13,897 research outputs found
Metaphors of London fog, smoke and mist in Victorian and Edwardian Art and Literature
Julian Wolfreys has argued that after 1850 writers employed stock images of the city without allowing them to transform their texts. This thesis argues, on the contrary, that metaphorical uses of London fog were complex and subtle during the Victorian and Edwardian periods, at least until 1914. Fog represented, in particular, formlessness and the dissolution of boundaries. Examining the idea of fog in literature, verse, newspaper accounts and journal articles, as well as in the visual arts, as part of a common discourse about London and the state of its inhabitants, this thesis charts how the metaphorical appropriation of this idea changed over time. Four of Dickens's novels are used to track his use of fog as part of a discourse of the natural and unnatural in individual and society, identifying it with London in progressively more negative terms. Visual representations of fog by Constable, Turner, Whistler, Monet, Markino, O'Connor, Roberts and Wyllie and Coburn showed an increasing readiness to engage with this discourse. Social tensions in the city in the 1880s were articulated in art as well as in fiction. Authors like Hay and Barr showed the destruction of London by its fog because of its inhabitants' supposed degeneracy. As the social threat receded, apocalyptic scenarios gave way to a more optimistic view in the work of Owen and others. Henry James used fog as a metaphorical representation of the boundaries of gendered behaviour in public, and the problems faced by women who crossed them. The dissertation also examines fog and individual transgression, in novels and short stories by Lowndes, Stevenson, Conan Doyle and Joseph Conrad. After 1914, fog was no more than a crude signifier of Victorian London in literature, film and, later, television, deployed as a cliche instead of the subtle metaphorical idea discussed in this thesis
Building body identities - exploring the world of female bodybuilders
This thesis explores how female bodybuilders seek to develop and maintain a viable sense of self despite being stigmatized by the gendered foundations of what Erving Goffman (1983) refers to as the 'interaction order'; the unavoidable presentational context in which identities are forged during the course of social life. Placed in the context of an overview of the historical treatment of women's bodies, and a concern with the development of bodybuilding as a specific form of body modification, the research draws upon a unique two year ethnographic study based in the South of England, complemented by interviews with twenty-six female bodybuilders, all of whom live in the U.K. By mapping these extraordinary women's lives, the research illuminates the pivotal spaces and essential lived experiences that make up the female bodybuilder. Whilst the women appear to be embarking on an 'empowering' radical body project for themselves, the consequences of their activity remains culturally ambivalent. This research exposes the 'Janus-faced' nature of female bodybuilding, exploring the ways in which the women negotiate, accommodate and resist pressures to engage in more orthodox and feminine activities and appearances
Towards a sociology of conspiracy theories: An investigation into conspiratorial thinking on Dönmes
This thesis investigates the social and political significance of conspiracy theories, which has been an academically neglected topic despite its historical relevance. The academic literature focuses on the methodology, social significance and political impacts of these theories in a secluded manner and lacks empirical analyses. In response, this research provides a comprehensive theoretical framework for conspiracy theories by considering their methodology, political impacts and social significance in the light of empirical data. Theoretically, the thesis uses Adorno's semi-erudition theory along with Girardian approach. It proposes that conspiracy theories are methodologically semi-erudite narratives, i.e. they are biased in favour of a belief and use reason only to prove it. It suggests that conspiracy theories appear in times of power vacuum and provide semi-erudite cognitive maps that relieve alienation and ontological insecurities of people and groups. In so doing, they enforce social control over their audience due to their essentialist, closed-to-interpretation narratives. In order to verify the theory, the study analyses empirically the social and political significance of conspiracy theories about the Dönme community in Turkey. The analysis comprises interviews with conspiracy theorists, conspiracy theory readers and political parties, alongside a frame analysis of the popular conspiracy theory books on Dönmes. These confirm the theoretical framework by showing that the conspiracy theories are fed by the ontological insecurities of Turkish society. Hence, conspiracy theorists, most readers and some political parties respond to their own ontological insecurities and political frustrations through scapegoating Dönmes. Consequently, this work shows that conspiracy theories are important symptoms of society, which, while relieving ontological insecurities, do not provide politically prolific narratives
The temporality of rhetoric: the spatialization of time in modern criticism
Every conception of criticism conceals a notion of time which informs the manner in which the critic conceives of history, representation and criticism itself. This thesis reveals the philosophies of time inherent in certain key modern critical concepts: allegory, irony and the sublime. Each concept opens a breach in time, a disruption of chronology. In each case this gap or aporia is emphatically closed, elided or denied. Taking the philosophy of time elaborated by Giorgio Agamben as an introductory proposition, my argument turns in Chapter One to the allegorical temporality which Walter Benjamin sees as the time of photography. The second chapter examines the aesthetics of the sublime as melancholic or mournful untimeliness. In Chapter Three, Paul de Man's conception of irony provides an exemplary instance of the denial of this troubling temporal predicament. In opposition to the foreclosure of the disturbing temporalities of criticism, history and representation, the thesis proposes a fundamental rethinking of the philosophy of time as it relates to these categories of reflection. In a reading of an inaugural meditation on the nature of time, and in examining certain key contemporary philosophical and critical texts, I argue for a critical attendance to that which eludes those modes of thought that attempt to map time as a recognizable and essentially spatial field. The Confessions of Augustine provide, in the fourth chapter, a model for thinking through the problems set up earlier: Augustine affords us, precisely, a means of conceiving of the gap or the interim. In the final chapter, this concept is developed with reference to the criticism of Arnold and Eliot, the fiction of Virginia Woolf and the philosophy of cinema derived from Deleuze and Lyotard. In conclusion, the philosophical implications of the thesis are placed in relation to a conception of the untimeliness of death
Exploring environmental concerns on digital platforms through big data: the effect of online consumers’ environmental discourse on online review ratings
By deploying big data analytical techniques to retrieve and analyze a large volume of more than 2.7 million reviews, this work sheds light on how environmental concerns expressed by tourists on digital platforms, in the guise of online reviews, influence their satisfaction with tourism and hospitality services. More specifically, we conduct a multi-platform study of Tripadvisor.com and Booking.com online reviews (ORs) pertaining to hotel services across eight leading tourism destination cities in America and Europe over the period 2017–2018. By adopting multivariate regression analyses, we show that OR ratings are positively influenced by both the presence and depth of environmental discourse on these platforms. Theoretical and managerial contributions, and implications for digital platforms, big data analytics (BDA), electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) and environmental research within the tourism and hospitality domain are examined, with a view to capturing, empirically, the effect of environmental discourse presence and depth on customer satisfaction proxied through online ratings
Examination of a Brief, Self-Paced Online Self-Compassion Intervention Targeting Intuitive Eating and Body Image Outcomes among Men and Women
Ideals for appearance and body image are pervasive in Western culture in which men and women are portrayed with unrealistic and often unattainable standards (Ferguson, 2013; Martin, 2010). Exposure and reinforcement have created a culture of social acceptance and internalization of these ideals, contributing to pervasive body image disturbance (i.e., body dissatisfaction; Fallon et al., 2014; Stice, 2001; Thompson & Stice, 2001; Thompson et al., 1999). Research has suggested that body dissatisfaction is expressed differently across sexes (Grossbard et al., 2008), with attention to thin ideals among women and muscular ideals among men. Body dissatisfaction has been linked to numerous poor outcomes, including dieting, unhealthy weight control behaviors, disordered eating, and increased psychopathology. Although dieting is one of the primary mechanisms employed to reduce body dissatisfaction (Thompson & Stice, 2001), research has shown that such efforts are contraindicated as dieting predicts weight gain over time (Pietiläinen et al., 2012) as well as preoccupation with food, disordered eating, eating disorders, emotional distress, and higher body dissatisfaction (Grabe et al., 2007; Johnson & Wardle, 2005; Neumark- Sztianer et al., 2006; Paxton et al., 2006; Tiggemann, 2005). Restrictive dietary behaviors suppress physiological cues to eat (e.g., hunger) that presents a vulnerability to eating in response to alternative cues, both internal (e.g., emotions) and external (e.g., availability of food).
Intuitive eating is a non-restrictive approach to eating that encourages adherence to internal physiological cues to indicate when, what, and how much to eat (Tylka, 2006) and has demonstrated an inverse relationship with disordered eating, restrained eating, food preoccupation, dieting, body dissatisfaction, and negative affect (Bruce & Ricciardelli, 2016). Self-compassion, relating to oneself in a caring and supportive manner (Neff, 2003a), has been proposed as a pathway to increase intuitive eating and reduce body dissatisfaction (Neff & Knox, 2017; Schoenefeld & Webb, 2013; Webb & Hardin, 2016). Research has highlighted the efficacy of self-compassion interventions in addressing weight-related concerns (Rahimi-Ardabili et al., 2018) as well as brief experiential exercises for reducing body dissatisfaction (Moffitt et al., 2018). Additionally, there is a growing body of evidence supporting the efficacy of internet-based self-compassion interventions (Mak et al., 2018; Kelman et al., 2018; Nadeau et al., 2020). The purpose of the current study was to examine the effectiveness of a brief, self-paced online self-compassion intervention targeting body image and adaptive eating behaviors and potential mechanisms of change (e.g., self-compassion and psychological flexibility) among undergraduate men and women. This study also examined outcomes among men and women in the area of self-compassion, body dissatisfaction, and intuitive eating as research has highlighted the need to determine who benefits more from self-compassion interventions (Rahimi-Ardabili et al., 2018).
The study compared a one-hour, self-guided online self-compassion intervention to an active control condition. The intervention was comprised of psychoeducation, experiential exercises, and mindfulness practice designed to increase self-compassion surrounding body image and eating behaviors. In contrast, the active control condition consisted of self-care recommendations and self-assessments for nutrition, exercise, and sleep. The study was administered over three parts (e.g., baseline, intervention, and follow-up) in which variables of interest were assessed at each time point. Outcome variables included self-compassion, intuitive eating, disordered eating, body appreciation, muscle dysmorphia, internalized weight bias, fear of self-compassion, and psychological inflexibility. Participants were randomized on a 2:1 intervention to control ratio at the second time point in order to make comparisons between groups while simultaneously having sufficient power for examining mediation and moderation within the treatment condition. Overall, 1023 individuals (64% women, Mage = 18.9, 67.4% white) signed informed consent and participated in at least one part of the study whereas 101 participants (71% women, Mage = 19.3, 71% white) completed all three study portions.
As predicted, self-compassion was correlated with all variables of interest, and all study variables were correlated with each other (p < .01). In contrast to hypothesized outcomes, the self-compassion condition failed to demonstrate improvements across time or between conditions on all study outcomes. These results persisted when participants were screened for levels of intuitive eating as well. Contrary to prediction, internalized weight bias, muscle dysmorphia, and fear of self-compassion demonstrated increased levels within the intervention condition and decreases in the control condition. There were significant gender differences on multiple outcome variables, with men demonstrating higher levels of self-compassion and body appreciation whereas women endorsed higher levels of disordered eating, internalized weight bias, muscle dysmorphia, and psychological inflexibility. Additionally, there were significant gender interactions for internalized weight bias, body appreciation, and muscle dysmorphia. The interactions existed such that men demonstrated increased internalized weight bias and muscle dysmorphia across time whereas women displayed decreased weight bias and muscle dysmorphia. The opposite pattern was found within body appreciation; women demonstrated increased body appreciation across time while men reported decreased levels of body appreciation.
Despite this study’s intent to examine underlying mechanisms of change, the condition in which participants were randomly selected did not have any relationship, positive or negative, with the outcome variables of interest. As such, mediation within the current study was not conducted as it would violate statistical assumptions required to examine this hypothesis. Finally, upon examining the moderating relationship of fear of self-compassion between self-compassion and outcome variables, there were main effects for self-compassion on intuitive eating, emotional eating, internalized weight bias, body appreciation, and psychological inflexibility as well as main effects of fear of self-compassion on psychological inflexibility. There were significant interactions for intuitive eating and emotional eating, such that as fear of self-compassion increased, the effect of self-compassion on intuitive eating decreased, and the effect of self-compassion on reducing emotional eating behaviors decreased.
Overall, the brief, self-paced online intervention delivered in the current study did not prove to be an effective means for improving self-compassion, intuitive eating, body appreciation, disordered eating, muscle dysmorphia, and psychological inflexibility. Nevertheless, the relationships between self-compassion and outcome variables of interest throughout the study mirror that of the existing literature. Findings from this study, in general, were also consistent with differences between men and women despite a gap in the research for intervention outcomes. Although fear of self-compassion demonstrated a moderating effect on the relationship between self-compassion and intuitive eating as well as emotional eating, this does not account for the lack of significant findings. The context surrounding this study, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, provided a considerable challenge to examining the efficacy of the current intervention. However, the findings of this study suggest future research will likely need to identify ways to enhance the delivery of experiential exercises that encourage engagement, provide a safe and warm environment for participants, and create flexibility and willingness surrounding painful and difficult experiences in order to undermine internalized and socially accepted beliefs about body image and eating behaviors
Interactive Sonic Environments: Sonic artwork via gameplay experience
The purpose of this study is to investigate the use of video-game technology in the design and implementation of interactive sonic centric artworks, the purpose of which is to create and contribute to the discourse and understanding of its effectiveness in electro-acoustic composition highlighting the creative process. Key research questions include: How can the language of electro-acoustic music be placed in a new framework derived from videogame aesthetics and technology? What new creative processes need to be considered when using this medium? Moreover, what aspects of 'play' should be considered when designing the systems? The findings of this study assert that composers and sonic art practitioners need little or no coding knowledge to create exciting applications and the myriad of options available to the composer when using video-game technology is limited only by imagination. Through a cyclic process of planning, building, testing and playing these applications the project revealed advantages and unique sonic opportunities in comparison to other sonic art installations. A portfolio of selected original compositions, both fixed and open are presented by the author to complement this study. The commentary serves to place the work in context with other practitioners in the field and to provide compositional approaches that have been taken
Balancing the urban stomach: public health, food selling and consumption in London, c. 1558-1640
Until recently, public health histories have been predominantly shaped by medical and scientific perspectives, to the neglect of their wider social, economic and political contexts. These medically-minded studies have tended to present broad, sweeping narratives of health policy's explicit successes or failures, often focusing on extraordinary periods of epidemic disease viewed from a national context. This approach is problematic, particularly in studies of public health practice prior to 1800. Before the rise of modern scientific medicine, public health policies were more often influenced by shared social, cultural, economic and religious values which favoured maintaining hierarchy, stability and concern for 'the common good'. These values have frequently been overlooked by modern researchers. This has yielded pessimistic assessments of contemporary sanitation, implying that local authorities did not care about or prioritise the health of populations. Overly medicalised perspectives have further restricted historians' investigation and use of source material, their interpretation of multifaceted and sometimes contested cultural practices such as fasting, and their examination of habitual - and not just extraordinary - health actions. These perspectives have encouraged a focus on reactive - rather than preventative - measures.
This thesis contributes to a growing body of research that expands our restrictive understandings of pre-modern public health. It focuses on how public health practices were regulated, monitored and expanded in later Tudor and early Stuart London, with a particular focus on consumption and food-selling. Acknowledging the fundamental public health value of maintaining urban foodways, it investigates how contemporaries sought to manage consumption, food production waste, and vending practices in the early modern City's wards and parishes. It delineates the practical and political distinctions between food and medicine, broadly investigates the activities, reputations of and correlations between London's guild and itinerant food vendors and licensed and irregular medical practitioners, traces the directions in which different kinds of public health policy filtered up or down, and explores how policies were enacted at a national and local level. Finally, it compares and contrasts habitual and extraordinary public health regulations, with a particular focus on how perceptions of and actual food shortages, paired with the omnipresent threat of disease, impacted broader aspects of civic life
Metodología de intervención para trabajar ODS. Educación a través de las artes
La Agenda 2030 presenta 17 Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS), con sus metas e indicadores universales que los países miembros de la ONU emplean para enmarcar sus políticas. Entre las metas del ODS 4 “educación de calidad” encontramos: “asegurar que todos los alumnos adquieran los conocimientos teóricos y prácticos necesarios para promover el desarrollo sostenible, entre otras cosas mediante la educación para el desarrollo sostenible y los estilos de vida sostenibles, los derechos humanos, la igualdad de género, la promoción de una cultura de paz y no violencia, la ciudadanía mundial y la valoración de la diversidad cultural y la contribución de la cultura al desarrollo sostenible”. La educación, se considera el motor de la Agenda 2030 porque, además de representar el centro del ODS 4, desempeña también un papel notable en la implementación de los demás, mejorando su alcance y efectividad.
Así pues, entre las disciplinas que sustentan este trabajo se escogió la Educación para el Desarrollo Sostenible y la Ciudadanía Global como marco de acción y punto de partida en la formación de los ciudadanos de un futuro viable, equitativo y habitable. Se continuó investigando las oportunidades del desarrollo de la Competencia Intercultural en las relaciones humanas, aquello que diferencia a unas personas de otras puede aportar al conjunto de la sociedad y cómo la educación permitiría su aprovechamiento. Con todo ello, se planteó el marco didáctico de interacción en el cual se implementó la interculturalidad en el ejercicio educativo. Se estudió así el poder de las artes como medio de motivación e inspiración a la hora de transmitir de la manera más eficaz posible los valores considerados más arriba.
El objetivo del presente estudio se centra en demostrar el potencial de las artes para fomentar las competencias comunicativas, sociales, interculturales, emocionales, de ciudadanía y sostenibilidad. Para ello, se ha realizado una investigación aplicada que deriva en una propuesta concreta de intervención con un programa educativo destinado a la enseñanza de lenguas, tanto primera como extranjera, en distintos niveles de la educación formal en Mali y en España, aplicando un método holístico basado en el paradigma interpretativo.
A través de la pintura, la literatura y el cine, se plantean una serie de actividades ideadas para crear un entorno educativo integrador, favorecer el empoderamiento del alumnado y promover el pensamiento crítico, la empatía, la resiliencia, la comunicación, la cooperación y la educación intercultural, como competencias esenciales para la consecución de los 17 ODS, la construcción de un mundo transcultural sostenible y el desarrollo de una ciudadanía global preparada para los retos del siglo XXI.
En la metodología de este proceso educativo innovador, multidisciplinar, flexible y adaptable, se ha empleado un análisis del proceso de investigación para monitorizarlo adecuadamente (DAFO). Cada una de las propuestas presenta una recogida de datos cualitativos (observación, rúbricas) y cuantitativos (encuestas, entrevistas) y se ofrece un análisis de contraste de los resultados finales.
Con todo, se espera facilitar la exigente tarea que supone hacer consciente a la sociedad de base (desde la misma infancia; desde los niveles más bajos de la misma y en todos los niveles de la educación formal) de en qué consisten los ODS y su relevancia para hacer de todas las personas corresponsables directas en su consecución para garantizar un futuro sostenible para toda la ciudadanía global.The 2030 Agenda presents 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with their universal targets and indicators that UN member countries use to frame their policies. Among the targets of SDG 4 “quality education,” we find the one that seeks: “to ensure that all students acquire the theoretical and practical knowledge necessary to promote sustainable development, among other things through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, the promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, world citizenship and the appreciation of cultural diversity and the contribution of culture to sustainable development”. Education is considered the engine of the 2030 Agenda because, in addition to representing the centre of SDG 4, it also plays a notable role in the implementation of the others, improving their scope and effectiveness.
Among the disciplines that support this research, Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship sets the framework for action and represents a starting point in the formation of citizens for a viable, equitable and habitable future. Global citizenship implies human relations and those and intrinsically shaped by culture. Intercultural Education and, more specifically, the development of Intercultural Competence needed to be considered. What differentiates some people from others can contribute to society as a whole and education is the means to explore and understand. For the design of a didactic framework of interaction, the power of the arts was studied as a means of motivation and inspiration when transmitting the values considered above in the most effective way possible.
The objective of this study focuses on proving the potential of the arts to promote communicative, social, intercultural, emotional, citizenship and sustainability skills. For this, the theoretical research derived in a concrete intervention proposal with an educational program in language teaching, both first and foreign languages, at different levels of formal education in Mali and Spain, applying a holistic method based on the interpretive paradigm.
Through painting, literature and cinema, a series of activities were designed to create an inclusive educational environment, favour the empowerment of students and promote critical thinking, empathy, resilience, communication, cooperation and intercultural education, as essential skills for the achievement of the 17 SDGs, the construction of a sustainable transcultural world and the development of global citizenship prepared for the challenges of the 21st century.
In the methodology of this innovative, multidisciplinary, flexible and adaptable educational process, an analysis of the research process has been used to adequately monitor it (SWOT). Each of the proposals presents a collection of qualitative data (observation, rubrics) and quantitative data (surveys, interviews) and contrast analysis of the final results is offered.
All in all, it is expected to facilitate the demanding task of making basic society aware (from childhood itself, from its lowest levels and at all levels of formal education) of what the SDGs consist of and their relevance to make all people directly co-responsible in its achievement to guarantee a sustainable future for all global citizens
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A Question of Design: Strategies for Embedding AI-Driven Tools into Journalistic Work Routines
With the promise of AI, the use of emerging technologies in journalism has gained momentum. However, the question of how such technologies can be interwoven with newsroom practices, values, routines, and socio-cultural experiences is often neglected. This article investigates the ways in which AI-driven tools are permeating newswork and design strategies for blending technological capabilities with editorial requirements. We followed a multi-method approach to investigate the deployment of AI in news production at two London newsrooms: (1) a design ethnography at the BBC with journalists and technologists, and (2) interviews with journalists at The Times.
Our findings show that while journalists are generally open to try AI-driven technologies that benefit their work, technologists struggle to integrate them into journalistic workflows. The consensus was that human judgement is required to make complex decisions in journalism and that journalistic values should be prioritised in AI tool design. We claim that AI tools need to fit with professional practices and values in journalism in order to be fully accepted as an editorial tool. Embedding new technologies into journalistic workflows requires therefore a close collaboration between journalists and technologists, and a sociotechnical design that blends in work routines and values
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