Meaning-making Processes Research Articles

The political ecology of wildfire: Media and the politics of blame in the Evros wildfires in Greece

Wildfires are not only natural disasters but also political events. Media plays an important role in the power-laden process of meaning-making and responsibility-assigning that can significantly shape how societies understand and response to wildfires. To shed light on the role of media in the political ecology of wildfire, we conducted a framing analysis of 241 news articles on the Evros wildfires in Greece. We discovered five narratives of blame: migrant activities, government mismanagement, climate change, arson, and war. We argued that the politics of blame in the Greek context is deeply intertwined with the rise of national populism and xenophobic attitudes as a response to the European refugee crisis. This is evidenced by a dominant narrative that blamed transnational migrants as culprits. The blame politics of wildfires in Greece is also shaped by the political economy of the media that enhances state control over media narratives.

Demonstrating representational competence through the utilisation of potential disciplinary meanings during scientific explanation construction

ABSTRACT The construction of scientific explanations is considered an important component of scientific practices in science classrooms. When constructing explanations, students utilise multimodal representations to make and convey specific meanings, which are useful in supporting their thinking and learning. The mastery of these recognised functions makes up and signifies representational competence. However, the literature has yet to offer a clear description of the demonstration of representational competence from the perspective that views competency as a goal-oriented meaning-making process that relies on specialised representations. This research took a case study approach and collected data from six first-year undergraduates tasked to construct scientific explanations of phenomena. Using multimodal discourse analysis, we identified sequences of representations that suggest how particular disciplinary meanings were realised. The results showed that students demonstrated representational competence by making available, recognising, and utilising what we termed as potential disciplinary meanings. These meanings acted as a basis with which to construct new meanings that fulfil the explanation. The same potential disciplinary meanings were recognised and utilised to varying extents by different students leading to diverse outcomes. Based on the findings, we discussed the significance of potential disciplinary meanings towards understanding and developing representational competence.

A multimodal analysis of Nigerian public health awareness posters

This article presents a multimodal analysis of the public health awareness posters from Katsina state, Nigeria. 100 posters were purposefully sampled and analysed using the generic structure potential (GSP) of printed advertisements after Cheong, Kress and Van Leeuwen’s visual grammar, Martinec and Salway’s model of text-image relations and Airhihenbuwa’s PEN-3 model. The findings show that display, which refers to the photographic show of the message, and announcement, which is the most noticeable linguistic component, are among the obligatory components. Display mostly occurs in an intangible form as it is difficult to be depicted concretely, while the obligatory announcement is always the ‘primary announcement’, i.e. the announcement which conveys the central idea of the poster. Moreover, language and image contribute to the meaning-making process. Likewise, the pictures perform an ‘exemplification function’ in logico-semantic relations. Therefore, the GSP of Nigerian public health awareness posters (NPHAP) is proposed as: lead ^ display ^ (emblem) ^ announcement ^ (enhancer) ^ (tag) ^ (call-and-visit information).1 This means that for informational material to qualify as a Nigeran public health awareness poster, it must exhibit at least the obligatory components (those not in brackets).

An alternative theoretical approach to develop a new conception about pain in people with dementia

The theoretical approach presented in this paper describes a novel experimental-theoretical methodology to conceptualise pain in people with dementia. Existing procedures for assessment of pain rely on subjective self-report using...

The Role of Resilience in Fostering Late Adolescents’ Meaning-Making Process: A Latent Profile Analysis

The study presents an application of Latent Profile Analysis to sustain the existence of different profiles of meaning-making (i.e., the process of searching and finding meaning in life) within the late adolescent’s population, and to investigate the role of resilience in predicting profiles’ belonginess. 943 Italian senior high-school students (52% females) were clustered into two adaptive profiles, highly-engaged (high presence, average search) and balanced (average presence and search), and two maladaptive profiles, frustrated (average presence, high search) and disengaged (low presence and search). A multinomial logistic regression revealed that adolescents with robust resilience skills were more likely to show adaptive profiles, and less likely to fall into the disengaged group, suggesting that individuals with higher resilience are more prone to engage in search for meaning even when they perceive a lack of presence of meaning. Findings contribute to a nuanced understanding of meaning-making, calling the development of personalized interventions to foster adolescents’ ability to navigate life challenges during their transition toward adulthood.

게임 <30일>의 돌봄재현과 콘텐츠 액티비즘의 실현

This study aims to examine the social value of content activism by analyzing social practice cases through social impact games. While traditional activism is a way for politicians, artists, etc. to convey social messages and call for participation through specialized knowledge, information, and technology, content activism is a way for ordinary individuals who live with one-person media to plan, produce, and distribute content about the problems they find in their lives and bring about change through solidarity with the audiences who sympathize with them. Social impact games are a genre of content that creates social messages through gaming experiences and interactions. Players of social impact games become the subjects who enjoy and extend the social value of the content through meaningful experiences and solidarity. This study analyzes the meaning-making process of players from the perspective of content activism by analyzing the game <30 Days>, in which members living in an orphanage practice care and prevent the suicide of a young man.

Black male college athletes’ self-schemata and (Un)critical consciousness

ABSTRACT Extant literature on the experiences of Black male college athletes focuses on outcomes, such as their college engagement (academic, athletic, and social), graduation rates, and post-college transitions. However, there is a lack of focus on the antecedents of these outcomes. This article offers empirical findings from a study of 16 Black male college athletes’ developmental experiences at Division I historically white institutions. The study employed a constructivist grounded theory methodology and incorporated a three-stage coding analysis to make sense of data. A key finding from this study is the identification of the (Sub)Conscious Decision-Making Filter, which is comprised of the following four components: (a) Self-Schemata; (b) Critical Racial Consciousness; (c) Social Associations Related to Racial, Athletic, and Student Identities; and (d) Internal Conflict. Data analysis offers insights into the meaning-making processes of Black male college athletes as they exist in majority white spaces, which is vital for sport administrators who seek to support the optimal holistic development of this important stakeholder group.

Museum-audience interaction within permanent exhibitions of natural history museums: a systematic literature review

ABSTRACT This article reviews the ways in which research into natural history museums has focused on interactions of visitors with permanent exhibitions. The review covers research articles published in peer-reviewed journals from 1990 to 2022. It analyses six aspects of museum-visitor interactions: (1) the conceptualisation, by exhibition curators, of interaction with visitors; (2) the mediation, by museum educators, between museum and audience, through supervised teaching and learning; (3) the interpretation, by visitors in their meaning-making process, of permanent exhibitions; (4) the influence exerted by exhibition qualities on museum-audience interactions; (5) the presentation of subject-specific content; and (6) the institutional mission and social impact of natural history museums, as reflected in their permanent exhibitions. This systematic literature review seeks to help researchers and natural-history museum professionals in their conceptualisation and development efforts, as they work to develop influential permanent exhibitions.

Specificity and integration of meaning in self-defining memories of breast cancer survivors: clinical reflections to promote a narrative identity integration.

Potential traumatic events, such as breast cancer, can influence autobiographical memory (AM), interrupting the continuity of narrative identity. AM is based on a hierarchical search across different levels of specificity that are indexed from top to bottom when a memory is retrieved. In the breast cancer field, non-specific AMs are an observed clinical phenomenon. In particular, breast cancer survivors report issues related to self-defining memories (SDMs), specific and significant AMs that evoke strong emotions and sensory details at the time of memory. SDMs are linked to life goals and facilitate adaptation to critical experiences, preserving the continuity of identity. This study explored the narrative identity integration process of breast cancer survivors, analyzing themes, specificity, and integrative meaning in SDMs. Ten women participated in an online group support program centered on the integration of AMs linked to the cancer journey. Participants were asked to assess their body image perceptions, filling out an online survey three times, in which they had to report three SDMs each time. A reflexive thematic analysis of the SDMs identified three main themes: the onset of breast cancer; the labeling of negative emotions, and changes in the body. The results indicated inhibited retrieval of specific episodes, fostering a progressive failure in memory characterization and the concurrent meaning-making process. Participants struggled with connecting the memories to insights regarding their self and life, as well as relating the memories to external conditions and other individuals. Further studies might examine the impact of these difficulties on the psychological adjustment of BC long-term survivors. They could also explore cognitive reconstruction by reframing the memories and re-evaluating their traumatic meanings.

Understanding power, culture and institutional change: a revised approach to political settlements analysis

ABSTRACT The institutions that govern how we distribute resources, protect rights, and accord status are widely recognised as important for progressive development outcomes. Political settlements analysis is an increasingly influential framework for (post)institutional analysis within development studies, arguing that institutions and their outcomes are shaped by political economy relations of power. This article builds on the strengths of political settlements analysis (PSA) but argues that its strongly materialist foundations overlook the role of social identity, status and moral beliefs in shaping institutional change. Future research employing PSA needs rebalancing, incorporating an understanding of power relations as ideational as well as material and based on cultural as well as political and economic sources. Drawing on insights from cultural political economy, this article presents an alternative approach to power in PSA. This emphasises the contingency inherent in meaning-making processes and conceives of power as embedded in cultural understandings, as well as political organisation and economic control. Adopting this cultural political economy approach to power allows PSA to produce a fuller understanding of the causal mechanisms generating institutional change.

Inundated With “Bounce Back” Culture: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of Postpartum First-Time Mothers’ Body Image Dissatisfaction and Mental Health Implications

This study explored the lived experiences of and meaning made from postpartum mothers and their journey with their body image following childbirth. Using an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis design, seven women were interviewed to understand their lived experiences. The Developmental Theory of Embodiment was used to help make sense of the postpartum mothers’ experience and meaning-making processes. Themes included: (a) transformation of maternal body image, (b) sociocultural pressures of bouncing back, and (c) holding the duality of postpartum body dissatisfaction and body appreciation. Implications are provided for counselors. Recommendations include thoroughly assessing for and treating body image and related mental health needs for postpartum mothers.

Effect of Parent-Initiated Support on Career Calling Among Chinese Kindergarten Teachers: Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction as Mediator.

Possessing a calling to teach is a core and essential quality of good kindergarten teachers, and it is critical to explore which factors positively impact kindergarten teachers' career calling. Developing a career calling is a meaning-making process that can be influenced by the actions of others in the workplace. During the frequent parent-teacher interactions, parent-initiated support may serve as significant interpersonal cues for kindergarten teachers in developing their career calling. Thus, the present study examined the effect of parent-initiated support on kindergarten teachers' career calling. Further, we investigated the multiple mediating roles of global and specific basic psychological need satisfaction based on the self-determination theory (SDT). Cross-sectional data were collected from 629 kindergarten teachers in China and analyzed using Mplus 8.3 software and the Process 3.5 macro of SPSS 26.0 software. Before testing the hypothesis, we used Mplus 8.3 to save factor scores from the Bifactor model of basic psychological need satisfaction and two uni-dimensional models of parent-initiated support and career calling. Subsequently, using the Process 3.5 macro within SPSS 26.0 software, we conducted path analysis to examine the total and mediating effects between parent-initiated support and kindergarten teachers' career calling. The results revealed a positive effect of parent-initiated support on teachers' career calling. Teachers' global and specific competence need satisfaction partially mediated this positive effect, while the mediating effects of teachers' specific autonomy and relatedness need satisfaction were non-significant. These findings suggest that parent-initiated support is an important job resource for kindergarten teachers' development of career calling. In addition to satisfying global psychological needs, satisfying specific needs (eg, competence need) provides additional benefits to kindergarten teachers' experience of career calling.

Community musicking and musical cognition among adungu music communities of the Acholi people from Awach, Gulu district, Northern Uganda

This ethnographic inquiry investigated the nature of musical cognition that engagements in the Ugandan Acholi people’s adungu music culture engender, what can be understood about musical cognition in nonwesternized oral community music-making experiences, and how this might inform school music education theory and practice. Schooling in Uganda mostly upholds colonial epistemes that separate cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains, and position the arts and culture at the periphery of school experiences. Through a thematic analysis of data from interviews, focus group discussions, and observations of Anyim Lac troupe music community engagements, this study found that sociomusical experiences engender musical cognition where the musical spirit, mind, body, and environment interactions birth musical understanding. Musical cognition was understood as a holistic process of reflecting, creating, recreating, and acting emotionally where these musical spirit, mind, body, and environment interactions are shaped by culture. Since humans perceive, perform, and learn music as the embodiment of the interaction between musical spirit, mind, body, and environment, educators might need to create contexts where learners engage in learning experiences in ways that embed awareness of the intertwined nature of musical spirit, mind, body, and environment in those meaning-making processes.

A Comparative Analysis of Banking and Problem-Posing Models in Online PlatformAn Action Research

This study explores the impact of two educational models, Banking Education and Problem-Posing Education, within the context of virtual classrooms. Rooted in the constructivist learning theory, which posits learning as an active, meaning-making process, the research aims to compare their effects on student engagement, proactiveness, responsibility, and learning outcomes. Theoretical analysis and practical implementation of these models were conducted in a participatory action research design, spanning three stages: theoretical analysis, implementation, and reflection and evaluation. Data was collected through eight weeks of virtual field notes, categorizing activities under banking or problem-posing education. Results suggest that the Problem-Posing model, in the virtual education realm, led to tangible improvements in student engagement and performance. Students exhibited greater autonomy, active participation, and collaborative problem-solving. This aligns with constructivist principles, emphasizing the social construction of knowledge. In contrast, the Banking model yielded a less positive response, marked by student reticence and disinterest. The findings contribute to understanding pedagogical practices in the digital age, emphasizing the practical application of constructivist principles in teaching.

Language Analysis of Science and Technology Textbook in Nepal: A Semiotic Perspective

This article has analyzed the semiotic aspects of grade 10 Science and Technology subjects’ textbook implemented in Nepal. The main objective of this study was to explore the kind of figures, pictures, symbols, graphs and other signs used in science textbook. It examined how the figures and signs used in the book effect on science learning. It has been carried out in a qualitative design because it is developed on critical logic and argumentative analysis. Theoretically, this work believes on Peirce’s semiotics. Figures, pictures, symbols, graphs and other kind of signs used in this subjects’ textbook act as data in this study. The meaning-making process includes qualitative and critical analysis. It combines signs from several contexts, meaning, abbreviation including the verbal semantics of speech, and the operational system. And, its result was summarized in overall synopsis of content related aspect and pedagogical techniques and practices correspondence with relevancy and misconception. The result show that the use of visual materials, such as graphs, symbol, pictures, figure, etc. in science textbooks can serve as semiotic signs that induce argumentative reasoning and contribute to the structure of scientific arguments in science classroom. It provides good insights into the representation of multiple mode of representation, scientific influences, and the use of visual materials to enhance scientific literacy however it needs to uplift.

Learning and performing Sanskrit as a sacred language: Children’s religious repertoires and syncretic practice in London

Aim: We investigate how children in the Sri Lankan Tamil Hindu/Saiva faith community in London learn and use Sanskrit alongside Tamil and/or English and other multimodal and embodied resources to communicate with the Divine. Methodology: The data were collected as part of a 3-year multi-sited collaborative team ethnography documenting how migrant children become literate in faith settings. Data and analysis: The data consist of participant observations across religious education classes, the Temple, and the home, and interviews with the key participant child, Chantia, her brother and the Chief priest at the Temple. The analysis focuses on instances in the data where sacred language learning and performance are thematised. In addition, we analyse a digital video recording of Chantia’s daily morning prayers using transvisuals. Findings: Learning Sanskrit consists of integrating a limited set of Sanskrit religious texts and practices, such as key religious concepts, mantras, and poetic verses in children’s evolving religious repertoire and is embedded in children’s everyday religious socialisation across contexts. Chantia unites and syncretises a range of conventionalised semiotic resources, including religious texts in Sanskrit to communicate with the Divine and personalise her act of worship. Conclusions: Children’s religious repertoires are learned, deployed, adapted, and expanded differently depending on the affordances of the socio-cultural context. Chantia’s meaning-making process is much more complex than the rigid categorisation of the different modal resources she deploys, forming an integrated system of communication. Originality: Our conceptualisation of Sanskrit sacred language learning is anchored on a multilingual and multimodal perspective that does not privilege Sanskrit over other (sacred) languages nor linguistic over non-linguistic resources. Significance: Our paper extends current critique of logocentric perspectives in applied and sociolinguistics to the examination of religious repertoires that are often driven by a communication hierarchy positioning sacred languages at the top and other aspects of communication as secondary.

Enabling touch in an art museum: A curatorial reflection

In 2016 the National Museum in Oslo launched a nationwide touring exhibition that allowed visitors for the first time to touch the sculptures of modernist Aase Texmon Rygh. The aim was to encourage visitors to experience these abstract stone works through the body before engaging with various contextualising practices for a more comprehensive process of meaning-making. Allowing members of the public to touch original sculpture in an exhibition context was new not only for the National Museum but also internationally, and the exhibition generated considerable professional and media attention. In my role as the exhibition’s curator, I set out to investigate the interdisciplinary process of developing the exhibition concept and the audience response through a practice-led research project. Drawing on different theoretical perspectives, such as learning theory and interdisciplinary sensory research, and audience surveys which were conducted during the exhibition, I wanted to learn more about how audiences experienced touching the sculptures, and how touch affected their process of meaning making. In this paper, I share some of my findings and also reflect on the importance of practitioners doing research on their own practice.

Introduction to the Special Issue ‘Umwelt Theory and Phenomenology’

This introduction to the special issue “Umwelt Theory and Phenomenology” is composed of a brief theoretical introduction to phenomenology seen as a key attitude of philosophical research, an investigation of the possibilities offered by a combined application of phenomenology and biosemiotics, and an overview of the articles that are included in the special issue. The theoretical introduction stresses the possibility of distinguishing, within phenomenology, between approaches centred on the object (in other terms, the phenomenon), and subject-centred approaches which have emerged in the wake of Kantian transcendental idealism. The connection with biosemiotics is explored for both kinds of approaches, showing how Uexküll, and many other scholars after him, have used phenomenological tools and perspectives in the study of biological meaning and meaning-making processes. For each article in the collection, the overview of the articles indicates one or two points that we believe are of the greatest interest for the reader.

Crafting gender into meaningful work: experiences of women engaging in social entrepreneurship in China

Purpose Social entrepreneurship, leveraging economic activities to achieve social benefits, offers women the opportunity to freely and actively shape the contours of their work in meaningful ways. This study aims to examine how Chinese women use job crafting in social entrepreneurship to align their gender identity, forge meaningful work and new relationships and navigate mixed gender expectations. Design/methodology/approach The study is based on 19 in-depth interviews with young women engaging in social entrepreneurship in China. Using a grounded theory approach, the study explores how women craft their gender identity into the unconventional career path of creating their social venture, focusing on the creative combination of task, relational and cognitive crafting in shaping social entrepreneurship. Findings The findings suggest that women make social entrepreneurship meaningful by actively aligning their gender experiences to delineate a relational and cognitive causal path between their social enterprise, their identity as women and their moral values. By working for a larger social cause, women may cognitively reframe their gender identity to compromise financial performance for social impact. Originality/value Current studies on social entrepreneurship in China have yet to examine its development through a gender lens. This study uses job crafting to highlight the distinctive gender meaning-making process for Chinese women to enhance their work identity and to challenge normative gender expectations. The study shows that job crafting enables women to view their social ventures as a means of gender empowerment, helping them to reconcile the paradoxical pressures of normative gender expectations and scaling up their businesses.

Sustainability Strategic Framing in Corporate Communication: Contextual Semantics of Twitter in the Energy Sector

Sustainability has become the prevailing paradigm, a model of conduct, and a central theme in social and media discourses within the past decade. However, it is still a marginal development concept in the interdisciplinary research field dealing with sustainability communication, especially with meaning-making processes in relevant communicative, for example, in corporate and industry contexts. This paper focuses on how the idea of sustainability is framed, anchored, and disseminated in energy companies' communication via social media channels and how the linguistic methods used by energy corporations concerning sustainability co -create theirsymbolic value. Specifically, this study has aimed to understand how the sustainability topic was discussed in the Twitter sphere of the most prominent energy companies in 2020. This study makes a three -fold contribution to sustainable research and practice. First, the study identifies the framing structure of sustainability content in social media communication in the energy sector. Secondly, the study identifies social media data as a viable source of sustainability conceptualization and its understanding through communication. Finally, this study illustrates how text mining and natural language processing (NLP) can be used as a research method for managing big text data and a tool for discovering latent communication structures. Sustainability is present and visible in the communication of the energy industry identified by (1) the semantic construction of phrases in communication that show a future, green, and clean orientation, but it is also strongly declarative, referring to what will be and can be done, and with positive emotions related to the communicated messages; and (2) decoupling from climate change and thus avoiding the industry's responsibility for the impact of global warming but promising clean, sustainable energy transformation and to avoid negative emotional connotation. However, one gets the impression that it takes on the character of a rhetorical art form related to the concept of decorum. In this view, the idea of sustainability is interpreted and shaped through the needs of the industry and as a rhetorical tool in building a positive narrative about companies and is used to gain legitimacy.