Academic literature on the topic 'France Foreign public opinion, New Zealand'

The prerequisites and stages of formation of the modern Chinese diaspora in France are considered as part of the global process of development of cross-border migration and its transition to a new quality - the formation of diasporas. The ties of diaspora with China and their perception in the French society are characterized. The dual attitude towards China in France is emphasized: fear of its foreign economic expansion, on the one hand, and assessment of the prospects of economic relations, on the other hand. The composition and characteristics of the Chinese diaspora are analyzed. The prerequisites for the business success of the Chinese are revealed, and contradictory attitudes to them in French society are stated: «a model minority (mêdel minority)» in public opinion and «racism of resentment» in the «collective unconscious».

Introduction. The distribution and receipt of design and construction orders is a most important element in the construction life cycle. It is of considerable interest to study the rules governing the distribution of state orders and the practice of their application in various countries. This article examines the experience of the leading world economies accumulated in the bidding for construction projects. Materials and methods. The authors studied original legal documents on the organization of tenders for construction works in several countries, as well as in international organizations. The tender rules of the USA, France, Germany, New Zealand, Japan, China are considered. Materials of reviews and scientific researches, conducted by other scientists, are also used and summarized. Results. The principal methods for organizing tenders for construction and design works were identified as a result of analysis of regulatory documents. The authors have found many common approaches and methods used to assure equal and responsible relations between the state customer and the construction contractor. Conclusions. It has been established that a number of methods, widely used abroad, are practically not used in Russia, for example, competitive negotiations and two stage tendering. On the contrary, a foreign reader may think that some provisions of the Russian legislation are strange, for example, initial contract price setting by the customer or electronic document management rules in the federal law.

The article provides a historical-genetic and comparative analysis of foreign broadcasting. In the chronotopic aspect the advanced experience of foreign countries (Germany, England, France, USA) is compared with the peculiarities of the formation of foreign broadcasting in Russia. The main stages of the development of foreign broadcasting are highlighted. The dominant media communication channels through which foreign broadcasting activities are carried out are determined. Based on the results of the study, the conclusion is made that at the first stage of its development, foreign broadcasting was not an instrument of foreign policy and rather contributed to the cultural enrichment and support of its compatriots in other countries. However, wartime predetermined the future tonality of foreign broadcasting - a propaganda focus. During the Second World War, foreign broadcasting was used in many countries to discredit the enemy, as well as to motivate the military and the population in the rear. During the Cold War, foreign broadcasting strengthened its propaganda purpose, continuing to implement in its discourse defamatory strategies against competitors and adversaries, against the background of which a new concept of information war was formed. In general, foreign broadcasting as a discourse strategy is mainly used in the course of geopolitical conflicts, both open and latent. In the process of evolution of media communications, an intensification of the struggle for influence on the external audience was observed, which was most clearly manifested as a result of the implementation of foreign broadcasting in the field of television, based on the audiovisual capabilities of this type of media. In the 21st century, the information struggle for the interpretation of reality and, as a consequence, the construction of public opinion on a global scale began to take place in the field of the Internet, where foreign broadcasting has acquired a global character.

The article investigates approaches taken by major political parties and civil society in the FRG toward the Transatlantic partnership. It reveals the tendencies of the prospective promotion of Berlin’s cooperation with Washington; the article also gives a forecast of further interaction between the EU and the USA, indicates the direction of discourse regarding the future Russia–Germany relations model in the context of the Ukrainian crisis and in reference to the increased transatlantic solidarity. Disputes in German socio-political circles on the issue of the FRG’s policy toward the U.S. are emerging all the time, but they have to be considered within a concrete historical and political context. Being of primary significance for all German chancellors, the Trans-Atlantic factor has been shaping itself in a controversial way as to the nation’s public opinion. This has been confirmed by many opinion polls, including the survey on the signing of the EU–U.S. Agreement on the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. Chancellor A. Merkel is playing an important role: she is either ascribed full compliancy with Washington, or is being tentatively shown as a consistent government figure in advancing and upholding of Germany's and the EU's interests. A. Merkel has implemented her peace-seeking drive in undoing the Ukrainian tangle by setting up the “Normandy format” involving the leaders of Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine while having cleared it through with the U.S. President B. Obama well in advance. Despite the increasing criticism of Washington’s policy among some part of Germans, for the majority of German voters, the USA remains a country of implementable hopes, the only power in the world possessing a high education level and the most advanced technologies. Americans, for their part, are confident of the important role that Berlin plays in world politics, particularly in what concerns the maintenance of unity within the EU. Berlin aims at further constructive interaction with the USA in the frame of NATO as well as within other Trans-Atlantic formats. Notwithstanding the steady tendency toward increasing of the Washington policy’s critical perception degree in German society, officially Berlin continues as Washington’s true ally, partner and friend. There is every reason to believe that after the 2017 Bundestag elections, the new (the former) Chancellor will have to face a modernized Trans-Atlantic partnership philosophy, with a paradigm also devised in the spirit of the bloc discipline and commitments to allies. The main concern for Berlin is not to lose its sovereign right of decision-making, including the one that deals with problems of European security and relations with Moscow. Regrettably, Germany is not putting forward any innovative ideas on aligning a new architecture of European security with Russia’s participation. Meanwhile, German scholars and experts are trying to work out a tentative algorithm of a gradual return to the West’s full-fledged dialogue with Russia, which, unfortunately, is qualified as an opponent by many politicians. Predictably, the Crimea issue will remain a long-lasting political irritant in relations between Russia and Germany. Although not every aspect of Berlin’s activation in its foreign policy finds support of the German public, and the outburst of anti-American feeling is obvious, experts believe that the government of the FRG is “merely taking stock of these phenomena and ignores them”. Evident is the gap between the government's line and the feeling of the German parties’ basis – the public. It is noteworthy that the FRG has not yet adopted the Law on Holding General Federal Referendums on key issues of the domestic and foreign policy. There is every indication to assume that the real causes of abandoning the nationwide referendums are the reluctance of the German ruling bureaucracy and even its apprehensions of the negative voting returns on sensitive problems, – such as basic documents and decisions of the EU, the export of German arms, relations with the U.S., etc. The harmony between Berlin’s "Realpolitik" and German public opinion is not yet discernible within the system of Trans-Atlantic axes.

The Covid-19 pandemic imposes a new way of life on us, and in this new reality, we try in every way to find positive aspects for language studies in particular and science in general. One of such aspects is the switch to online scientific meetings and conferences, which have therefore become more accessible also to language enthusiasts from more remote locations. Besides, the already ongoing digitalization of linguistics in different respects, from teaching and learning materials, linguistic data collection, and others, only seems to accelerate in the situation. And finally, as unfortunate as it is, it nevertheless offers numerous new insights into our social lives. The summer issue of Volume 11 is dedicated though not limited to such insights. In the first article “A Comparative Corpus-Based Content Analysis of Head of Government Addresses in Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic: Japan and Western Countries” by Nagisa MORITOKI ŠKOF discussed the speakers’ perspectives and political orientation in public addresses made by heads of government in Japan, the USA, New Zealand, Germany, and Slovenia in response to the coronavirus disease. Following, SAWADA Hiroko and INOUE Rizu in their article “Network for Supporting Education of Foreign Children During Covid-19: Language Assessments as a Tool for Promoting Community Integration” introduce problems of the present Japanese education system, which does not adequately support children whose mother language is not Japanese. Their action research project in collaboration with several schools and one university proposed a support system through online media that would soften the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. The third article in this issue was written by Oleg KALININ. “Comparative Analysis of Coronavirus Metaphoric Representation in Chinese and Russian Online Media” compared the coronavirus metaphorical image in the online media of China and Russia to find out that their basic difference is in discussing or not discussing the positive outcome of the coronavirus battle, which consequently impacts the public opinion. WANG Aiqing’s “Causation in Classical Chinese during the Warring States Period and in the Han Dynasty” explores causation in Classical Chinese and shows that the strategies to form causation structures are compatible with a prosodic theory, according to which agentive and causative constructions involving covert causative verbs are prosodic words, while those involving overt causative verbs exhibit properties of phrases. The article “’I Am Not Punjabi, My Parents Are’: Degradation of the Language of Dominant Majority” by Sham HAIDAR, Tehreem WALI, Tehreem TAHIR, and Mehwish PARVEEN discuss the present status and explore the predicament of the Punjabi language based on the findings that the Punjabi speakers themselves disown their language and the Punjabi identity due to social, economic, religious, and political reasons. Last but not least, Mária IŠTVÁNOVÁ in her article “On The Use of Corpora in Second Language Acquisition – Chinese as an Example” presents several language corpora and points out advantages of their use in the process of Chinese language acquisition together with some practical examples of the corpora's direct and indirect use for teaching and learning Chinese as a second language. Editors and Editorial board wish the regular and new readers of the ALA journal a pleasant read full of inspiration, and a rise of new research ideas inspired by these papers.

Abstract Only two European countries – France and the UK, both NATO members – have nuclear weapons, and leading politicians have called for the UK and EU to maintain close military and security links post-Brexit. In the context of the Trident renewal debate and the UK government's recently published integrated defence and security review, this article uses data from the new UK Security Survey to analyse attitudes towards the possession of nuclear weapons among the British public. It assesses three key theorical strands in the wider scholarly literature on public opinion and states’ use of military force: domestic political attitudes, foreign policy predispositions, and the ‘gender gap’. We find that all three theoretical perspectives contribute to the underpinnings of contemporary public opinion towards nuclear weapons. Support for the retention of Britain's nuclear deterrent is associated with being a Conservative Party supporter, favouring Brexit, endorsing superior military power worldwide as an important foreign policy goal, wanting to protect the transatlantic relationship, and with being male. The article makes a distinctive contribution to the growing subfield of research on public opinion and foreign policy, while the findings advance wider empirical understanding of contemporary citizen engagement in a key dimension of security policy.

Abstract China’s rise is ushering in a new era of geostrategic contestation involving foreign aid. In many traditional OECD donors, aid policy is changing as a result. We report on a survey experiment studying the impacts of rising Chinese aid on public opinion in traditional donors. We randomly treated people with vignettes emphasising China’s rise as an aid donor in the Pacific, a region of substantial geostrategic competition. We used a large, nationally-representative sample of Australians (Australia is the largest donor to the Pacific). As expected, treating participants reduced hostility to aid and increased support for more aid focused on the Pacific. Counter to expectations, however, treatment reduced support for using aid to advance Australian interests. These findings were largely replicated in a separate experiment in New Zealand. Knowledge of Chinese competition changes support for aid, but it does not increase support for using aid as a tool of geostrategy.

Burke, Mike, Colin Mooers and John Shields, eds. Restructuring and Resistance: Canadian Public Policy in an Age of Global Capitalism. By Grace Skogstad 17Bastien, Frédéric. Relations particulières — La France face au Québec après de Gaulle. Par Christine Bout De L'An 178Nancoo, Stephen E., ed. 21st Century Canadian Diversity. By Jean E. Havel 180Lefebvre, Jean-Paul. Qui profiterait de l'indépendance du Québec? Par Nemer H. N. Ramadan 181Cashore, Benjamin, George Hoberg, Michael Howlett, Jeremy Rayner and Jeremy Wilson. In Search of Sustainability: British Columbia Forest Policy in the 1990s. By Lori Poloni-Staudinger 182Dahl, Jens, Jack Hicks and Peter Jull, eds. Nunavut: Inuit Regain Control of Their Lands and Their Lives. By Gurston Dacks 183Kernaghan, Kenneth, Brian Marson and Sandford Borins. The New Public Organization. By Geoffrey Hale 185Bélanger, Yves, Robert Comeau, François Desrochers et Céline Métivier, sous la direction de. La CUM et la région métropolitaine : l'avenir d'une communauté. Par Martin Éthier 187Moon, Richard. The Constitutional Protection of Freedom of Expression. By Stephen L. Newman 189Brady, David W., John F. Cogan and Morris P. Fiorina, eds. Continuity and Change in House Elections. By L. Sandy Maisel 191Preston, Thomas. The President and His Inner Circle: Leadership Style and the Advisory Process in Foreign Affairs. By Chris Dolan 192Waddell, Brian. The War against the New Deal: World War II and American Democracy. By Bruce Miroff 194Smith, Mark A. American Business and Political Power: Public Opinion, Elections, and Democracy. By Marie Hojnacki 195Connelly, James and Graham Smith. Politics and the Environment: From Theory to Practice. By Inger Weibust 197McGann, James G. and R. Kent Weaver, eds. Think Tanks and Civil Societies: Catalysts for Ideas and Action. By Andrew Rich 198Nobles, Melissa. Shades of Citizenship: Race and the Census in Modern Politics. By Kim Williams 200Alonso, Paula. Between Revolution and the Ballot Box: The Origins of the Argentine Radical Party. By Viviana Patroni 201Lizée, Pierre P. Peace, Power and Resistance in Cambodia: Global Governance and the Failure of International Conflict Resolution; and Peou, Sorpong. Intervention and Change in Cambodia: Towards Democracy? By Irene V. Langran 203Marples, David R. Belarus: A Denationalized Nation. By Alexander Danilovich 206Beiner, Ronald and Wayne Norman, eds. Canadian Political Philosophy: Contemporary Reflections. By Bernard Yack 208Dworkin, Ronald. Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality. By Colin M. Macleod 210Hurka, Thomas. Virtue, Vice, and Value. By Jason Kawall 212Morris, Martin. Rethinking the Communicative Turn: Adorno, Habermas, and the Problem of Communicative Freedom. By Andollah Payrow Shabani 214O'Sullivan, Noel, ed. Political Theory in Transition. By Cillian Mcbride 215Plant, Raymond. Politics, Theology and History. By James E. Crimmins 217Rynard, Paul and David Shugarman, eds. Cruelty and Deception: The Controversy over Dirty Hands in Politics. By Stewart Hyson 218Sassoon, Anne Showstack. Gramsci and Contemporary Politics: Beyond Pessimism of the Intellect. By Shane Gunster 220Wallach, John R. The Platonic Political Art: A Study of Critical Reason and Democracy. By Gregory Bruce Smith 222Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. Empire. By Charles Tilly 224Holden, Barry, ed. Global Democracy: Key Debates. By Kok-Chor Tan 225Boniface, Pascal, sous la direction de. Morale et relations internationales. Par Marie-France Loranger 227Jackson, Robert H. The Global Covenant: Human Conduct in a World of States. By Roger Epp 229

06–475Al-Ali, Mohammed N. (Jordan U of Science and Technology, Irbid, Jordan), Genre-pragmatic strategies in English letter-of-application writing of Jordanian Arabic–English bilinguals. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (Multilingual Matters) 9.1 (2006), 119–139.06–476Anderson, Bill (Massey U College of Education, New Zealand; w.g.anderson@massey.ac.nz), Writing power into online discussion. Computers and Composition (Elsevier) 23.1 (2006), 108–124.06–477Blaır, Kristine & Cheryl Hoy (Bowling Green State U, USA; kblair@bgnet.bgsu.edu), Paying attention to adult learners online: The pedagogy and politics of community. Computers and Composition (Elsevier) 23.1 (2006), 32–48.06–478Blakelock, Jane & Tracy E. Smith (Wright State U, USA; jane.blakelock@wright.edu) Distance learning: From multiple snapshots, a composite portrait. Computers and Composition (Elsevier) 23.1 (2006), 139–161.06–479Bulley, Míchael, Wasthatnecessary?English Today (Cambridge University Press) 22.2 (2006), 47–49.06–480Chi-Fen, Emily Chen (National Kaohsiung First U of Science and Technology, Taiwan; emchen@ccms.nkfust.edu.tw), The development of email literacy: From writing to peers to writing to authority figures.Language Learning & Technology (http://llt.msu.edu) 10.2 (2006), 35–55.06–481Chikamatsu, Nobuko (DePaul U, Chicago, USA; nchikama@condor.depaul.edu), Developmental word recognition: A study of L1 English readers of L2 Japanese. The Modern Language Journal (Blackwell) 90.1 (2006), 67–85.06–482DePew, Kevin Eric (Old Dominion U, USA; Kdepew@odu.edu), T. A. Fishman, Julia E. Romberger & Bridget Fahey Ruetenik, Designing efficiencies: The parallel narratives of distance education and composition studies. Computers and Composition (Elsevier) 23.1 (2006), 49–67.06–483Dix, Stephanie (Hamilton, New Zealand; stephd@waikato.ac.nz), ‘What did I change and why did I do it?’ Young writers' revision practices. Literacy (Blackwell) 40.1 (2006), 3–10.06–484Donohue, James P. (London, UK; jdonohue@hillcroft.ac.uk), How to support a one-handed economist: The role of modalisation in economic forecasting. English for Specific Purposes (Elsevier) 25.2 (2006), 200–216.06–485Eisenhart, Christopher (U Massachusetts at Dartmouth, USA), The Humanist scholar as public expert. Written Communication (Sage) 23.2 (2006), 150–172.06–486Foy, Judith G. & Virginia Mann (Loyola Marymount U, USA; jfoy@lmu.edu), Changes in letter sound knowledge are associated with development of phonological awareness in pre-school children. Journal of Research in Reading (Blackwell) 29.2 (2006), 143–161.06–487Gruba, Paul (U Melbourne, Australia), Playing the videotext: A media literacy perspective on video-mediated L2 listening. Language Learning & Technology (http://llt.msu.edu) 10.2 (2006), 77–92.06–488Halliday, Lorna F. (MRC Institute of Hearing Research, Nottingham, UK) & Dorothy V. M. Bishop, Auditory frequency discrimination in children with dyslexia. Journal of Research in Reading (Blackwell) 29.2 (2006), 213–228.06–489Hayes, John R. (Carnegie Mellon U, USA) & N. Ann Chenoweth, Is working memory involved in the transcribing and editing of texts?Written Communication (Sage) 23.2 (2006), 135–149.06–490Hewett, Beth L. (Forest Hill, MD, USA; beth.hewett@comcast.net), Synchronous online conference-based instruction: A study of whiteboard interactions and student writing. Computers and Composition (Elsevier) 23.1 (2006), 4–31.06–491Hilton, Mary (U Cambridge, UK; mhiltonhom@aol.com), Damaging confusions in England's KS2 reading tests: A response to Anne Kispal. Literacy (Blackwell) 40.1 (2006), 36–41.06–492Hock Seng, Goh (U Pendikikan Sultan Idris, Malaysia) & Fatimah Hashim, Use of L1 in L2 reading comprehension among tertiary ESL learners. Reading in a Foreign Language (http://www.nflrc.hawaii.edu) 18.1 (2006), 26 pp.06–493Khuwaileh, Abdullah A. (Abu Dhabi, Al-ain, United Arab Emirates), Medical rhetoric: A contrastive study of Arabic and English in the UAE. English Today (Cambridge University Press) 22.2 (2006), 38–44.06–494Kondo-Brown, Kimi (U Hawaii at Manoa, USA), Affective variables and Japanese L2 reading ability. Reading in a Foreign Language (http://www.nflrc.hawaii.edu) 18.1 (2006), 17 pp.06–495Lee, Jin Sook (U California, USA), Exploring the relationship between electronic literacy and heritage language maintenance. Language Learning & Technology (http://llt.msu.edu) 10.2 (2006), 93–113.06–496Macaruso, Paul (Community College of Rhode Island, USA; pmacaruso@ccri.edu), Pamela E. 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Language Learning & Technology (http://llt.msu.edu) 10.2 (2006), 55–76.06–500Nikolov, Marianne (U Pécs, Hungary; nikolov@nostromo.pte.hu), Test-taking strategies of 12- and 13-year-old Hungarian learners of EFL: Why whales have migraines. Language Learning (Blackwell) 56.1 (2006), 1–51.06–501Parks, Susan, Diane Huot, Josiane Hamers & France H.-Lemonnier (U Laval, Canada; susan.parks@lli.ulaval.ca), ‘History of theatre’ web sites: A brief history of the writing process in a high school ESL language arts class. Journal of Second Language Writing (Elsevier) 14.4 (2005), 233–258.06–502Pigada, Maria & Norbert Schmitt (U Nottingham, UK), Vocabulary acquisition from extensive reading: a case study. 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This article explores how fat women protesting challenges norms of womanhood, the place of women in society, and who has the power to have their say in public spaces. We use the term fat as a political reclamation; Fat Studies scholars and fat activists prefer the term fat, over the normative term “overweight” and the pathologising term “obese/obesity” (Lee and Pausé para 3). Who is and who isn’t fat, we suggest, is best left to self-determination, although it is generally accepted by fat activists that the term is most appropriately adopted by individuals who are unable to buy clothes in any store they choose. Using a tweet from conservative commentator Ann Coulter as a leaping-off point, we examine the narratives around women in the public sphere and explore how fat bodies might transgress further the norms set by society. The public representations of women in politics and protest are then are set in the context of ‘activist wisdom’ (Maddison and Scalmer) from two sides of the globe. Activist wisdom gives preference to the lived knowledge and experience of activists as tools to understand social movements. It seeks to draw theoretical implications from the practical actions of those on the ground. In centring the experiences of ourselves and other activists, we hope to expand existing understandings of body politics, gender, and political power in this piece. It is important in researching social movements to look both at the representations of protest and protestors in all forms of media as this is the ‘public face’ of movements, but also to examine the reflections of the individuals who collectively put their weight behind bringing social change.A few days after the 45th President of the United States was elected, people around the world spilled into the streets and participated in protests; precursors to the Women’s March which would take place the following January. Pictures of such marches were shared via social media, demonstrating the worldwide protest against the racism, misogyny, and overall oppressiveness, of the newly elected leader. Not everyone was supportive of these protests though; one such conservative commentator, Ann Coulter, shared this tweet: Image1: A tweet from Ann Coulter; the tweet contains a picture of a group of protestors, holding signs protesting Trump, white supremacy, and for the rights of immigrants. In front of the group, holding a megaphone is a woman. Below the picture, the text reads, “Without fat girls, there would be no protests”.Coulter continued on with two more tweets, sharing pictures of other girls protesting and suggesting that the protestors needed a diet programme. Kivan Bay (“Without Fat Girls”) suggested that perhaps Coulter was implying that skinny girls do not have time to protest because they are too busy doing skinny girl things, like buying jackets or trying on sweaters. Or perhaps Coulter was arguing that fat girls are too visible, too loud, and too big, to be taken seriously in their protests. These tweets provide a point of illustration for how fat women protesting challenge norms of womanhood, the place of women in society, and who has the power to have their say in public spaces While Coulter’s tweet was most likely intended as a hostile personal attack on political grounds, we find it useful in its foregrounding of gender, bodies and protest which we consider in this article, beginning with a review of fat girls’ role in social justice movements.Across the world, we can point to fat women who engage in activism related to body politics and more. Australian fat filmmaker and activist Kelli Jean Drinkwater makes documentaries, such as Aquaporko! and Nothing to Lose, that queer fat embodiment and confronts body norms. Newly elected Ontario MPP Jill Andrew has been fighting for equal rights for queer people and fat people in Canada for decades. Nigerian Latasha Ngwube founded About That Curvy Life, Africa’s leading body positive and empowerment site, and has organised plus-size fashion show events at Heineken Lagos Fashion and Design Week in Nigeria in 2016 and the Glitz Africa Fashion Week in Ghana in 2017. Fat women have been putting their bodies on the line for the rights of others to live, work, and love. American Heather Heyer was protesting the hate that white nationalists represent and the danger they posed to her friends, family, and neighbours when she died at a rally in Charlottesville, North Carolina in late 2017 (Caron). When Heyer was killed by one of those white nationalists, they declared that she was fat, and therefore her body size was lauded loudly as justification for her death (Bay, “How Nazis Use”; Spangler).Fat women protesting is not new. For example, the Fat Underground was a group of “radical fat feminist women”, who split off from the more conservative NAAFA (National Association to Aid Fat Americans) in the 1970s (Simic 18). The group educated the public about weight science, harassed weight-loss companies, and disrupted academic seminars on obesity. The Fat Underground made their first public appearance at a Women’s Equality Day in Los Angeles, taking over the stage at the public event to accuse the medical profession of murdering Cass Elliot, the lead singer of the folk music group, The Mamas and the Papas (Dean and Buss). In 1973, the Fat Underground produced the Fat Liberation Manifesto. This Manifesto began by declaring that they believed “that fat people are full entitled to human respect and recognition” (Freespirit and Aldebaran 341).Women have long been disavowed, or discouraged, from participating in the public sphere (Ginzberg; van Acker) or seen as “intruders or outsiders to the tough world of politics” (van Acker 118). The feminist slogan the personal is political was intended to shed light on the role that women needed to play in the public spheres of education, employment, and government (Caha 22). Across the world, the acceptance of women within the public sphere has been varied due to cultural, political, and religious, preferences and restrictions (Agenda Feminist Media Collective). Limited acceptance of women in the public sphere has historically been granted by those ‘anointed’ by a male family member or patron (Fountaine 47).Anti-feminists are quick to disavow women being in public spaces, preferring to assign them the role as helpmeet to male political elite. As Schlafly (in Rowland 30) notes: “A Positive Woman cannot defeat a man in a wrestling or boxing match, but she can motivate him, inspire him, encourage him, teach him, restrain him, reward him, and have power over him that he can never achieve over her with all his muscle.” This idea of women working behind the scenes has been very strong in New Zealand where the ‘sternly worded’ letter is favoured over street protest. An acceptable route for women’s activism was working within existing political institutions (Grey), with activity being ‘hidden’ inside government offices such as the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (Schuster, 23). But women’s movement organisations that engage in even the mildest form of disruptive protest are decried (Grey; van Acker).One way women have been accepted into public space is as the moral guardians or change agents of the entire political realm (Bliss; Ginzberg; van Acker; Ledwith). From the early suffrage movements both political actors and media representations highlighted women were more principled and conciliatory than men, and in many cases had a moral compass based on restraint. Cartoons showed women in the suffrage movement ‘sweeping up’ and ‘cleaning house’ (Sheppard 123). Groups like the Women’s Christian Temperance Union were celebrated for protesting against the demon drink and anti-pornography campaigners like Patricia Bartlett were seen as acceptable voices of moral reason (Moynihan). And as Cunnison and Stageman (in Ledwith 193) note, women bring a “culture of femininity to trade unions … an alternative culture, derived from the particularity of their lives as women and experiences of caring and subordination”. This role of moral guardian often derived from women as ‘mothers’, responsible for the physical and moral well-being of the nation.The body itself has been a sight of protest for women including fights for bodily autonomy in their medical decisions, reproductive justice, and to live lives free from physical and sexual abuse, have long been met with criticisms of being unladylike or inappropriate. Early examples decried in NZ include the women’s clothing movement which formed part of the suffrage movement. In the second half of the 20th century it was the freedom trash can protests that started the myth of ‘women burning their bras’ which defied acceptable feminine norms (Sawer and Grey). Recent examples of women protesting for body rights include #MeToo and Time’s Up. Both movements protest the lack of bodily autonomy women can assert when men believe they are entitled to women’s bodies for their entertainment, enjoyment, and pleasure. And both movements have received considerable backlash by those who suggest it is a witch hunt that might ensnare otherwise innocent men, or those who are worried that the real victims are white men who are being left behind (see Garber; Haussegger). Women who advocate for bodily autonomy, including access to contraception and abortion, are often held up as morally irresponsible. As Archdeacon Bullock (cited in Smyth 55) asserted, “A woman should pay for her fun.”Many individuals believe that the stigma and discrimination fat people face are the consequences they sow from their own behaviours (Crandall 892); that fat people are fat because they have made poor decisions, being too indulgent with food and too lazy to exercise (Crandall 883). Therefore, fat people, like women, should have to pay for their fun. Fat women find themselves at this intersection, and are often judged more harshly for their weight than fat men (Tiggemann and Rothblum). Examining Coulter’s tweet with this perspective in mind, it can easily be read as an attempt to put fat girl protestors back into their place. It can also be read as a warning. Don’t go making too much noise or you may be labelled as fat. Presenting troublesome women as fat has a long history within political art and depictions. Marianne (the symbol of the French Republic) was depicted as fat and ugly; she also reinforced an anti-suffragist position (Chenut 441). These images are effective because of our societal views on fatness (Kyrölä). Fatness is undesirable, unworthy of love and attention, and a representation of poor character, lack of willpower, and an absence of discipline (Murray 14; Pausé, “Rebel Heart” para 1).Fat women who protest transgress rules around body size, gender norms, and the appropriate place for women in society. Take as an example the experiences of one of the authors of this piece, Sandra Grey, who was thrust in to political limelight nationally with the Campaign for MMP (Grey and Fitzsimmons) and when elected as the President of the New Zealand Tertiary Education Union in 2011. Sandra is a trade union activist who breaches too many norms set for the “good woman protestor,” as well as the norms for being a “good fat woman”. She looms large on a stage – literally – and holds enough power in public protest to make a crowd of 7,000 people “jump to left”, chant, sing, and march. In response, some perceive Sandra less as a tactical and strategic leader of the union movement, and more as the “jolly fat woman” who entertains, MCs, and leads public events. Though even in this role, she has been criticised for being too loud, too much, too big.These criticisms are loudest when Sandra is alongside other fat female bodies. When posting on social media photos with fellow trade union members the comments often note the need of the group to “go on a diet”. The collective fatness also brings comments about “not wanting to fuck any of that group of fat cows”. There is something politically and socially dangerous about fat women en masse. This was behind the responses to Sandra’s first public appearance as the President of TEU when one of the male union members remarked “Clearly you have to be a fat dyke to run this union.” The four top elected and appointed positions in the TEU have been women for eight years now and both their fatness and perceived sexuality present as a threat in a once male-dominated space. Even when not numerically dominant, unions are public spaces dominated by a “masculine culture … underpinned by the undervaluation of ‘women’s worth’ and notions of womanhood ‘defined in domesticity’” (Cockburn in Kirton 273-4). Sandra’s experiences in public space show that the derision and methods of putting fat girls back in their place varies dependent on whether the challenge to power is posed by a single fat body with positional power and a group of fat bodies with collective power.Fat Girls Are the FutureOn the other side of the world, Tara Vilhjálmsdóttir is protesting to change the law in Iceland. Tara believes that fat people should be protected against discrimination in public and private settings. Using social media such as Facebook and Instagram, Tara takes her message, and her activism, to her thousands of followers (Keller, 434; Pausé, “Rebel Heart”). And through mainstream media, she pushes back on fatphobia rhetoric and applies pressure on the government to classify weight as a protected status under the law.After a lifetime of living “under the oppression of diet culture,” Tara began her activism in 2010 (Vilhjálmsdóttir). She had suffered real harm from diet culture, developing an eating disorder as a teen and being told through her treatment for it that her fears as a fat woman – that she had no future, that fat people experienced discrimination and stigma – were unfounded. But Tara’s lived experiences demonstrated fat stigma and discrimination were real.In 2012, she co-founded the Icelandic Association for Body Respect, which promotes body positivity and fights weight stigma in Iceland. The group uses a mixture of real life and online tools; organising petitions, running campaigns against the Icelandic version of The Biggest Loser, and campaigning for weight to be a protected class in the Icelandic constitution. The Association has increased the visibility of the dangers of diet culture and the harm of fat stigma. They laid the groundwork that led to changing the human rights policy for the city of Reykjavík; fat people cannot be discriminated against in employment settings within government jobs. As the city is one of the largest employers in the country, this was a large step forward for fat rights.Tara does receive her fair share of hate messages; she’s shared that she’s amazed at the lengths people will go to misunderstand what she is saying (Vilhjálmsdóttir). “This isn’t about hurt feelings; I’m not insulted [by fat stigma]. It’s about [fat stigma] affecting the livelihood of fat people and the structural discrimination they face” (Vilhjálmsdóttir). She collects the hateful comments she receives online through screenshots and shares them in an album on her page. She believes it is important to keep a repository to demonstrate to others that the hatred towards fat people is real. But the hate she receives only fuels her work more. As does the encouragement she receives from people, both in Iceland and abroad. And she is not alone; fat activists across the world are using Web 2.0 tools to change the conversation around fatness and demand civil rights for fat people (Pausé, “Rebel Heart”; Pausé, “Live to Tell").Using Web 2.0 tools as a way to protest and engage in activism is an example of oppositional technologics; a “political praxis of resistance being woven into low-tech, amateur, hybrid, alternative subcultural feminist networks” (Garrison 151). Fat activists use social media to engage in anti-assimilationist activism and build communities of practice online in ways that would not be possible in real life (Pausé, “Express Yourself” 1). This is especially useful for those whose protests sit at the intersections of oppressions (Keller 435; Pausé, “Rebel Heart” para 19). Online protests have the ability to travel the globe quickly, providing opportunities for connections between protests and spreading protests across the globe, such as SlutWalks in 2011-2012 (Schuster 19). And online spaces open up unlimited venues for women to participate more freely in protest than other forms (Harris 479; Schuster 16; Garrison 162).Whether online or offline, women are represented as dangerous in the political sphere when they act without male champions breaching norms of femininity, when their involvement challenges the role of woman as moral guardians, and when they make the body the site of protest. Women must ‘do politics’ politely, with utmost control, and of course caringly; that is they must play their ‘designated roles’. Whether or not you fit the gendered norms of political life affects how your protest is perceived through the media (van Acker). Coulter’s tweet loudly proclaimed that the fat ‘girls’ protesting the election of the 45th President of the United States were unworthy, out of control, and not worthy of attention (ironic, then, as her tweet caused considerable conversation about protest, fatness, and the reasons not to like the President-Elect). What the Coulter tweet demonstrates is that fat women are perceived as doubly-problematic in public space, both as fat and as women. They do not do politics in a way that is befitting womanhood – they are too visible and loud; they are not moral guardians of conservative values; and, their bodies challenge masculine power.ReferencesAgenda Feminist Media Collective. “Women in Society: Public Debate.” Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity 10 (1991): 31-44.Bay, Kivan. “How Nazis Use Fat to Excuse Violence.” Medium, 7 Feb. 2018. 1 May 2018 <https://medium.com/@kivabay/how-nazis-use-fat-to-excuse-violence-b7da7d18fea8>.———. “Without Fat Girls, There Would Be No Protests.” Bullshit.ist, 13 Nov. 2016. 16 May 2018 <https://bullshit.ist/without-fat-girls-there-would-be-no-protests-e66690de539a>.Bliss, Katherine Elaine. Compromised Positions: Prostitution, Public Health, and Gender Politics in Revolutionary Mexico City. Penn State Press, 2010.Caha, Omer. 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Information and communications technologies (ICTs) are playing an increasingly vital role in the daily lives of all communities by revolutionizing their working procedures and rules of governance. ICTs offer a unique opportunity for governing elite to overcome the crisis of representative democracy, as ICT and the Internet empower civil society to play its role more effectively and facilitate the performance of governments’ main function-serving the people who elect them (Misnikov, 2003). In the realm of government, ICT applications are promising to enhance the delivery of public goods and services to common people not only by improving the process and management of government, but also by redefining the age-old traditional concepts. Community networking groups and local government authorities are well placed to campaign for greater inclusion for all members of the community in the information society. Possible areas to target include the provision of technology at low or no cost to groups through community technology centres or out of hours school access. There are many possibilities and local government must take a significant role in these activities (Young, 2000). Information society is based on the effective use and easy access of information and knowledge, while ICT for development (or ICTD) is not restricted to technology itself but focusing on manifold development and diverse manifestations for the people to improve their well-being. ICTD has deep roots in governance, is part of governance and has effects on governance patters and practices at both central and local level. By recognizing these facts, UNDP focuses on technologies to end poverty at WSIS Cyber Summit 2003, and emphasizes on ways that new technologies can help lift more than one billion people out of extreme poverty (UNDP, 2003). Apart from the four Asian IT giants (Korea, Rep., Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, China, and Japan), most of the Asian countries have fallen under the “low access” category of the Digital Access Index. This has also been referred in the WSIS Cyber Summit 2003, until now, limited infrastructure has often been regarded as the main barrier to bridging the digital divide (ITU, 2003). Among the countries with ICT spending as share of their GDP, Sweden, UK, The Netherlands, Denmark, and France (8.63, 7.97, 7.39, 7.19, and 6.57% respectively during 1992-2001) remain at the top (Daveri, 2002, p. 9), while countries like Bangladesh, Greece, Mexico, Niger, and many more remain at the bottom (EC, 2001; ITU, 2003b; Miller, 2001; Piatkowski, 2002). In a similar research it has been found that in terms of average share of ICT spending GDP, New Zealand, Sweden, Australia, USA, and UK (9.3, 8.4, 8.1, 8.1, and 7.8% respectively during 1992-1999) were among the highest (Pohjola, 2002, p. 7), though most of the countries in the Asian and African regions remain below the average of 5%. The disadvantaged communities in the countries staying below average in ICT spending seem to be lagging in forming appropriate information-based economy and eventually fall behind in achieving proper e-government system. The e-government system in those countries need to enhance access to and delivery of government services to benefit people, help strengthen government’s drive toward effective governance and increased transparency, and better management of the country’s social and economic resources for development. The key to e-government is the establishment of a long-term dynamic strategy to fulfill the citizen needs by transforming internal operations. E-government should result in the efficiency and swift delivery and services to citizens, business, government employees and agencies. For citizens and businesses, e-government seems the simplification of procedures and streamlining of different approval processes, while for government employees and agencies, it means the facilitation of cross-agency coordination and collaboration to ensure appropriate and timely decision-making. Thus, e-government demands transformation of government procedures and redefining the process of working with people and activities relating to people. The outcome would be a societal, organizational, and technological change for the government and to its people, with IT as an enabling factor. E-government should concentrate on more efficient delivery of public services, better management of financial, human and public resources and goods at all levels of government, in particular at local level, under conditions of sustainability, participation, interoperability, increased effectiveness and transparency (EU, 2002). ICT brings pertinent sides more closely by prioritizing partnerships between the state, business and civil society. A few East European countries have became economically liberal with the high level of foreign direct investment per capita and at the same time became ICT-advanced regional leaders in terms of economic reform. These countries also present the region’s most vivid examples of partnerships and collaboration. They have clearly manifested the importance of the public-private partnerships, transparent bottom-up strategies, involvement of all stakeholders, total governmental support, capturing economic opportunities, and enabling electronic mediated businesses, responding to the challenges of globalization.