Suburban road-closures and the ruinous landscapes of privilege in Johannesburg

In this article we trace the emergence of road-closures – i.e. the barricading by local residents of public roads ostensibly in response to crime – in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg in the decade after apartheid. We argue that road-closures manifest an attempt at material “fixing” an urban order of privilege, even as privilege and inequality is increasingly “deterritorialised” in the city of the global South. While conventionally theorised as part of a broader global trend towards the privatisation and securitisation of urban space, we demonstrate that road-closures contain qualitatively different expectations of the urban order to e.g. private gated communities. Whereas gated communities are premised on and driven by a political economy of self-exclusion from urban life, road-closures simultaneously resist and prefigure this “deterritorialised” reordering of privilege in the post-apartheid city. Based on archival research in local community newspapers over a 10-year period between and 2004 (the high-water mark of the so-called road-closure “debates”), we trace shifting discourses about road closures and the city: from anxieties about crime and loss of privilege, to fantasies of abandonment, to the assertion (and rupture) of a mythical suburban utopia. Drawing on a literature on ruins as the material effects of a past order manifest in the urban order of the present, we assert that despite anxieties about the loss of privilege, these enclosed neighbourhoods remain spaces of extreme privilege, now implicated into an emergent geography in which old and new spaces of privilege overlap to reinforce spatial inequalities in post-apartheid Johannesburg.     

Comparing Social Work Students’ Perceptions of Risk Using Online Discussion Fora: Lessons Learned from a European Pilot Project

Comparisons of international child welfare systems have identified two basic orientations to practice; a ‘child protection’ orientation and a ‘child welfare’ orientation, which are founded upon fundamentally different values and assumptions regarding the family, the origins of childcare problems, and the proper role of the state in relation to the family. This paper describes a project which sought to compare how undergraduate social work students from three European Universities perceive risk in referrals about the welfare of children and to explore the impact of different cultural, ideological and educational contexts on the way in which risk is constructed by students. Students from Northern Ireland, Germany and Poland examined three vignettes via 10 online discussion fora each of which provided a narrative summary of their discussion. The paper presents some findings from the analysis of the qualitative data emerging from the student discussions and draws out the lessons learned in terms of how the project was designed and implemented using online discussion fora.     

Observational practice in virtual worlds: revisiting and expanding the methodological discussion

Virtual worlds, such as World of Warcraft and Second Life, have seen remarkable mainstream uptake in the last decade. Such environments have grown from hosting niche interest groups to providing sites for leisure, business and education for tens of millions of Internet users. Concurrently, a multi-disciplinary research field exploring the application of such spaces has emerged. This article examines in detail one data collection practice – observation in virtual worlds – that has been applied extensively, but without extensive methodological discussion. By revisiting and extending earlier work on this topic, the article presents four key considerations for those conducting observational research in virtual worlds: defining and delimiting field sites, discerning attention, charting actions and attributing intention. It is concluded that researchers must both ward against flawed assumptions about virtual world observation and consider multi-method strategies to overcome limitations in observational data.     

Network domains in social networking sites: expectations,meanings, and social capital

This paper examines why the use of social networking sites (SNSs) leads to different results in cultivating bridging and bonding social capital for different groups of people. Based on in-depth interviews of 45 university students in Hong Kong, I find that Mainland Chinese students studying in Hong Kong actively use SNSs for seeking practical information about offline matters, and they obtain substantial enacted support from other Mainland students of the same university through SNS use. As a result, they accumulate both bridging and bonding social capital. Local Hong Kong students, however, use SNSs mainly for social information seeking and are only able to accrue limited bridging social capital through SNS use. Drawing on the theory of network domains, I argue that the different offline network structures in which students are located – namely, homogeneous and closed networks versus heterogeneous and open networks – explain this difference. Students with closed offline networks have defined expectations of online ties; they think of their online activities as practical and leading to real changes in their status among peers. Those with open networks have indefinite expectations of their online audience; thus, they interpret online activities differently, thinking of them as recreational, and they are playful in their online behaviour. These different outcomes of online activities consequently lead to diverse results in social capital accrual.     

Lurking Behavior in Online Psychosocial Discussion Forums: Theoretical Perspectives and Implications for Practice

Improving outcomes of telebehavioral psychoeducation requires rethinking program design when delivered wholly or partially for self-directed participation. Discussion forum participation often follows the “90-9-1 Rule” where 90% of participants lurk, rather than contribute content. A theoretical perspective on the behavior can help explain its adaptive functions, as well as the threats that this behavior poses to the lurker. Implications for practice require program redesign that actively links individual skills training and group-based discussion. The proposed linking design can synergize individual and group participation to support the development of mutual aid, as well as greater interaction with psychoeducation content and materials.     

网络小说接受的程式化现象

艺术接受程式化是指受众倾向于按照既有的心理模式或思维定势接受作品,受众的接受动机主要为消遣、娱乐,接受状态比较被动,接受效果主要为表层愉悦。当下网络小说接受的程式化现象主要表现为三个方面,即内容选择类型化、关注热点快速更替和接受视角单一化。网络小说接受的程式化现象是由复杂的社会条件和受众固有的接受心理决定的,有其存在的正当性与合理性,但其对艺术的负面效应也不应忽视。     

网络集群的自组织特征 —— 以“南京梧桐树事件”的微博维权为个案

近年来,伴随着急剧的社会结构转型,我国新的社会身份和社会认同群体也随之产生,在网络中的政治表达和利益维护活动增多,在这些网络讨论的集群内部,参与者会自发形成一定的秩序,推动事件的进行。本研究利用自组织理论作为分析框架,选取"南京梧桐树事件"的微博维权集群为研究对象,重点考察网络集群参与者之间从无序到有序的互动过程、整个系统的演变规律及其与外界的互动机制,由此总结出网络集群中的自组织特征,从而相对准确地把握虚拟社区系统的发展、演化阶段,为更好地理解互联网的社会功能起到借鉴作用,也为政府有关部门做好群体事件的预防工作提供理论和策略上的支持。     

从沃尔玛看传统零售商的电子商务发展转型

作为传统零售商的典型,沃尔玛较早地开展了电子商务的实践探索,在长期的发展中形成了极为宝贵的经验。从介绍沃尔玛的发展概况入手,分析了沃尔玛电子商务的发展背景、主要策略以及借鉴意义,在此基础上讨论了我国传统零售商发展电子商务的策略部署,并重点对传统零售商的电子商务平台的构建与管理做了探讨。加快电子商务的发展已成为传统零售商发展转型的重要选择。     

论网上政府采购安全的法律保障

网上政府采购在我国各地已展开,但其安全性引人瞩目.目前国内法律法规并未对网上政府采购安全予以充分的重视.网上政府采购所涉的安全问题甚为复杂,这源于该采购模式所具有的高技术性、无纸化、瞬时性等特点.完善网上政府采购立法是解决网上政府采购安全保障的必由之路.     

A Grounded Theory of Sexual Minority Women and Transgender Individuals’ Social Justice Activism

Psychosocial benefits of activism include increased empowerment, social connectedness, and resilience. Yet sexual minority women (SMW) and transgender individuals with multiple oppressed statuses and identities are especially prone to oppression-based experiences, even within minority activist communities. This study sought to develop an empirical model to explain the diverse meanings of social justice activism situated in SMW and transgender individuals’ social identities, values, and experiences of oppression and privilege. Using a grounded theory design, 20 SMW and transgender individuals participated in initial, follow-up, and feedback interviews. The most frequent demographic identities were queer or bisexual, White, middle-class women with advanced degrees. The results indicated that social justice activism was intensely relational, replete with multiple benefits, yet rife with experiences of oppression from within and outside of activist communities. The empirically derived model shows the complexity of SMW and transgender individuals’ experiences, meanings, and benefits of social justice activism.