Public diplomacy meets social media: A study of the U.S. Embassy's blogs and micro-blogs

With the evolution of communication technologies, traditional public diplomacy is transforming. This study examines the practice of the U.S. Embassy's public diplomatic communication via social media, namely Chinese mainstream blogging and micro-blogging, sites using Tencent for a case study. This study analyzes the embassy's blog and micro-blog entries and an interview with the embassy's public diplomacy officer. Based on the content analysis and interview, this study discerns the key features of the U.S. Embassy's public diplomatic communication using social media and further suggests that the common values and interests related to the global public as well as experience-sharing and relationship-building might become the focus of new public diplomacy research.     

Statute Definitions of Elder Abuse

ABSTRACT

Older women victims of violence by a partner or family member are more often categorized as victims of elder abuse, not victims of family violence. Their needs are assessed, if at all, by social and health service agencies, often with little knowledge or understanding of domestic violence, while domestic violence policy initiatives, advocacy, and services focus on younger women and children. A survey of domestic violence services in British Columbia and the Yukon found that women over 60 years of age were a very small fraction, generally less than two percent, of women served, and those 50 to 59 years of age were also substantially under-represented. Only four percent of respondents had special services for older women. Comments from respondents confirm that abused older women face enormous difficulties in trying to establish a safe and secure future. It was also evident that better interaction is needed between those providing support and advocacy for abused women, and those who provide health and social services for older persons. A majority of the shelters provided community education to a wide range of agencies. Most have only partial accessibility to women with mobility handicaps.     

Paying Kin for Care

The idea of giving compensation to family members who care for health-impaired elderly relatives is viewed with ambivalence by policymakers. If pay were given to such caretakers, the relationship between state-level community care programs and families could change. This paper reports on a survey of home care agency administrators in Illinois, a state that contracts with agencies to provide direct services to elderly persons. Agency administrators were asked to react to the potential impact on their agencies of the state allowing or encouraging the hiring of relatives as caretakers. Most administrators tended to view paid family members as different and more difficult to train and supervise than other workers. Possible explanations for this negative view are explored, including the fundamental difference between the goals of family and agency care and the impact of efficiency as an organizing principle of long-term care.     

The racialisation of asylum in provincial England: class,place and whiteness

This article examines the discursive racialisation of asylum-seekers by residents of Portishead, a small English town, a process demonstrating a classed and placed set of expressions of whiteness. I study the racialisation of a diverse group of people from the bottom-up, through an analysis of residents’ letters of objection to the Government’s request for planning permission to turn a building into an asylum processing centre in 2004. Three registers of language are presented: ‘technocratic’, ‘resentful’ and ‘conjectural’. Racialisation is expressed through shared ideas about the type of space in Portishead, and the type of people appropriate for it. The space is constructed as white and middle-class: the asylum-seekers are produced discursively as neither and therefore as not belonging. I suggest that the phenomenon of relatively powerful groups constructing themselves as weak and beleaguered can be conceptualised as a form of ‘defensive engagement’.     

对英国石油公司在伊朗历史经验的多维总结

20世纪初,伊朗虽然拥有丰富的石油资源,但却没有能力开发,是英国政府支持英国石油公司在伊朗从无到有地发展出现代石油工业,英国也一度垄断性地控制了伊朗石油的资源。但逐渐认识到石油重要性的伊朗当局通过实施引入其它强国进行大规模国际博弈的战略,逐步将英国势力排挤出伊朗,最终实现了石油的国有化。针对英国石油公司在伊朗的石油开发中留下的丰富历史经验,从英国(外国投资方)、伊朗(资源拥有国)、国际关系三个不同的维度对其进行了分析总结。     

A changing democracy: contemporary challenges to the British political tradition

A series of authors including ourselves have argued that there is a dominant, if contested, political tradition (the BPT), that is a particular conception of democracy, that underpins to institutions and processes of British politics. However, here we argue that the BPT has never been more contested or vulnerable, focusing upon three contemporary challenges, the Scottish question, the rise of anti-politics and the demands to leave the European Union (EU), culminating in BREXIT, although we recognise there are others. At the same time, we contend that the BPT still plays a key role in how the political elite reacts to these challenges; its first response remains to preserve as much of the BPT as possible in changing circumstances. As such, the key question we address here is whether we are witnessing the beginnings of a fundamental shift in the nature of British political democracy, or whether, as so often before, the BPT and its adherents will adapt to, and accommodate, these challenges.     

《一九八四》的记忆政治

奥威尔的《一九八四》是西方文学中反乌托邦小说的经典之作。小说在三大帝国构成“静态”平衡的国际体系前提下,以主人公温斯顿和大洋邦的统治者英社为基点,塑造了五种历史与记忆的空间。从记忆参与政治建构的角度看,在这些记忆空间中,英社和温斯顿分别以记忆操纵和个体记忆为途径,来构建各自的历史叙事,以达到争夺大洋邦统治合法性的目的。通过两者的鲜明对比,奥威尔深刻揭示了人性与记忆、历史与极权统治的复杂关系。     

英国工业化增长模式的新审视

英国工业化是历史上最重要的经济变革,但其经济增长的特征更多地表现为渐进性。快速的扩张仅出现在棉纺织业等少数主导部门,其他多数工业部门发展缓慢,而且直到工业化结束前农业仍是最重要的生产部门。工业发展所需的资本主要来自于工业自身的积累,而不是殖民掠夺或海外贸易。19世纪20年代以后,工业经济的面貌才逐步显现出来。     

英吉利民族与英帝国

英吉利民族之所以能从众多欧洲民族中脱颖而出,不列颠之所以从一个西欧岛国不间断地向外扩张,最后建成疆土与势力范围遍及全球的庞大帝国,有着某种历史的必然性。除了先进的生产方式和先进的制度文明,英吉利民族本身具有的民族特性,英国社会各个阶层与英帝国发展之间的互动关系,也是十分重要的因素。它包括盎格鲁撒克逊人固有的种族优越感,整个民族对海外冒险和进取精神的崇尚,帝国存在的本身对千百万英国人的生存方式以及帝国观念形成的影响。     

市场与英国社会转型

需求的迅速扩大为生产发展创造了条件。英国不仅拥有巨大的海外市场,而且有不断增长的国内市场。市场培育进而带来了思想观念和社会运作机制的变化。这些成为英国工业化的前提,由此拉开了英国强盛的序幕。