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Article
Publication date: 17 December 2018

Jenni Savonen, Pekka Hakkarainen, Kati Kataja, Inari Sakki and Christoffer Tigerstedt

The purpose of this paper is to study the social representations of polydrug use in the Finnish mainstream media. Social representations are shared ways of talking about socially…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to study the social representations of polydrug use in the Finnish mainstream media. Social representations are shared ways of talking about socially relevant issues and have ramifications on both individual and socio-political levels.

Design/methodology/approach

The social representations theory and the “What’s the problem represented to be?” analysis provided the theoretical framework. In total, 405 newspaper articles were used as data and analysed by content analysis and thematic analysis. The key tenets of the social representations theory, anchoring, objectifying and naturalisation, were used in data analysis.

Findings

The study found that polydrug use was written about differently in articles over the study period from 1990 to 2016. Three social representations were introduced: first, polydrug use as a concept was used to refer to the co-use of alcohol and medical drugs. This was seen as a problem for young people, which could easily lead to illicit drug use. Second, illicit drugs were included in the definitions of polydrug use, which made the social representation more serious than before. The typical polydrug user was portrayed as a person who was addicted to substances, could not quite control his/her use and was a threat to others in society. Third, the concepts were naturalised as parts of common language and even used as prototypes and metaphors.

Originality/value

The study provides a look at how the phenomenon of polydrug use is conceptualised in everyday language as previous research has concentrated on its scientific definitions. It also adds to the research of media representations of different substances.

Details

Drugs and Alcohol Today, vol. 19 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1745-9265

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 23 August 2022

Ina-Maria Jansson

The present study aims to contribute to the understanding of digital participation in heritage collections as a democratizing practice by identifying and challenging silent…

Abstract

Purpose

The present study aims to contribute to the understanding of digital participation in heritage collections as a democratizing practice by identifying and challenging silent assumptions concerning how the insufficient influence of participants is conceived of as a problem.

Design/methodology/approach

Three carefully selected scholarly texts incorporating problematizations of insufficient participatory agency were analyzed in detail using a method inspired by Carol Bacchi's approach “what's the problem represented to be?” (WPR), with special emphasis on analysis of ontological elements of the problematizations.

Findings

Participation is problematized based on the assumption that participatory agency risks jeopardizing the protection of heritage and leads to parts of the public memory being forgotten. To challenge the idea that participatory agency is destructive, the present article argues for elaborating an understanding of what forgetting entails for heritage. Framing forgetting as a potentially both harmful and generative concept enables a separation of destructive forgetting (e.g. destruction of historical evidence) and constructive forgetting (re-contextualization).

Research limitations/implications

The study is based on a limited number of texts, and problematizations are investigated in relation to a specific perspective on participatory agency.

Practical implications

By understanding forgetting as a potentially beneficial activity for representation and heritage construction, the article provides a conceptual rationale for facilitating re-contextualization in the design of multi-layered information structures for heritage collections.

Originality/value

There is little earlier research on the silent assumptions that affect how participation is understood and implemented.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 79 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 21 October 2020

Inger Kjellberg

The purpose of this paper is twofold: firstly, to describe adult safeguarding in Sweden’s social services, and secondly, to analyse the changes in Sweden’s national policies…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is twofold: firstly, to describe adult safeguarding in Sweden’s social services, and secondly, to analyse the changes in Sweden’s national policies related to its adult safeguarding legislation and discuss the implications.

Design/methodology/approach

An analysis of two government bills was carried out inspired by the What’s the Problem Represented to Be approach.

Findings

The background and review procedure that is part of the obligation to report mistreatment in Sweden’s social services is described. The policy analysis shows a change from a rights-based discourse concerning the duty of staff to safeguard vulnerable service recipients’ rights, to a discourse on the obligation for staff to be part of systematic quality assurance. The most conspicuous change in the representation of the problem was attaching the problem descriptions to a lack of quality instead of a duty to protect.

Social implications

The implications of the reporting procedure are discussed in terms of a general lack of channels for service recipients and their family members to raise their own concerns about mistreatment. It is suggested that there ought to be more legal and transparent channels for service recipients and their family members to file complaints.

Originality/value

This paper provides an overview of adult safeguarding in Sweden’s social services, which to date has been lacking in the literature.

Details

The Journal of Adult Protection, vol. 22 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1466-8203

Keywords

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