Global and Comparative Sociology

Misyurov D.A. Dialectical formulas based on the binary notation as the development formulas // Credo New. 2012. №2

by Dmitry Misyurov

The article suggests dialectical formulas based on the binary notation as the development formulas: formula with... more The article suggests dialectical formulas based on the binary notation as the development formulas: formula with dominant and the non-dominant elements; universal formula; formula with symbolic weight of elements; tautological formula. For example, it suggests an opportunity to use the dialectical formulas for modeling and artificial intelligence creation, etc.

What symbols

by Dmitry Misyurov

This article contains 12 questions about the symbols. What are your thoughts in response? This article contains 12 questions about the symbols. What are your thoughts in response?

Critical Consumption: Boycotting and Buycotting in Europe

by Luke Yates

published in European Societies, 2011

Critical consumption, the purchase or boycott of goods for political, ethical or environmental reasons, is regularly... more Critical consumption, the purchase or boycott of goods for political, ethical or environmental reasons, is regularly characterised as an example of ‘new politics’ or ‘new’ political participation. However, such analysis often neglects work from the sociology of consumption and social movement studies. This paper argues that consumers express their identity through critical consumption, in the form of a pledge of allegiance to the goals of certain social movements. Cross-national data from the European Social Survey identifies critical consumers as belonging to higher class positions and being generally older, highly educated, and more often women than men. Separating analysis of boycotting from that of buycotting, the positive purchase of goods for ethical or political reasons, suggests that buycotting is more resource-dependent and individualistic than boycotting. Substantial differences are found between the impact of people’s resources in different countries, particularly between Northern and Central European countries and their Southern and Eastern counterparts. The findings thus recommend an approach to consumer politics that remains sensitive to social structural contexts between countries and different forms of consumer participation.

National Identity and the Informational Welfare State: Turkey and Malaysia Compared

by Gabe Ignatow

published in The Information Society in 2011

Researchers have found a number of economic, technological, and political factors to be associated with the diffusion... more Researchers have found a number of economic, technological, and political factors to be associated with the diffusion of information technology in developing countries. But cultural factors generally, and national identity in particular, have almost never been viewed as consequential. Castells and Himanen's 2002 study of the information society in Finland, in which the authors identify Finnish national culture as an impetus to the development of the country's informational welfare state, is the most prominent exception to this pattern. This article provides a critical overview of Castells and Himanen's research and revises their conceptual framework to focus on the specific choices states make in constructing their national identities and the effects of these choices on information policy and information technology diffusion. It demonstrates the value of this revised framework through a comparison of the historical trajectories of Turkey and Malaysia's nation-building projects, the incentives these projects have created for the two countries’ social and political elites, and the public information policies and programs that have resulted.

Cheliotis, L. K. (2012) 'Suffering at the Hands of the State: Conditions of Imprisonment and Prisoner Health in Contemporary Greece', European Journal of Criminology 9(1): 3-22.

by Leonidas Cheliotis

With imprisonment rates rising in a large number of jurisdictions worldwide, evermore research attention has been paid... more With imprisonment rates rising in a large number of jurisdictions worldwide, evermore research attention has been paid to conditions of imprisonment and prisoner health. With a view to contributing to the emerging body of literature, this article offers a systematic summary of key findings from Greece. Prison establishments in this country are vastly overcrowded and material conditions of detainment are deplorable. Healthcare provision in prison is minimal, and the prevalence of serious transmittable diseases and mental disorders amongst prisoner populations is high, as are the rates of deliberate self-harm, suicide, and death more generally. Prisoner use of prescribed and illicit drugs is alarmingly common, especially as regards injection drugs, and drug overdose appears to account for the majority of deaths in custody.

Focus: Supplementary Education in Asia

by Julian Dierkes

Pull-out focus issue of Newsletter of the International Institute of Asian Studies. Co-edited with Mark Bray

Does size matter? Journalistic values and working conditions in small countries

by Henrik Örnebring

Co-authored with Epp Lauk, University of Jyväskylä. Draft only.

This paper attempts to apply the ‘small country’ approach to the comparative analysis of journalistic cultures.... more This paper attempts to apply the ‘small country’ approach to the comparative analysis of journalistic cultures. Previous media research using the small country approach (in turn drawn from political science and international relations studies) has focused on the level of media policy and not paid attention to the fact that market size and size of the journalist population might affect other levels as well, specifically the levels of culture and social organization within journalism.
We speculate that in small countries, agreement on journalistic values will be greater (a small professional group is likely to focus on consensus and collaboration, and socio-cultural mechanisms of community formation and value-sharing are likely to have more impact in a small population.), working conditions will be affected by the small size of the labour market, and that journalists in smaller countries will value networking skills higher (as news sources and source networks are also smaller and dependence on sources is greater). We examine this by analysing survey data comparing journalism in six European countries; in this paper, we focus on three nations – Estonia (small country), Sweden (mid-size country), and the UK (big country). Journalist population size differences are highlighted.
We find that population size is less of a factor in explaining value orientation differences than we initially thought, but we found indicators that size does matter in other areas, like the basic working conditions of journalists (as related to job market size), and the skills valued by journalists. We also found some support for the notion that social control and consensus will be greater in a small nation (in our case, Estonia).

Acknowledgments:
Professor Epp Lauk wishes to acknowledge that the research for this paper has been supported by a research grant from the Estonian Science Foundation (grant no 7547, “Changing Journalism Cultures: A Comparative Perspective”). Dr Henrik Örnebring wishes to acknowledge that the research for this paper has been supported by a grant from the Ax:son Johnson Foundation of Sweden, and is part of the Axess Programme in Comparative European Journalism at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford.

The skills of journalism: some results from a six-nation comparative project

by Henrik Örnebring

Draft only. Presented at the 2010 IAMCR conference in Braga, Portugal.

Cross-national comparative studies of journalists generally focus on the demographic characteristics of journalists... more Cross-national comparative studies of journalists generally focus on the demographic characteristics of journalists and on journalistic values and role-perceptions. However, there are many other areas were we could reasonably expect to find interesting cross-national similarities and differences. On such area is skills: what skills are necessary to become a ‘good journalist’ and what skills do you use as a journalist on a day-to-day basis? We could for example expect that journalists from countries where journalism has a strong literary heritage (e.g. Italy) would place a higher value on writing skills, whereas journalists from countries where an adversarial journalistic tradition is stronger (e.g. the UK) would place a higher value on interview and research skills.  The issue of skills can thus be viewed as linked to (but also to some extent independent from) issues of values and roles – but also draws attention to journalism as work, i.e. an activity that one is paid to do on a daily basis.
This paper addresses these issues by presenting some results from a three-year project comparing journalists in the UK, Sweden, Germany, Italy, Poland and Estonia. The data presented is both quantitative (based on an email survey with a total of about 2200 respondents across the six countries) and qualitative (based on interviews conducted with 62 journalists from all six countries). The key question of the project is how journalism-as-work is changing in a context of technological change and economic hardship for the news industry. Do the increasing demands on journalists to be multi-skilled and flexible lead to more pressure on journalists and a focus on quantity rather than quality, do they create new ways to tell stories and engage and connect with audiences, or both? Are the core skills of the occupation changing? The results show that while there is great cross-national agreeement on what the core skills of journalism are (the expectation that writing skills would be valued higher in a ‘literary journalism’ tradition is not confirmed, for example, as writing skills are valued very highly in all countries), there are also interesting national differences, for example in the value placed on networking skills and cross-platform production skills. There is also some evidence that new skill demands lead to more work pressures and are not percieved as increasing the quality of journalism.

Journalism and Technology Use in Six European Countries: Some Results from a Comparative Research Project

by Henrik Örnebring

Draft only. Presented at the 2010 ICA conference in Singapore.

Comparative European Journalism: The State of Current Research

by Henrik Örnebring

RISJ Working Paper Series 2008

Teaching in the shadow: operators of small shadow education institutions in Japan

by Julian Dierkes

Published in 'Asia Pacific Review of Education', 2010

The shadow education sector plays a centrally important role in the Japanese education system. Advocates of Japanese... more The shadow education sector plays a centrally important role in the Japanese education system. Advocates of Japanese shadow education institutions, or juku, claim that the pedagogy employed in these schools leads to superior results compared to teaching methods used in conventional schools. The lack of value-added testing of juku results suggests that these claims have not been tested. In this article, I examine the background of the owner– operators of small juku and the challenges they face in hiring teaching staff. The small juku examined were mostly founded during the juku-boom of the early 1970s and continue to teach 100–200 students with a staff usually numbering more than 10 part-time or full-time teachers. I find that almost no operators or employees come to the shadow education business by design. Instead, owner–operators “slide into” their role for lack of alternative options, or through early success, or through frustration with previous careers. Subsequently, many of the owner–operators embrace their work as a pedagogical calling. In hiring teaching staff, owner–operators circumvent the larger employment market by hiring their own “graduates”.

Book Review of Mark Bray's "Confronting the Shadow Education"

by Julian Dierkes

Published in in "Comparative Education Review"

... Even though Bray is able to provide a very comprehensive and clear summary of various dimensions of shadow... more ... Even though Bray is able to provide a very comprehensive and clear summary of various dimensions of shadow education, his discussion also highlights the dearth of research in this field. His own efforts have been impressive, and his collaborations with other researchers have led to a growing library of case studies of different shadow education systems, but the classifications he offers will be most useful in structuring subsequent research projects and ongoing discussions of education policy, rather than in and of themselves...
See http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001851/185106e.pdf for a free and legal (!) PDF version of the book.