Suchergebnisse

Citizens' awareness of risks and responsibilities regarding climate change suggests that they can see themselves as agents of social change both in their daily lives and as part of a knowledgeable public opinion. However, research has shown that individual behavior to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions is not consistent with such awareness. A survey study with a sample of Portuguese university students investigated the relation between knowledge of climate change and perception of risks, attributions of responsibility for performing mitigation actions, and individuals' behavioral intentions and reported behaviors. Results show a moderate level of knowledge, a moderate-high level of concern and a moderate-high level of risk perception. Responsibilities are attributed to different agents, including the individual respondent, but there is resistance to some measures and a low level of reported individual behavior. This study has also aimed to analyze practices of media consumption, as well as the use of other sources of information, and people's perception of those sources. The news media, especially television, are reported to be the main sources of information on climate change and respondents make a positive assessment of their credibility. Inconsistencies between social representations and behaviors are discussed in relation to the communication of climate change in Portugal both in conventional media and the internet. ; Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) - POCTI/COM/56973/2004 Projecto 'The Politics of Climate Change: Discourses and ...

Este artigo propõe uma reflexão sobre as tensões e ambiguidades presentes na (re)construção da memória social e nas diferentes visões da história, em torno das quais se constroem futuros para o passado português. Em particular, analisámos as narrativas de 145 estudantes do ensino secundário em Portugal sobre a história do país. O 25 de Abril foi o principal marco histórico mencionado com referências ao fim do regime ditatorial, à luta pela liberdade e pela igualdade de oportunidades. Porém, não foram mencionadas as lutas pela libertação nacional dos povos outrora colonizados. Emergiram também reafirmações do passado glorioso e expansionista dos "Descobrimentos", mitos historiográficos e invariantes culturais sobre o que significa "ser português". Com isso, discute-se a importância de uma educação crítica e da descolonização da história, para que futuros alternativos possam emergir dissociados de valores de dominação.

Post-print (ie after peer-review). Published in Cabecinhas, R., Macedo, I. & Macedo, L. (2018). Cyberspace and Cultural Memory: Case Studies in Brazil, Portugal and Mozambique. In A. S. A. Cunha; M. Barros & R. Martins (Eds.), "Hispano-Lusophone" Community Media: Identity, Cultural. Politics and Difference (pp.88-106). Barcelona: InCom-UAB Publicacions. ; The wide geographic dispersion of "Lusophone" space has hindered systematic studies on how this "imagined community" is defined, taking as a starting point the different national communities that comprise it. The "Identity Narratives and Social Memory" research project aimed at analysing the (re)making of "Lusophone" identity in cyberspace and how blogs contribute to a transnational cultural memory. This research program was structured according to four methodological axes: the analysis of virtual narratives in the cyberspace (mapping of the cyberspace in eight Portuguese-speaking countries and doing in-depth analysis of fifteen case studies); the analysis of oral narratives of people with experiences of migration in more than one Lusophone country, using auto-biographical semi-structured interviews; the review of the negotiations of identity in cross-cultural contexts using focus groups; and finally the analysis of social representations of history through a transnational survey. In this paper we will focus on the results of empirical case studies about the discussion of 'Lusophone identity' in Brazilian, Mozambican and Portuguese cyberspace. ...

El presente artículo analiza las prácticas de recepción de contenidos difundidos por las revistas portuguesas de información generalista "Sábado" y "Visão", estudiando, en concreto, el modo en el que los públicos jóvenes comprenden, interpretan y se sitúan en relación a las representaciones de mujeres que ejercen cargos políticos. El análisis temático conducido, el cual partió del material resultante de la realización de once grupos focales, muestra que las/los participantes tendieron a favorecer lecturas congruentes con la ideología tradicional de género. Independientemente de los momentos puntuales de negociación, controversia y resistencia, los resultados indican que la mayoría de las/los participantes no problematizó, de forma crítica, el papel de los medios de comunicación en la (re)construcción de la realidad social marcada por el género, apoyando la reificación de las tríades masculino- político-público y femenino-personal-privado. Más allá de eso, las/los participantes raramente cuestionaron los factores económicos, socioculturales y políticos que influyen en la producción informativa. Conformado por una perspectiva feminista, este estudio destaca la necesidad de que se potencie la capacidad de agencia de los públicos de cara a las asunciones de género diseminadas por los medios informativos y se reflexione sobre los eventuales impactos de las representaciones mediáticas a nivel de la (re)configuración del espacio público. ; This paper examines reception practices of contents spread through the Portuguese newsmagazines "Sábado" and "Visão", exploring, in particular, the way young audiences understand, interpret and position themselves in relation to representations of women who hold political posts. The thematic analysis conducted on the data resulting from a sequence of focus group discussions shows that participants tended to prefer readings that were aligned with traditional gender ideology. Despite occasional moments of negotiation, contestation and resistance, the results indicate that most ...

Students from 22 nations answered a survey on the most important events in world history. At the national level, free recalling and a positive evaluation of World War II (WWII) were associated with World Values Survey willingness to fight for the country in a war and being a victorious nation. Willingness to fight, a more benign evaluation of WWII, and recall of WWII were associ- ated with nation-level scores on power distance and low postmaterialism, suggesting that values stressing obedience and competition between nations are associated with support for collective violence, whereas values of expressive individualism are negatively related. Internal political vio- lence was unrelated to willingness to fight, excluding direct learning as an explanation of legit- imization of violence. Recall of wars in general (operationalized by WWI recall) was also unrelated to willingness to fight. Results replicate and extend Archer and Gartner's classic study showing the legitimization of violence by war to the domain of collective ...

This study analyzes how people perceive world history on three continents: Latin America, Europe and Africa. A total of 1179 university students form Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Portugal, Spain, Guinea-Bissau, and Cape Verde were asked to evaluate world events and leaders in terms of their valence and importance. The results demonstrated that social representations of history show a Euro/North American-centric, long-term positive evaluation, recency, and socio- centric bias. Euro/North American-centric events and leaders were found to be rated as more important and were more positively perceived in general. Distant political events, like French or American Revolution, were considered to be more positive than XX century similar events, which supports the long-term positive evaluation bias hypothesis. The hypothesis on recency bias was partially substantiated. Confirming the existence of such bias, World War II was rated as more important than the previous XX century wars and revolutions. Socio-centric bias also received partial support. African participants rated Mandela as a more important leader than other participants did. Latin Americans rated Che Guevara less positively, which suggests that some leaders are generally idealized icons, not based on group belongingness. However, results did not bring support to the centrality of war hypothesis. Wars were indeed negatively evaluated and World War II was rated as an important and negative event. Nevertheless, war- and politics-related events were not perceived as more important than the Industrial Revolution, suggesting that people appraise the importance of long-term socioeconomic factors of history when responding to close-ended quantitative measures (vs. open-ended salience measures). Results are discussed in the framework of social representations of history. ; El estudio analiza como las personas perciben la historia mundial en tres continentes: Latinoamérica, Europa y África. 1179 estudiantes universitarios de Argentina, Brasil, Perú, Portugal, España, ...

Data on social representations of world history have been collected everywhere in the world except sub-Saharan Africa. Two studies using open-ended data involving university students from six African countries fill this gap. In Study 1, nominations from Cape Verde and Mozambique for the most important events in world history in the past 1000 years were dominated by war and politics, recency effects, and Western-centrism tempered by African sociocentrism on colonization and independence. The first three findings replicated previous research conducted in other parts of the world, but the last pattern contrasted sharply with European data. Study 2 employed a novel method asking participants how they would begin the narration of world history, and then to describe a major transition to the present. Participants most frequently wrote about the evolution of humanity out of Africa, followed by war and then colonization as a beginning, and then replicated previous findings with war, colonization, and technology as major transitions to the present. Finally, when asked about how they foresaw the future, many participants expressed hope for peace and cooperation, especially those facing more risk of collective violence (Burundi and Congo). A colonial/liberation narrative was more predominant in the data from former Portuguese colonies (Angola, Cape Verde, and Guinea-Bissau) than from former Belgian colonies (Burundi and Congo). ; Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) - ...

Emergent properties of global political culture were examined using data from the World History Survey (WHS) involving 6,902 university students in 37 countries evaluating 40 figures from world history. Multidimensional scaling and factor analysis techniques found only limited forms of universality in evaluations across Western, Catholic/Orthodox, Muslim, and Asian country clusters. The highest consensus across cultures involved scientific innovators, with Einstein having the most positive evaluation overall. Peaceful humanitarians like Mother Theresa and Gandhi followed. There was much less cross-cultural consistency in the evaluation of negative figures, led by Hitler, Osama bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein. After more traditional empirical methods (e.g., factor analysis) failed to identify meaningful cross-cultural patterns, Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) was used to identify four global representational profiles: Secular and Religious Idealists were overwhelmingly prevalent in Christian countries, and Political Realists were common in Muslim and Asian countries. We discuss possible consequences and interpretations of these different representational profiles. ; This research was supported by grant RG016-P-10 from the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange (http://www.cckf.org.tw/). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the ...

The universality versus culture specificity of quantitative evaluations (negative-positive) of 40 events in world history was addressed using World History Survey data collected from 5,800 university students in 30 countries/societies. Multidimensional scaling using generalized procrustean analysis indicated poor fit of data from the 30 countries to an overall mean configuration, indicating lack of universal agreement as to the associational meaning of events in world history. Hierarchical cluster analysis identified one Western and two non-Western country clusters for which adequate multidimensional fit was obtained after item deletions. A two-dimensional solution for the three country clusters was identified, where the primary dimension was historical calamities versus progress and a weak second dimension was modernity versus resistance to modernity. Factor analysis further reduced the item inventory to identify a single concept with structural equivalence across cultures, Historical Calamities, which included man-made and natural, intentional and unintentional, predominantly violent but also nonviolent calamities. Less robust factors were tentatively named as Historical Progress and Historical Resistance to Oppression. Historical Calamities and Historical Progress were at the individual level both significant and independent predictors of willingness to fight for one's country in a hierarchical linear model that also identified significant country-level variation in these relationships. Consensus around calamity but disagreement as to what constitutes historical progress is discussed in relation to the political culture of nations and lay perceptions of history as catastrophe. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published

The present study examines current social representations associated with the origins of the Great War, a major event that has profoundly affected Europe. A survey conducted in 20 European countries (N = 1906 students in social sciences) shows a high consensus: The outbreak of the war is attributed to the warring nations leaders while the responsibility of the populations is minimized. Building on the concept of social representation of history (Liu & Hilton, 2005), we suggest that the social representations of the Great War fulfill social psychological functions in contemporary Europe. We suggest that WWI may function as a charter for European integration. Their content also suggests a desire to distinguish a positively valued ingroup ("the people") from powerful elites, construed as an outgroup. ; (VLID)3569181

The present study examines current social representations associated with the origins of the Great War, a major event that has profoundly affected Europe. A survey conducted in 20 European countries (N = 1906 students in social sciences) shows a high consensus: The outbreak of the war is attributed to the warring nations' leaders while the responsibility of the populations is minimized. Building on the concept of social representation of history (Liu & Hilton, 2005), we suggest that the social representations of the Great War fulfill social psychological functions in contemporary Europe. We suggest that WWI may function as a charter for European integration. Their content also suggests a desire to distinguish a positively valued ingroup ("the people") from powerful elites, construed as an outgroup. ; This research was conducted within the framework of COST Action IS1205 "Social psychological dynamics of historical representations in the enlarged European Union. ...