Andrew Cox, Sarah Connolly and James Currall
This paper examines three approaches to increasing awareness in an academic setting: a discussion session, a checklist and a web based tutorial. All three are found to be…
Abstract
This paper examines three approaches to increasing awareness in an academic setting: a discussion session, a checklist and a web based tutorial. All three are found to be effective in raising motivation and understanding of security because they present the issues in an accessible, interesting way. The research for the paper was funded by the JISC Committee for Awareness, Liaison and Training as part of a project on the human and organisational issues associated with network security. http://litc.sbu.ac.uk/calt/
The papers in this volume look at security from a variety of viewpoints. Behind all the papers is the idea that security is important and that security can and should be improved…
Abstract
The papers in this volume look at security from a variety of viewpoints. Behind all the papers is the idea that security is important and that security can and should be improved. The papers ask some fairly fundamental questions and provide considerable food for thought. In this paper I am looking at the landscape and making an assumption that a change in culture as a result of better understanding of technology will result from increasing familiarity with technology and its limitations.
Jose Marichal and Richard Neve
The purpose of this paper is to apply Connolly’s (2003) concept of agonistic respect to develop a typology of agonistic/antagonistic discourses on Twitter. To develop the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to apply Connolly’s (2003) concept of agonistic respect to develop a typology of agonistic/antagonistic discourses on Twitter. To develop the typology, this study examines 2,236 Tweets containing the hashtag #guncontrol and uses NodeXL (Smith et al., 2010) to create a network map from which the 75 most influential accounts are derived. Using constant-comparative analysis (Glaser and Strauss, 1967), the authors identify seven categories of discourse style based on Connoly’s (2001) notion of ressentiment and “good faith presentations” of opposing arguments: furtive/secretive, cravenly opportunistic, willfully ignorant, irrational sentimental, misunderstanding/misguided, contingently wrong and reciprocal inquiry. The typology provides a useful and unique way to operationalize agonistic democratic theory and serves as the possible basis for training a machine learning classifier to detect antagonistic discourses on social media platforms.
Design/methodology/approach
To determine the level of agonism on Twitter, the authors examine tweets that employed the hashtag #guncontrol on March 12, 2018, one month after the shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglass High School in Parkland, Florida on February 14. The authors used the NodeXL excel add-on to collect and map 2,236 tweets. Using grounded theory/constant-comparative analysis (Glaser and Strauss, 1967), the authors develop a typology of seven types of discourses ordered from most antagonistic to most agonistic using Connolly’s (1993) concept of agonistic respect.
Findings
After examining the top 75 most shared tweets and using constant-comparative analysis to look for patterns of similarity and dissimilarity, the authors identified seven different ways in which individuals present their opponents’ value positions on Twitter on the issue of gun control. The authors were guided by agonistic theory in the authors’ inquiry. The authors looked at how Twitter users expressed their opponent’s faith/value positions, how pluralistic the discourse space was in the comment threads and how much the “talk” was likely to elicit ressentiment from adversaries.
Research limitations/implications
Because the authors intended to engage in theory building, the authors limited the analysis to a selected number of tweets on one particularly salient topic, on one day. The intent of this was to allow for a close reading of the tweets in that specific network for the purposes of creating a useful typology that can be applied to a broader range of cases/issues/platforms.
Practical implications
The authors hope that typology could serve as a potential starting point for Twitter to think about how it could design its algorithms toward agonistic talk. The typology could be used as a classification scheme to differentiate agonistic from antagonistic threads. An algorithm could be trained to spot threads overwhelmingly populated by antagonistic discourse and instructed to insert posts from other threads that represent agonistic responses like “contingently wrong” or “reciprocal inquiry.” While generous presentations or deeper, more nuanced presentations of the opponent’s value position are not a panacea, they could serve to change the orientation by which users engage with policy issues.
Social implications
Social media platforms like Twitter have up to now been left alone to make markets and establish profitability off of public sphere conversations. The result has been a lack of attention to how discourse on these platforms affects users mental well-being, community health and democratic viability. Recently, Twitter’s CEO has indicated a need to rethink the ways in which it promotes “healthy discourse.” The utilitarian presumption that, left to our own devices, we will trial and error our way to the collective good does not account for the importance of others in refining one’s preferences, arguments and world views. Without an “other” to vet ideas and lead us toward becoming wiser, we are left with a Wyly antagonism that moves discourse further and further away from agonistic respect and toward antagonistic virtual struggle. Platforms that allow antagonistic talk that breeds ressentiment run the risk of irrevocably damaging democracy through poisoning its public sphere.
Originality/value
This paper is unique in providing a typology/framework for thinking about the types of “political talk” that exists on Twitter. By using agonistic political theory as a framework, the authors are able to establish some guiding principles for “good political talk” that acknowledges the incommensurability of value positions on issues like gun control. The typology’s emphasis on agonistic respect, ressentiment and generosity in the presentation of alternative value positions provides a starting point from which to map and catalog discourse on Twitter more generally and offers a normative model for changing algorithmic design.
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Michal J Carrington, Ben Neville and Robin Canniford
This study aims to explore: consumer experiences of intense moral dilemma arising from identity multiplicity conflict, expressed in the marketplace, which demand stark moral…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore: consumer experiences of intense moral dilemma arising from identity multiplicity conflict, expressed in the marketplace, which demand stark moral choices and consumer response to intensely felt moral tension where their sense of coherent moral self is at stake.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors gathered ethnographic data from amongst ethical consumers, and theorised the data through theory of life projects and life themes to explain how multiplicity can become an unmanageable problem in the midst of moral dilemma.
Findings
The authors reveal that in contrast to notions of liberating or manageable multiplicity conflict, some consumers experience intense moral anxiety that is unmanageable. The authors find that this unmanageable moral tension can provoke consumers to transform self and consumption choices to construct a coherent moral self. The authors identify this transformation as the meta life project.
Research limitations/implications
This work contributes to knowledge of multiplicity, consumer life themes and life projects, moral dilemma and ethical consumption by showing that some experiences of moral anxiety arising from multiplicity conflict are unmanageable, and these consumers seek moral self re-unification through the meta life project.
Practical implications
This study provides practical guidance to companies, marketers, public organisations and activist groups seeking to understand and harness consumers’ moral codes to promote ethical consumption practices.
Originality/value
The authors extend current theory of multiplicity into the moral domain to illustrate limitations of framing consumer experiences of multiplicity conflict as being either liberating or manageable when consumers’ sense of moral self is at stake. This article is of interest to academic, marketing practitioner and public policy audiences.
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Chris Ó. Rálaigh and Sarah Morton
International policy approaches to cannabis production and use are changing rapidly, and within the Irish context, alternatives to prohibition are being considered. This study…
Abstract
Purpose
International policy approaches to cannabis production and use are changing rapidly, and within the Irish context, alternatives to prohibition are being considered. This study aims to explore policymaker’s attitudes towards the decriminalisation and legal regulation of cannabis for recreational use in the midst of an unfolding policy process, examining the degree which a “policy window” might be open for the implementation of cannabis policy change.
Design/methodology/approach
Semi-structured interviews were held with eight key informants within the policy field in Dublin, Ireland. Kingdon’s (2014) Multiple Streams framework was used to consider whether the problems, policy and political streams were aligning to support progressive policy change.
Findings
Irish policymakers indicated broad support for the decriminalisation of cannabis. The legal regulation of cannabis received more qualified support. Existing policy was heavily criticised with criminalisation identified as a clear failure. Of particular interest was the willingness of policymakers to offer opinions which contrasted with the policy positions of their organisations. While a policy window did open – and close – subsequent governmental commitments to examine the issue of drugs policy in a more deliberative process in the near future highlight the incremental nature of policy change.
Originality/value
This study provides unique insight into the opinions of policymakers in the midst of a prolonged period of policy evolution. A latent aspiration for historical policy change was situated within the realpolitik of more traditional approaches to policy development, demonstrating that the alignment of Kingdon’s (2014) problem, policy and political streams are essential for change in cannabis policy.
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A long-standing question is how group perception, which is the perception of a whole group, becomes an exaggerated perception of the individuals who comprise the group. The…
Abstract
Purpose
A long-standing question is how group perception, which is the perception of a whole group, becomes an exaggerated perception of the individuals who comprise the group. The question receives scant attention within computer-mediated communication (CMC), which is increasingly a communication mode for groups and a research tool to study groups. I address this gap by examining bias in group perception when rating copresence, which is the sense of being together, with the group.
Methodology/approach
I model bias as occurring when perceivers differentially weigh ratings of individual group members on a variable while rating the whole group on the same variable. I analyzed how the degree of bias in participants’ ratings of copresence with a status-differentiated group varied by the availability of visual cues during CMC in an experiment. I also examined how the group’s status hierarchy impacted bias.
Findings
Bias increase as the availability of visual cues decreased and ratings of middle status members were weighed more in group perception than ratings of other members.
Research limitations
Middle status was based on possessing inconsistent statuses. Inconsistency, and not status position, may have rendered these members more salient than others.
Social implications
Interventions that target group perception may benefit from targeting the group’s middle status members. Researchers and practitioners can minimize bias in group perception through increasing the availability of visual cues in CMC.
Originality/value
The findings illustrate the underpinnings of copresence with an entire group. This is important because copresence shapes several group processes during CMC.
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This paper aims to provide reflective practice insights on the use of the participatory approaches of World Café and Forum Theatre as crime prevention education and research tools…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to provide reflective practice insights on the use of the participatory approaches of World Café and Forum Theatre as crime prevention education and research tools with young people and young adults through a social learning theory lens.
Design/methodology/approach
Four independent case-studies showcase World Café and Forum Theatre methodology. World Café events investigated new psychoactive substances (NPS) awareness with young hostel users and college pupils (N = 22) and race hate crime with school and college pupils (N = 57). Forum Theatre events explored loan shark crime with college and university students (N = 46) and domestic abuse crime with young hostel users and college and university students (N = 28). Anonymous survey data produced qualitative and descriptive statistical data.
Findings
Learning impacts from participatory crime prevention education and research events were evidenced. Participatory approaches were perceived positively, although large group discussion-based methodologies may not suit all young people or all criminological topics.
Originality/value
Participatory approaches of World Café and Forum Theatre are vehicles for social learning and crime prevention with young people and young adults; eliciting crime victimisation data; and generating personal solutions alongside wider policy and practice improvement suggestions. Whilst World Café elicited greater lived experience accounts providing peer-level social learning, Forum Theatre provided crucial visual role modelling for communicating safeguarding messages.
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Phil Morgan, Tula Brannelly and Sarah Eales
The purpose of this paper is to examine the value of utilising future studies to explore citizenship for people with mental health challenges.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the value of utilising future studies to explore citizenship for people with mental health challenges.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper critiques the discipline of future studies and considers it in the context of the citizenship and mental health literature. It explores how future studies can be utilised to promote marginalised voices, such as those of people with mental health challenges.
Findings
Technology is leading to rapid change in society including what it means to be a citizen (Isin and Nielsen, 2008; Isin and Ruppert, 2015). Whilst citizenship has been promoted within mental health for a long time, change has been slow (Rowe and Davidson, 2016). In order to create inclusive opportunities for people with mental health challenges, any focus on citizenship in mental health needs to not only address the present time but to anticipate and influence future technological directions.
Originality/value
This paper is original in bringing together mental health and the future impact on society of new technologies. It stands to offer a new perspective to discussions on citizenship.
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Victoria Hogan, Margaret Hodgins, Duncan Lewis, Sarah Maccurtain, Patricia Mannix-McNamara and Lisa Pursell
The purpose of this paper is to examine the prevalence of ill-treatment and bullying experienced by Irish workers and to explore individual and organisational predictors. The most…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the prevalence of ill-treatment and bullying experienced by Irish workers and to explore individual and organisational predictors. The most recent national figures available are specific to bullying and predate the economic recession; therefore, this study is timely and investigates a broader range of negative behaviours.
Design/methodology/approach
A questionnaire survey study on a national probability sample of Irish employees was conducted (N = 1,764). The study design replicated the methodology employed in the British workplace behaviour study.
Findings
The results showed that 43% of Irish workers had experienced ill-treatment at work over the past two years, with 9% meeting the criteria for experiencing workplace bullying. A number of individual and organisational factors were found to be significantly associated with the experience of ill-treatment at work.
Research limitations/implications
This study provides national-level data on workplace ill-treatment and bullying that are directly comparable to British study findings.
Practical implications
The findings indicate that a significant number of Irish workers experience ill-treatment at work, and that workplace bullying does not appear to have decreased since the last national study was conducted in Ireland.
Social implications
This study is of use to the Irish regulator and persons responsible for managing workplace bullying cases, as it identifies high-risk work situations and contributing individual factors.
Originality/value
This study provides national Irish data on workplace behaviour and ill-treatment following a severe economic recession.