Search results for "Sociology and Political Science"
showing 10 items of 2215 documents
Peasantry is neither created nor destroyed, it can only be transformed. Agrarian discourses in the Delta de l’Ebre and the Albufera de València
2018
The following pages summarize the analysis of agrarian and environmental discourses and social representations in the Ebro Delta and the Albufera of Valencia. The first part of the article tries to synthesize in a theoretical way the evolution and perspectives of family agriculture. We intend to analyze the essential changes that have taken place in agriculture and have made it survive, despite the theoretical prognosis that announced the end of the familiar agriculture. The second part addresses the methodological question of our research. We have conducted 58 interviews and two discussion groups in which different social profiles have participated. The analysis of social discourses was co…
Instrumentalizing Fukushima: Comparing Media Coverage of Fukushima in Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland
2015
According to the theory of instrumental actualization in mediated conflicts, the mass media tend to exaggerate events consistent with the editorial line. This theory was tested using press coverage in Germany, Switzerland, France, and the United Kingdom on the Japanese seaquake, the tsunami it caused, and the nuclear disaster of Fukushima. Within a period of seven weeks after the seaquake, the coverage in the four countries in 27 national newspapers and magazines on the three events was analyzed. As hypothesized from theory, German and Swiss media concentrated on Fukushima and stressed its relevance to domestic nuclear plants, whereas French and British media placed a greater emphasis on th…
Impact of external costs of unplanned supply interruptions on water company efficiency: Evidence from Chile
2020
Abstract Conventional performance assessments of water companies ignore the external costs due to water supply outages. To overcome this gap, we evaluate the impact of external costs of unplanned supply interruptions on the efficiency of water companies. Two efficiency metrics, internal technical efficiency (ITE), and total technical efficiency (TTE), were estimated based on data envelopment analysis (DEA). The results evidence that the external costs of unplanned water supply interruptions impact, on average, 7.9% of the efficiency of water companies. We also explored the impact of a set of environmental variables on water company efficiency.
Heterogeneity of traditional and digital media use among older adults: A six-country comparison
2021
Abstract The concept of aged heterogeneity has been associated with older adults' ability to adapt to the digital age without a systematic empirical analysis. We analyse retired adults' (aged 62 or more) use of traditional media and their digital equivalents in six countries. First, we ask whether heterogeneity in traditional and digital media use increases with age. Second, we study to what extent gender is related to this heterogeneity, and third, the country differences in the heterogeneity of media use in later life. We analyse the 2018 data (N = 5865) of the ‘Older audiences in the digital media environment’ survey using zero-inflated negative binomial models. The results provide parti…
The Sports Club as a Social Organization in Finland
1989
The voluntary sports movement began in Finland in the late 1800s concomitantly with the industrialization of the country. Due to the political, ethnic and emancipatory interests the sports movement has particular configurations still valid at present and embodied in the separate national organizations for workers, Finnish-Swedish people and women. The national survey on sports clubs as social organizations was carried out in 1987. The data were collected by mail from the sample of clubs (n 835). The survey was focused on the prime components of the internal system of sports clubs — ideology, membership, program, resources and administration — but also on the interaction between this interna…
Pour une écriture universitaire polymorphe : la transcription de héros ordinaires en héros de bande dessinée
2018
During a workshop dedicated to adapting academic articles in comic form, the authors teamed up to produce four pages based on an article written by Sebastien Laffage-Cosnier, which was published in Society and Leisure (Volume 38, 2015 – Issue 3) ntitled “The French Snow Class: How the Focus of a School Innovation Changed from Physical Education to Academic Learning (1953–1981)”. The drawings on the following pages are the result of this common work, the process of which is described by the creators. This experience was also an opportunity to further their reflections on the process of academic writing in comics, which, although marginal, is gathering more and more attention from academics a…
Common Core in Danger? Personalized Information and the Fragmentation of the Public Agenda
2021
The diversification of information sources has reignited the controversy on media-induced fragmentation endangering social integration. The media's capability to set the public agenda and create issues as a common core is a pivotal part of the public sphere and contributes fundamentally to society's cohesion. Algorithm-driven sources like social media that personalize content to the preferences of individuals and their social networks are considered agents of fragmentation of the public sphere. Politically extreme individuals relying on them may be particularly vulnerable to losing touch with society's common core. We employ an innovative operationalization of fragmentation on the individu…
Two Perspectives on the Communication Skills of Political Leaders
2012
This study aimed to outline the current communication skills of political leaders. Media data, in total 5,697 items, were collected from four newspapers in Finland over a period of six months in 2008. The interview data consist of eight interviews with Finnish party leaders. All materials were analyzed by qualitative content analysis. Two kinds of perspectives are described: the media perspective by illustrating what kind of descriptions, evaluations and requirements for communication of political leaders are established in newspapers and the political leaders' perspective by reporting the experiences and evaluations of political leaders themselves. These two perspectives are compared. The …
Permanently online and permanently procrastinating? The mediating role of Internet use for the effects of trait procrastination on psychological heal…
2016
A growing number of studies suggest that Internet users frequently utilize online media as “tools for procrastination.” This study thus investigated the relationship between trait procrastination, Internet use, and psychological well-being in a representative sample of N = 1,577 German Internet users. The results revealed that trait procrastination was associated with an increased use of leisure-related online content and impaired control over Internet use. As a result, Internet users high in trait procrastination showed a higher risk of experiencing negative consequence of Internet use in other life domains. These negative repercussions of insufficiently self-regulated Internet use partia…
What do users associate with ‘interactivity’?
2009
‘Interactivity’ was one of the major buzzwords of the 1990s. Although the academic discourse has produced a large number of different concepts of ‘interactivity’, in everyday life it still remains a label put on all kinds of aspects of online communication and digital media. Drawing on schema theory this article explores the concepts of ‘ordinary’ users (i.e. people who are not professional experts). The results indicate that users associate the foremost social and individual issues with the term ‘interactivity’, i.e. what they can accomplish by using media in terms of self-development, social influence and social relationships.