So-called Mainstream Research Articles

Russian secret services in the so-called special operation in Ukraine

This article deals with the role of the Russian Federation’s secret services in the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. The author explains the facts and regularities regarding the activity of the Russian secret services in this war. The research was performed from a positivist and post-positivist perspective and takes into consideration the so-called mainstream theories. For its purposes, a system analysis was included as well as references were made to the genesis of the Russian secret services, giving consideration to the space of the post-Soviet states. In addition, an in-depth study of the activity of the Russian special services, bearing in mind the key facts and methods of their operation were conducted. It confirmed the weakness of the Russian secret services. At the same time, the aftermath of this state of affairs is the increase in the importance of military intelligence.

Sociophonetic Variation in Vowel Categorization of Australian English.

This study involves a perceptual categorization task for Australian English, designed to investigate regional and social variation in category boundaries between close-front vowel contrasts. Data are from four locations in southeast Australia. A total of 81 listeners from two listener groups took part: (a) so-called mainstream Australian English listeners from all four locations, and (b) L1 Aboriginal English listeners from one of the locations. Listeners heard front vowels /ɪ e æ/ arranged in 7-step continua presented at random. Varied phonetic contexts were analyzed, with a focus on coda /l/ because of a well-known prelateral merger of /e æ/ through mid-vowel lowering (e.g., celery-salary) reported to occur in some communities in this part of Australia. The results indicate that regional variation in Australian English is evident in perception. In particular, merging of /el/-/æl/ is shown to occur in the southernmost regions analyzed, but rarely in the northern regions of the geographical area under investigation. Aside from regional variation observed, age was also a factor in how participants responded to the task: older speakers had more merger than younger speakers in many locations, which is a new finding-previously, the merger was thought to be increasing in frequency over time, yet here we see this in only one location. Aboriginal English listeners also responded differently when compared with mainstream Australian English listeners. By analyzing the perception results across a variety of regional locations, with data from two different Australian social groups in the same location, this study adds a new dimension to our understanding of regional and social variations in Australian English.

Building a Timeline for LGBTQ+ Global Cinemas (1910–2019): Movie Production Trends from a Collaborative Internet Cinema Database

Building a Timeline for LGBTQ+ Global Cinemas (1910–2019): Movie Production Trends from a Collaborative Internet Cinema Database

Author's cinematograph of new Hollywood

The paper is devoted to the problems of director's self-fulfilment in the cinematograph of New Hollywood. The study examines such a unique phenomenon of the artistic culture of the 20th century as American author's cinematograph. The relevance of this study is determined by the trends in the development of New Hollywood, which have radically changed the essence of modern cinematograph. The purpose of the study is to identify the specifics of New Hollywood cinema, which resonated in the work of modern Hollywood directors as an influential and competitive area. The main emphasis in this study is placed on the attempts of both historians and film theorists, as well as practitioners themselves to find clear boundaries between American independent and mass Hollywood cinematograph, as well as on the reasons why film critics and culturologists consider a particular American film to be independent, author's, or mass cinema (the so-called mainstream). At the same time, the main areas and trends of American author's cinematograph are studied from the point of view of director's self-fulfilment. Examples from films by American directors and authors were analysed. Methods of scientific analysis, comparison, and generalisation were used in the study of the topic.

Oppressed Within the Oppressed: The Patriarchal Hegemonic Discourse of Colourism on Dalit Women in Shahjadpur, Sirajganj, Bangladesh

The biggest victims of colourism in Bangladesh are girls, who are victims of colour-based violence and suffer from a dark-black complexion. In general, Bangalee society is a dominating patriarchal society, which has been established through a hegemonic discourse. This study explores how and in what process this racist discourse has started in the society. Therefore, being born with only a black complexion, a family deals with long-term psychological problems. In addition to the so-called mainstream social system in Bangladesh, a detached and marginalized group living in Bangladesh is known as Dalits. They are primarily a neglected community, isolated from the mainstream. Among them, the condition of Dalit women is much more deplorable. Dark complexion women are experiencing the most exploitation, deprivation and neglect. The Dalit women are ‘Oppressed within the Oppressed’—they are forced to live a cursed life through a dark-black complexion from birth. This study focuses on how masculine authoritarian behaviours dominate the dark-black face of the Dalit girls in Bangladesh. A random sample-based interview has been conducted on Dalit people of Shahjadpur in the Sirajganj district to explore what kind of mechanism exploits the girls and how the literal meaning of ‘beauty’ is established in society.

Populist Mediation of the Pandemic

Abstract The potential impact of right-wing populist media on society is a matter of growing importance. This paper examines the discourse of the three Danish right-wing populist media Den Korte Avis, NewsSpeek and 24Nyt during the corona crisis in 2020. Using the post-structuralist theoretical framework and discursive approach to populism of Ernesto Laclau, it finds that despite some differences, all three of them articulate Muslim immigrants as a particular problem demanding particular attention in the corona crisis; they accuse the so-called mainstream media of lying or keeping secrets about the crisis, thereby positioning themselves as mediums of the truth; and they accuse the international institutions of lying and utilizing the corona crisis for their own globalist aims.

From Bad to Worse? The Media and the 2019 Election Campaign

From Twitter to the BBC, media platforms were perceived as having had ‘a bad election’. The story of the 2019 media campaign focussed primarily on the negative. There were continual claims of misinformation and deliberate disinformation spread via social media and amplified by the so-called mainstream news. Accusations of bias were widespread and not just aimed at the highly partisan newspaper sector. Public service broadcasters were repeatedly accused of inaccurate and biased coverage by both main parties. In the case of social media platforms, they were criticised for polluting debate, heightening polarisation and generally responsible for sustaining high levels of incivility (and even abuse) in politics. The parties themselves were also accused of exploiting the supposedly toxic atmosphere by avoiding scrutiny, refusing to engage with difficult events, or by flooding the campaign with a barrage of dubious claims. Ultimately, the media stood accused of failing in the fundamental task of holding parties to account through properly scrutinising politicians' claims. Although none of this is new, 2019 might have set a new low and potentially accelerated the further erosion of trust in political information or discussion. Yet, how far any of this cut through to the average voter remains open to question. After months of endless Brexit coverage, the sense of wanting it to all to end was perhaps the overriding concern in the 2019 election. This piece reconsiders these issues. First, it analyses the way the media attempted to frame the campaign and particularly the newspaper hostility towards Corbyn’s Labour. Secondly, it examines how rival parties, with an increased capacity to bypass established media, attempted to manufacture attention or distract voters, and what impact this had on the style and tone of the campaign.

Elitism in critical emancipatory paradigm: national archival oral history collection in Zimbabwe and South Africa

Using the critical emancipatory paradigm grounded on the power elite theory that addresses issues of oppression and power relations, the paper was able to show, among other issues, how African nationalism created leaders who were against societal plurality, which takes diversity into consideration and celebrates it. Also the critical emancipatory paradigm along the power elite theory made it understandable that those who are oppressed would always find a way of expressing themselves and try to shape the world they want to live in. For example, in addressing the decimation of their self-identity by those in power, the minority groups in Zimbabwe and South Africa are seen forming ‘dissident’ community archives parallel to the so-called mainstream national official archives such as National Archives of Zimbabwe and National Archives and Records Services of South Africa which are presided over by ‘ruling political party government bureaucrats’ pushing the agenda of their elite leaders who are obsessed with ‘only’ preserving their history and ignoring the histories of the minority groups, as the paper revealed. This phenomenon in this paper was considered through national mainstream archives and selected community oral history methodologies. The paper concludes that even in critical emancipation, there is elitism as those in power will always push their own agendas. In decolonising the archives through a collection of oral histories, archival institutions in both countries have further perpetuated the marginalisation of minority groups by covering only stories of elite members of society.

Psychologists and other folks: Comments on psychology as a science in between self-knowledge and otherness

Barbara Held (2020) discusses the claim that mainstream psychology tends to exert epistemic violence on so-called “othered” groups. Held shows, however, (a) that the idea of different epistemologies underpinning some such arguments is a difficult matter, (b) that folk notions (and theories) sometimes hailed as an antidote to the alleged othering might themselves at times be oppressive, and (c) that so-called mainstream psychology in fact can well serve progressive and critical purposes. Thus, Held problematizes the distinction made between psychology about (from above) and psychology of and from (from below); that is, she finds the distinction unconvincing and rather problematic as it stands. Yet, she does not seem to wish to do away with it all together. In this comment, I relate her discussion to a wider scientific debate on othering, and, by way of an ending, offer an alternative metaphor: psychology from the flank.

Public health of ayurvedic system and medical therapy among Sabars of Rayagada district in Odisha

The physiographic of Rayagada gives a perfect platform for the tribal’s in sustaining their ethno-cultural identity in the district. Forest area covers an extent of 4785.36 Sq. K.M. out of which 777.27Sq.K.M. is reserved forest. The district has been the homeland of various tribal communities with their sub-tribes, who are found in different level of development depending upon their assimilation with the so-called mainstream or modern communities. Keywords: Highest concentration is found in the blocks of Rayagada, Kashipur, Kalyansinghpur, Bisamcuttack and Muniguda.

Old future, new past, or how Neil Gaiman tinkers with temporality in Marvel 1602

The purpose of this article is to substantiate the thesis that, in the Marvel 1602 series, there is a common denominator of the narrative mechanisms with which its author embeds fiction in history and reworks selected characters from the so-called mainstream Marvel continuity. As such denominator, I see the idea of repeatability of situational and behavioural patterns. With this end in view, I open this work by outlining how selected events of the so-called “age of heroes” are transplanted into the Elizabethan age. Second, I show how chosen Marvel characters are reworked to match the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century context. Third, I expand on the reiterative quality of the mechanisms the author uses for these purposes to support the view that the repeatability of situational and behavioural patterns is the main idea informing the narrative structure of Marvel 1602. In the conclusion section, I capitalise on the presented findings and suggest their potential implications.

Eesti 1930. aastate ajaloo kirjutamisest paguluses

Eesti 1930. aastate ajaloo kirjutamisest paguluses

Digital communication, the crisis of trust, and the post-global

ABSTRACTIt is argued in this paper that the rise of populism worldwide can be seen as arising from a more general crisis of trust in social institutions and in the project of globalisation that has prevailed in Western liberal democracies. The circulation of fake news is best seen as a symptom of the crisis of trust rather than as a primary driver, as so-called filter bubbles are more reflective of political polarisation than of algorithmic sorting, and the interaction between so-called mainstream media and social media is readily apparent in the circulation of social news. Anti-elitism extends to journalists and news organisations as much as it does to political and business elites, but there are signs that trust in news is improving, as questions are increasingly being raised about trust in digital platforms.

Ideas of Czech primary school pupils about intellectual disability

ABSTRACTThis study aims to analyse and describe the ideas of pupils (aged 10–15 years) about ID. Overall 2324 pupils (without disability) from 23 Czech primary schools of the so-called mainstream education participated in the study. Pupils’ concepts associated with ID were analysed using mind mapping methods. It was found that an overall frequency of concepts differed in regard to gender, the school year attended and in relation to pupils’ declared experience with people with ID. Pupils’ ideas may be described in terms of a medical paradigm of disability. ID was most often linked to an illness, a defect or impairment. Physiognomic or mental abnormalities of people with ID and their differences in behaviour were emphasised in particular. A fixed idea about their inabilities, shortcomings or their dependence on others was predominant in pupils questioned, some of whom also suggested that the care should be provided primarily in special institutions (such as care homes, hospitals and special schools, etc.). The study also discusses the implications and offers recommendations for further research.

MODERN STRUCTURAL ECONOMIC DYNAMICS IN THE SHORT AND THE LONG RUN

During several decades and until the end of the 1990s, the theory of structural economic dynamics has been absent in the field of so-called mainstream economic analysis. The literature included only either empirically oriented contributions or developments that were related to so-called critical theoretical approaches of structural change. At the end of the twentieth century, however, mainstream economic theorists changed this situation and began to investigate the field of structural dynamics, often using the Solovian theory of economic growth. During the last two decades, they contributed to change substantially the state of the theory of structural change. This contribution first provides an assessment of the advances realized by these theorists. It then confronts these advances with the so-called alternative or critical theoretical approaches of structural dynamics—namely, Luigi Pasinetti’s contribution and ‘evolutionary’ approaches—in order to provide a more complete picture of structural dynamics in the short and the long run.

Public administration education in CEE countries: Institutionalization of a discipline

The array of public affairs programs has been growing in the past 27 years in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Traditionally, public administration programs concentrated primarily on legal and formal institutional aspects of governing, whereas public policy and management programs were entirely absent and remain relatively new. This article discusses the contents of the MPA/MPP programs in five CEE countries (the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia) in order to identify major features in terms of the disciplinary and methodological character of these programs. Our ultimate question is to assess whether these programs reveal a clear, relatively robust public administration “identity,” and whether there is a convergence among programs in the region towards the so-called mainstream programs in the world.

Contributions on thinking violence in the family. Lights and shadows of feminist discourse

In this paper, I discuss the contributions of feminist discourse –in particular, the radical feminist- to the theming of violence in the family. This reference framework has played a central role in the theoretical reflection on the subject, establishing a widely accepted worldview about how to think violence, mainly in the couple bond. I highlight both the central features of feminism, as the main semantic nuclei that bring density on the explanation. Finally, I develop a series of questions that have been made to the so-called mainstream version that emerges from this framework: the difficulty to narrow the referentiality of the category gender violence; the essentialization woman= victim; the invisibilization of other scenarios of violence in family bonds, and the consideration of women as non-violent.

Women in ethnic news media

The representation of women in so-called mainstream media has been well studied; however, less is known about this representation in ethnic media, especially in North America where the ethnic media sector is constantly growing. Ethnic media’s unique news sourcing strategy – that is, a mix of news locally produced by local staff writers, news outsourced from local mainstream media, and news internationally imported from the country of origin – suggests that the underrepresentation of women in mainstream media can spill over to and be reproduced in ethnic media. A content analysis of Korean news media in Vancouver and Los Angeles finds an interesting interplay between the transnational effect and the local effect. That is, while a pervasive influence of mainstream media from the country of origin is evident (transnational effect), strong female leadership in the local community and the active roles of these leaders as news sources and actors contribute positively to overall representation of women (local effect).

Making critical sense of discriminatory practices in the Canadian workplace

Purpose – This paper aims to report on a preliminary study of how professionally qualified immigrants from Hong Kong to Canada make sense of their experiences, particularly workplace opportunities. Design/methodology/approach – The study is framed by a Critical Sensemaking approach, involving in-depth interviews with 12 informants from the Hong Kong Chinese community and discursive analysis (Foucault, 1979) of the local and formative contexts in which they are making sense of workplace opportunities. Findings – The findings suggest that a dominant discourse of “integration” strongly influences the way that professionally qualified immigrants come to accept the unchallenged assumptions that the government is providing help for them to “get in”; and that ethnic service organizations are offering positive guidance to the immigrants’ workplace goals and opportunities. Immigrants’ identity and self-worth are measured by whether they “get in” – integrate – into so-called mainstream society. The effect of this hidden discourse has been to marginalize some immigrants in relation to workplace opportunities. Research limitations/implications – The interplay of structural (i.e. formative contexts and organizational rules), socio-psychological (i.e. sensemaking properties) and discursive contexts (e.g. discourses of immigration) are difficult to detail over time. The interplay – although important – is difficult to document and trace over a relatively short period of time and may, more appropriately lend itself to more longitudinal research. Practical implications – This paper strongly suggests that we need to move beyond structural accounts to capture the voice and agency of immigrants. In particular, as we have tried to show, the sensemaking and sensemaking contexts in which immigrants find themselves provide important insights to the immigrant experience. Social implications – This paper suggests widespread policy implications, with a call for greater use of qualitative methods in the study of immigrant experience. It is suggested that policymakers need to move beyond uniform and structural approaches to immigration. How selected immigrants in context make sense of their experiences and how this can help to identify improved policies need to be understood. Originality/value – This paper is original in going beyond both structural and psychological accounts of immigration. Through the developing method of Critical Sensemaking, the study combines a focus on structure and social psychology and their interplay. Thus, providing insights not only to the broad discriminatory practices that so-called non-White immigrants face in Canada (and likely other industrial societies) but how these are made sense of. The study is also unique in attempting to fuse sensemaking and discourse analysis to show the interaction between individual sensemaking in the context of dominant discourses.

Towards a broadloid press approach: The transformation of China’s newspaper industry since the 2000s

This study examines the changes and challenges of China’s newspaper industry by focusing on the popular press sector that has dominated the daily newspaper market since the early 2000s. Specifically, the study investigates three key issues: (1) the dramatic expansion of the popular press sector at the expense of the Party organ sector in the early and mid-2000s, (2) the stagnation of the popular press sector since then despite its efforts to experiment with a so-called mainstream press in the second half of the decade and (3) this study’s call for a ‘broadloid’ press approach in response to this stagnation.