Search results

By the end of this chapter on minors, internet-enabled devices and online shopping behaviour, readers will be able to

• Identify fundamental benefits and harm engendered when minors have unlimited access to internet-enabled devices

• Locate the main catalysts of benefit and harm to minors due to internet usage

• Show how a priori studies have created a rich and balanced narrative in the field of benefits and harm of the internet to minors

• Argue how the benefits outweigh the harm (or vice versa) impacting on minors in unlimited use of the internet

• Develop strategies to enhance the benefits and limit the harm caused by unlimited access to the internet

Identify fundamental benefits and harm engendered when minors have unlimited access to internet-enabled devices

Locate the main catalysts of benefit and harm to minors due to internet usage

Show how a priori studies have created a rich and balanced narrative in the field of benefits and harm of the internet to minors

Argue how the benefits outweigh the harm (or vice versa) impacting on minors in unlimited use of the internet

Develop strategies to enhance the benefits and limit the harm caused by unlimited access to the internet

Purpose – To compare the histories of two opioid medications that are pharmacologically similar but subject to contrasting regulations in their use in treatment of opiate dependence in the United States – methadone and buprenorphine – in order to analyze the role of racial imagery and racial politics in the legalization and clinical promotion of their use.

Methodology/approach – Historical methods of archival analysis of published articles and unpublished governmental records were used in researching methadone. Ethnographic methods of participant observation and semistructured interviews were used in researching buprenorphine.

Findings – Contrasting uses of racial imagery played a major role in shaping the current regulatory differences between the two treatments. The association of methadone with black and Latino heroin users has contributed to its increased federal regulation, while the association of buprenorphine with white, middle class prescription opioid users enabled its use in deregulated private physicians’ offices.

Originality/value of paper – Advocates of biomedicalization of behaviors and conditions thought of as social or moral, such as addiction, argue that biomedicalization reduces the stigma of the condition and imply that, in turn, it also reduces the racial inequalities associated with the condition. This study of the biomedicalization of treatment for opioid dependence indicates that the very process of biomedicalization depended on heightened racial imagery associated with each treatment and ultimately intensified, rather than reduced, the stigma of addiction for black and Latino low-income patients.

Purpose – With reference to the long-term struggle to confirm cigarette smoking as a manifestation of nicotine addiction, this chapter explores the extent to which new understandings of addictions as ‘appetitive disorders’ rather than ‘dependence disorders’ derive from treatment technology development as well as advances in basic scientific research.

Approach – Through historical analysis it is discussed how cigarette smoking only became widely accepted as a real drug problem in the 1980s after it had been shown to be amenable to treatment as such through the use of novel nicotine replacement therapies.

Findings – These replacement therapies succeeded in showing that the same drug that drew users into addiction could be redeployed to help draw up them out of it. Nicorette® could serve as at least the partial antidote to nico-wrong (cigarettes). However, as relapse to smoking has remained the most likely outcome of any smoking cessation attempt, so medicinal nicotine has also served to demonstrate that nicotine addiction is ultimately a problem of an uncontrollable appetite for cigarettes in excess of drug dependence.

Implications – Pharmaceutical incursion on cigarette smoking commencing in the late 1970s pointed to the need for a new mental disease model of drug-related problems while also providing valuable new tools and insights for ensuing brain research.

Sports betting has become more prevalent, visible and socially accepted in Western liberal societies than ever before. This normalisation of gambling on sports has been fuelled by deregulation, the omnipresence of advertising and the growing dependency of elite sports on sponsorship revenue streams from the gambling industry. That said, much remains to be uncovered about the mechanisms through which this normalisation of gambling occurs in sports. This chapter focuses on the role of sports clubs in Belgium and the Netherlands, drawing on empirical insights from two related studies that examine the oft-neglected salience of integrity as a key factor shaping gambling-related policy and practice at the organisational level. This sets the stage for a critical research agenda that can support the denormalisation of gambling, and the deconstruction of dominant discourses that frame sports betting as a fun, risk-free social practice.

Purpose – The chapter seeks to broaden the literature on narrative identity by focusing on the processes by which collective, or group, identity narratives develop over time.

Methodology/approach – The chapter combines a “netnography” approach (i.e., ethnography using the Internet) with traditional ethnographic procedures in order to develop an in-depth case study of the collective identity narratives of a selected community that is undergoing rapid economic change.

Findings – Over the course of approximately one century, there have been six distinguishable identity narratives in the selected community. We show that three of these, covering most of the period under investigation, have historical value, while three others are currently competing to become a new narrative identity adapted to the community's altered situation.

Research limitations/implications – The online survey used in the research elicited responses from a broad range of persons nationwide, including both current and former residents. The total number of responses, however, was relatively limited, and we cannot be certain to what degree they represent the views of all current members of the community.

Practical implications – The findings of the chapter may prove useful to local citizens, as well as elected officials and business leaders, as they seek to develop strategic plans for the community's future.

Social implications – The research reveals significant differences in attitudes among older and younger residents, as well as between those who had some association with the community's steel mill and those who did not.

Originality/value of paper – The chapter seeks to make theoretical, methodological, and empirical contributions. On the conceptual level, the discussion raises the seldom explored issue of collective narratives. Methodologically, the analysis adds to the literature on “netnography,” which has thus far been largely dominated by scholars in management. Empirically, the chapter identifies specific stories emerging in a deindustrializing community.