Re-Shaming the Debate: Social Norms, Shame, and Regulation in an Internet Age
Advances in technology communication have dramatically changed the ways in which social norm enforcement is used to constrain behavior. Nowhere is this more powerfully demonstrated than through current events around online shaming and cyber-harassment. Low cost, anonymous, instant, and ubiquitous access to the Internet has removed most — if not all — of the natural checks on shaming. The result is norm enforcement that is indeterminate, uncalibrated, and often tips into behavior punishable in its own right — thus generating a debate over whether the State should intervene to curb online shaming and cyber-harassment.A few years before this change in technology, a group of legal scholars debated just the opposite; discussing the value of harnessing the power of social norm enforcement through shaming by using State shaming sanctions as a more efficient means of criminal punishment. Though the idea was discarded, many of their concerns were prescient and can inform today’s inverted new inquiry: whether the State should create limits on shaming and cyber-bullying. Perhaps more importantly, the debate reintroduces the notion of thinking of shaming within the framework of social norm enforcement, thus clarifying the taxonomy of online shaming, cyber-bullying, and cyber-harassment. This article ties together the current conversation around online shaming and cyber-bullying and cyber-harassment with the larger legal discussion around social norms and shaming sanctions. It argues that the introduction of the Internet has altered the social conditions in which people speak and thus changed the way we perceive and enforce social norms. Accordingly, online shaming is (1) an over-determined punishment with indeterminate social meaning; (2) not a calibrated or measured form of punishment; and (3) of little or questionable accuracy in who and what it punishes. In thus reframing the problem, this article looks at the viability of the legal, normative, private, and State solutions to controlling online shaming. It argues that looking only to State regulation will be an inefficient and ineffective solution. Instead, it proposes using the realizations from the shame debate, successful uses of online norm enforcement, and private remedies to inform the debate around State intervention.
A Retrospective Clinical Study to Evaluate Treatment Outcomes of Vital Pulp Therapy with ProRoot(RTM) Mineral Trioxide Aggregate, Endosequence(RTM) Root Repair Material, and Biodentine (RTM)
Fit to be Tied: Social Network Structures and Evaluation Apprehension by Andrew L. Nicholson In everyday life, people are typically connected to others, and these variably strong connections facilitate social influence related to a range of phenomena, from shaping body image and, impacting self-esteem to shaping behaviors through exhibiting social norms. Although the strongest ties (those most intimate and influential) can be very important to a person, there can also be a fear of judgement (i.e., evaluation apprehension) in those relationships. In online social networks, the relationship between tie strength and evaluation apprehension may emerge differently than in offline spaces due to affordances of social media, the asynchronous nature of computer-mediated communication, and the networked audience on social media; the potential influences of discrete ties may be additive because groups of strong ties may also exert a similar normative influence. In order to explore the possible links between evaluation apprehension and online social network structures (i.e., cumulative tie strength and network density), a study was conducted in which participants (N = 96) first completed an initial online survey (assessing online evaluation apprehension and demographics), then viewed an in-lab visualization of their Twitter network (to capture social network structure characteristics), and finally completed a second survey (to capture network use habits). Analysis revealed associations between evaluation apprehension and tie strength as well as evaluation apprehension and network density with a moderate effect size. Results are interpreted to suggest that evaluation apprehension may be digitally contextual, predictors of tie strength may serve as affirmation, social network features may influence evaluation apprehension, and digital social networks may function as a conglomerate discipline-mechanism similar to that of the panopticon.
Women's health in prison: urgent need for improvement in gender equity and social justice.
The needs of women held in detention have received little attention and con-tinue to be neglected by health systems and prison authorities. One reason for this, too readily accepted until now, is that women prisoners are a clear minor-ity group within prisons all over the world. It is only recently that attention has been drawn to the fact that a minor-ity status does not justify the widespread ignorance of women’s basic rights and the considerable gender insensitivity still dominating criminal justice systems.In Europe alone, there are about 100 000 women and girls in prison.