“Intellectuals” and “Jocks” in the Soccer Commentators’ Booth in Israel

1999 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 326-347
Author(s):  
Natan Uriely ◽  
Abraham Mehrez ◽  
Michael Bar-Eli ◽  
Assaf Mena

The current study examines two recent developments in the production of soccer coverage in the Israeli media: (a) the introduction of “intellectuals” and soccer “jocks” to the soccer commentators’ booth, and (b) the debate about soccer commentary that has followed this trend. These developments are delineated from the perspective of the commentators themselves through in-depth interviews and a systematic survey of their statements in the media. The interpretations offered of the commentators’ accounts are multidimensional and draw on theories of postmodernity, social relations of power, and professional systems. While the engagement of these paraprofessional journalists in soccer commentating is seen to exemplify postmodern processes of de-differentiation, the debate about soccer commentary is also seen to reflect on the commentators’ class and professional background.

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 279
Author(s):  
Fang Zhao ◽  
Ning Zhu ◽  
Juha Hämäläinen

This study investigated the resilience of the Chinese child protection system in responding to the special needs of children in difficulty under the specific circumstances caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. This study applied qualitative document analysis of child protection administrative documents, in-depth interviews with 13 child protection professionals, and an in-depth case study of 14 children living in difficulty, complemented by relevant information available in the media. The results indicate that there are good policies in China’s child protection services but the organizational and functional fragmentation complicates implementation, suggesting a need for the development of bottom-up practices. The essential conclusion supported by these results is that the child protection system should be regarded and developed as a systematic project combining the legal, policymaking, and professional systems of child welfare services as well as governmental and non-governmental forces. As the COVID-19 pandemic has raised awareness of the need to develop the field of child protection holistically as an integrated system in terms of social sustainability in China, an international literature-based comparison indicates that the pandemic has also raised similar political awareness in other countries.


2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  

Sara De Vuyst Hacking gender in journalism. A multi-method study on gender issues in the rapidly changing and digitalised field of news production This article explores gender issues in a rapidly changing journalistic work environment. There are several traditional gender divides in the current journalistic landscape. First, women are still underrepresented in newsrooms. Second, journalism is horizontally and vertically segregated based on gender. The purpose of this article is to test the extent to which these traditional gender divides are present in Belgian (Flemish) journalism and whether recent developments in the media sector have had an impact on traditional barriers for women in journalism or whether they have created new gender divides. The article addresses three central research questions: (1) To what extent is Belgian journalism characterised by traditional gender divides? (2) To what extent have traditional gender divides evolved in a changing journalistic work environment in the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium? (3) To what extent has digitalisation contributed to new gender divides in journalism? Four studies based on surveys and in-depth interviews contribute to answering different aspects of the central research questions. Keywords: news production, gender segregation, digitalization, working conditions, multi-method


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 205630512110213
Author(s):  
Brooke Erin Duffy ◽  
Annika Pinch ◽  
Shruti Sannon ◽  
Megan Sawey

While metrics have long played an important, albeit fraught, role in the media and cultural industries, quantified indices of online visibility—likes, favorites, subscribers, and shares—have been indelibly cast as routes to professional success and status in the digital creative economy. Against this backdrop, this study sought to examine how creative laborers’ pursuit of social media visibility impacts their processes and products. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with 30 aspiring and professional content creators on a range of social media platforms—Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, and Twitter—we contend that their experiences are not only shaped by the promise of visibility, but also by its precarity. As such, we present a framework for assessing the volatile nature of visibility in platformized creative labor, which includes unpredictability across three levels: (1) markets, (2) industries, and (3) platform features and algorithms. After mapping out this ecological model of the nested precarities of visibility, we conclude by addressing both continuities with—and departures from—the earlier modes of instability that characterized cultural production, with a focus on the guiding logic of platform capitalism.


2020 ◽  
pp. 216747952094273
Author(s):  
Doralice Lange de Souza ◽  
Ian Brittain

There are claims that the Paralympic Games (PG) might contribute to a better world for people with disabilities (PWD). However, there are also claims that the PG might in fact be counterproductive to the PWD’s rights movement because they might promote the medical model of disability and/or ableism. In this context, we developed a qualitative exploratory study to investigate the legacies of the Rio 2016 PG from the perspective of disability rights activists and people involved in Paralympic sport managerial positions. In this article, we discuss one of the main perceived legacies that the PG fostered PWD’s visibility and a change in society’s perception of PWD. We conducted 24 open in-depth interviews and found that, for our participants, the PG worked as a showcase for PWD who were rarely seen in the media and in public spaces before the Games. This visibility helped to challenge negative stereotypes and stigmas associated with PWD, as well as possibly opening new doors for them. Our interviewees believe that we shouldn’t expect that the PG alone can change people’s perceptions and PWD’s status overnight. They are part of a larger and complex set of actions that are slowly contributing to this process.


Author(s):  
Marcela Campos-Rueda ◽  
Susana Herrera-Damas

This paper examines databases of female experts as tools to promote gender parity in the sources consulted and cited by journalists. To do this, we conducted a search of databases available online (n = 88) and carried out in-depth interviews with people in charge of these databases (n = 4) as well as a survey among female scientific researchers included in the database of the Association of Women Researchers and Technologists of Spain (AMIT) (n = 919). The main results reflect the great potential of these tools but indicate that, to be effective, they require fluid communication with the media and a design that allows their incorporation into the regular routines of journalists. In Spain, their impact is still low and, as in the rest of the world, there is great fragmentation of resources accompanied by very weak interaction among the different initiatives. Resumen Se presenta un análisis de las bases de datos de mujeres expertas como herramientas para fomentar la paridad de género en las fuentes que consultan y citan los periodistas. Para informar nuestro trabajo, hemos llevado a cabo una búsqueda de las bases de datos disponibles online (n=88). En un segundo momento, la completamos con la realización de entrevistas en profundidad con las directivas al frente de estas bases (n=4) y con la realización de una encuesta a expertas científicas que participan de la base de datos de la Asociación de Mujeres Investigadoras y Tecnólogas de España (AMIT) (n=919). Los principales resultados reflejan el alto potencial de estas herramientas e indican que, para que resulten eficaces a la hora de sumar diversidad en la selección de fuentes expertas, requieren una comunicación fluida con los medios y un diseño que permita incorporarlas a las rutinas habituales de los periodistas. En España su impacto aún es bajo y, al igual que ocurre a nivel global, se aprecia una alta fragmentación de los recursos junto a un nivel casi nulo de interacción entre las distintas iniciativas.


2014 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Schneider

This article draws on data gathered in focus groups to analyze how people talk about homelessness and compares the findings to how homelessness is represented in the media, specifically newspapers. It examines how ideas about homelessness that circulate in society are taken up, used, and reproduced by people in social interaction. People “care” about homelessness and use emotion discourse in the focus group context to construct a moral identity and to manage interactional dilemmas. They express sympathy for homeless people, deflect responsibility for any negative feelings they may have, and shift responsibility for doing something about homelessness. In using emotion discourse, they reproduce conceptions of homelessness that circulate widely in the media and in society generally; this, in turn, reproduces existing social relations of inequality and exclusion.Cet article a recours à des données provenant de groupes de discussion afin d’analyser comment les gens parlent d’itinérance entre eux, puis il compare les résultats de cette analyse à la représentation de l’itinérance dans les médias contemporains, particulièrement les journaux. Il examine comment les gens dans leurs interactions adoptent, utilisent et reproduisent des idées sur l’itinérance qui circulent déjà dans la société. Les gens se « soucient » de l’itinérance et ont recours à un discours émotif dans leurs groupes de discussion pour se construire une identité morale et gérer les dilemmes interactionnels. Ils expriment de la sympathie pour les sans-abris, tout en déclinant toute responsabilité pour les sentiments négatifs que ces derniers peuvent éprouver et rejetant sur autrui le devoir d’agir sur l’itinérance. En utilisant un discours émotif, ils reproduisent des conceptions sur l’itinérance qui circulent abondamment dans les médias et dans la société en général. Leurs pratiques reproduisent ainsi des rapports d’inégalité et d’exclusion.


2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (7) ◽  
pp. 720-738
Author(s):  
Balázs Boross ◽  
Stijn Reijnders

Interventional television formats centering around the ritual transformation of “ordinary people” are not only followed by sizable audiences worldwide but also attract large numbers of aspiring candidates. Although the benefits and consequences of participating in such shows have long been debated within academia and beyond, research into actual experiences of participating in such television productions remains scarce. Based on in-depth interviews with participants of the disability dating show The Undateables, this article focuses on how contributors deal with their position in the production and how their experiences reflect the emancipatory claims of the program. By presenting the production process through the story and from the perspective of three participants, different modes of participation will be discussed, revealing how instances of submission, appropriation, and contestation of the production logic are linked to ideals of representation, notions about empowerment and voice, and to strategies of negotiating normalcy and difference.


2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 433-455
Author(s):  
Olivier Alexandre

This article charts the development of the sociology of culture in France. First, it examines the hypothesis of a French model, putting into perspective the correlation between cultural policies and dedicated sociological inquiries at the end of the 1950s. ‘Culture’ is one of the oldest fields of research in France, and current research still derives from the same anthropological matrix. Yet French sociologists present themselves as part of a divided and competitive academic domain. This article, based on an encompassing review of the literature as well as on in-depth interviews, accordingly distinguishes eight different ‘schools’ – organized around pre-eminent academics, concept producers and resource providers – as well as circles of collaboration. Whilst these circles organize their theoretical activity around emblems (with the word ‘culture’ referring to different conceptual sets) the social relations in their midst are organized around dyads, which usually transition from positive collaboration to rivalry. The article highlights the importance of these divisions as a fractal process and as boundary work for scientific production. From this perspective, the sociology of culture in France could be described as a large and extensive system of concepts and collaborations developed within small groups, within and between which, as with all ‘cultural’ matters, symbolic activity is the key basis for social status.


Water Policy ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (S1) ◽  
pp. 106-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magdy A. Hefny

Recent developments in international markets point to a dramatic food crisis all over the world. The media today is repeatedly dominated by staggering reports on the global food crisis, soaring crop prices and demands for bio-fuels, raising fears of political instability. Since 2002, media reports have mostly highlighted the dramatic situation of food insecurity. The Arab region is most seriously affected by the global food crisis. It is clear that the root causes of ‘the Arab springs’ and revolutions underway in various Arab countries are not only a desire for transformation to a more democratic political system but also desire for the realization of social justice among citizens, the eradication of poverty and hunger, and a narrowing of the gap between rich and poor. This paper addresses the need for a change in individual and societal behavioral patterns. It addresses the need for communities to assist governments in preventing and managing water-related food crises. It brings together world waters in its complexities, with new dimensions of institutional context and cultural norms. The effectiveness of ongoing traditional approaches may be limited without additional measures and tools to help governments understand how to engage in cooperative behavioral change.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document