Ideology, Hegemony, Discourse: A Critical Review of Theories of Knowledge and Power

For over a century, social theorists have attempted to explain why those who lack economic power consent to hierarchies of social and political power. They have used ideology, hegemony and discourse as key concepts to explain the intersections between the social production of knowledge and the perpetuation of power relations. The Marxist concept of ideology describes how the dominant ideas within a given society reflect the interests of a ruling economic class. In this paper, I trace the movement from this concept of ideology to models of hegemony and discourse. I then trace a second set of ruptures in theories of ideology, hegemony and discourse. Marx and others link ideology to a vision of society dominated by economic class as a field of social power. However, theorists of gender and race have questioned the place of class as the locus of power. I conclude by arguing that key theorists of gender and race Hall, Smith, hooks and Haraway offer a more complex understanding of how our consent to networks of power is produced within contemporary capitalist societies. This argument has important implications for theory and practice directed at destabilizing our consent to power

Public Engagement in Climate Communication on China’s Weibo: Network Structure and Information Flows

This article provides an empirical study of public engagement with climate change discourse in China by analysing how Chinese publics participate in the public discussion around two Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports and how individual users interact with state and elite actors on the pre-eminent Chinese microblogging platform Weibo. Using social network analysis methods and a temporal comparison, we examine the structure of climate communication networks, the direction of information flows among multiple types of Weibo users, and the changes in information diffusion patterns between the pre- and post-Paris periods. Our results show there is an increasing yet constrained form of public engagement in climate communication on Weibo alongside China’s pro-environmental transition in recent years. We find an expansion of public engagement as shown by individual users’ increasing influence in communication networks and the diversification of frames associated with climate change discourse. However, we also find three restrictive interaction tendencies that limit Weibo’s potential to facilitate multi-directional communication and open public deliberation of climate change, including the decline of mutually balanced dialogic interactions, the lack of bottom-up information flows, and the reinforcement of homophily tendencies amongst eco-insiders and governmental users. These findings highlight the coexistence of both opportunities and constraints of Weibo being a venue for public engagement with climate communication and as a forum for a new climate politics and citizen participation in China

Do neighbourhood environmental perceptions affect practices?

In this paper, we examine how environmental practices related to public transit and urban green space use are influenced by perceptions of local level environmental change, neighbourhood inhabitation, and socio-demographic factors. The analysis shows that perceptions of change and neighbourhood inhabitation offer better explanations for changing local environmental practices than socio-demographic orientations. We contribute to social practice theory by drawing attention to the interplay of environmental perceptions and neighbourhood inhabitation as factors that facilitate changing environmental practices. By gaining insight into the relationship between perceptions of change and environmental practices, we thereby learn how sustainability goals, such as those embodied by SDG11, can be translated into social practices at the community level.Dans cet article, nous examinons comment les pratiques environnementales liées au transport en commun et à l’utilisation des espaces verts urbains sont influencées par les perceptions du changement environnemental au niveau local, l’habitation des quartiers et les facteurs sociodémographiques. L’analyse montre que les perceptions du changement et de l’habitat du quartier offrent de meilleures explications pour l’évolution des pratiques environnementales locales que les orientations sociodémographiques. Nous contribuons è la théorie de la pratique sociale en attirant l’attention sur l’interaction des perceptions environnementales et de l’habitation du quartier en tant que facteurs qui facilitent l’évolution des pratiques environnementales. En acquérant un aperçu de la relation entre les perceptions du changement et les pratiques environnementales, nous apprenons ainsi comment les objectifs de durabilité, tels que ceux incarnées par ODD (Agenda 2030 du développement durable), peuvent être traduits en pratiques sociales au niveau communautaire

Media Coverage and Perceived Policy Influence of Environmental Actors: Good Strategy or Pyrrhic Victory?

In this article we analyze how media coverage for environmental actors (individual environmental activists and environmental movement organizations) is associated with their perceived policy influence in Canadian climate change policy networks. We conceptualize media coverage as the total number of media mentions an actor received in Canada’s two main national newspapers—the Globe and Mail and National Post. We conceptualize perceived policy influence as the total number of times an actor was nominated by other actors in a policy network as being perceived to be influential in domestic climate change policy making in Canada. Literature from the field of social movements, agenda setting, and policy networks suggests that environmental actors who garner more media coverage should be perceived as more influential in policy networks than actors who garner less coverage. We assess support for this main hypothesis in two ways. First, we analyze how actor attributes (such as the type of actor) are associated with the amount of media coverage an actor receives. Second, we evaluate whether being an environmental actor shapes the association between media coverage and perceived policy influence. We find a negative association between media coverage and perceived policy influence for individual activists, but not for environmental movement organizations. This case raises fundamental theoretical questions about the nature of relations between media and policy spheres, and the efficacy of media for signaling and mobilizing policy influence

Financial crisis, governance and sustainable island futures : comparing Iceland and Newfoundland and Labrador

Economic sustainability is integral to full-spectrum sustainability and relates to governance, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainability. Financial crises can potentially cascade out from the economic sphere and amplify issues of political legitimacy and accountability, thereby becoming political crises. We compare the 2008 Iceland banking crisis and the ongoing Newfoundland and Labrador financial crisis to identify common factors that contributed to these separate crises. Methodologically, we take a comparative case study approach, relying on a broad range of secondary sources. Drawing on theoretical concepts from crisis studies and island studies, we identify several cross-cutting factors, including a political culture of anti-reflexivity in the pre-crisis period, as well as communication gaps in crisis response. As the crises unfolded, public anger played a provocative role, especially in Iceland. Lessons from this comparative analysis can contribute to building full-spectrum sustainability for small island states and subnational island jurisdictions.peer-reviewe

Donor-Acceptor Oligorotaxanes Made to Order

Five donor–acceptor oligorotaxanes made up of dumbbells composed of tetraethylene glycol chains, interspersed with three and five 1,5-dioxynaphthalene units, and terminated by 2,6-diisopropylphenoxy stoppers, have been prepared by the threading of discrete numbers of cyclobis(paraquat-p-phenylene) rings, followed by a kinetically controlled stoppering protocol that relies on click chemistry. The well-known copper(I)-catalyzed alkyne–azide cycloaddition between azide functions placed at the ends of the polyether chains and alkyne-bearing stopper precursors was employed during the final kinetically controlled template-directed synthesis of the five oligorotaxanes, which were characterized subsequently by ^1H NMR spectroscopy at low temperature (233 K) in deuterated acetonitrile. The secondary structures, as well as the conformations, of the five oligorotaxanes were unraveled by spectroscopic comparison with the dumbbell and ring components. By focusing attention on the changes in chemical shifts of some key probe protons, obtained from a wide range of low-temperature spectra, a picture emerges of a high degree of folding within the thread protons of the dumbbells of four of the five oligorotaxanes—the fifth oligorotaxane represents a control compound in effect— brought about by a combination of C-H···O and π–π stacking interactions between the p-electron-deficient bipyridinium units in the rings and the π-electron-rich 1,5-dioxynaphthalene units and polyether chains in the dumbbells. The secondary structures of a foldamer-like nature have received further support from a solid-state superstructure of a related [3]pseudorotaxane and density functional calculations performed thereon

Size-Matched Radical Multivalency

Persistent π-radicals such as MV^+• (MV refers to methyl viologen, i.e., N,Nꞌ-dimethyl-4,4ꞌ-bipyridinum) engage in weak radical-radical interactions. This phenomenon has been utilized recently in supramolecular chemistry with the discovery that MV+• and [cyclobis(paraquat-p-phenylene)]2(+•) (CBPQT2(+•)) form a strong 1:1 host-guest complex [CBPQT⊂MV]3(+•). In this full paper, we describe the extension of radical-pairing-based molecular recognition to a larger, square-shaped diradical host, [cyclobis(paraquat-4,4ꞌ-biphenylene)]2(+•) (MS2(+•)). This molecular square was assessed for its ability to bind an isomeric series of possible diradical cyclophane guests, which consist of two radical viologen units that are linked by two ortho-, meta-, or para-xylylene bridges to provide different spacings between the planar radicals. UV-Vis-NIR measurements reveal that only the m-xylylene-linked isomer (m-CBPQT2(+•)) binds strongly inside of MS2(+•), resulting in the formation of a tetra-radical complex [MS⊂m-CBPQT]4(+•). Titration experiments and variable temperature UV-Vis-NIR and EPR spectroscopic data indicate that, relative to the smaller tris-radical complex [CBPQT⊂MV]3(+•), the new host-guest complex forms with a more favorable enthalpy change that is offset by a greater entropic penalty. As a result, the association constant (Ka = (1.12+/- 0.08) x 10^5 M^(-1)) for [MS⊂m-CBPQT]4(+•) is similar to that previously determined for [CBPQT⊂MV]3(+•). The (super)structures of MS2(+•), m-CBPQT2(+•), and [MS⊂m-CBPQT]4(+•) were examined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction measurements and DFT calculations. The solid-state and computational structural analyses reveal that m-CBPQT2(+•) is ideally sized to bind inside of MS2(+•). The solid-state superstructures also indicate that localized radical-radical interactions in m-CBPQT2(+•) and [MS⊂m-CBPQT]4(+•) disrupt the extended radical-pairing interactions that are common in crystals of other viologen radical cations. Lastly, the formation of [MS⊂m-CBPQT]4(+•) was probed by cyclic voltammetry, demonstrating that the radical states of the cyclophanes are stabilized by the radical-pairing interactions

Molecular Russian dolls

The host-guest recognition between two macrocycles to form hierarchical non-intertwined ring-in-ring assemblies remains an interesting and challenging target in noncovalent synthesis. Herein, we report the design and characterization of a box-in-box assembly on the basis of host-guest radical-pairing interactions between two rigid diradical dicationic cyclophanes. One striking feature of the box-in-box complex is its ability to host various 1,4-disubstituted benzene derivatives inside as a third component in the cavity of the smaller of the two diradical dicationic cyclophanes to produce hierarchical Russian doll like assemblies. These results highlight the utility of matching the dimensions of two different cyclophanes as an efficient approach for developing new hybrid supramolecular assemblies with radical-paired ring-in-ring complexes and smaller neutral guest molecules

AVID: An integrative framework for discovering functional relationships among proteins

BACKGROUND: Determining the functions of uncharacterized proteins is one of the most pressing problems in the post-genomic era. Large scale protein-protein interaction assays, global mRNA expression analyses and systematic protein localization studies provide experimental information that can be used for this purpose. The data from such experiments contain many false positives and false negatives, but can be processed using computational methods to provide reliable information about protein-protein relationships and protein function. An outstanding and important goal is to predict detailed functional annotation for all uncharacterized proteins that is reliable enough to effectively guide experiments. RESULTS: We present AVID, a computational method that uses a multi-stage learning framework to integrate experimental results with sequence information, generating networks reflecting functional similarities among proteins. We illustrate use of the networks by making predictions of detailed Gene Ontology (GO) annotations in three categories: molecular function, biological process, and cellular component. Applied to the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, AVID provides 37,451 pair-wise functional linkages between 4,191 proteins. These relationships are ~65–78% accurate, as assessed by cross-validation testing. Assignments of highly detailed functional descriptors to proteins, based on the networks, are estimated to be ~67% accurate for GO categories describing molecular function and cellular component and ~52% accurate for terms describing biological process. The predictions cover 1,490 proteins with no previous annotation in GO and also assign more detailed functions to many proteins annotated only with less descriptive terms. Predictions made by AVID are largely distinct from those made by other methods. Out of 37,451 predicted pair-wise relationships, the greatest number shared in common with another method is 3,413. CONCLUSION: AVID provides three networks reflecting functional associations among proteins. We use these networks to generate new, highly detailed functional predictions for roughly half of the yeast proteome that are reliable enough to drive targeted experimental investigations. The predictions suggest many specific, testable hypotheses. All of the data are available as downloadable files as well as through an interactive website at . Thus, AVID will be a valuable resource for experimental biologists