Rural Development and the Flow of Communication

Autor utvrđuje slijedeće komunikacijske potrebe u razvitku sela: potrebu otvorenog dijaloga i međusobnog povjerenja između seljaka i nosilaca informacija, potrebu prenošenja novih znanja i vještina poljoprivrednicima, potrebu suradnje šire društvene zajednice s lokalnom, seoskom zajednicom i njezinim dijelovima, te potrebu prevladavanja tzv. komunikacijskih praznina, tj. potrebu da se čuje i glas seljaka. U nastavku, autor analizira društvene dimenzije ruralnog razvoja s pomoću novih komunikacijskih tokova, ukazujući prije svega na značaj kulturne dimenzije. Promjene se ne mogu nametnuti ni jednoj sredini, posebice ne zatvorenoj seoskoj sredini. One mogu proisteći jedino iz dijaloga u kojemu će se poštivati jezik, kultura, običaji, tradicija i lokalno kulturno izražavanje svake sredine. Neovisno o tome je li komuniciranje vertikalno, horizontalno ili simultano u sva tri smjera (odozgo gore, odozgo dolje, horizontalno), komunikacijski tokovi mogu biti od utjecaja na razvitak sela jedino ako su mediji dostupni seoskim stanovnicima, ako su primjenljivi na lokalne prilike, ako su poruke što ih mediji nose ostvarljive s obzirom na lokalne potrebe i organizacijsku osposobljenost svake seoske sredine.The author establishes the following communicational needs in the development of the village: the need for open dialogue and mutual trust between the peasant and the bearer of information, the need for transmitting new knowledge and skills to farmers, the need for cooperation between society in general and the local, village community and parts of it, and the need for overcoming so-called communicational voids, i.e. the need for the voice of peasants also to be heard. The author also analyses the social dimensions of development using new currents of communication, and indicates primarily the importance of the cultural dimension. Change cannot be imposed upon any environment, especially not on the closed rural environment; on the contrary, it can stem only from a process of dialogue which respects the language, culture, customs, tradition and local cultural expression of every environment. Regardless of whether communication takes place vertically and/or horizontally, or simultaneously in all three directions (upwards, downwards, horizontally), currents of communication can influence the development of the village only if the media are within reach of rural inhibitants, if they can be applied to local conditions, and if the messages the media bear can be realized with regard to the local needs and organizational capabilities of every rural environment

Rural Development and the Flow of Communication

Autor utvrđuje slijedeće komunikacijske potrebe u razvitku sela: potrebu otvorenog dijaloga i međusobnog povjerenja između seljaka i nosilaca informacija, potrebu prenošenja novih znanja i vještina poljoprivrednicima, potrebu suradnje šire društvene zajednice s lokalnom, seoskom zajednicom i njezinim dijelovima, te potrebu prevladavanja tzv. komunikacijskih praznina, tj. potrebu da se čuje i glas seljaka. U nastavku, autor analizira društvene dimenzije ruralnog razvoja s pomoću novih komunikacijskih tokova, ukazujući prije svega na značaj kulturne dimenzije. Promjene se ne mogu nametnuti ni jednoj sredini, posebice ne zatvorenoj seoskoj sredini. One mogu proisteći jedino iz dijaloga u kojemu će se poštivati jezik, kultura, običaji, tradicija i lokalno kulturno izražavanje svake sredine. Neovisno o tome je li komuniciranje vertikalno, horizontalno ili simultano u sva tri smjera (odozgo gore, odozgo dolje, horizontalno), komunikacijski tokovi mogu biti od utjecaja na razvitak sela jedino ako su mediji dostupni seoskim stanovnicima, ako su primjenljivi na lokalne prilike, ako su poruke što ih mediji nose ostvarljive s obzirom na lokalne potrebe i organizacijsku osposobljenost svake seoske sredine.The author establishes the following communicational needs in the development of the village: the need for open dialogue and mutual trust between the peasant and the bearer of information, the need for transmitting new knowledge and skills to farmers, the need for cooperation between society in general and the local, village community and parts of it, and the need for overcoming so-called communicational voids, i.e. the need for the voice of peasants also to be heard. The author also analyses the social dimensions of development using new currents of communication, and indicates primarily the importance of the cultural dimension. Change cannot be imposed upon any environment, especially not on the closed rural environment; on the contrary, it can stem only from a process of dialogue which respects the language, culture, customs, tradition and local cultural expression of every environment. Regardless of whether communication takes place vertically and/or horizontally, or simultaneously in all three directions (upwards, downwards, horizontally), currents of communication can influence the development of the village only if the media are within reach of rural inhibitants, if they can be applied to local conditions, and if the messages the media bear can be realized with regard to the local needs and organizational capabilities of every rural environment

Living on thin abstractions: more power/economic knowledge

Debates over the role of knowledge and know-how as key economic assets in the contemporary economy, although far from new, are now increasingly couched in terms of a new-found economic immateriality which allows for their costless reproduction and widespread geographical dissemination. In the rush to tie down and reproduce economic know-how in abstract codifiable form, it has become almost baffling to argue that our stock of economic knowledge may rest upon affects as much as analysis, expressive symbolism as much as abstract symbolism. This paper is an attempt to think through how such 'elusive' economic knowledges may be grasped, yet neither formalized nor codified in abstract terms. It is also a plea to consider the geography of economic knowledge outside of the tacit - explicit distinction

Displaying desire and distinction in housing

The article discusses the significance of cultural capital for the understanding of the field of housing in contemporary Britain. It explores the relationship between housing and the position of individuals in social space mapped out by means of a multiple correspondence analysis. It considers the material aspects of housing and the changing contexts that are linked to the creation and display of desire for social position and distinction expressed in talk about home decoration as personal expression and individuals' ideas of a `dream house'. It is based on an empirical investigation of taste and lifestyle using nationally representative survey data and qualitative interviews. The article shows both that personal resources and the imagination of home are linked to levels of cultural capital, and that rich methods of investigation are required to grasp the significance of these normally invisible assets to broaden the academic understanding of the field of housing in contemporary culture

Disease Introduction Is Associated With a Phase Transition in Bighorn Sheep Demographics

Ecological theory suggests that pathogens are capable of regulating or limiting host population dynamics, and this relationship has been empirically established in several settings. However, although studies of childhood diseases were integral to the development of disease ecology, few studies show population limitation by a disease affecting juveniles. Here, we present empirical evidence that disease in lambs constrains population growth in bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) based on 45 years of population‐level and 18 years of individual‐level monitoring across 12 populations. While populations generally increased (λ = 1.11) prior to disease introduction, most of these same populations experienced an abrupt change in trajectory at the time of disease invasion, usually followed by stagnant‐to‐declining growth rates (λ = 0.98) over the next 20 years. Disease‐induced juvenile mortality imposed strong constraints on population growth that were not observed prior to disease introduction, even as adult survival returned to pre‐invasion levels. Simulations suggested that models including persistent disease‐induced mortality in juveniles qualitatively matched observed population trajectories, whereas models that only incorporated all‐age disease events did not. We use these results to argue that pathogen persistence may pose a lasting, but under‐recognized, threat to host populations, particularly in cases where clinical disease manifests primarily in juveniles

Education, knowledge, and symbolic form

This article aims to introduce Ernst Cassirer, and his philosophy of symbolic form, to education studies, and, in doing so, to challenge the widespread but deeply flawed views of knowledge and so-called knowledge-based education that have shaped recent education policy in England. After sketching the current educational landscape, and then some of the main lines of flight in Cassirer’s work, time is given to a comparison with Heidegger—a more familiar figure by far in Anglophone philosophy than Cassirer, and who contributed to the displacement of Cassirer—in order to illustrate more clearly Cassirer’s original contribution, in particular to the relationship between knowledge and time. Cassirer’s view of knowledge stands in marked and critical contrast to that which has shaped recent educational reform in England, as he sees knowledge as a productive and expressive matter, and repudiates what I call the ‘building-blocks’ picture of knowledge and the hierarchisation of subject areas

Contact Networks and Mortality Patterns Suggest Pneumonia-Causing Pathogens may Persist in Wild Bighorn Sheep

Efficacy of disease control efforts is often contingent on whether the disease persists locally in the host population or is repeatedly introduced from an alternative host species. Local persistence is partially determined by the interaction between host contact structure and disease transmission rates: relatively isolated host groups facilitate pathogen persistence by slowing the rate at which highly transmissible pathogens access new susceptibles; alternatively, isolated host groups impede persistence for pathogens with low transmission rates by limiting the number of available hosts and forcing premature fade-out. Here, we use long-term data from the Hells Canyon region to investigate whether variable host contact patterns are associated with survival outcomes for 46 cohorts of bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) lambs subject to recurrent pneumonia outbreaks. We build social contact networks for each lamb cohort, and quantify variation in lamb mortality attributable to populations, years, and groups. We then refine estimates of chronic carriage rates in ewes, and disease-induced mortality rates in lambs, by finding parameters for the disease process that produce lamb morality rates similar to those observed when simulated on the observed host contact networks. Our results suggest that summer lamb hazards are spatially structured at the subpopulation level: 92.5 percent of the variation in lamb hazards during pneumonia outbreak years was attributable to sub-population-level groups, whereas 1.7 percent and 5.6 percent were attributable to year and population, respectively.  Additionally, the posterior distribution generated by our disease transmission model suggests that pneumonia-causing pathogens may persist locally in bighorn sheep populations, even during apparently healthy years

Epidemic growth rates and host movement patterns shape management performance for pathogen spillover at the wildlife–livestock interface

Managing pathogen spillover at the wildlife–livestock interface is a key step towards improving global animal health, food security and wildlife conservation. However, predicting the effectiveness of management actions across host–pathogen systems with different life histories is an on-going challenge since data on intervention effectiveness are expensive to collect and results are system-specific.We developed a simulation model to explore how the efficacies of different management strategies vary according to host movement patterns and epidemic growth rates. The model suggested that fast-growing, fast-moving epidemics like avian influenza were best-managed with actions like biosecurity or containment, which limited and localized overall spillover risk. For fast-growing, slower-moving diseases like foot-and-mouth disease, depopulation or prophylactic vaccination were competitive management options. Many actions performed competitively when epidemics grew slowly and host movements were limited, and how management efficacy related to epidemic growth rate or host movement propensity depended on what objectivewas used to evaluatemanagement performance. This framework offers one means of classifying and prioritizing responses to novel pathogen spillover threats, and evaluating current management actions for pathogens emerging at the wildlife–livestock interface. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Dynamic and integrative approaches to understanding pathogen spillover’

Mythical Thinking, Scientific Discourses and Research Dissemination

This article focuses on some principles for understanding. By taking Anna Mikulak’s article “Mismatches between ‘scientific’ and ‘non-scientific’ ways of knowing and their contributions to public understanding of science” (IPBS 2011) as a point of departure, the idea of demarcation criteria for scientific and non-scientific discourses is addressed. Yet this is juxtaposed with mythical thinking, which is supposed to be the most salient trait of non-scientific discourses. The author demonstrates how the most widespread demarcation criterion, the criterion of verification, is self-contradictory, not only when it comes to logic, but also in the achievement of isolating natural sciences from other forms of knowledge. According to Aristotle induction is a rhetorical device and as far as scientific statements are based on inductive inferences, they are relying on humanities, which rhetoric is a part of. Yet induction also has an empirical component by being based on sense-impressions, which is not a part of the rhetoric, but the psychology. Also the myths are understood in a rhetorical (Lévi-Strauss) and a psychological (Cassirer) perspective. Thus it is argued that both scientific and non-scientific discourses can be mythical

Metaphor in organizational research: Context, modalities and implications for research introduction

We provide a general overview of previous work which has explored the use of metaphors in organizational research. Differences in focus and form of research on metaphors are noted. Work in organization theory (OT) and organizational communication (OC) generally features prescriptive metaphors that aid the practice of theorizing and research; research in organizational development (OD) tends to use metaphors for intervention in individual and group decision-making; while studies of organizational behaviour (OB) emphasize the metaphors-in-use within individuals' sensemaking accounts of critical events within their organization. Alongside these differences in focus, the form of metaphor analysis also differs across these contexts, ranging from text- and discourse-based analysis to the analysis of non-linguistic modalities such as pictorial signs, gestures and artefacts. Based on our overview of previous work, we call for greater attention to methodological issues around metaphor identification and analysis and outline a number of directions for further research