Nick Davies, Luke Blazejewski and Graeme Sherriff
This paper aims to identify the need for research that focuses on micromobilities at tourist destinations, charting their recent expansion and exploring development challenges.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to identify the need for research that focuses on micromobilities at tourist destinations, charting their recent expansion and exploring development challenges.
Design/methodology/approach
This discussion draws together recent evidence and studies that are directly and indirectly related to the rise of micromobilities. It identifies and critically analyses the trend going forward, its potential benefits and challenges, and offers several areas of future study.
Findings
Micromobilities relates to a new umbrella term that includes, but is not limited to, walking, cycling (both existing modes), e-bikes and e-scooters (new modes). The proliferation of new micro-modes in urban zones at destinations can be viewed positively in terms of their potential to increase sustainable urban mobility and therefore destination attractiveness; but also negatively in terms of potential space issues, accessibility and sustainable implementation. Destination developers and stakeholders should therefore consider carefully how to successfully integrate micromobilities into sustainable transport systems.
Originality/value
This paper addresses a trend that is extremely prominent at many destinations but largely absent from academic study and that is also being described by commentators as key to sustainable futures at destinations.
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Nick Davies, Lindsay Robbins, Daniel Baxter, Maren Viol, Alannah Graham and Aleksandra Halas
Community events are significant for building community identity and cohesion. During 2020–2021, events largely halted due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and many…
Abstract
Purpose
Community events are significant for building community identity and cohesion. During 2020–2021, events largely halted due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and many communities lacked the capacity to recover their events quickly, in comparison to larger more well-resourced events. The study aims to understand and learn from the experiences of Scottish community event practitioners' during the disruption and recovery period for their events.
Design/methodology/approach
A targeted qualitative questionnaire elicited open-ended responses from people involved in the management and operation of community events in Scotland. Focus groups were also conducted with relevant practitioners to further elicit data.
Findings
Four key themes emerged as follows: (1) COVID-19 fractured stakeholder networks and impacted the ability of community events to operate. Practices adapted to incorporate virtual events. (2) Events were considered as important for place-building and wider collective community benefits. This was brought more into focus for practitioners as a result of the pandemic. (3) Local authorities were variable in the level and support they gave community events. (4) Some positive changes were enforced through COVID-19, such as collaboration between small event collectives that can build resilience for community events in the future.
Originality/value
The research provides an analysis of community events, which are often small-scale, diverse, local, unique to destinations and under-researched compared to large events. It particularly builds understanding of their resilience to sectoral disruption, through the lens of recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, an extraordinary disruptive event. This paper provides practical strategies for community actors and local authorities to improve event delivery and leverage community events as place-builders.
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As Nick Leeson begins his six‐and‐a‐half‐year sentence in Singapore the question must be asked — is this really the end of the road or is there greater fallout to come? The two…
Abstract
As Nick Leeson begins his six‐and‐a‐half‐year sentence in Singapore the question must be asked — is this really the end of the road or is there greater fallout to come? The two most crucial things to emerge from months of press coverage interviews and negotiation are (1) the status given to the criminal and (2) the impact on plea bargaining; of the two perhaps the first matter is the more interesting, but the implications must be considered.
This paper aims to explore some initial and necessarily broad ideas about the effects of the world wide web on our methods of understanding and trusting, online and off.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore some initial and necessarily broad ideas about the effects of the world wide web on our methods of understanding and trusting, online and off.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper considers the idea of trust via some of the revolutionary meanings inherent in the world wide web at its public conception in 1994, and some of its different meanings now. It does so in the context of the collaborative reader‐writer Web2.0 (of today), and also through a brief exploration of our relationship to the grand narratives (and some histories) of the post‐war West. It uses a variety of formal approaches taken from information science, literary criticism, philosophy, history, and journalism studies – together with some practical analysis based on 15 years as a web practitioner and content creator. It is a starting point.
Findings
This paper suggests that a pronounced effect of the world wide web is the further atomising of many once‐shared Western post‐war narratives, and the global democratising of doubt as a powerful though not necessarily helpful epistemological tool. The world wide web is the place that most actively demonstrates contemporary doubt.
Research limitations/implications
This is the starting place for a piece of larger cross‐faculty (and cross‐platform) research into the arena of trust and doubt. In particular, the relationship of concepts such as news, event, history and myth with the myriad content platforms of new media, the idea of the digital consumer, and the impact of geography on knowledge that is enshrined in the virtual. This paper attempts to frame a few of the initial issues inherent in the idea of “trust” in the digital age and argues that without some kind of shared aesthetics of narrative judgment brought about through a far broader public understanding of (rather than an interpretation of) oral, visual, literary and multi‐media narratives, stories and plots, we cannot be said to trust many types of knowledge – not just in philosophical terms but also in our daily actions and behaviours.
Originality/value
This paper initiates debate about whether the creation of a new academic “space” in which cross‐faculty collaborations into the nature of modern narrative (in terms of production and consumption; producers and consumers) might be able to help us to understand more of the social implications of the collaborative content produced for consumption on the world wide web.
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Rebecca Wells and Martin Caraher
– The purpose of this paper is to explore how British print media have reported the emergence of food banks in the UK.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how British print media have reported the emergence of food banks in the UK.
Design/methodology/approach
The research uses the news database Nexis and focuses on the period since the global financial crisis in 2007 in nine national UK print media titles. The search criteria included mention of the term food bank at least three times in the newspaper article and a UK focus. This resulted in 190 usable articles from the newspapers.
Findings
There were no UK-focused newspaper articles before 2008 and few until 2012 when the number increased dramatically. A key theme in reporting was increasing numbers of food banks and users of them. The data most often cited were from the Christian charity The Trussell Trust which runs a franchise system of food banks. There were clusters of newspaper articles indicating a common source. Few of the articles used direct quotes from current food bank users. A “frame contest” appeared in 2013/early 2014 with newspaper articles reporting both changes in welfare provision and the proliferation of food banks as the reason for the increase in food banks and food bank use. Tensions emerged between three key sets of players: government ministers, church leaders and The Trussell Trust as the key provider of food banks in England.
Research limitations/implications
The authors only examined newspapers, the reporting in other media may be different.
Practical implications
The media reporting of food poverty and the use of food banks has the potential to influence public perceptions and policy.
Originality/value
This is the first study to look at how food banks are reported by the media.