What's in a name?: a discussion paper on the labels and location of self-organising community groups, with particular reference to mental health and Black groups

This article discusses the labelling and location of self-organising community groups – ‘self-help’, ‘peer support’ and ‘service user’. It notes the increasingly close relationship between these groups and statutory authorities, and how this relationship may put the benefits of the groups at risk. Historical, cultural and social factors are discussed to help explain differences and separate developments within African, Caribbean and other Black communities

China’s Weibo: is faster different?

The popularization of microblogging in China represents a new challenge to the state’s regime of information control. The speed with which information is diffused in the microblogosphere has helped netizens to publicize and express their discontent with the negative consequences of economic growth, income inequalities and official corruption. In some cases, netizen led initiatives have facilitated the mobilization of online public opinion and forced the central government to intervene to redress acts of lower level malfeasance. However, despite the growing corpus of such cases, the government has quickly adapted to the changing internet ecology and is using the same tools to help it maintain control of society by enhancing its claims to legitimacy, circumscribing dissent, identifying malfeasance in its agents and using online public opinion to adapt policy and direct propaganda efforts. This essay reflects on microblogging in the context of the Chinese internet, and argues that successes in breaking scandals and mobilizing opinion against recalcitrant officials should not mask the reality that the government is utilizing the microblogosphere to its own advantage

Effects of antiplatelet therapy on stroke risk by brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases: subgroup analyses of the RESTART randomised, open-label trial

Background Findings from the RESTART trial suggest that starting antiplatelet therapy might reduce the risk of recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage compared with avoiding antiplatelet therapy. Brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases (such as cerebral microbleeds) are associated with greater risks of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage. We did subgroup analyses of the RESTART trial to explore whether these brain imaging features modify the effects of antiplatelet therapy

The self-management of longer-term depression: learning from the patient, a qualitative study

Background Depression is a common mental health condition now viewed as chronic or long-term. More than 50 % of people will have at least one further episode of depression after their first, and therefore it requires long-term management. However, little is known about the effectiveness of self-management in depression, in particular from the patients’ perspective. This study aimed to understand how people with longer-term depression manage the condition, how services can best support self-management and whether the principles and concepts of the recovery approach would be advantageous. Methods Semi-structured in depth interviews were carried out with 21 participants, recruited from a range of sources using maximum variation sampling. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was used by a diverse team comprised of service users, practitioners and academics. Results Four super-ordinate themes were found: experience of depression, the self, the wider environment, self-management strategies. Within these, several prominent sub-themes emerged of importance to the participants. These included how aspects of themselves such as hope, confidence and motivation could be powerful agents; and how engaging in a wide range of chosen activities could contribute to their emotional, mental, physical, social, spiritual and creative wellbeing. Conclusions Services in general were not perceived to be useful in specifically facilitating self-management. Increased choice and control were needed and a greater emphasis on an individualised holistic model. Improved information was needed about how to develop strategies and locate resources, especially during the first episode of depression. These concepts echoed those of the recovery approach, which could therefore be seen as valuable in aiding the self-management of depression. Keywords: Depression; Patients’ perspective; Qualitative research; Recovery; Self-help; Self-managemen

Information Revolutions and the Overthrow of Autocratic Regimes

This paper presents a model of information quality and political regime change. If enough citizens act against a regime, it is overthrown. Citizens are imperfectly informed about how hard this will be and the regime can, at a cost, engage in propaganda so that at face-value it seems hard. The citizens are rational and evaluate their information knowing the regime's incentives. The model makes three predictions. First, even rational citizens may not correctly infer the amount of manipulation. Second, as the intrinsic quality of information available becomes sufficiently high, the regime is more likely to survive. Third, the regime benefits from ambiguity about the amount of manipulation, and consequently, as it becomes cheaper to manipulate, the regime is also more likely to survive. Key results of the benchmark static model extend to a simple dynamic setting where there are waves of unrest

Prosumers in a digital multiverse: An investigation of how WeChat is affecting Chinese citizen journalism

WeChat is China’s most popular multi-purpose messaging and social media application and has been gaining popularity globally since its first release in 2011. In this article, we examine how the use of WeChat is affecting digitally-enabled citizen journalism in China. To achieve that purpose, we gathered data from 3 focus-group interviews with Chinese WeChat users. The findings suggest that WeChat’s integration of multiple communicative networks renders it a multiversal space where citizen journalistic practice can transverse across public, semi-public, and private spheres. The diverse communicative affordances of WeChat could facilitate ‘metavoicing’ practice as a form of citizen journalism, and enable news production and consumption to converge. Consequently, users’ experiences of news and news story lifecycles have been affected. WeChat offers both opportunities and challenges to the practice of citizen journalism: it is a space where information exchange could be constantly monitored, where the tone of current affairs coverage is often sensationalized, and where the reliability of content can be difficult to discern

Feeling ‘like a minority…a pathology’: interpreting race from research with African and Caribbean women on violence and abuse

Qualitative researchers are often advised to use their emotional responses to data, and participants’ experiences are understood through those of researchers’, how this process unfolds is less clear. This paper is about role of feelings for the qualitative researcher at different stages of the process and offers strategies for working through, ‘using’ and ‘feeling together with’ participants, reflections on lived experiences. I interviewed nine African and Caribbean heritage British women about their experiences of violence and abuse where one described feeling ‘like a minority…a pathology’. This paper describes my responses to experiences of racialised and gendered intrusion in interviews, later reflection and analytic work. The paper brings recognition to a stigmatised and hidden process within qualitative interviews and data interpretation. This serves to amplify the impact of injustice and adverse experiences for participants, and researchers, and to a wider audience, and to validate its existence and emotional burden as a legitimate and crucial stage of qualitative data analysis