scholarly journals Bonsai in the time of COVID

Author(s):  
Yazdan Mansourian

The study sought to find out to what extent engagement with serious leisure, in this case, bonsai growing, can help people deal with challenging times, such as a global pandemic. In particular, how bonsai enthusiasts use their hobbies to manage uncertainty and stress during the lockdown and how they have shared their lived experiences on this topic via social media. The researcher employed a user-generated contents analysis approach to address the questions and explored a collection of comments from a sample of the most visited bonsai videos posted during the pandemic. The serious leisure perspective has been used as a theoretical framework to conceptualise the data based on the qualities that differentiate serious leisure from casual leisure. The findings showed that engagement in this hobby helps bonsai enthusiasts to develop social connectedness and cope with their stress caused by the pandemic.

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Girish Prayag ◽  
Martin Joseph Gannon ◽  
Birgit Muskat ◽  
Babak Taheri

Purpose Recognising tourists’ increasing desire for authentic destination-specific experiences, the hospitality industry has responded by increasing provision of innovative culinary activities. This study aims to use the concepts of serious leisure and terroir to examine how knowledge, physical environment and service quality influence co-creation within the culinary tourism context. Design/methodology/approach Following cooking class participation, 575 domestic Iranian tourists were surveyed. These educational classes provide opportunities to learn about local foods alongside peers in an interactive setting. Consistent with the benefits of serious leisure, this consumption context could prove conducive to stimulating co-creation. Findings Prior knowledge strongly influences tourists’ reflective and recreational motives for participation (i.e. the benefits of serious leisure). This shapes how tourists evaluate physical environments and service quality therein; influencing value co-creation and supporting serious leisure as the conceptual lens through which to understand experiential culinary consumption. Research limitations/implications The proposed conceptual model was tested on domestic tourists following class participation. However, in suggesting that visually-stimulating, tactile premises with the olfactory appeal can encourage co-created experiences, the findings are relevant to service touch-point management more generally. Originality/value Recognizing the influential role played by the physical and social aspects of experiential consumption, the serious leisure framework improves an extant understanding of value co-creation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 319
Author(s):  
Muslimin Machmud ◽  
Bambang Irawan ◽  
Kisman Karinda ◽  
Joko Susilo ◽  
. Salahudin

The aim of this study is to explain government officials’ communication and coordination intensity on twitter social media while handling the Covid-19 pandemic in Indonesia. This research uses a qualitative content analysis approach towards the official Indonesian government official’s account. The result showed a developed communication and intensive coordination between President Jokowi and the team, in attempt to properly accelerate the handling process. Furthermore, this activity was also achieved with a number of governors. The presidency aimed to build the commitment of central and local government officials, and jointly support the policy implementation to properly manage Covid-19. These communication and coordination activities positively impacted on the high attention of local governments to accelerate the handling in a number of regions. However, the study limitations include the use of Twitter social media data, characterized by the inability to reveal performance of government officials. Therefore, subsequent research is expected to adopt a triangulation analysis approach to data on twitter social media, online media, official government reports, and information from trends in Indonesian cases.   Received: 7 August 2020 / Accepted: 11 February 2021 / Published: 10 May 2021


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veronica Escobar Olivo

This narrative qualitative study explored the lived experiences of Salvadoran refugees who came to Canada after fleeing the civil war in El Salvador. The research aimed to examine the experience of Salvadoran refugees who arrived between 1980 and 1992. During this period, the Canadian government enacted special measures which allowed for Salvadorans to seek refuge in Canada. The experiences shared by participants explored their experience with the traumas of war, migration and eventual settlement in Toronto. The theoretical framework drew on the coloniality of power and structuration theory. These experiences were considered within a broader context of what it meant to be a Salvadoran refugee in Toronto, both in ongoing connections to their country of origin and their country of settlement over thirty years later. The narratives of the participants provide insights into the complex negotiations into the experiences of refugees forced to flee and reorient themselves in a new society. Key words: Salvadoran, refugees, experiences, civil war, identity, Latinx, Toronto


2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin Careless

Social media as a communicative forum is relatively new, having been around for only ten years. However, this form of digital engagement has revolutionized the way many people interact, network, form relationships, learn, generate and share knowledge. As a noncentralized tool for communication, social media may provide space for critical discourse around issues of social justice, as discussion can be global in scope and is controlled by users themselves. This paper outlines a critical theoretical framework through which to explore the use of social media in adult education to foster such critical and social justice-themed discourse. Drawing upon five critical theorists and their work, this framework sets the stage for a future research project – one that is significant for this increasingly digital world in which we live.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richmond Takyi Hinneh ◽  
Alex Barimah Owusu

Abstract BackgroundIn an era of the global pandemic and social media dominance, trying to control the narrative on COVID-19 has been a challenging task for most governments particularly with news about the disease on various social media platforms. There have even been instances where people have sent false information about the number of confirmed cases, precautionary measures, drugs that boost the immune system which can threaten the lives of some users who are accessing this false information and misconceptions.Method This study analyzed spatial differences in Twitter misinformation on COVID-19 across 16 regions of Ghana by scraping 1,167 tweets from Twitter using API access. A total of 514 tweets were analyzed. The data were categorized into three namely; accurate information, misinformation, and other information. ResultsThe study results show that 72% of the tweets were accurate, 14% were misinformation and 14% represented other information. Among the regions, Greater Accra had the highest number of accurate information (45 tweets), and the Upper West Region recording the highest number of misinformation (12 tweets).ConclusionSpatial monitoring and management of information dissemination are useful for target setting and achievement of direct results in terms of diffusing misinformation and propagating accurate information. We, therefore, recommend official usage of Twitter for COVID-19 information dissemination as this usage will help offset possible misinformation from unformed individuals.


Author(s):  
Tracii Ryan ◽  
Kelly A. Allen ◽  
DeLeon L. Gray ◽  
Dennis M. McInerney

The use of social media is rapidly increasing, and one of the major discussions of the 21st century revolves around how the use of these applications will impact on the social relationships of users. To contribute to this discussion, we present a brief narrative review highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of social media use on three key aspects of social connectedness: social capital, sense of community, and loneliness. The results indicate that using social media can increase social capital, lead to the formation of friendships and communities, and reduce loneliness. However, some social media site users may experience weakening friendships, online ostracism, and heightened loneliness. Therefore, we argue that the use of social media has contradictory effects on social connectedness. Moreover, the direction of these outcomes is contingent upon who is using the site and how they are using it. Based on these arguments, possible directions for future research are discussed. It is recommended that discourse be continued relating to the association between online social behaviour and connectedness, as this will enable researchers to establish whether the positive outcomes of social media use outweigh the negative.


2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Ceron ◽  
Luigi Curini

The article explores the relationship between the incentives of parties to campaign on valence issues and the ideological proximity between one party and its competitors. Building from the existing literature, we provide a novel theoretical model that investigates this relationship in a two-dimensional multiparty system. Our theoretical argument is then tested focusing on the 2014 European electoral campaign in the five largest European countries, through an analysis of the messages posted by parties in their official Twitter accounts. Our results highlight an inverse relationship between a party’s distance from its neighbors and its likelihood to emphasize valence issues. However, as suggested in our theoretical framework, this effect is statistically significant only with respect to valence positive campaigning. Our findings have implications for the literature on valence competition, electoral campaigns, and social media.


2022 ◽  
pp. 1329878X2110688
Author(s):  
Catherine Hartung ◽  
Natalie Ann Hendry ◽  
Kath Albury ◽  
Sasha Johnston ◽  
Rosie Welch

During a tumultuous period marked by a global pandemic, forced lockdowns, and educational institutions going ‘digital by default’, TikTok has emerged as a key platform for teachers to connect and share their experiences. These digital practices have been widely celebrated for providing teachers with an outlet during a challenging time, though little is known about the particulars of TikTok's appeal among teachers and their followers. This article focuses on a teacher from South Australia, ‘Mr Luke’, whose upbeat TikTok videos capturing ‘#teacherlife’ have seen him grow a significant following. Drawing on interviews with Mr Luke and an Australian pre-service teacher who follows him, we consider their thoughts on TikTok and its relationship to professional practice. We identify key factors that have enabled TikTok's popularity among educators, with implications for both teacher education and social media scholarship.


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