Journal articles on the topic 'Christian clergy Training'

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1

Mcclure, Judith. "Bede’s Notes on Genesis and the Training of the Anglo-Saxon Clergy." Studies in Church History. Subsidia 4 (1985): 17–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0143045900003537.

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It has long been recognized that the mainspring of Bede’s intellectual work throughout his life was pastoral. Recently it has become increasingly apparent that his dedication to the continuing demands of the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons was stimulated and informed by the ideas of Gregory the Great. What is less clear is the relationship between the great bulk of Bede’s exegetical writings and his conception of the precise needs of those priests and monks whom he was seeking to prepare for pastoral responsibility. He had a certain amount of immediate personal experience of the range of technical problems involved in communicating the essentials of Christian doctrine and liturgy to an illiterate people who were ignorant of Latin.
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Vermaas, Jodi D., Judith Green, Melinda Haley, and Laura Haddock. "Predicting the Mental Health Literacy of Clergy: An Informational Resource for Counselors." Journal of Mental Health Counseling 39, no. 3 (July 1, 2017): 225–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.17744/mehc.39.3.04.

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Though clergy often serve as informal helpers and conduits to the formal mental health care system, few researchers have examined whether such clergy maintain the knowledge necessary to complete this mission. In this study, denominational affiliation, educational variables, and demographic characteristics were examined as potential predictors of mental health literacy (MHL). As a measure of MHL, the Mental Health Literacy Scale was completed by a nationwide sample of 238 Christian clergy. The results provided the first parametric measure of denominationally diverse clergy from across the United States. Results indicated that female gender and higher numbers of clinical mental health training courses significantly predicted higher MHL scores. No significant differences in MHL scores emerged among four main denominational groups: Catholic, evangelical Protestant, historically Black Protestant, and mainline Protestant. Findings may inform mental health counselors on how to increase interprofessional dialog and referral partnerships with local clergy.
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Ellens, Brent M., Mark R. McMinn, Linda L. Lake, Matthew M. Hardy, and Elizabeth J. Hayen. "A Preliminary Assessment of Mental Health Needs Faced by Religious Leaders in Eastern Europe." Journal of Psychology and Theology 28, no. 1 (March 2000): 54–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/009164710002800105.

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Enormous sociopolitical changes in Eastern Europe in the last decade have had a profound impact on the psychological functioning of the citizens of these nations. In order to assess and intervene in the mental health realm in Eastern Europe, a brief survey was sent to various Christian leaders in Eastern Europe. Common mental health problems identified across the various Eastern European countries and cultures include depression, relationship difficulties, alcohol abuse, and anxiety disorders. Christians in Eastern Europe tend to turn to family and friends for help with these problems first, pastors second, and almost never to mental health professionals. Clergy and laypersons have little training in mental health issues. A promising direction for future service is training those who can, in turn, train Eastern European laypersons in basic listening and support skills. Cultural awareness and sensitivity will be of paramount importance in such an endeavor.
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Leavey, Gerard, Kate Loewenthal, and Michael King. "Pastoral care of mental illness and the accommodation of African Christian beliefs and practices by UK clergy." Transcultural Psychiatry 54, no. 1 (January 24, 2017): 86–106. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1363461516689016.

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Faith-based organisations, especially those related to specific ethnic or migrant groups, are increasingly viewed by secular Western government agencies as potential collaborators in community health and welfare programmes. Although clergy are often called upon to provide mental health pastoral care, their response to such problems remains relatively unexamined. This paper examines how clergy working in multiethnic settings do not always have the answers that people want, or perhaps need, to problems of misfortune and suffering. In the UK these barriers can be attributed, generally, to a lack of training on mental health problems and minimal collaboration with health services. The current paper attempts to highlight the dilemmas of the established churches’ involvement in mental health care in the context of diversity. We explore the inability of established churches to accommodate African and other spiritual beliefs and practices related to the etiology and treatment of mental health problems.
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Douglas, Mary. "Sorcery accusations unleashed: the Lele revisited, 1987." Africa 69, no. 2 (April 1999): 177–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1161021.

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AbstractThe case described—an anti-witchcraft movement headed by two Catholic priests—occurred among the Lele of the Kasai (then in Zaire) in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The information was received during a brief visit in 1987. This small, local case of rage against sorcery is set in a broader context. Some nations support institutions whose express purpose is to detect, disable and punish occult evildoers, such as sorcerers, and demons. Western theology is not currently attuned to answering the questions that plague Africans about the causes of evil in the world, the causes of illness and death, questions which their pagan traditions answer all too plausibly in terms of sorcery. Some Christian denominations have defined their doctrine concerning demons in a way that accommodates local sorcery beliefs. Where the subject is barely mentionable African Christians are unable to contribute to the developing moral philosophy of the Christian Church. The novitiate training for the Catholic African clergy can give no special guidance in dealing with pastoral problems to which the pagan religion had ready answers.
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Великанов, Павел, and Василий Владимирович Чернов. "Mental Health Sciences in Clergy Training and Pastoral Practice of the Church of England." Theological Herald, no. 4(39) (December 15, 2020): 106–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.31802/gb.2020.39.4.006.

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Статья представляет собой обзор основных документов, структур и практических подходов, определяющих место психологии как науки в современной жизни Церкви Англии. Во введении рассказывается о методологии исследования, а также о том, как в Церкви Англии понимается пастырское окормление. Авторы обозначают четыре основных инструмента англиканского душепастырства - совершение общественного богослужения, проповедь, частная исповедь, научение паствы христианской вере вне богослужения. Первая часть посвящена исследованию места психологии в подготовке духовенства Церкви Англии к выполнению пастырских задач. Здесь речь идёт о роли наук о душевном здоровье в системе богословского образования кандидатов в клир, об использовании психологических инструментов в оценке и самооценке кандидатов, включая рассмотрение связанных с душевным здоровьем требований к будущим клирикам, и о психологической составляющей дополнительного образования, которое обязаны проходить все священнослужители Церкви Англии. Во второй части авторы анализируют роль наук о душевном здоровье в практическом пастырстве Церкви Англии, уделяя особое внимание психологическим, богословским, а также юридическим аспектам этой деятельности. Третья часть статьи посвящена внутрицерковному контролю за психологическим и психиатрическим здоровьем духовенства, церковных работников и членов их семей, включая профилактику и коррекцию связанных с этой сферой расстройств. В заключении делаются выводы относительно результатов того подхода к наукам о душевном здоровье, который в настоящее время принят в Церкви Англии. Библиография представлена в порядке хронологии и включает списки изданных документальных источников и ключевой вторичной литературы. The article presents a review of key documental sources, structures and approaches that are characteristic for the psychological science in the Church of England’s practical life. In the Introduction to the article the authors tell about the method they applied in their research and the ways the pastoral ministry is understood in the Church of England. The authors identify four key instruments of the Anglican pastoral tradition: public worship, preaching, auricular confession, and Christian teaching beyond the church facilities. The Part Two is meant to describe the role of psychology in pastoral training of the Church of England’s clergy. It includes the position of the mental health sciences in formal education of the clergy candidates, the use of psychology-based methods in their assessment and self-assessment, and evaluation of the candidates that considers their psychological capacities, as well as mental health agenda within the continuing ministerial development, which is an accepted practice in the Church of England today. In the Part Three the authors analyze the place of the mental health sciences in actual pastoral practices in connection with some psychological, theological, and legal issues. The Part Four deals with the ways of supervision and protection of wellbeing of the Church of England’s clergy, pastoral workers, and their family members, which includes prevention and management of the related problems. In the Conclusion the authors briefly evaluate the effects of the Church of England’s current approaches to the mental health sciences. The Bibliography is ordered chronologically and comprises of the sources and the key secondary literature.
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Benton, Kerry William. "Saints and Sinners: Training Papua New Guinean (PNG) Christian Clergy to Respond to HIV and AIDS Using a Model of Care." Journal of Religion and Health 47, no. 3 (January 12, 2008): 314–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10943-007-9158-6.

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8

KOLB, Nataliia. "STATE OF PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION OF GREEK CATHOLIC CANTORS IN HALYCHYNA AT THE END OF THE XIX CENTURY." Ukraine: Cultural Heritage, National Identity, Statehood 36 (2022): 50–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.33402/ukr.2022-36-50-68.

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The study describes the role of cantors as an essential factor in the service to the Church and incarnates a mission by her to save the souls. Because of losing constant material support at the end of the XIX century by them this post was usually held by people without proper qualifications, endows, and principles. This was extremely negative to the level of service to the Greek Catholic church and its authority in society. Pointed out that clergy and activists of the clergy’s movement identified the issue of professional qualification of church singers as one of the keys within a complex of tasks for the revival clergy’s layer in the land. At the end of the XIX century functioned both eparchial professional clergy schools and private courses in Halychyna, and the list of them is given. Applicants for training at eparchial clergy schools had to meet the established criteria. Additionally, they had to have a good voice and complete primary school. Indicated that evidence of a singer’s professional qualification became a certificate that was taken as a result of a successfully passed exam in front of a special commission. Determined that as the factors for improvement of clergy’s education in the land the contemporaries named programs and methods improvement of study in professional educational institutions and widening of its net. Underlined the gaps in the educational program of clergy schools and the ways to solve them separately through laying special textbooks. Accented that the required component of the church singer’s education was named study of crafts as the mean for stable earning, organization of tighter communication with parishioners, and also to form clergy’s layer as a Ukrainian middle class. Pointed out that the task of clergy’s schools also should have been the education of people with a deep Christian and patriotic worldview. Based on statistics proved that at the end of the XIX century the vast majority of valid Greek Catholic clergy did not have a proper professional qualification. Determined that even after finishing professional institution, a significant part of graduates did not proceed to qualification exam. Contemporaries saw a solution for the situation in an obligatory professional exam for all unskilled singers and giving posts only to singers with certificates. Indicated that the relevant order was firstly issued by the spiritual authority of Stanislav diocese which became a push for qualitative changes in the level of Greek Catholic regency in Halychyna.
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9

Williams, Oliver, and Esther Jenkins. "A Survey of Black Churches’ Responses to Domestic Violence." Social Work & Christianity 46, no. 4 (August 28, 2019): 21–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.34043/swc.v46i4.110.

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A high level of church involvement among African Americans suggests the potential of the Black church in addressing domestic violence. However, very little research has examined this topic. The current study is an exploratory study of how aware African American churches are of victims in their congregation and how they respond to them. The survey was conducted with a convenience sample (N=112) of church pastors and lay leaders, ¾ of whom were senior or associate/assistant pastors, from 9 cities and various denominations. The results showed that these churches may underestimate the number of members who are victims, infrequently address domestic violence from the pulpit, and sometimes provided interventions that are potentially harmful, i.e. couples’ counseling and/or lack of safety risk assessment. Respondents thought that their church’s response to domestic violence could be improved with more training for clergy and more knowledge of domestic violence resources. This paper provides recommendations for Christian Social Workers working with Black churches around issues of domestic violence.
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10

Deliatynskyi, Ruslan. "The main trends in the formation and development of theological education in independent Ukraine (on the example of the theological education institutions of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church in 1991-2010)." Good Parson: scientific bulletin of Ivano-Frankivsk Academy of John Chrysostom. Theology. Philosophy. History, no. 17 (May 30, 2022): 149–98. http://dx.doi.org/10.52761/2522-1558.2022.17.14.

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The purpose of the study is to analyze and periodize the historical process of formation and development of the UGCC theological education system in independent Ukraine (1991-2010), to clarify its structure, achievements and prospects for integrating theological education into the educational space of the Ukrainian state. Research methodology is based on the scientific principles of objectivity and historicism, special scientific methods of critical analysis of sources, problem-chronological and system-structural. Scientific novelty periodization and development of the system of theological education of the UGCC in independent Ukraine (1991–2010) are carried out. Conclusions: the revival and development of theological education of the UGCC during the independence of Ukraine had several features: first, the "spontaneous" resumption of theological seminaries at first gradually acquired clear organizational features, and their formation provided constant training for the next generation of clergy; secondly, for the first time in the history of theological education of the UGCC, a more or less clear concept of its development was created, which allowed not only to delineate theological education at certain organizational levels, but also to ensure the organizational development of theological schools. We can say that on the 20th anniversary of the UGCC coming out of the underground, it created a clearly structured system of theological education, in which three groups can be divided: the first is a network of scientific and educational institutions (UCU in Lviv with a branch in Rome and the Institute of Oriental Christian Studies). in Ottawa), the main task of which is the formation of theological science, its integration into the scientific and educational space of Ukraine; the second is a network of seminaries designed to provide the Church with a new generation of priests; the third is a network of "general Christian education" institutions, including catechetical institutes and deacon-regent schools (with some caveats, as they provide a certain level of theological knowledge and "professional" qualifications), as well as Sunday parish and general Greek Catholic schools. Thus, such a structured system of theological education of the UGCC not only allows for "professional" training of "personnel" for the UGCC, but also contributes to the "new evangelization" of modern society.
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Kurapov, Andrey A. "Первые годы деятельности Астраханского епархиального комитета Православного миссионерского общества (по материалам Государственного архива Астраханской области)." Oriental studies 15, no. 3 (October 17, 2022): 460–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.22162/2619-0990-2022-60-3-460-468.

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Introduction. The article analyzes and introduces into scientific discourse a set of archival documents included in Collection 597 — ‘Astrakhan Diocesan Committee of the Missionary Orthodox Society’ — of the State Archive of Astrakhan Oblast dealing with the Committee’s earliest years and key directions of its activity. Materials and methods. The study employs comparative and historical/descriptive methods of research. The work analyzes the mentioned archival documents of 1870–1874 containing materials on work activity management within the Committee, personnel and financial policies, reports on its grand opening and the formation of a general meeting, analytical notes and appeals of committee members, interdepartmental correspondence on organizational issues, correspondence with the Orthodox clergy of Astrakhan Governorate and their reports, letters about translation, publishing, and academic efforts of the Committee. Results. The paper introduces a set of documents related to the earliest years of Astrakhan Diocesan Committee. Conclusions. The materials discovered in Collection 597 (State Archive of Astrakhan Oblast) and specifically those covering the earliest years of Astrakhan Diocesan Committee do add to the panorama of missionary tools and techniques once employed by the Russian Orthodox Church in Kalmyk Steppe throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, mention personalities to have served as members of the Committee, clarify as to sources and amounts of financing, problems and prospects faced by Orthodox Christian missionaries in Kalmyk uluses (districts). The creation of Astrakhan Diocesan Committee gave rise to extended translation and publishing activities, intensified the training of missionaries supposed to spread Orthodox Christianity in Kalmyk Steppe in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
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Kurapov, Andrey A. "Первые годы деятельности Астраханского епархиального комитета Православного миссионерского общества (по материалам Государственного архива Астраханской области)." Oriental studies 15, no. 3 (October 13, 2022): 460–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.22162/2619-0990-2022-61-3-460-468.

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Introduction. The article analyzes and introduces into scientific discourse a set of archival documents included in Collection 597 — ‘Astrakhan Diocesan Committee of the Missionary Orthodox Society’ — of the State Archive of Astrakhan Oblast dealing with the Committee’s earliest years and key directions of its activity. Materials and methods. The study employs comparative and historical/descriptive methods of research. The work analyzes the mentioned archival documents of 1870–1874 containing materials on work activity management within the Committee, personnel and financial policies, reports on its grand opening and the formation of a general meeting, analytical notes and appeals of committee members, interdepartmental correspondence on organizational issues, correspondence with the Orthodox clergy of Astrakhan Governorate and their reports, letters about translation, publishing, and academic efforts of the Committee. Results. The paper introduces a set of documents related to the earliest years of Astrakhan Diocesan Committee. Conclusions. The materials discovered in Collection 597 (State Archive of Astrakhan Oblast) and specifically those covering the earliest years of Astrakhan Diocesan Committee do add to the panorama of missionary tools and techniques once employed by the Russian Orthodox Church in Kalmyk Steppe throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, mention personalities to have served as members of the Committee, clarify as to sources and amounts of financing, problems and prospects faced by Orthodox Christian missionaries in Kalmyk uluses (districts). The creation of Astrakhan Diocesan Committee gave rise to extended translation and publishing activities, intensified the training of missionaries supposed to spread Orthodox Christianity in Kalmyk Steppe in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
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Herzstein, Rafael. "Saint-Joseph University of Beirut: An Enclave of the French-Speaking Communities in the Levant, 1875–1914." Itinerario 32, no. 2 (July 2008): 67–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0165115300001996.

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The origin of the Saint-Joseph University of Beirut, or USJ, dates back to the Seminar of Ghazir founded by the Jesuit Fathers in 1843. The College of Ghazir, established with the intention of training the local Maronite clergy, was transferred to Beirut in 1875. This centre for higher studies was named Saint-Joseph University. In his audience of 25 February 1881, Pope Leo XIII conferred the title of Pontifical University on the USJ.This article deals with the history of the USJ, the first great French-speaking Jesuit institution in the area which, at the time, bore the name of “Syria”. (The term Syria is used henceforth to represent the geographical entity of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which includes Syria and Lebanon of the present.) The underlying reasons for the creation of Saint-Joseph University of Beirut have to do with its being located in a province of the Ottoman Empire coveted by the future mandatory power, France. By the 1870s, the Ottoman Empire was being preserved chiefly by the competition between the European powers, all of whom wanted chunks of it. The Ottoman territory, like the territory of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, encompassed a great many ethnic groups whose own nationalism was also stirring. Under Ottoman rule, the region of the Levant developed economic and religious ties with Europe. Open to the West, it became a hotbed of political strife between various foreign nations including France, Russia and Britain. These powerful countries assumed the protection of certain ethnic and religious groups, with France supporting the Christian Maronites and Britain supporting the Druzes.
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Collicutt, Joanna. "Living in the end times: a short course addressing end of life issues for older people in an English parish church setting." Working with Older People 19, no. 3 (September 14, 2015): 140–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/wwop-11-2014-0034.

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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report a pilot study that evaluated an innovative practice in a faith community context designed to help older people live well at the end of life and prepare for death. Design/methodology/approach – A simple audit of the intervention using a contemporaneous journal kept by the author, and a follow up questionnaire completed by participants. Findings – Rich findings on the process are reported. These indicate a high degree of engagement by participants, the establishment of a high degree of group intimacy and trust, a high level of articulation of wisdom, the emergence of significant anxiety in some isolated cases, and the use made of tea and cake to manage the transition between the existentially demanding nature of the discussions and normal life. The outcome indicated very high levels of appreciation and increased confidence in relation to issues of death and dying. Practical implications – The findings of the pilot have been used to inform training of clergy in the principles of working in this area (e.g. in ways of managing group dynamics and anxiety, pacing, tuning in to archetypes and the natural symbols that people use to talk about death and dying, self-care and supervision of the programme leader/facilitator). Originality/value – The paper adds to knowledge in terms of an in depth description of processes at work in a group of older people working on spiritual and practical issues in relation to death, and offers ideas for supporting older people in this process, some of which are specific to the Christian tradition, and some of which are more widely applicable to people of all faiths and none. It gives a specific worked example of what “spiritual care” in this area might look like.
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Brown, Stewart J. "An educated clergy. Scottish theological education and training in the kirk and secession, 1560–1850. By Jack C. Whytock. (foreword A. T. B. McGowan.) (Studies in Christian History and Thought.) Pp. xxvii+466. Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2007. £24.99 (paper). 978 1 84227 512 2." Journal of Ecclesiastical History 59, no. 3 (July 2008): 568–69. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0022046908004995.

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Семенова, Наталия Сергеевна. "The Current Legal Status of Theological Educational Institutions of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Russian Federation." Праксис, no. 2(4) (August 15, 2020): 17–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.31802/praxis.2020.4.2.001.

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Статья посвящена церковному и государственному регулированию правового положения духовных учебных заведений Русской Православной Церкви в Российской Федерации в современный период. Основная цель исследования заключается в анализе правового статуса духовных учебных заведений как религиозных организаций, с одной стороны, и как образовательных организаций, с другой стороны. Первичность правового статуса религиозной организации отличает правовое положение духовных учебных заведений от остальных образовательных организаций. В связи с необходимостью соблюдения положений Конституции России, касающихся свободы совести и вероисповедания, положений Федерального закона «О свободе совести и о религиозных объединениях», а так же норм международного права, государство и Церковь ведут поиск правовых решений во избежание дискриминации христиан в реализации их права на подготовку священнослужителей, церковнослужителей и религиозного персонала согласно внутренним установлениям Русской Православной Церкви. В статье представлены особенности церковного статуса духовных учебных заведений, связанных, прежде всего, с предъявлением требования к студентам и преподавателям высокого уровня христианской нравственности, а также особенности государственного статуса, которые призваны обеспечить, по возможности, все требования церковного статуса духовных учебных заведений. The article is devoted to the Church and state regulation of the legal status of theological educational institutions of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Russian Federation in the modern period. The main purpose of the study is to analyze the legal status of religious educational institutions as religious organizations, on the one hand, and as educational organizations, on the other. The primacy of the legal status of the religious organization distinguishes the legal status of theological educational institutions from other educational organizations. In connection with the need to comply with the provisions of the Constitution of Russia concerning freedom of conscience and religion, the provisions of the Federal Law «On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations», as well as the norms of International Law, the state and the Church are looking for legal solutions to avoid discrimination training of clergy and religious personnel in accordance with the internal regulations of the Russian Orthodox Church. The article presents the features of the church status of theological educational institutions, associated, first of all, with the presentation of requirements for students and teachers of a high level of Christian morality, as well as the features of state status, which are designed to ensure, if possible, all the requirements of the church status of theological educational institutions.
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Nkonge, Dickson. "Equipping Church Leaders for Mission in the Anglican Church of Kenya." Journal of Anglican Studies 9, no. 2 (May 5, 2011): 154–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1740355311000088.

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AbstractLeadership remains the biggest challenge facing the Church in Africa today. The Anglican Church in Kenya (ACK) was started in 1844, but was it was not until 1888 that the official training of church leaders was commenced with the opening of a Divinity School at Frere Town. Since its inception the ACK has experienced a tremendous growth in membership, growing at the rate of about 6.7 per cent per annum. In spite of this rapid growth, the ACK is in leadership crises due to lack of enough and well-equipped clergy to run it. The Anglican population of about 3,711,890 Christians is served by only about 1555 clergy, translating to clergy per Christians ratio of about 1 : 2400. This affects the Church's mission in that it is impossible for one clergy to effectively provide spiritual care to 2400 Christians. On top of this, the majority of the clergy currently serving in the ACK are not properly trained to match the rapidly changing Kenyan society. About 83 per cent of these clergy have diploma and below theological qualifications. If the ACK has to be successful in its mission in this century, it has to reconsider its training systems.
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Neumann, Joseph K., and Frederick V. Leppien. "Impact of Religious Values and Medical Specialty on Professional Inservice Decisions." Journal of Psychology and Theology 25, no. 4 (December 1997): 437–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/009164719702500404.

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Research indicates that professional group and religion affect decision making. Five hundred board-certified physicians from each of 5 specialty areas (General Surgery, Psychiatry, Internal Medicine, Pathology, and Family Practice) were mailed vignettes reflecting 1 of 4 value systems (Evangelical Christian, Liberal Protestant, Humanist, or Hindu) in a randomized survey. One hundred twenty-five vignettes of every value system were mailed to each specialty yielding a total of 500 per specialty. Respondents were asked to rate 1 vignette which provided a brief description of a professional inservice. Questions for rating covered approval and interest in the training as well as requests for respondent descriptive information. About 40% of the total group responded. Humanist and Hindu vignettes were clearly more approved than Liberal Protestant and Evangelical Christian (EC) vignettes. Medical specialty was not an independent factor but was significant in interaction with value type. Personal interest/value similarity correlated highly with approval ratings. Dissimilarity with parental religious values was a frequent moderating variable and varied significantly among medical specialty groups. Religious values influence medical nonclinical decisions. Implications concerning separation of church and state issues, research strategy, and medical ethical and training activities were discussed to encourage more openness in the area of medical decisions and theistic/non-theistic religious values.
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Joshua O. Ayiemba; Rose, A. Mwonya, Paul K. Gakuna; Fredrick O. Juma;. "Assessing the Challenges Facing the Laity in their Participation in Evangelisation in Njoro Parish of Nakuru County Kenya." Editon Consortium Journal of Arts, Humanities and Social Studies 1, no. 2 (October 30, 2019): 119–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.51317/ecjahss.v1i2.82.

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This study assessed the challenges facing the laity in their participation in evangelisation in Njoro Parish of Nakuru County Kenya. The study employed a descriptive survey research design. The target population included the Catholic faithful and the priests. The 181 participants were selected using purposive sampling. Data was collected using group discussions, questionnaires and interviews. Different questionnaires were administered for priests (PQ), catechists (CQ) and the laity (LQ). Reliability of the tools was tested using split-half method. A reliability coefficient of 0.5 and above was accepted. Descriptive statistics was used. SPSS programme was used to analyse data and was presented using frequency tables, percentages and charts. The study found out that evangelisation by the laity needs strengthening and that collaborative ministry is necessary for Njoro parish to realise its goal of evangelisation. The results also showed that some of the Christians are passive mainly due to lack of training and reluctance of the laity and the clergy to involve them in evangelisation process. The study observed that the laity needs training in pastoral field so that they could be actively engaged in pastoral activities of the parish. The clergy also needs to sensitise the laity on their role in evangelisation so that they can be effective. The study concludes that challenges of evangelisation calls for a new vision of understanding in order to concretely impact the faith.
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Labai, Paulus. "STRATEGI PEMBELAJARAN PENDIDIKAN KRISTEN BAGI JEMAAT DEWASA DI GEREJA BEM TAMAN TUNKU MIRI, MALAYSIA." Excelsis Deo: Jurnal Teologi, Misiologi, dan Pendidikan 2, no. 2 (November 23, 2020): 1–12. http://dx.doi.org/10.51730/ed.v2i2.45.

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Abstract: Christian education learning serves as a guide to help Christian educators in training adults in the church so that the congregation will understand more about the image or concept of identity, role and responsibility as adults more clearly and steadily in everyday life and in their relationship with society. around. The problems that arise are: What is the definition of adult andragogy? What is the significance of Christian education for adults? What is the Christian education learning strategy for adult congregations in the BEM Taman Tunku Miri church, Malaysia? The answers to the problems are: (1) Christian education for adult congregations is an effort to educate or educate church members in all existing age groups, including the adult age group. (2) significant Christian education for adults is one form of the church's efforts in educating or educating its citizens by planning a learning program designed in such a way as to achieve the goals of Christian education for adults. (3) The Christian education learning strategy for adult congregations at the BEM Taman Tunku Miri church, Malaysia is to develop Christian education learning for adults who should understand and have skills with regard to design procedures so that Christian education programs for adults become more accommodating and effective.Abstrak: Pembelajaran pendidikan Kristen berfungsi sebagai pedoman untuk menolong pendidik Kristen dalam melatih orang-orang dewasa dalam gereja sehingga jemaat semakin memahami gambar atau konsep jati diri, peran dan tanggung jawabnya sebagai orang dewasa secara lebih jelas dan mantap dalam kehidupan sehari-hari serta dalam relasinya dengan masyarakat sekitar. Persoalan yang timbul adalah: Apakah pengertian andragogi orang dewasa? Apakah signifikan pendidikan Kristen bagi orang dewasa? Bagaimanakah strategi pembelajaran pendidikan Kristen bagi Jemaat dewasa di gereja BEM Taman Tunku Miri, Malaysia? Jawaban dari persoalan-persoalan adalah: (1) pendidikan Kristen kepada jemaat dewasa merupakan usaha mendidik atau membelajarkan warga gereja dalam segala kelompok usia yang ada, tidak terkecuali kelompok usia dewasa. (2) signifikan pendidikan Kristen bagi orang dewasa merupakan salah satu bentuk upaya gereja dalam mendidik atau membelajarkan warganya adalah dengan adanya perencanaan program pembelajaran yang didesain sedemikian rupa untuk mencapai tujuan pendidikan Kristen bagi orang dewasa. (3) Strategi pembelajaran pendidikan Kristen bagi Jemaat dewasa di gereja BEM Taman Tunku Miri, Malaysia adalah mengembangkan pembelajaran pendidikan Kristen bagi orang dewasa hendaknya memahami dan memiliki keterampilan berkenaan dengan prosedur desain sehingga demikian program pendidikan Kristen bagi orang dewasa menjadi lebih akomodatif dan efektif.
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LaPine, Matthew A. "The Logic of the Body: Retrieving Theological Psychology." Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 74, no. 4 (December 2022): 253–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.56315/pscf12-22lapine.

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THE LOGIC OF THE BODY: Retrieving Theological Psychology by Matthew A. LaPine. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2020. 363 pages. Paperback; $26.99. ISBN: 9781683594253. *In this book, the author seeks a theological and biblical response to contemporary neuropsychology, stemming from a need for more effective pastoral care and faith-based counseling.1 LaPine seeks to address a perceived gap between a theological understanding of human agency, and current neuroscience and psychology that leaves pastors and faith-based counselors under-equipped to meet the real mental health and counseling needs they encounter. Although the ultimate purpose is to provide much-needed support for applied pastoral or counseling care, the book is written as a theological reflection to inform a practitioner's theology of practice. *Anchored in the Reformed tradition, LaPine provides an overview of pre-Reformation and Reformed 'theological history in relation to the historical evolution of the field of psychology. Given the scope of these fields, the task of a thorough theology of psychology would take volumes. As a classical Reformed theologian, LaPine uses almost four hundred pages to narrow down the conversation to the theological basis for emotions and neurobiology, specifically through the relationship between the body and mind or spirit. The relationship of will, emotion, biology, spirit, and soul forms the core pieces of this book, around which the chapters revolve. *In his introduction, LaPine presents his "straw man" conflict: the rich spiritual position of faith, against "the modern, reductionist tendency to explain our emotional life exclusively in terms of brain function" (p. xix). At the same time as he points to a distance between (secular) psychology and theology, LaPine also highlights two opposing streams of theology: one that makes the spirit or the spiritual superior to the body or biology, and one that does not. LaPine shows that neuro'psychology values the body and integrates it with the biological facts of emotion and volition (will), whereas mainstream Reformed theology does not, valuing the spiritual in primacy. LaPine notes that this dualism leaves Reformed counselors and pastors without a theology for a more holistic account of human psychology. He states that the Reformed mainstream shows a "lack of psychological nuance" (p. 4), leading to "emotional volunteerism," or the position that people have moral culpability for emotions. In other words, an experience like anxiety becomes a moral sin, to be addressed by prescriptive spiritual re-orientation. The risk here is either a moralistic approach to mental health and human pain, or else abandonment of theology in an attempt to align counseling to contemporary psychological science in practice. Both these options undercut holistic care by undervaluing or ignoring either the body or spirit respectively. *LaPine argues, rightly in my view, that "sufferers simply cannot repent and believe their way out of anxiety" (p. 36); this begs a need for a more robust and nuanced theology, particularly given the current scientific evidence for the neurobiology of emotion. LaPine describes what he calls a "tiered psychology," for which he finds a better grounding in Thomistic theology. The first three chapters of the book are dedicated to a history of theological attempts to account for psychology, in dialogue with the medical scientific understandings of those times. Chapter four explores the theology of Calvin, covering roots in theology for the current Reformed mainstream demotion of the body, as well as nuances of interpretation that LaPine sees as evidence of threads of Reformed theology that instead carried on the earlier holism. In chapter five, he continues the history of Reformed theology in respect of the debate of the seat of the soul, the place of the will, and the 'question of the influence of the body's impulses on moral or cognitive control. *The overall picture in this historical review is of an emerging dualism and hierarchy in which reason is morally obligated to control the inherently sinful impulses of the "flesh." Chapters six to nine alternate between explorations of natural law, science, and biblical reference to show that a more biblical and authentic (to Calvinism) theology comes closer to Thomas Aquinas's views, as well as to contemporary neuroscience (accepting psycho-emotional struggle as a human phenomenon without inherent moral culpability). *LaPine's Reformed-style writing (dense discussion with heavy footnotes, discussion spiraling around the same theme in different ways for several hundred pages) is admirable for its integrity. He has done his homework on both theological history and many aspects of psychology and neuroscience. As well, he is addressing very important issues in the context of a history of inadequacy in faith-based responses to mental health and counseling across Christian denominations. LaPine's work fills a critical gap at a timely moment in history, when the church needs a better response to human needs, and practitioners need tools for a more robust theology of practice. *At the same time, the author's deep dives into highly technical theological language and footnoted minutiae make a commitment to reading the whole book difficult for anyone who is unfamiliar or uncomfortable with the dense writing style of Reformed theology. There are also inconsistencies in the central arguments. For example, LaPine's opening section pits faith approaches against biological materialism as the current mainstream view, but draws on nonmaterialist views and resources in other areas without acknowledging that materialism is only one among the current views, many of which are more inclusive of spirituality. Materialist determinism is more confined to the medical model, which governs only a fraction of the practice of counseling psychology, most of which has embraced either existential, psychodynamic, or humanistic approaches. *LaPine does an interesting job of trying to pry Reformed theology from a particular tradition of Reformed thought, showing this particular tradition to be just one among many options consistent with core Reformed commitments. The book, however, can't quite get unstuck from its initial strategy of attaching its arguments to highly specific and selective theological and psychological parameters. A therapist or pastor wishing to better anchor their counseling approach in their theology might do well to select from the range of neuropsychotherapeutic theories and approaches in the dialogue between their theology and psychology, rather than start with defining the task as a conversation with materialist determinism. *The theological treatment sometimes loses "the forest for the trees." The discussion of interpretive nuances in Jesus's embodied experience of anguish in Matthew 26 (chap. 7) is a nugget. LaPine's arguments ground the issues well in scripture and in the heart of the Christian faith (the life and death of Jesus), as well as in its roots of Jewish understanding. Nonetheless, the reader loses track of the key salient points in the main theology chapters that lay out the "chess pieces" of the debate--Aquinas (chap. 2), Calvin (chap. 4), Reformed tradition (chaps. 7-8)--after slogging through the tangents and lengthy footnotes. Shortening the book by 200 pages would have been a worthwhile editorial exercise and would also have made the book comprehensible to more readers. *LaPine's neuropsychology discussion sometimes gives an impression of romping loosely through a broad field that never shakes the overgeneralized straw-man role set at the beginning, despite some interesting and pertinent references (such as Panksepp's emotional systems). It is difficult to see the precise connection between the theology and contemporary psychology, despite the enduring relevance of the central debate about moral choice, spirituality, and emotional health. Nevertheless, professionals with psychology training will find interesting points and connections. LaPine's book is a worthwhile exercise in wrestling with one's beliefs about the interactions between body, mind, and soul, and with the place of human agency in mental health and moral life. For this, the book provokes a discussion that is much needed. The book is a worthwhile resource for any faith-based Christian (any denomination) student of counseling or chaplaincy, or for clergy or divinity students who want to take their responsibility for counseling and pastoral care seriously. The cost of the book is very reasonable, and well worth it for the segments a reader may find most useful. As well, the questions addressed (relationship of spirit/soul and body, moral choice vs. mental health) are central to the task of counseling. The church is long overdue for supporting practitioners toward a theology of practice in counseling psychology that integrates current science. *Generally, I give the book a thumb's up. I recommend it for therapists, though those who haven't read theology in a while, will find it hard slogging. I also recommend it for counseling and psychology training in faith-based institutions because LaPine addresses many of the core issues and difficult questions of agency and moral responsibility. The structure of the book could provide a nice framework for a course on topics such as the history of "theology of psychology," development of a theology of practice, or theories of change in pastoral counseling. Readers, however, do need to supplement the contemporary psychology references with further reading for a first-hand understanding of the nuances of the field, rather than relying on LaPine's brief and oversimplified summaries. *Note *1This book is available through the ASA Virtual Bookstore at: https://convention.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/easy_find?Ntt=THE+LOGIC+OF+THE+BODY%3A+Retrieving+Theological+Psychology&N=0&Ntk=keywords&action=Search&Ne=0&event=ESRCG&nav_search=1&cms=1&ps_exit=RETURN%7Clegacy&ps_domain=convention. *Reviewed by Heather Sansom, Registered Psychotherapist in private practice, and Professor, Cambrian College, Sudbury, ON P3A 3V8.
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22

Nelson, Moira. "Making markets with active labor market policies: the influence of political parties, welfare state regimes, and economic change on spending on different types of policies." European Political Science Review 5, no. 2 (July 2, 2012): 255–77. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1755773912000148.

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Active labor market policies consist of a diverse set of policy tools with which to address joblessness and the degree to which governments invest in various policies as a response to rising unemployment varies widely. Fleshing out the determinants by policy type holds the promise of illuminating more clearly contestation over activation. To this end, this study analyzes the role of partisanship as well as welfare state regimes and the economy on spending patterns. We begin by detailing a theoretical framework for understanding variation in active labor market policies. Bonoli categorizes active labor market policies according to their market orientation and emphasis on human capital investment. In a study of social service reforms, Gingrich explains how all parties employ market-based reforms to empower some groups over others. These theories are then used to derive partisan hypotheses for direct job creation, training, labor market services, and employment incentives. Hypotheses for the four main types of active labor market policies are tested with regression analysis of 22 countries between 1985 and 2008. High spending on direct job creation, a non-market oriented policy type, is marginally significantly higher in the social democratic regime and by left governments prior to the activation turn. Left parties spend significantly more than other parties on training policies and after the activation turn these policies also become a distinct feature of the social democratic welfare state regime. The same trend exists for employment incentives. Center-right parties and those within the Christian democratic regime also spend marginally significantly higher on training policies before the activation turn, which is explained by results for deindustrialization. No partisan or regime effects are found for labor market services, which supports the view that all countries rely on these policies. The literature also suggests that a composite measure masks political conflict since this policy type encompasses diverse policies.
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MacGregor, Kirk R. "The Eucharistic Theology and Ethics of Balthasar Hubmaier." Harvard Theological Review 105, no. 2 (March 30, 2012): 223–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0017816012000508.

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During the initial decade of the Protestant Reformation, the German Anabaptist theologian Balthasar Hubmaier (1480–1528)1 functioned as a transitional figure between radical and magisterial reform. This observation is seen most clearly in the fact that Hubmaier, while concurring with his Anabaptist coreligionists on the necessity of believers’ baptism, dissented from their anti-statism and strict pacifism.2 Earning his doctor theologiae from the University of Ingolstadt under famous Catholic polemicist John Eck in 1512, Hubmaier was an essentially independent thinker who employed his academic training in an attempt to formulate doctrine that not only transcended the controversies of his day but also pointed Christians to the necessity of spiritual formation within a life of common discipleship. With this approach, Hubmaier turned to the Eucharist, second only to justification as the most divisive doctrine of the sixteenth century.3 Hubmaier objected to Roman Catholic transubstantiation, Lutheran consubstantiation, and Zwinglian sacramentarianism on the grounds that all of them, in their concern with the status of the elements, had lost sight of the internal transformation that Christ accomplishes in the faithful during the meal.
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Scharlieb, Mary. "1920 Problems of marriage and sexual morality: the Lambeth Conference." Theology 123, no. 4 (July 2020): 248–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0040571x20934022.

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This article by Dame Mary Scharlieb (1845–1930) addresses issues on marriage and sexuality raised at the 1920 Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops. It is likely that she had a strong influence on the Bishop of London on medical issues, and, through him, on the resolutions on marriage and sexuality at this Conference. Her article, published in Theology in November 1920, is clearly a piece of its time and reflects a fascinating mixture of pro-women and conservative ethical views, tempered by her understanding of medical science as it was then: for example, she and the bishops at the Conference strongly opposed the use of contraception even within marriage (ten years later the Lambeth Conference dropped this opposition). Mary Scharlieb was a pioneer female gynaecologist. Raised as an Evangelical, she became an Anglo-Catholic after her marriage to a British lawyer who was employed in Madras. Her medical training, prompted by the lack of medical help for Indian women, began at the Madras Christian College but was completed at Mrs Garrett Anderson’s London School of Medicine for Women, leading to her appointment at the Royal Free Hospital in 1902. Her husband stayed working in India until his death, while she worked as a gynaecologist in London. She was created a Dame two years before her death. Editor.
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Awopegba, RO, O. Oladepo, OB Solademi, JO Sotunsa, and FI Ani. "Level of preparedness of Religious Leaders for the Prevention of HIV/AIDS in Nigeria." Babcock University Medical Journal (BUMJ) 1, no. 2 (June 30, 2015): 1–12. http://dx.doi.org/10.38029/bumj.v1i2.7.

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Objective: HIV/AIDS is a pandemic affecting over 3.2 million Nigerians. Over 90% of the African population belong to religious congregation and are often inuenced by the religious leaders. Since health education is a very effective tool in the control of HIV/AIDS, it is expedient to assess the level of preparedness of religious leaders for the prevention of HIV/AIDS so as to maximize opportunities of controlling this menace. This study aims to assess the preparedness of religious leaders to promote and support HIV/AIDS prevention. Methodology: This is a cross sectional study involving 252 religious leaders (Christians and Islamic) from Oyo and Kaduna State Nigeria randomly selected across the senatorial districts of the state. Questionnaire was used to collect information about demographic characteristics, knowledge about HIV/AIDS education/promotion, history of HIV/AIDS training and the level of preparedness of the respondents for prevention of HIV/AIDS. Results: Of the 252 respondents, from Oyo State (122) and Kaduna State (130), majority were male (96%), over 30 years of age (96.6%), willing to be screened for HIV(64.7%) and educated their congregation about HIV/AIDS (51.2%), had minimum of secondary education (89.6%) while 22.6% ever tested for HIV. Though 96.4% acknowledge the need for basic knowledge on HIV/AIDS, only 23.8% wanted to know its presentation while 5.6% wanted to know how to carefor persons affected with HIV. Conclusion: Religious leaders had demonstrated high preparedness for the prevention of HIV-AIDS in this study. However, appropriate and consistent education and promotion is required for the clergy to identify challenges early and be capable of proffering appropriate solution. Key words: HIV, AIDS, Religious leaders, HIV/AIDS education, faith-based organization, preparedness.
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Dempsey, G. T. "Aldhelm of Malmesbury and High Ecclesiasticism in a Barbarian Kingdom." Traditio 63 (2008): 47–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0362152900002117.

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In 634, the freshly consecrated bishop Birinus, having promised Pope Honorius that he would spread the faith in “the remotest. regions of England,” arrived in the territory of the West Saxons (or theGewisse, as they were then still known). He found them so thoroughly pagan (“paganissimas”) that he opted to remain there to preach the gospel. The following year he baptized Cynegils, the first of the West Saxon kings to accept Christianity. TheBrytenwalda, Oswald of Northumbria, stood sponsor. Together, the two kings endowed Birinus with thecivitasof Dorchester-on-Thames as his see. Over the next few years, both Cynegils's son Cwichelm and his grandson Cuthred were baptized, the latter in 639 by Birinus in Dorchester. It would have been in or near this year that Aldhelm was born,” though his native area was said by William of Malmesbury to have been Sherborne, in the southwest of Wessex, on the border with the British kingdom ofDumnonia(Devon and Cornwall) and, thus, far from Birinus's episcopal seat in the upper Thames valley. Would this be an indication of the rapid spread of Christianity in the West Saxon kingdom? Notably, well within a generation a West Saxon became the first native-born archbishop of Canterbury when Deusdedit was consecrated in 655 (his Anglo-Saxon name was remembered as Friduwine).” But where Deusdedit received his ecclesiastical training is unknown; Bede can tell us only that he was a “West Saxon by race” (“de gente Occidentalium Saxonum”).” Or was Aldhelm's being Christian due to his royal status? It may be that another of Cynegils's sons, Centwine, who became king in Wessex in 676, was Aldhelm's father.” By this time, Aldhelm was a senior cleric in the West Saxon church.
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Jeeves, Malcolm A. "Why Science and Faith Belong Together: Stories of Mutual Enrichment." Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 74, no. 1 (March 2022): 58–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.56315/pscf3-22jeeves.

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WHY SCIENCE AND FAITH BELONG TOGETHER: Stories of Mutual Enrichment by Malcolm A. Jeeves. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2021. 294 pages. Paperback; $35.00. ISBN: 9781725286191. *Many sense tension between modern science and Christian faith. Malcolm Jeeves, however, intends to show how the two are quite complementary. As Emeritus Professor (University of St. Andrews), past-President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Fellow of both the Academy of Medical Sciences and the British Psychological Society, and a prolific author in the arena of science and faith, he is supremely qualified to write this book. *The Preface reveals his motives: emails from distraught students despairing over a faith that seems incompatible with modern science, and polls showing the mass exodus of young people from faith for the same reason. The emails come from those appealing desperately to believing experts for help to hang on to faith, while the polls represent those making the opposite choice by voting with their feet. Scripture has much longer roots than modern science: the written texts go back two or three millennia, and the oral traditions underlying them another several millennia, whereas modern science is very new. So, when these two divinely inspired searches for truth seem to come into conflict, the tendency for some is to favor the tried-and-true, whereas others feel it necessary to favor what is seen as the "new-and-improved." Jeeves's goal is to show how these two books actually complement one another even when they appear to conflict. *The book is divided into three sections. The first looks at how science and cultural changes seem to keep shrinking and changing God, while introducing new alternative gods. God had long been the explanation for many previously unanswerable questions (the origin of the universe and of life, for example), but as modern science made more and more discoveries and filled in knowledge gaps, God grew smaller and smaller. At the same time, changes in societal values prompted some to re-define God to conform to more modern thinking. Essentially, we started making God in our own image using insights gleaned through science (psychology, psychoanalysis [pp. 35–38]) and theology (Augustine, Aquinas, Jonathan Edwards, Karl Rahner [pp. 38–41]). A plethora of substitute gods came into view, chief of which is technology. Social media and the internet seemed to facilitate the erosion of belief. However, Jeeves closes out this section looking at how science and technology can also expand our view of God. From studies of the very small (including DNA and the genetic code) to the very large (the known universe expanding from an estimated radius of 100,000 light years in 1917 to the present day estimate of 46 billion light years), there is now greater reason to be in awe of the Creator God. *The second section explores five major questions: (1) human origins; (2) human nature; (3) miracles of nature; (4) healing miracles; and (5) the nature of faith. For each, there is a pair of chapters: one subtitled "evidence from scripture," and a complementary chapter subtitled "evidence from science." Those subtitles might be misconstrued to imply that evidence would be proffered to explain or answer the question. Sometimes, that is the case. More often, distinct lines of evidence are cited to raise thought-provoking questions, provide divergent perspectives, add a bit of color or fill gaps, and call for more careful nuancing of the data. They serve more to stimulate questions and reflection than to provide an overview or explanation. I eventually came to see that the two sources of human evidence, when brought together within the mind of the reader, become a three-dimensional stereoscopic hologram. *In chapters 4 and 5, on human origins, Jeeves opens with the challenge, voiced by other secular scientists, that genetics does not explain everything about humanity, such as the emergence of personhood and consciousness, our moral values and ethical sense, and language. Therefore, standard evolutionary theory is too limited in scope and needs a "re-think." Equally true, however, theological explanations of these also need a "re-think." The scientific data clearly shows that humans are not starkly different from other animals, and in fact that it is almost certain that we evolved from them. We humans are, though, much more than genes, tissues, and organs. *In chapters 6 and 7, on human nature, nonscholars (both believing and not) are in nearly unanimous agreement that Christianity is critically tied to substance dualism--the idea that humans comprise a material body and an immaterial soul/spirit. In contrast, many scholars, across the spectra of belief (belief/nonbelief) and knowledge (science/theology/philosophy), see major problems with such dualism. Can science explain the soul? Is the case of a child with nearly normal cognitive abilities but lacking a major proportion of brain mass, evidence for a nonmaterial soul (p. 101)? Does Libet's experiment say anything about free will (p. 102)? If humans do not exhibit categorical differences from animals, how are we created in the image of God? *In chapters 8 and 9 (on miracles of nature), Jeeves asks a number of questions. Do miracle claims constitute proof of God? Is God a divine upholder, or occasional gap filler? Do attempts to explain miracles "[explain] them away" (pp. 140–41)? What exactly do we mean by words such as "miracle" and "supernatural"? What does the Bible mean by "signs" and "wonders"? Is there merit in trying to normalize biblical phenomena that appear to be miraculous, using modern scientific explanations? Or do such attempts only raise other problems? *Chapter 10 addresses healing miracles. If someone claims an experience/event which can be shown to have a probability of one-in-a-million, is that a miracle ... given that those odds predict that roughly 7,500 such events will occur within the present global human population? Do religious people tend to live healthier or longer lives than their secular counterparts? Studies that look at cognitive variables (depression; optimism) might suggest "yes," while those that look at biological variables (cancers; cardiovascular events) say "no" (p. 171). Do prayers become cosmic-vending machines? Do miracle claims stand up to medical/scientific scrutiny? Do they need to? *Chapters 11 and 12 concern the multifaceted nature of faith. Jeeves describes faith as involving "credulity," "intellectual assent," and "the psychological processes involved in the act of believing" (p. 178), and then compares faith with belief, doubt, trust, certainty, action, and discipleship (pp. 178–82). Jeeves recounts fascinating evidence from patients suffering various forms of brain disease (Alzheimer's, Parkinson's), discussing how such biological injuries degrade their enjoyment of faith because they rob them of the ability to focus attention, feel emotion, or keep track of a sermon or a passage of scripture (which, Jeeves points out, is another argument against substance dualism). He also looks at how brain dysfunction affected many well-known people of faith, including Martin Luther, John Bunyan, John Wesley, William Cowper, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Lord Shaftesbury, and Christina Rossetti. *The third section focusses on a central theme in this book: that of God interacting with creation in general, and humans in particular. God does this by creating all things, including humans, in his image (as the divine creator), by constantly upholding that creation through natural laws which he has set in place to maintain it (as the divine sustainer), and by putting off his divinity and embodying himself within creation (divine self-emptying or kenosis). Here, Jeeves unpacks divine kenosis, as well as the evolutionary origins and emergence of kenotic behavior in his creatures (otherwise commonly known as altruism, love, compassion, and empathy). *The book concludes with a valuable resource for self-reflection and group study. For each of the thirteen chapters, he provides a few relevant scripture passages, a variety of short paragraphs to review and reflect upon, a number of specific questions for discussion, and suggestions for further readings (books, articles, web-links). *The book is written at the level of a well-read and informed lay-person. No formal training in science or religion is needed, although a keen interest in both is essential. Overall, I found the book very useful, and I highly recommend it. But actions speak louder than words. My first thought upon reading it was to suggest it to my own church pastor for a small group book study; he read the book, then promptly and convincingly made the sales pitch to our church leaders. *Reviewed by Luke Janssen, Emeritus Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON.
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Albarracín, Dolores, and Julia Albarracín. "Creating Conspiracy Beliefs: How Our Thoughts Are Shaped." Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 74, no. 4 (December 2022): 250–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.56315/pscf12-22albarracin.

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CREATING CONSPIRACY BELIEFS: How Our Thoughts Are Shaped by Dolores Albarracín et al. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2022. 308 pages. Paperback; $39.99. ISBN: 9781108965026. *Conspiracy thinking is a prominent topic of discussion in American life today--and Christians, with their concern for truth, should not only be informed about, but contributing to, this discussion. This includes awareness of how scholars in the neuro-psychological and social sciences are contributing to our understanding of the nature of conspiracy thinking. *This book investigates the causes of conspiracy thinking in the United States. Its authors draw their findings from existing social scientific literature on conspiracism, general social psychology research, and six empirical statistical studies conducted during the last two years of the Trump presidency (2019-2021): three cross-sectional online surveys, a longitudinal phone panel survey on "deep state" conspiracy claims, a "manipulation" of fear experiment on the alleged relationship between the COVID-19 virus and 5G technology, and a social media study of Twitter hashtags and "fear words." *This book shares many similarities with previous academic works on conspiracy thinking--for example, Hofstadter (1965), Pipes (1997), Robins and Post (1997), Sunstein and Vermeule (2008), Barkun (2013), and Uscinski and Parent (2014)--but distinguishes itself by relying extensively on recent polling data and statistics instead of interviews, case studies, newspaper op-eds, or conspiracist media. Indeed, the authors consciously dispute psychological works that scrutinize the personality traits and life experiences of conspiracy believers, and political science works that link conspiracy fears to power asymmetries. Such approaches, they contend, insufficiently explain the process through which conspiracy beliefs are spread. They argue, instead, that psychological and political factors are themselves shaped by a mixture of personal, media, and social media contacts. *Their central aim is thus to examine how patterns of media consumption shape conspiracy beliefs, habits that are themselves affected by one's pre-existing feelings of anxiety, which is herein defined as a nonspecific "perception of threat [that] depends on relatively stable psychological motivations of belief defense [the desire to maintain a coherent set of beliefs], belief accuracy [the desire to maintain a realistic view of the world], and social integration [the desire for trust, status, and acceptance within a group], as well as sociopolitical factors and situational factors like communications and media exposure" (p. 163). *When these needs are not met, anxiety rises. But whereas desire for belief accuracy produces, on its own, an increase in critical discernment--and hence a decrease in false conspiracy beliefs--the combination of pre-existing anxiety (e.g., feelings of ostracism) with shared conspiracy narratives increases one's predisposition to believe conspiracy claims. When one's need for closure and community trumps their need for belief accuracy, new information will be interpreted in ways that justify their emotional state and existing beliefs. The emotional turmoil and social discomfort of anxious individuals make them more prone to accept conspiracist interpretations for troubling situations, drawing them into an alternative "media ecosystem." *Assent to conspiracy claims occurs when anxiety is assuaged by theories that offer plausible and unfalsifiable "proofs" of "hidden hand" driving events. Plausibility is achieved when a theory offers the believer historic similarity (similar plots occurred in the past), psychological similarity (the enemy's alleged motive is conceivable), and normative plausibility (other members of one's community share the same belief). The unfalsifiable nature of conspiracy claims lies in their assertion that proofs of a nefarious plot have been hidden or destroyed by the conspirators; such claims dovetail with the believer's existing distrust of authoritative sources of information. The repetition of conspiracist messages by like-minded others (friends, social networks, etc.), and by popular media (e.g., Fox News) reinforces these beliefs. The believer's wounded ego can further elicit schizotypy, paranoia, and narcissism, which serve as means of self-defence against debunkers and skeptics. *The influence of various media is proportional to time spent with, and trust placed in, these sources of information, along with the consumer's prior levels of neuroticism, suspiciousness, and impulsivity. Online media have an additional influence via their use of bots, individually tailored algorithms, and various forms of "information laundering" in reply threads and chatrooms. Heavy media consumption aligns the consumer's view of the world with the one shown in their preferred media. *The prime contribution of this book is its postulation that anxiety precedes conspiracy thinking (rather than the inverse), a psychological explanation for conspiracy belief that does not lead its authors to conclude, as others have, that conspiracism is inherently a form of neurosis. However, its heavy use of statistics, jargon, and unduly complicated flowcharts renders the text onerous, especially for those without statistical training. Given that this is meant to be the book's most 'important new input into the literature, it is also its greatest weakness. *Despite the great efforts made by its authors to produce a detailed empirical study of the effects of media on conspiracy beliefs, the book's conclusions are somewhat underwhelming as they echo the findings of many previous studies and offer few new insights into the topic. For instance, their claim that social interaction is the "proverbial elephant in the room" (pp. xiii, 205) is hardly convincing. The media consumption habits of conspiracy believers are a recurring theme throughout the literature, and none make the claim that conspiracy beliefs develop in an information vacuum. The book's conclusion that anxiety serves as an "intervening mechanism" (p. 87) between conspiracy claims and a person's needs for closure and social integration in not particularly revelatory either. That humans are social animals is an argument as old as Aristotle, and that conspiracy myths help insecure individuals improve their sense of social cohesion is at least as old as Karl Popper's "conspiracy theory of society."1 *The book's statistical data also exhibits several flaws, leading its authors to wrongly conclude, as Hofstadter did in 1965, that the phenomenon of conspiracy thinking is essentially a product of conservative angst2--a claim that has been powerfully disproven by many of Hofstadter's critics. This may be due to the timeframe of the authors' research studies, which were conducted mostly during and after President Trump's first impeachment trial (in 2019-2020), which elicited a massive conservative media backlash. It could also be due to their failure to examine long-term patterns of conspiracy chatter, which would have shown (see Uscinski and Parent, 2014) that conspiracy ideation ebbs and flows along political lines over longer periods of time. Their data also contains some unrepresentative samples, namely, the overrepresentation of low-wage earners, the unemployed, and the highly educated, and the underrepresentation of working-class high school graduates and Hispanics (pp. 243-44). *One could surmise that such flaws are due to an extraordinary historical context (the Trump presidency and COVID-19 restrictions), but they are also likely attributable to the implicit political biases of current social psychological research, which, as Duarte et al. demonstrated,3 is strongly skewed to the political left. This is made evident in the authors' clearly stated opinion that conservative media is the primary cause of conspiracy beliefs and related violence (pp. 224, 169-70) from which its audience--akin to cultists and terrorists--should be deprogrammed with "corrective alternatives" and ridicule (p. 215). This seems to contradict their 'primary claim that anxiety is the underlying cause (and not the product) of conspiracy beliefs, which should presumably be allayed with kinder methods than these. By identifying conspiracy theories as both a product of right-wing media and, simultaneously, as a "type of misinformation" (p. 11), the authors leave themselves open to the charge of circular reasoning. Indeed, their political bias is shown in their frequent use of contested progressive concepts and phrases such as "racialized," "Latinx," "pro-social behavior to reduce [one's] carbon footprint," and by 'connecting peaceable conservative media such as Focus on the Family to the use of gun violence by Edgar Maddison Welch in a Washington pizzeria (p. 219). *The small number of conspiracy theories on which the authors based their surveys is another example of skewed sampling. Most of these represent themes that cause far more anxiety to conservatives than liberals (for example, the "deep state," COVID-19 restrictions, illegal immigration, President Obama's birth certificate), while little attention is given to conspiracy theories that traditionally appeal to the political left (for 'example, JFK, 9/11, GMOs, "BigPharma," CIA malfeasance, Hurricane Katrina) or to progressives' fears about policing, systemic racism, abortion rights, or gender identity, making it all the more likely that their research subjects who displayed conspiracist thinking stood on the right side of the political fence. *Finally, the book spends too much time discussing tangentially pertinent psychological research (for example, the influence of music on pain and imitative suicide) and too little detailing the content and origins of the few conspiracy theories their research is based on (with the exception of the 2016 "Pizzagate" panic). This makes the book difficult for the layperson to follow, when it is compared to academic works such as those of Barkun4 or Uscinski and Parent,5 which are accessible to a nonspecialized audience. Few details are given, for instance, of the Tuskegee syphilis experiments, which are mentioned frequently but never in detail as an example of a genuine government conspiracy (rather than a significant but nonsinister breach of medical ethics). In the end, the book complements the rest of the literature but falls short of providing significant new insights, and is unlikely to elicit interest among laypersons, especially those who hold conspiracy beliefs. * Notes *1Karl R. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963). *2Richard Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in American Politics, And Other Essays (New York: Knopf, 1965). *3José L. Duarte et al., "Political Diversity Will Improve Social Psychological Science," Behavioral and Brain Sciences 38 (2015): e130, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X14000430. *4Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013). *5Joseph E. Uscinski and Joseph M. Parent, American Conspiracy Theories (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2014). *Reviewed by Michel Jacques Gagné, Champlain College, St. Lambert, QC J4P 3P2. Michel is a historian and author of Thinking Critically about the Kennedy Assassination: Debunking the Myths and Conspiracy Theories (Routledge, 2022).
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Tice, Logan C., David E. Eagle, Joshua A. Rash, Jessie S. Larkins, Sofia M. Labrecque, Alyssa Platt, Jia Yao, and Rae Jean Proeschold-Bell. "The Selah study protocol of three interventions to manage stress among clergy: a preference-based randomized waitlist control trial." Trials 22, no. 1 (December 2021). http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13063-021-05845-x.

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Abstract Introduction Like many helping professionals in emotional labor occupations, clergy experience high rates of mental and physical comorbidities. Regular stress management practices may reduce stress-related symptoms and morbidity, but more research is needed into what practices can be reliably included in busy lifestyles and practiced at a high enough level to meaningfully reduce stress symptoms. Methods and analysis The overall design is a preference-based randomized waitlist control trial. United Methodist clergy in North Carolina will be eligible to participate. The intervention and waitlist control groups will be recruited by email. The interventions offered are specifically targeted to clergy preference and include mindfulness-based stress reduction, Daily Examen, and stress inoculation training. Surveys will be conducted at 0, 12, and 24 weeks with heart rate data collected at 0 and 12 weeks. The primary outcomes for this study are self-reported symptoms of stress and heart rate at week 12 for each intervention compared to waitlist control; the secondary outcome is symptoms of anxiety comparing each intervention vs waitlist control. Ethics and dissemination Ethical approval was obtained from the Duke University Campus IRB (2019-0238). The results will be made available to researchers, funders, and members of the clergy community. Strengths and limitations of this study While evidence-based stress reduction practices such as mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) exist, a wider variety of practices should be tested to appeal to different individuals. Clergy in particular may prefer, and consequently enact, spiritual practices like the Daily Examen, and individuals such as clergy who spend most of their time thinking and feeling may prefer experiential-based practices like stress inoculation training. If efficacious, the Daily Examen and stress inoculation training practices have high feasibility in that they require few minutes per day. This study is limited by the inclusion of Christian clergy of only one denomination. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04625777. November 12, 2020.
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Broughton, Geoff. "Pastoral Supervision for Safe Churches." Journal of Anglican Studies, September 13, 2021, 1–12. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s174035532100022x.

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Abstract This essay will examine the contribution of pastoral (professional) supervision in enabling and ensuring a safe church. Pastoral supervision is the brave, safe space where clergy (and ministry workers) reflect on their ministry practice in a regular, planned supervision session. The present article emerges from a decade of training pastoral supervisors and consultation across the national Anglican Church during 2019 based on recommendations made by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. It concludes that the properly Christian way for pastoral supervision to change the culture of the Church is christological: a rigorous grounding of its theory and practice in the story of Jesus Christ.
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Potgieter, Stella D. "Communities: Development of church-based counselling teams." HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies 71, no. 2 (February 6, 2015). http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/hts.v71i2.2050.

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Pastoral care is a biblical mandate to the Church to be involved in the lives of God’s people. A key metaphor used by Jesus to describe his pastoral role was that of a shepherd. Thus, to be God’s shepherds and instruments of healing and transformation in God’s world is an imperative to all people, clergy and laity alike. The brokenness in South African society is strikingly apparent, exacerbated by the effects of exceptionally high criminal behaviour as statistics show. The demand for pastoral care and assistance with various personal problems is on the increase, with many non-church goers turning to churches for help. Also apparent in South Africa is the acute shortage of trained individuals to offer care and counselling. The task of offering care is not the sole responsibility of clergy, as all are called to be shepherds and caregivers. The importance and urgency in training church-based counselling teams cannot be overstated. More so in that we are becoming increasingly aware that not only are individuals in need of care, but whole communities are struggling with trauma and life’s challenges, and often do not know whom to turn to. In pursuance of the realisation that pastoral care is the function and duty of all Christians, this article will delineate in particular an explanation of lay counselling, reasons for its importance including biblical foundations, where and how ordinary South Africans can get involved, and will propose certain models and approaches for getting started. These models will not be discussed in depth, but present an opportunity for the next. Teams for these models consist of professional counsellors, but ought not to be restricted to a select few, as all are called to this special ministry and can be trained for the task, which will include on-going supervision and mentoring. The overall purpose of this article is to highlight the urgency of training lay counsellors and some recommendations will be made how to apply it, in an attempt to be faithful to the biblical mandate and examples set by Jesus Christ.
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van der Walt, Barend. "Op die spore van filosofiese onderwys op Potchefstroom honderd jaar gelede." Koers - Bulletin for Christian Scholarship 82, no. 1 (April 1, 2017). http://dx.doi.org/10.19108/koers.82.1.2287.

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Abstract Tracing philosophical education at Potchefstroom a century ago It is to be regretted that the history of education in Philosophy at other universities, like the Free University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands (established in 1880) has been documented in several publications, while very little is known about who taught and what was taught in Philosophy during the early days of the later to be known Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education (established already in 1869). The introduction indicates that also about the teaching of this subject in general in South Africa not much has been documented. Nevertheless, from the start philosophy was regarded as an important part of the academic curriculum for the training of future ministers (and later also teachers) of the Reformed Churches in South Africa. From about the second decade of the twentieth century two types of Christian Philosophy emerged more clearly. Prof Ferdinand Postma (1879-1950) taught in the line of the logos philosophy of his Dutch mentor, Jan Woltjer (1849-1917), but no traces of this tradition were left after Postma. Prof Sietse Los (1871-1944) followed the Herman Bavinck line, the influence of which was still discernible in the philosophy of H.G. Stoker (1899-1993). This investigation focuses on the philosophical tradition represented by Los a century ago. This overview consists of the following four main parts. Firstly, it investigates the historical background of Reformed theology, especially as it was represented by A. Kuyper and H. Bavinck, the mentors of Los. This is, secondly, followed by some biographical notes on Los. The third, or main section, is devoted to an analysis of Los’s philosophical anthropology from seven of his books published in South Africa and the Netherlands between 1904 and 1944. His view of being human boils down to a Christian-biblicist reinterpretation of preceding Aristotelinising and Platonising ideas about the human being. He supported Aristotle’s and his subsequent followers’ views as embedded in the Christian tradition in their dichotomist view of soul and body as two separate substances. But he combined their anthropology with Plato’s and his Christian followers’ view that the human soul itself should be divided into three functions (a trichotomy) of intellect, will and emotion. The fourth section concludes with an evaluation of some weak as well as positive points in Los’s contribution to philosophical education at Potchefstroom during the early days of the previous century. Key words: Los, S. (1875-1944); Philosophy; Potchefstroom; Postma, F. (1879-1950); twentieth century (beginning) Sleutelwoorde: Filosofie; Los, S. (1875-1944); Potchefstroom; Postma, F. (1879-1950; twintigste eeu (begin)
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Uwins, Christina, and Amanda Burleigh. "Campaigning for Change: Implementing Optimal Cord Clamping." Practising midwife, February 1, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.55975/rabj2085.

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Healthy neonates benefit from a more physiological and gentle transition from placental to pulmonary respiration. ‘Delayed’ or ‘optimal’ cord clamping provides this. In this paper, Amanda Burleigh and Christina Uwins describe how Amanda worked towards successfully implementing change on a global stage. Supplemented by a News and Views All4Maternity.com blog, they chart the challenges and triumphs that Amanda faced. They recommend effective ways to encourage staff to embrace innovation and evidence-based practice, rather than resisting it and continuing with what they have always done. Amanda recognises that, as a midwife, it is essential to get a supportive, proactive and resilient senior doctor ‘on board’ and work together to progress change. Implementing delayed cord clamping in a busy maternity unit can be extremely challenging, but the benefits to babies and parents are enormous, and clearly outweigh the difficulties of gathering evidence, training staff and producing new evidence-based guidance for local practice.
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Crawford, Matthew R. "“Reordering the Confusion”: Tatian, the Second Sophistic, and the so-called Diatessaron." Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum / Journal of Ancient Christianity 19, no. 2 (January 1, 2015). http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/zac-2015-0018.

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AbstractThe only two surviving works from Tatian are his Oration to the Greeks and the so-called Diatessaron. Previous scholars have examined the Oration in search of clues that might shed light on the origins of his gospel, and have highlighted his adherence to divine “unity” and insistence on historical “accuracy.” In this article it is argued that a more fundamental theme in the Oration is Tatian’s concern for proper “order,” a rhetorical category that he filled out with theological and philosophical content, and that it was this which served as the primary impetus for his creation of his gospel edition. Furthermore, if rhetoric gave him the motivation, it was his grammatical training that gave him the tools for this enterprise, since in composing his work he must have relied upon the kind of close literary analysis learned under the grammarian. Viewing the matter from this perspective allows one to place Tatian more clearly into the second-century context of the Second Sophistic and also allows one to situate him within an ongoing conversation among Christian authors in the second century over the order, or lack thereof, evident in the church’s authoritative texts.
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Kadivar, Jamileh. "Government Surveillance and Counter-Surveillance on Social and Mobile Media: The Case of Iran (2009)." M/C Journal 18, no. 2 (April 29, 2015). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.956.

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Human history has witnessed varied surveillance and counter-surveillance activities from time immemorial. Human beings could not surveille others effectively and accurately without the technology of their era. Technology is a tool that can empower both people and governments. The outcomes are different based on the users’ intentions and aims. 2,500 years ago, Sun Tzu noted that ‘If you know both yourself and your enemy, you can win numerous (literally, "a hundred") battles without jeopardy’. His words still ring true. To be a good surveiller and counter-surveiller it is essential to know both sides, and in order to be good at these activities access to technology is vital. There is no doubt that knowledge is power, and without technology to access the information, it is impossible to be powerful. As we become more expert at technology, we will learn what makes surveillance and counter-surveillance more effective, and will be more powerful.“Surveillance” is one of the most important aspects of living in the convergent media environment. This essay illustrates government surveillance and counter-surveillance during the Iranian Green Movement (2009) on social and mobile media. The Green Movement refers to a non-violent movement that arose after the disputed presidential election on June 2009. After that Iran was facing its most serious political crisis since the 1979 revolution. Claims of vote fraud triggered massive street protests. Many took to the streets with “Green” signs, chanting slogans such as ‘the government lied’, and ‘where is my vote?’ There is no doubt that social and mobile media has played an important role in Iran’s contemporary politics. According to Internet World Stats (IWS) Internet users in 2009 account for approximately 48.5 per cent of the population of Iran. In 2009, Iran had 30.2 million mobile phone users (Freedom House), and 72 cellular subscriptions for every 100 people (World Bank). Today, while Iran has the 19th-largest population in the world, its blogosphere holds the third spot in terms of number of users, just behind the United States and China (Beth Elson et al.). In this essay the use of social and mobile media (technology) is not debated, but the extent of this use, and who, why and how it is used, is clearly scrutinised.Visibility and Surveillance There have been different kinds of surveillance for a very long time. However, all types of surveillance are based on the notion of “visibility”. Previous studies show that visibility is not a new term (Foucault Discipline). The new things in the new era, are its scale, scope and complicated ways to watch others without being watched, which are not limited to a specific time, space and group, and are completely different from previous instruments for watching (Andrejevic). As Meikle and Young (146) have mentioned ‘networked digital media bring with them a new kind of visibility’, based on different kinds of technology. Internet surveillance has important implications in politics to control, protect, and influence (Marx Ethics; Castells; Fuchs Critique). Surveillance has been improved during its long history, and evolved from very simple spying and watching to complicated methods of “iSpy” (Andrejevic). To understand the importance of visibility and its relationship with surveillance, it is essential to study visibility in conjunction with the notion of “panopticon” and its contradictory functions. Foucault uses Bentham's notion of panopticon that carries within itself visibility and transparency to control others. “Gaze” is a central term in Bentham’s view. ‘Bentham thinks of a visibility organised entirely around a dominating, overseeing gaze’ (Foucault Eye). Moreover, Thomson (Visibility 11) notes that we are living in the age of ‘normalizing the power of the gaze’ and it is clear that the influential gaze is based on powerful means to see others.Lyon (Surveillance 2) explains that ‘surveillance is any collection and processing of personal data, whether identifiable or not, for the purpose of influencing or managing those whose data have been granted…’. He mentions that today the most important means of surveillance reside in computer power which allows collected data to be sorted, matched, retrieved, processed, marketed and circulated.Nowadays, the Internet has become ubiquitous in many parts of the world. So, the changes in people’s interactions have influenced their lives. Fuchs (Introduction 15) argues that ‘information technology enables surveillance at a distance…in real time over networks at high transmission speed’. Therefore, visibility touches different aspects of people’s lives and living in a “glasshouse” has caused a lot of fear and anxiety about privacy.Iran’s Green Movement is one of many cases for studying surveillance and counter-surveillance technologies in social and mobile media. Government Surveillance on Social and Mobile Media in Iran, 2009 In 2009 the Iranian government controlled technology that allowed them to monitor, track, and limit access to the Internet, social media and mobiles communication, which has resulted in the surveillance of Green Movement’s activists. The Iranian government had improved its technical capabilities to monitor the people’s behavior on the Internet long before the 2009 election. The election led to an increase in online surveillance. Using social media the Iranian government became even more powerful than it was before the election. Social media was a significant factor in strengthening the government’s power. In the months after the election the virtual atmosphere became considerably more repressive. The intensified filtering of the Internet and implementation of more advanced surveillance systems strengthened the government’s position after the election. The Open Net Initiative revealed that the Internet censorship system in Iran is one of the most comprehensive and sophisticated censorship systems in the world. It emphasized that ‘Advances in domestic technical capacity have contributed to the implementation of a centralized filtering strategy and a reduced reliance on Western technologies’.On the other hand, the authorities attempted to block all access to political blogs (Jaras), either through cyber-security methods or through threats (Tusa). The Centre for Investigating Organized Cyber Crimes, which was founded in 2007 partly ‘to investigate and confront social and economic offenses on the Internet’ (Cyber Police), became increasingly important over the course of 2009 as the government combated the opposition’s online activities (Beth Elson et al. 16). Training of "senior Internet lieutenants" to confront Iran's "virtual enemies online" was another attempt that the Intelligence minister announced following the protests (Iran Media Program).In 2009 the Iranian government enacted the Computer Crime Law (Jaras). According to this law the Committee in Charge of Determining Unauthorized Websites is legally empowered to identify sites that carry forbidden content and report that information to TCI and other major ISPs for blocking (Freedom House). In the late fall of 2009, the government started sending threatening and warning text messages to protesters about their presence in the protests (BBC). Attacking, blocking, hacking and hijacking of the domain names of some opposition websites such as Jaras and Kaleme besides a number of non-Iranian sites such as Twitter were among the other attempts of the Iranian Cyber Army (Jaras).It is also said that the police and security forces arrested dissidents identified through photos and videos posted on the social media that many imagined had empowered them. Furthermore, the online photos of the active protesters were posted on different websites, asking people to identify them (Valizadeh).In late June 2009 the Iranian government was intentionally permitting Internet traffic to and from social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter so that it could use a sophisticated practice called Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) to collect information about users. It was reportedly also applying the same technology to monitor mobile phone communications (Beth Elson et al. 15).On the other hand, to cut communication between Iranians inside and outside the country, Iran slowed down the Internet dramatically (Jaras). Iran also blocked access to Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, Twitter and many blogs before, during and after the protests. Moreover, in 2009, text message services were shut down for over 40 days, and mobile phone subscribers could not send or receive text messages regardless of their mobile carriers. Subsequently it was disrupted on a temporary basis immediately before and during key protests days.It was later discovered that the Nokia Siemens Network provided the government with surveillance technologies (Wagner; Iran Media Program). The Iranian government built a complicated system that enabled it to monitor, track and intercept what was said on mobile phones. Nokia Siemens Network confirmed it supplied Iran with the technology needed to monitor, control, and read local telephone calls [...] The product allowed authorities to monitor any communications across a network, including voice calls, text messaging, instant messages, and web traffic (Cellan-Jones). Media sources also reported that two Chinese companies, Huawei and ZTE, provided surveillance technologies to the government. The Nic Payamak and Saman Payamak websites, that provide mass text messaging services, also reported that operator Hamrah Aval commonly blocked texts with words such as meeting, location, rally, gathering, election and parliament (Iran Media Program). Visibility and Counter-Surveillance The panopticon is not limited to the watchers. Similarly, new kinds of panopticon and visibility are not confined to government surveillance. Foucault points out that ‘the seeing machine was once a sort of dark room into which individuals spied; it has become a transparent building in which the exercise of power may be supervised by society as a whole’ (Discipline 207). What is important is Foucault's recognition that transparency, not only of those who are being observed but also of those who are observing, is central to the notion of the panopticon (Allen) and ‘any member of society will have the right to come and see with his own eyes how schools, hospitals, factories, and prisons function’ (Foucault, Discipline 207). Counter-surveillance is the process of detecting and mitigating hostile surveillance (Burton). Therefore, while the Internet is a surveillance instrument that enables governments to watch people, it also improves the capacity to counter-surveille, and draws public attention to governments’ injustice. As Castells (185) notes the Internet could be used by citizens to watch their government as an instrument of control, information, participation, and even decision-making, from the bottom up.With regards to the role of citizens in counter-surveillance we can draw on Jay Rosen’s view of Internet users as ‘the people formerly known as the audience’. In counter-surveillance it can be said that passive citizens (formerly the audience) have turned into active citizens. And this change was becoming impossible without mobile and social media platforms. These new techniques and technologies have empowered people and given them the opportunity to have new identities. When Thompson wrote ‘the exercise of power in modern societies remains in many ways shrouded in secrecy and hidden from the public gaze’ (Media 125), perhaps he could not imagine that one day people can gaze at the politicians, security forces and the police through the use of the Internet and mobile devices.Furthermore, while access to mobile media allows people to hold authorities accountable for their uses and abuses of power (Breen 183), social media can be used as a means of representation, organization of collective action, mobilization, and drawing attention to police brutality and reasons for political action (Gerbaudo).There is no doubt that having creativity and using alternative platforms are important aspects in counter-surveillance. For example, images of Lt. Pike “Pepper Spray Cop” from the University of California became the symbol of the senselessness of police brutality during the Occupy Movement (Shaw). Iranians’ Counter-Surveillance on Social and Mobile Media, 2009 Iran’s Green movement (2009) triggered a lot of discussions about the role of technology in social movements. In this regard, there are two notable attitudes about the role of technology: techno-optimistic (Shriky and Castells) and techno-pessimistic (Morozov and Gladwell) views should be taken into account. While techno-optimists overrated the role of social media, techno-pessimists underestimated its role. However, there is no doubt that technology has played a great role as a counter-surveillance tool amongst Iranian people in Iran’s contemporary politics.Apart from the academic discussions between techno-optimists and techno-pessimists, there have been numerous debates about the role of new technologies in Iran during the Green Movement. This subject has received interest from different corners of the world, including Western countries, Iranian authorities, opposition groups, and also some NGOs. However, its role as a means of counter-surveillance has not received adequate attention.As the tools of counter-surveillance are more or less the tools of surveillance, protesters learned from the government to use the same techniques to challenge authority on social media.Establishing new websites (such as JARAS, RASA, Kalemeh, and Iran green voice) or strengthening some previous ones (such as Saham, Emrooz, Norooz), also activating different platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube accounts to broadcast the voice of the Iranian Green Movement and neutralize the government’s propaganda were the most important ways to empower supporters of Iran’s Green Movement in counter-surveillance.‘Reporters Without Borders issued a statement, saying that ‘the new media, and particularly social networks, have given populations collaborative tools with which they can change the social order’. It is also mentioned that despite efforts by the Iranian government to prevent any reporting of the protests and due to considerable pressure placed on foreign journalists inside Iran, social media played a significant role in sending the messages and images of the movement to the outside world (Axworthy). However, at that moment, many thought that Twitter performed a liberating role for Iranian dissenters. For example, Western media heralded the Green Movement in Iran as a “Twitter revolution” fuelled by information and communication technologies (ICTs) and social media tools (Carrieri et al. 4). “The Revolution Will Be Twittered” was the first in a series of blog posts published by Andrew Sullivan a few hours after the news of the protests was released.According to the researcher’s observation the numbers of Twitter users inside Iran who tweeted was very limited in 2009 and social media was most useful in the dissemination of information, especially from those inside Iran to outsiders. Mobile phones were mostly influential as an instrument firstly used for producing contents (images and videos) and secondly for the organisation of protests. There were many photos and videos that were filmed by very simple mobile cell phones, uploaded by ordinary people onto YouTube and other platforms. The links were shared many times on Twitter and Facebook and released by mainstream media. The most frequently circulated story from the Iranian protests was a video of Neda Agha-Sultan. Her final moments were captured by some bystanders with mobile phone cameras and rapidly spread across the global media and the Internet. It showed that the camera-phone had provided citizens with a powerful means, allowing for the creation and instant sharing of persuasive personalised eyewitness records with mobile and globalised target populations (Anden-Papadopoulos).Protesters used another technique, DDOS (distributed denial of service attacks), for political protest in cyber space. Anonymous people used DDOS to overload a website with fake requests, making it unavailable for users and disrupting the sites set as targets (McMillan) in effect, shutting down the site. DDOS is an important counter-surveillance activity by grassroots activists or hackers. It was a cyber protest that knocked the main Iranian governmental websites off-line and caused crowdsourcing and false trafficking. Amongst them were Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's supreme leader’s websites and those which belong to or are close to the government or security forces, including news agencies (Fars, IRNA, Press TV…), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Justice, the Police, and the Ministry of the Interior.Moreover, as authorities uploaded the pictures of protesters onto different platforms to find and arrest them, in some cities people started to put the pictures, phone numbers and addresses of members of security forces and plain clothes police officers who attacked them during the protests and asked people to identify and report the others. They also wanted people to send information about suspects who infringed human rights. Conclusion To sum up, visibility, surveillance and counter-surveillance are not new phenomena. What is new is the technology, which increased their complexity. As Foucault (Discipline 200) mentioned ‘visibility is a trap’, so being visible would be the weakness of those who are being surveilled in the power struggle. In the convergent era, in order to be more powerful, both surveillance and counter-surveillance activities aim for more visibility. Although both attempt to use the same means (technology) to trap the other side, the differences are in their subjects, objects, goals and results.While in surveillance, visibility of the many by the few is mostly for the purpose of control and influence in undemocratic ways, in counter-surveillance, the visibility of the few by the many is mostly through democratic ways to secure more accountability and transparency from the governments.As mentioned in the case of Iran’s Green Movement, the scale and scope of visibility are different in surveillance and counter-surveillance. The importance of what Shaw wrote about Sydney occupy counter-surveillance, applies to other places, such as Iran. She has stressed that ‘protesters and police engaged in a dance of technology and surveillance with one another. Both had access to technology, but there were uncertainties about the extent of technology and its proficient use…’In Iran (2009), both sides (government and activists) used technology and benefited from digital networked platforms, but their levels of access and domains of influence were different, which was because the sources of power, information and wealth were divided asymmetrically between them. Creativity was important for both sides to make others more visible, and make themselves invisible. Also, sharing information to make the other side visible played an important role in these two areas. References Alen, David. “The Trouble with Transparency: The Challenge of Doing Journalism Ethics in a Surveillance Society.” Journalism Studies 9.3 (2008): 323-40. 8 Dec. 2013 ‹http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616700801997224#.UqRFSuIZsqN›. Anden-Papadopoulos, Kari. “Citizen Camera-Witnessing: Embodied Political Dissent in the Age of ‘Mediated Mass Self-Communication.’” New Media & Society 16.5 (2014). 753-69. 9 Aug. 2014 ‹http://nms.sagepub.com/content/16/5/753.full.pdf+html›. Andrejevic, Mark. iSpy: Surveillance and Power in the Interactive Era. Lawrence, Kan: UP of Kansas, 2007. Axworthy, Micheal. Revolutionary Iran: A History of the Islamic Republic. London: Penguin Books, 2014. Bentham, Jeremy. Panopticon Postscript. London: T. Payne, 1791. Beth Elson, Sara, Douglas Yeung, Parisa Roshan, S.R. Bohandy, and Alireza Nader. Using Social Media to Gauge Iranian Public Opinion and Mood after the 2009 Election. Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2012. 1 Aug. 2014 ‹http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/technical_reports/2012/RAND_TR1161.pdf›. Breen, Marcus. Uprising: The Internet’s Unintended Consequences. Champaign, Ill: Common Ground Pub, 2011. Burton, Fred. “The Secrets of Counter-Surveillance.” Stratfor Global Intelligence. 2007. 19 April 2015 ‹https://www.stratfor.com/secrets_countersurveillance›. Carrieri, Matthew, Ali Karimzadeh Bangi, Saad Omar Khan, and Saffron Suud. After the Green Movement Internet Controls in Iran, 2009-2012. OpenNet Initiative, 2013. 17 Dec. 2013 ‹https://opennet.net/sites/opennet.net/files/iranreport.pdf›. Castells, Manuel. The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society. Oxford: Oxford UP: 2001. Cellan-Jones, Rory. “Hi-Tech Helps Iranian Monitoring.” BBC, 2009. 26 July 2014 ‹http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8112550.stm›. “Cyber Crimes’ List.” Iran: Cyber Police, 2009. 17 July 2014 ‹http://www.cyberpolice.ir/page/2551›. Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977. Foucault, Michel. “The Eye of Power.” 1980. 12 Dec. 2013 ‹https://nbrokaw.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/the-eye-of-power.doc›. Freedom House. “Special Report: Iran.” 2009. 14 June 2014 ‹http://www.sssup.it/UploadDocs/4661_8_A_Special_Report_Iran_Feedom_House_01.pdf›. Fuchs, Christian. “Introduction.” Internet and Surveillance: The Challenges of Web 2.0 and Social Media. Ed. Christian Fuchs. London: Routledge, 2012. 1-28. Fuchs, Christian. “Critique of the Political Economy of Web 2.0 Surveillance.” Internet and Surveillance: The Challenges of Web 2.0 and Social Media. Ed. Christian Fuchs. London: Routledge, 2012. 30-70. Gerbaudo, Paolo. Tweets and the Streets: Social Media and Contemporary Activism. London: Pluto, 2012. “Internet: Iran’s New Imaginary Enemy.” Jaras Mar. 2009. 28 June 2014 ‹http://www.rahesabz.net/print/12143›.Iran Media Program. “Text Messaging as Iran's New Filtering Frontier.” 2013. 25 July 2014 ‹http://www.iranmediaresearch.org/en/blog/227/13/04/25/136›. Internet World Stats News. The Internet Hits 1.5 Billion. 2009. 3 July 2014 ‹ http://www.internetworldstats.com/pr/edi038.htm›. Lyon, David. Surveillance Society: Monitoring Everyday Life. Buckingham: Open UP, 2001. Lyon, David. “9/11, Synopticon, and Scopophilia: Watching and Being Watched.” The New Politics of Surveillance and Visibility. Eds. Richard V. Ericson and Kevin D. Haggerty. Toronto: UP of Toronto, 2006. 35-54. Marx, Gary T. “What’s New about the ‘New Surveillance’? Classify for Change and Continuity.” Surveillance & Society 1.1 (2002): 9-29. McMillan, Robert. “With Unrest in Iran, Cyber-Attacks Begin.” PC World 2009. 17 Apr. 2015 ‹http://www.pcworld.com/article/166714/article.html›. Meikle, Graham, and Sherman Young. Media Convergence: Networked Digital Media in Everyday Life. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Morozov, Evgeny. “How Dictators Watch Us on the Web.” Prospect 2009. 15 June 2014 ‹http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/how-dictators-watch-us-on-the-web/#.U5wU6ZRdU00›.Open Net. “Iran.” 2009. 26 June 2014 ‹https://opennet.net/research/profiles/iran›. Reporters without Borders. “Web 2.0 versus Control 2.0.” 2010. 27 May 2014 ‹http://en.rsf.org/web-2-0-versus-control-2-0-18-03-2010,36697›.Rosen, Jay. The People Formerly Known as the Audience. 2006. 7 Dec. 2013 ‹http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jay-rosen/the-people-formerly-known_1_b_24113.html›. Shaw, Frances. “'Walls of Seeing': Protest Surveillance, Embodied Boundaries, and Counter-Surveillance at Occupy Sydney.” Transformation 23 (2013). 9 Dec. 2013 ‹http://www.transformationsjournal.org/journal/issue_23/article_04.shtml›. “The Warning of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to the Weblogs and Websites.” BBC, 2009. 27 July 2014 ‹http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/iran/2009/06/090617_ka_ir88_sepah_internet.shtml›. Thompson, John B. The Media And Modernity: A Social Theory of the Media. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995. Thompson, John B. “The New Visibility.” Theory, Culture & Society 22.6 (2005): 31-51. 10 Dec. 2013 ‹http://tcs.sagepub.com/content/22/6/31.full.pdf+html›. Tusa, Felix. “How Social Media Can Shape a Protest Movement: The Cases of Egypt in 2011 and Iran in 2009.” Arab Media and Society 17 (Winter 2013). 15 July 2014 ‹http://www.arabmediasociety.com/index.php?article=816&p=0›. Tzu, Sun. Sun Tzu: The Art of War. S.l.: Pax Librorum Pub. H, 2009. Valizadeh, Reza. “Invitation to the Public Shooting with the Camera.” RFI, 2011. 19 June 2014 ‹http://www.persian.rfi.fr/%D8%AF%D8%B9%D9%88%D8%AA-%D8%A8%D9%87-%D8%B4%D9%84%DB%8C%DA%A9-%D8%B9%D9%85%D9%88%D9%85%DB%8C-%D8%A8%D8%A7-%D8%AF%D9%88%D8%B1%D8%A8%DB%8C%D9%86-%D8%B9%DA%A9%D8%A7%D8%B3%DB%8C-20110307/%D8%A7%DB%8C%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86›. Wagner, Ben. Exporting Censorship and Surveillance Technology. Netherlands: Humanist Institute for Co-operation with Developing Countries (Hivos), 2012. 7 July 2014 ‹https://hivos.org/sites/default/files/exporting_censorship_and_surveillance_technology_by_ben_wagner.pdf›. World Bank. Mobile Cellular Subscriptions (per 100 People). The World Bank. 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36

Heinbach, Dominique. "Interactivity/Reciprocity (Online Discussions/Discussion Quality)." DOCA - Database of Variables for Content Analysis, November 29, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.34778/5u.

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Interactivity (or reciprocity) is a key dimension to assess the deliberative quality of online discussions. In quantitative content analyses, this dimension measures if participants engage in dialog with each other and refer to each other. Field of application/Theoretical foundation Most studies on online discussions draw on deliberative norms to measure the quality of their discourse (e.g., Esau et al., 2017; Friess et al., 2021; Rowe, 2015; Ziegele et al., 2020; Zimmermann, 2017). Deliberation is an important concept for the study of (political) online discussions (Ziegele et al., 2020). It focuses on a free and equal exchange of arguments to bridge social differences and legitimize political decisions (Dryzek et al., 2019; Fishkin, 1991, Habermas, 2015). Interactivity is a key dimension of deliberative quality, since deliberation is always a reciprocal and dialogical process (Goodin, 2000; Zimmermann, 2017). Participants engage in a dialogic exchange with each other, reflecting on other views and perspectives, and referring to each other (Friess et al., 2021; Ziegele et al., 2020). This reciprocal process includes both responding and listening (Barber, 1984; Graham, 2009). Interactivity is considered essential for desirable effects of deliberation such as learning, tolerance building and opinion change (Estlund & Landmore, 2018; Friess et al., 2021). References/Combination with other methods Besides quantitative content analyses, the (deliberative) quality of online discussions is examined with qualitative content analyses and discourse analyses (e.g., Graham & Witschge, 2003; Price & Capella, 2002). Furthermore, participants’ perceptions of the quality of online discussions are investigated with qualitative interviews (e.g., Engelke, 2019; Ziegele, 2016) or a combination of qualitative interviews and content analy­sis (Díaz Noci et al., 2012). Cross-references Interactivity is one of five dimensions of deliberative quality in this database written by the same author. Accordingly, there are overlaps with the entries on inclusivity, rationality, explicit civility, and storytelling regarding theoretical background, references/combinations with other methods, and some example studies. Information on Esau et al. (2017) Authors: Katharina Esau, Dennis Friess, & Christiane Eilders Research question: “How does platform design affect the level of deliberative quality?” (p. 323) Object of analysis: “We conducted a quantitative content analysis of user comments left in a news forum, on news websites, and on Facebook news pages concerning the same journalistic content on two topics […] A sample of news articles […] with related user comments, was drawn from the online platforms of four German news media […] The first step of the sampling process consisted of 18 news articles from which 3,341 comments were collected […] In the second step for each article, up to 100 sequential comments were randomly selected for content analysis, leading to a total sample of 1,801 comments (979 on Facebook, 591 on news websites, and 231 in the news forum)” (p. 331). Time frame of analysis: December 2015 Info about variables Level of analysis: individual comment Variables and reliability: see Table 1 Table 1: Variables and Reliability (Esau et al., 2017, pp. 332-333): Dimension Measure Definition RCA Cohen’s Kappa Reciprocity General engagement This measure captures whether a comment addresses another comment. .92 - Argumentative engagement This measure captures whether a comment addresses a specific argument made in another comment. .77 .542 Critical engagement This measure captures whether a comment is critical of another comment. .89 - n = 40; 12 coders Values: Dichotomous measures (yes, no) Information on Heinbach & Wilms (2022) Authors: Dominique Heinbach & Lena K. Wilms (Codebook by Dominique Heinbach, Marc Ziegele, & Lena K. Wilms) Research question: Which attributes differentiate moderated from unmoderated comments? Object of analysis: The quantitative content analysis was based on a stratified random sample of moderated and not moderated comments (N = 1.682) from the German online participation platform “#meinfernsehen202” [#myTV2021], a citizen participation platform to discuss the future of public broadcasting in Germany. Time frame of analysis: November 24, 2020 to March 3, 2021 Info about variables Level of analysis: User comment Variables and reliability: see Table 2 Table 2: Variables and reliability (Heinbach & Wilms, 2022) Dimension Measure Definition Krippendorff’s α Reciprocity Reference to other users or to the community Does the comment refer to at least one other user, a group of users, or all users in the community? .78 Reference to the content of other comments Does the comment refer to content, arguments or positions in other comments? .78 Critical reference Does the comment refer to other comments in a critical manner? .86 n = 159, 3 coders Values: All variables were coded on a four-point scale (1 = clearly not present; 2 = rather not present; 3 = rather present; 4 = clearly present). Detailed explanations and examples for each value are provided in the Codebook (in German). Codebook: in the appendix of this entry (in German) Information on Stromer-Galley (2007) Author: Jennifer Stromer-Galley Research question: The aim of the paper was developing a coding scheme for academics and practitioners of deliberation to systematically measure what happens during group deliberations (p. 1; p. 7). Object of analysis: The author conducted a secondary analysis of online group discussions (23 groups with 5-12 participants) in an experiment called “The Virtual Agora Project” at Carnegie Mellon Unversitiy in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Participants attended the discussions from dormitory rooms that were equipped with a computer, headphones, and microphone. The group discussions were recorded and transcribed for analysis (pp. 7-8). Although strictly speaking the study does not analyze media content, the coding scheme has provided the basis for numerous other studies on the deliberative quality of online discussions (e.g., Rowe, 2015; Stroud et al., 2015; Ziegele et al., 2020). Time frame of analysis: Three weeks in July 2004 (p. 7). Info about variables Level of analysis: Level of the turn: Speaking contribution of a participant. Participants had to get “in line” to speak. When a speaker had finished their turn, the software activated the next speaker (max. 3 minutes per turn) (p. 8). Level of the thought: Coders segmented each turn into thought units before coding the categories. “A thought is defined as an utterance (from a single sentence to multiple sentences) that expresses an idea on a topic. A change in topic signaled a change in thought. A second indicator of a change in thought was a change in the type of talk. The distinct types of talk that this coding captured were the following: talk about the problem of public schools, talk about the process of the talk, talk about the process of the deliberation, and social talk” (p. 9). Variables an values: see Table 3 Reliability: “Two coders spent nearly two months developing and training with the coding scheme. The intercoder agreement measures […] were established from coding 3 of the 23 groups, which were randomly selected. […] Cohen’s Kappas of the coding elements described above are as follows: thought statements on the problem of public schools, .95; […] turn type (new topic, continuing self, responding to others) .97; meta-talk, 1.0 […]” (p. 13-14). Codebook: in the appendix (pp. 22-33) Table 3: Variables and values of the dimension “engagement” (Stromer-Galley, 2007, p.12; pp. 24-26). Category Level Description Value Definition Turn-type Turn Identify whether and to whom this turn is referring. Starting a new topic A new topic (not prompted by the moderator). Respond on topic A turn that is in response to a prior speaker or is on a topic that has been discussed. Includes responding to multiple speakers. Respond to moderator A turn that is a response to a prompt or question from the moderator. Continue self A turn that seems not to respond to anything a prior speaker said but to continue the current speaker’s ideas from one of his or her prior turns. Problem Thought Talk about the problem is talk that focuses on the issue under consideration. Question A genuine question directed to another speaker that is trying to seek information or an opinion from others. Metatalk Thought Metatalk is talk about the talk. It attempts to step back and assess what has transpired or is transpiring in the interaction. Consensus Consensus metatalk is talk about the speaker’s sense of consensus of the group (“I think we all agree that . . . .”), including an explanation for the collective’s opinions or the collective’s behavior (We’re asking you these questions because . .). Conflict Highlighting some disagreement or conflict in the group (“I sense some disagreement around . . . .”). Clarify own Clarify the speaker’s own opinion or fact statement (“what I’m trying to say is”). It’s an attempt to clarify what the speaker means. This will arise ONLY after they’ve provided an opinion, NOT a question, and are now trying to clarify their original opinion on the problem, likely because they believe someone has misunderstood them. Clarify other Clarify someone else’s argument/opinion or fact statement (“Sally, so, what you’re saying is . . . “). It is an attempt to clarify what someone else means. Pay attention to the use of another participants’ name. That can be a sign of metatalk of another’s position. Example studies Esau, K., Fleuß, D. & Nienhaus, S.‑M. (2021). Different Arenas, Different Deliberative Quality? Using a Systemic Framework to Evaluate Online Deliberation on Immigration Policy in Germany. Policy & Internet, 13(1), 86–112. https://doi.org/10.1002/poi3.232 Esau, K., Friess, D. & Eilders, C. (2017). Design Matters! An Empirical Analysis of Online Deliberation on Different News Platforms. Policy & Internet, 9(3), 321–342. https://doi.org/10.1002/poi3.154 Esau, K., Frieß, D. & Eilders, C. (2019). Online-Partizipation jenseits klassischer Deliberation: Eine Analyse zum Verhältnis unterschiedlicher Deliberationskonzepte in Nutzerkommentaren auf Facebook-Nachrichtenseiten und Beteiligungsplattformen. In I. Engelmann, M. Legrand & H. Marzinkowski (Hrsg.), Digital Communication Research: Bd. 6. Politische Partizipation im Medienwandel (S. 221–245). Friess, D., Ziegele, M. & Heinbach, D. (2021). Collective Civic Moderation for Deliberation? Exploring the Links between Citizens’ Organized Engagement in Comment Sections and the Deliberative Quality of Online Discussions. Political Communication, 38(5), 624–646. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2020.1830322 Heinbach, D. & Wilms, L. K. (2022): Der Einsatz von Moderation bei #meinfernsehen2021 [The deployment of moderation at #meinfernsehen2021]. In: F. Gerlach, C. Eilders & K. Schmitz (Eds.): #meinfernsehen2021. Partizipationsverfahren zur Zukunft des öffentlich-rechtlichen Fernsehens. Baden-Baden: Nomos. Rowe, I. (2015). Deliberation 2.0: Comparing the Deliberative Quality of Online News User Comments Across Platforms. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 59(4), 539–555. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2015.1093482 Stromer Galley, J. (2007). Measuring Deliberation's Content: A Coding Scheme. Journal of Public Deliberation, 3(1), Article 12. Ziegele, M., Quiring, O., Esau, K. & Friess, D. (2020). Linking News Value Theory With Online Deliberation: How News Factors and Illustration Factors in News Articles Affect the Deliberative Quality of User Discussions in SNS’ Comment Sections. Communication Research, 47(6), 860-890. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650218797884 Zimmermann, T. (2017). Digitale Diskussionen: Über politische Partizipation mittels Online-Leserkommentaren. Edition Politik: Bd. 44. transcript Verlag. http://www.content-select.com/index.php?id=bib_view&ean=9783839438886 Further references Barber, B. R. (1984). Strong democracy: Participatory politics for a new age. University of California Press. Díaz Noci, J., Domingo, D., Masip, P., Micó, J. L. & Ruiz, C. (2012). Comments in news, democracy booster or journalistic night­mare: Assessing the quality and dynamics of citizen debates in Catalan online new­spapers. #ISOJ, 2(1), 46–64. https://isoj.org/ wp-content/uploads/2016/10/ISOJ_Jour­nal_V2_N1_2012_Spring.pdf#page=46 Dryzek, J. S., Bächtiger, A., Chambers, S., Cohen, J., Druckman, J. N., Felicetti, A., Fishkin, J. S., Farrell, D. M., Fung, A., Gutmann, A., Landemore, H., Mansbridge, J., Marien, S., Neblo, M. A., Niemeyer, S., Setälä, M., Slothuus, R., Suiter, J., Thompson, D. & Warren, M. E. (2019). The crisis of democracy and the science of deliberation. Science (New York, N.Y.), 363(6432), 1144–1146. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaw2694 Engelke, K. M. (2019). Enriching the Conversation: Audience Perspectives on the Deliberative Nature and Potential of User Comments for News Media. Digital Journalism, 8(4), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2019.1680567 Estlund, D. & Landemore, H. (2018). The epistemic value of democratic deliberation. In A. Bächtiger, J. S. Dryzek, J. J. Mansbridge & M. E. Warren (Hrsg.), Oxford handbooks online. The Oxford handbook of deliberative democracy: An introduction (S. 113–131). Oxford University Press. Fishkin, J. S. (1991). Democracy and deliberation: New directions for democratic reform. Yale University Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/j.ctt1dt006v https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1dt006v Goodin, R. E. (2000). Democratic Deliberation Within. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 29(1), 81–109. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1088-4963.2000.00081.x Graham, T. (2009). What's Wife Swap got to do with it? Talking politics in the net-based public sphere Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.3413.0088 Graham, T. & Witschge, T. (2003). In Search of Online Deliberation: Towards a New Method for Examining the Quality of Online Discussions. Communications, 28(2). https://doi.org/10.1515/comm.2003.012 Habermas, J. (2015). Between facts and norms: Contributions to a discourse theory of law and democracy (Reprinted.). Polity Press. Price, V. & Cappella, J. N. (2002). Online deliberation and its influence: The Electronic Dialogue Project in Campaign 2000. IT&Society, 1(1), 303–329. https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.9.5945&rep=rep1&type=pdf Stroud, N. J., Scacco, J. M., Muddiman, A., & Curry, A. L. (2015). Changing Deliberative Norms on News Organizations' Facebook Sites. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 20(2), 188–203. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12104 Ziegele, M. (2016). Nutzerkommentare als Anschlusskommunikation: Theorie und qualitative Analyse des Diskussionswerts von Online-Nachrichten [The Discussion Value of Online News. An Analysis of User Comments on News Platforms]. Springer VS.
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37

Burns, Alex. "Oblique Strategies for Ambient Journalism." M/C Journal 13, no. 2 (April 15, 2010). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.230.

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Alfred Hermida recently posited ‘ambient journalism’ as a new framework for para- and professional journalists, who use social networks like Twitter for story sources, and as a news delivery platform. Beginning with this framework, this article explores the following questions: How does Hermida define ‘ambient journalism’ and what is its significance? Are there alternative definitions? What lessons do current platforms provide for the design of future, real-time platforms that ‘ambient journalists’ might use? What lessons does the work of Brian Eno provide–the musician and producer who coined the term ‘ambient music’ over three decades ago? My aim here is to formulate an alternative definition of ambient journalism that emphasises craft, skills acquisition, and the mental models of professional journalists, which are the foundations more generally for journalism practices. Rather than Hermida’s participatory media context I emphasise ‘institutional adaptiveness’: how journalists and newsrooms in media institutions rely on craft and skills, and how emerging platforms can augment these foundations, rather than replace them. Hermida’s Ambient Journalism and the Role of Journalists Hermida describes ambient journalism as: “broad, asynchronous, lightweight and always-on communication systems [that] are creating new kinds of interactions around the news, and are enabling citizens to maintain a mental model of news and events around them” (Hermida 2). His ideas appear to have two related aspects. He conceives ambient journalism as an “awareness system” between individuals that functions as a collective intelligence or kind of ‘distributed cognition’ at a group level (Hermida 2, 4-6). Facebook, Twitter and other online social networks are examples. Hermida also suggests that such networks enable non-professionals to engage in ‘communication’ and ‘conversation’ about news and media events (Hermida 2, 7). In a helpful clarification, Hermida observes that ‘para-journalists’ are like the paralegals or non-lawyers who provide administrative support in the legal profession and, in academic debates about journalism, are more commonly known as ‘citizen journalists’. Thus, Hermida’s ambient journalism appears to be: (1) an information systems model of new platforms and networks, and (2) a normative argument that these tools empower ‘para-journalists’ to engage in journalism and real-time commentary. Hermida’s thesis is intriguing and worthy of further discussion and debate. As currently formulated however it risks sharing the blind-spots and contradictions of the academic literature that Hermida cites, which suffers from poor theory-building (Burns). A major reason is that the participatory media context on which Hermida often builds his work has different mental models and normative theories than the journalists or media institutions that are the target of critique. Ambient journalism would be a stronger and more convincing framework if these incorrect assumptions were jettisoned. Others may also potentially misunderstand what Hermida proposes, because the academic debate is often polarised between para-journalists and professional journalists, due to different views about institutions, the politics of knowledge, decision heuristics, journalist training, and normative theoretical traditions (Christians et al. 126; Cole and Harcup 166-176). In the academic debate, para-journalists or ‘citizen journalists’ may be said to have a communitarian ethic and desire more autonomous solutions to journalists who are framed as uncritical and reliant on official sources, and to media institutions who are portrayed as surveillance-like ‘monitors’ of society (Christians et al. 124-127). This is however only one of a range of possible relationships. Sole reliance on para-journalists could be a premature solution to a more complex media ecology. Journalism craft, which does not rely just on official sources, also has a range of practices that already provides the “more complex ways of understanding and reporting on the subtleties of public communication” sought (Hermida 2). Citizen- and para-journalist accounts may overlook micro-studies in how newsrooms adopt technological innovations and integrate them into newsgathering routines (Hemmingway 196). Thus, an examination of the realities of professional journalism will help to cast a better light on how ambient journalism can shape the mental models of para-journalists, and provide more rigorous analysis of news and similar events. Professional journalism has several core dimensions that para-journalists may overlook. Journalism’s foundation as an experiential craft includes guidance and norms that orient the journalist to information, and that includes practitioner ethics. This craft is experiential; the basis for journalism’s claim to “social expertise” as a discipline; and more like the original Linux and Open Source movements which evolved through creative conflict (Sennett 9, 25-27, 125-127, 249-251). There are learnable, transmissible skills to contextually evaluate, filter, select and distil the essential insights. This craft-based foundation and skills informs and structures the journalist’s cognitive witnessing of an event, either directly or via reconstructed, cultivated sources. The journalist publishes through a recognised media institution or online platform, which provides communal validation and verification. There is far more here than the academic portrayal of journalists as ‘gate-watchers’ for a ‘corporatist’ media elite. Craft and skills distinguish the professional journalist from Hermida’s para-journalist. Increasingly, media institutions hire journalists who are trained in other craft-based research methods (Burns and Saunders). Bethany McLean who ‘broke’ the Enron scandal was an investment banker; documentary filmmaker Errol Morris first interviewed serial killers for an early project; and Neil Chenoweth used ‘forensic accounting’ techniques to investigate Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer. Such expertise allows the journalist to filter information, and to mediate any influences in the external environment, in order to develop an individualised, ‘embodied’ perspective (Hofstadter 234; Thompson; Garfinkel and Rawls). Para-journalists and social network platforms cannot replace this expertise, which is often unique to individual journalists and their research teams. Ambient Journalism and Twitter Current academic debates about how citizen- and para-journalists may augment or even replace professional journalists can often turn into legitimation battles whether the ‘de facto’ solution is a social media network rather than a media institution. For example, Hermida discusses Twitter, a micro-blogging platform that allows users to post 140-character messages that are small, discrete information chunks, for short-term and episodic memory. Twitter enables users to monitor other users, to group other messages, and to search for terms specified by a hashtag. Twitter thus illustrates how social media platforms can make data more transparent and explicit to non-specialists like para-journalists. In fact, Twitter is suitable for five different categories of real-time information: news, pre-news, rumours, the formation of social media and subject-based networks, and “molecular search” using granular data-mining tools (Leinweber 204-205). In this model, the para-journalist acts as a navigator and “way-finder” to new information (Morville, Findability). Jaron Lanier, an early designer of ‘virtual reality’ systems, is perhaps the most vocal critic of relying on groups of non-experts and tools like Twitter, instead of individuals who have professional expertise. For Lanier, what underlies debates about citizen- and para-journalists is a philosophy of “cybernetic totalism” and “digital Maoism” which exalts the Internet collective at the expense of truly individual views. He is deeply critical of Hermida’s chosen platform, Twitter: “A design that shares Twitter’s feature of providing ambient continuous contact between people could perhaps drop Twitter’s adoration of fragments. We don’t really know, because it is an unexplored design space” [emphasis added] (Lanier 24). In part, Lanier’s objection is traceable back to an unresolved debate on human factors and design in information science. Influenced by the post-war research into cybernetics, J.C.R. Licklider proposed a cyborg-like model of “man-machine symbiosis” between computers and humans (Licklider). In turn, Licklider’s framework influenced Douglas Engelbart, who shaped the growth of human-computer interaction, and the design of computer interfaces, the mouse, and other tools (Engelbart). In taking a system-level view of platforms Hermida builds on the strength of Licklider and Engelbart’s work. Yet because he focuses on para-journalists, and does not appear to include the craft and skills-based expertise of professional journalists, it is unclear how he would answer Lanier’s fears about how reliance on groups for news and other information is superior to individual expertise and judgment. Hermida’s two case studies point to this unresolved problem. Both cases appear to show how Twitter provides quicker and better forms of news and information, thereby increasing the effectiveness of para-journalists to engage in journalism and real-time commentary. However, alternative explanations may exist that raise questions about Twitter as a new platform, and thus these cases might actually reveal circumstances in which ambient journalism may fail. Hermida alludes to how para-journalists now fulfil the earlier role of ‘first responders’ and stringers, in providing the “immediate dissemination” of non-official information about disasters and emergencies (Hermida 1-2; Haddow and Haddow 117-118). Whilst important, this is really a specific role. In fact, disaster and emergency reporting occurs within well-established practices, professional ethics, and institutional routines that may involve journalists, government officials, and professional communication experts (Moeller). Officials and emergency management planners are concerned that citizen- or para-journalism is equated with the craft and skills of professional journalism. The experience of these officials and planners in 2005’s Hurricane Katrina in the United States, and in 2009’s Black Saturday bushfires in Australia, suggests that whilst para-journalists might be ‘first responders’ in a decentralised, complex crisis, they are perceived to spread rumours and potential social unrest when people need reliable information (Haddow and Haddow 39). These terms of engagement between officials, planners and para-journalists are still to be resolved. Hermida readily acknowledges that Twitter and other social network platforms are vulnerable to rumours (Hermida 3-4; Sunstein). However, his other case study, Iran’s 2009 election crisis, further complicates the vision of ambient journalism, and always-on communication systems in particular. Hermida discusses several events during the crisis: the US State Department request to halt a server upgrade, how the Basij’s shooting of bystander Neda Soltan was captured on a mobile phone camera, the spread across social network platforms, and the high-velocity number of ‘tweets’ or messages during the first two weeks of Iran’s electoral uncertainty (Hermida 1). The US State Department was interested in how Twitter could be used for non-official sources, and to inform people who were monitoring the election events. Twitter’s perceived ‘success’ during Iran’s 2009 election now looks rather different when other factors are considered such as: the dynamics and patterns of Tehran street protests; Iran’s clerics who used Soltan’s death as propaganda; claims that Iran’s intelligence services used Twitter to track down and to kill protestors; the ‘black box’ case of what the US State Department and others actually did during the crisis; the history of neo-conservative interest in a Twitter-like platform for strategic information operations; and the Iranian diaspora’s incitement of Tehran student protests via satellite broadcasts. Iran’s 2009 election crisis has important lessons for ambient journalism: always-on communication systems may create noise and spread rumours; ‘mirror-imaging’ of mental models may occur, when other participants have very different worldviews and ‘contexts of use’ for social network platforms; and the new kinds of interaction may not lead to effective intervention in crisis events. Hermida’s combination of news and non-news fragments is the perfect environment for psychological operations and strategic information warfare (Burns and Eltham). Lessons of Current Platforms for Ambient Journalism We have discussed some unresolved problems for ambient journalism as a framework for journalists, and as mental models for news and similar events. Hermida’s goal of an “awareness system” faces a further challenge: the phenomenological limitations of human consciousness to deal with information complexity and ambiguous situations, whether by becoming ‘entangled’ in abstract information or by developing new, unexpected uses for emergent technologies (Thackara; Thompson; Hofstadter 101-102, 186; Morville, Findability, 55, 57, 158). The recursive and reflective capacities of human consciousness imposes its own epistemological frames. It’s still unclear how Licklider’s human-computer interaction will shape consciousness, but Douglas Hofstadter’s experiments with art and video-based group experiments may be suggestive. Hofstadter observes: “the interpenetration of our worlds becomes so great that our worldviews start to fuse” (266). Current research into user experience and information design provides some validation of Hofstadter’s experience, such as how Google is now the ‘default’ search engine, and how its interface design shapes the user’s subjective experience of online search (Morville, Findability; Morville, Search Patterns). Several models of Hermida’s awareness system already exist that build on Hofstadter’s insight. Within the information systems field, on-going research into artificial intelligence–‘expert systems’ that can model expertise as algorithms and decision rules, genetic algorithms, and evolutionary computation–has attempted to achieve Hermida’s goal. What these systems share are mental models of cognition, learning and adaptiveness to new information, often with forecasting and prediction capabilities. Such systems work in journalism areas such as finance and sports that involve analytics, data-mining and statistics, and in related fields such as health informatics where there are clear, explicit guidelines on information and international standards. After a mid-1980s investment bubble (Leinweber 183-184) these systems now underpin the technology platforms of global finance and news intermediaries. Bloomberg LP’s ubiquitous dual-screen computers, proprietary network and data analytics (www.bloomberg.com), and its competitors such as Thomson Reuters (www.thomsonreuters.com and www.reuters.com), illustrate how financial analysts and traders rely on an “awareness system” to navigate global stock-markets (Clifford and Creswell). For example, a Bloomberg subscriber can access real-time analytics from exchanges, markets, and from data vendors such as Dow Jones, NYSE Euronext and Thomson Reuters. They can use portfolio management tools to evaluate market information, to make allocation and trading decisions, to monitor ‘breaking’ news, and to integrate this information. Twitter is perhaps the para-journalist equivalent to how professional journalists and finance analysts rely on Bloomberg’s platform for real-time market and business information. Already, hedge funds like PhaseCapital are data-mining Twitter’s ‘tweets’ or messages for rumours, shifts in stock-market sentiment, and to analyse potential trading patterns (Pritchett and Palmer). The US-based Securities and Exchange Commission, and researchers like David Gelernter and Paul Tetlock, have also shown the benefits of applied data-mining for regulatory market supervision, in particular to uncover analysts who provide ‘whisper numbers’ to online message boards, and who have access to material, non-public information (Leinweber 60, 136, 144-145, 208, 219, 241-246). Hermida’s framework might be developed further for such regulatory supervision. Hermida’s awareness system may also benefit from the algorithms found in high-frequency trading (HFT) systems that Citadel Group, Goldman Sachs, Renaissance Technologies, and other quantitative financial institutions use. Rather than human traders, HFT uses co-located servers and complex algorithms, to make high-volume trades on stock-markets that take advantage of microsecond changes in prices (Duhigg). HFT capabilities are shrouded in secrecy, and became the focus of regulatory attention after several high-profile investigations of traders alleged to have stolen the software code (Bray and Bunge). One public example is Streambase (www.streambase.com), a ‘complex event processing’ (CEP) platform that can be used in HFT, and commercialised from the Project Aurora research collaboration between Brandeis University, Brown University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. CEP and HFT may be the ‘killer apps’ of Hermida’s awareness system. Alternatively, they may confirm Jaron Lanier’s worst fears: your data-stream and user-generated content can be harvested by others–for their gain, and your loss! Conclusion: Brian Eno and Redefining ‘Ambient Journalism’ On the basis of the above discussion, I suggest a modified definition of Hermida’s thesis: ‘Ambient journalism’ is an emerging analytical framework for journalists, informed by cognitive, cybernetic, and information systems research. It ‘sensitises’ the individual journalist, whether professional or ‘para-professional’, to observe and to evaluate their immediate context. In doing so, ‘ambient journalism’, like journalism generally, emphasises ‘novel’ information. It can also inform the design of real-time platforms for journalistic sources and news delivery. Individual ‘ambient journalists’ can learn much from the career of musician and producer Brian Eno. His personal definition of ‘ambient’ is “an atmosphere, or a surrounding influence: a tint,” that relies on the co-evolution of the musician, creative horizons, and studio technology as a tool, just as para-journalists use Twitter as a platform (Sheppard 278; Eno 293-297). Like para-journalists, Eno claims to be a “self-educated but largely untrained” musician and yet also a craft-based producer (McFadzean; Tamm 177; 44-50). Perhaps Eno would frame the distinction between para-journalist and professional journalist as “axis thinking” (Eno 298, 302) which is needlessly polarised due to different normative theories, stances, and practices. Furthermore, I would argue that Eno’s worldview was shaped by similar influences to Licklider and Engelbart, who appear to have informed Hermida’s assumptions. These influences include the mathematician and game theorist John von Neumann and biologist Richard Dawkins (Eno 162); musicians Eric Satie, John Cage and his book Silence (Eno 19-22, 162; Sheppard 22, 36, 378-379); and the field of self-organising systems, in particular cyberneticist Stafford Beer (Eno 245; Tamm 86; Sheppard 224). Eno summed up the central lesson of this theoretical corpus during his collaborations with New York’s ‘No Wave’ scene in 1978, of “people experimenting with their lives” (Eno 253; Reynolds 146-147; Sheppard 290-295). Importantly, he developed a personal view of normative theories through practice-based research, on a range of projects, and with different creative and collaborative teams. Rather than a technological solution, Eno settled on a way to encode his craft and skills into a quasi-experimental, transmittable method—an aim of practitioner development in professional journalism. Even if only a “founding myth,” the story of Eno’s 1975 street accident with a taxi, and how he conceived ‘ambient music’ during his hospital stay, illustrates how ambient journalists might perceive something new in specific circumstances (Tamm 131; Sheppard 186-188). More tellingly, this background informed his collaboration with the late painter Peter Schmidt, to co-create the Oblique Strategies deck of aphorisms: aleatory, oracular messages that appeared dependent on chance, luck, and randomness, but that in fact were based on Eno and Schmidt’s creative philosophy and work guidelines (Tamm 77-78; Sheppard 178-179; Reynolds 170). In short, Eno was engaging with the kind of reflective practices that underpin exemplary professional journalism. He was able to encode this craft and skills into a quasi-experimental method, rather than a technological solution. Journalists and practitioners who adopt Hermida’s framework could learn much from the published accounts of Eno’s practice-based research, in the context of creative projects and collaborative teams. In particular, these detail the contexts and choices of Eno’s early ambient music recordings (Sheppard 199-200); Eno’s duels with David Bowie during ‘Sense of Doubt’ for the Heroes album (Tamm 158; Sheppard 254-255); troubled collaborations with Talking Heads and David Byrne (Reynolds 165-170; Sheppard; 338-347, 353); a curatorial, mentor role on U2’s The Unforgettable Fire (Sheppard 368-369); the ‘grand, stadium scale’ experiments of U2’s 1991-93 ZooTV tour (Sheppard 404); the Zorn-like games of Bowie’s Outside album (Eno 382-389); and the ‘generative’ artwork 77 Million Paintings (Eno 330-332; Tamm 133-135; Sheppard 278-279; Eno 435). Eno is clearly a highly flexible maker and producer. Developing such flexibility would ensure ambient journalism remains open to novelty as an analytical framework that may enhance the practitioner development and work of professional journalists and para-journalists alike.Acknowledgments The author thanks editor Luke Jaaniste, Alfred Hermida, and the two blind peer reviewers for their constructive feedback and reflective insights. References Bray, Chad, and Jacob Bunge. “Ex-Goldman Programmer Indicted for Trade Secrets Theft.” The Wall Street Journal 12 Feb. 2010. 17 March 2010 ‹http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703382904575059660427173510.html›. Burns, Alex. “Select Issues with New Media Theories of Citizen Journalism.” M/C Journal 11.1 (2008). 17 March 2010 ‹http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/30›.———, and Barry Saunders. “Journalists as Investigators and ‘Quality Media’ Reputation.” Record of the Communications Policy and Research Forum 2009. Eds. Franco Papandrea and Mark Armstrong. Sydney: Network Insight Institute, 281-297. 17 March 2010 ‹http://eprints.vu.edu.au/15229/1/CPRF09BurnsSaunders.pdf›.———, and Ben Eltham. “Twitter Free Iran: An Evaluation of Twitter’s Role in Public Diplomacy and Information Operations in Iran’s 2009 Election Crisis.” Record of the Communications Policy and Research Forum 2009. Eds. Franco Papandrea and Mark Armstrong. Sydney: Network Insight Institute, 298-310. 17 March 2010 ‹http://eprints.vu.edu.au/15230/1/CPRF09BurnsEltham.pdf›. Christians, Clifford G., Theodore Glasser, Denis McQuail, Kaarle Nordenstreng, and Robert A. White. Normative Theories of the Media: Journalism in Democratic Societies. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2009. Clifford, Stephanie, and Julie Creswell. “At Bloomberg, Modest Strategy to Rule the World.” The New York Times 14 Nov. 2009. 17 March 2010 ‹http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/business/media/15bloom.html?ref=businessandpagewanted=all›.Cole, Peter, and Tony Harcup. Newspaper Journalism. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2010. Duhigg, Charles. “Stock Traders Find Speed Pays, in Milliseconds.” The New York Times 23 July 2009. 17 March 2010 ‹http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/business/24trading.html?_r=2andref=business›. Engelbart, Douglas. “Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework, 1962.” Ed. Neil Spiller. Cyber Reader: Critical Writings for the Digital Era. London: Phaidon Press, 2002. 60-67. Eno, Brian. A Year with Swollen Appendices. London: Faber and Faber, 1996. Garfinkel, Harold, and Anne Warfield Rawls. Toward a Sociological Theory of Information. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2008. Hadlow, George D., and Kim S. Haddow. Disaster Communications in a Changing Media World, Butterworth-Heinemann, Burlington MA, 2009. Hemmingway, Emma. Into the Newsroom: Exploring the Digital Production of Regional Television News. Milton Park: Routledge, 2008. Hermida, Alfred. “Twittering the News: The Emergence of Ambient Journalism.” Journalism Practice 4.3 (2010): 1-12. Hofstadter, Douglas. I Am a Strange Loop. New York: Perseus Books, 2007. Lanier, Jaron. You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto. London: Allen Lane, 2010. Leinweber, David. Nerds on Wall Street: Math, Machines and Wired Markets. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2009. Licklider, J.C.R. “Man-Machine Symbiosis, 1960.” Ed. Neil Spiller. Cyber Reader: Critical Writings for the Digital Era, London: Phaidon Press, 2002. 52-59. McFadzean, Elspeth. “What Can We Learn from Creative People? The Story of Brian Eno.” Management Decision 38.1 (2000): 51-56. Moeller, Susan. Compassion Fatigue: How the Media Sell Disease, Famine, War and Death. New York: Routledge, 1998. Morville, Peter. Ambient Findability. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Press, 2005. ———. Search Patterns. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Press, 2010.Pritchett, Eric, and Mark Palmer. ‘Following the Tweet Trail.’ CNBC 11 July 2009. 17 March 2010 ‹http://www.casttv.com/ext/ug0p08›. Reynolds, Simon. Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984. London: Penguin Books, 2006. Sennett, Richard. The Craftsman. London: Penguin Books, 2008. Sheppard, David. On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times of Brian Eno. London: Orion Books, 2008. Sunstein, Cass. On Rumours: How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can Be Done. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009. Tamm, Eric. Brian Eno: His Music and the Vertical Colour of Sound. New York: Da Capo Press, 1995. Thackara, John. In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World. Boston, MA: The MIT Press, 1995. Thompson, Evan. Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Science of Mind. Boston, MA: Belknap Press, 2007.
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38

Harrison, Karey. "Building Resilient Communities." M/C Journal 16, no. 5 (August 24, 2013). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.716.

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Abstract:
This paper will compare the metaphoric structuring of the ecological concept of resilience—with its roots in Holling's 1973 paper; with psychological concepts of resilience which followed from research—such as Werner, Bierman, and French and Garmezy and Streitman) published in the early 1970s. This metaphoric analysis will expose the difference between complex adaptive systems models of resilience in ecology and studies related to resilience in relation to climate change; compared with the individualism of linear equilibrium models of resilience which have dominated discussions of resilience in psychology and economics. By examining the ontological commitments of these competing metaphors, I will show that the individualistic concept of resilience which dominates psychological discussions of resilience is incompatible with the ontological commitments of ecological concepts of resilience. Because the ontological commitments of the concepts of ecological resilience on the one hand, and psychological resilience on the other, are so at odds with one another, it is important to be clear which concept of resilience is being evaluated for its adequacy as a concept. Having clearly distinguished these competing metaphors and their ontological commitments, this paper will show that it is the complex adaptive systems model of resilience from ecology, not the individualist concept of psychological resilience, that has been utilised by both the academic discussions of adaptation to climate change, and the operationalisation of the concept of resilience by social movements like the permaculture, ecovillage, and Transition Towns movements. Ontological Metaphors My analysis of ontological metaphors draws on insights from Kuhn's (114) account of gestalt perception in scientific paradigm shifts; the centrality of the role of concrete analogies in scientific reasoning (Masterman 77); and the theorisation of ontological metaphors in cognitive linguistics (Gärdenfors). Figure 1: Object Ontological commitments reflect the shared beliefs within a community about the sorts of things that exist. Our beliefs about what exists are shaped by our sensory and motor interactions with objects in the physical world. Physical objects have boundaries and surfaces that separate the object from not-the-object. Objects have insides and outsides, and can be described in terms of more-or-less fixed and stable “objective” properties. A prototypical example of an “object” is a “container”, like the example shown in Figure 1. Ontological metaphors allow us to conceive of “things” which are not objects as if they were objects by picking “out parts of our experience and treat them as [if they were] discrete entities or substances of a uniform kind” (Lakoff and Johnson 25). We use ontological metaphors when we imagine a boundary around a collection of things, such as the members of a team or trees in a forest, and conceive of them as being in a container (Langacker 191–97). We can then think of “things” like a team or forest as if they were a single entity. We can also understand processes and activities as if they were things with boundaries. Whether or not we characterise some aspect of our experience as a noun (a bounded entity) or as a verb (a process that occurs over time) is not determined by the nature of things in themselves, but by our understanding and interpretation of our experience (Langacker 233). In this paper I employ a technique that involves examining the details of “concrete images” from the source domains for metaphors employed in the social sciences to expose for analysis their ontological commitments (Harrison, “Politics” 215; Harrison, “Economics” 7). By examining the ontological metaphors that structure the resilience literature I will show how different conceptions of resilience reflect different beliefs and commitments about the sorts of “things” there are in the world, and hence how we can study and understand these “things.” Engineering Metaphors In his discussion of engineering resilience, Holling (“Engineering Vs. Ecological” 33) argues that this conception is the “foundation for economic theory”, and defined in terms of “resistance to disturbance and the speed of return to the equilibrium” or steady state of the system. Whereas Holling takes his original example of the use of the engineering concept of resilience from economics, Pendall, Foster, & Cowell (72), and Martin-Breen and Anderies (6) identify it as the concept of resilience that dominates the field of psychology. They take the stress loading of bridges to be the engineering source for the metaphor. Figure 2: Pogo stick animation (Source: Blacklemon 67, CC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pogoanim.gif). In order to understand this metaphor, we need to examine the characteristics of the source domain for the metaphor. A bridge can be “under tension, compression or both forces at the same time [and] experiences what engineers define as stress” (Matthews 3). In order to resist these forces, bridges need to be constructed of material which “behave much like a spring” that “strains elastically (deforms temporarily and returns to its original shape after a load has been removed) under a given stress” (Gordon 52; cited in Matthews). The pogostick shown in Figure 2 illustrates how a spring returns to its original size and configuration once the load or stress is removed. WGBH Educational Foundation provides links to simple diagrams that illustrate the different stresses the three main designs of bridges are subject to, and if you compare Computers & Engineering's with Gibbs and Bourne's harmonic spring animation you can see how both a bridge under live load and the pogostick in Figure 2 oscillate just like an harmonic spring. Subject to the elastic limits of the material, the deformation of a spring is proportional to the stress or load applied. According to the “modern theory of elasticity [...] it [is] possible to deduce the relation between strain and stress for complex objects in terms of intrinsic properties of the materials it is made of” (“Hooke’s Law”). When psychological resilience is characterised in terms of “properties of individuals [that] are identified in isolation” (Martin-Breen and Anderies 12); and in terms of “behaviours and attributes [of individuals] that allow people to get along with one another and to succeed socially” (Pendall, Foster, and Cowell 72), they are reflecting this engineering focus on the properties of materials. Martin-Breen and Anderies (42) argue that “the Engineering Resilience framework” has been informed by ontological metaphors which treat “an ecosystem, person, city, government, bridge, [or] society” as if it were an object—“a unified whole”. Because this concept of resilience treats individuals as “objects,” it leads researchers to look for the properties or characteristics of the “materials” which individuals are “made of”, which are either elastic and allow them to “bounce” or “spring” back after stress; or are fragile and brittle and break under load. Similarly, the Designers Institute (DINZ), in its conference on “Our brittle society,” shows it is following the engineering resilience approach when it conceives of a city or society as an object which is made of materials which are either “strong and flexible” or “brittle and fragile”. While Holling characterises economic theory in terms of this engineering metaphor, it is in fact chemistry and the kinetic theory of gases that provides the source domain for the ontological metaphor which structures both static and dynamic equilibrium models within neo-classical economics (Smith and Foley; Mirowski). However, while springs are usually made out of metals, they can be made out of any “material [that] has the required combination of rigidity and elasticity,” such as plastic, and even wood (in a bow) (“Spring (device)”). Gas under pressure turns out to behave the same as other springs or elastic materials do under load. Because both the economic metaphor based on equilibrium theory of gases and the engineering analysis of bridges under load can both be subsumed under spring theory, we can treat both the economic (gas) metaphor and the engineering (bridge) metaphor as minor variations of a single overarching (spring) metaphor. Complex Systems Metaphors Holling (“Resilience & Stability” 13–15) critiques equilibrium models, arguing that non-deterministic, complex, non-equilibrium and multi-equilibrium ecological systems do not satisfy the conditions for application of equilibrium models. Holling argues that unlike the single equilibrium modelled by engineering resilience, complex adaptive systems (CAS) may have multi or no equilibrium states, and be non-linear and non-deterministic. Walker and Salt follow Holling by calling for recognition of the “dynamic complexity of the real world” (8), and that “these [real world] systems are complex adaptive systems” (11). Martin-Breen and Anderies (7) identify the key difference between “systems” and “complex adaptive systems” resilience as adaptive capacity, which like Walker and Salt (xiii), they define as the capacity to maintain function, even if system structures change or fail. The “engineering” concept of resilience focuses on the (elastic) properties of materials and uses language associated with elastic springs. This “spring” metaphor emphasises the property of individual components. In contrast, ecological concepts of resilience examine interactions between elements, and the state of the system in a multi-dimensional phase space. This systems approach shows that the complex behaviour of a system depends at least as much on the relationships between elements. These relationships can lead to “emergent” properties which cannot be reduced to the properties of the parts of the system. To explain these relationships and connections, ecologists and climate scientists use language and images associated with landscapes such as 2-D cross-sections and 3-D topology (Holling, “Resilience & Stability” 20; Pendall, Foster, and Cowell 74). Figure 3 is based on an image used by Walker, Holling, Carpenter and Kinzig (fig. 1b) to represent possible states of ecological systems. The “basins” in the image rely on our understanding of gravitational forces operating in a 3-D space to model “equilibrium” states in which the system, like the “ball” in the “basin”, will tend to settle. Figure 3: (based on Langston; in Walker et al. fig. 1b) – Tipping Point Bifurcation Wasdell (“Feedback” fig. 4) adapted this image to represent possible climate states and explain the concept of “tipping points” in complex systems. I have added the red balls (a, b, and c to replace the one black ball (b) in the original which represented the state of the system), the red lines which indicate the path of the ball/system, and the black x-y axis, in order to discuss the image. Wasdell (“Feedback Dynamics” slide 22) takes the left basin to represents “the variable, near-equilibrium, but contained dynamics of the [current] glacial/interglacial period”. As a result of rising GHG levels, the climate system absorbs more energy (mostly as heat). This energy can force the system into a different, hotter, state, less amenable to life as we know it. This is shown in Figure 3 by the system (represented as the red ball a) rising up the left basin (point b). From the perspective of the gravitational representation in Figure 3, the extra energy in the basin operates like the rotation in a Gravitron amusement ride, where centrifugal force pushes riders up the sides of the ride. If there is enough energy added to the climate system it could rise up and jump over the ridge/tipping point separating the current climate state into the “hot earth” basin shown on the right. Once the system falls into the right basin, it may be stuck near point c, and due to reinforcing feedbacks have difficulty escaping this new “equilibrium” state. Figure 4 represents a 2-D cross-section of the 3-D landscape shown in Figure 3. This cross-section shows how rising temperature and greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations in a multi-equilibrium climate topology can lead to the climate crossing a tipping point and shifting from state a to state c. Figure 4: Topographic cross-section of possible climate states (derived from Wasdell, “Feedback” 26 CC). As Holling (“Resilience & Stability”) warns, a less “desirable” state, such as population collapse or extinction, may be more “resilient”, in the engineering sense, than a more desirable state. Wasdell (“Feedback Dynamics” slide 22) warns that the climate forcing as a result of human induced GHG emissions is in fact pushing the system “far away from equilibrium, passed the tipping point, and into the hot-earth scenario”. In previous episodes of extreme radiative forcing in the past, this “disturbance has then been amplified by powerful feedback dynamics not active in the near-equilibrium state [… and] have typically resulted in the loss of about 90% of life on earth.” An essential element of system dynamics is the existence of (delayed) reinforcing and balancing causal feedback loops, such as the ones illustrated in Figure 5. Figure 5: Pre/Predator model (Bellinger CC-BY-SA) In the case of Figure 5, the feedback loops illustrate the relationship between rabbit population increasing, then foxes feeding on the rabbits, keeping the rabbit population within the carrying capacity of the ecosystem. Fox predation prevents rabbit over-population and consequent starvation of rabbits. The reciprocal interaction of the elements of a system leads to unpredictable nonlinearity in “even seemingly simple systems” (“System Dynamics”). The climate system is subject to both positive and negative feedback loops. If the area of ice cover increases, more heat is reflected back into space, creating a positive feedback loop, reinforcing cooling. Whereas, as the arctic ice melts, as it is doing at present (Barber), heat previously reflected back into space is absorbed by now exposed water, increasing the rate of warming. Where negative feedback (system damping) dominates, the cup-shaped equilibrium is stable and system behaviour returns to base when subject to disturbance. [...]The impact of extreme events, however, indicates limits to the stable equilibrium. At one point cooling feedback loops overwhelmed the homeostasis, precipitating the "snowball earth" effect. […] Massive release of CO2 as a result of major volcanic activity […] set off positive feedback loops, precipitating runaway global warming and eliminating most life forms at the end of the Permian period. (Wasdell, “Topological”) Martin-Breen and Anderies (53–54), following Walker and Salt, identify four key factors for systems (ecological) resilience in nonlinear, non-deterministic (complex adaptive) systems: regulatory (balancing) feedback mechanisms, where increase in one element is kept in check by another element; modularity, where failure in one part of the system will not cascade into total systems failure; functional redundancy, where more than one element performs every essential function; and, self-organising capacity, rather than central control ensures the system continues without the need for “leadership”. Transition Towns as a Resilience Movement The Transition Town (TT) movement draws on systems modelling of both climate change and of Limits to Growth (Meadows et al.). TT takes seriously Limits to Growth modelling that showed that without constraints in population and consumption the world faces systems collapse by the middle of this century. It recommends community action to build as much capacity as possible to “maintain existence of function”—Holling's (“Engineering vs. Ecological” 33) definition of ecological resilience—in the face of failing economic, political and environmental systems. The Transition Network provides a template for communities to follow to “rebuild resilience and reduce CO2 emissions”. Rob Hopkins, the movements founder, explicitly identifies ecological resilience as its central concept (Transition Handbook 6). The idea for the movement grew out of a project by (2nd year students) completed for Hopkins at the Kinsale Further Education College. According to Hopkins (“Kinsale”), this project was inspired by Holmgren’s Permaculture principles and Heinberg's book on adapting to life after peak oil. Permaculture (permanent agriculture) is a design system for creating agricultural systems modelled on the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems (Mollison ix; Holmgren xix). Permaculture draws its scientific foundations from systems ecology (Holmgren xxv). Following CAS theory, Mollison (33) defines stability as “self-regulation”, rather than “climax” or a single equilibrium state, and recommends “diversity of beneficial functional connections” (32) rather than diversity of isolated elements. Permaculture understands resilience in the ecological, rather than the engineering sense. The Transition Handbook (17) “explores the issues of peak oil and climate change, and how when looked at together, we need to be focusing on the rebuilding of resilience as well as cutting carbon emissions. It argues that the focus of our lives will become increasingly local and small scale as we come to terms with the real implications of the energy crisis we are heading into.” The Transition Towns movement incorporate each of the four systems resilience factors, listed at the end of the previous section, into its template for building resilient communities (Hopkins, Transition Handbook 55–6). Many of its recommendations build “modularity” and “self-organising”, such as encouraging communities to build “local food systems, [and] local investment models”. Hopkins argues that in a “more localised system” feedback loops are tighter, and the “results of our actions are more obvious”. TT training exercises include awareness raising for sensitivity to networks of (actual or potential) ecological, social and economic relationships (Hopkins, Transition Handbook 60–1). TT promotes diversity of local production and economic activities in order to increase “diversity of functions” and “diversity of responses to challenges.” Heinberg (8) wrote the forward to the 2008 edition of the Transition Handbook, after speaking at a TotnesTransition Town meeting. Heinberg is now a senior fellow at the Post Carbon Institute (PCI), which was established in 2003 to “provide […] the resources needed to understand and respond to the interrelated economic, energy, environmental, and equity crises that define the 21st century [… in] a world of resilient communities and re-localized economies that thrive within ecological bounds” (PCI, “About”), of the sort envisioned by the Limits to Growth model discussed in the previous section. Given the overlapping goals of PCI and Transition Towns, it is not surprising that Rob Hopkins is now a Fellow of PCI and regular contributor to Resilience, and there are close ties between the two organisations. Resilience, which until 2012 was published as the Energy Bulletin, is run by the Post Carbon Institute (PCI). Like Transition Towns, Resilience aims to build “community resilience in a world of multiple emerging challenges: the decline of cheap energy, the depletion of critical resources like water, complex environmental crises like climate change and biodiversity loss, and the social and economic issues which are linked to these. […] It has [its] roots in systems theory” (PCI, “About Resilience”). Resilience.org says it follows the interpretation of Resilience Alliance (RA) Program Director Brian Walker and science writer David Salt's (xiii) ecological definition of resilience as “the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and still retain its basic function and structure.“ Conclusion This paper has analysed the ontological metaphors structuring competing conceptions of resilience. The engineering resilience metaphor dominates in psychological resilience research, but is not adequate for understanding resilience in complex adaptive systems. Ecological resilience, on the other hand, dominates in environmental and climate change research, and is the model of resilience that has been incorporated into the global permaculture and Transition Towns movements. References 2nd year students. Kinsale 2021: An Energy Descent Action Plan. Kinsale, Cork, Ireland: Kinsale Further Education College, 2005. 16 Aug. 2013 ‹http://transitionculture.org/wp-content/uploads/KinsaleEnergyDescentActionPlan.pdf>. Barber, Elizabeth. “Arctic Ice Continues to Thin, and Thin, European Satellite Reveals.” Christian Science Monitor 11 Sep. 2013. 25 Sep. 2013 ‹http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2013/0911/Arctic-ice-continues-to-thin-and-thin-European-satellite-reveals>. 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