Search results for "ddc:300"
showing 10 items of 38 documents
From omniscient narrator to involved participants: Places and spaces “activated” in the EHEC O104:H4 crisis 2011
2020
Crisis management is often conceived from the position of an omniscient narrator, albeit the general consensus that crises are subjectively interpreted and experienced. The paper makes an analytical attempt to de-homogenize the notion of crisis. We argue that the perception of crises differs and present a spatial perspective on crisis to foreground the positionality of different actor groups. By referring to the EHEC outbreak 2011 in Germany, we explore two spatial configurations that seem to be of particular relevance: territories embedded in a nested hierarchy and topologies of interconnected places. State authorities think and act strongly in terms of territorial borders and along sector…
Supporting Reporting: On the Positive Effects of Text- and Video-Based Awareness Material on Responsible Journalistic Suicide News Writing.
2016
Suicide is a global public health problem. Media impact on suicide is well confirmed and there are several recommendations on how media should and should not report on suicide to minimize the risk of copycat behavior. Those media guidelines have been developed to improve responsible reporting on suicide (RRS). Although such guidelines are used in several countries, we lack empirical evidence on their causal effect on actual journalistic news writing. We conducted an experiment with journalism students (N = 78) in Germany in which we tested whether exposure to awareness material promoting RRS influences news writing. As a supplement to the widely used text-based material, we tested the impac…
Security in Niamey : an anthropological perspective on policing and an act of terrorism in Niger
2012
ABSTRACTThe abduction of two Frenchmen in January 2011 in Niamey's supposedly most secure neighbourhood has led many to question the functioning of the city's security apparatus. This paper analyses Niamey's security landscape, initially from an historical and then from a spatial perspective. It argues that for a comprehensive analysis of security, we must first decentre our perspective on security construction, and thus take informal non-organised modes of policing just as seriously as policing by state and vigilante organisations; and second, take into account the inseparability of sociality and security, a fragile balance of trust and acceptable risk. In conclusion I argue that this focu…
Migration, Identity, and Threatened Mental Health: Examples from Contemporary Fiction.
2018
In 2015, the world saw 244 million international migrants. Migration has been shown to be both a protective and a risk factor for mental health, depending on circumstances. Furthermore, culture has an impact on perceptions and constructions of mental illness and identity, both of which can be challenged through migration. Using a qualitative research approach, we analysed five internationally acclaimed and influential novels and one theatre play that focus on aspects of identity, migration, and threatened mental health. As a mirror of society, fiction can help to understand perceptions of identity and mental suffering on an intrapsychic and societal level, while at the same time society its…
How perceived persuasive intent and reactance contribute to third-person perceptions: evidence from two experiments
2016
In two experiments, this study presents a process model that explains third-person perceptions (TPP) as a function of perceived persuasive intent and reactance. Using two nonstudent samples, findings were internally replicated for two topics. The study shows that media messages evoking perceptions of persuasive intent also activate reactance, which in turn predicts TPP topic-independently. Remarkably, half of the total stimulus effect on TPP could be explained through reactance, which offers new implications for existing theoretical explanations of strong TPP after undesirable messages but weak effects after, for example, prosocial messages.
Reducing the Bias: How Perspective Taking Affects First- and Third-Person Perceptions of Media Influence
2017
Third- and first-person perceptions (TPPs/FPPs) are considered to be biased judgments of media influence on self and others. Research suggests that perspective taking, i.e., thinking from another person’s position, decreases perceptual gaps between self and others via assimilation. In a two-factorial experiment (n = 431), we test whether this effect of perspective taking (Factor 1) holds true for the presumed influence of desirable and undesirable messages (Factor 2). Results indicate that perspective taking significantly reduces TPPs in the case of an undesirable message but not FPPs that are provoked by the desirable message. The observable effect traces back to a change in presumed messa…
To Pay or Not to Pay: Competing Theories to Explain Individuals’ Willingness to Pay for Public Environmental Goods
2010
Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich. This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively. Several theories have been proposed in an attempt to explain individuals’ willingness to pay (WTP) for public environmental goods. While most studies only take into account a single theory, this article discusses competing theories. These include, in addition to a basic economic model, the theory of public goods, Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior, and Schwartz’s norm-activation…
Police violence in West Africa : Perpetrators' and ethnographers' dilemmas
2012
This article explores the use of violence by police officers and gendarmes in Ghana and Niger. We analyse how popular discourses, legal and organizational conditions frame the police use of violence. Acts of violence by police are situated in this inconsistent framework and can be seen as legal and appropriate, despicable and brutal, or as useful and morally legitimate. Thus, every time the police use violence, they face a major dilemma: legally and morally justified violence can be a source of long-term legitimacy; but because of multiple possible readings of a certain situation (according to different, conflicting moral and legal discourses), the very same action has potentially delegiti…
"Indépendance Cha Cha": African pop music since the independence era
2010
Investigating why Latin American music came to be the soundtrack of the independence era, this contribution offers an overview of musical developments and cultural politics in certain sub-Saharan African countries since the 1960s. Focusing first on how the governments of newly independent African states used musical styles and musicians to support their nation-building projects, the article then looks at musicians' more recent perspectives on the independence era. Der Beitrag gibt eine kurze Übersicht über die Entwicklung ausgewählter Musikstile in verschiedenen afrikanischen Ländern seit der Unabhängigkeit. Der Autor schildert die Bemühungen der Regierungen in den jungen Nationalstaaten, M…
La recompensa del muro o la insegura proliferación del “barrio cerrado”. Reflexiones en torno a 'La Zona' y 'On the safe side'
2013
La proliferación en las metrópolis globales de los llamados "barrios cerrados" o gated communities obedece a una interpretación de la ciudad en clave de amenaza. Una de sus consecuencias es la fragmentación del suelo público de modo tal, que junto a la presunta protección de algunos, acaba exponiéndose el desequilibrio y la interperie económica y social en las que habita el resto de ciudadanos. El análisis de la película La Zona (Plá, R. 2007) y el documental On the safe side (Wichmann, C. & Schmid, L.2010) pone de relieve los elementos esenciales que dan forma a este tipo de ocupación del territorio metropolitano creando dinámicas de exclusión, distanciamiento y alteridad. La comparación e…