What Do Chinese Fashion Consumers Talk about when They Talk about Fashion?

Author(s):  
Jonathan Foster

This chapter explores the interaction between fashion innovation and a networked information economy. One of the distinctive features of the latter is the prominence of a consumer who is able to play a more active and prominent role in the reception and even design of new products. Against this background the purpose of this study was to explore the role and contributions of Chinese consumers in the diffusion of fashion innovation. A content analysis of the contributions of Chinese consumers to a popular fashion forum called Branded Clothing is presented. The findings suggest a preference for later rather than earlier adoption of fashion goods; with forty-one per cent of respondents acting as a fashion follower, and fifty-nine per cent adopting more active roles in the exchange of fashion information. Tips and advice are the main category of content identified. The reliability and validity of the findings of the study are discussed. In conclusion it is suggested that the social system into which fashion goods are introduced in China may be different from that in a Western context. While innovative communicators exist, there are also opportunities for displays of increased innovativeness and opinion leadership in a Chinese online fashion consumption context.

1980 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-162
Author(s):  
VERNON L. ALLEN
Keyword(s):  

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 769-784 ◽  
Author(s):  
Estella Tincknell

The extensive commercial success of two well-made popular television drama serials screened in the UK at prime time on Sunday evenings during the winter of 2011–12, Downton Abbey (ITV, 2010–) and Call the Midwife (BBC, 2012–), has appeared to consolidate the recent resurgence of the period drama during the 1990s and 2000s, as well as reassembling something like a mass audience for woman-centred realist narratives at a time when the fracturing and disassembling of such audiences seemed axiomatic. While ostensibly different in content, style and focus, the two programmes share a number of distinctive features, including a range of mature female characters who are sufficiently well drawn and socially diverse as to offer a profoundly pleasurable experience for the female viewer seeking representations of aging femininity that go beyond the sexualised body of the ‘successful ager’. Equally importantly, these two programmes present compelling examples of the ‘conjunctural text’, which appears at a moment of intense political polarisation, marking struggles over consent to a contemporary political position by re-presenting the past. Because both programmes foreground older women as crucial figures in their respective communities, but offer very different versions of the social role and ideological positioning that this entails, the underlying politics of such nostalgia becomes apparent. A critical analysis of these two versions of Britain's past thus highlights the ideological investments involved in period drama and the extent to which this ‘cosy’ genre may legitimate or challenge contemporary political claims.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-80
Author(s):  
Sari Hanafi

This study investigates the preachers and their Friday sermons in Lebanon, raising the following questions: What are the profiles of preachers in Lebanon and their academic qualifications? What are the topics evoked in their sermons? In instances where they diagnosis and analyze the political and the social, what kind of arguments are used to persuade their audiences? What kind of contact do they have with the social sciences? It draws on forty-two semi-structured interviews with preachers and content analysis of 210 preachers’ Friday sermons, all conducted between 2012 and 2015 among Sunni and Shia mosques. Drawing from Max Weber’s typology, the analysis of Friday sermons shows that most of the preachers represent both the saint and the traditional, but rarely the scholar. While they are dealing extensively with political and social phenomena, rarely do they have knowledge of social science


Author(s):  
Gulbarshyn Chepurko ◽  
Valerii Pylypenko

The paper examines and compares how the major sociological theories treat axiological issues. Value-driven topics are analysed in view of their relevance to society in times of crisis, when both societal life and the very structure of society undergo dramatic change. Nowadays, social scientists around the world are also witnessing such a change due to the emergence of alternative schools of sociological thought (non-classical, interpretive, postmodern, etc.) and, subsequently, the necessity to revise the paradigms that have been existed in sociology so far. Since the above-mentioned approaches are often used to address value-related issues, building a solid theoretical framework for these studies takes on considerable significance. Furthermore, the paradigm revision has been prompted by technological advances changing all areas of people’s lives, especially social interactions. The global human community, integral in nature, is being formed, and production of human values now matters more than production of things; hence the “expansion” of value-focused perspectives in contemporary sociology. The authors give special attention to collectivities which are higher-order units of the social system. These units are described as well-organised action systems where each individual performs his/her specific role. Just as the role of an individual is distinct from that of the collectivity (because the individual and the collectivity are different as units), so too a distinction is drawn between the value and the norm — because they represent different levels of social relationships. Values are the main connecting element between the society’s cultural system and the social sphere while norms, for the most part, belong to the social system. Values serve primarily to maintain the pattern according to which the society is functioning at a given time; norms are essential to social integration. Apart from being the means of regulating social processes and relationships, norms embody the “principles” that can be applied beyond a particular social system. The authors underline that it is important for Ukrainian sociology to keep abreast of the latest developments in the field of axiology and make good use of those ideas because this is a prerequisite for its successful integration into the global sociological community.


Author(s):  
Achmad Zamroni ◽  
Nurlaili Nurlaili ◽  
Cornelia Mirwantini Witomo

Tantangan pengembangan ekonomi biru di Lombok adalah menurunnya habitat terutama rumput laut, terumbu karang dan bakau, karena tingginya tekanan ekonomi yang menyebabkan orang terlibat dalam eksploitasi sumber daya  perikanan. Tujuan riset adalah mereview penerapan konsep “Ekonomi Biru” pada usaha perikanan budidaya  di Kabupaten Lombok Timur. Data dan informasi dikumpulkan melalui penelusuran dokumen, laporan riset dan publikasi ilmiah terkait topik kajian. Dokumen-dokumen tersebut dianalisis secara konten (content analysis) dan direview dari aspek sosial dan ekonomi yang dijelaskan secara kualitatif. Hasil review menunjukkan bahwa 6 (enam) usaha perikanan dapat memberikan efek berganda yaitu budidaya  lobster, budi daya  rumput laut, pengolahan kepiting, pengolahan limbah kepala ikan, dan tambak garam mempunyai peluang menciptakan efek berganda, artinya keenam usaha tersebut dapat menciptakan alternatif mata pencaharian yang bisa berdampak pada peningkatan ekonomi rumah tangga. Title: Prospects of the Implementation of Blue Economy Concept on An opportunity Fisheries Bussiness in East Lombok DistrictThe challenge of developing a blue economy in Lombok is the decline of habitats, especially seaweed, coral reefs and mangroves, due to the high economic pressure that causes people to be involved in exploitation of fisheries resources. The aim of the research is to review the application of the concept of “Blue Economy” in aquaculture businesses in East Lombok District. Data and information were collected through documents investigation, research reports and scientific publications related to the topic of the study. These documents were analyzed using content analysis and reviewed from the social and economic aspects qualitatively described. The result shows that the review indicates that 6 (six) fisheries businesses can provide multiple effects namely lobster aquaculture, seaweed farming, crab processing, fish head waste treatment, and salt farming have the opportunity to create multiple effects, meaning that the six businesses can create alternative livelihoods that can has an impact on improving the household economy. 


2014 ◽  
pp. 143
Author(s):  
Pamela Labra Godoy ◽  
Rodrigo Fuentealba J.

Resumen: Los procesos de formación de profesores han estado fuertemente influenciados por una lógica aplicacionista y una visión fragmentada y prescriptiva de la naturaleza del conocimiento. Se puede observar una enseñanza basada en la oralidad, en un bajo trabajo práctico y una escasa vinculación con la realidad educativa y los requerimientos del contexto. Se hace necesario que en dichos procesos se reconozca a los futuros profesores como sujetos de conocimiento con quienes se debiese generar una estructura curricular práctica activa y reflexiva.El reconocer la complejidad de los procesos que se llevan a cabo en el contexto educacional, hace necesario transitar desde una lógica instrumental/mecanicista, proceso-producto a una perspectiva epistemológica donde se rescate el dinamismo del ámbito educacional y la complejidad del sistema social en que éste se encuentra inserto. Palabras clave: Formación Inicial Docente - Construcción de Conocimiento Profesional – Prácticas – Reflexión Profesional Abstract Teacher education processes have been heavily  influenced by application logic, as well as, to a fragmented and prescriptive vision of the nature of knowledge, instead of the construction of it. A teaching process based on the predominance of oral discourse, low practical work, and a limited relation with educational reality and context needs, has been  observed. It seems necessary to recognize student - teachers as knowledge subjects with whom there should be an active/reflective curricular activity, and also recognize the complexity of the processes that take place in the educational context. In other words, it is necessary to move from an instrumental, process/ product perspective towards an epistemological perspective able to recognize the dynamism in the educational system and the complexity of the social system in which it is immersed. Key Words: Initial Teacher Formation- Professional Knowledge Construction- Practicum- Professional Reflection


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 132-149
Author(s):  
E. Chelpanova

In her analysis of books by Maya Kucherskaya, Olesya Nikolaeva, and Yulia Voznesenskaya, the author investigates the history of female Christian prose from the 1990s until the present day. According to the author, it was in the 1990s, the period of crisis and transformation of the social system, that female Christian writers were more vocal, than today, on the issues of the new post-Soviet female subjectivity, drawing on folklore imagery and contrasting the folk, pagan philosophy with the Christian one, defined by an established set of rules and limitations for the principal female roles. Thus, the folklore elements in Kucherskaya’s early works are considered as an attempt to represent female subjectivity. However, the author argues that, in their current work, Kucherskaya and other representatives of the so-called female Christian prose tend to choose different, objectivizing methods to represent female characters. This new and conservative approach may have come from a wider social context, including the state-imposed ‘family values’ program.


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