and global engagement of the website, nor is it the power and wealth of the individual website’s developers.     

Listening to Audiences: A Brief Rationale and History of Audience Research in Popular Media Studies

Popular media may be described as television, film, radio, and print media primarily offered for the purpose of entertainment. Such popular media have been the object of critical analysis for decades, both for academic scholars and popular pundits. Our focus is not on quantitative or experimental research concerning popular media effects, but instead on qualitative scholarship that seeks to interpret and critically engage such media. For the past several decades, scholarship informed only by the critic's analysis of the so-called texts of popular media has been augmented by scholarship that recognizes the need to listen to audience members. The point of this article is to provide a brief rationale and history of such audience research.     

Nationalities,pedagogies and media

ABSTRACT

This article examines the implications of the language of ‘cultural diversity’ and ‘difference’ for syllabi, curricula and educators in academic institutions. The author suggests an intellectual orientation which moves away from the social vocabulary of ‘inclusion’ to that of ‘multivocality’. Such an approach requires an interdisciplinary model whose departure point anticipates the need to teach students the skills of interrogating the relationship between power and knowledge and the political implications of this link.

It is argued that such a perspective would encourage a more careful consideration of bibliography and presentations which take into account the complex diversity in the backgrounds of students — the target audience. This would simultaneously diffuse the tendency to depoliticize and domesticate race relations under the labels of ‘culture’ and ‘multiculturalism’ and require educators to assume that more than a few have family histories which mirror heterogeneity and pluralism. The embodiment of difference, however, may not always be visible. As a pedagogical strategy, thinking explicitly about the assumptions behind who, what and how one teaches will further the epistemological and political objective of educating students to develop informed opinions as well as help to cultivate a heightened sense of personal accountability to their responsibilities in the multiple communities to which they belong.     

The Family in the Light of a New Relational Theory of Primary,Secondary and Generalized Social Capital

The aim of this article is to pinpoint the relevance of family relationships in the studies on ‘social capital’. In order to clarify this perspective, Pierpaolo Donati outlines a new approach called ‘relational approach’. According to it, social capital is a property and a quality of social relationships, not an attribute of individuals or social structures as such. This theory has two major advantages: first, it leads to differentiate those components of social capital which are usually conflated; second, it permits to identify various forms of social capital (primary, secondary-communitarian and civic or generalized). Riccardo Prandini criticizes the sociological prejudices which consider the family mainly as an obstacle for the full deployment of ‘liquid’ and ‘modern’ social relations. The family's social capital is defined as the reciprocal orientations of the family's members which are able to generate trust and therefore cooperative actions. Empirical evidence shows that the family's social capital is strictly connected to the emergence of pro-social attitudes in individuals, particularly in terms of social trust and participation in civil associations.     

Sharecropping,Insecure Land Rights and Land Titling Policies: A Case Study of Lac Alaotra,Madagascar

Sharecropping between poor landlords and rich tenants has hitherto been the subject of very little academic scrutiny. Given that such ‘reverse share tenancy’ contracts are mostly at odds with the canonical risk‐sharing explanation for sharecropping, this article discusses a rationale for them that relies on weak property rights as well as the legal doctrine of adverse possession, and tests it using data from Lac Alaotra, Madagascar, where this type of tenancy accounts for one‐third of land rentals. The empirical findings are discussed in relation to recent land‐reform policies by the Government of Madagascar, the World Bank, IFAD, and the Millennium Challenge Corporation.     

Henry Abelove’s “Freud,Male Homosexuality,and the Americans”

This is the first in a set of papers to revisit Henry Abelove’s “Freud, Male Homosexuality, and the Americans” (1985–1986) 30 years after initial publication. By way of introduction I describe the social and academic context of the early 1980s and Dr. Abelove’s search to find a receptive audience. For those unfamiliar with the work I briefly outline some important arguments made by Dr. Abelove and reflect on the changing social environment—politically, socially, and within psychoanalytic thought—since initial publication. With my colleagues Dr. Cushman and Dr. Layton, we reflect on Dr. Abelove’s scholarship and prescience and pause to give it the belated recognition from psychoanalysis that it has long deserved.     

Radio Studies: The Sound and Vision of an Established Medium in the Digital Age

Radio has been variously described as the ‘forgotten’, ‘invisible’, ‘secondary’, ‘blind’ and even ‘Cinderella’ medium, and it has been relatively under‐theorised in media studies since the subject first appeared in the classroom in the 1930s. Media educators may have been slow to realise its potential, and radio’s survival may have been threatened by the emergence of new media, but this established, rather than old medium has reinvented itself before now and is doing so again in the age of media convergence. Digital migration may be slow because the benefits of new technology over the existing analogue transmission platforms may not be apparent to consumers, but now radio provides given pictures online and on mobile platforms through parallel broadcaster and user‐generated web content. Teaching radio studies can be both enjoyable and cost‐effective, with both academic and vocational outcomes, and radio’s place in media education seems assured by its longevity and durability. This article explores essential synergies between the development of radio as an industry that is now situated in a convergent, digital landscape, the state of the art of academic radio studies, and the practice of radio within media education.     

Gated Communities in the United States: From Case Studies to Systematic Evidence

Scholarly research about gated communities is a recently established field of study, because the significant proliferation of these communities has occurred in the last couple of decades. In this article, I argue that the seminal work of Blakely and Snyder (1997, Fortress America: Gated communities in the United States. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.) gave the first impetus and the initial research directions in gated communities’ study. The subsequent research established it as a true interdisciplinary urban field and produced important knowledge across several different academic disciplines: sociology, political science, anthropology, urban policy and planning, geography, and legal studies. The article discusses this first phase of theoretical and empirical work, based mostly on qualitative and secondary data sources. A new methodological shift is proposed, which should determine the second phase of research based on hypotheses testing and collection of systematic empirical evidence. Such evidence is essential to understand the wider impact of gated communities on larger urban areas and society as a whole.     

Bourdieu,ethics and symbolic power

This article critically discusses Pierre Bourdieu's views on ethics and normative evaluations. Bourdieu acknowledged that people hold ethical stances, yet sought to show that these stances are – unconsciously – conducive to obtaining symbolic power and legitimizing hierarchy. The first part of the article looks at this argument and charts the shifts it went through particularly in the early 1990s. The second part discusses ontological and empirical critiques of the ethics as ideology argument and suggests the latter to be more salient, as Bourdieu proposed his argument as an empirical rather than as an ontological point. The reason why he nevertheless found the ethics as ideology explanation fitting to nearly all the cases he studied, as the third part argues, is not simply that reality ‘obliged’ him to do so, but his circular definition of symbolic capital as qualities that are worthy of esteem. This definition makes his argument of ethics as ideology unfalsifiable and impedes him from distinguishing between cases when legitimate power is the aim of ethics and between those when it is merely their side effect. The article concludes by suggesting ways in which Bourdieu's work can be fruitfully incorporated into the study of ethics once the tautology is resolved.     

Sex and Sexuality in the Shadow of Death: Reflections on the First Two Seasons of Six Feet Under

In this short article, arising out of the context of the author’s participation in an audience research study of spectatorial uses of the moving image, depictions of sex and sexuality in HBO’s Six Feet Under are explored, with particular reference to the way in which the show’s seeming awareness of unconscious processes is deployed in order to make the characters more whole.     

Social Movements Research and the 'Movement of Movements': Studying Resistance to Neoliberal Globalisation

This article explores the state of research on the 'movement of movements' against neoliberal globalisation. Starting from a general consideration of the significance of the movement and the difficulties inherent in studying it, it discusses the literature on the movement from within social movement studies, and argues that the response from social movement researchers falls short of what could be expected in terms of adequacy to the movement and its own knowledge production. It explores some effects of this failure and locates the reasons for it in the unacknowledged relationship between social movements theorising and activist theorising. The article then discusses the possible contributions that can be made by Marxist and other engaged academic writers, as well as the significance of the extensive theoretical literature generated by activists within the movement. It concludes by stating the importance of dialogue between activist and academic theorising and research in attempting to understand the movement.