Teachers as mediators: an exploration of situated English teaching

Within the context of lower secondary English teaching in South West England, this study identifies in broad terms the competing goals between which English teachers mediate and the explicit and hidden tensions that result. To understand the interactions of competing goals, teachers’ goal-oriented behaviours are referenced to a set of idealised ‘role types’ based on the dimensions of goals, norms, discourses and practices. It is asserted that competing goals, significant to particular educational circumstances, emanate from various sometimes contradictory local, national and perhaps broader social and cultural influences on practice. Yet the teachers observed moved smoothly between goal-oriented behaviours in a continuous and comfortable style, easily and without reflecting any tensions between them. Thus, this article elaborates an account of situated English teaching

Reading between the lines : is news media in Fiji supporting or challenging gender stereotypes? : a frame analysis of local news media coverage of violence against women during the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence campaign of 2017

Violence against women is recognised as a global public health issue and an obstacle to development, as ending it is inextricably linked with achieving gender equality. The public relies on and believes in the capacity of news media to present them with a ‘true’ picture of reality and the news media are therefore treated as valuable allies in changing the norms, beliefs and attitudes that perpetuate violence against women. In the production and consumption of news, however, journalists employ frames to condense complex events into interesting and appealing news reports, in turn influencing how audiences view particular events, activities and issues, especially when it comes to attributing blame and responsibility. This study employs a frame analysis to identify whether, and to what extent, episodic or thematic framing is used in news articles on violence against women published in the Fiji Sun and Fiji Times during and around the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence campaign of 2017. It showed that episodic framing was overwhelmingly used in the sample, thereby divorcing the violence from its social roots and encouraging audiences to blame the individuals involved, both for the violence itself and for remedying it. This directly contradicts the campaign’s central principles positioning violence against women as a social and development issue that requires every member of society to play a part in ending it. The results, therefore, suggest that changes are needed in how organisations engage with the news media to ensure that coverage of violence against women improves in both quantity and quality

An inter-disciplinary methodology for researching benefit-sharing as a norm diffusing in global environmental law

This paper proposes a methodology for an interdisciplinary, empirical enquiry into the diffusion of the legal concept of ‘benefit-sharing’. The paper draws together accounts of norm diffusion from sociology, international relations and law to devise a theoretical approach for the empirical research of global environmental law. Against this background, the paper explores the usefulness of process-tracing, the relevance of frames and the need for a participatory action research approach for a research project focused on benefit-sharing as a tool to operationalize equity among and within States

An analysis of media reporting on the closure of freestanding midwifery units in England

PROBLEM: Despite clinical guidelines and policy promoting choice of place of birth, 14 Freestanding Midwifery Units were closed between 2008 and 2015, closures justified by low use and financial constraints. BACKGROUND: The Birthplace in England Programme found that freestanding midwifery units provided the most cost-effective birthplace for women at low risk of complications. Women planning birth in a freestanding unit were less likely to experience interventions than those planning obstetric unit birth, with no difference in outcomes for babies. METHODS: This paper uses an interpretative technique developed for policy analysis to explore the representation of these closures in 191 news articles, to explore the public climate in which they occurred. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION: The articles focussed on underuse by women and financial constraints on services. Despite the inclusion of service user voices, the power of framing was held by service managers and commissioners. The analysis exposed how neoliberalist and austerity policies has privileged representation of individual consumer choice and market-driven provision as drivers of changes in health services. This normative framing makes the reasons given for closure as hard to refute and cultural norms persist that birth is safest in an obstetric setting, despite evidence to the contrary. CONCLUSION: The rise of neoliberalism and austerity in contemporary Britain has influenced the reform of maternity services, in particular the closure of midwifery units. Justifications given for closure silence other narratives, predominantly from service users, that attempt to present women's choice in terms of rights and a social model of care

Elite Tweets: Analysing the Twitter Communication Patterns of Labour Party Peers in the House of Lords

The micro-blogging platform Twitter has gained notoriety for its status as both a communication channel between private individuals, and as a public forum monitored by journalists, the public, and the state. Its potential application for political communication has not gone unnoticed; politicians have used Twitter to attract voters, interact with constituencies and advance issue-based campaigns. This article reports on the preliminary results of the research team’s work with 21 peers sitting on the Labour frontbench. It is based on the monitoring and archival of the peers’ activity on Twitter for a period of 100 days from 16th May to 28th September 2012. Using a sample of more than 4,363 tweets and a mixed methodology combining semantic analysis, social network analysis and quantitative analysis, this paper explores the peers’ patterns of usage and communication on Twitter. Key findings are that as a tweeting community their behavior is consistent with others, however there is evidence that a coherent strategy is lacking. Labour peers tend to work in ego networks of self-interest as opposed to working together to promote party polic

The Effects of Emotional Versus Rational Message Framing on Brand Attachment and Brand Loyalty

The purpose of this research is to investigate the relationship among message framing in social media, brand attachment, and brand loyalty for higher education institutions. In particular, this study compares the effectiveness of rational versus emotional message framing in different message contexts, such as sports or academic-related stories. Furthermore, this study examines the congruent effect between message framing and contents in higher education. Specifically, this study predicts that the more message framing and contents are congruent, the greater brand attachment and brand loyalty consumers will have. To analyze the effects of message framing and type of contents, this study adopts experimental design method. The findings of this research indicate that previous involvement with a brand predicts high brand attachment and brand loyalty and needs to be present prior to the strengthening process of brand attachment and brand loyalty. Therefore, previous brand involvement can be measured and related to the effectiveness of strengthening brand attachment and brand loyalty

Media transformation and new practices of citizenship: the example of environmental activism in South Durban

South African media and telecommunications have been fundamentally restructured in the last decade. Corporate unbundling and black economic empowerment have transformed the ownership of broadcasting, print media, publishing, and telecommunications; new radio and television services have been set up; the SABC has been restructured as an independent public service broadcaster; and a new independent regulatory authority for broadcasting and telecommunications has been established. However, a once vibrant alternative press, closely associated with the mass mobilisation against apartheid of the 1980s and 1990s, has suffered severe decline. New technologies, such as satellite television, the Internet, mobile telephony, and digital media have all rapidly established a foothold in South African communications markets. All of these processes have gone hand in hand with a re-scaling of South African media economies and media cultures. Inward foreign investment in South African media and communications industries has been matched by a 'continental drift' of South African capital into African media and communications markets (Barnett 1999b, Tomaselli and Dunn2001)

'R.I.P. man...u are missed and loved by many': entextualising moments of mourning on a Facebook Rest in Peace group site

Digital media offer new domains for people to articulate aspects of their everyday selves, as well as to share resources, views, attitudes, and emotions on an unprecedented scale (Barton and Lee 2013; Georgakopoulou 2006; Jones and Hafner 2012). The recent emergence of online environments as new sites for the temporal, spatial and social expansion of death and mourning (Brubaker and Hayes 2011; Brubaker, Hayes and Dourish 2013) has attracted scholarly interest in digital post-death rituals of mourning and memorialisation as an important social phenomenon (Walter et al. 2011; de Vries and Roberts 2004). While previous studies have been largely based on content analyses of individual MySpace logs and Facebook or discussion forum posts, the present study approaches digital memorial posts as entextualised moments of mourning shared with and for a networked audience (John 2013; Androutsopoulos 2014). The article analyses a corpus of Facebook memorial posts (N=525) as post sequences, wall events and texts, looking at how content on the site is produced, shared and discursively regimented. Based on the analysis, it is suggested that the intextualisation of moments of mourning on Facebook is participatory: it involves users’ selection of moments for public display relating to offline ceremonies of mourning, calendar-important dates or personal updates and contributing to the production of a textured wall in memory of the dead. The textuality of posts is found to rely on an ad hoc blending of formal genres of mourning and vernacular genres of writing dependent on (i) situational (date of posting activity, position in the post sequence) and (ii) extra-textual parameters (gender of poster, relationship with the deceased). The present socio-discursive investigation contributes to the growing, in-depth understanding of the texture and textuality of Web 2.0 mourning practices

Can conflict-generated diasporas be moderate actors during episodes of contested sovereignty? Lebanese and Albanian diasporas compared

Conflict-generated diasporas are considered likely to maintain radical behaviours. This article seeks to explain why and how they nevertheless adopt moderate claims, especially when advocating highly sensitive issues such as state sovereignty. Focusing on groups in the US I investigate the Lebanese diaspora linked to the pro-sovereignty movement in Lebanon (2000–2005) and the Albanian diaspora linked to Kosovo's independence movement (1999–2008). The contentious episodes take place during the original homeland's post-conflict reconstruction. Embedded in the literatures on diasporas, conflicts, and transnational social movements, this article argues that instrumental approach towards the achievement of sovereignty explains why conflict-generated diasporas adopt moderate behaviours. Diasporas hope that by linking their claims to a global political opportunity structure of ‘liberalism’ they ‘play the game’ of the international community interested in promoting the liberal paradigm, and thus expect to obtain its support for the legitimisation of their pro-sovereignty goals. Diaspora entrepreneurs advance their claims in a two-step process. Initially they use frame bridging and frame extension to formulate their existing grievances. Then, an increased responsiveness from their host-state emerges to sustain their initial moderation. While individuals or groups in diaspora circles occasionally issue threats during the contentious episodes, the majority in the diaspora consider moderate politics as their dominant behaviour