An ethnographic investigation into gender and language in the Northern Ireland Assembly

This paper investigates the extent to which the negative evaluation of one of the women Ministers in the Northern Ireland Assembly can be attributed to gender. Interviews with politicians as well as the Minister herself illuminate this discussion by identifying the ‘gendered discourses’ that are drawn upon when describing the Minister’s communicative style in debates. Close analyses of transcripts of debates offer a description of some elements of this style, and find that while the Minister is confrontational in debates and ‘stands her ground’, she does not take part in illegal interventions that disrupt the debate floor and are characteristic of the Assembly as a whole. Although the construction of the Minister’s unpopularity can be attributed to a complex interplay of factors, it can be concluded that it is partly the way she draws on gendered linguistic resources that leads her to be negatively judged by her peers.

The New Instantaneity: How Social Media are Helping us Privilege the (Politically) Correct over the True

The recent sacking of the eminent scientist Tim Hunt from one of the UK’s leading research institutions is only the latest in a series of cases where public individuals have been derided for comments made in jest on social media, with serious consequences for their professional and personal lives. This article discusses the case of Tim Hunt as an example of the extent to which the privileging of the correct over the true which has long pervaded media discourse is taken to the extreme by the instant-response culture of social media. It points to the emergence of a new form of instantaneity enabled by these networked forms of communication that serves to reinforce systemic inaction rather than the change widely associated with these technologies. It draws on philosophy and Critical Theory as useful conceptual frameworks for highlighting the ways in which Twitter & co. increasingly call us to action but crowd out thought, thereby passing over opportunities for real social change.