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Porn triumphs and proliferates everywhere, from network meshes to urban contexts, from media screens to the interstices of daily life; it invades the webs of public life, overheats electronic connections and impregnates contemporary sociality with moods. It becomes an atmosphere. What are the origins, the genealogy, and the actuality of this convulsed scene from the United States? In a transdisciplinary perspective embracing sociology of the imaginary, communication sciences, porn, and gender studies, the article analyzes and interprets the passage between pornography and pornoculture as a fundamental change for our societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The overall goal of this study was to better understand how language can affect the mental states in a manner that can increase the well-being of people who have experienced major physical or psychological trauma. Analysis: We chose to answer this question through a qualitative empirical investigation in which we interviewed 49 individuals (patients, caregivers, professionals). To get at the heart of the "performativity" of language and its ability to alter mental states, we identified phrases and words that "do good" for traumatized individuals. Conclusion and implications: Examining these words and phrases allowed us to identify broad themes that we then linked to basic psychological needs and elementary linguistic morphologies. These helped us to grasp the basic structure on which it is possible to build conversational tools for psychosocial intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of the media by protesters during demonstrations affects the police force and its response. The new media force the police to update its crowd control strategy. The police's scope of concern reaches an unprecedented level of exchange, because of the digital dimension adding to the physical one; it now has to take both into account in its crowd management practices. What is the attitude adopted by the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) with regard to the social media? What use does it make of the Twitter microblogging platform during demonstrations? In order to understand how the law enforcement agency uses the potential of this media and how it impacts its communications and practices, a database of 3,909 Twitter messages, dated between September 2012 and June 2015, was created. An analysis of the database shows that the SPVM seeks to establish a direct and egalitarian dialogue with the public, tries to open a specific communication channel with protesters and uses this new medium as a strategic tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2014, French and Belgian Facebook members witnessed the flourishing of numerous Facebook groups dedicated to their town or village that shared the same rallying cry, "You're a real ... if ..." This trend spread like wildfire, to the extent that more than 160 towns/villages now have an active page on the social network. Seniors are among the most active members of these groups. In this context, the general objective of our study consisted of identifying the mechanisms through which these pages participate in building a real geo-cultural community in which the oldest Facebook members play a central role. To do so, we performed a content analysis of the 842 posts and 5,314 comments written between December 5, 2014 and January 5, 2015 in the groups representing the cities of Hannut and Jodoigne (Belgium) as well as Fourmies and Harnes (France). Our study concerns the topics of the posts, the types of actions performed by the members and the interactions among them. Our research shows that such groups create intergenerational "affinity spaces," which debunks common misconceptions about how seniors approach the digital world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]