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A hockey riot occurred on June 15, 2011 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Riots involve crowds. The presence of social media changes the spatial and temporal elements of the crowd, a process that contributes to online collective interpretations of social events, including riots. A key element of this process concerns the definition of the situation. Using Qualitative Media Analysis, we illustrate how the researcher of everyday life can retrieve and examine an accumulation of “definitions of situations” from social media, a process that provides insight into collective interpretations, including how online users made sense of the Vancouver riot. We begin with a short overview of the riot, briefly profile collective behavior in relation to the definition of the situation, and contextualize the importance of media in this process. We then examine what select posts made on social media can tell us about collective meaning making in relation to the Vancouver riot. We conclude by suggesting some directions for future research.

We conducted a narrative analysis of a collective narrative comprising inscriptions left on the locally famed “Apology Wall,” written by thousands of community members in the immediate aftermath of the 2011 Vancouver Stanley Cup Riot. In considering the Apology Wall as an “evocative object,” this study emphasized the significance of material objects as meaning-making devices. Interpretation of themes was conducted through a constructivist lens, specifically guided by literature concerning meaning-making following negative life events. Results bolstered the significance of the Wall as a sense-making device that provided a forum for the community to collectively share positive emotional expression, construct solidarity and collective identity, and express desires for restoration. By studying this collective narrative, the study not only illuminated how those affected constructed meaning after the Vancouver sports riot, but it also contributes to the literature on how communities, in general, make early sense of and respond to destructive events.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to explore the differing ways in which emancipation is conceived by (Burawoy, 2004) four types of sociology: professional, public, critical and policy. The chapter argues that taken in isolation these sociologies generate issues in research that can only be resolved by reference to the activities of other branches of the sociological enterprise.

Approach – The chapter starts with a conflict of values in public sociological research, where the researcher is confronted with respondents whose ‘voice’ is characterised as racist.

Findings – The chapter argues that whilst public sociology attempts to provide voice to marginalised social groups it often makes arbitrary judgments over the palatability of certain voices, preferring voices sympathetic to the sociological enterprise over populist voices. The nuance here is illustrated as a tension between public and critical sociology that is often overlooked in the literature.

Research implications – The chapter argues that to successfully make sociological judgments to marshal between divergent voices, public sociology needs to re-discover its relationship with professional sociology, in terms of its engagement with political normativity and uses of evidence. Ultimately, for the sociological enterprise to be emancipatory it has to have a functioning interdependence between its four main activities.

In this paper, I examine the concept of ‘vulnerability’ within the context of income mobility of the poor. While the concept of poverty is well developed, the concept of vulnerability is less established in the economic literature. I test for the dynamics of vulnerable households in the United Kingdom using Waves 1–12 of the British Household Panel Survey and find that, of three different types of risks for which I test, household-specific shocks and economy-wide aggregate shocks have the greatest impact on consumption, in comparison to shocks to the income stream. I find vulnerable households up to at least 10 percentile points above the poverty line. Savings and earnings from a second job are not significantly associated with smoothing consumption of all vulnerable households. The results strongly indicate that income transfers and benefits assist the vulnerable in smoothing consumption. Thus, traditional poverty alleviating policies are not likely to assist the vulnerable.

Owing to its colonial past, Britain has a long history of regulating race relations at international and national levels. In this chapter, we focus on race discrimination in the United Kingdom, exploring its historical roots, the politics of discrimination as reflected in public debates on ethnic diversity in the United Kingdom and regulatory frameworks that operate in the country. First, we explicate the historical context of immigration which shapes the meaning and practices of race discrimination at work and in life in the United Kingdom. We then describe the contemporary debates and the key actors in the field of race discrimination at work. The legal context is presented with key turning points which have led to the enactment of laws and the emergence of the particular way race equality and ethnic diversity are managed in the United Kingdom. We also demonstrate the intricate contradictions with regard to legal progress and setbacks with introduction of countervailing measures that undermine equality laws. We present a country case study which illustrates the complexities of race discrimination in a specific sector of work, that is, the technology-enabled private hire car services and change of ethnic composition in the hire care services in the United Kingdom. The chapter summary is presented at the end and it provides also a discussion of possible ways to combat race discrimination at work in the United Kingdom.

This chapter analyses the presence of Russian feminists and female LGBTIQ+ activists within US-American mainstream media. In the course of a multimedia discourse analysis, it briefly raises questions of who becomes featured and how, to argue that current debates marginalise Russian queer female, trans*gender and intersex voices, compared to those of male queers. One exception to this trend is the case of the journalist and activist Masha Gessen. Together with Nadya Tolokonnikova of the protest group Pussy Riot, Gessen seems to represent Russian queers and feminists within US media. Although marginal, compared to the presence of US feminisms, especially popular culture figures such as Beyoncé Knowles-Carter or Lady Gaga, the two women become frequently featured within US news media and beyond. Frequently, those articles, interviews and discussions of their work open up a debate, or rather comparisons, between US values and Russian values, questions of modernity, progress and civilisation. Equally often, the female Russian dissidents are pictured as ‘Putin’s victims’ – the female versions of David fighting against Goliath – by focussing especially on their physical vulnerability and their female bodies. In this vein, feminism is constructed as inherently ‘Western’, while the bodies that carry out such feminisms and most of all their country of origin is entirely ‘othered’. Comparing the (self-)representations to other voices of female Russian dissent within US media, the author critically discuss the Western gaze of US mainstream media, its victimising strategies and homonationalistic construction of US identity and US nation in rejection of a ‘backward’ homophobic Russia.

Law enforcement social control policies over black Americans can be traced back to early policing. From the development of the “patroller” system (established in 1794 to systematically police slaves) to contemporary police militarization, the relationship between black Americans and the police has been defined by bitter conflict that continuously results in outward expressions of discontent and protests. Recent examples abound, including the Los Angeles riots in the 1990s, the aftermath of the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, as well as the protests sparked by the deaths of Eric Garner and Freddie Gray. Indeed, social, political, and media speculation has placed police behavior under heavy scrutiny. Questions abound regarding the fairness, appropriateness, legality, and legitimacy of police methods, as critics have accused policing agencies of adopting punitive and repressive measures that target communities of color (and act as provocation for rioting). This chapter will use a critical lens to first investigate the historical social control strategies used against communities of color by law enforcement (beginning with antebellum “beat companies” to more contemporary “broken windows” policies). Next, the author observes that, in addition to institutional evolution, police behavior (specifically related to community policing and responses to community protests) have accordingly shifted since the nineteenth century. For example, the author discusses the three current strategies of protest management (escalated force, negotiated management, and strategic incapacitation) that have all been embraced to varying degrees with relationship to police response to black community protests. Last, the author explores the iterative process of police “command and control” policies and black community protests, noting that these competing forces have “coevolved,” mirroring one another, and feature antagonistic attitudes from both sides.

Examining the historical evolution of public protest and the police response, primarily in the United States since the 1960s informs strategies and tactics on more recent responses to protest. Case study examination and analysis can aid police and civic leaders in crafting a cohesive strategy to address civil unrest within their jurisdictions. Specifically examining case studies involving the Occupy Movement of 2011 and the resultant civil unrest following the death of Freddie Gray in the City of Baltimore will aid in understanding potential benefits of a more integrated response to civil unrest that would include emergency management as a contributory to the possible solution.