Media representations of British Muslims and hybridised threats to identity

Muslims have never before occupied such a central position in the British media, given their general absence from more ‘normalised’ representational positions such as in popular soaps, literature and reality television. Recent studies reveal the primarily negative ‘hypervisibility’ of Muslims across the media, which has encouraged negative social representations. Drawing upon relevant concepts from intergroup threat theory and identity process theory, this paper argues that British Muslims are increasingly constructed in terms of a hybridised threat to the ethno-national ingroup, consisting of both symbolic and realistic aspects. This account offers a socio-psychological perspective by exploring the potential socio-cognitive and behavioural repercussions of exposure to representations of British Muslims as a hybridised threat. The focus upon identity processes among the non-Muslim British majority elucidates the identity implications of Islamophobic representations in the Press and some of the potential causes of Islamophobic prejudice. It is argued that the principles of continuity, distinctiveness and self-esteem are particularly susceptible to change as a result of such negative media representations. The transition from media representation to dominant social representation is discussed, in addition to the potential implications for intergroup relations.     

Madness in Society

The author discusses briefly ways in which madness has been defined, controlled, appropriated, and treated during the evolution of western civilization. “Grand theories” of the aetiology of madness are considered, including physiological, social, and psycho-social explanations. The work of Michel Foucault is examined for its major impact on the understanding of social factors in the categorization and definition of those deemed to be mad. It is noticeable how the role of the unconscious is omitted from much of contemporary theorizing about madness, including in the work of Foucault, where it is relegated to the status of a cultural artifact. The author argues that by incorporating a genuinely psychoanalytic definition of the unconscious into theories of madness, it becomes possible to identify forms of individuality and constructive resistance that supersede the pessimism of Foucault's assessment of human agency. The paper concludes with a criticism of contemporary psychotherapies, especially in welfare state healthcare systems, that fail to address the objective, maddening circumstances of modern life. The resulting overdetermined location of contradiction and conflict in the human mind promotes illusory strategies of reconciliation and harmony that can betray the lived experience of those seeking help. A further consequence of this political and ethical confusion is to underscore the Cinderella status of psychotherapy in many countries.     

Rationality and madness: The post‐modern embrace of Dionysus and the neo‐vedānta response of Radhakrishnan

Following the lead of Nietzsche, several post‐modern philosophers challenge the Western notion of rationality and its representational model of thought and embrace the Dionysian element in Nietzsche's philosophy, which can take the form of embracing madness (Foucault), desire (Deleuze and Guattari), or carnival (Kristeva). This paper will place Radhakrishnan into the context of a hermeneutical dialogue with these figures from post‐modern philosophy, and it will attempt to address the issue of the post‐modem attack on rationality by these post‐modern philosophers by comparing their concept of rationality with that espoused by Radhakrishnan. It will also be demonstrated that for Radhakrishnan reason supplies conceptual clarity, is subordinate to intuition, and justifies the validity of intuition which transcends reason. It will be argued that Radhakrishnan agrees with the post‐modernist that reason is not universal, but he does not share their radical scepticism as his philosophy seeks wholeness, unity, order, and rationality in conjunction with intuition in contrast to the choice of these post‐modernist for diversity, difference, and chaos, and madness.     

Investigating and facilitating children's graphic, geographic, and spatial development: An illustration of Rodney R. Cocking's legacy

Presented here is a case history of an interdisciplinary program of research on children's graphic, geographic, and spatial development that integrates approaches from developmental psychology, geography, and education. Some of the theoretical and historical roots of this work are discussed, with a particular emphasis on the roles that Rodney R. Cocking played in the evolution of this work. Described are findings from basic research on children's developing understanding of place representations, such as maps, educational interventions designed for public television and elementary school classrooms, and efforts aimed at national educational reform. Taken together, the work illustrates Rodney Cocking's profound, diverse, and continuing legacy to the scholarship of the academy and to the lives of children.     

Commentary on Paper by Françoise Davoine

Françoise Davoine sees madness as a research project involving the uncanny presence of ghosts arising from the realm of the transference as well as the “big” history of wider social catastrophes across the generations, in effect “cut-out” pieces of the unconscious. Madness is a rupture in the social link that needs repairing. The therapist is a coresearcher with the individual whose madness tells a story embedded in the heart of madness itself. Davoine presents her work with a woman who has a history of multiple psychiatric hospitalizations. She invites her patient to link up with and speak of that which formerly resided in the Lacanian Real, that is, the unsymbolized haunting absence of her mother who was tragically murdered by the Nazis. The therapist's dream becomes a bridge to this world of ghosts for both patient and therapist. The dream ushers in an enactment and a transference interpretation by the therapist, which leads to a disappearance of madness from the analytic stage. I attempt to apply the theories of Post Kleinians, as well as Harold Searles and Gaetano Benedetti, to help illuminate the processes of therapeutic action. Contemporary psychoanalytic approaches to dreams and a relational view of madness are also addressed.     

Emotion: Sensory Representation,Reinforcement, and the Temporal Lobe

Abstract

In this article emphasis is placed on the reciprocal relationships between reinforcers and the central representations of extrinsic stimuli. It is argued that an understanding of these processes will prove crucial in an understanding of how adaptive stimulus representations can be formed and how such representations can come to elicit emotions. It is proposed that the evolutionary origin of emotions, which are primarily Seen as energising signals of survival value, arose from the need to Sensitise an animal in the absence of appropriate signals of reinforcement. Evidence is provided that many of these functions take place in the primate temporal lobe.     

“This project is mad”: Descartes,Derrida, and the notion of philosophical crisis

In “Cogito and the History of Madness,” Derrida maintains that crisis is endemic to philosophy rather than being, as Husserl forcefully argued, a temporary condition that can and must be overcome through the resources of reason. A reflection on the place of madness in Descartes's Meditations serves as the point of departure for demonstrating that Derrida has done an injustice to philosophy; and a comparison of Derrida's views with the thought of Husserl, Heidegger, and Nietzsche reveals that Derrida's position in “Cogito and the History of Madness” entails a sacrifice of the notion of responsibility that lies at the center of meaningful historical action.     

Contributions to the history of psychology: XLVIII. Ancient Greek roots of the assumptions of modern clinical psychology

This paper is an account of studies of the linguistic transformation that took place in ancient Greece between the eighth and fourth centuries B.C., searching for factors which contribute to the shift in how humans perceived themselves. The group or force-field consciousness of the men of the Iliad and the linguistic factors which allowed "individuality" to emerge by the time of Plato is explored. The account relates the emergence of the notion of "madness" to the development of the individual and asks whether madness is an artifact of individuality and explores the relationship of these developments to our present underlying assumption of a duality in human nature composed of the rational and the irrational.     

The effects of mental illness on families within faith communities

Associations between mysticism and madness have been made since earliest recorded history, and the striking resemblance between self-reports of both mystical and psychotic experience suggests that similar psychological processes may be involved in their occurrence. By exploring the similarities, and proposing a common element to mystical and psychotic experience (referred to here as the experience of “oneness”), this paper aims to place mysticism and madness onto the same experiential continuum. However, in contrast to much of the previous literature, the intention is not to pathologize mystical experience, but rather to normalize psychotic experience. The paper argues not only that the experience of oneness is entirely genuine and available to all humans, but also that it has an important psychological (and evolutionary) function. Using cognitive terminology, it then attempts to explain the processes determining whether an individual enjoys a fulfilling mystical experience, or suffers a debilitating psychotic breakdown (i.e., how “oneness” is experienced). Finally, this paper turns to look at some of the important implications such an approach might have for clinical practice and for the mental health of people in general.     

An estimate of the Flynn Effect: changes in IQ and subtest gains of 10-yr-old French children between 1965 and 1988

The significant increase in IQ in the industrialised countries during recent decades, known as the eponymous Flynn Effect, tends to be given numerous explanations (progress in schooling, television, nutrition, etc.). One way of studying this effect consists of assessing in which subtests the change in IQ takes place. Using the comparison among 120,000 French children on an intelligence test in 1965 and the results of 8640 children on the same test in 1988, Greenfield's hypothesis is discussed: that television and other media using graphical representations have induced an improvement in spatial and visual capacities to the detriment of capacities relating to vocabulary. The results are compatible with Greenfield's hypothesis, although other explanations are still possible.     

HOW AND WHAT DO CHILDREN LEARN FROM TELEVISION?

The paper provides a review and critical synthesis of research and theory dealing with the processes involved in children's learning from television. It asks how and what children learn from television, and at what ages television is a more or less powerful teacher. The focus is on assessing evidence that television can play a positive teaching role. It is suggested that a threshold model may be more appropriate than a linear model for evaluating television's impact on viewers. It is concluded that television can play a positive role in children's learning, but given typical North American media diets and current television content, the opposite has been true for most children.     

DIVINE DNA? “SECULAR” AND “RELIGIOUS” REPRESENTATIONS OF SCIENCE IN NONFICTION SCIENCE TELEVISION PROGRAMS

Through analysis of film sequences focusing on DNA in two British Broadcasting Corporation nonfiction science television programs, Wonders of Life and Bang! Goes the Theory, first broadcast in 2013, contrasting “religious” and “secular” representations of science are identified. In the “religious” portrayal, immutable scientific knowledge is revealed to humanity by nature with minimal human intervention. Science provides a creation story, “explanatory omnicompetence,” and makes life existentially meaningful. In the “secular” portrayal, scientific knowledge is changeable; is produced through technical skill in expert communities; and is ambiguous, potentially positive and negative for society. Television representations of science affect audience understandings, and this is particularly the case for nonfiction representations of science, as they are likely to be “taken more seriously” than fictional representations. The consequences of the “religious” representation of science are discussed, and it is argued that a widespread understanding of science as presented in the religious portrayal would negatively impact democracy.     

Representation of Gender in South African Television Advertising: A Content Analysis

This paper examines how gender is represented in South African television advertising. It provides a foundation upon which changes in representation over time may be mapped; contributes toward a cross-national literature that considers differences in representation; and tentatively examines how representations intersect with other key social categories. A sample of 5,803 advertisements was collected during 2003 that included 1,633 primary visual actors and 2,350 narrators. These were analysed by means of content analysis. A coding scheme was developed that was partly based on existing research, including McArthur and Resko??s (1975) influential study, but also research within non-Western contexts. Content categories included attributes of the primary visual actor (i.e., age; portrayal; race; and social class) as well as advertisement attributes (i.e., actors; primary narrator; products; and setting). Hypotheses predicted that males and females would be represented differently in television advertisements and that these differences would reflect traditional hierarchical relations in society. Findings largely supported these hypotheses. Males were represented as dominant. They were of primary focus; appeared most frequently within the socially valued public-work arena; and were represented as occupying positions of greater social authority. Females were represented as subordinate. They were of secondary focus; appeared most frequently within the socially undervalued private-domestic arena; and were most often represented as occupying positions of social subordination. This subordination was reinforced through findings that imply their sexualisation. Interesting patterns also emerged in findings indicating possible change in representations of gender. The implications of findings are discussed and suggestions for future research are made.     

Does Advertising on Black Entertainment Television Portray More Positive Gender Representations Compared to Broadcast Networks?

This article reports on a content analysis of television commercials (n?=?434) aired during prime-time on US general networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX) and an African American niche station (Black Entertainment Television—BET) in 2002. Targeted group/nontargeted group representations are explored in relation to depictions of domestic/romantic fulfillment and agency. The findings reveal that although the majority of characters on all stations studied were male and White, the niche station did provide a venue for some positive gender representations. Specifically, characters on BET were more likely to be portrayed as respected and as sex-objects. Findings demonstrate that although the niche station BET represents a venue for minority voices, it is also a source of problematic representations of gender.     

Similarity-based cognition: radical enactivism meets cognitive neuroscience

Similarity-based cognition is commonplace. It occurs whenever an agent or system exploits the similarities that hold between two or more items—e.g., events, processes, objects, and so on—in order to perform some cognitive task. This kind of cognition is of special interest to cognitive neuroscientists. This paper explicates how similarity-based cognition can be understood through the lens of radical enactivism and why doing so has advantages over its representationalist rival, which posits the existence of structural representations or S-representations. Specifically, it is argued that there are problems both with accounting for the content of S-representations and with understanding how neurally-based structural similarities can work as representations (even if contentless) in guiding intelligent behavior. Finally, with these clarifications in place, it is revealed how radical enactivism can commit to an account of similarity-based cognition in its understanding of neurodynamics.

     

Theory and Method of Social Representations

This paper gives an overview of social representation theory, definitions of the key terms and of the social processes leading to a representation and to social identity. Six empirical studies are presented and details of their methods and findings are given to illustrate this social psychological approach. These studies are about the ontogenesis of gender, the public sphere in Brazil, madness on British television, images of androgyny in Switzerland, individualism and democracy in post-communist Europe and metaphorical thinking about conception. The methods are ethnography, interviews, focus-groups, content analysis of media, statistical analysis of word associations, questionnaires and experiments. Finally, social representation theory is compared to theories of attitudes, schemata and social cognition.     

The Implicit Representation of Characters in Dallas

Current research on the psychological effects of television viewing emphasizes the mediating role played by viewers’ interpretations of the characters and events portrayed. Three studies used multidimensional scaling to discover the main themes by which views represent the characters in Dallas. In Study I, a two-dimensional space captured viewers’ representations of the characters. Study II replicated this space using a different method. Study III tested competing theoretical interpretations of the space derived from implicit personality theory, gender schema theory, and cultural studies. The first and major dimension of the semantic space was morality. This was semantically close to warmth and family values. The properties hard, dominant, active, values power, and business oriented clustered together and were orthogonal to morality. Implications for the role of socio-cognitive and textual determinants of viewers’ representations of television characters are discussed.     

Trauma and Truth: Representations of Madness in Chinese Literature

With only a few exceptions, the literary theme of madness has long been a domain of Western cultural studies. Much of Western writing represents madness as an inquiry into the deepest recesses of the mind, while the comparatively scarce Chinese tradition is generally defined by madness as a voice of social truth. This paper looks at five works of twentieth-century Chinese fiction that draw on socio-somatic aspects of madness to reflect upon social truths, suggesting that the inner voice of subjectivity is perhaps not the only true voice of the self.     

Vision Using Routines: A Functional Account of Vision

This paper presents the case for a functional account of vision. A variety of studies have consistently revealed “change blindness” or insensitivity to changes in the visual scene during an eye movement. These studies indicate that only a small part of the information in the scene is represented in the brain from moment to moment. It is still unclear, however, exactly what is included in visual representations. This paper reviews experiments using an extended visuo-motor task, showing that display changes affect performance differently depending on the observer's place in the task. These effects are revealed by increases in fixation duration following a change. Different task-dependent increases suggest that the visual system represents only the information that is necessary for the immediate visual task. This allows a principled exploration of the stimulus properties that are included in the internal visual representation. The task specificity also has a more general implication that vision should be conceptualized as an active process executing special purpose “routines” that compute only the currently necessary information. Evidence for this view and its implications for visual representations are discussed. Comparison of the change blindness phenomenon and fixation durations shows that conscious report does not reveal the extent of the representations computed by the routines.