Using data science to understand the film industry’s gender gap

Data science can offer answers to a wide range of social science questions. Here we turn attention to the portrayal of women in movies, an industry that has a significant influence on society, impacting such aspects of life as self-esteem and career choice. To this end, we fused data from the online movie database IMDb with a dataset of movie dialogue subtitles to create the largest available corpus of movie social networks (15,540 networks). Analyzing this data, we investigated gender bias in on-screen female characters over the past century. We find a trend of improvement in all aspects of women's roles in movies, including a constant rise in the centrality of female characters. There has also been an increase in the number of movies that pass the well-known Bechdel test, a popular-albeit flawed-measure of women in fiction. Here we propose a new and better alternative to this test for evaluating female roles in movies. Our study introduces fresh data, an open-code framework, and novel techniques that present new opportunities in the research and analysis of movies

Expanding Our Boundaries With Technology

When Kate first came to speak at the ACL Conference at Lee University, I think I\u27m not exaggerating by saying we fell in love with her and she fell in love with us. We enjoyed her and her enthusiasm and she enjoyed us. I was trying to figure out what I was going to plan for another general session at this year\u27s conference and about that time Steve Preston sent me a note saying, \u27Just got a note from Kate, and she is so excited that ACL was coming back here and she wanted to come to the conference. Was there anything she could do?\u27 Our conference theme is about expanding our boundaries in the area of information literacy, which is certainly appropriate. We are also expanding our boundaries technologically. The two things go hand and hand. So, I asked her to come join us today. I\u27m sure all of you know by now, she is the head of SOLINET. For those of you not from this part of the country, it\u27s the largest of the OCLC networks and besides all the usual stuff, they are very well known especially in this part of the country for the wonderful workshops that they put on. So Kate, tell us what\u27s going on

anonymous online comments and gatekeeping in the digital realm

"December 2013.""A thesis presented to the faculty of the graduate school at the University of Missouri--Columbia in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree, master of arts."Thesis supervisor: Ryan J. Thomas.This research examines the trend of anonymous online speech and the evolution of traditional gatekeeping roles of journalists as new media interaction with the public becomes commonplace. A textual analysis explores the opinions held by journalists and commenters (to online news sites) on the topic of online comments boards, trolling and the role anonymity places in public discourse on the Internet. The issue of civility among posters to anonymous online comment boards must be studied if journalists hope to navigate the relationship with these participatory news consumers going forward. In order to benefit from the opportunities for interactivity that new media provide, the industry must work to understand the phenomenon of trolling and devise a way to promote productive conversation that protects the marketplace of ideas while maintaining civility.Includes bibliographical references (pages 80-87)

Experiences of self and belonging among young people identified as having learning difficulties in English schools

Young people identified as having special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEN/D), remain some of the most marginalised learners in the English education system. These young people are one of the most likely groups to face exclusion from school and evidence suggests that discrimination against disabled adults and children, in England, is on the rise. Within research debates on education, the voices of those identified as having SEN/D remain on the margins. Six story-telling case studies were undertaken, exploring the experiences of young people identified as having learning difficulties in a mainstream, mainstream faith and special school in England. Specifically, the way in which the young people described themselves and experienced a sense of belonging was examined. An ethical and robustly inclusive methodology using arts-based methods was developed to empower the young people to share their experiences on their own terms. Embracing the potential of video voice, self-portraiture and life-mapping as ethical, participatory and inclusive research methods, this study has captured multi-sensory narrative data. Offering a detailed description of how the methods operated inclusively contributes to the field and, supports other researchers to undertake inclusive research alongside young people identified as having learning difficulties. The voices of the six young people are examined to show the ways in which they demonstrate a resistance to othering discourses in society, through describing themselves and articulating their sense of belonging. The young people’s reflection on difference and disability demonstrated that their knowledge of disability and specific ‘diagnoses’ was limited. Moreover, the way in which they described themselves and their peers reinforced a dichotomy of ‘normal’ and ‘other’. Hence, I argue within this thesis for the further development and dissemination of a social model of learning difficulty. This model rejects the notion of essential difference and offers an understanding that learning difficulty, similarly to disability, can be viewed as socially constructed. Based on the young people’s reflections on belonging, I also problematise the use of special educational needs (SEN) labels within school settings arguing that, discussions around the use of labels must involve the voices of young people. In relation to SEN labels, I also examine the geographies of SEN/D using the young people’s reflections to underline how nurture or inclusion units can have the potential to both offer refuge and reinforce notions of difference.My thanks to the School of Humanities and Social Sciences for generously awarding me a three-year PhD bursary

Badnam Science? The Spectre of the ‘Bad’ Name and the Politics of Stem Cell Science in India

The range of the implicit meanings of badnam (bad name) stop short of unpacking the complexity underscoring the implied soiling and spoiling of ‘name’: the crucible of reputation, honour, and dignity. What happens when diverse stakeholders working in the burgeoning and high-stakes field of stem cell science in India fear badnami, ignominy (to invoke one possible meaning), in the context of a regulatory flux and fears of rapidly deepening reputation of the field as a maverick site for stem cell research and clinical application? Drawing on longitudinal research mapping the stem cell technology terrain in India and the changing fortunes of a small clinical facility, this article shows how the spectre of ‘spoilt name’ (or badnami) haunts professional narratives and how scientific validation, national honour, economic viability, therapeutic efficacy, and safety come to reside in the ‘name.’ The article conceptualizes ‘name’ as inherently vulnerable and examines its threatened status to highlight the unnameable, unspecified aspect that survives demanding a new name despite the ethics and politics implicit in naming and ‘name-calling.

An Absence of Modesty: The Male/Female Dichotomy in Modesty Blaise

This article examines the figure of Modesty Blaise as an action heroine in the canon of British espionage texts. It argues that the character and her stories offer multiple, liminal spaces for investigating and challenging ideas about gender, nation and class. It also addresses the current landscape of action-adventure films at a time when there are increased calls for more female-centric vehicles and gender-blind casting. While the gender politics of the Modesty Blaise franchise make for fascinating analysis, they are also played out against a backdrop of global politics. This can be seen in the first of the novels – simply entitled Modesty Blaise from 1965 – and to some extent in Joseph Losey’s loose adaptation of the text in 1966. Modesty’s employment by the British secret service coincides with the dismantling of the British Empire. The negotiation of gender identity that is a recurring theme in the stories intersects with the post-imperial, post-colonial concerns that dominated geo-politics at the time the original texts were released

“From One Shore to the Other”: Other Revolutions in the Interstices of the Revolution

This interview conducted with Imed Soltani and Federica Sossi centres on the struggle of the families of Tunisian missing migrants in the Mediterranean Sea. The campaign, named “From One Shore to the Other: Lives that Matter”, started in 2011 in the aftermath of the outbreak of the Tunisian revolution. Through this campaign, the families of the missing migrants and activists of theItalian feminist collective Le Venticinqueundici demanded at Italian and Tunisian institutions be held accountable for the disappearance of young Tunisian migrants who crossed the Mediterranean to Italy. The unique character of this struggle is that it took place across the two shores of the Mediterranean.. The conversation between Soltani and Sossi illustrates the strengths of the campaign and the difficulties that arose in running it across shores, and offers a theoretical insight into the notion of political recognition in an effort to decolonize the gaze on what counts as political subjectivity and political struggle