scholarly journals Animal Welfare and Pig Factory Farming in Ontario, Canada (1950s – Present)

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 482
Author(s):  
Miguel Mundstock Xavier de Carvalho
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Animal Welfare ◽  
Animal Production ◽  
Animal Behaviour ◽  
Factory Farming ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Factory Farms ◽  
The 1950S

This article explores the inception and development of pig factory farming in Ontario, Canada, since the 1950s to date, focusing on animal welfare dimensions. The study showed that although the term “animal welfare” was not well-known until the 1980s, discussions on cruelty and abnormal animal behaviour begun in the early days of factory farms. The article also delves into tensions between the humane movement and the agribusiness sector in Ontario. The article further sheds light on the social context that eventually led to an alliance in support of a conservative, incomplete notion of animal welfare between these former opponents. The article posits that as opposed to supporting the abolition of factory farming, the concept of animal welfare became central to implementing limited reforms in factory farming to convince the public and to marginalize discordant voices while concurrently expanding pig and other animal production worldwide.

An analysis of media discourse on genetically modified rice in China

2020 ◽  
pp. 175048132098209
Author(s):  
Quan Zheng ◽  
Zengyi Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Media Discourse ◽  
Dominant Position ◽  
The Public ◽  
News Reports ◽  
Gm Rice ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Media ◽  
Specific Meaning

Current problems and controversies involving GM issues are not limited to scientific fields but spill over into the social context. When disagreements enter society via media outlets, social factors such as interests, resources, and values can contribute to complicating discourse about a controversial subject. Using the framework for the analysis of media discourse proposed by Carvalho, this paper examines news reports on Chinese GM rice from the dimensions of both text and context, covering the period of 2001–2015. This study shows that media may not only construct basic concepts, theme, and discursive strategies but also generate an ideological stance. This ideology constituted an influential dimension of the GM rice controversy. By following ideology consistent with the dominant position of the Chinese government, the media selectively constructed and endowed GM rice with a specific meaning in the Chinese social context, making possible the reproduction and communication of GM rice knowledge and risks to the public.

Internal Orientalization or Deorientalization? Disciplinary Conflicts and National Imaginations in China, 1912–1949

Modern China ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 339-371
Author(s):  
Liping Wang
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Ethnic Differences ◽  
Social Cohesion ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Fundamental Question ◽  
The Public ◽  
Sociological Approach ◽  
The Social ◽  
Imperial China

Early twentieth-century China, as with other post-imperial states, faced the challenge of creating a nation encompassing different social groups and cultures. How to identify ethnic groups living in the borderlands and generate nationwide social cohesion became a fundamental question that concerned multiple intellectual communities. This article traces the formation of two approaches to ethnicity—ethnology and sociology—at that time. These two approaches, configuring “ethnic differences” in dissimilar ways, were received differently by the public. In the end, the ethnological approach prevailed and the sociological approach was marginalized. This outcome exemplifies a possible hierarchy of knowledge, but also involves the politics of knowledge. This article shows that the disparate visions of “ethnic others” were produced by intellectuals differently positioned within the social context of post-imperial China. The positionalities of these disciplines explain much of their intellectual alignment.

The New Genetics: Professionals' Discursive Boundaries

1997 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Kerr ◽  
Sarah Cunningham-Burley ◽  
Amanda Amos
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Government Policy ◽  
Social Implications ◽  
The Public ◽  
Elite Group ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cognitive Authority ◽  
Ultimate Responsibility ◽  
Use Of Knowledge ◽  
The Way

In this paper we examine new genetics professionals' accounts of the social context of their work. We analyse accounts given in interview by an ‘elite’ group of scientists and clinicians. Drawing on the work of Gilbert and Mulkay (1984), we consider interviewees' discourse about knowledge, exploring the way in which they separate science from society through the use of what we have called the ‘micro/macro split’. We then go on to consider the reasons for such a discursive boundary, exploring the interviewees' wider discourse about expertise and responsibility for the social implications of the new genetics. We argue that interviewees' discursive boundaries allow them to appeal variously to their objectivity, to dismiss bad science and to characterize the public as ignorant. However, these discursive boundaries are permeable and flexible, and are employed to support the new genetics professionals' role in guiding education and government policy, whilst at the same time deflecting ultimate responsibility for the use of knowledge on to an abstract and amorphous society. Responsibility is flexibly embraced and abrogated. These flexible discursive boundaries thus promote rather than challenge the cognitive authority of new genetics professionals as they engage in debates about the social implications of their work. We end by challenging the replication of these discursive boundaries, noting some of the implications of such a critique for evaluation of the new genetics.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Grobe
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
Performance Artists ◽  
The Social ◽  
Personal Approach ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Public Imagination

In Cold War America, “confession” captured the public imagination. The growing popularity of psychoanalysis had something to do with it, as did legal controversies about criminal confession; but, as this introduction argues, there also arose in this period a broader desire for authentic, personal expression—and especially for art that took its time rising from the level of the personal to that of the social, the political, or the universal. Comparing trends in poetry and comedy of the 1950s and 1960s, this introduction argues that a new aesthetic was born at this time, a newly personal approach to art called “confessionalism.” Whatever the medium of the art in question, performance was essential to confessionalism. In performance, artists could play with and against mediation. They could enact their containment, then stage a breakthrough back into life.

It’s complicated: Sex and the BDSM subculture

Sexualities ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 136346072096130
Author(s):  
Julie Fennell
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Social Determinants ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Sexual Experience ◽  
Internet Survey ◽  
Convenience Sample ◽  
Profound Impact ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Relationship

Drawing from extensive insider ethnographic work and an internet survey with a convenience sample of 1642 BDSM practitioners, I show that the social context of the BDSM subculture has a profound impact on pansexual BDSM practitioners’ interpretation of the relationship between BDSM and sex. Greater involvement in the public BDSM subculture and participation in feminine Dominance/masculine submission are both strongly associated with less preference for and experience of sexual BDSM. Greater involvement in the BDSM subculture increases participants’ likelihood of viewing their sexuality in terms of BDSM but decreases their likelihood of viewing BDSM in sexual terms. BDSM practitioners who meet new BDSM partners in BDSM subcultural contexts, even ones where sex is allowed, are much less likely to have sex with their partners than practitioners who met anywhere else. I argue that research should focus more on the social factors that influence participants’ experience and interpretation of BDSM, particularly on the influence of the BDSM subculture, and that theorists should think more broadly about the social determinants of “sex” and “sexual experience.”

The public understanding of science or the scientific understanding of the public? A review of the social context of the `new genetics'

1995 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 223-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sally Macintyre
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Scientific Understanding ◽  
Public Understanding Of Science ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Understanding Of Science

The `new genetics' have great potential for improving human health. In order for this potential to be realized, attempts to improve the public understanding of science should be complemented by attempts to improve our scientific understanding of the public. It is important to investigate existing popular understandings and practices, in relation to the role of heredity in human disease, chance and calculation of cost benefit ratios in situations of uncertainty, the management of the role of being `at risk' for particular diseases, and the ways in which individual and collective interests are balanced in a variety of health and welfare fields. Above all, we need to study what individuals, families and social institutions actually know, feel and do in relation to the `new genetics', rather than basing policy on assumptions about what they might know, feel or do.

scholarly journals PUBLIC AND PERSONAL RELATIONS BETWEEN LESYA UKRAINKA AND BORYS HRINCHENKO: PRELIMINARY NOTES OF THE POET'S LETTERS

2020 ◽  
pp. 24-33
Author(s):  
Yurii Bezzub
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Conceptual Understanding ◽  
Political Movement ◽  
Stages Of Development ◽  
The Public ◽  
Personal Relations ◽  
The Social ◽  
Personal Understanding ◽  
The Relationship

The article examines the public and personal relations of prominent figures of the Ukrainian national revival of the late XIX - early XX centuries Lesya Ukrainka and Borys Hrinchenko based on documents of personal origin (ego-documents), first of all Lesya Ukrainka's epistolary heritage. It is established that the preserved and published array of the poet's letters is an important source for covering their relations. It is proved that the use of epistolary contributes not only to the reproduction of facts, but also to a better understanding of the atmosphere of events and the conceptual understanding of the Ukrainian socio-political movement and its individual figures. The stages of development of the relationship between Lesya Ukrainka and Borys Hrinchenko are defined and characterized against the background of the author's individuality, her personal understanding and vision of the Ukrainian movement, attitude to the described people and events, as well as the circumstances of the social context.

Cue the Doctor: An Online Experiment to Understand the Factors Affecting Physician Credibility on Twitter When Sharing Health Information (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
DaJuan Ferrell ◽  
Celeste Campos-Castillo
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Health Care Provider ◽  
Care Provider ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Health Advice

BACKGROUND Largely absent from research on how users appraise the credibility of professionals as sources for the information they find on social media is work investigating factors shaping credibility within a specific profession, such as physicians. OBJECTIVE We address debates about how physicians should use social media by comparing how a formal and casual appearance on a profile picture influences their credibility. Using prominence-interpretation theory, we posit an effect of a formal appearance on credibility conditional users’ social context, specifically whether they have a regular health care provider. METHODS For this experiment, we recruited 205 social media users using Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk. We asked participants if they had a regular health care provider and then randomly assigned them to read one of three Twitter posts that varied only in the profile picture of the physician offering health advice. Next, we tasked participants with assessing the credibility of the physician and their likelihood of engaging with the tweet and the physician on Twitter. We used path analysis to assess whether participants having a regular health care provider impacted how the profile picture affected their ratings of physician’s credibility and their likelihood to engage with the tweet and physician on Twitter. RESULTS We found that the profile picture of a physician posting health advice in either formal or casual attire did not elicit significant differences in credibility, with ratings comparable to having no profile image. Among participants assigned the formal appearance condition, those with a regular provider rated the physician higher on a credibility than those without, which led to stronger intentions to engage with the tweet and physician. CONCLUSIONS The findings add to existing research by showing how the social context of information seeking on social media shapes the credibility of a specific professional. Practical implications for professionals engaging with the public on social media and combating false information include moving past debates about casual versus formal appearances and toward identifying ways to segment audiences.

Changing Paradigms in Our Interactions with Self-Service Kiosks

2014 ◽  
pp. 14-32
Author(s):  
Aslı Günay ◽  
Çiğdem Erbuğ ◽  
Paul Hekkert ◽  
Natalia Romero Herrera
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
The Public ◽  
Product Features ◽  
The Social ◽  
Public Nature ◽  
Technical Issues ◽  
Self Service ◽  
Major Factors

Human-computer interaction and holistic user experiences are considered crucial concepts in the design of interactive products, where interactive self-service kiosks require special attention, as they are different than any other type of consumer and personal products. The public nature of self-service kiosks suggests that social context may have an important role in understanding the experience of users when interacting with such products. Yet, this is hardly reflected in the development of self-service kiosks in which usefulness and functionality are still the basic, and usually the only, concerns. This limited discussion hinders innovation when redesigning this type of product. This chapter firstly studies the major factors affecting users' interactions with self-service kiosks, followed by the influence of presence or absence of other people on user experience with interactive self-service kiosks looking at the relationships between different social contexts, feelings, and task performances; it then elaborates on task performances. The studies conducted to explore these relations reveal that interactions with interactive self-service kiosks are specialized according to different task qualities that these kiosks serve as well as the social context, which highlights the necessity to take into account the inseparable context during the design of these self-service kiosks. They emphasize that not only the product interface but also other product features, product body, and context should be shaped by these task qualities and the social context. Hence, suggested design implications go beyond traditional usability and technical issues, considering social context as a key issue to address innovative self-service kiosk designs.

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