E-Help: Community perspectives on help-seeking using electronic forms of communication

The provision of mental health services using telephones, the Internet, and mobile phones (e-help), has been widely recommended as part of a solution to closing the gap between high prevalence of mental illness and low rates of service uptake. However, little is known about how potential users of these services view them. To address this gap, three focus groups (N = 17, age 17 - 69 years) were conducted to explore general community perspectives on using e-help. Interpretative phenomenological analysis identified three themes with related subthemes: (1) awareness; (2) trust and feeling safe when seeking and using e-help; (3) it depends on the person really: e-help issues. This study found that many factors that may contribute to non-help-seeking for traditional forms of mental health services were also potential barriers to using e-help. The findings were integrated into a model of the help-seeking process. This model was discussed with relation to both e-help and general help-seeking for mental health concerns. Findings suggest that service developers and policy planners need to take into consideration people\u27s preferences for help and comfort with mode of communication. It was concluded that in order for e-help to fulfil its promise, it will need to overcome some of the same barriers that face more traditional modes of service delivery

Gender, agency and mobile phones: urban street traders in Uganda

Mobile phones have proliferated remarkably in developing countries. It is argued that mobile phones present enormous opportunities for achieving gender equality in the context of broader development aims. Yet, emerging literature presents a mixed picture of outcomes for gender relations, suggesting that a much more nuanced assessment is required. Thus the research asks: to what extent can mobile phones contribute to achieving gender equality through the expansion of women's agency? The research reviews and evaluates the relationships between gender, mobile phones and development, then highlights how the relationship between mobile phones and capabilities has been conceptualised. It argues that the ca pability approach offers a prism to explore agency but is insufficient in capturing multiple expressions of agency. Combined with other critical theories of social and technological processes, viewing the capability approach through a feminist lens enriches an understand ing of nuanced gender, agency and mobile phone relations. This argument is made by using an interpretive theoretical framework of spaces for agency and an instrumental case study of street traders in Kampala, Uganda. A quantitative approach analyses the features of mobile phone mediated agency of street traders to establish disparities between men and women. Qualitative methods demonstrate the opportunities and challenges for expanding women's agency. Narrative analysis illustrates the complex ways in which mobile phone practices both enable and constrain agency with cont radictory results for women. The research finds that a focus on capabilities suggests that mobile phones present opportunities that can be a first step towards greater equality. However, it is difficult for mobile phones access and use to change gendered ideologies, creating tensions between empowerment and disempowerment. Mobile phone practices are neither wholly beneficial nor wholly const rained. The tensions generated by mobile phones at multiple levels can be an important first step towards transforming unequal gender relations by challenging prevailing norms

The content and critical metaphor analysis of illustrated print advertisements in China.

This dissertation takes Chinese advertisements as the research subjects to see in what way a quantifiable large number of advertisements with its metaphorical nature and instrumental mission can reflect social cultural change, in specifics, ideology and identity change of China in the last thirty years by combining four methods of research: content analysis, Critical Discourse Analysis, Conceptual Metaphor Analysis and Pictorial Metaphor Analysis. The dissertation goes through the sign or ad interpretation process of linguistic, semiotic and critical analysis of 300 sample illustrated print advertisements collected from popular and award-winning illustrated print advertisements in Chinese media in the three periods of 1980s, 1990s and 2000s respectively. After comparing and contrasting the high frequency key words, advertising appeals and metaphorical expressions and images (categories and groups) appeared in the advertisements of the three periods the following conclusions are made: First, although advertisements in all the three periods belonged to the commercial public discourse, those in 1980s were inclined towards public discourse without much consideration for specific target groups while those in 1990s and 2000s tended to denote private and personal discourse with clear target groups in mind. While the advertisements in 1980s were characterized largely by the direct informative style, the majority of the advertisements in 1990s manifested a hybridization of both informative and involving styles. The advertisements in 2000s demonstrated strong involving and interacting style. Second, it can be seen from the shift of advertising appeals from the use of rational appeal to personal appeal that the overall society is moving up the ladder of Maslow\u27s Hierarchy of Needs Analysis from the basic need satisfaction to more social need and personal need satisfaction. Third, with regard to semiotic image categories used, the result shows the tendency that China is increasingly becoming a male-dominated society with a big increase in using male images from 1980s to 2000s and in particular adult male images. The representational images in the ads show a decline in intimacy but an increase in positional communication. The social setting is the dominant advertising background for all the three periods. Meanwhile with regard to the typical types of metaphorical images that are used as signifieds or secondary subjects to be projected onto the signifiers or primary subjects, there is a decline in using human images as opposed to non-human images. The dominant metaphorical image types used in three periods are in concomitant with the ideology and identity needs of each specific period of time. Fourth, on the whole the critical metaphor analysis of 300 sample illustrated print advertisements in mainland China from 1979 to 2008 has revealed advertisements during this period, implicitly or explicitly, have served the evolving ruling and dominant ideology very well. The dominant ideologies have changed from political ideology to economic ideology in 1980s, from economic ideology to national ideology in 1 990s, and from national ideology to balanced harmonious ideologies in 2000s. The individual consumers have transformed their identities from political self to material social self in 1980s, from material social self to national cultural self in 1990s, and from national cultural self to a individualized myself in 2000s. The dissertation contributes both theoretically and practically to the advertising research as well as visual culture research. On the one hand it confirms the critical discourse theory that discourse change can reflect socially-constructed reality. On the other hand, it contributes to pictorial metaphor theory by that visual metaphors are deep-rooted in human conceptualization and are cultural-specific

Healthy snacks consumption and the Theory of Planned Behaviour. The role of anticipated regret

Two empirical studies explored the role of anticipated regret (AR) within the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) framework (Ajzen, 1991), applied to the case of healthy snacks consumption. AR captures affective reactions and it can be defined as an unpleasant emotion experienced when people realize or imagine that the present situation would be better if they had made a different decision. In this research AR refers to the expected negative feelings for not having consumed healthy snacks (i.e., inaction regret). The aims were: a) to test whether AR improves the TPB predictive power; b) to analyze whether it acts as moderator within the TPB model relationships. Two longitudinal studies were conducted. Target behaviors were: consumption of fruit and vegetables as snacks (Study 1); consumption of fruit as snacks (Study 2). At time 1, the questionnaire included measures of intention and its antecedents, according to the TPB. Both the affective and evaluative components of attitude were assessed. At time 2, self-reported consumption behaviors were surveyed. Two convenience samples of Italian adults were recruited. In hierarchical regressions, the TPB variables were added at the first step; AR was added at the second step, and the interactions at the last step. Results showed that AR significantly improved the TPB ability to predict both intentions and behaviours, also after controlling for intention. In both studies AR moderated the effect of affective attitude on intention: affective attitude was significant only for people low in AR

2019 Academic Excellence Showcase Abstracts

Abstracts for the 2019 Academic Excellence Showcase

Regulation and best practices in public and nonprofit marketing

The volume contains the papers presented during the 9th International Congress of the International Association on Public and Nonprofit Marketing (IAPNM) entitled "Regulation and Best Practices in Public and Nonprofit Marketing". Structured in accordance with the sessions of the mentioned Congress, the volume includes papers and relevant contributions on marketing research development in the public administration, healthcare and social assistance, higher education, local development and, more generally, nonprofit organizations. The social marketing specific issues take an important part of the volume giving the diversity of the approached topics as well as the large number of researchers concerned with this matter. Though of small dimensions, the contents of the sessions dedicated the revival and reinvention of public marketing must be underlined, as well as of the transfer of public marketing best practices to the South-Eastern European states. Publishing this volume represents a term of the interest expressed by over 40 academic and research groups in Europe and other continents with interests in the public and nonprofit marketing field, as well as in other European states’ bodies that develop specific empirical studies

Social media and body image: It's complicated

Body image is an important dimension of life, and in a media-saturated world, we are supposedly surrounded by images of 'idealised' physical body types that are harmful to people's body image. Many theories have been put forward to account for the growing idealisation of 'thin' and 'toned' women and 'lean' and 'muscular' men. Historically, psychological body image research has reliably linked exposure to 'ideal' bodies in mainstream 'traditional' media (along with moderating processes of internalisation, self-comparison, and objectification) and experiences of body image dissatisfaction; for increasingly diverse populations of women and men across the lifespan. In recent years, researchers have turned their attention to social media's impact on body image. Some quantitative and correlational studies suggest that social media use is associated with body image dissatisfaction and, in some instances, further intensifies its scope and scale. Findings also contend that social media can promote body image satisfaction by enabling the distribution and consumption of alternative, 'realistic' body types and body positive content. his thesis suggests inconsistent, and binary findings come from the limited and partial ways research often conceptualise and analyse the relationship between social media and body image. Studies are typically based on singular aspects of social media (i.e. exposure to particular pages or technological affordances) and often overemphasise body image as a static, cross-situational trait, ignoring its complex and situational-specific nature. The current study counters this by bringing together the critical psychological view that body image is complex, multidimensional, and fluid and contemporary Screen and Media scholarship that emphasises how people can simultaneously be users of and used by social media. I combine these two perspectives to critically explore how people experience their body image through social media in ambivalent ways and how social media can enable and challenge the process of developing positive body image experiences. Specifically, I take a Critical Realist informed, qualitative approach to exploring how the social and technological affordances of social media ('Facebook' and 'Instagram') shape attitudinal body image (thoughts, feelings and behaviours relating to research respondents' physical appearance and embodiment) of adult, New Zealand and Australian women and men who are actively using social media to improve their body image. The research findings draw from an online survey of 552 respondents and 30 semi-structured interviews that highlight the simultaneous risks, rewards, and ever-present tensions - which, I argue, are inherently characteristic of the reflexive relationship between particularly situated individuals, social media and body image

"Don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?" Examining the impact of music videos on adolescent female body dissatisfaction and self-objectification

The present study aimed to examine whether relationships exist between viewing objectifying music video images and adolescent female body dissatisfaction and self-objectification. Objectification Theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997) was used as a framework for understanding the potential impact of music video viewing. Participants completed the following self-report measures: the Body Image States Scale (BISS; Cash, Fleming, Alindogan, Steadman & Whitehead, 2002) to assess levels of body satisfaction, Self-objectification Questionnaire (SOQ; Noll & Fredrickson, 1998) to measure levels of self-objectification, and the researcher-created Music Video Viewing Survey (MVVS) to determine amount of music video viewing. Sequential multiple regression analyses controlling for Body Mass Index and Ethnicity were conducted. A sample of 108 females ages 16 – 18 years was recruited from public high schools in North-Central Saskatchewan. Findings revealed significant relationships between self-objectification and body satisfaction, as well as body mass index (BMI) and body satisfaction scores. A significant relationship between music video viewing and body satisfaction scores, but not with self-objectification scores, was observed. This finding suggests that body satisfaction decreases as amount of music video viewing time increases. Strengths and limitations of the present study and implications for practice and future research are discussed. Future research is needed to further explore the relationship between music video viewing and body dissatisfaction in adolescent females and begin to examine the potential impacts of music video viewing on male viewers

Psychology and the research enterprise: Moving beyond the enduring hegemony of positivism

Almost since its inception, psychology has embraced the positivist orientation of the natural sciences. The research enterprise in psychology has reinforced this through its insistence that psychological science is objective, generalisable, and value free (or neutral). Consequently, experimental designs are privileged over other forms of enquiry and alternate epistemologies, methodologies, and methods remain marginalised within the discipline. We argue that alternate methodologies, and the philosophies that underpin the research endeavour, should be included in mainstream psychology programmes so that the existing imbalance is rectified. Achieving this balance will mean that psychology will be better positioned to address applied research problems and students will graduate with the skills and knowledge that they will need in the multidisciplinary workforce they will enter. We discuss recommendations for how psychology in Australia can move towards embracing methodological and epistemological pluralism. Breen, L. & Darlaston-Jones, D. (2008). Psychology and the research enterprise: Moving beyond the enduring hegemony of positivism. Australian Journal of Psychology, 60 (S1), 107-208. doi:10.1080/0004953080238555