Tweet with a smile: The selection and use of emoji on Twitter in the Netherlands and England

an article by Maximilian Roele and Max van Duijn (Leiden University, the Netheralnds) and Janelle Ward (Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands) published in First Monday Volume 25 Number 4 (April 2020)

Abstract

Emoji, colourful pictographs showing faces, creatures and objects, have seen a surge in popularity and number in recent years. This exploratory study strives to answer the following question: how and why are emoji used on Twitter in the Netherlands and England?

By combining quantitative and qualitative methods, we identified three important factors explaining emoji usage:

• the individual’s purpose on Twitter, 
• the perceived functionality of emoji and 
• the individual’s selection criteria for emoji.

Overall, emoji play an important role in online communication and their use is more complex than their light-hearted appearance may suggest.

Full text (HTML)

Labels:
emoji, emotion, social_media, self-representation, Twitter,

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Access to Small Airports and the Impact on Regional Growth in the UK

an article by Emma Ralphs and Sina Shahab (Cardiff University, UK) and Negar Ahmadpoor (Ulster University, Belfast, UK) published in Current Urban Studies Volume 8 Number 1 (March 2020)

Abstract

This paper focuses on how the accessibility of small airports affects the regional growth in the UK. Three airports that have less than two million passengers annually, are used for this study: Bournemouth, Cardiff International and London Southend Airport.

The purpose of this study is threefold:

1. to investigate how the size of an airport influences growth and provides planning authorities support for permitting development around the airport,
2. to examine the impact that improving accessibility has on smaller airports, and
3. to analyse how regional development plans consider airports when airport developments occur.

To this end, secondary data was used to analyse the current growth patterns linking economic indicators to airport use.

Evaluating the accessibility of each small airport with the transport network by using a variety of databases and navigation software. Overall conclusions of this study show that the size of an airport is not as significant as the stability of the airports growth in influencing economic growth. Accessibility was found to improve regional growth around the airport and that the road network provided the best access due to the location of the case-study airports.

Regional development plans considered airports as a gateway to drive economic growth with specific industries being supported. However, there is concern around airports for their development into greenbelts due to “exceptional circumstances” by the National Planning Policy Framework.

Provision of independent development plans related solely to airports reduces the decision duration by local authorities.

Full text (PDF 33pp)

Labels:
small_airport, accessibility, growth, regional_development.

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The role of scientific knowledge in dealing with complex policy problems under conditions of uncertainty

an article by Hanna Ylöstalo (University of Helsinki, Finland) published in Policy and Politics Volume 48 Number 2 (April 2020)

Abstract

This article concerns the recent shifts and tensions in the role of scientific knowledge in policy-making.

Policy practitioners are striving to solve a compelling problem: how to deal with complex problems under conditions of uncertainty.

This article focuses on two policy reforms in Finland that have been designed to address these issues:

• strategic governance reform and
• the take up of a culture of experimentation. 

It suggests that the knowledge-policy relations within these reforms are characterised by profound tensions between ‘good governance’ and ‘good knowledge’. Whereas good governance demands that knowledge is controlled, good knowledge entails uncertain and uncontrollable elements.

Labels:
evidence-based_policy-making, experimental_policy, governance, innovation, knowledge, strategy, uncertainty,

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Who bypasses the Great Firewall in China?

an article by Chong Zhang (Durham University, UK) published in First Monday Volume 25 Number 4 (April 2020)

Abstract

The blockage of foreign Web sites, which is often called the “Great Firewall (GFW)”, serves an important part of the Internet censorship in mainland China. This study investigated the inequality of bypassing the GFW in mainland China, and the possible difference in some “capital-enhancing” uses of the Internet (using the Internet for work, learning and political expression) between GFW-bypassing netizens and those still suffer from strict Internet censorship.

This study used data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS). Although there is no direct measurement of netizens’ GFW bypassing, a variable measuring the ownership of Facebook accounts was used as a proxy of the status of GFW bypassing.

Firstly, the results of bivariate analyses and multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) suggest that mainland Chinese netizens who can bypass Internet censorship and access blocked foreign Web sites are more socio-economically better off (higher social class, well-educated and urban residing) and younger.

Moreover, the results of ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and logistic regression models tell that in general bypassing the GFW is related to more activeness in using the Internet for learning and political expression.

After controlling socio-economic and demographic characteristics, GFW bypassing is no longer found to be related to online learning, but is still related to an expression of political views online.

Full text (HTML)

Labels:
the_Great_Firewall, Internet_censorship, China, digital_divide, capital-enhancing, inequality,

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Work, welfare, and wellbeing: The impacts of welfare conditionality on people with mental health impairments in the UK

an article by Peter Dwyer (University of York, UK), Lisa Scullion (University of Salford, UK), Katy Jones (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK), Jenny McNeill (University of Sheffield, UK) and Alasdair B. R. Stewart (University of Glasgow, UK) published in Social Policy and Administration Volume 54 Issue 2 (March 2020)

Abstract

The personal, economic, and social costs of mental ill health are increasingly acknowledged by many governments and international organisations. Simultaneously, in high‐income nations, the reach of welfare conditionality has extended to encompass many people with mental health impairments as part of on‐going welfare reforms.

This is particularly the case in the UK where, especially since the introduction of Employment and Support Allowance in 2008, the rights and responsibilities of disabled people have been subject to contestation and redefinition.

Following a review of the emergent international evidence on mental health and welfare conditionality, this paper explores two specific issues.

First, the impacts of the application of welfare conditionality on benefit claimants with mental health impairments.

Second, the effectiveness of welfare conditionality in supporting people with experience of mental ill health into paid work.

In considering these questions, this paper presents original analysis of data generated in qualitative longitudinal interviews with 207 UK social security benefit recipients with experience of a range of mental health issues. The evidence suggests that welfare conditionality is largely ineffective in moving people with mental health impairments into, or closer to, paid work. Indeed, in many cases, it triggers negative health outcomes that make future employment less likely.

It is concluded that the application of conditionality for people with mental health issues is inappropriate and should cease.

Full text (PDF 16pp)

Labels:
sanction_and_support_social, security_benefits, welfare_reform,

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Exploring the role of the state in the depoliticisation of UK transport policy

an article by Louise Reardon (University of Birmingham, UK) and Greg Marsden (University of Leeds, UK) published in Policy and Politics Volume 48 Number 2 (April 2020)

Abstract

This paper responds to calls for greater empirical investigation of the interrelationships between depoliticisation and repoliticisation processes.

It does so by applying the ‘three faces’ (governmental, societal and discursive) organising perspective to a longitudinal analysis of transport policy in the UK.

This case is important because acceptance of the current dominant policy solution ‐ infrastructure spending – appears to have come full circle over a 30-year period. The research finds that today’s focus on infrastructure is enabled through intersecting and reinforcing depoliticisation processes, supporting the ‘three faces’ perspective.

However, the paper also highlights the need for greater recognition of the state as a meta-governor of depoliticisation and the need for clarity on which aspect of a policy solution or problem (or the connections between them) is being depoliticised and repoliticised to better elucidate politicisation processes.

Labels:
depoliticisation, governance, meta-governance, policy solutions, repoliticisation, state, transport_policy,

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Automation versus procreation (aka bots versus tots)

a column by Hal Varian (University of California at Berkeley, USA) for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal

Several recent studies have considered the impact of automation on labour demand in the coming decades. But demand is only one side of the labour market – the supply of labour will also change dramatically in the next 50 years due to demographic effects.

This column discusses how the net outcome for wages and employment will depend on the relative magnitude of these shifts in demand and supply. The supply-side effects due to demographic forces appear likely to be somewhat greater than the demand-side changes due to automation for at least the next decade, and possibly longer.

Continue reading

I found this totally fascinating and actually read, rather than skimmed, the whole item.

Labels:
automation, labour_supply,

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