Online civic intervention: A new form of political participation under conditions of a disruptive online discourse

In the everyday practice of online communication, we observe users deliberately reporting abusive content or opposing hate speech through counterspeech, while at the same time, online platforms are increasingly relying on and supporting this kind of user action to fight disruptive online behavior. We refer to this type of user engagement as online civic intervention (OCI) and regard it as a new form of user-based political participation in the digital sphere that contributes to an accessible and reasoned public discourse. Because OCI has received little scholarly attention thus far, this article conceptualizes low- and high-threshold types of OCI as different kinds of user responses to common disruptive online behavior such as hate speech or hostility toward the media. Against the background of participation research, we propose a theoretically grounded individual-level model that serves to explain OCI

Hate crimes against the LGBT community in the Commonwealth: a situational analysis

This report outlines the nature and extent of anti-LGBT hate crime and its impact on individuals and societies in the Commonwealth. Section 1 outlines the methodology and approach of this report, and sets out the legal and social context in which hate crimes are committed against LGBT people. Section 2 assesses the extent and nature of anti-LGBT hate crimes, exploring trends across the Commonwealth and surveying regional and country-specific case examples. Information on the perpetrators of anti-LGBT victimisation is also outlined. Section 3 examines the impacts that anti-LGBT hate crimes have on individuals, communities and society. Commonalities and differences in experiences across different sectors of LGBT communities are described. Section 4 of the report concludes with recommendations on how Commonwealth states should legislate against anti-LGBT hate crime, and why statutory agencies must implement monitoring tools to ensure that anti-LGBT victimisation becomes visible and is measured

Cohesion, commonality and creativity: youth work across borders

No abstract available

'Food hates' over the life course : an analysis of food narratives from the UK Mass Observation Archive

This article presents data from the UK Mass Observation Archive drawn from the 1982 Winter Food Directive, which focuses on memories of childhood food ‘hates’. Through our analysis of these data, we identify three main findings: (a) there is a discrepancy between individual-level and collective aggregate level food hates, which problematises the notion of commensality; (b) a small but powerful ‘outlier’ group of respondents, which we refer to as ‘visceral repulsors’, show relatively extreme reactions to certain foods throughout their lives; and (c) the duration and temporalities of food hates can be used to sketch a rough model of change and continuity of food hates over the life course. Finally, the discussion focuses on the food hate trajectories through the life course, situated in a social context, to explore the implications the findings may have for food and health policy more generally

Online networks and subjective well-being

We argue that the use of online networks may threaten subjective well-being in several ways, due to the inherent attributes of Internet-mediated interaction and through its effects on social trust and sociability. We test our hypotheses on a representative sample of the Italian population. We find a significantly negative correlation between online networking and well-being. This result is partially confirmed after accounting for endogeneity. We explore the direct and indirect effects of the use of social networking sites (SNS) on well-being in a SEM analysis. We find that online networking plays a positive role in subjective well-being through its impact on physical interactions, whereas SNS use is associated with lower social trust. The overall effect of networking on individual welfare is significantly negative.Comment: 40 page