Journal articles on the topic 'Socialized economic exchanges'

Famous political economist Adam Smith argued that the market economy is made up of a series of individual exchanges or transactions which automatically create a functioning and ordered system. Similarly, according to rational choice theory, capitalist economy is driven by individual self-interest and works best when individual buyers and sellers make rational decisions that serve their own interests. In contrast to this atomized economic approach of David Ricardo, Adam Smith and others, this research paper entitled ‘market and social embeddedness’ applies Granovetter’s ideas of ‘social embeddedness of market’ and highlights an alternative way of analyzing economic institutions and market which operate and functioned with non-economic institution, which is broadly functions within larger social and cultural framework with reflective empirical evidences. This article discusses the issues based on the data gathered from the two case studies through interview tool. The nature of study is qualitative and cases were selected purposively. The major purpose of this article is to prove that, market co-exist with, shaped by and depend on socio-cultural factor and moral values not only under socialized economic behaviors one. The theory which I applied in this study is reflected and supported with cases as market is constructed and functions with the relation of social and non-social economic factors. The major findings of this study are persons with long-term socio-cultural ties, established social networks, confidence, and quality sensitivity engage in economic transactions in the market rather than strangers one. People make their decisions on goods and services on their previous dealings and moral values with service provider or businessman then continue to deal with those they trust not only by the individualistic market-oriented transaction.

The internship program is able to improve students' soft skills and hard skills as well as solve problems that exist in the industrial world. The student exchange program is able to improve student competence in participating in the transfer of existing knowledge at partner universities. Student certification and training programs are able to improve student scientific discipline in identifying problems and solving problems according to the scientific field. The Thematic Real Work Lecture Program is able to understand the culture, social and economics of the community so that students have the ability to draft village regulations and socialize them. Students' abilities in internships, student exchanges, student certification and training, and thematic Real Work Lecture activities are expected to enable students to achieve KPI 1, namely Graduates Get Decent Work.

This paper analyzed the diary of Noh Sang­chu(盧尙樞: 1746-1829), a military officer in the late Choson Dynasty, and found that he was actively engaged in psychological exchanges with his maternal relatives. The relatives of mother family attended the mourning ceremony of the Noh family and shared joy and sadness together. Noh Sang­chu also attended the memorial service as a maternal grandson and fulfill his duties and roles. Such close relationship presents a ‘jeongdam(情談)’ culture which stands for sharing chats every time they meet and a spiritual exchange that only designated group of ‘jijeong(至情)’ can make. The ‘jijeong(至情)’ group that was close to Noh Sang­chu included his uncles, who were Noh Sang­chu‘s maternal uncles, and cousins who were sons of Noh’s father’s sister. In order to live adjacent to the ‘jijeong(至情)’ of maternal grandmother and other relatives, Noh family moved to mother’s hometown (Ungok). Noh Sang­chu treated his mother’s relatives with sincere ‘jijeong(至情)’, and his mother relatives also had a ‘jeongdam(情談)’ culture in which they spent time together by exchanging conversations when they visited Noh Sang­chu‘s house. Relatives of their mother family and Noh Sang­chu were showing sincerity as jijeong(至情) each other. As an uncle Noh Sang­chu took care of his nephew‘s smallpox. In his old age as a maternal grandfather, Noh prepared his granddaughter’s wedding and made his grandson socialize through learning housework as a ‘jijeong(至情)’. This paper, which illustrates emotional support and exchange of the mother’s family as an example of ‘jijeong(至情)’ and ‘jeongdam(情談)’ of the Noh Sang­chu family in the late Chosŏn Dynasty, suggests that not only the father but also the relatives from the mother’s side were involved in the socialization of younger generations through developing intimate relationships.

This study analyzes the effect of Islamic banks on economic growth in ASEAN. This type of research is quantitative, with data analysis using multiple linear regression and classical assumption tests. The research sample is Islamic banking registered with World Bank ASEAN. The findings of this study consist of 1) competitiveness, capitalization, financing risk, size, and interest rates do not affect market share. 2) GDP and exchange rate effect on market share. The results of this study are expected to create an integrated and robust Islamic financial area, so there needs to be cooperation among relevant parties among ASEAN countries to reduce the gap. Sharia economic actors and practitioners must remain enthusiastic and optimistic in Sharia society and socialize Sharia. The benchmark of competitive advantage is internal strength that is better than its competitors, and the company can fix internal weaknesses. In addition, external factors also need attention, and companies must be observant to see existing opportunities and minimize threats.

The purpose of this research is to reduce the risk of bad credit, help MSME business actors, so that it is easy to access information and find problems related to decreased income and monitoring carried out by most MSME players during the Covid-19 pandemic. The method of implementing thematic KKN is done by using and creating social media. This social media facility is used to search for data, socialize, and provide counseling to MSME partners including making applications, Whatsapp groups, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube. The results showed that UMKM Partners understand the existence of a national economic policy stimulus for MSMEs affected by Covid-19 and some of them have received micro-business assistance from the government. The conclusion of this research is that there are still UMKM partners who do not respond to the economic stimulus provided by the government, MSME business actors affected by Covid-19, socialization of the economic stimulus policy and assistance to MSMEs with the Whatsapp group to exchange information to improve the business of MSMEs by take advantage of the national policy stimulus provided by the government for MSME business actors.

Objective: this research aims to determine the opportunities offered by various societies, which exercise employment contracts, focusing on subjects with migration circumstances, in this case Venezuelans; examining the global challenges and perspectives that a state assumes, the impact that this phenomenon causes on society, along with its consequences and the adaptation processes in the work environment. Theoretical Framework: The driving factors of migration are investigated from the economic, social, political and demographic order. Method: A socio-legal approach and a qualitative paradigm are used, since the information is collected and selected through reading articles, bibliographies and virtual and in-person meetings. Ideas were exchanged and the different research that was found to contribute to the development of the central theme was socialized. Results and Discussion: The main reasons for migration and the working conditions that the state grants to migrants were determined. Research implications: A wide range of areas are covered, from public policies to labor and social practices. Originality/Value: This research examines various aspects from multifaceted perspectives with main relevance in political and social relations.

Drawing inspiration and legitimacy from the traditions of organisational theory and in particular alternative mechanisms of organisational governance, the research explores an emergent, clan form of client-led supply chain governance in UK construction. Clan mechanisms of organisational governance are described as hybrid structures of exchange, neither pro-market nor organisational hierarchy. Not to be mistaken with alternative mechanisms of exchange such as networks, clan forms of client-led supply chain management are readily distinguishable by their highly socialised marketplace, enduring relationships and community of practice. A qualitative research strategy is adopted for this exploration of clan forms of client-led supply chain governance. Data collection uses semi-structured interviews, recorded, coded and analyzed. Participants include senior industry figures from a cross-section of construction stakeholder organisations, including client bodies, first tier service providers and construction contractors. In contrast to much of the prevailing work in construction supply chain management research, the findings draw specific attention to a hybrid form of organisational governance rarely discussed: namely clans. In light of challenging economic conditions, the recognition and potential contribution of clans as an alternative mechanism of governance is a timely and valuable contribution to the ongoing construction supply chain management debate.

This service examines the development of entrepreneurship in the new normal period through training, with steps that can be taken to empower business actors in the development of ASIPA MSMEs in South Tangerang City. Training methods using offline and online media. While this service is an effort to socialize investment and marketing for micro, small and medium enterprises at the Creative Industries and Business Actors Association (ASIPA) based on digitalization by participating in training, marketing, obtaining tips for successfully investing in the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) and financially investing in shares (PT. NH Korindo). This training conducts interactive coaching and socialization about the ease of doing business for MSME actors from participants of the Creative Industries and Business Actors Association (ASIPA) is always active in government programs to support income increase for MSME entrepreneurs consistently marketing through social media; Online stores, marketplaces, booths in malls, bazaars, and on websites to optimize facilities and keep up with the times. Thus, the Social Piety Index will form economic development in the community of Serua Village, Ciputat District, South Tangerang City, Banten.

Social media is a medium used to socialize and exchange information by its users using the internet. There are many benefits of social media, several uses of social media such as meeting new friends, knowing sports, economics, tourism information and also for political matters. One of them is the figure of the leader of the presidential candidate for 2024, so the writer wants to know what information can be taken from public opinion on Twitter social media about the figure of the leader of the presidential candidate for 2024. This problem can be overcome by conducting research in the field of Sentiment Analysis, which is a a field of research that focuses on the computational study of opinions, behavior, and emotions towards an entity as outlined in the form of text. This study was conducted to find out how the results of sentiment analysis related to public response to the news of the 2024 presidential candidate and classify them into three classes, namely positive, negative, and neutral using Python. The results of this study are positive class sentiments of 21.6% with a total of 108, neutral by 78% with a total of 390 and negative by 0.2% with a number of 2. It can be concluded that this study tends to be neutral.

The phenomenon of organised crime in Poland is not, contrary to frequently expressed views, characteristic only of the situation that arose after 1990. Considering historical sources, one can refer to well-organised groups of criminals who committed crimes in medieval Poland. Criminal associations characterised by a certain hierarchy and structure threatened the safety of travellers, carried out attacks on villages and were a threat to urban residents. During the partitions, organised criminal structures occurred mainly in the Russian and Austrian partition. In judicial chronicles, there were perpetrators creating bandit groups and strong structures of pickpockets as well as those dealing with various types of economic fraud and extortion. The problem of organised crime intensifi ed after regaining independence in 1918. The inconsistency of the legal system and weak institutions of public order protection created great opportunities for both criminal offences and economic crimes. From the 1920s, large expenditures on the development of modern economic areas (Gdynia, the Central Industrial District) became a temptation for well-organised groups to take advantage of the situation for their own benefi t. Within the structures of law protection institutions, no specialised unit for fi ghting criminal groups was created until 1939. Central and local cells of the investigative service mainly dealt with organised gangs. After the Second World War, the shaping of the criminal environment was fi rst infl uenced by huge groups of inhabitants displaced from the former Polish eastern borderlands, the general expansion caused by military operations, and ineffective law enforcement agencies. Thus, initially, the most powerful organised groups were those of criminal character. The separation of the Polish economy from open markets and economic imbalance caused the emergence of various organised crime gangs committing economic crimes ranging from smuggling and illegal trade in foreign exchange to large criminal groups at the interface between the socialised and private economy. Within the militia, which was responsible for combatting criminal offences until 1990, no units specialised in the fi ght against organised crime did not come into their own. As part of their competence, the criminal investigation department, in particular, the fraud squad and investigative service, dealt with organised crime.

The article deals with the scientific issue of using interactive methods in the system of patriotic education for future naval specialists in the context of foreign scholars’ views. It shows that given today’s historical and socio-economic conditions, it is vital to abandon excessive ideology and ideological monopoly, schematism and formalism in the educational process, implement more effective educational technologies and, most importantly, create a new system of forming patriots using interactive methods. The article proves that since interactive methods enhance pedagogical interaction, communication, exchange of activities and their diversity, they manage to improve the behaviour and activities of naval cadets towards patriotic education. It also indicates that the introduction of interactive and communicative forms of personality-oriented education in patriotic education of naval cadets mostly depends on the invariants of personality-oriented approach to the educational process. It is because naval students choose moral norms, values, lifestyles and thus acquire positive personal experience through their participation in such forms of learning. A prerequisite for fulfilling the goals of patriotic education is appropriate methodical training of university teachers. However, there are no original methods characteristic of especially patriotic education of students. One cannot develop students’ patriotic feelings, patriotic identity, spirituality, culture, independence, initiative, and sociality socialize with traditional methods only. In this regard, some scholars believe that interactive methods have proved to be most effective concerning patriotic education as interactivity enables interpersonal cognitive communication and interaction between all education stakeholders.

This article discusses promising directions and trends in the development of glamping, taking into account economic factors relevant to the Russian Federation. In recent years, Russia has faced a challenge in the form of a lack of eco-friendly and unique accommodation options, despite the rapid rise in domestic tourism. The increasing popularity of glamping reflects the desire of society to integrate natural elements into traditional forms of recreation, in order to provide more unique and exclusive experiences for tourists. To further develop glamping in Russia, the authors propose organizing youth gatherings at these accommodation facilities, as there is a notable gap between demand for such events and current supply. The lack of youth events leads to limited opportunities for young people to socialize, exchange experiences, and gain new knowledge in various fields. This is especially important in the context of rapid technological and social change, which requires the next generation to be flex ible and adaptable. The potential of young people remains underestimated and undeveloped without adequate support through events such as these. The issues of support and organization for youth rallies have been raised in government discussions, indicating the state’s concern to address this issue. The inclusion of youth events in government programs aimed at developing youth policy could help meet the high demand and create opportunities for more active involvement of young people in public life. Hosting youth rallies is in line with the current needs of society, encouraging young people’s engagement and providing a platform for their holistic development. State support for these initiatives is a significant step towards the balanced development of young people and society as a whole. At the same time, hosting events on the premises of glamping facilities will allow young people to develop an understanding of the significance of responsible consumption and an attitude towards the ecology and natural environment of our country. As a result, glamping provides guests with the opportunity to experience nature while remaining within the principles of sustainable tourism. The demand for eco-friendly and comfortable outdoor recreational activities is continuously growing, making this sector promising in terms of investment and tourism development. Furthermore, the growth of glamping in Russia demonstrates the industry’s desire to innovate and adapt to changing customer demands and the challenges associated with sustainable development. The success of this trend will depend on the ability of the tourism industry to meet these challenges and provide a high-quality experience for guests.

The paradigm under which our society and economy have operated until now has become obsolete in the 21st century. Some Nobel Prize-winner economists made it clear that we have to forget the paradigm currently dominating the global economy: "Let’s privatize the benefits and socialize (distribute) its costs as much as possible!" The results of it are extremely and rapidly increasing inequalities, followed by unmanageable socio-economic - environmental tensions. It seems we could get out of this situation only with radical social and economic transformations, both globally and at the lower levels (countries, regions, localities). There isn’t another solution just the social and economic paradigm exchange parallel with each other. Interconnected and not separated them. But many big challenges are coming up from the natural and the technological environment too and they are rooted in the human-made systems. So altogether we are facing the quickly changing complexity and an unknown situation in the history of humanity. We don't have appropriate methods and experiences how to deal with these new types of challenges but there isn't any other choice just to manage them. Despite this fact, there are very few studies about the causes and consequences of this rapidly growing problem in the era of growing sustainability risks. Similarly, there is very little practical information that provides actionable advice on how to manage these problems at different (global-, macro-, and micro-) levels of social and economic organizations. We define complexity as the number of components in a system plus the variety of relationships among these components plus the speed of changes of both the components and the relationships. Larger systems (like social - economic - ecological systems) are often very complex – but they may be more complicated if their behavior is unpredictable. Based on the global databases and reports we investigated the trials of countries how prepared they are for managing the growing complexity in the field of implementing the Sustainable Development Goals. We have found that in most of the countries (and globally too) experts are choosing the simplest way - they deal with the goals separately from each other and don't take into account the very complicated system of their interconnections and the feedback loops. We have tried to summarize some conclusions for the future about what would be the better approach to deal with the complexity.

This paper studies a Dutch meal sharing platform in order to understand what it means to engage in face-to-face sharing with strangers and what the performance of such transactions entails. I hypothesize that this meal sharing platform is a form of community self-organization, aiming to replace the anonymity of the food system by the creation of community relations through sharing. I used semistructured interviews, participant observations, and autoethnography to investigate the social aspects involved in this type of sharing. Focusing on rules of engagement, trust, exchange, and commodification, I argue that while first encounters in stranger food sharing may be awkward, people enter the transaction from a perspective of trust. While sharing meals through this platform is a form of true sharing and no direct reciprocity is required, consumers see their appreciation for the meals as a way to reciprocate. In that sense, positive reviews consolidate the relations between cook and consumer. Money also plays an important role in the transaction, enabling it to take place as it clarifies roles and responsibilities and shows genuine interest. However, commodification also means that users are looking for value for money, while simultaneously they expect the price to reflect the initiative’s “noncommercialness”. I conclude that there is a clear social element in this particular type of meal sharing that distinguishes it from more mainstream economic transactions. Being based on real connections, this particular performance of sharing is a way to socialize the economy, and to tackle local community problems.

Jakarta was developed started from the coastline and gradually moved to the centre of the city which left the coastal area remain untouch. The development of Jakarta which only oriented on capitalism cause in a lack of public space for the community, which make public coping with the issues independently. The roads in the housing area and villages was used by local residents as a space to socialize with neighbors or a place to do activities. There are still lots of kampung remained in Muara Baru which located in North Jakarta, but not facilitated by public space and open space to accommodate the citizen’s need to socialize and do their activity, so they carried out those activities in the middle of the road or alley which can disturb the traffic and endangered other people’s lives. This phenomenon indicates that the community's need for public space is very high and needs to be anticipated immediately in order to avoid environmental and social degradation. The purpose of this project is to become a linkage that connect people with the surrounding environment, as well as humans with other humans, while this project also help the economy and home industry businesses, which bring in money to help the economy of local citizens, and cause positive interactions, such as knowledge exchange and development in economic aspects. AbstrakPembangunan kota Jakarta awalnya dimulai dari area pinggir laut yang kemudian semakin berkembang ke pusat kota, seiring berlangsungnya pembangunan di pusat kota, daerah pinggir/pesisir mulai ditinggalkan dan tidak tersentuh. Pengembangan kota Jakarta yang hanya berorientasi pada kepentingan kapitalis juga mengakibatkan kurangnya ruang publik bagi masyarakat, sehingga mengakibatkan masyarakat mengatasinya secara mandiri. Jalan-jalan di dalam perumahan hingga perkampungan yang difungsikan oleh warga setempat sebagai ruang untuk bersosialisasi dengan tetangga atau tempat melakukan aktivitas. Kawasan Muara Baru yang terletak di wilayah pesisir Jakarta bagian Utara, masih terdapat banyak area perkampungan, tetapi tidak difasilitasi oleh ruang publik atau ruang terbuka sehingga untuk melakukan kegiatan berinteraksi dan beraktivitas, dilakukan di jalan/lorong kecil didepan rumah, yang dapat mengganggu lalu lintas dan juga membahayakan keselamatan warga dan juga pengguna jalan. Fenomena ini menandakan bahwa kebutuhan masyarakat akan ruang publik sangat tinggi dan perlu segera diantisipasi agar tidak terjadi degradasi lingkungan dan sosial, sehingga tujuan dari proyek ini adalah sebagai linkage yang menggabungkan manusia dengan lingkungan di sekitarnya, serta manusia dengan manusia lainnya, selain itu juga untuk membantu perekonomian dan usaha industri rumahan, yang dapat dilakukan serta menghasilkan uang untuk membantu perekonomian warga, serta menimbulkan interaksi positif, seperti pertukaran ilmu dan pembangunan aspek ekonomi, yang ke depannya akan menghasilkan kemajuan pada kota Jakarta dengan aspek sosial dan ekonomi yang seimbang.

The Covid-19 virus has spread out to Indonesia including Banten Province which causes multidimensional impacts from various sectors such as health, social, economic, and education. In risk mitigation of Covid-19 epidemic, it requires a risk communication approach, that is information exchange and views among stakeholders such as governments, industry, researchers/academics, mass media, and the community who takes apart of the Covid-19 Task Force. This study aims to determine the implementation of risk communication between Provincial government of Banten and stakeholders as well as the utilization of public health promotion media of Covid-19 epidemic mitigation risk. The theoretical basis of this research applied risk communication model proposed by William Leiss. The research was conducted using a qualitative evaluative approach with a case study method. The results of this research are 1) The Provincial Government of Banten consists of five stakeholders, they are government, industry, academics/researchers, mass media, and communities, in which every stakeholder has their own role of Covid-19 mitigation risk. The application used to communicate and coordinate are mostly perfomed virtually through Zoom and WhatsApp Groups. However, in practice, the implementation of Covid-19 mitigation risk in Banten Province is still not optimal because several stakeholders are not being involved by The Provincial Government of Banten. 2) The Provincial Government of Banten uses the strategy of above the line and below the line concerning the health promotion media to socialize and educate the public about Covid-19. However, the set of media content for health promotion still needs to be improved to be more creative, informative, up to date and raise the public opinion, so that it can fulfil the information needs of the society.

ABSTRAKCaregiver lansia mengatakan bahwa tidak semua lansia bersedia mengikuti terapi-terapi yang diadakan oleh Panti, selain itu beberapa lansia juga tidak bersedia bersosialisasi dengan lansia lain maupun hanya berbicara seperlunya dengan caregiver dan perawat.Terapi token ekonomi merupakan jenis terapi yang dapat digunakan untuk mengubah perilaku lansia. Tujuan pelatihan ini untuk meningkatkan perilaku yang diinginkan dan mengurangi perilaku yang tidak diinginkan dengan pemberian token yang dapat ditukar dengan sesuatu yang berguna dalam kurun waktu yang telah ditentukan. Kegiatan ini dilakukan 3 tahap yang meliputi tahapan persiapan yaitu melakukan perijinan dan menyusun pelaksanaan. Tahap kedua pemberian materi dan praktik token ekonomi yang meliputi pengertian dan jenis terapi CBT serta teori terapi token ekonomi.Tahap ke tiga evaluasi kegiatan yang meliputi evaluasi perasaan caregiver setelah melakukan terapi token ekonomi dan evaluasi pre tes serta post tes. Kegiatan ini telah terlaksana selama bulan Mei - Juni 2022, dan diikuti oleh 14 pengasuh lansia Hasil kegiatan pengabdian ini pada awal pre tes masih terdapat 9 peserta atau 64% yang mampu melakukan praktikum terapi token ekonomi. Setelah dilakukan pelatihan dan dilakukan evaluasi akhir atau post test terdapat 12 peserta atau 85% yang mampu melakukan praktikum terapi token dengan baik dan tepat. Secara keseluruhan kegiatan berjalan lancar serta antusias. Kata Kunci : caregiver; lansia; terapi token ekonomi ABSTRACTThe elderly caregiver said that not all the elderly were willing to participate in the therapies held by the orphanage, in addition some of the elderly were also not willing to socialize with other elderly people or only talk as necessary with caregivers and nurses. Economic token therapy is a type of therapy that can be used to change the behavior of the elderly. . The purpose of this training is to increase desired behavior and reduce unwanted behavior by giving tokens that can be exchanged for something useful within a predetermined time. This activity is carried out in 3 stages which include the preparation stage, namely licensing and arranging implementation. The second stage is providing material and token economy practice which includes the understanding and types of CBT therapy and the theory of token economy therapy. The third stage is activity evaluation which includes evaluating the caregiver's feelings after doing token economy therapy and evaluating pre-test and post-test. This activity has been carried out during May - June 2022, and was attended by 14 elderly caregivers. The results of this service activity at the beginning of the pre-test there were still 9 participants or 64% who were able to do economic token therapy practicum. After the training and the final evaluation or post test were carried out there were 12 participants or 85% who were able to carry out the token therapy practicum properly and precisely. Overall the activity went smoothly and enthusiastically. Keywords: caregiver; elderly; economic token therapy

The investment gallery in higher education aims to educate and socialize the capital market to academics in theory and practice so that it is expected to increase the number of local investors and experts in the capital market. Information obtained from the investment gallery of the Indonesia Stock Exchange of Mercu Buana University that the number of customer fund account openings decreased sharply and stopped from 2020 to 2023, this has become very contradictory to the educational efforts that have been carried out by the IDX UMB investment gallery to the academic community of Mercu Buana University. This gap is a very interesting phenomenon to be researched. This study aims to analyze financial literacy and attitudes as a mediator of the influence of financial technology convenience on stock investment interest. The population in this study is students of Mercu Buana University, Faculty of Economics and Business, S1 management study program with a specialization in finance with the sample method used, namely saturated samples where all members of the population are used as samples. The data collection method is by survey method, with research instruments, namely questionnaires. Based on the results of the study, it was concluded that the direct influence of financial literacy, financial attitudes and the ease of financial technology had a positive and significant effect on stock investment interest. This shows that if financial literacy, financial attitudes and the ease of financial technology of students are strengthened, it will increase interest in stock investment among students. Meanwhile, the indirect influence of the ease of financial technology with the mediation of financial literacy, financial attitudes, based on the results of the study, it was found that financial literacy plays a role as a mediator for the convenience of financial technology provides a positive and significant influence on stock investment interest for students, while financial attitudes as a mediation of financial technology do not have an influence on stock investment interest for students.

Purpose This paper aims to know the interest of leading small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) of Y generation in Surabaya City using mobile commerce, identify the effort that has been done by the leading SMEs actors of Y generation in Surabaya City to expand its business network by using mobile commerce, and analyze the success rate of the use of mobile commerce to expand the business network of leading SMEs of Y generation in Surabaya City. Design/methodology/approach This research is designed using qualitative method. The research is directed more toward a research with phenomenological approach because the research also gives the description related to the phenomena in the field to the actor of SMEs and Disperdagin of Surabaya City. The researcher picks Surabaya City as the location by considering the following: the number of SMEs in the Surabaya city is greater than any other cities in East Java considering that Surabaya is the capital of East Java. The number of SMEs is 37,906 units; it means that Surabaya is a city with high economic activity and this place is also the largest trading city after Jakarta. Based on the number of SMEs mentioned above, in this research, only leading SMEs are taken amounted to 161 leading SMEs in the Surabaya City. Information or technological exchange and development are faster compared to other cities because most of the community living in this city uses information technology in running their business. Findings SME actors in Surabaya city have high interest in using m-commerce. In expanding the network, the SME actors use online media. The SME actors in Surabaya have successfully expanded the business network through online marketing by using m-commerce to overseas including Germany, France, South Korea and the UK. Effective model is needed for the policy in Surabaya city is Disperdagin has its own website to overshadow all SMEs in Surabaya City, and identify the role of Disperdagin to SME or vice versa, and clustering SMEs in Surabaya such as cluster of handicraft and Food and Beverage (MAMIN). Factors that are the advantages of using m-commerce are wider business network; increasing sales; adding resellers and buyers; smooth business transaction; development of product innovation, process and marketing; the facilities provided by the government; and easy to use m-commerce application. Originality/value This is one of few papers that study the interest of SMEs actor in using mobile commerce in effort to expand business network. The use of m-commerce will grow the business capability of SMEs, thus increasing the role of SMEs as the counterweight to the structure of the national economy. Therefore, the government policy related to the use of e-commerce and m-commerce is very important to be socialized to business actors, especially the SMEs.

Humans are highly social beings with great desire for social belonging and interpersonal exchange in their life. Public space has become a cornerstone of public growth consisting economic, social, entertainment, and political enterprise. Therefore, the continuation of public interaction become very dependent on both public space existence and growth. The inadequacy of public space in Setiabudi has provoked the community to create public spaces in their residential roads to socialize and do various activities. Nonetheless, using roads as public infrastructure for daily activities and socializing may resulted in inconvenience and hazardous situation. In addition, most inhabitants in Setiabudi are migrants with the incentive to work and settle which resulted in social discrepancy. If this problem is not anticipated immediately, social and environmental degradation may arise. From these issues, we can conclude that Setiabudi need some facilities to fulfill the social needs of inhabitants and migrants secondary needs to work and settle. The research method conducted is through literature studies, precedent studies. In addition, direct observation techniques were also carried out namely interviews and observations to several settlements, social and public facilities. Therefore, facilities such as flexible space, gym, kid’s play area, bar, and recreational space for food court and co-working space are essential. Along with the oasis-maker concept, Setiabudi Wellness and Recreation Facility undertake inclusivity of human, neutrality, and playfulness. AbstrakManusia sebagai makhluk sosial selalu membutuhkan interaksi sosial dengan sesamanya dalam daur hidupnya. Ruang publik telah menjadi latar bagi perkembangan kehidupan publik, baik dalam kegiatan ekonomi, sosial, hiburan, hingga politik. Berlangsungnya kehidupan publik dengan interaksi sosial menjadi salah satu faktor yang sangat bergantung pada keberadaan dan perkembangan ruang publik. Minimnya ruang publik di kawasan Setiabudi mengakibatkan masyarakat menciptakan ruang publik di jalan lingkungan permukimannya sebagai tempat untuk bersosialisasi dan beraktivitas. Kegiatan-kegiatan yang menggunakan jalan sebagai media beraktivitas dan bersosialiasi sehari-hari cenderung mengganggu serta berbahaya bagi warga. Selain itu, sebagian penghuni di kawasan Setiabudi merupakan pendatang dari luar kawasan tersebut yang ingin bekerja dan bermukim sehingga menyebabkan kesenggangan sosial antara pendatang dan penduduk Setiabudi. Tujuan proyek adalah mengurangi degradasi sosial dan lingkungan antara pendatang dan penghuni Setiabudi. Dari isu-isu tersebut, dapat disimpulkan bahwa kawasan Setiabudi membutuhkan fasilitas-fasilitas untuk melengkapi kebutuhan sosial harian penduduk dan kebutuhan sekunder pendatang yang bekerja sekaligus bermukim di kawasan Setiabudi. Metode penelitian yang digunakan adalah melalui studi literatur, studi preseden. Selain itu, dilakukan juga teknik pengamatan langsung yaitu wawancara dan dan observasi ke beberapa permukiman, fasilitas sosial dan umum. Oleh karena itu, mereka membutuhkan fasilitas seperti flexible space (ruang serbaguna), gym, kid’s play area, bar dan ruang rekreasi dengan fasilitas pendukung seperti food court dan co-working space. Fasilitas Kebugaran dan Rekreasi ini memiliki konsep oasis-maker yang mengutamakan inklusivitas antar sesama manusia serta bersifat netral dan memiliki kesan playful.

The research analyzes the ability of the economic assessment to promote local development. At this stage, we try to shed more light on the importance of this matter, proposing a study on the one hand can highlight the features and the most important aspects of the evaluation and the other is able to demonstrate the operational validity of the latter in promote local development. Local development becomes an important tool for the exploitation of resources of a territory , which takes an active role , offering more and more exploitable resources over time . Finally, it is exposed to the concept of " cultural system " as a model of spatial development can promote the economy of the area and the redevelopment and improvement of the overall livability of a given territory. The culture thus becomes an increasingly important role for the marketi ! ng land , in order to improve the quality of life and promote the attractiveness and competitiveness of the territory, in order to activate the factors necessary for its development . The second part is exposed to the project concerning the creation of the cultural system as a process of planning for the future development of the city. A project that involves many actors, especially citizens increasingly seen as behind the choices of a city more efficient. In the context of the current localization economies , in fact , cities are having to compete with each other in pursuit of a development in the long term through investment in the territory and citizens , as an impetus to innovation and research . The three assets to be followed in order to enhance the city will be the ones to make it more welcoming and attractive , with a strong relational identity , sustainable and innovative . Understand, then , as Reggio Calabria to respond to the characteristics of " cultural system " is the goal of this work. Understand what are the reasons that lead a reality, such as that in question, as if to better integrate , to make a place more innovative, both in terms of territorial and cultural , without losing sight of the centrality of the person, respect and protection of human dignity , freedom, and the promotion of interpersonal relationships. Not far away are the days when any attempt to associate the terms " culture " and "economy" - when not even irreverent - seemed no doubt risky. Yet the idea that culture can be an engine of growth for the economy of a country is today widely demonstrated and shared by the scientific community. This is a significant mutation of trend that is gradually shifting the meaning of the function and use of the cultural property - until recent years reduced to a conceptual category in which the assets were intended as a memory of a cultural identity and therefore a vehicle for education and training - towards a vision that has enriched the profile of a conservative approach much more dynamic and economically productive . If you add to this the picture that is emerging in the era of globalization of markets and which tends , paradoxically, to strengthen the role and significance of territory in its specificity and cultural identity , it is not difficult to imagine how any policy intervention in the sector cultural , if on the one hand can not be separated from the concept of preservation , another must necessarily be open to an interpretation of the territory as a resource , developing planning skills with a strong innovative content. It requires, in this context, the need to "system" and to understand the change as the result of multiple and highly coordinated actions . If the strategies adopted to date , especially in Italy , have failed to ensure a real and sustainable economic development is compatible because, in reality, have segmented the field and separate the processes of development of cultural heritage from the local context in which they gravitate [ 1 ] . The advantage of the cultural consumption of a resource may induce socialized through its reuse by means of enhancement and management is a goal that can be checked with the help of different disciplines. The enhancement projects are a particular case within the realm of architectural design , but the economic evaluation together with the estimation disciplines continues to be a substantial contribution to the development of design processes . It presupposes , in the case of conservation projects , the presence of value judgments Quantitative alongside qualitative judgments , most often related to the historical interpretation of existing artifacts and building complexes . The transition from the formal model , which refers to private assets in the current market environment, the model which refers to the Economy substantial public goods with coordinates outside the market , in effect, shifts the focus from consumer use of resources: assets whose value is tied to the exchange and to the prevalence of the logic of the market, but rather resources whose value depends on the use, directly and indirectly from the use and non-use . The fact that we consider public goods as an economic resource , even if not placed in a context of market rules, raises complex issues , which are not exhausted by simple considerations on the scheme owner of the goods . On the one hand , as I said before, because of the difficulties to attribute a value in the monetary sense , and second, for the different meanings of technical feasibility , economic and financial continue to be a key stage in the planning of interventions on public resources . The territory has always been considered an integral part of our lives, recognized as a place of personal identity , cultural and religious . The desire to tradition, the rediscovery of ancient crafts and the production of typical signs are evident that without a strong local roots there is no significant experience in personal and social life . Among the main human needs is precisely the discovery of the territory, the sense of belonging to someone, even before something. The human being is always looking for a place that satisfies both environmentally and culturally, without which it would live dispersed. Precisely for this reason, in every historical moment has expressed a willingness to change the place where he lived apportandone valid media changes and trying to make it better and appropriate to meet his needs . In an increasingly globalized society , however , many regions are competing with each other and then it is even more difficult to enhance and encourage entrepreneurship in an area, and that is why we need rules and tools , able to promote the product area, also through a communication that is capable of enhancing the development potential and the socio-economic and environmental issues, whilst promoting local entrepreneurship . The territories , in fact, have to fit in the global market , using a fast market and explanatory , communicating the wealth of an area, its entrepreneurial vocations , the location opportunities , business opportunities . These are the tools that support the creation of local businesses and attracting capital from outside the territory , allow you to stimulate economic development . Through the challenges of globalization has been given a new role in the region , from a competition between economic actors in a competition between local systems. The territory is rediscovered as a complex system, hidden in a highly competitive global dimension : in this step to adopt a strategy of cultural system is critical to the necessity of dealing with homogeneous systems . A strategy that is able to exploit the opportunities offered by new communications technologies and extend business opportunities. This work is divided into two parts: the first part will present the concept of cultural and conceptual tools of economic evaluation applied to the product area. In particular, it analyzes the ability of this discipline to promote local development. At this stage, we try to shed more light on the importance of this matter, proposing a study on the one hand can highlight the features and the most important aspects of the evaluation and the other is able to demonstrate the operational validity of the latter in promote local development. The local development , in fact, becomes an important tool for the exploitation of resources of a territory , which takes an active role , offering more and more exploitable resources over time . Finally, it is exposed to the concept of " cultural system " as a model of spatial development can promote the economy of the area and the redevelopment and improvement of the overall livability of a given territory. The pattern of the district, in fact, is a reality for a long time active and dynamic in the industrial sector which today begins to be considered a great potential in the field of culture and urban development. The culture thus becomes an increasingly important role for territorial marketing in order to improve the quality of life and promote the attractiveness and competitiveness of the territory, in order to activate the factors necessary for its development . Concepts such as empowerment , innovation and creativity are , today , conditions that characterize the social, institutional , environmental and demographic constraints to economic growth of the post-industrialized countries . The Cultural District Evolved is based precisely on this assumption , for which this model aspires to become an important development trend in America, Europe and Italy . An example of a city that has been able to use culture as supporting its growth is Linz , a country capable of putting together a social progress , cultural and economic , as to be rated as one of the best achievements of the cultural district . The second part is exposed to the project concerning the creation of the cultural system as a process of planning for the future development of the city. A project that involves many actors, especially citizens increasingly seen as behind the choices of a city more efficient. In the context of the current localization economies , in fact , cities are having to compete with each other in pursuit of a development in the long term through investment in the territory and citizens , as an impetus to innovation and research . The three assets to be followed in order to enhance the city will be the ones to make it more welcoming and attractive , with a strong relational identity , sustainable and innovative . Understand, then , as Reggio Calabria to respond to the characteristics of " cultural system " is the goal of this work. Understand what are the reasons that lead a reality, such as that in question, as if to better integrate , to make a place more innovative, both in terms of territorial and cultural , without losing sight of the centrality of the person, respect and protection of human dignity , freedom, and the promotion of interpersonal relationships.

The Act on the treatment of persons evading work was passed on November 26, 1982 and entered into force on January 1, 1983. The passing of the Act was preceded by a period of heated discussions during which the need for this regulation or objections against it were justified by various social, economic, political legal as well as philosophical reasons. The Act bound all men aged 18-45 (with the exception of some clearly defined categories) who neither work nor learn for a period of at least 3 month and who are not registered in employment agencies as looking for a job to report at the local state administrative agencies and explain the reasons of this state of affairs. Such persons can be recognized as not working for justified reasons (in this case, they should get help if needed) or for unjustified reasons (to such persons the possibilities of taking the job should be pointed out; they should also get help if needed). Man who persistently evade work and whose sources of maintenance cannot be revealed or prove to be contradictory to the principles of social existence, are included in a list of persons who persistently evade work. The law provides for the following legal consequences towards persons who fall under its provisions: a failure in the duty to report is a transgression for which there is a penalty of limitation of liberty of up to three months; the same penalty is provided for the registered person’s failure to appear when summoned by the local administrative agency: a failure of a registered person in the duty to appear when summoned in order to make a statement concerning his sources of maintenances is an offence for which a penalty of limitation of liberty or a fine is provided; the persons who have been included in the list may be obligated to perform the work for public purposes in cases of force majeure or natural calamity that constitutes a serious threat for the normal conditions of the people’s existence; a failure in this duty is an offence for which a statutory penalty is that of limitation of liberty up two years or a fine. The Act deals with only one of the many and varied problems that result from the broad and multifarious issue of work: the situation of not being formally employed. Employment is connected with the actual policy in this respect, the labour market, and with many economic problems. The passing of the Act and the period of its functioning discussed in the present paper fell in Poland on the days of a profound socio-economic crisis which influences the problems related to employment. In our study, however, we have taken no account of the above broader issues, focusing on the functioning of the Act: the nation of ,,evasion of work’’ and ,,a person evading work’’ it introduced, the extent of the population that falls under the Act, characterization of the population mentioned the institutions and persons involved in realization of the Act, ways of dealing with the persons evading work, conformability of the conduct of the Act’s addresses with the model of conduct it includes, appraisal of the degree to which the aims of the Act, as set before it by the legislator have been reached, and the social effects of the law. The study concerned the functioning of the Act in the capital city of Warsaw. The basic source of information were index cards of all man evading work that had been registered in this territory in the period from January 1, 1983, till April 30, 1984. Moreover, district constables of the police were interviewed about these men; data concerning their criminal records were obtained from the Central Criminal Register and information about their detention in the Warsaw sobering-up station was obtained from the station's files. Two years later, additional data were gathered in order to check which of the registered men worked for at least 6 month after having been registered; the course of work for public purposes done by the examined persons was also checked with enterprises that organized such work. In the period included in the study, 2,195 men evading work were registered in Warsaw. The size of this population seems susceptible of various interpretations, depending on the adepted point of view. This number however seems insignificant as compared with that of situations vacant reported at the employment agency which for instance exceeded 18 thousand jobs for men on December 31, 1983. As shown by the analysis of the course of registration in the entire examined period, and of the differences in the sizes of the registered populations in the separate Warsaw districts, the sizes in question vary greatly and depend on administrative steps that influence the revealing of men who answer the statutory definition. The term "person evading work" designates various persons whose various circumstances - whether socially accepted or not – justify their lack of permanent employment, and who find themselves in various situations. They are e.g. persons waiting to be called up, those who help their families with farming, alcoholics who find it impossible to keep any permanent job, men supported by their familes and looking after a family member, those who are preparing for examination to enter the university, those taking a rest after release from prison, and those who actually do work (there were about 1/4 of them): casually, seasonally or in private firms, but fail to settle their situation formally. According to the police data, as few as every tenth of the examined persons had among others, though not exclusively, illegal sources of maintenance such as offences or illicit trade. In general, the men registered as evading work did not differ from the entire population of men aged 18-45 who lived in Warsaw at that time as regards the age structure. There were among them relatively few married men. Their level of education was somewhat lower as compared with men employed at that time in Warsaw in the socialized economy; yet two-thirds of them were trained in some profession. According to the police inquiries, and to the information from index cards and from sobering-up station, three-fourth of the examined persons drank extensively; one-third of them were detained in the station, with the majority being detained repeatedly which arouses suspicion as to their dependence. 79 per cent of the registered persons were known to the police who had to intervene in their cases comparatively often and the company they kept was appraised negatively by the police 45 per cent had criminal records (with offences against property predominating) their effence however did not provide them money enough to replace employee’s wages. The first stage of introduction of the Act was to reveal persons liableto registration. The performance of the duty of registration met with most serious problems. Persons who reported themselves to be registered constituted less than a half of the total of those registered, this situation remaining unchanged even one year after the Act had entered into force. Even after that period, over a half of those newly registered were persons who had not been working for over a year and who thus should have been registered much earlier Some of those who reported themselves did it only because they needed a certificate of registration to settle some important personal matter A rather numerous category nearly one- third of the examined men consisted of those registered after having been punished by a transgresion board for failure in the duty of registration, and those reported by the police or public prosecutor' s office Therefore, the police were explicitly involved in the process of picking out persons evading work. Also the realization of the entire second stage of dealing with the above persons - that of classification - arouses serious doubts. Index cards of a great number of persons lacked information essential for the realization of the Act, i.e. concerning certain facts about the registered person and the history of this previous employment. Among the vital decisions taken in relation to the registered persons is the recognition of the reason of their unemployment as justified or unjustified. A tendency became pronounced in these decisions to treat illness and prolonged formal transactions related to future work as valid excuses for not working and out to excuse working without formal employment. It appeared also that officials deciding in these matters enjoyed a certain degree of discretion when appraising the reasons of unemployment. The actions taken toward the registered persons assumed first of all the character unemploying: they consisted in obligating these persons to report again and inform about employment, or in referring them; therefore these actions failed to bring about any considerable effects; had the persons in question reported directly at the employment agency, the effects would have been identical. One-forth of the registered persons were directed to do work for public purposes. As many as two- thirds of them never even appeared to get the adress of the enterprise which such organized work, and 15 per cent reported at the workplace but failed to fulfil their duties. Thus directing to work for public purposes was of a trifle importance only; out of proportion with the effort put in the organizing of such work. Thoroughout the period included in the study, the names of 152 (7 per cent) of the registered men were entered in the list of persons who persistently evaded work. Punishment for infringement of the disscused Act was moved for in one third of cases. As shown by the picture of realization of the Act, the officials who apply it often face the registered men's most complex life problems, that are difficult to appraise explicitly and to decide upon beyond dispute; besides, methods of successful circumvention or evasion of the provisions of the Act appear to have emerged. The appraisal of the functioning of the discussed Act has been done on two planes: both the realization of the legislator's intentions and the social effects of its introduction other than intended have been analyzed. The legislator's intentions are defined as coming to the assistance of those out of work and out of school who want work, and inducing to work those who fail to express this wish. In the statements of the Minister of Justice and of the deputy reporter during the parliamentary discussion, also such aims were formulated as: drawing up a record of persons evading work and thus getting knowledge as to the extent of this phenomenon; providing hands in cases of their shortage; and soothing the indignant public opinion which demanded radical measures to fight the phenomenon of the so-called social parasitism. The above intentions have been realized but to a slight degree. Cases of getting help from administrative agency were extremely rare, the agency playing but the role of an agent who directs clients on to the employment or medical agencies. After registration 44.5 per cent of the examined persons took a job and 37.6 per cent continued to work incessanuy for 6 months which is the condition of their names being stroken off from the register. The latter group proved to be "better" as regards selected social traits. According to our appraisal, these persons had greater chances and possibilities of and performing a job as compared with the remaining group; what's more "inducing" them to work was frequently absolutely unnecessary. Registration failed to provide knowledge as to the size of the phenomenon of evasion of work, inconstancy being among its characteristics. The examined persons are often temporarily unemployed, this situation far from being permanent. Registration failed to improve the situation in the labour market: not only the number of those who found a job but also the total of those registered was too small as compared with the needs. Whether the public opinion has been soothed and satisfied by the introduction of the Act, we do not know. What we do know, is that among those registered there were hardly any persons whose unemployment particularly irritated the public opinion (e.g. black market and foreign currency dealers). A number of persons "evad.ing work" can always be" found, and the reasons for which some of them fail to take a job would hardly meet with social desapproval. Apart from the intended effects of any legal regulation, there are also those unintended which in the case of the discussed Act can be found in the following spheres: 1) the legal system: in the labour law (limitation of the principle of freedom of work), and in the penal law (the range of penalized acts has been broadened to include transgressions and offences provided in the Act; moreover, a penal law sanction was used as an instrument to solve a problem that belongs to the sphere of social an economic policy exclusively; 2) the sphere of political an social activities: an additional bureaucratic cell in labour exchange has been created in the case of alcoholics, intervention of the Act is but a seeming action, leaving the essence of the problem out of account; in the case of ex-convicts, the Act doubles the activity of other institutions (such person can obtain help in employment agencies or from their probation officers, and they are ,,induced" to take a job by their life situation or by the conditions on which they have been released from prison); 3) the sphere of social attitudes towards the law: failure to collect subpoenas and to appear when summoned could be observed among the registered persons which means that mechanisms of circumventing the Act emerged. In our opinion, the Act on the treatment of persons evading work is unnecessary. A separate and independent problem of persons who evade work does not exist. Instead, there is a number of various, partly overlapping problems: demand for labour, social frustrations of the crisis period, as well as alcoholism, delinquency disturbed socialization of the youth, failure to insure employes without setting the required formalities, problem of employment of the disabled. Also favourable phenomena and traits can be found here such e.g. the energy and initiative of those who want to work more effectively and to be paid better As shown by our study, ,,social parasitism ,, i.e. the actual staying out of work and living at the expense of others, can be found in a tiny percentage of registered persons.

Abstract This paper investigates how football fandom as a highly popular and socially diverse leisure activity contributes to practices of social cohesion within Europe and interacts with underlying socio-demographic and socio-economic inequalities. Behaviours such as cross-border communication and travel across the continent are concrete contributors to social cohesion in the European Union and broader Europe, as they induce inter-cultural and inter-personal contacts and promote exchanges and collaboration between otherwise unconnected European citizens. However, engaging in these interactions is often influenced by socio-demographic and socio-economic factors, since more well-off, more highly educated, more physically able individuals, as well as those more strongly socialised with international exchanges have a higher propensity for cross-border engagement. Football fandom provides a unique setting to explore whether these inequalities can be overcome. This paper addresses two key questions: (1) Does football fandom increase the likelihood of cross-border communication and travel? (2) Does football fandom mitigate socio-demographic and socio-economic inequalities in these practices? Based on Schiefer and van der Noll’s (2017) framework of social cohesion and using representative population data, the study examines the effects of football fandom and socio-demographic and socio-economic factors, as well as their interaction, on cross-border engagement in fans and non-fans. The results indicate that football fandom significantly enhances cross-border communication and travel, supporting the view that fandom can strengthen European social cohesion. However, football fandom partially amplifies underlying disparities regarding age and education status. These mixed results suggest that while football fandom can induce social interactions that strengthen social cohesion across Europe, it does not serve as a strong equaliser of social inequalities in cross-border engagement.

Abstract Sohn-Rethel’s great idea was to ‘socialise’ Kant’s transcendental subject by combining it with Marx’s commodity-form. In so doing, he took on three challenges simultaneously: a) the timeless validity of modern natural science; b) the social genesis of empirically pure forms of cognition; and c) socialisation occurring through a purely social synthesis. However, Sohn-Rethel construed Marx’s value-form analysis as an empirical exchange of commodities and held that such exchange performs a real abstraction – in this way, he laboured under the very semblance that money engenders at the surface of society by virtue of its function qua means of exchange. This semblance can be rendered transparent by, on the one hand, explaining value in terms of capitalist valorisation rather than as a product of abstraction, and, on the other, developing money as the measure and form of this valorisation.

AbstractThis paper addresses the heterogeneity of the digital divide and internet use among citizens in the 28 European Union (EU) countries (at the time of the survey). Drawing from the Eurobarometer Surveys, three indicators of the digital divide are used to define the groups: frequency of internet access, means of internet access, and online activities. The categorical clustering algorithm identifies six groups of internet users: Non-Users, Basic Users, Information Exchangers, Instrumental Users, Socializers, and Advanced Users, each with distinct socio-demographic profiles. The study reveals significant socio-economic and demographic profiling variables characterizing these patterns, including age, education, gender, occupation, type of community and geographic location. A major digital divide is detected in many countries; Notably, Romania, Greece, and Bulgaria have the largest proportion of Non-Users, emphasizing the need for targeted policy interventions. These results provide crucial insights for the European Commission’s digitization strategy, suggesting that more nuanced and targeted measures are needed to ensure equitable digital access across the EU.

Resumo:The agricultural modernization, initiated after the Green Revolution, established the agricultural homogenization, helping to transfer technical and scientific knowledge, while neglecting the traditional practices of family farmers. This study aimed to analyze the knowledge interaction between ATER agents and family farmers in order to identify the valorization status of local or traditional knowledge in the practices developed by those farmers. The methods used in the study are characterized as exploratory, qualitative and case study. The research population was formed by family farmers in the municipality of Cascavel/PR, based on data provided by Emater, and 248 family farmers' properties involved in various projects aimed at enhancing local activities were identified. For data collection, 30 families from five different Districts were interviewed. The choice criteria was by convenience. As a result, we identified that the interaction and knowledge sharing between farmers occurs continuously, as farmers usually exchange information about their daily lives and their productive activities in informal conversations and community meetings. The relationship with ATER agents is positive, however it is clear that tacit and explicit knowledge have not been properly socialized. Even though there are economic and knowledge potentialities, commodity crops, which depend on large-scale production, are still predominant and not suitable for family farming.Como citar este artigo:TAGLIAPIETRA, Odacir Miguel; CARNIATTO, Irene; BERTOLINI, Geysler Rogis Flor. Knowledge Interaction between ATER agents and family farmers: status of valuing local or traditional knowledge. Revista NERA, v. 25, n. 62, p. 158-178, jan.-abr., 2022.

Prior research has shown conflicting findings on decision-making differences between autistic and non-autistic individuals. To address this issue, we applied the Ultimatum and Dictator Games to examine explicit measures (probability of endorsing monetary offers) and implicit measures (response times) associated with decision-making behaviors. By analyzing response times, we aimed to determine whether decisions were intuitive (rapid) or deliberative (slower) reasoning processes. In addition, we administered an executive functions questionnaire to explore how cognitive skills correlate with implicit and explicit decision-making behaviors. The study included 24 autistic and 24 non-autistic children and adolescents aged 8–18 years. Results showed that autistic participants were less likely to propose selfish offers in the Dictator Game than their non-autistic peers. Among autistic participants, this lower tendency to propose selfish offers correlated with better executive function skills. Regarding response times, autistic participants exhibited slower responses than non-autistic participants when accepting and proposing selfish offers in both games. These findings reveal differences in selfish offer tendencies and deliberative reasoning among participants, suggesting that slower decision-making in autistic participants reflects a focus on fairness and sociomoral reasoning. Future research can explore how this reasoning style influences social interactions in various scenarios. Lay Abstract Autistic kids and teens often have unique ways of communicating and socializing with others. Making decisions is important in how we behave daily and how we socialize. To study if autistic participants tend to make more cooperative or selfish choices, we used two games where participants had to share money between themselves and another player. Previous results were not consistent and that is why general assumptions could not be established. Also, previous results focused on the final decisions and did not consider the process that leads to making decisions. To fill the gap in what we know, this study dug deeper by evaluating how quickly or slowly participants made decisions and explored executive functions needed for daily decisions. The study found that autistic participants, with better executive functions, made less selfish offers (where they could keep more money than their peers) than non-autistic participants. Also, autistic participants took more time to decide than non-autistic participants, only when they could earn more money than the other player. Interestingly, these results are consistent with studies indicating that autistic children distribute resources without a primary focus on personal gains. These findings reshape how we view social exchanges and recognize that slow, deliberate thinking can lead to less selfish decisions in autistic children and adolescents. Future research could explore how this reasoning style influences social interactions in varied contexts.

The paradigm under which our society and economy have operated until now has become obsolete in the 21st century. Some Nobel Prize-winner economists made it clear that we have to forget the paradigm currently dominating the global economy: "Let’s privatize the benefits and socialize (distribute) its costs as much as possible!" The results of it are extremely and rapidly increasing inequalities, followed by unmanageable socio-economic - environmental tensions. It seems we could get out of this situation only with radical social and economic transformations, both globally and at the lower levels (countries, regions, localities). There isn’t another solution just the social and economic paradigm exchange parallel with each other. Interconnected and not separated them. But many big challenges are coming up from the natural and the technological environment too and they are rooted in the human-made systems. So altogether we are facing the quickly changing complexity and an unknown situation in the history of humanity. We don't have appropriate methods and experiences how to deal with these new types of challenges but there isn't any other choice just to manage them. Despite this fact, there are very few studies about the causes and consequences of this rapidly growing problem in the era of growing sustainability risks. Similarly, there is very little practical information that provides actionable advice on how to manage these problems at different (global-, macro-, and micro-) levels of social and economic organizations. We define complexity as the number of components in a system plus the variety of relationships among these components plus the speed of changes of both the components and the relationships. Larger systems (like social - economic - ecological systems) are often very complex – but they may be more complicated if their behavior is unpredictable. Based on the global databases and reports we investigated the trials of countries how prepared they are for managing the growing complexity in the field of implementing the Sustainable Development Goals. We have found that in most of the countries (and globally too) experts are choosing the simplest way - they deal with the goals separately from each other and don't take into account the very complicated system of their interconnections and the feedback loops. We have tried to summarize some conclusions for the future about what would be the better approach to deal with the complexity.

AbstractAs COVID-19 spread around the world, epidemic prevention and control policies have been adopted by many countries. This process has prompted online social platforms to become important channels to enable people to socialize and exchange information. The massive use of social media data mining techniques, to analyze the development online of public opinion during the epidemic, is of great significance in relation to the management of public opinion. This paper presents a study that aims to analyze the developmental course of online public opinion in terms of fine-grained emotions presented during the COVID-19 epidemic in China. It is based on more than 45 million Weibo posts during the period from December 1, 2019 to April 30, 2020. A text emotion extraction method based on a dictionary of emotional ontology has been developed. The results show, for example, that a high emotional effect is observed during holidays, such as New Year. As revealed by Internet users, the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic and its rapid spread, over a comparatively short period of time, triggered a sharp rise in the emotion “fear”. This phenomenon was noted especially in Wuhan and the immediate surrounding areas. Over the initial 2 months, although this “fear” gradually declined, it remained significantly higher than the more common level of uncertainty that existed during the epidemic’s initial developmental era. Simultaneously, in the main city clusters, the response to the COVID-19 epidemic in central cities, was stronger than that in neighboring cities, in terms of the above emotion. The topics of Weibo posts, the corresponding emotions, and the analysis conclusions can provide auxiliary reference materials for the monitoring of network public opinion under similar major public events.

The article reveals the trends and risks of digitalization, which today is the main factor in the formation of a new society. Digitalization is seen as the high point of the globalization process. Digital technologies have increased the effects of globalization, weakening the factors that hinder interstate economic interaction, which has become a determinant of the growth in the share of international trade in national economies, thereby increasing the degree of interdependence of states, international integration and the role of large private companies in international trade. Digitization as a complex and multifaceted phenomenon is of particular importance, since the developed global level of the technological process and the prevalence of digital technologies led to the active involvement of people in the online environment. And although the states are at different stages, we can affirmatively talk about the last stage at which the population of the planet is, having reached the global scale of digital technologies. The acquired level of distribution and use of digital technologies indicates the formation of a digital space, the structure of which consists of computer technologies, mobile devices and other means of virtual and augmented reality, in which communication between users is deployed, the movement of information flows takes place, as well as production, distribution, exchange and consumption of digital goods and other types of social interaction. The digital space is the main source of formation of the digital economy and contains all its processes and elements. Modern society is in the thick of digitalization. In almost all areas of social life, we find a wide array of different practices that are subject to digital change. The Internet and social media platforms have changed how we receive information and experience entertainment, socialize, shop, and present ourselves. We develop and are confronted with new digital business models that are based on the “new gold” of user and process data. Apps and “smart” machines are designed to make sense of these data in order to automatically understand patterns or to control industrial processes in the context of Industry 4.0 (the Fourth Industrial Revolution). Algorithms, autonomous vacuum cleaners, cars or weapons and humanoid robots are in different stages of development and implementation. All of these manifestations and practices are obviously connected to questions of digital security, democracy, and how politics and legislation deal with these new phenomena of digitalization.

The term “coffee palace” was primarily used in Australia to describe the temperance hotels that were built in the last decades of the 19th century, although there are references to the term also being used to a lesser extent in the United Kingdom (Denby 174). Built in response to the worldwide temperance movement, which reached its pinnacle in the 1880s in Australia, coffee palaces were hotels that did not serve alcohol. This was a unique time in Australia’s architectural development as the economic boom fuelled by the gold rush in the 1850s, and the demand for ostentatious display that gathered momentum during the following years, afforded the use of richly ornamental High Victorian architecture and resulted in very majestic structures; hence the term “palace” (Freeland 121). The often multi-storied coffee palaces were found in every capital city as well as regional areas such as Geelong and Broken Hill, and locales as remote as Maria Island on the east coast of Tasmania. Presented as upholding family values and discouraging drunkenness, the coffee palaces were most popular in seaside resorts such as Barwon Heads in Victoria, where they catered to families. Coffee palaces were also constructed on a grand scale to provide accommodation for international and interstate visitors attending the international exhibitions held in Sydney (1879) and Melbourne (1880 and 1888). While the temperance movement lasted well over 100 years, the life of coffee palaces was relatively short-lived. Nevertheless, coffee palaces were very much part of Australia’s cultural landscape. In this article, I examine the rise and demise of coffee palaces associated with the temperance movement and argue that coffee palaces established in the name of abstinence were modelled on the coffee houses that spread throughout Europe and North America in the 17th and 18th centuries during the Enlightenment—a time when the human mind could be said to have been liberated from inebriation and the dogmatic state of ignorance. The Temperance Movement At a time when newspapers are full of lurid stories about binge-drinking and the alleged ill-effects of the liberalisation of licensing laws, as well as concerns over the growing trend of marketing easy-to-drink products (such as the so-called “alcopops”) to teenagers, it is difficult to think of a period when the total suppression of the alcohol trade was seriously debated in Australia. The cause of temperance has almost completely vanished from view, yet for well over a century—from 1830 to the outbreak of the Second World War—the control or even total abolition of the liquor trade was a major political issue—one that split the country, brought thousands onto the streets in demonstrations, and influenced the outcome of elections. Between 1911 and 1925 referenda to either limit or prohibit the sale of alcohol were held in most States. While moves to bring about abolition failed, Fitzgerald notes that almost one in three Australian voters expressed their support for prohibition of alcohol in their State (145). Today, the temperance movement’s platform has largely been forgotten, killed off by the practical example of the United States, where prohibition of the legal sale of alcohol served only to hand control of the liquor traffic to organised crime. Coffee Houses and the Enlightenment Although tea has long been considered the beverage of sobriety, it was coffee that came to be regarded as the very antithesis of alcohol. When the first coffee house opened in London in the early 1650s, customers were bewildered by this strange new drink from the Middle East—hot, bitter, and black as soot. But those who tried coffee were, reports Ellis, soon won over, and coffee houses were opened across London, Oxford, and Cambridge and, in the following decades, Europe and North America. Tea, equally exotic, entered the English market slightly later than coffee (in 1664), but was more expensive and remained a rarity long after coffee had become ubiquitous in London (Ellis 123-24). The impact of the introduction of coffee into Europe during the seventeenth century was particularly noticeable since the most common beverages of the time, even at breakfast, were weak “small beer” and wine. Both were safer to drink than water, which was liable to be contaminated. Coffee, like beer, was made using boiled water and, therefore, provided a new and safe alternative to alcoholic drinks. There was also the added benefit that those who drank coffee instead of alcohol began the day alert rather than mildly inebriated (Standage 135). It was also thought that coffee had a stimulating effect upon the “nervous system,” so much so that the French called coffee une boisson intellectuelle (an intellectual beverage), because of its stimulating effect on the brain (Muskett 71). In Oxford, the British called their coffee houses “penny universities,” a penny then being the price of a cup of coffee (Standage 158). Coffee houses were, moreover, more than places that sold coffee. Unlike other institutions of the period, rank and birth had no place (Ellis 59). The coffee house became the centre of urban life, creating a distinctive social culture by treating all customers as equals. Egalitarianism, however, did not extend to women—at least not in London. Around its egalitarian (but male) tables, merchants discussed and conducted business, writers and poets held discussions, scientists demonstrated experiments, and philosophers deliberated ideas and reforms. For the price of a cup (or “dish” as it was then known) of coffee, a man could read the latest pamphlets and newsletters, chat with other patrons, strike business deals, keep up with the latest political gossip, find out what other people thought of a new book, or take part in literary or philosophical discussions. Like today’s Internet, Twitter, and Facebook, Europe’s coffee houses functioned as an information network where ideas circulated and spread from coffee house to coffee house. In this way, drinking coffee in the coffee house became a metaphor for people getting together to share ideas in a sober environment, a concept that remains today. According to Standage, this information network fuelled the Enlightenment (133), prompting an explosion of creativity. Coffee houses provided an entirely new environment for political, financial, scientific, and literary change, as people gathered, discussed, and debated issues within their walls. Entrepreneurs and scientists teamed up to form companies to exploit new inventions and discoveries in manufacturing and mining, paving the way for the Industrial Revolution (Standage 163). The stock market and insurance companies also had their birth in the coffee house. As a result, coffee was seen to be the epitome of modernity and progress and, as such, was the ideal beverage for the Age of Reason. By the 19th century, however, the era of coffee houses had passed. Most of them had evolved into exclusive men’s clubs, each geared towards a certain segment of society. Tea was now more affordable and fashionable, and teahouses, which drew clientele from both sexes, began to grow in popularity. Tea, however, had always been Australia’s most popular non-alcoholic drink. Tea (and coffee) along with other alien plants had been part of the cargo unloaded onto Australian shores with the First Fleet in 1788. Coffee, mainly from Brazil and Jamaica, remained a constant import but was taxed more heavily than tea and was, therefore, more expensive. Furthermore, tea was much easier to make than coffee. To brew tea, all that is needed is to add boiling water, coffee, in contrast, required roasting, grinding and brewing. According to Symons, until the 1930s, Australians were the largest consumers of tea in the world (19). In spite of this, and as coffee, since its introduction into Europe, was regarded as the antidote to alcohol, the temperance movement established coffee palaces. In the early 1870s in Britain, the temperance movement had revived the coffee house to provide an alternative to the gin taverns that were so attractive to the working classes of the Industrial Age (Clarke 5). Unlike the earlier coffee house, this revived incarnation provided accommodation and was open to men, women and children. “Cheap and wholesome food,” was available as well as reading rooms supplied with newspapers and periodicals, and games and smoking rooms (Clarke 20). In Australia, coffee palaces did not seek the working classes, as clientele: at least in the cities they were largely for the nouveau riche. Coffee Palaces The discovery of gold in 1851 changed the direction of the Australian economy. An investment boom followed, with an influx of foreign funds and English banks lending freely to colonial speculators. By the 1880s, the manufacturing and construction sectors of the economy boomed and land prices were highly inflated. Governments shared in the wealth and ploughed money into urban infrastructure, particularly railways. Spurred on by these positive economic conditions and the newly extended inter-colonial rail network, international exhibitions were held in both Sydney and Melbourne. To celebrate modern technology and design in an industrial age, international exhibitions were phenomena that had spread throughout Europe and much of the world from the mid-19th century. According to Davison, exhibitions were “integral to the culture of nineteenth century industrialising societies” (158). In particular, these exhibitions provided the colonies with an opportunity to demonstrate to the world their economic power and achievements in the sciences, the arts and education, as well as to promote their commerce and industry. Massive purpose-built buildings were constructed to house the exhibition halls. In Sydney, the Garden Palace was erected in the Botanic Gardens for the 1879 Exhibition (it burnt down in 1882). In Melbourne, the Royal Exhibition Building, now a World Heritage site, was built in the Carlton Gardens for the 1880 Exhibition and extended for the 1888 Centennial Exhibition. Accommodation was required for the some one million interstate and international visitors who were to pass through the gates of the Garden Palace in Sydney. To meet this need, the temperance movement, keen to provide alternative accommodation to licensed hotels, backed the establishment of Sydney’s coffee palaces. The Sydney Coffee Palace Hotel Company was formed in 1878 to operate and manage a number of coffee palaces constructed during the 1870s. These were designed to compete with hotels by “offering all the ordinary advantages of those establishments without the allurements of the drink” (Murdoch). Coffee palaces were much more than ordinary hotels—they were often multi-purpose or mixed-use buildings that included a large number of rooms for accommodation as well as ballrooms and other leisure facilities to attract people away from pubs. As the Australian Town and Country Journal reveals, their services included the supply of affordable, wholesome food, either in the form of regular meals or occasional refreshments, cooked in kitchens fitted with the latest in culinary accoutrements. These “culinary temples” also provided smoking rooms, chess and billiard rooms, and rooms where people could read books, periodicals and all the local and national papers for free (121). Similar to the coffee houses of the Enlightenment, the coffee palaces brought businessmen, artists, writers, engineers, and scientists attending the exhibitions together to eat and drink (non-alcoholic), socialise and conduct business. The Johnson’s Temperance Coffee Palace located in York Street in Sydney produced a practical guide for potential investors and businessmen titled International Exhibition Visitors Pocket Guide to Sydney. It included information on the location of government departments, educational institutions, hospitals, charitable organisations, and embassies, as well as a list of the tariffs on goods from food to opium (1–17). Women, particularly the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) were a formidable force in the temperance movement (intemperance was generally regarded as a male problem and, more specifically, a husband problem). Murdoch argues, however, that much of the success of the push to establish coffee palaces was due to male politicians with business interests, such as the one-time Victorian premiere James Munro. Considered a stern, moral church-going leader, Munro expanded the temperance movement into a fanatical force with extraordinary power, which is perhaps why the temperance movement had its greatest following in Victoria (Murdoch). Several prestigious hotels were constructed to provide accommodation for visitors to the international exhibitions in Melbourne. Munro was responsible for building many of the city’s coffee palaces, including the Victoria (1880) and the Federal Coffee Palace (1888) in Collins Street. After establishing the Grand Coffee Palace Company, Munro took over the Grand Hotel (now the Windsor) in 1886. Munro expanded the hotel to accommodate some of the two million visitors who were to attend the Centenary Exhibition, renamed it the Grand Coffee Palace, and ceremoniously burnt its liquor licence at the official opening (Murdoch). By 1888 there were more than 50 coffee palaces in the city of Melbourne alone and Munro held thousands of shares in coffee palaces, including those in Geelong and Broken Hill. With its opening planned to commemorate the centenary of the founding of Australia and the 1888 International Exhibition, the construction of the Federal Coffee Palace, one of the largest hotels in Australia, was perhaps the greatest monument to the temperance movement. Designed in the French Renaissance style, the façade was embellished with statues, griffins and Venus in a chariot drawn by four seahorses. The building was crowned with an iron-framed domed tower. New passenger elevators—first demonstrated at the Sydney Exhibition—allowed the building to soar to seven storeys. According to the Federal Coffee Palace Visitor’s Guide, which was presented to every visitor, there were three lifts for passengers and others for luggage. Bedrooms were located on the top five floors, while the stately ground and first floors contained majestic dining, lounge, sitting, smoking, writing, and billiard rooms. There were electric service bells, gaslights, and kitchens “fitted with the most approved inventions for aiding proficients [sic] in the culinary arts,” while the luxury brand Pears soap was used in the lavatories and bathrooms (16–17). In 1891, a spectacular financial crash brought the economic boom to an abrupt end. The British economy was in crisis and to meet the predicament, English banks withdrew their funds in Australia. There was a wholesale collapse of building companies, mortgage banks and other financial institutions during 1891 and 1892 and much of the banking system was halted during 1893 (Attard). Meanwhile, however, while the eastern States were in the economic doldrums, gold was discovered in 1892 at Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie in Western Australia and, within two years, the west of the continent was transformed. As gold poured back to the capital city of Perth, the long dormant settlement hurriedly caught up and began to emulate the rest of Australia, including the construction of ornately detailed coffee palaces (Freeman 130). By 1904, Perth had 20 coffee palaces. When the No. 2 Coffee Palace opened in Pitt Street, Sydney, in 1880, the Australian Town and Country Journal reported that coffee palaces were “not only fashionable, but appear to have acquired a permanent footing in Sydney” (121). The coffee palace era, however, was relatively short-lived. Driven more by reformist and economic zeal than by good business sense, many were in financial trouble when the 1890’s Depression hit. Leading figures in the temperance movement were also involved in land speculation and building societies and when these schemes collapsed, many, including Munro, were financially ruined. Many of the palaces closed or were forced to apply for liquor licences in order to stay afloat. Others developed another life after the temperance movement’s influence waned and the coffee palace fad faded, and many were later demolished to make way for more modern buildings. The Federal was licensed in 1923 and traded as the Federal Hotel until its demolition in 1973. The Victoria, however, did not succumb to a liquor licence until 1967. The Sydney Coffee Palace in Woolloomooloo became the Sydney Eye Hospital and, more recently, smart apartments. Some fine examples still survive as reminders of Australia’s social and cultural heritage. The Windsor in Melbourne’s Spring Street and the Broken Hill Hotel, a massive three-story iconic pub in the outback now called simply “The Palace,” are some examples. Tea remained the beverage of choice in Australia until the 1950s when the lifting of government controls on the importation of coffee and the influence of American foodways coincided with the arrival of espresso-loving immigrants. As Australians were introduced to the espresso machine, the short black, the cappuccino, and the café latte and (reminiscent of the Enlightenment), the post-war malaise was shed in favour of the energy and vigour of modernist thought and creativity, fuelled in at least a small part by caffeine and the emergent café culture (Teffer). Although the temperance movement’s attempt to provide an alternative to the ubiquitous pubs failed, coffee has now outstripped the consumption of tea and today’s café culture ensures that wherever coffee is consumed, there is the possibility of a continuation of the Enlightenment’s lively discussions, exchange of news, and dissemination of ideas and information in a sober environment. References Attard, Bernard. “The Economic History of Australia from 1788: An Introduction.” EH.net Encyclopedia. 5 Feb. (2012) ‹http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/attard.australia›. Blainey, Anna. “The Prohibition and Total Abstinence Movement in Australia 1880–1910.” Food, Power and Community: Essays in the History of Food and Drink. Ed. Robert Dare. Adelaide: Wakefield Press, 1999. 142–52. Boyce, Francis Bertie. “Shall I Vote for No License?” An address delivered at the Convention of the Parramatta Branch of New South Wales Alliance, 3 September 1906. 3rd ed. Parramatta: New South Wales Alliance, 1907. Clarke, James Freeman. Coffee Houses and Coffee Palaces in England. Boston: George H. Ellis, 1882. “Coffee Palace, No. 2.” Australian Town and Country Journal. 17 Jul. 1880: 121. Davison, Graeme. “Festivals of Nationhood: The International Exhibitions.” Australian Cultural History. Eds. S. L. Goldberg and F. B. Smith. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1989. 158–77. Denby, Elaine. Grand Hotels: Reality and Illusion. London: Reaktion Books, 2002. Ellis, Markman. The Coffee House: A Cultural History. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004. Federal Coffee Palace. The Federal Coffee Palace Visitors’ Guide to Melbourne, Its Suburbs, and Other Parts of the Colony of Victoria: Views of the Principal Public and Commercial Buildings in Melbourne, With a Bird’s Eye View of the City; and History of the Melbourne International Exhibition of 1880, etc. Melbourne: Federal Coffee House Company, 1888. Fitzgerald, Ross, and Trevor Jordan. Under the Influence: A History of Alcohol in Australia. Sydney: Harper Collins, 2009. Freeland, John. The Australian Pub. Melbourne: Sun Books, 1977. Johnson’s Temperance Coffee Palace. International Exhibition Visitors Pocket Guide to Sydney, Restaurant and Temperance Hotel. Sydney: Johnson’s Temperance Coffee Palace, 1879. Mitchell, Ann M. “Munro, James (1832–1908).” Australian Dictionary of Biography. Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National U, 2006-12. 5 Feb. 2012 ‹http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/munro-james-4271/text6905›. Murdoch, Sally. “Coffee Palaces.” Encyclopaedia of Melbourne. Eds. Andrew Brown-May and Shurlee Swain. 5 Feb. 2012 ‹http://www.emelbourne.net.au/biogs/EM00371b.htm›. Muskett, Philip E. The Art of Living in Australia. New South Wales: Kangaroo Press, 1987. Standage, Tom. A History of the World in 6 Glasses. New York: Walker & Company, 2005. Sydney Coffee Palace Hotel Company Limited. Memorandum of Association of the Sydney Coffee Palace Hotel Company, Ltd. Sydney: Samuel Edward Lees, 1879. Symons, Michael. One Continuous Picnic: A Gastronomic History of Australia. Melbourne: Melbourne UP, 2007. Teffer, Nicola. Coffee Customs. Exhibition Catalogue. Sydney: Customs House, 2005.

Contemporary definitions of resilience stress adaptability to changing ecological and economic conditions (Berkes, Colding and Folke; Castleden, McKee, Murray and Leonard 369). But this approach to resilience is a measure of individual ‘fitness’ to an adaptive whole (Hughes 165; McMahon et al.; Walker and Cooper). Not only is this incongruous with the experience of reproductive loss and infertility, it also works to sideline alternative forms or sources of resilience (Cox). In this paper, we share our efforts to build on previous theories of resilience by engaging in intimate dialogues and written reflections about our personal experiences with reproductive loss. Throughout the paper our reflections are interspersed with our ‘findings’ about the relationship between reproduction and resilience. For us, an active process of dialogically grounded reflection opened up the possibility of a different type of theoretical engagement, one that ultimately produced different enactments, and offered unexpected redirections, both of our experience with reproductive resilience, and in the resilience literature at large. This deeply personal, dialogical frame allowed us to move beyond the anecdotal and confessional to encompass a praxis that engaged the acutely affective reality of reproductive resiliency. Katherine: Three years ago, in the wake of the global financial crisis, I became interested in growing references to resilience in the media. I decided to start a graduate reading group on this theme. This was 'serious academic work.' We looked at questions like: Why has the UNDP rebranded itself 'Empowered Lives, Resilient Nations'? But my thinking about resilience was interrupted by a personal crisis. In January 2011, I was surprised and delighted to discover I was pregnant after years of clinically diagnosed 'unexplained infertility.' So my husband and I were devastated when, in May, a medical crisis (for me, not the baby) forced us to abort the pregnancy in its fifth month. Two years of exhausting medical interventions later, I learned that I am unable to bear children of my own—unable to reproduce—a fact which I am still actively struggling to reconcile. Ayumi: Strange the surprising state of affairs that would shift an employer and research lead into an acquaintance, confidante and friend. I initially learned of her challenges to carry a child to full term through proximity. As her teaching assistant I felt obliged to inform her that I had recently experienced an early miscarriage, and that it could possibly disrupt my work in her course. She was visibly pregnant at the time. Soon after, when I was participating in the resilience reading group, she miscarried as well. Reproductive Resilience A year or more passed before we spoke to each other about our losses, but when we did, we realised that we had both been influenced by dominant discourses around reproduction. Identifying the source of these pressures was an important topic of reflection for us. We found that dominant conceptions of reproductive resilience are overshadowed by a biological imperative to reproduce. When a woman is unable to conceive, or experiences a reproductive loss, she is told to ‘try again.’ There can be solace in trying, and in the ‘successful’ cases, a ‘happy resolution’ is achieved in subsequent pregnancies. But in other cases, the woman's body must produce several reproductive losses before medical professionals can understand the causes of her inability to reproduce (McMahon et al. 2007; Sexton, Byrd, and von Kluge 236). A series of increasingly invasive medical interventions can then be employed to increase the likelihood of reproduction. As a biological imperative, this type of reproductive resilience demands “progressive adaptation to a continually reinvented norm” (Walker and Cooper 156) of what it means to be fertile. But this is more than just a medical norm. Increasingly, reproduction also implies “adaptability to extremes of [ecological and economic] turbulence” (ibid.) that establish the conditions in which fertility is both experienced and understood, something that Katherine in particular had faced: Katherine: Why is it that we both ended up in this situation? Why is it that we are far from being alone in being 40 and childless? I am partly a product of the 1980s teen pregnancy hysteria in North America which made it an anathema for young women to ‘jeopardise’ their earning potential by having children. This makes me particularly bitter because I now understand that, at that moment in history, my society decided to prioritise my productive contributions to capital over socialised financing of the conditions that would allow me to produce a family. What I am suggesting is that the discourses which produce the preconceived notions that we attempt to ‘live up to’ are also discourses that we must, in many ways, ‘live with,’ because like it or not, they contributed to producing the situation which is now prompting us to write this paper! In this sense, reproductive resilience also becomes a measure of normalcy, where normalcy includes the adaptability of human bodies and biological process to the demands of a socio-economic system. Reproductive loss or infertility then becomes a source of personal weakness or abnormality that must be overcome, and a cause of personal degradation, which is often kept silent. In our experience, although individual responses differed greatly, either way the failure to reproduce demanded a response: Katherine: After my loss, I became determined to be pregnant again. For me IVF treatments were not so much about wanting to know with certainty my bodily ability to bring a child into the world. I was working under the perhaps rather desperate assumption that they would. I think of my IVF year more as desperation to achieve an end, a fear of failure, a crisis of sustainability, and a disbelief or disassociation from my own physical reality—the fact of my advancing age. The idea of ‘self-enclosed bodily anxiety’ captures this wonderfully for me. Ayumi: I did nothing, not a single consultation with a fertility expert, no visits to herbal medicine specialists, at most, a half-hearted internet search on adoption agencies. My path insisted upon embracing uncertainty over entrusting others with telling me the limits of my bodily integrity. When we began to share our stories with each other, we noticed that, despite having been surrounded by loving families and supportive colleagues at our times of crisis, both of us felt a tremendous sense of isolation as we tried to make sense of and respond to our losses. So a second area of reflection concerned the source of these emotions—both the sense of isolation, and the way in which it reinforced the normalisation of dominant discourses of reproductive resilience. We found that the reproductive industry’s medical interventions and specialised language community codify and reinforce measures of normalcy and sustain a coerced and often isolating process of adaptation to ever-more medicalised norms of fertility (Bonanno 753). This isolation is particularly apparent for women who choose to pursue fertility treatments. The language of medical intelligence is overwhelming and difficult to learn, creating a barrier between insiders and outsiders to fertility interventions (see for example: Kagan et al., S151). Fertility treatments are not only highly technical, but also a very introspective process, making it difficult for fertility partners, let alone friends and family, to fully comprehend what is going on, or to be involved. Meanwhile, support is difficult to find in a fertility clinic’s waiting room at 7am where groups of women silently await blood work to monitor hormone levels, avoiding eye contact by scanning their phones or reading a magazine. Many women turn instead to online forums, such as www.ivf.ca, where there is mutual comprehension wrapped in the security of anonymity. Rather than explain themselves each time they post to a forum, participants take up the language of reproductive medicine to detail their reproductive interventions in codified signature files (see Figure 1 below). Here, lengthy fertility campaigns become a merit badge of adaptability and perseverance. In their messages, participants share jingoistic mantras like ‘It only takes one!’, one harvested egg to have a child, as they cheer each other on in the search for a baby (Figure 2 below). These types of forums can empower insofar as they educate and encourage. However, they can also enclose and isolate as they cut patients off from family and friends, while creating external pressure to achieve a biological imperative suspended in changing parameters for what it means to be fertile. Figure 1: Example of a Signature File from an IVF Discussion Forum Figure 2: “It only takes one!” This kind of isolated adaptation to medicalised norms of fertility can come at a very high cost. For example, one friend was so traumatised by the multiple fertility interventions and failures it took for her to bear a child that she was ultimately unable to connect with the baby that she bore. The forward march of fertility treatments under the mounting pressure of advancing age required her to defer mourning for the multiple losses that she was experiencing: the loss of a child, the loss of normalcy, the loss of voice. She alone sustained the physical and psychological weight of reproductive resilience, and the pressures of achieving a ‘good outcome’ within the biological limits of her fertility window. When her daughter was born, she was engulfed by an avalanche of backlogged emotions—years of accumulated grief and stress. She was eventually diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, and has struggled to develop a meaningful relationship with her child. But we also found that one need not pursue fertility treatments to experience the isolating and normalising effects of dominant conceptions of fertility. Some experienced infertility without feeling the need to consult medical professionals, or discover through initial consultations that a commercial and medicalised system was not the means through which they wanted to create a future for themselves. Others could find it difficult to contemplate the ‘reproduction’ of a ‘family’ when past experiences with family had been difficult. Yet, despite these decisions, changing norms of fertility continued to reinforce the biological imperative of reproduction in ways that become interwoven with tacitly heteronormative conceptualisations of the nature of family and community (Peters, Jackson, & Rudge 132-134). Katherine: Just the other day at the community garden, one of the gardeners, whom I had just met, wanted to know whether I had any children. When I said no, he bluntly asked me, ‘Why not?’ Just like that: ‘Why not?’ How can I even begin to answer this question? I’ve started to look people squarely in the eye and say, ‘I guess I must not be blessed.’ It’s not because I think I’m not blessed—my life is incredibly rewarding. It’s because it’s the best way I can think of to point out how inappropriate that line of questioning is. But I guess it’s also a defence… Ayumi: I do find that there is something deeply gendered and heterosexist about that line of questioning. As if there is some type of biological expectation for women to reproduce as a means to complete the family. And in absentia, in not raising the biological imperative with same-sex couples—in particular men, a whole host of assumptions are built into forming a good family. It’s like a double disrespect. In the first instance, the biological imperative falls on women, and in the second instance, the lack of expectation leaves many others out of the conversation. In total, we found that resilience always came with a modifier; otherwise we were left asking ‘resilience of what?’ ‘Resilience for what?’ Economic resilience, for example implied the adaptability of the capitalist system. Similarly, rather than expanding choices for and beyond women, the reproductive industry reinforced the normalcy of a gendered biological imperative that ultimately rested on the shoulders of an isolated individual. “The criteria of selection may well have shifted. Yet in the last instance, and for all its flexibility, the resilience perspective is no less rigorous in its selective function than Darwinian evolution” (Walker and Cooper 156). Dialogue Ayumi: To my surprise, she wanted to talk about it one day when we went for lunch, as though words would form the reality of her unexpected shift from pregnant to not-pregnant. The psychological experience of my own miscarriage had been devastating, so invisible, unannounced. Only those who needed to know were privy to the situation. Perhaps I quietly believed that if I spoke very little of it, it could almost have been mistaken for nothing other than conjecture or wishful thinking. Our conversation reproduced the reality of my failure to carry my child into childbirth. Her request for an empathetic listener would mean that a solitary introspection to resignify respect for my own body would give way to responding with due respect for her becoming no longer pregnant. Dialogue did more than just allow us to make sense of what we were experiencing. In conversation, reproductive resilience became something other than what we experienced in isolation. As experiences transformed into words, one perspective intermingled with and shaped the other, revealing imaginings that undid the closures and conclusions reached in our own minds, and offered an opportunity to reconsider the expectations of dominant narratives. Other possibilities surrounded, awaited contemplation, discursive engagement, solicitude in the shadows of experiences that coincided and diverged, resting assured that points of disagreement could be articulated as conjecture, wordless acknowledgement or future interactions. Our very different experiences and choices formed a context for conversation. We asked of one another: Why did this happen? How do you relate to your body? What do you feel is expected of you? What do you plan to do now? Upon dialogical reflection, it became clear that bodies, rather than being intentional enactments of adaptation, were more often than not products and reproductions of experiences and discourses: Ayumi: What kinds of biological, familial, technological, and economic imperatives are pressed upon our bodies? I wonder too about the ways in which consumerisation of reproduction plays upon our imagination of what it would be like to be a parent, creating a market and psychological demand for this life-changing acquisition of a human life. Perhaps these imperatives are operationalised as different mediations on the body, which is seen as a passive recipient of these directives. The externalisation and internalisation of our thoughts allowed us to see how our knowledge was suspended between our relationship with our body and the, often unexpressed, expectations of others which were based on their unexamined assumptions of what it meant to be a woman, a sexual being, a member of a family, a contributor to the community. Thinking about the body as something performed allowed us to use words to make real, reflect on, reproduce or recast our experiences: Katherine: I’m so independent, even in my relationship with my husband that I was a bit shocked at how my miscarriage rippled through my networks of friends, colleagues and family. People I hardly knew told me that they cried when they heard! I forget sometimes that my husband also suffered a huge loss, a blow to his identity and confidence, and a challenge to his sense of place. It is not just me who needs to engage with questions of resilience, but so does he, and we also need to do that together, and these processes will ripple through our networks of friends, family and co-workers in ways that affect the overall resiliency of a community of people. Ayumi: I talked to my partner about how deep down sometimes I feel that I've already done my work as a caregiver. I did a lot of volunteer and paid work with children when I was younger. I’ve taken care of so many children who ranged dramatically in age, mental and physical health and mobility, children who were dying and then died, and this took up so much of my teens, twenties and early thirties. I told him that while I've had that experience, he hasn't spent so much time with kids so that I wished for him to think about if this was something he wanted to explore (taking on a care giving / parental role), considering the options that are available to us through adoption or fostering. In dialogue, we figured out how to talk to one another, to locate a sense of fun within urgency, to reach toward mutual understanding, to test borders and to reshape them. Putting experiences and expectations into words allowed us to uncover expansive possibilities—options not considered, courses not taken. Ultimately, we began to think of reproductive resilience not as the means to achieve a biological imperative, but rather as a relational space of production. As we exchanged ideas, we came to question the assumption that reproductive resilience could be channeled through an individual body, and consequently we began to push back on definitions of fertility which served as measures of ‘fitness’ to a mythical adaptive whole. Through dialogue we resignified our individualised and isolated experiences with reproduction, turning what we experienced as vulnerability into a starting point for the reconceptualisation of resilience. This process—we call it ‘resiliency’ to distinguish it from adaptation—became an act of occupying our own reality in and through the relationships that surround us. Whereas resilience was about individual adaptations to shifting but still dominant norms of fertility, resiliency was about negotiating and constituting a fertile world through dialogues: Ayumi: I found our discussion of care a vitalising part of our conversations. Somehow, through forging different relations, the body propels resilience toward resisting external reinforcements to individualise reproduction and calls forth a collective response. Katherine: Today we discussed reproduction as a process of constructing a caring condition. Caring both in the sense of nurturing, but also in the sense of consideration. This was the most personally enriching part of our discussion – I felt empowered to make decisions about how I wanted to engage in caring and nurturing. This opened my mind to the possibility of adoption, but also to the fact that I express myself as a caring being in many other ways. Resiliency suggests actively engaging people and forces in ways that do not impose a certain order or state of affairs. But we struggled to think about how this new vision of reproductive resiliency would articulate with resistance. What does it mean to resist when biological failure renders acceptance of reproductive decline the only possible way forward? Though we can resist the conditions that created our current situations, we cannot resist our own pasts or our own biological reality. Should our inability to reproduce be seen as a victory in the fight against material myths of parental bliss? Or does our inability to reproduce make us the martyrs of the post-modern and neoliberal era? We want reproductive resiliency to offer a different experience of fertility. But we also want it to be a foundation to resist the normalisation of biological adaptation to the demands of a turbulent socio-economic system. We can do this by making a distinction between the biological act of reproduction (producing a baby), and the social reproducibility of care (nurturing, engaging, resisting, being, sharing, performing, etc.). Reproductive resiliency is concerned with nurturing the fertile enactments of human caring. It is on the basis of human caring that we can resist a system that creates the need for fertility adaptations, and it is also on this basis that we can open up room for thinking about reproductive resiliency in a respectful and socially engaged way. References Berkes, Fikret, Johan Colding and Carl Folke. “Introduction.” Navigating Social-Ecological Systems: Building Resilience for Complexity and Change. Ed. F. Berkes, J. Colding and C. Folke. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Bonanno, George A. “Uses and Abuses of Resilience Construct: Loss, Trauma, and Health-Related Adversities. Social Science & Medicine 74.5 (2012): 753-756. Castleden, Matthew, Martin McGee, Virginia Murray & Giovanni Leonard. “Resilience Thinking in Health Protection. Journal of Public Health 33.3 (2011): 369-377. Cox, Pamela. “Marginalized Mothers, Reproductive Autonomy, and Repeat Losses to Care.” Journal of Law and Society 39.4 (2012): 541—561. Herrman, Helen, et al. “What Is Resilience?” Canadian J. of Psychiatry 56.5 (2011): 258-265. Hughes, Virginia. “The Roots of Resilience.” Nature 490 (2012): 165-167. Kagan, et al. “Improving Resilience among Infertile Women: A Pilot Study.” Fertility & Sterility 96.3 (2011): S151. McMahon, Catherine A., Frances L. Gibson, Jennifer L. Allen and Douglas Saunders. “Psychosocial Adjustment during Pregnancy for Older Couples Conceiving through Assisted Reproductive Technology.” Human Reproduction 22.4 (2007): 1168-1174. Peters, Kathleen, Debra Jackson, and Trudy Rudge. “Surviving the Adversity of Childlessness: Fostering Resilience in Couples.” Contemporary Nurse 40.1 (2011): 130-140. Sexton, Minden B., Michelle R. Byrd, and Silvia von Kluge. “Measuring Resilience in Women Experiencing Infertility Using the CD: RISC: Examining Infertility-Related Stress, General Stress, and Coping Styles.” Journal of Psychiatric Research 44.4 (2010): 236-241. Walker, Jeremy, and Melinda Cooper. “Genealogies of Resilience: From Systems Ecology to the Political Economy of Crisis Adaptation.” Security Dialogue 14.2 (2011): 143-160.

IntroductionIn the year 2000, a group of likeminded individuals got together and convened the first annual World Barista Championship in Monte Carlo. With twelve competitors from around the globe, each competitor was judged by seven judges: one head judge who oversaw the process, two technical judges who assessed technical skills, and four sensory judges who evaluated the taste and appearance of the espresso drinks. Competitors had fifteen minutes to serve four espresso coffees, four cappuccino coffees, and four “signature” drinks that they had devised using one shot of espresso and other ingredients of their choice, but no alcohol. The competitors were also assessed on their overall barista skills, their creativity, and their ability to perform under pressure and impress the judges with their knowledge of coffee. This competition has grown to the extent that eleven years later, in 2011, 54 countries held national barista championships with the winner from each country competing for the highly coveted position of World Barista Champion. That year, Alejandro Mendez from El Salvador became the first world champion from a coffee producing nation. Champion baristas are more likely to come from coffee consuming countries than they are from coffee producing countries as countries that produce coffee seldom have a culture of espresso coffee consumption. While Ireland is not a coffee-producing nation, the Irish are the highest per capita consumers of tea in the world (Mac Con Iomaire, “Ireland”). Despite this, in 2008, Stephen Morrissey from Ireland overcame 50 other national champions to become the 2008 World Barista Champion (see, http://vimeo.com/2254130). Another Irish national champion, Colin Harmon, came fourth in this competition in both 2009 and 2010. This paper discusses the history and development of coffee and coffee houses in Dublin from the 17th century, charting how coffee culture in Dublin appeared, evolved, and stagnated before re-emerging at the beginning of the 21st century, with a remarkable win in the World Barista Championships. The historical links between coffeehouses and media—ranging from print media to electronic and social media—are discussed. In this, the coffee house acts as an informal public gathering space, what urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg calls a “third place,” neither work nor home. These “third places” provide anchors for community life and facilitate and foster broader, more creative interaction (Oldenburg). This paper will also show how competition from other “third places” such as clubs, hotels, restaurants, and bars have affected the vibrancy of coffee houses. Early Coffee Houses The first coffee house was established in Constantinople in 1554 (Tannahill 252; Huetz de Lemps 387). The first English coffee houses opened in Oxford in 1650 and in London in 1652. Coffee houses multiplied thereafter but, in 1676, when some London coffee houses became hotbeds for political protest, the city prosecutor decided to close them. The ban was soon lifted and between 1680 and 1730 Londoners discovered the pleasure of drinking coffee (Huetz de Lemps 388), although these coffee houses sold a number of hot drinks including tea and chocolate as well as coffee.The first French coffee houses opened in Marseille in 1671 and in Paris the following year. Coffee houses proliferated during the 18th century: by 1720 there were 380 public cafés in Paris and by the end of the century there were 600 (Huetz de Lemps 387). Café Procope opened in Paris in 1674 and, in the 18th century, became a literary salon with regular patrons: Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot and Condorcet (Huetz de Lemps 387; Pitte 472). In England, coffee houses developed into exclusive clubs such as Crockford’s and the Reform, whilst elsewhere in Europe they evolved into what we identify as cafés, similar to the tea shops that would open in England in the late 19th century (Tannahill 252-53). Tea quickly displaced coffee in popularity in British coffee houses (Taylor 142). Pettigrew suggests two reasons why Great Britain became a tea-drinking nation while most of the rest of Europe took to coffee (48). The first was the power of the East India Company, chartered by Elizabeth I in 1600, which controlled the world’s biggest tea monopoly and promoted the beverage enthusiastically. The second was the difficulty England had in securing coffee from the Levant while at war with France at the end of the seventeenth century and again during the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-13). Tea also became the dominant beverage in Ireland and over a period of time became the staple beverage of the whole country. In 1835, Samuel Bewley and his son Charles dared to break the monopoly of The East India Company by importing over 2,000 chests of tea directly from Canton, China, to Ireland. His family would later become synonymous with the importation of coffee and with opening cafés in Ireland (see, Farmar for full history of the Bewley's and their activities). Ireland remains the highest per-capita consumer of tea in the world. Coffee houses have long been linked with social and political change (Kennedy, Politicks; Pincus). The notion that these new non-alcoholic drinks were responsible for the Enlightenment because people could now gather socially without getting drunk is rejected by Wheaton as frivolous, since there had always been alternatives to strong drink, and European civilisation had achieved much in the previous centuries (91). She comments additionally that cafés, as gathering places for dissenters, took over the role that taverns had long played. Pennell and Vickery support this argument adding that by offering a choice of drinks, and often sweets, at a fixed price and in a more civilized setting than most taverns provided, coffee houses and cafés were part of the rise of the modern restaurant. It is believed that, by 1700, the commercial provision of food and drink constituted the second largest occupational sector in London. Travellers’ accounts are full of descriptions of London taverns, pie shops, coffee, bun and chop houses, breakfast huts, and food hawkers (Pennell; Vickery). Dublin Coffee Houses and Later incarnations The earliest reference to coffee houses in Dublin is to the Cock Coffee House in Cook Street during the reign of Charles II (1660-85). Public dining or drinking establishments listed in the 1738 Dublin Directory include taverns, eating houses, chop houses, coffee houses, and one chocolate house in Fownes Court run by Peter Bardin (Hardiman and Kennedy 157). During the second half of the 17th century, Dublin’s merchant classes transferred allegiance from taverns to the newly fashionable coffee houses as places to conduct business. By 1698, the fashion had spread to country towns with coffee houses found in Cork, Limerick, Kilkenny, Clonmel, Wexford, and Galway, and slightly later in Belfast and Waterford in the 18th century. Maxwell lists some of Dublin’s leading coffee houses and taverns, noting their clientele: There were Lucas’s Coffee House, on Cork Hill (the scene of many duels), frequented by fashionable young men; the Phoenix, in Werburgh Street, where political dinners were held; Dick’s Coffee House, in Skinner’s Row, much patronized by literary men, for it was over a bookseller’s; the Eagle, in Eustace Street, where meetings of the Volunteers were held; the Old Sot’s Hole, near Essex Bridge, famous for its beefsteaks and ale; the Eagle Tavern, on Cork Hill, which was demolished at the same time as Lucas’s to make room for the Royal Exchange; and many others. (76) Many of the early taverns were situated around the Winetavern Street, Cook Street, and Fishamble Street area. (see Fig. 1) Taverns, and later coffee houses, became meeting places for gentlemen and centres for debate and the exchange of ideas. In 1706, Francis Dickson published the Flying Post newspaper at the Four Courts coffee house in Winetavern Street. The Bear Tavern (1725) and the Black Lyon (1735), where a Masonic Lodge assembled every Wednesday, were also located on this street (Gilbert v.1 160). Dick’s Coffee house was established in the late 17th century by bookseller and newspaper proprietor Richard Pue, and remained open until 1780 when the building was demolished. In 1740, Dick’s customers were described thus: Ye citizens, gentlemen, lawyers and squires,who summer and winter surround our great fires,ye quidnuncs! who frequently come into Pue’s,To live upon politicks, coffee, and news. (Gilbert v.1 174) There has long been an association between coffeehouses and publishing books, pamphlets and particularly newspapers. Other Dublin publishers and newspapermen who owned coffee houses included Richard Norris and Thomas Bacon. Until the 1850s, newspapers were burdened with a number of taxes: on the newsprint, a stamp duty, and on each advertisement. By 1865, these taxes had virtually disappeared, resulting in the appearance of 30 new newspapers in Ireland, 24 of them in Dublin. Most people read from copies which were available free of charge in taverns, clubs, and coffee houses (MacGiolla Phadraig). Coffee houses also kept copies of international newspapers. On 4 May 1706, Francis Dickson notes in the Dublin Intelligence that he held the Paris and London Gazettes, Leyden Gazette and Slip, the Paris and Hague Lettres à la Main, Daily Courant, Post-man, Flying Post, Post-script and Manuscripts in his coffeehouse in Winetavern Street (Kennedy, “Dublin”). Henry Berry’s analysis of shop signs in Dublin identifies 24 different coffee houses in Dublin, with the main clusters in Essex Street near the Custom’s House (Cocoa Tree, Bacon’s, Dempster’s, Dublin, Merchant’s, Norris’s, and Walsh’s) Cork Hill (Lucas’s, St Lawrence’s, and Solyman’s) Skinners’ Row (Bow’s’, Darby’s, and Dick’s) Christ Church Yard (Four Courts, and London) College Green (Jack’s, and Parliament) and Crampton Court (Exchange, and Little Dublin). (see Figure 1, below, for these clusters and the locations of other Dublin coffee houses.) The earliest to be referenced is the Cock Coffee House in Cook Street during the reign of Charles II (1660-85), with Solyman’s (1691), Bow’s (1692), and Patt’s on High Street (1699), all mentioned in print before the 18th century. The name of one, the Cocoa Tree, suggests that chocolate was also served in this coffee house. More evidence of the variety of beverages sold in coffee houses comes from Gilbert who notes that in 1730, one Dublin poet wrote of George Carterwright’s wife at The Custom House Coffee House on Essex Street: Her coffee’s fresh and fresh her tea,Sweet her cream, ptizan, and whea,her drams, of ev’ry sort, we findboth good and pleasant, in their kind. (v. 2 161) Figure 1: Map of Dublin indicating Coffee House clusters 1 = Sackville St.; 2 = Winetavern St.; 3 = Essex St.; 4 = Cork Hill; 5 = Skinner's Row; 6 = College Green.; 7 = Christ Church Yard; 8 = Crampton Court.; 9 = Cook St.; 10 = High St.; 11 = Eustace St.; 12 = Werburgh St.; 13 = Fishamble St.; 14 = Westmorland St.; 15 = South Great George's St.; 16 = Grafton St.; 17 = Kildare St.; 18 = Dame St.; 19 = Anglesea Row; 20 = Foster Place; 21 = Poolbeg St.; 22 = Fleet St.; 23 = Burgh Quay.A = Cafe de Paris, Lincoln Place; B = Red Bank Restaurant, D'Olier St.; C = Morrison's Hotel, Nassau St.; D = Shelbourne Hotel, St. Stephen's Green; E = Jury's Hotel, Dame St. Some coffee houses transformed into the gentlemen’s clubs that appeared in London, Paris and Dublin in the 17th century. These clubs originally met in coffee houses, then taverns, until later proprietary clubs became fashionable. Dublin anticipated London in club fashions with members of the Kildare Street Club (1782) and the Sackville Street Club (1794) owning the premises of their clubhouse, thus dispensing with the proprietor. The first London club to be owned by the members seems to be Arthur’s, founded in 1811 (McDowell 4) and this practice became widespread throughout the 19th century in both London and Dublin. The origin of one of Dublin’s most famous clubs, Daly’s Club, was a chocolate house opened by Patrick Daly in c.1762–65 in premises at 2–3 Dame Street (Brooke). It prospered sufficiently to commission its own granite-faced building on College Green between Anglesea Street and Foster Place which opened in 1789 (Liddy 51). Daly’s Club, “where half the land of Ireland has changed hands”, was renowned for the gambling that took place there (Montgomery 39). Daly’s sumptuous palace catered very well (and discreetly) for honourable Members of Parliament and rich “bucks” alike (Craig 222). The changing political and social landscape following the Act of Union led to Daly’s slow demise and its eventual closure in 1823 (Liddy 51). Coincidentally, the first Starbucks in Ireland opened in 2005 in the same location. Once gentlemen’s clubs had designated buildings where members could eat, drink, socialise, and stay overnight, taverns and coffee houses faced competition from the best Dublin hotels which also had coffee rooms “in which gentlemen could read papers, write letters, take coffee and wine in the evening—an exiguous substitute for a club” (McDowell 17). There were at least 15 establishments in Dublin city claiming to be hotels by 1789 (Corr 1) and their numbers grew in the 19th century, an expansion which was particularly influenced by the growth of railways. By 1790, Dublin’s public houses (“pubs”) outnumbered its coffee houses with Dublin boasting 1,300 (Rooney 132). Names like the Goose and Gridiron, Harp and Crown, Horseshoe and Magpie, and Hen and Chickens—fashionable during the 17th and 18th centuries in Ireland—hung on decorative signs for those who could not read. Throughout the 20th century, the public house provided the dominant “third place” in Irish society, and the drink of choice for itd predominantly male customers was a frothy pint of Guinness. Newspapers were available in public houses and many newspapermen had their own favourite hostelries such as Mulligan’s of Poolbeg Street; The Pearl, and The Palace on Fleet Street; and The White Horse Inn on Burgh Quay. Any coffee served in these establishments prior to the arrival of the new coffee culture in the 21st century was, however, of the powdered instant variety. Hotels / Restaurants with Coffee Rooms From the mid-19th century, the public dining landscape of Dublin changed in line with London and other large cities in the United Kingdom. Restaurants did appear gradually in the United Kingdom and research suggests that one possible reason for this growth from the 1860s onwards was the Refreshment Houses and Wine Licences Act (1860). The object of this act was to “reunite the business of eating and drinking”, thereby encouraging public sobriety (Mac Con Iomaire, “Emergence” v.2 95). Advertisements for Dublin restaurants appeared in The Irish Times from the 1860s. Thom’s Directory includes listings for Dining Rooms from the 1870s and Refreshment Rooms are listed from the 1880s. This pattern continued until 1909, when Thom’s Directory first includes a listing for “Restaurants and Tea Rooms”. Some of the establishments that advertised separate coffee rooms include Dublin’s first French restaurant, the Café de Paris, The Red Bank Restaurant, Morrison’s Hotel, Shelbourne Hotel, and Jury’s Hotel (see Fig. 1). The pattern of separate ladies’ coffee rooms emerged in Dublin and London during the latter half of the 19th century and mixed sex dining only became popular around the last decade of the 19th century, partly infuenced by Cesar Ritz and Auguste Escoffier (Mac Con Iomaire, “Public Dining”). Irish Cafés: From Bewley’s to Starbucks A number of cafés appeared at the beginning of the 20th century, most notably Robert Roberts and Bewley’s, both of which were owned by Quaker families. Ernest Bewley took over the running of the Bewley’s importation business in the 1890s and opened a number of Oriental Cafés; South Great Georges Street (1894), Westmoreland Street (1896), and what became the landmark Bewley’s Oriental Café in Grafton Street (1927). Drawing influence from the grand cafés of Paris and Vienna, oriental tearooms, and Egyptian architecture (inspired by the discovery in 1922 of Tutankhamen’s Tomb), the Grafton Street business brought a touch of the exotic into the newly formed Irish Free State. Bewley’s cafés became the haunt of many of Ireland’s leading literary figures, including Samuel Becket, Sean O’Casey, and James Joyce who mentioned the café in his book, Dubliners. A full history of Bewley’s is available (Farmar). It is important to note, however, that pots of tea were sold in equal measure to mugs of coffee in Bewley’s. The cafés changed over time from waitress- to self-service and a failure to adapt to changing fashions led to the business being sold, with only the flagship café in Grafton Street remaining open in a revised capacity. It was not until the beginning of the 21st century that a new wave of coffee house culture swept Ireland. This was based around speciality coffee beverages such as espressos, cappuccinos, lattés, macchiatos, and frappuccinnos. This new phenomenon coincided with the unprecedented growth in the Irish economy, during which Ireland became known as the “Celtic Tiger” (Murphy 3). One aspect of this period was a building boom and a subsequent growth in apartment living in the Dublin city centre. The American sitcom Friends and its fictional coffee house, “Central Perk,” may also have helped popularise the use of coffee houses as “third spaces” (Oldenberg) among young apartment dwellers in Dublin. This was also the era of the “dotcom boom” when many young entrepreneurs, software designers, webmasters, and stock market investors were using coffee houses as meeting places for business and also as ad hoc office spaces. This trend is very similar to the situation in the 17th and early 18th centuries where coffeehouses became known as sites for business dealings. Various theories explaining the growth of the new café culture have circulated, with reasons ranging from a growth in Eastern European migrants, anti-smoking legislation, returning sophisticated Irish emigrants, and increased affluence (Fenton). Dublin pubs, facing competition from the new coffee culture, began installing espresso coffee machines made by companies such as Gaggia to attract customers more interested in a good latté than a lager and it is within this context that Irish baristas gained such success in the World Barista competition. In 2001 the Georges Street branch of Bewley’s was taken over by a chain called Café, Bar, Deli specialising in serving good food at reasonable prices. Many ex-Bewley’s staff members subsequently opened their own businesses, roasting coffee and running cafés. Irish-owned coffee chains such as Java Republic, Insomnia, and O’Brien’s Sandwich Bars continued to thrive despite the competition from coffee chains Starbucks and Costa Café. Indeed, so successful was the handmade Irish sandwich and coffee business that, before the economic downturn affected its business, Irish franchise O’Brien’s operated in over 18 countries. The Café, Bar, Deli group had also begun to franchise its operations in 2008 when it too became a victim of the global economic downturn. With the growth of the Internet, many newspapers have experienced falling sales of their printed format and rising uptake of their electronic versions. Most Dublin coffee houses today provide wireless Internet connections so their customers can read not only the local newspapers online, but also others from all over the globe, similar to Francis Dickenson’s coffee house in Winetavern Street in the early 18th century. Dublin has become Europe’s Silicon Valley, housing the European headquarters for companies such as Google, Yahoo, Ebay, Paypal, and Facebook. There are currently plans to provide free wireless connectivity throughout Dublin’s city centre in order to promote e-commerce, however, some coffee houses shut off the wireless Internet in their establishments at certain times of the week in order to promote more social interaction to ensure that these “third places” remain “great good places” at the heart of the community (Oldenburg). Conclusion Ireland is not a country that is normally associated with a coffee culture but coffee houses have been part of the fabric of that country since they emerged in Dublin in the 17th century. These Dublin coffee houses prospered in the 18th century, and survived strong competition from clubs and hotels in the 19th century, and from restaurant and public houses into the 20th century. In 2008, when Stephen Morrissey won the coveted title of World Barista Champion, Ireland’s place as a coffee consuming country was re-established. The first decade of the 21st century witnessed a birth of a new espresso coffee culture, which shows no signs of weakening despite Ireland’s economic travails. References Berry, Henry F. “House and Shop Signs in Dublin in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.” The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 40.2 (1910): 81–98. Brooke, Raymond Frederick. Daly’s Club and the Kildare Street Club, Dublin. Dublin, 1930. Corr, Frank. Hotels in Ireland. Dublin: Jemma Publications, 1987. Craig, Maurice. Dublin 1660-1860. Dublin: Allen Figgis, 1980. Farmar, Tony. The Legendary, Lofty, Clattering Café. Dublin: A&A Farmar, 1988. Fenton, Ben. “Cafe Culture taking over in Dublin.” The Telegraph 2 Oct. 2006. 29 Apr. 2012 ‹http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1530308/cafe-culture-taking-over-in-Dublin.html›. Gilbert, John T. A History of the City of Dublin (3 vols.). Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1978. Girouard, Mark. Victorian Pubs. New Haven, Conn.: Yale UP, 1984. Hardiman, Nodlaig P., and Máire Kennedy. A Directory of Dublin for the Year 1738 Compiled from the Most Authentic of Sources. Dublin: Dublin Corporation Public Libraries, 2000. Huetz de Lemps, Alain. “Colonial Beverages and Consumption of Sugar.” Food: A Culinary History from Antiquity to the Present. Eds. Jean-Louis Flandrin and Massimo Montanari. New York: Columbia UP, 1999. 383–93. Kennedy, Máire. “Dublin Coffee Houses.” Ask About Ireland, 2011. 4 Apr. 2012 ‹http://www.askaboutireland.ie/reading-room/history-heritage/pages-in-history/dublin-coffee-houses›. ----- “‘Politicks, Coffee and News’: The Dublin Book Trade in the Eighteenth Century.” Dublin Historical Record LVIII.1 (2005): 76–85. Liddy, Pat. Temple Bar—Dublin: An Illustrated History. Dublin: Temple Bar Properties, 1992. Mac Con Iomaire, Máirtín. “The Emergence, Development, and Influence of French Haute Cuisine on Public Dining in Dublin Restaurants 1900-2000: An Oral History.” Ph.D. thesis, Dublin Institute of Technology, Dublin, 2009. 4 Apr. 2012 ‹http://arrow.dit.ie/tourdoc/12›. ----- “Ireland.” Food Cultures of the World Encylopedia. Ed. Ken Albala. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2010. ----- “Public Dining in Dublin: The History and Evolution of Gastronomy and Commercial Dining 1700-1900.” International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management 24. Special Issue: The History of the Commercial Hospitality Industry from Classical Antiquity to the 19th Century (2012): forthcoming. MacGiolla Phadraig, Brian. “Dublin: One Hundred Years Ago.” Dublin Historical Record 23.2/3 (1969): 56–71. Maxwell, Constantia. Dublin under the Georges 1714–1830. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1979. McDowell, R. B. Land & Learning: Two Irish Clubs. Dublin: The Lilliput P, 1993. Montgomery, K. L. “Old Dublin Clubs and Coffee-Houses.” New Ireland Review VI (1896): 39–44. Murphy, Antoine E. “The ‘Celtic Tiger’—An Analysis of Ireland’s Economic Growth Performance.” EUI Working Papers, 2000 29 Apr. 2012 ‹http://www.eui.eu/RSCAS/WP-Texts/00_16.pdf›. Oldenburg, Ray, ed. Celebrating the Third Place: Inspiring Stories About The “Great Good Places” At the Heart of Our Communities. New York: Marlowe & Company 2001. Pennell, Sarah. “‘Great Quantities of Gooseberry Pye and Baked Clod of Beef’: Victualling and Eating out in Early Modern London.” Londinopolis: Essays in the Cultural and Social History of Early Modern London. Eds. Paul Griffiths and Mark S. R. Jenner. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2000. 228–59. Pettigrew, Jane. A Social History of Tea. London: National Trust Enterprises, 2001. Pincus, Steve. “‘Coffee Politicians Does Create’: Coffeehouses and Restoration Political Culture.” The Journal of Modern History 67.4 (1995): 807–34. Pitte, Jean-Robert. “The Rise of the Restaurant.” Food: A Culinary History from Antiquity to the Present. Eds. Jean-Louis Flandrin and Massimo Montanari. New York: Columbia UP, 1999. 471–80. Rooney, Brendan, ed. A Time and a Place: Two Centuries of Irish Social Life. Dublin: National Gallery of Ireland, 2006. Tannahill, Reay. Food in History. St Albans, Herts.: Paladin, 1975. Taylor, Laurence. “Coffee: The Bottomless Cup.” The American Dimension: Cultural Myths and Social Realities. Eds. W. Arens and Susan P. Montague. Port Washington, N.Y.: Alfred Publishing, 1976. 14–48. Vickery, Amanda. Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England. New Haven: Yale UP, 2009. Wheaton, Barbara Ketcham. Savouring the Past: The French Kitchen and Table from 1300-1789. London: Chatto & Windus, Hogarth P, 1983. Williams, Anne. “Historical Attitudes to Women Eating in Restaurants.” Public Eating: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 1991. Ed. Harlan Walker. Totnes: Prospect Books, 1992. 311–14. World Barista, Championship. “History–World Barista Championship”. 2012. 02 Apr. 2012 ‹http://worldbaristachampionship.com2012›.AcknowledgementA warm thank you to Dr. Kevin Griffin for producing the map of Dublin for this article.

On 17 January 2013, Wired chose the smart contact lens as one of “7 Massive Ideas That Could Change the World” describing a Google-led research project. Wired explains that the inventor, Dr. Babak Parviz, wants to build a microsystem on a contact lens: “Using radios no wider than a few human hairs, he thinks these lenses can augment reality and incidentally eliminate the need for displays on phones, PCs, and widescreen TVs”. Explained further in other sources, the technology entails an antenna, circuits embedded into a contact lens, GPS, and an LED to project images on the eye, creating a virtual display (Solve for X). Wi-Fi would stream content through a transparent screen over the eye. One patent describes a camera embedded in the lens (Etherington). Another mentions medical sensing, such as glucose monitoring of tears (Goldman). In other words, Google proposes an imagined future when we use contact lenses to search the Internet (and be searched by it), shop online, communicate with friends, work, navigate maps, swipe through Tinder, monitor our health, watch television, and, by that time, probably engage in a host of activities not yet invented. Often referred to as a bionic contact, the smart contact lens would signal a weighty shift in the way we work, socialize, and frame our online identities. However, speculative discussion over this radical shift in personal computing, rarely if ever, includes consideration of how the body, acting as a host to digital information, will manage to assimilate not only significant affordances, but also significant constraints and vulnerabilities. At this point, for most people, the smart contact lens is just an idea. Is a new medium of communication started when it is launched in an advertising campaign? When we Like it on Facebook? If we chat about it during a party amongst friends? Or, do a critical mass of people actually have to be using it to say it has started? One might say that Apple’s Macintosh computer started as a media platform when the world heard about the famous 1984 television advertisement aired during the American NFL Super Bowl of that year. Directed by Ridley Scott, the ad entails an athlete running down a passageway and hurling a hammer at a massive screen depicting cold war style rulers expounding state propaganda. The screen explodes freeing those imprisoned from their concentration camp existence. The direct reference to Orwell’s 1984 serves as a metaphor for IBM in 1984. PC users were made analogous to political prisoners and IBM served to represent the totalitarian government. The Mac became a something that, at the time, challenged IBM, and suggested an alternative use for the desktop computer that had previously been relegated for work rather than life. Not everyone bought a Mac, but the polemical ad fostered the idea that Mac was certainly the start of new expectations, civic identities, value-systems, and personal uses for computers. The smart contact lens is another startling start. News of it shocks us, initiates social media clicks and forwards, and instigates dialogue. But, it also indicates the start of a new media paradigm that is already undergoing popular adoption as it is announced in mainstream news and circulated algorithmically across media channels. Since 2008, news outlets like CNN, The New York Times, The Globe and Mail, Asian International News, United News of India, The Times of London and The Washington Post have carried it, feeding the buzz in circulation that Google intends. Attached to the wave of current popular interest generated around any technology claiming to be “wearable,” a smart contact lens also seems surreptitious. We would no longer hold smartphones, but hide all of that digital functionality beneath our eyelids. Its emergence reveals the way commercial models have dramatically changed. The smart contact lens is a futuristic invention imagined for us and about us, but also a sensationalized idea socializing us to a future that includes it. It is also a real device that Parviz (with Google) has been inventing, promoting, and patenting for commercial applications. All of these workings speak to a broader digital culture phenomenon. We argue that the smart contact lens discloses a process of nascent posthuman adaptation, launched in an era that celebrates wearable media as simultaneously astonishing and banal. More specifically, we adopt technology based on our adaptation to it within our personal, political, medial, social, and biological contexts, which also function in a state of flux. N. Katherine Hayles writes that “Contemporary technogenesis, like evolution in general, is not about progress ... rather, contemporary technogenesis is about adaptation, the fit between organisms and their environments, recognizing that both sides of the engagement (human and technologies) are undergoing coordinated transformations” (81). This article attends to the idea that in these early stages, symbolic acts of adaptation signal an emergent medium through rhetorical processes that society both draws from and contributes to. In terms of project scope, this article contributes a focused analysis to a much larger ongoing digital rhetoric project. For the larger project, we conducted a discourse analysis on a collection of international publications concerning Babak Parviz and the invention. We searched for and collected newspaper stories, news broadcasts, YouTube videos from various sources, academic journal publications, inventors’ conference presentations, and advertising, all published between January 2008 and May 2014, generating a corpus of more than 600 relevant artifacts. Shortly after this time, Dr. Parviz, a Professor at the University of Washington, left the secretive GoogleX lab and joined Amazon.com (Mac). For this article we focus specifically on the idea of beginnings or genesis and how digital spaces increasingly serve as the grounds for emergent digital cultural phenomena that are rarely recognized as starting points. We searched through the corpus to identify a few exemplary international mainstream news stories to foreground predominant tropes in support of the claim we make that smart contacts lenses are a startling idea. Content producers deliberately use astonishment as a persuasive device. We characterize the idea of a smart contact lens cast in rhetorical terms in order to reveal how its allure works as a process of adaptation. Rhetorician and philosopher, Kenneth Burke writes that “rhetorical language is inducement to action (or to attitude)” (42). A rhetorical approach is instrumental because it offers a model to explain how we deploy, often times, manipulative meaning as senders and receivers while negotiating highly complex constellations of resources and contexts. Burke’s rhetorical theory can show how messages influence and become influenced by powerful hierarchies in discourse that seem transparent or neutral, ones that seem to fade into the background of our consciousness. For this article, we also concentrate on rhetorical devices such as ethos and the inventor’s own appeals through different modes of communication. Ethos was originally proposed by Aristotle to identify speaker credibility as a persuasive tactic. Addressed by scholars of rhetoric for centuries, ethos has been reconfigured by many critical theorists (Burke; Baumlin Ethos; Hyde). Baumlin and Baumlin suggest that “ethos describes an audience’s projection of authority and trustworthiness onto the speaker ... ethos suggests that the ethical appeal to be a radically psychological event situated in the mental processes of the audience – as belonging as much to the audience as to the actual character of a speaker” (Psychology 99). Discussed in the next section, our impression of Parviz and his position as inventor plays a dramatic role in the surfacing of the smart contact lens. Digital Rhetoric is an “emerging scholarly discipline concerned with the interpretation of computer-generated media as objects of study” (Losh 48). In an era when machine-learning algorithms become the messengers for our messages, which have become commodity items operating across globalized, capitalist networks, digital rhetoric provides a stable model for our approach. It leads us to demonstrate how this emergent medium and invention, the smart contact lens, is born amid new digital genres of speculative communication circulated in the everyday forums we engage on a daily basis. Smart Contact Lenses, Sensationalism, and Identity One relevant site for exploration into how an invention gains ethos is through writing or video penned or produced by the inventor. An article authored by Parviz in 2009 discusses his invention and the technical advancements that need to be made before the smart contact lens could work. He opens the article using a fictional and sensationalized analogy to encourage the adoption of his invention: The human eye is a perceptual powerhouse. It can see millions of colors, adjust easily to shifting light conditions, and transmit information to the brain at a rate exceeding that of a high-speed Internet connection.But why stop there?In the Terminator movies, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character sees the world with data superimposed on his visual field—virtual captions that enhance the cyborg’s scan of a scene. In stories by the science fiction author Vernor Vinge, characters rely on electronic contact lenses, rather than smartphones or brain implants, for seamless access to information that appears right before their eyes. Identity building is made to correlate with smart contact lenses in a manner that frames them as exciting. Coming to terms with them often involves casting us as superhumans, wielding abilities that we do not currently possess. One reason for embellishment is because we do not need digital displays on the eyes, so the motive to use them must always be geared to transcending our assumed present condition as humans and society members. Consequently, imagination is used to justify a shift in human identity along a future trajectory.This passage above also instantiates a transformation from humanist to posthumanist posturing (i.e. “the cyborg”) in order to incent the adoption of smart contact lenses. It begins with the bold declarative statement, “The human eye is a perceptual powerhouse,” which is a comforting claim about our seemingly human superiority. Indexing abstract humanist values, Parviz emphasizes skills we already possess, including seeing a plethora of colours, adjusting to light on the fly, and thinking fast, indeed faster than “a high-speed Internet connection”. However, the text goes on to summon the Terminator character and his optic feats from the franchise of films. Filmic cyborg characters fulfill the excitement that posthuman rhetoric often seems to demand, but there is more here than sensationalism. Parviz raises the issue of augmenting human vision using science fiction as his contextualizing vehicle because he lacks another way to imbricate the idea. Most interesting in this passage is the inventor’s query “But why stop there?” to yoke the two claims, one biological (i.e., “The human eye is a perceptual powerhouse”) and one fictional (i.e. Terminator, Vernor Vinge characters). The query suggests, Why stop with human superiority, we may as well progress to the next level and embrace a smart contact lens just as fictional cyborgs do. The non-threatening use of fiction makes the concept seem simultaneously exciting and banal, especially because the inventor follows with a clear description of the necessary scientific engineering in the rest of the article. This rhetorical act signifies the voice of a technoelite, a heavily-funded cohort responding to global capitalist imperatives armed with a team of technologists who can access technological advancements and imbue comments with an authority that may extend beyond their fields of expertise, such as communication studies, sociology, psychology, or medicine. The result is a powerful ethos. The idea behind the smart contact lens maintains a degree of respectability long before a public is invited to use it.Parviz exhumes much cultural baggage when he brings to life the Terminator character to pitch smart contact lenses. The Terminator series of films has established the “Arnold Schwarzenegger” character a cultural mainstay. Each new film reinvented him, but ultimately promoted him within a convincing dystopian future across the whole series: The Terminator (Cameron), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (Cameron), Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (Mostow), Terminator Salvation (McG) and Terminator Genisys (Taylor) (which appeared in 2015 after Parviz’s article). Recently, several writers have addressed how cyborg characters figure significantly in our cultural psyche (Haraway, Bukatman; Leaver). Tama Leaver’s Artificial Culture explores the way popular, contemporary, cinematic, science fiction depictions of embodied Artificial Intelligence, such as the Terminator cyborgs, “can act as a matrix which, rather than separating or demarcating minds and bodies or humanity and the digital, reinforce the symbiotic connection between people, bodies, and technologies” (31). Pointing out the violent and ultimately technophobic motive of The Terminator films, Leaver reads across them to conclude nevertheless that science fiction “proves an extremely fertile context in which to address the significance of representations of Artificial Intelligence” (63).Posthumanism and TechnogenesisOne reason this invention enters the public’s consciousness is its announcement alongside a host of other technologies, which seem like parts of a whole. We argue that this constant grouping of technologies in the news is one process indicative of technogenesis. For example, City A.M., London’s largest free commuter daily newspaper, reports on the future of business technology as a hodgepodge of what ifs: As Facebook turns ten, and with Bill Gates stepping down as Microsoft chairman, it feels like something is drawing to an end. But if so, it is only the end of the technological revolution’s beginning ... Try to look ahead ten years from now and the future is dark. Not because it is bleak, but because the sheer profusion of potential is blinding. Smartphones are set to outnumber PCs within months. After just a few more years, there are likely to be 3bn in use across the planet. In ten years, who knows – wearables? smart contact lenses? implants? And that’s just the start. The Internet of Things is projected to be a $300bn (£183bn) industry by 2020. (Sidwell) This reporting is a common means to frame the commodification of technology in globalized business news that seeks circulation as much as it does readership. But as a text, it also posits how individuals frame the future and their participation with it (Pedersen). Smart contacts appear to move along this exciting, unstoppable trajectory where the “potential is blinding”. The motive is to excite and scare. However, simultaneously, the effect is predictable. We are quite accustomed to this march of innovations that appears everyday in the morning paper. We are asked to adapt rather than question, consequently, we never separate the parts from the whole (e.g., “wearables? smart contact lenses? Implants”) in order to look at them critically.In coming to terms with Cary Wolf’s definition of posthumanism, Greg Pollock writes that posthumanism is the questioning that goes on “when we can no longer rely on ‘the human’ as an autonomous, rational being who provides an Archimedean point for knowing about the world (in contrast to “humanism,” which uses such a figure to ground further claims)” (208). With similar intent, N. Katherine Hayles formulating the term technogenesis suggests that we are not really progressing to another level of autonomous human existence when we adopt media, we are in effect, adapting to media and media are also in a process of adapting to us. She writes: As digital media, including networked and programmable desktop stations, mobile devices, and other computational media embedded in the environment, become more pervasive, they push us in the direction of faster communication, more intense and varied information streams, more integration of humans and intelligent machines, and more interactions of language with code. These environmental changes have significant neurological consequences, many of which are now becoming evident in young people and to a lesser degree in almost everyone who interacts with digital media on a regular basis. (11) Following Hayles, three actions or traits characterize adaptation in a manner germane to the technogenesis of media like smart contact lenses. The first is “media embedded in the environment”. The trait of embedding technology in the form of sensors and chips into external spaces evokes the onset of The Internet of Things (IoT) foundations. Extensive data-gathering sensors, wireless technologies, mobile and wearable components integrated with the Internet, all contribute to the IoT. Emerging from cloud computing infrastructures and data models, The IoT, in its most extreme, involves a scenario whereby people, places, animals, and objects are given unique “embedded” identifiers so that they can embark on constant data transfer over a network. In a sense, the lenses are adapted artifacts responding to a world that expects ubiquitous networked access for both humans and machines. Smart contact lenses will essentially be attached to the user who must adapt to these dynamic and heavily mediated contexts.Following closely on the first, the second point Hayles makes is “integration of humans and intelligent machines”. The camera embedded in the smart contact lens, really an adapted smartphone camera, turns the eye itself into an image capture device. By incorporating them under the eyelids, smart contact lenses signify integration in complex ways. Human-machine amalgamation follows biological, cognitive, and social contexts. Third, Hayles points to “more interactions of language with code.” We assert that with smart contact lenses, code will eventually govern interaction between countless agents in accordance with other smart devices, such as: (1) exchanges of code between people and external nonhuman networks of actors through machine algorithms and massive amalgamations of big data distributed on the Internet;(2) exchanges of code amongst people, human social actors in direct communication with each other over social media; and (3) exchanges of coding and decoding between people and their own biological processes (e.g. monitoring breathing, consuming nutrients, translating brainwaves) and phenomenological (but no less material) practices (e.g., remembering, grieving, or celebrating). The allure of the smart contact lens is the quietly pressing proposition that communication models such as these will be radically transformed because they will have to be adapted to use with the human eye, as the method of input and output of information. Focusing on genetic engineering, Eugene Thacker fittingly defines biomedia as “entail[ing] the informatic recontextualization of biological components and processes, for ends that may be medical or nonmedical (economic, technical) and with effects that are as much cultural, social, and political as they are scientific” (123). He specifies, “biomedia are not computers that simply work on or manipulate biological compounds. Rather, the aim is to provide the right conditions, such that biological life is able to demonstrate or express itself in a particular way” (123). Smart contact lenses sit on the cusp of emergence as a biomedia device that will enable us to decode bodily processes in significant new ways. The bold, technical discourse that announces it however, has not yet begun to attend to the seemingly dramatic “cultural, social, and political” effects percolating under the surface. Through technogenesis, media acclimatizes rapidly to change without establishing a logic of the consequences, nor a design plan for emergence. Following from this, we should mention issues such as the intrusion of surveillance algorithms deployed by corporations, governments, and other hegemonic entities that this invention risks. If smart contact lenses are biomedia devices inspiring us to decode bodily processes and communicate that data for analysis, for ourselves, and others in our trust (e.g., doctors, family, friends), we also need to be wary of them. David Lyon warns: Surveillance has spilled out of its old nation-state containers to become a feature of everyday life, at work, at home, at play, on the move. So far from the single all-seeing eye of Big Brother, myriad agencies now trace and track mundane activities for a plethora of purposes. Abstract data, now including video, biometric, and genetic as well as computerized administrative files, are manipulated to produce profiles and risk categories in a liquid, networked system. The point is to plan, predict, and prevent by classifying and assessing those profiles and risks. (13) In simple terms, the smart contact lens might disclose the most intimate information we possess and leave us vulnerable to profiling, tracking, and theft. Irma van der Ploeg presupposed this predicament when she wrote: “The capacity of certain technologies to change the boundary, not just between what is public and private information but, on top of that, between what is inside and outside the human body, appears to leave our normative concepts wanting” (71). The smart contact lens, with its implied motive to encode and disclose internal bodily information, needs considerations on many levels. Conclusion The smart contact lens has made a digital beginning. We accept it through the mass consumption of the idea, which acts as a rhetorical motivator for media adoption, taking place long before the device materializes in the marketplace. This occurrence may also be a sign of our “posthuman predicament” (Braidotti). We have argued that the smart contact lens concept reveals our posthuman adaptation to media rather than our reasoned acceptance or agreement with it as a logical proposition. By the time we actually squabble over the price, express fears for our privacy, and buy them, smart contact lenses will long be part of our everyday culture. References Baumlin, James S., and Tita F. Baumlin. “On the Psychology of the Pisteis: Mapping the Terrains of Mind and Rhetoric.” Ethos: New Essays in Rhetorical and Critical Theory. Eds. James S. Baumlin and Tita F. Baumlin. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1994. 91-112. Baumlin, James S., and Tita F. Baumlin, eds. Ethos: New Essays in Rhetorical and Critical Theory. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1994. Bilton, Nick. “A Rose-Colored View May Come Standard.” The New York Times, 4 Apr. 2012. Braidotti, Rosi. The Posthuman. Cambridge: Polity, 2013. Bukatman, Scott. Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject in Postmodern Science Fiction. Durham: Duke University Press, 1993. Burke, Kenneth. A Rhetoric of Motives. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1950. Cameron, James, dir. The Terminator. Orion Pictures, 1984. DVD. Cameron, James, dir. Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Artisan Home Entertainment, 2003. DVD. Etherington, Darrell. “Google Patents Tiny Cameras Embedded in Contact Lenses.” TechCrunch, 14 Apr. 2014. Goldman, David. “Google to Make Smart Contact Lenses.” CNN Money 17 Jan. 2014. Haraway, Donna. Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. London: Free Association Books, 1991. Hayles, N. Katherine. How We Think: Digital Media and Contemporary Technogenesis. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2012. Hyde, Michael. The Ethos of Rhetoric. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2004. Leaver, Tama. Artificial Culture: Identity, Technology, and Bodies. New York: Routledge, 2012. Losh, Elizabeth. Virtualpolitik: An Electronic History of Government Media-Making in a Time of War, Scandal, Disaster, Miscommunication, and Mistakes. Boston: MIT Press. 2009. Lyon, David, ed. Surveillance as Social Sorting: Privacy, Risk and Digital Discrimination. New York: Routledge, 2003. Mac, Ryan. “Amazon Lures Google Glass Creator Following Phone Launch.” Forbes.com, 14 July 2014. McG, dir. Terminator Salvation. Warner Brothers, 2009. DVD. Mostow, Jonathan, dir. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Warner Brothers, 2003. DVD. Parviz, Babak A. “Augmented Reality in a Contact Lens.” IEEE Spectrum, 1 Sep. 2009. Pedersen, Isabel. Ready to Wear: A Rhetoric of Wearable Computers and Reality-Shifting Media. Anderson, South Carolina: Parlor Press, 2013. Pollock, Greg. “What Is Posthumanism by Cary Wolfe (2009).” Rev. of What is Posthumanism?, by Cary Wolfe. Journal for Critical Animal Studies 9.1/2 (2011): 235-241. Sidwell, Marc. “The Long View: Bill Gates Is Gone and the Dot-com Era Is Over: It's Only the End of the Beginning.” City A.M., 7 Feb. 2014. “Solve for X: Babak Parviz on Building Microsystems on the Eye.” YouTube, 7 Feb. 2012. Taylor, Alan, dir. Terminator: Genisys. Paramount Pictures, 2015. DVD. Thacker, Eugene “Biomedia.” Critical Terms for Media Studies. Eds. W.J.T Mitchell and Mark Hansen, Chicago: Chicago Press, 2010. 117-130. Van der Ploeg, Irma. “Biometrics and the Body as Information.” Surveillance as Social Sorting: Privacy, Risk and Digital Discrimination. Ed. David Lyon. New York: Routledge, 2003. 57-73. Wired Staff. “7 Massive Ideas That Could Change the World.” Wired.com, 17 Jan. 2013.

Susanne Bier and David Farr’s 2016 television adaptation of John le Carré’s novel The Night Manager (“Manager”) indexes the resilience of traditional Christian misogyny in contemporary British-American media. In the first episode of the series, Sophie (Aure Atika)’s partner Freddie Hamid (David Avery) brutally beats her. In the subsequent scene, despite her scars, Sophie has a sex scene with the eponymous night manager Pine (Tom Hiddlestone). Sophie’s eye socket and the left side of her face bear fresh bruises and wounds throughout the sex scene. And in the sixth and final episode, Pine and Jed (Elizabeth Debicki) have sex after she has been tortured at length by her partner Roper’s (Hugh Laurie) henchman, at Roper’s request. Jed’s neck, face, and arms bear bruises from the torture.These sex scenes function as a space of revelation. I interpret the women’s wounds and injuries alongside a feminist-critical tradition of reading noir on screen. Inaugurated by Ann Kaplan’s 1978 Women in Film Noir, many feminist commentators have since made the claim that women in noir achieve a peculiar significance, and their key scenes a subversive meaning; “in excess of” their punitive treatment within the narrative (Kaplan 5; Harvey 31; Tasker Working Girls 117). My reading emphasizes a tension between Manager’s patriarchal narrative framing and these two sex scenes that I argue disrupt and subvert the former.That Sophie and Jed are brutalised by their partners does not tell us much: it is a routine expectation in British-American film and television that “bad guys” are tough on “their” chicks. It is only after these violent encounters with their partners, when the women share “romantic” moments with Pine, that the text’s patriarchal entitlement is laid bare (“revelation” stems from Late Latin revelare to “lay bare”). Forgetting about their cuts, injuries and bruises, they desire Pine, remove their clothes, and are stimulated, stimulating, pleasuring, and pleasured. Director Bier and writer Farr assume that a 2016 British and American audience will (i) find these encounters between Sophie and Pine, and Pine and Jed, to be romantic and tender; and also (ii) find Pine’s behavior consistent with that of a “savior”. These expectations regarding audience complicity are truly revelatory.Sophie and Jed’s wounds constitute a space of revelation: the wounds are in excess of, and spill over, the patriarchal narrative framing. Their wounds indicate that the narrative has approached a moment of excessive patriarchal entitlement—emphasising extreme power imbalances between Pine and the women—and break through the narrative framing and encourage feminist enquiry. I use feminist legal theorist Catharine MacKinnon’s theory of consent to argue that, given this blatant power inequity, it could be interpreted the characters have different perspectives of the sexual act and it is questionable whether the women are in fact consenting (182).Critical ReceptionAcademic engagement with John le Carré’s well-respected espionage novels continues to emerge, including the books of Myron Aronoff, Tony Barley, Matthew Bruccoli and Judith Baughman, John Cobbs, David Monaghan, Peter Lewis and Peter Wolfe. There are a small number of academic commentaries exploring the screen adaptations of his novels, including Eric Morgan’s “Whores and Angels” and Geraint D’Arcy’s “Essentially, Another Man’s Woman”. Unfortunately, there are almost no academic commentaries on Manager, with the exception of Gunhild Agger’s “Geopolitical Location and Plot in The Night Manager”, and none that focus on the handling of gender themes within it.However, there are abundant mainstream media articles and reviews of Manager. I randomly selected seven of these articles and reviews in order to gauge the response to these sex scenes within a 2016 British-American media community. I looked at articles and reviews by Hal Boedeker, Caitlin Flynn, Tim Goodman, Jeff Jensen, Tom Lamont, Jasper Rees, and Claire Webb. None of the articles mention the theme of “gender” or note the gendered violence in the series. The reviews are complicit with the patriarchal narrative framing, and introduce Sophie and Jed in terms of their physical appearances and in their relation to principal male characters. “Beautiful and pale” Jed is “girlfriend of Bogeyman arms dealer” (Jensen), and is also referred to as “Roper’s long-legged trophy girlfriend” (Rees). Sophie, in a “sultry brunette corner” is a “tempting, tragic damsel-in-distress” (Rees) and “arouses Pine” (Jensen). However, reviewers describe the character Burr (who is male in the novel but played by Olivia Colman in the series) with greater dignity and detail. Introducing the character Sophie (Aure Atika), reviewer Tom Goodman does not refer to her by character or actress name despite the fact he introduces male characters by both. Instead, Sophie is a “beautiful connected woman” and is subsequently referred to as “the woman” (Goodman). This anonymity of Sophie as character, and Atika as actor, indexes the Christian misogyny in operation here: in Genesis, Adam only names Eve after the fall of man (New International Version, Gen. 3:20). Goodman’s textual erasure supports Sophie’s vulnerability and expendability within the narrative logic. Indeed, the reviews recapitulate stock noir themes, suggesting that the women are seductively manipulative: Goodman implies that both Bier and Debicki both deploy beauty so as to distract or beguile (Goodman), and Jensen notes that the women are “sultry with danger” (Jensen).Commentators and reviewers have likened Manager, with good reason, to screen adaptations of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels. This is a useful comparison for the purposes of clarifying my own analytical approach. Lisa Funnell and Klaus Dodds’s Geographies, Genders and Geopolitics of James Bond, endorse a feminist geopolitical sensibility that audits which bodies are vulnerable, and which are disposable (14). Bond, like Manager’s Pine, is fundamentally privileged and invulnerable (14). Their account of Bond also describes Pine: “white, cis-gender, middle-class, heterosexual, able-bodied… British, attended Cambridge… he can move, act, and perform; gain access to places, spaces and resources” (1). Sophie’s vulnerability counterpoints Pine’s privilege. Against Pine’s athletic form and blond features stands the “foreign” Sophie, iterated through an emphasis on her dark features, silk dresses (that reference kaftans), and accented language (she delivers English language lines with a strong accent and discloses to Pine that she has tried to “Anglicise” her identity and has changed name). Sophie’s social and financial precarity seems behind her decision to become the mistress of violent gangster Freddie Hamid (in “Episode One” Sophie explains that Hamid “owns her”). By the end of this episode Hamid has violently beaten her then later murdered her. And even though the character Jed is white and American, it is implied that financial necessity is behind her choice of Richard Roper as partner. Jed is violently tortured and beaten in “Episode Six”.Funnell and Dodds also note Bond’s capacity to sexually satisfy women as a key dimension of his hegemonic masculinity (1). In Manager, the spectator is presumed complicit with the narrative framing and is expected to uncritically accept Pine’s extreme desirability to women. The assumption of Pine’s sexiness and sexual competency together constitute his entitlement, made clear in sex scenes between him and Sophie, and him and Jed. These sex scenes follow events of gendered violence and I raise the possibility that they also constitute instances of gendered violence.Noir Feminine ArchetypesReviewers have pointed out that Manager engages with the noir tradition (Jensen). Sophie and Jed are both “fallen” women, reflecting the Christian heritage of the noir tradition, though incarnate different noir archetypes (Allen 6). Mysterious and seductive Sophie emerges as a femme fatale in the first episode: the dark and seductive girlfriend of gangster Freddie Hamid, Sophie entrusts Pine with delicate and dangerous information, leading him into a dark world. In Milton’s Paradise Lost, the snake convinces Eve that the fruit does not bring death but instead knowledge. Eve wishes to share this knowledge with her partner “but keep the odds of knowledge in my power / without co-partner?” ultimately precipitating the fall of Adam and mankind (Milton 818). Sophie shares information regarding Hamid and Roper’s illegal arms deal with Pine. There are two transgressions on her part: she shares her partner’s confidential information with Pine and then has an affair with him. Hamid murders Sophie for the betrayals. However, Sophie’s murder does not erase her narrative significance: the event motivates protagonist Pine in his chief quest to ‘bring Roper down’, and as Boedeker concurs, the narrative’s action is “driven by this event”. Indeed, Yvonne Tasker notes the dual function of the femme fatale: she is both “an archetype which suggests an equation between female sexuality, death and danger” and also “functions as the vibrant centre of the narrative” (Tasker 117).Pine’s later love interest Jed is an example of the more complicated “good-bad girl” noir type, as Andrew Spicer has usefully coined it (92). The “good-bad girl” occupies a morally ambiguous space between the (dangerously sexy) femme fatale and (fundamentally decent) “girl-next-door” (Spicer 92). Both “good” and “bad”, Jed is unmarried but living with villain Roper, whom she has presumably selected out of economic necessity; she is a mother, but this does not bestow her with maternal legitimacy as she keeps her son a secret and is physically remote from him. Jed finds “real love” with Pine and betrays Roper in assisting Pine’s espionage plot. Roper’s henchman punishes Jed for the betrayal (in the torture scene Roper laments “I saw how you looked at him last night”; “Episode 6”).Despite the routine sexism and punitive thrust of the noir narrative, the women’s “romantic” sex scenes with Pine are laden with subversive significance. In her analysis of women in noir, Sylvia Harvey argues:Despite the ritual punishment of acts of transgression, the vitality with which these acts are endowed produces an excess of meaning which cannot finally be contained. Narrative resolutions cannot recuperate their subversive significance. (31)The visibility of Sophie and Jed’s wounds throughout their respective sex scenes with Pine signals an excessive patriarchal entitlement that disrupts the narrative logic and invites us to question the women’s perspectives. My analysis of the scenes is informed by feminist legal theorist Catharine MacKinnon’s argument that under unequal power relations consent is fraught, if not impossible (180). MacKinnon argues that women’s beliefs and reactions are shaped by power inequality, including the threat of male violence, economic dependence, and need (175).Analysis of Sophie and Pine’s InteractionsI first analyse Sophie’s dialogue because I seek to demonstrate that there is a communication breakdown in play: Sophie is asking Pine for help and safety while Pine thinks she is seducing him. Sophie’s verbal exchanges with Pine can be read in two different ways: (i) according to the patriarchal narrative framing (the spectator is positioned alongside Pine, seeing Sophie as scopophilic object); or (ii) from a feminist perspective that takes Sophie’s situation and perspective into account (Mulvey 835-36). Sophie’s language is legible as flirtation. If we are uncritically complicit with the narrative framing, Sophie is usually trying to arrange time alone with Pine because she desires him. However, if we emphasise Sophie’s perspective, she is asking for privacy, discretion, and help to stay alive (and to save the lives of others too, given that she is foiling an arms deal). Catharine MacKinnon’s observation that “men are systematically conditioned not even to notice what women want” plays out elegantly in the scenes between Pine and Sophie (181). Pine manages to discern that Sophie needs some sort of help, but shows no regard for her perspective or the significant power inequality between the two of them. From their earliest interaction in “Episode One” Sophie addresses Pine in a flirtatious way. In an audacious request, although it is ‘below’ his duties as manager she insists he make her a coffee and cheekily demands he sit with her while she drinks it. Their interaction is a standard flirtatious tête-à-tête, entailing the playful query “what do you [Pine] know of me?” Sophie begs Pine to copy some documents for her in his office even though he points out that his colleague performs such duties. Sophie suggestively demands “I would prefer to use your office”. It seems that by insisting on time alone with him, Sophie’s goal is that Pine does the task, rather than the task be done per se. However, it promptly transpires that Sophie sought a private location in order to share classified information with him, having noted at an earlier date Pine’s friendship with a British diplomat. She asks him to “hold onto” the documents “in case something happens to her”.Pine nonetheless passes on these classified documents to this contact.Sophie and Pine’s next interaction follows a similar pattern: she rings him from her hotel room and asks him to bring her a scotch. He suggests alternative ways she can procure a drink, yet she confirms the real object of her desire (“I want you”). Pine smirks as he approaches her room. Sophie’s declaration appears as (i) a desirous statement and invitation to come to her room for sex but it is in fact (ii) a demand that Pine (specifically) comes to her room, because she wants to know with whom he shared the documents and to reveal to him the injuries she received as a punishment for his leak.After realising the danger he has put her in, Pine takes her to a remote house to secure her safety. Once inside, she implores “why do you sit so far away?” which sounds like a request for closeness, perhaps even that he touch her. Yet the extent of her desired proximity, and the nature of the touch she requests, can be interpreted in (at least) two ways. Certainly, Pine believes that she desires sexual intercourse with him. The spectator is meant to interpret this request along those lines by virtue of Atika’s seductive delivery. Pine explains that he sits with distance “out of respect” and Sophie teases “is that why you came all the way here, to respect me?” This remark reveals Sophie’s assumption that Pine’s assistance has been transactional (help in exchange for sex) and the content indicates the kind of sex she assumes he expects (“disrespectful” sex, or at least sex that playfully skirts the boundaries of respect). In a declaration that stands up as a positive affirmation of consent under British and American law, Sophie announces: “I want one of your many selves to sleep with me tonight.”From a freshly bruised eye socket, Sophie lovingly stares at Pine. Extra-diegetic strings instruct us that the moment is romantic. Pine strokes the (unbruised side) side of her face. Could her question “why do you sit so far away?” have been a request that he sit near her, place an arm around her shoulder, hold her hand, stroke her forehead, perhaps even tend to her wounds? Might the request that he “sleep with [her] tonight” have been a request that he sleep in the cottage, albeit on the floor?Sophie and Pine are subsequently displayed naked, limbs entangled. A new shot, a close-up of the right side of her face, displays a scab atop her eyebrow, a deeply bruised eye socket, further bruises down her cheeks, and a split lip. The muscular, broad Pine is atop Sophie and thrusting; Sophie’s split lip smiles in ecstasy and gratitude. A post-coital shot follows: she stares lovingly down at him with her facial injuries on full display, her dark eyes stare into his lucid green. Pine asks Sophie’s “real name”. Samira recounts that she changed her name to Sophie in order to “be more Western”. The power inequality is manifest on gendered, cultural, social, and physical lines: in order to advance her social position, Samira has sought to Anglicise herself and partnered with a violent (though influential) criminal (who has recently brutalised her). Her life is in danger, she is (depicted as) dark and foreign and ostensibly has no social or support network (is isolated enough to appeal to a hotel manager for help). Meanwhile, Pine is Western university-educated, a spectacle of white male athletic privilege, and has elite connections with British intelligence.Catharine MacKinnnon argues that consent is only a meaningful option if the parties are equally powerful (174). Sophie’s extreme vulnerability renders their situations patently unequal. As MacKinnon argues “when perspective is bound up with situation, and [that] situation is unequal, whether or not a contested interaction is authoritatively considered rape comes down to whose meaning wins” (182). I do not argue that Pine rapes Sophie per se. However, the revealing of Sophie’s injuries efficiently articulates the power inequality in their situations and thus problematises a straightforward assumption of her consent. MacKinnon’s argues that rape occurs “somewhere between” the following three factors (182). First, “what the woman actually wanted” (Sophie wanted to save the lives of others (by foiling an arms deal) and not die for the breach). Second, “what she was able to express about what she wanted” (class/gender/race power dynamics may have frustrated Sophie’s ability to articulate her needs and might have motivated her sexually suggestive tenor). Third, “what the man comprehended she wanted” (Pine assumes that Sophie, like all women, sexually desire him).Analysis of Jed and Pine’s InteractionsThe injustice of Pine and Sophie’s sexual encounter finds its counterpart in Pine’s sexual encounter with Jed in the final episode of the series (“Episode Six”). Roper discovers that Jed has given a third party (Pine and his colleagues) access to his private (incriminating) files. Roper instructs his henchman to torture Jed until she identifies this third party. The henchman holds Jed by the back of her neck and dunks her head repeatedly into bathwater. The camera reveals deep bruises on her arms. Jed refuses to identify her beloved (Pine) as the ‘rat’, yet the astute Roper nevertheless surmises “you must care deeply about the person you are protecting”.Alas, the dominant narrative must go on: Roper and Pine attend to an arms deal; the deal fails because Pine has set Roper up to appear as though he has robbed the buyers (and so on). Burr and Pine’s mission to “bring down” Roper has been completed. I keep wondering what Roper’s henchman has been doing to Jed during this “men’s business”. Alas, after Pine has completed the job, we encounter Jed again. She is in bed, her limbs entangled with Pine’s. The camera positioning and shot sequencing are almost identical to the sex scene between Pine and Sophie in “Episode One”. A medium close-up from the left reveals Pine thrusting atop Jed. Through pale moonlight the viewer discerns injures on Jed’s face and chin.The morning after this (brief) sex scene, Pine and Jed discuss her imminent departure (“home” to New York, to be reunited with her son). Debicki’s performance is tremendously tender: her lip trembles, her voice shakes as she swallows tears. Jed is sad because she is bidding Pine farewell, and, as she verbalises to Pine, she is nervous about whether her son will “recognise her”. Does Jed’s torture also give her grounds to weep and tremble? Ever a gentleman, Pine clasps her hand, and while marching her to her taxi, we see more bruises atop her left arm.I am also not arguing that Pine raped Jed. Yet given what Jed had endured earlier that day – torture by drowning, as commissioned and witnessed by her own partner – was sexual intercourse what she desired or needed? The visibility of Jed’s injuries throughout the sex scene marks an apotheosis of patriarchal entitlement. Might a fraternal or (even remedial) touch have been Pine’s first priority? Does Jed need a hug? Does she need ice? Had Pine been educated or socialised in a different tradition, one remotely attuned to what anyone might need after a disastrously traumatic and violent event, he might not have found penetrative sex an appropriate remedy. Pine’s absolute security in his own sexual desirability meant that he found the activity suitable, yet her injuries break my blind faith in his sexiness. I wish to raise the possibility that intercourse after this event might have compounded the violent events Jed endured that day. Contrary to the narrative’s implication, penetrative intercourse (even with Tom Hiddleston) might not heal Sophie or Jed’s wounds.ConclusionI am not a humourless feminist immune to the entertaining (and often entertainingly preposterous) dimensions of the spy and action genre. In fact, I enthusiastically await subsequent screen adaptations of le Carré’s work and the next Bond instalment. This is not a call to “cancel” a genre, text, director or writer. Biblically, a “revelation” has always instructed humans on how to live in this life. These sex scenes do not merely lay bare extreme patriarchal entitlement but might instruct directors and writers working within the genre to keep wounds, and wounded women, out of their sex scenes. I think that is a modest request. ReferencesAgger, Gunhild. “Geopolitical Location and Plot in The Night Manager.” Journal of Scandinavian Cinema 7 (2017): 27-42.Allen, Virginia. The Femme Fatale: Erotic Icon. Troy, New York: The Whitston Publishing Company, 1983.Aronoff, Myron. The Spy Novels of John le Carré: Balancing Ethics and Politics. New York: St. Martin’s, 1999.Barley, Tony. Taking Sides: The Fiction of John le Carré. Philadelphia: Open U, 1986.Boedeker, Hal. “‘Night Manager’: Check in for Tom Hiddleston.” Orlando Sentinel, 16 Apr. 2016. 7 June 2020 <https://www.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment/tv-guy/os-night-manager-check-in-for-tom-hiddleston-20160416-story.html>.Bruccoli, Matthew, and Judith Baughman. Conversations with John le Carré. Oxford: U of Mississippi P, 2004.Cobbs, John. Understanding John le Carré. Columbia: U of South Carolina P, 1998.D’arcy, Geraint. “‘Essentially, Another Man’s Woman’: Information and Gender in the Novel and Adaptations of John le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.” Adaptation 7.3 (2014): 275-90.Funnell, Lisa, and Klaus Dodds. Geographies, Genders and Geopolitics of James Bond. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.Flynn, Caitlin. “Who Is Sophie on ‘The Night Manager’? Aure Atika’s Character Will Drive the Thriller.” Bustle, 20 Apr. 2016. 7 June 2020 <https://www.bustle.com/articles/155498-who-is-sophie-on-the-night-manager-aure-atikas-character-will-drive-the-thriller>. Goodman, Tim. “Critic's Notebook: 'The Night Manager' Glosses over Its Flaws with Beauty and Talent.” Hollywood Reporter, 28 Apr. 2016. 7 June 2020 <https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/bastard-machine/critics-notebook-night-manager-glosses-888648>.Harvey, Sylvia. “Woman’s Place: The Absent Family of Film Noir.” Women in Film Noir. Ed. E. Ann Kaplan. London: British Film Institute, 1980. 30-38.Jackson, Emily. “Catharine MacKinnon and Feminist Jurisprudence: A Critical Appraisal.” Journal of Law and Society 19.2 (1992): 195-213.Jensen, Jeff. “‘The Night Manager’: EW Review.” Entertainment Weekly, 14 Apr. 2016. 7 June 2020 <https://ew.com/article/2016/04/14/the-night-manager-review/>. Kaplan, E. Ann. “Introduction.” Women in Film Noir. Ed. E. Ann Kaplan. London: British Film Institute, 1980. 1-5.Lamont, Tom. “Elizabeth Debicki: ‘We Fought about How Sexy I Should Be’.” The Guardian, 8 Oct. 2016. 7 June 2020 <https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/oct/08/elizabeth-debicki-fought-a-lot-how-sexy-should-be-the-night-manager>. Lewis, Peter. John le Carré. New York: Ungar, 1985.MacKinnon, Catharine. Towards a Feminist Theory of the State. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1989.Milton, John. Paradise Lost. Eds. Mary Waldrep and Susan Rattiner. United States: Dover Publications, 2005.Monaghan, David. The Novels of John le Carré: The Art of Survival. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985.———. Smiley’s Circus: A Guide to the Secret World of John le Carré. New York: St. Martin’s, 1986.Morgan, Eric. “Whores and Angels of Our Striving Selves: The Cold War Films of John le Carré, Then and Now.” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 36.1 (2016): 88-103.Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and the Narrative Cinema.” Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. Eds. Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen. New York: Oxford UP, 1999. 833-44.The Night Manager. Dir. S. Bier. Screenplay D. Farr. UK/USA: BBC and AMC, 2016.Rees, Jasper. “The Night Manager, Episode 1: Brilliant Event Drama.” The Telegraph, 20 Apr. 2016. 2 June 2020 <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2016/02/19/the-night-manager-episode-1-event-drama-of-the-highest-calibre/>.Scheppele, Kim. “The Reasonable Woman.” The Responsive Community, Rights and Responsibilities 1.4 (1991): 36–47.Tasker, Yvonne. Working Girls: Gender and Sexuality in Popular Cinema. London: Routledge, 1998.———. “Women in Film Noir.” A Companion to Film Noir. Eds. Andrew Spicer and Helen Hanson. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013. 353-68.Sauerberg, Lars Ole. Secret Agents in Fiction. London: Macmillan, 1984.Webb, Claire. “Where to Find the Plush Hotels and Lush Locations in The Night Manager”. Radio Times, 21 Feb. 2016. 2 June 2020 <http://www.radiotimes.com/ news/2016-02-21/where-to-find-the-plush-hotels-and-lush-locations-inthe-night-manager>.Wolfe, Peter. Corridors of Deceit: The World of John le Carré. Madison, WI: Popular P, 1987.

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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Voice synthesising software Vocaloid (Yamaha Corporation) is a popular tool for professional and amateur music production. At the time of writing, there are over 770,000 videos tagged ‘vocaloid’ on Niconico; karaoke chain Karatez displays the top five thousand tracks on its Website (Karatetsu); Hatsune Miku Wiki has over 59,000 pages, while the Vocaloid Lyrics Wiki has over 90,000. Vocaloid is part of Japan’s unique media mix, comprising of the software and music but also official collaborations and a significant amount of fan culture. However, while there is academic research on the way that Vocaloid music is produced and consumed (Sousa; Hamasaki et al.; Leavitt et al.; Kobayashi and Taguchi), there is a lack of research into the content of Vocaloid songs and music videos: that is, what kinds of themes and messages are present and what this might suggest for producers and consumers. This article highlights the importance of the content of Vocaloid music. To this end, I have focussed on Vocaloid composer/producer Neru’s 2018 album CYNICISM. Not to be confused with the Vocaloid Akita Neru, Neru’s music tends to focus on negative affect such as depression, loneliness, and anxiety. Documenting such themes helps to illustrate some of the struggles that producers and consumers experience. I provide a brief explanation of Vocaloid, followed by a reflection on their personas and functioning as a Body without Organs (Annett; Lam; Deleuze and Guattari, Anti-Oedipus). Then I introduce Small’s concept of musicking to provide a framework for the way that music transmits certain affects. In the second half of the article, I unpack Neru’s album and its use of imagery, lyrics, and sound. Vocaloids Voice synthesising software Vocaloid was initially released in 2004, the result of a collaboration between Japan’s Yamaha Corporation and Spain’s Pompeu Fabra University (Voctro Labs; Yamada 17). This software allows the user to create singing audio, drawing from recordings of real people called “voicebanks”. These voicebanks are produced by third-party companies, and are typically provided with a persona with an appearance and personality. For instance, the most well-known Vocaloid is Hatsune Miku, while Kagamine Rin and Kagamine Len are those most used by Neru. Essentially anyone who uses the Vocaloid software can become producers – the term used in Vocaloid cultures for composer. Vocaloid is an example of Japan’s “unique media mix”, where the media are produced not just by “the original company”, but also via “commercial collaborations with media franchises”, and “by a creative collective of individuals on the internet” (Leavitt et al. 204 & 211; see also Steinberg). As well as producers there are songwriters, lyricists, tuners, illustrators, and animators. Some people edit Vocaloid videos, creating compilations, ranking them, and so on (Hamasaki et al. 166). There is also a vibrant fan culture of database managers, fan translators, artists, and fiction writers, as well as human cover artists (utaite), such as Mafumafu, who became popular in part due to his covers of Neru’s music. Official corporate production mostly involves Hatsune Miku, and includes concerts, video games, and collaborations for consumer products. Such branding and collaboration illustrates the creation of a complex Vocaloid narrative. Accordingly, most researchers who examine Vocaloid discuss the complex relationships between various content creators and their methods of collaboration (Yamada), as well as Vocaloid as fan-generated media, examining issues such as commercial interest and exploitation (Bell; Sousa; Jørgensen et al.; To; Kobayashi and Taguchi). However, in this article I am interested in why fans strongly enjoy Vocaloid music and find meaning in it; as I will explore below, such fan collaboration is both a symptom and a cause. Personas and Bodies without Organs Although Vocaloid has a crowd-sourced and collaborative production environment, its use of digital voicebanks and significant consumer culture has led to criticism. For instance, Lam (1110–11) describes voicebanks as being “devoid of originality”, suggests that “all Vocaloid works are derivative”, and also that Vocaloid simply allows users “to indulge … within the virtual space of fabricated authenticity and depthlessness”. However, it is evident from comments on Niconico, YouTube, Reddit, the aforementioned Wikis, Vocaloid Discord servers, and any other space where fans socialise that listeners are emotionally moved by Vocaloid music. Zaborowski, for instance, describes two Japanese boys enthusiastically singing to ryo/Supercell’s Melt. Strikingly, Zaborowski (107) noted that the boys repeatedly told him that “precisely because the voice is the same, the listener can appreciate the quality of the melody and the lyrics”, and that a Vocaloid “sounds different when you are sad. Or when you are away from home”. Listeners are experiencing something when they engage with Vocaloid music, and it would be hasty to simply dismiss their experiences as “depthless”. One factor that makes Vocaloid music particularly authentic and affective for its audiences is the attachment of crowdsourced, constructed personas to Vocaloids. Authenticity here is not necessarily evaluated by the virtual nature of the artist (or instrument) itself, but the producers’ effort to create the work (Zaborowski 107). In this sense there is a need to consider the people involved in producing and listening to Vocaloid music, who find meaning in the songs and characters. Aside from Vocaloids, producers and utaite often also establish a character or imagery as a persona. Neru for instance is recognisable through his avatar—a closed eye with eyelashes and a single tear, and the various characters featured in his videos. The practice of creating a persona for non-human items is unique to Japanese culture, visible in the way that yuru kyara or “wobbly characters” are created to represent entities such as events, corporations, locations, policies, and so on (Occhi 77). These characters can be human-like or creature-like, drawing on Shinto’s anthropomorphism (Jensen and Blok 97). Kyara help minimise the separation between humans and nature, as well as humans and technology (Occhi 80–81). The attachment of kyara to voicebanks, which would otherwise have no face, helps to facilitate a sense of humanisation and connection with the software. It may be that the synthetic nature of the music as well as the use of personas in Vocaloid music means that the listener feels that the song is sung by the Vocaloid, but also processes the creator’s emotion. Kenmochi (4), for instance, suggests that since synthetic voices hold less emotion, it is the persona that functions as a symbol to connect the creator and listener. The producer is able to “impose their own values and perceptions on the virtual character” (Lam 1111), and in doing so, the persona functions as what Deleuze and Guattari call a Body without Organs (Anti-Oedipus 9; A Thousand Plateaus 151). That is, the persona has “no fixed identity” (Lam 1117), and can stratify or destratify, depending on what people do with it (Annett 172). They can become whatever the listener or creator wants, and so there is an emotional connection. Vocaloid music is meaningful to listeners, then, not despite its digital, virtual, constructed nature, but in fact because of what these elements facilitate. Musicking Christopher Small’s work Musicking also provides a framework useful to consider the emotional impact of Vocaloid music. Small argues that “the fundamental nature and meaning of music lie not in objects … but in action”, and therefore proposes a definition of ‘musicking’; to “take part, in any capacity, in a musical performance” (8–9, emphasis omitted). Importantly, for Small (77) simply listening to a recording is to take part in music, and “we may be sure that somebody's values are being explored, affirmed, and celebrated in every musical performance”. Small’s comments here provide a framework for focussing on the experiences of the people involved in producing and listening to Vocaloid music, rather than getting caught up in negative beliefs around the digital nature of production. Further, reflecting on remix, a significant aspect of Vocaloid music, Small (214) notes that relationships are “open to reinterpretation over and over again as listeners create new contexts for their reception and their ritual use of it”. Further, Small (134) suggests that the act of musicking functions as a powerful “means of social definition and self-definition”. Small’s suggestions here that music can be recycled, reinterpreted, and used for self-definition aligns with many aspects of Vocaloid music; tracks are frequently covered by producers using other Vocaloids, or utaite; the meanings of lyrics are frequently discussed in comment sections of YouTube videos and Wikis, and fans often align themselves with certain Vocaloids or producers that they enjoy and relate to. Such self-definition is an important theme to keep in mind when I consider Neru’s CYNICISM album as it touches on societal issues such as loneliness, nihilism, and low self-esteem. CYNICISM Vocaloid producer Neru, also known as z’5 or Oshiire-P, is quite popular. At the time of writing, he has 124,000 followers on Japanese video-sharing site Niconico (Neru, "Neru"), 242,000 on Chinese video-sharing site BiliBili (Neru, "Neru_Official"), 388,000 monthly listeners on Spotify (Spotify), and 560,000 subscribers on YouTube (Neru, "Neru OFFICIAL"). He released his first Vocaloid song in 2009, and to date has three major albums. CYNICISM is the latest, released in 2018. The standard edition contains 14 tracks, and all aside from one use the Vocaloids Kagamine Rin or Kagamine Len. Fig. 1: CYNICISM standard edition, illustrated by Sudou Souta (Apple Music) Fig. 2: Tracklist All quotes from songs are my own translations from the original Japanese. The CYNICISM album communicates a strong sense of nihilism. Nihilism is an ambiguous concept (Nietzsche 76; Diken 6; Marmysz 61). However, Marmysz (71) summarises that nihilists have three claims: that humans are alienated from the world; that this should not be the case; and that “there is nothing we can do” about this situation. As explored below, Neru’s nihilism appears to align with Kant’s “existential nihilism (believing that life has no meaning)” (Gertz, ch. 2, emphasis omitted). It is worth noting that Neru’s music has some commonalities with other genres. For instance, Prinz (584–85) suggests that punk music is irreverent, challenging social norms, and is nihilistic, reflecting on themes such as “decay, despair, suicide, and societal collapse”. As explored below, CYNICISM projects feelings including disappointment with society, poor self-esteem, and themes of irreverence. Irreverence and Society The namesake of the album is important to note within the context of nihilism, as cynicism can be understood as “a passive nihilist affect” (Diken 61). Cynicism is the attitude that comes about when one has failed “to come to terms with loss”, “to realize that something has been lost”, or understand exactly what has been lost. It incited a state of melancholy, trapping the cynic, who suffers an “utterly debilitating sense of disappointment, the root cause of which it cannot identify or move beyond” (Allen, ch. 7). In numerous ways Neru exhibits a lack of faith in humanity and society. Just the title of the track What a Terrible Era communicates a sense of hopelessness, particularly the line “強いて言うとするなら人類は失敗作だった” (“if I had to say, humanity was a work of failure”). The album’s lyrics repeatedly refer to the negative state of the world; “本日の世界予報向上性低迷後退” (“today’s world forecast: Progress is stagnant and regressing”) (Hey, Rain). SNOBBISM asks “バグ塗れの人類のデバッグはいつ終わる” (“humanity is stained with bugs; when will debugging end?”). Neru repeatedly laments the state of humanity and his disappointment with the world. Further, cynicism is an attitude of scorn towards “sincerity and integrity”, which are viewed as “a cover for self-interest” (Allen, ch. 1). In line with this, reflecting the cynic’s embrace of untruthfulness (Gertz, ch. 3), in SNOBBISM Neru states “一生、ブラフを威すがいいさ” (“it’s okay to threaten to bluff through your entire life”). Further, Diken (59) suggests that “capitalism is the age of cynicism”, and the Law-Evading Rock (Neru OFFICIAL, "Law-Evading Rock") music video, illustrated and animated by Ryuusee, exhibits such a critique of capitalism. The video is quite chaotic, designed to appear as a Japanese TV channel. Meme-style characters are superimposed onto photographic backgrounds to depict absurd advertisements and news programmes with flashing and dancing, as the lyrics call for the viewer to escape from reality. The character in this video, Datsu, appears to enter a state of nirvana when Neru’s CD is inserted into him. Here we can see how personas are particularly affectual in Vocaloid music, with fans stating that they relate to Datsu, among other forms of affectation, in comments on his Wikia page (Neru Wikia). Further, CYNICISM frequently calls for the self-identified ‘losers’ to band together, breaking the norms of society. Whatever Whatever Whatever, with its upbeat tune, bright colours, and proclamation of “能天気STYLE” (“Carefree STYLE”) exhibits a strong sense that ‘nothing matters so do whatever’. Let’s Drop Dead’s “僕等はきっとあぶれ者” (“we are surely hooligans”), Law-Evading Rock’s “負け犬になって 吠えろ 吠えろ” (“become a loser, roar, roar”) indicate a sense of knowing that one is ‘useless’ but attempting to take pride in or band together in spite (or indeed, because of this). These lyrics ascribe to a nihilistic notion that nothing matters, but are also a call to arms in a sense – a call for losers to band together for strength, and to act with irreverence. Some encourage the listener to become someone unfit for society (Law-Evading Rock), or to turn back on and break away from morals that are designed to get one into heaven (March of Losers). The music video for SNOBBISM (Neru OFFICIAL, "SNOBBISM"), illustrated and animated by Ryuusee, features Bizu, a demon man wearing a formal suit and top hat. The video has a retro style and is bright but muted with blurry backgrounds, streaking, and graininess. Bizu appears to take on a retro rubber hose animation style, dancing and sometimes hitting objects while calling on the viewer to “make a scene”; to be irreverent and break the norms of society. Personal Failure CYNICISM also in numerous ways refers to personal failures and a lack of faith in the future. Some lyrics refer to a plan or manual (SNOBBISM, Song of Running Away), or a future being wrecked or torn (Spare Me My Inferiority, What a Terrible Era). Corresponding with the nihilistic tone of the album, Whatever Whatever Whatever describes being lazy today, and putting effort in tomorrow, while Let’s Drop Dead simply states “明日はくたばろうぜ” (“tomorrow let’s drop dead”). Yet continuing forward into the future seems mandatory, as in Whatever Whatever Whatever Neru describes himself as being too much of a wimp to commit suicide, and March of Losers repeats the refrain “進め進め” (“forward, forward”), calling for the losers to continue even though “this kind of life has no meaning”. Some tracks indicate a more raw or vulnerable state, with Nihil and the Sunken City’s “もっとちょーだい ちょーだい 承認をちょーだい” (“more, give it to me, give it to me, please give me approval”). Importantly, Neru identifies himself as a loser, engaging in self-irreverence, making fun of himself (Kroth 104), referring to himself and his social group as ‘losers’. The music videos for Whatever Whatever Whatever (Neru OFFICIAL, "Whatever Whatever Whatever") and Let’s Drop Dead (Neru OFFICIAL, "Let’s Drop Dead"), illustrated and animated by Terada Tera, exhibit self-irreverent themes. The former uses vapourwave aesthetics, and both exhibit bright colours, with cartoonish characters I and Yaya dancing and drinking alcohol. I wears a Space Invaders jacket and grill glasses, while Yaya wears a t-shirt featuring a marijuana leaf and a pink animal-eared beanie; together in the video they communicate a ‘slacker’, partying attitude. What is particularly interesting here is the way that nihilistic lyrics have been employed alongside upbeat, catchy, pop-style music and flashy colours. Such dissonance is attention-grabbing and also reflects a sarcastic, careless sense of cynicism, one that is “irreverent” and “playful” – a style that Nietzsche adopted (Allen, ch. 7). Relatedly, Marmysz (4) suggests that humour is a useful response to nihilism because it shatters expectations. It is important to understand CYNICISM within the Japanese context. Discussing the Meiji Period, Nishitani (175) points out that Buddhism and Confucianism lost their power, and that with modernisation Japan became Europeanised and Americanised to the extent that there is a spiritual void. More recently, various economic crises and disasters throughout the 1990s and 2000s have contributed to national trauma (Roquet 89). Due to significant societal pressure, many Japanese people feel anxiety, sensitivity, vulnerability, and alienation (Ren 29). Accordingly, much Japanese anime engages with feelings of nihilism (Lozano-Méndez and Loriguillo-López; Tsang). In some respects Vocaloid culture is interrelated with hikikomori, a form of social withdrawal associated with various psychological, social, and behavioural factors (Li and Wong 603). Much academic literature exists on hikikomori, which in many ways is a Japanese phenomenon, being influenced by “culture, society and history”, and having come about in Japan during a period of “very rapid socioeconomic changes” (Kato et al. 1062). Many Vocaloid producers and utaite identify as hikikomori, including Mafumafu. However, studies on hikikomori outside Japan have shown that feelings of isolation, anxiety, and social exclusion are a global concern (Krieg and Dickie 61; Kato et al. 1062), contributing to Neru’s popularity among English-speaking audiences Conclusion My goal in this article is to point out that a significant number of people find Vocaloid music relatable and affectual, and it would be hasty to dismiss such music as “depthless” due to its use of voicebanks and connection to consumer culture. Vocaloid music is particularly affective in part due to the way that Vocaloids, producers, and utaite make use of personas which function as bodies without organs: something that listeners are able to project their own feelings onto. Further, Small’s concept of musicking encourages us to pay attention to what producers are saying as well as what listeners and fans are engaging with: what values are being explored and how they are being used for self-definition. It is important to consider not just the economic aspects of participatory culture and the networks of production surrounding Vocaloid, but the content of the music and the meanings that listeners get out of it. Neru’s CYNICISM album is particularly interesting in this regard. The combination of upbeat music, bright and garish imagery, and nihilistic lyrics communicates a strong sense of disappointment with society and a lack of self-worth in a dissonant manner – there is a sense of playfulness that is attention-grabbing and uses humour to communicate these negative themes. Given the breadth of Vocaloid content that is produced, further research into other producers, fan groups, and pieces of media will provide insight into this varied and rich phenomenon. References Allen, Ansgar. Cynicism. Cambridge: MIT P, 2020. Annett, Sandra. "What Can a Vocaloid Do? The Kyara as Body without Organs." Mechademia 10 (2017): 163–77. Bell, Sarah A. "The dB in the .Db: Vocaloid Software as Posthuman Instrument." Popular Music and Society 39.2 (2016): 222–240. Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus. Trans. Brian Massumi. 11th ed. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2005. ———. Anti-Oedipus. Trans. Robert Hurley et al. 10th ed. 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Introduction Children are not only born digital, they are fashioned toward a lifestyle that needs them to be digital all the time (Palfrey and Gasser). They click, tap, save, circulate, download, and upload the texts of their lives, their friends’ lives, and the anonymous lives of the people that surround them. They are socialised as Internet consumers ready to participate in digital services targeted to them as they age such as Snapchat, Instagram, and YouTube. But they are also fashioned as producers, whereby their lives are sold as content on these same markets. As commodities, the minutiae of their lives become the fodder for online circulation. Paradoxically, we also celebrate these digital behaviours as a means to express identity. Personal profile-building for adults is considered agency-building (Beer and Burrows), and as a consequence, we praise children for mimicking these acts of adult lifestyle. This article reflects on the Kids, Creative Storyworlds, and Wearables project, which involved an ethnographic study with five young children (ages 4-7), who were asked to share their autobiographical stories, creative self-narrations, and predictions about their future mediated lives (Atkins et al.). For this case study, we focus on commercialised forms of children’s automedia, and we compare discussions we had with 6-year old Cayden, a child we met in the study who expresses the desire to make himself famous online, with videos of Jacob, a child vlogger on YouTube’s Kinder Playtime, who clearly influences children like Cayden. We argue that child social influencers need consideration both as autobiographical agents and as child subjects requiring a sheltered approach to their online lives.Automedia Automedia is an emergent genre of autobiography (Smith and Watson Reading 190; “Virtually Me” 78). Broadcasting one’s life online takes many forms (Kennedy “Vulnerability”). Ümit Kennedy argues “Vlogging on YouTube is a contemporary form of autobiography in which individuals engage in a process of documenting their life on a daily or weekly basis and, in doing so, construct[ing] their identity online” (“Exploring”). Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson write that “visual and digital modes are projecting and circulating not just new subjects but new notions of subjectivity through the effects of automediality” with the result that “the archive of the self in time, in space and in relation expands and is fundamentally reorganized” (Reading 190). Emma Maguire addresses what online texts “tell us about cultural understandings of selfhood and what it means to communicate ‘real’ life through media” naming one tool, “automedia”. Further, Julie Rak calls on scholars “to rethink ‘life’ and ‘writing’ as automedia” to further “characterize the enactment of a personal life story in a new media environment.” We define automedia as a genre that involves the practices of creating, performing, sharing, circulating, and (at times) preserving one’s digital life narrative meant for multiple publics. Automedia revises identity formation, embodiment, or corporealities in acts of self-creation (Brophy and Hladki 4). Automedia also emphasizes circulation. As shared digital life texts now circulate through the behaviours of other human subjects, and automatically via algorithms in data assemblages, we contend that automediality currently involves a measure of relinquishing control over perpetually evolving mediatised environments. One cannot control how a shared life narrative will meet a public in the future, which is a revised way of thinking about autobiography. For the sake of this paper, we argue that children’s automedia ought to be considered a creative, autobiographical act, in order to afford child authors who create them the consideration they deserve as agents, now and in the future. Automedial practices often begin when children receive access to a device. The need for a distraction activity is often the reason parents hand a young child a smartphone, iPad, or even a wearable camera (Nansen). Mirroring the lives of parents, children aspire to share representations of their own personal lives in pursuit of social capital. They are often encouraged to use technologies and apps as adults do–to track aspects of self, broadcast life stories and eventually “live share” them—effectively creating, performing, sharing, and at times, seeking to preserve a public life narrative. With this practice, society inculcates children into spheres of device ubiquity, “socializing them to a future digital lifestyle that will involve always carrying a computer in some form” (Atkins et al. 49). Consequently, their representations become inculcated in larger media assemblages. Writing about toddlers, Nansen describes how the “archiving, circulation and reception of these images speaks to larger assemblages of media in which software protocols and algorithms are increasingly embedded in and help to configure everyday life (e.g. Chun; Gillespie), including young children’s media lives (Ito)” (Nansen). Children, like adult citizens, are increasingly faced with choices “not structured by their own preferences but by the economic imperatives of the private corporations that have recently come to dominate the internet” (Andrejevic). Recent studies have shown that for children and youth in the digital age, Internet fame, often characterized by brand endorsements, is a major aspiration (Uhls and Greenfield, 2). However, despite the ambition to participate as celebrity digital selves, children are also mired in the calls to shield them from exposure to screens through institutions that label these activities detrimental. In many countries, digital “protections” are outlined by privacy commissioners and federal or provincial/state statutes, (e.g. Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada). Consequently, children are often caught in a paradox that defines them either as literate digital agents able to compose or participate with their online selves, or as subjectified wards caught up in commercial practices that exploit their lives for commercial gain.Kids, Creative Storyworlds and Wearables ProjectBoth academic and popular cultural critics continually discuss the future but rarely directly engage the people who will be empowered (or subjugated) by it as young adults in twenty years. To address children’s lack of agency in these discussions, we launched the Kids, Creative Storyworlds and Wearables project to bring children into a dialogue about their own digital futures. Much has been written on childhood agency and participation in culture and mediated culture from the discipline of sociology (James and James; Jenks; Jenkins). In previous work, we addressed the perspective of child autobiographical feature filmmakers to explore issues of creative agency and consent when adult gatekeepers facilitate children in film production (Pedersen and Aspevig “My Eyes”; Pedersen and Aspevig “Swept”). Drawing on that previous work, this project concentrates on children’s automediated lives and the many unique concerns that materialize with digital identity-building. Children are categorised as a vulnerable demographic group necessitating special policy and legislation, but the lives they project as children will eventually become subsumed in their own adult lives, which will almost certainly be treated and mediated in a much different manner in the future. We focused on this landscape, and sought to query the children on their futures, also considering the issues that arise when adult gatekeepers get involved with child social media influencers. In the Storyworlds ethnographic study, children were given a wearable toy, a Vtech smartwatch called Kidizoom, to use over a month’s timeframe to serve as a focal point for ethnographic conversations. The Kidizoom watch enables children to take photos and videos, which are uploaded to a web interface. Before we gave them the tech, we asked them questions about their lives, including What are machines going to be like in the future? Can you imagine yourself wearing a certain kind of computer? Can you tell/draw a story about that? If you could wear a computer that gave you a super power, what would it be? Can you use your imagination to think of a person in a story who would use technology? In answering, many of them drew autobiographical drawings of technical inventions, and cast themselves in the images. We were particularly struck by the comments made by one participant, Cayden (pseudonym), a 6-year-old boy, and the stories he told us about himself and his aspirations. He expressed the desire to host a YouTube channel about his life, his activities, and the wearable technologies his family already owned (e.g. a GroPro camera) and the one we gave him, the Kidizoom smartwatch. He talked about how he would be proud to publically broadcast his own videos on YouTube, and about the role he had been allowed to play in the making of videos about his life (that were not broadcast). To contextualize Cayden’s commentary and his automedial aspirations, we extended our study to explore child social media influencers who broadcast components of their personal lives for the deliberate purpose of popularity and the financial gain of their parents.We selected the videos of Jacob, a child vlogger because we judged them to be representative of the kinds that Cayden watched. Jacob reviews toys through “unboxing videos,” a genre in which a child tells an online audience her or his personal experiences using new toys in regular, short videos on a social media site. Jacob appears on a YouTube channel called Kinder Playtime, which appears to be a parent-run channel that states that, “We enjoy doing these things while playing with our kids: Jacob, Emily, and Chloe” (see Figure 1). In one particular video, Jacob reviews the Kidizoom watch, serving as a child influencer for the product. By understanding Jacob’s performance as agent-driven automedia, as well as being a commercialised, mediatised form of advertising, we get a clearer picture of how the children in the study are coming to terms with their own digital selfhood and the realisation that circulated, life-exposing videos are the expectation in this context.Children are implicated in a range of ways through “family” influencer and toy unboxing videos, which are emergent entertainment industries (Abidin 1; Nansen and Nicoll; Craig and Cunningham 77). In particular, unboxing videos do impact child viewers, especially when children host them. Jackie Marsh emphasizes the digital literacy practices at play here that co-construct viewers as “cyberflâneur[s]” and she states that “this mode of cultural transmission is a growing feature of online practices for this age group” (369). Her stress, however, is on how the child viewer enjoys “the vicarious pleasure he or she may get from viewing the playing of another child with the toy” (376). Marsh writes that her study subject, a child called “Gareth”, “was not interested in being made visible to EvanHD [a child celebrity social media influencer] or other online peers, but was content to consume” the unboxing videos. The concept of the cyberflâneur, then, is fitting as a mediatising co-constituting process of identity-building within discourses of consumerism. However, in our study, the children, and especially Cayden, also expressed the desire to create, host, and circulate their own videos that broadcast their lives, also demonstrating awareness that videos are valorised in their social circles. Child viewers watch famous children perform consumer-identities to create an aura of influence, but viewers simultaneously aspire to become influencers using automedial performances, in essence, becoming products, themselves. Jacob, Automedial Subjects and Social Media InfluencersJacob is a vlogger on YouTube whose videos can garner millions of views, suggesting that he is also an influencer. In one video, he appears to be around the age of six as he proudly sits with folded hands, bright eyes, and a beaming, but partly toothless smile (see Figure 2). He says, “Welcome to Kinder Playtime! Today we have the Kidi Zoom Smartwatch DX. It’s from VTech” (Kinder Playtime). We see the Kidi Zoom unboxed and then depicted in stylized animations amid snippets of Jacob’s smiling face. The voice and hands of a faceless parent guide Jacob as he uses his new wearable toy. We listen to both parent and child describe numerous features for recording and enhancing the wearer’s daily habits (e.g. calculator, calendar, fitness games), and his dad tells him it has a pedometer “which tracks your steps” (Kinder Playtime). But the watch is also used by Jacob to mediate himself and his world. We see that Jacob takes pictures of himself on the tiny watch screen as he acts silly for the camera. He also uses the watch to take personal videos of his mother and sister in his home. The video ends with his father mentioning bedtime, which prompts a “thank you” to VTech for giving him the watch, and a cheerful “Bye!” from Jacob (Kinder Playtime). Figure 1: Screenshot of Kinder Playtime YouTube channel, About page Figure 2: Screenshot of “Jacob,” a child vlogger at Kinder Playtime We chose Jacob for three reasons. First, he is the same age as the children in the Storyworlds study. Second, he reviews the smart watch artifact that we gave to the study children, so there was a common use of automedia technology. Third, Jacob’s parents were involved with his broadcasts, and we wanted to work within the boundaries of parent-sanctioned practices. However, we also felt that his playful approach was a good example of how social media influence overlaps with automediality. Jacob is a labourer trading his public self-representations in exchange for free products and revenue earned through the monetisation of his content on YouTube. It appears that much of what Jacob says is scripted, particularly the promotional statements, like, “Today we have the Kidizoom Smartwatch DX. It’s from VTech. It’s the smartest watch for kids” (Kinder Playtime). Importantly, as an automedial subject Jacob reveals aspects of his self and his identity, in the manner of many child vloggers on public social media sites. His product reviews are contextualised within a commoditised space that provides him a means for the public performance of his self, which, via YouTube, has the potential to reach an enormous audience. YouTube claims to have “over a billion users—almost one-third of all people on the Internet—and every day people watch hundreds of millions of hours on YouTube and generate billions of views” (YouTube). Significantly, he is not only filmed by others, Jacob is also a creative practitioner, as Cayden aspired to become. Jacob uses high-tech toys, in this case, a new wearable technology for self-compositions (the smart watch), to record himself, friends, family or simply the goings-on around him. Strapped to his wrist, the watch toy lets him play at being watched, at being quantified and at recording the life stories of others, or constructing automediated creations for himself, which he may upload to numerous social media sites. This is the start of his online automediated life, which will be increasingly under his ownership as he ages. To greater or lesser degrees, he will later be able to curate, add to, and remediate his body of automedia, including his digital past. Kennedy points out that “people are using YouTube as a transformative tool, and mirror, to document, construct, and present their identity online” (“Exploring”). Her focus is on adult vloggers who consent to their activities. Jacob’s automedia is constructed collaboratively with his parents, and it is unclear how much awareness he has of himself as an automedia creator. However, if we don’t afford Jacob the same consideration as we afford adult autobiographers, that the depiction of his life is his own, we will reduce his identity performance to pure artifice or advertisement. The questions Jacob’s videos raise around agency, consent, and creativity are important here. Sidonie Smith asks “Can there be a free, agentic space; and if so, where in the world can it be found?” (Manifesto 188). How much agency does Jacob have? Is there a liberating aspect in the act of putting personal technology into the hands of a child who can record his life, himself? And finally, how would an adult Jacob feel about his childhood self advertising these products online? Is this really automediality if Jacob does not fully understand what it means to publicly tell a mediated life story?These queries lead to concerns over child social media influence with regard to legal protection, marketing ethics, and user consent. The rise of “fan marketing” presents a nexus of stealth marketing to children by other children. Stealth marketing involves participants, in this case, fans, who do not know they are involved in an advertising scheme. For instance, the popular Minecon Minecraft conference event sessions have pushed their audience to develop the skills to become advocates and advertisers of their products, for example by showing audiences how to build a YouTube channel and sharing tips for growing a community. Targeting children in marketing ploys seems insidious. Marketing analyst Sandy Fleisher describes the value of outsourcing marketing to fan labourers:while Grand Theft Auto spent $120 million on marketing its latest release, Minecraft fans are being taught how to create and market promotional content themselves. One [example] is Minecraft YouTuber, SkydoesMinecraft. His nearly 7 million strong YouTube army, almost as big as Justin Bieber’s, means his daily videos enjoy a lot of views; 1,419,734,267 to be precise. While concerns about meaningful consent that practices like this raise have led some government bodies, and consumer and child protection groups to advocate restrictions for children, other critics have questioned the limits placed on children’s free expression by such restrictions. Tech commentator Larry Magid has written that, “In the interest of protecting children, we sometimes deny them the right to access material and express themselves.” Meghan M. Sweeney notes that “the surge in collaborative web models and the emphasis on interactivity—frequently termed Web 2.0—has meant that children are not merely targets of global media organizations” but have “multiple opportunities to be active, critical, and resistant producers”...and ”may be active agents in the production and dissemination of information” (68). Nevertheless, writes Sweeney, “corporate entities can have restrictive effects on consumers” (68), by for example, limiting imaginative play to the choices offered on a Disney website, or limiting imaginative topics to commercial products (toys, video games etc), as in YouTube review videos. Automedia is an important site from which to consider young children’s online practices in public spheres. Jacob’s performance is indeed meant to influence the choice to buy a toy, but it is also meant to influence others in knowing Jacob as an identity. He means to share and circulate his self. Julie Rak recalls Paul John Eakin’s claims about life-writing that the “process does not even occur at the level of writing, but at the level of living, so that identity formation is the result of narrative-building.” We view Jacob’s performance along these lines. Kinder Playtime offers him a constrained, parent-sanctioned (albeit commercialised) space for role-playing, a practice bound up with identity-formation in the life of most children. To think through the legality of recognising Jacob’s automedial content as his life, Rak is also useful: “In Eakin’s work in particular, we can see evidence of John Locke’s contention that identity is the expression of consciousness which is continuous over time, but that identity is also a product, one’s own property which is a legal entity”. We have argued that children are often caught in the paradox that defines them either as literate digital creators composing and circulating their online selves or as subjectified personas caught up in commercial advertising practices that use their lives for commercial gain. However, through close observation of individual children, one who we met and questioned in our study, Cayden, the other who we met through his mediated, commercialized, and circulated online persona, Jacob, we argue that child social influencers need consideration as autobiographical agents expressing themselves through automediality. As children create, edit, and grow digital traces of their lives and selves, how these texts are framed becomes increasingly important, in part because their future adult selves have such a stake in the matter: they are being formed through automedia. Moreover, these children’s coming of age may bring legal questions about the ownership of their automedial products such as YouTube videos, an enduring legacy they are leaving behind for their adult selves. 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