bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
What Lies Behind Collegiality, Legitimation or Control?
Authors: Brundrett Mark
Published: March 2007

It can be argued that `collegiality' has come to be the dominant paradigm for the effective management of educational institutions. This paper first offers a definition of collegiality in educational institutions; second, outlines the perceived advantages which have been presented in national and international perspectives; and, third, analyses some of the difficulties, dangers and anomalies inherent in such an approach to the governance of institutions. Although not completely dismissing such an all-embracing and widely held aspect of the contemporary culture of management, this paper concludes that collegiality, at least in its most `radical' form, can be exposed to powerful and ideological critiques.
A Response to Brundrett
Authors: Tomlinson Harry
Published: March 2007

This paper is a response to Brundrett's examination of `What lies behind collegiality, legitimation or control?'. In it the author suggests that the argument presented by Brundrett lacks clarity on the relationship between collegiality and teacher professionalism, and what democracy and autonomy mean for teachers in educational institutions. In contrast to Brundrett's perceived scepticism, it is argued that within the tighter structure of the national curriculum and given contemporary developments in the professional standards of teachers, collaboration and collegiality can provide a sharper focus for teacher professional development.
Seductions of the Impossible
Authors: Richardson Michael
Published: March 2007

Theories about sacrifice generally focus on practice within ancient societies. In contrast, Georges Bataille sought the psychological truth that sacrifice embodies in the structure of contemporary society. This article considers Bataille's view of sacrifice against the background of the will of the surrealists to `reinvent love' and question traditional ideas of the relations between the sexes.
Zygmunt Bauman's Postmodern Turn
Authors: Kellner Douglas
Published: March 2007

Over the past decade, Zygmunt Bauman has published a series of books that sketch out a postmodern turn in society, theory, culture, ethics and politics. Changes in contemporary society and culture, Bauman argues, require new modes of thought, morality and politics to appropriately respond to the new social conditions. This requires a reconfiguration of critical social theory and new tasks for a postmodern sociology. Bauman thus poses fundamental challenges to contemporary social theory and provides an original and provocative post-modern version of the sociological imagination, developing sketches of the fundamental social and cultural changes of our time, and the ways that theory and politics must be changed to creatively map and democratically respond to these questions. Bauman's critical reflections on modern theory and society, and his postmodern turn, require serious critical responses to his challenges to conventional wisdom and practice. In my study, I sketch out what I consider to be important in Bauman's recent work, what I see as problematical, and how Bauman's project — that is also my own — might be advanced. While my focus might appear to be predominantly critical, I attempt to generate a constructive dialogue with his thought that will advance our mutual interests and perhaps help illuminate some interesting contemporary topics and debates.
W(h)ither Contact? An Alternative To Current Practices
Authors: Waite Ian
Published: March 2007

Ian Waite revisits the arguments for a more therapeutic approach to cases where future contact is at issue, suggesting that the advent of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS) could finally provide the opportunity for reform.
Probation: Containment or Liberty?
Authors: Drakeford Mark
Published: March 2007

An analysis of arguments for a more 'unambiguously controlling role' for Probation, and a re-assertion of traditional values of respect, concern and minimum interference with liberty.
The Victim and Reparation
Authors: Reeves Helen
Published: March 2007

Does 'Reparation' serve victims' best interests? This is a largely unproven assumption, and the author urges that unless we proceed carefully, with proper appreciation of victims' needs, reparation could easily fall into disrepute.
Probation Working in Prison
Authors: Lacey Malcolm , Read Gordon
Published: March 2007

The Probation Service and the Prison Department have both committed themselves to 'shared working' for the welfare and resettlement of prisoners. The authors set out a role for Probation in the enterprise and argue for a probation presence in prisons to ensure an effective response to the needs of prisoners. Objectives
DSS: Social Security, Visually Impaired People and the Labour Government
Authors: Winyard Steve
Published: March 2007

To understand the Government's policy on benefits for disabled people we need to look wider than the rather dull domain of the Department of Social Security (DSS). In 1997 the Prime Minister set out the Government's public expenditure priorities and they were, to coin a phrase "Education, education, education". More recently health has been elevated to a comparable status with an additional £43 billion allocated in the 2000 Comprehensive Spending Review.
New methods for studying blind children's understanding of familiar space
Authors: Lewis Vicky , Collis Glyn , Shadlock Ros , Potts Michelle , Norgate Sarah , Lewis Vicky , Shadlock Ros , Potts Michelle , Norgate Sarah , Collis Glyn
Published: March 2007

Two previous studies have indicated that until the teenage years blind children understand the relationships between familiar locations in and around their home in terms of the routes between them rather than in terms of straight line directions. Given the practical implications of these findings, it is important that they are replicated. The present paper describes some new ways of exploring blind children's understanding of space and reports some preliminary data from three blind children, two severely visually impaired children and a small group of sighted children. These data indicate that blind children can understand the straight line relationships between different locations at a younger age than previously reported. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
How do people remember spatial information from tactile maps?
Authors: Millar Susanna , AI-Attar Zainab
Published: March 2007

This study investigates the strategies people use spontaneously to remember spatial information from touch and movement to understand why tactile maps are often found difficult. We compared task-filled with unfilled delays in location and distance tasks. Locations showed highly significant effects of the longer, more complex positioning movements used here in location recall, but no interference from the interpolated tasks, except marginally from counting backwards. By contrast, recall by the same participants of a repeated small distance showed highly significant interference from interpolated spatial rotation and movements. Speech suppression had no effects. The findings suggest that spontaneous spatial heuristics vary with the ease and consistency of positioning movements in recall, and cannot be inferred from type (location or distance) of spatial task. The discussion considers the practical implications of the findings.
Are we producing the goods?
Authors: Phelan Patrick
Published: March 2007

The following is an edited version of a talk given at the AEW VH Conference, University of Birmingham, 13-15 July 1984. The history of blind welfare is traced to show how services have developed between 1601 and 1984 and how the response to need has changed between that date and this.
Thirty years of integration of Visually handicapped students into post-primary institutions in Plateau State, Nigeria, 1957-1987 : an evaluation
Authors: Hill Kathryn E.
Published: March 2007

The careers of visually handicapped people who have been educated in post-primary schools and colleges in Plateau State, Nigeria, are evaluated in terms of percentage employment, type of employment and further/higher educatio n. Recommendations for improving the quality of education offered to visually handicapped students in the State are then made.
The waiting game : Operation Cataract
Authors: Hicks Claire E.
Published: March 2007

Cataract is a world-wide major cause of visual handicap and blindness. Prevention is not yet technically possible, but modern cataract surgery offers a quick, safe and effective means of restoring vision. A major international effort is being made to reduce the formidable backlog of cases in many develop ing countries. It is a disturbina fact that in Britain many people have to wait years for cataract surgery on the National Health Service, while in certain other European countries waiting lists are almost unknown. Emphasising the seriousness o f the problem, this article describes how it has been success fully tackled at a local level by 'Operation Cataract' and suggests that this approach could be adopted on a much wider scale.
Sensory loss and successful ageing: Australian evidence
Authors: McCallum John , Mathers Colin , Freeman Elizabeth
Published: March 2007

Data presented at an international symposium in Melbourne, March 1990, showed considerable cross-national similarity in rates of sensory loss in old age. New national data from Australia confirm these patterns. This article considers sight and hearing loss in the general context of ageing. Rates and consequences of sight and hearing loss in men and women are compared and discussed. Also noted are the different responses of non-English speaking migrants; and the fact that combined rates of sight and hearing loss are second only to musculo-skeletal conditions as causes of illness in old age. A co-ordinated international research and education programme is needed to deal with these major threats to successful ageing.
Flemish daily newspaper in braille
Authors: Bormans Geert
Published: March 2007

The following article describes another development in the provision of a daily newspaper for visually impaired people.
The spelling competence of partially sighted children
Authors: Corley Gianetta , Pring Linda
Published: March 2007

The spelling of a group of 11 partially sighted children, aged 6-10 years, was compared with that of a matched group of 22 fully sighted children, all tested during 1986-7. There was evidence that young partially sighted children were slower to make a start with spelling. No differences were found between the two groups in terms of the reproduction of silent or anomalous letters, nor in the inappropriate use of letter-sound correspondences. However, the spelling of the partially sighted children was significantly less accurate than that of the fully sighted children and this was thought to reflect their visual impairment.
Teaching social skills to visually impaired students
Authors: Stockley Jennifer
Published: March 2007

This article describes a study (1992) in which a group of students from RNIB Redhill College were given a programme of teaching in social skills with emphasis on the social use of language. The aim was to assess whether systematic training over a one-year period would enhance self-confidence and improve social interaction skills. The expectation was that students would find real social situations less threaten ing or demanding if they had been given specific training in how to handle them. This programme appears to indicate promising results.
Visually impaired children's strategies for memorising a map
Authors: Ungar Simon , Blades Mark , Spencer Christopher
Published: March 2007

This article describes research carried out in 1993. 24 children with visual impairments and 22 sighted children (aged seven to 13 years) were asked to learn a tactile map and then reconstruct it from memory. While the children were learning the map they gave a continuous commentary on what they were doing and thinking. The commentaries and map reconstructions were analysed to identify and assess the learning strategies which the children used to memorise the map. Overall, the reconstructions made by children with visual impairments were less accurate than the ones made by sighted children. However, it was noted that most of the children with visual impairments used strategies which were inappropriate for the task. It is suggested that teaching appropriate learning strategies would improve the ability of visually impaired children to encode information from tactile maps.
Teaching Music to the Visually Impaired Student in a Standard School Setting
Authors: Clark Ann , Murphy Frank
Published: March 2007

In former times visually Impaired students were often placed In special schools. This policy Is beginning to change and young people with varying degrees of sight deficiency are now being Integrated Into standard classroom settings. Such a strategy may pose substantial problems for the specialist music teacher who may have had little training In this or any other field of special education. The purpose of this Paper is to consider the kinds of Information a music educator may require to cope with the needs of a visually Impaired student in a standard classroom setting.
The Psychosocial Intimacy Questionnaire: Validational Studies and an Investigation of Sex Roles
Authors: Tesch Stephanie A.
Published: March 2007

The purpose of the present research was to develop an easily administered measure of intimacy that could apply to several types of relationships in adolescents and adults. In a set of four survey studies, the sixty-item Psychosocial Intimacy Questionnaire (PIQ) was found to have high internal consistency (alpha = 0.97) and good test-retest stability over a three-week interval, r = 0.84. Correlations with other measures provided evidence for convergent and discriminant validity of the PIQ. Factor analysis indicated that psychosocial intimacy may be a function of romantic love, supportiveness and communication ease. Intimacy level of heterosexual relationships in young adults appears to be more affected by partners' feminine qualities than by sex-typing or androgyny.
Women's Communication with Intimates and Acquaintances
Authors: Fischer Judith L. , Sollie Donna L.
Published: March 2007

This study rated the communication behaviours, verbal and non-verbal, of women who discussed topics of low intimacy with a same-sex other (either an intimate friend or an acquaintance) and with an opposite-sex other (either an intimate friend or an acquaintance). Results indicated that there were interactions of gender of target person with degree of acquaintance. In discussions with both same-and opposite-sex acquaintances, the female participants seemed to take responsibility for keeping the conversation going; however, their verbal behaviours differed depending upon the gender of the target person. Opposite-sex interactions produced more questions from the women while same-sex interactions produced more subtle verbal behaviours such as active listening responses. Opposite-sex intimates were responded to more warmly and openly than were same-sex intimates, probably due in part to the greater closeness reported with the opposite-sex intimate than with the same-sex intimate. Results were discussed in terms of sex-role appropriateness of behaviours as well as the apparent complexity of communication behaviours.
Effects of Jealousy Threats on Relationship Perceptions and Emotions
Authors: Bush Catherine Radecki , Bush Joseph P. , Jennings Joyce
Published: March 2007

The experimental induction of jealousy threat in a specific situation, using an imagery task, affected subjects' perceptions of themselves and of their romantic relationships, and influenced their emotions. Jealousy-provoking situations increased subjects' perceptions of themselves as jealous in their relationships, and their perceptions of themselves as more emotionally involved in the relationship relative to their partners. Jealousy threat decreased levels of perceived security and stability of the relationship and self-perceived feelings of attractiveness and acceptability to partners. These jealousy-provoking scenes also elicited a complexity of emotions: decreased joy and an increased series of negative emotions. When subjects imagined themselves in a high threat condition, where the loss of their partners seemed imminent, they evaluated their relationships as significantly less secure/ stable, and reported greater intensities of surprise, fear and distress in contrast to the low threat scenes. Dispositional measures of self-esteem and jealousy did not significantly predict jealousy-induced relationship perceptions, although these person variables were somewhat correlated with subjects' ratings of characteristics of their relationships in general. It was concluded that situational variables, such as level of jealousy threat, affect both emotions and cognitions related to the self and relationship based upon the salient characteristics of the situation. Some evidence was found for an interactional explanation of romantic jealousy which requires further investigation.
Relationship between Exspouses: Individual and Dyadic Perspectives
Authors: Ambert Anne-Marie
Published: March 2007

The ex-spousal relationship is one which is not frequently researched, in part because of the methodological difficulties inherent to interviewing both ex-spouses. In this exploratory report on 85 ex-couples, we found an impressive level of agreement concerning the normative aspects of the ex-spousal relationship. At the behavioral level, no matter how the data were analysed, post-marital harmony was a minority phenomenon. Contacts between ex-spouses were rare. One-third of ex-spouses with children never saw each other. Lower-SES persons were less likely to fulfill their co-parental role than were higher-SES persons. Feelings for the ex-spouse were affected by the presence of children. We also examined perceptions of the ex-spouses' feelings for self. We compared ex-couples congruent in terms of feelings with non-congruent ex-couples. Only 13 percent of the ex-spouses were congruent on friendliness. They were then compared with ex-spouses congruent on dislike. We conclude with a discussion of the concept of successful divorces and present hypotheses for larger-scale studies.
Stress, Coping and Adaptation to New Parenthood
Authors: Terry Deborah J.
Published: March 2007

A longitudinal study of 123 couples provided some support for the utility of a model of adaptation to parenthood. Even when the effects of initial well-being were controlled, the level of subjective stress (strain) and the use of tension-reducing coping strategies emerged as (negative) predictors of contemporaneous and delayed measures of adaptation. This support for the model was also evident when an external measure of adaptation was utilized. There was, additionally, support for the proposal that problem-focused coping facilitates adaptation to new parenthood, although 18 weeks after the birth this effect was evident only for males. In relation to coping resources, the data provided some support for the proposed effects of the individual resources (self-esteem, internality) and both marital and family support. Non-family support was not related to any of the measures of adaptation. There was some evidence that females experienced lower levels of psychological well-being in the immediate postnatal period than males, while males rated their partner's coping effectiveness more poorly than females. In addition to the gender difference in the effects of problem-focused coping, there was also evidence to suggest that the effects of internality on adaptation 4 weeks after the event differed for males and females.
The Role of Attachment Style and Relationship Status of the Perceiver in the Perceptions of Romantic Partner
Authors: Young Amy M. , Acitelli Linda K.
Published: March 2007

Intimate relationships can influence interpersonal perception because they are characterized by emotional involvement and close attachment between the members of the dyad; thus, attachment theory and research may shed light on interpersonal perception within intimate relationships. In this study, a probability sample of 179 men and 198 women who were married or involved in a committed dating relationship, was examined to test the hypothesis that attachment style and degree of public commitment to the relationship (i.e. marital status) would predict perceptions of partners. Secure individuals had positive appraisals of their partner regardless of marital status, suggesting that secure individuals do not need concrete indicators of commitment to feel positively towards their partners. For insecure attachment styles, perception of partner was associated with the degree of public commitment as well as sex and attachment style of the perceiver. These findings highlight the need for more studies recognizing how differences in sex and marital status affect the association between attachment styles and perceptions of partners.
Adolescent Friendship Selection and Termination: The Role of Similarity
Authors: Urberg Kathryn A. , Degirmencioglu Serdar M. , Tolson Jerry M.
Published: March 2007

We examined friendship selection and termination on a wide variety of variables using longitudinal data from 1183, 6th, 8th and 10th graders in two school systems. To control for the effects of peer influence on similarity, adolescents were matched at Time 1 with the persons they would become friends with by Time 2. Adolescents were significantly similar to Time 1 about-to-be friends on minor delinquency and cigarette and alcohol use, the number of reciprocated friendships and activities suggesting that friendship selection was based on these variables. The similarity seen on covert variables such as values and personality could be accounted for by selection on problem behaviors. Adolescents were as similar to stable friends as to about-to-be friends, suggesting that selection plays a stronger role in similarity than influence. Termination was related to fewer variables than was selection.
Social Reaction Styles, Interpersonal Behaviours and Person Perception: A Multi-Informant Approach
Authors: Eronen Sanna , Nurmi Jari-Erik
Published: March 2007

Social strategies and reaction styles have been suggested to play an important role in initiating social relationships and in satisfaction with them. In order to investigate whether they are directly associated with popularity, unpopularity, lone-liness and evaluations about the social climate, or whether their impact is mediated by interpersonal behaviours and person perception, 92 students were asked to complete questionnaires measuring their social reaction styles, their lone-liness, the social climate in the class and their sociometric status. They also rated the behaviour of seven of their classmates, and these ratings were used as indices of social behaviour and person perception. The results showed that the impact of social reaction styles on popularity and unpopularity among classmates was mediated through social behaviour in particular, but also through person perception. However, social reaction styles were directly associated with feelings of loneliness and evaluation of the social climate. The results emphasize the importance of investigating social strategies and reaction styles as complex factors that include cognitive, behavioural and perceptual processes.
Choosing a business database: the expert approach
Authors: Newham Godfrey , Tseng Gwyneth , Morris Anne
Published: March 2007

Outlines the results of a pilot research project carried out at Loughborough University. Investigates experts' knowledge and behaviour and aims to determine how experts choose online business databases, and which ones they choose in particular situations.
The Post-1933 Emigration of Communication Researchers from Germany
Authors: Averbeck Stefanie
Published: March 2007

The subject of this article is the emigration of German-speaking communication researchers after 1933 to the US and other countries. The article focuses on Zeitungswissenschaft (newspaper studies) in Weimar Germany and its lost works. Lost, because some of the most brilliant protagonists of this new academic field, which was first established in 1918 at the University of Leipzig, were refugees from Nazi Germany. Often, they were not able to enter an international setting of communication science due to the ruptures in their lives and careers. Their books have not been translated. These theoretical approaches were mainly of sociological impact and far from simple stimulus-response models. The Third Reich, with its aims of propaganda and lack of scientific relevance in the field, marked an end-point to a very innovative process-oriented way of thinking in early communication science in Germany. Most of the protagonists of this new thinking emigrated: for example, the sociologists Karl Mannheim and Ernest Manheim, the communication researchers Walter Auerbach and Gerhard Münzner. This article outlines the theoretical background of early communication science in Germany and the context of racist and political persecution and emigration as a social and intellectual breakdown of this science. Actually, this breakdown gains new interest in the German academic community; the past of German communication science and its very dark sides have become topics of discussion and research.
Bloodhounds or Missionaries: Role Definitions of German and British Journalists
Authors: Köcher Renate
Published: March 2007

A comparative study of British and German journalists has brought to light extensive differences in their perception of their role, their professional motivations and their evaluation of the norm of objectivity. Even in countries with freedom of the press, therefore, journalism can develop in completely different directions, dependent upon the political, legal and historical settings. German journalism follows the traditional role of a species of political and intellectual career, which tends to place a lot of value on opinion and less on news. British journalism, in contrast, particularly sees itself in the role of transmitter of facts, a neutral reporter of current affairs.
Development Theory and Communication Policy: Power to the People!
Authors: Servaes Jan
Published: March 2007

Most scholars agree that thinking about communication and development as a distinct discipline emerged after World War II, and they usually point out two paradigms: `modernization' versus `dependency'. In this article a new perspective is perceived in terms of a new paradigm, defined as `multiplicity in one world'. It is argued that these three paradigms imply quite divergent communication policy consequences.
The BBC and the Holocaust
Authors: Seaton Jean
Published: March 2007

Contemporaries and historians have often argued that the Allies did not do more to save Jews from extermination during the Second World War either because little was known about what was happening to them, or because the evidence was not believed. This article demonstrates that at least within the BBC detailed information about the Holocaust was received, believed and broadcast. It argues that despite problems of style and discrimination, the most important reason for the lack of emphasis given to this news was that, in a period when defeat seemed probable, there was no political will to do more about what appeared to be remote events. The key to political action was will, not information.
Television Drama as a Vehicle of Social Communication
Authors: Frentzel-Zagórska Janina
Published: March 2007

This article is based on quasi-experimental studies of social communication through television drama of high artistic quality. It examines how viewers perceive the overall message of Tom Stoppard's Separate Peace, screened on Polish Television. Two groups of respondents — with contrasting levels of education — were chosen: college-educated individuals and workers with no more than a secondary vocational schooling. The study shows that while lower literary competence, measured by educational attainment, does in a sense impoverish the reception of artistic messages, it mainly results in a form of `naïve' reception that is as valid as, but different from, reception typical for individuals of higher literary competence. The characteristic traits of both types of reception are considered in detail.
International Communications and the Second World: Developments in Communication Strategies
Authors: Downing John D.H.
Published: March 2007

There are many forms of communication between the socialist nations, and between them and capitalist countries, such as diplomatic (both conventional and public), party-to-party, scientific and foreign language media services. This article focuses upon the use of media technologies in international communication. It examines (a) TV programme exchange practices and policies; (b) the role of the Intersputnik international satellite organization; (c) the development of computer-aided international data transmission (TBDFs); and (d) the respective places of Cuba and Nicaragua in this communication complex.
A Vicious Circle in Soviet Media- Audience Relations
Authors: Manaev Oleg
Published: March 2007

This article presents the results of an analysis of interaction between the youth-oriented mass media of Byelorussia and their audience in the mid-1980s. The media attempted to exercise social control mainly by forstering traditional, uniform models of reality and activity, reflecting the requirements and interests of only a limited part of the audience. This created a vicious circle, restricting both the influence of the media and the ability of citizens to take an active part in social life through utilization of mass communications. This process is manifested as a tendency in the flow of letters and other submissions from the audience to the media and as a more rigorous law in the flow of published materials back to the audience from the media. This is probably characteristic of mass communication generally; however, it becomes more active and acquires the character of public opinion manipulation under a bureaucratic administrative system. It is argued here that an objective scientific analysis of the conditions responsible for the circle can help to break it by exposing the dynamics underlying relationships between political control bodies, the media and the audience.
Exposure to Political Content in Newspapers: The Impact of Cognitive Dissonance on Readers' Selectivity
Authors: Donsbach Wolfgang
Published: March 2007

The concepts of selective exposure and cognitive dissonance have contributed to the paradigm of weak media effects which dominated communications research for about a quarter of a century. However, despite numerous studies in psychology and communications, empirical results have been mixed and the actual role of selectivity as a `protective shield' against persuasive messages has remained unclear. This study combines a survey including copy-tests of the readers of four German dailies with a quantitative content analysis of the articles printed in three consecutive issues of the same newspapers. The results indicate that consonance and dissonance between messages and readers' predispositions have a statistically significant but rather limited impact on exposure.
Advertising and Cross-Cultural Convergence in Europe, 1953-89
Authors: Snyder Leslie B. , Willenborg Bartjan , Watt James
Published: March 2007

In response to the global debates about advertising standardization, cultural imperialism, convergence and autonomy, we describe changes in the national and international character of advertising messages in Western Europé during growing economic unification between 1953 and 1989. A content analysis of magazine advertisements in France, West Germany, Great Britain and the Netherlands found an increasing tendency over time to show nationality — domestic products use more national symbols and identifiably domestic locations, and foreign products (especially from other EEC nations) use more images and languages to show their foreignness. Surprisingly, there was little use of either pan-European or non-European (such as American) images over time. Relating the advertising content to public opinion about European unification, the limited use of pan-European visuals was related to and preceded changes in public opinion about EEC membership. Public opinion shifts, on the other hand, preceded foreign language use.
Raidió Na Gaeltachta: Reviver, Preserver or Swan Song of the Irish Language?
Authors: Browne Donald R.
Published: March 2007

Irish is the official first language of Ireland but until the establishment of Raidió na Gaeltachta (RNG) in 1972, state-run televison and radio had broadcast mainly in English. This article traces the development of RNG, the first all-Irish language radio service, and considers its contribution to the preservation and spread of the language. It has carved its own distinctive and highly-regarded niche and helped sustain and revitalize the language. However, cultural dependency may prove the dominant force in the long-run; RNG's audience may dwindle in the face of fierce competition from the majority cultural services. Crucially, younger people seem less interested in speaking Irish and are proving a difficult audience to reach. To avoid long-term extinction, RNG may have to compromise and admit some English use, especially in pop music, a strategy which also threatens the dilution of the language.
European HDTV Strategy: Muddling Through or Muddling Up?
Authors: Kaitatzi-Whitlock Sophia
Published: March 2007

Following a successful technology R&D programme, the European High Definition Television (HDTV) system was the only one available. Despite this, it will never reach the market. In June 1993 the great strategy of the EC to conquer the world with its own transmission system was officially abandoned. This article examines the strategy and the policy-making process that aspired to promote the European model of HDTV but failed. It argues that divergent and conflicting national and industrial interests, as well as divergent policy approaches, are in part to blame for this failure. Mismanagement of time in the policy process due to these conflicting approaches and interests was fatal as concurrently swift technological innovations led to the development of the competing digital HDTV model. It further argues that policy making was not flexible enough — and therefore not incremental — and that it ignored factors such as consumer demand. The HDTV strategy and policy goals were unrealistic and incongruent with available means as, for example, those who sought subsidies for the production of HD-MAC were concurrently developing the antagonistic digital model.
Codes of Professionalism: Journalists Versus Politicians in Finland and Sweden
Authors: Esaiasson Peter , Moring Tom
Published: March 2007

Previous studies have demonstrated that journalists' normative views of `professional journalism' vary between countries. This study shows that context-bound variations in the meaning of journalistic professionalism also encompass conduct in real-world situations. Indeed, we argue that empirical evidence allows us to speak more of a universal code for professional politicians than for professional journalists. For instance, we find evidence of gender-related bias and bias against right-wing protest parties in the conduct of journalists. The study is based on a content analysis of live television interviews in Finland and Sweden.
Pursuing the Holy Grail
Authors: Winseck Dwayne
Published: March 2007

This article shows that media convergence has always been a historical possibility but was foreclosed by private industry and/or governments intent on preventing cross-media combinations. In contrast, the current push to bring about information highways in Britain and Canada promotes rather than prevents media reconvergence. Given the uncertainties surrounding new media, three potential evolutionary paths are suggested: the emergence of `information suburbs' in contrast to the idealistic connotations associated with information societies; new media as adjuncts of `old media'; or a strategy that seeks to expand the range of universal service and media freedoms for the many rather than the few and which uses ISDN as the cornerstone of the fixed public telecommunications network.
Mediated Childhoods
Authors: Livingstone Sonia
Published: March 2007

This Special Issue presents work in progress from a substantial cross-national project investigating the diffusion and significance of media and information technologies among young people aged 6-17 years old living in 12 European countries — Belgium (Flanders), Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Israel,1 Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. As described in this article, the project has brought together multidisciplinary teams to develop a common conceptual and methodological framework with which to explore cultural variations in media use. This framework stresses the importance of, first, contextualizing `new' media in relation to both pre-existing media practices and the broader contexts of young people's lives; second, of drawing on and contributing to the integration of childhood, youth and media studies; and third, of theorizing contexts of media use in relation to processes of modernization. Thus we link young people's media uses to the shifting boundary between public and private, the changing relation between social determination and individualization of the life world, and processes of globalization and consumerism. This article also introduces the cross-national basis of the project and outlines its objectives and design. The other articles in this Special Issue present initial comparative findings on European children and young people's changing media environments.
Media Use and the Relationships of Children and Teenagers with their Peer Groups
Authors: Suess Daniel , Suoninen Annikka , Garitaonandia Carmelo , Juaristi Patxi , Koikkalainen Riitta , Oleaga Jose A.
Published: March 2007

This article reports first results from a comparative analysis of interview data from Finland, Spain and Switzerland. Within the framework of a developmental perspective on the role of media in everyday life, we focus on cross-cultural similarities and differences in how media use is related to children's and teenagers' relationships with their peers. The data revealed main ways in which media are part of young people's everyday lives: using media together with peers; as a source for common topics in play and talk; as a means of facilitating identification with groups and their values; and for the development of an individual identity. The comparison between the three countries showed that these forms of media use are central to different age groups in the three countries, influenced by different concepts of children's autonomy from adult supervision, systems of organizing leisure time activities and the structure of the school day.
Parliaments and the Media
Authors: Negrine Ralph
Published: March 2007

How has the media coverage of parliaments and politics changed in the last decade? This article seeks to answer this question by exploring the media coverage of parliament and politics in Britain and Germany in 1986 and 1996. Drawing on an analysis of a range of newspapers and broadcast media from these two years, as well as interviews with practitioners and politicians, this article begins to identify the extent, and diverse nature, of those changes and their significance in relation to the degree of access now granted to political actors, to the range of subjects now covered and to the main locations of political coverage. This article argues, finally, that the issues this research raises encompass questions about democracy and citizenship.
The Discourse of Location
Authors: Conboy Martin
Published: March 2007

This article examines the recent rise in popularity of German film, in particular comedy, with German cinema audiences. This trend contrasts sharply with negative reviews from cinema critics while being in line with the agenda of popular directors and certain conservative politicians. The article examines what may be deduced about the place of such a cinema in the rearticulation of a specifically German national-popular culture and how this may inform us about the importance of the location of post-unification Germany in the global context in terms of its national identity. By national-popular is meant the ways in which popular entertainment can be used to create a network of identifications within a specific linguistic and cultural grouping such as the nation-state. It also has a resonance of Antonio Gramsci's usage in his Prison Notebooks in that it helps to understand the informal way in which popular culture may actively support the nationalist rhetoric which is necessary to legitimate a nationstate. This is particularly relevant in contemporary Germany, which needs as a political entity to ensure broad support for its reconfigured status.
The Changing Significance of Ties
Authors: Yakubovich Valery , Kozina Irina
Published: March 2007

This article explores the relative change in significance among various means of getting a job in Russia in the period of transition from state socialism. The article argues that the transition neither makes personal connections obsolete nor transforms them in a market-like fashion. In accordance with the path dependency argument, they persist strongly while formal labor market mechanisms are weakened by the devaluation of workers' formal credentials as a hiring criterion. The authors' theoretical propositions are supported by empirical analyses based on ethnographic and survey data collected in four Russian cities. Unstructured interviews indicate that the specific skills acquired by job candidates through the formal education system have a minor impact on hiring decisions. At the same time, personal connections preserve their influence and are being formally incorporated in decision-making. We treat the channels of help, channels of information and the formal market as alternative means of a getting a job described by a competing risk event history model with repeated events. The model confirms that the informal channels persist while the formal labor market is shrinking, although the relative increase in the value of personal contacts vis-a-vis the formal market is statistically insignificant. The shrinkage of the formal labor market becomes negligible when we control for the interaction of the educational credentials and the start of the reform period. Thus, this phenomenon can be primarily attributed to the diminished role of educational credentials.
Civilization and its Sources
Authors: Szakolczai Arpad
Published: March 2007

This article provides a conceptual and historical analysis of the term 'civilization'. It argues that in substantive terms, the core meaning of civilization is the limiting of violence in inter-human relations, while in terms of historical methodology, the rise of 'civilization' is to be connected to periods of dissolution of order. Such periods are conceptualized using the work of Victor Turner on liminality, and of René Girard on the sacrificial mechanism. On the basis of these findings, the article proceeds to thematize the 'civilizing process', using the concepts of brotherhood, institutionalization, asceticism, charisma and parrhesia (the frank practice of truth-telling, based on Foucault's unpublished lectures). It argues that a core idea of the European civilizing process, the revelation of the persecuting crowd, can be found not simply in the works but the lives and deaths of its two major founding figures, Socrates and Jesus. In its concluding pages, the article argues that 'globalization' thus has two main driving forces: the 'spirit' of capitalism, that Weber traced back to the 'Protestant ethic', but also the Gospel story in which, in a Girardian reading of Elias, the European 'civilizing process' can be rooted.
THE REDISCOVERY OF CHRONOS: THE NEW ROLE OF TIME IN SOCIOLOCICAL THEORY
Authors: Elchardus Mark
Published: March 2007

This paper traces the new role of time in social theory, beyond the dissatisfaction with theories of change. This is done by identifying four developments: the clarification of historically independent processes, the new critique of positivism, the re-evaluation of `micro sociology' and the emphasis on self-reference. These are specified on the basis of the work of Giddens and Luhmann, and related to the concept of time used by these authors. I argue that their predominantly naturalistic sui generis concept of time cannot do justice to the theoretical programmes they are implementing, and propose to focus instead on temporality and its conceptualisation. Temporality is defined on the basis of an invariant core that can be abstracted from the variety of operational culture-specific concepts of time. The paper closes with a discussion of some of the consequences of this shift from (naturalistic) time to social temporality.
A CRITIQUE OF WORLD SYSTEM THEORY
Authors: Pieterse Jan Nederveen
Published: March 2007

Contemporary social science needs to formulate a world sociology, and with regard to this problematic, world system theory occupies an important place. At an earlier stage world system theory has been criticised for overemphasising the world market while neglecting forces and relations of production. The present critique focuses on conceptual dimensions of world system theory and on the relationship between its conceptual structure and the way it theorises social change and action. World system theory is a theory of the world system without a system theory. Its actual conceptual units are `social systems', one of which is the `modern world system'. The assumptions which define these need to be examined as well as how they are thought to relate to one another and how one changes into another. This is one of the fundamental conceptual problems of world system theory. It shares this difficulty in conceptualising structure change with other `structural' approaches, such as structural history of the Annales school. In world system theory this is combined with neo-Marxist dependency theory and an, in other respects, conventional Marxism, replicating several of the deficiencies of these approaches-the centrism of dependency thinking and the materialism and determinism of conventional Marxism. To address the question of structure change, in particular how the `modern world system' can be transformed to a successor social system, world system theory revives the Marxist theory of the crisis of capitalism, i.e. one of the weakest theorems of Marxist thought.
EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT REVISITED: A SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
Authors: Albornoz Orlando
Published: March 2007

It is currently fashionable to declare Third World development ideology to be at an end, but conditions in those countries are worsening and education appears ineffective in preventing that. Education has been seen as the strategy to bring countries out of underdevelopment, social inequality and injustice. In fact, often by promoting professional interest groups, it may have the opposite effect. But official rhetoric in countries like India, Venezuela, Nigeria, Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Mexico, continues to insist that education is the way to promote development. In Venezuela the chance was there but it has been wasted. In addition to the old issues in education and development, such as economic growth and the organisation of education, there are new issues of debt, drugs, corruption and violence. Governments are reducing educational expenditure. The system suffers from deprivation of academic freedom, or misguided populist policies, from anti-intellectualism and administrative corruption. As sociologists we need better theory and research to make our voices heard.