This paper uses a social semiotic perspective to analyze Donald Trump’s domination of media coverage of the US presidential campaign from 16 June 2015, when he announced his candidacy for nomination as the Republican candidate until 8 November 2016, when he was elected as President of the United States. The paper argues that one of the keys to Donald Trump’s domination of media coverage was that, in presenting himself and his agenda, he foregrounded interpersonal meaning by making himself the focus (...) of attention of the campaign through strategies that invaded various semiotic spaces to form a “sub-semiosphere” of Trump dogma. The effects of this were that what he did and what he said captured the majority of media attention at the expense of his opponents, enabling him to win the election, despite his complete lack of background experience as a politician. (shrink)

The umbrella-term ‘executive functions’ includes various domain-general, goal-directed cognitive abilities responsible for behavioral self-regulation. The influential unity and diversity model of EF posits the existence of three correlated yet separable executive domains: inhibition, shifting and updating. These domains may be influenced by factors such as socioeconomic status and culture, possibly due to the way EF tasks are devised and to biased choice of stimuli, focusing on first-world testees. Here, we propose a FREE test battery that includes two open-access tasks for (...) each of the three abovementioned executive domains to allow latent variables to be obtained. The tasks were selected from those that have been shown to be representative of each domain, that are not copyrighted and do not require special hardware/software to be administered. These tasks were adapted for use in populations with varying SES/schooling levels by simplifying tasks/instructions and using easily recognized stimuli such as pictures. Items are answered verbally and tasks are self-paced to minimize interference from individual differences in psychomotor and perceptual speed, to better isolate executive from other cognitive abilities. We tested these tasks on 146 early adolescents of both sexes and varying SES, because this is the age group in which the executive domains of interest become distinguishable and in order to confirm that SES effects were minimized. Performance was determined by Rate Correct Scores, which consider speed-accuracy trade-offs. Scores were sensitive to the expected improvement in performance with age and rarely/inconsistently affected by sex and SES, as expected, with no floor or ceiling effects, or skewed distribution, thus suggesting their adequacy for diverse populations in these respects. Using structural equation modeling, evidence based on internal structure was obtained by replicating the three correlated-factor solution proposed by the authors of the model. We conclude that the FREE test battery, which is open access and described in detail, holds promise as a tool for research that can be adapted for a wide range of populations, as well as altered and/or complemented in coming studies. (shrink)

Recent philosophical work on children and childhood has revealed many new questions concerning minors’ rights. This special issue of Moral Philosophy and Politics offers new contributions to the topics of paternalism, the nature of the right to parent and children’s voting. It also contains articles about the so far less explored questions of adolescents’ parental rights, minors’ rights against the harms of parental imprisonment, and their right to veto their own parents’ decision to relocate.

Sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) by United Nations (UN) peacekeepers causes severe physical and psychological consequences. Where SEA leads to pregnancy and childbirth, peacekeepers typically absolve themselves of their paternal responsibilities and paternity suits are largely unsuccessful. The lack of support for peacekeeper-fathered children (PKFC) tarnishes the image of the UN who fails to implement a victim-centred approach to SEA. Analysing shortcomings in the provision of support, this article presents an evaluation of the UN’s accountability system from the perspective of (...) PKFC families. In-depth interviews with thirty-five PKFC and sixty mothers demonstrate local barriers to child support and paternity claims in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. We discuss PKFC’s need for assistance and their mothers’ attempts to navigate an opaque international legal system. The findings cast light on their limited access to UN subsidies and offer recommendations to better implement existing UN goals of justice and victim-oriented policies. (shrink)

Previous research indicates positive effects of a person’s attractiveness on evaluations of opposite-sex persons, but less positive or even negative effects of attractiveness on same-sex evaluations. These biases are consistent with social motives linked to mate search and intrasexual rivalry. In line with the hypothesis that such motives should not become operative until after puberty, 6- to 12-year-old participants (i.e., children) displayed no evidence for biased social evaluations based on other people’s attractiveness. In contrast, 13- to 19-year-old participants (i.e., adolescents) (...) displayed positive and negative attractiveness biases toward opposite- and same-sex targets, respectively. Moreover, these biases increased with the age—and thus the reproductive relevance—of the targets being evaluated. Findings corroborate the relevance of mating-related motives for social judgment and illustrate how such biases can grow during human development. At a broader conceptual level, this research demonstrates the utility of investigating proximate social judgment processes through the lens of adaptationist thinking. (shrink)

The essays in this collection, which were written by European and North American specialists, position intermediality as a praxis of interpretative analysis in order to show how intermediality challenges our notion of art. The writers examine the various intermedial relations between the arts, which may take the form of reference to another form of art, a combination of two or more forms of art or a generic transformation from one form of art to another. In such cases, an intermedial approach (...) helps us to grasp the changing relationship between the arts, which affects our reception of experience. Intermediality has profoundly changed our understanding of interdisciplinary relations, formerly examined in the field of interart studies. By introducing a medial aspect, intermediality has succeeded in making a "leap" from past practices of artistic interrelatedness to our contemporary medial age, in which literature along with other arts may be understood as a medium. This ambitious undertaking has contributed to the liberation of literature and other arts from an isolated position in the established scholarly landscape with its clear-cut borderlines between disciplines. The essays in this collection are a valuable contribution to this on-going discussion about the relationships between the arts. The variety of essays published in this collection makes it an excellent introduction to academics and university students in such disciplines as literature, music, theatre, art history and media studies. Due to its clarity - which does not sacrifice philosophical depth concerning the role of intermedial studies for several forms of art - this book will also be of interest to academics and students who are currently working at advanced level art schools. (shrink)

Ce volume envisage l'amour en tant qu'objet polymorphe : Eros, Philia, Agapé, mais aussi Storgé. Les mots grecs rendent compte, du large spectre amoureux : amour romantique, amour sexuel, amour de soi, de l'autre, pour l'autre... des catégories qui placent les manifestations du sentiment amoureux dans un espace de contraintes et de possibilités qui relève du social et du discursif. Les travaux qui sont ici réunis s'attachent ainsi à interroger des genres artistiques et discursifs dans lesquels s'ancre l'amour, ils abordent (...) la littérature et le cinéma, mais aussi l'histoire, l'histoire des idées, la sociologie l'ethnologie ou la psychologie. Ces recherches mettent en avant que l'amour constitue une manière d'appréhender et d'expliquer le monde puisqu'on peut lire à travers lui les rapports qui définissent nos sociétés et qui le définissent à leur tour. (shrink)

Black Knowledges/Black Struggles: Essays in Critical Epistemology explores the central, but often critically neglected role of knowledge and epistemic formations within social movements for human emancipation. This collection examines the systemic connection that exists between the empirical subordination of "Black" peoples globally and the conceptual negation that subordinates or renders this population invisible within the epistemes of the West. The collection recognizes that as peoples of "Black" African and Afro-mixed descent mobilize against their dehumanized status within Western modernity, they are (...) involved in a struggle that is both contemporary and of long standing, one where local and national battles have a global dimension. The essays in this collection foreground the extent to which liberation from imposed subordination necessarily entails critiques of, challenges to, and counter-formulations against the epistemic formations that work to "naturalize" subordination. The essays in the collection engage primarily with knowledge formations and empirical practices generated from within the discourse of "race," but also in its relation to other socio-human discourses of Western modernity. These essays also analyze the critiques, challenges, and counter-knowledge/epistemic formulations put forth by specific individuals, schools, movements, and/or institutions of the "Black" world. Through these examinations, the collection's authors implicitly point towards, and sometimes explicitly take part in, the formulation of a new kind of critical - but also emancipatory - epistemology. What emerges is a more comprehensive view of what it means to be human, an epistemic construction that can serve as an instrument of liberation rather than subordination. (shrink)

Die Einordnung der Rechtsphilosophie als akademische Disziplin reicht vom reinen Grundlagenfach mit «Service-Funktion» für die praktischen Rechtswissenschaften über ein interdisziplinäres Verständnis, das die Bezüge zu anderen ...

Mit seiner Sportwetten-Grundsatzentscheidung vom 28. Marz 2006 hat das Bundesverfassungsgericht die verfassungsrechtlichen Rahmenbedingungen fur das Glucksspielwesen in Deutschland prazisiert und den Gesetzgeber mit dessen Neuregelung beauftragt. Zum 1. Januar 2008 ist ein neues Glucksspielrecht in Deutschland in Kraft getreten. Allein die Ziele der Suchtvermeidung und Suchtbekampfung rechtfertigen Glucksspielmonopole, durch die private Glucksspielanbieter vom deutschen Glucksspielmarkt ausgeschlossen werden. Damit rucken neben okonomischen und rechtlichen Fragengerade auchdie Erkenntnisse der Glucksspielsucht-Forschung in den Mittelpunkt des Interesses. Dem versucht dieses interdisziplinar angelegte Buch Rechnung zu (...) tragen, indem namhafte Wissenschaftler und Praktiker - Okonomen, Juristen, Suchtfachleute - das Glucksspielwesen umfassend analysieren. Die Autoren beziehen Position und verdeutlichen die unterschiedlichen Sichtweisen und Interessenlagen zum Thema. Das Buch gibt dem Leser zugleich eine Idee von der geschichtlichen Dimension und der Bedeutung des Glucksspiels fur den Einzelnen und die Gesellschaft insgesamt.". (shrink)