Collective belonging and mass media consumption: unraveling how technological medium and cultural genre shape the national imaginings of Australians

Sociological literature lacks a firm evidentiary base with respect to how mass media usage works to forge patterns of collective attachment among socially diverse individuals within contemporary societies. This paper seeks to engage with this absence by examining the detailed ways in which complexities of media consumptions are linked with divergent popular visions of national belongingness and identity. Focusing in particular on variations in cultural genre and delivery technology, the study aims to help clarify extant disciplinary discussions about if and how media consumption interconnects with the substance of individual national imaginings in an era of cultural globalization. Using data from a large social survey of changing visions of national identity among contemporary Australians, the study shows that established media technologies and the consumption of lowbrow genres harden individual attachment to a traditional imagining of the nation. By contrast use of the Internet and highbrow genres foster a more inclusive vision of nation identity. In terms of sustaining these different national identity configurations, cultural genre is revealed to be of greater consequence than technological medium. Furthermore, and in a more general way, the findings suggest that notwithstanding the complexity of effects, mass media usage stands up alongside a more established concern with individual social structural background as a highly salient factor in shaping contemporary formations of national attachment.     

Baseline biodiversity surveys of the soil macrofauna of London’s green spaces

A serious barrier to our understanding of urban ecosystems is a lack of information on the ecology of soils organisms of green spaces within large cities. This study addresses this gap by providing baseline survey data on the biodiversity of soil macrofauna in urban parks and domestic gardens of London, UK. In April and June 2004, the soil macrofauna were handsorted from soil cores in eleven parks and gardens of various sizes in central London. Five taxa were identified to species (Lumbricidae, Isopoda, Diplopoda, Chilopoda and Formicidae). The biodiversity value of the two main habitats (horticultural borders and mown grass lawns) was assessed and the influence of a range of environmental factors on species density (number of species per unit area) examined. The species densities of the studied soil invertebrates in the urban gardens were comparable with those found in natural ecosystems, although plant borders contained significantly more species than lawns. Borders had higher levels of plant nutrients, higher floristic diversity and lower levels of micronutrients and heavy metals than lawns. Significant predictor variables of species densities in the plant borders were the percentage of leaf litter cover, sampling month and soil pH. Species densities in the lawns were significantly correlated with the distance of the samples from the edge of the lawn.     

Non-governmental organisations in international development: trends and future research priorities

North Atlantic NGOs have significantly increased their role in international development. They have expanded their activities beyond relief to include a more structural approach to third-world poverty and have attracted increasing amounts of government subsidies for their work overseas. They have also begun to engage in education of their home populations about global poverty and have established close ties to an emerging network of third-world NGOs who channel their resources to the grassroots poor abroad. In the post-Cold War era, North Atlantic NGOs enjoy some unique opportunities to expand their work due to the increase of third-world democracy and free-market economies, but they also face some critical challenges ahead — balancing periodic relief efforts with long-term development programmes, resisting pressures by governments to use NGOs for their own purposes, upgrading the quality of development education at home, and finding ways to relate to third-world NGOs as more equal partners. These and other challenges (for example, improving institutional capacities of North Atlantic NGOs to handle increasing demands, and relationship between third-world NGOs and grassroots organisations) need the attention of scholars in the years ahead.An earlier version of this paper was presented to the Quarterly Meeting of the Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid (ACVFA) of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) at the United States Department of State, Washington, DC, 15 September 1992.     

Some thoughts on the validity of estimates of charitable giving

There is but a single source of widely-accepted estimates of charitable giving in the United States, and that isGiving USA, an annual publication of the AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy. This paper examines the validity of those estimates and raises questions that imply a need for further research in this area.Despite the improvements in the quality of the estimates over the years, there remain conceptual, empirical and procedural problems of which all users of the numbers should be aware. The conceptual problems are largely a matter of definition, and it is argued that grants by private foundations should be excluded from the total because foundations themselves are charitable recipients of funds from the rest of society and their inclusion results in double-counting. The empirical problems arise from defects in much of the data from the tax files that are used as sources of information for making the final estimates; some of those defects are spelled out in detail. The procedural problems stem from the lack of comprehensive information about the amounts of charitable giving from individual donors; in making its estimates,Giving USA relies primarily on an econometric equation, some of the variables in which are questionable.     

Counselor and client perceptions of the effect of social and physical contact on the therapeutic process

In 1991 a random sample of former clients of a metropolitan counseling center were surveyed as to their perceptions of the effect on therapy of 21 forms of social or physical contact between client and counselor. This article reports the results of a follow-up study conducted in 1992 in which the professional counseling staff of the same center were surveyed as to their perceptions of the effect on therapy of the same 21 types of contact. The results of both studies are compared, and statistically significant differences in evaluation of the behaviors by the two groups are noted.     

Rural Migration,Rapid Growth,and Fear of Crime*

Abstract Although much research on rural “boomtowns” explores differences between rapid‐growth communities and more stable communities, it is logical to consider that residents within rural boomtowns experience community transitions in different ways. We examine a specific outcome, fear of crime, across three categories of community residents with different migration histories: lifetime residents, migrants who joined the boomtown community during its period of rapid growth, and post‐boom period migrants. This perspective is particularly interesting, given the likelihood that these three different categories of residents have had substantially different community experiences. Making use of survey data from two intermountain West communities that represent resource‐dependent transitions during the 1970s and 1980s (Evanston, Wyoming and Delta, Utah), we find that boom migrants express greater fear of crime than longer‐term residents or post‐boom migrants. The findings suggest that the longer‐term decline in fear of crime in “post‐boom” periods is not equal among residents.