Do Local Newspapers Mitigate the Effects of the Polarized National Rhetoric on COVID-19?

This analysis tests two distinct predictions regarding local newspapers’ coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. A public service view of local newspapers predicts that a robust local newspaper sector would mitigate the politicized national partisan rhetoric surrounding COVID-19; reducing the disparity in social-distancing behaviors between predominantly Republican and predominantly Democratic counties by increasing compliance in Republican counties. The alternative hypothesis, informed by a demand-side view of the market pressures local newspapers face, predicts that increased competition between local newspapers will increase the degree to which local newspapers amplify the rhetoric of national officials in line with the partisan composition of their community, further polarizing adherence to social-distancing behaviors across predominantly Republican versus predominantly Democratic counties. The results of this analysis offer strong support for the second hypothesis; but, an additional analysis of vaccination rates offers a more nuanced perspective than a simple public service versus demand-side dichotomy would imply.

Remembering summer in the city: Production and consumption of yanqishui in twentieth-century Shanghai

By investigating the history of how yanqishui, originally a drink for factory heatstroke prevention, changed from welfare in the Mao years to a popular drink in post-socialist Shanghai, this article attempts to show the historical continuity of consumption in modern China and that the understanding of consumption patterns must be rooted in a local context. Using archives, local newspapers, memoirs, and interviews, the article explores the symbolic meanings of yanqishui before China’s 1978 reforms, which have left a deep impression on the Chinese masses and continuously impacted consumption thereafter. It argues that the popularity of yanqishui in contemporary Shanghai, to an extent, represents some kind of nostalgic consumption. However, instead of a nationwide sentiment, the nostalgia is sometimes local. As the biggest commercial center and then an industrial core in China’s modern history, Shanghai left people special memories on yanqishui that have greatly shaped the local consumer culture.

“The Peripatetic Philosopher”: Unlocking the Trauma of Richard Jefferies

This article considered the juvenilia of Richard Jefferies in light of the traumatic experiences of his early childhood, which included the sudden loss of his elder sister and a move from the country to the city to live with his aunt and uncle. Using a psychobiographical approach the article considers the impact of the prejudice directed towards him from the local Swindon community during his mid-to-late teens, which spurred him forward in honing his skill as an observational writer. Consonant with this process was the discovery and expression of his authentic voice, which was tempered by the financial need to write for the local newspapers. The article illustrates how his treatment of an area of waste land near his boyhood home affords insight into his emotional wellbeing and his maturation as an author and thinker. Through the close reading of passages written between the ages of sixteen and nineteen, alongside excerpts from his mature works, the article identifies a new unexplored dimension to the author and his works at a formative time in his career.

Ḥalāl linguistic meaning understanding among Non-Muslim in Malaysia

Ḥalāl discourse is not only familiar to Muslims, but also non-Muslims in Malaysia. This study discusses the response from non-Muslim in Malaysian ḥalāl discourse, with the objectives of identifying the ḥalāl linguistic meaning among non-Muslim in Malaysia. The discussion of meaning is based on the language interpretation which used in Sunni pragmatic research, such as how language is perceived either literal or figurative meanings based Mohamed & Yunis (2013) and Russell (1940) approach that focuses on the meaning and fact in his language theory. The data in the discussion related to the non-Muslims response towards 5 categories of ḥalāl implementation, namely ḥalāl food, ḥalāl certification, ḥalāl sign, ḥalāl name or brand of the product and ḥalāl supply chain. The data were the controversial ḥalāl issues from 2014 to 2018 taken from local newspapers such as Star Online. The discussion demonstrates that the understanding of non-Muslims linguistically can be traced from the keywords, such as understanding, compliance, awareness, acceptance and recognised which are denotatively having positive meanings. However, there are other words denotatively having negative meanings such as confusion and sensitivity. The result also shows ḥalāl does not only concern Muslims but non-Muslims as well. In principle, Islam does not prohibit non-Muslims from consuming the products offered based on guidelines recommended in Islam. The findings reveal that ḥalāl understanding in Malaysia still needs to be strengthened among non-Muslims. Therefore, the understanding and knowledge of ḥalāl implementation is the main pillar in maintaining the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims in this society.

Načrti avtonomne in upravne organiziranosti Slovenske krajine v obdobju Károlyijeve ljudske republike (od novembra 1918 do marca 1919)

The article discusses a specific field of the history of the Prekmurje Slovenes and the Prekmurje area itself, from the end of the First World War to the formation of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, namely attempts to find a solution for the administrative or autonomous organization of the Slovene community there, to keep the Prekmurje area as a part of the Hungarian state. Various Slovene and Hungarian studies have mentioned contents related to attempts at the autonomous or administrative organization of the Slovene community (probably most thoroughly written by László Kővágó and Miroslav Kokolj). However, there have been almost no articles that would focus directly on this topic. In the context of the preparation of this article we have primarily processed the Hungarian and Slovene archive resources (as well as some newly researched ones), published local newspapers from that period (especially Novine and Muraszombat és vidéke) and a part of literature, where the authors – allthough the studies were mostly ideologically oriented – also devoted major attention to substantive questions of the planned autonomous and administrative arrangements of Prekmurje Slovenes.

Crime, Sensation, and Empire

<p><b>The 1857 criminal trial of Madeleine Smith for the murder of Pierre Emile L’Angelier became a cause célèbre throughout the British world. Enmeshed with scandal and speculation, it involved a secret affair between a young upper middle-class Glasgow woman and her older foreign lover of lower social standing; accusations of arsenic poisoning that led to his demise; erotic love letters that were read out in court; and an inconclusive—and uniquely Scottish—verdict of ‘not proven’. In 1866, a butcher under the name of Thomas Castro from Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, claimed to be the heir to an ancient English baronetcy: the Tichborne estates. Similarly described as its own cause célèbre, the Tichborne baronetcy case spanned two long-running civil and criminal trials and led to a political movement in Britain that continued to take aim at political, legal, and religious institutions long after the trials had ended, in 1874.</b></p> <p>Although the crimes at the centre of the two cases were incongruous, both Madeleine Smith and the Tichborne Claimant ignited significant public debate over criminal procedures, class, gender, and identity. Smith’s case played a key role in the development of ‘sensation’ journalism and literature centred on the violent propensities that lurked beneath the seemingly respectable and repressive Victorian social code, while the Tichborne Claimant’s case confronted Britons with anxieties around the definition of ‘respectability’ and the homecoming of expatriates from the colonies.</p> <p>While coverage of the cases has been well-documented within Britain, less scholarly attention has been paid to their pervasive coverage in the colony of Australia. Both cases were major news items in the colonial press, as updates on the trials were sourced from British media outlets and published in local newspapers almost daily. So pervasive was the coverage that gossip and misinformation surrounding the two cases spread throughout Australia and, to a lesser extent, New Zealand, as speculation surrounded Smith’s later whereabouts over the late nineteenth century and questions about the Tichborne Claimant’s identity lingered.</p> <p>By examining the widespread coverage of the cases in Australia, this work explores how the cases harnessed the communicative powers of the press and stirred sensation in and outside of Britain. Both cases played a role in forging British-Australian transnational identities in the colonies, as Australian newspapers lent their unique voices to associated British metropolitan discussions and weighed in on the respective trial verdicts. With Smith embodying the perceived exodus of undesirable migrants to Australia and the Tichborne Claimant representing colonial life being brought back to the British metropole, Australian newspapers also used the cases to confront the way British metropolitan newspapers wrote about the colony. Fixation on the appearances, manners, and movements of Smith and the Tichborne Claimant, and the crimes with which they were implicated, meant that the Australian newspaper press became an arena for long-standing and far-reaching debate about class, social respectability, gender, sexuality, criminality, and colonial justice.</p>

Crime, Sensation, and Empire

<p><b>The 1857 criminal trial of Madeleine Smith for the murder of Pierre Emile L’Angelier became a cause célèbre throughout the British world. Enmeshed with scandal and speculation, it involved a secret affair between a young upper middle-class Glasgow woman and her older foreign lover of lower social standing; accusations of arsenic poisoning that led to his demise; erotic love letters that were read out in court; and an inconclusive—and uniquely Scottish—verdict of ‘not proven’. In 1866, a butcher under the name of Thomas Castro from Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, claimed to be the heir to an ancient English baronetcy: the Tichborne estates. Similarly described as its own cause célèbre, the Tichborne baronetcy case spanned two long-running civil and criminal trials and led to a political movement in Britain that continued to take aim at political, legal, and religious institutions long after the trials had ended, in 1874.</b></p> <p>Although the crimes at the centre of the two cases were incongruous, both Madeleine Smith and the Tichborne Claimant ignited significant public debate over criminal procedures, class, gender, and identity. Smith’s case played a key role in the development of ‘sensation’ journalism and literature centred on the violent propensities that lurked beneath the seemingly respectable and repressive Victorian social code, while the Tichborne Claimant’s case confronted Britons with anxieties around the definition of ‘respectability’ and the homecoming of expatriates from the colonies.</p> <p>While coverage of the cases has been well-documented within Britain, less scholarly attention has been paid to their pervasive coverage in the colony of Australia. Both cases were major news items in the colonial press, as updates on the trials were sourced from British media outlets and published in local newspapers almost daily. So pervasive was the coverage that gossip and misinformation surrounding the two cases spread throughout Australia and, to a lesser extent, New Zealand, as speculation surrounded Smith’s later whereabouts over the late nineteenth century and questions about the Tichborne Claimant’s identity lingered.</p> <p>By examining the widespread coverage of the cases in Australia, this work explores how the cases harnessed the communicative powers of the press and stirred sensation in and outside of Britain. Both cases played a role in forging British-Australian transnational identities in the colonies, as Australian newspapers lent their unique voices to associated British metropolitan discussions and weighed in on the respective trial verdicts. With Smith embodying the perceived exodus of undesirable migrants to Australia and the Tichborne Claimant representing colonial life being brought back to the British metropole, Australian newspapers also used the cases to confront the way British metropolitan newspapers wrote about the colony. Fixation on the appearances, manners, and movements of Smith and the Tichborne Claimant, and the crimes with which they were implicated, meant that the Australian newspaper press became an arena for long-standing and far-reaching debate about class, social respectability, gender, sexuality, criminality, and colonial justice.</p>