scholarly journals Media hysteresis

2017 ◽  
pp. 8-23
Author(s):  
Philippe Theophanidis ◽  
Ghislain Thibault
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Technological Changes ◽  
Push Button ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Social ◽  
Contemporary Media ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Theoretical Overview

For media scholars, locating the old in the new helps to debunk the inflation around the “newness” of contemporary media. Several approaches have been put to work in the exploration of these multiple temporalities within media: remediation, media revival, residual media, media archeology. In this article, we explore another temporal concept—hysteresis—as a way to think through the folding of time within and across media. The first part of the article presents a theoretical overview of the concept of hysteresis, from the field of experimental sciences in the late nineteenth century to Marx, Bourdieu, Baudrillard and others in the social sciences. In the second part, we introduce the concept of “media hysteresis” and illustrate it with two examples: the design of the keypad by Bell System’s push-button phones and the QWERTY keyboard. In the third and final part, we weave the concept of media hysteresis through a discussion of some of the major changes in cinema. More specifically, we examine how the aesthetic of the analogue persists in digital media and how media hysteresis can be useful to apprehend the celluloid revival. Our main argument throughout the article is the need for a theory of asynchronous simultaneity to analyse persistence and continuity across technological changes.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Lewens
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Potential Functions ◽  
Human Psychology ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
The Third ◽  
Current State ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
The Social ◽  
Compare And Contrast

Many evolutionary theorists have enthusiastically embraced human nature, but large numbers of evolutionists have also rejected it. It is also important to recognize the nuanced views on human nature that come from the side of the social sciences. This introduction provides an overview of the current state of the human nature debate, from the anti-essentialist consensus to the possibility of a Gray’s Anatomy of human psychology. Three potential functions for the notion of species nature are identified. The first is diagnostic, assigning an organism to the correct species. The second is species-comparative, allowing us to compare and contrast different species. The third function is contrastive, establishing human nature as a foil for human culture. The Introduction concludes with a brief synopsis of each chapter.

scholarly journals Music to My Ears: A Material-semiotic Analysis of Fetal Heart Sounds in Midwifery Prenatal Care

2021 ◽  
pp. 016224392110051
Author(s):  
Annekatrin Skeide
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Prenatal Care ◽  
Fetal Heart ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Analytical Tool ◽  
Semiotic Analysis ◽  
Parental Love ◽  
The Social ◽  
Care Practices ◽  
The Aesthetic

Unlike sonographic examinations, sonic fetal heartbeat monitoring has received relatively little attention from scholars in the social sciences. Using the case of fetal heartbeat monitoring as part of midwifery prenatal care in Germany, this contribution introduces music as an analytical tool for exploring the aesthetic dimensions of obstetrical surveillance practices. Based on ethnographic stories, three orchestrations are compared in which three different instruments help audiences to listen to what becomes fetal heartbeat music and to qualify fetal and pregnant lives in relation to each other. In the Doppler-based orchestration, audible heartbeat music is taken as a sign of a child in need of parental love and care cultivated to listen. The Pinard horn makes esoteric fetal music that can be appreciated by the midwife as a skilled instrumentalist alone and helps to enact a child hidden in the belly. The cardiotocograph brings about soothing music and a reassuring relationship with a child but also durable scripts of juridical beauty. This material-semiotic analysis amplifies how well-being is shaped in midwifery prenatal care practices.

scholarly journals Energy research and social sciences: thinking outside the box

2021 ◽  
Vol 250 ◽  
pp. 07001
Author(s):  
Wadim Strielkowski
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Social Scientist ◽  
Renewable Energy Sources ◽  
Energy Sources ◽  
Energy Research ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Face

This paper aims at explaining the universality and broadness of the research in energy studies. Specifically, it wants to show that the energy research is not a solely engineering or natural sciences field and how it can be done in social sciences. The paper draws some relevant examples including energy research in literature and poetry, history, religion, art, as well in other social sciences and humanities. In general, it becomes apparent that energy research can boast vast depths and angles that are worth exploring for any social scientist. Given the key importance of energy research in the third decade of the 21st century and the worldwide focus on the renewable energy sources, electrification of transport and heating in the face of the threatening global warming and climate change, it seems relevant to focus on researching the perspectives and paradigms for the traditional and renewable energy sources in the 21st century using the toolbox of the social sciences.

Writing History: Problems of Neutrality

2020 ◽  
pp. 87-126
Author(s):  
Donald Bloxham
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Moral Evaluation ◽  
Important Case ◽  
Fourth Section ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Social ◽  
Value Judgements ◽  
Historical Accounts ◽  
Value Neutrality ◽  
Made In

Part 2 Writing History: Problems of Neutrality This Part of the book challenges widespread assumptions that, where it matters, it is possible or desirable for historians to avoid value judgements and the sorts of evocative descriptions that imply or could reasonably be expected to prompt such judgements. The first section distinguishes between History and particular traditions within the social sciences in order to show why the ‘rules’ about moral evaluation can be different in these differing endeavours. The second section establishes the widespread existence of evocations and evaluations in the very labelling and description of many historical phenomena, suggesting not just how peculiar works of History would look in their absence of evocations and appraisals, but that their absence would often distort what is being reported. These arguments are key to the distinction made in the third section about rejecting value neutrality as a governing ideal while insisting on truthfulness as a historian’s primary duty. The fourth section highlights the nature of most historical accounts as composites of a range of perspectives as it considers questions of context, agency, outcome, and experience. The composition gives rise to the overall impression, evaluative or evocative, provided by the work. The fifth section brings together a number of the chapter’s themes as it examines an important case of the historian’s judgement—judgement about the legitimacy of power in past worlds where legitimacy could be as contested as often today.

Building a global scientific community

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-122
Author(s):  
Stefan Bargheer
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
European Research ◽  
Research Perspective ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Social

The three volumes reviewed in this essay assemble over 40 case studies written by more than 50 contributors that trace the development of the social sciences and humanities in Europe (East and West) and a number of countries in Latin America, North Africa, and East Asia. Two of these volumes grew out of the European research project ‘International Cooperation in the Social Sciences and Humanities’ (INTERCO-SSH); the third volume extends the focus of this project to Eastern Europe. A particularly innovative aspect shared by all contributions is the application of a transnational research perspective.

scholarly journals Investigating the Sociocultural Factors That Affect Learning a Second Language (on the Example of English)

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 81
Author(s):  
Hatim H. Tawfiq
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Social Distance ◽  
Second Language Learning ◽  
Sociocultural Factors ◽  
Mean Values ◽  
The Third ◽  
Five Factors ◽  
The Social

The present study investigates the sociocultural factors that affect second language learning. The investigation is built under five factors that are presumed to affect second language learning. The first factor is related to the effects of personality traits that are linked to second language learning, such as: self-efficiency, willingness, extraversion, and introversion, etc. The second factor pertains to motivation and second language learning. The third one is stereotyping and its effects on second language learning. The fourth is about social distance as a sociocultural factor of second language learning. And the fifth factor is about attitude. The study looks for how much effects do the factors mentioned so far have got in second language learning. A questionnaire is constructed to extract perceptions about the hypothesized factors from 62 participants. Responses are analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) to get statistical descriptions about the factors that mostly affect second language learning. The analytic statistics gives the following mean values for each factor: attitude = 20.58, stereotype = 20.00, motivation = 19.84, social distance = 19.74, and personality 18.85. The study concludes with the consensus belief that attitude is a crucial factor of second language learning.

Approaching the Integration of the Social Sciences and Biblical Theology

1980 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Markham Berry
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Biblical Theology ◽  
Physical Sciences ◽  
Data Bases ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Integrative System ◽  
The Social

Professionals who work in the social and physical sciences and who have a serious commitment to the Bible have, in a sense, two data bases. To integrate them is a difficult task. We are pressed to bring them both into focus by the holistic thrust of the Bible as well as by the penchant of our minds to synthesize. To do this effectively we need simple but not simplistic models. Our integration must further be comprehensive, not partial, basic, not peripheral. This article describes a method of doing this kind of integrative work. Initially, four fundamental criteria are presented. In the second section the basic methodology is worked out, and in the third, some primary themes are described and illustrated around which this particular integrative system works.

scholarly journals Futures Narratives, Possible Worlds, Big Stories: Causal Layered Analysis and the Problems of Youth

2009 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 231-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cate Watson
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Levels Of Analysis ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
Causal Layered Analysis ◽  
Four Levels ◽  
Alternative Scenarios ◽  
Causal Variables

Narratives of the future can be seen as a form of colonialisation, structuring fields of discourse, in a process which Johan Galtung (cited in Andersson, 2006) refers to as ‘chronological imperialism’. However, futures narratives can also be used to disrupt these attempts at colonialisation through surfacing problematic assumptions in order to explore alternative scenarios. In this paper I first consider modal narratives and possible worlds and their relevance to the social sciences. I then discuss Sohail Inayatullah's ‘Causal Layered Analysis’ (CLA) - a narrative technique for constructing past and present and imagining the future. CLA draws on a ‘poststructural toolbox’ to examine problematic issues using a process which focuses on four levels of analysis: litany (the official public description of the issue); social science analysis (which attempts to articulate causal variables); discourse analysis or prevailing worldview; and myth/metaphor analysis. The aim is to disrupt current discourses which have become sedimented into practice and so open up space for the construction of alternative scenarios. In the third part I demonstrate how this approach can be used to examine ‘big issues’ taking as my example the current preoccupation with troubled and troublesome youth.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosemary L. Hopcroft
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Ethnic Relations ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Race And Ethnic Relations ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Gender

This chapter provides an overview of The Oxford Handbook of Evolution, Biology, and Society. Chapters in the first part of this book address the history of the use of method and theory from biology in the social sciences; the second part includes chapters on evolutionary approaches to social psychology; the third part includes chapters describing research on the interaction of genes (and other biochemicals such as hormones) and environmental contexts on a variety of outcomes of sociological interest; and the fourth part includes chapters that apply evolutionary theory to areas of traditional concern to sociologists—including the family, fertility, sex and gender, religion, crime, and race and ethnic relations. The last part of the book presents two chapters on cultural evolution.

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