bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Confessional culture, masculinity and emotional work
Authors: Aldridge Meryl
Published: April 2009

‘Confessional culture’ is a particularly controversial aspect of tabloidization, condemned by many within the media industry as trivial or even degrading. Others argue that, apart from the positive audience response, public explorations of the subjective are an important flexing of the boundary between the public/rational/masculine and the private/affective/female domains. Having first considered the debate over confessional culture, the article then suggests, on the basis of three case illustrations, that there is little sign of hard news losing its privileged position in the press and in television news. What then is the significance of the confessional genre and why does it appeal to men as well as women? Under the risk conditions of late modernity, men are having to learn new emotional and relationship skills. Given that media directed at men remain cautious in their treatment of emotional work, the article concludes that this ‘confessional’ writing provides a culturally acceptable form of lifestyle guide.
Dumbing down or shaping up?
Authors: Ursell Gillian D. M.
Published: April 2009

This article considers the thesis that, in western liberal societies, news values, news agenda and standards of journalism have deteriorated significantly over recent decades. It considers in particular those accounts which prioritize the digital-electronic communication and information technologies in explanations of the perceived deterioration. Evidence is drawn from the news-making activities of three UK broadcasters, namely, the BBC, ITN and Yorkshire Television, to demonstrate technological applications which differ both in degree and in kind. It is argued that these differences indicate the need to qualify substantially any suggestion of technological determinism. Rather, it is argued, technological innovation should be viewed as mediated by the political–institutional role allocated to these organizations, their economic and organizational characteristics and their corporate aims with regard to survival and growth. Consideration is given to the new media technologies as they associate with the work organization and requirements made of television journalists. Organizational change, underpinned by technological developments, towards multi skilling, multi-media news production and the pursuit of novel news markets is seen to convey a potential to compromise journalistic performance. But responsibility for any compromise is, it is argued, to be borne by political and corporate executives, not by technology.
(Un-)Professional discourse?
Authors: Reed Rosslyn
Published: April 2009

The long-standing tension and conflicts between journalists and scientists surrounding the media reporting of science are explored in this article. Preliminary data were collected using video-taped focus groups with scientists and science journalists. Based on the analysis of this data, nine in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with three scientists, three science journalists and three news journalists. These data have been analysed thematically. Accurate, accessible and informative reporting is a major concern of all participants and not only scientists, although they are interpreted differently. Competing time frames and organizational and technological demands combine with incomplete understanding of power relations to exacerbate tensions. Journalists are inclined to expect scientists to change their attitudes. Scientists have the most to gain by change. The continuing conflicts and tensions are located in historically constructed occupational identities, particularly that of the scientist as ‘modest witness’. The article concludes with some suggestions to improve relations between science and journalism.
The construction of the public in letters to the editor
Authors: Wahl-Jorgensen Karin
Published: April 2009

Drawing on an ethnographic study, this article describes how the editorial-page staff at one San Francisco Bay newspaper think of the letter-writing public. It is suggested that the staff are skeptical about the value of the letters section as a site for democratic communication because of what they perceive as the poor quality of public participation, as well as the non-representativeness of the letter-writers. To be more specific, the editors speak the ‘idiom of insanity’, which plays off the idea that contributors to the section – the members of the letter-writing public – are insane or ‘crazy’. This article examines the manifestations of the idiom of insanity and analyses its implications for deliberative democracy; it also suggests that the use of the idiom of insanity is a way for the staff to distance themselves from their work on letters to the editor, and renounce their responsibility to make democracy work.
Does education matter?
Authors: Schultz Tanjev
Published: April 2009

This article reports a secondary analysis which compares the characteristics of graduate school-trained journalists to those with only a college education. It also considers differences between studies in and outside the communication field. Besides demographics and job characteristics, assumed differences in perceived influences of education, in journalistic role concepts and audience perceptions were tested. Overall, the analysis revealed few differences but journalists with a graduate education were found to be more likely than college-educated journalists to work for larger news organizations and to support an interpretative role.
Durkheim's Treatment of Practice
Authors: Rawls Anne Warfield
Published: April 2009

It is generally thought that Durkheim based his theory of knowledge on a theory of representations. However, in The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1915 [1912]) he places great emphasis on concrete and witnessable aspects of practice such as sounds and movements and downplays the importance of beliefs and representations. He argues that ritual sounds and movements, when collectively enacted, can create sentiments that give rise to the essential concepts that he refers to as the categories of the understanding. Representations are, in his view, secondary phenomena that arise only after participation in social practices. This article demonstrates through an analysis of Durkheim's text that he carefully referred to ritual practices in concrete and not representational terms at strategic points in the argument. Furthermore, it is argued that the collective experience of concrete sounds and movements was, on Durkheim's view, a prerequisite for the subsequent development of representations.
The Disavowal of the Social in the American Reception of Durkheim
Authors: Morrison Ken
Published: April 2009

In the last decade or more, the central texts of structural theorizing – Hegel, Marx, Durkheim, Weber – have become part of a seemingly outdated problematic of class, history and society, and this has led to the erosion of some of the most central concepts of sociological theory. Terms such as the ‘social’ and the ‘structural’ no longer seem able to identify materially existing collectivities, their mode of existence or their specific system of social relations. The central objective of this article is to examine some of the claims put forward by postmodern theorists (Baudrillard, 1983; Deleuze, 1979; Rose, 1996) concerning the rise of new spatializations and the era of the ‘post-social’ by a return to the inaugural texts of Émile Durkheim (1938, 1951, 1964, 1968). My purpose is to see whether or not Durkheim broke with the language of totality that is often ascribed to him by postmodern theorists and to assess to what extent the claims of poststructuralist theorizing are based both on a misreading of the textsof structural theory (Marx, Durkheim, Weber, etc.) and on a historical tendency to disavow the social. It is argued that the conception of the social put forward by 19th-century social theorizing has not been well understood nor readily accepted either as an independent domain of treatment or as a subject matter differentiated from other subject matters. The reception texts of the Chicago school of sociology in the 1920s (Park and Burgess, 1921) and of the Harvard theoryschool of the 1930s (Parsons, 1968; Sorokin, 1928) are examined in order to discern whether these schools accepted the social as an object of theoretical attention or whether they in fact excluded it from the disciplinary matrix as they formed their own theoretical frameworks. Some textual evidence is drawn upon to support the thesis that the social became an object of theoretic disavowal during the time when Durkheim's fundamental sociological writings were being received in America.
The Mediatization of Consumption
Authors: Jansson André
Published: April 2009

Although the concepts of ‘media culture’ and ‘consumer culture’ have been commonly used as labels for contemporary society, they have rarely been explicitly compared. Nor have there been any serious attempts to clarify whether, or how, socio-cultural change is fusing them together. In this article it is argued that transitory processes such as culturalization, mediatization and simulation - which may all be compiled within the notion of reflexive accumulation - make it almost pointless to keep the concepts apart. Rather, in contemporary western societies it is possible to discern the rise of image culture. This is a socio-cultural state in which media images and media-influenced commodity-signs are to an increasing extent used as sources for, and expressions of, cultural identity. Hence, it is also argued that image culture must not be confused with the postmodernist hypothesis of cultural implosion. Rather, the maintenance of image culture presupposes the hermeneutic activities of social actors.
Private Dreams and Public Expectations
Authors: Husz Orsi
Published: April 2009

This article explores morality and contradictions in Swedish political discussions between 1899 and 1939 concerning lotteries in general and the state lottery in particular. The seemingly narrow debates on lotteries reflected general dilemmas of the emerging modern consumer and welfare society. In order to balance economic value against the perceived lack of moral and social values, politicians were forced to define and redefine the concept of lottery. They also tried to handle the contradictions it presented. This article first argues that a paradoxical change occurred in the understanding of lottery in relation to modernity. Politicians redefined lottery as a modern consumer practice during this period. Lottery is then investigated as a means of envisaging the future. In the practice of playing the lottery, the community’s planning for the future and the individual’s dreams about his or her own future had come into conflict. A proposed solution to this was to let the lottery finance the general pension insurance. The contradictions between backwardness and progress, individualism and collectivism or hedonistic dreaming and rational calculations were not solved, but this article suggests that these notions may not have been as incompatible in practice as in theory.
Rhetorics of the Overlooked
Authors: Frosh Paul
Published: April 2009

What produces the visual ground of intelligibility within consumer cultures, the environment of ‘banal’ images within which selected acts of attentiveness and specific encounters with arresting figures become possible? Taking a long-neglected industry - stock photography - as a key site for the creation of such an environment, this article explores this question, analysing the ways in which advertising and marketing photographs are promoted across institutionally segregated sites of production, distribution, circulation and reception. This promotion works according to two seemingly contradictory rhetorics: a ‘mission’ rhetoric of repetitive yet inconspicuous citation that addresses the practical consciousness of consumers, and a ‘system’ rhetoric of self-promotional theatricality and persuasive power that addresses professional cultural intermediaries (art directors, designers, etc.). The article traces these communicative modes in relation to questions of classification, the perceptual dynamics of mediation and consumption, and the narrative and mythic temporalities of consumer cultures, arguing that the bulk of advertising images communicate by systematically performing ‘ordinariness’ as an overlooked and unremarkable visual field.
Through the (New) Looking Glass
Authors: Brickell Chris
Published: April 2009

In 1947, French designer Christian Dior released the New Look, a style of women’s clothing characterized by long, stiffened skirts and wasp waistlines. For Dior, the fashion offered a glamorous, feminine look following many women’s more functional - and ostensibly masculine - wartime garb. The ‘Look’ arrived in New Zealand from Europe in mid-1948. The New Zealand debates around the fashion offer a useful ‘looking glass’ into contemporary cultural and political currents, as the female body adorned in ‘the Look’ can be understood as a site at which regimes of bodily discipline, debates over women’s work and discourses of ‘women’s emancipation’ converged. This article examines a range of New Zealand women’s responses to ‘the Look’ in order to critically interrogate these convergences and to reexamine intellectual debates over consumption, pleasure, domination and resistance. The New Look engendered a complex web of embraces and resistances and this suggests a more nuanced framing of conceptions of domination and resistance in consumption studies than has often been the case.
Urban Errands
Authors: Jain Sarah S. Lochlann
Published: April 2009

Premising that both mobility and technology are co-constituted by gender, this article analyzes, through two day-long in situ interviews, the activities of two American women, one in Portland and the other in Manhattan. The author examines how mobility as a social and material system undergirds the use of new technologies such as cell phones. Furthermore, the article examines how possibilities for civic life circulate among these aspects of environmental, technological and social infrastructures.
Landscapes on-the-move
Authors: Bender Barbara
Published: April 2009

Both archaeologists and anthropologists have been slow to address the question of how people on the move engage with landscape. Anthropologists have tended to discuss the larger political and social terrain of diaspora without too much consideration of what this might involve in terms of intimate and personal engagement. Archaeologists espousing a more phenomenological approach have focused on intimate and personal engagement with place and well-worn territory, without acknowledging that these often work within larger, less familiar landscapes of movement. The article attempts to move between the two approaches, between different and interlocking scales of human activity and understanding. It attempts to show that however ‘out of place’ people may be, they are also always ‘in place’.
Groovin’to ancient Peru
Authors: Silverman Helaine
Published: April 2009

Disney animated movies have received abundant critical attention over the past 30 years as a quintessentially American manifestation of popular culture and as an expression of corporate and hegemonic ideology. A recent blockbuster film prompts me, as an archaeologist, to consider another aspect of this genre. I am interested in why Disney’s The Emperor’s New Groove explicitly does not name the archaeological society in which its action is situated (Inca Peru), although this is readily recognizable to archaeologists, and the purpose that this sort of unacknowledged cultural plundering serves. I argue that beyond an understandable ‘artistic license’ with the past (thus Disney did not have to worry about issues of authenticity), this movie (and others of its genre) manifests profound and disturbing objectifications, essentializations, exoticizations and appropriations. These issues implicate current theoretical discussions of simulacra and representation, postmodern spectatorship, placelessness and travel.
Meaning from Methods
Authors: Poindexter Cynthia Cannon
Published: April 2009

This article outlines the methodological process followed in examining a portion of an interview in which an older woman tells of two incidents where she felt effects of associative HIV-related stigma. Through the process of applying different techniques of narrative analysis, the author learned research methods and deepened interpretations of the text. Data management techniques both reflect assumptions and augment understanding. In narrative analysis, the structural whole can best be understood by first examining the architectural detail. This report demonstrates how meaning can emerge from method, theory from transcription, and richness from rigor. It also argues for the utility of narrative analysis to social work research, teaching, and practice.
Theorizing from Practice
Authors: Fook Jan
Published: April 2009

Practitioner researchers often experience difficulties in understanding and using the plethora of approaches to the ways in which practice can be theorized, and mistakenly feel they must be committed to one main approach. In this article I argue that an inclusive approach to the many different methods is crucial to social work. I develop this approach by describing, in broad terms, the major different approaches to theorizing and the methods associated with this. I begin by relating an inclusive approach to the changes in knowledge-making becoming recognized with postmodernism. I then develop an inclusive approach by examining three major areas: what theory is; how it is generated; and who it should be generated by. I end by arguing that an inclusive approach best fits the range of practice which social workers wish to research, but that it must include research of the ‘tacit’ knowledge of practitioners.
Quality Issues in Qualitative Inquiry
Authors: Seale Clive
Published: April 2009

In this article I outline the case for methodological awareness as an essential component of the craft skill that qualitative researchers typically bring to their work. This is opposed to the view that good quality research can be produced by opting for the criteria promoted by one variety, ‘paradigm’, ‘moment’ or school, arguing instead that valuable lessons for research practice can be learned from each one. The ‘craft skill’ conception of research suggests that researchers should regard their activities as relatively autonomous from the need to resolve philosophical disputes. Methodological awareness, involving the capacity to anticipate the consequences of methodological decisions while carrying out a research project, can be acquired from exposure to almost any intelligent methodological discussion, as well as from critical reading of existing research studies. In making this case a summary of historical moments in qualitative research, and of key ideas presented by selected qualitative ‘criteriologists’ is provided.
Examining the Perceptions and Attitudes of Staff Working in Community Based Children’s Homes
Authors: Heron Gavin , Chakrabarti Mono
Published: April 2009

There remains considerable ambiguity and negativity around the purpose and effectiveness of children’s homes. High levels of unqualified staff, low status and poor pay and conditions have continued to be the norm within residential child care. In light of this situation it is appropriate to ask why staff are viewed as a key ingredient in the service provision. It is particularly significant given the views of staff and the tasks they undertake have not been widely researched. This article provides a summary of findings from a doctoral study that attempted to address this deficit by examining the context of children’s homes, especially those social processes and interactions that shape key tasks.
Identification of Delamination in a Composite Beam Using a Damaged Spectral Element
Authors: Nag A. , Mahapatra D. Roy , Gopalakrishnan S.
Published: April 2009

An identification procedure and sensitivity studies on single and multiple delaminations in laminated composite beams are presented. A Spectral Finite Element Model (SEM) based on the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) is employed. A single damaged spectral element is used to model a uniform composite beam segment with a single delamination, irrespective of its length, by only specifying the delamination location and size. A damage force indicator is used to stimulate the identification procedure. In a realistic identification task, the advantage of the proposed procedure is that only two measurement nodes are sufficient as opposed to several measurement nodes in a standard finite element model with a single delamination. For multiple delaminations, the computation time to perform the identification task shows cubic polynomial complexity and hence is tractable for health monitoring of large skeletal structures. Sensitivity of a damage force indicator with respect to variations in delamination location and size is also presented. The analysis efficiently identifies the severity of delaminated configurations through the damage force indicator. This basic information can be useful in choosing optimal measurement points and the discretized structural model to minimize redundancy in the presence of several other factors such as high noise to signal ratio, damping etc. Conclusions are made on many important issues, which can be addressed with further development based on this preliminary work.
The Virtual Ethnographer: Fieldwork in Distributed Electronic Environments
Authors: Ruhleder Karen
Published: April 2009

The venues in which we carry out our fieldwork increasingly intertwine real and virtual activities as participants move materials and interactions online. This change in the nature of the field sites we observe requires an enhancement or even rethinking of traditional methodologies for studying work. This article draws on two studies—one in a distributed corporation and one of an online master's degree program—to outline some of the questions these settings raised and ways in which the ethnographers addressed them in the field. Technology-mediated settings require us to rethink concepts of presence and colocation, just as those we study must rethink them in the course of their own day-to-day interactions.
Intercoder Reliability for Validating Conclusions Drawn from Open-Ended Interview Data
Authors: Kurasaki Karen S.
Published: April 2009

Intercoder reliability is a measure of agreement among multiple coders for how they apply codes to text data. Intercoder reliability can be used as a proxy for the validity of constructs that emerge from the data. Popular methods for establishing intercoder reliability involve presenting predetermined text segments to coders. Using this approach, researchers run the risk of altering meanings by lifting text from its original context, or making interpretations about the length of codable text. This article describes a set of procedures that was used to develop and assess intercoder reliability with free-flowing text data, in which the coders themselves determined the length of codable text segments. Content analysis of open-ended interview data collected from twenty third-generation Japanese American men and women generated an intercoder reliability of more than .80 for fifteen of the seventeen themes, an average agreement of .90 across all themes, and consistency among the coders in how they segmented coded text. The findings suggest that these procedures may be useful for validating the conclusions drawn from other qualitative studies using text data.
How to Reduce an Unwritten Language to Writing: II. Consonants
Authors: Werner Oswald
Published: April 2009

This is the second article on reducing field languages to the written word. Here the author deals with the consonants, setting up a basic set of eighteen consonants and two semivowels and expanding them with Series-Generating Components (SGCs) to forty-eight. There are, of course, many more consonantal varieties in the languages of the world, but this set should be sufficient to get a field ethnographer started. The ethnographer who encounters exotic sounds not listed in this article should consult an expert. Much can be learned by reading about the languages of the area where the fieldwork is to take place. The appendix contains an empty form to be duplicated for fieldwork with unwritten languages.
From Interview Transcript to Interpretive Story: Part 1—Viewing the Transcript through Multiple Lenses
Authors: McCormack Coralie
Published: April 2009

For researchers working within a narrative inquiry framework, the task of constructing an interpretive story is daunting. They need to know, What do we do after we have transcribed our interview tapes? The author's response to this question is described in this article. The lenses of narrative processes, language, context, and moments are the dimensions people use to construct and reconstruct their identity and to give meaning to their lives. These lenses highlight both the individuality and the complexity of a life. Excerpts from an interview with one postgraduate student illustrate some of the views highlighted by each of these lenses.
From Interview Transcript to Interpretive Story: Part 2— Developing an Interpretive Story
Authors: McCormack Coralie
Published: April 2009

Writing interpretive stories from the views highlighted by the multiple lenses of active listening, narrative processes, language, context, and moments is the second part of the author's answer to the question, What do we do after we have transcribed our interview tapes? Interpretive stories offer an alternative mode of representation of interview transcripts to the traditional approach in which a transcript is fractured into smaller segments of text and then recombined into themes that move across stories, across people, and across contexts. As situated accounts inclusive of the multiple voices of the participant and those of the researcher, interpretive stories open the reader to the possibility of multiple interpretations.
What Can Digital Audio Data Do for You?
Authors: Maloney R. Shawn , Paolisso Michael
Published: April 2009

In the age of computer-generated music and digital cameras and camcorders, have you wondered whether it was possible to turn your tape-recorded interviewing into a digital process? Existing hardware and software are now available that will allow you to record, transcribe (via keyboard and remote foot pedal), and analyze digital interview data. Where appropriate, digitally recorded interview data can be used to enhance the power of your PowerPoint, GIS, Internet, and film-based multimedia presentations by actually allowing the interviewees' voices to be heard.
Demonstrating Pertex: A New Method for Improving Text Interpretation
Authors: Helmersson Helge , Mattsson Jan
Published: April 2009

This study demonstrates a new text analytic approach based on the PC-system Pertex. Interview data obtained by use of the Critical Incident Technique (CIT) in connection with a commercial start-up in international telecommunications were used as text input. Analysis of such a CIT text resulted in a root concept that appeared to capture the essence of the text. This root concept was compared with the results of eighteen different written interpretations of the interview text made independently of one another. These interpretations, taken in random order, were aggregated to a single text. A separate Pertex analysis of the aggregated text resulted in the same conceptualization and the same root concept as derived through analysis of the interview text. This is seen as supporting the validity of the approach and as indicating possibilities for enhancing the rigor of qualitative research by use of Pertex. The results also point to the possibility of capturing the essence of a phenomenon from interpretations of it made by different persons.
Handheld Computers as Tools for Writing and Managing Field Data
Authors: Greene Paul D.
Published: April 2009

Pocket-size handheld computers are powerful, versatile, and rugged tools for taking down and managing ethnographic information. They can increase the speed of writing field data, allowing an ethnographer to take more detailed notes and retain information that might otherwise be lost. They also facilitate new, specifically electronic styles of data collection and management. As nonlinear inscription technologies, they can search, cross-reference, and crunch large data sets quickly in the field. Furthermore, they allow cultural data to be conceptualized and represented in many different configurations. This article specifically reviews the Sharp Wizard, Palm Pilot, Handspring Visor, and Psion.
List Task and a Cognitive Salience Index
Authors: Sutrop Urmas
Published: April 2009

The list task and its two parameters (term frequency and its mean position in the lists) are discussed here. A new simple cognitive salience index, S = F /(N mP), that combines the two list task parameters is presented together with the procedure for its calculation. The cognitive salience index is normed to vary between 1 and 0. The basic terms in every domain are the most salient. The salience index of the ideal most salient term has the figure 1 and that of the term not mentioned at all the value is 0. The cognitive salience index gives comparable results between different investigations, as it does not depend on the length of the individual lists. The cognitive salience index is compared with some earlier salience indices.
Research Uses of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act
Authors: Lee Raymond M.
Published: April 2009

This article reviews the workings of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, looks at its use by social scientists, and examines some of the implications of the U.S. experience for researchers interested in using freedom of information legislation in their own countries.
Learning How to Find Out: Theories of Knowledge and Learning in Field Research
Authors: Coe Cati
Published: April 2009

In Learning How to Ask , Charles Briggs argues that asking questions follows cultural conventions. Field workers carry assumptions about the nature of talk and knowledge, and their questions may elicit different kinds of information and relationships than expected. This article looks ethnographically at theories of knowledge in Akuapem, Ghana, and how they interacted with the author's own native theories in interviews. Learning local conventions of knowledge transmission thus becomes one of the major tasks for the field worker.
A Systems Approach to Qualitative Data Management and Analysis
Authors: MacQueen Kathleen M. , Milstein Bobby
Published: April 2009

The basic components of qualitative data analysis are systematically organized and described. The authors propose a system centered on a database architecture with four elements that correspond to the fundamental types of information collected in the research process: (1) characteristics of the sources where answers to research questions are sought, (2) primary information collected from the sources, (3) secondary information generated to assist in the interpretation of the primary information, and (4) characteristics of the coders who generate the secondary information. The authors describe a process for constructing each of the four database elements, including criteria for inclusion of data in each element. The proposed system supports the use of quantitative and qualitative approaches to evaluate qualitative coding schemes, to assess intra- and intercoder agreement, to recognize meaningful patterns in qualitative data, and to describe the underlying symbolic and sociocultural systems reflected in the data objects.
The Impact of Competition on Performance Disparities in Organizational Systems
Authors: Horowitz Ira
Published: April 2009

Stephen Jay Gould suggests that individual ability has an upper bound in competitive endeavors and tends to improve as a result of that competition. Consequently, over time there is a diminution in the differences in individual performance that will be observed in, and have an impact on, organizational systems. Major League Baseball offers an interesting opportunity for exploring that suggestion in depth. Based on seven performance categories, this article suggests that there has not been any long-term trend toward lessening the talent disparities in baseball. Rather, the bulk of the empirical evidence leads to the conclusion that the disparities have widened. Gould offers his thesis as an explanation for the observed long-term trend of increased competitive balance in the majors. Because the thesis fails the empirical test, the economic explanation of rational profit-maximizing owners who recognize the need to maintain fan interest through competitive games and pennant races retains its pride of place.
The Underrepresentation of French Canadians on English Canadian NHL Teams
Authors: Longley Neil
Published: April 2009

Using a comprehensive data set covering the entire modern era of the National Hockey League (NHL), this article finds evidence that French Canadians have been underrepresented on English Canadian NHL teams, relative to their representation on U.S.-based teams. This underrepresentation on English Canadian teams was found not only for French Canadian players but also for off-ice personnel such as general managers and coaches. None of the traditional arguments as to why French Canadians may face entry barriers in the NHL can adequately explain the results of this article. The findings of the article give support to the hypothesis that French-English tensions may be resulting in English Canadian teams discriminating against French Canadian players. This hypothesis is given more credence when it is found that the degree of underrepresentation of French Canadians is greater during those NHL seasons when sovereigntist political threats in Quebec are highest.
The Evolving European Model of Professional Sports Finance
Authors: Andreff Wladimir , Staudohar Paul D.
Published: April 2009

The sports business in Europe has been recently altered by a court decision granting greater freedom to players in the labor market. Also, the televising of major sporting events has become more popular, generating big increases in revenues to many clubs. These and other developments are transforming methods of financing sports operations. This article examines and compares four models of sports finance: European amateur, European professional (traditional), European professional (contemporary), and American. The authors relate the changes that are occurring in the product and labor markets to these models, and assess current and future impacts. Of particular interest is the convergence between the newly evolving European model and the one found in the United States.
Equal Pay on the Hardwood: The Earnings Gap Between Male and Female NCAA Division I Basketball Coaches
Authors: Humphreys Brad R.
Published: April 2009

This article examines the earnings gap between male and female National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) head basketball coaches. Within women’s basketball, female head coaches earn base salaries 9% higher than males. Estimates from a human capital earnings model suggest that differences in job performance and institution-specific gender segregation explain this earnings gap. The base salaries of women’s head basketball coaches of both sexes are also compared to those of men’s head basketball coaches. Women’s head coaches of either gender earn about 50% of the base salary of the average men’s head coach. The earnings differential between women’s and men’s basketball coaches is attributable to occupation and not the coach’s gender, thus prestige from men’s sports, customer discrimination, and the preferences of athletic directors may explain this gap.
The Rewards to Running
Authors: Lynch James G. , Zax Jeffrey S.
Published: April 2009

This article explicitly compares the incentive and sorting theories of tournament performance in road races. Regressions omitting controls for runner ability suggest that runners record faster times the greater the loss they would suffer from finishing below their prerace ranking. However, the relationship between prize money at risk and finishing time weakens or vanishes with these controls. These results strongly suggest that races with large prizes record faster times because they attract faster runners, not because they encourage all runners to run faster.
Competitive Balance and Attendance
Authors: Schmidt Martin B. , Berri David J.
Published: April 2009

Both the popular press and industry insiders have claimed that the growing gap between the “rich” and “poor” teams in major league baseball has led to a greater disparity on the field of play and that the eventual outcome of this gap will be lower attendance. The purpose of this inquiry is twofold. First, an investigation into the level of competitive balance reveals that relative to major league baseball’s historical record and contrary to the contentions of the media, the 1990s was the most competitive decade on the field of play. Second, the previously unexplored link between aggregate attendance and league competitive balance is examined. This investigation suggests that a relationship between these factors does indeed exist, whether one explores the relationship strictly across time or with the use of a panel data set.
“The Ericson Case”
Authors: Dilger Alexander
Published: April 2009

Ericson argued in this journal that the Bosman ruling, the abolition of transfer fees after the expiration of contracts, is inefficient. But, Ericson’s model is implausible because transfers in only one direction are assumed and the so-called transfer fees are indirect salary payments. His model is also inconsistent because of double counting of salaries in the case of free agency. Furthermore, even within his model the efficiency of the Bosman ruling can be shown by assuming lifetime contracts. The real danger to efficiency is new considerations of the European Commission to abolish transfer fees before the expiration of contracts.
Major League Baseball
Authors: Alexander Donald L.
Published: April 2009

This article presents evidence that team owners in Major League Baseball (MLB) set ticket prices as profit-maximizing monopolists. However, the evidence also indicates that the cost of other forms of entertainment affects the demand for baseball tickets as economic theory would predict. The interpretation is that team owners face negatively sloped demand curves for baseball tickets but they must compete for the consumer’s entertainment dollar in a broader market for entertainment services. The recent change in MLB’s territorial restrictions also had some impact on ticket pricing. The impact, however, is inconsistent with the hypothesis that it enhanced the team owners’ market power. Instead, the evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that the change increased the demand for baseball tickets. One plausible explanation is that it provided greater incentive for individual team owners to promote their teams against other forms of entertainment. This argument merits additional consideration in future research and may provide some insight into how nonprice vertical restraints in other markets affect economic performance.
Big Brother
Authors: Palmer Gareth
Published: April 2009

Foucault defined government as the calculated direction of human conduct, the means by which behavior is shaped to various ends by the expertise in myriad agencies of the state. This article explores the theme of conduct by considering Big Brother as an experiment in governance. It is important to consider the new surveillance context in which documentaries take place. Of particular note is the way in which documentaries are seeing social issues as a means of getting to the personal and emotive. This new focus has also entailed a fascination with the psychological. Big Brother stimulated a number of debates concerning the rights and responsibilities of television producers to the subjects. It is also important to consider the ways in which the subjects of the program used the experience as an opportunity to develop their sense of self as performers and subjects in process.
Quantification and Stratification: Wound Research in the Future
Authors: Hunt T. K. , Hopf Harriet
Published: April 2009

Advances in wound healing have been slow—from the realization of a concept through to its adoption into clinical practice. There are well-known and understood reasons for this conservative approach. One less well-tried thought is to stratify the patient’s physiological status with regard to the wound. This may be the key to quantify changes in wound milieu and therefore to progress.
Assessing the Motor Status Score: A Scale for the Evaluation of Upper Limb Motor Outcomes in Patients after Stroke
Authors: Ferraro Mark , Demaio Jennifer Hogan , Krol Jennifer , Trudell Chris , Rannekleiv Keren , Edelstein Lisa , Christos Paul , Aisen Mindy , England Jill , Fasoli Susan , Krebs Hi , Hogan N , Volpe Bruce T.
Published: April 2009

The Motor Status Scale (MSS) measures shoulder, elbow (maximum score = 40), wrist, hand, and finger movements (maximum score = 42), and expands the measurement of upper extremity impairment and disability provided by the Fugl-Meyer (FM) score. This work examines the interrater reliability and criterion validity of the MSS performed in patients admitted to a rehabilitation hospital 21 ± 4 days after stroke. Using the MSS and the FM, 7 occupational therapists masked to each other’s judgments, evaluated 12 consecutive patients with stroke. Two therapists evaluated 6 additional patients on consecutive days. Intraclass correlation coefficients were significant for each group of raters for the shoulder/elbow and for the wrist/hand (P < 0.0001); test-retest measures were also significant for the shoulder/elbow (Pearson correlation coefficient r = 0.99, P < 0.004) and for the wrist/hand (Pearson correlation coefficient r = 0.99, P < 0.003). The internal item consistency for the overall MSS was significant (Cronbach alpha = 0.98, P < 0.0001). Finally the correlation between the MSS and the FM (R 2 = 0.964) was significant (P < 0.0001). The MSS affords a reliable and valid assessment of upper limb impairment and disability following stroke.
Motor Recovery and Cortical Reorganization after Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy in Stroke Patients: A Preliminary Study
Authors: Schaechter Judith D. , Kraft Eduard , Hilliard Timothy S. , Dijkhuizen Rick M. , Benner Thomas , Finklestein Seth P. , Rosen Bruce R. , Cramer Steven C.
Published: April 2009

Constraint-induced movement therapy (CIMT) is a physical rehabilitation regime that has been previously shown to improve motor function in chronic hemiparetic stroke patients. However, the neural mechanisms supporting rehabilitation-induced motor recovery are poorly understood. The goal of this study was to assess motor cortical reorganization after CIMT using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). In a repeated-measures design, 4 incompletely recovered chronic stroke patients treated with CIMT underwent motor function testing and fMRI. Five age-matched normal subjects were also imaged. A laterality index (LI) was determined from the fMRI data, reflecting the distribution of activation in motor cortices contralateral compared with ipsilateral to the moving hand. Pre-intervention fMRI showed a lower LI during affected hand movement of stroke patients (LI = 0.23 ± 0.07) compared to controls (LI unaffected patient hand = 0.65 ± 0.10; LI dominant normal hand = 0.65 ± 0.11; LI nondominant normal hand = 0.69 ± 0.11; P < 0.05) due to trends toward increased ipsilateral motor cortical activation. Motor function testing showed that patients made significant gains in functional use of the stroke-affected upper extremity (detected by the Motor Activity Log) and significant reductions in motor impairment (detected by the Fugl-Meyer Stroke Scale and the Wolf Motor Function Test) immediately after CIMT, and these effects persisted at 6-month follow-up. The behavioral effects of CIMT were associated with a trend toward a reduced LI from pre-intervention to immediately post-intervention (LI = -0.01 ± 0.06; P = 0.077) and 6 months post-intervention (LI = -0.03 ± 0.15). Stroke-affected hand movement was not accompanied by mirror movements during fMRI, and electromyographic measures of mirror recruitment under simulated fMRI conditions were not correlated with LI values. These data provide preliminary evidence that gains in motor function produced by CIMT in chronic stroke patients may be associated with a shift in laterality of motor cortical activation toward the undamaged hemisphere.
Private and State Ownership in Telecommunications
Authors: Campbell Consuelo
Published: April 2009

This study compared the performance of the Philippine private telecommunications company, the PLDT, and the São Paulo state company, Telesp. The poor performance of the PLDT can be attributed to ineffective political and regulatory institutions resulting in increased political patronage and uncertainty. A weak regulatory and political environment was unable to enforce compliance even with positive incentives. Performance of the São Paulo state company, Telesp, can be attributed to political and economic policies at the national and state level and political/regulatory structure of the Telebras system. Mismanagement and corruption at the ministerial and firm level played a less crucial role in the firm's overall performance than they did in the case of the PLDT.
With Two Feet On Firm Ground and Diverse Heads Up in the Air
Authors: van der Wurff Richard
Published: April 2009

`Open societies' are democratic societies in which people act upon the belief that no one possesses the ultimate truth. This article reviews debates of communication scholars at four Expert Meetings on whether and how media can contribute to openness and democracy in societies in East and West. It argues that a balance of power between media and societal organizations and groups (advertisers, audiences, governments) is a necessary but not sufficient condition for media to be open and contribute to democracy. In addition, we need media professionals, media organizations and audiences to be internally motivated to aim for innovation, tolerance and appreciation of diversity. The article illustrates this argument with a discussion of the proclaimed empowering role of the Internet, and clarifies why it comes as no surprise that some patterns of Internet usage close off rather than open up an informed exchange of ideas and opinions. The article concludes with some suggestions for future research on media, the Internet and open societies.
`Real Journalism Goes Underground: the Internet Underground'
Authors: Krasnoboka Natalya
Published: April 2009

Recently conducted research on the political role of the Internet in societies in transition reveals the importance of the online media. Online media are the most prominent (in terms of popularity) news and political websites in these countries. They play an important role in the current political affairs there. Online media as a research area is poorly developed not only in the transitional societies but also in the established democracies. Moreover, researchers in this field seldom make a distinction between online versions of traditional media and original online outlets. Although this distinction may be of less importance for established democracies, it appears to be crucial for other countries. Based on the case study of Ukraine and Russia this article explores the definition and categorization of online media. It also investigates reasons for online media emergence. The major differences between original online media and online versions of traditional media are outlined and discussed. The role of online media in societies in transition is analysed.