Trust in alternative and professional media: The case of the youth news audiences in three European countries

Abstract

This exploratory paper applying cross-cultural and developmental perspective analyses and discusses trust in alternative media and its relation to trust in professional media, seeking to identify the national specifics of media trust and its developmental patterns. Employing 2016 survey data of Czech, Estonian and Greek youth (aged 14–25, N = 3654) collected as part of the international CATCH-EyoU project (Horizon 2020), the study outlines the typology of media trust, comprising trust in alternative and professional media, and compares social and political predictors influencing media trust in the three countries. The study illustrates the diversity of relations between the two types of media trust, concluding that differences in selected predictors of media trust and the distribution of media trust types across national sub-samples illuminate the strong role national context plays, illustrating the varying pathways development of media trust follows in these varied contexts along socioeconomic and cultural lines.     

Bringing the European Union closer to its young citizens: Youth active citizenship in Europe and trust in EU institutions

Abstract

European Union countries are participatory and representative democracies. Therefore, active citizenship in the EU and trust in EU institutions are paramount for the continuation and the strengthening of the EU project. Young Europeans who hold the future in their hands need to be actively engaged not only in the social and political life within their national communities, but also in the wider European community. The papers in this special issue examine whether and how European youth identify with the EU, trust EU institutions and engage in EU issues, and which societal and proximal-level contexts and/or individual-level attributes promote or hinder young people’s active citizenship in European context. They are based on results from the Horizon 2020 CATCH-EyoU project, standing for Constructing AcTive CitizensHip with European Youth: Policies, Practices, Challenges and Solutions. Scientists represent different disciplines (Psychology, Political Science, Sociology, Media and Communications, Education) and from eight European countries (Sweden, Estonia, U.K., Germany, Czech Republic, Greece, Portugal, Italy). Together, the papers contribute to the development of a new, cutting-edge conceptualization of youth active citizenship in the EU, and to a better understanding of the factors promoting or inhibiting young EU citizens’ engagement, participation and active citizenship at the European level.     

Parameters of Time-out: Research Update and Comparison to Parenting Programs,Books, and Online Recommendations

In reviews published more than 30 years ago, eight parameters important to the use of time-out were identified and available research was summarized. The purpose of the current paper is to provide an updated summary of existing research for each parameter of time-out. Within each parameter, we conducted a thorough review of the published literature and identified all peer-reviewed articles addressing each parameter. We identified and summarized a total of 46 articles across the eight parameters, including 32 not cited in previous reviews. Sufficient findings were available to draw conclusions regarding time-out warning, schedule of time-out, contingent versus noncontingent release, and duration. Tentative conclusions based on only a few studies could be drawn in regard to instructional versus physical administration and verbalized reason for time-out. No conclusions could be drawn regarding time-out signal and specific time-out location. While we know much more today regarding effective implementation of time-out, there is a clear need for further exploration within these identified parameters. In addition to summarizing the literature, we reviewed recommendations made by behavioral parent training programs, parenting books, and parenting Web sites, and compared how well their recommendations matched current research based on the conclusions drawn from our review. We found that parenting sources made strong and specific recommendations on several of the parameters that were either not consistent with available research or simply lacked a sufficient research base.     

Transdisciplinary Conversations in Child and Youth Care

Beginning from the proposition that doing transdisciplinary child and youth care (CYC) entails an ethic of risk and vulnerability, four graduate students from differing social, spiritual, bodied, and academic locations trace how our research and professional projects encounter, challenge, support, and disrupt one another. Thinking through two concepts critical to the field of CYC in Canada (politics and care), we aim to (a) make visible the possibilities, tensions, and incommensurabilities that emerge when we collectively risk generous, rigorous dialogue between distinct research projects, practice orientations, and lived ontological and epistemological loyalties; and (b) imagine the practices required to enact, and the creative collaborations that might emerge through, transdisciplinary conversations in child and youth care.     

“I HEAR MY VOICE,BUT WHO IS TALKING?”: UNDERSTANDING DEPERSONALIZATION

Depersonalization is the frightening experience of being a shut‐inside, ghostlike, “true” self that observes another part of the self interacting in the outside world. The “true” self hides safely within, while the “participating” self holds all affects and impulses. This split in the ego is created via internal projective identification in the face of overwhelming affect, unavailability of adequate identifications, and insufficient support for psychic cohesion. As the transference develops, the powerful entrapping cocoon of depersonalization can be projected onto the now‐entrapping analyst, where it can be addressed. A clinical vignette illustrates these points.     

HANSEL AND GRETEL: A TALE OF TERROR

In the analysis of a woman with multiple childhood traumas, the fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel” figured prominently. The author discusses the use of the fairy tale in this case at various levels. He suggests an interplay between a national myth, the fairy tale, and a personal myth—the patient's psychodynamics. The fairy tale can be used to illuminate personal meanings derived from it. In the experience of childhood trauma, the repeated reading of a fairy tale can help organize and defend against terrifying anxiety.     

Body Dissatisfaction and Eating Disorder Symptomatology: A Latent Structural Equation Modeling Analysis of Moderating Variables in 18-to-28-Year-Old Males

ABSTRACT. Although body dissatisfaction is recognized as the strongest risk factor for eating disturbances, a majority of young males are body dissatisfied, but do not concomitantly report severe levels of eating disorder symptomatology. The present investigation was designed to examine five theoretically relevant variables (i.e., body checking, emotional dysregulation, perfectionism, insecure-anxious attachment, and self-esteem) as potential moderators of the relationship between body dissatisfaction and two critical components of male eating disorder symptomatology: drive for muscularity and bulimic behaviors. Data collected from 551 Italian males between 18 and 28 years old were analyzed using latent structural equation modeling. The authors found that emotional dysregulation, body checking, insecure-anxious attachment and perfectionism intensified the relationship between body dissatisfaction and each criterion variable representing male eating disorder symptomatology; the interactions accounted respectively for an additional 2%, 7%, 4% and 5% of variance in drive for muscularity and for an additional 6%, 4%, 5%, and 2% of the variance in bulimic behaviors. By contrast self-esteem weakened this relationship and the interactions accounted for an additional 3% of the variance in both drive for muscularity and bulimic behaviors. Implications of these findings for prevention and treatment of male eating disturbances are discussed.