scholarly journals LAUREEN MYRACLE'S INTERNET GIRLS AND CENSORSHIP: DIGITAL COMMUNICATION AS A CHALLENGE TO IDEOLOGICAL CONTROL THROUGH LANGUAGE AND AS A FIELD FOR FACING GENDER ROLES

Author(s):  
Evangelia Moula ◽  
Konstantinos Malafantis

Taking L. Myracle’s Internet Girls novel series as a starting point, this article tries to investigate and hopefully unveil the reasons behind the censorship imposed on the series by the “gatekeepers of canonicity and morality.” The article is a literature review and semi-content analysis. After a brief discussion about the term Young Adult literature and the subversion of the argumentut forws pard as a justification of the banning of the books, we examine the relationship between the epistolary novelistic form and the female voice. Finally, we focus on the most distinctive feature of the novels: the exclusive use of online chatting to advance the narrative. The role of digital communication in Y.A. literature and the youth’s idiomatic language on the net are also discussed. Our main argument is that the root causes triggering the adult censors’ distress and challenging their standards are not the controversial sexuality and attitudes of the characters. Rather, it is their language and writing in internet chatting. Digital communication is imbued with webspeak. It becomes a field of intergenerational tension, a vehicle of undermining pedagogical censorship. This type of communication evades the absolute control of some adults not savvy in webspeak. A number of these individuals -possibly a social group that is over-represented in the teaching and school librarian professions- perceive digital communication as a threat to traditional language codes. Their reaction to the Internet Girls concerns not only the content of the books but –first and foremost– the style and the code these books are written. What is more, the girls’ “digital” conversations allow for free self- expression. Prescribed boundaries of politically correct female attitude are transgressed leading to harsher adult public outcry.

Author(s):  
Rafael A. Gonzalez ◽  
Henk G. Sol

Validation within design science research in Information Systems (DSRIS) is much debated. The relationship of validation to artifact evaluation is still not clear. This chapter aims at elucidating several components of DSRIS in relation to validation. The role of theory and theorizing are an important starting point, because there is no agreement as to what types of theory should be produced. Moreover, if there is a theoretical contribution, then there needs to be clear guidance as to how the designed artifact and its evaluation are related to the theory and its validation. The epistemological underpinnings of DSRIS are also open to different alternatives, including positivism, interpretivism, and pragmatism, which affect the way that the validation strategy is conceived, and later on, accepted or rejected. The type of reasoning guiding a DSRIS endeavor, whether deductive, inductive, or abductive, should also be considered as it determines the fundamental logic behind any research validation. Once those choices are in place, artifact evaluation may be carried out, depending on the type of artifact and the type of technique available. Finally, the theoretical contribution may be validated from a formative (process-oriented) or summative (product-oriented) perspective.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adnan Iqbal

PurposeDespite the strategic importance of the approaches, most of the approaches consider “internal fit” or “external fit”, and do not consider the role of creative climate. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between approaches to strategic human resource management (SHRM) and organisational performance through a creative climate.Design/methodology/approachThis paper has divided into three parts. First, the paper explores the literatures on the constructs. Second, it examines the relationships between constructs dealt with in the literature. Third, the review identifies the gaps in the literature and describes future recommendations of research for this field.FindingsThis study can serve as a starting point for future research on the relationship between SHRM practices, creative climate and organisational performance in terms of financial, human resource and customer retention. Researchers and practitioners need to understand the relationship between the three constructs.Originality/valueThe paper helps managers need to design strategic HRM policies and practices that are aligned with creative climate and organisational performance. Furthermore, it helps scholars/researchers focus their research on the relationship between HRM approaches (universal and contingency approaches), organisational performance and examining the role of creative climate as a mediator to overcome its causal limitations.


2017 ◽  
Vol 73 (2) ◽  
pp. 224-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olof Sundin ◽  
Jutta Haider ◽  
Cecilia Andersson ◽  
Hanna Carlsson ◽  
Sara Kjellberg

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand how meaning is assigned to online searching by viewing it as a mundane, yet often invisible, activity of everyday life and an integrated part of various social practices. Design/methodology/approach Searching is investigated with a sociomaterial approach with a starting point in information searching as entangled across practices and material arrangements and as a mundane part of everyday life. In total, 21 focus groups with 127 participants have been carried out. The study focusses particularly on peoples’ experiences and meaning-making and on how these experiences and the making of meaning could be understood in the light of algorithmic shaping. Findings An often-invisible activity such as searching is made visible with the help of focus group discussions. An understanding of the relationship between searching and everyday life through two interrelated narratives is proposed: a search-ification of everyday life and a mundane-ification of search. Originality/value The study broadens the often narrow focus on searching in order to open up for a research-based discussion in information science on the role of online searching in society and everyday life.


PMLA ◽  
1985 ◽  
Vol 100 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caryl Emerson

Mikhail Bakhtin's work on Dostoevsky is well known. Less familiar, perhaps, is Bakhtin's attitude toward the other great Russian nineteenth-century novelist, Leo Tolstoy. This essay explores that “Tolstoy connection,” both as a means for interrogating Bakhtin's analytic categories and as a focus for evaluating the larger tradition of “Tolstoy versus Dostoevsky.” Bakhtin is not a particularly good reader of Tolstoy. But he does make provocative use of the familiar binary model to pursue his most insistent concerns: monologism versus dialogism, the relationship of authors to their characters, the role of death in literature and life, and the concept of the self. Bakhtin's comments on these two novelists serve as a good starting point for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the Bakhtinian model in general and suggest ways one might recast the dialogue between Tolstoy and Dostoevsky on somewhat different, more productive ground.


2017 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 605-628 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margery Masterson

AbstractThis article takes an unexplored popular debate from the 1860s over the role of dueling in regulating gentlemanly conduct as the starting point to examine the relationship between elite Victorian masculinities and interpersonal violence. In the absence of a meaningful replacement for dueling and other ritualized acts meant to defend personal honor, multiple modes of often conflicting masculinities became available to genteel men in the middle of the nineteenth century. Considering the security fears of the period––European and imperial, real and imagined––the article illustrates how pacific and martial masculine identities coexisted in a shifting and uneasy balance. The professional character of the enlarging gentlemanly classes and the increased importance of men's domestic identities––trends often aligned with hegemonic masculinity––played an ambivalent role in popular attitudes to interpersonal violence. The cultural history of dueling can thus inform a multifaceted approach toward gender, class, and violence in modern Britain.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-146
Author(s):  
Mirjam Premrl Podobnik

The article focuses on the relationship between postmodifiers in the form of noun phrases, relative and content clauses, and the use of articles or pro-adjectives in the nominal heads. The results of a qualitative analysis of Slovene and Italian texts and their translations into Italian and Slovene are presented, the main purpose of which was to identify markers of definiteness in Slovene and to predict the use of articles in Italian, thus showing the possibilities for Slovenes to express themselves appropriately in Italian. Assuming that definiteness is a universal category and therefore recognisable also in languages without articles (Slovene), and considering the author and the translator ideal speakers of Slovene and/or Italian, the Slovene texts served as the starting point of each analysis, while the Italian texts played the role of control. An article use is defined as cataphoric if the content of the postmodifier contributes to the definite interpretation of its head. Subordinate noun phrases can be divided into conceptual and argumentative. In Italian, the former, expressing a non-entity, are marked by a zero article and form a semantic unit with their heads, whereas the latter, expressing an entity, are marked by an article (included the zero one) and do not form a semantic unit with their heads. Related to definiteness is the restrictiveness of the clause, which consists in the article or pro-adjective determining the head including its postmodifier. Such heads can be both definite or indefinite. The analyses have shown instances of relative clauses that are placed between restrictive and non-restrictive ones. Conveying descriptive information, they occur after the heads preceded by an indefinite article. The definiteness of nominal heads preceded by a pro-adjective or without a determiner in Slovene texts is also discussed.


Urban Studies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Hughes

Cities are playing an increasingly important role in addressing climate change, adopting increasingly ambitious policies and plans for addressing its causes and consequences. A substantial body of work has emerged over the last twenty-five years focused on the relationship between cities, urban governance, and climate change response. This review provides a starting point for those interested in climate change and cities, and presents the broad contours of the literature: general overviews, cities in relation to global policy and transnational networks, the forces that shape local policy adoption, the political and institutional dimensions of urban climate governance, and the role of social justice and equity in urban responses to climate change.


2020 ◽  
pp. 442-459
Author(s):  
Juha Herkman ◽  
Janne Matikainen

The article analyses a political scandal that occurred in Finland in 2015, when an MP of the populist right-wing Finns Party, Olli Immonen, published a Facebook update in which he used the same kind of militant–nationalist rhetoric against multiculturalism that Norwegian mass-murderer Anders Behring Breivik had used a couple of years earlier. By analyzing the content published in both social and news media, the role of social media and the relationship between news reporting and social media are explored by analyzing the progress of the scandal. The analysis indicates the prominent role of social media as being a starting point for scandal and for keeping scandal in the public eye, serving as forums for supporters and opponents of the scandalized politician. The relationship between social and news media seems symbiotic in this case because both of them fed and inspired each other during the scandal. However, further research is needed to fully understand the role of social media in scandals linked to north and west European populist right-wing parties, as well as political scandals occurring in different political contexts and media environments.


Author(s):  
Dalvinder Singh

This chapter analyses the issues from the perspective of home country control and host responsibilities, and the role of the ECB as a single supervisor to minimize the potential conflicts between home and host participating Member States. From a cross-border dimension, the use of consolidated supervision is traditionally the starting point to configure the relationship between home and host, and in the EU context it is clearly positioned on home country control. However, it is evident that there is a potential threat with the lack of reciprocity within the consolidated supervisory relationship. This is particularly acute for those supervising group subsidiaries where the criteria for cooperation is not as clear as it is for branches. It is argued that this can potentially lead to conflicting interests between the parent and the subsidiary since risks on either side may not be visible to each other. Supervisory colleges and recovery planning are principal mechanisms to form a consensus for group perspectives and host perspectives. However, the level of administrative discretion that exists within the current mechanisms can lead to home country bias. Since the ECB is in the shoes of the group consolidated supervisor, it will really need to demonstrate that it truly reflects both sides.


Author(s):  
Brian Langille

Creating real capabilities to engage in decent work is a vital social project. Labour law is best conceived of as that part of our law which seeks to remove obstacles to, and to nurture, such capabilities. Labour law’s undertaking is thus part of the larger project of human development—of advancing the cause of substantive human freedom conceived of as the real capacity to lead a life we have reason to value. On this view, the world of labour law is large (it is concerned with all who work) and its mission one which is both important and coheres with our basic values in all aspects of our lives. But labour law has, at present, another account of itself, long successful, but which is narrower and less ambitious. The legal starting point for that view is contract, and labour law’s mission is to control contract power. This is an important but narrower normative vision, which both restricts our understanding of what labour law is and limits its scope of application. Attempts to advance labour law’s self-understanding by appealing to the capability approach have been made, but met with resistance. In this chapter, this encounter is reviewed and assessed by examining the role of the capabilities approach (CA) in constituting labour law as a legal subject. In so doing, this chapter draws attention to another issue—the relationship between the normative narrative underpinning a discipline such as labour law (whatever it may be) and its expression in law.


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