Verena Steiner-Hofbauer, Marie Celine Dorczok and Gloria Mittmann
This exploratory study aims to investigate viewers’ attitudes towards series with autistic characters. In recent years, there has been a noticeable increase in the depiction of…
Abstract
Purpose
This exploratory study aims to investigate viewers’ attitudes towards series with autistic characters. In recent years, there has been a noticeable increase in the depiction of autistic characters or characters displaying autistic symptoms in mainstream series. While research calls for a more realistic portrayal of these characters, little is known about viewers’ attitudes towards the portrayal of autistic characters.
Design/methodology/approach
Using an online questionnaire, the authors collected data from 348 young adults regarding their media consumption habits related to 15 different series featuring autistic characters. Additionally, the authors used an emotion recognition task (ERT).
Findings
The results show that participants expressed a stronger preference for series depicting characters with savant abilities compared to more “realistic” portrayals of autism. However, participants with lower scores in the ERT tended to watch series without savantism significantly more often. The findings revealed no significant differences based on sex in terms of viewership or preference for these series. These results suggest that biased or stigmatising portrayals may in part be influenced by viewers’ inclination towards savant characters. This study sheds light on viewers’ perceptions of television series featuring autistic characters, revealing potential preferences and the influence of certain character traits.
Research limitations/implications
Because of the exploratory nature of this study, further research is needed to enhance our understanding of the impact of media portrayals on attitudes towards autism.
Originality/value
The results suggest that biased or stigmatising portrayals may in part be influenced by viewers’ inclination towards savant characters. This study sheds light on viewers’ perceptions of television series featuring autistic characters, revealing potential preferences and the influence of certain character traits.
Details
Keywords
This paper contributes to discourse about complex disasters by applying cultural lenses to the study of coastal infrastructure (such as seawalls and dikes), thus departing from…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper contributes to discourse about complex disasters by applying cultural lenses to the study of coastal infrastructure (such as seawalls and dikes), thus departing from studies that focus on characterising, assessing, and predicting the physical resilience of hard structural forms that dominate knowledge about coastal infrastructure.
Design/methodology/approach
This ethnographic study nuances Philippine coastal infrastructure through examining the material registers of a seawall bordering an island inhabited by artisanal fisherfolk. By “material registers”, this research refers to the socially informed ways of regarding and constructing material configurations and how the latter are enacted and resisted. Data collection was accomplished through focus groups with community leaders, on-site and remote interviews with homeowners, and archival research to further understand the spatial and policy context of the structure.
Findings
The discussion focuses on the seawall’s three material registers (protection, fragility, and misrecognition) and reveals how infrastructure built for an island community of fisherfolk simultaneously fulfils, fails, and complicates the promise of disaster resilience.
Research limitations/implications
This research demonstrates the potential of “material registers”, a term previously used to analyse architecture and housing, to understand the technopolitics of infrastructure and how materially informed tensions between homeowners' and state notions of infrastructure contribute to protracted experiences of disaster and coastal maladaptation.
Practical implications
This research signposts the need for disaster risk reduction, climate adaptation, and sustainable development policies that legitimize the construction of infrastructure to recognize the latter's relationship and impact on multiple sphere of coastal life, including housing and citizenship implications.
Social implications
This research highlights how infrastructure for coastal disaster risk management implicates geographically informed power relations within a community fisherfolk and between their “small” island community and more politically and economically dominant groups.
Originality/value
Whereas studies of coastal infrastructure are focused on quantitative and predictive research regarding hard structural forms in megacities, this study apprehends disaster complexity through examining the cultural and contested nature of infrastructure for coastal flood management in an island community of fisherfolk.
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Golshan Javadian, Tina R. Opie and Salvatore Parise
One key determinant of entrepreneurial success is entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE), defined as an individual’s confidence in his or her ability to perform entrepreneurial…
Abstract
Purpose
One key determinant of entrepreneurial success is entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE), defined as an individual’s confidence in his or her ability to perform entrepreneurial tasks. Whereas previous research has examined how individual and business factors influence ESE, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the influence of entrepreneurs’ social networks upon ESE. The paper examines such relationships for black and white entrepreneurs.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 110 black and white entrepreneurs responded to a survey measuring ESE and critical constructs representing elements of the quality of entrepreneurs’ networks: emotional carrying capacity (ECC) and network ethnic diversity.
Findings
The authors found significant, positive relationships between both ECC and network ethnic diversity on ESE for white entrepreneurs but only found a significant positive relationship between ECC and ESE for black entrepreneurs.
Originality/value
While research is clear about the role that ESE plays in entrepreneurial activities, few studies have focused on the factors that improve ESE. In the present work, the authors study the role of context by examining how entrepreneurs’ social networks influence ESE. The authors examine such influences for both white and black entrepreneurs to better understand the implications of ethnicity.