Legitimate Medium Research Articles

Disinformation and strategic frames: Introducing the concept of a strategic epistemology towards media

Efforts to raise awareness about foreign disinformation might accidentally increase distrust towards legitimate media. We argue that state discourse on disinformation is comparable to strategic framing in journalists’ coverage of political events, and that it might imbue audiences with cynicism. Furthermore, in contrast to an experimental paradigm that depicts disinformation audiences as passive, we suggest that news consumers actively appropriate and produce content themselves. Conceptualising media content as ‘strategic’ rather than sincere might influence audiences to share and produce media content strategically. This Machiavellian tendency leads to similar effects on bias as motivated reasoning. Most accounts of motivated reasoning assume that limits of psychological processing are the reasons for biased judgements of what is true and fake, however, we argue that biases can also be due to culturally acquired second-order beliefs about knowledge. To explain this, we build on ideas about ‘folk epistemology’ and propose the term ‘strategic epistemology towards media’. Resistance-building efforts against disinformation risk promoting such a strategic epistemology towards media and this can have harmful effects on democratic dialogue. To avoid this, educational interventions should be premised on social epistemology rather than experimental psychology.

Bridging Police Work with the Public Health Domain: An Occupational Safety and Health Perspective

For good reasons, public health and public policing constitute two separate constellations of public affairs governance. They widely differ with regard to their objectives, legal basis, workforce, expertise, traditions, occupational culture and many more. In conjunction to both strands of governance Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) – being both a definition and umbrella term - encompasses any kind of activity related to foster the safety and wellbeing of workers. In that regard OSH is marked by being a highly interdisciplinary, hands-on and heuristic undertaken, in particular widely acknowledged of being ‘public health-close’ and at the same time ‘security risk management-near’. That way OSH is clearly identifiable as a highly promising interface bridging police work with public health, in particular by applying mutual theory and language. This conceptual paper proposes a new perspective and view on organisational OSH, functioning well as a legitimate medium for both frontline workers but also managerial functionaries. Vice-versa organisational OSH has been identified as a suitable trigger for transferring academic stances into the rather praxis- and realpolitik-driven domain of policing. Alongside the prototypical case study of Frontex operational OSH, OSH has been proven as legitimate driver for utilising the current pandemic COVID-19 outbreak as suitable tool for breaking down existing barriers and silos between the both mentioned strands of governance. That way as additional craft and capacity OSH might enfold truly operational strength and added value.

An Overview of the Commercial Publication of Japanese Boys Love (BL) Manga in Poland

An Overview of the Commercial Publication of Japanese Boys Love (BL) Manga in Poland Agata Włodarczyk (bio) When discussing the history of manga publishing in Poland, it is important to note that after World War II the country was governed by the communist party (PZPR)1 and until 1989 remained under the influence of the USSR; both conditions heavily affected the publishing market in general. During that time comic books were not regarded as a legitimate medium, and access to foreign comic books was highly restricted.2 The situation changed with the dramatic political shift in 1989, paving the way for manga to appear in mainstream book markets beginning in the second half of the 1990s, with the establishment of Japonica Polonica Fantastica (JPF) in 1996, soon followed by Waneko in 1999. Manga and anime culture in Poland grew not from an already established comics culture, but from a culture based around gamers as well as young teenagers watching anime on TV. It was apparent to these publishers that, rather than classic titles, these potential manga consumers would want to read currently popular works, manga usually known through anime broadcast on local TV, or those that fans accessed online. While JPF and Waneko began to respond to the perceived interest of this nascent fandom, they did not publish boys love (BL) manga, either by conscious choice or ignorance, creating a situation in which fans knew of the genre by accessing it online, often on scanlation sites or by purchasing foreign language editions, but were unable to buy a Polish language copy. As a result, for a long time CLAMP's X, first published in Poland in 2000,3 was regarded by fans as BL (or, more correctly, as "yaoi," an older Japanese label that still is a dominant umbrella term used among Polish fans). This was not because X was actually BL, but because the manga, by a collective association with works that sometimes include same-sex couples, was as close as fans could get to it in a commercially published work in Polish. Although an exact date is impossible to pinpoint, BL fandom itself started forming in Poland around 1998, when many female fans began discussing a possible romantic relationship between two of Sailor Moon's antagonists, [End Page 167] Zoisite and Kunzite—who are presented in the Polish version of the anime as brothers—during offline meetings, on online forums, Yahoo mailing lists, and on mIRC (chat client) channels. In 2001, a specifically BL-related webpage was created by a Japanese language student,4 with its author often organizing BL-themed meetings in Warsaw. In 2003 and 2004 the group organized Aicon, Poland's first yaoi-themed convention, involving around 350 participants each time. One of the more interesting aspects of BL fandom in Poland from its coalescence at the end of the 1990s is the fact that many of its members have enjoyed the reading and writing of slash fanfiction. Nowadays "slash" and "yaoi" are generally used synonymously by fans about male-male love relationships in any media and any form.5 The slowly growing visibility and activity of Polish BL fans since the late 1990s evidences a demand for this kind of work. In response, the tiny shortlived publisher Saisha was established and in 2003 published the first volume of Higuri You's BL manga Cutlass (Katorasu) as its first title, followed that same year by Rieko Yoshihara's light novel At no kusabi (The space between).6 Both gave fans hope that they would be able to see more of their favorite BL works translated into Polish. Saisha managed to publish one more manga, this time including explicit sex scenes, Takashima Kazusa's Wild Rock in 2005.7 However, the poor quality of the translation and editing of Ai no kusabi, combined with the complicated and restrictive purchase process, whereby fans were required to provide proof that they were of legal age to read a comic with sexual content when ordering either of the publisher's two manga by mail, seems to have brought about Saisha's downfall. While the existing manga publisher Studio JG revived the commercial publication of BL in Poland several...

Gay Porn, Politics and Lifestyle in 1980s Finland: The Short Life of Mosse Magazine

ABSTRACTAlthough the gay press has been seen as central to the formation of the gay movement, entertainment magazines focusing on sex and consumer lifestyle have until recently received little attention in studies on gay history. This article focuses on Mosse, the short-lived gay porn magazine published by mainstream publishing company Lehtimiehet in Finland between 1983 and 1985. In addition to nude photos and porn stories, Mosse featured articles on gay politics and lifestyle. Analysing Mosse’s attempt at creating a market for a new kind of gay magazine, the article explores the relationship between commercialism, porn and gay politics in Mosse. The article argues that Mosse, alongside other porn publications, explored themes of gay liberation and gay consumer culture at a time when the discussion of gay issues was limited in so-called legitimate media in Finland, in part due to legislation which criminalized the “encouragement” of homosexuality. In its articles on gay politics and lifestyle, Mosse positioned Finland as lagging behind Western countries, with Sweden and Denmark figuring as ideals of progress. Despite its modest circulation and short lifespan, Mosse’s very existence is significant as a sign that it was possible to imagine a Finnish gay consumer market in the first part of the 1980s.

The Machine as Art (in the 20th Century): An Introduction

The machine, over the course of the 20th century, progressively integrated itself into all fields of human activity, including artistic creation; and indeed, with the first decades of that century having established a surprisingly vital and wide-ranging series of perspectives on the relationship between art and the machine, certain artists in the wake of the Second World War no longer felt compelled to treat the machine as a mere theme or source of inspiration: the machine itself becomes art—unless it is art which seeks to become mechanical? The artist mutates into “artist-engineer”; and this transition, resonating within a specific historical context, leads not only to a questioning of the nature of the work itself, but also to a broader questioning which places us within the realm of anthropology: what is this art telling us about the actual conditions of contemporary human society, and what is it telling us about the future to which we aspire? It is the goal of this special issue of Arts to stimulate an historically conscious, protean, and global (re)thinking of the cultural relationship between man and machine; and to this end, we welcome contributions falling anywhere within the nearly infinite spectrum represented by the prismatic period during the middle of the last century in which the machine became a legitimate artistic medium.

“We Ask You to Put an End to Lawlessness…”: Soviet Believers’ Letters of 1960-1980s as a Form of Communication with the Government

Abstract The article focuses on letters written by believers to representatives of bureaucratic structures as a form of communication between the population and officials of atheistic creed. Religious people use this legitimate medium and fill it with remonstrative content. A number of letters reflects the formation of Soviet civil consciousness, for example, individual and civil rights construct is used to demand freedom of religion. Letter writers resort to traditional ways of demonstrating loyalty towards the regime, but they invert the situation by construing themselves as lawful citizens who call for observation of their rights and by representing local authorities as law-breakers.

Characterization of protein corona around of SiO2-PEG-Tf NP in human plasma and its influence in active targeting

The article focuses on letters written by believers to representatives of bureaucratic structures as a form of communication between the population and officials of atheistic creed. Religious people use this legitimate medium and fill it with remonstrative content. A number of letters reflects the formation of Soviet civil consciousness, for example, individual and civil rights construct is used to demand freedom of religion. Letter writers resort to traditional ways of demonstrating loyalty towards the regime, but they invert the situation by construing themselves as lawful citizens who call for observation of their rights and by representing local authorities as law-breakers.

MicroRNAs as potential toxicological biomarkers in drug-induced liver injury

The article focuses on letters written by believers to representatives of bureaucratic structures as a form of communication between the population and officials of atheistic creed. Religious people use this legitimate medium and fill it with remonstrative content. A number of letters reflects the formation of Soviet civil consciousness, for example, individual and civil rights construct is used to demand freedom of religion. Letter writers resort to traditional ways of demonstrating loyalty towards the regime, but they invert the situation by construing themselves as lawful citizens who call for observation of their rights and by representing local authorities as law-breakers.

Doing it with couples: the chattiness of the social revisited

The article rehabilitates the joint couple interview as a research instrument for creating data about modern intimate relationships. It refutes the reservations against data retrieved from the ‘artificial’ situation of the interview by contextualizing it in the debate about the ‘chattiness’ or the ‘silence’ of the social. In doing so, it reflects on some of the specific features of the couple interview. The task of the interviewed couple matches the task of the sociologist: both are busy translating and putting things into words. These tasks are never straightforward: while the couple perpetually shifts between narrating a story about intimacy and enacting and performing intimacy, the sociologist is switching between treating the interview as a resource and treating it as a topic. A new referential problem appears in this process that is not confined to putting into words what was silent before, but consists in the performative creation of something that escapes language. From the perspective of this article, the couple interview can emerge as a legitimate research medium for the sociology of intimacy by eliciting and transforming its object, creating new knowledge about intimacy in the process.

The changing faces of heroines: Korean women in folklore

This article analyzes the many and changing faces of heroines in Korean folklore by interweaving the Korean cultural ethos of han and the action paradigm of resistance. Kim argues that feminist discourse often relegates alternative modes of resistance to the margins due to Western ethnocentrism and ideological politicization. She analyzes four types of heroines: archetypal, virtuous-but-not-virtuous, pioneering, and hanful resister. In doing so, Kim draws on Giddens’ knowledge and action theorem, which advances the simple equation between consciousness and resistance. Furthermore, Kim explores folklore’s validity as a legitimate commemorative medium. She introduces five memory units (storage/remembering, deletion/forgetting, retrieval, commemorative medium, and commemorative agency) and argues that the genre of folklore serves as a bridge between literature and collective memory scholarship. Since the field of memory studies validates lesser-known historical pasts, folklore deserves careful attention as a legitimate mnemonic medium. Korean folklore, a communal mnemonic result of production, retrieval, and transmission, shows diverse acts of resistance as women link presentism and traditionalism.

Holography without frames: sculptural installations incorporating ‘drawn’ elements

Since its adoption by artists, shortly after the process became practical in the 1960's, holography has struggled to be accepted as a legitimate medium within the visual arts. A number of key milestones, during the early developmental process of creative holography, are acknowledged with reference to sparse critical discussions. The value of ‘traditional’, framed, wall-based display is explored and a number of sculptural installations by the author, which have attempted to question this method of presentation, are discussed. Floor-based installations, which involve the integration of drawn holographic elements within site-specific locations, are examined.

Cyber Criminality & its Legal Control: Fighting with Stones in Jet Age

Cyber criminality has revealed the loopholes and shortcoming of national systems, exposed the inability of combating Trans border criminality and inability of the legal systems to deal with the cases involving virtual realities where paper based identities, physical location, national borders depicting jurisdictions melted out. The existing legal systems are mostly paper based and very much sensitive to the geographical maps where artificial boundaries create national jurisdiction, which is the only legitimate medium to take cognizance of crime. It is also very much sensitive to paper based identity, physical location, legal recognition of criminal act. The electronic technology has potential to crack the old age principles, which hardly stand in cyberspace. The present article has focused upon the gap between the traditional ideologies to combat the crime and varied nature of cyber criminality. It clearly demonstrates the difference between Cyber crime and traditional crime. It highlighted the causes, nature, and difference of technology and ultimately demands the modern approach to deal with the crime. At the end, it also press upon the international policy, regulations and standards to deal with such trans-national criminality.

Cyber Criminality & its Legal Control: Fighting with Stones in Jet Age

Cyber criminality has revealed the loopholes and shortcoming of national systems, exposed the inability of combating Trans border criminality and inability of the legal systems to deal with the cases involving virtual realities where paper based identities, physical location, national borders depicting jurisdictions melted out. The existing legal systems are mostly paper based and very much sensitive to the geographical maps where artificial boundaries create national jurisdiction, which is the only legitimate medium to take cognizance of crime. It is also very much sensitive to paper based identity, physical location, legal recognition of criminal act. The electronic technology has potential to crack the old age principles, which hardly stand in cyberspace. The present article has focused upon the gap between the traditional ideologies to combat the crime and varied nature of cyber criminality. It clearly demonstrates the difference between Cyber crime and traditional crime. It highlighted the causes, nature, and difference of technology and ultimately demands the modern approach to deal with the crime. At the end, it also press upon the international policy, regulations and standards to deal with such trans-national criminality.

The Politics of Open-Access Publishing: <i>M/C Journal</i>, Public Intellectualism, and Academic Discourses of Legitimacy

This article investigates the discourses of academic legitimacy that surround the production, consumption, and accreditation of online scholarship. Using the web-based media and cultural studies journal (http://journal.media-culture.org.au) as a case study, it examines how online scholarly journals often position themselves as occupying a space between the academic and the popular and as having a functional advantage over print-based media in promoting a spirit of public intellectualism. The current research agenda of both government and academe prioritises academic research that is efficient, self-promoting, and relevant to the public. Yet, although the cost-effectiveness and public-intellectual focus of online scholarship speak to these research priorities, online journals such as M/C Journal have occupied, and continue to occupy, an unstable position in relation to the perceived academic legitimacy of their content. Although some online scholarly journals have achieved a limited form of recognition within a system of accreditation that still privileges print-based scholarship, I argue that this, nevertheless, points to the fact that traditional textual notions of legitimate academic work continue to pervade the research agenda of an academe that increasingly promotes flexible delivery of teaching and online research initiatives.

X-Men Ethics: Using Comic Books to Teach Business Ethics

A modern form of narrative, comic books are used to communicate, discuss, and critique issues in business ethics and social issues in management. A description of comic books as a legitimate medium is followed by a discussion of the pedagogical uses of comic books and assessment techniques. The strengths of the pedagogy include crossing cultural barriers, understanding the complexity of individual decision-making and organizational influences, and the universality of dilemmas and values. We provide an initial source for educators on the topics, comic books, plotlines, and other commentary for consideration of use in the classroom from high school to graduate business ethics and social issues in management courses.

Editorial

Editorial

Electronic Journals and Legitimate Media in the Systems of Scholarly Communication

While the number of electronic scholarly journals is growing steadily, these journals have not yet been accepted as legitimate publication outlets by the scholarly communities. This article examines how moving from paper to electronic distribution alters the legitimacy and perceived quality of journals. It also examines the prospects for creating diverse high‐quality electronic journals in the next two decades.

Electronic journals and legitimate media in the systems of scholarly communication

While the number of electronic scholarly journals is growing steadily, these journals have not yet been accepted as legitimate publication outlets by the scholarly communities. This article examines how moving from paper to electronic distribution alters the legitimacy and perceived quality of journals. It also examines the prospects for creating diverse high‐quality electronic journals in the next two decades.

Social Issues on Walls: Graffiti in University Lavatories

From the point of view of university authorities, graffiti are usually perceived as sheer expression of youthful exuberance, a manifestation of vandalism. However, a closer examination of the writings on the walls of college campuses will reveal that these graffiti are avenues through which a minority group, denied other legitimate media, articulate pent up social and political concerns. Such is the case of the graffiti found on the walls of buildings at the University of Benin, in Nigeria. The students feel that they have been denied access to other means of expressing their views on social as well as political matters, and so resort to expressing these views on the walls of buildings, mainly those of lavatory rooms, but also on the walls of the stairways. This paper examines the issues covered by these graffiti as well as the discourse strategies adopted for their expression.

Semantics of the map

AbstractA map has long been considered to be a legitimate communication medium, made by the cartographer for different map users. Valuable contributions to the scientific fundamentals of cartography should be expected from the critical investigation of communication aspects of the map, particularly map signs. This article first attempts to analyse the signs used in cartographic communication from the point of view of semiotics - especially semantics - then redefines the map, our communication tool, under its ascertained characteristics.