Mediación editorial y valor agregado: La obra de Jaime Saenz desde las redes sociales del pasado

This article offers a critical study of the place that Jaime Saenz occupies within the broader context of translated literatures to shed light on the construction of his image as a writer both in Bolivia and in the countries in which he has been translated. How is Saenz's work viewed from a global perspective? I propose a methodology that analyzes and visualizes web media to study Saenz's position vis-à-vis his Bolivian and Latin American peers within the local and global mediation scene. I read Saenz's work through a web media map that visualizes him diachronically within a framework that considers his production and reception by publishers, editors, translators, literary agents, critics and sponsors, in national and international contexts. In this article I focus on showing the editorial mediation processes of Saenz's work comparatively and in relation not only to literature, but to the broader cultural field, which includes the social sciences and audiovisual arts. The image of a writer that results from this process (dark, accursed, esoteric, and associated with a mystical Andean spirituality) adds symbolic value and prestige to the author. A web media analysis helps to visualize how this added value was created over time and within its socio-political contexts.

A longitudinal application of the Actor Partner Interdependence Model extended Mediations to the health effects of dyadic support

Supportive communicative experiences within close relationships, such as dyadic support, have a protective effect on individuals’ health and emotional well-being. However, little is known about how partners interact in determining their own and others’ health or the mechanisms through which dyadic support influences physical health. We addressed those gaps by studying 1088 romantic couples from three consecutive years (T1, T2, T3; Swiss Household Panel). The study applied a data analysis strategy called Actor Partner Interdependence Model extended Mediation, which allows for mediation processes while considering the interdependence, or non-independence, of data coming from partners. Results showed that dyadic support was positively associated with perceived health over two years through the mediation of optimistic attitudes and depressive mood, both for person and partner effects. The present study demonstrates the interplay between the dyadic process and personality dispositions in maintaining good health.

The Socio-Educational Adaptation of Secondary School Migrant Students in Sicily: Migrant Generation, School Linguistic Mediation and Teacher Proactivity Factors

This study aims to analyze the implications of linguistic mediation processes and educational proactivity in schools for the socio-educational adaptation of immigrant students. The study is based on empirical research and the perspectives of the main actors: the immigrant students themselves. To this end, a non-experimental and descriptive quantitative methodology was used. The sample consisted of 100 students of foreign origin enrolled in an Italian school located in a typical socio-cultural environment. The results show significant differences in linguistic mediation and socio-educational variables and differences in expectations of progress and social adaptation of students born outside Italy vis-a-vis students who, although born in Italy, are still considered foreigners. It will also analyze teaching proactivity as a communication facilitator for first-generation immigrant pupils born outside Italy. In conclusion, it is noted that, to favor multicultural environments where all students, regardless of their origin, feel accepted, integrated, and welcomed, it is necessary to utilize all available resources to promote improvements in teaching-learning processes and strengthen social relations.

The Competing Mediations in the Post-Qaddafi Libyan Political Crisis

Since the end of the revolution that toppled the rule of Muammar Qaddafi in October 2011, Libya has never known peace. The country descended into civil war with different factions contending for control. In this milieu, the United Nations attempted to mediate an end to the crisis but its efforts have failed to gain traction partly as a result of other mediation initiatives undertaken by several European actors. Sub-regional and continental organizations, including the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) and the African Union (AU) respectively, that should have taken the lead in the mediation have been absent. Meanwhile, continued fighting has hampered a mediated settlement, and terrorist groups such as the Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda have taken advantage of the situation to establish a presence in the country. In the end, rather than ending the crisis, Libya has provided the ground for competing mediation processes which have prolonged the crisis.

News Narratives across Borders: The Convergence of Interests and Patterns of Meaning in International Media Coverage of Disaster

Shared narratives emerge across transnational news, circulating meaning and contributing to how publics process and make sense of significant issues and events (Cottle, 2014; Pantti, Wahl-Jorgensen, Cottle, 2012). These narratives are also reflected in the spaces made possible by digital communication technologies, including social media, and the through the formation of transnational discursive communities. Disasters, or at least those that meet the criteria of proximity for Western media (Benthall, 1993; Gans, 1980), are exemplars of such global media events, where analogous narratives or frames are rendered in media coverage across national borders. The evidence from studies of national media, however, suggests that journalistic narratives to disaster tend to reinforce a discourse of difference between spectators and sufferers through the representations of those communities and societies affected by disaster (Bankoff, 2011; Joye, 2009). This chapter considers how difference is reinforced in transnational news narratives of disaster through the circulation of cultural stereotypes, arguing that the prominence of stereotypes are a consequence of the processes of domestication that shape the characteristics of news and the dominant news flows in the global media system. More specifically, that to enable accounts to resonate with audiences, news is often packaged and adapted to a national context (Gurevitch, Levy and Roeh, 1992), which can be achieved by using familiar images of different societies and cultures to provide a link for audiences when covering distant events (Tanikawa, 2017). At the same time, as news and information becomes increasingly deterritorialised the overlaying of cultural frames to inform and explain a disaster in one national context may evolve across media coverage in others, contributing to the development of shared narratives to a single event. This is facilitated, for example, by the flow of information from news agencies and international news organisations, in particular those emanating from the core (the West) to the periphery (Wu, 2003). To elucidate these mediation processes across borders, the chapter will draw on one recent case study of disaster journalism to consider how essentialist notions of Japanese culture emerged as a unified narrative across international news coverage of the tripartite disaster of March 2011, reflecting its position as a dominant Western discourse on Japan.

Envoy Envy? Competition in African Mediation Processes and Ways to Overcome It

This article seeks to make sense of the dynamics of competition in African mediation processes and to outline approaches for effective cooperation between mediators. To this end, it analyzes four cases of recent peace processes: Sudan (1994–2005), Kenya (2008), Madagascar (2009–2013) and South Sudan (2013–2015). The article identifies four driving forces of competition among mediators: clashing interests of states involved in mediation, overlapping mediation mandates, incompatible norms guiding conflict resolution, and mediators’ lack of performance. These factors risk undermining peace processes unless the involved mediators and guarantors take active steps to mitigate the negative effects of competition. This can be done through ‘hierarchical coordination,’ where a recognized authority takes the lead and allocates roles to other actors, or through ‘collaborative cooperation,’ where partners have unity of purpose and decide on a division of labor based on comparative strengths.

The potential of the CEFR for languages descriptors for mediation in an ESP CALL-based context

The present case study investigated the potential of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) for languages: learning, teaching, assessment can-do descriptors for mediation in an English for Specific Purposes (ESP) Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL)-based context. Fabricating descriptors for mediation was cardinal for the Council of Europe’s (2018) endeavour in updating the CEFR Companion. Despite surfacing just as a language skill in the 2001 CEFR Companion, mediation is now viewed as a central mode of communication in the New CEFR Companion, both in the receptive and productive modes. As they were just introduced in 2018, the CEFR mediation descriptor scales have not yet been sufficiently explored. The main goal of the present research was to fill some of this gap in the literature by investigating the potential of the CEFR for languages descriptors for mediation in an ESP CALL-based CEFR B2 tertiary level context (a 13 week ESP course specifically designed to meet the needs of university Rehabilitation Sciences students.) Data collection tools included students’ self-assessment against can-do descriptors for mediation, observation, student reflections, and focus group interviews. The findings suggest that the implementation of the existing course activities had the potential to promote mediation processes. The significant role of mediation in carrying out the course activities in addition to the CALL component of the ESP course activities highlighted the potential of CALL technologies to trigger, support, and promote mediation processes; this finding stressed the underlying role of the nature and the structure of the ESP course’s CALL-Based activities in supporting mediation processes.

The Challenge of Forging Consent to UN Mediation in Internationalized Civil Wars: The Case of Syria

This article analyzes how the internationalization of civil wars influences conflict parties’ consent to UN mediation processes. Illustrated by the UN mediation in Syria, I argue that internationalization influences consent directly by obstructing the advent of a costly stalemate and the parties’ perception of mediation as a ‘way out,’ and indirectly by reducing mediators’ leverage and perceived impartiality thereby limiting their tools to foster consent. The article makes three contributions. First, it presents a novel conceptual framework to understand the impact of internationalization on conflict parties’ consent. Second, it provides a long-term analysis of UN mediation in Syria from 2012–2020. Third, it contributes to a broader discussion about how civil wars end. This is of particular relevance as the prioritization of a political over a military end to civil wars, which was dominant in the early post-Cold War period, is no longer unquestioned.