Care workers, care drain, and care chains: reflections on care, migration, and citizenship

In this article, we discuss a case study that deals with the care chain phenomenon and focuses on the question of how Poland and the Ukraine as sending countries and Poland as a receiving country are affected and deal with female migrant domestic workers. We look at the ways in which these women organize care replacement for their families left behind and at those families’ care strategies. As public discourse in both countries is reacting to the feminization of migration in a form that specifically questions the social citizenship obligations of these women, we also look at the media portrayal of the situation of nonmigrating children. Finally, we explore how different aspects of citizenship matter in transnational care work migration movements.     

Anarchy in State Government Is Not Democracy

In 2009 the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) released a position statement calling for the implementation of media literacy in social studies education. NCSS argues that if today's students are to become engaged citizens as adults, they must acquire the skills and knowledge associated with media literacy. Using this position statement as foundation, I developed a media literacy framework for use in the social studies classroom that applies prevailing theories on media and cultural studies. For consumers of media to engage in the practice of citizenship they need to acquire the tools needed to negotiate the waters of the many media texts that are produced. For a consumer of media texts to negotiate the meaning and influence of those texts, that consumer must use a framework that applies approaches that are historical, empirical, interpretive, and critical. As we shall see, these approaches are necessary if citizens are to engage effectively in a democracy that is flooded with such texts.     

The Silent Classroom: The Impact of Smartphones and a Social Studies Teacher's Response

The accelerated ownership and usage of smartphones and social media presents multiple issues for educators. There is a relationship between smartphones and (a) academic achievement, (b) engagement, and (c) mental health. The purpose of this literature review is to investigate the impact of smartphones and social media on students and how curriculum can best prepare youth for democratic citizenship. The case studies included in this review span beyond the United States due to the insightful research that has been conducted in various locations across the globe. When reviewing the literature, a few themes emerged. First, students who struggle the most academically are the ones who benefit most from the absence of a smartphone. Second, students of color are spending more time on social media and due to the increased exposure to racial discrimination online, academic motivation is decreasing for many of these students. Third, many researchers encourage schools to develop policies to limit smartphone use in the classroom. Finally, it is evident that the social studies curriculum needs to be expanded to include digital citizenship, media literacy, and the potential negative impact of smartphones and social media on students.     

Reddit and the Social Studies: Exploring the r/Democratic Curriculum

In this article the author seeks to present social studies educators with practical means for using Reddit—an emerging social media website—as a tool for providing students with a democratic education grounded in citizenship and multicultural education. The author focuses on ways in which Reddit offers students the opportunity to learn from experts, explore social studies content that may not be present within a traditional textbook, and voice their opinion in an online community that values equality and democracy among its members.     

Disability,social groups,and political citizenship

The problem raised in this article is whether disabled people can and should be considered as a social group with respect to political representation. The question is first discussed on the basis of theories of social and status groups. Next, the article examines how the topic is reflected empirically at the local political level in Norway, expressed by party political leaders and elected disabled representatives. The authors suggest that disabled people can and should be considered as a social group in relation to political representation. Not doing so, they argue, will in effect delay the process towards full recognition and active political citizenship.     

Expectant Mothers and Absent Fathers: Paid Maternity Leave in Australia

In this article we explore how the reluctance to introduce a national paid maternity leave scheme in Australia reflects gendered norms and constructions of parenthood and work. We report on the findings of a study of selected media texts that show how the public discourse that surrounded proposals to introduce such a scheme exhibited deep‐seated resistance to women who combine motherhood with continued attachment to the paid workforce. Using a multi‐modal approach to discourse analysis, we show how gender and maternity are constructed using cultural and historical discursive resources that reinforce a conservative national identity. By focusing on what is both absent and present in the media texts we show how ‘actual fathers’ are rendered invisible and the space filled by the government as ‘symbolic fathers’ impregnating a production line of maternal citizens.     

Citizenship Amendment Bill 2016: continuities and contestations with special reference to politics in Assam,India

ABSTRACT

This article is an attempt to unpack how the Citizenship Amendment Bill 2016 that proposed citizenship on the basis of religious affiliation trace its past from narrative rooted in partition and idea of religious identity in determination of citizenship status in India. The act proposes, persons belonging to minority community namely Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsi and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who have either entered into India without valid travel documents or the validity of their documents have expired are eligible to apply for Indian citizenship by naturalisation in 7 years instead of existing 12 years. Building on existing scholarship, field experience and media reports this article argues proposed citizenship amendment bill that favours citizenship status for persecuted minorities defined primarily as Hindus leaving Muslims is not an attempt to redefine citizenship but reinforce logic that favours narrative of India for Hindus.     

Visuality, mobility and the cosmopolitan: inhabiting the world from afar

In earlier publications based on the research discussed in this article (e.g. Szerszynski and Urry 2002), we argued that an emergent culture of cosmopolitanism, refracted into different forms amongst different social groups, was being nurtured by a widespread 'banal globalism'--a proliferation of global symbols and narratives made available through the media and popular culture. In the current article we draw on this and other empirical research to explore the relationship between visuality, mobility and cosmopolitanism. First we describe the multiple forms of mobility that expand people's awareness of the wider world and their capacity to compare different places. We then chart the changing role that visuality has played in citizenship throughout history, noting that citizenship also involves a transformation of vision, an absenting from particular contexts and interests. We explore one particular version of that transformation--seeing the world from afar, especially in the form of images of the earth seen from space--noting how such images conventionally connote both power and alienation. We then draw on another research project, on place and vision, to argue that the shift to a cosmopolitan relationship with place means that humans increasingly inhabit their world only at a distance.     

Role with the punches: the construction and representation of Amir Khan as a role model for multiethnic Britain

This article examines the rapid rise to fame of teenage British Asian boxer Amir Khan following his silver medal at the 2004 Olympic Games, and provides a critical discourse analysis of the way that he was subsequently constructed and represented by politicians and the media as a role model for multiethnic Britain. The analysis demonstrates that in the periods directly after both the 2004 Olympic Games and the 7 July 2005 London bombings, the majority of discourses about, and representations of, Khan were inextricably related to contemporary debates around multiculturalism, national identity, and religious extremism and/or deviance amongst young British Muslim men. This article argues that despite the ostensibly positive portrayals of Khan as an individual, a broader, more critical reading of these texts uncovers how they actually reproduce the contradictions and problems inherent to New Labour's policies on citizenship, community cohesion, the ‘war on terror’ and ‘diversity management’. The article concludes that the almost ubiquitous configuration of Khan as a positive role model is in danger of obscuring the continued existence of discourses and practices of racism and social exclusion in contemporary Britain.     

Prom Dreams and Prom Reality: Girls Negotiating “Perfection” at the High School Prom*

Adolescent girls are often assumed to be extremely vulnerable to media influences; however, this study argues that girls actually negotiate meaning from media texts. Content analysis of teen prom magazines is combined with ethnography to explore how magazine texts operate within their readers’ worlds. This article argues against two commonly accepted dictates. First, I propose that popular magazines for adolescent girls are more complicated than previously acknowledged and do not rely on a singular message of perfection derived from beauty and heterosexual romance. And second, how girls engage with the magazines is more complicated than prior research has argued; girls use “strategic selectivity” (a term proposed to explain how girls make meaning of cultural texts) to negotiate the dominant meanings found in prom magazines and other cultural texts.     

Community,Voice, and Inquiry: Teaching Global History for English Language Learners

This in-depth qualitative case study explores how one social studies teacher implemented teaching Global History for Latino/a English Language Learners (ELLs) in an urban newcomer high school. Using a framework for culturally and linguistically relevant citizenship education, this article seeks to highlight how the teacher discussed, designed, enacted, and reflected on their Global History curricula through observing, interviewing, and gathering artifacts in a social studies classroom. Findings reveal that although the teacher faced great pressures and demands of implementing a high stakes, standards-based curriculum, he was able to enact a curriculum that focused on accessing and building upon ELL students' cultural, linguistic, and civic assets and experiences. This article explores the curricular and instructional design implemented by the social studies teacher, and aims to provide readers with an example of and insight into how best to meet the needs of ELLs in the social studies classroom. Various examples of social studies teaching strategies and English language learning techniques are discussed, including: experiential learning, writing and revision, inquiry-based learning, discussion, group work, and social studies concept formation.     

Mobile pensioners: retirement migrants’ perspectives of EU citizenship and free movement

The European institutions picture EU citizens as important actors in the process of transforming EU citizenship into a “tangible reality”. By knowing and practising EU citizenship rights, EU citizens are supposed to give meaning and depth to the otherwise hollow concept of EU citizenship. What EU citizenship means for mobile citizens themselves and how EU citizens practice and evaluate their rights (“lived citizenship”) is generally not a central theme in reports and studies on EU citizenship. In this article the value of EU citizenship will be discussed by applying a qualitative research approach and by focusing on retired EU citizens’ perspectives and practice of, in particular, free movement. This article applies a comparative approach and includes EU citizens who move or return from the Netherlands to Spain or Turkey after retirement. Four groups of EU citizens move between these countries: Dutch nationals who move to Spain, Spanish nationals who return to Spain, Dutch nationals who move to Turkey and Turkish dual-nationals who return to Turkey after retirement. This article shows that migratory background, country of origin, country of retirement and the way in which EU citizenship is acquired determine retirement migrants’ perspectives and practice of EU citizenship.     

Twitter activism and youth in South Africa: the case of #RhodesMustFall

This article uses the South African student-led campaign known as Rhodes Must Fall, commonly referred to simply as #RMF, to explore youth activism and counter-memory via social networking site Twitter. The RMF campaign took place at the University of Cape Town and comprised student-led protests, which campaigned to remove the statue of British colonialist Cecil John Rhodes, as activists argued that it promoted institutionalized racism and promoted a culture of exclusion particularly for black students. Through a qualitative content analysis of tweets and a network analysis using NodeXL, this article argues that despite the digital divide in South Africa, and limited access to the internet by the majority of citizens, Twitter was central to youth participation during the RMF campaign, reflecting the politics and practices of counter-memory but also setting mainstream news agendas and shaping the public debate. The article further argues that the #RMF campaign can be seen a collective project of resistance to normative memory production. The analysis demonstrates how social media discussions should not be viewed as detached from more traditional media platforms, particularly, as in this case, they can set mainstream news agendas. Moreover, the article argues that youth are increasingly using social networking sites to develop a new biography of citizenship which is characterized by more individualized forms of activism. In the present case, Twitter affords youth an opportunity to participate in political discussions, as well as discussions of broader socio-political issues of relevance in contemporary South African society, reflecting a form of subactivism.     

Social media,temporality, and the legitimacy of protest

ABSTRACT

This article examines how the rise of social media affects the temporal relations of protest communication. Following a relational approach, it traces how regimes of temporality are constructed and transformed through the entanglement between media infrastructures, institutions, and practices. These regimes involve particular ‘speeds’ -the rate at which media content is renewed – as well as ‘temporal orientations’ towards present, past, and future. The article questions how specific temporal regimes enable or complicate protestors’ efforts to gain public legitimacy. A large body of research suggests that it is difficult to gain such legitimacy in the mainstream news cycle, in which protest is primarily covered from an ‘episodic’ perspective, ignoring larger protest issues. The present analysis suggests that despite the participatory affordances of social media, it has not become any easier to generate sustained public attention for structural protest issues. Drawing examples from three case studies, it demonstrates that the dominant mode of social media protest communication reproduces and reinforces the episodic focus of the mainstream news. While other temporal perspectives on protest are certainly developed in the alternative and mainstream news, as well as in activist social media communication, these do not fundamentally challenge the prevailing temporal orientation towards the present, towards the event.     

The Relation Between Participatory Social Practices and Social Representations of Citizenship in Young Adulthood

The concept of citizenship is used both as a synonym of social action when referencing to an active form of citizenship as well as to indicate a form of civic obligation (formal citizenship). According to these premises, citizenship can be formalized in a large number of activities that contribute to building it in different ways. The aim of the present work is to explore how the concepts of citizenship and being a citizen are co-built by Italian young adults. Two groups of young adults are considered (engaged vs. not engaged). Eighty-nine young adults participants aged 18–36 completed a self-administered mixed-method questionnaire. A content and thematic analysis was conducted and a composite representation of citizenship emerged. Results of the present work can clarify the concept of citizenship by exploring how it is cognitively and socially represented in young adults and how this representation changes in engaged and not engaged young adults.     

Gender Construction Through Interactions Between the Media and Audience in Japan

This paper traces feminist studies in Japan on mass media texts and the audience's readings since the 1970s in the historical and social context, and reviews them from a perspective of gender identity construction. The four studies referred to examine differences in text readings by audience, and some also explore the audience's livelihood as a background. Methodologically, the studies qualitatively analyse populations consisting of people who have been identified as representative or typical of each audience, based on quantitative surveys. The readings made by audiences are defined by characteristics of Japanese society, historical background including media environment, and living situations. In the 1970s, home–oriented adult women found common values in television dramas and identified their way of living as "woman". The studies conducted after the 1980s, on hero shows for children and on girl–oriented novels, suggest that media experience, with some momentum towards promoting changes of gender roles, still function dominantly in reproducing the existing gender system through construction of gender–specific identities. In the current era, new studies and activities of media literacy have emerged in order to raise audiences' critical awareness of text readings.     

Social Media: Defining,Developing, and Divining

What is a social medium, and how may one moderate, isolate, and influence communicative processes within? Although scholars assume an inherent understanding of social media based on extant technology, there is no commonly accepted definition of what social media are, both functionally and theoretically, within communication studies. Given this lack of understanding, cogent theorizing regarding the uses and effects of social media has been limited. This work first draws on extant definitions of social media and subcategories (e.g., social network sites) from public relations, information technology, and management scholarship, as well as the popular press, to develop a definition of social media precise enough to embody these technologies yet robust enough to remain applicable in 2035. It then broadly explores emerging developments in the features, uses, and users of social media for which future theories will need to account. Finally, it divines and prioritizes challenges that may not yet be apparent to theorizing communication processes with and in mercurial social media. We address how social media may uniquely isolate and test communicative principles to advance our understanding of human–human and human–computer interaction. In all, this article provides a common framework to ground and facilitate future communication scholarship and beyond.     

A situated understanding of digital technologies in social movements. Media ecology and media practice approaches

Abstract

The article tackles two main aspects related to the interaction between social movements and digital technologies. First, it reflects on the need to include and combine different theoretical approaches in social movement studies so as to construct more meaningful understanding of how social movement actors deals with digital technologies and with what outcomes in societies. In particular, the article argues that media ecology and media practice approaches serve well to reach this objective as: they recognize the complex multi-faceted array of media technologies, professions and contents with which social movement actors interact; they historicize the use of media technologies in social movements; and they highlight the agency of social movement actors in relation to media technologies while avoiding a media-centric approach to the subject matter. Second, this article employs a media practice perspective to explore two interrelated trends in contemporary societies that the articles in this special issue deal with: the personalization and individualization of politics, and the role of the grassroots in political mobilizations.     

Associations,active citizenship,and the quality of democracy in Brazil and Mexico

In many Third Wave democracies large classes of people experience diminished forms of citizenship. The systematic exclusion from mandated public goods and services significantly injures the citizenship and life chances of entire social groups. In democratic theory civil associations have a fundamental role to play in reversing this reality. One strand of theory, known as civic engagement, suggests that associations empower their members to engage in public politics, hold state officials to account, claim public services, and thereby improve the quality of democracy. Empirical demonstration of the argument is surprisingly rare, however, and limited to affluent democracies. In this article, we use original survey data for two large cities in Third Wave democracies—São Paulo and Mexico City—to explore this argument in a novel way. We focus on the extent to which participation in associations (or associationalism) increases “active citizenship”—the effort to negotiate directly with state agents access to goods and services legally mandated for public provision, such as healthcare, sanitation, and security—rather than civic engagement, which encompasses any voluntary and public spirited activity. We examine separately associationalism’s impact on the quality of citizenship, a dimension that varies independently from the level of active citizenship, by assessing differences in the types of citizenship practices individuals use to obtain access to vital goods and services. To interpret the findings, and identify possible causal pathways, the paper moves back-and-forth between two major research traditions that are rarely brought into dialogue: civic engagement and comparative historical studies of democratization.     

Young people,social media and connective action: from organisational maintenance to everyday political talk

Social media is pervasive in the lives of young people, and this paper critically analyses how politically engaged young people integrate social media use into their existing organisations and political communications. This qualitative research project studied how young people from a broad range of existing political and civic groups use social media for sharing information, mobilisation and, increasingly, as a means to redefine political action and political spaces. Twelve in-person focus groups were conducted in Australia, the USA and the UK with matched affinity groups based on university campuses. The groups were of four types: party political group, issue-based group, identity-based group and social group. Our focus group findings suggest that this in-depth approach to understanding young people's political engagement reveals important group-based differences emerging in young people's citizenship norms: between the dutiful allegiance to formal politics and a more personalised, self-actualising preference for online, discursive forms of political engagement and organising. The ways in which political information is broadcast, shared and talked about on social media by engaged young people demonstrate the importance of communicative forms of action for the future of political engagement and connective action.