Amusing Abusers and Humourless Survivors: Analysing the Role of Comedy in Media Representations of Sexual Violence

This article reflects on the importance of comedy when considering media engagements with sexual abuse themes. This approach is informed by how closely the study of humour is rooted in the analysis of power relations, with comic theorists, both historical and contemporary, grounding the work.The comic figures of both the child sex (CS) abuser and the sexual violence survivor are first identified, before exploring what exactly about these tropes evoke laughter, and what this means for wider conceptions of interpersonal abuse and victimology. In analysing examples of CS abuser themed British and American comedy, animated adult comedies such as Family Guy (1999-present) and Monkey Dust (2003-2005) are considered in the context of early 2000s anxieties towards the suburban dirty old man and online child safety. In the case of the sexual violence survivor, Saturday Night Live’s 1993 ‘Is It Date Rape?’ sketch is considered within the context of 1990s anxieties regarding feminist campus politics, and is paralleled to the mid-2010s media panic surrounding British and American university students and trigger warnings through examples including The Simpson’s 2017 ‘Caper Chase’ episode and early to mid-2010s online academic polemics on the humourless feminist, such as Mark Fisher’s ‘Exiting The Vampire Castle’ (2013) and Jack Halberstam’s ‘You are Triggering Me!’ (2014). The article concludes by considering the changing consensuses for sexual violence themed humour in the Me Too era through the 2018 episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (2005-present) ‘Times Up For The Gang.’

Factors Affecting Interpretation of Diagnostic Images as a Decision Process:

This article presents an empirical investigation into interpreters’ decision-making criteria, personality characteristics, and emotion-laden experiences as factors affecting interpretation of images that were created for diagnostic assessment. Specifically, it seeks to examine (1) heuristic strategies as interpretive tools, which are both cognitive and experience-based, (2) the relationship between the decision criteria and accuracy of the judgments, and (3) the relationship between interpreters’ experiences of abuse as victims and the judgments about the meaning of images. The study used a sample of 196 self-representational drawings created by college students and 60 independent interpreters who were asked to identify drawings that were created by individuals who experienced interpersonal abuse. This study identified six visual heuristics that were reported independently by 60 percent of the interpreters and were associated with marginally higher accuracy of the interpretive judgments. Thirty-eight percent of participants reported making judgments about the meaning of drawings based on direct or secondhand experiences with interpersonal abuse. The study found that the trauma of interpersonal abuse can profoundly bias interpretive judgments. This result has been particularly robust among female interpreters. Women who self-identified as survivors of abuse saw indicators of abuse up to 90 percent of the time, whereas male interpreters who have been abused saw indicators of abuse up to 65 percent of the time, whether or not those purported indicators were correct. Implications of the findings for design are discussed. An overarching goal of this article is to address interpretation of images as a decision process. The study situated the factors affecting interpretation of images within the framework of the naturalistic/ ecological psychology (Brunswik, 1952, 1955) and the fast and frugal heuristic model of decision-making (Gigerenzer, 2007) vis-à-vis a model of conscious and nonconscious information processing. This study also recognized that certain personality characteristics and emotion-laden experiences can influence the quality of interpretive judgments. The frameworks, methods, and findings from psychology have been used with an intent to inform future research and practice of image construction and interpretation in visual studies and design. One limitation of this study is that it relied on participants’ introspection and reflection on the decision process. There is a risk, then, that interpreters’ explanations of how they arrived with judgments were translations rather than representations of the decision process. Even though this study has not cracked the black box of meaning-making inside the mind, it offers an analytical framework for studies of visual interpretation as a decision process that combines cognitive, personality, and experiential factors as influencing the quality of interpretations. The article translates the findings of the study into practical guidelines for applications in visual communication design and human-centered design research and practice.

Histories of Urban Deltascapes: A Comparison of Arles and Kolkata

To confront food insufficiency caused by the Great Leap Forward, China's central government promoted a national policy of 'agriculture as the priority'. The Shanghai municipal government launched a campaign to expand cultivated land within its jurisdiction by transforming wetlands on Chongming Island through a military-style campaign. Tens of thousands of urban workers were drafted into a Land Reclamation Army to meet national and municipal food self-sufficiency goals. Their campaign featured both attacks on nature and interpersonal abuse. In accordance with the central directives, wetlands totalling 8,000 hectares were drained for conversion into farmland. This conversion proved to be costly, as land with low fertility was created through the permanent destruction of the wetland ecosystem and reclamation workers suffered physical and psychological mistreatment. Although the transformation of wetlands was completed quickly, food production fell far short of targets. Furthermore, the land reclamation campaign imposed irrevocable costs on the island's established communities.

Development of measures for assessing mistreatment of women during facility-based childbirth based on labour observations

IntroductionMistreatment of women during childbirth is increasingly recognised as a significant issue globally. Research and programmatic efforts targeting this phenomenon have been limited by a lack of validated measurement tools. This study aimed to develop a set of concise, valid and reliable multidimensional measures for mistreatment using labour observations applicable across multiple settings.MethodsData from continuous labour observations of 1974 women in Nigeria (n=407), Ghana (n=912) and Guinea (n=655) were used from the cross-sectional WHO’s multicountry study ‘How women are treated during facility-based childbirth’ (2016–2018). Exploratory factor analysis was conducted to develop a scale measuring interpersonal abuse. Two indexes were developed through a modified Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development approach for generating composite indexes. Measures were evaluated for performance, validity and internal reliability.ResultsThree mistreatment measures were developed: a 7-item Interpersonal Abuse Scale, a 3-item Exams & Procedures Index and a 12-item Unsupportive Birth Environment Index. Factor analysis results showed a consistent unidimensional factor structure for the Interpersonal Abuse Scale in all three countries based on factor loadings and interitem correlations, indicating good structural construct validity. The scale had a reliability coefficient of 0.71 in Nigeria and approached 0.60 in Ghana and Guinea. Low correlations (Spearman correlation range: −0.06–0.19; p≥0.05) between mistreatment measures supported our decision to develop three separate measures. Predictive criterion validation yielded mixed results across countries. Both items within measures and measure scores were internally consistent across countries; each item co-occurred with other items in a measure, and scores consistently distinguished between ‘high’ and ‘low’ mistreatment levels.ConclusionThe set of concise, comprehensive multidimensional measures of mistreatment can be used in future research and quality improvement initiatives targeting mistreatment to quantify burden, identify risk factors and determine its impact on health and well-being outcomes. Further validation and reliability testing of the measures in other contexts is needed.

POLYVICTIMIZATION & POLYTRAUMATIZATION: LEGAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS

Polyvictimization is experience of multiple, different kind victimizations that range from child maltreatment to school bullying and beyond. Polytraumatization inclu­des trauma that are not limited to interpersonal abuse, for example, car accidents, natural disasters etc. These concepts are in turn related to cumulative harm and multi-type maltreatment which are discussed later in the article. Polyvictimization and polytraumatization highlights the shift in abuse research and practice from single trauma to multiple trauma analysis which significantly impacts forensic and clinical judgment on causality of post-trau­matic reactions. On the other hand, legal professionals in different coun­tries still ask mental health practitioners to identify spe­cific emotional consequences that are linked to specific civil and/or criminal case. Whether it is called psycho­logical damage, psychological injury, sequela etc. – le­gal specialists want and need to prove causal relations between wrongful act and psychological injury. Unfortu­nately, it is almost impossible to make a strict judgment on sequela causality if polyvictimization is identified. The current article explains several theoretical notions regarding polyvictimization and emphasizes implications that need to be taken in to account when conducting abuse research and clinical and/or forensic victim as­sessment. Latvian legal system and practical problems in forensic psychological and psychiatric expertise is briefly discussed.

Torture and Its Definition in International Law—An Interdisciplinary Approach, by Metin Başoğlu

Torture and Its Definition in International Law—An Interdisciplinary Approach was edited by Metin Başoğlu, and written by him and another sixteen experts in the medicolegal aspects of torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment (CIDT/P). The book has 506 pages and 16 chapters, which are organised into four parts: “Behavioral Science Perspectives”; “International Law Perspectives”; “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques: Definitional Issues”; and “Discussion and Conclusions”. The book is for health, legal and human rights professionals, beyond just those just working with victims of torture and CIDT/P, and is of interest to those who work with victims of other violent crimes, such as child abuse, interpersonal abuse, and forced displacement. The book raises many important questions.