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ABSTRACT Contemporary ontological constructivism often rests on the belief that social reality emerges from tacit agreements, underpinning mutual expectations and trust. In social theory, the concept of agreement has evolved from explicit social contracts to normative consensus and the idea of tacit knowledge that subtly binds social actors. This article challenges this prevailing approach by dissecting various constructivist positions and exposing the implications of agreement‐based ontological constructivism on our understanding of culture, norms, and society. The author revisits an alternative perspective, claiming that human society is equally a structure of disagreement. Emphasizing disagreement advocates for a realistic social theory and highlights the vital role of fiction in shaping social life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The politics of South Africa’s transition to democracy played out beyond the negotiating rooms. In the Eastern Cape’s Border region, where democratic mobilisation faced violent repression by the Ciskei bantustan regime throughout South Africa’s years of transition (1990–1994), a confrontation escalated, which cast national politics into stark relief. By 1992, this developing crisis came to expose the uneasy compromises being made at the negotiation table; the complex politics of homeland reincorporation; and the disconnection between national negotiations and social realities on the ground. The dramatic and fatal march on Ciskei’s capital Bhisho on 7 September 1992, often understood as a pivotal moment of the transition, marked the culmination of a long local campaign to oust Ciskei’s repressive military ruler. This struggle was belatedly supported by the national leadership of the African National Congress (ANC), to clarify its own mass action campaign and to evidence the organisation’s mandate to negotiate. The politics surrounding the crisis in Ciskei and the ANC national leadership’s efforts first to rein in and then to harness the local campaign reveal the tensions at play as leaders sought to transform the organisation from its disparate strands into a party prepared for multiparty elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Writing qualitatively is an immersive experience divergent to other forms of research writing. It is an active construction of reality characterized by integration of the socio-cultural context and in-depth analysis of data viewed through the lens of the writer's own experience of the phenomenon. However, these characteristics prove challenging and qualitative researchers are often at a loss on how to document their findings. Most studies provide a broad sweep of qualitative writing with few explicit examples in practice which further confounds researchers. Consequently, researchers find qualitative writing exacting and intimidating and tend to present their findings objectively with either scarce or excessive reference to the research paradigm, thwarting the full transformative potential of qualitative research. Drawing on my experience as an interpretive phenomenologist, I present the writing cul-de-sacs and alleys I navigated to illustrate my becoming as a qualitative writer. Specifically, I highlight three distinct strategies to write it right, qualitatively. To maximize findings, the writing style should conceptually align with the research philosophy. Textual cohesion and a multi-dimensional view of social reality can be generated through a mixed-genre writing approach. Finally, making the "I" meaningful by incorporating the researcher's experiences into the text affords a deepened understanding of the phenomenon. Tenaciously navigating cul-de-sacs in writing and finding solutions to exit no through roads, and walking those shadowy alleys of theoretical constraints, stylistic impositions, and tight word space endow a concrete visibility to the otherwise blurry aspects of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economics is a societally influential discipline, but the relationship of its theoretical activity to social reality and practical policy is chronically puzzling. Its theoretical models appear to involve a lot of falsehood, and modellers seem unconcerned about this and about any possible future uses of the models, while sticking to the same unifying theoretical framework. Gilboa et al. (2014, 2022) aspire to resolve the puzzle in terms of varying interpretations of models. I offer critical comments on their ideas while expanding and refining my own account of what I call model commentary whose task is to help understand and evaluate the process of modelling. I point out the rich complexity of adequate commentaries and discuss the issue of whose responsibility it is to construe and communicate them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study distinguishes between two performances of solidarity—a performer–audience structure and a network structure—illustrated through a review of two case studies from the field of sport: a cross‐national survey of football fans and a historical study of French cycling clubs. Research on nationhood, sport and performance has centred mainly on public events and how they generate focused attention to foster mass solidarity. Scholars have overlooked an alternative model of performance situated in horizontal networks and interpersonal interactions staged in front of a third party, such as found in clubs. Distinguishing between these performance models in sport and beyond can further our understanding of the relations between identity and solidarity in studies of nationhood. Whereas in the former model, expressions of solidarity mainly reaffirm pre‐existing feelings of national identity; in the latter model, solidarity is performative: it does not simply represent social reality but serves to create it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent migration research suggests using “displaced persons” as a broader, more inclusive term than “refugees”, affording us an opportunity to recall the historical genesis and transformation of the concept of “displaced persons”. The concept emerged in the 1940s in the context of the control of forced migration. This article traces the evolution of the term “displaced person”, arguing it was created as a “category of action” for bureaucratic and political purposes, rather than to describe social realities. Understanding this historical context reveals more broadly how such categories have always been tools for political control, underscoring the need for reflexivity in migration studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The background to this research is that ADHD (Attetention Defic Hyperactifity Disorder) children are very dependent on their environment, because they have difficulty focusing and are hyperactive. This will relate to the social and achievement of ADHD children. The aim of this research is to explain the influence of an inclusive school environment on the learning achievement of ADHD children in third grade of elementary school. The method used in this research is descriptive qualitative, which allows researchers to clearly explain social reality through observations and interviews at the research site. A qualitative approach is useful for explaining the influence of an inclusive school environment on the achievement of ADHD children in third grade of elementary school. Qualitative research is an inquiry strategy that plays a role in searching for meaning, understanding, concepts, characteristics, symptoms, symbols and descriptions of an event; focused and multimethod, natural and holistic; prioritizes quality, uses several methods, and is presented narratively. An inclusive school environment has an important role in forming social relationships between students who have obstacles and those who do not have obstacles, so that educational goals can be realized optimally. All school members must be able to carry out their respective obligations, as well as students who have obstacles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human mobility is not a conjunctural element, it is part of the construction of a society and it will go through different phases throughout its history. Faced with this social reality, the narratives that are constructed and that seem to be imposed tend, ignoring data, to criminalise migrants, supporting restrictive regulations and policies based on security and the externalisation of borders. The challenge lies in dismantling these narratives and favouring discourses and policies based on human rights that emphasise the dignity of the person. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how early Victorian social reformers deployed lists as sanitation devices to organize messy social and material realities into representative categories. Dickens's own notable reliance on lists has been interpreted as dovetailing with a reformist politics of realist representation. But through a reading of Oliver Twist I argue that Dickens transforms lists from a neutral technology of organization to a more anarchic form in which parts multiply without respect to a larger whole. Dickens's lists mingle various and often mutually incompatible categorical systems and flashily attend to grammatical parts over the regulating whole of the sentence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Documentary cinema is a type of film in which facts are conveyed through the language of film and the director's original approach. The 2022 documentary Love, Deutschmarks and Death tells the story of the immigrants from Turkey to Germany since 1961 and the generations that followed them through their music culture. Migration from Turkey to Germany and its effects have been analyzed in many studies. There are also studies examining how migration is conveyed in fiction films and documentary cinema. However, there is no study that examines how migration is conveyed in documentary cinema with German in particular and music culture. This situation shows the importance of this study. The music culture described reflects realities in an artistic style, just like documentary cinema does. When the music depicting the problems of immigrants is combined with the documentary's depiction of immigrants through this music, a layered and effective narrative emerges. This study examines how the documentary Love, Deutschmarks and Death conveys immigrants and music culture through the elements of documentary cinema. How the music, interviews and archives in the content of the documentary are used, how they are connected or edited with each other, and how the music used reflects social realities are analyzed through content analysis. It has been observed that the documentary Love, Deutschmarks and Death narrates the social effects of migration by blending it with music culture and uses interviews and archives, which are the prominent elements of documentary films, with a subtle editing style. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a way to think through the division between religious and secular approaches to contemporary society through the use of rival myths. Myths are narrative structures that invite the interplay of language and the imagination, resulting in the creation of virtual realities and social imaginaries. Strong virtual realities were once premised on myths that guided the imagination to embrace an openness to mystery and the unknowable; however, current technological culture is predicated on a closed imagination that has led to worldwide despair. Religion was originally grounded in the virtual reality inspired by language and the capacity of language to distill and extract the "virtual" from the real. The ability of language to create a virtual reality created the capacity to think of a soul, as well as destinations for the soul. In the twentieth century, Freud found that the notion of "God" that was created had become problematic for humans and so created a modern myth that would provide a secular substitute. After providing a close reading of Freud's governing myth for modern culture, showing how it inspires the imagination and the ways in which it falls short, this article concludes with an alternative myth—that of the Invisible City—proposed to inspire faith, hope, and love in our modern world. My approach relies on a depth psychological framework, which was formed to interrogate the nature of reality (relative to individuals and culture) at the intersection of myth, religion, language, and imagination. Throughout, I use a hermeneutic methodology, which is consistent with the initial mode of depth psychological exploration as well as the central role language plays in revealing the truth of a reality. This orientation enables an exploration of a deeper sense of virtual realities than what is deployed through current technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sweat, meaning to sweat, is a moniker attached to prearranged but unorganised and informal sport and physical activity within local communities in Trinidad and Tobago. Explained as a culturally significant phenomenon, the sweat is a space of community cohesion and radical questioning through its resident attendant ole talk where the critical deconstruction of social reality readily occurs. Using Paolo Freire's pedagogical ideas of problem-posing dialogue, this ethnographic paper, explores three main areas. Those being, the sweats and ole talk; the radicality of the sweats displayed in individual agency against the structured restrictions of formal sports participation; and the sweats as a site for cross-cultural integration and interaction in an otherwise ethnically diverse country. Through the experiences of eight individuals associated to the sweats, Freirean ideas of love, radicality and hopefulness are prominent in the description of the sweats. To this end, this paper adds to the growing body of literature on informal sport participation as a site to negotiate and reconcile differences in local communities, as well as a site for social and sport-for-development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While recommendation algorithms have significantly empowered human communication process, there is an emerging scholarly and societal concern regarding the potential discrimination inherent in algorithmic decision-making. The present study employs a novel agent-based testing approach to conduct an automated audit of the Douyin algorithm's recommendations for health-related videos, aiming to investigate its relationship with information inequalities between individuals who are socioeconomically advantaged and disadvantaged. Our findings imply the possible existence of a new digital divide, wherein the algorithm tends to recommend a smaller proportion of authenticated health-related videos on cheap phone models, representing users in low socioeconomic group. Furthermore, this divide was mitigated when both groups demonstrated the same watching strategy for authenticated information. This study implies that recommendation algorithms actively perpetuate and exacerbate discriminatory social structures in reality. We also advocate for increased attention and education among the low socioeconomic group to enhance their health information literacy and understanding of algorithmic mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes violence against women in the novel "Páradais" by Fernanda Melchor. It examines physical and sexual violence against female characters, as well as sexist cognitive schemas and socialization agents that contribute to these behaviors. The objective is to understand how macho violence is represented in the work and compare it to Mexican social reality. The importance of the feminist perspective in understanding these manifestations of violence and power is highlighted. Additionally, the objectification of women in sexual relationships and the influence of culture and pornography on the perception of rape are mentioned. [Extracted from the article]

In order to explore the relationship between research and universities with a Christian identity, it is important to be clear about the identity of social realities and the meaning of 'Christian identity' when applied to universities. In my view, the latter requires three elements: (1) assigning a central role to theological reflection, (2) recognizing a mediating role to philosophy, and (3) encouraging a reflective posture in all disciplines. These three aspects should be considered and secured through adequate research policies that manage external constraints with internal ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Modern Science is the property of Alcide De Gasperi University of Euroregional Economy and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Diseño y Comunicación is the property of Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Diseno y Comunicacion and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

AbstractAs the severity of rural old-age care in China becomes increasingly evident, the manner in which rural elderly individuals obtain economic support has emerged as a significant societal concern. Central to this paper is the question of whether the new rural pension scheme, as the first government-provided institutional pension, influences the longstanding intergenerational economic support within families. Drawing upon classic altruism theory and exchange motivation theory, this study analyzes the complex rural social reality in China. Using data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) for the years 2013 and 2015, we employ a two-part model to examine the policy effects of new rural pension scheme, as well as the 2014 pension insurance reform and pension increase. Our findings reveal that (1) altruism and exchange motivation coexist in the rural Chinese social reality and jointly influence the behaviors of rural families. (2) Intergenerational economic support for the elderly in rural Chinese families primarily depends on the exchange motivation aspect of intergenerational care. Thus, it is vital to strengthen the intergenerational support of the family in addressing the pensions of the elderly in rural China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of metaverse systems is marked by uncertainty regarding their technical architecture and the scope of their capabilities. Current social virtual reality (SVR) systems offer glimpses of future metaverse environments but remain fragmented, with limited interoperability, poor discoverability, and challenges in preserving assets and social capital across different platforms. Drawing parallels with the evolution of the Internet and World Wide Web, the essay argues that while certain metaverse standards may emerge naturally, fundamental challenges persist, particularly concerning client software. The essay highlights three overlooked yet critical issues for user experience: interoperability, scalable awareness, and accessibility. These challenges, often underemphasized in current standards discussions, are crucial for the practical development of user-friendly metaverse systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Diseño y Comunicación is the property of Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Diseno y Comunicacion and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Technical communication aids in helping people envision the usability of technology. A similar need exists for constructing the usability of data sets, but the rhetorical work is less well documented. This article reports on how writers attribute meaning and usability to a geolocation data set and its derivative objects. This rhetorical work connects the data to existing and potential social realities, which provide a framework for thinking of that data set’s usability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the intricate relationship between opium addiction, religion, and commodity culture in Charles Dickens' "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," illustrating how these themes reflect a commodified society. Topics include the portrayal of John Jasper's futile quest for relief through opium, the blurring of real and representational worlds in a highly spectacular culture, and Dickens's critique of psychological escapism as a commentary on addiction and social reality.

This research aims to reveal the dark cultural dimensions in the novel "A Crazy Night" by Mohamed Hamdan Ben Jarsh, utilizing the radiations of the text that the writer artfully conveys within a framework of semantic data that implies cultural systems. The creative text carries multiple dimensions that do not directly surface and cannot be identified through a first reading; these dimensions require diving deep to search for signals that illuminate its obscurity . The study is based on both analysis and interpretation, being mindful of its intellectual perspective by following the course of events, recognizing the characters, and subsequently elucidating the ideas they carry, the principles they believe in, and the beliefs they yield to, while linking all of it with the external environment. The paper characters do not represent an individual case in a transient text; they consciously indicate- by the author's awareness-models in social reality. Consequently, a character may symbolize a thought of a particular group that believes in what this character believes. Thus, we focused on the most important elements and characters that open a window to the intellectual vision embedded in the novel text, aiming to engage with it to produce it anew within the critical space . The research axes are as follows: (The Obscurity of the Main Title, The Dark Cultural Dimensions in the Novel, Entry into Life, A Window of Hope, First Character: Salem/The Flute, Second Character: Hisham, Third Character: Noor Said Al-Sari). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the complex relationship between agents and their actions, identifying what is referred to as the 'agent-action problem' in action theory. Topics discussed include the philosophical challenges of defining the agent's relation to their actions, the implications of Bradley's Regress in this context, and potential solutions inspired by the insights gained from understanding both issues.

In this paper, I make the case for 'living theory', a genotypical approach to systems change brought forth by Lewin and exemplified in Scharmer's Theory U. Living theory is a genre of theory that arises from, and in response to, the social challenges of a given time; that remains in close, ongoing 'dialogue' with this context; and that expands our fundamental understanding of social reality, opening the door to new ways of knowing, understanding and acting in the world. Drawing on the work of Lewin and Scharmer, I suggest that living theory provides a much-needed frame for whole-to-parts and parts-to-whole relations, where the whole is the wider eco-system around a specific context, such as the existential crises facing the global community, and the parts are place-based actions in specific contexts. By connecting whole and parts in a way that provides meaning, purposefulness and guidance for effective action, living theory is a social science framework built for our times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As social virtual reality (VR) continues to grow as a medium for digital communication, sustaining presence among communicators remains one of the main constructs that researchers and practitioners use to assess the quality of user experience. In the present paper, we explore language patterns as a behavioral link to presence. We accomplished this through an exploratory text analysis of over 4,800 min of conversation in social VR, consisting of over 130,000 spoken words from 126 participants. We observed that the use of self-references and collective references positively correlated to social presence and spatial presence. Furthermore, median interpersonal distance between communicators was positively associated with using impersonal pronouns, suggesting that participants who stood farther apart from their interlocutors tended to speak in more impersonal terms. Our work sheds light on the possible psychological mechanisms behind presence and the potential of using speech data to help build systems that enhance user engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The connection between the Late Bronze Age (LBA) Aegean costumes and social, cultural and political changes is a rather unexplored topic. Probably the only exception are kilts, the connection of which to such changes on Crete during the 15th century BCE remains a commonly discussed topic in studies focusing on the LBA Aegean iconography and other data sets. However, many questions remain open and the topic is far from exhausted. In this paper I build on the work of various scholars who have studied LBA Aegean kilts in the context of social, political and cultural changes. I diachronically study the changes in the representations of kilts since the beginning of the LBA in the Aegean until the end of the Palatial period on the Greek Mainland (ca. 1700/1600–1200 BCE). Moreover, I examine the spatial distribution of specific kilt types in different periods. In cases of several different kilt types appearing in contemporary contexts in the same region, I explore whether similar costumes might have had different social connotations within the same communities. Moreover, I examine the influence of elite power structures and socio-political changes on the perception of kilts. However, I do not observe kilts as passive reflections of specific social, cultural and political contexts, but rather as material forms actively used in the creation of social realities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the persisting issue of women's underrepresentation in political news partly arises from biases in the social reality, journalism plays a crucial role in mediating these biases. This study proposes a multilayered framework of gendered influences in journalistic news production to understand how journalistic factors exacerbate or mitigate women's media representation. Drawing from a mixed-methods design (content analysis, survey, interviews), journalists' own gender emerges as the strongest predictor of gendered representations. Women's underrepresentation is also influenced by professional roles but not by organizations' gender guidelines. We explore how journalists perceive these influences and discuss conceptual and practical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes "The Politics Episode" of One Day at a Time, an animated very special episode produced and aired during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. I focus on two aspects that prompt broader considerations about the role of scripted television in responding to pressing social issues. First, I demonstrate how the episode's narrative structure appeals to democratic deliberation as an idealized form of conflict resolution. Second, I consider how its production and airing timeline responded to—and failed to account for—the current events its narrative attempted to incorporate. Although the disjuncture between these two elements demonstrate the pitfalls for fictional television to address social issues in a time of constant crisis, I conclude by proposing that these "failures" can also serve to illustrate a specific "post-pandemic" structure-of-feeling, one where futures are perpetually deferred and where dealing with new social realities requires constant speculative iterations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While research on postgraduate thesis writing has investigated how students cope with institutional assessment criteria, this study explores how students form their own criteria for self-assessment through the writing process, aiming to account for the development of their independent thinking in academic socialisation. Based on in-depth interviews with 10 Chinese master's students, the study found that their self-assessment criteria not only represented solutions to problems identified by their supervisors and examiners, but also embodied aims established by students themselves. Those criteria were not fixed textual properties of a 'good' thesis, but were dynamic representations of textual and social realities constituting students' lifeworlds. Viewed from this perspective, self-assessment is a situated process whereby students re-experience and re-interpret multiple sets of realities juxtaposed against their writing. Pedagogically, the study implies that postgraduate thesis supervision could facilitate the expansion of students' self-assessment criteria to develop their capacity for making independent judgements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Areas of social development are manifestations of Social Reality (SR) which defines possibilities and barriers to achieving a better life. An argument is made to unravel the "dialectic" of a broken society in the post-imperialist world. At the heart of Liberatory Development, one must recognize the lethality of coloniality and its vestiges that incubate a culture of dehumanizing subjugation, urbicidal inequality, and global injustice. A Kaleidoscopic view of human misery and our failure to address fundamental issues signifies the call for needed praxis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of the metaverse presents novel ethical challenges to society. There is a lack of knowledge of the potential metaverse and its effects on society. In this article, several ethical challenges of the future metaverse are discussed to responsibly prepare for the metaverse. A systematic literature review was conducted that showed the void of literature, meta-information of the state of the field, and level of maturity of the research. After defining the metaverse concept and reviewing its constructs, we present an overview of ethical challenges for the metaverse which ask for governance awareness and responsible action in the future. These ethical challenges have been clustered in the following pairs: Privacy & Freedom, Duplicate & False identities, Abuse & Manipulation, Trade & Ownership, Censorship & Surveillance, Democracy & Participation, and Regulation & Control. Related to these pairs, we also show some potential governance topics as a research agenda for the metaverse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Beytulhikme: An International Journal of Philosophy is the property of Beytulhikme: An International Journal of Philosophy and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Research in Developmental Social Work is the property of Beni Suef University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista de Derecho de la Seguridad Social, Laborum is the property of Ediciones Laborum S.L. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Management Analysis / Revista Gestão em Análise is the property of Revista Gestao em Analise and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

While the topic of investigating user experience with immersive services, such as Social Virtual Reality (VR), is starting to gain traction in the research community, the unique case of multiplayer VR games requires a more specific approach. Attempts to investigate user experiences with this complex, multidimensional service are hindered by the absence of specific standards and guidelines going beyond what we know about non-immersive gaming. In this article, we present the results of a user study (N = 32) exploring participants' experience of playing two competitive VR games of different genres (shooter, sports game), as we focus on three distinct facets of multiplayer VR gaming—network, interpersonal competitiveness, and social interaction. Furthermore, approaching the issue from the perspective of Quality of Experience researchers looking to conduct future user studies on the topic, we also present our findings as a way to shed light on factors that need further consideration, especially in the context of participant recruitment and methodology design, such as the choice of access network to be used for testing, and the issue of matchmaking study participants based on skill and prior relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction. In the age of the digital economy and hyper-competition, self-presentation communication as a type of self-promotion, as the ability to present oneself to a communication partner, employer, business partner or target audience, is considered by experts as a key skill of the 21st century. It is also considered as one of the significant factors of competition both in the modern highly competitive labor market and in the consumer market, both global and local. The article discusses the theoretical foundations of self-presentational communication in its historical retrospective, traditions, innovations and development trends in the conditions of new realities.Methodology and sources. The methodology of philosophical, sociological and interdisciplinary approaches is used. The article uses the following sources: specialized literature from domestic and foreign authors, scientific research, publications and websites that allow one to explore the specifics of digital self-presentation, its new formats and current practices.Results and discussion. Digital society is a society whose distinctive feature is the electronic-digital method of receiving, storing and distributing information, as well as the electronic-digital mediation of social relations and communicative interaction. One of the ways of such interaction is digital self-presentation, which combines the traditions of this content and innovations caused by the development of new technologies.Conclusion. Self-presentational communication, like the entire communicative component of modern society, including the «human-AI» interface, is carried out in three spatial dimensions: real/offline/Physics, virtual/online/Digital, as well as in their interaction offline online/Phygital. In each dimension, self-presentational communication has its own specifics and could can be considered both as a separate phenomenon and in the process of continuity and development.

This essay explores the nature of the phantom touch experienced on social VR platforms through social interactions. The phantom touch has the potential to induce happiness in users. The study outlines how VR has emerged as both a technology and an imaginative concept. It examines how social virtual reality platforms can facilitate socialization and connection with friends. It highlights that some users experience phantom touch during simulated faceto-face interactions. The conclusion posits that this type of touch, while highly speculative, may contribute to a greater sense of fulfillment in users’ otherwise less stimulating virtual lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Charles Dickens often satirised and sharply criticised the unfortunate social realities of nineteenth-century England through his works such as Oliver Twist (1838), David Copperfield (1850), A Christmas Carol (1843) and Hard Times (1854). In my paper, I will be putting forward the argument that Dickens’s novels advocate for social change by exemplifying the theoretical doctrine of methodological individualism. As a social science doctrine, methodological individualism was first introduced by Max Weber in his work Economy and Society (1922). The central precept of Methodological Individualism, according to Weber, is that individual actions and motivations rather than social and cultural realities should be considered as the chief drivers of social change. However, it should be precisely noted that methodological individualism as a doctrine is not a reckless celebration of individualism, but, more importantly, a careful analysis of how the intentional states of individuals contribute to the unfolding of social changes in a given society. In other words, the doctrine of Methodological Individualism proposes that social structures are influential but they are not superstructures whose influence exceeds the agency of individual members of a society. In order to illustrate the argument, I will be specifically focusing on the novel Oliver Twist. The historical and social context of the novel consists of 1834 Poor Law Reforms and widespread economic and social inequalities in nineteenth century England. Within these contexts the characters of Fagin, Mr Bumble. Nancy, Harry Maylie and Mr Brownlow make highly individualistic choices that shape the narrative of the novel, challenge the established code of social relations and finally restores Oliver Twist to his rightful place in the society of nineteenth century England. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IntroductionThis research took an interdisciplinary approach to the literature on sanctions. It examined the reasons for sanctions, as well as the effects and consequences of sanctions in general with a focus on anti-Iranian sanctions. The research aimed to represent and analyze the behaviors of the components within the digital network of sanctions. Iranian Twitter users were the target community for this article. However, the digital social reality of sanctions on Twitter was the result of all users who thought about, acted on, and were concerned with Iran sanctions. As a widely used social network where political news and interactions were frequently expressed and trending, Twitter was the most important community for investigating Iran sanctions. This was because those who imposed sanctions, as well as their defenders and opponents, were all present on this platform. As a result, a debate was unfolding on Twitter. Users on Twitter reproduced and redefined sanctions as an intertextual phenomenon, reintroducing it into the cycle of social reality production in the form of informal but impactful propositions. In general, the researchers in this study were aiming to conduct a big data analysis of the reactions and responses of activists within the Twitter space. Materials & MethodsThis research employed the Social Network Analysis (SNA) method. SNA is a technique for simulating and modeling communication between people, as well as the structure of networks. It also serves as a way to demonstrate the importance of individuals within a network. Approximately 2.4 million tweets in various languages were collected. After preprocessing the tweets and selecting those related to Iran, a total of around one million tweets, comprising both Farsi and English, were chosen for further analysis. Of these, roughly 24% were published in English, while the remaining 76% were in Persian. Discussion of Results & ConclusionIt appeared that in a society with high internet penetration and a large percentage of university graduates, foreign sanctions combined with internal restrictions, such as censorship and discourse weaknesses, made the meaning-making and discourse-shaping battle on social networks unequal and, in some ways, defeated. Despite the direct presence of supporters and allies of the power core the Islamic Republic, as well as the creation and dissemination of numerous bots, the resulting discourse had little effect (whether positive or negative) on the broader network, except within its own cluster and the adjacent cluster. In fact, the resulting discourse was mostly confined within the network and had not expanded significantly in terms of its reach and influence. However, the moderate cluster of government supporters had greater intertextual influence on the formation and expansion of its own discourse, directly or indirectly affecting all other clusters. The cluster of dissidents had to be considered more effective than the cluster close to the government in shaping the meaning of sanctions in international discourses, wielding greater influence than the impact of Iranians abroad. The extracted network, like all other relationships (primarily from a Foucauldian perspective), was formed through the action and reaction with power institutions and ideology. The traces of this dynamic could be found either in the context, in intertextuality, or in the formation of digital practices.

The actualization of the issues of the youth’s religiosity and of its scientific interpretation on the example of students, representatives of generation Z (centennials, Gen Z), determined the research questions of the article which aims at identifying centennials’ estimates of various religious phenomena and their interpretation of knowledge about it. The theoretical basis of the article are the ideas of social constructionism, which help to understand how young people take part in the creation of such a social construct as religion. The article summarizes the results of the sociological study of ideas about religion among students of the large regional university - Ufa State Petroleum Technical University (Republic of Bashkortostan). The sample consisted of students born after 1995, aged 18 to 26 (N = 1900); the author used the questionnaire with closed questions, narrative interviews and focus groups with the Eastern Regional Studies’ students. Based on the results of the survey, the author considers the youth’s ideas about religion, religious traditions and practices, their spread in the regional community, and the origins of religious sentiments and attitudes reproduced and constructed by the youth. The author notes the lack of unity in various aspects of the youth’s attitude towards religion, which indicates the blurring and eclecticism of religious ideas among the generation Z. Although students declare a wide variety of manifestations of religiosity, the relationship between religion and the existential understanding of the world is clear. Images of the sacred go beyond students’ religious worldview, which is due to the way knowledge about reality is constructed and to the individual need to sacralize knowledge. The comparative analysis of the construction of the image of the sacred by Muslim and Orthodox centennials showed some differences: Muslims are more religious; religious tradition seems to be transmitted from generation to generation mainly by the Muslim part of the Gen Z, and, on the contrary, is constructed by Orthodox students in the current social context. However, there is a general trend - religious identity of the believer is not strictly based on a certain tradition but is constructed with available knowledge and changes with new information, which is a typical feature of the generation Z.

Social responses to virtual humans in immersive Virtual Reality (VR) may depend on whether users perceive them to be controlled by a person (avatar) or by the computer (agent). As related evidence is growing, this meta-analysis set out to synthesize corresponding findings. Specifically, we analyzed whether the perceived agency of a virtual human affects (1) social presence, (2) the evaluation of the virtual entity, and (3) behaviors toward it differently. Additionally, we controlled for task type, the virtual entity's appearance, the type of interaction, and agency manipulation. A literature search yielded 20 studies examining 911 participants (agent condition: 460, avatar condition: 451). Differences between perceived avatars and agents in social responses were calculated using Hedges' g. Results showed differences for social presence (g = 0.65, p =.001) and evaluation (g = 0.30, p =.024) in favor of avatars over agents. No effects emerged for behavioral outcomes. Meta-regressions revealed larger agency-differences in social presence for neutral than for negative tasks, and differences in evaluation for positive compared to mixed and neutral tasks. Overall, our findings suggest that while deliberate social responses like social presence and evaluation depend on perceived agency, automatic behaviors do not. For future research, particularly consistent conceptualizations of key variables are necessitated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Dismissal of women’s health concerns is a discursive phenomenon with social and material consequences. A burgeoning literature documents how women experience dismissal through various forms of disenfranchising talk. Yet, women are not only subjected to disenfranchising talk; they are called to respond to it. Meaning, analyses of disenfranchisement should also examine efforts toward enfranchisement. One process by which scholars can study communicative (dis)enfranchisement is through people’s scalar activity, or how they contextualize experiences at different levels of social reality. Studies of scale demonstrate that the language people use to narrate their personal experiences has meaning for how they position themselves in relation to other social actors, as well as how they make statements about what matters, how much, and to whom. Drawing on 36 interviews with women whose health issues have been dismissed, we apply scale as a theoretical lens and methodological tool to study how women use language in particular, meaningful, and patterned ways in narratives about health dismissal. Our findings suggest that women’s narrative discourse is enfranchising in so much as women critique, resist, and transform the contexts of their dismissal. We document how they and others scale “realness” and “normality” across narrated and narrating events. We also note how women scale up from their own experiences to women’s experiences writ large, asserting truth claims about issues borne of the broader U.S. healthcare system. Findings have implications for how critical health communication researchers study how women’s health issues are constructed in talk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Criminological research published in Latin America has received limited attention in global debates. Inspired by the Southern criminology project, in this article I aim to fill this gap by describing the main features of articles published in Latin America and exploring to what extent these publications reflect the core elements posited by Southern criminologists. To this end, I propose a novel operationalization of Southern criminology coding topics and theoretical frameworks using a dataset I compiled with articles published in 2020 in Latin America (N = 230). The results show that most of the articles are non-empirical and almost half of them are Southern articles. Also, the findings suggest that when articles adopt a Southern theoretical framework, almost all of them are non-empirical. I conclude by discussing the results within the larger context of Latin American academia, arguing for the need to expand empirical approaches to achieve the goals of Southern criminology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper unravels the politics of belonging, the legal-political regime of exclusion, and differentiated citizenship in the multi-layered social and political context of Arunachal Pradesh, India. This paper aims to engage with the institutional arrangements of the Indian state that accommodate the ethno-cultural differences in a multi-ethnic society. Set amidst the changing social and economic realities of Arunachal Pradesh, this study relates to the emerging contestations around the protection of Indigenous identity and the need for differential treatment of people in multiethnic societies by embedding these discussions within policy debates on Inner Line Regulation and land legislations in the state. This paper adopts an incisive approach to understand the implications of such protective measures on the conceptualization of citizenship in states with a significant Indigenous population. It argues for examining the implications of ethnicised forms of governance in favour of democratic power sharing structures and representative institutions of the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The collection of speeches (CoS) written by Sheikh Abdul Lathif Syakur (SALS), a scholar who experienced both the colonial and old-order eras, serves as a thematic compilation of hadith reflecting the mid-20th century Minangkabau writing tradition. Through this collection, SALS demonstrated his expertise as a hadith scholar by analyzing the context of his era and interpreting social realities based on hadiths pertinent to society. This article aims to delve into the socio-religious vision that SALS constructs through the themes articulated in his speeches. Using a descriptive-historical method and thematic analysis, this article reveals that SALS founded his socio-religious vision on four main pillars: renewal, community integrity, moderation, and the roles of women in public life. SALS's ability to adapt hadith to his time, combined with his inclusive and human-centered approach, portrays him as a progressive scholar, challenging the rigid stereotype of hadith scholars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]