Worktown and Muslims

British Gods ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 144-181
Author(s):  
Steve Bruce

In the 1930s, Bolton was the site of Mass Observation’s first major research project, and subsequent restudies allow us to track in detail the decline of Christianity in the town. It was also the site of the first major Muslim demonstration against Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. The reaction of Boltonians to Islam is discussed as an introduction to wider consideration of the impact of the growth of Islam in Britain. Detailed discussion of media coverage of Muslims and of attitude survey data makes the case that, while some British people dislike Islam, a more powerful trend is growing hostility to any religion that is taken seriously enough to intrude on the public sphere.

2005 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Beyeler ◽  
Hanspeter Kriesi

This article explores the impact of protests against economic globalization in the public sphere. The focus is on two periodical events targeted by transnational protests: the ministerial conferences of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the annual meetings of the World Economic Forum (WEF). Based on a selection of seven quality newspapers published in different parts of the world, we trace media attention, support of the activists, as well as the broader public debate on economic globalization. We find that starting with Seattle, protest events received extensive media coverage. Media support of the street activists, especially in the case of the anti-WEF protests, is however rather low. Nevertheless, despite the low levels of support that street protesters received, many of their issues obtain wide public support.


1999 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominique Wisler ◽  
Marco Giugni

Explanations of protest policing have neglected the "spotlight of the media." Based on data on repression and its media coverage in four Swiss cities from 1965 to 1994, our findings suggest that the mass media do have an impact on levels and forms of repression, along with political opportunity dimensions and levels of disruption. We identify two mechanisms. First, we show that the symbolic battles waged by protest groups and their outcomes affect the level of repression these groups face. More specifically, depending on whether the civil-rights or the law-and-order scenario wins in the public sphere, the police adopt different postures when facing disorders. Second, the police are also shown to be vulnerable to an increase of media attention during a protest campaign. When protest becomes a blind spot in the public sphere, repression increases.


2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 21-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rui Pedro Lourenço

Data portals are being created as part of open government strategies to increase transparency. But although the potential of the internet to increase transparency (as data disclosure) has been widely considered in the literature, there is no reported evidence of any of the released data actually being used by their ultimate recipients (citizens) for public accountability purposes. This descriptive research effort aims to find evidence of the impact of open government portals, asserting whether data is indeed being used and for what purposes. One contract portal was selected and Google Search was used to find portal references on the internet. A qualitative content analysis approach was adopted, whereby references were examined with respect to its main purpose and data usage. Evidence was found of contract data being used, among others, to identify possible situations of corruption, nepotism and misusage of public resources, support argumentation on public policy debates and, in general, to hold public officials accountable in the public sphere through ‘blame and shame' sanctions.


Antichthon ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
pp. 156-172
Author(s):  
James S. McLaren

AbstractDuring the late republic and early principate the Jews who called Rome their home occasionally found themselves in the public gaze. Some of their customs and aspects of their ways of life also attracted occasional comment, often for their apparently strange and foreign manner. At no stage, however, during this period did they feature prominently in the public sphere of life in Rome. The aftermath of the war of 66-70 CE brought about an abrupt change in circumstances for the Jews living in Rome. Apart from the immediate visual celebration of the triumph, there followed a number of substantial monumental and numismatic commemorations of the Roman victory. In this article the purpose and function of those commemorations and the possible consequences for the Jews who lived in Rome are examined. In particular, the impact of the public profiling of the war on Jewish identity and of how the writings of Josephus are to be read in this setting is explored. Rather than regard Josephus as a supporter of the Flavian rulers, writing an account of the war that encouraged fellow Jews to collaborate with Rome, it is argued that he was offering Jews in Rome a counter-narrative to the way the war was being publicly commemorated.


2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (162) ◽  
pp. 225-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frances Nolan

AbstractThis article examines the case of Helen Arthur, a Catholic and Jacobite Irish woman who travelled with her children to France following William III’s victory over James II in the War of the Two Kings (1689–91). It considers Helen’s circumstances and her representation inThe Popish pretenders to the forfeited estates in Ireland, a pamphlet published in London in 1702 as a criticism of the act of resumption. The act, introduced by the English parliament in 1700, voided the majority of William III’s grants to favourites and supporters. Its provisions offered many dispossessed, including the dependants of outlawed males, a chance to reclaim compromised or forfeited property by submitting a claim to a board of trustees in Dublin. Helen Arthur missed the initial deadline for submissions, but secured an extension to submit through a clause in a 1701 supply bill, a development that brought her to the attention of the anonymous author ofThe Popish pretenders. Charting Helen’s efforts to reclaim her jointure, her eldest son’s estate and her younger children’s portions, this article looks at the ways in which dispossessed Irish Catholics and/or Jacobites reacted to legislative developments. More specifically, it shines a light on the possibilities for female agency in a period of significant upheaval, demonstrating opportunities for participation and representation in the public sphere, both in London and in Dublin. It also considers the impact of the politicisation of religion upon understandings of women’s roles and experiences during the Williamite confiscation, and suggests that a synonymising of Catholicism with Jacobitism (and Protestantism with the Williamite cause) has significant repercussions for understandings of women’s activities during the period. It also examines contemporary attitudes to women’s activity, interrogating the casting of Helen as a ‘cat’s paw’ in a bigger political game, invariably played by men.


Author(s):  
Anna D. Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann

This epilogue comments on the changes within the Polish American community and the Polish-language press during the most recent decades, including the impact of the Internet and social media on the practice of letter-writing. It also poses questions about the legacy and memory of Paryski in Toledo, Ohio, and in Polonia scholarship. Paryski's life and career were based on his intelligence, determination, and energy. He believed that Poles in the United States, as in Poland, must benefit from education, and that education was not necessarily the same as formal schooling. Anybody could embark on the path to self-improvement if they read and wrote. Long before the Internet changed the way we communicate, Paryski and other ethnic editors effectively adopted and practiced the concept of debate within the public sphere in the media. Ameryka-Echo's “Corner for Everybody” was an embodiment of this concept and allowed all to express themselves in their own language and to write what was on their minds.


2008 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 76-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Weert Canzler

Policy on transport infrastructure in Germany will come under increasing pressure thanks to considerable changes in basic conditions. Demographic change, shifts in economic and regional structures, continued social individualization, and the chronic budget crisis in the public sphere are forcing a readjustment of government action. At root, the impact of the changes in demographics and economic structures touches on what Germans themselves think their postwar democracy stands for. Highly consensual underlying assumptions about Germany as a model are being shaken. The doctrine that development of infrastructure is tantamount to growth and prosperity no longer holds. The experience in eastern Germany shows that more and better infrastructure does not automatically lead to more growth. Moreover, uniform government regulation is hitting limits. If the differences between boom regions and depopulated zones remain as large as they are, then it makes no sense to have the same regulatory maze apply to both cases. In transportation policy, that shift would mean recasting the legal foundations of public transport.


2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Paul Woolridge ◽  
Leslie Stanley-Stevens

<p>Using data collected over three years and mimicking the methodology of Arnold et al. (2012) in Los Angeles, a study in Texas was conducted in which 66 families opened their homes and allowed video, survey data, and pictorial evidence to be collected. These data are used to determine if McDonaldization has spread from the public sphere into the private sphere by determining if the four factors of McDonaldization: predictability, calculability, efficiency, and control are present, and if so, in what ways they are represented. Ultimately, every single household studied showed instances of all four factors of McDonaldization, thus heavily supporting the hypothesis that McDonaldization has encroached into the private sphere. This phenomenon will be explained by using McDonaldization either as a rational means to pursue individualistic self-actualization as described through Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs or as a means by corporations to extend their own factor of control into the private sphere and thus influence consumers. Finally, the fifth factor of McDonaldization, irrationality emerging from rationality, was examined with examples provided. </p>


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