Managing Generational Diversity

Germany is undergoing a dramatic demographic change that requires its organizations to make workforce talent of all ages a strategic priority. Practitioners in Germany focus largely on Generation Y employees, because this young employee cohort expresses new and different work-related values. However, diverse attitudes and behaviors of employees in different age groups can potentially lead to conflict and have an overall negative impact on organizational performance. Given US labor legislation and media pressure, managing workforce diversity has been on the agenda of U.S. organizations for many years. Consequently, it can be assumed that there are areas in which German organizations can learn best practices from the U.S. experience. Although data collected from Silicon Valley organizations suggest that taking specific action for managing the multi-generational workforce is currently not a pressing issue in the tech industry, setting up innovative workplaces is an action field in which Germany can learn from its U.S. counterparts.

Understanding Media Control in the Digital Age

Media control comprises multifaceted and amorphous phenomena, combining a variety of forms, tools, and practices. Today media control takes place in a sphere where national politics meet global technology, resulting in practices that bear features of both the (global) platforms and the affordances of national politics. At the intersection of these fields, we try to understand current practices of media control and the ways in which it may be resisted. This thematic issue is an endeavour to bring together conceptual, methodological, and empirical contributions to revise the scholarly discussion on media control. First, authors of this thematic issue re-assemble the notion of media control itself, as not being holistic and discrete (control vs freedom) but by considering it from a more critical perspective as having various modes and regimes. Second, this thematic issue brings a “micro” perspective into understanding and theorising media control. In comparison to structural and institutional perspectives on control, this perspective focuses on the agency of various actors (objects and subjects of media pressure) and their practices, motivations, and the resources with which they exert or resist control. Featuring cases from a broad range of countries with political systems ranging from democracy to electoral authoritarian regime, this issue also draws attention to the question of how media control relates to regime type.

Is the Pandemic a Risk Factor for Eating Disorders?

COVID-19 has already established direct or indirect effect on the lives of everyone. One of its many consequences is exacerbation of eating disorders´ (ED) triggers. Numerous risk factors for ED are enhanced during pandemic – anxiety, fear, depressed mood. Distance learning or working may result in loss of daily-life routine and feeling of being overwhelmed with duties. Due to forced isolation people are more exposed to social media pressure. Additionally, awareness of limitations of physical activity can develop fear of gaining the weight. These are typical symptoms of Anorexia Nervosa, a disease with the highest mortality rate among psychiatric disorders. Frustration, tedium and lack of external distractors can lead to inappropriate food-related coping style. Especially during the first wave of the pandemic, society was cautious about fresh food supplies and therefore many decided to stock up with processed, unhealthy food. Aggregation of stressors (e.g., worries about health, financial problems, loneliness) may promote binge eating.

EKOLOGI MEDIA DALAM PELIPUTAN KEBERAGAMAN JURNALIS TELEVISI KONTRIBUTOR AMBON

Media ecology reflects that mass media have to move dynamically to survive its life in the middle of media pressure and competition among other platforms. In the digital era, television as conventional media needs to embrace the technology by airing diversity issues in social media Youtube. This study has a question about media ecology in the reportage of diversity issues by television journalists in Ambon. This research using a mixed method approach, quantitative and qualitative, with content analysis, FGD, interview, and literature review as a technique for data collecting. Content analysis is conducted toward news diversity about Maluku which aired on the Youtube television channel. Then FGD is conducted further with television journalists in Ambon in which their news has been analyzed. Further, the interview is conducted with a broadcasting supervisor as well as a member of the journalist organization. This study finds that media ecology has been changing to new media ecology. Nevertheless, new media ecology is not fully implemented by television journalists in Ambon when reporting the diversity issues. The journalists will frame their news before report it mainly for news with the tendency to the SARA (ethnicity, religion, and race) issues. Framing is formed when journalists narrate their news before aired. It implemented due to their conflict experienced in the past. The journalists have responsibility and awareness in terms of the effect of their news. Their SARA’s news which aired in the Youtube platform could trigger conflict. The conflict has a huge impact on their personal and social life Ekologi media merefleksikan bahwa media massa harus bergerak dinamis untuk bertahan hidup di tengah tekanan dan kompetisi dengan berbagai platform. Di era digital, televisi sebagai media konvensional merangkul teknologi dengan menayangkan berita keberagaman di media sosial YouTube. Studi ini mengangkat tentang ekologi media dalam peliputan keberagaman jurnalis televisi kontributor Ambon. Peneliti menggunakan pendekatan penelitian campuran, kuantitatif dan kualitatif, dengan teknik pengumpulan data analisis isi, Focus Group Discussion (FGD), wawancara, dan studi pustaka. Analisis isi dilakukan pada berita-berita keberagaman di Maluku pada saluran Youtube televisi-televisi nasional. Selanjutnya dilakukan FGD dengan jurnalis televisi kontributor Ambon di mana berita-berita yang ditayangkan telah dianalisis sebelumnya. Wawancara dilakukan dengan pengawas penyiaran dan organisasi jurnalis televisi. Studi ini menemukan bahwa ekologi media beralih menjadi ekologi media baru. Namun, ekologi media baru ini tidak sepenuhnya diikuti oleh jurnalis televisi kontributor Ambon dalam melaporkan berita keberagaman. Jurnalis televisi kontributor Ambon melakukan pembingkaian ketika melaporkan berita keberagaman, khususnya berita bernuansa SARA. Pembingkaian dilakukan lebih pada narasi atau audio berita yang disajikan. Ini dilakukan karena Provinsi Maluku pernah mengalami konflik masa lalu. Jurnalis memiliki tanggung jawab dan kesadaran tinggi bahwa sejumlah peristiwa konflik terjadi salah satunya akibat berita bernuansa SARA yang tersebar luas di Youtube. Konflik tersebut telah membawa pengaruh besar dalam kehidupan pribadi dan bermasyarakat.

Pressure, Cost Accounting, and Resource Allocations: Experimental Evidence on Nonprofit Financial Decision-Making

Nonprofit organizations are under pressure to contain their overhead costs. This pressure can affect spending behavior and create an impulse to manipulate financial reporting data. Drawing on stakeholder theory, this study develops a comprehensive framework of ratio management pressure and examines the extent to which external and internal pressures affect financial decisions. We conduct a scenario experiment wherein financial managers perform accounting and spending tasks after subjection to various types of pressure: donor pressure, board pressure, or media pressure. We find that donor pressure significantly affects both accounting and spending behavior, whereas board and media pressure affect only accounting choices. Our research generates insights into the extent to which the observed practice of continuous cost containment is driven by external pressure or rather by organizations themselves. These findings are insightful for nonprofit leaders who wrestle with complex financial challenges and the expectations of multiple stakeholder groups.

Body Image During Quarantine; Generational Effects of Social Media Pressure on Body Appearance Perception

One of the consequences of the pandemic is that throughout 2020 virtual interactions largely replaced face-to-face interactions. Though there are few studies of how social media impacts body image perception across genders, research suggests that socializing through a virtual self-body image might have distinct implications for men and women. In an online study, we examined whether type of social pressure and body-ideal exert distinct pressures on members of the X, Y, and Z generations. Results showed media pressure affected body image satisfaction significantly more than other kinds of social pressure across genders and generations, with young males reporting a higher impact compared to older males. Males experienced more pressure to be muscular and women to be thin, especially for the younger generation. Future research should focus on social media as a potential intervention tool for the detection and prevention of body image disorders in both young female and male adults.

How Does Media Influence on Environmental Disclosures of Listed Companies in Thailand?

Economic development, including corporate production activities, leads to the consumption of natural resources and produces pollution, which causes environmental impacts (Warr 2004). Moreover, there have been a number of instances of serious environmental consequences resulting from global corporations' operations and these have been widely publicized in the media and have been widely exposed to society at large, which has resulted in greater social awareness and a movement to prevent future environmental impacts. The media has thus become a powerful stakeholder which corporations have to be concerned and responded. For example, corporations distribute their economic, social, and environmental information especially using their annual reports which includes how corporations manage environmental impacts in order to satisfy their stakeholders and to reduce media pressure on them. Those corporate environmental disclosures have mostly followed the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines which are a widely adopted framework for sustainability including environmental reporting (Isaksson & Steimle, 2009). Keywords: corporate environmental disclosures, news media, stakeholder theory, developing country, Thailand.

Risk factors and temporal patterns of disordered eating differ in adolescent boys and girls: Testing gender-specific appearance anxiety models

Adolescent dieting and disordered eating (DE) are risks for clinical eating disorders. In this five-wave longitudinal study, we tested gender-specific models linking early risk factors to temporal patterns of DE, considering appearance anxiety as a mediator. Participants were 384 Australian students (age 10 to 13; 45% boys) who reported their purging and skipping meals, experience with appearance-related teasing, media pressure, and appearance anxiety. Parents reported pubertal maturation and height/weight was measured. Gender differences in temporal patterns of DE were found and predictive models were tested using latent-variable growth curve and path models. Boys’ DE was generally stable over time; girls showed stability in purging but an average increase in skipping meals. Peer teasing, media pressure, and pubertal maturation were associated with more elevated initial DE in girls, and pubertal maturation was associated with a steeper increase in DE. For boys, body mass index had a direct positive association with DE. Appearance anxiety was associated with more DE, but there was only one significant indirect effect via anxiety, which was for boys’ pubertal maturation. Findings support the dominant role of social interactions and messages, as well as pubertal maturation, for girls’ DE and the prominence of physical risk factors for explaining boys’ DE.