‘This is a stage’: A study of public relations practitioners’ imagined online audiences

Public relations (PR) practitioners are among those cultural intermediaries who privilege symbols, products, and communication rituals in society. Through interviews (n = 26) and analysis of practitioners’ Twitter accounts, this study considers how members of this field identify their personal social networking site audiences and how these behaviors are implicated in the performance of their online identity. Findings indicate practitioners feel pressure to use personal social media in accordance with field-constrained norms and that an “occupational publicness” pressure requires them to be visible online outside of the workplace. The persistent specter of public criticism from audiences and the prioritizing of organizational interests above their own self-expression limits performances of PR practitioners’ authentic selves online.     

The Trouble with Bullying – Deconstructing the Conventional Definition of Bullying for a Child‐centred Investigation into Children's Use of Social Media

This article deconstructs the conventional definition of bullying through analysis of its historical context, and identifies blind spots using lenses of gender, culture and setting. We explore theoretical and methodological problems associated with the conventional definition and its axiomatic use in bullying research, with particular reference to online bullying. We argue that because children may use ‘bullying’ to mean many different practices not captured in the conventional definition, using this definition often obscures the very phenomena researchers are aiming to describe. As a result, adults risk missing these practices in research and for interventions that use these studies as their evidence base.     

RACE,CLASS, GENDER,AND SOCIAL SPACE: Using an Intersectional Approach to Study Immigration Attitudes

This study uses an intersectional approach to predict attitudes toward immigrants by examining the intersections of race, class, gender, and social space. With data from the 2004 General Social Survey and the 2000 Census, generalized hierarchal linear modeling generates significant two‐way and three‐way interactions in predicting attitudes toward immigrants taking jobs, improving the economy, committing crime, and migrating to the United States. Important differences in attitudes between groups and within groups only emerge when particular intersections are considered in the analysis. One implication is that pro‐immigrant organizations may gain greater support by devising political strategies from an intersectional perspective.     

Explaining Attitudes toward Immigrants and Immigration Policy: A Review of the Theoretical Literature

In the research literature on immigration attitudes, there are a number of theories that explain why individuals hold positive or negative opinions of certain immigrant groups and immigration policies. In this review of the literature, the theories are summarized into five categories: personal and social identity, self and group interest, cultural values and beliefs, social interaction, and multilevel theories. The majority of the theories offer explanations that favor one causal direction, focus on social psychology or the social structural environment, and assume that effects are additive rather than interactive. It is argued in this review that scholars would benefit by using multilevel theories, such as group position theory and intersectionality, in order to extend their explanatory reach past the theoretical standards and, in doing so, be able to better examine some understudied but important questions, such as why individuals often hold pro‐ and anti‐immigrant opinions simultaneously. Multilevel theories have the potential to offer a nuanced understanding of immigration attitudes.     

Masstige model and measure for brand management

The purpose of this article is to reconceptualize the term “masstige” (Mass Prestige) marketing, develop a masstige model for brand management, and extend the use of the Masstige Mean Scale (MMS). The study was conducted based on the data from 600 individuals living in the United States, France, and India using a structured questionnaire consisting of different factors/sources of brand equity, such as mass prestige, brand knowledge, and perceived quality. On the basis of the findings, we establish that the greater the brand's Masstige Mean Index (MMI) value (“MMIV”), the higher the potential customers' top-of-mind brand awareness. Low MMIVs imply that firms have a long way to go to build their brands. We argue that MMI may allow firms to measure brand equity in different regions, within a country or in foreign countries, to derive insights into the popularity of their brands. We posit three theoretical propositions and develop two theoretical models (i) a hexagon model and (ii) a three-stage model for masstige marketing to define, reconceptualize, and explain the phenomenon.     

Structural and contextual approaches to ambidexterity: A meta-analysis of organizational and environmental contingencies

This meta-analysis examines the conditions under which structural and contextual approaches help balance exploration and exploitation. Drawing on heterogeneous samples of prior ambidexterity studies, we apply moderated meta-analytic regression methods to 33,492 organizations sampled in 114 primary studies from 1991 to 2017 to test a contingency model. Our findings suggest that structural separation helps firms of all sizes to balance exploration and exploitation, and that structural separation is more conducive for balancing exploration and exploitation in high technology environments. Also, avoiding a structural separation approach benefits service firms. As research on ambidexterity enters the maturity stage we discuss the implications for future theory development, methodology, and for managers interested in developing ambidextrous organizations.     

Word play, ritual insult, and volleyball in Peru

Many gay men in the popular sectors of Lima, Peru participate in vóley callejero, or street volleyball. The ethnographic data presented in this article describes verbal and corporal mechanisms through which gay identity emerges within the particular context of the street volleyball game, ultimately highlighting the contextual nature of identity. The volleyball players are not just hitting a ball back and forth, they are engaging in a meaningful activity that illuminates intersections of language, sexuality, and identity. Through the manipulation of the street into a volleyball court, the volleyball players create a space conducive to the articulation of particular verbal and embodied practices that index gay identity. The challenge to the regulations of "proper" volleyball through the practice of ritual insulting and the cultivation of gay volleyball technique are playful reconfigurations of gendered practices prominent in the sites where fieldwork was carried out.     

“Taking Back Our Country”: Tea Party Membership and Support for Punitive Crime Control Policies

The Tea Party Movement (TPM) emerged shortly after the 2008 election, with members rallying behind the call to “take back our country.” Many observers suggest that the movement represents, in part, a racialized backlash against the election of Barack Obama, the nation's first black president, motivated by perceived threats to the racial hierarchy. Racial threat theory predicts that if the TPM is motivated by and reinforces racial concerns, racialized support for punitive crime policies that disproportionately impact blacks should be higher among Tea Partiers. Drawing on recent national survey data, this study tests this prediction. The results show that TPM membership is positively associated with punitiveness and that this relationship is mediated, in part, by Tea Partiers’ animus toward blacks. We discuss the import of these findings for competing accounts of the TPM, racial threat theory, and the argument that the United States has become a “post‐racial society.”