A Cross-regional Comparison of Selected European Newspaper journalists and their Evolving Attitudes and Beliefs about the Internet - including a single-country focus on the UK.

This study approaches how journalists in the United Kingdom might compare with individuals working in print journalism in 10 other European countries, to assess role perceptions and beliefs in relation to the internet. The continental Europeans were grouped into north and south, and the UK set was independently compared with each. In all, 270 journalists across 44 newspapers in Europe gave scaled reactions to a questionnaire about their role conceptions, the internet, and the future. It appears the sampled UK journalists, despite some historical conceptions about the distinctively separate evolution of their press, conform strikingly with their European counterparts but in a specific and patterned way: the UK journalists align with their counterparts from the north of Europe but have significant differences to those in the south. The principal ingredient of the division is the degree to which the journalists find the internet useful, positive and a worthwhile extension of their working opportunities. The findings conform in some respects to academic studies taking a historical and cultural approach to comparative journalism

The making of a civic discourse on controversial historical past: from denial to parrhesia

This contribution discusses the pragmatic effects of different rhetoric strategies conveying evidence of past ingroup violence after a long lasting social denial (Cohen, 2001). In particular, a case study is presented on the making of a civic discourse on controversial historical past: war crimes committed by the Italian Army during the colonial invasion of Ethiopia (1935-36). Although very well proved (Del Boca, 2005), these facts were only recently inserted in Italian history textbooks (Leone & Mastrovito, 2010; Cajani, 2013). In this same period, evidence of these crimes was officially presented during discussions of the Italian Parliament. In spite of these recent acknowledgments of the Italian responsibilities for these crimes, a social myth is still widely shared by the public opinion, representing Italians as good fellows (Italiani, brava gente: cfr. Del Boca, 2005), unable to be cruel both in everyday life and in wartimes (Volpato et al., 2012). This specific situation, denying even the reality of facts happened, has been defined literal social denial, i.e. the deepest among the three possible states of denial (literal, interpretive, implicative: cfr. Cohen, 2001). The issue of literal social denial of past ingroup violence is at the intersection among theories on narratives on national past (László, 2003), social representations of history (Liu et al., 2014), conflict ethos (Bar-Tal et al., 2012; Kelman, 2008), group-based emotions (Allpress et al., 2010; Leone, 2000) and intergroup reconciliation processes (Nadler et al., 2008). Namely, understanding how a social denial could break down implies the theorization of human mind’s reflexivity as grounded on historical awareness (Ortega y Gasset, 1930), and the notion of social change as primarily rooted in natality, i.e. the fact that each birth represents a new beginning (Arendt, 1958). Drawing on this theoretical background, we will present an ongoing research program (Leone, in press) on the literal social denial (Cohen, 2001) of war crimes committed by the Italian army during colonial period and on the pragmatic effects of different kinds of communication on this controversial past. In order to address this issue, we will particularly focus on the concept of parrhesia as defined by Foucault (1983): the communicative choice of «frankness instead of persuasion, truth instead of falsehood or silence, [...] the moral duty instead of self-interest and moral apathy » (Foucault, 2001, p.19). Studies we conducted in this line tested the change in beliefs and the emotional reactions of young citizens confronted with mild or parrhesiastic descriptions of socially denied war crimes (Leone & Sarrica, 2014, 2012). Empirical evidence will be discussed in order to reflect on our core idea: that a parrhesiastic communication is a risky tough necessary pragmatic move to break long lasting denial of ingroup wrongdoings, to trigger critical civic discourse in the place of social myths and to start reconciliation processes

The Early Stages of the Integration of the Internet in EU Newsrooms

The current study explores the perceived integration of the internet inside European newsrooms. The authors carried out a survey with 239 journalists working for 40 of the most-read outlets in 11 European countries.The study shows that journalists consider the internet a useful tool mainly for practical functions, rather than to enhance the core values and functions of their profession. However, news production continues to be based on direct interaction, and journalists’ professional identity is still anchored to print newspapers. Moreover, a lack of communication between publishers and newsrooms emerges. Professional and personal profiles and nationality play a relevant role in the development of attitudes towards the implementation of the internet in newsrooms

Shared narratives and individual paths towards inter/transdisciplinarity in research centres for urban sustainability

Funding Information: This research was funded by TrUST—Transdisciplinarity for Urban Sustainabilty Transition. TrUST is research project and researchers’ platform that aims at understanding how to achieve a more efficient and effective inter- and transdisciplinairity for urban sustainability transition in current higher education institutions. Find out more at http://ww.trustcollaboration.com . Publisher Copyright: © 2022, The Author(s).Inter/transdisciplinarity (ITD) is a pillar of sustainability studies, often presented as the way to conduct research and practice especially in conflictual and politicised real-world stakeholder constellations. Several studies emphasise the need to consider the communicative processes through which it is put into practice. However, there is still a dearth of research that explores the meanings key actors associate with ITD and how they account for the material, practical and communicative facets of their everyday experience. This work seeks to collect the voice of leaders of inter/transdisciplinary research centres, identify shared repertoires used to interpret their experience in the field, and reflect on how shared narratives could inspire or impede researchers engaged in ITD. A discursive analysis was applied to 23 semi-structured interviews conducted with leaders of research centres on urban sustainability. Results identified diverse interpretative repertoires used to define ITD and to interpret the barriers that, in the eyes of these key actors, have to be crossed to become ITD researchers. These elements are combined into three main narratives used by participants to position themselves and the researchers involved in ITD. Despite being functional to self-representation, these shared narratives contribute towards depicting ITD as an individual escape, and interdisciplinary research centres as sanctuaries of a sort, thus paradoxically preserving the status quo. A third narrative advocates structural shifts and is coherent with the need for deeper changes and persistent recognition of ITD in sustainability studies.publishersversionpublishe

What do humans feel with mistreated humans, animals, robots and objects? Exploring the role of cognitive empathy

The aim of this paper is to present a study in which we compare the degree of empathy that a convenience sample of university students expressed with humans, animals, robots and objects. The present study broadens the spectrum of elements eliciting empathy that has been previously explored while at the same time comparing different facets of empathy. Here we used video clips of mistreated humans, animals, robots, and objects to elicit empathic reactions and to measure attributed emotions. The use of such a broad spectrum of elements allowed us to infer the role of different features of the selected elements, specifically experience (how much the element is able to understand the events of the environment) and degree of anthropo-/zoomorphization. The results show that participants expressed empathy differently with the various social actors being mistreated. A comparison between the present results and previous results on vicarious feelings shows that congruence between self and other experience was not always held, and it was modulated by familiarity with robotic artefacts of daily usage

More than a common place: a social representations approach to the Internet

This article aims to investigate the common sense knowledge about the Internet across social groups from the perspective of social representations theory. We inquired 1013 participants (students, teachers, and guardians) from three schools, using the ranked association technique, the General Internet Attitudes Scale and the Web-Use Skill Measure Index. Prototypical and textual correspondence analysis were run on the verbal data. Results showed that the Internet's representation vary across social groups, being organized along a media-message axis and a personal-social axis. While students, participants with lower education level and positive attitudes toward the Internet have a personal media usage representation, teachers and participants with higher education levels showed a greater focus on the social message. The study is significant because it shows that the Internet is still not consensual, suggesting a connection with social identity that future research should explore to better understand and bridge digital divide

What does “just” mean in just energy transitions? Different perspectives between EU institutional debates and scientific literature

IntroductionIn light of systemic challenges and radical transformations, such as those at the intersection of energy transitions and justice, there is an increasing need for closer integrations between academic research and policy planning. From this assumption, the current article examines institutional and scientific discourses on just transition to understand which themes and perspectives are common and which areas could benefit from mutual exchanges between the two domains.MethodsThematic analysis of institutional texts about the Just Transition Mechanism and scientific literature on energy and environmental justice (2020-2023) was conducted to uncover shared or disputed discourses. Three overarching aspects and seven sub-themes were highlighted: focus (topics and levels of abstraction), justice (forms and dimensions), and actors (typologies, agency, and relationships).ResultsInstitutional texts emphasize economic-financial stances and restorative or distributive justice, while the scientific literature stresses social stances and recognition or procedural dimensions. A few cross-cutting discourses further organize these results.DiscussionThe prevailing discourse, common in institutional and scientific texts, focuses on criticisms of policy and governance. They advocate for the inclusiveness of Global South actors, reflecting on their agency against (in)just transitions and suggesting strategies for building public engagement and resilience. Overall, institutional and scientific texts reveal internal and reciprocal tensions among themes, with the scientific literature exhibiting greater diversity than institutional debates

Exploring Transition in Coal- and Carbon-Intensive Regions Through an Interdisciplinary Lens

This chapter introduces an interdisciplinary perspective to investigate the transition process and to identify empirical evidence of social-ecological tipping points (SETPs) in the case studies on coal and carbon intensive regions (CCIRs) analyzed in the project TIPPING+. The interdisciplinary lens considers different modes of thought, frameworks, and multiple perspectives and interests from diverse stakeholders, a systems’ understanding, and different culture considerations across the CCIRs. Within this interdisciplinary process, we applied various lenses to study the potential for SETPs by combining insights from human geography, social psychology, regional socio-technical systems, and political economy perspectives on the phases of low carbon transitions and on the justice component of the transitions. Subsequently, this chapter gives an overview of how the eight CCIRs case studies in this book have applied various interdisciplinary lenses to investigate the regional transition and the emergence of SETPs.Exploring Transition in Coal- and Carbon-Intensive Regions Through an Interdisciplinary LenspublishedVersio

Exploring Transition in Coal- and Carbon-Intensive Regions Through an Interdisciplinary Lens

This chapter introduces an interdisciplinary perspective to investigate the transition process and to identify empirical evidence of social-ecological tipping points (SETPs) in the case studies on coal and carbon intensive regions (CCIRs) analyzed in the project TIPPING+. The interdisciplinary lens considers different modes of thought, frameworks, and multiple perspectives and interests from diverse stakeholders, a systems’ understanding, and different culture considerations across the CCIRs. Within this interdisciplinary process, we applied various lenses to study the potential for SETPs by combining insights from human geography, social psychology, regional socio-technical systems, and political economy perspectives on the phases of low carbon transitions and on the justice component of the transitions. Subsequently, this chapter gives an overview of how the eight CCIRs case studies in this book have applied various interdisciplinary lenses to investigate the regional transition and the emergence of SETPs.Exploring Transition in Coal- and Carbon-Intensive Regions Through an Interdisciplinary LenspublishedVersio