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Media power plays a role in determining which news is told, who is listened to and how subject matter is treated, resulting in some stories being reported in depth while others remain cursory and opaque. This chapter examines how domestic violence and abuse (DVA) is reported in mainstream and social media encompassing newspapers, television and digital platforms. In the United Kingdom, newspapers have freedom to convey particular views on subjects such as DVA as, unlike radio and television broadcasting, they are not required to be impartial (Reeves, 2015).

The gendered way DVA is represented in the UK media has been a long-standing concern. Previous research into newspaper representations of DVA, including our own (Lloyd & Ramon, 2017), found evidence of victim blaming and sexualising violence against women. This current study assesses whether there is continuity with earlier research regarding how victims of DVA, predominantly women, are portrayed as provoking their own abuse and, in cases of femicide, their characters denigrated by some in the media with impunity (Soothill & Walby, 1991). The chapter examines how certain narratives on DVA are constructed and privileged in sections of the media while others are marginalised or silenced. With the rise in digital media, the chapter analyses the changing patterns of news media consumption in the UK and how social media users are responding to DVA cases reported in the news. Through discourse analysis of language and images, the potential messages projected to media consumers are considered, together with consumer dialogue and interaction articulated via online and social media platforms.

Institutional structures of professional career paths often support breadwinner–homemaker families, with a stay at home wife available full time to support the professional (and children), so the professional can devote complete energy and time to developing a career. This research examines how two partners in the same narrowly structured, fast track occupational culture such as those occurring for dual military officer couples shape how women and men negotiate decision making and life events. Data from interviews with 23 dual U.S. Navy officer couples build upon Becker and Moen’s (1999) scaling back notions. With both spouses in these careers, placing limits on work is extremely difficult due to fast track cultures that demand higher status choices and structures that formally do not reliably consider collocations. Trading off occurs, but with distress due to the unique demands on two partners in the fast track culture, which means career death for some. Two partners in fast track careers may not yet have given up on two careers as many peers may have, but they lose a great deal, including time together and their desired number of children. But they ultimately posit individual choice rather than focusing on structural change. The pressured family life resulting is likely similar to that for partners in other narrowly structured, fast track cultures such as in law firms and academia.

Effective collaboration with families when a child has chronic illness or disability involves the participation of all family members. Through a review of recent literature, this chapter provides a snapshot into the unique experiences and perspectives of fathers and siblings, exploring roles, and responsibilities often assumed by each, such as protector, advocate, teacher, and caretaker. Professionals are invited to build greater awareness of the unique insights fathers and siblings can contribute to program planning. Strategies to build partnerships that benefit all family members are suggested.

To describe the development of a rubric for identifying diversity in children’s literature to inform literature selection for classroom instruction. Drawing on research literature and data collection reporting the need for increased awareness of the use of diverse children’s literature in elementary and middle school classrooms, we designed and field-tested a rubric for use in identifying diversity in children’s literature. Using constant comparative methods to identify themes in the data, we continually refined the categories in a rubric designed to guide the selection of diverse children’s literature. Content analysis of children’s literature for diverse elements informed the development of the rubric categories. The results of this study produced a field-tested rubric that can be utilized by classroom teachers and researchers to guide their literature selections with the goal of representing increased diversity. Findings demonstrated that a rubric with four clearly defined categories was more user-friendly to classroom teachers, and that applying the rubric when discussing children’s literature led to conversation and collaboration among colleagues. This study demonstrated that the rubric can be applied to literature selections with classroom teachers and can be used to stimulate conversation about diversity in children’s literature as it applies to the classroom context. This chapter’s rubric provides a useful tool for classroom teachers. Teachers can use this tool to assist them in selecting diverse children’s literature for their classrooms. Administrators and literacy coaches can use this rubric as a way to stimulate conversation surrounding diverse children’s literature.

Purpose – This chapter explores the use of music and celebrity endorsements in political campaigns of the United States. It focuses on two aspects: (1) the legality of a political campaign’s use of music at rallies and in advertisements without authorization from the owner of the musical work and (2) a review of the literature on the potential effect of the use of music in political campaigns on voter behavior.

Design/methodology/approach – A brief history of the use of music in political campaigns precedes an examination of the expansion of copyright law protection for music and the legal claims musicians may raise against the unauthorized use of music by political campaigns. The chapter then reviews the potential effect of political campaigns’ use of music and celebrity endorsements on voter behavior.

Findings – A musician’s primary legal protection falls under copyright law, but the courts disagree on whether the unauthorized use of music at political rallies and in political campaign advertisements results in copyright infringement. Social research suggests music and celebrity endorsements affect voter behavior with a likely greater effect on first-time voters.

Originality/value of chapter – This chapter introduces the complicated application of copyright law to the unauthorized use of musical works by political campaigns. Additionally, it notes the limited research on the effect of music and celebrity endorsements on voter behavior even as political campaigns increasingly target niche demographics with specific music selections to motivate voters to vote.

Consideration of the micro-foundations of sustainability, arising from an empirical study of Conscious Corporate Growth in business enterprises, shows the capacity of firms to act as a vehicle to nurture virtue and human well-being. The example of love is used to examine the capacity of individuals and organizations to engage in such activity. We are unable to understand love without direct experience of it. That experience may help us to engage in similar activity, through mindfulness and other contemplative practices, to train ourselves and our organizations in conscious sustainability.

Traditionally, the main goal of empirical research has been to test theories. Yet, theory-testing is problematical in the social sciences. Findings from empirical studies have proven hard to replicate and there is a lack of progress in creating a coherent and cumulative knowledge base. There are both practical and epistemological issues that prevent effective empirical tests. It is difficult to operationalize constructs and design decisive tests of theories. The laws and regularities posited in theories in the natural sciences are independent of human actors, while theories in the social sciences describe systems and structures that are created and maintained by human actors. Nonetheless, human actors are sometimes guided by theories. They may change their behavior or make different decisions based on academically produced knowledge. This relationship is usually mediated by the use of tools of various sorts (i.e., design principles, diagrams, or stories). I discuss why scholars should conduct empirical research to test the pragmatic validity of tools that are derived from theories rather than testing the scientific validity of the theories themselves.