Law Commons^™

The Douban Online Social Media Barometer And The Chinese Reception Of Korean Popular Culture Flows, Brian Yecies, Jie Yang, Ae-Gyung Shim, Kai Ruo Soh, Matthew J. Berryman

Dr Brian Yecies

Since its launch in 2005, the Chinese online social networking site Douban has become a key platform for creating and sharing user-generated content on a rising tide of global popular culture. Such content and its corresponding user data has become so prolific that Western media outlets are now using Douban a key barometer for gauging representative opinions and attitudes towards foreign content in China. However, a full range of tools for harvesting and analyzing Chinese-language datasets has yet to be explored in English. This article attempts to fill this gap by investigating the applicability of an analytical framework that can …

The Front Line Of Social Capital Creation – A Natural Experiment In Symbolic Interaction, Roger Patulny, Peter Siminski, Silvia Mendolia

Silvia Mendolia

This paper offers theoretical and empirical contributions to understanding the micro-sociological processes behind the creation of social capital. Theoretically, we argue that the emotional and shared experience of participating in symbolic interaction rituals may affect social capital in four different ways, via: (i) a 'citizenship' effect, connecting participants symbolically to the broader, civic society; (ii) a 'supportive' effect, bonding participants with each other; (iii) an exclusive 'tribal' effect, which crowds-out connections with other groups and the wider society; and (iv) an 'atomising' effect, whereby intense experiences create mental health problems that damage social capital. We illustrate this with a case …

The Marriage Tax Revisited: An Analysis Of The Tax Consequences Of Marriage, Dan Subotnik

Dan Subotnik

No abstract provided.

The Social And Behavioral Implications Of Location-Based Services, Katina Michael, M.G. Michael

Associate Professor Katina Michael

The social and behavioral implications of location-based services (LBS) are only now beginning to come to light in advanced markets where the services have been adopted by just a little over half the market (Microsoft 2011). Depending on one’s definition of what constitutes location-based services, statistics on the level of adoption differ considerably. While it is helpful to provide as broad a list of applications as possible in what constitutes LBS (e.g. everything from in-vehicle navigation systems to downloading a map using a computer), it can also cloud the real picture forming behind this emerging technology. Emerging not in the …

"New" Human Rights : U.S. Ambivalence Toward The International Economic And Social Rights Framework, Hope Lewis

Hope Lewis

Economic and social rights (including rights to food, adequate housing, public education, the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, fair wages, decent labor conditions, and social security) still occupy a second-class, outsider status in official United States domestic and foreign policy. This is no accident. The full recognition and implementation of such rights pose a direct threat. But that threat is not primarily to democracy or American values as some believe. Rather, because they demonstrate our system's failures to achieve equality, they threaten the deeply held belief that our country has already achieved a truly representative, human rights-based …

Transnational Dimensions Of Race In America, Hope Lewis

Hope Lewis

Race, a key concept in international human rights law from the beginning, should still be high on today's global priority list. However, to remain a useful concept in our increasingly complex world, race must be defined and explored as a transnational and multidimensional social construct. I reflect here on the complex nature of "Blackness." I suggest that international human rights law should engage intra-racial diversity among Blacks along cultural, gender, political, economic, and ethnic lines. Because "Blackness" itself is a product of popular social consciousness, I draw here on popular accounts of U.S Black migration and stories about the Presidential …

Same-Sex Marriage, Second-Class Citizenship, And Law's Social Meanings, Michael C. Dorf

Michael C. Dorf

Government acts, statements, and symbols that carry the social meaning of second-class citizenship may, as a consequence of that fact, violate the Establishment Clause or the constitutional requirement of equal protection. Yet social meaning is often contested. Do laws permitting same-sex couples to form civil unions but not to enter “marriages” convey the social meaning that gays and lesbians are second-class citizens? Do official displays of the Confederate battle flag unconstitutionally convey support for slavery and white supremacy? When public schools teach evolution but not creationism, do they show disrespect for creationists? Different audiences reach different conclusions about the meaning …

Protect The Children: Challenges That Result In, And Consequences Resulting From, Inconsistent Prosecution Of Child Pornography Cases In A Technological World, Francis S. Monterosso

Francis S Monterosso

This Note untangles courts’ problems with the prosecution of child pornography defendants and aims to redirect attention to the social impact associated with these crimes. First, Part I provides an introduction to the Note and discusses the background of the Child Pornography Prevention Act. Secondly, Part II sets forth the evolution of the CPPA and its goals and shortcomings. Next, Part III further explains the development of child pornography prosecutions in the United States through two cases that illustrate the government’s desire to prosecute child pornography defendants.

Moreover, Part IV explains the difficulties courts have encountered in the prosecution of …

Transnational Dimensions Of Race In America, Hope Lewis

Hope Lewis

Race, a key concept in international human rights law from the beginning, should still be high on today's global priority list. However, to remain a useful concept in our increasingly complex world, race must be defined and explored as a transnational and multidimensional social construct. I reflect here on the complex nature of "Blackness." I suggest that international human rights law should engage intra-racial diversity among Blacks along cultural, gender, political, economic, and ethnic lines. Because "Blackness" itself is a product of popular social consciousness, I draw here on popular accounts of U.S Black migration and stories about the Presidential …

Transnational Dimensions Of Racial Identity : Reflecting On Race, The Global Economy, And The Human Rights Movement At 60, Hope Lewis

Hope Lewis

The last six decades have witnessed the end of formal colonialism, the adoption of the Race Convention, the rise of domestic civil rights movements and the partial implementation of affirmative action measures in North America and Europe, the end of formal apartheid in South Africa, a World Conference Against Racism and Xenophobia, and the election of the first African -American president of the United States of America. These positive developments seem to signal the potential for a new, non-racist, global perspective. "Another World is Possible," as the saying goes.

Nevertheless, and during the same period, mass killing, genocide, and ethnic …

"New" Human Rights : U.S. Ambivalence Toward The International Economic And Social Rights Framework, Hope Lewis

Hope Lewis

Economic and social rights (including rights to food, adequate housing, public education, the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, fair wages, decent labor conditions, and social security) still occupy a second-class, outsider status in official United States domestic and foreign policy. This is no accident. The full recognition and implementation of such rights pose a direct threat. But that threat is not primarily to democracy or American values as some believe. Rather, because they demonstrate our system's failures to achieve equality, they threaten the deeply held belief that our country has already achieved a truly representative, human rights-based …

Google Your Applicants: Prospective Employers Are Increasingly Vetting Candidates' Web Pages, Michael D. Mann

Michael D. Mann

No abstract provided.

Statement Of Jeanne M. Woods And Hope Lewis Prepared For The Hearings Of The United Nations Special Rapporteur On Extreme Poverty, Dr. Arjun Sengupta On The Aftermath Of Hurricane Katrina, Hope Lewis, Jeanne Woods

Hope Lewis

This Statement was submitted to the UN Independent Expert on Human Rights and Extreme Poverty, Dr. Arjun Sengupta in the aftermath of the Hurricane Katrina disaster on the Gulf Coast of the United States in 2005. The Statement, submitted during the Independent Expert’s fact-finding visit, expresses concern about the extensive and alarming human rights implications of United States federal, state and local government policy and activities before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina. The Statement argues that the inadequate response of government officials at all levels reflects the impact of “globalization in miniature” on the poor and other vulnerable and subordinated …

Embracing Complexity : Human Rights In Critical Race Feminist Perspective, Hope Lewis

Hope Lewis

Although the voices of "women of all colors" have furthered the goals and norms of feminist human rights scholarship, the voices of women of color and Third World women have often been rejected, ignored, or otherwise made invisible. Critical Race Feminist and other multicultural approaches to legal scholarship attempt to unite such voices and reveal their experiences and perspectives in feminist human rights discourse. This Article hypothesizes that Critical Race Feminist will make important contributions to the overall international human rights agenda. It identifies four common themes in a feminist multicultural approach to human rights scholarship: (1) the recognition that …

Global Intersections : Critical Race Feminist Human Rights And Inter/National Black Women, Hope Lewis

Hope Lewis

Although there have been great strides in feminist human rights efforts in developing methods to prevent domestic violence and other forms of "private" violence against women, feminists still have far to go. For instance, feminists have only recently begun to acknowledge that physical, social, and economic violence against women, especially poor women of color, is perpetuated in part by top-down globalization. This Article demonstrates how Critical Race Feminist analysis, a set of approaches to legal scholarship rooted in feminist and anti-racist critical traditions, reconceptualizes the human rights problems facing Black women who migrate between the United States and Jamaica. Like …