Journal articles on the topic 'Community Economic Development Assistance Corp. (Mass.)'

In order to succeed in the development of agricultural sector in accordance with the Regulation of the Minister of Agriculture Number 67/Permentan/SM.050/12/2016 concerning Farmer Institutional Development, it is necessary to provide community service in the agricultural sector and plant cultivation as efforts to strengthen food self-sufficiency, especially during the Covid 19 pandemic. For this reason, we need to carry out community service activities for the production of liquid organic fertilizer using microorganism Bacillus cereus in Pantai Cermin Village, Tanjung Pura District. As we know Pantai Cermin Village, Tanjung Pura District, Langkat which about is 63.6 Km from Medan. In general, the majority of farmers own rice and corn areas and are members of the Gemah Ripah farmer group consisting of 30 farmers. From the results of dedication program, there are around 3000 hectares of rice and corn fields that have become a rice barn for the last 15 years, especially in Langkat Regency. Based on the results of the survey and partner interviews, several priority problems were obtained, including: a. There was a decrease in the selling price of corn in Langkat by Rp. 1,900,-/Kg from the selling price of corn in 2019 of Rp. 4,900,-/Kg to Rp. 3,000,-/Kg currently in Langkat; b. Rice farmers experienced a decrease in purchasing power of chemical compost during the Pandemic, because the price of solid organic compost from the Probiodek brand that functions as a decomposer of organic matter rose to Rp. 40,000,-/Kg; c. Farmers experienced a decline in purchasing power of chemical insecticides on the market; d. Farmers in Langkat currently do not have a knapsacksprayer and they only use 2 units of knapsacksprayer from government assistance to spray plant pests & diseases and this tool is used interchangeably for all farmer groups; e. Farming management is carried out in a simple and conventional way, namely using local F1 seeds (yield) from the previous corn harvest); f. Rice harvesting as well as shelling corn use a simple method of rice mill machine. In order to develop the potential of rice and corn barns, it is necessary to strengthen the independence of farmers through community dedication program (PKM) training in the production of liquid organic fertilizer using microorganism Bacillus cereus from Ristekdikti. The focus is to develop production of liquid organic fertilizer as an alternative to chemical fertilizers and chemical insecticides. The use of microorganisms Bacillus cereus is especially useful for facilitating the decomposition of organic matter in liquid fertilizer solutions so that it is more easily absorbed by plants as fertilizer and insecticide, as well as assisting and motivating partners to continuously continue producing liquid organic fertilizers because it saves costs in purchasing chemical fertilizers and pesticides in the future so as to create economic independence for partners. This will certainly improve the economy of farmer group partners so that life can be more prosperous. All of these activities aim to foster independence in partners when the program ends. It is hoped that food self-sufficiency can be realized that is free from residues of chemical fertilizers and insecticides so that environmentally sustainable agriculture can be realized.

Abstract. A Ukrainian intellectual-expert community is at the initial stage of forming a methodological basis of the rural economy ontogenesis that is determined, first of all, by the ongoing decentralization reform, a new role of the rural economy from the national perspective of a new (both coronavirus and post-COVID) economic reality in ensuring food sovereignty, economic recovery of the economy, in general, and rural territorial communities, in particular, with regard to new challenges associated with the ageing of the rural community, de-population, predominance of the rural employment in the rural area and financivization of relationships within the rural economic agents, ultimately creating a new normality of the operation and development of the rural economy. Taking into account that Ukraine has strategically outlined its aspiration for integrating into the European Community having successfully passed a forming phase of group dynamics (according to Bruce Tuckman), has moved to a conflict phase having enlarged its orthodox understanding to the absence of proper parity in the development of socioeconomic, financial-institutional processes inside the rural economy, having created the threats to its transition to comprehensive digitalization and «greening» of finances applied for it. In the European Union, this problematics has been studied and an analysis of searches of directions of its solution has been carried out since the 50s of the past century actualizing the necessity to typologize best regional practices, their implementation from the perspective of the agrarian policy with regard to iteration of the Public Finance Management System Development Strategy, directions of the modernization of state support for agricultural goods producers, a gradual transition from a support institution to an assistance institution. To achieve the goal, which was defined as typologization of theoretical leverages and empirical inter-influences and inter-dependencies of the ontogenesis of the rural economy in the conditions of the implementation, by the European Community, of the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals as the basis for new strategying and financivization (including their «greening») of its development in our country, the methods were used: of induction and deduction, comparison and systematization — in researching the historiography of the notion «rural economy», penetrating it with a «financial» spirit and processes of «greening» financial-economic relationships of the economic agents of the rural economy; of synthesis and analysis — for characterization of financial support (assistance) of the rural economy with regard to modern approaches to the establishment and development of the Common Agricultural Policy in the EU member countries in order to implement a comprehensive regulatory European-colored movement towards digitalization and financivization including the post-COVID financial recovery of the rural economy, the formation of the basis for the financial central focus on local value added; of morphological analysis — for a new parametrization of the rural economy with regard to evolvement of the financial vector towards stimulating agro-producers for sustainable and comprehensive development; a graphical method — for vivid presentation of theoretical and methodical material; а abstract-logical method — for theoretical generalization and formulation of conclusions from the conducted research. Formed typologies of theoretical leverages of the rural economy enabled to clearly crystallize the parameters inherent to it only, in particular: goal-oriented collaboration of various economic activity types carried out within the rural territorial community in order to form local value added, ensure local food sovereignty and food security, create conditions for developing integrated corporate associations based on symbiomatics of the agrarian and construction economies; both enterprises (corporations, agro-food clusters) and individual entrepreneurs as well as households determining the operation of the food market and focusing the financial system on the respective genotype of economic agents involved in the rural economy, act as the entities of the rural economy; the compliance id provided, with the principle of sustainable and inclusive development, the «green» ontogenesis of the system of state support (assistance) of agro-producers; the orientation is substantiated, towards a new scaling of rural construction projects, social infrastructure including that involved in counteracting a coronavirus infection providing conditions for meeting the intellectual-staff needs of economic agents-stakeholders of the rural economy. Conducted generalization enabled to single out a number of modernization stages of the EU Common Agricultural Policy, in particular, in terms of mass-qualitative and mass-variable characteristics of financial support (assistance) of agro-producers as well as characterize the current central focus in their development on the rural economy institution expressed, in particular, through rural territories (rural territorial communities) in terms of promoting implementation of village-saving projects of rural development and solution to financial-economic, social and ecological problems of the rural area. A new European-colored parametrization of the rural economy has become a basis for formulating an own conceptual-categorical construct, in particular, the «rural economy» and its related financial-economic categories and notions as a system of the economic agents, whose activities being associated with the rural territory envisage using natural and other raw-material-climatic resources to meet the food needs of the community and perform financial-economic, social-food functions within the modelity of the operation of the national economy, with regard to the basic principles of sustainable and inclusive development, «greening» of state and local finances etc. The proposed definition relying on laid foundations in scientific studies of Ukrainian and foreign academic economists and actual parameters of development of rural territories, in particular, in respect of the mechanisms of financial support (assistance) in the EU member countries promotes further formation of the methodological basis for the harmonization of co-development of agrarian and financial policies in order to stabilize the rural economy, give it the signs of sustainability and European-formed financivization priorities. Keywords: rural economy, financivazation, state support (assistance), agriculture, rural territory, agrarian policy, state and local finances, natural-climatic resources, «green» finances. JEL Classіfіcatіon Q18 Formulas: 0; fig.: 2; tabl.: 0; bibl.: 20.

The creative economy is becoming important because current development is faced with the ability of the state to synergize tax administration, taxpayers, through the support of political commitment, social, cultural, and economic conditions to create the success of national taxation. Taxation is the backbone of state revenue and the creative economy as a forum for the younger generation to channel their creativity in doing business and building the country. The purpose of this research is to conduct a cluster of problematic creative economy business actors; know the integrative sustainable business assistance model for creative economy business actors; know integrative sustainability actions to increase taxpayer compliance, and politicize creative economy business actors. In-depth interviews and documentation obtained data. Determination of data sources using random sampling. The data validity used source triangulation. The data analysis technique used a data analysis model according to Miles and Huberman. The results showed that there are problematic clusters of creative economy business actors divided into culinary services and culinary goods. The need for an integrated sustainable business assistance model for creative economy business actors that involves intellectuals, business people, creative economy community, government, mass media - social media, and resources. Integrative sustainability actions to improve taxpayer compliance and politicize creative economy business actors through expanding tax training with the Business Development Services (BDS) Program, enactment of PP 23 of 2018, simplifying legislation for creative economy business actors with the enactment of the Omnibus Law, to the local government Omnibus Law give authority to the chief executive to provide fiscal incentives to business actors to increase taxpayers.

Abstract: Mosque is an integral part of Muslim spiritual, sosial and cultural life. But nowadays the mosque is facing the role and function narrowing from a community development center to a commercial area complement. Therefore, this study aims to determine, describe and analyze the Muttaqien Mosque existence in the dialectic of community development center and commercial area, including education, health, economic and socio-cultural affairs. The research results showed that in education aspect, there are studies which conducted regularly every day to enhance the knowledge and scientific treasures of congregation. In economic aspect, mosque was successful to increase congregation welfare including trader, labor hand, even paddle rickshaws and scholarships for underprivileged children. For health aspect, mosque provides friend space to mothers and children for help the congregate to obtain information on health and nutritional needs of children. And in socio-cultural aspect, mosque contributes in helping the public agenda like mass circumcision and humanitarian assistance when disaster occurs. Keywords: Mosque Existence, Community Development Center, Commercial Area Abstrak: Masjid merupakan bagian integral kehidupan spritual, sosial dan kultural umat Islam. Namun dewasa ini keberadaan masjid semakin mengalami penyempitan peran dan fungsi dari pusat pengembangan masyarakat menjadi sekedar pelengkap kawasan niaga. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui, mendeskripsikan dan menganalisis eksistensi Masjid Muttaqien dalam dialektika pusat pengembangan masyarakat dan kawasan niaga meliputi bidang pendidikan, kesehatan, ekonomi dan sosio kultural. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa dalam aspek pendidikan, terdapat kajian dan pengajian rutin harian untuk menambah wawasan serta khazanah keilmuan jamaah. Dalam aspek ekonomi, masjid berhasil meningkatkan kesejahteraan jamaah meliputi pedagang, buruh gendong, bahkan pengayuh becak serta memberi beasiswa untuk anak-anak kurang mampu. Di aspek kesehatan, masjid menyediakan ruang sahabat ibu dan anak guna membantu jamaah memperoleh informasi kesehatan dan kebutuhan gizi anak. Dan di aspek sosio kultural, masjid membantu berbagai agenda masyarakat seperti khitanan massal dan bantuan kemanusiaan saat terjadi bencana. Kata kunci: Eksistensi Masjid, Pengembangan Masyarakat, Kawasan Niaga

The article examines the state of the Rusin community in the Second Polish Republic according to Nash Lemko newspaper materials. The authors specify the editorial policy of the newspaper, its rubrics and the authors’ board, focus on the cultural and social agenda faced by the Lemkos during the interwar period, including the resistance to polonisation: protection of cultural institutions, development of Ukrainian-language schooling, preservation of church and religious identity. The analysis has shown that Nash Lemko did not avoid discussing complex problems related to the Rusins. Thus, the Rusins faced a wide range of economic and household challenges, among which were the barbaric exploitation of natural resources by the state, the lack of land, the reduced demand for Lemko agricultural products, etc. followed by the mass emigration. The authors have proved that the newspaper not only diagnosed the abovementioned difficulties, but also tried to provide advisory assistance in their solution and urged the Lemkos to master new types of economic activity. It has been concluded that the newspaper was a prominent phenomenon of Rusin periodicals. Despite the difficult interwar times, it succeeded in uniting the Lemkos behind the idea of preserving their own cultural identity and fostering national unity.

The strategic goal of economic and social policy in the countryside should be to ensure an integrated multifunctional development of communities, which would increase their role not only in the development of agricultural production, but also in other types of labor activities, and also, which is very important, to ensure a favorable environment for their living. Thus, the strategic foundation of this solution is the development of the productive forces of each rural community. Therefore, the orientation of the rural communities, especially the united ones, to its own resources and opportunities is the strategic basis for the revival of the Ukrainian peasantry, and given the amount of unemployed population living in rural areas today, it has a rational content. In this context, state aid could take part in the development of a Comprehensive rural development program and the revival of the peasantry, with regard to possibilities of each community, based on the new economic policy, the basis and strategic base of which should be mass co-operative movement. Due to the association of small rural producers, their contribution to the production of gross agricultural products will be significantly appreciable, so effective assistance to power structures of all levels, especially legal ones, could actually, in a short period of time, affect the increase in the profitability of their management, the creation of acceptable social conditions, improving their social protection, adapting and raising awareness of the latest technological solutions to increase their own production of cheap and quality products, as well as what is extremely important today is the improvement of the well-being of the peasants. A comprehensive, consolidated combination of the concrete efforts of the state and the resources that the rural population still possesses, in the name of its new territorial communities, under certain conditions, could become a major driving force in ensuring the systematic development and revival of the Ukrainian peasantry, which is one of the most important foundations of its existence. The modern village really needs development, and this development – financial, organizational, systemic and other forms of support. That is, there is a need for a coherent and systemic village development policy, or, as they call it European researchers, rural development policy, in our today's sense, as well as united territorial communities. Against the backdrop of a sharp rise in energy prices, agricultural machinery, fertilizers, feed, services, etc., low purchase prices, the lack of stable and reliable sales channels makes its production extremely ineffective. Solving similar issues in Ukraine is possible only with the state support for the development of agricultural servicing cooperatives as an important factor, increasing the competitiveness of private farms and individuals who are engaged in agricultural production, improving their socio-economic status and expanding their employment. The development of cooperation is a logical stage in the development of a market economy system in agriculture and one of the ways of integrated development of rural united communities. In particular, the success of rural cooperatives in Galicia in the first half of the 20th century showed a high level of adaptability of local economic traditions to European culture of agricultural production and successful agricultural business. This, extremely important for today's conditions, the experience of the survival of the Galician village until 1939, as well as the Ukrainian community abroad, showed that only uniting all the patriotic forces of the Ukrainian community and channeling their efforts to revive a solid, highly organized under the state guardianship and protection of the cooperative movement, will enable in the coming years to ensure sustainable development of rural communities and to solve problems of food security of the state.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted various sectors. As for the sectors affected is the education sector. Many countries decide closing schools, colleges as well as universities, including Indonesia as an effort to break the chain of the spread of Covid-19. To cut off the spread of Covid-19 and comply government regulations, educators and all students are forced not to be face to face temporarily. The COVID-19 pandemic is forcing schools, colleges and universities to shift their entire instructional device to one online delivery overnight. It is no longer a question of whether online education can deliver on the promise of quality higher education and more to how universities can promptly and effectively embrace the mass adoption of online learning. This research was conducted in locations affected by the covid-19 pandemic, because the covid-19 pandemic has a very significant impact on the survival of the lower class in particular. Entrepreneurs are expected to help overcome the economic problems of the nation and the State, although there are many challenges and obstacles that must be faced in overcoming problems due to limited education. and resource knowledge. This community service activity is carried out by providing online learning and training assistance for 1 month on building entrepreneurship character to youth organization (Karang Taruna). The activity is the increasing entrepreneurial knowledge and skills of participants in optimizing information technology-based programs in the marketing media for organic hydroponic vegetable Urban Farming products. The result of this activity is the increasing creativity of youth group organization and to motivate them and also create a connection model for microenterprise entrepreneurship and value creation with the economic, social and environmental aspects of sustainable development.

The subject of the research is the phenomenon of dissipation of the social identity of young people in modern Russian society. Purpose: to compare the reflection of this phenomenon in the academic and public consciousness. Hypothesis: the dynamics and structure of the idea of the social identity of young people at the present stage of Russia's development is not the same in the academic and public consciousness. The hypothesis was tested on the example of publications included in the RSCI database. There are two categories of publications: 1) scientific journals, dissertations, 2) conference materials. The first reflects ideas about social phenomena in the minds of the academic community; the second is in the mass consciousness of the general scientific community. Search depth 11 years (2012–2021). It included the annexation of Crimea to Russia, pension reform, the C0VID-19 pandemic, and the merger of two social support funds for the population (PF and FSS). The volume of empirical data amounted to 86341 titles of publications. The views of the authors of publications on the phenomenon under study were recorded according to five search queries: “social identity of young people”, “social security”, “social protection”, “social assistance”, “social support”. The algorithm of the relationship between these topics was studied using paired correlation analysis. It was found that the peak of publications for these requests coincided with the three-year period 2016–2018. The reflection of the problem of the social identity of young people in academic publications preceded its active discussion in conference proceedings by 4–6 years. Fundamental differences are found in the ideas about the social identity of young people in the academic and public consciousness. In scientific articles and dissertations, the social identity of young people is considered as a special case of self-organization of complex social systems, in conference materials – as a separate element of a hierarchically built deterministic financial system. The results obtained are regarded by us as proof of the correctness of the null hypothesis put forward. Possible areas of application of the results of the study: youth, social and demographic policy of the state at a new stage of socio-economic reforms. The limitation for the implementation of the research results in the practice of social management may be the effect of inertial public opinion and mass consciousness, as well as the financial interests of individual lobbies currently involved in the implementation of social projects. Directions for future research – targeted monitoring of the transformation of the mass in accordance with the requirements of the modern technological revolution.

Dans le processus de la gouvernance locale, les nouvelles stratégies de développement impliquent la contribution financière de tous les acteurs de la vie sociale dans les divers projets de développement. Ce travail vise à analyser la contribution des activités agricoles au développement local dans la commune d’Athiémé. L’approche méthodologique utilisée s’articule autour de la collecte des données (recherche documentaire et enquêtes de terrain), de leur traitement et de l’analyse des résultats. Sur la base d’un choix raisonné, 238 personnes sont retenues pour l’enquête et 04 personnes ressources interviewées. Le modèle FFOM (SWOT) a servi à l’analyse synthétique des résultats. Il ressort de cette étude que la commune d’Athiémé dispose de potentialités naturelles et humaines favorables au développement d’une variété de culture. En effet, l’activité agricole occupe près de 70 pour cent de la population active. La production dans la commune est essentiellement basée sur la culture du maïs (de 6241 t en 1995 à 5582 t en 2017), du manioc (de 105 t en 1995 à 114 t en 2017), de l’arachide (de 105 t en 1995 à 5582 t en 2017) et de quelques produits maraichers (tomate, piment, etc). Les revenus issus de ces productions ont contribué à améliorer les conditions de vie des producteurs mais aussi au financement de la mise en place des infrastructures sociocommunautaires puisque les TPA (Taxes des Patentes) varient entre 100 FCFA et 600 FCFA perçues chaque jour de marché et les recettes fiscales ont évolué progressivement allant de 15,67 pour cent en 2009 à 34,15 pour cent en 2019. Toutefois, de nombreuses difficultés d’ordre technique, économique et social constituent un problème pour le bon fonctionnement des organisations paysannes. Pour remédier à ces difficultés, les organisations paysannes ont besoin d’une assistance financière et technique de la part des autorités locales. In the process of local governance, the new development strategies involve the financial contribution of every actor in social life in the various development projects. This work aims at analyzing the agricultural activities' contribution to the local development of Athiémé municipality. The methodological approach used involves the data collection (documentary research and field surveys), treatment, and analysis of findings. A sample of 238 people has been chosen for the study, and 04 resource people have been interviewed. The SWOT model was used for the synthetic analysis of the findings. The findings analysis reveals that Athiémé municipality gets some natural and human potentials favorable to developing a variety of crops. Production in the area is mainly based on corn cultivation, cassava, peanuts, and some garden products (tomatoes, peppers, etc.). Agricultural activities represent nearly 70 pour cent of the active population. Not only have the incomes from these productions helped improve producers' living conditions, but they have also helped to set up socio-community infrastructures since the TPA (Taxes des Patentes) varies between 100 FCFA and 600 FCFA, and the tax receipts have evolved gradually from 15.67 pour cent in 2009 to 34.15 pour cent in 2019. However, many technical, economic and social difficulties are obstacles to the proper functioning of farmers' organizations. To overcome these difficulties, farmers' organizations need financial and technical assistance from local authorities.

The article analyzes the ASEAN policy to resolve the political crisis in Myanmar, the main means and directions of its implementation. The confrontation in society as a result of the military coup on February 1, 2021 is accompanied by violence and threatens to escalate into a civil war. The threat of losing its central role in the regional security system and the regionalization of the conflict prompts ASEAN to look for ways out of it in accordance with the adopted action plan. However, its implementation is difficult both due to the fact that ASEAN remains hostage to the fundamental principle of its activities, non-interference in the internal affairs of its members, and the unwillingness of all parties to the conflict in Myanmar to seek ways of reconciliation. ASEAN's interaction with the military leadership accused of mass repression is asymmetric, with the success or failure of the ASEAN peacekeeping mission almost entirely dependent on the political will of the military. Nevertheless, ASEAN remains today the only force capable of influencing the development of the political situation in Myanmar. The best option for the international community to participate in resolving the conflict in Myanmar is to assist ASEAN in the implementation of peacekeeping activities. The most realistic ASEAN initiative today is to provide humanitarian assistance to Myanmar, which is on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe. Considering the negative trends in socio-economic development, Myanmar for many years to come will need humanitarian support, in the provision of which ASEAN has advantages over Western states and associations. Giving preference to the methods of soft diplomacy, dictated by the need to observe the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of Myanmar, ASEAN as an institution demonstrates its functional weakness, which the military who seized power use to delay the implementation of the measures proposed by the bloc to resolve the conflict. ASEAN continues to act with great caution, and this may cause it losing the influence on the development of the situation when China, which is not interested in prolonging the conflict, seizes the initiative.

The article refers to the World Congress of Free Ukrainians (WCFU), founded in New York in November 1967. The WCFU united 150 Ukrainian public, political and faith-based organizations. The elected Presidium of the Congress established special committees, which began to work on the coordination of Ukrainian organizations in the West regarding the provision of assistance to Ukrainian refugees and communities in the Americas, Western Europe and Australia, protection of human rights and of political prisoners of Ukrainian descent in the USSR, development of Ukrainian education and culture in the expatriate environment, etc. The WCFU opened its information office at the UN, which brought to the attention of diplomats from different countries the facts about the struggle of the Congress for an independent Ukraine, information about Ukrainian political prisoners, the russification process in Ukraine and Holodomor of 1932–1933. Owing to this effective influence, Canada, with its powerful and numerous Ukrainian community, was the first in the Western world to recognize the independence of Ukraine. In 1991, the WCFU organized a mass demonstration in front of the White House in Washington for the recognition of the young Ukrainian state. In December of the same year, the Congress, together with the Ukrainian World Foundation, announced the creation of the Ukrainian Reconstruction Fund. Since then, this organization has gradually become one of the consistent lobbyists of Ukraine’s national interests in the world. Having changed its name to the Ukrainian World Congress (UWC), it is constantly engaged in the establishment of a positive international image of Ukraine, promotion of its rich historical heritage as well as compelling changes in its society. At the same time, in the circles of this international association there is a certain disappointment with the social and economic situation in Ukraine and lack of real results in the fight against corruption. However, the UWC seeks to contribute to the further development of the historical homeland. Today UWC has an extensive network of constituent organizations and maintains relations with Ukrainian communities in 61 countries. Keywords: WCFU, Ukrainian World Congress, New York, Canada, historical homeland.

The effectiveness of the system of pharmaceutical supply to the population depends on the proper interaction of the state and market mechanisms for regulating the interests of all subjects of the pharmaceutical market for the implementation of the social policy of the state regarding the availability of quality and effective medicines for the population. In the context of healthcare reform, the issues of assessing the main stages of the development of the pharmaceutical supply system of the population become especially relevant. Aim. Determination of key, from organizational, economic and social points of view, stages of formation of the domestic system of pharmaceutical supply of the population, analysis of the main tendencies of its development in retrospect years. Materials and methods. The materials of the research were selected by the regulatory acts, the data of the specialized literature, certain aspects of activity of subjects of the pharmaceutical market, etc. Methods such as historical, informational-analytical, analytical-comparative, systemic, logical, hypothetical-deductive and generalization were used. Results. Based on the conducted research, five stages of the formation of the pharmaceutical supply system have been identified and outlined, which differ fundamentally across the range of criteria for analyzing effectiveness in building relationships between the state, civil society and the professional community. These stages were elaborated in accordance with the results of the analysis of the nature of relations between the authorities and society under the conditions of gradual transition from paternalistic to the elements of the patient-oriented model of medical and pharmaceutical services to the population: 1) 1990–1993; 2) 1994–2000; 3) 2001–2007; 4) 2008–2013; 5) from 2014 to the present. It has been proved that the stages of development of the domestic pharmaceutical supply system depend to a large extent on the nature of the influence of external environmental factors: changes of political elites in the country, global and internal financial crises, changes of priorities of the state development, breaking of social consciousness of the population against the background of political crisis, etc. It should be noted that the most important in terms of positive, first of all socio-economic, development characteristics is the fourth stage of formation (2008-2013) of the domestic system of pharmaceutical supply of the population. The last period (since 2014) is characterized by the existence of a crisis of relations between all subjects in the system of pharmaceutical provision of the population against the background of systemic transformations in the state, strengthening of the role of public professional associations and critical raising of public expectations from the state regarding the organization of providing affordable medical care to the population. and pharmaceutical assistance in the face of mass impoverishment. Conclusion. The basic stages of the formation of the domestic pharmaceutical supply system are defined and their characteristics are envisaged, which allow to form in the future fundamentally new approaches to building rational, economically speaking, and simultaneously socially responsible relations between different subjects in the pharmaceutical market.

The article is dedicated to the elections to the State Assembly of Hungary on April 3, 2022, which ended with the victory and acquisition of a constitutional majority by the now ruling coalition of Fidesz-Hungarian Civil Union and the Christian Democratic People’s Party (KDNP) - (Fidesz–KDNP). It analyzes its electoral platform “War or Peace”, the center of which was the attitude to the Russian-Ukrainian war. It is indicated that this war divided the political forces of Hungary into two camps – supporters of neutrality (peace) or supporters of Ukraine (war). The ruling coalition advocated neutrality, non-intervention in the war, which guaranteed the preservation of peace and tranquility for the citizens of Hungary. All the opposition forces showed support for Ukraine against Russia. The authorities accused the latter of the fact that their pro-Ukrainian and anti-Putin activities posed a danger and threatened the spread of the war to the territory of Hungary. It is emphasized that thanks to this position, Fidesz–KDNP won a convincing victory in Hungary as a whole and especially among the Hungarian communities abroad, while the six-party opposition bloc, although it won convincingly in 17 of Budapest’s 18 districts, suffered a significant defeat in the country as a whole. The main reasons for the unexpected victory of the ruling coalition Fidesz - HDNP in these elections are highlighted. Among them: the coalition flexibly combined centrist and center-right values, synthesized them and rose above narrow party interests, turning into a broad popular front of the Hungarian nation. It is also noted that during the 12-year remaining stay in power in the country, transformations were completed, namely, a new Basic Law (constitution) was adopted, relevant legislation was formed, and a national democratic model of political and economic power was introduced according both to the state and EU standards that complies with state and EU standards. The internal policy was aimed at the development of traditional branches of the economy and the formation of modern forms of management. Relatively high economic development of the country was ensured thanks to by the effective use of foreign investments, international markets, which are far from being limited to EU countries. Hungary develops close cooperation with countries of all regions, if its national interests are ensured. Great attention is paid to the support and protection of Hungarian communities living in countries neighboring Hungary (Romania, Slovakia, Serbia, Ukraine). At the legislative level, the status of Hungarians abroad is almost equal to that of Hungarians in the country itself. The policy of national unity, the recognition of Hungarians, regardless of their residency country of residence, as members of a united single Hungarian nation, gained general approval. The concentration of domestic and foreign policy on the priority of Hungarian interests helped Fidesz to turn into an authoritative and reliable political force of the country, which, using civilized methods, fights for the future of Hungary, the comprehensive development of its people, the preservation of the identity of Hungarian communities abroad, the prevention of assimilation, mass emigration and the restriction of their rights along national lines. In addition, the ruling coalition managed to form a reliable financial, personnel, and media potential, to significantly expand the electoral field of its activities, which no opposition political force is able to compete with, especially during the elections to the State Assembly. The qualitative composition of the new parliament was analyzed. The progress of the election of the new President of Hungary on March 9, the speaker of the newly elected parliament, his deputies and heads of parliamentary factions on May 2, and finally the Prime Minister of Hungary on May 16 and the approval of the country’s new government headed by Viktor Orbán on May 24, is highlighted. Great attention is paid to the formation of Hungarian-Ukrainian relations. The analysis of political processes during the election campaign and in the first months after the end of the elections, in particular the attitude of Budapest to the aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, to the formation of Hungarian-Ukrainian relations, allowed us to draw conclusions that the priorities of the international activities of the ruling coalition of Hungary will remain unchanged: serving the interests of the Hungarian nation on in all territories of its residence, in particular support, protection and assistance to Hungarian national communities in Romania, Slovakia, Serbia and Ukraine. The results of the parliamentary elections in Hungary on April 3, 2022 confirmed that these principles are unchanged and continue to be binding in the activities of the Hungarian government institutions. It is emphasized that the level of development of Hungary's bilateral relations with neighboring states will depend on ensuring the Hungarian foreign communities interests how the interests of the Hungarian foreign communities will be ensured (granting dual citizenship, autonomy status for the community, creating conditions for cultural and educational development based on in the national language and traditions). Hungarian-Ukrainian relations will be in the same condition state. Hungary supports the territorial integrity of Ukraine, its European choice, condemns Russian aggression, supports the EU’s sanctions policy against the Russian Federation, and provided shelter for 800,000 refugees from Ukraine. More than 100,000 people from Ukraine stay are in Hungary illegally. Since July 19, Hungary has allowed the transit of weapons from other countries through its territory to Ukraine. Yet But it continues to maintain neutrality in the Russian-Ukrainian war, supports EU energy sanctions against the Russian Federation in such a way that it does not harm its economic interests. At the same time, it does not agree to the application of certain legal provisions on education the procedure for using the Ukrainian language as the official language on the territory of Ukraine, that came into force in 2017 and 2019 to the Hungarian community of Transcarpathia of a number of provisions of the laws on education and the procedure for using the Ukrainian language as the official language on the territory of Ukraine, which came into force in 2017 and 2019. It is emphasized that the settlement of cultural and educational issues of the Hungarian community of Transcarpathia should become a priority task for both countries.

In this issue of Journal of Disaster Research, we introduce nine papers on societal responses to recent catastrophic disasters with special focus on long-term recovery processes in Japan and the United States. As disaster impacts increase, we also find that recovery times take longer and the processes for recovery become more complicated. On January 17th of 1995, a magnitude 7.2 earthquake hit the Hanshin and Awaji regions of Japan, resulting in the largest disaster in Japan in 50 years. In this disaster which we call the Kobe earthquake hereafter, over 6,000 people were killed and the damage and losses totaled more than 100 billion US dollars. The long-term recovery from the Kobe earthquake disaster took more than ten years to complete. One of the most important responsibilities of disaster researchers has been to scientifically monitor and record the long-term recovery process following this unprecedented disaster and discern the lessons that can be applied to future disasters. The first seven papers in this issue present some of the key lessons our research team learned from the studying the long-term recovery following the Kobe earthquake disaster. We have two additional papers that deal with two recent disasters in the United States – the terrorist attacks on World Trade Center in New York on September 11 of 2001 and the devastation of New Orleans by the 2005 Hurricane Katrina and subsequent levee failures. These disasters have raised a number of new research questions about long-term recovery that US researchers are studying because of the unprecedented size and nature of these disasters’ impacts. Mr. Mammen’s paper reviews the long-term recovery processes observed at and around the World Trade Center site over the last six years. Ms. Johnson’s paper provides a detailed account of the protracted reconstruction planning efforts in the city of New Orleans to illustrate a set of sufficient and necessary conditions for successful recovery. All nine papers in this issue share a theoretical framework for long-term recovery processes which we developed based first upon the lessons learned from the Kobe earthquake and later expanded through observations made following other recent disasters in the world. The following sections provide a brief description of each paper as an introduction to this special issue. 1. The Need for Multiple Recovery Goals After the 1995 Kobe earthquake, the long-term recovery process began with the formulation of disaster recovery plans by the City of Kobe – the most severely impacted municipality – and an overarching plan by Hyogo Prefecture which coordinated 20 impacted municipalities; this planning effort took six months. Before the Kobe earthquake, as indicated in Mr. Maki’s paper in this issue, Japanese theories about, and approaches to, recovery focused mainly on physical recovery, particularly: the redevelopment plans for destroyed areas; the location and standards for housing and building reconstruction; and, the repair and rehabilitation of utility systems. But the lingering problems of some of the recent catastrophes in Japan and elsewhere indicate that there are multiple dimensions of recovery that must be considered. We propose that two other key dimensions are economic recovery and life recovery. The goal of economic recovery is the revitalization of the local disaster impacted economy, including both major industries and small businesses. The goal of life recovery is the restoration of the livelihoods of disaster victims. The recovery plans formulated following the 1995 Kobe earthquake, including the City of Kobe’s and Hyogo Prefecture’s plans, all stressed these two dimensions in addition to physical recovery. The basic structure of both the City of Kobe’s and Hyogo Prefecture’s recovery plans are summarized in Fig. 1. Each plan has three elements that work simultaneously. The first and most basic element of recovery is the restoration of damaged infrastructure. This helps both physical recovery and economic recovery. Once homes and work places are recovered, Life recovery of the impacted people can be achieved as the final goal of recovery. Figure 2 provides a “recovery report card” of the progress made by 2006 – 11 years into Kobe’s recovery. Infrastructure was restored in two years, which was probably the fastest infrastructure restoration ever, after such a major disaster; it astonished the world. Within five years, more than 140,000 housing units were constructed using a variety of financial means and ownership patterns, and exceeding the number of demolished housing units. Governments at all levels – municipal, prefectural, and national – provided affordable public rental apartments. Private developers, both local and national, also built condominiums and apartments. Disaster victims themselves also invested a lot to reconstruct their homes. Eleven major redevelopment projects were undertaken and all were completed in 10 years. In sum, the physical recovery following the 1995 Kobe earthquake was extensive and has been viewed as a major success. In contrast, economic recovery and life recovery are still underway more than 13 years later. Before the Kobe earthquake, Japan’s policy approaches to recovery assumed that economic recovery and life recovery would be achieved by infusing ample amounts of public funding for physical recovery into the disaster area. Even though the City of Kobe’s and Hyogo Prefecture’s recovery plans set economic recovery and life recovery as key goals, there was not clear policy guidance to accomplish them. Without a clear articulation of the desired end-state, economic recovery programs for both large and small businesses were ill-timed and ill-matched to the needs of these businesses trying to recover amidst a prolonged slump in the overall Japanese economy that began in 1997. “Life recovery” programs implemented as part of Kobe’s recovery were essentially social welfare programs for low-income and/or senior citizens. 2. Requirements for Successful Physical Recovery Why was the physical recovery following the 1995 Kobe earthquake so successful in terms of infrastructure restoration, the replacement of damaged housing units, and completion of urban redevelopment projects? There are at least three key success factors that can be applied to other disaster recovery efforts: 1) citizen participation in recovery planning efforts, 2) strong local leadership, and 3) the establishment of numerical targets for recovery. Citizen participation As pointed out in the three papers on recovery planning processes by Mr. Maki, Mr. Mammen, and Ms. Johnson, citizen participation is one of the indispensable factors for successful recovery plans. Thousands of citizens participated in planning workshops organized by America Speaks as part of both the World Trade Center and City of New Orleans recovery planning efforts. Although no such workshops were held as part of the City of Kobe’s recovery planning process, citizen participation had been part of the City of Kobe’s general plan update that had occurred shortly before the earthquake. The City of Kobe’s recovery plan is, in large part, an adaptation of the 1995-2005 general plan. On January 13 of 1995, the City of Kobe formally approved its new, 1995-2005 general plan which had been developed over the course of three years with full of citizen participation. City officials, responsible for drafting the City of Kobe’s recovery plan, have later admitted that they were able to prepare the city’s recovery plan in six months because they had the preceding three years of planning for the new general plan with citizen participation. Based on this lesson, Odiya City compiled its recovery plan based on the recommendations obtained from a series of five stakeholder workshops after the 2004 Niigata Chuetsu earthquake. <strong>Fig. 1. </strong> Basic structure of recovery plans from the 1995 Kobe earthquake. <strong>Fig. 2. </strong> “Disaster recovery report card” of the progress made by 2006. Strong leadership In the aftermath of the Kobe earthquake, local leadership had a defining role in the recovery process. Kobe’s former Mayor, Mr. Yukitoshi Sasayama, was hired to work in Kobe City government as an urban planner, rebuilding Kobe following World War II. He knew the city intimately. When he saw damage in one area on his way to the City Hall right after the earthquake, he knew what levels of damage to expect in other parts of the city. It was he who called for the two-month moratorium on rebuilding in Kobe city on the day of the earthquake. The moratorium provided time for the city to formulate a vision and policies to guide the various levels of government, private investors, and residents in rebuilding. It was a quite unpopular policy when Mayor Sasayama announced it. Citizens expected the city to be focusing on shelters and mass care, not a ban on reconstruction. Based on his experience in rebuilding Kobe following WWII, he was determined not to allow haphazard reconstruction in the city. It took several years before Kobe citizens appreciated the moratorium. Numerical targets Former Governor Mr. Toshitami Kaihara provided some key numerical targets for recovery which were announced in the prefecture and municipal recovery plans. They were: 1) Hyogo Prefecture would rebuild all the damaged housing units in three years, 2) all the temporary housing would be removed within five years, and 3) physical recovery would be completed in ten years. All of these numerical targets were achieved. Having numerical targets was critical to directing and motivating all the stakeholders including the national government’s investment, and it proved to be the foundation for Japan’s fundamental approach to recovery following the 1995 earthquake. 3. Economic Recovery as the Prime Goal of Disaster Recovery In Japan, it is the responsibility of the national government to supply the financial support to restore damaged infrastructure and public facilities in the impacted area as soon as possible. The long-term recovery following the Kobe earthquake is the first time, in Japan’s modern history, that a major rebuilding effort occurred during a time when there was not also strong national economic growth. In contrast, between 1945 and 1990, Japan enjoyed a high level of national economic growth which helped facilitate the recoveries following WWII and other large fires. In the first year after the Kobe earthquake, Japan’s national government invested more than US$ 80 billion in recovery. These funds went mainly towards the repair and reconstruction of infrastructure and public facilities. Now, looking back, we can also see that these investments also nearly crushed the local economy. Too much money flowed into the local economy over too short a period of time and it also did not have the “trickle-down” effect that might have been intended. To accomplish numerical targets for physical recovery, the national government awarded contracts to large companies from Osaka and Tokyo. But, these large out-of-town contractors also tended to have their own labor and supply chains already intact, and did not use local resources and labor, as might have been expected. Essentially, ten years of housing supply was completed in less than three years, which led to a significant local economic slump. Large amounts of public investment for recovery are not necessarily a panacea for local businesses, and local economic recovery, as shown in the following two examples from the Kobe earthquake. A significant national investment was made to rebuild the Port of Kobe to a higher seismic standard, but both its foreign export and import trade never recovered to pre-disaster levels. While the Kobe Port was out of business, both the Yokohama Port and the Osaka Port increased their business, even though many economists initially predicted that the Kaohsiung Port in Chinese Taipei or the Pusan Port in Korea would capture this business. Business stayed at all of these ports even after the reopening of the Kobe Port. Similarly, the Hanshin Railway was severely damaged and it took half a year to resume its operation, but it never regained its pre-disaster readership. In this case, two other local railway services, the JR and Hankyu lines, maintained their increased readership even after the Hanshin railway resumed operation. As illustrated by these examples, pre-disaster customers who relied on previous economic output could not necessarily afford to wait for local industries to recover and may have had to take their business elsewhere. Our research suggests that the significant recovery investment made by Japan’s national government may have been a disincentive for new economic development in the impacted area. Government may have been the only significant financial risk-taker in the impacted area during the national economic slow-down. But, its focus was on restoring what had been lost rather than promoting new or emerging economic development. Thus, there may have been a missed opportunity to provide incentives or put pressure on major businesses and industries to develop new businesses and attract new customers in return for the public investment. The significant recovery investment by Japan’s national government may have also created an over-reliance of individuals on public spending and government support. As indicated in Ms. Karatani’s paper, individual savings of Kobe’s residents has continued to rise since the earthquake and the number of individuals on social welfare has also decreased below pre-disaster levels. Based on our research on economic recovery from the Kobe earthquake, at least two lessons emerge: 1) Successful economic recovery requires coordination among all three recovery goals – Economic, Physical and Life Recovery, and 2) “Recovery indices” are needed to better chart recovery progress in real-time and help ensure that the recovery investments are being used effectively. Economic recovery as the prime goal of recovery Physical recovery, especially the restoration of infrastructure and public facilities, may be the most direct and socially accepted provision of outside financial assistance into an impacted area. However, lessons learned from the Kobe earthquake suggest that the sheer amount of such assistance may not be effective as it should be. Thus, as shown in Fig. 3, economic recovery should be the top priority goal for recovery among the three goals and serve as a guiding force for physical recovery and life recovery. Physical recovery can be a powerful facilitator of post-disaster economic development by upgrading social infrastructure and public facilities in compliance with economic recovery plans. In this way, it is possible to turn a disaster into an opportunity for future sustainable development. Life recovery may also be achieved with a healthy economic recovery that increases tax revenue in the impacted area. In order to achieve this coordination among all three recovery goals, municipalities in the impacted areas should have access to flexible forms of post-disaster financing. The community development block grant program that has been used after several large disasters in the United States, provide impacted municipalities with a more flexible form of funding and the ability to better determine what to do and when. The participation of key stakeholders is also an indispensable element of success that enables block grant programs to transform local needs into concrete businesses. In sum, an effective economic recovery combines good coordination of national support to restore infrastructure and public facilities and local initiatives that promote community recovery. Developing Recovery Indices Long-term recovery takes time. As Mr. Tatsuki’s paper explains, periodical social survey data indicates that it took ten years before the initial impacts of the Kobe earthquake were no longer affecting the well-being of disaster victims and the recovery was completed. In order to manage this long-term recovery process effectively, it is important to have some indices to visualize the recovery processes. In this issue, three papers by Mr. Takashima, Ms. Karatani, and Mr. Kimura define three different kinds of recovery indices that can be used to continually monitor the progress of the recovery. Mr. Takashima focuses on electric power consumption in the impacted area as an index for impact and recovery. Chronological change in electric power consumption can be obtained from the monthly reports of power company branches. Daily estimates can also be made by tracking changes in city lights using a satellite called DMSP. Changes in city lights can be a very useful recovery measure especially at the early stages since it can be updated daily for anywhere in the world. Ms. Karatani focuses on the chronological patterns of monthly macro-statistics that prefecture and city governments collect as part of their routine monitoring of services and operations. For researchers, it is extremely costly and virtually impossible to launch post-disaster projects that collect recovery data continuously for ten years. It is more practical for researchers to utilize data that is already being collected by local governments or other agencies and use this data to create disaster impact and recovery indices. Ms. Karatani found three basic patterns of disaster impact and recovery in the local government data that she studied: 1) Some activities increased soon after the disaster event and then slumped, such as housing construction; 2) Some activities reduced sharply for a period of time after the disaster and then rebounded to previous levels, such as grocery consumption; and 3) Some activities reduced sharply for a while and never returned to previous levels, such as the Kobe Port and Hanshin Railway. Mr. Kimura focuses on the psychology of disaster victims. He developed a “recovery and reconstruction calendar” that clarifies the process that disaster victims undergo in rebuilding their shattered lives. His work is based on the results of random surveys. Despite differences in disaster size and locality, survey data from the 1995 Kobe earthquake and the 2004 Niigata-ken Chuetsu earthquake indicate that the recovery and reconstruction calendar is highly reliable and stable in clarifying the recovery and reconstruction process. <strong>Fig. 3.</strong> Integrated plan of disaster recovery. 4. Life Recovery as the Ultimate Goal of Disaster Recovery Life recovery starts with the identification of the disaster victims. In Japan, local governments in the impacted area issue a “damage certificate” to disaster victims by household, recording the extent of each victim’s housing damage. After the Kobe earthquake, a total of 500,000 certificates were issued. These certificates, in turn, were used by both public and private organizations to determine victim’s eligibility for individual assistance programs. However, about 30% of those victims who received certificates after the Kobe earthquake were dissatisfied with the results of assessment. This caused long and severe disputes for more than three years. Based on the lessons learned from the Kobe earthquake, Mr. Horie’s paper presents (1) a standardized procedure for building damage assessment and (2) an inspector training system. This system has been adopted as the official building damage assessment system for issuing damage certificates to victims of the 2004 Niigata-ken Chuetsu earthquake, the 2007 Noto-Peninsula earthquake, and the 2007 Niigata-ken Chuetsu Oki earthquake. Personal and family recovery, which we term life recovery, was one of the explicit goals of the recovery plan from the Kobe earthquake, but it was unclear in both recovery theory and practice as to how this would be measured and accomplished. Now, after studying the recovery in Kobe and other regions, Ms. Tamura’s paper proposes that there are seven elements that define the meaning of life recovery for disaster victims. She recently tested this model in a workshop with Kobe disaster victims. The seven elements and victims’ rankings are shown in Fig. 4. Regaining housing and restoring social networks were, by far, the top recovery indicators for victims. Restoration of neighborhood character ranked third. Demographic shifts and redevelopment plans implemented following the Kobe earthquake forced significant neighborhood changes upon many victims. Next in line were: having a sense of being better prepared and reducing their vulnerability to future disasters; regaining their physical and mental health; and restoration of their income, job, and the economy. The provision of government assistance also provided victims with a sense of life recovery. Mr. Tatsuki’s paper summarizes the results of four random-sample surveys of residents within the most severely impacted areas of Hyogo Prefecture. These surveys were conducted biannually since 1999,. Based on the results of survey data from 1999, 2001, 2003, and 2005, it is our conclusion that life recovery took ten years for victims in the area impacted significantly by the Kobe earthquake. Fig. 5 shows that by comparing the two structural equation models of disaster recovery (from 2003 and 2005), damage caused by the Kobe earthquake was no longer a determinant of life recovery in the 2005 model. It was still one of the major determinants in the 2003 model as it was in 1999 and 2001. This is the first time in the history of disaster research that the entire recovery process has been scientifically described. It can be utilized as a resource and provide benchmarks for monitoring the recovery from future disasters. <strong>Fig. 4.</strong> Ethnographical meaning of “life recovery” obtained from the 5th year review of the Kobe earthquake by the City of Kobe. <strong>Fig. 5.</strong> Life recovery models of 2003 and 2005. 6. The Need for an Integrated Recovery Plan The recovery lessons from Kobe and other regions suggest that we need more integrated recovery plans that use physical recovery as a tool for economic recovery, which in turn helps disaster victims. Furthermore, we believe that economic recovery should be the top priority for recovery, and physical recovery should be regarded as a tool for stimulating economic recovery and upgrading social infrastructure (as shown in Fig. 6). With this approach, disaster recovery can help build the foundation for a long-lasting and sustainable community. Figure 6 proposes a more detailed model for a more holistic recovery process. The ultimate goal of any recovery process should be achieving life recovery for all disaster victims. We believe that to get there, both direct and indirect approaches must be taken. Direct approaches include: the provision of funds and goods for victims, for physical and mental health care, and for housing reconstruction. Indirect approaches for life recovery are those which facilitate economic recovery, which also has both direct and indirect approaches. Direct approaches to economic recovery include: subsidies, loans, and tax exemptions. Indirect approaches to economic recovery include, most significantly, the direct projects to restore infrastructure and public buildings. More subtle approaches include: setting new regulations or deregulations, providing technical support, and creating new businesses. A holistic recovery process needs to strategically combine all of these approaches, and there must be collaborative implementation by all the key stakeholders, including local governments, non-profit and non-governmental organizations (NPOs and NGOs), community-based organizations (CBOs), and the private sector. Therefore, community and stakeholder participation in the planning process is essential to achieve buy-in for the vision and desired outcomes of the recovery plan. Securing the required financial resources is also critical to successful implementation. In thinking of stakeholders, it is important to differentiate between supporting entities and operating agencies. Supporting entities are those organizations that supply the necessary funding for recovery. Both Japan’s national government and the federal government in the U.S. are the prime supporting entities in the recovery from the 1995 Kobe earthquake and the 2001 World Trade Center recovery. In Taiwan, the Buddhist organization and the national government of Taiwan were major supporting entities in the recovery from the 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake. Operating agencies are those organizations that implement various recovery measures. In Japan, local governments in the impacted area are operating agencies, while the national government is a supporting entity. In the United States, community development block grants provide an opportunity for many operating agencies to implement various recovery measures. As Mr. Mammen’ paper describes, many NPOs, NGOs, and/or CBOs in addition to local governments have had major roles in implementing various kinds programs funded by block grants as part of the World Trade Center recovery. No one, single organization can provide effective help for all kinds of disaster victims individually or collectively. The needs of disaster victims may be conflicting with each other because of their diversity. Their divergent needs can be successfully met by the diversity of operating agencies that have responsibility for implementing recovery measures. In a similar context, block grants made to individual households, such as microfinance, has been a vital recovery mechanism for victims in Thailand who suffered from the 2004 Sumatra earthquake and tsunami disaster. Both disaster victims and government officers at all levels strongly supported the microfinance so that disaster victims themselves would become operating agencies for recovery. Empowering individuals in sustainable life recovery is indeed the ultimate goal of recovery. <strong>Fig. 6.</strong> A holistic recovery policy model.

Problem setting. The peculiarities of the foreign experience are considered regarding the land resourses management of the territorial community. The role of the country in ensuring the rational use of land resources of the territorial community is shown. The main guarantees of effective management and rational use of land resources are pointed out. It is proposed on the basis of the analyzed international experience to form a unified national land management system that combines successful foreign experience, which will make it possible to guarantee the socio-economic development of the territorial community.Recent research and publications analysis. The problems of land resources management in the context of decentralization have been studied by the following scientists as V. Horlachuk, O. Dorosh, I. Drobot, I. Zalutsky, O. Klimenko, V. Kozhurina, R. Taratula and others. The study of foreign experience in land management was carried out by the scientists as O. Bihunenko, T. Zinchuk, N. Krasiuk, O. Suprun, Y. Khvesyk, V. Chuvpylo, O. Shkuropat and others.Highlighting previously unsettled parts of the general problem. Despite the significant amount of the foreign experience study in land resourses study, it is urgent to develop new grounds for mechanism formation of the efficient land resources management in nowadays conditions of the state power decentralization based on the examined international experience considering the national peculiarities ensuring social-economic development of the territorial communities.Paper main body. Today, at the stage of land decentralization completion, the issues of land resources management in the territorial community are extremely acute at the national level. The land for the territorial communities is an important resource, which their economic and social development depends on. Efficient and rational use of land has become possible after the expansion of the territorial communities authorities in the field of land management, which in turn made it necessary to ensure the control and supervision function of the country in accordance with the delegated powers of the territorial communities. The issue of rational use of land resourses becomes increasingly important in the system of decentralization. The modern reformation of the land relations in UKraine is due to the solution of the rational land use tasks as the most important resourse of the territorial community.Three-level system of land resource management is peculiar for the vast majority of the countries: governmental, regional, local (municpal). But at the same time a uniform model of land relations regulation does not exist, each country in this respect is unique. Management in the sphere of land regulation and land transactions in European countries differs depending on the territorial structure and system of public administration. The system of land regulation in the federal countries is much more diverse, since many issues on land use is given to the jurisdiction of individual territories. All countries have special governmental, public or private structures engaged in regulation and management of land resources.The article examines and analyzes the experience of the old members of the European Union of Germany, Italy, France and new EU members – Poland and Latvia, as well as China, a country where the main form of land ownership is state.The entire territory of the federal state of Germany is divided into communities. Only territories owned by the state do not belong to the territories of communities, for example, military airfields, highways, and governmental forests. Within the territory of the community, the primacy of planning within land plans belongs exclusively to the community.An important aspect of the Italy's experience for Ukraine is land for those who are engaged in its processing, assistance from the state in the form of affordable credit and control by the state for effective use through forced leasing, namely the transfer of the right of use to a more efficient user.French legislation is aimed at preserving the purpose of agricultural land and developing farming. It is forbidden to buy and sell particularly fertile land for non-agricultural use, the owner must not leave agricultural land without cultivation for more than five years, otherwise the land may be transferred to other persons.The goal of the land reform in Poland was to move to market-based principles of economic development, increase agricultural productivity, and improve the standard of living and social-economic development of rural areas.The negative experience of Latvia, where agricultural land was in free circulation after independence, should be a warning factor for Ukraine in order to prevent a similar situation from occurring.The experience of China shows that in order to effectively manage the land resources, which will lead to the social-economic development of the territorial community, it is necessary to provide affordable credit to the farmers and avoid mass land sales.Conclusions of the research and prospects for further studies. Summarizing, we can conclude that the world integration processes in the sphere of land management have proven to mankind that land is one of the main sources of economic well-being, which needs to be organized for rational use and protection. Land resources management directly influences upon the social-economic development of the territorial communities. The modern state of land resources management requires new approaches aiming to increase management efficiency and ensure rational use. The foreign experience demonstrates us that from the perspective of national interests and national security there should be control and limitations on the part of the government considering the agreements implementation as to the right to own, use and dispose the land resources.The international experience makes it possible to point out the principal guarantees of efficient management and rational use of the land resources, in particular:– determination of legislation restriction as for the foreigner-buyers;– granting preferential right to purchase agricultural land plots to persons who are associated with agricultural activities and have appropriate education, as well as to take into account the availability of production means and required capital;– fullness of the state land cadastre and continuous updating of data;– establishment of the State Land Bank Institute for long-term lending to the agricultural sector;– state control over effective use through compulsory leasing, in particular, transfer of the right of use to a more efficient user.The promising areas for further research are development of substantive proposals for improving modern land management based on the foreign experience and recommendations for their practical application.

Bangladesh is endowed with extensive and highly diversified fisheries resources. More than 60% of animal-based food protein in Bangladesh comes from fish, which is an essential source of micronutrients and plays a significant part in the country's diet. This paper reviews the effectuation of the fisheries sector in the economic development of Bangladesh using data collected from secondary sources. Bangladesh is the world’s 5th largest producer of fish-culture products, outranked by China, Indonesia, India, and Vietnam. In FY 2018-19, the fisheries sector contributed 3.5% to Bangladesh’s national GDP. More than 18 million people are directly and indirectly involved in the fisheries sector. Fish is the most significant source of protein for the mass population and the per capita consumption was 21.8 kg in 2019. The fisheries sector has been growing steadily in the recent decade with a 5.3% growth over the period from 2009 to 2019. In FY 2018-19, 56.76% (2.49 million MT) of aquaculture fish was cultivated in closed water bodies. Out of the fisheries production, the majority (1.97 million MT) is cultivated in ponds, particularly carp, pangaus, and tilapia fish which jointly account for 93% of freshwater fish production. The average growth rate of fish production in ponds is 5.7%, while this is 8.9% for intensive production. Shrimp production from culture farms contributes 51.34%. This study also found that fish-culture has a profound impact on the income level, food security, and employment generation of the farming community. Bangladesh furthermore recognizes the shrimp sector as an important source of foreign trade contributing 75.8% of total agriculture trade. The majorly export markets are the EU, USA, and UK. Although, China is the chief importer of crabs there exists a potential market for shrimp (Bagda). Pangas and tilapia also possess relative advantages in export. Therefore, with the sustainable use of available resources with proper technological assistance, fish produced from fish-culture would efficiently meet the protein demand of the growing population and thus alleviating poverty with significant employment opportunities for the country.

The article analyzes the problems of moral and aesthetic education in the process of personal and professional development of future engineering teachers in terms of the educational process of higher education at the present stage. Constant dynamic changes in the political, economic and socio-cultural structure of society require new approaches in the system of vocational education. The article proposes to consider an engineer-teacher of a new type as a person who has humanity, an awareness of the high value of human life; spirituality, the need for knowledge of the surrounding reality, self-knowledge, the search for the meaning of life and life credo, in communication with art, in understanding the intrinsic value of their inner world; creativity, developed intellect, striving for transforming activity and possession of the sense of the new, ability for active life and creativity; pragmatism, possession of the newest technologies, skills and abilities necessary for the implementation of professional knowledge in the new economic and socio-cultural situation. The article substantiates that the main tasks of higher education at the present stage are the formation of the spiritual sphere of the student’s personality and the education of its ethical and aesthetic qualities. The development of these qualities is impossible without creating an effective training system. In this regard, the search for new approaches to the organization of educational activities in higher education is being actualized, in particular, the implementation of the educational function of education, the creation of favorable conditions for professional, personal, cultural, creative self-development and self-education, assistance in the development of a competitive personality of a future specialist . The article analyzes the current trends in the development of society, describes the contradictory attitude towards high aesthetic and moral ideals, as evidenced by the decline in the prestige of education and public culture; consumer attitude to artistic values, which affected the quality of print, television programs, the dominance of "mass culture" on the one hand and on the other - the creation of real conditions for the aesthetic education of people in a sovereign, independent state: an appeal to national sources, to the origins of folk culture wisdom; openness of society, which makes it possible to integrate into the world community, acquaintance with world achievements in various fields, in particular, in artistic creation; freedom of thought; alternative education system, increased attention to the capable and gifted. Prospects for further research are to conduct a detailed analysis of the socio-psychological characteristics of students young people identified in this article, factors that influence the level of aesthetic and moral culture and education of future specialists.

Background: The global challenges of climate change, disease and hunger exceed national borders as do possibilities of sustained life, exploration and economic development in outer space. Both help to underscore the need for sustained international STEM research to leverage the talent embedded in different countries and in diverse groups within countries. This study focuses on the United States National Science Foundation provision of funds to its Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) Program to create a National Center of Excellence LSAMP-NICE for the establishment of international STEM Research Partnerships with a particular emphasis on the integration of international collaborative research for underrepresented minority STEM faculty, students and graduates. The study focuses on the diffusion of this Center’s services to the LSAMP Community, a group of 56 LSAMP funded STEM enrichment programs located across the United States. We found that LSAMP-NICE used mass media (a website and two advertorials in a national journal) and an annual national meeting as its major diffusion strategies during its first two years. Forty-two (42) programs responded to the questionnaire. The majority of the respondents (71.4%) had not used the website; 88.1% had not read the Advertorial in Science Magazine; and 78.6% did not attend the national 2019 LSAMP-NICE Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. Our study suggests a need for additional diffusion techniques to reach the intended audience. Some respondent suggestions for diffusion include participation by LSAMP-NICE representatives at LSAMP Regional Conferences and Symposia, visits by LSAMP-NICE staff to LSAMP programs, forging relationships with higher education institutions abroad so LSAMP students can obtain summer or longer-term research experiences and providing technical assistance on applying for international travel funds.

A rhetoric of freedom characterises much of the literature dealing with online communities: freedom from fixed identity and appearance, from the confines of geographic space, and from control. The prevailing view, a combination of futurism and utopianism, is that the lack of order in cyberspace enables the creation of social spaces that will enhance personal freedom and advance the common good. Sherry Turkle argues that computer-mediated communication allows us to create a new form of community, in which identity is multiple and fluid (15-17). Marcos Novak celebrates the possibilities of a dematerialized, ethereal virtual architecture in which the relationships between abstract elements are in a constant state of flux (250). John Perry Barlow employs the frontier metaphor to frame cyberspace as an unmapped, ungoverned territory in which a romantic and a peculiarly American form of individualism can be enjoyed by rough and ready pioneers (“Crime” 460). In his 1993 account as an active participant in The WELL (Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link), one of the earliest efforts to construct a social space online, Howard Rheingold celebrates the freedom to create a “new kind of culture” and an “authentic community” in the “electronic frontier.” He worries, however, that the freedom enjoyed by early homesteaders may be short lived, because “big power and big money” might soon find ways to control the Internet, just as they have come to dominate and direct other communications media. “The Net,” he states, “is still out of control in fundamental ways, but it might not stay that way for long” (Virtual Community 2-5). The uses of order and disorder Some theorists have identified disorder as a necessary condition for the development of healthy communities. In The Uses of Disorder (1970), Richard Sennett argues that “the freedom to accept and to live with disorder” is integral to our search for community (xviii). In his 1989 study of social space, Ray Oldenburg maintains that public hangouts, which constitute the heart of vibrant communities, support sociability best when activities are unplanned, unorganized, and unrestricted (33). He claims that without the constraints of preplanned control we will be more in control of ourselves and more aware of one another (198). More recently, Charles Landry suggests that “structured instability” and “controlled disruption,” resulting from competition, conflict, crisis, and debate, make cities less comfortable but more exciting. Further, he argues that “endemic structural disorder” requiring ongoing adjustments can generate healthy creative activity and stimulate continual innovation (156-58). Kevin Robins, too, believes that any viable social system must be prepared to accept a level of uncertainty, disorder, and fear. He observes, however, that techno-communities are “driven by the compulsion to neutralize,” and they therefore exclude these possibilities in favour of order and security (90-91). Indeed, order and security are the dominant characteristics that less idealistic observers have identified with cyberspace. Alexander Galloway explains how, despite its potential as a liberating development, the Internet is based on technologies of control. This control is exercised at the code level through technical protocols, such as TCP/IP, DNS, and HTM, that determine disconnections as well as connections (Galloway). Lawrence Lessig suggests that in our examination of the ownership, regulation, and governance of the virtual commons, we must take into account three distinct layers. As well as the “logical” or “code” layer that Galloway foregrounds, we should also consider the “physical” layer, consisting of the computers and wires that carry Internet communications, and the “content” layer, which includes everything that we see and hear over the network. In principle, each of these layers could be free and unorganized, or privately owned and controlled (Lessig 23). Dan Schiller documents the increasing privatization of the Net and argues that corporate cyberspace extends the reach of the market, enabling it to penetrate into areas that have previously been considered to be part of the public domain. For Schiller, the Internet now serves as the main production and control mechanism of a global market system (xiv). Checking into Habbo Hotel Habbo Hotel is an example of a highly ordered and controlled online social space that uses community and game metaphors to suggest something much more open and playful. Designed to attract the teenage market, this graphically intensive cartoon-like hotel is like an interactive Legoland, in which participants assemble a toy-like “Habbo” character and chat, play games, and construct personal environments. The first Habbo Hotel opened its doors in the United Kingdom in 2000, and, by September 2004, localized sites were based in a dozen countries, including Canada, the Unites States, Finland, Japan, Switzerland and Spain, with further expansion planned. At that time, there were more than seventeen million registered Habbo characters worldwide with 2.3 million unique visitors each month (“Strong Growth”). The hotel contains thousands of private rooms and twenty-two public spaces, including a welcome lounge, three lobbies, cinema, game hall, café, pub, and an extensive hallway. Anyone can go to the Room-O-Matic and instantly create a free guest room. However, there are a limited number of layouts to choose from and the furnishings, which must be purchased, have be chosen from a catalog of fixed offerings. All rooms are located on one of five floors, which categorize them according to use (parties, games, models, mazes, and trading). Paradoxically, the so-called public spaces are more restricted and less public than the private guest quarters. The limited capacity of the rooms means that all of the public spaces are full most of the time. Priority is given to paying Habbo Club members and others are denied entry or are unceremoniously ejected from a room when it becomes full. Most visitors never make it into the front lobby. This rigid and restricted construction is far from Novak’s vision of a “liquid architecture” without barriers, that morphs in response to the constantly changing desires of individual inhabitants (Novak 250). Before entering the virtual hotel, individuals must first create a Lego-like avatar. Users choose a unique name for their Habbo (no foul language is allowed) and construct their online persona from a limited selection and colour of body parts. One of two different wardrobes is available, depending on whether “Boy” or “Girl” is chosen. The gender of every Habbo is easily recognizable and the restricted wardrobe results in remarkably similar looking young characters. The lack of differentiation encourages participants to treat other Habbos as generic “Boys” or “Girls” and it encourages limited and predictable conversations that fit the stereotype of male-female interactions in most chat sites. Contrary to Turkle’s contention that computer mediated communication technologies expose the fallacy of a single, fixed, identity, and free participants to experiment with alternative selves (15-17), Habbo characters are permitted just one unchangeable name, and are capable of only limited visual transformations. A fixed link between each Habbo character and its registered user (information that is not available to other participants) allows the hotel management to track members through the site and monitor their behavior. Habbo movements are limited to walking, waving, dancing and drinking virtual alcohol-free beverages. Movement between spaces is accomplished by entering a teleport booth, or by selecting a location by name from the hotel Navigator. Habbos cannot jump, fly or walk through objects or other Habbos. They have no special powers and only a limited ability to interact with objects in their environment. They cannot be hurt or otherwise affected by anything in their surroundings, including other Habbos. The emphasis is on safety and avoidance of conflict. Text chat in Habbo Hotel is limited to one sixty-one-character line, which appears above the Habbo, floats upward, and quickly disappears off the top of the screen. Text must be typed in real time while reading on-going conversations and it is not possible to archive a chat sessions or view past exchanges. There is no way of posting a message on a public board. Using the Habbo Console, shorter messages can also be exchanged between Habbos who may be occupying different rooms. The only other narratives available on the site are in the form of official news and promotions. Before checking into the hotel, Habbos can stop to read Habbo Today, which promotes current offers and activities, and HabboHood Happenings, which offers safety tips, information about membership benefits, jobs (paid in furniture), contest winners, and polls. According to Rheingold, a virtual community can form online when enough people participate in meaningful public discussions over an extended period of time and develop “webs of personal relationships” (Virtual Community 5). By restricting communication to short, fleeting messages between individual Habbos, the hotel frustrates efforts by members to engage in significant dialogue and create a viable social group. Although “community” is an important part of the Habbo Hotel brand, it is unlikely to be a substantial part of the actual experience. The virtual hotel is promoted as a safe, non-threatening environment suitable for the teenagers is designed to attract. Parents’ concerns about the dangers of an unregulated chat space provide the hotel management with a justification for creating a highly controlled social space. The hotel is patrolled twenty-four hours a day by professional moderators backed-up by a team of 180 volunteer “Hobbas,” or guides, who can issue warnings to misbehaving Habbos, or temporarily ban them from the site. All text keyed in by Habbos passes through an automated “Bobba Filter” that removes swearing, racist words, explicit sexual comments and “anything that goes against the “Habbo Way” (“Bad Language”). Stick to the rules and you’ll have fun, Habbos are told, “break them and you’ll get yourself banned” (“Habbo Way”). In Big Brother fashion, messages are displayed throughought the hotel advising members to “Stay safe, read the Habbohood Watch,” “Never give out your details!” and “Obey the Habbo way and you’ll be OK.” This miniature surveillance society contradicts Barlow’s observation that cyberspace serves as “a perfect breeding ground for both outlaws and new ideas about liberty” (“Crime” 460). In his manifesto declaring the independence of cyberspace from government control, he maintains that the state has no authority in the electronic “global social space,” where, he asserts, “[w]e are forming our own Social Contract” based on the Golden Rule (“Declaration”). However, Habbo Hotel shows how the rule of the marketplace, which values profits more than social practices, can limit the freedoms of online civil society just as effectively as the most draconian government regulation. Place your order Far from permitting the “controlled disruption” advocated by Landry, the hotel management ensures that nothing is allowed to disrupt their control over the participants. Without conflict and debate, there are few triggers for creative activity in the site, which is designed to encourage consumption, not community. Timo Soininen, the managing director of the company that designed the hotel, states that, because teenagers like to showcase their own personal style, “self-expression is the key to our whole concept.” However, since it isn’t possible to create a Habbo from scratch, or to import clothing or other objects from outside the site, the only way for members to effectively express themselves is by decorating and furnishing their room with items purchased from the Habbo Catalogue. “You see, this,” admits Soininen, “is where our revenue model kicks in” (Shalit). Real-world products and services are also marketed through ads and promotions that are integrated into chat, news, and games. The result, according to Habbo Ltd, is “the ideal vehicle for third party brands to reach this highly desired 12-18 year-old market in a cost-effective and creative manner” (“Habbo Company Profile”). Habbo Hotel is a good example of what Herbert Schiller describes as the corporate capture of sites of public expression. He notes that, when put at the service of growing corporate power, new technologies “provide the instrumentation for organizing and channeling expression” (5-6). In an afterword to a revised edition of The Virtual Community, published in 2000, Rheingold reports on the sale of the WELL to a privately owned corporation, and its decline as a lively social space when order was imposed from the top down. Although he believes that there is a place for commercial virtual communities on the Net, he acknowledges that as economic forces become more entrenched, “more controls will be instituted because there is more at stake.” While remaining hopeful that activists can leverage the power of many-to-many communications for the public good, he wonders what will happen when “the decentralized network infrastructure and freewheeling network economy collides with the continuing growth of mammoth, global, communication empires” (Virtual Community Rev. 375-7). Although the company that built Habbo Hotel is far from achieving global empire status, their project illustrates how the dominant ethos of privatization and the increasing emphasis on consumption results in gated virtual communities that are highly ordered, restricted, and controlled. The popularity of the hotel reflects the desire of millions of Habbos to express their identities and ideas in a playful environment that they are free to create and manipulate. However, they soon find that the rules are stacked against them. Restricted design options, severe communication limitations, and fixed architectural constraints mean that the only freedom left is the freedom to choose from a narrow range of provided options. In private cyberspaces like Habbo Hotel, the logic of the market rules out unrestrained many-to-many communications in favour of controlled commercial relationships. The liberating potential of the Internet that was recognized by Rheingold and others has been diminished as the forces of globalized commerce impose their order on the electronic frontier. References “Bad Language.” Habbo Hotel. 2004. Sulake UK Ltd. 15 Apr. 2004 http://www.habbohotel.co.uk/habbo/en/help/safety/badlanguage/>. Barlow, John Perry. “Crime and Puzzlement.” High Noon on the Electronic Frontier: Conceptual Issues in Cyberspace. Ed. Peter Ludlow. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT P, 1996. 459-86. ———. “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace.” 8 Feb. 1996. 3 July 2004 http://www.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html>. Galloway, Alexander R. Protocol: How Control Exists after Decentralization. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT P, 2004. “Habbo Company Profile.” Habbo Hotel. 2002. Habbo Ltd. 20 Jan. 2003 http://www.habbogroup.com>. “The Habbo Way.” Habbo Hotel. 2004. Sulake UK Ltd. 15 Apr. 2004 http://www.habbohotel.co.uk/habbo/en/help/safety/habboway/>. Landry, Charles. The Creative City: A Toolkit for Urban Innovators. London: Earthscan, 2000. Lessig, Lawrence. The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World. New York: Random, 2001. Novak, Marcos. “Liquid Architecture in Cyberspace.” Cyberspace: First Steps. Ed. Michael Benedikt. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT P, 1991. 225-54. Oldenburg, Ray. The Great Good Place: Cafés, Coffee Shops, Community Centers, Beauty Parlors, General Stores, Bars, Hangouts and How They Get You through the Day. New York: Paragon, 1989. Rheingold, Howard. The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. New York: Harper, 1993. ———. The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. Rev. ed. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT P, 2000. Robins, Kevin. “Cyberspace and the World We Live In.” The Cybercultures Reader. Eds. David Bell and Barbara M. Kennedy. London: Routledge, 2000. 77-95. Schiller, Dan. Digital Capitalism: Networking the Global Market System. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT P, 1999. Schiller, Herbert I. Culture Inc.: The Corporate Takeover of Public Expression. New York: Oxford UP, 1991. Sennett, Richard. The Uses of Disorder: Personal Identity & City Life. New York: Vintage, 1970. Shalit, Ruth. “Welcome to the Habbo Hotel.” mpulse Magazine. Mar. 2002. Hewlett-Packard. 1 Apr. 2004 http://www.cooltown.com/cooltown/mpulse/0302-habbo.asp>. “Strong Growth in Sulake’s Revenues and Profit – Habbo Hotel Online Game Will Launch in the US in September.” 3 Sept. 2004. Sulake. Sulake Corp. 9 Jan. 2005 http://www.sulake.com/>. Turkle, Sherry. Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. New York: Simon, 1997. Citation reference for this article MLA Style McGuire, Mark. "Ordered Communities." M/C Journal 7.6 (2005). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0501/06-mcguire.php>. APA Style McGuire, M. (Jan. 2005) "Ordered Communities," M/C Journal, 7(6). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0501/06-mcguire.php>.

“As the old technologies become automatic and invisible, we find ourselves more concerned with fighting or embracing what’s new”—Dennis Baron, From Pencils to Pixels: The Stage of Literacy Technologies What constitutes a computer, as we have come to expect it? Are they necessarily monolithic “beige boxes”, connected to computer monitors, sitting on computer desks, located in computer rooms or computer labs? In order for a device to be considered a true computer, does it need to have a keyboard and mouse? If this were 1991 or earlier, our collective perception of what computers are and are not would largely be framed by this “beige box” model: computers are stationary, slab-like, and heavy, and their natural habitats must be in rooms specifically designated for that purpose. In 1992, when Apple introduced the first PowerBook, our perception began to change. Certainly there had been other portable computers prior to that, such as the Osborne 1, but these were more luggable than portable, weighing just slightly less than a typical sewing machine. The PowerBook and subsequent waves of laptops, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and so-called smart phones from numerous other companies have steadily forced us to rethink and redefine what a computer is and is not, how we interact with them, and the manner in which these tools might be used in the classroom. However, this reconceptualization of computers is far from over, and is in fact steadily evolving as new devices are introduced, adopted, and subsequently adapted for uses beyond of their original purpose. Pat Crowe’s Book Reader project, for example, has morphed Nintendo’s GameBoy and GameBoy Advance into a viable electronic book platform, complete with images, sound, and multi-language support. (Crowe, 2003) His goal was to take this existing technology previously framed only within the context of proprietary adolescent entertainment, and repurpose it for open, flexible uses typically associated with learning and literacy. Similar efforts are underway to repurpose Microsoft’s Xbox, perhaps the ultimate symbol of “closed” technology given Microsoft’s propensity for proprietary code, in order to make it a viable platform for Open Source Software (OSS). However, these efforts are not forgone conclusions, and are in fact typical of the ongoing battle over who controls the technology we own in our homes, and how open source solutions are often at odds with a largely proprietary world. In late 2001, Microsoft launched the Xbox with a multimillion dollar publicity drive featuring events, commercials, live models, and statements claiming this new console gaming platform would “change video games the way MTV changed music”. (Chan, 2001) The Xbox launched with the following technical specifications: 733mhz Pentium III 64mb RAM, 8 or 10gb internal hard disk drive CD/DVD ROM drive (speed unknown) Nvidia graphics processor, with HDTV support 4 USB 1.1 ports (adapter required), AC3 audio 10/100 ethernet port, Optional 56k modem (TechTV, 2001) While current computers dwarf these specifications in virtually all areas now, for 2001 these were roughly on par with many desktop systems. The retail price at the time was $299, but steadily dropped to nearly half that with additional price cuts anticipated. Based on these features, the preponderance of “off the shelf” parts and components used, and the relatively reasonable price, numerous programmers quickly became interested in seeing it if was possible to run Linux and additional OSS on the Xbox. In each case, the goal has been similar: exceed the original purpose of the Xbox, to determine if and how well it might be used for basic computing tasks. If these attempts prove to be successful, the Xbox could allow institutions to dramatically increase the student-to-computer ratio in select environments, or allow individuals who could not otherwise afford a computer to instead buy and Xbox, download and install Linux, and use this new device to write, create, and innovate . This drive to literally and metaphorically “open” the Xbox comes from many directions. Such efforts include Andrew Huang’s self-published “Hacking the Xbox” book in which, under the auspices of reverse engineering, Huang analyzes the architecture of the Xbox, detailing step-by-step instructions for flashing the ROM, upgrading the hard drive and/or RAM, and generally prepping the device for use as an information appliance. Additional initiatives include Lindows CEO Michael Robertson’s $200,000 prize to encourage Linux development on the Xbox, and the Xbox Linux Project at SourceForge. What is Linux? Linux is an alternative operating system initially developed in 1991 by Linus Benedict Torvalds. Linux was based off a derivative of the MINIX operating system, which in turn was a derivative of UNIX. (Hasan 2003) Linux is currently available for Intel-based systems that would normally run versions of Windows, PowerPC-based systems that would normally run Apple’s Mac OS, and a host of other handheld, cell phone, or so-called “embedded” systems. Linux distributions are based almost exclusively on open source software, graphic user interfaces, and middleware components. While there are commercial Linux distributions available, these mainly just package the freely available operating system with bundled technical support, manuals, some exclusive or proprietary commercial applications, and related services. Anyone can still download and install numerous Linux distributions at no cost, provided they do not need technical support beyond the community / enthusiast level. Typical Linux distributions come with open source web browsers, word processors and related productivity applications (such as those found in OpenOffice.org), and related tools for accessing email, organizing schedules and contacts, etc. Certain Linux distributions are more or less designed for network administrators, system engineers, and similar “power users” somewhat distanced from that of our students. However, several distributions including Lycoris, Mandrake, LindowsOS, and other are specifically tailored as regular, desktop operating systems, with regular, everyday computer users in mind. As Linux has no draconian “product activation key” method of authentication, or digital rights management-laden features associated with installation and implementation on typical desktop and laptop systems, Linux is becoming an ideal choice both individually and institutionally. It still faces an uphill battle in terms of achieving widespread acceptance as a desktop operating system. As Finnie points out in Desktop Linux Edges Into The Mainstream: “to attract users, you need ease of installation, ease of device configuration, and intuitive, full-featured desktop user controls. It’s all coming, but slowly. With each new version, desktop Linux comes closer to entering the mainstream. It’s anyone’s guess as to when critical mass will be reached, but you can feel the inevitability: There’s pent-up demand for something different.” (Finnie 2003) Linux is already spreading rapidly in numerous capacities, in numerous countries. Linux has “taken hold wherever computer users desire freedom, and wherever there is demand for inexpensive software.” Reports from technology research company IDG indicate that roughly a third of computers in Central and South America run Linux. Several countries, including Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina, have all but mandated that state-owned institutions adopt open source software whenever possible to “give their people the tools and education to compete with the rest of the world.” (Hills 2001) The Goal Less than a year after Microsoft introduced the The Xbox, the Xbox Linux project formed. The Xbox Linux Project has a goal of developing and distributing Linux for the Xbox gaming console, “so that it can be used for many tasks that Microsoft don’t want you to be able to do. ...as a desktop computer, for email and browsing the web from your TV, as a (web) server” (Xbox Linux Project 2002). Since the Linux operating system is open source, meaning it can freely be tinkered with and distributed, those who opt to download and install Linux on their Xbox can do so with relatively little overhead in terms of cost or time. Additionally, Linux itself looks very “windows-like”, making for fairly low learning curve. To help increase overall awareness of this project and assist in diffusing it, the Xbox Linux Project offers step-by-step installation instructions, with the end result being a system capable of using common peripherals such as a keyboard and mouse, scanner, printer, a “webcam and a DVD burner, connected to a VGA monitor; 100% compatible with a standard Linux PC, all PC (USB) hardware and PC software that works with Linux.” (Xbox Linux Project 2002) Such a system could have tremendous potential for technology literacy. Pairing an Xbox with Linux and OpenOffice.org, for example, would provide our students essentially the same capability any of them would expect from a regular desktop computer. They could send and receive email, communicate using instant messaging IRC, or newsgroup clients, and browse Internet sites just as they normally would. In fact, the overall browsing experience for Linux users is substantially better than that for most Windows users. Internet Explorer, the default browser on all systems running Windows-base operating systems, lacks basic features standard in virtually all competing browsers. Native blocking of “pop-up” advertisements is still not yet possible in Internet Explorer without the aid of a third-party utility. Tabbed browsing, which involves the ability to easily open and sort through multiple Web pages in the same window, often with a single mouse click, is also missing from Internet Explorer. The same can be said for a robust download manager, “find as you type”, and a variety of additional features. Mozilla, Netscape, Firefox, Konqueror, and essentially all other OSS browsers for Linux have these features. Of course, most of these browsers are also available for Windows, but Internet Explorer is still considered the standard browser for the platform. If the Xbox Linux Project becomes widely diffused, our students could edit and save Microsoft Word files in OpenOffice.org’s Writer program, and do the same with PowerPoint and Excel files in similar OpenOffice.org components. They could access instructor comments originally created in Microsoft Word documents, and in turn could add their own comments and send the documents back to their instructors. They could even perform many functions not yet capable in Microsoft Office, including saving files in PDF or Flash format without needing Adobe’s Acrobat product or Macromedia’s Flash Studio MX. Additionally, by way of this project, the Xbox can also serve as “a Linux server for HTTP/FTP/SMB/NFS, serving data such as MP3/MPEG4/DivX, or a router, or both; without a monitor or keyboard or mouse connected.” (Xbox Linux Project 2003) In a very real sense, our students could use these inexpensive systems previously framed only within the context of entertainment, for educational purposes typically associated with computer-mediated learning. Problems: Control and Access The existing rhetoric of technological control surrounding current and emerging technologies appears to be stifling many of these efforts before they can even be brought to the public. This rhetoric of control is largely typified by overly-restrictive digital rights management (DRM) schemes antithetical to education, and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Combined,both are currently being used as technical and legal clubs against these efforts. Microsoft, for example, has taken a dim view of any efforts to adapt the Xbox to Linux. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who has repeatedly referred to Linux as a cancer and has equated OSS as being un-American, stated, “Given the way the economic model works - and that is a subsidy followed, essentially, by fees for every piece of software sold - our license framework has to do that.” (Becker 2003) Since the Xbox is based on a subsidy model, meaning that Microsoft actually sells the hardware at a loss and instead generates revenue off software sales, Ballmer launched a series of concerted legal attacks against the Xbox Linux Project and similar efforts. In 2002, Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft simultaneously sued Lik Sang, Inc., a Hong Kong-based company that produces programmable cartridges and “mod chips” for the PlayStation II, Xbox, and Game Cube. Nintendo states that its company alone loses over $650 million each year due to piracy of their console gaming titles, which typically originate in China, Paraguay, and Mexico. (GameIndustry.biz) Currently, many attempts to “mod” the Xbox required the use of such chips. As Lik Sang is one of the only suppliers, initial efforts to adapt the Xbox to Linux slowed considerably. Despite that fact that such chips can still be ordered and shipped here by less conventional means, it does not change that fact that the chips themselves would be illegal in the U.S. due to the anticircumvention clause in the DMCA itself, which is designed specifically to protect any DRM-wrapped content, regardless of context. The Xbox Linux Project then attempted to get Microsoft to officially sanction their efforts. They were not only rebuffed, but Microsoft then opted to hire programmers specifically to create technological countermeasures for the Xbox, to defeat additional attempts at installing OSS on it. Undeterred, the Xbox Linux Project eventually arrived at a method of installing and booting Linux without the use of mod chips, and have taken a more defiant tone now with Microsoft regarding their circumvention efforts. (Lettice 2002) They state that “Microsoft does not want you to use the Xbox as a Linux computer, therefore it has some anti-Linux-protection built in, but it can be circumvented easily, so that an Xbox can be used as what it is: an IBM PC.” (Xbox Linux Project 2003) Problems: Learning Curves and Usability In spite of the difficulties imposed by the combined technological and legal attacks on this project, it has succeeded at infiltrating this closed system with OSS. It has done so beyond the mere prototype level, too, as evidenced by the Xbox Linux Project now having both complete, step-by-step instructions available for users to modify their own Xbox systems, and an alternate plan catering to those who have the interest in modifying their systems, but not the time or technical inclinations. Specifically, this option involves users mailing their Xbox systems to community volunteers within the Xbox Linux Project, and basically having these volunteers perform the necessary software preparation or actually do the full Linux installation for them, free of charge (presumably not including shipping). This particular aspect of the project, dubbed “Users Help Users”, appears to be fairly new. Yet, it already lists over sixty volunteers capable and willing to perform this service, since “Many users don’t have the possibility, expertise or hardware” to perform these modifications. Amazingly enough, in some cases these volunteers are barely out of junior high school. One such volunteer stipulates that those seeking his assistance keep in mind that he is “just 14” and that when performing these modifications he “...will not always be finished by the next day”. (Steil 2003) In addition to this interesting if somewhat unusual level of community-driven support, there are currently several Linux-based options available for the Xbox. The two that are perhaps the most developed are GentooX, which is based of the popular Gentoo Linux distribution, and Ed’s Debian, based off the Debian GNU / Linux distribution. Both Gentoo and Debian are “seasoned” distributions that have been available for some time now, though Daniel Robbins, Chief Architect of Gentoo, refers to the product as actually being a “metadistribution” of Linux, due to its high degree of adaptability and configurability. (Gentoo 2004) Specifically, the Robbins asserts that Gentoo is capable of being “customized for just about any application or need. ...an ideal secure server, development workstation, professional desktop, gaming system, embedded solution or something else—whatever you need it to be.” (Robbins 2004) He further states that the whole point of Gentoo is to provide a better, more usable Linux experience than that found in many other distributions. Robbins states that: “The goal of Gentoo is to design tools and systems that allow a user to do their work pleasantly and efficiently as possible, as they see fit. Our tools should be a joy to use, and should help the user to appreciate the richness of the Linux and free software community, and the flexibility of free software. ...Put another way, the Gentoo philosophy is to create better tools. When a tool is doing its job perfectly, you might not even be very aware of its presence, because it does not interfere and make its presence known, nor does it force you to interact with it when you don’t want it to. The tool serves the user rather than the user serving the tool.” (Robbins 2004) There is also a so-called “live CD” Linux distribution suitable for the Xbox, called dyne:bolic, and an in-progress release of Slackware Linux, as well. According to the Xbox Linux Project, the only difference between the standard releases of these distributions and their Xbox counterparts is that “...the install process – and naturally the bootloader, the kernel and the kernel modules – are all customized for the Xbox.” (Xbox Linux Project, 2003) Of course, even if Gentoo is as user-friendly as Robbins purports, even if the Linux kernel itself has become significantly more robust and efficient, and even if Microsoft again drops the retail price of the Xbox, is this really a feasible solution in the classroom? Does the Xbox Linux Project have an army of 14 year olds willing to modify dozens, perhaps hundreds of these systems for use in secondary schools and higher education? Of course not. If such an institutional rollout were to be undertaken, it would require significant support from not only faculty, but Department Chairs, Deans, IT staff, and quite possible Chief Information Officers. Disk images would need to be customized for each institution to reflect their respective needs, ranging from setting specific home pages on web browsers, to bookmarks, to custom back-up and / or disk re-imaging scripts, to network authentication. This would be no small task. Yet, the steps mentioned above are essentially no different than what would be required of any IT staff when creating a new disk image for a computer lab, be it one for a Windows-based system or a Mac OS X-based one. The primary difference would be Linux itself—nothing more, nothing less. The institutional difficulties in undertaking such an effort would likely be encountered prior to even purchasing a single Xbox, in that they would involve the same difficulties associated with any new hardware or software initiative: staffing, budget, and support. If the institutional in question is either unwilling or unable to address these three factors, it would not matter if the Xbox itself was as free as Linux. An Open Future, or a Closed one? It is unclear how far the Xbox Linux Project will be allowed to go in their efforts to invade an essentially a proprietary system with OSS. Unlike Sony, which has made deliberate steps to commercialize similar efforts for their PlayStation 2 console, Microsoft appears resolute in fighting OSS on the Xbox by any means necessary. They will continue to crack down on any companies selling so-called mod chips, and will continue to employ technological protections to keep the Xbox “closed”. Despite clear evidence to the contrary, in all likelihood Microsoft continue to equate any OSS efforts directed at the Xbox with piracy-related motivations. Additionally, Microsoft’s successor to the Xbox would likely include additional anticircumvention technologies incorporated into it that could set the Xbox Linux Project back by months, years, or could stop it cold. Of course, it is difficult to say with any degree of certainty how this “Xbox 2” (perhaps a more appropriate name might be “Nextbox”) will impact this project. Regardless of how this device evolves, there can be little doubt of the value of Linux, OpenOffice.org, and other OSS to teaching and learning with technology. This value exists not only in terms of price, but in increased freedom from policies and technologies of control. New Linux distributions from Gentoo, Mandrake, Lycoris, Lindows, and other companies are just now starting to focus their efforts on Linux as user-friendly, easy to use desktop operating systems, rather than just server or “techno-geek” environments suitable for advanced programmers and computer operators. While metaphorically opening the Xbox may not be for everyone, and may not be a suitable computing solution for all, I believe we as educators must promote and encourage such efforts whenever possible. I suggest this because I believe we need to exercise our professional influence and ultimately shape the future of technology literacy, either individually as faculty and collectively as departments, colleges, or institutions. Moran and Fitzsimmons-Hunter argue this very point in Writing Teachers, Schools, Access, and Change. One of their fundamental provisions they use to define “access” asserts that there must be a willingness for teachers and students to “fight for the technologies that they need to pursue their goals for their own teaching and learning.” (Taylor / Ward 160) Regardless of whether or not this debate is grounded in the “beige boxes” of the past, or the Xboxes of the present, much is at stake. Private corporations should not be in a position to control the manner in which we use legally-purchased technologies, regardless of whether or not these technologies are then repurposed for literacy uses. I believe the exigency associated with this control, and the ongoing evolution of what is and is not a computer, dictates that we assert ourselves more actively into this discussion. We must take steps to provide our students with the best possible computer-mediated learning experience, however seemingly unorthodox the technological means might be, so that they may think critically, communicate effectively, and participate actively in society and in their future careers. About the Author Paul Cesarini is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Visual Communication & Technology Education, Bowling Green State University, Ohio Email: pcesari@bgnet.bgsu.edu Works Cited http://xbox-linux.sourceforge.net/docs/debian.php>.Baron, Denis. “From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technologies.” Passions Pedagogies and 21st Century Technologies. Hawisher, Gail E., and Cynthia L. Selfe, Eds. Utah: Utah State University Press, 1999. 15 – 33. Becker, David. “Ballmer: Mod Chips Threaten Xbox”. News.com. 21 Oct 2002. http://news.com.com/2100-1040-962797.php>. http://news.com.com/2100-1040-978957.html?tag=nl>. http://archive.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/08/13/020813hnchina.xml>. http://www.neoseeker.com/news/story/1062/>. http://www.bookreader.co.uk>.Finni, Scott. “Desktop Linux Edges Into The Mainstream”. TechWeb. 8 Apr 2003. http://www.techweb.com/tech/software/20030408_software. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/29439.html http://gentoox.shallax.com/. http://ragib.hypermart.net/linux/. http://www.itworld.com/Comp/2362/LWD010424latinlinux/pfindex.html. http://www.xbox-linux.sourceforge.net. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/27487.html. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/26078.html. http://www.us.playstation.com/peripherals.aspx?id=SCPH-97047. http://www.techtv.com/extendedplay/reviews/story/0,24330,3356862,00.html. http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,61984,00.html. http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/about.xml http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/philosophy.xml http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2869075,00.html. http://xbox-linux.sourceforge.net/docs/usershelpusers.html http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/fun.games/12/16/gamers.liksang/. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Cesarini, Paul. "“Opening” the Xbox" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture <http://www.media-culture.org.au/0406/08_Cesarini.php>. APA Style Cesarini, P. (2004, Jul1). “Opening” the Xbox. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 7, <http://www.media-culture.org.au/0406/08_Cesarini.php>

Introduction This article is concerned with the recent rise in popularity of crypto art, the term given to digital artworks whose ownership and provenance are confirmed with a non-fungible token (NFT), making it possible to sell these works within decentralised cryptocurrency art markets. The goal of this analysis is to trace a genealogy of crypto art to Dada, an avant-garde movement that originated in the early twentieth century. My claim is that Dadaism in crypto art appears in its exhausted form that is a result of its revival in the 1950s and 1960s by the Neo Dada that reached the current age through Pop Art. Dada’s anti-art project of rejecting beauty and aesthetics has transformed into commercial success in the Neo Dada Pop Art movement. In turn, Pop Art produced its crypto version that explores not only the question of what art is and is not, but also when art becomes money. In what follows, I will provide a brief overview of NFT art and its three categories that could generally be found within crypto marketplaces: native crypto art, non-digital art, and digital distributed-creativity art. Throughout, I will foreground the presence of Dadaism in these artworks and provide art historical context. NFTs: Brief Overview A major technological component that made NFTs possible was developed in 1991, when cryptographers Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta proposed a method for time-stamping data contained in digital documents shared within a distributed network of users (99). This work laid the foundation for what became known as blockchain and was further implemented in the development of Bitcoin, a digital currency invented by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008. The original non-fungible tokens, Coloured Coins, were created in 2012. By “colouring” or differentiating bitcoins, Coloured Coins were assigned special properties and had a value independent of the underlying Bitcoin, allowing their use as commodity certificates, alternative currencies, and other financial instruments (Assia et al.). In 2014, fuelled by a motivation to protect digital artists from unsanctioned distribution of their work while also enabling digital art sales, media artist Kevin McCoy and tech entrepreneur Anil Dash saw the potential of blockchain to satisfy their goals and developed what became to be known as NFTs. This overnight invention was a result of McCoy and Dash’s participation in the Seven on Seven annual New York City event, a one-day creative collaboration that challenged seven pairs of artists and engineers to “make something” (Rhizome). McCoy and Dash did not patent their invention, nor were they able to popularise it, mentally archiving it as a “footnote in internet history”. Ironically, just a couple of years later NFTs exploded into a billion-dollar market, living up to an ironic name of “monetized graphics” that the pair gave to their invention. Crypto art became an international sensation in March 2021, when a digital artist Mike Winklemann, known as Beeple, sold his digital collage titled Everydays: The First 5000 Days for US$69.3 million, prompting Noah Davis, a curator who assisted with the sale at the Christie’s auction house, to proclaim: “he showed us this collage, and that was my eureka moment when I knew this was going to be extremely important. It was just so monumental and so indicative of what NFTs can do” (Kastrenakes). As a technology, a non-fungible token can create digital scarcity in an otherwise infinitely replicable digital space. Contrary to fungible tokens, which are easily interchangeable due to having an equal value, non-fungible tokens represent unique items for which one cannot find an equivalent. That is why we rely on the fungibility of money to exchange non-fungible unique goods, such as art. Employing non-fungible tokens allows owning and exchanging digital items outside of the context in which they originated. Now, one can prove one’s possession of a digital skin from a videogame, for example, and sell it on digital markets using crypto currency (“Bible”). Behind the technology of NFTs lies the use of a cryptographic hash function, which converts a digital artwork of any file size into a fixed-length hash, called message digest (Dooley 179). It is impossible to revert the process and arrive at the original image, a quality of non-reversibility that makes the hash function a perfect tool for creating a digital representation of an artwork proofed from data tampering. The issued or minted NFT enters a blockchain, a distributed database that too relies on cryptographic properties to guarantee fidelity and security of data stored. Once the NFT becomes a part of the blockchain, its transaction history is permanently recorded and publicly available. Thus, the NFT simultaneously serves as a unique representation of the artwork and a digital proof of ownership. NFTs are traded in digital marketplaces, such as SuperRare, KnownOrigin, OpenSea, and Rarible, which rely on a blockchain to sustain their operations. An analysis of these markets’ inventory can be summarised by the following list of roughly grouped types of artistic works available for purchase: native crypto art, non-digital art, distributed creativity art. Native Crypto Art In this category, I include projects that motivated the creation of NFT protocols. Among these projects are the aforementioned Colored Coins, created in 2012. These were followed by issuing other visual creations native to the crypto-world, such as LarvaLabs’s CryptoPunks, a series of 10,000 algorithmically generated 8-bit-style pixelated digital avatars originally available for free to anyone with an Ethereum blockchain account, gaining a cult status among the collectors when they became rare sought-after items. On 13 February 2022, CryptoPunk #5822 was sold for roughly $24 million in Ethereum, beating the previous record for such an NFT, CryptoPunk #3100, sold for $7.58 million. CryptoPunks laid the foundation for other collectible personal profile projects, such Bored Ape Yacht Club and Cool Cats. One of the ultimate collections of crypto art that demonstrates the exhaustion of original Dada motivations is titled Monas, an NFT project made up of 5,000 programmatically generated versions of a pixelated Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci (c. 1503-1506). Each Monas, according to the creators, is “a mix of Art, history, and references from iconic NFTs” (“Monas”). Monas are a potpourri of meme and pop culture, infused with inside jokes and utmost silliness. Monas invariably bring to mind the historic Dadaist gesture of challenging bourgeois tastes through defacing iconic art historical works, such as Marcel Duchamp’s treatment of Mona Lisa in L.H.O.O.Q. In 1919, Duchamp drew a moustache and a goatee on a reproduction of La Joconde, as the French called the painting, and inscribed “L.H.O.O.Q.” that when pronounced sounds like “Elle a chaud au cul”, a vulgar expression indicating sexual arousal of the subject. At the time of its creation, this Dada act was met with the utmost public contempt, as Mona Lisa was considered a sacred work of art and a patron of the arts, an almost religious symbol (Elger and Grosenick 82). Needless to say, the effect of Monas on public consciousness is far from causing disgust and, on the contrary, brings childish joy and giggles. As an NFT artist, Mankind, explains in his YouTube video on personal profile projects: “PFPs are built around what people enjoy. People enjoy memes, people enjoy status, people enjoy being a part of something bigger than themselves, the basic primary desire to mix digital with social and belong to a community”. Somehow, “being bigger than themselves” has come to involve collecting defaced images of Mona Lisa. Turning our attention to historical analysis will help trace this transformation of the Dada insult into a collectible NFT object. Dada and Its Legacy in Crypto Art Dada was founded in 1916 in Zurich, by Hugo Ball, Tristan Tzara, Hans Richter, and other artists who fled their homelands during the First World War (Hapgood and Rittner 63). One of Dada’s primary aspirations was to challenge the dominance of reason that brought about the tragedy of the First World War through attacking the postulates of culture this form of reason produced. Already in 1921, such artists as André Breton, Louis Aragon, and Max Ernst were becoming exhausted by Dada’s nihilist tendencies and rejection of all programmes for the arts, except for the one that called for the total freedom of expression. The movement was pronounced dead about May 1921, leaving no sense of regret since, in the words of Breton, “its omnipotence and its tyranny had made it intolerable” (205). An important event associated with Dada’s revival and the birth of the Neo Dada movement was the publication of The Dada Painters and Poets in 1951. This volume, the first collection of Dada writings in English and the most comprehensive anthology in any language, was introduced to the young artists at the New School by John Cage, who revived Tristan Tzara’s concept that “life is far more interesting” than art (Hapgood and Rittner 64). The 1950s were marked by a renewed interest in Dadaism that can also be evidenced in galleries and museums organising numerous exhibitions on the movement, such as Dada 1916 –1923 curated by Marcel Duchamp at the Sidney Janis Gallery in 1953. By the end of the decade, such artists as Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg began exploring materials and techniques that can be attributed to Dadaism, which prompted the title of Neo Dada to describe this thematic return (Hapgood and Rittner 64). Among the artistic approaches that Neo Dada borrowed from Dada are Duchampian readymades that question the status of the art object, Kurt Schwitters’s collage technique of incorporating often banal scraps and pieces of the everyday, and the use of chance operations as a compositional device (Hapgood and Rittner 63–64). These approaches comprise the toolbox of crypto artists as well. Monas, CryptoPunks, and Bored Ape Yacht Club are digital collages made of scraps of pop culture and the everyday Internet life assembled into compositional configurations through chance operation made possible by the application of algorithmic generation of the images in each series. Art historian Helen Molesworth sees the strategies of montage, the readymade, and chance not only as “mechanisms for making art objects” but also as “abdications of traditional forms of artistic labor” (178). Molesworth argues that Duchamp’s invention of the readymade “substituted the act of (artistic) production with consumption” and “profoundly questioned the role, stability, nature, and necessity of the artist’s labor” (179). Together with questioning the need for artistic labour, Neo Dadaists inherited what an American art historian Jack D. Flam terms the “anything goes” attitude: Dada’s liberating destruction of rules and derision of art historical canon allowed anything and everything to be considered art (xii). The “anything goes” approach can also be traced to the contemporary crypto artists, such as Beeple, whose Everydays: The First 5000 Days was a result of assembling into a collage the first 5,000 of his daily training sketches created while teaching himself new digital tools (Kastrenakes). When asked whether he genuinely liked any of his images, Beeple explained that most digital art was created by teams of people working over the course of days or even weeks. When he “is pooping something out in 45 minutes”, it “is probably not gonna look that great comparatively” (Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg). At the core of Dada was a spirit of absurdism that drove an attack on the social, political, artistic, and philosophical norms, constituting a radical movement against the Establishment (Flam xii). In Dada Art and Anti-Art, Hans Richter’s personal historical account of the Dada movement, the artist describes the basic principle of Dada as guided by a motivation “to outrage public opinion” (66). Richter’s writings also point out a desensitisation towards Dada provocations that the public experienced as a result of Dada’s repetitive assaults, demanding an invention of new methods to disgrace the public taste. Richter recounts: our exhibitions were not enough. Not everyone in Zurich came to look at our pictures, attending our meetings, read our poems and manifestos. The devising and raising of public hell was an essential function of any Dada movement, whether its goal was pro-art, non-art or anti-art. And the public (like insects or bacteria) had developed immunity to one of kind poison, we had to think of another. (66) Richter’s account paints a cultural environment in which new artistic provocations mutate into accepted norms in a quick succession, forming a public body that is immune to anti-art “poisons”. In the foreword to Dada Painters and Poets, Flam outlines a trajectory of acceptance and subjugation of the Dadaist spirit by the subsequent revival of the movement’s core values in the Neo Dada of the 1950s and 1960s. When Dadaism was rediscovered by the writers and artists in the 1950s, the Dada spirit characterised by absurdist irony, self-parody, and deadpan realism was becoming a part of everyday life, as if art entered life and transformed it in its own image. The Neo Dada artists, such as Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein, and Andy Warhol, existed in a culturally pluralistic space where the project of a rejection of the Establishment was quickly absorbed into the mainstream, mutating into the high culture it was supposedly criticising and bringing commercial success of which the original Dada artists would have been deeply ashamed (Flam xiii). Raoul Hausmann states: “Dada fell like a raindrop from heaven. The Neo-Dadaists have learnt to imitate the fall, but not the raindrop” (as quoted in Craft 129). With a similar sentiment, Richard Huelsenbeck writes: “Neo-Dada has turned the weapons used by Dada, and later by Surrealism, into popular ploughshares with which to till the fertile soil of sensation-hungry galleries eager for business” (as quoted in Craft 130). Marcel Duchamp, the forefather of the avant-garde, comments on the loss of Dada’s original intent: this Neo-Dada, which they call New Realism, Pop Art, Assemblage, etc., is an easy way out, and lives on what Dada did. When I discovered ready-mades I thought to discourage aesthetics. In Neo-Dada they have taken my ready-mades and found aesthetic beauty in them. I threw the bottle-rack and the urinal into their faces as a challenge and now they admire them for their aesthetic beauty. (Flam xiii) In Neo Dada, the original anti-art impulse of Dadaism was converted into its opposite, becoming an artistic stance and a form of aesthetics. Flam notes that these gradual transformations resulted in the shifts in public consciousness, which it was becoming more difficult to insult. Artists, among them Roy Lichtenstein, complained that it was becoming impossible to make anything despicable: even a dirty rug could be admired (Flam xiii). The audience lost their ability to understand when they were being mocked, attacked, or challenged. Writing in 1981, Flam proclaimed that “Dada spirit has become an inescapable condition of modern life” (xiv). I contend that the current crypto art thrives on the Dada spirit of absurdism, irony, and self-parody and continues to question the border between art and non-art, while fully subscribing to the “anything goes” approach. In the current iteration of Dada in the crypto world, the original subversive narrative can be mostly found in the liberating rhetoric promoted by the proponents of the decentralised economic system. While Neo Dada understood the futility of shocking the public and questioning their tastes, crypto art is ignorant of the original Dada as a form of outrage, a revolutionary movement ignited by a social passion. In crypto art, the ambiguous relationship that Pop Art, one of the Neo Dada movements, had with commercial success is transformed into the content of the artworks. As Tristan Tzara laconically explained, the Dada project was to “assassinate beauty” and with it all the infrastructure of the art market (as quoted in Danto 39). Ironically, crypto artists, the descendants of Dada, erected the monument to Value artificially created through scarcity made possible by blockchain technology in place of the denigrated Venus demolished by the Dadaists. After all, it is the astronomical prices for crypto art that are lauded the most. If in the pre-NFT age, artistic works were evaluated based on their creative merit that included considering the prominence of the artist within art historical canon, current crypto art is evaluated based on its rareness, to which the titles of the crypto art markets SuperRare and Rarible unambiguously refer (Finucane 28–29). In crypto art, the anti-art and anti-commercialism of Dada has fully transformed into its opposite. Another evidence for considering crypto art to be a descendant of Dada is the NFT artists’ concern for the question of what art is and is not, brought to the table by the original Dada artists. This concern is expressed in the manifesto-like mission statement of the first Museum of Crypto Art: at its core, the Museum of Crypto Art (M○C△) challenges, creates conflict, provokes. M○C△ puts forward a broad representation of perspectives meant to upend our sense of who we are. It poses two questions: “what is art?” and “who decides?” We aim to resolve these questions through a multi-stakeholder decentralized platform of art curation and exhibition. (The Museum of Crypto Art) In the past, the question regarding the definition of art was overtaken by the proponent of the institutional approach to art definition, George Dickie, who besides excluding aesthetics from playing a part in differentiating art from non-art famously pronounced that an artwork created by a monkey is art if it is displayed in an art institution, and non-art if it is displayed elsewhere (Dickie 256). This development might explain why decentralisation of the art market achieved through the use of blockchain technology still relies on the endorsing of the art being sold by the widely acclaimed art auction houses: with their stamp of approval, the work is christened as legitimate art, resulting in astronomical sales. Non-Digital Art It is not surprising that an NFT marketplace is an inviting arena for the investigation of questions of commercialisation tackled in the works of Neo Dada Pop artists, who made their names in the traditional art world. This brings us to a discussion of the second type of artworks found in NFT marketplaces: non-digital art sold as NFT and created by trained visual artists, such as Damien Hirst. In his recent NFT project titled Currency, Hirst explores “the boundaries of art and currency—when art changes and becomes a currency, and when currency becomes art” (“The Currency”). The project consists of 10,000 artworks on A4 paper covered in small, coloured dots, a continuation of the so-called “spot-paintings” series that Hirst and his assistants have been producing since the 1980s. Each artwork is painted on a hand-made paper that bears the watermark of the artist’s bust, adorned with a microdot that serves as a unique identification, and is made to look very similar to the others—visual devices used to highlight the ambiguous state of these artworks that simultaneously function as Hirst-issued currency. For Hirst, this project is an experiment: after the purchase of NFTs, buyers are given an opportunity to exchange the NFT for the original art, safely stored in a UK vault; the unexchanged artworks will be burned. Is art going to fully transform into currency? Will you save it? In Hirst’s project, the transformation of physical art into crypto value becomes the ultimate act of Dada nihilism, except for one big difference: if Dada wanted to destroy art as a way to invent it anew, Hirst destroys art to affirm its death and dissolution in currency. In an ironic gesture, the gif NFT artist Nino Arteiro, as if in agreement with Hirst, attempts to sell his work titled Art Is Not Synonymous of Profit, which contains a crudely written text “ART ≠ PROFIT!” for 0.13 Ether or US$350. Buying this art will negate its own statement and affirm its analogy with money. Distributed-Creativity Art When browsing through crypto art advertised in the crypto markets, one inevitably encounters works that stand out in their emphasis on aesthetic and formal qualities. More often than not, these works are created with the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI). To a viewer bombarded with creations unconcerned with the concept of beauty, these AI works may serve as a sensory aesthetic refuge. Among the most prominent artists working in this realm is Refik Anadol, whose Synthetic Dreams series at a first glance may appear as carefully composed works of a landscape painter. However, at a closer look nodal connections between points in rendered space provide a hint at the use of algorithmic processes. These attractive landscapes are quantum AI data paintings created from a data set consisting of 200 million raw images of landscapes from around the world, with each image having been computed with a unique quantum bit string (“Synthetic Dreams”). Upon further contemplation, Anadol’s work begins to remind of the sublime Romantic landscapes, revamped through the application of AI that turned fascination with nature’s unboundedness into awe in the face of the unfathomable amounts of data used in creation of Anadol’s works. These creations can be seen as a reaction against the crypto art I call exhausted Dada, or a marketing approach that targets a different audience. In either case, Anadol revives aesthetic concern and aligns himself with the history of sublimity in art that dates back to the writings of Longinus, becoming of prime importance in the nineteenth-century Romantic painting, and finding new expressions in what is considered the technological sublime, which, according to David E. Nye. concentrates “on the triumph of machines… over space and time” (as quoted in Butler et al. 8). In relation to his Nature Dreams project, Anadol writes: “the exhibition’s eponymous, sublime AI Data Sculpture, Nature Dreams utilizes over 300 million publicly available photographs of nature collected between 2018- 2021 at Refik Anadol Studio” (“Machine Hallucinations Nature Dreams”). From this short description it is evident that Anadol’s primary focus is on the sublimity of large sets of data. There is an issue with that approach: since experiencing the sublime involves loss of rational thinking (Longinus 1.4), these artworks cease the viewer’s ability to interrogate cultural adaptation of AI technology and stay within the realm of decorative ornamentations, demanding an intervention akin to that brought about by the historical avant-garde. Conclusions I hope that this brief analysis demonstrates the mechanisms by which the strains of Dada entered the vocabulary of crypto artists. 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Introduction Mentors play a role in real life, just as they do in fiction. They also feature in reality television, which sits somewhere between the two. In fiction, mentors contribute to the narrative arc by providing guidance and assistance (Vogler 12) to a mentee in his or her life or professional pursuits. These exchanges are usually characterized by reciprocity, the need for mutual recognition (Gadamer 353) and involve some kind of moral question. They dramatise the possibilities of mentoring in reality, to provide us with a greater understanding of the world, and our human interaction within it. Reality television offers a different perspective. Like drama it uses the plot device of a mentor character to heighten the story arc, but instead of focusing on knowledge-based portrayals (Gadamer 112) of the mentor and mentee, the emphasis is instead on the mentee’s quest for ascension. In attempting to transcend their unknownness (Boorstin) contestants aim to penetrate an exclusive creative class (Florida). Populated by celebrity chefs, businessmen, entertainers, fashionistas, models, socialites and talent judges (to name a few), this class seemingly adds authenticity to ‘competitions’ and other formats. While the mentor’s role, on the surface, is to provide divine knowledge and facilitate the journey, a different agenda is evident in the ways carefully scripted (Booth) dialogue heightens the drama through effusive praise (New York Daily News) and “tactless” (Woodward), humiliating (Hirschorn; Winant 69; Woodward) and cruel sentiments. From a screen narrative point of view, this takes reality television as ‘storytelling’ (Aggarwal; Day; Hirschorn; “Reality Writer”; Rupel; Stradal) into very different territory. The contrived and later edited (Crouch; Papacharissi and Mendelson 367) communication between mentor and mentee not only renders the relationship disingenuous, it compounds the primary ethical concerns of associated Schadenfreude (Balasubramanian, Forstie and van den Scott 434; Cartwright), and the severe financial inequality (Andrejevic) underpinning a multi-billion dollar industry (Hamilton). As upward mobility and instability continue to be ubiquitously portrayed in 21st century reality entertainment under neoliberalism (Sender 4; Winant 67), it is with increasing frequency that we are seeing the systematic reinvention of the once significant cultural and historical role of the mentor. Mentor as Fictional Archetype and Communicator of ThemesDepictions of mentors can be found across the Western art canon. From the mythological characters of Telemachus’ Athena and Achilles’ Chiron, to King Arthur’s Merlin, Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother, Jim Hawkins’ Long John Silver, Frodo’s Gandalf, Batman’s Alfred and Marty McFly’s Doc Emmett Brown (among many more), the dramatic energy of the teacher, expert or supernatural aid (Vogler 39) has been timelessly powerful. Heroes, typically, engage with a mentor as part of their journey. Mentor types range extensively, from those who provide motivation, inspiration, training or gifts (Vogler), to those who may be dark or malevolent, or have fallen from grace (such as Michael Douglas’ Gordon Gekko in Wall Street 1987, or the ex-tribute Haymitch in The Hunger Games, 2012). A good drama usually complicates the relationship in some way, exploring initial reluctance from either party, or instances of tragedy (Vogler 11, 44) which may prevent the relationship achieving its potential. The intriguing twist of a fallen or malevolent mentor additionally invites the audience to morally analyze the ways the hero responds to what the mentor provides, and to question what our teachers or superiors tell us. In television particularly, long running series such as Mad Men have shown how a mentoring relationship can change over time, where “non-rational” characters (Buzzanell and D’Enbeau 707) do not necessarily maintain reciprocity or equality (703) but become subject to intimate, ambivalent and erotic aspects.As the mentor in fiction has deep cultural roots for audiences today, it is no wonder they are used, in a variety of archetypal capacities, in reality television. The dark Simon Cowell (of Pop Idol, American Idol, Britain’s Got Talent, America’s Got Talent and The X-Factor series) and the ‘villainous’ (Byrnes) Michelin-starred Marco Pierre White (Hell’s Kitchen, The Chopping Block, Marco Pierre White’s Kitchen Wars, MasterChef Australia, New Zealand, South Africa) provide reality writers with much needed antagonism (Rupel, Stradal). Those who have fallen from grace, or allowed their personal lives to play out in tabloid sagas such as Britney Spears (Marikar), or Caitlyn Jenner (Bissinger) provide different sources of conflict and intrigue. They are then counterbalanced with or repackaged as the good mentor. Examples of the nurturer who shows "compassion and empathy" include American Idol’s Paula Abdul (Marche), or the supportive Jennifer Hawkins in Next Top Model (Thompson). These distinctive characters help audiences to understand the ‘reality’ as a story (Crouch; Rupel; Stradal). But when we consider the great mentors of screen fiction, it becomes clear how reality television has changed the nature of story. The Karate Kid I (1984) and Good Will Hunting (1998) are two examples where mentoring is almost the exclusive focus, and where the experience of the characters differs greatly. In both films an initially reluctant mentor becomes deeply involved in the mentee’s project. They act as a special companion to the hero in the face of isolation, and, significantly, reveal a tragedy of their own, providing a nexus through which the mentee can access a deeper kind of truth. Not only are they flawed and ordinary people (they are not celebrities within the imagined worlds of the stories) who the mentee must challenge and learn to truly respect, they are “effecting and important” (Maslin) in reminding audiences of those hidden idiosyncrasies that open the barriers to friendship. Mentors in these stories, and many others, communicate themes of class, culture, talent, jealousy, love and loss which inform ideas about the ethical treatment of the ‘other’ (Gadamer). They ultimately prove pivotal to self worth, human confidence and growth. Very little of this thematic substance survives in reality television (see comparison of plots and contrasting modes of human engagement in the example of The Office and Dirty Jobs, Winant 70). Archetypally identifiable as they may be, mean judges and empathetic supermodels as characters are concerned mostly with the embodiment of perfection. They are flawless, untouchable and indeed most powerful when human welfare is at stake, and when the mentee before them faces isolation (see promise to a future ‘Rihanna’, X-Factor USA, Season 2, Episode 1 and Tyra Banks’ Next Top Model tirade at a contestant who had not lived up to her potential, West). If connecting with a mentor in fiction has long signified the importance of understanding of the past, of handing down tradition (Gadamer 354), and of our fascination with the elder, wiser other, then we can see a fundamental shift in narrative representation of mentors in reality television stories. In the past, as we have opened our hearts to such characters, as a facilitator to or companion of the hero, we have rehearsed a sacred respect for the knowledge and fulfillment mentors can provide. In reality television the ‘drama’ may evoke a fleeting rush of excitement at the hero’s success or failure, but the reality belies a pronounced distancing between mentor and mentee. The Creative Class: An Aspirational ParadigmThemes of ascension and potential fulfillment are also central to modern creativity discourse (Runco; Runco 672; United Nations). Seen as the driving force of the 21st century, creativity is now understood as much more than art, capable of bringing economic prosperity (United Nations) and social cohesion to its acme (United Nations xxiii). At the upper end of creative practice, is what Florida called “the creative class: a fast growing, highly educated, and well-paid segment of the workforce” (on whose expertise corporate profits depend), in industries ranging “from technology to entertainment, journalism to finance, high-end manufacturing to the arts” (Florida). Their common ethos is centered on individuality, diversity, and merit; eclipsing previous systems focused on ‘shopping’ and theme park consumerism and social conservatism (Eisinger). While doubts have since been raised about the size (Eisinger) and financial practices (Krätke 838) of the creative class (particularly in America), from an entertainment perspective at least, the class can be seen in full action. Extending to rich housewives, celebrity teen mothers and even eccentric duck hunters and swamp people, the creative class has caught up to the more traditional ‘star’ actor or music artist, and is increasingly marketable within world’s most sought after and expensive media spaces. Often reality celebrities make their mark for being the most outrageous, the cruelest (Peyser), or the weirdest (Gallagher; Peyser) personalities in the spotlight. Aspiring to the creative class thus, is a very public affair in television. Willing participants scamper for positions on shows, particularly those with long running, heavyweight titles such as Big Brother, The Bachelor, Survivor and the Idol series (Hill 35). The better known formats provide high visibility, with the opportunity to perform in front of millions around the globe (Frere-Jones, Day). Tapping into the deeply ingrained upward-mobility rhetoric of America, and of Western society, shows are aided in large part by 24-hour news, social media, the proliferation of celebrity gossip and the successful correlation between pop culture and an entertainment-style democratic ideal. As some have noted, dramatized reality is closely tied to the rise of individualization, and trans-national capitalism (Darling-Wolf 127). Its creative dynamism indeed delivers multi-lateral benefits: audiences believe the road to fame and fortune is always just within reach, consumerism thrives, and, politically, themes of liberty, egalitarianism and freedom ‘provide a cushioning comfort’ (Peyser; Pinter) from the domestic and international ills that would otherwise dispel such optimism. As the trials and tests within the reality genre heighten the seriousness of, and excitement about ascending toward the creative elite, show creators reproduce the same upward-mobility themed narrative across formats all over the world. The artifice is further supported by the festival-like (Grodin 46) symbology of the live audience, mass viewership and the online voting community, which in economic terms, speaks to the creative power of the material. Whether through careful manipulation of extra media space, ‘game strategy’, or other devices, those who break through are even more idolized for the achievement of metamorphosing into a creative hero. For the creative elite however, who wins ‘doesn’t matter much’. Vertical integration is the priority, where the process of making contestants famous is as lucrative as the profits they will earn thereafter; it’s a form of “one-stop shopping” as the makers of Idol put it according to Frere-Jones. Furthermore, as Florida’s measures and indicators suggested, the geographically mobile new creative class is driven by lifestyle values, recreation, participatory culture and diversity. Reality shows are the embodiment this idea of creativity, taking us beyond stale police procedural dramas (Hirschorn) and racially typecast family sitcoms, into a world of possibility. From a social equality perspective, while there has been a notable rise in gay and transgender visibility (Gamson) and stories about lower socio-economic groups – fast food workers and machinists for example – are told in a way they never were before, the extent to which shows actually unhinge traditional power structures is, as scholars have noted (Andrejevic and Colby 197; Schroeder) open to question. As boundaries are nonetheless crossed in the age of neoliberal creativity, the aspirational paradigm of joining a new elite in real life is as potent as ever. Reality Television’s Mentors: How to Understand Their ‘Role’Reality television narratives rely heavily on the juxtaposition between celebrity glamour and comfort, and financial instability. As mentees put it ‘all on the line’, storylines about personal suffering are hyped and molded for maximum emotional impact. In the best case scenarios mentors such as Caitlyn Jenner will help a trans mentee discover their true self by directing them in a celebrity-style photo shoot (see episode featuring Caitlyn and Zeam, Logo TV 2015). In more extreme cases the focus will be on an adopted contestant’s hopes that his birth mother will hear him sing (The X Factor USA, Season 2, Episode 11 Part 1), or on a postal clerk’s fear that elimination will mean she has to go back “to selling stamps” (The X Factor US - Season 2 Episode 11 Part 2). In the entrepreneurship format, as Woodward pointed out, it is not ‘help’ that mentees are given, but condescension. “I have to tell you, my friend, that this is the worst idea I’ve ever heard. You don’t have a clue about how to set up a business or market a product,” Woodward noted as the feedback given by one elite businessman on The Shark Tank (Woodward). “This is a five million dollar contract and I have to know that you can go the distance” (The X Factor US – Season 2 Episode 11, Part 1) Britney Spears warned to a thirteen-year-old contestant before accepting her as part of her team. In each instance the fictitious premise of being either an ‘enabler’ or destroyer of dreams is replayed and slightly adapted for ongoing consumer interest. This lack of shared experience and mutual recognition in reality television also highlights the overt, yet rarely analyzed focus on the wealth of mentors as contrasted with their unstable mentees. In the respective cases of The X Factor and I Am Cait, one of the wealthiest moguls in entertainment, Cowell, reportedly contracts mentors for up to $15 million per season (Nair); Jenner’s performance in I Am Cait was also set to significantly boost the Kardashian empire (reportedly already worth $300 million, Pavia). In both series, significant screen time has been dedicated to showing the mentors in luxurious beachside houses, where mentees may visit. Despite the important social messages embedded in Caitlyn’s story (which no doubt nourishes the Kardashian family’s generally more ersatz material), the question, from a moral point of view becomes: would these mentors still interact with that particular mentee without the money? Regardless, reality participants insist they are fulfilling their dreams when they appear. Despite the preplanning, possibility of distress (Australia Network News; Bleasby) and even suicide (Schuster), as well as the ferocity of opinion surrounding shows (Marche) the parade of a type of ‘road of trials’ (Vogler 189) is enough to keep a huge fan base interested, and hungry for their turn to experience the fortune of being touched by the creative elite; or in narrative terms, a supernatural aid. ConclusionThe key differences between reality television and artistic narrative portrayals of mentors can be found in the use of archetypes for narrative conflict and resolution, in the ways themes are explored and the ways dialogue is put to use, and in the focus on and visibility of material wealth (Frere-Jones; Peyser). These differences highlight the political, cultural and social implications of exchanging stories about potential fulfillment, for stories about ascension to the creative class. Rather than being based on genuine reciprocity, and understanding of human issues, reality shows create drama around the desperation to penetrate the inner sanctum of celebrity fame and fortune. In fiction we see themes based on becoming famous, on gender transformation, and wealth acquisition, such as in the films and series Almost Famous (2000), The Bill Silvers Show (1955-1959), Filthy Rich (1982-1983), and Tootsie (1982), but these stories at least attempt to address a moral question. Critically, in an artistic - rather than commercial context – the actors (who may play mentees) are not at risk of exploitation (Australia Network News; Bleasby; Crouch). Where actors are paid and recognized creatively for their contribution to an artistic work (Rupel), the mentee in reality television has no involvement in the ways action may be set up for maximum voyeuristic enjoyment, or manipulated to enhance scandalous and salacious content which will return show and media profits (“Reality Show Fights”; Skeggs and Wood 64). The emphasis, ironically, from a reality production point of view, is wholly on making the audience believe (Papacharissi and Mendelson 367) that the content is realistic. 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