Public Narratives Research Articles

Law Between Public Norm and Narrative: from Fazaña and Fuero to Royal Jurisdiction in Medieval Castile

The formation of the state-legal system in medieval Europe can be represented as a model. This is convenient for a more detailed study of historical and legal processes. This model does not completely coincide with historical reality, but it reflects the main laws of the evolution of the state and law. This process is considered on the example of medieval Castile. There the law developed in a spiral. Developed legal forms inherited from Rome were replaced by primitive barbaric law, and then returned to the patterns proposed by Roman law, but at a higher level. This evolution corresponded to the formation of state (public) power. In the described model, the following stages are highlighted. Romanization of the local population, the arrival of Roman law. Visigothic conquest, the creation of vulgar Roman law mixed with Germanic customs. The Arab conquest, the destruction of the emerging system. Castile's abandonment of the previous legal system, a return to regulation by custom. Fixing customs in court decisions, the emergence of precedents (fazañas). The influence of the Royal administration on the formation of a unified state-legal system, the creation of fuero. Development of Royal written law by means of abstract rules of law. The peculiarity of the evolution of the legal system was a fact that periods could not be rigidly separated from each other. Legal forms at each stage coexisted and interacted. Each instrument regulated legal relations in its own sphere. Another feature is that the development of law went from a narrative (a story about Law, saturated with emotions, values, morality) to an abstract faceless rule of law, the source of which was public power.

Changes in the social and technological innovation potential of the Visegrad (V4) regions (2001–2019)

For more than a century, technical progress and innovation have been at the forefront of economics. This is one of the reasons why the importance of innovation has been recognised by economic policy makers and the concept has become part of the public narrative. However, this does not mean that research has come to an end, which would in any case contradict Schumpeter's theory of the need for change and renewal. Despite the wealth of knowledge we have, we can state that there are a number of recurring (e.g. social and ethical aspects of innovation, etc.) and new (e.g. spill-over effects of innovation, the effectiveness of public intervention in supporting the development of innovation networks, etc.) questions that can be asked about innovation. In the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008, the cyclical COVID crisis starting in 2019 and, not least, the Russian-Ukrainian war, the peripheral regions of the post-socialist countries of Europe are falling further behind. Research, development and innovation investment, already extremely low, has further declined and the economic outlook has worsened. Social innovation may therefore be of particular importance in these regions. Our study has two main parts. First, we briefly review the place and role of innovation in economic thinking and assess the definitions of social innovation; in the second part we analyse the differences in the NUTS2 regions of the Visegrad countries in terms of the ranking of technological and social innovation potential.

Examining the framing patterns of environmental issues: Episodic and thematic analysis of Pakistani and British news stories

Practice and applicability of environmental journalism accelerate changes in environmental policy, foster environmental awareness amongst the public and encourage environmentalism in the society. Reporting news in episodic instead of thematic manner is imperative in altering the public narrative regarding environment as well as providing assistance for significant decision making, to concerned stakeholders for better policy formation. The comparative design of this study utilized quantitative content analysis to examines framing approach of Pakistani and British environmental news stories. Using simple random sampling technique total (n=1139) environmental news stories analysed from all four newspapers since 2007 to 2016-time period. The findings indicate the contrast among four newspapers of two countries (Dawn & Nation) from Pakistani print media however (Guardian & Telegraph) from Great Britain identify the divergent framing characteristics of Pakistani and British environmental news stories with thematic and episodic preferences. Guardian and Telegraph framed thematic news stories focusing on structural attributions while Dawn and Nation news stories evoke individualistic attributions with episodic frames. In spite of media’s regular journalistic practice of featuring episodic news stories still communicators can shift their professional approach by learning the construction of persuasive thematic environmental news stories for bigger social change.

Putin and Chaos (How Chaos Theory is Interpreted in the Kremlin)

The article considers chaos theory as a scientific concept that was developed to explain nonlinear dynamics in objects of a complex nature and to solve applied problems in engineering, meteorology, economics, construction, etc. Application of chaos theory in sociology provides for good outcomes in big social systems. In the context of social management, it opens the discourse of models that overcome “the curse of complexity”. It explains the social transformations processes that include the critical complexity. The research reveals that in modern Russia the pseudoscientific concept of “managed chaos” is developed and is being used to wage the hybrid war. Russians are erroneously attribute to the USA strategists and in fact legitimizes subversive activities against countries where the Russian Federation conducts or plans to start military operations. V. Putin is well informed about the “managed chaos” tactics; content-analysis of his public narratives detected at least 50 mentions of the term “chaos” in the following contexts: 1) as a as a difficult legacy of the 90's, which he skillfully overcame; 2) to characterize different countries and regions of the world, where the culprits of chaos are allegedly created the the USA; 3) conceptualization of chaos as a global phenomenon and a weapon of hybrid warfare. The analysis of Russian sources shows that the “managed chaos” tactic is understood as a politics of deep invasion in the internal affairs of the sovereign states, subversive operations, economic and diplomatic pressure, interference in the electoral process, political corruption, information interventions, the formation of the fifth column and any kinds of destructive measures. From the experience of the 2014 events of the so-called "Russian Spring" in Ukraine, operations of "managed chaos" unfolded in three directions: 1) chaos of the mass consciousness, 2) obstruction of state institutions, 3) organization of street protests and riots. The conclusion is formulated that the chaos of large systems is a necessary and specific element of social dynamics and social changes; as for the nature of the transformation, it depends on the choice of the model of the system's existence in the near future.

Exploring the Role of Enforcement in Promoting Adherence with Protective Behaviours during COVID-19

Abstract The aim of this narrative review was to explore the conditions under which enforcement likely is, or is not, an effective strategy to increase adherence to recommended protective behaviours during COVID-19. Relevant search terms were entered into four key databases (Google, Google Scholar, medXriv, and psyArXiv) to identify both academic and non-academic papers relating to the use of enforcement. Primary research, reviews, blogs, newspaper reports, and theoretical descriptions were included. This review suggests that enforcement is less effective when: it is applied inconsistently; rules are ambiguous; and behaviours are unobservable. Providing food and financial support, creating social norms, and increasing trust are more effective in addressing specific barriers and fostering voluntary adherence. Where enforcement forms part of the strategy for policing COVID-19 regulations, rules must be clear and local responders must be given time and opportunity to plan their response as new rules are implemented. Due to the narrative nature of the review, and the rapidly changing nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, some evidence may have been inadvertently excluded. Findings inform an understanding of the impact of the public narrative of enforcement on adherence and facilitate the development of recommendations for increasing adherence to protective behaviours during COVID-19. Given the importance of public adherence, these recommendations are not only useful in the context of COVID-19 but also for future public health emergencies. This narrative review is the first to explore the circumstances under which enforcement can increase or reduce adherence with COVID-19 guidelines, generating recommendations for improved public adherence.

The white and red forces of the Civil War: problems of modern public interpretation of historical memory in Finland

The article characterizes the modern public discourse in Finland on the impact of the red and white forces on the developments unfolding in the course of the Civil War through the interpretation of historical sources. It also draws a conclusion about the transformations that historical memory has experienced in Finland over the past decades. The research tasks are solved by using the methodology of historical trauma and mechanisms of its overcoming, the historical narration of everyday life, sociological methods. The article considers the concepts of official scientific and public discourse on controversial historical issues, indicates the different functional content of these categories. The fact of granting independence to Finland in 1918, and most importantly, the fact that the independence was maintained further on, was actualized in the public narrative in 2018. On this basis, it is possible to analyze the assessment of the white and red forces within modern Finnish society, due to the higher interest to the Civil War in connection with the Jubilee data and comparatively larger number of sources on historic memory that have appeared in scientific discourse. In the interwar period, Finland saw the cult of the Civil (“Liberation”) War, where the red forces were presented as opponents of the independence of the state, and the whites, on the contrary, contributed to the acquisition of the sovereignty. However the statistical data, commemorative products, cultural phenomena presented in the article show that the public discourse about the Civil War tends to smooth the categorical evaluations, despite the fact that the discourse about the further Winter War and, moreover, the World War II tends to exacerbate the approach. The Finnish society is aware of the need to investigate crimes against the reds, preserves the memory of war crimes on both sides, and keeps the war graves of both Reds and Whites in the similar way. The rethinking of the legacy of civil confrontation is the potential for humanitarian dialogue between Russia and Finland.

Looking Back To Venture Forward: Exploring Idea and Identity Work in Public Failure Narratives

Business failure often leads entrepreneurs to craft public narratives. Taking a performative storytelling perspective of such narratives, we investigate how entrepreneurs jointly reevaluate their ideas and identities, and how this relates to their subsequent career paths. We theorize that the stories entrepreneurs tell shape who they become, changing not only how others see them but also how they see themselves. This broadens theoretical understanding of how failed entrepreneurs navigate their transition to a diverse array of subsequent careers, including different forms of serial entrepreneurship (same industry; new industry) and exit (startup employee; established business employee; exit with reentry).

Improving Low-Performing Schools: A Meta-Analysis of Impact Evaluation Studies

The public narrative surrounding efforts to improve low-performing K–12 schools in the United States has been notably gloomy. But what is known empirically about whether school improvement works, which policies are most effective, which contexts respond best to intervention, and how long it takes? We meta-analyze 141 estimates from 67 studies of post–No Child Left Behind Act turnaround policies. On average, policies had moderate positive effects on math and no effect on English Language Arts achievement on high-stakes exams. We find positive impacts on low-stakes exams and no evidence of harm on nontest outcomes. Extended learning time and teacher replacements predict greater effects. Contexts serving majority-Latina/o populations saw the largest improvements. We cannot rule out publication bias entirely but find no differences between peer-reviewed versus nonpeer-reviewed estimates.

Liquid Narrative of European Cultural Identity in the Time of Uncertainty (2008–2020)

Abstract As Leonidas Donskis (2016: 9) once wrote, “Europe has been saved many times by its narrative powers”. In this time of uncertainty and disasters, our public narratives are filled with gossips, conspiracies, intolerance, and hate speech that strengthen divisions in society. During pandemic lockdowns, when physical closeness is exchanged with social interactions online and when global identities and culture are uploaded on digital platforms, we ask: what does it mean to be European in a time of uncertainty and what binds our collective identities and helps us to overcome our fears and anxieties? Considering the past and present (2008–2020) global and European economic, political, healthcare, and cultural as well as personal crises, this auto-ethnographic essay raises these questions: How can personal narratives help to strengthen European cultural identity in these times of uncertainty? Do personal narratives weaken collective identities? By using an auto-ethnographic approach, this paper is an attempt to determine whether a holistic research approach can be used in the analysis of “liquid” European cultural identity and personal narratives. Therefore, this paper is not just for finding the right answers or right stories but is meant to act rather as a stepping stone for further discussion on how to communicate European cultural identity and how to raise self-identification, cultural solidarity, and unity during these times of uncertainty.

Silences and Secrets of Family, Community and the State

In this article, we suggest that silence is often more about remembering than forgetting. We consider ways in which silences can occupy and dominate state discourse, community knowledge, family stories and individual narratives. Drawing on research material from Poland and the Czech Republic in the late socialist and post-socialist periods, we look at ways similar patterns of narrative fusion take place in various contexts in which both the public and the private domains are often shadowed by things veiled in secrecy and hidden from the general gaze. We argue that personal family and kin accounts of private things which for some reason cannot be spoken become entangled with, and to some extent communicated through, broader and more public historical narratives, and vice versa, and show how partial accounts are thus transmitted from generation to generation even while remaining largely unspoken. In developing our argument, we focus on the idea of walls of silence and on the process of drawingboundaries between people and the state, between generations (grandparents, parents and children) and between insiders and outsiders of communities. Suggesting that silence may be loud or quiet, we look at registers of silence and the ways in which they operate at the different levels of state, community and household. We ask what it means to hold certain kinds of knowledge, or to be excluded from these. At times, and for some people, knowledge may be a source of power or social or economic capital; for others, or in other contexts, being excluded from or rejecting knowledge, and thus not being privy to the subtexts of silence, may be a source or freedom and potential or possibility.

Clothing and Expressive Revolution: Wearing Jeans in Socialism

This study investigates jeans use as well as the discursive practices that framed jeans-wearing in 1960s and 1970s socialist Yugoslavia. We adopt a practice theory approach that goes beyond the expressive capacity of jeans and focuses on their material and practical capacity as an epitome of cultural transformation. Practices discussed include embodied practices enabled by jeans and those that have jeans as their target, such as smuggling, dreaming, remaking, appreciation of authentic jeans and rejection of domestic substitutes, emotions about jeans, wearing jeans, and public narratives regarding jeans. We find that the significance of jeans-wearing was created by difficulty of access, the practice of semi-legal smuggling, contact with the West, and the “Italianness” of jeans. Jeans are conceptualized as a key point of connection between material and social transformation and a new structure of feeling, including the intimate experience of the body and its public presentation. We argue that the study of material artifacts as integral to certain practices helps us approach the larger systemic dimensions of (socialist) subjectivity and social transformation against the backdrop of the symbolic boundaries that divided East and West.

Contrasting Narratives of Race and Fatness in Covid-19

The slogan that ‘the virus doesn’t discriminate’ has been belied by the emergence of stark and persistent disparities in rates of infection, hospitalisation, and death from Covid-19 between various social groups. I focus on two groups that have been disproportionately affected, and that have been constructed or designated as particularly ‘at-risk’ during the Covid-19 pandemic: racial or ethnic minorities and fat people. I trace the range of narratives that have arisen in the context of explaining these disparities, in both the scientific literature and wider expert and public discourse. I show that the scientific and public narratives around these groups have differed significantly, revealing contested and competing conceptions of the basis of these categories themselves. These different conceptions have important impacts on the kinds of interventions that become possible or desirable. I show that in the case of racial or ethnic disparities, genetic narratives have been combatted by a strong focus on structural racism as a driver of pandemic inequalities. However, in the case of fatness, individualising and stigmatising narratives have dominated discussions. I suggest that, given racial or ethnic differences in prevalence of fatness, and scholarship casting anti-fatness as historically racialised, the stigmatisation of fatness disproportionately affects racial or ethnic minorities in terms of placing individual blame or responsibility for the increased burden of Covid-19 on these groups. Despite widespread acknowledgement of the role of structural racism in driving racial inequalities in the burden of Covid-19, anti-obesity rhetoric and research provides a ‘backdoor’ to placing blame on individuals from racial minorities.

Transnational Dimensions of Moroccan Gender History

Transnational Dimensions of Moroccan Gender History

4.N. Skills building seminar: Making the elevator pitch perfect: how to convince a policymaker in less than 2 minutes

Since a number of years, the European Public Health Association (EUPHA), the European Public Health Conferences and other oganisations, have been working hard to translate the evidence in a such a format that policymakers take notice. For example, the WHO Regional Office for Europe works on ‘telling the public health narrative' and provides factsheets and infographics, in order to effectively communicate public health messages to policymakers. Over the years, EUPHA has organised several skills building workshops on translation of evidence in the past years. At the European Public Health Conference in Glasgow 2014, so-called pitch presentations were introduced where researchers are asked to present their work in 5 minutes with maximum 5 slides (no animations), as a way to learn to present key messages from research in just a few minutes. Since 2018, EUPHA organises this elevator pitch skills-building exercise with great success. Building forward on two successful and well-attended skills-building sessions, the current workshop will be a follow-up workshop in this series and is about perfecting the elevator pitch. Lessons learned at the previous elevator pitch workshops: Have a clear ask (keep it simple).Appeal to the policymaker's own interests and priorities.Spell out how action will be beneficial for the policymaker.Be aware of upcoming elections.Built a relationship with the assistants of politicians.Considering the ‘policy window'.Make the comparison with the policy plan.Identifying the relevant stakeholders and groups affected by the problem. The importance of effectively communicating the evidence to policymakers is highlighted by infodemics, e.g. last year called out by the WHO and UN in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic with the spreading of mis- and disinformation about the pandemic. In the context of physical distancing measures, the workshop will also cover virtual tactics. As in the era of teleworking (working from home), advocacy has become a whole different kind of sports. In this skills-building session, we will select a number of abstracts from young professionals/students that have been accepted by the International Scientific Committee as posters and we will invite the presenting authors to this dare: Present your work and key messages in less than 2 minutes. In order to see whether the policymaker is convinced, we are organising a small panel of policymakers and ask them to give their feedback. Are they interested? Do they remember the key message? And if all goes well, do you get an invitation to come back and present more of your work?Key messages Being able to present your key messages anywhere, anytime is needed (including virtual tactics).Telling the public health narrative and telling a story are important skills for public health professionals to have.

Effectiveness of Narrative Messaging Styles about the Social Determinants of Health and Health Inequities in Ontario, Canada.

Health inequities are systemic, avoidable, and unjust differences in health between populations. These differences are often determined by social and structural factors, such as income and social status, employment and working conditions, or race/racism, which are referred to as the social determinants of health (SDOH). According to public opinion, health is considered to be largely determined by the choices and behaviours of individuals. However, evidence suggests that social and structural factors are the key determinants of health. There is likely a lack of public understanding of the role that social and structural factors play in determining health and producing health inequities. Public opinion and priorities can drive governmental action, so the aim of this work was to determine the most impactful way to increase knowledge and awareness about the social determinants of health (SDOH) and health inequities in the province of Ontario, Canada. A study to test the effectiveness of four different messaging styles about health inequities and the SDOH was conducted with a sample of 805 adult residents of Ontario. Findings show that messages highlighting the challenges faced by those experiencing the negative effects of the SDOH, while still acknowledging individual responsibility for health, were the most effective for eliciting an empathetic response from Ontarians. These findings can be used to inform public awareness campaigns focused on changing the current public narrative about the SDOH toward a more empathetic response, with the goal of increasing political will to enact policies to address health inequities in Ontario.

Powerful Privacy Norms in Social Network Discourse

Social media companies wield power over their users through design, policy, and through their participation in public discourse. We set out to understand how companies leverage public relations to influence expectations of privacy and privacy-related norms. To interrogate the discourse productions of companies in relation to privacy, we examine the blogs associated with three major social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram (both owned by Facebook Inc.), and Snapchat. We analyze privacy-related posts using critical discourse analysis to demonstrate how these powerful entities construct narratives about users and their privacy expectations. We find that each of these platforms often make use of discourse about "vulnerable" identities to invoke relations of power, while at the same time, advancing interpretations and values that favor data capitalism. Finally, we discuss how these public narratives might influence the construction of users' own interpretations of appropriate privacy norms and conceptions of self. We contend that expectations of privacy and social norms are not simply artifacts of users' own needs and desires, but co-constructions that reflect the influence of social media companies themselves.

The Politics of Calendars: State Appropriations of the Contested Iranian Past

This paper seeks to investigate how commemorative practices, rituals, and holidays are invented, deployed, and recast for political and ideological purposes, to reinforce and sustain a particular narrative of national identity. It argues that the choice of particular moments of a country’s past to be commemorated in calendars as national holidays and the way in which the collective past is preserved and remembered both reflect and articulate a country’s vision of its present essence, of who its people are. Recognizing the link between the collective memory and national identity, the Iranian states before and after the 1979 revolution made a special effort to articulate their narrative of the past by commemorating a particular set of holidays and rituals. Viewing the calendar as a political artifact, this paper compares changes in the Iranian national calendars in the Pahlavi era (1925–1979) and the Islamic Republic (1979–2018). It examines the inclusion of new religious holidays and the removal of national days associated with the monarchy as well as the assignment of new meanings and celebratory practices to the old ones as the signifiers of a political maneuver to articulate a new shared public memory and narrative of identity since the 1979 revolution. It then examines two nationwide celebrations before and after the 1979 revolution, representing two state-sponsored, competing narratives of Iranian identity: firstly, the 2500-year celebration of the Persian Empire in 1953, and, secondly, the Ashura commemoration, a religious gathering dedicated to the remembrance of Shia Imams. These commemorations provided the state a unique political opportunity to present its own appraisal of the past and, in turn, national identity.

“We shall not flag or fail, we shall go on to the end”

Abstract Focusing on the anti-extradition bill protests in Hong Kong, this article presents an analysis of Twitter posts adopting the hashtags #antiELAB, #NoChinaExtradition and #HongKongProtests. The analysis explores the public narrative among the collective identity of Hongkongers opposing the extradition bill as events unfolded during mid-2019 in Hong Kong. To do so, we adopt Bhatia’s (2015) multi-perspective framework for the Discourse of Illusion, which takes a three-prong approach to the study of argument construction and establishing legitimacy. Specifically, through the interrelated components of (1) historicity, (2) linguistic and semiotic action, and (3) social impact, the dimensions of the hashtag narrative that emerged on Twitter were explored.

Against Accumulation: Class Traitors Challenge Wealth and Worth

Rich people are generally represented, both by academics and in popular culture, as desiring always to maximize and legitimate their wealth and social advantages. But some wealthy and class-privileged people have defined themselves as the beneficiaries of illegitimate systems of accumulation, and have reframed their own self-interest to include racial and economic justice. Participating in a range of organizations, they have begun to talk more openly about their wealth and class power and to take action to change the systems that have enabled their wealth, through policy advocacy, moving money to grassroots movements and solidarity economies, and shifting public narratives. But making these changes is harder than we might imagine. Drawing primarily on 90 interviews with people in the field, this paper addresses the affective, cultural, and strategic dimensions of working against accumulation and toward redistribution. I argue that these actions challenge deeply entrenched cultural common sense about accumulation, as both an indicator of good personhood and a goal of financial activity. This common sense is not only a characteristic of individuals but is also rooted in interpersonal relationships and financial institutions.

Covid-19 and the tourism industry: An early stage sentiment analysis of the impact of social media and stakeholder communication

This paper examines tourist public responses to crisis communications during the early stages of Covid-19. Using the social-mediated crisis communication model, the paper explores the key factors that influence public sentiments during nascent periods of the crisis. The choice of data collection dates was determined by key milestones events with significant implications in relation to UK tourism. Sentiment analysis of data sets of public tweets and news articles were done in order to interrogate how the trends and performance of the airlines and the tourism sector have been shaped by the sentiments of the tourism publics, the crisis communication interventions from key institutional actors, and the news sentiments about tourism organizations, particularly airlines. Sentiment analysis, also known as opinion mining, falls under natural language processing (NLP) and is used to identify different sentiments and polarities in texts. Our findings indicate that institutional actors have a significant impact on the sentiments of tourism publics. Our study contributes to existing research on crisis communication by illuminating how public narrative about, and stakeholder responses to, crisis are shaped not just by organizational communication strategies but also institutional actors, on the one hand, and the interested publics too.