Analyzing Citizen Engagement With European Politics on Social Media

Contributions in this thematic issue focus explicitly on citizens and their online engagement with European politics. For social media research in the European Union, citizens remain an understudied actor type in comparison with political elites or news organizations. The reason, we argue, is four key challenges facing social media research in the European Union: legal, ethical, technical, and cultural. To introduce this thematic issue, we outline these four challenges and illustrate how they relate to each contribution. Given that these challenges are unlikely to dissipate, we stress the need for open dialogue about them. A key part of that involves contextualizing research findings within the constraints in which they are produced. Despite these challenges, the contributions showcase that a theoretical and empirical focus on citizens’ social media activity can illuminate key insights into vitally important topics for contemporary Europe. These include civic participation, institutional communication, media consumption, gender inequality, and populism

Gene polymorphisms in APOE, NOS3, and LIPC genes may be risk factors for cardiac adverse events after primary CABG

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Coronary artery disease progression after primary coronary artery bypass grafting may, beside classical atherosclerosis risk factors, be depending on genetic predisposition.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We investigated 192 CABG patients (18% female, age: 60.9 ± 7.4 years). Clinically cardiac adverse events were defined as need for reoperation (n = 88; 46%), reintervention (n = 58; 30%), or angina (n = 89; 46%). Mean follow-up time measured 10.1 ± 5.1 years. Gene polymorphisms (<b><it>ApoE, NOS3, LIPC, CETP, SERPINE-1, Prothrombin</it></b>) were investigated separately and combined (gene risk profile).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Among classical risk factors, arterial hypertension and hypercholesterinemia significantly influenced CAD progression. Single <b><it>ApoE, NOS3 </it></b>and <b><it>LIPC </it></b>polymorphisms provided limited information. Patients missing the most common <b><it>ApoE </it></b>ε3 allele (5,2%), showed recurrent symptoms (p = 0,077) and had more frequently reintervention (p = 0,001). <b><it>NOS3 </it></b>a allele was associated with a significant increase for reintervention (p = 0,041) and recurrent symptoms (p = 0,042).</p> <p>Homozygous <b><it>LIPC </it></b>patients had a higher reoperation rate (p = 0.049).</p> <p>A gene risk profile enabled us to discriminate between faster and slower occurrence of cardiac adverse events (p = 0.0012).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Single <b><it>APOE, LIPC </it></b>and <b><it>NOS3 </it></b>polymorphisms permitted limited prognosis of cardiac adverse events in patients after CABG. Risk profile, in contrast, allowed for risk stratification.</p

The Family Connection: White Expatriate Memoirs of Zimbabwe

One of the most striking phenomena of Zimbabwean literature since the 1990s has been the boom in white memoirs. Often written from abroad, these texts respond to the hostile political climate of the land reforms by insisting upon their authors’ right to speak as national subjects. This article studies four memoirs by the two most famous exponents of the genre, Alexandra Fuller and Peter Godwin. It argues that their texts negotiate a contested sense of belonging, challenged by their own doubts and expatriate position as well as by government exclusion. Outweighing such concerns, however, are the authors’ continued family connections to the continent they have left behind. Their parents and siblings are used to insist upon the right of Fuller and Godwin, and with them whites more generally, to call Africa home

Postcolonial Nostalgia: The Ambiguities of White Memoirs of Zimbabwe

This article introduces the concept of "postcolonial nostalgia" to discuss four memoirs by white expatriate Zimbabweans Alexandra Fuller and Peter Godwin. The authors borrow from colonial discourse, producing nostalgic accounts that may appeal to their Western audiences but which fail to challenge colonial mindsets in the way that their postcolonial self-image might lead us to expect. Written at a time of national crisis in Zimbabwe, the memoirs contrast a past of childhood innocence and settler contributions with a dystopic present. Even as the authors dissociate themselves from the white supremacist regime of the past, they present white settlers as benevolent and productive, and seem to lament the replacement of white order with nothing

“Keep the balance”: The Politics of Remembering Empire in Post-Colonial Britain

This article uses a memory studies lens to explore the inherent tension in discourses that defend empire in postcolonial Britain. It argues that many Britons try to reconcile their awareness of colonial violence, racism, and exploitation with their wish to view themselves in a positive light. This at a time when the memory of empire continues to be associated with British national identity in the present. It studies three phenomena that characterize much engagement with the imperial past: firstly, the acknowledgement of imperial wrongs within otherwise celebratory accounts; secondly, the idea that there is an empire-critical master narrative against which one must present a counter-memory in order to keep the balance; and thirdly, the defence of individual Britons that allows for a depoliticized endorsement of empire and liberates contemporary Britain of guilt. It uses the rhetoric of a number of authors, filmmakers, and politicians as the point of departure to study the politics of remembering empire in postcolonial Britain. It finds that the celebration of empire does not happen in spite of but through an engagement with the criticism of empire