‘It is safe to use if you are healthy’: A discursive analysis of men’s online accounts of ephedrine use

Ephedrine use in sport is a common practice among men. Less well understood is men’s use of ephedrine as a slimming aid. Arguably fuelled by the ‘war on obesity’ and the drive for muscularity, the Internet has become awash with claims presenting ephedrine as safe. The use of this psychoactive substance can have acute health implications such as tachycardia, arrhythmias and cardiovascular disease. Given the tension between health risk and ephedrine-induced weight loss, how men justify their use of ephedrine becomes an important question. In particular, we wished to analyse how male users talked to others about ephedrine in discussions linked to an online version of a popular men’s magazine. Because we were particularly interested in how men accounted for their ephedrine use, we used discourse analysis to examine their posts. In analysing the data, we noted that a ‘community of practice’ was constructed online categorising legitimate (and barred) users, emphasising the benefits of ephedrine and downplaying health-defeating side effects. Our analysis has clear implications for engaging men who use ephedrine in health promotion interventions.     

‘Please don’t put the whole dang thing out there!’: A discursive analysis of internet discussions around infant feeding

The promotion of breastfeeding is an important focus of intervention for professionals working to improve infant health outcomes. Literature in this area focuses largely on ‘choices’ and ‘barriers to breastfeeding’. It is our argument, however, that women's cultural context plays a key role in infant feeding ‘choices’. In this article, we explore contested representations of infant feeding and infant feeding choices in public debates conducted on a large British parenting website. To sample dominant representations of infant feeding circulating in UK culture, two threads were chosen from the debating board of a busy online parenting community (105 and 99 individual posts, respectively). Participants on the threads were largely women. A feminist informed Foucauldian discourse analysis was used to deconstruct the intersecting constructions of gender, childhood and motherhood implicit in public discussions about infant feeding choices. We identify dominant constructions of women who breastfeed or bottle feed, social representations of both forms of infant feeding, and explore the relationship between constructions of infant feeding choices and constructions of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ motherhood. This analysis functions to trouble the individualist assumptions underpinning the notion of infant feeding ‘choices’, considering the cultural context within which British mothers ‘choose’ how to feed their babies.     

心理学中话语分析的立场与方法

研究区分了两种不同的“话语”定义,它们各自引申出一类“话语分析”。最为常见的是话语的描述性定义——“话语是建构某个对象的意义、表征或陈述系统”;另一种是功能性定义——“话语即做事”;“话语即行动”;“话语即实践”。话语分析在心理学中首先是一种研究立场,其次是一类研究方法。作为研究立场,话语分析悬置了心理、人格等传统心理学构念;解构了实证研究的客观性原则;重新调整了心理学的研究目标。作为研究方法,心理学中的话语分析有修辞研究、隐喻研究、叙事研究等多种形式     

时间信息在情景模型建构中的作用

考察时间信息在情景模型建构中的作用 ,探讨被试能否把一系列相关的事实整合进基于时间组织的情景模型中。实验一、二考察明确的空间信息条件下 ,被试能否把绝对和相对的时间信息整合到情景模型中 ;实验三考察无明确的空间信息条件下 ,被试能否把绝对的时间信息整合到情景模型中。运用扇效应研究的提取干扰技术评定是否出现了整合。 3个实验结果一致表明 ,当几个相关的事实发生在相同的时间段时 ,都发现被试建构了基于时间的情景模型的证据。实验三结果同时也表明 ,无明确的空间信息的条件下 ,阅读材料中时间信息本身足以使被试建构基于时间组织的情景模型。     

The Structure of Domination Today: A Lacanian View

Two topics determine today's liberal tolerant attitude towards Others: the respect of Otherness and the obsessive fear of harassment: the Other is OK insofar as its presence is not intrusive, insofar as the Other is not really Other. The central human right in late-capitalist society, namely the right to be free from all harassment by the Other including the violent imposition of ethical norms, contrasts sharply with the violent imposition of divine Mosaic law – the Decalogue – from which the idea of human rights ultimately derives. The underlying discursive shift can be analyzed with the help of Lacan: the discourse of the Master had been replaced by university discourse. While the Master's decision is per se violent, university discourse is enunciated from the position of neutral Knowledge. The truth of the university discourse is power: the constitutive lie of the university discourse is that it disavows its performative dimension, presenting what effectively amounts to a political decision based on power as a simple insight into the factual state of things.