This article uses data from the Eurobarometer series to comparatively present Romania's evolution of optimism/pessimism and trust in institutions, compared to the EU from 2017 to 2023. The premise of ...the discussion is that the overlap of multiple crises – the health crisis associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, the geopolitical crisis stemming from the war in Ukraine, and the economic crisis resulting from both – leads to changes regarding individuals' outlook on both their own future (optimism/pessimism) and the social environment around them (trust in institutions). The data presented here suggest that Romania stands out from the EU due to a high degree of instability in perceptions, as well as the observation that politics and daily life seem to be two disconnected domains in Romania.
Images of socio-political, economic, and environmental catastrophes constantly hit our imaginary: wars and humanitarian disasters provoke anxieties and mental and physical diseases. So, the boundary ...between realism and dystopia has become even more brittle, also in literature. The present essay intends to examine the dystopian traits of some contemporary novels – Generosity by Richard Powers, Solar by Ian McEwan, Margaret Drabble’s Pure Gold Baby, The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid, and Richard Flanagan’s The Living Sea of Waking Dreams – which cannot be properly considered as dystopian or realistic texts. Each novel is set in times and spaces that are weirdly familiar, where alienating presents and futures develop in-between human emotions and the satisfaction of the consumer in a mercified society. The essay will investigate if contemporary novels can resist and narrate the contrasting feelings deriving from the idea that everything can happen, everywhere and to anyone, in a world where also the most astonishing and baleful warnings of the dystopian fiction are becoming real.
Purpose: We intend to identify the links between Covid-19 and domestic violence, expose the potential reasons behind an increase in domestic violence cases due to Covid-19, and argue that rising ...incidence of domestic violence may lead to economic and social crisis. Method: This is a brief note in which authors rely on various statistics and insights regarding domestic violence since the detection of Covid-19. Based on the available statistics regarding domestic violence prevalence during previous times of uncertainty, the number and nature of domestic violence incidents around the globe, and existing literature, the authors argue that clear links exist between Covid-19 and domestic violence, which also impacts on the economic and social crisis. Results: Countries across the world are battling Covid-19 by enacting measures to reduce the speed of transmission. Multiple reports, however, suggest that such measures are increasing the incidence of domestic violence and not only in number but also in severity. We find that layoffs, loss of income, extended domestic stays, and exposure to habits due to stay-at-home orders are driving up the incidence of domestic violence. Moreover, these domestic violence increases are driving economic and social crises due to the form and severity of the violence, the burden placed on government, a crisis of resources, and decreases in the productivity of workforces. Conclusion: Domestic violence increase resulting from Covid-19 is an indirect driver of economic and social crisis. This brief note proposes certain policy changes and strategies required to reduce domestic violence incidence during this turbulent time.
•The Cashbox allows UK firms to conduct SEO without investors’ votes during COVID-19, sparking debates on liquidity and agency issues.•The market reacts more favorably to Cashbox than other SEOs, ...indicating a priority of liquidity easing concerns.•The market reaction increases with corporate financial constraints, further supporting a Liquidity Ease Hypothesis.•Governance quality is still valued during COVID-19, as Cashbox firms with better governance experience a better market reaction.
This study investigates the market impact of the “Cashbox” policy introduced in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic, which eased shareholder approval norms for equity issuances. Using manually collected data, we find that Cashbox issue announcements yield abnormal returns 4–6 % higher than other issuances, indicating that investors prioritise liquidity over agency concerns during the pandemic. Notably, this effect is more pronounced in firms facing greater financial constraints or exhibiting superior corporate governance. Our study sheds light on the impact of crisis-driven policy changes on financial markets, providing important and timely implications for policymakers and investors on the trade-off between rapid capital access and governance standards in times of significant social crises.
Recent extreme events show that Twitter, a micro-blogging service, is emerging as the dominant social reporting tool to spread information on social crises. It is elevating the online public ...community to the status of first responders who can collectively cope with social crises. However, at the same time, many warnings have been raised about the reliability of community intelligence obtained through social reporting by the amateur online community. Using rumor theory, this paper studies citizen-driven information processing through Twitter services using data from three social crises: the Mumbai terrorist attacks in 2008, the Toyota recall in 2010, and the Seattle café shooting incident in 2012. We approach social crises as communal efforts for community intelligence gathering and collective information processing to cope with and adapt to uncertain external situations. We explore two issues: (1) collective social reporting as an information processing mechanism to address crisis problems and gather community intelligence, and (2) the degeneration of social reporting into collective rumor mills. Our analysis reveals that information with no clear source provided was the most important, personal involvement next in importance, and anxiety the least yet still important rumor causing factor on Twitter under social crisis situations.
This article addresses the summative effects of the social crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic on the health-disease-care process at the level of Chilean society in the neoliberal context. The ...economy-health relationship is deepened, a phenomenon that is interpreted from the conceptual framework of necropolitics. The retraumatizing effect of the human rights violations recorded during the popular mobilizations of the social revolt of October 2019 in Chile, including the practice of torture, is reviewed.
We aimed to observe the changes in suicide rates after the Great East Japan Earthquake and during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, as typical cases of social crises, in Japan. A descriptive ...epidemiological study was conducted using data on the number of deaths by suicide published by the National Police Agency. The suicide rate ratio during the crisis—the monthly suicide mortality rate in the year of the crisis divided by the average suicide mortality rate in the three years before the crisis—was used as the indicator. After the earthquake, in March 2011 the suicide rate was 18% lower than the average mortality rate for the previous three years. However, it increased by 18% in May and 8% in June; increased mortality was observed among women. The suicide rate began to decline after October 2011. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the suicide rate decreased from February to June 2020. The declines in April and May were significant at 20% and 18%, respectively. From July onwards, the suicide rate of women began to rise, and from October, the overall suicide also began to increase. The rise in female suicide rates was significant, especially in October, with an increase of 70%. Thus, during these crises, suicide rates fell temporarily but then rose, especially among women. The period of increase in suicide rates was longer during the COVID-19 pandemic than after the earthquake. Therefore, there is an urgent need to promote measures for suicide prevention currently, and during a future crisis.
•Suicide rates during the 2011 Earthquake and the COVID-19 pandemic were observed.•Suicide rates in Japan first decreased and then increased during social crises.•Suicide rates during these crises were higher among women.•The increase in suicide rates during the COVID-19 pandemic lasted longer throughout the country.•The increase in suicide rates after the earthquake lasted for several months in areas far from the affected areas.
The popular culture version of the zombie, developed over the latter half of the twentieth century, made only sporadic appearances in South Korean film, which may in part be attributed to the ...restrictions on the distribution of American and Japanese films before 1988. Thus the first zombie film Monstrous Corpse (Goeshi 1980, directed by Gang Beom-Gu), was a loose remake of the Spanish-Italian Non si deve profanare il sonno dei morti (1974). Monstrous Corpse was largely forgotten until given a screening by KBS in 2011. Zombies don’t appear again for a quarter of a century. This article examines four zombie films released between 2012 and 2018: “Ambulance”, the fourth film in Horror Stories (2012), a popular horror portmanteau film; Train to Busan (2016) (directed by Yeon Sang-Ho), the first South Korean blockbuster film in the “zombie apocalypse” sub-genre; Seoul Station (2016), an animation prequel to Train to Busan (also directed by Yeon Sang-Ho); and Rampant (2018, directed by Kim Seong-Hun ), a costume drama set in Korea’s Joseon era. Based on a cognitive studies approach, this article examines two conceptual metaphors which underlie these films: the very common metaphor, LIFE IS A JOURNEY, and the endemically Korean metaphor THE NATION IS A FAMILY.
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