O canto dos vestibulandos em 140 caracteres: linguagem e construção de identidades no Twitter

The revolution caused by the internet and its various social networks eventually bring forth fruitful reflections on cyberculture and the power of identity construction. What seemed purely fashion has become way of being, representation of self, reality creation (Lévy, 1996). Considering language as a social phenomenon, which occurs through interaction, as explicit in Bakhtin (1929), the speech aired on social networks shapes the profile of their users, constructing identities which, according to Hall (2006), are multiple and non-permanent . This research seeks to examine the use of Twitter by school students, developing a reflection on the construction of their own identities in cyberspace. The subjects are students of Educandário Nossa Senhora das Vitórias, private school in Assú/RN, all graduates from high school. Understanding the Vestibular year as a decisive and a reflection engine ever present about their condition of students, subjects eventually express their anxieties, fears and perspectives in the virtual environment, providing us with enough material to analyze how they are high school students, expectations for appropriate selection processes, plus several representations belonging to the school environment. From the discourse conveyed on Twitter expressed in Featured posts, this study reveals the identities of high school students that emerge from it, which led the cast of some evidence. From them, despite the multiplicity of identities observed, presented some common aspects that corroborate the requirements provided for specific objectives, such as: feeling of belonging to a group - class and school; change of routine and behavior towards education; desecration of traditional teaching practices; changing the identity of students'writings. The analysis of postings enables us to know the perceptions of students regarding the school, the disciplines , the pace of studies, interest in school practices, and from such evidence, the perception of how vestibular modify your daily life and a fondness their identities as school students.

Parties, Mandates and Multilevel Politics : Sub-National Variation in British General Election Manifestos

Earlier versions were presented at the ECPR Joint Sessions Workshop on ‘How and Why of Party Manifestos in New and Established Democracies’, University of St. Gallen, April 2011, and at PSA and EPOP Conferences in 2011. We are grateful to all participants for their feedback, and particularly Bob Harmel and Lars Svasand for their comments and leading this project. We are also grateful to Dai Moon for discussions around Welsh manifestos and highlighting some otherwise unavailable literature. The usual disclaimers naturally apply. Alistair Clark gratefully acknowledges the financial support of a British Academy Overseas Conference Grant, Award Number OC100383 for travel to the 2011 ECPR Joint Sessions. The final definitive version of this paper has been published in Party Politics by SAGE Publications Ltd and is available on the journal website at: http://ppq.sagepub.com/ All Rights Reserved © Alistair Clark and Lynn Bennie.

Election Forecasting under Opaque Conditions

Election forecasting models assume retrospective economic voting and clear mechanisms of accountability. Previous research indeed indicates that incumbent political parties are being held accountable for the state of the economy. In this article we develop a ‘hard case’ for the assumptions of election forecasting models. Belgium is a multiparty system with perennial coalition governments. Furthermore, Belgium has two completely segregated party systems (Dutch and French language). Since the prime minister during the period 1974-2011 has always been a Dutch language politician, French language voters could not even vote for the prime minister, so this cognitive shortcut to establish political accountability is not available. Results of an analysis for the French speaking parties (1981-2010) show that even in these conditions of opaque accountability, retrospective economic voting occurs as election results respond to indicators with regard to GDP and unemployment levels. Party membership figures can be used to model the popularity function in election forecasting.

Election Quality and International Observation 1975-2004: Two New Datasets

This paper introduces two new datasets on national level elections from 1975 to 2004. The data are grouped into two separate datasets, the Quality of Elections Data and the Data on International Election Monitoring. Together these data sets provide original information on elections, election observation and election quality, and will enable researchers to study a variety of research questions. The datasets will be publicly available and are maintained at a project website.

Aproximaciones a los usos y apropiación de Twitter en bibliotecas universitarias de Argentina

El artículo analiza los principales usos de la plataforma Twitter por parte de bibliotecas universitarias en Argentina. Luego de la revisión bibliográfica, se exponen los procedimientos metodológicos empleados para identificar las instituciones que cuentan con esta herramienta comunicacional en la actualidad y los usos que se hace de ella a partir de ítems tales como: datos institucionales básicos, visibilidad y accesibilidad de la cuenta de Twitter en la Web de la biblioteca, momento de inicio de la actividad, volumen histórico de tuits, seguidores y siguiendo, así como cantidad y tipo de publicaciones realizadas en el período del relevamiento de datos. En los resultados se observa que un escaso número de bibliotecas adoptaron Twitter y que la apropiación de la herramienta muestra en general usos no planificados más centrados en la difusión que la interacción con usuarios. Se proponen estudios complementarios para conocer rutinas laborales de los bibliotecarios al respecto

Aproximaciones a los usos y apropiación de Twitter en bibliotecas universitarias de Argentina

El artículo analiza los principales usos de la plataforma Twitter por parte de bibliotecas universitarias en Argentina. Luego de la revisión bibliográfica, se exponen los procedimientos metodológicos empleados para identificar las instituciones que cuentan con esta herramienta comunicacional en la actualidad y los usos que se hace de ella a partir de ítems tales como: datos institucionales básicos, visibilidad y accesibilidad de la cuenta de Twitter en la Web de la biblioteca, momento de inicio de la actividad, volumen histórico de tuits, seguidores y siguiendo, así como cantidad y tipo de publicaciones realizadas en el período del relevamiento de datos. En los resultados se observa que un escaso número de bibliotecas adoptaron Twitter y que la apropiación de la herramienta muestra en general usos no planificados más centrados en la difusión que la interacción con usuarios. Se proponen estudios complementarios para conocer rutinas laborales de los bibliotecarios al respecto

Aproximaciones a los usos y apropiación de Twitter en bibliotecas universitarias de Argentina

El artículo analiza los principales usos de la plataforma Twitter por parte de bibliotecas universitarias en Argentina. Luego de la revisión bibliográfica, se exponen los procedimientos metodológicos empleados para identificar las instituciones que cuentan con esta herramienta comunicacional en la actualidad y los usos que se hace de ella a partir de ítems tales como: datos institucionales básicos, visibilidad y accesibilidad de la cuenta de Twitter en la Web de la biblioteca, momento de inicio de la actividad, volumen histórico de tuits, seguidores y siguiendo, así como cantidad y tipo de publicaciones realizadas en el período del relevamiento de datos. En los resultados se observa que un escaso número de bibliotecas adoptaron Twitter y que la apropiación de la herramienta muestra en general usos no planificados más centrados en la difusión que la interacción con usuarios. Se proponen estudios complementarios para conocer rutinas laborales de los bibliotecarios al respecto

Queering Apartheid: The National Party’s 1987 ‘Gay Rights’ Election Campaign in Hillbrow

This article investigates the anomaly in apartheid history of the ruling National Party's (NP) fielding a ‘pro-gay rights’ candidate in the Hillbrow constituency during the 1987 whites-only election in South Africa. The NP was aided in its Hillbrow campaign by the gay magazine Exit, which encouraged its readership to ‘vote gay’ in the election and published a list of candidates who were favourable to gay rights in South Africa. The Hillbrow campaign is intelligible when the intersections between race and sexuality are analysed and the discourses wielded by the NP and Exit are spatially and historically situated. The Hillbrow/Exit gay rights campaign articulated discourses about the reform of apartheid in white self-interest and conflated white minority and gay minority rights, thereby contributing to the NP's justification for apartheid. The NP candidate's defeat of the incumbent Progressive Federal Party (PFP) MP for Hillbrow, Alf Widman, was trumpeted by Exit as a powerful victory and advance for gay rights in South Africa, but the result provoked a sharp backlash among many white gay men and lesbian women who organised to openly identify with the liberation movement. The Exit/Hillbrow campaign problematises the singular assumptions that are often made about race and sexuality in apartheid South Africa, and illustrates how political, social and economic crisis can provoke reconfigurations of identities vis-à-vis the status quo.

The Conversation: Why leaving the euro is back on the agenda in the Greek election

Greece leaving the euro is old news. Since the former Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, agreed to a third bailout in July, the perception of Grexit as an immediate threat has subsided – or at least disappeared from commentary. Nonetheless, while appetite for Grexit outside Greece has abated, the traumatic seven months of wrangling over its bailout with Europe produced a significant domestic demand for a return to the national currency.