Search results

British policy‐making has been characterised by a British political scientist. Jack Hayward, as ‘humdrum’. By humdrum he means a policy which is in essence ‘muddling through’. Though seen as a characteristic of liberal democracies, this style of policy‐making has taken on an acute form in Britain. Thus, in contrasting the achievements of economic planning in Britain and France, he sees the British approach as ‘toothless tripartism’. This pluralistic paralysis was the result of a belief that administrative and pressure group consensus was a prerequisite to effective planning. Business organisations and trade unions were elevated into ‘corporatist veto groups capable of frustrating public policy’.

This study based on qualitative data aims to highlight emerging journalistic practices. It analyzes entrepreneurship in Brazilian journalism in order to determine to what extent this development can be regarded as a form of organizational innovation. Over 30 case studies of Brazilian journalistic startups are examined.

The method adopted in this analysis consists of four complementary stages. In the first stage we identify Brazilian media’s political and economic standing and the impacts of digitization on journalism. Then we assess journalistic startup experiences in Brazil through innovation and entrepreneurialism and map the cases. Finally, the fourth and final stage involves interviews of journalists responsible for such startups.

In the past, startups were associated with oppositional forms of journalism aimed at producing alternative views. We find that these startups represent a hybrid of innovation and conservation in news production. On the one hand, they create the potential for journalism’s independence, a crucial asset for the democratic societies utilizing various forms of news production. On the other hand, they remain tied to political and economic interests springing from the neoliberalism that characterize the global media industry.

This chapter focuses on journalistic startups in Brazil and identifies five relevant characteristics of these entrepreneurial organizations. These innovative forms of news production open up spaces for a plurality of social actors and productive sectors. They also offer alternative approaches to covering many relevant issues in Brazilian society, such as legal and judicial topics.

The paper argues for a comprehensive method of sociological deconstruction and reconstruction that includes: (i) de-subjectifying interpretation, (ii) re-subjectifying explanation, (iii) de-objectifying understanding, and (iv) re-objectifying conceptualization.

Both methodological and substantive arguments are guided by the constructive principle of mediating interpenetration of polar opposites.

Status groups and class interests are conceived as major categories of sociological differentiation mediating between the abstractions of individuals and society. Three types of class formation are discovered in Weber’s legacy beyond Marx’s property one. Sorokin’s work in a two-dimensional social stratification and mobility is found to have major significance for developing the concept of social classes and for reconciling divergent ideas of social stratification. The principle of concept formation by mediation of interpenetrating polar opposites is found to be of greater complexity and effectiveness than Hegel’s logical principle of transcendental supersession.

The comprehensive method of sociological deconstruction and reconstruction seamlessly integrates qualitative and quantitative methods in sociology as well as concept formation and research.

In this paper, the authors aim to clarify the relationship between organization and society. They argue that the proliferation of organization in modernity has not yet been properly understood in light of the absence of organization in premodern times. The authors therefore ask: Why do organizations proliferate? Why do they proliferate in such manifold organizational forms? And how can these heterogeneous forms nevertheless be related to a common problem to which organizations provide a solution? A comparative historical analysis based on the theory of social systems reveals that organizations fill a gap which the decline of morality as an integrative success medium created.

The paper develops a conceptual framework focusing on the theory of media within Luhmann’s theory of social systems as a point of departure. The authors discuss the concept of “interpenetration” to assess the relation between morality and organization. They raise several follow-up questions for future empirical research, most prominently pertaining to the relationship between organization and digitalization.

The main finding is that morality can be conceptualized as a specific success medium (alongside religion and symbolically generalized communication media) which used to structure premodern societies by means of social and interhuman interpenetration at once. Modern society instead employs two differentiated forms of interpenetration: Social interpretation through organizations and interhuman interpenetration through love relationships. These centripetal counterforces help to mediate the centrifugal forces unleashed by the full development of modern success media. Modern society critically depends on the proliferation of organizations.

This paper examines the relationship between morality and organization not from the perspective of interaction or organization, but from the perspective of society. This approach provides novel insights in that it opens up promising avenues of comparison between organization and other social forms. Understanding the distinctively modern “success story” of organization as a social form makes it possible to ask about corresponding potentials and limitations, but also alternative possibilities. In doing so, the authors depart from most studies of organizations grounded in social systems theory as the authors primarily focus on Luhmann’s theory of media (as opposed to the theory of differentiation).

It has recently come to light that there is an increasing demand for a new type of small house design, which vary in area from 20 square metres to 100 square metres and even more. Being remarkably different from traditional types of spatial organizations, the new house types present an open plan concept with a highly flexible and adaptable spatial arrangement that exhibit diverse functional spaces within one open, integrated space.

In light of this, the main aim of this study is to reveal the new dynamics of spatial organization found in today's small house types and identify the significant changes in the contemporary design approaches to small house layouts which have evolved from a need for minimized space usage and a requirement for diverse living spatiality.

Subsequently, thirty houses have been chosen to be analysed for the purpose of this study to reveal the differences between integrated and segregated spatial organizations in regard to flexibility, adaptability, transformability and permeability within the spaces. In addition to this, the new spatial relations will be overviewed considering spatial depth, interpenetration and density to define more implicit organizations which are able to expand constantly and accommodate different functional spaces in one open space with the help of spatial identifiers.

The main focus of this research study concentrates on the above mentioned dynamic forms of spatiality that change from being weak to strong, implicit to explicit and indistinct to clearly defined spaces. These forms are measured, analysed and basically compare by means of a space syntax application on the values of the space and convex maps of the thirty selected houses.

In summary, the analysis and measurement of the spatial characteristics of contemporary small houses in this sphere include both theoretical and empirical components. Firstly, the study discusses the basic definitions of spatial relations and organizations. Secondly, the space syntax method was used to test and compare new spatial design approaches by means of the Mean Depth, Mean Integration, Basic Difference Factor and Space Link Ratio values mainly to clarify how the spatiality changes according to the size although the plan type stays the same as 1+1.

For geographers doing qualitative research, autobiographical narratives offer a discrete avenue into life experiences, everyday lived geographies, and intimate connections between places and identities. Yet these valuable sources remain mostly untapped by geographers and largely unconsidered in methodological treatises. This article seeks to elicit the benefits of using autobiographical data, especially with regard to stigmatised sexual minorities in Western societies. Qualitative research among gay men, lesbians and bisexuals (GLB) is sometimes difficult; due to the ongoing marginalisation experienced by sexual minorities in contemporary Western societies, subjects are often difficult to locate and reticent to participate in research. But autobiographical writing has a long history in Western GLB subcultures, and offers an unobtrusive means to explore the interpenetration of stigmatised sexuality and space, of GLB identity and place. A keen awareness of the power of geography of spaces of concealment, resistance, connection, emergence and affirmation underpins the content and form of GLB autobiographical writing. I demonstrate this in part through the example of my own research into gay male spatiality in Australia. At the same time we need to be aware of the generic limitations of autobiographies. Nevertheless, this article calls for wider attention to autobiographical sources, especially for geographical research into marginalised groups.

Discrete element methods are numerical procedures for simulating the complete behaviour of systems of discrete, interacting bodies. Three important aspects of discrete element programs are examined: (1) the representation of contacts; (2) the representation of solid material; and (3) the scheme used to detect and revise the set of contacts. A proposal is made to define what constitutes a discrete element program, and four classes of such programs are described: the distinct element method, modal methods, discontinuous deformation analysis and the momentum‐exchange method. Several applications and examples are presented, and a list is given of suggestions for future developments.

My framework is based upon a grounded analysis (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) of a review of the existing social science and education literature regarding globalization and peace from approximately 1960 to the present. My review consisted of identifying emergent themes in the literature and from these identifying conceptual categories and the relationships among them that could explain some of the ways in which globalization, peace, and educational processes are linked. I approached the literature as a “cache of documents” (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), that is, as bodies of literature reflecting certain sensibilities regarding globalization and peace. My framework is based upon an analysis of how these sensibilities have influenced the reproduction of inequalities through the education sector as a socialization and policy context.