Potential Criminals?: Australian Consumers of X-rated Videos

This study presents results of a nation-wide survey of 348 mail-order and adult shop purchasers of X-rated videos in Australia. The sample was drawn from those who purchased X-rated videos from a nation-wide distributor in late 1992. The sociodemographic profile, consumption history, viewing habits, and uses of the X-rated videos by the consumers are discussed. The findings are presented as an initial attempt to study the regular consumers of pornographic videos in a country with a standardized censorship system which regulates the content of X-rated videos. The results are also examined in the light of previous theoretical and empirical examinations of the purchasers and consumers of X-rated videos in relation to issues of criminalization.     

What is a Minor Philosophy? A Conversation on Thinking from the Periphery in a Global World

This is the text of a conversation that follows up on Roberto Farneti??s article ??A Minor Philosophy: The State of the Art of Philosophical Scholarship in Italy?? published in Philosophia 38 (1) 2009: 1?C28. After a brief introductory note that details the reception of the article in Italy, Ferrara and Farneti engage in a conversation on the notion of ??minor philosophy?? and on the meaning and future of philosophizing ??from the periphery?? in a globalized world. The text is followed by a short Appendix, a reply to Annalisa Coliva??s commentary on Farneti??s article.     

“<Emphasis Type="Italic">For unto every one that hath shall be given</Emphasis>”. Matthew properties for incremental confirmation

Confirmation of a hypothesis by evidence can be measured by one of the so far known incremental measures of confirmation. As we show, incremental measures can be formally defined as the measures of confirmation satisfying a certain small set of basic conditions. Moreover, several kinds of incremental measure may be characterized on the basis of appropriate structural properties. In particular, we focus on the so-called Matthew properties: we introduce a family of six Matthew properties including the reverse Matthew effect; we further prove that incremental measures endowed with reverse Matthew effect are possible; finally, we shortly consider the problem of the plausibility of Matthew properties.     

Imagination and society: the role of visual sociology

The paper presents the field of Visual Sociology as an approach that makes use of photographs, films, documentaries, videos, to capture and assess aspects of social life and social signals. It overviews some relevant works in the field, it deals with methodological and epistemological issues, by raising the question of the relation between the observer and the observed, and makes reference to some methods of analysis, such as those proposed by the Grounded Theory, and to some connected tools for automatic qualitative analysis, like NVivo. The relevance of visual sociology to the study of social signals lies in the fact that it can validly integrate the information, introducing a multi-modal approach in the analysis of social signals.