Readers' resposes versus reader-response theories : An empirical study

This study examines both theoretically an empirically how well the theories of Norman Holland, David Bleich, Wolfgang Iser and Stanley Fish can explain readers' interpretations of literary texts. The theoretical analysis concentrates on their views on language from the point of view of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. This analysis shows that many of the assumptions related to language in these theories are problematic. The empirical data show that readers often form very similar interpretations. Thus the study challenges the common assumption that literary interpretations tend to be idiosyncratic. The empirical data consists of freely worded written answers to questions on three short stories. The interpretations were made by 27 Finnish university students. Some of the questions addressed issues that were discussed in large parts of the texts, some referred to issues that were mentioned only in passing or implied. The short stories were "The Witch à la Mode" by D. H. Lawrence, "Rain in the Heart" by Peter Taylor and "The Hitchhiking Game" by Milan Kundera. According to Fish, readers create both the formal features of a text and their interpretation of it according to an interpretive strategy. People who agree form an interpretive community. However, a typical answer usually contains ideas repeated by several readers as well as observations not mentioned by anyone else. Therefore it is very difficult to determine which readers belong to the same interpretive community. Moreover, readers with opposing opinions often seem to pay attention to the same textual features and even acknowledge the possibility of an opposing interpretation; therefore they do not seem to create the formal features of the text in different ways. Iser suggests that an interpretation emerges from the interaction between the text and the reader when the reader determines the implications of the text and in this way fills the "gaps" in the text. Iser believes that the text guides the reader, but as he also believes that meaning is on a level beyond words, he cannot explain how the text directs the reader. The similarity in the interpretations and the fact that the agreement is strongest when related to issues that are discussed broadly in the text do, however, support his assumption that readers are guided by the text. In Bleich's view, all interpretations have personal motives and each person has an idiosyncratic language system. The situation where a person learns a word determines the most important meaning it has for that person. In order to uncover the personal etymologies of words, Bleich asks his readers to associate freely on the basis of a text and note down all the personal memories and feelings that the reading experience evokes. Bleich's theory of the idiosyncratic language system seems to rely on a misconceived notion of the role that ostensive definitions have in language use. The readers' responses show that spontaneous associations to personal life seem to colour the readers' interpretations, but such instances are rather rare. According to Holland, an interpretation reflects the reader's identity theme. Language use is regulated by shared rules, but everyone follows the rules in his or her own way. Words mean different things to different people. The problem with this view is that if there is any basis for language use, it seems to be the shared way of following linguistic rules. Wittgenstein suggests that our understanding of words is related to the shared ways of using words and our understanding of human behaviour. This view seems to give better grounds for understanding similarity and differences in literary interpretations than the theories of Holland, Bleich, Fish and Iser.

Arkeen pudonnut sibylla : Modernin naisen identiteetin rakentuminen Marja-Liisa Vartion romaanissa Kaikki naiset näkevät unia

A Sibyl fallen into everyday life. The enfolding of the identity of modern woman in Marja- Liisa Vartio s novel Kaikki naiset näkevät unia ( All Women Have Dreams ). --- Marja-Liisa Vartio played a remarkable part in renewing Finnish literature. My thesis examines her novel Kaikki naiset näkevät unia (1960), which describes the life of a middle-aged housewife, Mrs. Pyy ( Mrs. Hazel Hen ). She has moved from country to city and lives now in a suburb, in the Helsinki of the 1950 s. In Finnish literature, the novel is the first significant description of a modern city woman accomplished by modernistic means. My research examines the identity of a woman in the Finland of the 50 s, an epoch marked by the inevitable transition into modernity. My aim is to look into the ways in which the female identity enfolds in Kaikki naiset näkevät unia, how it takes its form, how it is described and commented. The primary method is contextual close reading; the novel is seen in the social, cultural and historical context of the time it was published. Essential elements in this study are literary motifs and images in the novel, and particularly transtextual relations as defined by Gérald Genette. The focus is on hypertextuality, intertextuality and paratextuality. Kaikki naiset näkevät unia emerges as a modern version of Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. A woman s life spent in illusive dreaming is transferred from a 1900th century bourgeois town in France to a middle class Finnish suburb in the 1950 s. Vartio s novel is a variant of an ancient Finnish ballad I, a bird without a nest , making it into a modern narration of transition. The inner, mental journey from country to city is of great length, and the liminal life in a suburb does not make the passage any easier. Like the lyrical voices in the poetry of Edith Södergran, also Mrs. Pyy finds it hard to discover any values of sisterhood or those of ideal femininity in modern times. In earlier studies of Marja-Liisa Vartio s prose, stress has been laid on the discourse of her narrators and characters, as well as on its modern literary form. In this research, however, urgent allusions to paintings, old and new, are taken into account, since Mrs. Pyy mirrors herself against art, both classical and modern. Principal images in this context are Michelangelo s Sibyls in the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and a modern painting, which remains unidentified. Mrs. Pyy turns out to be a tragicomic character, who has magnanimous illusions about herself, but is compelled to accept the fact the she is only a mediocre person. She is nothing more than a first generation city dweller; she is not a modern, aloof outsider but a mere dilettante, who desperately tries to live out modern city life. Kaikki naiset näkevät unia is a striking picture of the 1950 s, a picture that is construed in the consciousness of Mrs. Pyy. We are shown everyday life growing more and more modern after the war and woman s role growing more and more subject to increasing pressure for change.

Pathet : Musiikin symboliikka jaavalaisessa varjoteatterissa

The aim of this study is to define and analyse the symbolism hidden in the gamelan music of the Central Javanese, especially in the Yogyakartanese wayang kulit shadow theatre. This dissertation is divided into two parts. The first part deals with the theory, history and practice of Central Javanese shadow theatre. It also presents the tone symbol theory on which this study is based of B. Y. H. Sastrapustaka, the court servant and musician of the sultan s palace of Yogyakarta. For historical comparison, other theories and phenomena that seem to have some connections with the previously mentioned tone symbol theory are presented here as well as the equipment of the shadow theatre, its music, musical instruments and the shadow theatre in general in literature. The theoretic-methodological basis of the study is an enlarged model of research of cultural music, in which a person in the centre of the model with his/her concepts and by his/her behaviour creates a work of art and receives criticism through feedback, while the process of reciprocal action dynamically affects the whole development of the culture in question. In connection with the concepts of the work of art, the manner of approach of this study is also semiotic as the tone symbol theory gives a particular meaning to each musical note. Thus the purpose of this study is to find answers to how the tone symbol theory manifests itself in practical music making, what its origin is, if it is well known or not, and whether shadow theatre music supports this theory. The second part of this dissertation deals with material collected through interviews and observations as well as representative samples of musical pieces for shadow theatre and their analyses. In relation to this a special tool for analysing gamelan music, developed for the purpose of this study, is also presented. Sufficiently versatile material on the essence and meaning of the shadow theatre collected from many puppet masters of an older generation, many of whom are no longer with us, constitutes an important part of this study. This study proves that the tone symbol theory of Sastrapustaka is of tantristic tradition from the Hindu-Javanese period before the 16th century and before the appearance of Islam in Java. The variants of the previously mentioned theory can be found also in other fields of Javanese advanced civilization, such as architecture and dance. But it seems that knowledge about the tone symbolism connected to the shadow theatre especially has only been preserved in the sultan s palace of Yogyakarta and its intimate circles. The outsider puppet masters surely follow the theory, but they do not necessarily know its origin. As a result of the musical analysis, it is obvious that the musical pieces used for the shadow theatre bear different kinds of symbolic meanings which only an initiated person can feel and understand. These meanings are closely related to the plot of the play at the moment.

Luce Irigaray's Philosophy of Feminine Being : Body, Desire and Wisdom

Luce Irigaray is a Belgian-born philosopher, psychoanalyst and linguist. Irigaray s concept of woman is crucial for understanding her own work but also for examining and developing the theoretical and methodological basis of feminist theory. This thesis argues that, ultimately, Irigaray s exploration of woman s being challenges our traditional notion of philosophy as a neutral discourse and the traditional notion of ourselves as philosophizing persons or human beings. However, despite its crucial role, Irigaray s idea of woman still lacks a comprehensive explication. This is because the discourse of sexual difference is blurred by the ideas of essentialism and biologism. --- Irigaray s concept of woman has been interpreted and criticized from the perspectives of metaphysical essentialism, strategic essentialism, realist essentialism and deconstructionism. This thesis argues that a reinterpretation is necessary to account for Irigaray s claims about the the traditional woman , mimesis, the specificity of the feminine body, feminine expression and sexual difference. Moreover, any reading should account for the differences between women and avoid giving a prescriptive function to the essence of woman. --- My thesis develops a new interpretation of Irigaray s concept of woman on the basis of the phenomenology of the body. It argues that Irigaray s discourse on woman can and must be understood by an idea of existential style. Existential style is embodied, affective and spiritual and it is constituted in relation to oneself, to others and to the world. It is temporal, it evolves and changes but preserves its open unity in its transformations. Stylistic unities, such as femininity or philosophy, are constituted in and by the singulars. -- This study discusses and analyses feminine existential style as a central theme and topic of Irigaray s works and shows how her work operates as a primary and paradigmatic example of the feminine style. These tasks are performed by studying the mimetic positions available for women and by explicating the phenomenological background of Irigaray s conceptions of the philosophical method, and the lived, expressive and affective body. The critical occupation and transformation of these mimetic positions, the inquiry into the first-person pre-discursive experience, and the cultivation of feminine expressivity open up the possibility of becoming a woman writer, a woman lover and a woman philosopher. The appearance of these new feminine figures is a precondition for the realization of sexual difference. So Irigaray opens up the possibility of sexual difference by instituting and constituting a feminine subject of love and wisdom, and by problematizing the idea of a neutral and absolute subject.

Halun häilyvät rajat : Magnus Enckellin maalausten maskuliinisuuksien ja feminiinisyyksien representaatioista ja itsen luomisesta

My PhD-thesis The uneasy borders of desire Magnus Enckell's representations of masculinities and femininities and the question how to create the self concentrates on the works of Finnish fin-de-siècle artist Magnus Enckell (1870-1925). My thesis deals with representations of masculinities, femininities, sexualities and different identity-positions. My research is about questions concerning representational ways of melancholy, androgyny, narcissism, themes of Golden Age and Double in Enckell s ouvre. These themes are analyzed by contextualizing them with different, but intersecting, discourses of varied scientific, artistic and occult ideas in the fin-de-siècle. The main point is analyze how the subject is constructed in both Foucauldian and Freudian sense and what one has to know about oneself. My approaches are based on ideas expressed in different discourses as queer-theory, Michel Foucault s genealogical epistemology and knowledge-power theory, psychoanalysis, art history and visual culture studies. My starting point lays is Foucault s idea expressed in his The History of Sexuality that the constitution of homosexual or as well as heterosexual subject inaugurates possibilities for transgressive activities e.g. by giving own voice to the sexualized subject. My main thesis is to suggest that Enckell s works in their multiple and ambiguous ways construct a phantasmatic position for viewer who may identify oneself to different desires, may construct or deconstruct a sexual identity for oneself or try to define the truth about oneself. Enckell s works should be considered as a contradictory processes which both seduce person to construct an identity and as well as lure person to pursue for the deconstruction of specific and permanent identity by celebrating the ambiguousness and discontinuity in one s identity. I m suggesting that the gazing subject feels pleasure in finding one s identity but the one must face the exposure of the melancholic structure which forms the basis of sexual desire. The subject may try to resolve one s melancholy by creating a phantasy about the original and unisexual being where desires, sexualities, phantasies and identities haven t been diverged. This can be fantasized in terms of art which forms a double for the melancholic subject who is in this limited and imaginary way able to forget for a while one s existential solitude.

Patterns of care: Primary research in mental health nursing

The foundation of mental health nursing has historically been grounded in an interpersonal, person-centred process of health care, yet recent evidence suggests that the interactional work of mental health nursing is being eroded. Literature emphasises the importance of person-centred care on consumer outcomes, a model reliant upon the intimate engagement of nurses and consumers. Yet, the arrival of medical interventions in psychiatry has diverted nursing work from the therapeutic nursing role to task-based roles delegated by medicine, distancing nurses from consumers. This study used work sampling methodology to observe the proportion of time nurses working in an inpatient mental health setting engage in specific activities. The observations of this study determined that nurses' time is accounted for 31.65% in direct care, 51.63% in indirect care and 16.71% in service related activities.

Kansanomainen moraali : Tutkimus savolaisista ja pohjalaisista uskomustarinoista

In my research I discuss belief legends as representations of folk morals. Doing wrong is not one s private affair because it can have consequences for the life of a whole community, and therefore, it is in a community s interest to control the conduct of its members. Belief legends have served as a means of instruction for proper behaviour. In this way a community has contributed to the socialization of its members so as to make them comply with common norms and morals. My study is focused on belief legends relating to some type of offence (a crime, an infringement or another kind of misdeed) and its consequences. I try to find out whether there are regional differences and similarities. The material consists of 3120 warning legends that have been recorded in the years 1881‒1981, mainly in Southern Savo and Southern Ostrobothnia, partly in Northern Savo and Northern Ostrobothnia. I have collected the material at the Folklore Archives of the Finnish Literature Society. As a research method I apply discourse analysis to outline the schematic model of the legends, the superstructure, and the substance of the legends, the semantic macrostructure. Also I apply quantitative methods such as cross tabulations in order to establish regional differences and similarities in the concentrated and far abstracted semantic macrostructure of the legends. I look for explanations for the perceptions made in, above all, the cultural context but also with the view of the development of judicial history. Warning legends relating to what is wrong or right are clearly an expression of peasant folklore. The most common types of offences are violations of law and transgressions of Christian traditions and of social conduct. Transgression of Christian traditions is the most frequently committed offence in all geographical areas surveyed. Warning legends have an explicit focus on offence committed by a single person. The most common punishing figure in Southern Savo is the Devil, in Southern Ostrobothnia the Dead, in Northern Savo God, and in Northern Ostrobothnia the Dead or God. The most rigid folk morals are manifested in legends from Northern Savo, where narratives of mortal sin are more frequent than in other areas. The influence of the revivalist movements may be alleged in explanation of this phenomenon. According to these legends people living in Southern Savo are the most tolerant of those included in the study, presumably because of a more liberal revivalist movement in this area, called the Friendship movement. In folk morals women are treated more severely than men. Characteristic of the legends from Ostrobothnia is the emphasis on community, while the legends from Savo lay stress on individuality. The legends from Ostrobothnia manifest a more explicit distinction between the offence committed by a woman and one committed by a man than do legends from Savo. An explanation may be found in the prevailing industries, adherent in the division of labour between the sexes, in this region. The legends are man-centric. Women s occupations are connected with home and family, whereas men s fields of activities are wider. Women moralise each other harsher than do men. Folk morals advise people to be moderate in every sense. Through belief legends people are taught to respect human beings and the rest of creation, to obey the Christian religion and God, and to be moderate in search of wealth.

Yhden äänen muotokuvia : Queer-luentoja Marguerite Yourcenarin teoksista

The present dissertation belongs to the tradition of queer theoretical and feminist literary scholarship. The study deals with the literary works of Marguerite Yourcenar (1903-1987), who was the first woman ever to be elected to the French Academy. The study seeks to lead an acclaimed classical French author into a dialogue with the characteristically Anglo-American queer theory and American tradition of queering Lacanian psychoanalysis. Queering the psychoanalytic notions of homosexuality and the categories of perversion and pervert will be elaborated in the present study. The main corpus of the scrutiny consists of five pieces of fiction written in French by Yourcenar. The first person narration and especially récit genre maintain a narrative strategy that the study explores with reference to the representations of non-normative genders and sexualities. Analyzing various radically queer aspects of Yourcenar's texts, the study focuses on the topical questions of masculinity in men, women, and texts. The study also discusses the representations of sexual desire between men, and the various constructions of male homosexuality in Yourcenar's fiction. The present study addresses Yourcenar's fiction from the points of view of female masculinity and textual female masculinity. The investigation finds its study questions and methodology in the area of queer studies, especially queer theoretical literary scholarship and the queer history and historiography of sexuality. That is why the study approaches Yourcenar's fiction in the context of historical and literary representations of male homosexual love and desire. The articulation of the closet, or textual and discursive strategies of sexual secrecy especially concerning male homosexuality, is simultaneously constructed and deconstructed in Yourcenar's fiction, as the analysis indicates. The study analyzes the Yourcenarian queer textual strategies with reference to concepts such as the epistemology and rhetoric of the closet, and the structure of the open secret as a part of the rhetoric of queer or non-straight sexuality. The present investigation puts the queer, non-normative representations of gender and sexuality in the centre of the Yourcenarian oeuvre and studies, ascertaining the strong bond between Yourcenar's work and the history, tradition, and the modern strategies of representing male homosexuality and queerness.

A journey access tool to facilitate better health outcomes for people with disabilities

- Background One of the three objectives of the WHO Global Disability Action Plan 2014–2021 is removal of barriers and improved access to health services and programmes. Access to transport contributes to positive health outcomes; however, people with disabilities leaving their dwellings are confronted with barriers to their mobility. Mobility restrictions, sensory or other disabilities increase their vulnerability as road users, exposing them to higher risks of injury. PHSW and CARRS-Q have been collaborating with Handicap International Cambodia (HIC) on a Journey Access Tool (JAT). - Aims Use of the JAT is to (1) Identify transport and journey safety and barriers for people with disability and (2) Evaluation and modification of the tool after trailing to for use by NGOs and government agencies in prioritising actions around barriers. - Methodology The tool has undergone initial proof-of-concept testing in India and Viet Nam, and was trialled in Cambodia in February and May, 2015. Five teams were formed comprising a person with disability (physical, sensory or intellectual), researchers from QUT, staff from HIC, and local university students. The JAT was completed by each team and then discussed and evaluated. Two further Cambodian trials are scheduled for 2015. - Results The JAT is responsive to rural and urban contexts, and has utility for people with different disabilities. Two tools have been developed: a short version for people with a disability to complete independently, or with assistance; and a version for NGOs, DPOs and government. The tool has efficacy for advocacy.   - Conclusion The JAT has potential to assist the Mekong region with: (1) evaluating access for people with disability and other vulnerable members of the community including older people; (2) developing plans for changes to the routes in consultation with local authorities; (3) evaluating the effectiveness of implemented changes in terms of access and health; (4) inputting into policy; (5) The tool can be used for advocacy for change.

Minästä toiseen : Lacanilaisen subjektin syntymä Anaïs Ninin House of Incestissä ja Hélène Cixous'n Dedans'issa

The study approaches two modern novels using the conceptual frame of Lacanian psychoanalysis, especially the Lacanian notion of subject. The novels can be described as subversive “Bildungsromans” (development novels) highly influenced by psychoanalytic thought. Anaïs Nin’s (1903—1977) “poetic novel” House of Incest (1936) is a story of sexual and artistic awakening while Hélène Cixous’s (b. 1937) first novel Dedans (1969) depicts the growth of a little girl whose father dies. Both are first novels and first person narratives. Concentrating in the narrator’s internal life the novels writings break with the realistic conventions of narrative, bringing forth the themes of anguish, alienation from the world and escape into the prison like realm of the self. The study follows roughly the Lacanian process of becoming a subject. Each chapter opens up with a quick introduction to the Lacanian concepts used in the following part that analyses the novels. The study can thus also be used as a brief introduction to Lacanian theory in finnish. The psychoanalytic narrative/story of the birth of the subject and the novels stories can be seen as mirroring each other. The method of the study is thus based on a dialogue between the theoretical concepts and the analyses. Novels are being approached as texts that break with the Cartesian notion of an autonomous subject making room for a dialectics of self and other, for a movement in which the “I” builds an identity mirroring itself with others. While both of the novels recount the birth of a character called I, they also have a first person narrator apart from the character “I”. Having constituted the self’s identity, the narrator finds from inside of the self also an other or “you” – this discovery is the final clue to the coffin of the autonomous self. From the Lacanian perspective man’s great Other is the order of language, Symbolic, which constitutes the individual, the speaking subject. Using this perspective the novels are interpreted as describing the process of becoming a subject of the Symbolic; subjected to Symbolic order. This “birth process” happens in particular in the Imaginary register, where the self’s identity is built. In the Imaginary or Mirror phase the “I” mirrors himself with different others (e.g. with his mirror image and the family members, the surrounding others) learning to see his body and his selfhood both as familiar and strange, other. In the Imaginary phase the novels’ characters are also trying to deal with the opposite realm of the Symcolic, the Real. The Lacanian Real is not the reality “before words” but a reality left over from the Symbolic, aside of it but constituted by the Symbolic, to be deducted only from within it. In the novels the Real is experienced as a womblike state where the self is immersed in the other’s body. The process of coming a subject of the Symbolic is depicted also as a process of renouncing the “dream of the womb”, which, if realized, could only mean the non-existence of the subject, i.e. death. The study concentrates on analysing the novels’ writing, where meanings are constantly changing: “I” becomes you, the father becomes a mother, inside becomes outside. This technique enables also the deconstruction of certain opposing notions in the novels. The Lacanian point of view exposes language as a constantly moving universe where the subject has no more stability than the momentary meanings language creates. The self’s identity depicted in the novels is a Lacanian fixed identity, whose growth is necessary but opposes the flux imminent to the Symbolic. The anguish experienced in the novels, in the “house of incest” or “inside”, is due to clinging on the unchanging “I”. However, the writing of the novels shows how the meaning of the “I” changes constantly and the fixity thus becomes movement. This way House of Incest and Dedans, despite their pessimistic stories, manage to create an image of a new, moving subject.

Ajan sisäkkäiset tilat. Arkkitehtuuri, valokuva ja menneisyyden esittäminen W. G. Sebaldin romaanissa Austerlitz

In her thesis, Kaisa Kaakinen analyzes how the German emigrant author W. G. Sebald (1944-2001) uses architecture and photography in his last novel "Austerlitz" to represent time, history and remembering. Sebald describes time in spatial terms: it is like a building, the rooms and chambers of which are connected to each other. The poetics of spatial time manifests itself on multiple levels of the text. Kaakinen traces it in architectural representations, photographic images, intertextuality, as well as in the form of the text, using the concept of spatial form by Joseph Frank. Architectural and photographic representations serve as meeting points for different aspects and angles of the novel and illustrate the idea of a layered present that has multiple connections to the past. The novel tells a story of Jacques Austerlitz, who as a small child was sent from Prague to Britain in one of the so-called Kindertransports that saved children from Central Europe occupied by the National Socialists. Only gradually he remembers his Jewish parents, who have most likely perished in Nazi concentration camps. The novel brings the problematic of writing about another person's past to the fore by the fact that Austerlitz's story is told by an anonymous narrator, Austerlitz's interlocutor, who listens to and writes down Austerlitz's story. Kaakinen devotes the final part of her thesis to study the demands of representing a historical trauma, drawing on authors such as Dominick LaCapra and Michael Rothberg. Through the analysis of architectural and photographic representations in the novel, she demonstrates how Austerlitz highlights the sense of singularity and inaccessibility of memories of an individual, while also stressing the necessity - and therefore a certain kind of possibility - of passing these memories to another person. The coexistence of traumatic narrowness and of the infinity of history is reflected in ambivalent buildings. Some buildings in the novel resemble reversible figures: they can be perceived simultaneously as ruins and as construction sites. Buildings are also shown to be able to both cover and preserve memories - an idea that also is repeated in the use of photography, which tends to both replace memories and cause an experience of the presence of an absent thing. Commenting and critisizing some recent studies on Sebald, the author develops a reading which stresses the ambivalence inherent in Sebald's view on history and historiography. Austerlitz shows the need to recognize the inevitable absence of the past as well as the distance from the experiences of others. Equally important, however, is the refusal to give up narrating the past: Sebald's novel stresses the necessity to preserve the sites of the past, which carry silent traces of vanished life. The poetics of Austerlitz reflects the paradox of the simultaneous impossibility and indispensability of writing history.

Strategically Pleading Intentional Torts in medical cases

The opportunities and challenges faced by litigants who strategically plead intentional torts are borne out by two recent medical cases. Both arose out of dental treatment. Dean v Phung established some key principles which were clarified in White v Johnston. Before considering those two cases it is worth examining the environment in which such intentional torts claims now exist. Following the Ipp Review of the Law of Negligence, non-uniform legislative changes to the law of negligence were introduced across Australia which have imposed limitations on liability and quantum of damages in cases where a person has been injured through the fault of another. While it seems that, given the limitation of the scope of the review and recommendations to negligently caused damage, the Ipp Review reforms were meant to be limited to injury resulting from negligent acts rather than intentional torts, the extent to which the civil liability legislation applies to intentional torts differs across Australia.

‘They rush you and push you too much … and you can't really get any good response off them’: A qualitative examination of family involvement in care of people with dementia in acute care

Aim: To explore the role and needs of the family carer across different acute care contexts and their level of involvement in the care of their relative with dementia in this setting. Method: A pragmatic, exploratory-descriptive qualitative approach. A convenience sample of 30 family carers across three sites completed semi-structured interviews. Results: Family carers wanted to be involved in the acute care of their family member with dementia. They acknowledged the importance of a central source of information, educated staff, guidelines on roles and processes, and positive communication, as well as respect from staff for the carer’s knowledge of the older person and their needs. They also highlighted the need for medical staff to discuss with them the family member’s treatment and care. Conclusion: There is a need for family-focused interventions to improve communication and involvement of family in the care of family members with dementia in the acute setting.

The impacts of policy change on collaborative governance networks

For many complex natural resources problems, planning and management efforts involve groups of organizations working collaboratively through networks (Agranoff, 2007; Booher & Innes, 2010). These networks sometimes involve formal roles and relationships, but often include informal elements (Edelenbos & Klijn, 2007). All of these roles and relationships undergo change in response to changes in personnel, priorities and policy. There has been considerable focus in the planning and public policy literature on describing and characterizing these networks (Mandell & Keast, 2008; Provan & Kenis, 2007). However, there has been far less research assessing how networks change and adjust in response to policy and political change. In the Australian state of Queensland, Natural Resource Management (NRM) organizations were created as lead organizations to address land and water management issues on a regional basis with Commonwealth funding and state support. In 2012, a change in state government signaled a dramatic change in policy that resulted in a significant reduction of state support and commitment. In response to this change, NRM organizations have had to adapt their networks and relationships. In this study, we examine the issues of network relationships, capacity and changing relationships over time using written surveys and focus groups with NRM CEOs, managers and planners (note: data collection events scheduled for March and April 2015). The research team will meet with each of these three groups separately, conduct an in-person survey followed by a facilitated focus group discussion. The NRM participant focus groups will also be subdivided by region, which correlates with capacity (inland/low capacity; coastal/high capacity). The findings focus on how changes in state government commitment have affected NRM networks and their relationships with state agencies. We also examine how these changes vary according to the level within the organization and the capacity of the organization. We hypothesize that: (1) NRM organizations have struggled to maintain capacity in the wake of state agency withdrawal of support; (2) NRM organizations with the lowest capacity have been most adversely affected, while some high capacity NRM organizations may have become more resilient as they have sought out other partners; (3) Network relationships at the highest levels of the organization have been affected the most by state policy change; (4) NRM relationships at the lowest levels of the organizations have changed the least, as formal relationships are replaced by informal networks and relationships.

"Kirjailijoiden tapaus" Venäjällä vuonna 1997

In the autumn of 1997, Russian government was faced with media pressure when owners of the TV channels ORT and NTV joined forces against it. This study is based on media sources from October 1997 to December 1997. It shows clearly how the enormous power of the media was able to dictate what happened in Russia. In the mid-1990s Russians started to talk about political technology, which became a commonly used term by professionals, journalists, politicians and intelligence services. As a result of this action, two leading reformers in the government, Anatoliy Chubais and Boris Nemtsov, were dismissed from their highly influential posts as finance and energy ministers respectively, but retained their power as first deputy prime ministers. According to the correspondents, the real reason was to resolve a conflict within the parliament, which had demanded the dismissal of Mr. Chubais. This demand was presented after Chubais had accepted $90,000 as a reward for co-writing a book on privatization. Chubais was considered to be Russia’s “business card” towards the west – the"Authors’ case" (Delo avtorov) was only solved after President Boris Yeltsin took part in the public debate. According to the research, the media owned by powerful businessmen Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinski, was able to use its own security services to expose sensitive material (Russian term ‘kompromat’), if necessary, concerning any given person. The so-called Authors’ case can be considered as a part of the battle and the tip of the iceberg in arrangements designed to organize the funding of the Russian presidential election campaign in 2000. The reason why this particular incident was so widely covered on television was because several programs aimed to reveal to the public "hidden bribes" that, as they claimed, government officials had received. The political aspect, however, was quite mild, when the concrete issues of possible dismissals of Ministers were debated in the Parliament. Everything was dealt with as a “family matter” inside Kremlin. Yeltsin's "family" consisted of practically anybody from oligarch Berezovsky to Chubais, the father of Russia's privatization policy. Methods of critical history implementation analysis has been used in this research in determining the use of the source material. Literature and interviews have also provided a good base for the study. The study proves that any literature dealing with the subject has not paid enough attention to how the dismissal of Alexander Kazakov, deputy of President’s administration, was linked directly with Gazprom, the state gas monopoly. Kazakov had to leave Gazprom and lose his position as Chubais' ally when the influential ORT television company was deteriorated.