scholarly journals Amsterdam Residents and Their Attitude Towards Tourists and Tourism

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roos Gerritsma ◽  
Jacques Vork

In Amsterdam, the phenomenon of overcrowding is increasing, and tourism is one of the causes. Both the public debate and the municipal authorities are pointing to an increasing need for more expertise and knowledge regarding ways of achieving a healthy balance for various stakeholders. This article focuses on the stakeholder role of city residents and discusses their attitudes to tourists and tourism-related developments in their own neighbourhood and in the rest of the city. The term “attitude” can be divided into three components: feeling, behaviour and thinking. The results of this study are based on both quantitative and qualitative fieldwork (surveys and semi-structured interviews) and on desk research. It can be concluded that, for the most part, residents have a positive attitude to tourists and tourism. Differences in attitude are mostly determined by the city district where respondents live and by personal feelings and thinking. Follow-up research in the coming years will examine the complexity of the issue of overcrowding in more depth.

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Miladin Kovačević ◽  
Katarina Stančić

Modern society is witnessing a data revolution which necessarily entails changes to the overall behavior of citizens, governments and companies. This is a big challenge and an opportunity for National Statistics Offices (NSOs). Especially after the outbreak of COVID-19, when the public debate about the number of mortalities and tested and infected persons escalated, trusted data is required more than ever. Which data can modern society trust? Are modern societies being subjected to opinion rather than fact? This paper introduces a new statistical tool to facilitate policy-making based on trusted statistics. Using economic indicators to illustrate implementation, the new statistical tool is shown to be a flexible instrument for analysis, monitoring and evaluation of the economic situation in the Republic of Serbia. By taking a role in public policy management, the tool can be used to transform the NSO’s role in the statistical system into an active participant in public debate in contrast to the previous traditional, usually passive role of collecting, processing and publishing data. The tool supports the integration of statistics into public policies and connects the knowledge and expertise of official statisticians on one side with political decision makers on the other.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 10-38
Author(s):  
Phillip Joy ◽  
Matthew Numer ◽  
Sara F. L. Kirk ◽  
Megan Aston

The construction of masculinities is an important component of the bodies and lives of gay men. The role of gay culture on body standards, body dissatisfaction, and the health of gay men was explored using poststructuralism and queer theory within an arts-based framework. Nine gay men were recruited within the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Participants were asked to photograph their beliefs, values, and practices relating to their bodies and food. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, using the photographs as guides. Data were analyzed by critical discourse analysis and resulted in three overarching threads of discourse including: (1) Muscles: The Bigger the Better, (2) The Silence of Hegemonic Masculinity, and (3) Embracing a New Day. Participants believed that challenging hegemonic masculinity was a way to work through body image tension.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Pileggi ◽  
Valentina Mascaro ◽  
Aida Bianco ◽  
Maria Pavia

The use of nonprescription medicines (NPDs) for children illnesses without a doctor’s suggestion can lead to unnecessary medication use and is not free of risks. The aim of our study was to examine attitudes and practice of parents towards NPDs use for their children. We also investigated the conditions that may predict NPDs use. A cross-sectional survey was conducted on parents of children attending Community Based Pediatrician (CBP) consultation and data were collected through structured interviews. Positive attitude on NPDs use was reported by 71.4% of parents, and 61.5% of them had administered NPDs in the previous 6 months. Antipyretic drugs were the most frequently used medication class without the supervision of the CBP. A positive attitude towards NPDs was significantly more frequent in parents who did not use the CBP as the sole source of information about drugs. The study demonstrated a widespread use of NPDs in children in our context, supported by a substantial positive attitude towards their safety. However, considering potential harms related to some NPDs and the finding that most parents rely on CBP advice, role of CBP on appropriate use of NPDs by parents should be emphasized.


2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veera Kangaspunta

The aim of this article is to approach one specific environmental topic and the public debate around this topic from a user-oriented perspective – through online news comments. The article analyses online news and comments sections from three Finnish online newspapers concerning the mining accident of Talvivaara company in November 2012. Discourse and discursive legitimation strategies are used as analytical tools with the focus of critical discourse analysis. The study aims to solve what kind of discourses the public debate contains and how these discourses are connected to certain legitimation strategies. In addition, the article also continues the conceptual deliberation about the concept of the public as a group of people participating in public discussion. The study shows that Talvivaara news and news comments consist four main strategies, authorization, rationalization, moral evaluations and mythopoiesis, used for legitimation, relegitimation and delegitimation. However, the parties differ in the way they utilize these strategies and different discourses. Consequently, online news commenting appears as a unique part of the public debate about the topic, rather than remaining marginal flaming. The users tend to absorb the role of the public as a part of the public showdown about the shared issue.


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 01-10
Author(s):  
Armendra Amar

The 1984 Bhopal Gas Leak tragedy has been classified as one of the World’s major Industrial accidents of the 20th century, recorded post 1919, by a United Nations Report. This tragedy killed thousands of people and maimed thousands. Union Carbide subsidiary pesticide plant released approximately 40 tonnes of Methyl Isocyanate (MIC) gas which went on to touch the lives of more than 500,000 people of the city. In a way, even after it immediately killed and maimed in thousands, it is still a continued disaster as the generations exposed to the toxic gases have been consistently showing up signs of physical and mental deformity. This gruesome event’s impacts on society are beyond time and space. The crucial question that renders is that how media dealt with the situation and to what extent it affects the everyday life of masses. This study came into initiation when the researcher visited the Methyl Ico-Cynate gas-affected area of Bhopal. During the pilot study, the researcher saw that people of the affected place were living in inadequate conditions. Thus, a concern piqued the interest of the researcher, and evoked an indispensible question: Is media fulfilling its responsibility as the fourth pillar of society in times of chaos and devastation, towards the public? For examining his queries researcher has taken renowned print media outlet’s articles of Bhopal gas tragedy as the content of the analysis. Hence on the basis of Hindi print media content of Bhopal gas disaster the researcher has taken the initiative to search appropriate answers to questions which examine the role of media after the tragic occurrence has taken place in society.


Revista Labor ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (18) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Eneas de Araújo Arrais Neto

Este artigo tem como objetivo analisar os edifícios sedes dos órgãos públicos federais construídos na cidade de Fortaleza durante os anos de vigência do “Regime Militar”. Parte da compreensão de que a arquitetura, enquanto objeto de fruição coletiva, assume o papel de meio de comunicação de massa no espaço urbano e, como tal, foi um dos instrumentos de divulgação ideológica dos governos militares dirigidos aos setores sociais urbanos; veiculando principalmente idéias de modernização, desenvolvimento, racionalidade, onipotência do poder estatal e autoritarismo. Analisa igualmente as influências, neste processo, da cultura de classe do setor burocrático-estatal, e propõe que estas edificações, ao estabelecerem novos padrões estéticos e de utilização de materiais e equipamentos de procedência tecnológica estrangeira, se constituíram em elementos importantes do processo de abertura da economia nacional ao capital multinacional, em particular no que diz respeito ao mercado da construção civil.Abstract This paper presents the arquitectural critique of a specific group of edifications built in the city of Fortaleza during the period of the military governments in Brazil. The character of the architecture developed by the military government in public buildings in this period is common all over the country: the facilities were built to with the intention to occupy the cities as out-doors of the military governments, diffusing images of modernization, rationality, economic development and the power of the state.   Through the use of architectural language, by the means of design, project, materials, forms and other ways, the architecture of the public sector played the role of ideology, besides introducing imported materials and equipment previously unused in the building sector of the country.


Author(s):  
Žiga KOTNIK ◽  
Dalibor STANIMIROVIĆ

"Policy processes are complex systems and require an in-depth and comprehensive analysis. Especially, factors that affect public policy design and implementation, as two important stages of the public policy cycle, have not been sufficiently explored. The aim of the paper is to analyze the relationship between two critical factors that influence the design and implementation of public policies in the case of Slovenia, namely strategic factors and normative factors, and offer a basis for comparison with similar countries. Based on twenty-two structured interviews with prominent public policy experts in Slovenia and content analysis of the responses, the findings reveal that, although strategic factors are identified by the interviewees as the most critical, the role of normative factors is also important and should not be underestimated. For various reasons, in practice, normative factors often turn out to be crucial."


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meghan Joy

This dissertation examines the claim that Age Friendly Cities (AFCs) represents an effective and revolutionary policy approach to population aging. The AFC approach is a placebased policy program intended to enhance the ‘fit’ between senior citizens and their environment. Mainstream accounts of AFCs claim that the program represents a paradigmatic shift in the way we think about aging, to move away from an individual health deficit approach to one that seeks to improve local environments by empowering seniors and local policy actors. However, initial critical literature notes that while AFCs may offer the potential to expand social and physical infrastructure investments to accommodate diverse population needs, they are being popularized in a conjuncture where the public sector is being restructured through narrow projects of neoliberalism that call for limiting public redistribution. This literature calls for further empirical studies to better understand the gap between AFC claims and practice. I heed this call through a qualitative case study of AFCs in the City of Toronto; a particularly relevant case because the recent Toronto Seniors Strategy has been critiqued for being more symbolic than substantive. My research represents a critical policy study as I understand AFCs not as a technical policy tool but as a political object attractive to conflicting progressive and neoliberal projects that use rhetorical and practical strategies to ensure their actualization. My approach is normative as I seek to provide insight for a transformative ‘right to the city’ for senior citizens through the AFC approach. I use literature on citizenship to understand the multiplicity of political projects that seek to expand or narrow the relations between people, environments and institutions through the AFC program. This understanding is based on the meanings 82 different policy actors from local government, the non-profit sector, academia, and other levels of government make of their everyday work in creating age-friendly environments. The broad question I ask is: How do local policy actors understand the rhetoric and practice of AFCs in Toronto and how do these understandings illustrate particular expansive and narrow political projects that affect the development of a right to the city for senior citizens through this policy program? I begin with an initial Case Chapter that scopes age friendly policy work in Toronto from a ‘seeing like a city’ perspective that identifies the complex multi-scalar and multi-actor nature of this policy domain. The Recognizing Seniors and Role of Place Chapters then examine AFCs rhetorically with respect to how local policy actors understand the ‘person’ and the ‘environment’. The Rescaling Redistribution and Restructuring Governance Chapters explore the practice of AFCs, including how local policy actors understand their capacities to design and deliver age-friendly services and amenities and the institutional mechanisms at their disposal to action AFCs. My findings challenge the claim that the AFC policy approach is effective, let alone revolutionary. I learn from policy actors that narrow projects of restructuring work to assemble seemingly progressive rhetoric and practice around active aging and localism to reduce universal public provision, expand the role of private citizens and their families to provide care, and use local policy actors as residual providers of last resort. My research documents how more expansive understandings of senior citizens as rights bearers and the role of the public and non-profit sector to recognize and redistribute on this basis are also in operation. Understanding these political projects more deeply through the AFC policy program helps me to offer policy insight as to what is needed both rhetorically and practically to craft a more effective and revolutionary alternative AFC model based on a right to the city for senior citizens.


2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 844-864
Author(s):  
Eric Linhart ◽  
Oke Bahnsen

The German electoral law to the federal parliament was reformed in 2011 and in 2013 . While political scientists have extensively evaluated consequences of these reforms, the role of the public discourse has been largely neglected . We analyze articles from three leading German newspapers (FAZ, SZ, Welt) on this topic and find the debate around the reforms to be dominated by parties and political institutions . Scientists, interest groups, and journalists have only played minor roles . Regarding content, the discourse largely focused on surplus seats, reform speed, and a proposal by the CDU/CSU‑FDP coalition government in 2011 . A broad public debate in which multiple social groups could participate has not taken place . From a normative perspective this is problematic since the lack of a public debate might have contributed to the poor quality of the reform’s result .


Author(s):  
María Isabel Huerta-Carvajal ◽  
Luis Felipe Luna-Reyes

Local governments around the world are becoming aware of the importance of identifying and marketing their local assets to promote economic competitiveness. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have proven useful in supporting marketing activities in the private sector, but there is still little exploration on their use in the public sector. However, ICT effectiveness is constrained by institutional arrangements and the coordination of the marketing efforts with other government processes such as urban planning and strategy development. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the strategic scaffolding for ICT as a key component of a city’s marketing strategy using as an example the city of Puebla in Mexico. Although city marketing efforts and ICT use are still at its initial stages in the city, lessons from current efforts in Puebla are related to the key role of stakeholder networks, ICT interoperability, Geographic Information Systems, and government program continuity.


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