Shape Reality Research Articles

Digital engagement for travel information among car and public transport users in the Netherlands

As the offer of digital services in transport expands, understanding users’ digital engagement and how it developed over time is important to make informed policy decisions. In particular, we lack an understanding of how both PT (public transport) and car users access and engage with digital technologies and perceive them to be necessary to travel. This article aims at bridging this gap, using a 2022 survey of representative samples from both populations in the Netherlands.There is clear evidence of travellers getting more used to digital technologies over time. In 2022, at most 80% of car and PT users relied at least from time to time on their smartphone to look for travel information. As expected, higher digital skills correlate positively with the likelihood of using smartphone-based travel information. It is worth noting that PT users report higher digital skills than car users, while these samples do not differ significantly in terms of age and education levels. As such, low (perceived) digital skills might be a barrier to switching from the car to public transport.Almost 75% of car and PT users think that travelling is more difficult nowadays without a smartphone, demonstrating a radical shift in societal expectations within a decade and a half. Alternatives like public information displays exist and are still used by the majority, but traditional communication channels are not deemed sufficient anymore to travel worry-free. These perceptions can contribute to shaping reality and may put those with a lower digital access at a disadvantage.

Critical report writing as a link between social work theory, ethics, and practice: a reflexive analysis of two Italian cases

ABSTRACT There is increasing attention to writing in the social work debate. However, in social work practice writing is often perceived as a bureaucratic burden that distracts from the ‘real work,’ and even social work education has dedicated little attention to the matter. This paper argues that critical report writing can play a crucial role in linking the theoretical and ethical dimensions of social work with its practical domain. According to a constructionist perspective, written texts both reflect and shape reality through the performative power of language. This makes writing a privileged tool for reflexively linking theory and practice, for supporting alternative discourses about situations and people’s stories, and, thus, for shaping reality. Based on the author’s experience as both a practitioner and a lecturer in Italy, this article reflects on the implementation of critical report writing in social work practice and education. By analyzing two experiences that involved both service users and social work students, the findings highlight the potential and challenges of critical writing underlining the importance of writing as an element of professional identity that needs to be nurtured and addressed more consistently in social work education.

GLOBAL EVIL, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE ALIENATION OF REALITY IN WILLIAM GIBSON’S NEUROMANCER (1984)

This article delves into the intricate relationship between technology and reality within the context of William Gibson’s seminal cyberpunk novel Neuromancer (1984) to verify how the characters’ humanity deteriorates due to the information era’s evil influence. Divided into five sections, the article unfolds by providing an introduction to William Gibson’s work, emphasizing the relevance of investigating technology’s impact on shaping reality in the contemporary era. The second section contextualizes the novel within the socio-cultural and technological landscape of the 1980s, tracing the emergence of cyberpunk as a genre and highlighting key events influencing the narrative. The third section comprises significant concepts from works by Jean Baudrillard, Susan Neiman, Ray Kurzweil, Shoshana Zuboff, Mark O’Connell, among others, establishing a theoretical framework for understanding the intertwining of technology and reality. Finally, the fourth section scrutinizes Neuromancer (1984) through this theoretical lens, examining specific passages that illustrate the novel’s dystopian vision of a world dominated by high technology and populated by a marginalized society. The analysis probes the virtual world, the blurring of reality, and the implications of technology on identity and agency. In conclusion, the article synthesizes key findings, reflecting on the implications for comprehending the contemporary intersection of technology and reality.

The paradox of standards and innovation: Reconceptualising standards and standardisation with the help of Niklas Luhmann

AbstractThis research explores the intricate relationship between standards and innovation through the lens of Niklas Luhmann's theoretical framework. Standardisation transforms uncertainty into certainty, providing a stable foundation for modern social systems and shaping reality. Historically, standardisation has facilitated social homogenisation and bureaucratic efficiency, as observed by Max Weber. However, defining standards and standardisation remains ambiguous due to their diverse applications across various domains. This study reconceptualises standards and standardisation as dynamic constructs that integrate specific forms and general principles, aligning with Luhmann's notion of unity. It addresses the paradox of standards and innovation, which arises from the duality and simultaneity of complexity reduction (uniformity) and complexity increase (diversity), as well as the tension between compatibility (standards) and novelty (innovation). The research introduces the concept of stylisation to the works of technological standardisation, enabling the comparability of technological systems with art systems. By embracing dynamic stability and stylisation, systems can navigate the paradox effectively, ensuring sustainable growth and adaptation.

Harnessing ‘the Force of All Creation’:1 Part Two. Psi-Formation—Psychoenergetic and Quantum Holographic Processes

In Part One (Bradley, 2024b), Love’s ubiquitous power was documented—both for human biopsychosocial function, and for accessing higher consciousness and psychic proficiencies. Here, in Part Two, a quantum holographic account elucidates love’s vital role in psychic interactions—viz, intuition and intention. Psi-formation—psychically induced change—is the power of mind through spirit to shape reality. The concepts of multiscale entanglement and oscillatory entrainment are developed to explain how instant nonlocal communication occurs and how focused intention—psi-formation—can change reality. Reformulation of Tiller’s ‘reaction equation’ highlights Love’s role in the relations of creation among Consciousness, Love, Energy, Information, and Matter.

Decolonizing Narratives in Communication: A Case Study of "The Tipping Point to Decolonise Sustainability"

Narratives hold immense power in shaping reality and mobilising resources. Acknowledging the intimate connection between the climate crisis and racial injustices is vital. In this regard, decolonial perspectives are increasingly indispensable to tackling the challenges in this emergent crisis, where human-led corporations, practices, and politics drive ecological shifts. While techno-managerial solutions abound in our daily conversations and policy praxis, storytelling offers profound potential to reimagine our world. This article shows how collaborative practices are crucial in weaving together stories and experiences by echoing the emotional resonance of the climate crisis narrative to communicate our environmental reality and cultivate informed public awareness. Using the case study of The Tipping Point to Decolonise Sustainability, an initiative centred on climate storytelling, highlights how collaboration can spur discussions on decolonising sustainability. The article shows how we can craft an equitable future by acknowledging the power of storytelling and working together to communicate environmental reality.

Harnessing the Force of All Creation: Part One. The Power of Love to Shape Reality 1

The focus of this two-part work is Love’s enormous potential, as ‘the force of all creation,’ to empower humanity’s transformation to a peaceful sustainable world. Such radical change requires the full spectrum of human faculties and proficiencies—viz, those of the intellect and those of the heart. Part One documents love’s generative role in biopsychosocial function, and love’s vital role in our psychic proficiencies—the powers of heart, mind, and spirit to shape reality. In Part Two, a quantum holographic theory describes how Love-held Will can induce change, through the psychoenergetic processes of psi-formation.

Why We Must Stop Saying “Climate Apocalypse”: Symbols, Religious Social Memory, and Effective Climate Action

The apocalyptic framework has become a handy metaphor for climate change because this story, better than most others, is able to express the scope and severity of the transformation most scientists believe is coming to humanity’s planetary and social systems. Since the first Earth Day in 1970 (Bailey 2000) and increasingly in journalistic media, nongovernmental organization circles, scientific literature, academia, eco-activism, and youth culture, climate change is referred to in world-ending terms that are explicitly apocalyptic. Those who use the phrase “climate apocalypse” mean to spur serious confrontation with the facts of climate change, resulting in climate activism, whether in the form of climate change mitigation or shoring up societal resiliency. However, stories not only describe reality, they help shape reality, and “climate apocalypse” has the unintended effect of creating passivity, fear, paralysis, and naïve hope in its audience.

Love, Consciousness, Energy, and Matter: The Heart’s Vital Role in Coherence and Creation

The focus of this work is the heart’s vital role in creation. How the heart, when in a state of unconditional love, generates a coherent field of psychoenergetic connection, which enables mind and spirit to shape reality. Of the research I draw on, two are studies of monumental importance—Margins of Reality (26) and Some Science Adventures with Real Magic (5). These works show, unambiguously, the crucial role unconditional love plays in psychic phenomena, such as intuitive perception and focused intention. Of import, in the latter, William Tiller and his associates (5) document how focused intention can induce change in physical reality, when cocooned in an envelope of heart coherence. This prompts creation of a ‘new’ dimension of order in the quantum vacuum, and also enables access to its ginormous store of ‘free’ energy to power the change. Electrophysiological evidence suggests this is a Hyper State of coherence which, in the ECG spectrum, extends as a harmonic series likely, via multiscale entanglement, to the quantum domain. To explain the psychoenergetic processes involved in psychic interactions, the principles of classical and quantum holography are used. In essence, attentional/intentional focus, when mediated by sustained heart coherence, creates a phase-conjoined-adaptive-resonant (PCAR) channel of nonlocal communication. Through this channel, holographically encoded information about remote/future events (intuition) is received, or focused intention is transmitted. It is postulated that such will-induced change—psi-formation—occurs by way of oscillatory entrainment. In this process the target’s system is frequency-pulled, via sustained intentional focus, to the image of order holographically encoded in the agent’s intention. A set of equations delineate the relations among the key factors involved in these psycho energetic processes of creation. These point to a basic equation expressing the creation relations among the fundamental constituents of reality: Love, Consciousness, Energy, and Matter.

Representasi Perempuan dalam Perselingkuhan

The Radarsemarang.id media portal has a section entitled “Ambyar”, which contains stories of domestic conflicts that ended in divorce. This rubric is delivered using popular language style and tends to be humorous. However, the writings in this rubric present men and women unequally. As a mass media, Radarsemarang.id has the power to shape reality. This paper dismantles how women are described in infidelity using a qualitative approach using Roger Fowler's Critical Linguistic discourse analysis model. Stuart Hall's representational theory is used as a basis for analysis. This analysis resulted in a selection of vocabulary in the form of a strategy of limiting views, women are always described as perpetrators and men are described as victims in an affair. Through grammar, namely the "Passivation" transformation strategy for men, women are portrayed as active seducers who make men, not of their own volition, trapped in an extramarital affair. Adultery committed by men still places women (third persons) as active parties to seduce.

Perspectives on the insidious nature of pain metaphor: we literally need to change our metaphors.

Metaphorical language is used to convey one thing as representative or symbolic of something else. Metaphor is used in figurative language but is much more than a means of delivering "poetic imagination". A metaphor is a conceptual tool for categorising, organizing, thinking about, and ultimately shaping reality. Thus, metaphor underpins the way humans think. Our viewpoint is that metaphorical thought and communication contribute to "painogenicity", the tendency of socio-ecological environments (settings) to promote the persistence of pain. In this perspectives article, we explore the insidious nature of metaphor used in pain language and conceptual models of pain. We explain how metaphor shapes mental organisation to govern the way humans perceive, navigate and gain insight into the nature of the world, i.e., creating experience. We explain how people use metaphors to "project" their private sensations, feelings, and thoughts onto objects and events in the external world. This helps people to understand their pain and promotes sharing of pain experience with others, including health care professionals. We explore the insidious nature of "warmongering" and damage-based metaphors in daily parlance and demonstrate how this is detrimental to health and wellbeing. We explore how metaphors shape the development and communication of complex, abstract ideas, theories, and models and how scientific understanding of pain is metaphorical in nature. We argue that overly simplistic neuro-mechanistic metaphors of pain contribute to fallacies and misnomers and an unhealthy focus on biomedical research, in the hope of developing medical interventions that "prevent pain transmission [sic]". We advocate reconfiguring pain language towards constructive metaphors that foster a salutogenic view of pain, focusing on health and well-being. We advocate reconfiguring metaphors to align with contemporary pain science, to encourage acceptance of non-medicalised strategies to aid health and well-being. We explore the role of enactive metaphors to facilitate reconfiguration. We conclude that being cognisant of the pervasive nature of metaphors will assist progress toward a more coherent conceptual understanding of pain and the use of healthier pain language. We hope our article catalyses debate and reflection.

The Role of Narratives for Gaining Domestic Political Legitimacy: China’s Image Management during COVID-19

Crises constitute ideal opportunities for authoritarian leaders to promote certain narratives, shaping reality in their favor and crafting their own preferred storylines about current events. In other words: they serve authoritarian leaders on a silver platter the opportunity to instrumentalize these unforeseen circumstances to gain domestic political legitimacy by promoting strategic narratives. The COVID-19 pandemic was no exception in this regard. Ever since its onset in early 2020, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was among the most active actors worldwide seeking to capitalize on the global crisis for legitimation purposes. Whether applying narratives of governance supremacy, portraying the People’s Republic of China as a “global savior,” or promoting emotionally appealing nationalistic narratives, the regime used the pandemic as a window of opportunity to rebrand its international role and enhance its domestic legitimacy. When observing the CCP’s communication style over the course of 24 pandemic months (2020–2022), however, major shifts become apparent regarding the main narratives crafted in communication with national audiences. Based on this, the paper focuses on the role of such narratives for legitimation claims. Using exemplary media articles collected between the outbreak of the pandemic in China in late 2019 until the harsh Shanghai lockdown in spring 2022, it thus traces the narratives employed by Chinese state elites and explores how they are intertwined with nationalism and broader power claims.

How real will the metaverse be? Exploring the spatial impact of virtual worlds

ABSTRACT In this paper, we perform a preliminary analysis of the technologies, firms and industries that may be affected by the possible futures of the metaverse, attempting to derive some hypotheses on the spatial effects of this process. We distinguish between two possible evolutive scenarios – the ‘metaverse shaped by reality view’ and the ‘metaverse shaping reality view’ – and factors affecting them, deriving implications for public policy planning. The first scenario presents relatively traditional core policy challenges: ensuring homogeneous availability of network infrastructures as well as the skills indispensable to catch the new technological opportunities at the local level, accompanying the reallocation of factors of production associated to disruption and addressing inequalities. In the second, the main challenge is more radical: to ensure that desirable features are incorporated in the emerging virtual worlds from the start.

THE LEGAL PROTECTION OF THE JOURNALIST PROFESSIONAL PRIVILEGE IN THE POLISH LEGAL ORDER SELECTED ISSUES

In todays world, the social media play an important role in shaping reality. In democratic societies, they also act as a kind of controller of public life. The journalists primary task is to serve society and the state. Journalists have a special duty to act in accordance with professional ethics and the rules of social interaction, in line with the rules prescribed by law.In the performance of their profession, journalists enjoy legal protection designed to ensure that citizens may exercise their constitutional right of access to information and public criticism.However, the right to freedom of expression, including freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority in accordancewith European standards, is not absolute in nature. An important factor contributing to the freedom of expression and independence of the press, which makes journalism to be perceived as a profession of public trust by the society, is the legal protection of the journalist professional privilege. This article attempts to present the current views of the doctrine and jurisprudence on the adopted principles of protection of the journalist privilege in the Polish legal order, with a particular emphasis put on inadmissibility in evidence arising from the legal standards defined in Article 180 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

МУЗИКАЛІЗАЦІЯ “НОКТЮРНУ B-MOLL” Ю. КОСАЧА ТА “СПРАГИ МУЗИКИ” В. ПЕТРОВА (ДОМОНТОВИЧА)

The article is devoted to the musicalization of the novel “Nocturne b-moll” by Y. Kosach and “Thirst for Music” by V. Petrov (Domontovych). It was noted that both the studied authors became the founders of the Artistic Ukrainian Movement (MUR). This is an organization of Ukrainian émigré writers, founded in Germany in 1945. Small prose, which prevailed in the mentioned period, was distinguished by a variety of themes and writer techniques. Common and distinctive modern trends are defined using the comparative aspect. For example, fragmentation, the splitting the world into visual sensations, including color, graphic and olfactory, fixation by the characters of individual details of the interior, clothing, and appearance of other characters, film coating method. Among the linguistic features, we find direct speech and improper direct speech in Kosach novel, and indirect speech in Domontovych novel. Attention is paid to determining the sources of musicality of the works of the specified authors. Ways of displaying music in works are highlighted. The considered novels of Kosach and Domontovych have an organic combination of musical and theoretical positions with the views of the writers on literature. The tendency towards musicalization is reflected in the title, borrowed elements of “musicality” are used in fragments interpreting listening or performing music (in Domontovych) and a certain subtext. For Kosach, music shapes reality, replaces words and actions, expresses emotions. It was concluded that the constant discussion of music is the same in both authors. The authors treat it as something sacred, completely incomprehensible to people.

Hermeneutika Dialogis sebagai Basis Filosofis dalam Fiksyen dan Sejarah, Suatu Dialog Karya Umar Junus

This study aims to explain dialogical hermeneutics, one of the scientific paradigms that can bridge the confusion of thinking in explaining the relationship between literature and reality/history. The material object used is Fiction and History of Dialogue, while the formal object is the dialogical hermeneutic paradigm in the book. The purpose of this study is to describe the basic assumptions; model; and the concepts that make up dialogic hermeneutics. The theoretical framework and method used as the basis for the analysis are Thomas Khun's thoughts related to paradigms. The results of the research show that Fiction and Dialogue History books criticize in discussing fiction which is dominated by mimetic and semiotic concepts as well as history which is seen as something that is often contrasted with fiction. Junus offers an alternative idea in the form of dialogue (hermeneutics) as a new way of looking at the relationship between fiction and history/reality. Junus uses an analogy model to see the relationship between fiction and history/reality. The concepts put forward include the Concept of Definition of Fiction; The Nature of Reality in Stories; Fiction and Heurmenetics; Fiction Shapes Reality; Perspective of Fiction and Reality of Writers and Readers; and Fiction and History.

Hermeneutika Dialogis sebagai Basis Filosofis dalam Fiksyen dan Sejarah, Suatu Dialog Karya Umar Junus

This study aims to explain dialogical hermeneutics, one of the scientific paradigms that can bridge the confusion of thinking in explaining the relationship between literature and reality/history. The material object used is Fiction and History of Dialogue, while the formal object is the dialogical hermeneutic paradigm in the book. The purpose of this study is to describe the basic assumptions; model; and the concepts that make up dialogic hermeneutics. The theoretical framework and method used as the basis for the analysis are Thomas Khun's thoughts related to paradigms. The results of the research show that Fiction and Dialogue History books criticize in discussing fiction which is dominated by mimetic and semiotic concepts as well as history which is seen as something that is often contrasted with fiction. Junus offers an alternative idea in the form of dialogue (hermeneutics) as a new way of looking at the relationship between fiction and history/reality. Junus uses an analogy model to see the relationship between fiction and history/reality. The concepts put forward include the Concept of Definition of Fiction; The Nature of Reality in Stories; Fiction and Heurmenetics; Fiction Shapes Reality; Perspective of Fiction and Reality of Writers and Readers; and Fiction and History.

Consciousness, Neo-Idealism and the Myth of Mental Illness

Over a long career in the psychiatric profession spanning six decades, Thomas Szasz has forcefully argued that mental illnesses are mythical since all medical diseases are located in the body and, thus, have somatic causes. This has been accompanied by a scathing and coruscating critique of the whole mental health profession, particularly those psychologists, psychiatrists and psychotherapists who collude in and exploit the alleged mythology of counterfeit mental disorders and often (unwittingly or deliberately) justify coercion, oppression and pharmacological manipulation of so-called ‘mental patients’ in the name of ‘treatments’. Although there has been a measure of support for this approach in recent years – especially the emphasis on the social context of mental illness and the complexity of mind/body dualism – the main thesis has tended to be misunderstood and undervalued. However, recent critiques of the scientific materialist paradigm within philosophy of mind and consciousness studies can help to illuminate the key arguments in this sphere and provide a foundation for work in the mental health field. After examining the main tenets of Szasz’s thesis, the work of neo-idealist philosophers and scientists such as Kastrup, Hoffman and McGilchrist will be utilised to present an alternative re-imagining of the central problems. The neo-idealist concept of consciousness as an ultimate primitive combined with the work of McGilchrist on the ways in which the divided brain serves to shape reality can be utilised to produce a perspective on mental health and illness supported by a solid foundation in neuroscience and philosophy of mind.

Concept of the journalist in online-media and its reflection in the newest V. Pelevin's prose

Digitalization, the development of the Internet and media technologies lead to transformation not only of functions of journalism, but also to the analysis of the conceptual model of a journalist, which also gives a result in a literary text. Viktor Pelevin subtly captures emanations of this kind and, at least allegorically, but quite accurately represents them in postmodernist artistic text. In the article we will focus on the study of the image of a journalist as the author of a media text and his role in shaping reality, presented in Pelevin's works. The material of the study was the novels "The Sacred Book of the Werewolf" (2004) and "Empire V" (2006). The paper presents the results of the analysis of media space, implemented in the works of V. Pelevin, which is the subject of the study. The novelty of the work is due to the fact that for the first time the role of journalism in the formation of the chronotope of a postmodernist work is analyzed on the example of V. Pelevin's novels. A successful attempt has been made to apply the knowledge of online news journalism to media texts in the structure of a work of art. Cultural-historical, structural-typological methods and structural analysis were used. The article is devoted to the study of the media space, which is considered as a simulacrum of reality, in the structure of the artistic world of a postmodern work. It is proved that the media space created by journalists is mosaic, its boundaries are conditional, blurred or completely absent, in the organization of space at different levels we see a rhizomatic structure, the author often uses the mirror principle.

Unbecoming Language: Anti-Identitarian French Feminist Fictions

Unbecoming Language by Annabel L. Kim is a detailed study of three French writers: Nathalie Sarraute, Monique Wittig and Anne Garréta. Through extensive and careful analysis of each of these writers’ works and personal backgrounds, Kim traces a direct chain of influence between them. Furthermore, she proposes to consider their works as a common corpus—a coherent theoretical project of anti-difference writing: an innovative project that presents us with ways in which language can become a means of societal and political potential to undo identity. In the first of four chapters, Kim examines Sarraute’s work and proposes a new, surprising rereading of her corpus. Even though Sarraute is most often situated within the categories of New Novel and “woman writer,” Kim argues that both categories rob us of some important aspects of her works and instead offers a political reading of Sarraute’s writing. In her study of Sarraute, Kim pays special attention to Tropismes, in which language becomes a powerful force with the ability to shape reality. For Kim, Sarraute’s tropisms place the reader in an indeterminate space where they can experience language as Sarraute’s anonymous subjectivities, and, through an encounter with unbecoming language, have their own identity erased. In this sense, Kim concludes that Sarraute’s writing is revolutionary.