Societies

Special Issue Editor

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Intersectional theorizing has developed into an important method for analyzing multiple sites of oppression or matrixes of domination that occur throughout the world today. With the advent of the Internet, the global information highway has been systematically used by international, national, and regional governmental and educational institutions; corporations; non-governmental organizations; and individuals to inform and misinform millions of its users. This call for papers for a Special Issue of the Societies Journal seeks theoretical and practical submissions that address this important problem. This topic may be viewed from a variety of perspectives, which include the role that institutions, corporations, and individuals play in including or excluding groups or individuals from, for example, housing, employment, migration, health, consumer, and educational opportunities. Authors may also examine the role that social media can play in supporting and/or attacking minority groups, which may include people who are oppressed because of their national, racial, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender, size, disability, and/or sexual orientation.

Dr. Valerie Zawilski
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as conceptual papers are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Societies is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

inequality
human rights
oppression
Internet
matrix of domination

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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21 pages, 289 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Before #MeToo: Violence against Women Social Media Work, Bystander Intervention, and Social Change

by Jordan Fairbairn

Societies 2020, 10(3), 51; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc10030051 - 15 Jul 2020

Cited by 20 | Viewed by 14256

Abstract

High-profile, social-media-fueled movements such as #MeToo have captured broader public attention in recent years and sparked widespread discussion of violence against women (VAW). However, online prevention work was underway in the years leading up to #MeToo, as the emergence and proliferation of social media enabled individuals to be increasingly active participants in shaping conversations about VAW. Situated within feminist VAW scholarship and the social–ecological framework of violence prevention, this paper draws from interviews with a cross-section of service providers, public educators, activists, advocates, writers, and researchers to analyze “conversation” as a central theme in VAW prevention work in social media. Results reveal that these conversations take place in three central ways: (1) engaging wider audiences in conversations to raise awareness about VAW; (2) narrative shifts challenging societal norms that support or enable VAW; and (3) mobilization around high-profile news stories. The paper finds that, through these conversations, this work moves beyond individual-level risk factors to target much needed community- and societal-level aspects, primarily harmful social norms that circulate and become reinforced in digital media spaces. Moreover, while bystander intervention has traditionally been approached as an offline pursuit to intervene in face-to-face situations of VAW, this paper argues that we can understand and value these VAW prevention efforts as an online form of bystander intervention. Finally, resource challenges and VAW prevention workers’ experiences of harassment and abuse related to their online work highlights a need to strengthen social and institutional supports for this work. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Social Inequality and Human Rights in a Digital World)

Other

Jump to: Research

14 pages, 615 KiB

Open AccessConcept Paper

In Biomedicine, Thin Is Still In: Obesity Surveillance among Racialized, (Im)migrant, and Female Bodies

by Iffath Unissa Syed

Societies 2019, 9(3), 59; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc9030059 - 15 Aug 2019

Cited by 14 | Viewed by 5785

Abstract

Currently there is a plethora of research literature which constructs obesity as an alarming new global pandemic associated with a multitude of acute and chronic diseases rooted in lifestyle factors. Although most of these claims related to obesity are well accepted in the research community, some challenges remain. For instance, lifestyle factors only partially explain the risks of developing obesity. In this paper, I have advocated for greater caution in interpreting some of the medical claims of obesity due to the epistemological and methodological assumptions that inform certain groups of obesity researchers. While most of the literature has reported lifestyle factors and behavior modification as the major mechanisms to achieving health and wellbeing, a few scholars have raised issues about structural factors. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Social Inequality and Human Rights in a Digital World)

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