The Concept of Hybridity in Journalism Studies

This paper considers the use of the concept of hybridity in journalism studies, arguing that the concept of hybridity has served an important role in reorienting the field in the face of important processes of social change, but that as a “sensitizing concept” in the sense that Herbert Blumer used the term, it requires critical reflection and more careful specification of its various uses. In the first sections, we map three principal contexts in which the concept has been invoked: one focusing on new media and the blurring of professional boundaries it produces; one focusing on global flows of journalism culture, and a third which treats hybridity not as a novel but as quotidian and rooted in the structural context of the practice of journalism in general. The second part of the paper focuses on issues and challenges in the use of the concept of hybridity. We consider the tendency for hybridity to become a catch-all phrase that substitutes for more specific analysis, and the problem of treating novel phenomena as derivative forms of familiar ones. We then move to critique “presentism” in the discussion of hybridity and the distortions that result from drawing dichotomies between hybrid and “pure” forms, making the argument for taking seriously the idea that hybridity is universal. In the final section, we propose the idea of the hybridity cycle as a way of thinking about stability and change in journalism studies.

‘Meteor’ as the First Official Łódź-Based Literary Group

The article is devoted to the first Łódź-based literary group called ‘Meteor’, which operated in 1928-1930. The author mainly focuses on providing a reliable discussion of the circumstances of the establishing of the group by its founders, i.e. Grzegorz Timofiejew, Marian Piechal, and Kazimierz Sowiński, and a careful specification of its programme. She also interpreted the Meteor’s works, i.e. revolutionist literary texts published in the Czasopismo Poetyckie Meteor, created by the members of the group.

Rethinking mechanism and process in the geographical analysis of uneven development

Speaking directly to economic and political geographers working on uneven development, this article critically examines the deployment of two key concepts, mechanism and process, as analytical tools for causal explanation in geographical analysis during the past two decades. Drawing upon critical realism to develop a theory of mechanism, this article clarifies the conceptual distinction between mechanism and process. Whereas process is conceived as a contingent change in the sequential series of entities and their relations, mechanism serves as a necessary relation to connect an initial causal condition with its particular socio-spatial outcomes in context. This analytical distinction between a contingent process of change and a necessary mechanism for an outcome requires a careful specification of the concrete outcomes to be explained and the working of various mechanisms. Illustrating my case through existing studies of neoliberalization and, briefly, path dependence, I argue that there is a tendency in the literature to conflate mechanism and process in different meso-level theories of socio-spatial change. This conflation, in turn, distorts the causal links in core concepts and reduces their explanatory efficacy in accounting for uneven development. Rethinking mechanism and process can therefore help revitalize systematic explanations of uneven development as one of geography’s core intellectual projects and contributions to the social sciences; it can also allow geographers to engage more productively with the rapidly growing mechanistic thought in analytical sociology, political science and the philosophy of social science during the past two decades.

Longitudinal Structural Equation Modeling in Lifespan Developmental Analyses

Longitudinal structural equation modeling (LSEM) is used to answer lifespan relevant questions such as (a) what is the effect of one variable on change in and other, (b) what is the average trajectory or growth rate of some psychological variable, and (c) what variability is there in average trajectories and what predicts this variability. The first of these questions is often answered by a LSEM called an autoregressive cross-lagged (ACL) model. The other two questions are most typically answered by an LSEM called a latent growth curve (LGC). These models can be applied to a few time waves (measured over several years) or to many time waves (such as present in diary studies) and can be altered, expanded, or even integrated. However, decisions on what model to use must be driven by the research question. The right tool for the job is not always the most complex. And, more importantly, the right tool must be matched to the best possible research design. Sometimes in lifespan research the right tool is LSEM. However, researchers should prioritize research design as well as careful specification of the processes and mechanisms they are interested in rather than simply choosing the most complicated LSEM they can find.

Anchored Correlation Explanation: Topic Modeling with Minimal Domain Knowledge

While generative models such as Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) have proven fruitful in topic modeling, they often require detailed assumptions and careful specification of hyperparameters. Such model complexity issues only compound when trying to generalize generative models to incorporate human input. We introduce Correlation Explanation (CorEx), an alternative approach to topic modeling that does not assume an underlying generative model, and instead learns maximally informative topics through an information-theoretic framework. This framework naturally generalizes to hierarchical and semi-supervised extensions with no additional modeling assumptions. In particular, word-level domain knowledge can be flexibly incorporated within CorEx through anchor words, allowing topic separability and representation to be promoted with minimal human intervention. Across a variety of datasets, metrics, and experiments, we demonstrate that CorEx produces topics that are comparable in quality to those produced by unsupervised and semi-supervised variants of LDA.

Internal Cumulants for Femtoscopy with Fixed Charged Multiplicity

A detailed understanding of all effects and influences on higher-order correlations is essential. At low charged multiplicity, the effect of a non-Poissonian multiplicity distribution can significantly distort correlations. Evidently, the reference samples with respect to which correlations are measured should yield a null result in the absence of correlations. We show how the careful specification of desired properties necessarily leads to an average-of-multinomials reference sample. The resulting internal cumulants and their averaging over several multiplicities fulfill all requirements of correctly taking into account non-Poissonian multiplicity distributions as well as yielding a null result for uncorrelated fixed-Nsamples. Various correction factors are shown to be approximations at best. Careful rederivation of statistical variances and covariances within the frequentist approach yields errors for cumulants that differ from those used so far. We finally briefly discuss the implementation of the analysis through a multiple event buffer algorithm.

Setting domain boundaries for convergence of biological and psychological perspectives on cognitive coordination in schizophrenia

The claim that the disorganized subtype of schizophrenia results from glutamate hypofunction is enhanced by consideration of current subtypology of schizophrenia, symptom definition, interdependence of neurotransmitters, and the nature of the data needed to support the hypothesis. Careful specification clarifies the clinical reality of disorganization as a feature of schizophrenia and increases the utility of the subtype.

Albert Aftalion's Macrodynamic Theory of Endogenous Business Cycles

Albert Aftalion is certainly one of the best known French economists of the first half of the twentieth century. The influence he exerted during his lifetime over the scientific community of his homeland was considerable, and he was promptly acknowledged abroad to be one of the leading theorists of the business cycle. While he is best known as one of the inventors of the acceleration principle (Haberler 1937), we will focus on Aftalion's endogenous explanation of non-monetary business cycles and, more specifically, on the theoretical framework supporting Les crises périodiques de surproduction. Though this work can be seen as a mere “(desperate) attempt” to reconcile the law of markets with general overproduction (Abraham-Frois 1987), we argue instead that Aftalion's failure to construct an equilibrium theory of aggregate overproduction can be traced back to his inadequate treatment of aggregate demand. According to him, long roundabout processes are what generate cyclical fluctuations within a setting in which commodities produced and brought to the market always find an outlet. In other words, the law of markets implies market clearing where declines in prices instead of involuntary stock-building occur in the event of a crisis. How demand behaves in such a setting requires careful specification, which is precisely what is lacking in Aftalion's model.

Prediction of Pressure Drop for Incompressible Flow Through Screens

A new pressure loss correlation predicts flow through screens for the wire Reynolds number range of 10−4 to 104 using the conventional orthogonal porosity and a function of wire Reynolds number. The correlation is extended by the conventional cosine law to include flow that is not perpendicular to the screen. The importance of careful specification of wire diameter for accurate predictions of porosity is examined. The effective porosity is influenced by the shape of the woven wires, by any local damage, and by screen tension.

Dimensions of resource dependence: some elements of rigor in concept and policy analysis

Many commentators have sounded alarms about the alleged dependence of developed, industrialized countries on assured supplies of raw materials from overseas. Their alarms have disturbing implications for the future of these countries' foreign policies and may, for example, be used to justify political or military interventions in the Third World. These commentators, however, frequently proceed from very primitive conceptual foundations. A careful specification of the dangers involved, and of strategies for measuring various aspects of dependence, points up some of the shortcomings of simplistic analysis. It also suggests that the risks of dependence on foreign sources of most raw materials are easily exaggerated, at least for the United States.