Journal articles: 'Baltimore Colts' – Grafiati (2024)

  • Bibliography
  • Subscribe
  • News
  • Referencing guides Blog Automated transliteration Relevant bibliographies by topics

Log in

Українська Français Italiano Español Polski Português Deutsch

We are proudly a Ukrainian website. Our country was attacked by Russian Armed Forces on Feb. 24, 2022.
You can support the Ukrainian Army by following the link: https://u24.gov.ua/. Even the smallest donation is hugely appreciated!

Relevant bibliographies by topics / Baltimore Colts / Journal articles

To see the other types of publications on this topic, follow the link: Baltimore Colts.

Author: Grafiati

Published: 4 June 2021

Last updated: 16 February 2022

Create a spot-on reference in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, and other styles

Consult the top 36 journal articles for your research on the topic 'Baltimore Colts.'

Next to every source in the list of references, there is an 'Add to bibliography' button. Press on it, and we will generate automatically the bibliographic reference to the chosen work in the citation style you need: APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago, Vancouver, etc.

You can also download the full text of the academic publication as pdf and read online its abstract whenever available in the metadata.

Browse journal articles on a wide variety of disciplines and organise your bibliography correctly.

1

Stone,JohnR., and DanielC.Stevens. "Effectiveness of Taxi Partitions: Baltimore, Maryland, Case Study." Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board 1731, no.1 (January 2000): 71–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.3141/1731-09.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Questions are answered as to whether taxicab partitions between drivers and passengers reduce assaults. Assaults on Baltimore, Maryland, taxi drivers decreased 56 percent the year following a citywide mandate requiring partitions between taxi drivers and passengers. Data also show that between 1991, when only 5 percent of cabs had shields, and 1998, when all taxis had shields, assaults decreased 90 percent. Confounding factors such as annual changes in city population, crime rate, robberies, unemployment, and drug arrests are addressed by comparing the 1991 assault rate for the shielded cabs of one taxi association with a similar association without shielded cabs. This analysis shows that in 1991 an unshielded Baltimore taxi driver was five times more likely to be assaulted. Using linear regression to account for the time variation in factors from 1991 to 1998, the results indicate that reduced driver assaults correlated the most with population changes, improved policing, decreases in robberies, and the percentage of shielded taxis. A related economic analysis yielded a 17-to-1 benefit-to-cost ratio of estimated savings from reduced injuries versus the costs of citywide shield installation. The results support the Baltimore shield mandate and argue for shields in other cities.

2

Krupnick,AlanJ. "Costs of alternative policies for the control of nitrogen dioxide in Baltimore." Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 13, no.2 (June 1986): 189–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0095-0696(86)90035-5.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

3

Wilde,T.Jesse. "Trademark Infringement, Misappropriation or Authorized Use?: Baltimore’s Quest for the “Colts”." Journal of Legal Aspects of Sport 5, no.2 (August 1995): 74–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.1123/jlas.5.2.74.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

4

Zhu, Siyao, Cassandra Mitsinikos, Lisa Poirier, Takeru Igusa, and Joel Gittelsohn. "Development of a System Dynamics Model to Guide Retail Food Store Policies in Baltimore City." Nutrients 13, no.9 (August31, 2021): 3055. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu13093055.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Policy interventions to improve food access and address the obesity epidemic among disadvantaged populations are becoming more common throughout the United States. In Baltimore MD, corner stores are a frequently used source of food for low-income populations, but these stores often do not provide a range of affordable healthy foods. This research study aimed to assist city policy makers as they considered implementing a Staple Food Ordinance (SFO) that would require small stores to provide a range and depth of stock of healthy foods. A System Dynamics (SD) model was built to simulate the complex Baltimore food environment and produce optimal values for key decision variables in SFO planning. A web-based application was created for users to access this model to optimize future SFOs, and to test out different options. Four versions of potential SFOs were simulated using this application and the advantages and drawbacks of each SFO are discussed based on the simulation results. These simulations show that a well-designed SFO has the potential to reduce staple food costs, increase corner store profits, reduce food waste, and expand the market for heathy staple foods.

5

Lai, Xiaorong, and Paul Schonfeld. "Optimization of Rail Transit Alignments considering Vehicle Dynamics." Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board 2275, no.1 (January 2012): 77–87. http://dx.doi.org/10.3141/2275-09.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Urban rail transit systems are being extended throughout the world because of their large capacities, avoidance of traffic congestion, and environmental advantages. Various optimization models can help design rail transit alignments satisfying various track geometry constraints, but none of these models can account for the impacts of vehicle dynamics on operational and user costs. This paper presents a practical rail transit alignment optimization method for designing track alignments that accounts for vehicle dynamics. The method can generate alignments that improve the balance between the initial cost and the operation and user costs recurring throughout the system's life cycle. A heuristic based on a genetic algorithm is developed to search for solutions efficiently while interacting with the supporting geographic information system. A hypothetical topography scenario is created to illustrate the impact of vehicle dynamics on the trade-offs among system costs. The Baltimore, Maryland, Red Line is used as a case study to demonstrate that the model can find good solutions in regions with complex topographies.

6

Lehman,AnthonyF., Lisa Dixon, JeffreyS.Hoch, Bruce Deforge, Eimer Kernan, and Richard Frank. "Cost-effectiveness of assertive community treatment for homeless persons with severe mental illness." British Journal of Psychiatry 174, no.4 (April 1999): 346–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.1192/bjp.174.4.346.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

BackgroundHomelessness is a major public health problem among persons with severe mental illness (SMI). Cost-effective programmes that address this problem are needed.AimsTo evaluate the cost-effectiveness of an assertive community treatment (ACT) programme for these persons in Baltimore, Maryland.MethodsA total of 152 homeless persons with SMI were randomly allocated to either ACT or usual services. Direct treatment costs and effectiveness, represented by days of stable housing, were assessed.ResultsCompared with usual care, ACT costs were significantly lower for mental health in-patient days and mental health emergency room care, and significantly higher for mental health out-patient visits and treatment for substance misuse. ACT patients spent 31% more days in stable housing than those receiving usual care. ACT and usual services incurred $242 and $415 respectively in direct treatment costs per day of stable housing, an efficiency ratio of 0. 58 in favour of ACT. Patterns of care and costs varied according to race.ConclusionACT provides a cost-effective approach to reducing homelessness among persons with severe and persistent mental illnesses.

7

Nkimbeng, Manka, Laken Roberts, RolandJ.Thorpe, LauraN.Gitlin, Alice Delaney, ElizabethK.Tanner, and SarahL.Szanton. "Recruiting Older Adults With Functional Difficulties Into a Community-Based Research Study: Approaches and Costs." Journal of Applied Gerontology 39, no.6 (July10, 2018): 644–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0733464818786612.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

The CAPABLE (Community Aging in Place, Advancing Better Living for Elders) trial in Baltimore City tested whether an interdisciplinary team of occupational therapists, nurses, and handymen reduces disability and health expenditures in community-dwelling older adults with functional difficulties. This study describes methods and associated costs of recruiting 300 low-income, cognitively intact, older adults with functional difficulties into this study. Sources of participant enrollment included direct mailings (35%), government program referrals (19%), community-based organizations (16%), ambassador referrals (15%), and media (4%). Fifty six (30%) of 187 older adults referred through government organizations were enrolled, while 49 (7.6%) of 648 referred from community-based organizations were enrolled. Total recruitment costs were US$81,453.12. Costs per participant for mailings, media, ambassadors, and community-based organizations were respectively US$745.10, US$256.82, US$22.28, and US$1.00. Direct mailings yielded the most participants but was the most costly method per participant. Ambassadors were least expensive and may offer a low-cost addition to community outreach for recruitment of older adults into research.

8

Costa,PaulT., and RobertR.McCrae. "Multiple uses for longitudinal personality data." European Journal of Personality 6, no.2 (June 1992): 85–102. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/per.2410060203.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Most longitudinal studies are designed to serve fairly narrow purposes, such as the prediction of life outcomes from theoretically relevant antecedent variables, or the documentation of age‐related changes in the level of personality or cognitive variables. However, the accumulation of data on a single group of people observed over a period of many years permits a variety of other types of analyses. Creative use of a longitudinal archive can amply justify the costs of maintaining the sample and should encourage investigators to initiate more longitudinal projects. Findings from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging are used to illustrate both traditional and alternative uses of personality data, including (a) development of nomological nets for the interpretation of personality measures, (b) evaluation of state effects in personality measurement, (c) validation of retrospective reports, and (d) heuristic exploratory analyses. Current knowledge on the stability of personality in adulthood, the correspondence of observer ratings and self‐reports, and the comprehensiveness of the five‐factor model can enhance the design of future longitudinal studies.

9

Isenberg, Sarina, DavidR.Holtgrave, Chunhua Lu, JohnP.McQuade, Brian Weir, Natasha Gill, A.RabRazzak, and ThomasJ.Smith. "Evaluating the cost-effectiveness of the hospital-based palliative care program at The Johns Hopkins Hospital." Journal of Clinical Oncology 34, no.7_suppl (March1, 2016): 23. http://dx.doi.org/10.1200/jco.2016.34.7_suppl.23.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

23 Background: The objectives of the study were to determine whether a Palliative Care Unit (PCU) provides benefits not just from a cost perspective, but from a patient and caregiver quality of life (QOL) perspective. Methods: (1) Calculate the total costs of the PCU; (2) Leverage a threshold analysis to estimate the Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) required for the PCU to be cost effective; and (3) Determine whether it is feasible for the program to yield the required number of QALYs. Setting was the Johns Hopkins Health System Palliative Care Unit (PCU) in Baltimore, MD. Analysis was based on patient volume from March 2013-2014. Results: There were 209 palliative patients. The costs for the societal perspective was $2,044,364 and the required number of QALYs to deem it cost effective were 11.36. The net costs for the hospital perspective was $625,777 (gross cost was $993,528; however, the program generated $367,751 in savings for the hospital through treating patients in the PCU as opposed to other functional units), and the required number of QALYs to deem it cost effective were 3.48. To determine whether the program is able to achieve the number of QALYs required, the study team generated aggregated QALYs based on other studies’ evidence for palliative care’s improvement of quality of life for patients and their caregivers. Combining the QALYs generated from the aggregated calculations for patients (0.12) and caregivers (4.60), the program had the potential to yield a total of 4.73 QALYs. Conclusions: This analysis suggests that the PCU is cost effective from the hospital perspective in the sense that the benefits it provides to patients’ and caregivers’ quality of life outweighs the cost of care. Future studies should continue to evaluate palliative care from a cost effectiveness perspective that incorporates a consideration of the quality of life improvements, rather than just cost-reduction.

10

Reuland, Melissa, Deirdre Johnston, Inga Antonsdottir, Morgan Bunting, and Quincy Samus. "Recruitment of a Diverse Research Cohort in a Large Metropolitan Area for Dementia Intervention Studies." Innovation in Aging 4, Supplement_1 (December1, 2020): 264. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igaa057.847.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Abstract In the near future, the costs, both human and financial, of dementia care will grow exponentially. Over five and a half million older Americans are estimated to be living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia (ADRD). By 2050, this is expected to increase to over 13 million, with persons of color being at the highest risk for developing dementia. Considerable federal, state and private funds have been committed to research to prevent, treat, and care for persons at risk for ADRD. However, enrollment of research participants, particularly those coming from diverse backgrounds into studies, is a perennial challenge and has serious implications. Between 2014 and 2019, a Johns Hopkins study team implemented a wide ranging research recruitment effort in the Baltimore-Washington DC area to enroll participants into two large federally funded dementia care coordination trials. A total of 2,063 study participants were self- or caregiver referred to these projects via referrals from organizations (e.g. religious, health, social service, aging, Medicaid clams) and targeted community outreach (e.g. events, media). Ultimately, 647 ADRD/study partner dyads were enrolled (31%). Outreach and recruitment challenges included stigma, lack of confirmed diagnosis, mistrust of research, and situational crises. The study team adapted enrollment criteria as challenges emerged, and ultimately spent $101,058 on outreach and recruitment to enroll 647 participant dyads. This represents a cost of $156.19 per dyad. This poster will provide background on the research program, detail the comprehensive outreach and recruitment strategies employed and their costs, and discuss best practices for recruiting this population.

11

Schrack,JenniferA., AmalA.Wanigatunga, Vadim Zipunnikov, Pei-Lun Kuo, EleanorM.Simonsick, and Luigi Ferrucci. "Longitudinal Association Between Energy Regulation and Fatigability in Mid-to-Late Life." Journals of Gerontology: Series A 75, no.9 (January14, 2020): e74-e80. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/gerona/glaa011.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Abstract Background Deficits in energy production and utilization have been linked to higher fatigue and functional decline with aging. Lesser known is whether individuals with a combination of low peak energy capacity and high energy costs for mobility (eg, impaired energy regulation) are more likely to experience the onset and progression of high fatigability with aging. Methods Participants in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (n = 651, 49.0% male, mean age 71.9, range 50–94) with ≥2 visits who completed fatigability (Borg rating of perceived exertion [RPE] after a 5-minute 1.5 mph treadmill walk), slow walking energy expenditure (VO2 mL/kg/min), and peak walking energy expenditure (VO2 mL/kg/min), testing between 2007 and 2018. The longitudinal association between each measure of energy expenditure, a ratio of energy cost-to-capacity, and perceived fatigability was modeled using mixed effects models adjusted for age, body composition, and comorbidities. Time to higher perceived fatigability (RPE ≥ 10) was modeled using Cox proportional hazards models. Results In continuous analyses, higher slow walking energy expenditure (p < .05) and a higher cost ratio (p ≤ .001) were associated with greater perceived fatigability over time. Cox proportional hazards models using tertiles of the cost ratio suggest that, compared to those in the lowest tertile, those in the middle and highest tertiles had 1.89 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.57–5.16) and 2.85 (95% CI: 1.05–3.40) times greater risk of developing higher fatigability, respectively. Conclusion Findings suggest that strategies to prevent fatigability should consider methods to improve energy regulation by targeting both the independent and combined effects of declining peak capacity and rising energy costs for mobility with aging.

12

Holden, Jeffrey, Joshua Goheen, Mary Jett-Goheen, Mathilda Barnes, Yu-Hsiang Hsieh, and CharlotteA.Gaydos. "An evaluation of the SD Bioline HIV/syphilis duo test." International Journal of STD & AIDS 29, no.1 (June29, 2017): 57–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956462417717649.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Many health agencies now recommend routine HIV and syphilis testing for pregnant women and most-at-risk populations such as men who have sex with men. With the increased availability of highly sensitive, low cost rapid point-of-care tests, the ability to meet those recommendations has increased, granting wider access to quick and accurate diagnoses. Using blood specimens collected from a Baltimore City Health Department (BCHD) sexually transmitted infection clinic, we evaluated the SD Bioline HIV/Syphilis Duo, a rapid test that simultaneously detects antibodies to HIV and syphilis and has the potential to further benefit clinics and patients by reducing costs, testing complexity, and patient wait times. SD DUO HIV sensitivity and specificity, when compared to BCHD results, were 91.7 and 99.5%, respectively. SD DUO syphilis sensitivity and specificity, when compared to rapid plasma reagin, were 85.7 and 96.8%, respectively, and 69.7 and 99.7%, respectively, when compared to Treponema pallidum particle agglutination (TPPA). SD DUO syphilis sensitivity and specificity, when compared to a traditional screening algorithm, improved to 92.3 and 100%, respectively, and improved to 72.9 and 99.7%, respectively, when compared to a reverse screening algorithm. The HIV component of the SD DUO performed moderately well. However, results for the SD DUO syphilis component, when compared to TPPA, support the need for further testing and assessment.

13

Novick,TessaK., Chiazam Omenyi, Dingfen Han, AlanB.Zonderman, MicheleK.Evans, and DeidraC.Crews. "Housing Insecurity and Risk of Adverse Kidney Outcomes." Kidney360 1, no.4 (March31, 2020): 241–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.34067/kid.0000032019.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

BackgroundHousing insecurity is characterized by high housing costs or unsafe living conditions that prevent self-care and threaten independence. We examined the relationship of housing insecurity and risk of kidney disease.MethodsWe used longitudinal data from the Healthy Aging in Neighborhoods of Diversity across the Life Span study (Baltimore, MD). We used multivariable regression to quantify associations between housing insecurity and rapid kidney function decline (loss of >5 ml/min per 1.73 m2 of eGFR per year) and, among those without kidney disease at baseline, incident reduced kidney function (eGFR <60 ml/min per 1.73 m2) and incident albuminuria (urine albumin-creatinine ratio [ACR] ≥30 mg/g).ResultsAmong 1262 participants, mean age was 52 years, 40% were male and 57% were black. A total of 405 (32%) reported housing insecurity. After a median of 3.5 years of follow-up, rapid kidney function decline, incident reduced kidney function, and incident albuminuria occurred in 199 (16%), 64 (5%), and 74 (7%) participants, respectively. Housing insecurity was associated with increased odds of incident albuminuria (unadjusted OR, 2.04; 95% CI, 1.29 to 3.29; adjusted OR, 3.23; 95% CI, 1.90 to 5.50) but not rapid kidney function decline or incident reduced kidney function.ConclusionsIn this urban population, housing insecurity was associated with increased risk of subsequent albuminuria. Increased recognition of housing insecurity as a social determinant of kidney disease is needed, and risk-reduction efforts that specifically target populations experiencing housing insecurity should be considered.

14

Wang,WinfredC., SuzetteO.Oyeku, Zhaoyu Luo, ShereeL.Boulet, ScottT.Miller, Billie Fish, BruceW.Thompson, and Scott Grosse. "Costs Associated with the Care of Very Young Children with Sickle Cell Anemia (SCA): Analysis from the BABY HUG Study." Blood 118, no.21 (November18, 2011): 171. http://dx.doi.org/10.1182/blood.v118.21.171.171.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Abstract Abstract 171 Background: The BABY HUG trial was a multi-center double-blinded randomized comparison of hydroxyurea (HU) versus placebo in infants (mean age 13.6 mo. at entry) with HbSS/Sβ° thalassemia who were followed for 2 years [Lancet 377(2011):1663–1672; Clinical Trials #NCT00006400]. Hydroxyurea therapy was associated with less pain, dactylitis, acute chest syndrome (ACS), hospitalization (HSN), and transfusion (TX) and with improved hematologic values; toxicity was limited to mild-moderate neutropenia. On the basis of the safety and efficacy data from this trial, it was concluded that hydroxyurea therapy can be considered for all very young children with sickle cell anemia (SCA). With anticipated broader use of hydroxyurea in this population, we examined estimated medical costs of care (based on Medicaid reimbursem*nt) in treated versus placebo subjects. Methods: The BABY HUG database (C-TASC, Baltimore, MD) was utilized to compare inpatient events in subjects receiving hydroxyurea with those receiving placebo. Unit costs were estimated from the 2009 Thomson Reuters MarketScan® Multi-state Medicaid Database for children with HbSS (ICD-9 codes 282.61 or 282.62), ages 1–3 years. Inpatient costs included emergency department (ED) costs for admissions from an ED in about 80% of the 748 admissions in the database. Inpatient cost estimates were based on length of stay (LOS) modified by a diagnosis of ACS or splenic sequestration (SpS) or a procedure code for a TX. Outpatient expenses were estimated based on the schedule required for BABY HUG (and recommended for clinical use) and a “standard” schedule for 1–3 year-olds with SCA based on management protocols at 3 pediatric sickle cell centers in the US. Results: 96 subjects were randomized to hydroxyurea (83 completed the trial); 97 received placebo (84 completed the trial). In the full study, there were 232 hospitalizations (for any cause) in those receiving hydroxyurea and 324 in those on placebo; inpatient data were captured for only the final 77% of admissions (between 2/06 and 9/09). The LOS for subjects receiving hydroxyurea (mean 3.7, median 3, range 1–9 days) did not differ from those receiving placebo (3.6, 3, 1–13). Estimated inpatient and outpatient costs are shown in Tables 1 and 2. When inpatient and outpatient expenses were combined, the annual cost for 1–3 year-old children with SCA was $11,345 on hydroxyurea and $14,815 on placebo, a difference of $3,470. Discussion/Conclusion: Despite increased outpatient care expenses from clinic visits, laboratory monitoring, and hydroxyurea, savings on inpatient care resulted in an overall reduction in estimated annual per patient expenditure of approximately 23%. A limitation of our analysis was the dependence on MarketScan Medicaid data in lieu of the availability of specific expenses of the subjects participating in the BABY HUG study. Medicaid data may understate costs of care; based on prior analyses, we estimate that costs to private payers may be 20–30% greater than Medicaid reimbursem*nts. We conclude that increased use of hydroxyurea treatment in children with SCA can lead to significant medical cost savings. Disclosures: Off Label Use: Hydroxyurea is not indicated for treatment of children with sickle cell disease. Use of this medication was for clinical indications and not mandated by this observational study.

15

Sybert,ChristineD. "Are Investigational Drugs Getting you Down? One Hospital's Solution to the Increasing Number of Clinical Research Studies." Hospital Pharmacy 38, no.2 (February 2003): 140–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/001857870303800214.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

This article describes the process and results of employing an Investigational Drug Service Pharmacist (IDSP) to coordinate pharmacy support for clinical drug studies. In 1998, a Clinical Research Center (CRC) was established to coordinate all research at a 407-bed Baltimore teaching hospital, resulting in an increase in studies requiring pharmacy support. By the end of 1998, there was a backlog of nine studies awaiting review for feasibility and impact on pharmacy resources. A lack of communication between departments further impeded the process. In March 1999, a part-time pharmacist was hired to coordinate all drug studies; the pharmacist's salary was paid by the CRC. Primary responsibilities of the position were protocol review, staff education, and drug accountability. Dispensing was still handled by staff pharmacists. After three years, results were as follows: 72 studies were reviewed, 41 were opened for enrollment, 8 were in preparation, 16 were completed. Two studies alone have saved the pharmacy department over $80,000 in drug acquisition costs. The efforts of the IDSP have helped the CRC to more than double its growth, with gross income from studies of $533,712 in 2001 compared with only $237,663 in 1998. The IDSP has improved communication between the CRC and pharmacy and expedited study initiation. It has also made the CRC more attractive to prospective sponsors, since one pharmacist works directly with study coordinators. With more physicians interested in carrying out research and hospital budgets becoming tighter, the part-time IDSP position represents an important means of supporting these endeavors without increasing fiscal burdens.

16

Shields,WendyC., AndreaC.Gielen, Shannon Frattaroli, RashelleJ.Musci, EileenM.McDonald, E.F.VanBeeck, and DavidM.Bishai. "Child Housing Assessment for a Safe Environment (CHASE): a new tool for injury prevention inside the home." Injury Prevention 26, no.3 (June3, 2019): 215–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/injuryprev-2018-043054.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

ObjectiveTo develop a tool to assess the safety of the home environment that could produce valid measures of a child’s risk of suffering an injury.MethodsTool development: A four-step process was used to develop the CHASE (Child Housing Assessment for a Safe Environment) tool, including (1) a literature scan, (2) reviewing of existing housing inspection tools, (3) key informants interviews, and (4) reviewing the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System to determine the leading housing elements associated with paediatric injury. Retrospective case–control study to validate the CHASE tool: Recruitment included case (injured) and control (sick but not injured) children and their families from a large, urban paediatric emergency department in Baltimore, Maryland in 2012. Trained inspectors applied both the well-known Home Quality Standard (HQS) and the CHASE tool to each enrollee’s home, and we compared scores on individual and summary items between cases and controls.ResultsTwenty-five items organised around 12 subdomains were included on the CHASE tool. 71 matched pairs were enrolled and included in the analytic sample. Comparisons between cases and controls revealed statistically significant differences in scores on individual items of the CHASE tool as well as on the overall score, with the cases systematically having worse scores. No differences were found between groups on the HQS measures.ConclusionProgrammes conducting housing inspections in the homes of children should consider including the CHASE tool as part of their inspection measures. Future study of the CHASE inspection tool in a prospective trial would help assess its efficacy in preventing injuries and reducing medical costs.

17

Crisp,BrianF. "Audacious Reforms: Institutional Invention and Democracy in Latin America By Merilee S. Grindle. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press 2000. 269p. $45.00 cloth, $17.95 paper." American Political Science Review 96, no.1 (March 2002): 238–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0003055402344332.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Merillee Grindle addresses three questions: Why would rational politicians choose to give up power? What accounts for the selection of some institutions rather than others? What are the political consequences of the creation of new institutions? She studies cases of decentralizing political reforms in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Argentina. Her case studies are loosely guided by eleven hypotheses deduced from three schools of thought. The schools to which she refers in an introductory and concluding chapter are rational choice, comparative institutionalism, and new institutionalism (the latter has two subvariants: transaction costs and institutional design). The theoretical perspectives are apparently not equally useful across questions, as new institutionalism is not used to deduce hypotheses on why politicians would choose to reform, and rational choice is not applied to the reasons some some institutional changes are chosen over others.

18

Maragakis,LisaL., SaraE.Cosgrove, ElizabethA.Martinez, MargaretG.Tucker, DavidB.Cohen, and TrishM.Perl. "Intraoperative Fraction of Inspired Oxygen Is a Modifiable Risk Factor for Surgical Site Infection after Spinal Surgery." Anesthesiology 110, no.3 (March1, 2009): 556–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/aln.0b013e3181974be7.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Background Surgical site infections (SSI) after spinal surgery increase morbidity, mortality, length of hospital stay, and costs. Most previously identified risk factors for these infections, such as severity of illness and procedure duration, are not amenable to intervention. This study sought to identify modifiable risk factors associated with SSI after spinal surgery. Methods This is a case-control study including case identification and review of medical records. A total of 104 patients with SSI after spinal surgery were compared to 104 randomly selected control patients without SSI after spinal surgery in a 926-bed tertiary care hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, between April 1, 2001 and December 31, 2004. Results Multivariate analysis identified independent risk factors for SSI after spinal surgery including prolonged procedure duration (odds ratio [OR], 4.7; 95% confidence interval [95% CI], 1.6-14; P &lt; 0.001), American Society of Anesthesiologists score of 3 or greater (OR, 9.7; 95% CI, 3.7-25; P &lt; 0.001), lumbar-sacral operative level (OR, 2.9; 95% CI, 1.2-7.1; P = 0.02), posterior approach (OR, 3.5; 95% CI, 1.2-9.7; P = 0.02), instrumentation (OR, 2.5; 95% CI, 1.1-6.0; P = 0.03), obesity (OR, 4.0; 94% CI, 1.6-10; P &lt; 0.01), razor shaving before surgery (OR, 3.6; 95% CI, 1.2-11; P = 0.02), and intraoperative administered fraction of inspired oxygen of less than 50% (OR, 12; 94% CI, 4.5-33; P &lt; 0.001). Conclusions In addition to previously reported risk factors, this study identified intraoperative administered fraction of inspired oxygen of less than 50% as an independent, modifiable risk factor for SSI after spinal surgery. Intraoperative administration of at least 50% fraction of inspired oxygen should be tested prospectively as an intervention to prevent SSI after spinal surgery.

19

Colman,D. "Food subsidies in developing countries: Costs, benefits and policy options Per Pinstrup-Anderson (Editor). John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, 1988. xvii + 374 pp., US$45.50. ISBN 0-808-3632-8." Agricultural Economics 6, no.3 (February 1992): 291–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0169-5150(92)90045-z.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

20

Sanyal, Amit, JamesM.Heun, Brittany Glynn, Ryan Porter, and Daniel Wellner. "Evaluation of drug cost avoidance resulting from conduct of cancer clinical trials in a community-based oncology practice." Journal of Clinical Oncology 39, no.28_suppl (October1, 2021): 66. http://dx.doi.org/10.1200/jco.2020.39.28_suppl.66.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

66 Background: Aim: To prospectively evaluate cost avoidance during routine conduct of cancer clinical trials in a community based integrated delivery network (IDN) consisting of a health services provider group, a health insurance plan and a hospital system. Only 2%–7% of adult cancer patients participate in clinical trials nationwide [1]. Inadequate funding and concerns about financial viability have been identified as factors that impede clinical trial accrual in the community oncology setting. ‘Cost-avoidance’, defined as dollars that would have been spent to purchase medications but were not spent because of study-related interventions [3] has been proposed as one mechanism to overcome this. Methods: Anti-cancer and hematology drugs provided by intergroup as well as pharmaceutical industry-based trial sponsors to patients enrolled in oncology clinical research were tabulated. Analysis of cost avoidance was restricted to patients covered by the IDNs health plan. Additionally, drugs provided by the trial sponsor were included in the analysis only if they represented a normal standard of care for the disease state. Cost avoidance was defined as the net ingredient cost of the drugs that would have been spent by the health plan for patient care if drugs provided by trial sponsors were not available. Results: Between January 2020 and April 2021, 25 patients covered by the IDN were recruited into clinical trials. Cost savings resulted from 7 targeted and immuno-oncology medications. Net cost avoidance in 2020 was $1,229,798 while that in 2021 till date has been $892,783. The realized cost savings has allowed recruitment of additional clinical research staff as well as expansion of clinical research to rural regional sites served by the IDN. Conclusions: Anticancer drugs provided free of charge by clinical trial sponsors render significant cost savings, ensuring viability and even expansion of oncology clinical research in community based IDNs. References: National Health Expenditure Data. 2018, U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services: Baltimore, MD 21244. McDonagh MS, M.S., Naden E., Costs and savings of investigational drug services. American Journal of Health-Systems Pharmacy, 2000. 57: p. 40-43.[Table: see text]

21

Hsieh,T.F., H.C.Huang, R.S.Erickson, L.J.Yanke, and H.H.Mündel. "First Report of Bacterial Wilt of Common Bean Caused by Curtobacterium flaccumfaciens in Western Canada." Plant Disease 86, no.11 (November 2002): 1275. http://dx.doi.org/10.1094/pdis.2002.86.11.1275a.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Bacterial wilt of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) caused by Curtobacterium flaccumfaciens pv. flaccumfaciens (Hedges) Collins & Jones (4) was found in 1947 in Ontario, Canada (3), but not in western Canada. Infected seeds exhibit yellow, orange, or purple discoloration (4). Examination of 36.7 kg of cull beans of crops grown in southern Alberta in 2001 obtained from a processing plant revealed 5.9% yellow and 0.014% orange seeds, each with wrinkled seed coats. Bacteria were isolated on potato dextrose agar. Three strains were identified using conventional tests (2), carbohydrate oxidation (GP Microplates, Biolog Inc., Hayward, CA), and cellular fatty acids (CFA) (MIDI, Inc., Newark, DE). Strains were gram-positive, motile, aerobic rods with yellow (YSB-1, YSB-2) or orange (OSB-3) colonies. Growth occurred at 27 and 37°C. The strains were positive for citrate utilization, catalase, hydrolysis of hippurate, and indoxyl acetate, and negative for urease, gelatin liquification, and oxidase. CFA profiles were ≈48% 15:0 anteiso, 37% 17:0 anteiso, 8% 16:0 iso, 3% 15:0 iso, and 3% 16:0; with17:1 anteiso A sometimes present at <2%. Acid production was weak from carbohydrates, but all oxidized many carbohydrates in the microplates. These results match C. flaccumfaciens pv. flaccumfaciens (2) in MIDI and Biolog databases. Strains were tested for pathogenicity using seed and pod inoculations. Seeds of great northern (‘US1140’) and navy (‘AC Skipper’) beans were soaked in bacterial suspension (1 to 3 × 108 CFU/ml) for 1 h, sown in Cornell Peatlite Mix (1) in Root Trainers (Spencer-Lemaire Industries, Edmonton, AB, Canada), incubated at 28°C (16-h day) and 22°C (8-h night), and examined for seedling wilt after 10 days. Seeds soaked in sterile distilled water served as controls. Testing was repeated once with 3 replicates per treatment and 10 seeds per replicate. Experiments were conducted using a complete randomization design. For pod inoculation, a suspension (0.1 ml) of each strain was injected into the midrib at the basal end of each young pod of ‘AC Skipper’. Pods inoculated with sterile distilled water, 0.1 ml per pod, were used as controls. After 21 days, pods were harvested and examined. Testing was repeated once with three plants per treatment and five pods per plant. Bacteria were reisolated from hypocotyls of wilted seedlings and diseased pods. Results of seed inoculations showed all strains were pathogenic to both cultivars. Wilt incidence was 38, 35, and 57% for strains YSB-1, YSB-2, and OSB-3, respectively, on ‘US1140’ and 44, 40, and 63% respectively, on ‘AC Skipper’. Results of pod inoculations showed 63% (YSB-1) and 55% (YSB-2) of seeds had wrinkled, yellow seed coats, and 72% (OSB-3) of seeds had wrinkled, orange seed coats. Control seedlings and seeds remained healthy. C. flaccumfaciens pv. flaccumfaciens was reisolated from wilted seedlings and seeds showing yellow or orange discoloration, but not from the controls. To our knowledge, this is the first report of bacterial wilt of bean caused by yellow and orange strains of C. flaccumfaciens pv. flaccumfaciens in western Canada. References: (1) J. W. Boodley and R. Sheldrake Jr. N.Y. State Coll. Agric. Life Sci. Inform. Bull. 43, 1977. (2) K. Komagata et al. Page 1313 in: Bergey's Manual of Systematic Bacteriology, Vol. 2, Williams and Wilkens, Baltimore, MD, 1986. (3) Z. A. Patrick, Can. J. Bot. 32:705, 1954. (4) A. W. Saettler. Bacterial wilt. Page 31 in: Compendium of Bean Diseases. R. Hall, ed. American Phytopathology Society, St. Paul, MN, 1994.

22

Gupta, Arjun, Laura Sena, Ramy Sedhom, Susan Combs Scott, Amanda Brooks Kagan, Andrew Harris Marple, Jenna VanLiere Canzoniero, et al. "A trainee-led quality improvement project to improve fertility preservation counseling and access to fertility preservation services for persons with cancer." Journal of Clinical Oncology 39, no.28_suppl (October1, 2021): 237. http://dx.doi.org/10.1200/jco.2020.39.28_suppl.237.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

237 Background: For patients of reproductive age with cancer, counseling regarding reproductive risks associated with systemic therapy and facilitating access to fertility services are essential to quality care. We conducted a quality improvement study to improve rates of fertility preservation counseling at the Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center (SKCCC) in Baltimore, MD. Methods: We formed a multidisciplinary team as part of the ASCO Quality Training Program. We aimed to increase the rate of fertility preservation counseling for patients of reproductive age (18-40 years) with newly diagnosed cancer who were initiating systemic therapy from a baseline (June 2019- January 2020) of 36.7% (25/ 68) to 70.0% by February, 2021. Data sources included the electronic medical record and direct verification with patients by phone. We surveyed patients, oncologists, and experts in reproductive endocrinology and urology to identify barriers to optimal care. After considering a prioritization matrix, we implemented Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles. Results: We identified the following improvement opportunities: (1) oncologist under confidence about counseling, (2) oncologist lack of knowledge about local fertility preservation options/ processes, and (3) lack of a standardized referral mechanism to reproductive endocrinology/ urology. The first PDSA cycle was disrupted due to COVID-19; from February 2020-August 2020, we introduced the initiative at oncology disease site meetings (e.g., leukemia). In September 2020, we implemented a second PDSA cycle. Our interventions included (1) presenting the baseline data and fellow-led initiative at Oncology Grand Rounds (attended by 150 staff members), (2) creating and distributing paper and electronic informative pamphlets to oncologists and patients, and (3) implementing an electronic medical record order set. This order set included instructions for providers and patients, necessary laboratory studies, and a referral to reproductive endocrinology or orders for cryopreservation of sperm. It also added the following to a patient’s after visit summary: contact information for a dedicated fertility coordinator, estimated costs of services, and financial assistance programs. Post-implementation (September 2020- February 2021), the percentage of patients who reported receiving fertility preservation counseling increased from 36.7% to 80.9% (38/ 47). A sustained shift in the process was apparent on a control chart. Conclusions: Despite disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, we demonstrate how a trainee-led, patient-centered initiative improved fertility care services for people with cancer. Ongoing work focuses on ensuring sustainability of change, assessing the quality of counseling, and evaluating the impact on utilization of fertility care services.

23

KITLV, Redactie. "Book Reviews." New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids 67, no.1-2 (January1, 1993): 109–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/13822373-90002678.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

-Louis Allaire, Samuel M. Wilson, Hispaniola: Caribbean chiefdoms in the age of Columbus. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1990. xi + 170 pp.-Douglas Melvin Haynes, Philip D. Curtin, Death by migration: Europe's encounter with the tropical world in the nineteenth century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. xviii + 251 pp.-Dale Tomich, J.H. Galloway, The sugar cane industry: An historical geography from its origins to 1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. xii + 266 pp.-Myriam Cottias, Dale Tomich, Slavery in the circuit of sugar: Martinique and the world economy, 1830 -1848. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1990. xiv + 352 pp.-Robert Forster, Pierre Dessalles, La vie d'un colon à la Martinique au XIXe siècle. Pré-senté par Henri de Frémont. Courbevoie: s.n., 1984-1988, four volumes, 1310 pp.-Hilary Beckles, Douglas V. Armstrong, The old village and the great house: An archaeological and historical examination of Drax Hall Plantation, St Ann's Bay, Jamaica. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1990. xiii + 393 pp.-John Stewart, John A. Lent, Caribbean popular culture. Bowling Green OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1990. 157 pp.-W. Marvin Will, Susanne Jonas ,Democracy in Latin America: Visions and realities. New York: Bergin & Garvey Publishers, 1990. viii + 224 pp., Nancy Stein (eds)-Forrest D. Colburn, Kathy McAfee, Storm signals: Structural adjustment and development alternatives in the Caribbean. London: Zed books, 1991. xii + 259 pp.-Derwin S. Munroe, Peggy Antrobus ,In the shadows of the sun: Caribbean development alternatives and U.S. policy. Carmen Diana Deere (coordinator), Peter Phillips, Marcia Rivera & Helen Safa. Boulder CO: Westview Press, 1990. xvii + 246 pp., Lynne Bolles, Edwin Melendez (eds)-William Roseberry, Louis A. Pérez, Jr., Lords of the mountain: Social banditry and peasant protest in Cuba, 1878-1918. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1989. xvii + 267 pp.-William Roseberry, Rosalie Schwartz, Lawless liberators, political banditry and Cuban independence. Durham NC: Duke University Press, 1989. x + 297 pp.-Robert L. Paquette, Robert M. Levine, Cuba in the 1850's: Through the lens of Charles DeForest Fredricks. Tampa: University of South Florida Press, 1990. xv + 86 pp.-José Sánchez-Boudy, Gustavo Pérez Firmat, The Cuban condition: Translation and identity in modern Cuban literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. viii + 185 pp.-Dick Parker, Jules R. Benjamin, The United States and the origins of the Cuban revolution: An empire of liberty in an age of national liberation. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990. xi + 235 pp.-George Irvin, Andrew Zimbalist ,The Cuban economy: Measurement and analysis of socialist performance. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1989. xiv + 220 pp., Claes Brundenius (eds)-Menno Vellinga, Frank T. Fitzgerald, Managing socialism: From old Cadres to new professionals in revolutionary Cuba. New York: Praeger, 1990. xiv + 161 pp.-Patricia R. Pessar, Eugenia Georges, The making of a transnational community: Migration, development, and cultural change in the Dominican republic. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990. xi + 270 pp.-Lucía Désir, Maria Dolores Hajosy Benedetti, Earth and spirit: Healing lore and more from Puerto Rico. Maplewood NJ: Waterfront Press, 1989. xvii + 245 pp.-Thomas J. Spinner, Jr., Percy C. Hintzen, The costs of regime survival: Racial mobilization, elite domination and control of the state in Guyana and Trinidad. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. x + 240 pp.-Judith Johnson, Morton Klass, Singing with the Sai Baba: The politics of revitalization in Trinidad. Boulder CO: Westview, 1991. xvi + 187 pp.-Aisha Khan, Selwyn Ryan, The Muslimeen grab for power: Race, religion and revolution in Trinidad and Tobago. Port of Spain: Inprint Caribbean, 1991. vii + 345 pp.-Drexel G. Woodson, Patrick Bellegarde-Smith, Haiti: The Breached Citadel. Boulder CO: Westview Press, 1990. xxi + 217 pp.-O. Nigel Bolland, Howard Johnson, The Bahamas in slavery and freedom. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle; London: James Currey, 1991. viii + 184 pp.-Keith F. Otterbein, Charles C. Foster, Conchtown USA: Bahamian fisherfolk in Riviera beach, Florida. (with folk songs and tales collected by Veronica Huss). Boca Raton: Florida Atlantic University Press, 1991. x + 176 pp.-Peter van Baarle, John P. Bennett ,Kabethechino: A correspondence on Arawak. Edited by Janette Forte. Georgetown: Demerara Publishers, 1991. vi + 271 pp., Richard Hart (eds)-Fabiola Jara, Joop Vernooij, Indianen en kerken in Suriname: identiteit en autonomie in het binnenland. Paramaribo: Stichting Wetenschappelijke Informatie (SWI), 1989. 178 pp.-Jay Edwards, C.L. Temminck Groll ,Curacao: Willemstad, city of monuments. R.G. Gill. The Hague: Gary Schwartz/SDU Publishers, 1990. 123 pp., W. van Alphen, R. Apell (eds)-Mineke Schipper, Maritza Coomans-Eustatia ,Drie Curacaose schrijvers in veelvoud. Zutphen: De Walburg Pers, 1991. 544 pp., H.E. Coomans, Wim Rutgers (eds)-Arie Boomert, P. Wagenaar Hummelinck, De rotstekeningen van Aruba/The prehistoric rock drawings of Aruba. Utrecht: Uitgeverij Presse-Papier, 1991. 228 pp.-J.K. Brandsma, Ruben S. Gowricharn, Economische transformatie en de staat: over agrarische modernisering en economische ontwikkeling in Suriname, 1930-1960. Den Haag: Uitgeverij Ruward, 1990. 208 pp.-Henk N. Hoogendonk, M. van Schaaijk, Een macro-model van een micro-economie. Den Haag: STUSECO, 1991. 359 pp.-Bim G. Mungra, Corstiaan van der Burg ,Hindostanen in Nederland. Leuven (Belgium)/ Apeldoorn (the Netherlands): Garant Publishers, 1990. 223 pp., Theo Damsteegt, Krishna Autar (eds)-Adrienne Bruyn, J. van Donselaar, Woordenboek van het Surinaams-Nederlands. Muiderberg: Dick Coutinho, 1989. 482 pp.-Wim S. Hoogbergen, Michiel Baud ,'Cultuur in beweging': creolisering en Afro-Caraïbische cultuur. Rotterdam: Bureau Studium Generale, 1989. 93 pp., Marianne C. Ketting (eds)

24

Bartholomew,DuaneP., RichardA.Hawkins, and JohnnyA.Lopez. "Hawaii Pineapple: The Rise and Fall of an Industry." HortScience 47, no.10 (October 2012): 1390–98. http://dx.doi.org/10.21273/hortsci.47.10.1390.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

The date pineapple (Ananas comosus var. comosus) was introduced to Hawaii is not known, but its presence was first recorded in 1813. When American missionaries first arrived in Hawaii in 1820, pineapple was found growing wild and in gardens and small plots. The pineapple canning industry began in Baltimore in the mid-1860s and used fruit imported from the Caribbean. The export-based Hawaii pineapple industry was developed by an entrepreneurial group of California migrants who arrived in Hawaii in 1898 and the well-connected James D. Dole who arrived in 1899. The first profitable lot of canned pineapples was produced by Dole’s Hawaiian Pineapple Company in 1903 and the industry grew rapidly from there. Difficulties encountered in production and processing as the industry grew included low yields resulting from severe iron chlorosis and the use of low plant populations, mealybug wilt that devastated whole fields, inadequate machinery that limited cannery capacity, and lack of or poorly developed markets for the industry’s canned fruit. The major production problems were solved by public- and industry-funded research and innovation in the field and in the cannery. An industry association and industry-funded cooperative marketing efforts, initially led by James Dole, helped to expand the market for canned pineapple. Industry innovations were many and included: selection of ‘Smooth Cayenne’ pineapple as the most productive cultivar with the best quality fruit for canning; identification of the cause of manganese-induced iron chlorosis and its control with biweekly iron sulphate sprays; the use of mulch paper and the mechanization of its application, which increased yields by more than 20 t·ha−1; and the invention of the Ginaca peeler–corer machine, which greatly sped cannery throughput. Nematodes were also a serious problem for the industry, which resulted in the discovery and development of nematicides in the 1930s. As a result, by 1930 Hawaii led the world in the production of canned pineapple and had the world’s largest canneries. Production and sale of canned pineapple fell sharply during the world depression that began in 1929. However, the formation of an industry cartel to control output and marketing of canned pineapple, aggressive industry-funded marketing programs, and rapid growth in the volume of canned juice after 1933 restored industry profitability. Although the industry supported the world’s largest pineapple breeding program from 1914 until 1986, no cultivars emerged that replaced ‘Smooth Cayenne’ for canning. The lack of success was attributed in part to the superiority of ‘Smooth Cayenne’ in the field and the cannery, but also to the difficulty in producing defect-free progeny from crosses between highly heterozygous parents that were self-incompatible. Production of canned pineapple peaked in 1957, but the stage was set for the decline of the Hawaii industry when Del Monte, one of Hawaii’s largest canners, established the Philippine Packing Corporation (PPC) in the Philippines in the 1930s. The expansion of the PPC after World War II, followed by the establishment of plantations and canneries by Castle and Cooke’s Dole division in the Philippines in 1964 and in Thailand in 1972, sped the decline. The decline occurred mainly because foreign-based canneries had labor costs approximately one-tenth those in Hawaii. As the Hawaii canneries closed, the industry gradually shifted to the production of fresh pineapples. During that transition, the pineapple breeding program of the Pineapple Research Institute of Hawaii produced the MD-2 pineapple cultivar, now the world’s pre-eminent fresh fruit cultivar. However, the first and major beneficiary of that cultivar was Costa Rica where Del Monte had established a fresh fruit plantation in the late 1970s. Dole Food Co. and Maui Gold Pineapple Co. continue to produce fresh pineapples in Hawaii, mostly for the local market. All of the canneries eventually closed, the last one on Maui in 2007.

25

Wagner, Adriana, María del Luján González Tornaría, Lisiane Alvim Saraiva Junges, and Esthella Hernandéz. "Los docentes frente a las demandas de las familias: aproximando contextos (Teachers face the demands of families: approaching contexts)." Revista Eletrônica de Educação 13, no.2 (May10, 2019): 600. http://dx.doi.org/10.14244/198271992543.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

The role of Teachers has been transformed in recent years due to the increasingly complex educational demands and responsibilities that come from the students’ families. The aim of the present study was to investigate how Elementary School Teachers in Brazil and Uruguay perceive and evaluate the demands they receive from families, and how prepared they think they are to face this reality. A qualitative, exploratory and transcultural method was used, based on the technique of Focal Groups, with one group being conducted in Brazil (10 participants) and anther one in Uruguay (9 participants). In both groups, participants were women, with experience in public and private schools. Data were treated using the Content Analysis technique and results pointed out two main themes: Academic Formation and Family Demands. The analysis showed several similarities in the relationship between family and school in daily practice - both in Brazil and Uruguay - especially regarding the Teacher’s role. It was observed that Teachers still face some challenges in set out their roles for themselves and the families. Teachers have also shown they have insufficient resources to work with the diversity of family demands and it is possible to think that they would benefit from spaces of reflection and sensitivity development, in order to better discriminate these demands. Thus, it may be said that it is necessary to inaugurate a deep discussion about what it means to form Teachers to work with families.ResumoO papel dos professores tem se transformado nos últimos anos devido às demandas e responsabilidades educacionais, cada vez mais complexas, que derivam das famílias de seus alunos. O objetivo deste estudo foi investigar como os professores de ensino fundamental do Brasil e Uruguai percebem e avaliam as demandas que recebem das famílias e o quão preparados se sentem para enfrentar essa realidade. Foi utilizado método qualitativo, exploratório e transcultural, a partir da técnica do Grupo Focal, sendo conduzido um grupo no Brasil (10 participantes) e um no Uruguai (9 participantes). Em ambos os grupos, os participantes foram mulheres, com experiência nas redes pública e privada. Os dados foram tratados a partir da técnica de Análise de Conteúdo e os resultados apontaram dois temas principais: Formação Acadêmica e Demandas das Famílias. A análise evidenciou inúmeras semelhanças na relação que a família e a escola estabelecem na prática diária - tanto no Brasil quanto no Uruguai - especialmente no que diz respeito ao papel docente. Observou-se a dificuldade dos professores em delimitar seu papel para si e para as famílias. Os professores também se mostraram com poucos recursos para trabalhar com a diversidade de demandas familiares e é possível pensar que eles se beneficiariam de espaços de reflexão e desenvolvimento de sensibilidade para poder discriminar essas demandas. Assim, pode-se dizer que é necessário inaugurar uma discussão profunda sobre o que significa formar os professores para o trabalho com as famílias.ResumenEl papel de los docentes se ha transformado en los últimos años debido a las exigencias y responsabilidades educativas cada vez más complejas que derivan de las familias de sus alumnos. El objetivo de este estudio consistió en investigar cómo docentes de educación primaria de Brasil y Uruguay perciben y evalúan las demandas que reciben de las familias y cuán preparados se sienten para enfrentar esa realidad. El diseño fue cualitativo, exploratorio y transcultural, utilizando la técnica de Grupo Focal, siendo uno brasileño (10 participantes) y uno uruguayo (9 participantes). En ambos grupos los participantes fueron mujeres, con experiencia tanto en la red pública como privada. Los datos fueron tratados con Análisis de Contenido y los resultados apuntaron a dos grandes temas: Formación Académica y Demandas de las Familias. El análisis permite comprobar innumerables semejanzas en la relación que familia y escuela establecen en la práctica cotidiana tanto en Brasil como en el Uruguay, sobre todo en lo que se refiere al rol docente. Se observa la dificultad que las docentes expresaron en cuanto a delimitar su papel frente a si mismas y frente a las familias. También las docentes se mostraron con pocos recursos para trabajar con la diversidad de las demandas familiares y es posible pensar que se beneficiarían de espacios de reflexión y desarrollo de la sensibilidad para poder discriminar tales demandas. Así, se puede decir que se necesita abrir una discusión profunda sobre lo que significa formar a los docentes para el trabajo con las familias. Keywords: Family school relationship, Preservice teachers, Cross Cultural Studies.Palavras-chave: Relação família-escola, Formação docente, Demandas familiares, Estudo transcultural.Palabras clave: Relación escuela-familia, Formación docente, Demandas familiares, Estudio transcultural.ReferencesANDRES, Sergio; GIRO, Joaquín. El papel y la representación del profesorado en la participación de las familias en la escuela. Revista Electrónica Interuniversitaria de Formación del Profesorado, Zaragoza, v.19, n.1, 61-71, 2016. URL: http://revistas.um.es/reifop/article/view/245461/189131AZPILLAGA, Verónica; INTXAUSTI, Nahia; JOARISTI, Luis Maria. Implicacion de las familias en los centros escolares de alta eficacia en la Comunidad Autónoma Vasca. Bordón: Revista de Pedagogía, Bordón, v.66, n.3, 27-38, 2014. URL: https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=4748791BAEZA, Silvia. El imprescindible puente Familia-Escuela. Estrategias e intervenciones psicopedagógicas. Buenos Aires: Aprendizaje Hoy, 2009, 320p.BARRERA, Patricia. Los deberes escolares y tareas en casa: exploración sobre los objetivos para los que son enviados y su cumplimiento. 2008. Memorial Final de Post-graduación en Psicología Educacional (Post-graduación en Psicología) - Universidad Católica del Uruguay, Montevideo, Uruguay, 2008.BRONFENBRENNER, Urie. Strengthening family systems. En: ZIGLER, Edward F.; FRANK, Meryl. (Eds.) The parental leave crisis: toward a national policy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998.BRONFENBRENNER, Urie; EVANS, Gary W. Developement science in the 21st. Century: Emerging questions, Theoretical Models, Research Designs and Empirical Findings. Social Development, Malden-USA, v.9, n.1, 115-125, 2000.CARVALHO, Maria Eulina P. Modos de Educação, Gênero e Relações Escola-Família. Cadernos de Pesquisa, São Paulo, v. 34, n. 121, 41-58, jan./abr. 2004. URL: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0100-15742004000100003&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=ptCAVALCANTE, Roseli S. C. Colaboração entre pais e escola: educação abrangente. Psicologia Escolar e Educacional, Campinas, v.2, n.2, 153-160, 1998. URL: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1413-85571998000200009&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=ptCLARKE, David; HOLLINGSWORTH, Hilary. Elaborating a model of teacher professional growth. Teaching and Teacher Education, v. 18, 947-967, 2002. URL: https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/elsevier/elaborating-a-model-of-teacher-professional-growth-7H3jboIiAhCOMELLAS, Maria Jesus. Familia y escuela: compartir la educación. Barcelona: Grao, 2009, 149p.DELGADO, Juan Manuel; GUTIÉRREZ, Juan. Métodos y técnicos cualitativos de investigación en ciencias sociales. Madrid: Editorial Síntesis, 1995, 604p.DITRANO, Christine; SILVERSTEIN, Louise B. Listening to parents’ voices: participatory action research in the schools. Professional Psychology: research and practice, Washington-USA, v. 37, n. 4, 359-366, 2006.DOWLING, Emilia; OSBORNE, Elsie. Familia y escuela. Una aproximación conjunta y sistémica a los problemas infantiles. Barcelona: Paidos, 1996, 224p.EPSTEIN, Joyce. L. School, family, and community partnerships: preparing educators and improving schools. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University: Westview Press, 2011, 656p.ESCAYOLA, Empar. Padres y educadores: un encuentro singular. En: ALFONSO, Carmen et al. (Eds). La participación de los padres y madres en la escuela (pp.73-78.) Barcelona: Editorial Grào, 2009, 155p.FINN STEVENSON, Matia. Family, school and community partnerships: practical strategies for after schools programs. New directions for youth development, n.144, 89-103, 2014.GARCIA-BACETE, F. J. Cómo son y cómo podrían ser las relaciones entre escuelas y familias en opinion del profesorado. Cultura y Educación, v.18, n. 3-4, 247-265, 2006.GERVILLA, Ángeles. Familia y educación familiar: conceptos clave, situación actual y valores. Madrid: Narcea, 2008, 208p. GONDIM, Sonia Maria G. Grupos focais como técnica de investigação qualitativa: desafios metodológicos. Paidéia: Cadernos de Psicologia e Educação, Ribeirão Preto, v. 12, n.24, 149-161, 2003. URL: http://www.scielo.br/pdf/paideia/v12n24/04.pdf HAINES, Shana J. et al. Fostering family school and community school partnerships in inclusive schools. Using practice as a guide. Research and Practice for persons with severe disabilities, v.40, n.3, 227-239, 2015.HILL, Nancy E.; TAYLOR, Lorraine C. Parental school involvement and children’s academic achievement. Current Directions in Psychological Science, Georgia Institute of Technology, v.13, n.4, 161-164, 2004.HORNBY, Garry; LAFAELE, Rayleen. Barriers to parental involvement in education: an explanatory model. Educational Review, London, v.63, n.1, 37-52, 2011.INSTITUTO NACIONAL DE EVALUACION EDUCATIVA. Informe sobre el estado de la Educación en Uruguay 2015-2016. Montevideo: INEED 2017.KOUTROUBA, Konstantina et al. An investigation of Greek teachers’ views on parental involvement in education. School Psychology International, v.30, n.3, 311-328, 2009. URL: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.977.7897&rep=rep1&type=pdfLONDOÑO, Laura Victoria; RAMIREZ, Luz Ángela. Construyendo relación familia-escuela: consideraciones a partir de la intervención interdisciplinaria en el Colegio Bello Oriente en Medellín, Colombia. Revista Virtual Universidad Católica del Norte, Colombia, n.36, 193-220, 2012. URL: http://revistavirtual.ucn.edu.co/index.php/RevistaUCN/article/view/375/712LÓPEZ LARROSA, S. La relación familia-escuela. Guía práctica para profesionales. Madrid: CCS, 2009.MARCELO, Carlos; VAILLANT, Denise. Desarrollo profesional docente ¿Cómo se aprende a enseñar? Madrid: Narcea, 2010, 170p.MARCONDES, Keila Hellen B.; SIGOLO, Sílvia Regina R. L. Comunicação e envolvimento: possibilidades de interconexões entre família-escola? Paidéia, Ribeirão Preto, v.22, n.51, 91-99, 2012. URL: http://www.scielo.br/pdf/paideia/v22n51/11.pdfMARTÍNEZ CERÓN, Ginés. Sombras y luces de la relación familia y escuela. En: Escudero Muñoz, Juan Manuel et al. (Eds.) Sistema educativo y democracia. Madrid: Octaedro, 2005, 168p.MORGADO, Beatriz; JIMENEZ-LAGARES, Irene; GONZÁLEZ, María del Mar. Ideas del profesorado de primaria acerca de la diversidad familiar. Cultura y Educación, Fundación Dialnet-España, v.21, n.4, 441-451, 2009.MORGAN, David L. Focus groups as qualitative research. California: Sage Publications, 1997, 88p.OLABUÉNAGA, José Ignácio R. Metodologia de la investigación cualitativa. Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, 2012, 344p.OLIVEIRA, Dalila Andrade A. Reestruturação do trabalho docente: precarização e flexibilização. Educação e Sociedade, Campinas, v.25, n.89, 1127-1144, 2004. URL: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0101-73302004000400003&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=ptOLIVEIRA, Cynthia B. E.; MARINHO ARAÚJO, Claisy M. A relação família-escola: intersecções e desafios. Estudos de Psicologia, Campinas, v.27, n.1,99-108, 2010. URL: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0103-166X2010000100012&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=ptPAULA, Andréia Cristina R. R.; NAVES, Marisa L. de P. O estresse e o bem-estar docente. Revista Educação Profissional, Rio de Janeiro, v.36, n.1, 61-71, 2010.PERERA, Héctor; BERTONI, Elba; CONTERA, Cristina. Modelos de formación docente en Uruguay. Estudios de três casos. Educação, Porto Alegre, v.57, n.3, 461-486, 2005. URL: http://revistaseletronicas.pucrs.br/ojs/index.php/faced/article/view/427/323PERRENOUD, Philippe. Diez nuevas competencias para enseñar. España: Grao, 2004, 168p.PERRENOUD, Philippe. La formación del profesorado: un compromiso entre visiones inconciliables de la coherencia. Revista Interuniversitaria de Formación del Profesorado, Espanha, v.68, n.24/2, 103-122, 2010. URL: http://aufop.com/aufop/uploaded_files/articulos/1279237044.pdfPETRICONE CHIARILLI, Francesco. La familia de origen del docente: estilo educativo y aspectos relacionados con su ejercicio profesional. En.: RÍOS GONZÁLEZ, Jose Antonio. (Ed.) Personalidad, madurez humana y contexto familiar. Madrid: CCS, 2009, 1114p.POLONIA, Ana da C.; DESSEN, Maria Auxiliadora. Em busca de uma compreensão das Relações entre família e escola. Psicologia Escolar e Educacional, Maringá, v.9, n.2, 303- 312, 2005. URL: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1413-85572005000200012&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=ptRÍOS GONZÁLEZ, Jose Antonio. La educación como contexto interactivo: el encuentro familia-centro educativo. En: RÍOS GONZÁLEZ, Jose Antonio. (Ed.) Personalidad, madurez humana y contexto familiar. Madrid: CCS, 2009, 1114p.RIVAS, Sonia; UGARTE, Carolina. Formación docente y cultura participativa del centro educativo: claves para favorecer la participación familia-escuela. Estudios sobre educación, Navarra, v.27, 153-168, 2014. URL: https://www.unav.edu/publicaciones/revistas/index.php/estudios-sobre-educacion/article/view/490/357RIVERA, Maritza; MILICIC, Neva. Alianza Familia-Escuela: percepciones, creencias, expectativas y aspiraciones de padres y profesores de enseñanza general básica. Psykhe, Santiago, v.15, n.1, 119-135, 2006. URL: http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0718-22282006000100010SANTOS, Miguel; GODAS, Augustín; LORENZO, Mar. ¿Puede la implicación de los padres mejorar el estudio de sus hijos en la escuela? La evidencia de un programa pedagógico. Estudios sobre educación, Navarra, v.30, 9-30, 2016. URL: http://www.unav.edu/publicaciones/revistas/index.php/estudios-sobre-educacion/article/view/4800/4126SARAIVA, Lisiane A.; WAGNER, Adriana. A relação Família-Escola sob a ótica de professores e pais de crianças que frequentam o Ensino Fundamental. Ensaio: avaliação e políticas públicas em Educação, Rio de Janeiro, v.21, n.81, 739-772, 2013. URL: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0104-40362013000400006&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=pt SIMPLÍCIO, Sandra D.; ANDRADE, Márcia S. Compreendendo a questão da saúde dos professores da rede pública municipal de São Paulo. Psico, Porto Alegre, v.42, n.2, 159-167, 2011. URL: http://revistaseletronicas.pucrs.br/ojs/index.php/revistapsico/article/view/7566/6517 VÁZQUEZ HUERTAS, C.; LÓPEZ-LARROSA, S. Creencias sobre la relación familia-escuela. Cambios en el futuro profesorado tras recibir formación específica. Revista de Estudios e Investigación en Psicología y Educación, v.1, n.2, 111-121, 2014.VILA, Ignasi. Familia y escuela: dos contextos y un solo niño. En: ALFONSO, Carmen C. et al. (Eds.). La participación de los padres y madres en la escuela. Barcelona: Editorial Grào, 2003, 155p. WAGNER, Adriana; TRONCO, Cristina; ARMANI, Ananda B. Introdução – Os Desafios da Família Contemporânea: Revisitando Conceitos. En.: Wagner, Adriana e cols. (Eds.) Desafios Psicossociais da Família Contemporânea: pesquisas e reflexões. Porto Alegre: Artmed, 2011, 208p.

26

Donohue, Bryce. "Root Root Root for the ??? Team: Franchise Free Agency and the Business of the NFL." Elements 4, no.2 (November1, 2008). http://dx.doi.org/10.6017/eurj.v4i2.8892.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Sports have long been deeply intertwined with society but in the past sixty years they have become a major economic industry. While professional sports franchises benefit their owners financially, they are also central to the culture of the city they represent. The dichotomy between sports as an integral part of society and sports as a business has been made apparent through the legal cases surrounding the moves of franchises in the National Football League. This paper analyzes the precedent set by the cases regarding the moves of the Oakland Raiders, Baltimore Colts, and Cleveland Browns. In all three, the courts have favored the sport franchise as a business rather than as a representation of local citizens. These franchise relocations have established a system known as "franchise free agency" in which the sport franchise is legally no different from any other corporation. Over the past thirty years, courts have determined that ownership of a team belongs solely to its legal owner and not to the team's fans or home city.

27

Ibe,ChidinmaA., DanielleR.Haywood, Ciana Creighton, Yidan Cao, Angel Gabriel, Hossein Zare, Wehmah Jones, et al. "Study protocol of a randomized controlled trial evaluating the Prime Time Sister Circles (PTSC) program's impact on hypertension among midlife African American women." BMC Public Health 21, no.1 (March29, 2021). http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-10459-8.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Abstract Background The Prime-Time Sister Circles® (PTSC) program is a multifaceted, community-based peer support intervention targeting African American women who are 40 to 75 years of age. It aims to reduce hypertension disparities observed among African American women by promoting adherence to antihypertensive therapies, including lifestyle modification and therapeutic regimens. Methods The PTSC randomized controlled trial will evaluate the effectiveness of the PTSC Program on improved blood pressure control, healthcare utilization attributed to cardiovascular events, and healthcare costs. The study began in 2016 and will end in 2022. African American women who are 40–75 years old, have been diagnosed with hypertension, reside in Washington, D.C. or Baltimore, Maryland, and receive their care from Unity Health Care, a federally qualified health center in Washington, D.C., or Baltimore Medical System, a federally qualified health center in Baltimore, Maryland, are eligible to participate. Those randomized to the intervention group participate in the PTSC Program, which spans 13 weeks and comprises facilitator-led discussions, didactic training about hypertension management, and peer-based problem-solving concerning CVD risk factors and their amelioration. Blood pressure, weight, body mass index, waist circumference, self-reported adherence, physical activity, dietary practices, stress, and healthcare utilization data are collected at baseline, 13 weeks (end of the intervention), 9 months (months post-intervention), and 15 months (one year after the intervention). Healthcare costs will be computed at the end of the study. The study’s design is reported in the present manuscript, wherein we employed the SPIRIT checklist to guide its construction. Discussion Disparities in hypertension prevalence and management observed among mid-life African American women exist as a result of a confluence of structural determinants of health. Consequently, there is a need to develop, implement, and evaluate culturally appropriate and relevant interventions that are tailored to their lived experiences. The PTSC Trial aims to assess the impact of the program on participants’ cardiovascular, psychosocial, and cost outcomes. Its results have implications for advancing the science of designing and implementing culturally relevant interventions for African American women. Trial registration Unique identifier: NCT04371614. Retrospectively registered on April 30, 2020.

28

Faith,TimothyS., Donna Mandl, and Jill Burke. "Open Educational Resources in Business Law: Notes from the Field." Teaching and Learning Excellence through Scholarship 1, no.1 (August16, 2021). http://dx.doi.org/10.52938/tales.v1i1.1358.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Open educational resources (OERs) are an alternative textbook to publisher materials used by colleges and universities. OER materials have a cost advantage for students; many are published as free or cost-reduced textbooks for students. The authors developed and piloted an OER textbook for Business Law I in the Management program of the School of Business, Technology and Law. Over 800 Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC) students enroll in this course each academic year. The authors evaluated the cost savings for students compared to traditional publisher materials, and also examined student success rates in OER courses compared to traditional publisher courses. The authors’ assessment is that OER materials can save students substantial costs to attend college, and though there is some difference in student success between OER and traditional publisher courses, this variation is likely explained by other independent variables such as the course teaching modality. The process for receiving funding, developing OER-based materials on a publicly available and no-cost website, and distributing the materials to students is also discussed.

29

Jang-Trettien, Christine. "House of Cards: Informal Housing Markets and Precarious Pathways to Homeownership in Baltimore." Social Problems, February27, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spab004.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Abstract Homeownership is often tied to cultural conceptions of model citizenship, yet African Americans have long faced structural barriers to owning a home. Credit discrimination has often constrained black homeownership. However, missing from accounts of race, credit, and homeownership is how people purchase homes without mortgages. Through an analysis of public deed and mortgage records in Baltimore, I show that informal housing transactions – unregulated transfers outside of the mortgage market – are primarily located within majority-black neighborhoods. Using data from interviews with 336 homeowners, renters, and real estate investors, I show that informal markets put buyers in a uniquely vulnerable position. The exchange process in informal markets often consists of buyer and seller, with no third-party actor providing oversight to the transaction. Consequently, homebuyers face uncertainty over legal title and the value of the home, making it impossible to make informed decisions about the costs and benefits of homeownership at the time of purchase. Those who purchased from out-of-network real estate investors faced the harshest consequences, with sellers often structuring contracts to disadvantage consumers. Recent reports show that millions have purchased homes without institutional credit. It is worth examining how unregulated housing markets in neighborhoods of concentrated disadvantage contribute to racial inequalities.

30

Manuszak,J.L., M.MacPhee, S.Liskovich, and L.Feldsher. "Leading the City of Baltimore into the 21st Century: Flexible Treatment Solutions and Integrated Raw Water Management." Water Practice and Technology 5, no.4 (December1, 2010). http://dx.doi.org/10.2166/wpt.2010.077.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

The City of Baltimore, Maryland is one of many US cities faced with challenges related to increasing potable water demands, diminishing fresh water supplies, and aging infrastructure. To address these challenges, the City recently undertook a $7M study to evaluate water supply and treatment alternatives and develop the conceptual design for a new 120 million gallon per day (MGD) water treatment plant. As part of this study, an innovative raw water management tool was constructed to help model source water availability and predicted water quality based on integration of a new and more challenging surface water supply. A rigorous decision-making approach was then used to screen and select appropriate treatment processes. Short-listed treatment strategies were demonstrated through a year-long pilot study, and process design criteria were collected in order to assess capital and operational costs for the full-scale plant. Ultimately the City chose a treatment scheme that includes low-pressure membrane filtration and post-filter GAC adsorption, allowing for consistent finished water quality irrespective of which raw water supply is being used. The conceptual design includes several progressive concepts, which will: 1) alleviate treatment limitations at the City's existing plants by providing additional pre-clarification facilities at the new plant; and 2) take advantage of site conditions to design and operate the submerged membrane system by gravity-induced siphon, saving the City significant capital and operations and maintenance (O&M) costs. Once completed, the new Fullerton Water Filtration Plant (WFP) will be the largest low-pressure membrane plant in North America, and the largest gravity-siphon design in the world.

31

Wilson, Jason Anthony, and Jason Jacobs. "Obsolete." M/C Journal 12, no.3 (July15, 2009). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.170.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Obsolescence is most frequently talked about in relation to the history of technology. A still-common way of understanding modernity is as a linear succession of emerging technologies which supersede existing ones, and which are themselves, in time, made redundant. The cycle of novelty and obsolescence underpins a narrative including episodes of human invention, mastery and eventual technological failure. Nevertheless, it makes technologies themselves the subjects of history, rather than the human beings whose choices frame their contingent births, shapings, adoptions and uses. Many have pointed out the extent to which this simplifies history, but this has made precious little impact, if the way in which many writers treat digital communications technologies is any guide. Professional new media evangelists, including media and cultural theorists who subscribe to what Turner describes as an entrenched “digital orthodoxy”, are nowadays wont to describing mass media – including all broadcast and print media – as “heritage” media. This neat rhetorical trick confirms all remaining manifestations and uses of such media as remnants of the past in the present, as curiosities, even perhaps as impediments to the “imaginary futures” (Barbrook) regularly projected onto new technologies. On the other hand, similar assumptions underlie narratives of decline and decay which attach themselves to new media technologies. Thus we can understand laments for the lost qualities (and quality) of old media from writers such as Andrew Keen, which themselves shape self-interested pronouncements about the decadence of the new communications environment from the highest echelons of established media (Hartigan). A history of scholarship from media historians has worked to try to nuance the contours of this oldest of modern stories, and to complicate the relationship between modernity, technological obsolescence, and social reality. Brian Winston’s work has shown how messy the business of invention and adoption is. Caroline Marvyn’s book When Old Technologies Were New showed how durable are the terms in which we are invited to link new technologies with progress. Lisa Gitelman’s Always Already New shows how complexly interweaved our understanding of media history is with our own media use. Collections like New Media, 1740-1915 and Residual Media have offered a number of theoretical critiques and case-studies which show the contemporary persistence of old media, and the recurrence of simplifying, totalising rhetorics of media history. More specifically, work like Sterne’s shows how contemplating obsolescence can give us a way of thinking about the downside of media change in terms of the problem of ecological damage in the form of e-waste. Most importantly for us, though, are those who use the category of obsolescence as a way of understanding that in the forward march of modernity, there are losers as well as winners. Watkins links technological obsolescence with the production of certain people, certain segments of the population as obsolescent. For him, obsolescent people can be understood as engaged in a “useless survival”, and are linked with obsolete technologies. David Simon, the creator of the television series The Wire, which richly depicted the “useless survival” of the city of Baltimore and its civic institutions, recently put this same position bluntly, linking obsolescence with class and race in contemporary America: these really are the excess people in America, we – our economy doesn't need them. We don't need ten or 15 percent of our population. And certainly the ones that are undereducated, that have been ill served by the inner city school system, that have been unprepared for the technocracy of the modern economy... The people most affected by this are black and brown and poor. It's the abandoned inner cores of our urban areas. And we don't, as we said before, economically, we don't need those people. The American economy doesn't need them. So, as long as they stay in their ghettos, and they only kill each other, we're willing to pay a police presence to keep them out of our America. (Moyers) Five series of The Wire showed the incapacity of police, labour unions, the school system, civic government and newspapers in serving those people who Zygmunt Bauman calls “human waste”, those who are “redundant” in the new economy. The decline of manufacturing industries, rapid advances in the capacity of communication technologies, and the troubled business models of “old media” have advantaged those with the skills and capacity to become “network capitalists” (Bradwell & Reeves) in the information era, but they have turned whole cities into what Bauman calls “waste yards”, wherein industries, social infrastructures and entire neighbourhoods are antiquated, surplus to requirements. In The Wire, those who are shown to benefit most readily from the collapse of these economic and social forces, from the improvements in networked communications, and the globalisation of trade are those who sell the drugs which have turned Baltimore’s inner city into a free-fire zone. Obsolescence, then, is a category which allows us to think about the destruction, or “useless persistence”, of the people, patterns of life and territories which are imbricated with those technologies which are seen as being past their prime. It allows us to think about the power that accrues to “early adopters” as against those who are forced to “make do” with older technologies, and how that power is often implicated in already-existing patterns of social disadvantage – how it maps onto existing class structures, or the horizontal inequalities of geography. But we can also think of the ways in which obsolete technologies are recuperated and celebrated, whether by resistant consumers or “fans” of a particular technology, or by the process whereby yesterday's trash is historicised and aestheticisied by collectors, curators and scholars. We also might reflect on our own practice as academics. To what extent are our traditional patterns of work lubricated and enhanced by digital processes, or are they themselves artefacts of the past. This issue of M/C Journal offers some specific meditations on the theme of obsolescence. The first three pieces think reflexively about the processes by which academics are credentialised and published. In our first feature, John Hartley wonders whether the passing of the traditional, paper scholarly journal as the main means for academic publication and community-building might not irrevocably change and even damage collegiality, and the way in which we understand our fields. Kate Bowles replies to Hartley in a piece which originated as a peer review of his paper, and which is published here at the request of both authors. For Bowles, Hartley’s focus on e-publishing and the obsolescence of paper journals is potentially a distraction – the real concern is the way in which bureaucratic rationality threatens to push organic forms of collegial behaviour into the dustbin of history. Donna Lee Brien argues that the traditional PhD may be obsolete, and it must change to reflect the needs of students, new models of learning, and the employment marketplace. The second group of articles asks questions about the inevitability of obsolescence, and case-studies of users pushing back against the obsolescence of favoured machines. In our second feature, Greg Shapley offers an expansive critique of the most fundamental recent narrative of obsolescence, which relies on the dichotomy of the analogue and the digital, and the supplanting of one by the other. Shapley complicates our history by relating the odd story of the fax machine. Peter Thomas shows how Super 8 cannot be approached simply, lazily as a fetishised object of nostalgia. He shows how Super 8 continues in use as a specialised filmmaking stock, but that its most crucial textural characteristics have been lost in the transition from widespread amateur use to professional applications. Huh and Ackerman discuss the determined resistance by users of the HP200LX PDA device to the discontinuation of the device. Our third set of articles rethink approaches to a technological field in which cycles of novelty and obsolescent are notoriously swift and prominent – computer games. James Newman unleashes an impassioned polemic regarding the need to preserve and archive “obsolete” games as an element of Britain’s and the world’s cultural heritage. Thompson, McAllister and Ruggill use their own efforts at curation and preservation as the starting point for a theoretical meditation on the relationships between nostalgia, collection and obsolescence. Chris Moore asks whether new methods of digital distribution might ameliorate one of the more pernicious side-effects of the games industry’s relentless focus on novelty – e-waste. He looks at the online distribution platform Steam as a venue where both hardware and software obsolescence may be countered and complicated by weightless distribution and the “long tail” effect. While acknowledging continuing concerns with Steam – for example concerns about user privacy – Moore wonders whether online distribution might make the more wasteful aspects of structured obsolescence, well, obsolete. Together, these articles make a contribution to a reorientation that’s already underway in media and cultural studies. It’s arguable that cultural and media studies perennial fetishisation of “youth”, subcultural and the new have been intensified by the shift to a focus on new media technologies. Perhaps this has been at the expense of a focus on the old, the ordinary, and what happened the day before yesterday. (Driscoll and Gregg) A focus on obsolescence allows us to count the complex costs of our perennial impulse to novelty. It allows us to think through the series of revaluations that technologies typically undergo as they pass from being the newest thing, to junk, to collectable. It helps us to think about the relationships between technology use and the social position of users. We present this as the first step in our own effort to bring a greater focus to the issues thrown up when we think about the obsolete. We hope you will enjoy this issue when it’s new, and not discard it lightly when the next one comes along. References Acland, Charles, ed. Residual Media. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007. Barbrook, Richard. Imaginary Futures: From Thinking Machines to the Global Village. London: Pluto, 2007. Bauman, Zygmunt. Wasted Lives: Modernity and its Outcasts. London: John Wiley and Sons, 2003. Bradwell, Peter, and Richard Reeves. Network Citizens: Power and Responsibility at Work. London: Demos, 2009. Driscoll, Catherine, and Melissa Gregg. “The YouTube Generation: Moral Panic, Youth Culture and Internet Studies” in Usha Rodrigues (ed) Youth and Media in the Asia-Pacific Region. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press. 2008. Gitelman, Lisa. Always Already New: Media, History and the Data of Culture. Boston: MIT Press. Hartigan, John. “John Hartigan address to the National Press Club.” news.com.au. 9 July 2009 ‹http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25718006-661,00.html›. Keen, Andrew. The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture. New York: Doubleday, 2007. Marvin, Carolyn. When Old Technologies Were New: Rethinking Electric Communication in the Nineteenth Century. Oxford: OUP, 1990. Moyers, Bill. “David Simon: Transcript.” Bill Moyers Journal. 9 July 2009 ‹http://www.pbs.org/cove-media/http/PBS_CP_Bill_Moyers/58/1000/transcript1.html›. Sterne, Jonathan. “Out With the Trash: On the Future of New Media.” Residual Media. Ed Charles Acland. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007. Turner, Graeme. “Television and the Nation: Does This Matter Anymore?” Television Studies After TV. Ed Graeme Turner and Jinna Tay. London and New York: Routledge, 2009. Watkins, Evan. Throwaways: Work, Culture and Consumer Education. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993. Winston, Brian. Media, Technology and Society: A History: From the Telegraph to the Internet. New York and London: Routledge, 1998.

32

Starrs, Bruno. "Hyperlinking History and Illegitimate Imagination: The Historiographic Metafictional E-novel." M/C Journal 17, no.5 (October25, 2014). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.866.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

‘Historiographic Metafiction’ (HM) is a literary term first coined by creative writing academic Linda Hutcheon in 1988, and which refers to the postmodern practice of a fiction author inserting imagined--or illegitimate--characters into narratives that are intended to be received as authentic and historically accurate, that is, ostensibly legitimate. Such adventurous and bold authorial strategies frequently result in “novels which are both intensely self-reflexive and yet paradoxically also lay claim to historical events and personages” (Hutcheon, A Poetics 5). They can be so entertaining and engaging that the overtly intertextual, explicitly inventive work of biographical HM can even change the “hegemonic discourse of history” (Nunning 353) for, as Philippa Gregory, the author of HM novel The Other Boleyn Girl (2001), has said regarding this genre of creative writing: “Fiction is about imagined feelings and thoughts. History depends on the outer life. The novel is always about the inner life. Fiction can sometimes do more than history. It can fill the gaps” (University of Sussex). In a way, this article will be filling one of the gaps regarding HM.Forrest Gump (Robert Zemeckis, 1994) is possibly the best known cinematic example of HM, and this film version of the 1986 novel by Winston Groom particularly excels in seamlessly inserting images of a fictional character into verified history, as represented by well-known television newsreel footage. In Zemeckis’s adaptation, gaps were created in the celluloid artefact and filled digitally with images of the actor, Tom Hanks, playing the eponymous role. Words are often deemed less trustworthy than images, however, and fiction is considered particularly unreliable--although there are some exceptions conceded. In addition to Gregory’s novel; Midnight’s Children (1980) by Salman Rushdie; The Name of the Rose (1983) by Umberto Eco; and The Flashman Papers (1969-2005) by George MacDonald Fraser, are three well-known, loved and lauded examples of literary HM, which even if they fail to convince the reader of their bona fides, nevertheless win a place in many hearts. But despite the genre’s popularity, there is nevertheless a conceptual gap in the literary theory of Hutcheon given her (perfectly understandable) inability in 1988 to predict the future of e-publishing. This article will attempt to address that shortcoming by exploring the potential for authors of HM e-novels to use hyperlinks which immediately direct the reader to fact providing webpages such as those available at the website Wikipedia, like a much speedier (and more independent) version of the footnotes in Fraser’s Flashman novels.Of course, as Roland Barthes declared in 1977, “the text is a tissue of quotations drawn from innumerable centres of culture” (146) and, as per any academic work that attempts to contribute to knowledge, a text’s sources--its “quotations”--must be properly identified and acknowledged via checkable references if credibility is to be securely established. Hence, in explaining the way claims to fact in the HM novel can be confirmed by independently published experts on the Internet, this article will also address the problem Hutcheon identifies, in that for many readers the entirety of the HM novel assumes questionable authenticity, that is, the novel’s “meta-fictional self-reflexivity (and intertextuality) renders their claims to historical veracity somewhat problematic, to say the least” ("Historiographic Metafiction: Parody", 3). This article (and the PhD in creative writing I am presently working on at Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia) will possibly develop the concept of HM to a new level: one at which the Internet-connected reader of the hyperlinked e-novel is made fully (and even instantly) aware of those literary elements of the narrative that are legitimate and factual as distinct from those that are fictional, that is, illegitimate. Furthermore, utilising examples from my own (yet-to-be published) hyperlinked HM e-novel, this article demonstrates that such hyperlinking can add an ironic sub-text to a fictional character’s thoughts and utterances, through highlighting the reality concerning their mistaken or naïve beliefs, thus creating HM narratives that serve an entertainingly complex yet nevertheless truly educational purpose.As a relatively new and under-researched genre of historical writing, HM differs dramatically from the better known style of standard historical or biographical narrative, which typically tends to emphasise mimesis, the cataloguing of major “players” in historical events and encyclopaedic accuracy of dates, deaths and places. Instead, HM involves the re-contextualisation of real-life figures from the past, incorporating the lives of entirely (or, as in the case of Gregory’s Mary Boleyn, at least partly) fictitious characters into their generally accepted famous and factual activities, and/or the invention of scenarios that gel realistically--but entertainingly--within a landscape of well-known and well-documented events. As Hutcheon herself states: “The formal linking of history and fiction through the common denominators of intertextuality and narrativity is usually offered not as a reduction, as a shrinking of the scope and value of fiction, but rather as an expansion of these” ("Intertextuality", 11). Similarly, Gregory emphasises the need for authors of HM to extend themselves beyond the encyclopaedic archive: “Archives are not history. The trouble with archives is that the material is often random and atypical. To have history, you have to have a narrative” (University of Sussex). Functionally then, HM is an intertextual narrative genre which serves to communicate to a contemporary audience an expanded story or stories of the past which present an ultimately more self-reflective, personal and unpredictable authorship: it is a distinctly auteurial mode of biographical history writing for it places the postmodern author’s imaginative “signature” front and foremost.Hutcheon later clarified that the quest for historical truth in fiction cannot possibly hold up to the persuasive powers of a master novelist, as per the following rationale: “Fact is discourse-defined: an event is not” ("Historiographic Metafiction", 843). This means, in a rather simplistic nutshell, that the new breed of HM novel writer is not constrained by what others may call fact: s/he knows that the alleged “fact” can be renegotiated and redefined by an inventive discourse. An event, on the other hand, is responsible for too many incontrovertible consequences for it to be contested by her/his mere discourse. So-called facts are much easier for the HM writer to play with than world changing events. This notion was further popularised by Ansgar Nunning when he claimed the overtly explicit work of HM can even change the “hegemonic discourse of history” (353). HM authors can radically alter, it seems, the way the reader perceives the facts of history especially when entertaining, engaging and believable characters are deliberately devised and manipulated into the narrative by the writer. Little wonder, then, that Hutcheon bemoans the unfortunate reality that for many readers the entirety of a HM work assumes questionable “veracity” due to its author’s insertion of imaginary and therefore illegitimate personages.But there is an advantage to be found in this, the digital era, and that is the Internet’s hyperlink. In our ubiquitously networked electronic information age, novels written for publication as e-books may, I propose, include clickable links on the names of actual people and events to Wikipedia entries or the like, thus strengthening the reception of the work as being based on real history (the occasional unreliability of Wikipedia notwithstanding). If picked up for hard copy publication this function of the HM e-novel can be replicated with the inclusion of icons in the printed margins that can be scanned by smartphones or similar gadgets. This small but significant element of the production reinforces the e-novel’s potential status as a new form of HM and addresses Hutcheon’s concern that for HM novels, their imaginative but illegitimate invention of characters “renders their claims to historical veracity somewhat problematic, to say the least” ("Historiographic Metafiction: Parody", 3).Some historic scenarios are so little researched or so misunderstood and discoloured by the muddy waters of time and/or rumour that such hyperlinking will be a boon to HM writers. Where an obscure facet of Australian history is being fictionalised, for example, these edifying hyperlinks can provide additional background information, as Glenda Banks and Martin Andrew might have wished for when they wrote regarding Bank’s Victorian goldfields based HM novel A Respectable Married Woman. This 2012 printed work explores the lives of several under-researched and under-represented minorities, such as settler women and Aboriginal Australians, and the author Banks lamented the dearth of public awareness regarding these peoples. Indeed, HM seems tailor-made for exposing the subaltern lives of those repressed individuals who form the human “backdrop” to the lives of more famous personages. Banks and Andrew explain:To echo the writings of Homi K. Bhaba (1990), this sets up a creative site for interrogating the dominant, hegemonic, ‘normalised’ master narratives about the Victorian goldfields and ‘re-membering’ a marginalised group - the women of the goldfields, the indigenous [sic], the Chinese - and their culture (2013).In my own hyperlinked short story (presently under consideration for publishing elsewhere), which is actually a standalone version of the first chapter of a full-length HM e-novel about Aboriginal Australian activists Eddie Mabo and Chicka Dixon and the history of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra, entitled The Bullroarers, I have focussed on a similarly under-represented minority, that being light-complexioned, mixed race Aboriginal Australians. My second novel to deal with Indigenous Australian issues (see Starrs, That Blackfella Bloodsucka Dance), it is my first attempt at writing HM. Hopefully avoiding overkill whilst alerting readers to those Wikipedia pages with relevance to the narrative theme of non-Indigenous attitudes towards light-complexioned Indigenous Australians, I have inserted a total of only six hyperlinks in this 2200-word piece, plus the explanatory foreword stating: “Note, except where they are well-known place names or are indicated as factual by the insertion of Internet hyperlinks verifying such, all persons, organisations, businesses and places named in this text are entirely fictitious.”The hyperlinks in my short story all take the reader not to stubs but to well-established Wikipedia pages, and provide for the uninformed audience the following near-unassailable facts (i.e. events):The TV program, A Current Affair, which the racist character of the short story taken from The Bullroarers, Mrs Poulter, relies on for her prejudicial opinions linking Aborigines with the dealing of illegal drugs, is a long-running, prime-time Channel Nine production. Of particular relevance in the Wikipedia entry is the comment: “Like its main rival broadcast on the Seven Network, Today Tonight, A Current Affair is often considered by media critics and the public at large to use sensationalist journalism” (Wikipedia, “A Current Affair”).The Aboriginal Tent Embassy, located on the lawns opposite the Old Parliament House in Canberra, was established in 1972 and ever since has been the focus of Aboriginal Australian land rights activism and political agitation. In 1995 the Australian Register of the National Estate listed it as the only Aboriginal site in Australia that is recognised nationally for representing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and their political struggles (Wikipedia, “The Aboriginal Tent Embassy”).In 1992, during an Aboriginal land rights case known as Mabo, the High Court of Australia issued a judgment constituting a direct overturning of terra nullius, which is a Latin term meaning “land belonging to no one”, and which had previously formed the legal rationale and justification for the British invasion and colonisation of Aboriginal Australia (Wikipedia, “Terra Nullius”).Aboriginal rights activist and Torres Strait Islander, Eddie Koiki Mabo (1936 to 1992), was instrumental in the High Court decision to overturn the doctrine of terra nullius in 1992. In that same year, Eddie Mabo was posthumously awarded the Australian Human Rights Medal in the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Awards (Wikipedia, “Eddie Mabo”).The full name of what Mrs Poulter blithely refers to as “the Department of Families and that” is the Australian Government’s Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (Wikipedia, “The Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs”).The British colonisation of Australia was a bloody, murderous affair: “continuous Aboriginal resistance for well over a century belies the ‘myth’ of peaceful settlement in Australia. Settlers in turn often reacted to Aboriginal resistance with great violence, resulting in numerous indiscriminate massacres by whites of Aboriginal men, women and children” (Wikipedia, “History of Australia (1788 - 1850)”).Basically, what is not evidenced empirically with regard to the subject matter of my text, that is, the egregious attitudes of non-Indigenous Australians towards Indigenous Australians, can be extrapolated thanks to the hyperlinks. This resonates strongly with Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s assertion in 2012 that those under-represented by mainstream, patriarchal epistemologies need to be engaged in acts of “reclaiming, reformulating and reconstituting” (143) so as to be re-presented as authentic identities in these HM artefacts of literary research.Exerting auteurial power as an Aboriginal Australian author myself, I have sought to imprint on my writing a multi-levelled signature pertaining to my people’s under-representation: there is not just the text I have created but another level to be considered by the reader, that being my careful choice of Wikipedia pages to hyperlink certain aspects of the creative writing to. These electronic footnotes serve as politically charged acts of “reclaiming, reformulating and reconstituting” Aboriginal Australian history, to reuse the words of Smith, for when we Aboriginal Australian authors reiterate, when we subjugated savages wrestle the keyboard away from the colonising overseers, our readers witness the Other writing back, critically. As I have stated previously (see Starrs, "Writing"), receivers of our words see the distorted and silencing master discourse subverted and, indeed, inverted. Our audiences are subjectively repositioned to see the British Crown as the monster. The previously presumed rational, enlightened and civil coloniser is instead depicted as the author and perpetrator of a violently racist, criminal discourse, until, eventually, s/he is ultimately eroded and made into the Other: s/he is rendered the villainous, predatory savage by the auteurial signatures in revisionist histories such as The Bullroarers.Whilst the benefit in these hyperlinks as electronic educational footnotes in my short story is fairly obvious, what may not be so obvious is the ironic commentary they can make, when read in conjunction with the rest of The Bullroarers. Although one must reluctantly agree with Wayne C. Booth’s comment in his classic 1974 study A Rhetoric of Irony that, in some regards, “the very spirit and value [of irony] are violated by the effort to be clear about it” (ix), I will nevertheless strive for clarity and understanding by utilizing Booth’s definition of irony “as something that under-mines clarities, opens up vistas of chaos, and either liberates by destroying all dogmas or destroys by revealing the inescapable canker of negation at the heart of every affirmation” (ix). The reader of The Bullroarers is not expecting the main character, Mrs Poulter, to be the subject of erosive criticism that destroys her “dogmas” about Aboriginal Australians--certainly not so early in the narrative when it is unclear if she is or is not the protagonist of the story--and yet that’s exactly what the hyperlinks do. They expose her as hopelessly unreliable, laughably misinformed and yes, unforgivably stupid. They reveal the illegitimacy of her beliefs. Perhaps the most personally excoriating of these revelations is provided by the link to the Wikipedia entry on the Australian Government’s Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, which is where her own daughter, Roxy, works, but which Mrs Poulter knows, gormlessly, as “the Department of Families and that”. The ignorant woman spouts racist diatribes against Aboriginal Australians without even realising how inextricably linked she and her family, who live at the deliberately named Boomerang Crescent, really are. Therein lies the irony I am trying to create with my use of hyperlinks: an independent, expert adjudication reveals my character, Mrs Poulter, and her opinions, are hiding an “inescapable canker of negation at the heart of every affirmation” (Booth ix), despite the air of easy confidence she projects.Is the novel-reading public ready for these HM hyperlinked e-novels and their potentially ironic sub-texts? Indeed, the question must be asked: can the e-book ever compete with the tactile sensations a finely crafted, perfectly bound hardcover publication provides? Perhaps, if the economics of book buying comes into consideration. E-novels are cheap to publish and cheap to purchase, hence they are becoming hugely popular with the book buying public. Writes Mark co*ker, the founder of Smashwords, a successful online publisher and distributor of e-books: “We incorporated in 2007, and we officially launched the business in May 2008. In our first year, we published 140 books from 90 authors. Our catalog reached 6,000 books in 2009, 28,800 in 2010, 92,000 in 2011, 191,000 in 2012 and as of this writing (November 2013) stands at over 250,000 titles” (co*ker 2013). co*ker divulged more about his company’s success in an interview with Forbes online magazine: “‘It costs essentially the same to pump 10,000 new books a month through our network as it will cost to do 100,000 a month,’ he reasons. Smashwords book retails, on average, for just above $3; 15,000 titles are free” (Colao 2012).In such a burgeoning environment of technological progress in publishing I am tempted to say that yes, the time of the hyperlinked e-novel has come, and to even predict that HM will be a big part of this new wave of postmodern literature. The hyperlinked HM e-novel’s strategy invites the reader to reflect on the legitimacy and illegitimacy of different forms of narrative, possibly concluding, thanks to ironic electronic footnoting, that not all the novel’s characters and their commentary are to be trusted. Perhaps my HM e-novel will, with its untrustworthy Mrs Poulter and its little-known history of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy addressed by gap-filling hyperlinks, establish a legitimising narrative for a people who have traditionally in white Australian society been deemed the Other and illegitimate. Perhaps The Bullroarers will someday alter attitudes of non-Indigenous Australians to the history and political activities of this country’s first peoples, to the point even, that as Nunning warns, we witness a change in the “hegemonic discourse of history” (353). If that happens we must be thankful for our Internet-enabled information age and its concomitant possibilities for hyperlinked e-publications, for technology may be separated from the world of art, but it can nevertheless be effectively used to recreate, enhance and access that world, to the extent texts previously considered illegitimate achieve authenticity and veracity.ReferencesBanks, Glenda. A Respectable Married Woman. Melbourne: Lacuna, 2012.Banks, Glenda, and Martin Andrew. “Populating a Historical Novel: A Case Study of a Practice-led Research Approach to Historiographic Metafiction.” Bukker Tillibul 7 (2013). 19 Sep. 2014 ‹http://bukkertillibul.net/Text.html?VOL=7&INDEX=2›.Barthes, Roland. Image, Music, Text. Trans. Stephen Heath. London: Fontana Press, 1977.Booth, Wayne C. A Rhetoric of Irony. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1974.Colao, J.J. “Apple’s Biggest (Unknown) Supplier of E-books.” Forbes 7 June 2012. 19 Sep. 2014 ‹http://www.forbes.com/sites/jjcolao/2012/06/07/apples-biggest-unknown-supplier-of-e-books/›.co*ker, Mark. “Q & A with Smashwords Founder, Mark co*ker.” About Smashwords 2013. 19 Sep. 2014 ‹https://www.smashwords.com/about›.Eco, Umberto. The Name of the Rose. Trans. William Weaver, San Diego: Harcourt, 1983.Forrest Gump. Dir. Robert Zemeckis. Paramount Pictures, 1994.Fraser, George MacDonald. The Flashman Papers. Various publishers, 1969-2005.Groom, Winston. Forrest Gump. NY: Doubleday, 1986.Gregory, Philippa. The Other Boleyn Girl. UK: Scribner, 2001.Hutcheon, Linda. A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction, 2nd ed. Abingdon, UK: Taylor and Francis, 1988.---. “Intertextuality, Parody, and the Discourses of History: A Poetics of Postmodernism History, Theory, Fiction.” 1988. 19 Sep. 2014 ‹http://ieas.unideb.hu/admin/file_3553.pdf›.---. “Historiographic Metafiction: Parody and the Intertextuality of History.” Eds. P. O’Donnell and R.C. Davis, Intertextuality and Contemporary American Fiction. Baltimore, Maryland: John Hopkins UP, 1989. 3-32.---. “Historiographic Metafiction.” Ed. Michael McKeon, Theory of the Novel: A Historical Approach Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins UP, 2000. 830-50.Nunning, Ansgar. “Where Historiographic Metafiction and Narratology Meet.” Style 38.3 (2004): 352-75.Rushdie, Salman. Midnight’s Children. London: Jonathan Cape, 1980.Starrs, D. Bruno. That Blackfella Bloodsucka Dance! Saarbrücken, Germany: Just Fiction Edition (paperback), 2011; Starrs via Smashwords (e-book), 2012.---. “Writing Indigenous Vampires: Aboriginal Gothic or Aboriginal Fantastic?” M/C Journal 17.4 (2014). 19 Sep. 2014 ‹http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/viewArticle/834›.Tuhiwai Smith, Linda. Decolonizing Methodologies. London & New York: Zed Books, 2012.University of Sussex. “Philippa Gregory Fills the Historical Gaps.” University of Sussex Alumni Magazine 51 (2012). 19 Sep. 2014 ‹http://www.scribd.com/doc/136033913/University-of-Sussex-Alumni-Magazine-Falmer-issue-51›.Wikipedia. “A Current Affair.” 2014. 19 Sep. 2014 ‹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Current_Affair›.---. “Aboriginal Tent Embassy.” 2014. 19 Sep. 2014 ‹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboriginal_Tent_Embassy›.---. “Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs.” 2014. 19 Sep. 2014 ‹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_of_Families,_Housing,_Community_Services_and_Indigenous_Affairs›.---. “Eddie Mabo.” 2014. 19 Sep. 2014 ‹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Mabo›.---. “History of Australia (1788 – 1850).” 2014. 19 Sep. 2014 ‹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Australia_(1788%E2%80%931850)#Aboriginal_resistance›.---. “Terra Nullius.” 2014. 19 Sep. 2014 ‹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_nullius›.

33

Howarth, Anita. "Exploring a Curatorial Turn in Journalism." M/C Journal 18, no.4 (August11, 2015). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1004.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Introduction Curation-related discourses have become widespread. The growing public profile of curators, the emergence of new curation-related discourses and their proliferation beyond the confines of museums, particularly on social media, have led some to conclude that we now live in an age of curation (Buskirk cited in Synder). Curation is commonly understood in instrumentalist terms as the evaluation, selection and presentation of artefacts around a central theme or motif (see O’Neill; Synder). However, there is a growing academic interest in what underlies the shifting discourses and practices. Many are asking what do these changes mean (Martinon) now that “the curatorial turn” has positioned curation as a legitimate object of academic study (O’Neill). This article locates an exploration of the curatorial turn in journalism studies since 2010 within the shifting meanings of curation from antiquity to the digital age. It argues that the industry is facing a Foucauldian moment where the changing political economy of news and the proliferation of user-generated content on social media have disrupted the monopolies traditional news media held over the circulation of knowledge of current affairs and the power this gave them to shape public debate. The disruptions are profound, prompting a rethinking of journalism (Peters and Broersma; Schudson). However, debates have polarised between those who view news curation as symptomatic of the demise of journalism and others who see it as part of a wider revival of the profession, freed from monopolistic institutions to circulate a wider array of knowledge and viewpoints (see Picard). This article eschews such polarisations and instead draws on Robert Picard’s argument that journalism is in transition and that journalism, as a set of professional practices, is adapting to the age of curation but that those traditional news providers that fail to adapt will most likely decline. However, Picard’s approach does not address the definitional problem as to what distinguishes news curating from other journalistic practices when the commonly used instrumental definition can apply to editing. This article aims to negotiate this problem by addressing some of the conceptual ambiguities that arise from wholly instrumental notions of news curation. From “Cura” to the Curatorial Turn and the Age of Curation Modern instrumentalist definitions are necessary but not sufficient for an exploration of the curatorial turn in journalism. Tracing the meanings of curation over time facilitates an expansion of the instrumental to include metaphoric conceptualisations. The term originated in a Latin allegory about a mythological figure, personified as the “cura”, translated literally as care or concern, and who created human beings from the clay of the earth. Having created the human, the cura was charged by the gods with the lifelong care of the human (Reich) and at the same time became a symbol of curiosity and creativity (see Nowotny). “Curators” first emerged in Imperial Rome to denote a public officer charged with maintaining order and the emperor’s finances (Nowotny) but by the fourteenth century the meaning had shifted to that of religious officer charged with the care of souls (Gaskill). At this point the metaphorical associations of creativity and curiosity subsided. Six hundred years later souls had been replaced by artefacts valorised because of their contribution to human knowledge or as a testament to exceptional human creativity (Nowotny). Objects of curiosity and originality, as well as their creators, were reified and curation became the specialist practice of an expert custodian charged with the care and preservation of artefacts but relegated to the background to collect, evaluate and archive artefacts entrusted to the care of museums and to be preserved for future generations. Instrumentalist meanings thus dominated. From the 1960s discourses shifted again from the privileging of a “producer who actually creates the object in its materiality” to an entire set of actors (Bourdieu 261). These shifts were part of the changing political economy of museums, the growing prevalence of exhibitions and the emergence of mega-exhibitions hosted in global cities and capable of attracting massive audiences (see O’Neill). The curator was no longer seen merely as a custodian but able to add cultural value to artefacts when drawing individual items together into a collection, interpreting their relevance to a theme then re-presenting them through a story or visuals (see O’Neill). The verb “to curate”, which had first entered the English lexicon in the early 1900s but was used sporadically (Synder), proliferated from the 1960s in museum studies (Farquharson cited in O’Neill) as mega-exhibitions attracted publicity and the higher profile of curators attracted the attention of intellectuals prompting a curatorial turn in museum studies. The curatorial turn in museum studies from the 1980s marks the emergence of curation as a legitimate object of academic enquiry. O’Neill identified a “Foucauldian moment” in museum studies where shifting discourses signified challenges to, and disruptions of, traditional forms of knowledge-based power. Curation was no longer seen as a neutral activity of preservation, but one located within a contested political economy and invested with contradictions and complexities. Philosophers such as Martinon and Nowotny have highlighted the impossibility of separating the oversight of valuable artefacts from the processes by which these are selected, valorised and signified and what, at times, has been the controversial appropriation of creative outputs. Thus, a new critical approach emerged. Recently, curating-related discourses have expanded beyond the “rarefied” world of museum studies (Synder). Social media platforms have facilitated the proliferation of user-generated content offering a vast array of new artefacts. Information circulates widely and new discourses can challenge traditional bases of knowledge. Audiences now actively search for new material driven in part by curiosity and a growing distrust of the professions and establishments (see Holmberg). The boundaries between professionals and lay people are blurring and, some argue, knowledge is being democratized (see Ibrahim; Holmberg). However, as new information becomes voluminous, alternative truths, misinformation and false information compete for attention and there is a growing demand for the verification, selection and presentation of artefacts, that is online curation (Picard; Bakker). Thus, the appropriation of social media is disrupting traditional power relations but also offering new opportunities for new information-related practices. Journalism is facing its own Foucauldian moment. A Foucauldian Moment in Journalism Studies Journalism has been traditionally understood as capturing today’s happenings, verifying the facts of an event, then presenting these as a narrative that reporters update as news unfolds. News has been seen as the preserve of professionals trained to interview eyewitnesses or experts, to verify facts and to compile what they found into a compelling narrative (Hallin and Mancini). News-gathering was typically the work of an individual tasked with collecting stand-alone stories then passing them onto editors to evaluate, select, prioritise and collate these into a collection that formed a newspaper or news programme . This understanding of journalism emerged from the 1830s along with a type of news that was accessible, that large numbers of people wanted to read and that, consequently, attracted advertising making news profitable (Park). The idea that presumed trained journalists were best placed to produce news appeared first in the UK and USA then spread worldwide (Hallin and Mancini). At the same time as there was growing demand for news, space constraints restricted how much could be published and the high costs of production served as a barrier to entry first in print then later in broadcast media (Picard; Curran and Seaton). The large news organisations that employed these professionals were thus able to control the circulation of information and knowledge they generated and the editors that selected content were able, in part, to shape public debates (Picard; Habermas). Social media challenge the control traditional media have had over the production and dissemination of news since the mid-1800s. Practically every major global news story in 2010 and 2011 from natural disasters to uprisings was broken by ordinary people on social media (Bruns and Highfield). Twitter facilitates a steady stream of updates at an almost real-time speed that 24-hour news channels cannot match. Facebook, Instagram and blogs add commentary, context, visuals and personal stories to breaking news. Experts and official sources routinely post announcements on social media platforms enabling anyone to access much of the same source material that previously was the preserve of reporters. Investigations by bloggers have exposed abuses of power by companies and governments that journalists on traditional media have failed to (Wischnowski). Audiences and advertisers are migrating away from traditional newspapers to a range of different online platforms. News consumers now actively use search engines to find available information of interest and look for efficient ways of sifting through the proliferation of the useful and the dubious, the revelatory and the misleading or inaccurate (see Picard). That is, news organisations and the professional journalists they employ are increasingly operating in a hyper-competitive (see Picard) and hyper-sceptical environment. This paper posits that cumulatively these are disrupting the control news organisations have and journalism is facing a Foucauldian moment when shifting discourses signify a disturbance of the intellectual rules that shape who and what knowledge of news is produced and hence the power relations they sustain. Social media not only challenge the core news business of reporting, they also present new opportunities. Some traditional organisations have responded by adding new activities to their repertoire of practices. In 2011, the Guardian uploaded its entire database of the expense claims of British MPs onto its Website and invited readers to select, evaluate and comment on entries, a form of crowd-sourced curating. Andy Carvin, while at National Public Radio (NPR) built an international reputation from his curation of breaking news, opinion and commentary on Twitter as Syria became too dangerous for foreign correspondents to enter. New types of press agencies such as Storyful have emerged around a curatorial business model that aggregates information culled from social media and uses journalists to evaluate and repackage them as news stories that are sold onto traditional news media around the world (Guerrini). Research into the growing market for such skills in the Netherlands found more advertisem*nts for “news curators” than for “traditional reporters” (Bakker). At the same time, organic and spontaneous curation can emerge out of Twitter and Facebook communities that is capable of challenging news reporting by traditional media (Lewis and Westlund). Curation has become a common refrain attracting the attention of academics. A Curatorial Turn in Journalism The curatorial turn in journalism studies is manifest in the growing academic attention to curation-related discourses and practices. A review of four academic journals in the field, Journalism, Journalism Studies, Journalism Practice, and Digital Journalism found the first mention of journalism and curation emerged in 2010 with references in nearly 40 articles by July 2015. The meta-analysis that follows draws on this corpus. The consensus is that traditional business models based on mass circulation and advertising are failing partly because of the proliferation of alternative sources of information and the migration of readers in search of it. While some of this alternative content is credible, much is dubious and the sheer volume of information makes it difficult to discern what to believe. It is unsurprising, then, that there is a growing demand for “new types and practices of curation and information vetting” that attest to “the veracity and accuracy of content” particularly of news (Picard 280). However, academics disagree on whether new information practices such as curation are replacing or supplementing traditional newsgathering. Some look for evidence of displacement in the expansion of job advertisem*nts for news curators relative to those for traditional reporters (Bakker). Others look at how new and traditional practices co-exist in organisations like the BBC, Guardian and NPR, sometimes clashing and sometimes collaborating in the co-creation of content (McQuail cited in Fahy and Nisbet; Hermida and Thurman). The debate has polarised between whether these changes signify the “twilight years of journalism or a new dawn” (Picard). Optimists view the proliferation of alternative sources of information as breaking the control traditional organisations held over news production, exposing their ideological biases and disrupting their traditional knowledge-based power and practices (see Hermida; Siapera, Papadopoulou, and Archontakis; Compton and Benedetti). Others have focused on the loss of “traditional” permanent journalistic jobs (see Schwalbe, Silco*ck, and Candello; Spaulding) with the implication that traditional forms of professional practice are in demise. Picard rejects this polarisation, counter-arguing that much analysis implicitly conflates journalism as a practice with the news organisations that have traditionally hosted it. Journalists may or may not be located within a traditional media organisation and social media is offering numerous opportunities for them to operate independently and for new types of hybrid practices and organisations such as Storyful to emerge outside of traditional operations. Picard argues that making the most of the opportunities social media presents is revitalising the profession offering a new dawn but that those traditional organisations that fail to adapt to the new media landscape and new practices are in their twilight years and likely to decline. These divergences, he argues, highlight a profession and industry in transition from an old order to a new one (Picard). This notion of journalism in transition usefully negotiates confusion over what curation in the social media age means for news providers but it does not address the uncertainty as to where it sits in relation to journalism. Futuristic accounts predict that journalists will become “managers of content rather than simply sourcing one story next to another” and that roles will shift from reporting to curation (Montgomery cited in Bakker; see Fahy and Nisbet). Others insist curators are not journalists but “information workers” or “gatecheckers” (McQuail 2013 cited in Bakker; Schwalbe, Silco*ck, and Candello) thereby differentiating the professional from the manual worker and reinforcing the historic elitism of the professions by implying curation is a lesser practice. However, such demarcation is problematic in that arguably both journalist and news curator can be seen as information workers and the instrumental definition outlined at the beginning of this article is as relevant to curation as it is to news editing. It is therefore necessary to revisit commonly used definitions (see Bakker; Guerrini; Synder). The literature broadly defines content creation, including news reporting, as the generation of original content that is distinguishable from aggregation and curation, both of which entail working with existing material. News aggregation is the automated use of computer algorithms to find and collect existing content relevant to a specified subject followed by the generation of a list or image gallery (Bakker; Synder). While aggregators may help with the collection component of news curation, the practices differ in their relation to technology. Apart from the upfront human design of the original algorithm, aggregation is wholly machine-driven while modern news curation adds human intervention to the technological processes of aggregation (Bakker). This intervention is conscious rather than automated, active rather than passive. It brings to bear human knowledge, expertise and interpretation to verify and evaluate content, filter and select artefacts based on their perceived quality and relevance for a particular topic or theme then re-present them in an accessible form as a narrative or infographics or both. While it does not involve the generation of original news content in the way news reporting does, curation is more than the collation of information. It can also involve the re-presenting of it in imaginative ways, the re-formulating of existing content in new configurations. In this sense, curation can constitute a form of creativity increasingly common in the social media age, that of re-mixing and re-imagining of existing material to create something novel (Navas and Gallagher). The distinction, therefore, between content creation and content curation lies primarily in the relation to original material and not the assumed presence or otherwise of creativity. In addition, curation outputs need not stand apart from news reports. They can serve to contextualize news in ways that short reports cannot while the latter provides original content to sit alongside curated materials. Thus the two types of news-related practices can complement rather than compete with each other. While this addresses the relation between reporting and curation, it does not clarify the relation between curating and editing. Bakker eludes to this when he argues curating also involves “editing … enriching or combining content from different sources” (599). But teasing out the distinctions is tricky because editing encompasses a wide range of sub-specialisations and divergent duties. Broadly speaking, editors are “newsrooms professionals … with decision-making authority over content and structure” who evaluate, verify and select information so are “quality controllers” in newsrooms (Stepp). This conceptualization overlaps with the instrumentalist definition of curation and while the broad type of skills and tasks involved are similar, the two are not synonymous. Editors tends to be relatively experienced professionals who have worked up the newsroom ranks whereas news curators are often new entrants ultimately answerable to editors. Furthermore, curation in the social media age involves voluminous material that curators sift through as part of first level content collection and it involves ever more complex verification processes as digital technologies make it increasingly easy to alter and falsify information and images. The quality control role of curators may also involve in-house specialists or junior staff working with external experts in a particular region or specialisation (Fahy and Nisbett). Some of job advertisem*nts suggest a growing demand for specialist curatorial skills and position these alongside other newsroom professionals (Bakker). Whether this means they are journalists is still open to question. Conclusion This article has presented a more expansive conceptualisation of news curation than is commonly used in journalism studies, by including both the instrumental and the symbolic dimensions of a proliferating practice. It also sought to avoid confining this wider conceptualisation within unhelpful polarisations as to whether news curation is symbolic of a wider demise or revival of journalism by distinguishing the profession from the organisation in which it operates. The article was then free to negotiate the conceptual ambiguity surrounding the often taken-for-granted instrumental meanings of curation. It argues that what distinguishes news curation from traditional newsgathering is the relationship to original content. While the reporter generates the journalistic equivalent of original content in the form of news, the imaginative curator re-mixes and re-presents existing content in potentially novel ways. This has faint echoes of the mythological cura creating something new from the existing clay. The other conceptual ambiguity negotiated was in the definitional overlaps between curating and editing. On the one hand, this questions the appropriateness of reducing the news curator to the status of an “information worker”, a manual labourer rather than a professional. On the other hand, it positions news curators as one of many types of newsroom professionals. What distinguishes them from others is their status in the newsroom, the volume, nature and verification of the material they work with and the re-mixing of different components to create something novel and useful. References Bakker, Piet. “Mr. Gates Returns: Curation, Community Management and Other New Roles for Journalists.” Journalism Studies 15.5 (2014): 596-606. Bourdieu, Pierre. The Field of Cultural Production. New York: Columbia UP, 1993. Bruns, Axel, and Tim Highfield. “Blogs, Twitter, and Breaking News: The Produsage of Citizen Journalism.” Produsing Theory in a Digital World: The Intersection of Audiences and Production in Contemporary Theory. New York: Peter Lang. 15–32. Compton, James R., and Paul Benedetti. “Labour, New Media and the Institutional Restructuring of Journalism.” Journalism Studies 11.4 (2010): 487–499. Curran, J., and J. Seaton. “The Liberal Theory of Press Freedom.” Power without Responsibility. London: Routledge, 2003. Fahy, Declan, and Matthew C. Nisbet. “The Science Journalist Online: Shifting Roles and Emerging Practices.” Journalism 12.7 (2011): 778–793. Guerrini, Federico. “Newsroom Curators & Independent Storytellers : Content Curation As a New Form of Journalism.” Reuters Institute Fellowship Paper (2013): 1–62. Habermas, Jürgen. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Massachussetts, CA: MIT P, 1991. Hallin, Daniel, and Paolo Mancini. Comparing Media Systems beyond the Western World. Cambridge: Cambridge U P (2012). ———. Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004. Harb, Zahera. “Photojournalism and Citizen Journalism.” Journalism Practice (2012): 37–41. Hermida, Alfred. “Tweets and Truth.” Journalism Practice 6.5-6 (2012): 659–668. Hermida, Alfred, and Neil Thurman. “A Clash of Cultures: The Integration of User-Generated Content within Professional Journalistic Frameworks at British Newspaper Websites.” Journalism Practice 2.3 (2008): 343–356. Holmberg, Christopher. “Politicization of the Low-Carb High-Fat Diet in Sweden, Promoted on Social Media by Non-Conventional Experts.” International Journal of E-Politics (2015). Ibrahim, Yasmin. “The Discourses of Empowerment and Web 2.0.” Handbook of Research on Web 2.0, 3.0, and X.0: Technologies, Business, and Social Applications. Ed. San Murugesan. Hershey, PA, IGI Global, 2010. 828–845. Lewis, Seth C., and Oscar Westlund. “Actors, Actants, Audiences, and Activities in Cross-Media News Work.” Digital Journalism (July 2014 ): 1–19. Martinon, Jean-Paul. The Curatorial: A Philosophy of Curating. Ed. Jean-Paul Martinon. London: Bloomsbury P, 2013. Navas, Eduardo, and Owen Gallagher, eds. Routledge Companion to Remix Studies. London and New York: Routledge, 2014. Nowotny, Stefan. “The Curator Crosses the River: A Fabulation.” The Curatorial: A Philosophy of Curating. Ed. Jean-Paul Martinon. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013. O’Neill, Paul. The Curatorial Turn: From Practice to Discourse. Bristol: Intellect, 2007. Park, Robert E. “Reflections on Communication and Culture.” American Journal of Sociology 44.2 (1938): 187–205. Peters, Chris, and Marcel Broersma. Rethinking Journalism: Trust and Participation in a Transformed News Landscape. London: Routledge, 2013. Phillips, E. Barbara, and Michael Schudson. “Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers.” Contemporary Sociology 1980: 812. Picard, Robert G. “Twilight or New Dawn of Journalism?” Digital Journalism (May 2014): 1–11. Reich, Warren. “Classic Article: History of the Notion of Care.” Encyclopedia of BioEthics. Ed. Warren Reich. Revised ed. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995: 319–331. Rugg, Judith, and Michèle Sedgwick, eds. Issues in Curating Contemporary Art and Performance. Bristol: Intellect, 2007. Schudson, Michael. “Would Journalism Please Hold Still!” Re-Thinking Journalism. Eds. Chris Peters and Marcel Broersma. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013. Schwalbe, Carol B., B. William Silco*ck, and Elizabeth Candello. “Gatecheckers at the Visual News Stream.” Journalism Practice 9.4 (2015): 465-83. Siapera, Eugenia, Lambrini Papadopoulou, and Fragiskos Archontakis. “Post-Crisis Journalism.” Journalism Studies 16.3 (2014): 449–465. Spaulding, S. “The Poetics of Goodbye: Change and Nostalgia in Goodbye Narratives Penned by Ex-Baltimore Sun Employees.” Journalism (2014): 1–14. Stepp, Carl Sessions. Editing for Today’s Newsroom: New Perspectives for a Changing Profession. Abingdon: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2013. Synder, Ilana. “Discourses of ‘Curation’ in Digital Times.” Discourse and Digital Practices: Doing Discourse Analysis in the Digital Age. Eds. Rodney H. Harris, Alice Chik, and Christoph Hafner. Oxford: Routledge, 2015. 209–225. Thurman, Neil, and Nic Newman. “The Future of Breaking News Online?” Journalism Studies 15.5 (2014): 655-67. Wischnowski, Benjamin J. “Bloggers with Shields: Reconciling the Blogosphere’s Intrinsic Editorial Process with Traditional Concepts of Media Accountability.” Iowa Law Review 97.327 (2011).

34

West, Patrick Leslie, and Cher Coad. "Drawing the Line: Chinese Calligraphy, Cultural Materialisms and the "Remixing of Remix"." M/C Journal 16, no.4 (August11, 2013). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.675.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Western notions of authors’ Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs), as expressed within copyright law, maintain a potentially fraught relationship with a range of philosophical and theoretical positions on writing and authorship that have developed within contemporary Western thinking. For Roland Barthes, authorship is compromised, de-identified and multiplied by the very nature of writing: ‘Writing is that neutral, composite, oblique space where our subject slips away, the negative where all identity is lost, starting with the very identity of the body writing’ (142). Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari follow a related line of thought in A Thousand Plateaus: ‘Write, form a rhizome, increase your territory by deterritorialization, extend the line of flight to the point where it becomes an abstract machine covering the entire plane of consistency’ (11). Similarly, in Of Grammatology, Jacques Derrida suggests that ‘Writing is that forgetting of the self, that exteriorization, the contrary of the interiorizing memory’ (24). To the extent that these philosophical and theoretical positions emerge within the practices of creative writers as remixes of appropriation, homage and/or pastiche, prima facie they problematize the commercial rights of writers as outlined in law. The case of Kathy Acker often comes up in such discussions. Acker’s 1984 novel Blood and Guts in High School, for example, incorporates techniques that have attracted the charge of plagiarism as this term is commonly defined. (Peter Wollen notes this in his aptly named essay ‘Death [and Life] of the Author.’) For texts like Acker’s, the comeback against charges of plagiarism usually involves underscoring the quotient of creativity involved in the re-combination or ‘remixing’ of the parts of the original texts. (Pure repetition would, it would seem, be much harder to defend.) ‘Plagiarism’, so-called, was simply one element of Acker’s writing technique; Robert Lort nuances plagiarism as it applies to Acker as ‘pseudo-plagiarism’. According to Wollen, ‘as she always argued, it wasn’t really plagiarism because she was quite open about what she did.’ As we shall demonstrate in more detail later on, however, there is another and, we suggest, more convincing reason why Acker’s work ‘wasn’t really plagiarism.’ This relates to her conscious interest in calligraphy and to her (perhaps unconscious) appropriation of a certain strand of Chinese philosophy. All the same, within the Western context, the consistent enforcement of copyright law guarantees the rights of authors to control the distribution of their own work and thus its monetised value. The author may be ‘dead’ in writing—just the faintest trace of remixed textuality—but he/she is very much ‘alive’ as in recognised at law. The model of the author as free-standing citizen (as a defined legal entity) that copyright law employs is unlikely to be significantly eroded by the textual practices of authors who tarry artistically in the ‘de-authored territories’ mapped by figures like Barthes, Deleuze and Guattari, and Derrida. Crucially, disputes concerning copyright law and the ethics of remix are resolved, within the Western context, at the intersection of relatively autonomous creative and legal domains. In the West, it is seen that these two domains are related within the one social fabric; each nuances the other (as Acker’s example shows in the simultaneity of her legal/commercial status as an author and her artistic practice as a ‘remixer’ of the original works of other authors). Legal and writing issues co-exist even as they fray each other’s boundaries. And in Western countries there is force to the law’s operations. However, the same cannot be said of the situation with respect to copyright law in China. Chinese artists are traditionally regarded as being aloof from mundane legal and commercial matters, with the consequence that the creative and the legal domains tend to ‘miss each other’ within the fabric of Chinese society. To this extent, the efficacy of the law is muted in China when it comes into contact with circ*mstances of authorship, writing, originality and creativity. (In saying this though, we do not wish to fall into the trap of cultural essentialism: in this article, ‘China’ and ‘The West’ are placeholders for variant cultural tendencies—clustered, perhaps, around China and its disputed territories such as Taiwan on the one hand, and around America on the other—rather than hom*ogeneous national/cultural blocs.) Since China opened its system to Western capitalist economic activity in the 1980s, an ongoing criticism, sourced mainly out of the West, has been that the country lacks proper respect for notions of authorship and, more directly, for authorship’s derivative: copyright law. Tellingly, it took almost ten years of fierce negotiations between elements of the capitalist lobby in China and the Legislative Bureau to make the Seventh National People’s Congress pass the first Copyright Law of the People’s Republic of China on 7 September 1990. A law is one thing though, and adherence to the law is another. Jayanthi Iyengar of Asia Times Online reports that ‘the US government estimates that piracy within China [of all types of products] costs American companies $20-24 billion a year in damages…. If one includes European and Japanese firms, the losses on account of Chinese piracy is in excess of $50 billion annually.’ In 2008, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) reported that more than 99% of all music files in China are pirated. In the same year, Cara Anna wrote in The Seattle Times that, in desperation at the extent of Chinese infringement of its Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs), Microsoft has deployed an anti-piracy tactic that blacks out the screens of computers detected running a fake copy of Windows. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) has filed complaints from many countries against China over IPRs. Iyengar also reports that, under such pressure, the State Intellectual Property Office in Beijing has vowed it will continue to reinforce awareness of IPRs in order to better ensure their protection. Still, from the Western perspective at least, progress on this extremely contentious issue has been excruciatingly slow. Such a situation in respect of Chinese IPRs, however, should not lead to the conclusion that China simply needs to catch up with the more ‘morally advanced’ West. Rather, the problematic relations of the law and of creativity in China allow one to discern, and to trace through ancient Chinese history and philosophy, a different approach to remix that does not come into view so easily within Western countries. Different materialisms of writing and authorship come into play across global space, with different effects. The resistance to both the introduction and the policing of copyright law in China is, we think, the sign of a culture that retains something related to authorship and creativity that Western culture only loosely holds onto. It provides a different way of looking at remix, in the guise of what the West would tend to label plagiarism, as a practice, especially, of creativity. The ‘death’ of the author in China at law (the failure to legislate and/or police his/her rights) brings the author, as we will argue, ‘alive’ in the writing. Remix as anonymous composition (citing Barthes) becomes, in the Chinese example, remix as creative expression of singular feelings—albeit remix set adrift from the law. More concretely, our example of the Chinese writer/writing takes remix to its limit as a practice of repetition without variation—what the West would be likely to call plagiarism. Calligraphy is key to this. Of course, calligraphy is not the full extent of Chinese writing practice—not all writing is calligraphic strictly speaking. But all calligraphy is writing, and in this it influences the ethics of Chinese writing, whether character-based or otherwise, more generally. We will have more to say about the ‘pictorial’ material aspect of Chinese writing later on. In traditional Chinese culture, writing is regarded as a technical practice perfected through reproduction. Chinese calligraphy (visual writing) is learnt through exhaustively tracing and copying the style of the master calligrapher. We are tempted to say that what is at stake in Chinese remix/calligraphy is ‘the difference that cannot be helped:’ that is, the more one tries, as it were, to repeat, the more repetition becomes impossible. In part, this is explained by the interplay of Qing 情 (‘feelings’) and Yun 韵 (‘composed body movements’). Now, the order of the characters—Qing 情 (‘feelings’) before Yun 韵 (‘composed body movements’)—suggests that Qing creates and supports Yun. To this extent, what we have here is something akin to a Western understanding of creative writing (of the creativity of writing) in which individual and singular feelings are given expression in the very movement of the writing itself (through the bodily actions of the writer). In fact though, the Chinese case is more complicated than this, for the apprenticeship model of Chinese calligraphy cultivates a two-way interplay of Qing 情 (‘feelings’) and Yun 韵 (‘composed body movements’). More directly, the ‘composed body movements’ that one learns from the master calligrapher help compose one’s own ‘feelings’. The very repetition of the master’s work (its remixing, as it were…) enables the creativity of the apprentice. If this model of creativity is found somewhat distasteful from a Western perspective (that is, if it is seen to be too restrictive of originality) then that is because such a view, we think, depends upon a cultural misunderstanding that we will try to clear up here. To wit, the so-called Confucian model of rote learning that is more-or-less frowned upon in the West is not, at least not in the debased form that it adopts in Western stereotypes, the philosophy active in the case of Chinese calligraphy. That philosophy is Taoism. As Wing-Tsit Chan elucidates, ‘by opposing Confucian conformity with non-conformity and Confucian worldliness with a transcendental spirit, Taoism is a severe critic of Confucianism’ (136). As we will show in a moment, Chinese calligraphy exemplifies this special kind of Taoist non-conformity (in which, as Philip J. Ivanhoe limns it, ‘one must unweave the social fabric’). Chan again: ‘As the way of life, [Taoism] denotes simplicity, spontaneity, tranquility, weakness, and most important of all, non-action (wu-wei). By the latter is not meant literally “inactivity” but rather “taking no action that is contrary to Nature”—in other words, letting Nature take its own course’ (136). Thus, this is a philosophy of ‘weakness’ that is neither ‘negativism’ nor ‘absolute quietism’ (137). Taoism’s supposed weakness is rather a certain form of strength, of (in the fullest sense) creative possibilities, which comes about through deference to the way of Nature. ‘Hold fast to the great form (Tao), / And all the world will come’ illustrates this aspect of Taoism in its major philosophical tract, The Lao Tzu (Tao-Te Ching) or The Classic of the Way and its Virtue (section 35, Chan 157). The guiding principle is one of deference to the original (way, Nature or Tao) as a strategy of an expression (of self) that goes beyond the original. The Lao Tzu is full of cryptic, metaphoric expressions of this idea: ‘The pursuit of learning is to increase day after day. / The pursuit of Tao is to decrease day after day. / It is to decrease and further decrease until one reaches the point of taking no action. / No action is undertaken, and yet nothing is left undone’ (section 48, Chan 162). Similarly, The female always overcomes the male by tranquility, / And by tranquility she is underneath. / A big state can take over a small state if it places itself below the small state; / And the small state can take over a big state if it places itself below the big state. / Thus some, by placing themselves below, take over (others), / And some, by being (naturally) low, take over (other states) (section 61, Chan 168). In Taoism, it is only by (apparent) weakness and (apparent) in-action that ‘nothing is left undone’ and ‘states’ are taken over. The two-way interplay of Qing 情 (‘feelings’) and Yun 韵 (‘composed body movements’), whereby the apprentice copies the master, aligns with this key element of Taoism. Here is the linkage between calligraphy and Taoism. The master’s work is Tao, Nature or the way: ‘Hold fast to the great form (Tao), / And all the world will come’ (section 35, Chan 157). The apprentice’s calligraphy is ‘all the world’ (‘all the world’ being, ultimately in this context, Qing 情 [‘feelings’]). Indeed, Taoism itself is a subtle philosophy of learning (of apprenticeship to a master), unlike Confucianism, which Chan characterises as a doctrine of ‘social order’ (of servitude to a master) (136). ‘“Learn not learn”’ is how Wang Pi, as quoted by Chan (note 121, 170), understands what he himself (Chan) translates as ‘He learns to be unlearned’ (section 64, 170). In unlearning one learns what cannot be taught: this is, we suggest, a remarkable definition of creativity, which also avoids falling into the trap of asserting a one-to-one equivalence between (unlearnt) originality and creativity, for there is both learning and creativity in this Taoist paradox of pedagogy. On this, Michael Meehan points out that ‘originality is an over-rated and misguided concept in many ways.’ (There is even a sense in which, through its deliberate repetition, The Lao Tzu teaches itself, traces over itself in ‘self-plagiarising’ fashion, as if it were reflecting on the re-tracings of calligraphic pedagogy. Chan notes just how deliberate this is: ‘Since in ancient times books consisted of bamboo or wooden slabs containing some twenty characters each, it was not easy for these sentences… to be added by mistake…. Repetitions are found in more than one place’ [note 102, 166].) Thinking of Kathy Acker too as a learner, Peter Wollen’s observation that she ‘incorporated calligraphy… in her books’ and ‘was deeply committed to [the] avant-garde tradition, a tradition which was much stronger in the visual arts’ creates a highly suggestive connection between Acker’s work and Taoism. The Taoist model for learning calligraphy as, precisely, visual art—in which copying subtends creativity—serves to shift Acker away from a Barthesian or Derridean framework and into a Taoist context in which adherence to another’s form (as ‘un-learnt learning’) creatively unravels so-called plagiarism from the inside. Acker’s conscious interest in calligraphy is shown by its prevalence in Blood and Guts in High School. Edward S. Robinson identifies this text as part of her ‘middle phase’, which ‘saw the introduction of illustrations and diagrams to create multimedia texts with a collage-like feel’ (154). To our knowledge, Acker never critically reflected upon her own calligraphic practices; perhaps if she had, she would have troubled what we see as a blindspot in critics’ interpretations of her work. To wit, whenever calligraphy is mentioned in criticism on Acker, it tends to be deployed merely as an example of her cut-up technique and never analysed for its effects in its own cultural, philosophical and material specificity. (Interestingly, if the words of Chinese photographer Liu Zheng are any guide, the Taoism we’re identifying in calligraphy has also worked its way into other forms of Chinese visual art: she refers to ‘loving photographic details and cameras’ with the very Taoist term, ‘lowly’ 低级 [Three Shadows Photography Art Centre 187].) Being ‘lowly’, ‘feminine’ or ‘underneath’ has power as a radical way of learning. We mentioned above that Taoism is very metaphoric. As the co-writer of this paper Cher Coad recalls from her calligraphy classes, students in China grow up with a metaphoric proverb clearly inspired by Lao Tzu’s Taoist philosophy of learning: ‘Learning shall never stop. Black comes from blue, but is more than the blue.’ ‘Black comes from blue, but is more than the blue.’ What could this mean? Before answering this question with recourse to two Western notions that, we hope, will further effect (building on Acker’s example) a rapprochement between Chinese and Western ways of thinking (be they nationally based or not), we reiterate that the infringement of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) in China should not be viewed only as an egregious denial of universally accepted law. Rather, whatever else it may be, we see it as the shadow in the commercial realm—mixed through with all the complexities of Chinese tradition, history and cultural difference, and most particularly of the Taoist strand within Confucianism—of the never-quite-perfect copying of calligraphic writing/remixing. More generally, the re-examination of stereotypical assumptions about Chinese culture cues a re-examination of the meaning behind the copying of products and technology in contemporary, industrialised China. So, ‘Black comes from blue, but is more than the blue.’ What is this ‘more than the blue of black’? Or put differently, why is calligraphic writing, as learnt from the master, always infused with the singular feelings of the (apprentice) writer? The work of Deleuze, Guattari and Claire Parnet provides two possible responses. In On the Line, Deleuze and Guattari (and Deleuze in co-authorship with Parnet) author a number of comments that support the conception we are attempting to develop concerning the lines of Chinese calligraphy. A line, Deleuze and Guattari suggest, is always a line of lines (‘Line of chance, line of hips, line of flight’ [57]). In the section of On the Line entitled ‘Politics’, Deleuze and Parnet outline the impossibility of any line being just one line. If life is a line (as it is said, you throw someone a life line), then ‘We have as many entangled lines in our lives as there are in the palm of a hand’ (71). Of any (hypothetical) single line it can be said that other lines emerge: ‘Black comes from blue, but is more than the blue.’ The feelings of the apprentice calligrapher (his/her multiple lines) emerge through the repeated copying of the lines and composed body movements of the master. The Deleuzean notion of repetition takes this idea further. Repetitive Chinese calligraphy clearly indexes what Claire Colebrook refers to as ‘Deleuze’s concept of eternal return. The only thing that is repeated or returns is difference; no two moments of life can be the same. By virtue of the flow of time, any repeated event is necessarily different (even if different only to the extent that it has a predecessor)’ (121). Now, it might be objected that Chinese calligraphic practices, because of the substantially ideographic nature of Chinese writing (see Kristeva 72-81), allow for material mutations that can find no purchase in Western, alphabetical systems of writing. But the materiality of time that Colebrook refers to as part of her engagement with Deleuzean non-repetitious (untimely) repetition guarantees the materiality of all modes of writing. Furthermore, Julia Kristeva notes that, with any form of language, one cannot leave ‘the realm of materialism’ (6) and Adrian Miles, in his article ‘Virtual Actual: Hypertext as Material Writing,’ sees the apparently very ‘unmaterial’ writing of hypertext ‘as an embodied activity that has its own particular affordances and possibilities—its own constraints and local actualisations’ (1-2). Calligraphic repetition of the master’s model creates the apprentice’s feelings as (inevitable) difference. In this then, the learning by the Chinese apprentice of the lines of the master’s calligraphy challenges international (both Western and non-Western) artists of writing to ‘remix remix’ as a matter—as a materialisation—of the line. Not the line as a self-identical entity of writing that only goes to make up writing more generally; rather, lines as a materialisation of lines within lines within lines. More self-reflexively, even the collaborative enterprise of this article, co-authored as it is by a woman of Chinese ethnicity and a white Australian man, suggests a remixing of writing through, beneath and over each other’s lines. Yun 韵 (‘composed body movements’) expresses and maximises Qing 情 (‘feelings’). Taoist ‘un-learnt learning’ generates remix as the singular creativity of the writer. Writers get into a blue with the line—paint it, black. Of course, these ideas won’t and shouldn’t make copyright infringement (or associated legalities) redundant notions. But in exposing the cultural relativisms often buried within the deployment of this and related terms, the idea of lines of lines far exceeds a merely formalistic practice (one cut off from the materialities of culture) and rather suggests a mode of non-repetitious repetition in contact with all of the elements of culture (of history, of society, of politics, of bodies…) wherever these may be found, and whatever their state of becoming. In this way, remix re-creates the depths of culture even as it stirs up its surfaces of writing. References Acker, Kathy. Blood and Guts in High School: A Novel. New York: Grove Press, 1978. Anna, Cara. ‘Microsoft Anti-Piracy Technology Upsets Users in China.’ The Seattle Times. 28 Oct. 2008 ‹http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2008321919_webmsftchina28.html›. Barthes, Roland. ‘The Death of the Author.’ Barthes, Roland. Image-Music-Text. London: Fontana Press, 1977. 142-148. Chan, Wing-Tsit. A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1969. Colebrook, Claire. Gilles Deleuze. London: Routledge, 2002. Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. On the Line. New York: Semiotext(e), 1983. Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987. Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976. International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. ‘Recording Industry Steps Up Campaign against Internet Piracy in China.’ ifpi. 4 Feb. 2008 ‹http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_news/20080204.html›. Ivanhoe, Philip J. ‘Taoism’. The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. Ed. Robert Audi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. 787. Iyengar, Jayanthi. ‘Intellectual Property Piracy Rocks China Boat.’ Asia Times Online. 16 Sept. 2004 ‹http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/FI16Ad07.html›. Kristeva, Julia. Language: The Unknown: An Initiation into Linguistics. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989. Lort, Robert. ‘Kathy Acker (1944-1997).’ Jahsonic: A Vocabulary of Culture. 2003 ‹http://www.jahsonic.com/KathyAcker.html›. Meehan, Michael. ‘Week 5a: Playing with Genres.’ Lecture notes. Unit ALL705. Short Stories: Writers and Readers. Trimester 2. Melbourne: Deakin University, 2013. Miles, Adrian. ‘Virtual Actual: Hypertext as Material Writing.’ Studies in Material Thinking 1.2 (April 2008) ‹http://www.materialthinking.org/papers/29›. Robinson, Edward S. Shift Linguals: Cut-up Narratives from William S. Burroughs to the Present. New York: Editions Rodopi, 2011. Three Shadows Photography Art Centre. ‘Photography and Intimate Space Symposium.’ Conversations: Three Shadows Photography Art Centre’s 2007 Symposium Series. Ed. RongRong, inri, et al. Beijing: Three Shadows Press Limited, 2008. 179-191. Wollen, Peter. ‘Death (and Life) of the Author.’ London Review of Books 20.3 (5 Feb. 1998). ‹http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n03/peter-wollen/death-and-life-of-the-author›.

35

Inglis, David. "On Oenological Authenticity: Making Wine Real and Making Real Wine." M/C Journal 18, no.1 (January20, 2015). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.948.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

IntroductionIn the wine world, authenticity is not just desired, it is actively required. That demand comes from a complex of producers, distributors and consumers, and other interested parties. Consequently, the authenticity of wine is constantly created, reworked, presented, performed, argued over, contested and appreciated.At one level, such processes have clear economic elements. A wine deemed to be an authentic “expression” of something—the soil and micro-climate in which it was grown, the environment and culture of the region from which it hails, the genius of the wine-maker who nurtured and brought it into being, the quintessential characteristics of the grape variety it is made from—will likely make much more money than one deemed inauthentic. In wine, as in other spheres, perceived authenticity is a means to garner profits, both economic and symbolic (Beverland).At another level, wine animates a complicated intertwining of human tastes, aesthetics, pleasures and identities. Discussions as to the authenticity, or otherwise, of a wine often involve a search by the discussants for meaning and purpose in their lives (Grahm). To discover and appreciate a wine felt to “speak” profoundly of the place from whence it came possibly involves a sense of superiority over others: I drink “real” wine, while you drink mass-market trash (Bourdieu). It can also create reassuring senses of ontological security: in discovering an authentic wine, expressive of a certain aesthetic and locational purity (Zolberg and Cherbo), I have found a cherishable object which can be reliably traced to one particular place on Earth, therefore possessing integrity, honesty and virtue (Fine). Appreciation of wine’s authenticity licenses the self-perception that I am sophisticated and sensitive (Vannini and Williams). My judgement of the wine is also a judgement upon my own aesthetic capacities (Hennion).In wine drinking, and the production, distribution and marketing processes underpinning it, much is at stake as regards authenticity. The social system of the wine world requires the category of authenticity in order to keep operating. This paper examines how and why this has come to be so. It considers the crafting of authenticity in long-term historical perspective. Demand for authentic wine by drinkers goes back many centuries. Self-conscious performances of authenticity by producers is of more recent provenance, and was elaborated above all in France. French innovations then spread to other parts of Europe and the world. The paper reviews these developments, showing that wine authenticity is constituted by an elaborate complex of environmental, cultural, legal, political and commercial factors. The paper both draws upon the social science literature concerning the construction of authenticity and also points out its limitations as regards understanding wine authenticity.The History of AuthenticityIt is conventional in the social science literature (Peterson, Authenticity) to claim that authenticity as a folk category (Lu and Fine), and actors’ desires for authentic things, are wholly “modern,” being unknown in pre-modern contexts (Cohen). Consideration of wine shows that such a view is historically uninformed. Demands by consumers for ‘authentic’ wine, in the sense that it really came from the location it was sold as being from, can be found in the West well before the 19th century, having ancient roots (Wengrow). In ancient Rome, there was demand by elites for wine that was both really from the location it was billed as being from, and was verifiably of a certain vintage (Robertson and Inglis). More recently, demand has existed in Western Europe for “real” Tokaji (sweet wine from Hungary), Port and Bordeaux wines since at least the 17th century (Marks).Conventional social science (Peterson, Authenticity) is on solider ground when demonstrating how a great deal of social energies goes into constructing people’s perceptions—not just of consumers, but of wine producers and sellers too—that particular wines are somehow authentic expressions of the places where they were made. The creation of perceived authenticity by producers and sales-people has a long historical pedigree, beginning in early modernity.For example, in the 17th and 18th centuries, wine-makers in Bordeaux could not compete on price grounds with burgeoning Spanish, Portuguese and Italian production areas, so they began to compete with them on the grounds of perceived quality. Multiple small plots were reorganised into much bigger vineyards. The latter were now associated with a chateau in the neighbourhood, giving the wines connotations of aristocratic gravity and dignity (Ulin). Product-makers in other fields have used the assertion of long-standing family lineages as apparent guarantors of tradition and quality in production (Peterson, Authenticity). The early modern Bordelaise did the same, augmenting their wines’ value by calling upon aristocratic accoutrements like chateaux, coats-of-arms, alleged long-term family ownership of vineyards, and suchlike.Such early modern entrepreneurial efforts remain the foundations of the very high prestige and prices associated with elite wine-making in the region today, with Chinese companies and consumers particularly keen on the grand crus of the region. Globalization of the wine world today is strongly rooted in forms of authenticity performance invented several hundred years ago.Enter the StateAnother notable issue is the long-term role that governments and legislation have played, both in the construction and presentation of authenticity to publics, and in attempts to guarantee—through regulative measures and taxation systems—that what is sold really has come from where it purports to be from. The west European State has a long history of being concerned with the fraudulent selling of “fake” wines (Anderson, Norman, and Wittwer). Thus Cosimo III, Medici Grand Duke of Florence, was responsible for an edict of 1716 which drew up legal boundaries for Tuscan wine-producing regions, restricting the use of regional names like Chianti to wine that actually came from there (Duguid).These 18th century Tuscan regulations are the distant ancestors of quality-control rules centred upon the need to guarantee the authenticity of wines from particular geographical regions and sub-regions, which are today now ubiquitous, especially in the European Union (DeSoucey). But more direct progenitors of today’s Geographical Indicators (GIs)—enforced by the GATT international treaties—and Protected Designations of Origin (PDOs)—promulgated and monitored by the EU—are French in origin (Barham). The famous 1855 quality-level classification of Bordeaux vineyards and their wines was the first attempt in the world explicitly to proclaim that the quality of a wine was a direct consequence of its defined place of origin. This move significantly helped to create the later highly influential notion that place of origin is the essence of a wine’s authenticity. This innovation was initially wholly commercial, rather than governmental, being carried out by wine-brokers to promote Bordeaux wines at the Paris Exposition Universelle, but was later elaborated by State officials.In Champagne, another luxury wine-producing area, small-scale growers of grapes worried that national and international perceptions of their wine were becoming wholly determined by big brands such as Dom Perignon, which advertised the wine as a luxury product, but made no reference to the grapes, the soil, or the (supposedly) traditional methods of production used by growers (Guy). The latter turned to the idea of “locality,” which implied that the character of the wine was an essential expression of the Champagne region itself—something ignored in brand advertising—and that the soil itself was the marker of locality. The idea of “terroir”—referring to the alleged properties of soil and micro-climate, and their apparent expression in the grapes—was mobilised by one group, smaller growers, against another, the large commercial houses (Guy). The terroir notion was a means of constructing authenticity, and denouncing de-localised, hom*ogenizing inauthenticity, a strategy favouring some types of actors over others. The relatively highly industrialized wine-making process was later represented for public consumption as being consonant with both tradition and nature.The interplay of commerce, government, law, and the presentation of authenticity, also appeared in Burgundy. In that region between WWI and WWII, the wine world was transformed by two new factors: the development of tourism and the rise of an ideology of “regionalism” (Laferté). The latter was invented circa WWI by metropolitan intellectuals who believed that each of the French regions possessed an intrinsic cultural “soul,” particularly expressed through its characteristic forms of food and drink. Previously despised peasant cuisine was reconstructed as culturally worthy and true expression of place. Small-scale artisanal wine production was no longer seen as an embarrassment, producing wines far more “rough” than those of Bordeaux and Champagne. Instead, such production was taken as ground and guarantor of authenticity (Laferté). Location, at regional, village and vineyard level, was taken as the primary quality indicator.For tourists lured to the French regions by the newly-established Guide Michelin, and for influential national and foreign journalists, an array of new promotional devices were created, such as gastronomic festivals and folkloric brotherhoods devoted to celebrations of particular foodstuffs and agricultural events like the wine-harvest (Laferté). The figure of the wine-grower was presented as an exemplary custodian of tradition, relatively free of modern capitalist exchange relations. These are the beginnings of an important facet of later wine companies’ promotional literatures worldwide—the “decoupling” of their supposed commitments to tradition, and their “passion” for wine-making beyond material interests, from everyday contexts of industrial production and profit-motives (Beverland). Yet the work of making the wine-maker and their wines authentically “of the soil” was originally stimulated in response to international wine markets and the tourist industry (Laferté).Against this background, in 1935 the French government enacted legislation which created theInstitut National des Appellations d’Origine (INAO) and its Appelation d’Origine Controlle (AOC) system (Barham). Its goal was, and is, to protect what it defines as terroir, encompassing both natural and human elements. This legislation went well beyond previous laws, as it did more than indicate that wine must be honestly labelled as deriving from a given place of origin, for it included guarantees of authenticity too. An authentic wine was defined as one which truly “expresses” the terroir from which it comes, where terroir means both soil and micro-climate (nature) and wine-making techniques “traditionally” associated with that area. Thus French law came to enshrine a relatively recently invented cultural assumption: that places create distinctive tastes, the value of this state of affairs requiring strong State protection. Terroir must be protected from the untrammelled free market. Land and wine, symbiotically connected, are de-commodified (Kopytoff). Wine is embedded in land; land is embedded in what is regarded as regional culture; the latter is embedded in national history (Polanyi).But in line with the fact that the cultural underpinnings of the INAO/AOC system were strongly commercially oriented, at a more subterranean level the de-commodified product also has economic value added to it. A wine worthy of AOC protection must, it is assumed, be special relative to wines un-deserving of that classification. The wine is taken out of the market, attributed special status, and released, economically enhanced, back onto the market. Consequently, State-guaranteed forms of authenticity embody ambivalent but ultimately efficacious economic processes. Wine pioneered this Janus-faced situation, the AOC system in the 1990s being generalized to all types of agricultural product in France. A huge bureaucratic apparatus underpins and makes possible the AOC system. For a region and product to gain AOC protection, much energy is expended by collectives of producers and other interested parties like regional development and tourism officials. The French State employs a wide range of expert—oenological, anthropological, climatological, etc.—who police the AOC classificatory mechanisms (Barham).Terroirisation ProcessesFrench forms of legal classification, and the broader cultural classifications which underpin them and generated them, very much influenced the EU’s PDO system. The latter uses a language of authenticity rooted in place first developed in France (DeSoucey). The French model has been generalized, both from wine to other foodstuffs, and around many parts of Europe and the world. An Old World idea has spread to the New World—paradoxically so, because it was the perceived threat posed by the ‘placeless’ wines and decontextualized grapes of the New World which stimulated much of the European legislative measures to protect terroir (Marks).Paxson shows how artisanal cheese-makers in the US, appropriate the idea of terroir to represent places of production, and by extension the cheeses made there, that have no prior history of being constructed as terroir areas. Here terroir is invented at the same time as it is naturalised, made to seem as if it simply points to how physical place is directly expressed in a manufactured product. By defining wine or cheese as a natural product, claims to authenticity are themselves naturalised (Ulin). Successful terroirisation brings commercial benefits for those who engage in it, creating brand distinctiveness (no-one else can claim their product expresses that particularlocation), a value-enhancing aura around the product which, and promotion of food tourism (Murray and Overton).Terroirisation can also render producers into virtuous custodians of the land who are opposed to the depredations of the industrial food and agriculture systems, the categories associated with terroir classifying the world through a binary opposition: traditional, small-scale production on the virtuous side, and large-scale, “modern” harvesting methods on the other. Such a situation has prompted large-scale, industrial wine-makers to adopt marketing imagery that implies the “place-based” nature of their offerings, even when the grapes can come from radically different areas within a region or from other regions (Smith Maguire). Like smaller producers, large companies also decouple the advertised imagery of terroir from the mundane realities of industry and profit-margins (Beverland).The global transportability of the terroir concept—ironic, given the rhetorical stress on the uniqueness of place—depends on its flexibility and ambiguity. In the French context before WWII, the phrase referred specifically to soil and micro-climate of vineyards. Slowly it started mean to a markedly wider symbolic complex involving persons and personalities, techniques and knowhow, traditions, community, and expressions of local and regional heritage (Smith Maguire). Over the course of the 20th century, terroir became an ever broader concept “encompassing the physical characteristics of the land (its soil, climate, topography) and its human dimensions (culture, history, technology)” (Overton 753). It is thought to be both natural and cultural, both physical and human, the potentially contradictory ramifications of such understanding necessitating subtle distinctions to ward off confusion or paradox. Thus human intervention on the land and the vines is often represented as simply “letting the grapes speak for themselves” and “allowing the land to express itself,” as if the wine-maker were midwife rather than fabricator. Terroir talk operates with an awkward verbal balancing act: wine-makers’ “signature” styles are expressions of their cultural authenticity (e.g. using what are claimed as ‘traditional’ methods), yet their stylistic capacities do not interfere with the soil and micro-climate’s natural tendencies (i.e. the terroir’sphysical authenticity).The wine-making process is a case par excellence of a network of humans and objects, or human and non-human actants (Latour). The concept of terroir today both acknowledges that fact, but occludes it at the same time. It glosses over the highly problematic nature of what is “real,” “true,” “natural.” The roles of human agents and technologies are sequestered, ignoring the inevitably changing nature of knowledges and technologies over time, recognition of which jeopardises claims about an unchanging physical, social and technical order. Harvesting by machine production is representationally disavowed, yet often pragmatically embraced. The role of “foreign” experts acting as advisors —so-called “flying wine-makers,” often from New World production cultures —has to be treated gingerly or covered up. Because of the effects of climate change on micro-climates and growing conditions, the taste of wines from a particular terroir changes over time, but the terroir imaginary cannot recognise that, being based on projections of timelessness (Brabazon).The authenticity referred to, and constructed, by terroir imagery must constantly be performed to diverse audiences, convincing them that time stands still in the terroir. If consumers are to continue perceiving authenticity in a wine or winery, then a wide range of cultural intermediaries—critics, journalists and other self-proclaiming experts must continue telling convincing stories about provenance. Effective authenticity story-telling rests on the perceived sincerity and knowledgeability of the teller. Such tales stress romantic imagery and colourful, highly personalised accounts of the quirks of particular wine-makers, omitting mundane details of production and commercial activities (Smith Maguire). Such intermediaries must seek to interest their audience in undiscovered regions and “quirky” styles, demonstrating their insider knowledge. But once such regions and styles start to become more well-known, their rarity value is lost, and intermediaries must find ever newer forms of authenticity, which in turn will lose their burnished aura when they become objects of mundane consumption. An endless cycle of discovering and undermining authenticity is constantly enacted.ConclusionAuthenticity is a category held by different sorts of actors in the wine world, and is the means by which that world is held together. This situation has developed over a long time-frame and is now globalized. Yet I will end this paper on a volte face. Authenticity in the wine world can never be regarded as wholly and simply a social construction. One cannot directly import into the analysis of that world assumptions—about the wholly socially constructed nature of phenomena—which social scientific studies of other domains, most notably culture industries, work with (Peterson, Authenticity). Ways of thinking which are indeed useful for understanding the construction of authenticity in some specific contexts, cannot just be applied in simplistic manners to the wine world. When they are applied in direct and unsophisticated ways, such an operation misses the specificities and particularities of wine-making processes. These are always simultaneously “social” and “natural”, involving multiple forms of complex intertwining of human actions, environmental and climatological conditions, and the characteristics of the vines themselves—a situation markedly beyond beyond any straightforward notion of “social construction.”The wine world has many socially constructed objects. But wine is not just like any other product. Its authenticity cannot be fabricated in the manner of, say, country music (Peterson, Country). Wine is never in itself only a social construction, nor is its authenticity, because the taste, texture and chemical elements of wine derive from complex human interactions with the physical environment. Wine is partly about packaging, branding and advertising—phenomena standard social science accounts of authenticity focus on—but its organic properties are irreducible to those factors. Terroir is an invention, a label put on to certain things, meaning they are perceived to be authentic. But the things that label refers to—ranging from the slope of a vineyard and the play of sunshine on it, to how grapes grow and when they are picked—are entwined with human semiotics but not completely created by them. A truly comprehensive account of wine authenticity remains to be written.ReferencesAnderson, Kym, David Norman, and Glyn Wittwer. “Globalization and the World’s Wine Markets: Overview.” Discussion Paper No. 0143, Centre for International Economic Studies. Adelaide: U of Adelaide, 2001.Barham, Elizabeth. “Translating Terroir: The Global Challenge of French AOC Labelling.” Journal of Rural Studies 19 (2003): 127–38.Beverland, Michael B. “Crafting Brand Authenticity: The Case of Luxury Wines.” Journal of Management Studies 42.5 (2005): 1003–29.Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London: Routledge, 1992.Brabazon, Tara. “Colonial Control or Terroir Tourism? The Case of Houghton’s White Burgundy.” Human Geographies 8.2 (2014): 17–33.Cohen, Erik. “Authenticity and Commoditization in Tourism.” Annals of Tourism Research 15.3 (1988): 371–86.DeSoucey, Michaela. “Gastronationalism: Food Traditions and Authenticity Politics in the European Union.” American Sociological Review 75.3 (2010): 432–55.Duguid, Paul. “Developing the Brand: The Case of Alcohol, 1800–1880.” Enterprise and Society 4.3 (2003): 405–41.Fine, Gary A. “Crafting Authenticity: The Validation of Identity in Self-Taught Art.” Theory and Society 32.2 (2003): 153–80.Grahm, Randall. “The Soul of Wine: Digging for Meaning.” Wine and Philosophy: A Symposium on Thinking and Drinking. Ed. Fritz Allhoff. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008. 219–24.Guy, Kolleen M. When Champagne Became French: Wine and the Making of a National Identity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2003.Hennion, Antoine. “The Things That Bind Us Together.”Cultural Sociology 1.1 (2007): 65–85.Kopytoff, Igor. “The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as a Process." The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Ed. Arjun Appadurai. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1986. 64–91.Laferté, Gilles. “End or Invention of Terroirs? Regionalism in the Marketing of French Luxury Goods: The Example of Burgundy Wines in the Inter-War Years.” Working Paper, Centre d’Economie et Sociologie Appliquées a l’Agriculture et aux Espaces Ruraux, Dijon.Latour, Bruno. We Have Never Been Modern. Harvard: Harvard UP, 1993.Lu, Shun and Gary A. Fine. “The Presentation of Ethnic Authenticity: Chinese Food as a Social Accomplishment.” The Sociological Quarterly 36.3 (1995): 535–53.Marks, Denton. “Competitiveness and the Market for Central and Eastern European Wines: A Cultural Good in the Global Wine Market.” Journal of Wine Research 22.3 (2011): 245–63.Murray, Warwick E. and John Overton. “Defining Regions: The Making of Places in the New Zealand Wine Industry.” Australian Geographer 42.4 (2011): 419–33.Overton, John. “The Consumption of Space: Land, Capital and Place in the New Zealand Wine Industry.” Geoforum 41.5 (2010): 752–62.Paxson, Heather. “Locating Value in Artisan Cheese: Reverse Engineering Terroir for New-World Landscapes.” American Anthropologist 112.3 (2010): 444–57.Peterson, Richard A. Creating Country Music: Fabricating Authenticity. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2000.———. “In Search of Authenticity.” Journal of Management Studies 42.5 (2005): 1083–98.Polanyi, Karl. The Great Transformation. Boston: Beacon Press, 1957.Robertson, Roland, and David Inglis. “The Global Animus: In the Tracks of World Consciousness.” Globalizations 1.1 (2006): 72–92.Smith Maguire, Jennifer. “Provenance and the Liminality of Production and Consumption: The Case of Wine Promoters.” Marketing Theory 10.3 (2010): 269–82.Trubek, Amy. The Taste of Place: A Cultural Journey into Terroir. Los Angeles: U of California P, 2008.Ulin, Robert C. “Invention and Representation as Cultural Capital.” American Anthropologist 97.3 (1995): 519–27.Vannini, Phillip, and Patrick J. Williams. Authenticity in Culture, Self and Society. Farnham: Ashgate, 2009.Wengrow, David. “Prehistories of Commodity Branding.” Current Anthropology 49.1 (2008): 7–34.Zolberg, Vera and Joni Maya Cherbo. Outsider Art: Contesting Boundaries in Contemporary Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997.

36

Franks, Rachel. "Building a Professional Profile: Charles Dickens and the Rise of the “Detective Force”." M/C Journal 20, no.2 (April26, 2017). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1214.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

IntroductionAccounts of criminals, their victims, and their pursuers have become entrenched within the sphere of popular culture; most obviously in the genres of true crime and crime fiction. The centrality of the pursuer in the form of the detective, within these stories, dates back to the nineteenth century. This, often highly-stylised and regularly humanised protagonist, is now a firm feature of both factual and fictional accounts of crime narratives that, today, regularly focus on the energies of the detective in solving a variety of cases. So familiar is the figure of the detective, it seems that these men and women—amateurs and professionals—have always had an important role to play in the pursuit and punishment of the wrongdoer. Yet, the first detectives were forced to overcome significant resistance from a suspicious public. Some early efforts to reimagine punishment and to laud the detective include articles written by Charles Dickens; pieces on public hangings and policing that reflect the great Victorian novelist’s commitment to shed light on, through written commentaries, a range of important social issues. This article explores some of Dickens’s lesser-known pieces, that—appearing in daily newspapers and in one of his own publications Household Words—helped to change some common perceptions of punishment and policing. Image 1: Harper's Magazine 7 December 1867 (Charles Dickens Reading, by Charles A. Barry). Image credit: United States Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. A Reliance on the Scaffold: Early Law Enforcement in EnglandCrime control in 1720s England was dependent upon an inconsistent, and by extension ineffective, network of constables and night watchmen. It would be almost another three decades before Henry Fielding established the Bow Street Foot Patrol, or Bow Street Runners, in 1749, “six men in blue coats, patrolling the area within six miles of Charing Cross” (Worsley 35). A large-scale, formalised police force was attempted by Pitt the Younger in 1785 with his “Bill for the Further prevention of Crime and for the more Speedy Detection and Punishment of Offenders against the Peace” (Lyman 144). The proposed legislation was withdrawn due to fierce opposition that was underpinned by fears, held by officials, of a divestment of power to a new body of law enforcers (Lyman 144).The type of force offered in 1785 would not be realised until the next century, when the work of Robert Peel saw the passing of the Metropolitan Police Act 1829. The Police Act, which “constituted a revolution in traditional methods of law enforcement” (Lyman 141), was focused on the prevention of crime, “to reassure the lawful and discourage the wrongdoer” (Hitchens 51). Until these changes were implemented violent punishment, through the Waltham Black Act 1723, remained firmly in place (Cruickshanks and Erskine-Hill 359) as part of the state’s arsenal against crime (Pepper 473).The Black Act, legislation often referred to as the ‘Bloody Code’ as it took the number of capital felonies to over 350 (Pepper 473), served in lieu of consistency and cooperation, across the country, in relation to the safekeeping of the citizenry. This situation inevitably led to anxieties about crime and crime control. In 1797 Patrick Colquhoun, a magistrate, published A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis in which he estimated that, out of a city population of just under 1 million, 115,000 men and women supported themselves “in and near the Metropolis by pursuits either criminal-illegal-or immoral” (Lyman 144). Andrew Pepper highlights tensions between “crime, governance and economics” as well as “rampant petty criminality [… and] widespread political corruption” (474). He also notes a range of critical responses to crime and how, “a particular kind of writing about crime in the 1720s demonstrated, perhaps for the first time, an awareness of, or self-consciousness about, this tension between competing visions of the state and state power” (Pepper 474), a tension that remains visible today in modern works of true crime and crime fiction. In Dickens’s day, crime and its consequences were serious legal, moral, and social issues (as, indeed, they are today). An increase in the crime rate, an aggressive state, the lack of formal policing, the growth of the printing industry, and writers offering diverse opinions—from the sympathetic to the retributive—on crime changed crime writing. The public wanted to know about the criminal who had disturbed society and wanted to engage with opinions on how the criminal should be stopped and punished. The public also wanted to be updated on changes to the judicial system such as the passing of the Judgement of Death Act 1823 which drastically reduced the number of capital crimes (Worsley 122) and how the Gaols Act, also of 1823, “moved tentatively towards national prison reform” (Gattrell 579). Crimes continued to be committed and alongside the wrongdoers were readers that wanted to be diverted from everyday events by, but also had a genuine need to be informed about, crime. A demand for true crime tales demonstrating a broader social need for crimes, even the most minor infractions, to be publicly punished: first on the scaffold and then in print. Some cases were presented as sensationalised true crime tales; others would be fictionalised in short stories and novels. Standing Witness: Dickens at the ScaffoldIt is interesting to note that Dickens witnessed at least four executions in his lifetime (Simpson 126). The first was the hanging of a counterfeiter, more specifically a coiner, which in the 1800s was still a form of high treason. The last person executed for coining in England was in early 1829; as Dickens arrived in London at the end of 1822, aged just 10-years-old (Simpson 126-27) he would have been a boy when he joined the crowds around the scaffold. Many journalists and writers who have documented executions have been “criticised for using this spectacle as a source for generating sensational copy” (Simpson 127). Dickens also wrote about public hangings. His most significant commentaries on the issue being two sets of letters: one set published in The Daily News (1846) and a second set published in The Times (1849) (Brandwood 3). Yet, he was immune from the criticism directed at so many other writers, in large part, due to his reputation as a liberal, “social reformer moved by compassion, but also by an antipathy toward waste, bureaucratic incompetence, and above all toward exploitation and injustice” (Simpson 127). As Anthony Simpson points out, Dickens did not sympathise with the condemned: “He wrote as a realist and not a moralist and his lack of sympathy for the criminal was clear, explicit and stated often” (128). Simpson also notes that Dickens’s letters on execution written in 1846 were “strongly supportive of total abolition” while later letters, written in 1849, presented arguments against public executions rather than the practice of execution. In 1859 Dickens argued against pardoning a poisoner. While in 1864 he supported the execution of the railway carriage murderer Franz Müller, explaining he would be glad to abolish both public executions and capital punishment, “if I knew what to do with the Savages of civilisation. As I do not, I would rid Society of them, when they shed blood, in a very solemn manner” (in Simpson 138-39) that is, executions should proceed but should take place in private.Importantly, Dickens was consistently concerned about society’s fascination with the scaffold. In his second letter to The Daily News, Dickens asks: round what other punishment does the like interest gather? We read of the trials of persons who have rendered themselves liable to transportation for life, and we read of their sentences, and, in some few notorious instances, of their departure from this country, and arrival beyond the sea; but they are never followed into their cells, and tracked from day to day, and night to night; they are never reproduced in their false letters, flippant conversations, theological disquisitions with visitors, lay and clerical […]. They are tried, found guilty, punished; and there an end. (“To the Editors of The Daily News” 6)In this passage, Dickens describes an overt curiosity with those criminals destined for the most awful of punishments. A curiosity that was put on vile display when a mob gathered on the concourse to watch a hanging; a sight which Dickens readily admitted “made [his] blood run cold” (“Letter to the Editor” 4).Dickens’s novels are grand stories, many of which feature criminals and criminal sub-plots. There are, for example, numerous criminals, including the infamous fa*gin in Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy’s Progress (1838); several rioters are condemned to hang in Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty (1841); there is murder in The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit (1844); and murder, too, in Bleak House (1853). Yet, Dickens never wavered in his revulsion for the public display of the execution as revealed in his “refusal to portray the scene at the scaffold [which] was principled and heartfelt. He came, reluctantly to support capital punishment, but he would never use its application for dramatic effect” (Simpson 141).The Police Detective: A Public Relations ExerciseBy the mid-1700s the crime story was one of “sin to crime and then the gallows” (Rawlings online): “Crimes of every defcription (sic) have their origin in the vicious and immoral habits of the people” (Colquhoun 32). As Philip Rawlings notes, “once sin had been embarked upon, capture and punishment followed” (online). The origins of this can be found in the formula relied upon by Samuel Smith in the seventeenth century. Smith was the Ordinary of Newgate, or prison chaplain (1676–1698), who published Accounts of criminals and their gruesome ends. The outputs swelled the ranks of the already burgeoning market of broadsides, handbills and pamphlets. Accounts included: 1) the sermon delivered as the prisoner awaited execution; 2) a brief overview of the crimes for which the prisoner was being punished; and 3) a reporting of the events that surrounded the execution (Gladfelder 52–53), including the prisoner’s behaviour upon the scaffold and any last words spoken. For modern readers, the detective and the investigation is conspicuously absent. These popular Accounts (1676–1772)—over 400 editions offering over 2,500 criminal biographies—were only a few pence a copy. With print runs in the thousands, the Ordinary earnt up to £200 per year for his efforts (Emsley, Hitchco*ck, and Shoemaker online). For:penitence and profit made comfortable bedfellows, ensuring true crime writing became a firm feature of the business of publishing. That victims and villains suffered was regrettable but no horror was so terrible anyone forgot there was money to be made. (Franks, “Stealing Stories” 7)As the changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution were having their full impact, many were looking for answers, and certainty, in a period of radical social transformation. Sin as a central motif in crime stories was insufficient: the detective was becoming essential (Franks, “True Crime” 239). “In the nineteenth century, the role of the newly-fashioned detective as an agent of consolation or security is both commercially and ideologically central to the subsequent project of popular crime writing” (Bell 8). This was supported by an “increasing professionalism and proficiency of policemen, detectives, and prosecutors, new understandings about psychology, and advances in forensic science and detection techniques” (Murley 10). Elements now included in most crime narratives. Dickens insisted that the detective was a crucial component of the justice system—a figure to be celebrated, one to take centre stage in the crime story—reflecting his staunch support “of the London Metropolitan Police” (Simpson 140). Indeed, while Dickens is known principally for exposing wretched poverty, he was also interested in a range of legal issues as can be evinced from his writings for Household Words. Image 2: Household Words 27 July 1850 (Front Page). Image credit: Dickens Journals Online. W.H. Wills argued for the acceptance of the superiority of the detective when, in 1850, he outlined the “difference between a regular and a detective policeman” (368). The detective must, he wrote: “counteract every sort of rascal whose only means of existence it avowed rascality, but to clear up mysteries, the investigation of which demands the utmost delicacy and tact” (368). The detective is also extraordinarily efficient; cases are solved quickly, in one example a matter is settled in just “ten minutes” (369).Dickens’s pro-police pieces, included a blatantly promotional, two-part work “A Detective Police Party” (1850). The narrative begins with open criticism of the Bow Street Runners contrasting these “men of very indifferent character” to the Detective Force which is “so well chosen and trained, proceeds so systematically and quietly, does its business in such a workman-like manner, and is always so calmly and steadily engaged in the service of the public” (“Police Party, Part I” 409). The “party” is just that: a gathering of detectives and editorial staff. Men in a “magnificent chamber”, seated at “a round table […] with some glasses and cigars arranged upon it; and the editorial sofa elegantly hemmed in between that stately piece of furniture and the wall” (“Police Party, Part I” 409). Two inspectors and five sergeants are present. Each man prepared to share some of their experiences in the service of Londoners:they are, [Dickens tells us] one and all, respectable-looking men; of perfectly good deportment and unusual intelligence; with nothing lounging or slinking in their manners; with an air of keen observation, and quick perception when addressed; and generally presenting in their faces, traces more or less marked of habitually leading lives of strong mental excitement. (“Police Party, Part I” 410) Dickens goes to great lengths to reinforce the superiority of the police detective. These men, “in a glance, immediately takes an inventory of the furniture and an accurate sketch of the editorial presence” and speak “very concisely, and in well-chosen language” and who present as an “amicable brotherhood” (“Police Party, Part I” 410). They are also adaptable and constantly working to refine their craft, through apeculiar ability, always sharpening and being improved by practice, and always adapting itself to every variety of circ*mstances, and opposing itself to every new device that perverted ingenuity can invent, for which this important social branch of the public service is remarkable! (“Police Party, Part II” 459)These detectives are also, in some ways, familiar. Dickens’s offerings include: a “shrewd, hard-headed Scotchman – in appearance not at all unlike a very acute, thoroughly-trained schoolmaster”; a man “with a ruddy face and a high sun-burnt forehead, [who] has the air of one who has been a Sergeant in the army” (“Police Party, Part I” 409-10); and another man who slips easily into the role of the “greasy, sleepy, shy, good-natured, chuckle-headed, un-suspicious, and confiding young butcher” (“Police Party, Part II” 457). These descriptions are more than just attempts to flesh out a story; words on a page reminding us that the author is not just another journalist but one of the great voices of the Victorian era. These profiles are, it is argued here, a deliberate strategy to reassure readers.In summary, police detectives are only to be feared by those residing on the wrong side of the law. For those without criminal intent; detectives are, in some ways, like us. They are people we already know and trust. The stern but well-meaning, intelligent school teacher; the brave and loyal soldier defending the Empire; and the local merchant, a person we see every day. Dickens provides, too, concrete examples for how everyone can contribute to a safer society by assisting these detectives. This, is perfect public relations. Thus, almost singlehandedly, he builds a professional profile for a new type of police officer. The problem (crime) and its solution (the detective) neatly packaged, with step-by-step instructions for citizens to openly support this new-style of constabulary and so achieve a better, less crime-ridden community. This is a theme pursued in “Three Detective Anecdotes” (1850) where Dickens continued to successfully merge “solid lower-middle-class respectability with an intimate knowledge of the criminal world” (Priestman 177); so, proffering the ideal police detective. A threat to the criminal but not to the hard-working and honest men, women, and children of the city.The Detective: As Fact and as FictionThese writings are also a precursor to one of the greatest fictional detectives of the English-speaking world. Dickens observes that, for these new-style police detectives: “Nothing is so common or deceptive as such appearances at first” (“Police Party, Part I” 410). In 1891, Arthur Conan Doyle would write that: “There is nothing so deceptive as an obvious fact” (78). Dickens had prepared readers for the consulting detective Sherlock Holmes: who was smarter, more observant and who had more determination to take on criminals than the average person. The readers of Dickens were, in many respects, positioned as prototypes of Dr John Watson: a hardworking, loyal Englishman. Smart. But not as smart as those who would seek to do harm. Watson needed Holmes to make the world a better place; the subscriber to Household Words needed the police detective.Another article, “On Duty with Inspector Field” (1851), profiled the “well-known hand” responsible for bringing numerous offenders to justice and sending them, “inexorably, to New South Wales” (Dickens 266). Critically this true crime narrative would be converted into a crime fiction story as Inspector Field is transformed (it is widely believed) into the imagined Inspector Bucket. The 1860s have been identified as “a period of awakening for the detective novel” (Ashley x), a predictor of which is the significant sub-plot of murder in Dickens’s Bleak House. In this novel, a murder is committed with the case taken on, and competently solved by, Bucket who is a man of “skill and integrity” a man presented as an “ideal servant” though one working for a “flawed legal system” (Walton 458). Mr Snagsby, of Bleak House, observes Bucket as a man whoseems in some indefinable manner to lurk and lounge; also, that whenever he is going to turn to the right or left, he pretends to have a fixed purpose in his mind of going straight ahead, and wheels off, sharply at the very last moment [… He] notices things in general, with a face as unchanging as the great mourning ring on his little finger, or the brooch, composed of not much diamond and a good deal of setting, which he wears in his shirt. (278) This passage, it is argued here, places Bucket alongside the men at the detective police party in Household Words. He is simultaneously superhuman in mind and manner, though rather ordinary in dress. Like the real-life detectives of Dickens’s articles; he is a man committed to keeping the city safe while posing no threat to law-abiding citizens. ConclusionThis article has explored, briefly, the contributions of the highly-regarded Victorian author, Charles Dickens, to factual and fictional crime writing. The story of Dickens as a social commentator is one that is familiar to many; what is less well-known is the connection of Dickens to important conversations around capital punishment and the rise of the detective in crime-focused narratives; particularly how he assisted in building the professional profile of the police detective. In this way, through fact and fiction, Dickens performed great (if under-acknowledged) public services around punishment and law enforcement: he contributed to debates on the death penalty and he helped to build trust in the radical social project that established modern-day policing.AcknowledgementsThe author offers her sincere thanks to the New South Wales Dickens Society, Simon Dwyer, and Peter Kirkpatrick. The author is also grateful to the reviewers of this article for their thoughtful comments and valuable suggestions. ReferencesAshley, Mike. “Introduction: Seeking the Evidence.” The Notting Hill Mystery. Author. Charles Warren Adams. London: The British Library, 2012. xxi-iv. Bell, Ian A. “Eighteenth-Century Crime Writing.” The Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction. Ed. Martin Priestman. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003/2006. 7-17.Brandwood, Katherine. “The Dark and Dreadful Interest”: Charles Dickens, Public Death and the Amusem*nts of the People. MA Thesis. Washington, DC: Georgetown University, 2013. 19 Feb. 2017 <https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/bitstream/handle/10822/558266/Brandwood_georgetown_0076M_12287.pdf;sequence=1>.Collins, Philip. Dickens and Crime. London: Macmillan & Co, 1964.Cruickshanks, Eveline, and Howard Erskine-Hill. “The Waltham Black Act and Jacobitism.” Journal of British Studies 24.3 (1985): 358-65.Dickens, Charles. Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy’s Progress. London: Richard Bentley,1838.———. Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty. London: Chapman & Hall, 1841. ———. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. London: Chapman & Hall, 1844.———. “To the Editors of The Daily News.” The Daily News 28 Feb. 1846: 6. (Reprinted in Antony E. Simpson. Witnesses to the Scaffold. Lambertville: True Bill P, 2008. 141–149.)———. “Letter to the Editor.” The Times 14 Nov. 1849: 4. (Reprinted in Antony E. Simpson. Witnesses to the Scaffold. Lambertville: True Bill P, 2008. 149-51.)———. “A Detective Police Party, Part I.” Household Words 1.18 (1850): 409-14.———. “A Detective Police Party, Part II.” Household Words 1.20 (1850): 457-60.———. “Three Detective Anecdotes.” Household Words 1.25 (1850): 577-80.———. “On Duty with Inspector Field.” Household Words 3.64 (1851): 265-70.———. Bleak House. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1853/n.d.Doyle, Arthur Conan. “The Boscombe Valley Mystery.” The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. London: Penguin, 1892/1981. 74–99.Emsley, Clive, Tim Hitchco*ck, and Robert Shoemaker. “The Proceedings: Ordinary of Newgate’s Accounts.” Old Bailey Proceedings Online, n.d. 4 Feb. 2017 <https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/static/Ordinarys-accounts.jsp>. Franks, Rachel. “True Crime: The Regular Reinvention of a Genre.” Journal of Asia-Pacific Pop Culture 1.2 (2016): 239-54. ———. “Stealing Stories: Punishment, Profit and the Ordinary of Newgate.” Refereed Proceedings of the 21st Conference of the Australasian Association of Writing Programs: Authorised Theft. Eds. Niloofar Fanaiyan, Rachel Franks, and Jessica Seymour. 2016. 1-11. 20 Mar. 2017 <http://www.aawp.org.au/publications/the-authorised-theft-papers/>.Gatrell, V.A.C. The Hanging Tree: Execution and the English People, 1770-1868. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1996.Gladfelder, Hal. Criminality and Narrative in Eighteenth-Century England. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2001.Hitchens, Peter. A Brief History of Crime: The Decline of Order, Justice and Liberty in England. London: Atlantic Books, 2003.Lyman, J.L. “The Metropolitan Police Act of 1829.” Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology and Police Science 55.1 (1964): 141-54.Murley, Jean. The Rise of True Crime: 20th Century Murder and American Popular Culture. Westport: Praeger, 2008.Pepper, Andrew. “Early Crime Writing and the State: Jonathan Wilde, Daniel Defoe and Bernard Mandeville in 1720s London.” Textual Practice 25.3 (2011): 473-91. Priestman, Martin. “Post-War British Crime Fiction.” The Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction. Ed. Martin Priestman. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003. 173-89.Rawlings, Philip. “True Crime.” The British Criminology Conferences: Selected Proceedings, Volume 1: Emerging Themes in Criminology. Eds. Jon Vagg and Tim Newburn. London: British Society of Criminology (1998). 4 Feb. 2017 <http://www.britsoccrim.org/volume1/010.pdf>.Simpson, Antony E. Witnesses to the Scaffold: English Literary Figures as Observers of Public Executions. Lambertville: True Bill P, 2008.Walton, James. “Conrad, Dickens, and the Detective Novel.” Nineteenth-Century Fiction 23.4 (1969): 446-62.Wills, William Henry. “The Modern Science of Thief-Taking.” Household Words 1.16 (1850): 368-72.Worsley, Lucy. A Very British Murder: The Curious Story of How Crime Was Turned into Art. London: BBC Books, 2013/2014.

You might also be interested in the bibliographies on the topic 'Baltimore Colts' for other source types:

Books

To the bibliography
Journal articles: 'Baltimore Colts' – Grafiati (2024)

References

Top Articles
Latest Posts
Article information

Author: Amb. Frankie Simonis

Last Updated:

Views: 5436

Rating: 4.6 / 5 (56 voted)

Reviews: 95% of readers found this page helpful

Author information

Name: Amb. Frankie Simonis

Birthday: 1998-02-19

Address: 64841 Delmar Isle, North Wiley, OR 74073

Phone: +17844167847676

Job: Forward IT Agent

Hobby: LARPing, Kitesurfing, Sewing, Digital arts, Sand art, Gardening, Dance

Introduction: My name is Amb. Frankie Simonis, I am a hilarious, enchanting, energetic, cooperative, innocent, cute, joyous person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.