bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Defrosting the Freezer: From Novelty to Convenience
Authors: Shove Elizabeth , Southerton Dale
Published: April 2009

This article examines the ‘normalization’ of the British freezer. It defines three phases in this process: an initial period oriented around the utility of preserving home produce; a second stage marked by the development of a frozen food infrastructure and the establishment of the freezer as a part of the efficient domestic economy; and a third subtle but significant redefinition of the primary benefits of freezing in terms of convenience. Cast in their new role as ‘time machines’, freezers are sold as a means of managing contemporary pressures associated with the scheduling and co-ordination of domestic life. At one level, this is a story of the gradual acceptance of a relatively standardized object. Yet this narrative suggests that the freezer’s promised benefits and functions change along the way. Developing this point, we argue that the normalization of the chameleon-like freezer can only be understood in the context of similarly changing systems of food provisioning, patterns of domestic practice and allied technological devices.
Megalithic Follies
Authors: Evans Christopher
Published: April 2009

The context of, and sources for, illustrations produced by Soane’s studio on the theme of prehistoric monuments are explored. Reflecting upon the ‘embedding’ of style within the distant past (i.e. the ‘project of origins’), these tell of the changing configuration of the nation’s cultural landscape and provide further insight into the role of ruination in the architect’s work. Two out of the three images considered have ‘fantastic’ attributes and raise issues relating to the interaction of monuments and follies. Others have a direct relation with 3-dimensional model-based presentations, and the nature of the ‘translation’ of imagery between different media is also discussed.
No Rules, Only Choices?
Authors: Grove-White Annie
Published: April 2009

This article presents a case study about the way women make decisions about colour and dress prior to, and after a visit to an image consultancy, Color Me Beautiful. It specifically asks to what extent women feel they have benefited from such a consultation in relation to the fashion system and the experience of consumption.

The article is divided into two sections. The first section argues that the interviewees, prior to the consultation, had adopted a narrow and restricted mode of decision-making in relation to colour and clothes due to a variety of social and personal reasons. The second section explores the processes by which the majority of interviewees began to gain confidence and a renewed interest in selecting clothes after a colour consultation. Such a technology of the self enabled the respondents to question and ‘play’ with the fashion system, in such a way that they had not felt able to do before. In particular, the mechanisms of expertise and of meaning were central to this process of change.
Consumption in East Germany
Authors: Veenis Milena
Published: April 2009

In this article the author focuses upon the feelings and expectations that pertained to Western material objects in East Germany, both before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Before these things were actually there, most East Germans seemed to have high hopes with regard to a life surrounded by this material-consumptive abundance. But now that the East German material world is completely Westernized, most people express severe doubts and distinctly ambivalent feelings with regard to the material changes that have occured in their country. By analysing the history of (the ideology surrounding) material culture in East Germany, characterized by an enormous gap between attractive promises on the one hand and a harsh everyday reality on the other, Veenis asserts that the material world on the other side of the Wall seemed to be the ultimate realization of all those beautiful sounding socialist promises. Within a socialist ideology, material development was the most important anchorpoint for far-reaching promises, which - taken together - boiled down to the idea that in the wake of (material) growth, amelioration and success, it would eventually be possible to realize a completely harmonious state of being. And because of their beautiful appearance, the sense of harmony and prosperity, the wonderful fragrance, the shining colours and the deep gleam that exuded from them, Western consumer-goods were attractive in an almost irresistible sensuousaesthetic way. By emphasizing the sensuous characteristics of objects, Veenis uses the East German situation to further extend Daniel Miller and Colin Campbell’s ideas with regard to the present-day place and role of consumption and the power of attraction of things in general.
Packaged Sentiments
Authors: Jaffe Alexandra
Published: April 2009

This paper analyzes the social uses and meanings of greeting cards. It argues that cards occupy an intermediate and shifting place in between the opposing social categories of ‘gift’ vs. ‘commodity’. The fact that the card is not a pure gift is the source of social criticisms of cards as impersonal. But the card’s ambiguous status is also at the heart of its unique communicative potential. Analysis of specific cards and card categories shows how card senders can exploit various and multiple dimensions of the card’s gift and commodity-like qualities to express socially authenticated identities and sentiments, as well as to send subtle and complex new messages about identities and relationships. Card use also shows how commodities can be ‘appropriated’ as gifts in the act of shopping and choosing; moreover, the consumption of cards is depicted as a dynamic site of ‘virtual’ interactions between sender and receiver. The specific case of greeting cards is used to illustrate the more general point that most things are not intrinsically ‘gifts’ or ‘commodities’. Rather, things acquire these identities by virtue of social interactions and processes.
The future of radio regulation in the UK
Authors: Stoller Tony
Published: April 2009

This article reviews the present debate over regulatory structures as it affects radio, considering principles of radio regulation, third-tier radio and the impact of new technology.
Tarzan doesn’t live here any more
Authors: Ibrahim Zane
Published: April 2009

‘The Mother of Community Radio in Africa’ invokes images of a hungry people stretching out to drink from a vessel filled with knowledge and wisdom, commitment and hope; stretching out to reach for a future that ensures freedom of information, freedom from oppression and a quality of grassroots media never before experienced in this awe-inspiring land. This vision wasn’t lost on the hordes of do-gooders that came flooding down in the wake of our ‘liberation’. If only they would remove their feel-good shades and appreciate the daunting task that lies ahead. If only they would appreciate how we, a long-deprived people, are prepared to dig deep into our well of humanity and humility in order to uplift ourselves.
Radiocracy rulz!
Authors: Howley Kevin
Published: April 2009

This article explores the cultural dynamics of the microradio movement in the USA. Viewed in the wider context of political economy and participatory democracy, I argue that the microradio movement is an expression of the felt need of local populations to reconnect with the civic and cultural life of their communities. Furthermore, I contend that the unique features of the medium - its ubiquity, low-cost and low-tech credentials - make microradio particularly well suited to meet the needs of diverse urban neighborhoods and underserved rural communities alike. The article concludes that, in its efforts to reinvent radio as a vehicle of participatory democracy and a resource for community development, the microradio movement not only demonstrates the medium’s significance to our understanding of community, democracy and citizenship, but underscores the role media activism plays as an agent of progressive social change.
Anti-essentialism and reception studies
Authors: Fetveit Arild
Published: April 2009

This article argues that the proliferation of reception studies, together with a radical undermining of the text, has been nourished by a misconceived anti-essentialism. The article warns against overrating the freedom of the reader and against thinking that it is more in line with anti-essentialist notions to describe how texts and other objects are perceived, rather than describing their characteristics. Following a brief historical sketch of anti-essentialism and how it came to nurture a turn towards the reader, the article moves on to addressing an interchange between Umberto Eco and Richard Rorty on ‘interpretation and overinterpretation’. Rorty, in part, seems to hold on to the essentialist ontology that he claims to be fighting - a move that parallels that taken by some reception scholars. Stanley Fish formulates an anti-essentialist position, but in a way that invites further misconceptions. Once we get rid of the misconceived anti-essentialism, we can achieve a more balanced and productive relationship between reception studies and textual criticism.
The King and us
Authors: Jory Patrick
Published: April 2009

In 1998, 20th Century Fox approached the Thai government asking permission to shoot on location in Thailand a film titled Anna and the King, a dramatized version of the famous 1950s musical The King and I. The latter film has long been banned in Thailand. Fox’s plans to produce a new version created a storm of controversy in Thailand, ending in the National Film Board’s decision not to allow the film to be made in Thailand. The completed film (shot in Malaysia) was also eventually banned from Thai movie screens. This article looks at why the story of Anna Leonowens and King Mongkut remains so controversial in Thailand, even in this era of greatly increased media freedom. The article also examines the continued importance of the idea of monarchy to the modern Thai state, and the endless flood of royal imagery that saturates the Thai media and public life generally.
Bodies without borders
Authors: van Dijck José
Published: April 2009

The movie Fantastic Voyage (1966) is not an innocent science fiction fantasy but a trope that concurrently underlies the development and implementation of a particular medical imaging technique: the endoscope. Sketching the past, present and future of endoscopy, this article advances the broader argument that medical imaging techniques and media technologies are developed concurrently. The endoscopic gaze - the look from within the body - has gradually become a pervasive mode of corporeal inspection, not only in high-tech medicine, but in television and other popular media as well. But what are the implications of this ubiquitous endoscopic gaze? How may innovations in endoscopic technologies - including the latest virtual techniques - affect doctors’ and patients’ concepts of corporeality? And do these innovations, in turn, affect our collective appreciation of surgical intervention and its consequences? Persistent myths of transparency and non-intervention have prevailed in both the production and popular dissemination of the endoscopic gaze, redefining our norms and expectations concerning the perfectibility of the body as a physical container.
Hegemonic construction, negotiation and displacement
Authors: Ku Agnes S.
Published: April 2009

This article analyses the cultural and political dynamics which unfolded during the recent right of abode issue in Hong Kong in terms of the processes of hegemonic construction, negotiation and displacement. On the one hand, there took place a process of hegemonic production of consent through the construction of social panic, as co-orchestrated by the state and the media. On the other hand, there emerged an opposition alliance which supported the common goal of constitutional right of abode via a varied political agenda. Despite the deep-rooted conflict between the two sides, the dominant and opposition discourses appropriated and negotiated with each other’s terms in their arguments surrounding issues of law and order. As legal discourses became predominant, the moral rights claim to family reunion within the movement became further and further displaced. As a result, the government was able to win over popular consent for its rather coercive and exclusionary action, even in the face of opposition and protest.
Issues of judgement and value in television studies
Authors: Jacobs Jason
Published: April 2009

The common critical understanding of television is that it is primarily a medium for communication rather than for artistic accomplishment. The conceptualization of television as a relay device tends to downplay its successes as a medium for artistic expression. This paper argues that our judgement of television begins with the acknowledgement that different kinds of television will demand appropriately different kinds of critical attention. In order to explore the ramifications of this observation, the paper focuses on recent television dramas - in particular ER and other medical dramas - as indicative of artistic accomplishment.
’That Shadowy Realm of the Interior’
Authors: Illouz Eva
Published: April 2009

In a way that is reminiscent of the 19th-century campaigns against popular recreations, talk shows have come to the spotlight of public debate and have raised considerable concern about their alleged thirst for sensationalism and shock value. The purpose of this paper is to address a simple question, obfuscated by the public outrage that is ritually poured over talk shows: what are talk shows about? What makes them such a popular cultural form? What segment of the contemporary imagination do they capture? Conversely, what makes talk shows the target for the elite outcry that they cheapen and threaten cultural values? In this paper I argue that the cultural appeal of talk shows resides in the fact that they make sense of the profound transformations of the family in the late modern era and that they stage ‘informal courtrooms’ to adjudicate between the struggles that increasingly make up contemporary everyday life
Where Communism never dies
Authors: Heryanto Ariel
Published: April 2009

Indonesia’s militarist New Order, the last and longest-lasting Cold War capitalist authoritarianism, came to power in 1965 immediately after one of the bloodiest massacres in modern history. Vigorous cultural reproduction of the trauma of the events and continuous rehearsals of state violence on the nation’s body politic have been enormously responsible for the regime’s longevity. They constitute the most determining force in the identity-making of the powerless subjects, and in their everyday practices. Far from being systematic, however, the efficacy of the New Order’s authoritarianism is full of refractory and contradictory features. Neither instrumental political-economy nor cultural essentialism is adequate to explain them. Central to the enduring responses of the powerless Indonesians before the decisive protest in 1998, but most frequently misunderstood by scholars and human rights observers alike, is hyper-obedience, instead of resistance.
Unchained reaction
Authors: Williams Bruce A. , Delli Carpini Michael X.
Published: April 2009

In this article we use the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal to illustrate a fundamental change in the contemporary American media environment: the virtual elimination of the gatekeeping role of the mainstream press. The new media environment, by providing virtually unlimited sources of political information (although these sources do not provide anything like an unlimited number of perspectives), undermines the idea that there are discrete gates through which political information passes: if there are no gates, there can be no gatekeepers. This article is part of a larger project in which we argue that alterations in the media environment have eroded the always uneasy distinction between news and entertainment. Overall, this erosion, one result of which is the collapse of the gatekeeping function, is rapidly undermining the commonsense assumptions used by both elites, citizens and scholars to understand the role of the media in a democratic society.
Negotiating the news
Authors: Manzella Joseph C.
Published: April 2009

Before 1998, journalists in Indonesia walked a tightrope stretched between a western ideological system that valued a free press and a system of rigid government controls. To maintain their balance, reporters and editors used strategies that were uniquely Indonesian to maintain a journalistic frame that was essentially western. This article examines those strategies in the context of the values and beliefs of print newspeople in the capital of Jakarta, focusing on news coverage of the political crises of 1997 and 1998 that culminated in the resignation of President Suharto and that unleashed a relatively free press. It contends that the contradictions and resultant conflicts between the government and newspeople in Jakarta represented a contest between western and Indonesian notions of the purposes and duties of the press.
‘Media Wars’
Authors: Turner Graeme
Published: April 2009

The relationship between journalism and cultural studies in the tertiary education system in Australia has never been a comfortable one. Communications studies, journalism studies, media studies and cultural studies programmes have all developed over the last two decades, but in an institution-specific manner. The tensions embedded in some of these ad hoc arrangements – tensions not necessarily confined to these disciplines but often implicit in any merger between critical theory and professional practice – boiled over in a series of newspaper articles by journalism educator Keith Windschuttle in 1998 which attacked the use of cultural and media studies in journalism programmes. A one-day conference was held in November 1998 specifically to debate the relationship between journalism educators and cultural studies academics. This review essay outlines some of the lessons to be learned from the ‘Media Wars’ conference, before defending the value of developing specific areas of common ground – both in the academy and in public debates about the function of the media – between the two disciplinary fields.
Putting theory to practice
Authors: Skinner David , Gasher Mike J. , Compton James
Published: April 2009

There has been considerable debate over the proper place of journalism education within the academy. We argue that programmes which compromise between vocational training and a broader programme of study based in the liberal arts remain unsatisfactory because they put too much onus on students themselves to bridge the gap between theory and practice. Taking up James Carey's challenge to more precisely locate the object of study, we believe journalism education must begin from a view of journalism as an institutional practice of representation with its own historical, political, economic and cultural conditions of existence. This means that the journalism curriculum must not only equip students with a particular skill set and broad social knowledge, but must also show students how journalism participates in the production and circulation of meaning.
Public journalism's talking cure
Authors: Woodstock Louise
Published: April 2009

The notion that news is a form of storytelling has received sustained attention by communication scholars. Public journalism's narratives position the movement as a challenge to traditional journalism and the public lethargy it is said to spawn. This article considers public journalism's narratives and their consequences on the theory and practice of this journalistic movement. Evidence is drawn from journalistic and academic advocates of public journalism and from The Philadelphia Inquirercoverage of its Citizen Voices project. It is claimed that public journalism's narratives, which define conversation as a conclusive result, fail to adequately address the mandate of reinvigorating the public sphere. Additionally, the article argues that when examined through the prism of narrative theory, public journalism does not mark a revolution in journalism. In fact, traditional and public journalisms adopt similar narrative strategies to effect essentially the same ends: placing the power of telling society's stories in the hands of journalists.
Low visibility on the inside track
Authors: Walker David
Published: April 2009

The critique of ‘spin’ in recent autobiographical accounts of political reporting from Westminster is deficient because it fails to ask questions about political journalists' own ideologies and practice. Without greater self-reflexivity on the part of these journalistsas-political-actors, government may systematically be misunderstood.
How bias shapes the news
Authors: Zelizer Barbie , Park David , Gudelunas David
Published: April 2009

This article addresses bias in the American press and shows how the inevitability of reporting from a point of view challenges the possibility of a newspaper of record on the Middle East. Examining 30 days of coverage of the Intifada, it both shows that coverage of events varied across three mainstream US newspapers – The New York Times, The Washington Post and Chicago Tribune – and demonstrates that in the case of the newspaper most often called a newspaper of record – The New York Times – coverage varied in distinct ways from other mainstream newspapers. The article thus considers how the Times' reputation and influence converge with its record in creating a broader impression about the perspective of the US press on the Middle East.
Whither United Nations Economic and Social Ideas?
Authors: Weiss Thomas G. , Carayannis Tatiana
Published: April 2009

This article sets out a working framework to analyze the contribution of the United Nations (UN) to global economic and social policy, and to development discourse and practice, at the start of a multi-year research effort. It seeks to better understand the sources, evolution, and impact of key UN development ideas, and the role of the UN as an intellectual actor in the multilateral marketplace of ideas. The first part of the article outlines how recent literature about ideas has informed our work. The second part explores methodological debates with especial attention to the shortcomings of ideational approaches, addressing conceptual difficulties in dealing with ideas, and offering some thoughts both about what these debates may add to our understanding as well as ways that a contribution to scholarly debates will result. The third part poses key research questions and outlines how we propose analyzing the relationship between ideas and policy.
Rethinking the Welfare Regime Approach
Authors: Davis Peter R.
Published: April 2009

This article examines the potential value added by using a ‘welfare regime approach’ to explore welfare provision in low-income countries. Although the study of welfare regimes has traditionally focused on the welfare states of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, it has recently extended its purview to include ‘emerging’ welfare regimes in middle- and low-income countries, where the welfare state is considered to be absent. While conventional approaches use the welfare regimes of the ‘developed’ world as a starting point, the approach proposed here attempts to take into account the particularities of low-income countries like Bangladesh. This is done without assuming that high- and middle-income countries can teach us all that there is to know about welfare systems. In the Bangladesh context, the notion of a welfare regime provides a useful, yet problematic, conceptual apparatus for exploring the relationship between a welfare mix and its particular welfare, stratification and political mobilization outcomes. The article draws attention to the limited focus of the conventional approach on the central state–market nexus, leading to a lack of emphasis on family, kinship, community, local government and ‘civil society’ forms of welfare as well as those mediated by bilateral and global actors. It also draws attention to the wider range of relevant public welfare strategies that can be seen as functionally equivalent to social security in industrialized countries. The article ends by suggesting a research agenda combining an examination of the role of local, informal or customary strategies of managing welfare and insecurity on one hand and global or international strategies on the other.
Globalization, Unemployment and Policy Responses in Korea
Authors: Kwon Huck-Ju
Published: April 2009

This article firstly examines the labour market reforms and consequent rise of unemployment in Korea after the economic crisis of 1997–8. Secondly it analyses policy responses from the Korean government to deal with the massive rise in unemployment: the Employment Insurance Programme, Public Work Projects and the Employment Services. The question this article seeks to answer is whether the role of the state within the welfare system was strengthened in the area of unemployment. This provides an interesting test case for the debate on the globalization hypothesis which suggests that the role of the state will decrease. Using eight models of state intervention, this article argues that the role of the state in Korea has been strengthened. The state came to take increasing responsibility for the financing of unemployment programmes. The article concludes that although globalization acts as a downward pressure on expenditure in some countries, it has exerted an upward pressure in the case of Korea.
Cultural Consumption of History and Popular Culture in Alternative Spiritualities
Authors: Possamaï Adam
Published: April 2009

Some practices in alternative spiritualities - for example, New Age and neopaganism - have been criticized by social commentators and some indigenous people for their appropriation of indigenous cultures, such as those of Australian Aborigines and North American Indians. This article argues that appropriation is not limited to indigenous cultures but is part of a larger phenomenon, that of cultural consumption of selected parts of history. This cultural consumption is not confined to history but extends to contemporary popular culture; for example, groups who find spiritual inspiration in the stories of H.P. Lovecraft (Cthulhu mythos), vampire stories and the science fiction (SF) novel by Robert Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land, which inspired the Church of All Worlds. This article provides an insight into the cultural consumption of history and popular culture by people involved in alternative spiritualities. It is argued that this eclectic cultural consumption produces new and subjective myths in contemporary western culture.
Communicative bridges linking actors through time
Authors: Wilkie Laurie A.
Published: April 2009

Habermas’ notions of communicative action and the lifeworld can be employed to understand how archaeological interpretations of agency can feed into contemporary political emancipatory dialogues. Clifton Plantation, a Bahamian Loyalist plantation that is currently threatened with development, is the center of this discussion. This article provides specific examples of how archaeological interpretations from Clifton have rendered past African lifeworlds accessible and meaningful to African-Americans in the Bahamas and the United States and, in turn, are fueling and sustaining a contemporary political movement led by Bahamians to protect the archaeological site.
Social identity and the duality of structure in late Roman-period Britain
Authors: Gardner Andrew
Published: April 2009

The central theme of this article is the relationship between material practices, social identity categories and the duality of structure. The latter concept, linking structure and agency in Giddens’ structuration theory, is here understood as dependent upon the negotiation of categories, such as ethnicity/community, social status, religion and gender, through practices like dwelling, eating and appearing. Such practices can be interpreted from the material patterns that emerge from multi-dimensional and multi-scalar analyses of archaeological data. These ideas are worked through in a case study of Britain in the fourth and early fifth centuries AD, wherein some of the relationships between practices and institutionalized identities (such as those associated with the military) can be discerned. An emphasis on the negotiation of identities in practice also places the theme of temporality at centre-stage, offering a new perspective on the balance between reproduction and transformation in the ongoing constitution of social life.
Archaeology and the colonial encounter
Authors: Harrison Rodney
Published: April 2009

This article examines the ways in which material objects are invoked and constantly recontextualized as part of the process of cross-cultural colonial encounter with reference to a case study from the northwest of Australia. The study examines the various contexts within which bifacially flaked ‘Kimberley points’ were manufactured, traded and consumed in post-invasion Australia, and implications for understanding the role of material objects in colonial encounters. Many studies of cross-cultural material exchange note the ways in which objects are given different meanings in different cultural contexts. In contrast, this article considers parallels between the role that points played in developing notions of social identity among antiquarian collectors and Aboriginal people in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, particularly their role in evoking and expressing hybrid masculinities. The manufacture of glass Kimberley points by men who had been dislocated from their traditional country implies connections between the practice of point manufacture and the creation of new, hybrid social identities. The article attempts an ‘archaeology of encounter’ using these particular objects as a text to be read for both the discourses and forced silences that this colonial encounter created.
Conjectures and Refutations
Authors: Gilgun Jane F.
Published: April 2009

In this article, I review ‘Qualitative Methods in Health Research’, a document sponsored by three offices of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). The document has the purpose of educating qualitative researchers on how to fit proposals based on qualitative approaches to NIH requirements for funding. I show that the NIH document provides helpful guidelines, and I make suggestions of my own, such as using sensitizing concepts and the procedures of analytic induction, to meet federal requirements. I was stymied, however, on how to deal with the distanced language that appears mandatory in proposals that NIH funds. This led me to reflect on whether NIH has a definition of science that excludes the perspectives and assumptions of many forms of qualitative research. I also wondered whether qualitative researchers in other countries are finding that governmental agencies do not fund qualitative research because of doubts about its scientific basis. I concluded that qualitative researchers can challenge NIH and other funding agencies internationally about the nature of science and press for modifications of assumptions about what constitutes fundable research proposals. Creative and constructive dialogue may open funding streams to researchers whose questions lead to the use of qualitative approaches, both within the USA and internationally.
Damage Identification of Structural Members: Numerical and Experimental Studies
Authors: Koh C. G. , Qiao G. Q. , Quek S. T.
Published: April 2009

The main objective of the study is to formulate a numerical strategy suitable for structure member assessment in a quantifiable and objective way. Involving both numerical and experimental studies, the emphasis is on nondestructive damage detection of structural members with predominantly flexural deformations such as beams and columns. A time-domain system identification method, namely the extended Kalman Filter method, is adopted with some modifications. To reduce the identification system nonlinearity and hence improve the convergence performance, the method of stiffness-damping uncoupling is introduced. Flexural members with semirigid connections are modeled by the finite element method. Local damage is assumed to manifest itself as reduction in flexural rigidity. Numerical simulation study is carried out to illustrate the performance of the damage identification strategy, accounting for the effects of measurement noise. Dimensionless indicators are used to reveal the damage location and severity effectively. The problem of numerical leakage is reduced, by comparing average identification results before and after damage. Lastly, an experimental study for a reinforced concrete beam with controlled change in local stiffness further substantiates the feasibility of the proposed strategy.
Family Networks: A Sociometric Method to Study Relationships in Families
Authors: Widmer Eric D. , La Farga Linda-Ann
Published: April 2009

Family researchers have made extensive use of household survey data that predefine the boundaries of the family system and focus on a small number of family dyads. The complexity of contemporary family contexts that have emerged as a result of divorce and remarriage might not be well served by those techniques. This article shows that social network methods can improve existing methods used to study families.
Using Scenarios to Construct Models of Identity in Multiethnic Settings
Authors: Caulkins D. Douglas , Trosset Carol , Painter Anna , Good Meredith
Published: April 2009

The task of inferring cultural models from lengthy texts or transcripts of intensive interviews is highly dependent on the representativeness of the sample of consultants, the researcher's command of the language, and his or her ability to detect themes through iterative analysis. We recommend using scenarios and systematic interviewing to verify and refine those inferred themes, schema, or cultural models. Scenarios are brief narratives derived from observed or reported events. A set of scenarios can be used to elicit judgments concerning key themes of inferred cultural models. This technique is illustrated with a battery of twenty-one scenarios used, along with consensus analysis, to describe identity profiles for samples from Wales, Scotland, and Northeast England. Scenarios can be used to document claimed identity (what we are like) and attributed identity (what group X is like) and to discover similarities and differences across ethnic or national group boundaries.
Bias as a Research Strategy in Participant Observation: The Case of Intergroup Conflict
Authors: Drury John , Stott Clifford
Published: April 2009

Participant observation (PO) is one of the more fruitful methodological approaches to studying crowd behavior. This article argues that, since crowd behavior characteristically takes place in a context of intergroup conflict, PO may involve having to take sides to gather data. Possible sources of bias within a partisan PO framework are examined, including bias in access, in observation, and in analysis. Two examples vof partisan research on crowd conflict—a demonstration riot and an antiroads occupation—show that only the first of these forms of bias is unavoidable. However, it is posited that limited access to one of the groups in conflict is more than offset by the quality and quantity of data gathered from the other group and the subsequent objectivity this affords within the data analysis.
Cultural Performance Analysis Spheres: An Integrated Ethnographic Methodology
Authors: Valentine Kristin Bervig , Matsumoto Gordon
Published: April 2009

This article describes a process-oriented method called cultural performance analysis spheres. This method is designed for researchers to use at three stages of ethnographic studies on public-cultural performances: (1) as preparation before going into the field, (2) by a participant observer during the performance, and (3) as a guide for communicating scholarly discourse that must necessarily give linear form to experiences where there is simultaneous perception of multiple phenomena. This methodology is explained and then demonstrated with an ethnography of a Chinese New Year public-cultural performance in San Francisco.
How to Reduce an Unwritten Language to Writing: III. Phonetic Similarity, Suspicious Pairs, and Minimal Pairs
Authors: Werner Oswald
Published: April 2009

Phonetic analysis can be done with a short list of a few hundred words. First, carefully transcribe the list phonetically. Second, list the inventory of symbols. Third, tabulate the symbols by their articulatory position. Fourth, declare symbols in close articulatory proximity, that is, sounds of great phonetic similarity, as suspicious pairs. Finally, find two words with different meanings that are phonetically identical except for one member of a suspicious pair in each. Finding such a minimal pair implies that we have found a phoneme (writing symbol).
Maximizing the Rigor of Action Research: Why Would You Want To? How Could You?
Authors: Melrose Mary J.
Published: April 2009

Since the late 1980s, much has been written about the meaning of action research (AR), and the basic cycle of planning, action, observation, and reflection has been used to improve practice in many fields of human endeavor, including education and management. This article examines the meanings of rigor when the term is applied to AR and discusses some of the strategies recommended to improve rigor. Focusing questions for the article include the following: What is AR? Who does it, with whom, and for what purposes? Why and how can one make the framework/method itself more rigorous? How can one make data interpretation more rigorous? What about theory building? What about the dilemma of group involvement with rigor for the Ph.D. student and thesis writer? The author's experiences in achieving an AR Ph.D., examining AR theses, and generating and using a daisy model of AR with several groups of staff are used.
Ethnographic Mapmaking: Part 1—Principles
Authors: Kuznar Lawrence A. , Werner Oswald
Published: April 2009

Ethnographers often overlook the importance of space in people's lives. When ethnographers make maps, they often lack key information on scale, orientation, and dimension that is essential for understanding what a map represents. The authors outline basic principles of mapmaking and demonstrate how easily maps can be made under field conditions. If ethnographers take the short amount of time to make decent maps of human cultural behavior, the crucially important spatial dimension of people's lives will not be lost.
What We Learned from a Photographic Component in a Study of Latino Children's Health
Authors: Clark Lauren , Zimmer Lorena
Published: April 2009

This article reviews the contributions of three different kinds of photographs taken in a study of Latino children's health. The three photographic methods were photos of children taken by their mothers who were given disposable cameras, photos taken by research staff during regular home visits, and photos taken in a day-long period of intense observation. Using qualitative and quantitative comparisons of the photos generated by these methods, the authors conclude that the Day in the Life method—although the most expensive—also provided more new information. Specifically, the authors learned more about the children's family relationships, feeding patterns, and the safety and stimulation of their home environments.
AFTER: A Framework of Tools for Ethnographic Research
Authors: Grunden Amanda M. , Lewis R. Barry
Published: April 2009

AFTER Version 3.0 (A Framework of Tools for Ethnographic Research) is an MS Windows-based tool for coding and retrieving texts, sounds, graphics, and videos. The major features, strengths, and limitations of this product are described; useful tips and hints are given for maximizing AFTER’s research potential. Emphasis is placed on procedures for coding files, analytical tools available in the software, and types of coded products that may be generated. AFTER will be of greatest value to those who work primarily with multimedia interview data and who wish to use AFTER primarily as a framework within which to code data and generate excerpts, summary tables of the relative frequencies of the study variables, or SAS or SPSS data files for subsequent quantitative analysis.
Doing Research in Cyberspace
Authors: Jacobson David
Published: April 2009

Although laws and policies developed in the context of off-line research apply to online investigations, questions about the identifiability of human subjects, the conceptualization of privacy, the need for and means of obtaining informed consent, and the applicability of copyright law to computer-mediated communication (CMC) pose special problems for doing research in cyberspace.
Quantification and Statistics in Six Anthropology Journals
Authors: Chibnik Michael
Published: April 2009

The prominence of interpretive, literary, self-reflexive, and hermeneutic approaches in sociocultural anthropology in recent years has led some commentators to argue that the field has taken a humanistic turn. This article examines quantification and statistics in articles about sociocultural anthropology over the past several decades in six U.S. journals, assuming that the proportion of articles using these methods at any given time is a rough indicator of the balance between humanistic and scientific approaches. Although there has been a reduction in recent years in the proportion of articles using quantification and statistics in these journals, the overall drop has not been nearly as marked as many writers suggest. A notable shift away from quantification has occurred in the American Anthropologist, American Ethnologist, and Ethnology. The proportion of articles using quantification and statistics, however, has increased greatly in the Journal of Anthropological Research and remained about the same in Current Anthropology and Human Organization.
Fan Loyalty and Stadium Funding in Professional Baseball
Authors: Depken Craig A.
Published: April 2009

This article reexamines the demand for baseball and provides estimates of fan loyalty for U.S.-based professional baseball teams using techniques developed in the stochastic frontier literature. Fans choose to attend games based on price-quality combinations and some intangible fan loyalty. The main focus of this article is to estimate the relative fan loyalty for U.S. professional baseball teams. Fan loyalty is then compared with the outcomes of referenda seeking public funding for new stadiums. Relative fan loyalty is significant in predicting the outcome of public-funding votes.
The Economics of Professional Boxing Contracts
Authors: Tenorio Rafael
Published: April 2009

This article analyzes the characteristics and incentive effects of contractual practices in professional boxing. A boxer’s “purse” is linked to past rather than contemporaneous performance, thereby creating an incentives problem. Although consumption-smoothing considerations alleviate this problem, savings act as further insurance, and the likelihood of moral hazard increases. Observation of a boxer being poorly prepared for a fight after earning a very large purse is consistent with this prediction. These disappointing outcomes are likely driven by the absence of a strategic principal in the boxing market and by the prevalence of “casual” boxing fans.
The Location of Pay Discrimination in the National Hockey League
Authors: Lavoie Marc
Published: April 2009

Past studies have only uncovered a limited amount of evidence regarding salary discrimination in the National Hockey League (NHL). Only French Canadian defensemen sometimes seemed to be underpaid. It has been argued recently that the lack of evidence may be more a reflection of excessive aggregation than an absence of pay discrimination. In the present article, both national origin and the location of a player’s team are taken into account in salary regressions. The main outcome of the study is that salary discrimination based on team location appears to be a weak but pervasive phenomenon, more surely so in English Canada. An incidental outcome is that players located in English Canada cities were underpaid during the 1993-1994 season.
An Empirical Examination of the Quit Behavior of Professional Baseball Players in Japan
Authors: Ohkusa Yasushi
Published: April 2009

This article examines the effect of income and productivity on the quit behavior of Japanese professional baseball players. The results imply that a higher income reduces the quit probability for both pitchers and batters. However, the effect of productivity is not the same for each occupation. Even though the same definition is used and the same firm or industry is considered, the productivity effect on quit behavior is ambiguous.
The Impact of Proposition 48 on the Relationship Between Football Success and Football Player Graduation Rates
Authors: Amato Louis H. , Gandar John M. , Zuber Richard A.
Published: April 2009

A previous study finds a negative relationship between football success and football player graduation rates. The present study examines whether changes in freshman eligibility standards produced by Proposition 48 impact this relationship. Our data set contains the 2 years immediately prior to the implementation of Proposition 48 and the 2 years immediately after the implementation of Proposition 48. The main finding of this article is that although football success has a negative impact on football players’ graduation rates prior to Proposition 48, there is no such relationship post-Proposition 48.
Capital Structure and Team Performance in Professional Baseball
Authors: O’Roark J. Brian
Published: April 2009

The successful production of major league sports has become increasingly dependent on stadiums. Although stadiums do not exhibit the properties of public goods, they have increasingly become governmentally funded projects. Lost in the political debate over stadium funding is the usefulness of the residual claimancy argument to the success of a team. If this argument holds, receiving a publicly financed stadium mitigates the incentive for an owner to place a competitive product on the field. The evidence in this article demonstrates that public ownership of a stadium negatively affects the winning percentage of the team that plays in it.
Revenue Convergence in the English Soccer League
Authors: Dobson Stephen , Goddard John , Ramlogan Carlyn
Published: April 2009

Tests of the convergence hypothesis using annual gate revenue data for English professional soccer clubs for the period 1926 to 1997 are reported. The distribution of gate revenues among clubs is found to have widened markedly, and there is no evidence of convergence for the period as a whole. However, a sequence of tests for 5-yearly subperiods shows evidence of convergence during long subperiods: specifically, up to the late 1950s and between the mid-1970s and late 1980s. These features of the data inform an analysis of the social, economic, and historical development of English professional soccer.
The Determinants of Football Match Attendance Revisited
Authors: García Jaume , Rodríguez Plácido
Published: April 2009

An attendance equation is estimated using data on individual games played in the Spanish First Division Football League. The specification includes as explanatory factors: economic variables, quality, uncertainty and opportunity costs. The authors concentrate the analysis on some specification issues such as controlling the effect of unobservables given the panel data structure of the data set, the type of functional form, and the potential endogeneity of prices. The authors obtain the expected effects on attendance for all the variables. The estimated price elasticities are, in general, smaller than one in absolute value but are sensitive to the specification issues, in particular, the endogeneity of prices.