Journal articles on the topic 'Construction industry – Great Britain – Safety measures'

The rail infrastructure controller in Great Britain recognised that more work was required to allow a robust and consistent demonstration that appropriate health and safety risk assessments are being undertaken throughout each stage of the contracting process. In response to this requirement, the authors were engaged to assist the rail infrastructure client with the development of a new risk-based contractor management and assurance process. Bowtie diagrams were selected as a key component of this process to represent: Key safety risks associated with rail construction projects; Potential causes and consequences of unwanted events; Good practice in risk barriers/controls. To test the suitability of Bowties for risk communication to contractors, three key hazards were identified for Bowtie analysis. These and the specific top events selected were as follows: Hazard: Working at height – from scaffold, ladders, mobile elevating working platforms, mobile towers or ledges; Top event: Falls from height – to surface; Hazard: Working in vicinity of uninsulated conductors and supply points; Top event: Contact with live/charged equipment >60 V; Hazard: Working on or near the line; Top event: Personnel in path of oncoming train. A one-day Bowtie development workshop was held for each of the hazards selected. These were attended by client personnel with the required knowledge and expertise of the hazard and associated barrier measures, ensuring the necessary levels of input and consultation. Feedback to date on the Bowtie approach has been positive, both within the client and contractor organisations. Bowties provide a method of communicating the client’s expectations about levels of protection to infrastructure project contractors and address the following key requirements: Allow contractors to understand risk management requirements in detail and to price jobs accordingly; Enable identification of gaps in the barrier of key risks and facilitate implementation of best practice; Can be used by the client as a project safety assurance tool to check the risk management measures in place against those defined in the Bowtie; Demonstrate to the regulator that the client is communicating a clear ‘safety story’ throughout a project. This paper describes the Bowtie development process in accordance with Ten Golden Rules including how human factors can be incorporated in a systematic and meaningful way. It will demonstrate how the Bowties developed within this project represent in a clear and accessible manner what constitutes industry best practice with regard to controlling important safety risks in construction projects.

Abstract With the frequent occurrence of construction safety accidents, it is imperative to improve the safety performance of the construction industry. To predict safety performance scientifically, the number of construction accident fatalities was selected as an indicator of safety performance. This study combined the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and grey relational analysis (GRA) to identify labor productivity, construction area of the house, and the number of construction enterprises and employees of the construction enterprises as the main factors affecting the number of construction accident fatalities. Then, this study used the grey prediction theory to establish a GM(1,5) model to predict the number of safety accident fatalities in 2013-2019. The results showed that the model has great prediction accuracy and can be used to predict future construction safety performance. Through the prediction of safety performance, managers can evaluate the development trends of construction projects. Therefore, they can take timely measures to reduce the occurrence of safety accidents. Meanwhile, the study provides a new optimization method for the development of the GM(1,N) model and the application of real data.

Construction safety is critical in the success of a project. A considerable amount of effort has been placed on research and practice in order to reduce the potential risks on the construction site. Recent application of electroencephalogram (EEG) to construction research enables researchers to gain insight into construction workers’ physical and mental status during construction tasks. By summarizing existing studies that involve EEG and construction safety, the literature review aims to provide practical suggestions for future research and on-site safety management. The literature search and inclusion process included eleven eligible studies. Comprehensive analysis was conducted based on primary and secondary measures. The primary measures considered the frequency bands of EEG and the channels for detecting electrical activity of the brain. The secondary measures that were involved with physical and mental status with respect to EEG signal variations as a result of task, working hour, and work conditions. Although the field of study that combines EEG measures with construction tasks is still emerging, it is worth continuous attention in the future, as relevant findings would be of great value to the safety management and risk control in the construction industry.

The economic operation in modern society is closely related to petroleum, and petroleum refining products play a great role in various industries such as military, transportation, agriculture, light industry, and textile industry. Refining and chemical enterprises belong to fixed asset intensive enterprises, among which the equipment used for oil refining is the most important asset in fixed assets. Improving the operational safety of equipment plays an extremely important role and significance in improving and enhancing the economic benefits of enterprises. This article starts with the analysis of safety hazards at construction sites and explores potential risk factors such as human factors and equipment failures. A series of safety management measures are proposed to address safety issues, improving the effectiveness of safety management by establishing a sound safety management system, applying advanced safety equipment and technology, and developing effective emergency response and post-disaster recovery plans.

The construction industry is one of the major growth engines of world economics. The recent occurrence of the Covid-19 pandemic has caused great threats to the construction industry. To prevent further damage occurring to the industry, identifying the consequences is necessary. This is to avert the worst level of economic deterioration in decades in the construction industry. However, the adverse effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on the construction industry is still unclear and defined. Hence, this study was conducted to evaluate the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on the construction industry with the main objectives of to analyze the current state of the construction industry, then to investigate the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on the construction industry and lastly to develop technology adaptation measures to reduce the negative impact towards the construction industry. The study was conducted through the method of quantitative study with the use of a closed-ended online questionnaire survey as the research instrument. The data of the survey was collected from 64 construction personnel all over Sarawak and was analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) software which enables the data collected to be summarized in the nominal and interval scale. The findings of this study show that the outbreak of Covid-19 has caused drastic changes in the construction industry which has led to a few impacts such as delays in construction works, shortage of workers, financial problems, supply chain management issues as well as safety and health conditions. However, through the identification of appropriate technology adaptation measures such as technology development and application as well as e-monitoring site logistics and control, the impacts may be reduced and the adverse effect that is to suffer by the construction industry may be lessened.

Safety issues have always been of great concern to the metro construction industry. Numerous studies have shown that safety issues are closely related to the design phase. Many safety problems can be solved or improved by developing the design. This study proposes a structured identification method for safety risks based on the metro design specifications, journal literature, and expert experience. A safety knowledge base (KB) for the design was established to realize safety knowledge sharing and reusing. The KB has been developed into Building Information Modeling (BIM) software as an inspection plug-in to achieve automated analysis and retrieval of safety risks. The designers are provided with a visualization of risk components to locate and improve the pre-control measures of the design. Subsequently, the process of design for safety (DFS) database creation was demonstrated with a metro station project, and the feasibility of applying the KB to safety checking in BIM was verified. In response to the inspection results, safety risks in the construction phases can be eliminated or avoided by standardizing and improving the design.

In the context of green, low-carbon, and sustainable construction, the safety management of smart construction sites has been a key issue. Current related research mainly focuses on the application of technology, but lacks methods to evaluate the safety management level. Therefore, this research aims to construct a smart construction site safety management evaluation model from a resilience perspective. First, this research identified and screened the indicators initially based on the 4R resilience characteristics and 4M theory by analyzing the policy texts of smart construction site safety management. Then, through expert consultation, the ISM model of resilience indicators was established to determine the evaluation indicator system of smart construction site safety management. Next, the weight of each indicator was determined with the help of the analytic network process, and the evaluation criteria of the indicators were formulated according to the existing specifications and expert interviews; then, the evaluation model of smart construction site safety management was established. Finally, the feasibility of the model was proved through a case study. The findings of the research show that in terms of weights, management has the highest score, followed by media, man, and machine. However, more resilience measures are used for the safety management of machine than the other three in policy texts. Obviously, there is a deviation between weights and resilience characteristics. These findings help reveal the current situation of safety management at smart construction sites, which is of great significance for improving resilience. The findings also help smart construction sites to realize the upgrading of safety, efficiency, and greenness, and promote the sustainable development of smart construction sites as well as the construction industry.

Problem statement. Architecture near rivers and other bodies of water reflects the artistic and stylistic features of cities. Modern surface architecture has been devided in two large groups and includes a large number of typological units. The first group is large hydraulic structures (canals, dams, locks, bridges). The second group are the buildings and structures with social and housing functions. Despite the different purposes, the objects of this group have a common structural scheme, which is represented by two components: a floating base and a superstructure [1]. Today buildings on water are very popular all over the world. The main reasons for this are overpopulation of the territory, high taxes on land and others. Such buildings are popular in Germany, the Netherlands, Great Britain, the United States of America, Venice, France, India, the Czech Republic and others. In Ukraine, the construction of buildings on water is promising and may become popular for the following reasons: rather short term of order implementation; long service life (up to 50 years); a large number of mooring places; closeness to nature; privacy of rest and others [2]. Due to the fact that the process of erecting buildings on water is quite complicated and covers several branches of production at once, consideration of the issue of ensuring safe working conditions is relevant and necessary. Also, this issue has its own specifics associated with the selection of workers and ensuring safety when working on water. Purpose of the article is an analysis of the state of safety and organization of safe working conditions during the erection of modern buildings on the water. Conclusions. 1. Fatal injury rates in the construction industry have consistently exceeded those in the mechanical engineering industry in recent years. At the same time, the indicators of fatal injuries in recent years have a tendency to increase and constancy in both industries. 2. The percentage of the main causes of occupational accidents is almost constant. The influence of the main hazardous production factors associated with the construction of buildings on water, for the most part, leads to the occurrence of accidents. 3. Drawing up recommendations for the safe implementation of consistently all stages of the construction of buildings on water is an important issue of our time, since such construction has great development prospects in our country.

The geological prospecting industry has developed rapidly in China over the past few years. It has made outstanding contributions to the discovery of new mineral resources, new energy sources, and the excavation and utilization of resources. However, geological prospecting projects do not have effective safety management measures at present. Moreover, the geological prospecting project has its own traits and features that differ from other industries, leading to the fact that safety management measures in other industries cannot be used in geological prospecting projects. Therefore, development of an effective safety management measuring tool is urgent and necessary. In recent years, safety climate has drawn great attention from scholars, and research results have been successfully applied in construction, coal mining and other industries. Based on the extensive literature review on safety climate as well as its organizational structure and employees’ individual behavior characteristics, this paper first extracted the factor structure of the safety climate and then developed a safety climate scale for geological prospecting projects. This paper used the methods of exploratory factor analysis and reliability analysis to ensure the developed safety climate scale was valid and reliable. The safety climate scale developed has four dimensions, i.e., project leader’s safety commitment, safety institutions, risk response, and employee’s safety attitude, containing a total of 17 measurable items. This study contributes to the current literature by exploring the factor structure of the safety climate for geological prospecting projects, and further provides a scientific basis for improvements in the geological prospecting industry. Meanwhile, the findings not only provide technical support for investigating and analyzing the safety management levels of the geological prospecting industry, but also contribute to the benchmarking standards among different enterprises and projects.

Axial force monitoring of steel support is one of the important factors for foundation pit safety monitoring. In the monitoring of steel support, there are many problems, such as unreasonable installation of axonometer, irregular monitoring behavior of axonometer, incomplete analysis of axial force and imperfect early warning system. Collecting many engineering cases, and in-depth analysis and research on the problems and irregular behavior of steel support axial force monitoring in every link. The influencing factors and control measures of steel support axial force are discussed in detail, and some useful conclusions are obtained. It has been applied in the actual monitoring work and achieved good results. It is of great significance to guide subway safety construction and promote the development of axle force monitoring industry.

In the process of the enterprise's production, safety is the key concerned matter. Hydroelectric project construction is the industry with frequent accidents; these accidents have great influences to the society, so the effective measures are taken to prevent accidents and thus change the management style from “post processing” to “predictive control”. The accidents data of objects striking of Xiluodu projects in the year of 2004 to 2006 are analyzed, all the factors causing the accidents are determined, and the factors are analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively analyzes with Bayesian network method, finally the safety management program is determined to guide the safety operations. The bad condition of geological environment has the greatest posterior probability; therefore, it is a sensitive factor that might cause the objects striking accidents. More attention should be paid to the geological environment when preventing accidents.

Construction restrictions implemented in some coastal areas of Kesennuma City, Miyagi Prefecture, after the Great East Japan Earthquake were necessary for reconstructing residences and town buildings; however, they were criticized for delaying the recovery and reconstruction of the fish processing industry that was affected by the disaster. In areas that were affected by the construction restrictions, a foundation development for the Cluster Zone (CZ) of fish processing industry facilities was implemented, and companies were only allowed to rebuild their plants more than three years later when the project was completed. In areas that became designated for a land readjustment project (LRP) several years after the disaster, plants that had been repaired were forced to relocate. The present study targeted the fish processing industry of Kesennuma City and conducted a questionnaire on companies that had their offices in the areas that were likely impacted by such policies and projects. We conducted an interview to understand the specific impact of such policies and projects on company management. Based on the above survey, we reached the following conclusions. First, many companies that had plants in the scheduled CZ, which was determined after the disaster, relocated their plants. Many companies felt that construction restrictions and the foundation development project (FDP) for the CZ delayed the recovery of plants. Second, companies that were impacted by the FDP of the CZ, LRP, etc. experienced delays in the recovery of sales channels and hiring, the dispersion of plants, increased costs due to the move, and the abandonment of some manufacturing. Third, as measures to alleviate the impact on companies of the government preparing industrial lands after large-scale disasters, we discuss measures to speed up project implementation, support for the use of production bases, and other important aspects.

In recent years, with the development of diving tourism, the diving tourism industry in Sanya, Hainan Province, China has rapidly emerged. The tourism management department has been promoting and advertising this unique tourism feature, making diving tourism one of the major attractions that bring in more and more domestic and foreign tourists. We have noticed that there is great potential and room for the development of diving tourism in Sanya, Hainan Province, but there are also problems with tourist safety, marketing strategies, and poor management. To promote the development of diving tourism in Sanya, Hainan Province, we suggest the following: First, strengthen the measures to ensure the safety of tourists, including improving the quality of diving tourism services, strengthening the construction of management systems, and enhancing tourist safety measures to improve their sense of security. Secondly, optimize the marketing strategies to increase the awareness and competitiveness of diving tourism products. Thirdly, strengthen management and regulatory measures, perfect management systems, and standardize market order. Fourthly, establish a comprehensive diving tourism plan, design diving routes, and enhance the quality of diving facilities and services. Based on these suggestions, we can enhance the development of diving tourism in Sanya, Hainan Province, increase its economic and social benefits, and raise its level of development significantly.

Abstract Background: Peaceful use of nuclear energy is of great significance for ensuring energy security, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and achieving sustainable development environmental-friendly. Nuclear safety is the premise and foundation for the development of civil nuclear power industry. As a country with the largest scale of nuclear power plants under construction, preventing accidents properly is the best way to ensure nuclear safety. However, under the background of environmental protection nowadays, China has only officially implemented two laws related to nuclear safety - the Law on Prevention and Control of Radioactive Pollution and Nuclear Safety Law. It cannot fully meet the needs of nuclear safety supervision in China. Methods: To highlight the problems in the current legal system pertaining to nuclear safety, a legislation study is used to analyze the current content of related legislation and regulations. Comparative methodology is also adopted in this paper to analyze the legislative and administrative experience of other countries with or without nuclear power industry and summarize the problems in the current legal system in China. Result: Currently, the development of nuclear safety law system reflects the historical process of the development and application of nuclear technology in China. China’s nuclear safety-related legislation closely fits the strategy of China’s nuclear technology development and application under the background of environmental protection. Even though, there are still deficiencies about China’s nuclear safety legal system now, for example: the atomic energy law is still absent in China, so pertaining measures must be taken to develop and improve the nuclear safety legal system in China as for not only promoting the development of nuclear industry but also avoiding radioactive pollution incidents and protecting environment. Moreover, there is a conflict between the concept of “nuclear safety” in the Nuclear Safety Law and its content.

COVID-19 infection rate in the construction and cleaning industry: known infections and under-reporting factor. Part 2: Women Aims: The aims of this study were to assess the prevalence of COVID-19 among female construction and cleaning workers in Germany, to estimate the number of unreported cases, to consider whether it is possible to assume an increased risk compared to the general population and to examine the influence on the infection rate of job-specific risk factors such as place of work and occupation. Methods: We conducted a seroepidemiological study to detect antibodies to COVID-19 among n = 219 women who attended the participating occupational health centres for medical check-ups. The study participants completed a questionnaire which included questions on living conditions, occupation, professional status and known previous infection. 43 women worked in the cleaning industry (19.6 %), whilst 134 were predominantly office workers, managers and supervisors (61.2 %). Results: 14 women (6.4 %) knew that they had already been infected with COVID-19. Among the n = 205 women without known infection, antibodies to COVID-19 were positive in n = 9 subjects (4.1 %). Overall, 23 women (10.5 %) had a previous COVID-19 infection. In relation to the known COVID-19 infections, the number of unreported cases (under-reporting factor) was 64 %. It was not possible to establish whether working on construction sites had a definite influence on the infection rate. There are indications of an increased risk of infection for cleaning activities, especially in old people’s homes and hospitals. Conclusions: Occupational health and safety measures should be strengthened and consistently implemented for this group of people. The underreporting factor of 64 % indicates that not all people with an infection are recorded. Compliance with general protective measures is therefore of great importance in containing the COVID-19 pandemic. Keywords: COVID-19 – infection rate – under-reporting – construction and cleaning industry

With the development of the digital economy, the number and scale of data centers are expanding rapidly. Data centers are playing an increasingly important role in social and economic development. However, a short downtime of a data center may result in huge losses. The safety management of data centers’ physical infrastructure is of great significance to address this concern. We applied resilience theory to the safety management of data center physical infrastructures. We analyzed the resilience connotation and evaluated the system resilience using the resilience indexes. The data center infrastructure was regarded as a system of systems. Through theoretical analysis, the resilience framework of data center infrastructures was established, which formed the main dimensions of resilience assessment. The Delphi method determined the resilience indices, and the ANP method was adopted to set up the evaluation model. The results revealed the important indexes affecting data center infrastructure system safety resilience. Based on the findings, this paper argues for improving redundancy and adaptability, paying attention to the resilience management of energy flow and thermal flow, and establishing an automatic systematic data management system. These suggested measures would not only effectively make contributions to the data center infrastructure safety management theory but also provide an important reference for construction industry practices.

In order to prevent accident cases and improve safety in the mining industry, a safety risk assessment and management process is needed to identify and respond to high-risk hazards in mines. This study aims to investigate the main safety risks factors influencing the typology of accidents in the Panzhihua OP-UG iron ore mine with the concept of minimizing them, reducing injuries and fatalities, and improving prevention policies. A methodology based on the analytic hierarchy process and fuzzy comprehensive evaluation (AHP-FCE) is applied to conduct a study on the assessment and evaluation of mine safety risks. Upon investigating the safety situation at the mine site, 85 risk factors were identified, of which 49 factors were considered to be non-threatening and therefore compatible with existing control measures. The remaining potential hazards, altogether 36 factors, were ultimately categorized into six major specific groups. A mine safety index system and safety risk evaluation model are established to support the evaluation process. The results show that the overall risk level of the Panzhihua OP-UG iron mine is at a medium level with a score of 86.5%. Appropriate risk management measures were recommended for each risk factor from the perspectives of theoretical analysis, safety system optimization of mine technology, disaster prevention and control of slope failure, etc. Finally, this research serves as a great industrial value and academic significance to provide technical support for the safety production of mining enterprises. Hence, the FCE method can serve as a technique to accurately evaluate the impact of iron mine risk.

The transportation industry is a forerunner of social and economic development and has always been an active green and ecological development practitioner. Jiangsu Province is a major port province. In 2023, the cumulative cargo throughput of Jiangsu ports has reached 3.51 billion tons, accounting for 20.67% of the total port throughput of the country. The overall development of China’s port volatile organic compounds (VOCs) governance industry is still in the early stage, and most port enterprises in Jiangsu Province have not established a sound VOCs monitoring and regulatory system. Therefore, it is of great importance to carry out research on the regulatory countermeasures of VOCs emission in Jiangsu port for the green development of transportation in China and Jiangsu Province. The research results show that there are some problems in Jiangsu oil and gas chemical terminals, such as insufficient supporting policies for oil and gas recovery, non-standard operation mode of oil and gas recovery, high investment in oil and gas recovery construction, low enthusiasm of port and shipping enterprises in construction, low utilization rate of oil and gas recovery facilities, insufficient front space of built terminals, and oil and gas recovery technology maturity and safety need to be improved. Therefore, it is proposed to strengthen the management of the whole process of oil and gas recovery construction in new terminals, strictly implement the management measures of oil and gas recovery in terminals, and strengthen the regular detection of VOC emission concentration.

Currently, the economy of the Republic of Kazakhstan is developing at a rapid pace. Of great importance in the economy of the Republic of Kazakhstan are industries that are associated with the extraction and processing of natural resources, especially oil and gas, which the Republic of Kazakhstan is rich in. Oil production is a multi-stage production process that includes exploration, drilling and construction of wells, their repair, purification of produced oil from water, sulfur and paraffin and impurities. Oil production facilities in the world, including in Kazakhstan, are classified as hazardous production facilities that require strict compliance with production safety requirements. At the same time, the extraction and processing of natural resources is associated with difficult and harmful working conditions, hazardous production factors, which, if safety requirements are not observed, can lead to industrial injuries, occupational diseases and other undesirable consequences. The international organization OPEC+ exists to develop a common production policy, maintain stable oil prices, ensure stable supply to consumers, and increase efficiency through investment in the oil industry. OPEC+ represents a community of participating countries, coordinating actions and strategies for exporting oil around the world. Today, OPEC countries have a total of about 80% of oil reserves. The value in the field of production reaches 40%, while global oil exports consist of OPEC + supplies for half. At a meeting of the government of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the results of oil production in 2021 were reported, which amounted to 85.7 million tons and 67.6 million tons for export. In 2021, the volume of reduction in oil production in oil exporting countries (OPEC +) was reviewed monthly. The Republic of Kazakhstan planed to maintain the volume of oil production in 2022 at the level of 87 million tons [1].

In recent years, with the rapid development of China’s construction industry, assembled buildings have become more and more common. In this context, China attaches great importance to the development of assembled buildings and has introduced a series of policies to support the promotion of assembled buildings. Assembled building technology has become relatively mature in some developed countries. From their experience, it can be learned that the construction of an assembled concrete structure technology system is the basis for the promotion of assembled concrete buildings. A factory-based production model enables prefabricated concrete elements to be produced to a good quality. The key to the technical system for the construction of assembled concrete structures is the connection of the prefabricated elements. At the same time, it is essential to consider not only the reliability of the structural performance of the assembled concrete structure but also the cost and safety of the design, production, transport, and construction processes. In fact, the safety of an assembled concrete structure depends to a large extent on whether the nodal connection technology meets the design and quality requirements. Unlike conventional cast-in-place concrete structures, the key nodes of assembled concrete structures have a greater impact on the mechanical properties of the load transfer. In other words, this influence is directly related to the design of the prefabricated elements. Hence, the mechanical properties of precast nodal joints, such as good stiffness, are essential for the structural safety of assembled buildings. In the case of assembled buildings, the correct form of nodal connection is decisive in ensuring that the connection meets the design and service requirements. In addition to this, the correct nodal connection form will ensure that the design life is maintained. The uneven quality of many prefabricated components has limited the promotion of assembled concrete structures and is a key constraint to their development. At this stage, there are no uniform standards for quality control systems and measures on site in China, and the level of technical management is not yet fully mature. What is more, the overall quality of construction personnel is not high enough, which might lead to some frequent issues with the quality of connections in the field during the actual construction process. As a result, the development of assembled concrete structures urgently requires perfect construction management standards as a guide for on-site joint construction, so as to guarantee the quality level of on-site joint construction. In order to study the force performance of assembled concrete structures, this paper establishes an analytical model for assembled concrete buildings based on the intelligent finite element method. To be specific, this research introduces artificial neural network theory into the structural analysis of assembled buildings and transports it into the finite element solution, thus forming an intelligent finite element method.

Japan was struck by a massive earthquake that triggered a tsunami in March 2011, which led to a severe nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant of the Tokyo Electric Power Company. Now, more than 10 years later, it is widely acknowledged that the civil nuclear industry is of great importance in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, improving natural environmental quality, and safeguarding national energy security. Nanomaterials and nanotechnologies, which have gained wide consideration in recent years, have shown a wide variety of application potentials in the future nuclear energy system. Thus, China has been developing its civil nuclear industry throughout the years, despite the nuclear accident in Fukushima, Japan. As a result, China is currently one of the countries with the most nuclear power plants. However, due to the potential radioactive risk, the public has an instinctive fear of civil nuclear development. To alleviate the public’s antinuclear sentiment, the Nuclear Safety Law was formally implemented in 2018, and Measures for Disclosure of Nuclear Safety Information were issued by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment of China in 2020, both stipulating that the public has the right to obtain information about nuclear safety and be involved in related activities. The purpose of such legislation is to eliminate the public’s doubts and phobia about the development of the civil nuclear industry. However, challenges still exist. Although such suggestions have been proposed, such as information disclosure and social involvement should begin as early as the siting of such nuclear facilities, mechanisms to provide sufficient compensation to the public living near nuclear facilities should be established, and these suggestions still have not been applied in the law of China and either not been practiced exactly so far. So, even though all the suggestions have strong feasibility themselves under today’s circumstances in China, it is not easy to judge the effectiveness of these suggestions until they are fully practiced. It is the biggest problem of existing works in this paper. To highlight the serious problems in information disclosure and public involvement in the siting and construction of civil nuclear facilities, several case studies were investigated as the major methodology in this research. Moreover, a legislation study was used to analyze the current content of related legislation and regulations. A qualitative methodology was also adopted to summarize the legal problems surrounding information disclosure and social involvement during the siting and construction of civil nuclear facilities. Information disclosure and public participation still face several obstacles in China, even though laws and regulations guarantee people the right to access available information and take part in pertinent decision-making. This is particularly true when it comes to the siting and construction of civil nuclear facilities. Thus, in the last several years, several antinuclear incidents have been initiated by the public due to a lack of information and mechanisms to participate. According to the examined cases, information disclosure and public involvement are still not sufficient during the siting of nuclear facilities. A relevant compensation mechanism for people living around nuclear facilities has not been established, and public education on basic nuclear safety is lacking. Therefore, public involvement cannot be completely realized. To ensure information disclosure and public involvement in civil nuclear facilities, this article proposes that information disclosure and social involvement begin as early as the siting of such facilities. Furthermore, operators of nuclear facilities and local governments should establish mechanisms to provide sufficient preventive compensation to the public living near nuclear facilities and attempt to popularize the science of nuclear safety to avoid public misunderstanding.

Under the background of the goal of "carbon peak, carbon neutrality", China's wind power development gradually transfers from the three northern regions to the central and eastern parts of the south, wind power installed capacity continues to increase, wind turbine height and single capacity continue to improve, while facing complex geographical environments such as mountains, forest areas, fish ponds, farmland, the functional demand for wind turbine hoisting equipment is increasing day by day. Due to the backwardness of China's metal material manufacturing technology and large wind power crane detection technology, the fatigue life of wind power crane is unpredictable, often in dangerous working conditions and negative loads, resulting in boom fatigue damage, which has a significant impact on personnel safety and national and company economic losses. Today, the demand for wind power has increased greatly, and the wind motor has changed from the previous slow speed, small wind blades and light weight to the single machine capacity is getting larger and larger, the blades are getting longer and longer, the tower height is getting higher and higher, and the lifting parts are getting heavier and heavier. This has created the characteristics of high, large and heavy wind turbines today. Therefore, the traditional wind turbine hoisting equipment has been unable to meet the needs of wind power construction, such as the all-ground crane high cost, weak wind resistance; Crawler crane lifting weight and lifting height is insufficient, and the site required for installation and demolition is large; The traditional tower crane needs to be attached to the tower barrel, which has low disassembly efficiency and great influence on the tower barrel, which seriously restricts the rapid development of wind power construction. Therefore, it is urgent to develop wind power cranes that can better adapt to complex geographical environments, ultra-high towers, and large megawatt units, while reducing installation costs and improving the safety and efficiency of hoisting, it is necessary to carry out mechanical analysis of wind power crane equipment. In order to ensure the reliable operation of the wind power crane, improve the utilization rate, extend the service life of the equipment, prevent potential production safety hazards, and reduce equipment maintenance costs, it is necessary to master its static performance through theoretical analysis and calculation, in order to propose and implement the design optimization and improvement program and the later use and maintenance measures. Due to overload, cracks, fatigue and corrosion, various failures caused by wind power cranes may reduce or lose their pre-designed functions and roles. Therefore, it is necessary to deeply analyze the static performance of the crane, find the largest dangerous force parts, eliminate potential safety hazards, and ensure its safe, stable and reliable operation, to monitor such complex structural parts is not only time-consuming, and may not be able to truly detect the safety hazards. In order to solve these problems, ANSYS (finite element analysis software) is used to analyze the theoretical stress of the 3D structure model, and the theoretical dangerous stress position of the structure is solved. Provide strong data support for the design and development of wind power crane industry in the later stage

The reconstruction of Ukraine opens up opportunities for the creation of more progressive and high-quality architecture. So far, among some specialists in our industry, sustainable development (SD) is primarily associated with energy efficiency, environmental friendliness of materials, and innovative technological solutions. In 2019, the UN formulated 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) until 2030, among them, for example, #3. Good health and well-being. #4. Quality education. #12. Responsible consumption and production. The most realistic for direct achievement in the conditions of reconstruction are the SDGs: #11, 12, 4, 6, 7, 9, 3, 13, 16, and 17. During the reconstruction of Ukraine, the following approaches should be implemented to achieve the SDGs: 1. Inform the community about the developed solutions for achieving the SDGs. 2. Restore only the minimum number of roads necessary for convenient communication (this is related to CO2 emissions into the atmosphere, etc.). 3. To give preference to modernization and restoration of destroyed buildings over the construction of new ones. 4. Provide optimal (which tends towards comfortable, minimally necessary) solutions for new buildings. The implementation of p. 2-4 will ensure a reduction in the volume of the ecological rucksack of roads and structures. It should be taken into account that the places of mass death of people are geopathogenic zones unfavorable for the long-term stay of people. 5. When designing projects, avoid using forms, proportions, and aesthetic properties of materials that may cause in population associations related to the events experienced during the war (goal #3). 6. Use materials for reconstruction that can be reused or recycled in the future. 7. Encourage voluntary certification of buildings according to the BREEAM (Great Britain) and LEED (USA) systems. 8. Simultaneously implement measures to ensure SD at the level of cities in general. The developed concepts regarding cities' SD are designed for their implementation "from top to bottom". Due to the insufficient awareness of the community, its opportunities for the implementation of SD programs are not sufficiently used. The proposed approaches to achieving the SDGs during the reconstruction of Ukraine will allow for achieving not an instant, but a gradual, long-lasting effect on ensuring the sustainability of the environment.

The “risk society” has become a key 21st century theme due to the economic expansion and population explosion spurred by science and technology development during the 20th century. We must create societies resilient against risk to preserve well-being and continue sustainable development. Although the ideal would be to create a society free from disaster and crisis, resources are limited. To achieve a more resilient society using these resources, we must become wise enough to identify the risks threatening society and clarify how we are to prepare against them. The traditional engineering approach is limited by its aim to reduce damage reduction as functional system of hazard, exposure, and vulnerability by focusing on mitigative action. We must instead add two factors – human activity and time dependency after a disaster – to make society more risk-resilient. The Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society (RISTEX) of the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) seeks to create new social, public, and economic value by solving obvious problems in society. In promoting science and technology R&D for society, RISTEX supports the building of networks enabling researchers and stakeholders to cooperate in solving societal problems. Our initiatives use R&D employing knowledge in the field of the humanities and social sciences, combined with natural sciences and technologies. Based on these existing accumulated knowledge and skills, scientifically verifying issues and lessons learned from these disasters, RISTEX launched a new R&D focus area, entitled “Creating a Community-Based Robust and Resilient Society,” in 2012. This R&D focus is to develop disaster risk reduction systems making society robust and resilient in the face of large-scale disasters. Two crucial key words in this focus area are “community” and “links.” Specifically, we must reexamine community frameworks to facilitate how diverse elements of society – industry, academia, government, and citizens – can be linked and activated in overcoming complex widespread disasters. Our R&D focus is grounded in the reality of urban and regional areas, and fosters mutual multilayered cooperation. In this issue, which mark the half-way point in the six-year RISTEX R&D focus program, we present 13 papers of reports on R&D studies selected by RISTEX in fiscal years 1 and 2, reviews appraising the academic significance of these reports, and studies that introduce new findings obtained through experimental studies. Seven papers resulted from four projects in the first year, three dealing with postdisaster reconstruction. The first, the Land Conservation and Resilience after Flooding Disaster project, deals with assisting in farmland restoration following heavy rainfall. Based on a detailed activity survey and geographical analysis, the report discusses significant roles played by community and incorporated non-profit organizations collaborating with groups outside affected areas. Of the two reports on the Redevelopment of Tsunami Impacted Coastal Regions, one analyzes the reconstruction planning process of a district completing its group relocation relatively early among communities in coastal regions devastated by the Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami. The other describes the computer reconstruction of village swept away by the tsunami, workshops conducted to improve reconstruction accuracy and the process by which community identity is strengthened by sharing common memories. Reports on the Disaster Mitigation Project of Traditional Buildings discuss current and future prospects for comprehensive disaster mitigation efforts in preservation districts based on a questionnaire focusing on the social capital in preservation districts for groups of traditional buildings. They also present results of action research aimed at community building based on connecting the historic townscape with people and organizations. The last first-year project deals with Computer-Assisted Structuring of Disaster Information. Related papers propose the design of a database schema for effectively processing disaster management information and use of natural-language processing to assist in this process. They also discuss issues related to the construction of an online information processing system for facilitating information coordination at disaster response headquarters that must process vast amounts of information in disaster response efforts. Six papers resulted from four projects among those selected in the second year. A paper on Resilient Metropolitan Areas Creation proposes multiscale community-based disaster mitigation planning preparing for a Nankai megathrust earthquake based on the need for a diverse region-wide discussion. They also report on workshops conducted based on this approach. One of two reports on Edutainment Disaster Relief Training proposes a sustainable training model based on scientific analysis of disaster medicine training – the first such attempt in medical relief. It describes implementation of an actual drill. The other report points out the need to classify disaster medicine learners into several hierarchical levels and discusses elements necessary for developing training programs as medutainment based on a comprehensive review of domestic sources on educational approaches and disaster medicine. The report on Structuring an Autonomous Regional Disaster Prevention Community describes how safety measures adopted since the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake by fire companies suffering many casualties from the disaster are effective in regions at risk of disasters other than tsunamis such as landslides. The report the Life Recovery of Public Rented Temporary Housing Dwellers presents ethnography and interview survey results with residents of public rented temporary housing regarding elements of life recovery such the housing situation, income and livelihood. Many field specialists agree it is essential to integrate science and technology in promoting R&D helping reduce disaster risks while achieving a resilient society. We must now put this concept into practice to ensure that research results are implemented. In effective risk and crisis communication, we focus on key prerequisites of people and society. We also address social issues using accumulated knowledge and technologies in individual fields as a starting point and linking these to the launch of new social implementations for achieving a resilient society. We express our sincere thanks and appreciation to all of the authors and reviewers involved in this special issue for their invaluable contributions and support.

For a country, the industry is a very important system, the embodiment of the country's comprehensive national strength, the country's economic development level and the development of science and technology level has direct impact on industry. The development of chemical industry also has great impetus to the national economic development. The technical requirements for chemical engineering are particularly high. Because of the danger of the chemical itself, safety becomes the first thing to notice in the construction process. In order to prevent the occurrence of danger in the actual construction process, the safety of chemical engineering construction is made, and the effective safety management is the most critical step. A reliable safety management is the guarantee for the smooth construction of the construction, so the early safety management becomes the key to the development of the chemical industry. Chemical engineering is an extremely complex and changeable system, and the kinds of problems involved are very many, which requires the construction personnel to pay more attention to ensure the safety. In order to implement the safety management measures in the process of chemical engineering construction, it is necessary for the management personnel to strictly control the whole construction process. In case of any problem, we should deal with it in a timely manner and pay more attention to the details. We should pay attention to fire prevention, pollution prevention and anti-explosion prevention. Technical personnel should pay more attention to technical problems and eliminate safety hazards. The construction company must also strengthen the personal quality of the project management personnel and other issues. It is necessary to examine personal responsibility and safety awareness and avoid unnecessary losses caused by various construction safety issues to the company[1].

For a country, the industry is a very important system, the embodiment of the country's comprehensive national strength, the country's economic development level and the development of science and technology level has direct impact on industry. The development of chemical industry also has great impetus to the national economic development. The technical requirements for chemical engineering are particularly high. Because of the danger of the chemical itself, safety becomes the first thing to notice in the construction process. In order to prevent the occurrence of danger in the actual construction process, the safety of chemical engineering construction is made, and the effective safety management is the most critical step. A reliable safety management is the guarantee for the smooth construction of the construction, so the early safety management becomes the key to the development of the chemical industry. Chemical engineering is an extremely complex and changeable system, and the kinds of problems involved are very many, which requires the construction personnel to pay more attention to ensure the safety. In order to implement the safety management measures in the process of chemical engineering construction, it is necessary for the management personnel to strictly control the whole construction process. In case of any problem, we should deal with it in a timely manner and pay more attention to the details. We should pay attention to fire prevention, pollution prevention and anti-explosion prevention. Technical personnel should pay more attention to technical problems and eliminate safety hazards. The construction company must also strengthen the personal quality of the project management personnel and other issues. It is necessary to examine personal responsibility and safety awareness and avoid unnecessary losses caused by various construction safety issues to the company[1].

Since the reform and opening up, Chinese economy has developed rapidly. Industrial and civil construction projects have made significant progress. That said, it is of great significance to further strengthen the construction management of industrial and civil construction projects for the long-term development of construction industry in China. In terms of reality, one of the common problems in the current industrial and civil construction is wall cracks, which will have an important impact on the appearance of the building and the overall construction quality. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the reasons and put forward corresponding measures on it. That is how we can continuously improve the construction quality in civil and industrial construction projects, thereby achieving the enhancement of building safety and stability.

The prospects for the development of the construction industry in Ukraine depend on many factors, such as political stability, economic growth, social demand, technological progress, investment attractiveness, legislative regulation, state support, etc. According to my search, the construction industry of Ukraine has a great potential for development, as it contributes to meeting the social needs of the population, creating new jobs, developing related industries and the economy as a whole. However, to realize this potential, it is necessary to overcome a number of problems, such as instability, uncertainty, distrust, low transparency, high bureaucracy, imperfect legislation, non-fulfillment of contracts, insufficient public funding and control, low solvency, investment attractiveness, availability of loans, high costs for raw materials, energy, fuel, taxes, inflation, crisis phenomena, obsolescence and deterioration of machinery, equipment, transport, technology, low level of labor discipline, qualifications, motivation, promotion, protection, security, social guarantees, prestige of construction professions, outflow of personnel, shortage of specialists, low wages, irregular employment, high level of injuries, occupational diseases. To overcome these problems and ensure the prospects for the development of the construction industry in Ukraine, it is necessary to apply a set of measures, such as: ensuring political stability, transparency, trust, compliance with contracts, compliance with legislation, fighting corruption, increasing the role of the public in decision-making; stimulating economic growth, increasing solvency, investment attractiveness, availability of loans, reducing the cost of raw materials, energy, fuel, taxes, inflation, preventing crisis phenomena; introducing new technologies, standards, certification, patenting, improving quality, productivity, competitiveness, Safety, Resource Conservation, integration with European and world markets, using renewable energy sources, reducing the negative impact on the environment.

Bamboo plants are fast-growing, quickly produce usable material, and are an abundant resource. Bamboo is an excellent, natural, and renewable material. It has a long history of application in human life, industrial manufacturing, cultural industries, and other fields. The warehousing of bamboo and its finished products is an emerging industry with much potential. A reasonable, stable, and orderly warehouse could be an effective solution for the sustainable management, seasonal harvesting, and raw material stability issues. In addition, the warehouse plays an important role in the processing of raw materials, reserve logistics, keeping a robust and real-time supply for downstream products. This is of great significance for alleviating problems associated with Chinese timber safety and for improving the quality of life. This paper focuses on warehousing experience in grain and coal fields, reviews the common material processing and preservation measures of bamboo, analyzes advantages and developmental prospects of bamboo warehousing, and explores and suggests appropriate storage methods, technical systems, and application models. It is expected to provide technical guidance for construction in the bamboo storage industry, and to supply ideas and suggestions for the modern development of the bamboo industry.

AbstractThe report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out that it is necessary to accelerate the construction of digital China, and actively develop equipment intelligence, digitalization, and high‐end equipment manufacturing. With the construction of a new round of digital China, the safety of digital technology and high‐end equipment is particularly important for power grid. Transformer is an important link of power grid operation. The destructive thermal failure of transformer has become a hot research issue in the power industry. At the same time, there are more and more power electronic equipment in the power grid, which makes the regulation and control more and more complicated. Taking a 1000 kVA oil‐immersed transformer as an example, the magnetic, current, and thermal multi field coupling numerical analysis method is first used to simulate and analyse the operation status of the transformer. By comparing the simulation results with the monitoring data results, the error of the results is controlled within 5%. Finally, the multi‐state characteristic parameters of the transformer are monitored through sensors, and the numerical simulation analysis results are integrated with the state monitoring results to build a transformer thermal life loss assessment system. The method in this paper can evaluate and analyse the running state of transformer in real time, which is of great significance for the power company to formulate the treatment measures.

Land is the most important resource for the sustainable development of agriculture. Optimal use of land for the production of a sufficient amount of food, while simultaneously preserving biodiversity and its quality, is very important within the policy of preserving resources for future generations. Safety in food production represent one of the most important goals of sustainable development consist in actual the 2030 Agenda. We face numerous problems related to land. Degradation due to excessive use of modern agrotechnical means in food production, deforestation, erosion, excessive urbanization, floods are just some of the most common problems in land policy. An important problem is the abandonment of land use for agricultural production and its underutilization. Serbia and Bulgaria have significant areas of agricultural land. The subject of research in this paper is the share of agricultural and arable land in the total land area in Serbia and Bulgaria. The focus of the analysis is the average size of farm land, the percentage of irrigated land, and the production structure on farms, as well as the contribution of agriculture to the realization of added value in the creation of GDP. Agriculture and the food industry play a significant role in creating GDP, employment and exports and reducing the foreign deficit. Bearing in mind that the Republic of Serbia is in the process of joining the European Union, it is necessary to reform the agricultural policy and adapt it to the Common Agricultural Policy. This is one of the most important and demanding reforms in the integration policy process. The entire European model of agricultural development is based on the concept of sustainable development. Agricultural land policy in this process is of great importance and the experiences of EU member countries are important. The results of the research should indicate different experiences and recommendations that can be useful in agricultural land management policy. Land policy measures are aimed at creating optimal conditions for agricultural production while achieving the goals of all dimensions of sustainable development. Strategic approach in land management policy in Bulgaria provides guidelines and an example of good practice for taking measures and activities in the direction of its improvement in the Republic of Serbia. These results are also the basis for examining the causes of insufficient utilization of available natural resources and the balanced development that ensures the production of sufficient quantities of food and the preservation of the environment. Keywords: agricultural land, arable land, sustainable development JEL codes: Q15, Q18, Q24

The Internet has long been a venue for individuals to craft their online personas on their own terms, and many have embraced the opportunity to take on a persona that is not associated with a legally recognised name. The rise of social networking has continued to spur proliferation of online personas, but often in ways that intensify corporate mediation of these personas. Debates about online pseudonymity exemplify these tensions, especially when social media corporations attempt to implement “real name policies” that require users to use one, legally recognised name in their online interactions. These debates, however, have broader stakes: they are negotiations over who has the right to control the individual presentation of self, and thus part of a larger conversation about information control and the future of Internet culture. While there was some coverage of these debates in traditional news media, blogs were a key site for examining how real name policies affect oppressed or marginalised groups. To explore these issues, this essay analyses the rhetoric of feminist and anti-racist blog posts that argue for protecting online pseudonymity practices. In general, these sites construct pseudonymity as a technology of resistance and as a vital tool in ensuring that the Internet remains (or becomes) a democratising force. The essay will first provide an overview of the issue and of blog posts about real name policies and gender and/or race, which were selected by the depth and interest of their commentary, and found by search engine or Twitter hashtag using search terms such as “pseudonymity” and “real name policy.” The essay will then explore how these blog posts theorise how real name policies contribute to the broader move toward a surveillance society. Through these arguments, these bloggers reveal that various online communities have vastly different ways of understanding what it means to construct an online persona, and that these varied understandings in turn shape how communities inscribe value (or danger) in pseudonymous Internet practices. Feminist and Anti-Racist Blogger Responses to Real Name Policies While online pseudonymity has long been hotly debated, the conversation intensified following moves by Google-plus to implement “real name policies” in July 2011. Officially these real name policies were intended to improve the experience of users by making it easy to be found online and ensuring that online conversations remained civil. Critics of real name policies often object to the term “real name” and its implication that a pseudonym is a “fake” name. Moreover, proponents of pseudonymity tend to distinguish between pseudonymity and anonymity; a pseudonym is a public persona with relationships, a reputation to uphold, and often years of use. A pseudonym is thus not a way of escaping the responsibilities of having one’s online actions associated with one’s public persona—it is quite the opposite. Nevertheless, defenders of pseudonymity generally argue that both pseudonymity and anonymity must be permitted. Supporters argue that real name policies will enhance the experience of users, and particularly that they will help stop the widespread incivility of many internet comments, on the presumption that using one’s real name will ensure accountability for one’s behavior online. On the other side, many bloggers have argued that the use of real names will not solve these problems and will instead be a threat to the safety and privacy of users, as well as stymieing debate about important or controversial issues. Moreover, many of these bloggers theorise about gender, politics, technology, and identity in ways that resonate well with broader feminist and critical race theory, as well as current conversations about technology and surveillance society. Feminist and other defenses of pseudonymity have used a variety of tactics. One has been to portray pseudonymity as a standard part of Internet culture, and legal names or “wallet names” as an arbitrary way of governing production of public personas. Underlying this framing of pseudonymity as a fundamental part of Internet culture is a long tradition of defining the Internet as a free, open, and democratic space. Internet enthusiasts have long described and prescribed an Internet in which anyone is free to explore and exchange ideas without the ordinary limits imposed by the flesh world, arguing that the Internet encourages more open debate, decentralises networks of knowledge, allows users to try on new identities, and challenges the rigidity of categories and hierarchies that shape knowledge and conversations in the non-virtual world (Rheingold, Plant). Traditionally, pseudonymity and anonymity have been key ways for users to pursue these ends. Thus, the ability to create one or more online personas has, in this conversation, a direct relationship to questions of democracy and about whose practices count as legitimate or valuable in the online world. Additionally, many feminist bloggers frame real name policies as an attempt at corporate control; these policies thus are symbolic to some bloggers of the shift from what they imagine was once a free and open Internet to a corporate-controlled, highly commercialised realm. s.e. smith, for example, writes that “This is what the nymwars are about; a collision between capitalism and the rest of us, where identities are bargaining chips and tools,” with “nym” being the term for the name and persona that one employs online (“The Google+ Nymwars”). Pseudonymity is thus understood by these bloggers as a necessary practice in a democratic Internet, in which one has the right to define one’s own persona online, rather than allowing one’s persona to be defined by a corporation. This framing of pseudonymity as a normalised and valuable part of Internet communication also seems to be an attempt to pre-empt the question of why someone needs a pseudonym if they are not doing anything wrong, but many of the arguments in favor of pseudonyms in fact address this question directly by producing long lists, such as those at geekfeminism and techdirt. In particular, feminist and anti-racist arguments for protecting pseudonymity emphasise that this practice is especially important for women and other marginalised groups, especially since using a real name may expose them to harassment, discrimination, or social consequences. Women who discuss feminism, for example, are sometimes subject to death and rape threats (Hess; Sarkeesian; s.e. smith “On Blogging, Threats, and Silence”). While many feminist bloggers choose to use their real names anyway, most still suggest that pseudonymity must remain a choice anywhere where one seeks to have conversations about issues of import. Moreover, these arguments are a reversal of the claim that real name requirements will stop harassment—while real name policies are purportedly instated to protect the safety of online conversations, many bloggers, pseudonymous and otherwise, suggest that real name policies make women and minorities of all kinds less safe, both online and off-line, and have other negative effects on these groups as well. For instance, Elusis writes that: For minorities, often their name and reputation doesn’t just affect them, it affects their family, and it affects other members of their minority group. Stories of not just outing but of harassment, abuse, and death threats that escalated to the point of being taken seriously by law enforcement (which takes rather a lot). […] Men who get in arguments with other people online don’t get threatened with rape on a regular basis. Unsurprisingly, trans people get abused in this way too. People of color get driven from online spaces** for daring to speak out. (Hyperlinks in original) Likewise, Sarah Stokely writes: As a woman who’s written about feminism online and received anonymous hatemail and death threats for doing so, I would like to preserve my right to post under a pseudonym to keep myself safe in the real world and if I choose, so I’m not identified as a woman online in places where it might not be safe to do so. […] I don’t believe that getting rid of anonymity online will stop bad behaviour like the abuse and death threats I’ve received. I do think that getting rid of anonymity and pseudonymity online will make it easier for people like myself to become targets of abuse and potentially put us in danger. Note that these comments suggest that simply being a woman or member of any kind of minority may make one a target of harassment. Also notice that these comments tend to frame real name policies as an expression of the privileged—real name policies only appear innocuous because of the assumption that the experiences of financially privileged English-speaking white men are universal, and that knowledge of the experiences of marginalised groups is not necessary to design safe and effective policies for consumers of technology. According to feminist blogger critiques of real name policies, it is this privilege that assumes that those using pseudonyms are the “Others” that decent people must be protected from, instead of examining the possibility that those using the pseudonyms might be the ones in danger. A quotation from Geek Feminism, a site whose lengthy discussions of pseudonymity are often cited by bloggers, further illustrates the centrality of privilege to this debate: the writer notes that a proponents of real name policies has dismissed critique by saying, “Don’t say anything in a comment thread that you wouldn’t say in person,” and Geek Feminism responds, “but that sounds like the voice of someone who’s never received abuse or harassment in person” (“Hacker News and Pseudonymity”). The many bloggers who critique the privilege they find responsible for real name policies suggest that beneath conflicts over pseudonymity and accountability online is not the question of how the online world relates to the flesh world, but instead a fundamental disagreement about the nature of accountability and free expression in the flesh world. In this light, attempts to make the online world mimic the accountabilities and social norms of the offline world operate under the assumption that oppression and abuse are not the norm in the flesh world, and that it is Internet technology and Internet culture that has made conversations uncivil or unsafe, and that these should be converted to be more like the flesh world. In this set of assumptions, the flesh world is characterised by respectful and safe interactions, categories of identity are natural as opposed to something that society imposes on individuals, and the existing ways of holding people accountable for their words and actions is very effective at protecting people. Clearly, however, it takes a degree of privilege to characterise the flesh world this way. Thus, the pseudonymity debate is largely about deeper-seated questions on the nature of identity and power in online and offline settings, while appearing to be about the differences between the real world and the online world. Other bloggers have also countered the assumption that real name policies make the Internet safer, often by pointing out that sites that have mandated the use of real names still see a great deal of harassment. s.e. smith, for instance, argues, “If Google really cares about safety, it needs strong, effective, and enforceable site policies. It needs to create a culture of safety, because, well, if your website’s full of assholes, it’s your fault. Real names policies don’t work. Good site policies and the cultivation of a culture of mutual respect do” (“The Google+ Nymwars,” hyperlinks in original). Pseudonyms allow users to participate in important debates online while maintaining a public persona that allows for continued conversations and interactions, which is vital for sustained activism. In this light, policies that take away users’ abilities to control or shape their online personas may force users to choose silence for their own safety. Individual control over online personas is thus both a safety issue and a free speech issue; in direct contradiction to claims that real name policies make users safer and more able to participate in civil discussions. Other pro-pseudonymity bloggers also celebrate the way that a “robust culture of pseudonymity” focuses discussion on ideas rather than the privilege of the speaker, “which, I often think, is why authoritarians and those with authoritarian tendencies hate it” (Paolucci). boyd notes that: the issue of reputation must be turned on its head when thinking about marginalised people. Folks point to the issue of people using pseudonyms to obscure their identity and, in theory, ‘protect’ their reputation. The assumption baked into this is that the observer is qualified to actually assess someone’s reputation. All too often, and especially with marginalised people, the observer takes someone out of context and judges them inappropriately. boyd is one of many bloggers who note that if one’s name is coded as white, Anglo, and male, using one’s real name may often enhance one’s credibility and authority, but if one’s name is coded otherwise, a pseudonym may be helpful; again, assuming that the white male experience is universal allows one to assume that using a real name is a harmless request. In general, these bloggers’ tactics all serve to denaturalise the assumption that a real name is the normal, desirable, and traditional mode of presenting one’s persona, and highlight the ways that real name policies claim to reflect universal concerns but primarily reflect wealthy white men’s experiences with online personas. Information, Power, and Control over Online Personas Additionally, defenders of pseudonymity associate real name policies with the move to a surveillance society, with particular emphasis on corporate surveillance of consumer behavior, also known as the “personal information economy.” Many feminist blogger discussions of pseudonymity note that while real name policies are purportedly intended for safety and protection, they actually allow corporations to amass huge swaths of data about individuals and to keep nearly all the online activities of one person attached to their name. For example blogger much_a_luck writes that: This is exactly the source of trying to pin down who users ‘really’ are. The advertising economy is super-creepy to me, everybody trying to make money by telling people about something someone else is doing, as efficiently as possible. Maybe I'm naive, but I feel like the internet's advertising-driven economy, with it’s [sic] ability to track and target activity, has just blown this whole sector completely out of control. (Paolucci) And indeed the practice of gathering and storing as much information as possible, simply on the chance that an institution might one day use this information, is becoming a more common fear, whether with regard to corporate data mining or recent news stories about privacy and government surveillance. In the larger conversation about surveillance, in fact, it is often the case that while one side argues that information gathering makes everyone safer, an opposition will claim that such measures actually make people vulnerable to abuses of this information. Blogger Space_dinosaur_blue has called real name policies a “security placebo” that claims to stop harassment while actually doing nothing but invading privacy (comment to Paolucci). s.e. smith has argued: What this is really about, of course, is capitalism. […] For the owners of […] sites like Google+ and Facebook, there’s also a big potential to make a profit through the direct commodification of user identities. […] The standards that Google+ sets revolve around the purchase, sale, and exchange of identity, a multibillion dollar industry worldwide. This is what people should be talking about. (“The Google+ Nymwars”) Clearly, the pseudonymity debate resonates in many ways with broader discussions of surveillance, corporate and otherwise. First, scholars have often noted that surveillances practices tend to be more harmful to those in marginalised or oppressed groups, and feminist arguments for pseudonymity reinforce this finding. Additionally, many defenders of pseudonymity point out the dissembling found in companies’ claims that real name policies are there to protect the safety of users and create a civil and decent space for people to interact while actually using the data for marketing research purposes. Framing pseudonymity as anti-social, uncivil, and dangerous, assumes a criminality so to speak, or at the very least, an illegitimacy, on the part of pseudonym users. The rhetorical move here is worth noting: implicitly suggesting that a real name is an inherent part of civility and safety is also suggesting that you have an ethical obligation to those who would compile information about you. In other words, the rules of civility demand that you participate in the corporatisation and commodification of your identity and personal information. Shaping an online persona—or multiple personas—is not an act of creativity or political resistance or freedom; it is assumed to be an act of aggression toward others. We see here a new form of the “good citizenship” argument that characterises the surveillance society. In debates about national security, for instance, acceptance of extensive surveillance of all citizens is framed as a contribution to national security. Here, however, it is not national security but corporate interests that have been inserted as the epitome of the “common good.” In this framework, an anti-corporate approach to personal information appears to be anti-social and even unethical. Commodification of identity is not only the norm but also an obligation of citizenship. Furthermore, as scholars of surveillance have noted (Gilliom and Monahan for instance), social networking creates an environment in which most individuals are participating in creating a surveillance society simply through the level of documentation they voluntarily provide. Again, more and more, willing participation in surveillance practices—making it easy to be surveilled—is becoming part of one’s civic duty. Thus, the debate over pseudonymity is also a debate about the extent to which corporations can expect compliance to the increasingly normalised demands of a surveillance society. And so, for all of these reasons, debates over pseudonymity reveal a host of complex and multi-layered tensions about technology’s influence on the construction of personas, and how these personas are shaped by encroaching forms of surveillance and the marketing of identities. Proponents of pseudonymity use numerous strategies to challenge, subvert, or reconceptualise privileged assumptions about the complex relationships among names, personas, and identities. In doing so, they contribute to an important shift, from the classic question of “What’s in a name?” to “Who wants to know, and why?” References boyd, danah. “‘Real Names’ Policies Are an Abuse of Power.” Zephoria 4 Aug. 2011. 18 Oct. 2013 ‹http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2011/08/04/real-names.html›. Coffeeandink. “RaceFail: Once More, with Misdirection.” Coffeeandink 2 Mar. 2009. 18 Oct. 2013 ‹http://coffeeandink.livejournal.com/901816.html›. Elusis. “Don’t Try to Teach Your Internet Grandmother to Suck Eggs: On Anonymity/Pseudonymity.” Elusis 5 Mar. 2009. 18 Oct. 2013 ‹http://elusis.livejournal.com/1891498.html›. Geek Feminism. “Hacker News and Pseudonymity.” Geek Feminism Wiki n.d. 15 Jan. 2014 ‹http://geekfeminism.org/2010/06/10/hacker-news-and-pseudonymity/›. Gilliom, John, and Torin Monahan. SuperVision: An Introduction to the Surveillance Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012. Hess, Amanda. “Why Women Aren’t Welcome on the Internet.” Pacific Standard 6 Jan. 2014. 15 Apr. 2014 ‹http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/women-arent-welcome-internet-72170/›. Masnick, Mike. “What’s in a Name: The Importance of Pseudonymity and the Dangers of Requiring ‘Real Names.’” TechDirt 5 Aug. 2011. 29 Apr. 2014 ‹https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110805/14103715409/whats-name-importance-pseudonymity-dangers-requiring-real-names.shtml›. Paolucci, Denise. “Real Name Policies: They Just Don’t Work.” Dreamwidth 3 Aug. 2011. 15 Oct. 2013 ‹http://denise.dreamwidth.org/60359.html›. Plant, Sadie. Zeros + Ones: Digital Women and the New Technoculture. New York: Doubleday, 1997. Rheingold, Howard. Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Basic Books, 2002. Sarkeesian, Anita. “Harassment, Misogyny and Silencing on YouTube.” Feminist Frequency 7 June 2012. 17 Apr. 2014 ‹http://www.feministfrequency.com/2012/06/harassment-misogyny-and-silencing-on-youtube/›. smith, s.e. “The Google+ Nymwars: Where Identity and Capitalism Collide.” Tiger Beatdown 3 Aug. 2011. 18 Oct. 2013 ‹http://tigerbeatdown.com/2011/08/03/the-google-nymwars-where-identity-and-capitalism-collide/›. smith, s.e. “On Blogging, Threats, and Silence.” Tiger Beatdown 11 Oct. 2011. 17 Apr. 2014 ‹http://tigerbeatdown.com/2011/10/11/on-blogging-threats-and-silence/›. Stokely, Sarah. “Why Google Should Allow Anonymous/Pseudonymous Names on Google+.” Sarah Stokely: On Teaching and Participating in Online Media 8 July 2011. 15 Oct. 2013 ‹http://www.sarahstokely.com/blog/2011/07/why-google-should-allow-anonymouspseudonymous-names-on-google/›. “Who Is Harmed by a Real Names Policy?” Geek Feminism Wiki n.d. 15 Oct. 2013 ‹http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Who_is_harmed_by_a_%22Real_Names%22_policy%3F›.

Photograph by Gonzalo Echeverria (2010)We need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public’s imagination … so we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts … each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest (Hulme 347). Acclaimed climate scientist, the late Stephen Schneider, made this comment in 1988. Later he regretted it and said that there are ways of using metaphors that can “convey both urgency and uncertainty” (Hulme 347). What Schneider encapsulates here is the great conundrum for those attempting to communicate climate change to the everyday public. How do scientists capture the public’s imagination and convey the desperation they feel about climate change, but do it ethically? If scientific findings are presented carefully, in boring technical jargon that few can understand, then they are unlikely to attract audiences or provide an impetus for behavioural change. “What can move someone to act?” asks communication theorists Susan Moser and Lisa Dilling (37). “If a red light blinks on in a cockpit” asks Donella Meadows, “should the pilot ignore it until in speaks in an unexcited tone? … Is there any way to say [it] sweetly? Patiently? If one did, would anyone pay attention?” (Moser and Dilling 37). In 2010 Tim Flannery was appointed Panasonic Chair in Environmental Sustainability at Macquarie University. His main teaching role remains within the new science communication programme. One of the first things Flannery was emphatic about was acquainting students with Karl Popper and the origin of the scientific method. “There is no truth in science”, he proclaimed in his first lecture to students “only theories, hypotheses and falsifiabilities”. In other words, science’s epistemological limits are framed such that, as Michael Lemonick argues, “a statement that cannot be proven false is generally not considered to be scientific” (n.p., my emphasis). The impetus for the following paper emanates precisely from this issue of scientific uncertainty — more specifically from teaching a course with Tim Flannery called Communicating climate change to a highly motivated group of undergraduate science communication students. I attempt to illuminate how uncertainty is constructed differently by different groups and that the “public” does not necessarily interpret uncertainty in the same way the sciences do. This paper also analyses how doubt has been politicised and operates polemically in media coverage of climate change. As Andrew Gorman-Murray and Gordon Waitt highlight in an earlier issue of M/C Journal that focused on the climate-culture nexus, an understanding of the science alone is not adequate to deal with the cultural change necessary to address the challenges climate change brings (n.p). Far from being redundant in debates around climate change, the humanities have much to offer. Erosion of Trust in Science The objectives of Macquarie’s science communication program are far more ambitious than it can ever hope to achieve. But this is not necessarily a bad thing. The initiative is a response to declining student numbers in maths and science programmes around the country and is designed to address the perceived lack of communication skills in science graduates that the Australian Council of Deans of Science identified in their 2001 report. According to Macquarie Vice Chancellor Steven Schwartz’s blog, a broader, and much more ambitious aim of the program is to “restore public trust in science and scientists in the face of widespread cynicism” (n.p.). In recent times the erosion of public trust in science was exacerbated through the theft of e-mails from East Anglia University’s Climate Research Unit and the so-called “climategate scandal” which ensued. With the illegal publication of the e-mails came claims against the Research Unit that climate experts had been manipulating scientific data to suit a pro-global warming agenda. Three inquiries later, all the scientists involved were cleared of any wrongdoing, however the damage had already been done. To the public, what this scandal revealed was a certain level of scientific hubris around the uncertainties of the science and an unwillingness to explain the nature of these uncertainties. The prevailing notion remained that the experts were keeping information from public scrutiny and not being totally honest with them, which at least in the short term, damaged the scientists’s credibility. Many argued that this signalled a shift in public opinion and media portrayal on the issue of climate change in late 2009. University of Sydney academic, Rod Tiffen, claimed in the Sydney Morning Herald that the climategate scandal was “one of the pivotal moments in changing the politics of climate change” (n.p). In Australia this had profound implications and meant that the bipartisan agreement on an emissions trading scheme (ETS) that had almost been reached, subsequently collapsed with (climate sceptic) Tony Abbott's defeat of (ETS advocate) Malcolm Turnbull to become opposition leader (Tiffen). Not long after the reputation of science received this almighty blow, albeit unfairly, the federal government released a report in February 2010, Inspiring Australia – A national strategy for engagement with the sciences as part of the country’s innovation agenda. The report outlines a commitment from the Australian government and universities around the country to address the challenges of not only communicating science to the broader community but, in the process, renewing public trust and engagement in science. The report states that: in order to achieve a scientifically engaged Australia, it will be necessary to develop a culture where the sciences are recognized as relevant to everyday life … Our science institutions will be expected to share their knowledge and to help realize full social, economic, health and environmental benefits of scientific research and in return win ongoing public support. (xiv-xv) After launching the report, Innovation Minister Kim Carr went so far as to conflate “hope” with “science” and in the process elevate a discourse of technological determinism: “it’s time for all true friends of science to step up and defend its values and achievements” adding that, "when you denigrate science, you destroy hope” (n.p.). Forever gone is our naïve post-war world when scientists were held in such high esteem that they could virtually use humans as guinea pigs to test out new wonder chemicals; such as organochlorines, of which DDT is the most widely known (Carson). Thanks to government-sponsored nuclear testing programs, if you were born in the 1950s, 1960s or early 1970s, your brain carries a permanent nuclear legacy (Flannery, Here On Earth 158). So surely, for the most part, questioning the authority and hubristic tendencies of science is a good thing. And I might add, it’s not just scientists who bear this critical burden, the same scepticism is directed towards journalists, politicians and academics alike – something that many cultural theorists have noted is characteristic of our contemporary postmodern world (Lyotard). So far from destroying hope, as the former Innovation Minister Kim Carr (now Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) suggests, surely we need to use the criticisms of science as a vehicle upon which to initiate hope and humility. Different Ways of Knowing: Bayesian Beliefs and Matters of Concern At best, [science] produces a robust consensus based on a process of inquiry that allows for continued scrutiny, re-examination, and revision. (Oreskes 370) In an attempt to capitalise on the Macquarie Science Faculty’s expertise in climate science, I convened a course in second semester 2010 called SCOM201 Science, Media, Community: Communicating Climate Change, with invaluable assistance from Penny Wilson, Elaine Kelly and Liz Morgan. Mike Hulme’s provocative text, Why we disagree about climate change: Understanding controversy, inaction and opportunity provided an invaluable framework for the course. Hulme’s book brings other types of knowledge, beyond the scientific, to bear on our attitudes towards climate change. Climate change, he claims, has moved from being just a physical, scientific, and measurable phenomenon to becoming a social and cultural phenomenon. In order to understand the contested nature of climate change we need to acknowledge the dynamic and varied meanings climate has played in different cultures throughout history as well as the role that our own subjective attitudes and judgements play. Climate change has become a battleground between different ways of knowing, alternative visions of the future, competing ideas about what’s ethical and what’s not. Hulme makes the point that one of the reasons that we disagree about climate change is because we disagree about the role of science in today’s society. He encourages readers to use climate change as a tool to rigorously question the basis of our beliefs, assumptions and prejudices. Since uncertainty was the course’s raison d’etre, I was fortunate to have an extraordinary cohort of students who readily engaged with a course that forced them to confront their own epistemological limits — both personally and in a disciplinary sense. (See their blog: https://scom201.wordpress.com/). Science is often associated with objective realities. It thus tends to distinguish itself from the post-structuralist vein of critique that dominates much of the contemporary humanities. At the core of post-structuralism is scepticism about everyday, commonly accepted “truths” or what some call “meta-narratives” as well as an acknowledgement of the role that subjectivity plays in the pursuit of knowledge (Lyotard). However if we can’t rely on objective truths or impartial facts then where does this leave us when it comes to generating policy or encouraging behavioural change around the issue of climate change? Controversial philosophy of science scholar Bruno Latour sits squarely in the post-structuralist camp. In his 2004 article, “Why has critique run out of steam? From matters of fact to matters of concern”, he laments the way the right wing has managed to gain ground in the climate change debate through arguing that uncertainty and lack of proof is reason enough to deny demands for action. Or to use his turn-of-phrase, “dangerous extremists are using the very same argument of social construction to destroy hard-won evidence that could save our lives” (Latour n.p). Through co-opting (the Left’s dearly held notion of) scepticism and even calling themselves “climate sceptics”, they exploited doubt as a rationale for why we should do nothing about climate change. Uncertainty is not only an important part of science, but also of the human condition. However, as sociologist Sheila Jasanoff explains in her Nature article, “Technologies of Humility”, uncertainty has become like a disease: Uncertainty has become a threat to collective action, the disease that knowledge must cure. It is the condition that poses cruel dilemmas for decision makers; that must be reduced at all costs; that is tamed with scenarios and assessments; and that feeds the frenzy for new knowledge, much of it scientific. (Jasanoff 33) If we move from talking about climate change as “a matter of fact” to “a matter of concern”, argues Bruno Latour, then we can start talking about useful ways to combat it, rather than talking about whether the science is “in” or not. Facts certainly matter, claims Latour, but they can’t give us the whole story, rather “they assemble with other ingredients to produce a matter of concern” (Potter and Oster 123). Emily Potter and Candice Oster suggest that climate change can’t be understood through either natural or cultural frames alone and, “unlike a matter of fact, matters of concern cannot be explained through a single point of view or discursive frame” (123). This makes a lot of what Hulme argues far more useful because it enables the debate to be taken to another level. Those of us with non-scientific expertise can centre debates around the kinds of societies we want, rather than being caught up in the scientific (un)certainties. If we translate Latour’s concept of climate change being “a matter of concern” into the discourse of environmental management then what we come up with, I think, is the “precautionary principle”. In the YouTube clip, “Stephen Schneider vs Skeptics”, Schneider argues that when in doubt about the potential environmental impacts of climate change, we should always apply the precautionary principle. This principle emerged from the UN conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and concerns the management of scientific risk. However its origins are evident much earlier in documents such as the “Use of Pesticides” from US President’s Science Advisory Committee in 1962. Unlike in criminal and other types of law where the burden of proof is on the prosecutor to show that the person charged is guilty of a particular offence, in environmental law the onus of proof is on the manufacturers to demonstrate the safety of their product. For instance, a pesticide should be restricted or disproved for use if there is “reasonable doubt” about its safety (Oreskes 374). Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development in 1992 has its foundations in the precautionary principle: “Where there are threats of serious or irreversible environmental damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing measures to prevent environmental degradation” (n.p). According to Environmental Law Online, the Rio declaration suggests that, “The precautionary principle applies where there is a ‘lack of full scientific certainty’ – that is, when science cannot say what consequences to expect, how grave they are, or how likely they are to occur” (n.p.). In order to make predictions about the likelihood of an event occurring, scientists employ a level of subjectivity, or need to “reveal their degree of belief that a prediction will turn out to be correct … [S]omething has to substitute for this lack of certainty” otherwise “the only alternative is to admit that absolutely nothing is known” (Hulme 85). These statements of “subjective probabilities or beliefs” are called Bayesian, after eighteenth century English mathematician Sir Thomas Bayes who developed the theory of evidential probability. These “probabilities” are estimates, or in other words, subjective, informed judgements that draw upon evidence and experience about the likelihood of event occurring. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) uses Bayesian beliefs to determine the risk or likelihood of an event occurring. The IPCC provides the largest international scientific assessment of climate change and often adopts a consensus model where viewpoint reached by the majority of scientists is used to establish knowledge amongst an interdisciplinary community of scientists and then communicate it to the public (Hulme 88). According to the IPCC, this consensus is reached amongst more than more than 450 lead authors, more than 800 contributing authors, and 2500 scientific reviewers. While it is an advisory body and is not policy-prescriptive, the IPCC adopts particular linguistic conventions to indicate the probability of a statement being correct. Stephen Schneider convinced the IPCC to use this approach to systemise uncertainty (Lemonick). So for instance, in the IPCC reports, the term “likely” denotes a chance of 66%-90% of the statement being correct, while “very likely” denotes more than a 90% chance. Note the change from the Third Assessment Report (2001), indicating that “most of the observed warming in over the last fifty years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas emissions” to the Fourth Assessment (February 2007) which more strongly states: “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid twentieth century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations” (Hulme 51, my italics). A fiery attack on Tim Flannery by Andrew Bolt on Steve Price’s talkback radio show in June 2010 illustrates just how misunderstood scientific uncertainty is in the broader community. When Price introduces Flannery as former Australian of the Year, Bolt intercedes, claiming Flannery is “Alarmist of the Year”, then goes on to chastise Flannery for making various forecasts which didn’t eventuate, such as that Perth and Brisbane might run out of water by 2009. “How much are you to blame for the swing in sentiment, the retreat from global warming policy and rise of scepticism?” demands Bolt. In the context of the events of late 2009 and early 2010, the fact that these events didn’t materialise made Flannery, and others, seem unreliable. And what Bolt had to say on talkback radio, I suspect, resonated with a good proportion of its audience. What Bolt was trying to do was discredit Flannery’s scientific credentials and in the process erode trust in the expert. Flannery’s response was to claim that, what he said was that these events might eventuate. In much the same way that the climate sceptics have managed to co-opt scepticism and use it as a rationale for inaction on climate change, Andrew Bolt here either misunderstands basic scientific method or quite consciously misleads and manipulates the public. As Naomi Oreskes argues, “proof does not play the role in science that most people think it does (or should), and therefore it cannot play the role in policy that skeptics demand it should” (Oreskes 370). Doubt and ‘Situated’ Hope Uncertainty and ambiguity then emerge here as resources because they force us to confront those things we really want–not safety in some distant, contested future but justice and self-understanding now. (Sheila Jasanoff, cited in Hulme, back cover) In his last published book before his death in mid-2010, Science as a contact sport, Stephen Schneider’s advice to aspiring science communicators is that they should engage with the media “not at all, or a lot”. Climate scientist Ann Henderson-Sellers adds that there are very few scientists “who have the natural ability, and learn or cultivate the talents, of effective communication with and through the media” (430). In order to attract the public’s attention, it was once commonplace for scientists to write editorials and exploit fear-provoking measures by including a “useful catastrophe or two” (Moser and Dilling 37). But are these tactics effective? Susanne Moser thinks not. She argues that “numerous studies show that … fear may change attitudes … but not necessarily increase active engagement or behaviour change” (Moser 70). Furthermore, risk psychologists argue that danger is always context specific (Hulme 196). If the risk or danger is “situated” and “tangible” (such as lead toxicity levels in children in Mt Isa from the Xstrata mine) then the public will engage with it. However if it is “un-situated” (distant, intangible and diffuse) like climate change, the audience is less likely to. In my SCOM201 class we examined the impact of two climate change-related campaigns. The first one was a short film used to promote the 2010 Copenhagen Climate Change Summit (“Scary”) and the second was the State Government of Victoria’s “You have the power: Save Energy” public awareness campaign (“You”). Using Moser’s article to guide them, students evaluated each campaign’s effectiveness. Their conclusions were that the “You have the power” campaign had far more impact because it a) had very clear objectives (to cut domestic power consumption) b) provided a very clear visualisation of carbon dioxide through the metaphor of black balloons wafting up into the atmosphere, c) gave viewers a sense of empowerment and hope through describing simple measures to cut power consumption and, d) used simple but effective metaphors to convey a world progressed beyond human control, such as household appliances robotically operating themselves in the absence of humans. Despite its high production values, in comparison, the Copenhagen Summit promotion was more than ineffective and bordered on propaganda. It actually turned viewers off with its whining, righteous appeal of, “please help the world”. Its message and objectives were ambiguous, it conveyed environmental catastrophe through hackneyed images, exploited children through a narrative based on fear and gave no real sense of hope or empowerment. In contrast the Victorian Government’s campaign focused on just one aspect of climate change that was made both tangible and situated. Doubt and uncertainty are productive tools in the pursuit of knowledge. Whether it is scientific or otherwise, uncertainty will always be the motivation that “feeds the frenzy for new knowledge” (Jasanoff 33). Articulating the importance of Hulme’s book, Sheila Jasanoff indicates we should make doubt our friend, “Without downplaying its seriousness, Hulme demotes climate change from ultimate threat to constant companion, whose murmurs unlock in us the instinct for justice and equality” (Hulme back cover). The “murmurs” that Jasanoff gestures to here, I think, can also be articulated as hope. And it is in this discussion of climate change that doubt and hope sit side-by-side as bedfellows, mutually entangled. Since the “failed” Copenhagen Summit, there has been a distinct shift in climate change discourse from “experts”. We have moved away from doom and gloom discourses and into the realm of what I shall call “situated” hope. “Situated” hope is not based on blind faith alone, but rather hope grounded in evidence, informed judgements and experience. For instance, in distinct contrast to his cautionary tale The Weather Makers: The History & Future Impact of Climate Change, Tim Flannery’s latest book, Here on Earth is a biography of our Earth; a planet that throughout its history has oscillated between Gaian and Medean impulses. However Flannery’s wonder about the natural world and our potential to mitigate the impacts of climate change is not founded on empty rhetoric but rather tempered by evidence; he presents a series of case studies where humanity has managed to come together for a global good. Whether it’s the 1987 Montreal ban on CFCs (chlorinated fluorocarbons) or the lesser-known 2001 Stockholm Convention on POP (Persistent Organic Pollutants), what Flannery envisions is an emerging global civilisation, a giant, intelligent super-organism glued together through social bonds. He says: If that is ever achieved, the greatest transformation in the history of our planet would have occurred, for Earth would then be able to act as if it were as Francis Bacon put it all those centuries ago, ‘one entire, perfect living creature’. (Here on Earth, 279) While science might give us “our most reliable understanding of the natural world” (Oreskes 370), “situated” hope is the only productive and ethical currency we have. ReferencesAustralian Council of Deans of Science. What Did You Do with Your Science Degree? A National Study of Employment Outcomes for Science Degree Holders 1990-2000. Melbourne: Centre for the Study of Higher Education, University of Melbourne, 2001. Australian Government Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Inspiring Australia – A National Strategy for Engagement with the Sciences. Executive summary. Canberra: DIISR, 2010. 24 May 2010 ‹http://www.innovation.gov.au/SCIENCE/INSPIRINGAUSTRALIA/Documents/InspiringAustraliaSummary.pdf›. “Andrew Bolt with Tim Flannery.” Steve Price. Hosted by Steve Price. Melbourne: Melbourne Talkback Radio, 2010. 9 June 2010 ‹http://www.mtr1377.com.au/index2.php?option=com_newsmanager&task=view&id=6209›. Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. London: Penguin, 1962 (2000). Carr, Kim. “Celebrating Nobel Laureate Professor Elizabeth Blackburn.” Canberra: DIISR, 2010. 19 Feb. 2010 ‹http://minister.innovation.gov.au/Carr/Pages/CELEBRATINGNOBELLAUREATEPROFESSORELIZABETHBLACKBURN.aspx›. Environmental Law Online. “The Precautionary Principle.” N.d. 19 Jan 2011 ‹http://www.envirolaw.org.au/articles/precautionary_principle›. Flannery, Tim. The Weather Makers: The History & Future Impact of Climate Change. Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2005. ———. Here on Earth: An Argument for Hope. Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2010. Gorman-Murray, Andrew, and Gordon Waitt. “Climate and Culture.” M/C Journal 12.4 (2009). 9 Mar 2011 ‹http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/viewArticle/184/0›. Harrison, Karey. “How ‘Inconvenient’ Is Al Gore’s Climate Change Message?” M/C Journal 12.4 (2009). 9 Mar 2011 ‹http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/viewArticle/175›. Henderson-Sellers, Ann. “Climate Whispers: Media Communication about Climate Change.” Climatic Change 40 (1998): 421–456. Hulme, Mike. Why We Disagree about Climate Change: Understanding, Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. A Picture of Climate Change: The Current State of Understanding. 2007. 11 Jan 2011 ‹http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/press-ar4/ipcc-flyer-low.pdf›. Jasanoff, Sheila. “Technologies of Humility.” Nature 450 (2007): 33. Latour, Bruno. “Why Has Critique Run Out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern.” Critical Inquiry 30.2 (2004). 19 Jan 2011 ‹http://criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/issues/v30/30n2.Latour.html›. Lemonick, Michael D. “Climate Heretic: Judith Curry Turns on Her Colleagues.” Nature News 1 Nov. 2010. 9 Mar 2011 ‹http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101101/full/news.2010.577.html›. Lyotard, Jean-Francois. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1984. Moser, Susanne, and Lisa Dilling. “Making Climate Hot: Communicating the Urgency and Challenge of Global Climate Change.” Environment 46.10 (2004): 32-46. Moser, Susie. “More Bad News: The Risk of Neglecting Emotional Responses to Climate Change Information.” In Susanne Moser and Lisa Dilling (eds.), Creating a Climate for Change: Communicating Climate Change and Facilitating Social Change. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007. 64-81. Oreskes, Naomi. “Science and Public Policy: What’s Proof Got to Do with It?” Environmental Science and Policy 7 (2004): 369-383. Potter, Emily, and Candice Oster. “Communicating Climate Change: Public Responsiveness and Matters of Concern.” Media International Australia 127 (2008): 116-126. President’s Science Advisory Committee. “Use of Pesticides”. Washington, D.C.: The White House, 1963. United Nations Declaration on Environment and Development. Rio de Janeiro, 1992. 19 Jan 2011 ‹http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=78&ArticleID=1163›. “Scary Global Warming Propaganda Video Shown at the Copenhagen Climate Meeting – 7 Dec. 2009.” YouTube. 21 Mar. 2011‹http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzSuP_TMFtk&feature=related›. Schneider, Stephen. Science as a Contact Sport: Inside the Battle to Save Earth’s Climate. National Geographic Society, 2010. ———. “Stephen Schneider vs. the Sceptics”. YouTube. 21 Mar. 2011 ‹http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rj1QcdEqU0›. Schwartz, Steven. “Science in Search of a New Formula.” 2010. 20 May 2010 ‹http://www.vc.mq.edu.au/blog/2010/03/11/science-in-search-of-a-new-formula/›. Tiffen, Rodney. "You Wouldn't Read about It: Climate Scientists Right." Sydney Morning Herald 26 July 2010. 19 Jan 2011 ‹http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/you-wouldnt-read-about-it-climate-scientists-right-20100727-10t5i.html›. “You Have the Power: Save Energy.” YouTube. 21 Mar. 2011 ‹http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCiS5k_uPbQ›.

“A bunch of faggots for watching men hug each other in tights.”For the past five Marches, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) has produced an awards show which honours its aged former performers, such as Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka and Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat, as pro-wrestling Legends. This awards show, according to WWE, is ‘an elegant, emotional, star-studded event that recognizes the in-ring achievements of the inductees and offers historical insights into this century-old sports-entertainment attraction’ (WWE.com, n.p.). In an episodic storyline leading up to the 2009 awards, however, the real-life personal shortcomings of these Legends have been brought to light, and subsequently mocked in one-on-one interview segments with WWE’s Superstar of the Year 2008, the dastardly Chris Jericho. Jericho caps off these tirades by physically assaulting the Legends with handy stage props. Significantly, the performances of Jericho and his victims have garnered positive attention not only from mass audiences unaware of backstage happenings in WWE, but also from the informed community of pro-wrestling fans over at the nihilistic humour website SomethingAwful. During Jericho’s assault on the Legend Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka at the March 02 WWE Raw event, a WWE-themed forum thread on SomethingAwful logged over sixty posts all reiterating variations of ‘gently caress me Jericho is amazing’ (Jerusalem, n.p.). This is despite the community’s passive-aggressive and ironically jaded official line that they indeed are ‘a bunch of faggots for watching men hug each other in tights. Thank you for not telling us this several times’ (HulkaMatt, n.p.). Why were these normally cynical fans of WWE enthusiastically expressing their love for the Jericho-Legends feud? In order to answer this question, this paper argues that the feud articulates not only the ideal of the “giving wrestler”, but also Roland Barthes’s version of jouissance. Consuming and commenting on WWE texts within the SomethingAwful community is further argued to be a performative ritual in which informed wrestling fans distance themselves from audiences they perceive as uncritical and ill-informed cultural dupes. The feud, then, allows the SomethingAwful fans to perform enthusiasm on two interconnected levels: they are not only able to ironically cheer on Jericho’s morally reprehensible actions, but also to genuinely appreciate the present-day in-ring efforts of the Legends. The Passion of the SuperflyTo properly contextualise this paper, though, the fact that “pro wrestling is fake” needs to be reiterated. Each match is a choreographed sequence of moves. Victory does not result from landing more damaging bodyslams than one's opponent, but is instead predetermined by scriptwriters—among whom wrestlers are typically not numbered—backstage. In the 1950s, Roland Barthes thus commented that pro wrestling ‘is not a sport, it is a spectacle’ (Mythologies 13). Yet, pro wrestling remains popular because this theatricality allows for the display of spectacular excesses of passion—here Barthes not only means “an intensity of emotion”, but refers to the physically tortured heroes of medieval passion plays as well—giving it an advantage over the legitimate sport of amateur wrestling. ‘It is obvious that at such a pitch, it no longer matters whether the passion is genuine or not. What the public wants is the image of passion, not passion itself’ (Mythologies 16). This observation still holds true in today’s WWE. On one hand, the SomethingAwful fans go ‘gently caress Jericho, [Superfly] will MURDER you’ (Jerusalem, n.p.) in disapproval of Jericho’s on-screen actions. In the same thread, though, they simultaneously fret over him being slightly injured from an off-screen real life accident. ‘Jericho looks busted up on his forehead. Dang’ (Carney, n.p.).However, Barthes’s observations, while seminal, are not the be-all and end-all of pro wrestling scholarship. The industry has undergone a significant number of changes since the 1950s. Speeches and interview segments are now seen as essential tools for furthering storylines. Correspondingly, they are given ample TV time. At over ten minutes, the Jericho-“Superfly” confrontation from the March 02 Raw is longer than both the matches following it, and a fifteen minute conversation between two top wrestlers capstones these two matches. Henry Jenkins has thus argued that pro wrestling is a male-targeted melodrama. Its ‘writers emphasize many traits that [legitimate sports such as] football share with melodrama-the clear opposition between characters, the sharp alignment of audience identification, abrupt shifts in fortune, and an emotionally satisfying resolution’ (Jenkins, “Never Trust a Snake” 81). Unlike football, though, the predetermined nature of pro wrestling means that its events can be ‘staged to ensure maximum emotional impact and a satisfying climax’ (Jenkins, “Never Trust a Snake” 81). Further, Jenkins notes that shouting is preferred over tears as an outlet for male affect. It ‘embodies externalised emotion; it is aggressive and noisy. Women cry from a position of emotional (and often social) vulnerability; men shout from a position of physical and social strength (however illusory)’ (Jenkins, “Never Trust a Snake” 80). Pro wrestling is seen to encourage this outlet for affect by offering its viewers spectacles of male physical prowess to either castigate or cheer. Jericho’s assault of the Legends, coupled with his half-screaming, half-shouting taunts of “‘Hall of Famer’? ‘Hall of Famer’ of what? You’re a has-been! Just like all the rest!” could be read to fit within this paradigm as well. Smarts vs. MarksWWE has repeatedly highlighted its scripted nature in recent years. During a 2007 CNN interview, for instance, WWE Chairman Vince McMahon constantly refers to his product as “entertainment” and laughingly agrees that “it’s all story” when discussing his on-screen interactions with his long-lost midget “son” (Griffin, n.p.). These overt acknowledgments that WWE is a highly choreographed melodrama have boosted the growth of a fan demographic referred to the "smart" in pro-wrestling argot. This “smart” fan is a figure for whom the fabricated nature of pro-wrestling necessitates an engagement with the WWE spectacle at a different level from mass audiences. The “smart” not only ‘follow[s] the WWE not just to see the shows, but to keep track of what “the Fed[eration]” is doing’ (McBride and Bird 170) with regards to off-camera events, but also 'has knowledge of the inner-workings of the wrestling business’ (PWTorch, n.p.). One of the few “GOLD”-rated threads on the SomethingAwful smart forums, accordingly, is titled “WWE News and Other Top Stories, The Insider Thread”, and has nearly 400 000 views and over 1000 posts. As a result, the smarts are in a subject position of relative insider-ness. They consume the WWE spectacle at a deeper level—one which functions roughly like an apparatus of capture for the critical/cynical affect mobilised around the binary of ‘real’ and ‘fake’—yet ultimately remain captured by the spectacle through their autodidact enthusiasm for knowledge which uncovers its inner workings.By contrast, there is the category of the “mark” fan. These “marks” are individuals who remain credulous in their reception of WWE programming. As cuteygrl08 writes regarding a recent WWE storyline involving brotherly envy:I LOVE JEFF HARDY!!!! i cried when i heard his brother say all the crap about him!! kinda weird but i love him and this video is soooo good!! JEFF hardy loves his fans and his fans love him no matter what he does i'll always love JEFF HARDY!!!!!!!!!!! (n.p.)This unstinting faith in the on-screen spectacle is understandable insofar as WWE programming trades upon powerful visual markers of authenticity—nearly-bare bodies, sweat, pained facial expressions­—and complements them with the adrenaline-producing beats of thrash metal and hard rock. Yet, smarts look down upon marks like cuteygrl08, seeing them as Frankfurt School-era hypnotised sots for whom the WWE spectacle is ‘the common ground of the deceived gaze and of false consciousness’ (Debord 117), and additionally as victims of a larger media industry which specialises in mass deception (Horkheimer and Adorno 41). As Lawrence McBride and Elizabeth Bird observe:Marks appear to believe in the authenticity of the competition—Smarts see them as the stereotypical dupes imagined by wrestling critics. Smarts approach the genre of wrestling as would-be insiders, while Marks root unreflexively for the most popular faces. Smart fans possess truly incredible amounts of knowledge about the history of wrestling, including wrestler’s real names and career histories, how various promotions began and folded, who won every Wrestlemania ever. Smart fan informants defined a Mark specifically as someone who responds to wrestling in the way intended by the people who write the storylines (the bookers), describing Marks with statements such as “Kids are Marks.” or “We were all Marks when we were kids.” Smarts view Marks with scorn. (169)Perhaps feeding on the antagonistic binaries drawn by WWE programming, there exists an “us vs them” binary in smart fan communities. Previous research has shown that fan communities often rigidly police the boundaries of “good taste”, and use negatively constructed differences as a means of identity construction (Fiske 448; Jenkins, “Get a Life!” 432; Theodoropoulou 321). This ritual Othering is especially important when supporting the WWE. Smarts are aware that they are fans of a product denigrated by non-fans as ‘trash TV’ (McKinley, n.p.). As Matt Hills finds, fandom is a mode of performative consumption. It is ‘an identity which is (dis)claimed, and which performs cultural work’ (Hills xi). Belonging to the SomethingAwful smart community, thus, exerts its own pressures on the individual smart. There, the smart must perform ‘audiencehood, knowing that other fans will act as a readership for speculation, observation, and commentaries’ (Hills 177). Wrestling, then, is not just to be watched passively. It must be analysed, and critically dissected with reference to the encyclopaedic knowledge treasured by the smart community. Mark commentary has to be pilloried, for despite all the ironic disaffection characterising their posts, the smarts display mark-like behaviour by watching and purchasing WWE programming under their own volition. A near-existential dread is hence articulated when smarts become aware of points where the boundaries between smart and mark overlap, that ‘the creatures that lurk the internet ...carry some of the same interests that we do’ (rottingtrashcan, n.p.). Any commonalities between smarts and marks must thus be disavowed as a surface resemblance: afterall, creatures are simply unthinking appetites, not smart epicures. We’re better than those plebs; in fact, we’re nothing like them any more. Yet, in one of the few forms of direct address in the glossary of smart newsletter PWTorch, to “mark out” is ‘to enthusiastically be into [a storyline] or match as if you [emphasis added] were “a mark”; to suspend one's disbelief for the sake of enjoying to a greater extent a match or [a storyline]’ (PWTorch, n.p.). The existence of the term “marking out” in a smart glossary points to an enjoyably liminal privileged position between that of defensively ironic critic and that of credulous dupe, one where smarts can stop their performance of cooler-than-thou fatigue and enthusiastically believe that there is nothing more to WWE than spontaneous alarms and excursions. The bodily reactions of the Legends in response to Jericho's physical assault helps foster this willing naiveté. These reactions are a distressing break from the generic visual conventions set forth by preceding decades of professional wrestling. As Barthes argues, wrestling is as much concerned with images of spectacular suffering as with narratives of amazing triumphs:the wrestler who suffers in a hold which is reputedly cruel (an arm- lock, a twisted leg) offers an excessive portrayal of Suffering; like a primitive Pieta, he exhibits for all to see his face, exaggeratedly contorted by an intolerable affliction. It is obvious, of course, that in wrestling reserve would be out of place, since it is opposed to the voluntary ostentation of the spectacle, to this Exhibition of Suffering which is the very aim of the fight. (17)Barthes was writing of the primitively filmed wrestling matches of the 1950s notable for their static camera shots. However, WWE wrestlers yet follow this theatrical aesthetic. In the match immediately following Jericho’s bullying of Superfly, Kane considerately jumps the last two feet into a ringside turnbuckle after Mike Knox pushes him into its general vicinity. Kane grunts at the impact while the camera cuts to a low-angled shot of his back—all the better to magnify the visual of the 150 kg Knox now using his bulk to squash Kane. Whenever Jericho himself traps his opponent in his “Walls of Jericho” submission manoeuvre, both their faces are rictuses of passion. His opponent clutches for the safety of the ring ropes, shaking his head in heroic determination. Audiences see Jericho tighten his grip, his own head shaking in villainous purpose. But the Legends do not gyrate around the set when hit. Instead, they invariably slump to the ground, motionless except for weakly spasming to the rhythm of Jericho’s subsequent attacks. This atypical reaction forces audiences—smart and mark alike—to re-evaluate any assumptions that the event constitutes a typical WWE beatdown. Overblown theatricality gives way to a scene which seems more related to everyday experiences with pain: Here's an old man being beaten and whipped by a strong, young man. He's not moving. Not like other wrestlers do. I wonder... The battered bodies of these Legends are then framed in high angle camera shots, making them look ever so much more vulnerable than they were prior to Jericho’s assault. Hence the smart statements gushing that ‘gently caress me Jericho is amazing’ (Jerusalem, n.p.) and that Jericho’s actions have garnered a ‘rear end in a top hat chant [from the crowd]. It has been FOREVER since I heard one of those. I love Chris Jericho’ (Burrito, n.p.).Jouissance and “Marking Out”This uninhibited “marking out” by normally cynical smarts brings to mind Barthes's observation that texts are able to provoke two different kinds of enjoyment in their readers. On one hand, there is the text which provides pleasure born from familiarity. It ‘contents, fills, grants euphoria; [it is] the text that comes from culture and does not break with it, is linked to a comfortable practice of reading’ (Barthes, Image-Music-Text 14). The Knox-Kane match engendered such a been-there-done-that-it's-ok-I-guess overall reaction from smarts. For every ‘Mike Knox throwing Mysterio at Kane was fantastic’ (Burrito, n.p.), there is an ‘Ahahaha jesus Knox [sic] that was the shittiest Hurracanrana sell ever’ (Axisillian, n.p.), and a ‘Hit the beard [sic] it is Knox's weakpoint’ (Eurotrash, n.p.). The pleasant genericity of the match enables and necessitates that these smarts maintain their tactic of ironic posturing. They are able to armchair critique Knox for making his opponent's spinning Hurracanrana throw look painless. Yet they are also allowed to reiterate their camp affection for Knox's large and bushy beard, which remains grotesque even when divorced from a WWE universe that celebrates sculpted physiques.By contrast, Barthes praises the text of rapturous jouissance. It is one where an orgasmic intensity of pleasure is born from the unravelling of its audience’s assumptions, moving them away from their comfort zone. It is a text which ‘imposes a stage of loss, [a] text that discomforts (perhaps to the point of boredom), unsettles the reader's historical, cultural, psychological assumptions, the consistency of his tastes, values, memories, brings to crisis his relation with language’ (Barthes, Image-Music-Text 14). In addition to the atypical physical reactions of the Legends, WWE cynically positions the Jericho-Legends segments during Raw events which also feature slick video montages highlighting the accomplishments of individual Legends. These montages—complete with an erudite and enthusiastic Voice-of-God narrator— introduce the long-retired Legends to marks unfamiliar with WWE's narrative continuity: “Ladies and gentlemen! Rrriiiicky “The Draaagon” Steeeeamboat!”. At the same time, they serve as a visually and aurally impressive highlight-reel-cum-nostalgic-celebration of each Legend's career accomplishments. Their authoritative narration is spliced to clips of past matches, and informs audiences that, for instance, Steamboat was ‘one of the first Superstars to combine technical skills with astounding aerial agility ... in a match widely regarded as one of the best in history, he captured the Intercontinental title from Randy Savage in front of a record-breaking 93 173 fans’ (“Raw #636”, WWE). Following the unassailably authentic video footage of past matches, other retired wrestlers speak candidly in non-WWE stages such as outdoor parks and their own homes about the Legend's strengths and contributions to the industry.The interesting thing about these didactic montages is not so much what they show —Legends mythologised into triumphant Titans — but rather, what they elide. While the Steamboat-centred package does reflect the smart consensus that his Intercontinental bout ‘was a technical classic, and to this day, is still considered one of the greatest matches of all-time’ (NPP, n.p.), it does not mention how Steamboat was treated poorly in the WWE. Despite coming to it as the widely-known World Champion of [the NWA] rival promotion, WWE producers ‘dressed Steamboat up as a dragon and even made him blow fire. ...To boot, he was never acknowledged as a World Champion and [kept losing] to the stars’ (NPP, n.p.). The montages, overtly endorsed by the gigantic WWE logo as they are, are ultimately pleasant illusions which rewrite inconvenient truths while glamorising pleasant memories.Jericho’s speeches, however, sharply break from this celebratory mode. He references Steamboat’s previous success in the NWA, ‘an organisation that according to this company never even existed’(“Raw #636”, WWE). He then castigates Steamboat for being a real-life sellout and alludes to Steamboat having personal problems unmentioned in the montage:It wasn't until you came to the WWE that you sold your soul to all of these parasites [everyone watching] that you became “The Dragon”. A glorified Karate Kid selling headbands and making poses. Feeding into stereotypes. And then you eventually came to the ring with a Komodo Dragon. Literally spitting fire like the circus freak you'd become. It was pathetic. But hey, it's all right as long as you're making a paycheck, right Steamboat? And then when you decided to retire, you ended up like all the rest. Down and out. Broken. Beaten down. Dysfunctional family ...You applied for a job working for the WWE, you got one working backstage, and now here you are. You see, Steamboat, you are a life-long sellout. And now, with the Hall of Fame induction, the loyal dog gets his bone. (WWE)Here, Jericho demonstrates an apparent unwillingness to follow the company line by not only acknowledging the NWA, but also by disrespecting a current WWE backstage authority. Yet, wrestlers having onscreen tangles with their bosses is the norm for WWE. The most famous storyline of the 1990s had “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and the WWE Chairman brutalising each other for months on end, and the fifteen minute verbal exchange mentioned earlier concerns one wrestler previously attacking the Raw General Manager. Rather, it is Jericho’s reinterpretation of Steamboat’s career trajectory which gives the storyline the intensely pleasurable uncertainty of jouissance. His confrontational speeches rupture the celebratory nostalgia of the montages, forcing smarts to apply extra-textual knowledge to them. This is especially relevant in Steamboat’s case. His montage was shown just prior to his meeting with Jericho, ensuring that his iconic status was fresh in the audience’s memory. Vera Dika’s findings on the conflict between memory and history in revisionist nostalgia films are important to remember here. The tension ‘that comes from the juxtaposition of the coded material against the historical context of the film itself ...encourages a new set of meanings to arise’ (Dika 91). Jericho cynically views the seemingly virtuous and heroic Steamboat as a corporate sycophant preying on fan goodwill to enrich his own selfish ends. This viewpoint, troublingly enough for smarts, is supported by their non-WWE-produced extra-textual knowledge, allowing for a meta-level melodrama to be played out. The speeches thus speak directly to smarts, simultaneously confounding and exceeding their expectations. The comfortingly pleasant memories of Steamboat’s “amazing aerial prowess” are de-emphasised, and he is further linked to the stereotypical juvenilia of the once-popular The Karate Kid. They articulate and capitalise upon whatever misgivings smarts may have regarding Steamboat’s real-life actions. Thus, to paraphrase Dika, ‘seen in this clash, [the Jericho-Legends feud] has the structure of irony, producing a feeling of nostalgia, but also of pathos, and registering the historical events as the cause of an irretrievable loss [of a Legend’s dignity]’ (91). “C’mon Legend! Live in the past!” taunts Jericho as he stuffs Superfly’s mouth with bananas and beats him amidst the wreckage of the exactingly reproduced cheap wooden set in the same way that “Rowdy” Roddy Piper did years ago (“RAW #637”, WWE). This literal dismantling of cherished memories results from WWE producers second-guessing the smarts, and providing these fans with an enjoyably uncomfortable jouissance that cleverly confounds the performance of a smart disaffection. “Marking out” —or its performance at least—results.The Giving WrestlerLastly, the general physical passivity of the Legends also ties into the ethos of the “giving wrestler” when combined with the celebratory montages. In a business where performed passion is integral to fan enjoyment, the “giving wrestler” is an important figure who, when hit by a high-risk move, will make his co-worker’s offense look convincing (McBride and Bird 173). He ‘will give his all in a performance to ensure a dual outcome: the match will be spectacular, benefiting the fans, and each wrestler will make his “opponent” look good, helping him “get over with the fans” (McBride and Bird 172). Unsurprisingly, this figure is appreciated by smarts, who ‘often form strong emotional attachments to those wrestlers who go to the greatest lengths to bear the burden of the performance’ (McBride and Bird 173). As described earlier, the understated reactions of the Legends make Jericho’s attacks paradoxically look as though they cause extreme pain. Yet, when this pathetic image of the Legends is combined with the hypermasculine images of them in their heyday, a tragedy with real-life referents is played out on-stage. In one of Jenkins’s ‘abrupt shifts of fortune’ (“Never Trust a Snake” 81), age has grounded these Legends. They can now believably be assaulted with impunity by someone that Steamboat dismisses as ‘a snotty brat wrestler of a kid[sic] ...a hypocrite’ (“Raw #636”, WWE), and even in this, they apparently give their all to make Jericho look viciously “good”, thus exceeding the high expectations of smarts. As an appreciative thread title on SomethingAwful states, ‘WWE Discussion is the RICKY STEAMBOAT OWN [wins] ZONE for 02/23/09’ (HulkaMatt, n.p.) ConclusionThe Jericho-Legends feud culminated the day after the Hall of Fame ceremony, at the WWE’s flagship Wrestlemania event. Actor Mickey Rourke humiliated Jericho for the honour of the Legends, flattening the cocky braggart with a single punch. The maximum degree of moral order possible was thus temporarily restored to an episodic narrative centred around unprovoked acts of violence. Ultimately though, it is important to note the three strategies that WWE used The Legends were scripted to respond feebly to Jericho’s physical assault, slick recap montages were copiously deployed, and Jericho himself was allowed candid metatextual references to incidents that WWE producers normally like to pretend have “never even existed”. All these strategies were impressive in their own right, and they eventually served to reinforce each other. 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