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The Impact of Social Media Engagement Metrics on Purchase Intention: A Study on Brand Fan Page Followers

The Impact of Social Media Engagement Metrics on Purchase Intention: A Study on Brand Fan Page Followers

Author(s): Zoha Rahman,Kumaran Suberamanian,Sedigheh Mogavvemi / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: Social Media Marketing; Social Media Engagement; Engagement Metrics; Facebook Fan Page; Purchase Intention.

Research on the impact of social media users’ engagement action on purchase intention still remains in its infancy. It is necessary for a company to gauge whether or not its efforts to stimulate user activity on its fan pages are successful in generating output. This study utilized the Uses and Gratification (UGT) theory and Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) as a foundation to explore the social media engagement actions and examined the effect of users’ engagement actions alongside their purchase intention. An online survey was carried out on four popular companies’ fan page followers in various industries in Malaysia, and a total of 307 questionnaires were collected and analysed. The findings indicated a significant relationship between fan page engagement and Purchase intension. The results will help e-commerce marketers identify the importance of social media engagement on sales, while guiding e-marketers on their decision pertaining to e-marketing tools, particularly for engagement metrics in increasing sales. The study will also provide marketers with a descriptive idea on users’ activities. Overall, the study serves as a basic fundamental guideline for academicians and researchers to interpret the concept of engagement metrics and its effect on purchase intention, as well opening a vast area of unexplored researches on the subject of social media.

Improving Quality of Life in Caregivers of Alzheimer Dementia Patients- A Stepwise Approach

Improving Quality of Life in Caregivers of Alzheimer Dementia Patients- A Stepwise Approach

Author(s): Octavian Vasiliu / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: quality of life; caregivers’ burden; Alzheimer Dementia; resources management; therapeutic interventions

Caregivers’ burden could have serious impact over social and professional functioning in adult and active population. Quality of life in caregivers of Alzheimer Disease (AD) patients should be monitored as an important indicator of their well-being and functional resources. The main objective of this research is to formulate a plan for the evaluation of the quality of life in caregivers of the AD patients as a first step in the recommendation of an adequate, stratified therapeutic intervention. Regarding the research methodology, the first step consisted in a review of the most validated instruments for caregiver status evaluation – SF-36, EuroQoL, Zarit Burden Interview (BI), Global Assessment of Functioning Scale (GAF), and Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI). A composite score (cs) could be calculated based on these scales, and 3 classes of quality of life impairment severity could be defined. The second step consists in recommendations regarding the monitoring of the caregivers’ status using the same instruments, and the formulation of therapeutic interventions according to the severity of quality of life impairments. It is expected that applying this algorithm would decrease the AD burden’s functional impact over caregivers, while increasing their quality of life. Learning new ways to cope with stress, a better management of their own time and engaging in changing coping methods during group therapy sessions are expected to have a significant impact over caregivers overall psychological status. In conclusion, a better care should be provided for AD patients’ caregivers, in order to increase their functionality and quality of life.

What can Psychoanalysis Reveal us About Spinoza's Life and Work?

What can Psychoanalysis Reveal us About Spinoza's Life and Work?

Author(s): Marius Dumitrescu / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: psychoanalysis; Spinoza; thinking independence; emotions; ambivalence;

Spinoza wrote the most fascinating politico-philosophical texts during his life, because these were intertwined with his life, with the events he attended and actively involved in, hoping for a reformation of the world in which he lived. Theologico-Political Treatise and On the Improvement of the Understanding reveal us that Spinoza does not belong to eternity, but to his time. He was a thinker who wrote first of all for its contemporaries, for the people of the 17th century.In this paper I will analyze in the psychoanalytic key these two texts and the context in which they were elaborated because we can better understand the philosopher's reaction to the events of his time.Firstly, I will point out that these two treaties wrote by the Dutch philosopher captured the spirit attempt to maintain its thinking independence on emotional tensions that threatened to throw the soul of man in the whirl of regrettable events and actions. Secondly, I will show that Spinoza, a man of his time, was directly involved in the complicated process that aimed solutions for a spiritual unification of the old continent in the second half of the 17th century. He was able to experience a vast array of emotional states ranging from ambivalence to fear and despair and from resignation to enthusiasm in front of scientific and political realities which were on the way to be acomplish in the favorable conditions of the new Europe that emerged after Peace of Westphalia.

GENDER PERCEPTIONS OF SYRIAN IMMIGRANTS RESIDING IN SIVAS PROVINCE CENTRE AND PATRIARCHAL NEGOTIATIONS

GENDER PERCEPTIONS OF SYRIAN IMMIGRANTS RESIDING IN SIVAS PROVINCE CENTRE AND PATRIARCHAL NEGOTIATIONS

Author(s): Çağdaş Demren,Ünsal Karbuz / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: Turkey; migration; Syrian immigrants; Sivas province; gender; patriarchal negotiations;

War, as a devastating reality of humanity, brings the life of many to a certain, determinant point of no return through destructive impacts. The most significant of these points is death. The survivors, on the other hand, face displacement, are obliged to follow new routes, while trying to start new lives. The boundaries of their previous lives shatter; places once called ‘home’ lose their meaning. Social and cultural bonds that tie them to those places are shattered, gone. They feel obliged to migrate, to search for new hopes. The increasingly ongoing Civil War in Syria since ongoing 2011 has caused millions of people go through such traumatic processes changing the boundaries and places of these persons.

Halo-Halo, Nostalgia and Navigating Life for Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW’s) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Halo-Halo, Nostalgia and Navigating Life for Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW’s) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Author(s): Simeon S. Magliveras / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; migration; Filipino workers; OFW; identity; nostalgia; culture;

This chapter gives a snapshot of OFWs' life in Saudi and explores how Filipinos maintain their identity as Filipinos in Saudi Arabia. Saudi is the second most popular destination for Filipino transnationals in the world and OFW's remit almost as much money from Saudi as from the United States. Propelled from one socio-cultural and sensual environment into another, Filipino nationals must navigate personal and family needs, their emotions, and their identities. This chapter explores how OFW's recreate cultural continuity and constitute a sense of self through food-ways related to their sojourn. The chapter concludes that practices and memories are not only fixed, to a sensual experience of the consumption of global Filipino branded fast-food such as Jollibee, or merely by shopping at kabayan sari saris (Filipino markets). The ubiquitous embeddedness into such sights results in cognitive systems where sensual, social environmental spaces for identity exist and are actualized. These practices maintain a sensual romanticized identity with home while at the same time re-enforce their identity as transnationals, players in a global world.

The Gurdwara of Baghdad and the Forgotten History of Sikhs in Iraq

The Gurdwara of Baghdad and the Forgotten History of Sikhs in Iraq

Author(s): Wedech Areshpreet / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: Iraq; Sikhism; Sikhi; Gurdwara of Baghdad; ISIS;

Most Iraqis and scholars on Iraq do not know that Baghdad has significant importance for the Sikh religion. Until 2003, Baghdad had a gurdwara (Sikh place of worship); some evidence exists of a historic Sikh community in Iraq. This article explores both the history of the Gurdwara of Baghdad and the Sikhs who lived in Iraq, and also the activities of Sikh humanitarian organizations in contemporary Iraq.

Migration: A Triangle of Aspiration, Opportunity or Exploitation? A Migrant’s Perspective

Migration: A Triangle of Aspiration, Opportunity or Exploitation? A Migrant’s Perspective

Author(s): Shweta Sinha Deshpande,Aashna Banerjee / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: aspirations; lived experience; positive exploitation;

The number of international migrants worldwide has continued to grow rapidly over the past decade. Nevertheless, migration leads to controversial conversations within multiple spheres. Therefore, there is a need to explore a perspective on migration-of migrants themselves. This paper aims to situate 25 case studies on migration within interlinked realities of exploitation in the habitus, migrant aspirations, and opportunities provided by the experience of migration; against the backdrop of migrant agency. Analysis of the data collected indicated that migration offers opportunities to avoid and escape socio-economic traps, achieve aspirations and a higher level of well-being; the interactions between entities in the process of migration can be positively exploitative; and that negative lived experiences of the present are overlooked by migrants due to their aspiration of a better future. Most importantly, the authors emphasize that migration is a tool and a strategy which can be used to overcome structural inequalities and build capabilities.

LEGAL AND CIRCULAR MIGRATION IN THE EUROPEAN UNION MOBILITY PARTNERSHIPS

LEGAL AND CIRCULAR MIGRATION IN THE EUROPEAN UNION MOBILITY PARTNERSHIPS

Author(s): Katarzyna A. Morawska / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: migration; EU; mobility partnerships; legal and circular migration; immigration policy;

Until quite recently, the European Union did not hold competence in the field of the immigration policy. For many years, following the initiation of the process of European integration, it was a sphere within the competence of the Member States. It was the creation of the Schengen area and the common market that induced the actions leading to the gradual introduction of immigration policy regulations at the EU level. It should be emphasized that in the context of the EU, immigration policy regards the arrival and stay of third-country nationals (nonmembers of the EU) in the territory of a Member State, and it does not concern entirely free movement of persons within the EU.

“A hunting we will go…” Hunting in the Context of Symbolic Violence

„Pojedziemy na łów…” Polowania a przemoc symboliczna

Author(s): Dobrosława Wężowicz‑Ziółkowska / Language(s): Polish / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: hunting; symbolic violence; cultural reproduction; habitus;masculine dominance;

The text examines the issue of hunting and its endurance in the context of Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic violence. The author proposes that democratic society’s current consent on ruthless and unnecessary killings of animals in the wilderness is a result of the dominance of masculine narratives and grand aristocratic narrative, which has been shaping the cultural heritage for centuries, constructing the role of the noble hunter. As a result of symbolic violence, this image is subconsciously validated and aesthetisized, whereas actual suffering of animals killed during the hunting is absent from the system of meanings constructed by the hunters’ narrative and rejected by its inheritors. The suffering of animals has not been represented in the cultural capital of the dominant group, whose aim was to promote the triumph of the hunter, not individual subjective pain of the killed animal. The article as well opens a discussion concerning hunting in the context of Rene Girard’s theory of the mimetic desire and Richard Dawkins’ memetic theory, underlining the necessity to consider hunting in a perspective broader that the one offered by Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic violence.

Shared schemas for English and Polish prepositions. The case of for and its Polish equivalents

Shared schemas for English and Polish prepositions. The case of for and its Polish equivalents

Author(s): Katarzyna Rudkiewicz / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: trajecto; landmark; path schema; conceptualization; metaphorical extension

Equipping a linguist with effective analytical tools for contrastive analyses, cognitive methodologies provide access to subtle details of schematic representations in the languages compared, facilitating a deeper insight into the structures of languages at the conceptualization level. This paper presents a cognitive perspective on the contrastive analysis, conducted in the vein of Langacker’s Cognitive Grammar as well as Lakoff and Johnson’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory, and what follows, its contribution to a more multifaceted description of the English preposition for and some of its Polish equivalents. The cognitive analysis allows for identifying the path schema and its distinct elements as the most abstract schema that structures the semantic content of for and, being the tertium comparationis, sanctions the choice of its specific Polish equivalents.

Shuangguan: Linguistic and cultural aspects of the Chinese art of punning [Shuangguan: językowe i kulturowe aspekty chińskiej sztuki posługiwania się kalamburami]

Shuangguan: Linguistic and cultural aspects of the Chinese art of punning [Shuangguan: językowe i kulturowe aspekty chińskiej sztuki posługiwania się kalamburami]

Author(s): Agnieszka Solska / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: puns; shuangguan; ambiguity; homophony; high context culture; face; social harmony

With only 405 distinct syllables, Mandarin Chinese is particularly rich in homophones. Not surprisingly, this peculiarity of the language is exploited in wordplay, which is encountered in all manner of communicative settings, including poetry and prose, cultural symbols, jokes, advertisements and even public service posters and telegram messages. Interestingly, while speakers of English would use the term ‘pun’ to identify most instances of ambiguity-based wordplay, the speakers of Chinese take a much narrower view of what constitutes shuangguan, the term which is typically treated as the equivalent of the English word ‘pun.’ This article examines both more and less prototypical shuangguan, encountered in contexts representative of both high and low culture. It identifies three qualities of the Chinese language which make it particularly well suited for punning wordplay as well as three cultural factors underlying both the partiality Chinese speakers have for the ambiguity-based language play and the ways in which this partiality manifests itself.

Project e-ma: Engaging hope – An exploration of Freire’s Critical Pedagogy through arts-based inquiry with a Belfast community

Projekt e-ma: pobudzanie nadziei – spojrzenie na pedagogikę krytyczną Freire’a poprzez wgląd w społeczność Belfastu w oparciu o sztukę

Author(s): Andrew R. Woollock / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: E-ma [絵馬]; Critical Pedagogy; Visual Arts; Arts-based Educational Research (ABER);Belfast;

This paper sets out to present project e-ma, a doctoral research project carried out within the school of education at the Queen’s university of Belfast. Project e-ma explores the potentiality of the shin-tou artefact e-ma [絵馬] as a means to discuss and engage hope within a specific deprived working-class community of south Belfast; the Donegall Pass. Using the theoretical frame of Paulo Freire’s (1970, 1974) Critical Pedagogy and an arts-based educational research approach (ABER), which incorporates the methodological frame of Mertens’s (2007, 2010) “transformative paradigm,” project e-ma sets out to examine whether the key tenets of Freire’s Critical Pedagogy: dialogue, praxis, transformation, problem-posing, disruption, conscientização, undergirded by democracy and social justice can be explored via the conduit of the votive tablet e-ma, and if so what that might look like.

Developing language awareness through students’ conceptualisations: Metaphoric approach in content courses

Developing language awareness through students’ conceptualisations: Metaphoric approach in content courses

Author(s): Danuta Gabryś-Barker / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: creativity; multilingual mental lexicon; metaphor; simile;conceptualisation.;

This article aims to demonstrate to university lecturers as well as to students how “thinking outside the box” by means of metaphoric conceptualisations of studied issues in content courses can raise awareness about these issues. Two pedagogical dimensions are especially in focus here. First of all, one is the promotion of a more active involvement of students in content courses and a better understanding of content issues through a more creative approach to them. The second dimension of this creative approach can impact syllabus construction and the methodology used by lecturers. This article makes use of real life activities employed during lectures on multilingualism, focusing on complex issues of understanding multilingualism and individual multilinguality and the concept of the multilingual mental lexicon (MML). The teaching strategy used here consisted of introducing multilingualism and MML by means of individual student conceptualisations presented in a form of metaphoric representations (in this case, similes).

The Significance and Role of Józef Maksymilian Ossoliński’s Annotations in Wiadomości historyczno-krytyczne do dziejów literatury polskiej

Znaczenie i rola przypisów Józefa Maksymiliana Ossolińskiego w Wiadomościach historyczno-krytycznych do dziejów literatury polskiej

Author(s): Paweł Pluta / Language(s): Polish / Publication Year: 0

The topic of this article is the functioning of annotations in Józef Maksymilian Ossoliński’s most important scholarly work: Wiadomości historyczno-krytyczne do dziejów literatury polskiej ( 1819–1822). A n a nalysis o f c riticisms a bout i ts s tructure, i ncluding different types of annotations, prompts the author to consider these annotations thrugh the prism of Ossoliński’s personality as a scientist. The object of analysis, beside Ossoliński’s dissertation, become: the count’s theoretical arguments about pursuing research and his correspondence. An important context regarding the role and structure of annotations in Ossoliński’s work is Dictionnaire historique et critique by Pierre Bayle (1697). The author of the article not only indicates formal resemblances between the Polish and French works but also argues that they stemmed from the similarities in the scientific disposition of Bayle and Ossoliński.

Faith with Faithfulness – The Translation of John Henry Newman’s. Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent into Polish by Stanisław Brzozowski

Faith with Faithfulness – The Translation of John Henry Newman’s. Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent into Polish by Stanisław Brzozowski

Author(s): Anna Szczepan-Wojnarska / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

This article presents Stanisław Brzozowski as a translator of works by John Henry Newman. Not only did Brzozowski translate the writings of the highly discussed and influential English thinker and preacher, who converted to Roman Catholicism, but he also selected the writings himself and explained them in the context of the European tradition. Brzozowski got involved in translation to an extraordinary extent and became Newman’s follower in life and shared his opinions, as it is vividly expressed in his Diary. According to Brzozowski’s own concept of the integrity of form in literature and life, he acts as a master of his craft focused on a single goal, that is, not a mere translation of Newman’s works but transformation of Newman’s readers into Newman’s followers.

The impact of Acadian deportation on the aesthetics and poetics of the French-language theater in Canada

Wpływ deportacji Akadian na estetykę i poetykę francuskojęzycznego teatru w Kanadzie

Author(s): Sebastian Zacharow / Language(s): Polish / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: Canadian theater;Acadian’s deportation

This article has two goals. The first goal is to present a historical process which forced the Canadians to become a minority towards the British and to show the complicated relationships in which these two nationalities had to live after the numerous wars waged in North America between the British Crown and the Kingdom of France. The second goal is to show the evolution of the aesthetics of the francophone Canadian theater being the result of the Acadian’s deportation. In this context, three theatrical plays, which are dramatic texts representative of various stages of the difficult Acadian-Canadian history, will be used as examples: Le Théâtre de Neptune (1609) as a representative of the theater of the period of the French dominance in the New France; Le Drame du peuple acadien (1930) as a stage in the poetics of the Acadian martyrology; and La martyrdom Saguine (1971), depicting the aesthetics influenced by the Quiet Revolution, where Acadia becomes a nostalgic place, in a way an open-air museum, where thoughts are returned without a tormenting sense of injustice.

Artistic Inspiration: How to Provoke Some Inspirational States for Creative Actions

Inicjacja przekazu artystycznego

Author(s): Zofia Władyka-Łuczak / Language(s): Polish / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: artistic inspiration;creativity;visual communication;composition;formal structure of the image;formal narration;theory of vision;verbal communication;visual communication

The article “Initiation of the artistic message” is an attempt to answer the question: When and for what reason does the initiation of the artistic message appear? The analysis leading to the final conclusion was carried out on the basis of autoethnographic analysis from the process of creating the „Monument to the Origins of the City of Lodz”. The main theme was the search for the border between the procreative state and the creative one during the artist’s work on the work. The analysis shows that: „Regardless of whether I’m working on a sculpture that was commissioned or sculpted only for myself, the process of initiating pre-creative and creative states looks similar. I always start my work from collecting materials. I proceed as the constructivists want, I carry out the recognition of elements relating to various differential systems. […] I am aware t that the expected state of transition from pre-creative to creative state can occur at any time. Today, after many years, I know that it is not worth assessing the value of the collected materials, the initiation of the creative state will come by itself ”. The essence of initiating a creative attitude is to develop the skill of observing the reality surrounding the artist, and what is more important to develop the skills of extracting from it what already in all this complicated process is what we used to call – inspiration. The boundary of the pre-creative and creative state arises at the moment when the artist makes the decision to transfer the noticed fragment of reality to the work being created. The evaluation of the value of a work of art is a separate issue that has been omitted in the article

THE QUALITY OF LIFE AND AGING POPULATION: THEORETICAL REVIEW

THE QUALITY OF LIFE AND AGING POPULATION: THEORETICAL REVIEW

Author(s): Sunčica Oberman Peterka,Ivana Barković Bojanić / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: aging population; quality of life; elderly people; Integrative Quality of Life Theory; QoL indicators;

According to world statistics coming from various international sources, we are witnessing a demographic shift that has resulted in the graying of the population at an unprecedented rate. In Europe alone, the percentage of people 65 and over is expected to reach over 30% of the population by the year 2050. When we additionally consider that life expectancy is increasing and that people’s perception of older age /retirement age is changing due to better living standards, then it is obvious that policymakers across the world need to invest serious effort to ensure the quality of life for the older population. The concept of quality of life is known as a notion in various social and human sciences. However, since the notion of quality itself is subjected to numerous definitions and often coupled with personal feelings and expectations, there are indications that concepts and concerns related to the quality of life in older ages may be different from the rest of the population. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the notion of quality of life and relate it to the aging population. By using the method of a narrative review of selected literature, the paper will try to capture multiple dimensions of the quality of life. As older people mostly assess their quality of life through health, social engagement, dependency, material circumstances, social comparison and the like, it is clear that the concept of quality of life is elusive and complicates an exact definition and measurement.

THE USE OF THE COLLABORATIVE ECONOMY IN THE EU: SENIOR CITIZENS PERSPECTIVE

THE USE OF THE COLLABORATIVE ECONOMY IN THE EU: SENIOR CITIZENS PERSPECTIVE

Author(s): Antun Biloš,Bruno Budimir / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: collaborative economy; sharing economy; EU; aging society; seniors;

The collaborative or sharing economy has been developing rapidly in recent years along with the digital transformation on the global scale as well as in the EU. Many Internet-based collaborative platforms enable citizens and entrepreneurs to participate in the (digital) market and to offer services on a part-time or professional basis while stimulating the variety of choice and price competitiveness. The paper examines recent trends in the use of collaborative economy platforms in the European Union focusing on the senior citizens (65 years and older) as a very specific demographic segment especially regarding the usage of ICT enabled initiatives. This paper uses an adjusted Eurobarometer research methodology which was carried out in 2018 in 28 EU Member States with a total sample of 26,544 respondents from different social and demographic groups, and the primary data access was enabled through the Gesis database. A total of 8,561 senior respondents was filtered from the initial data-set to create the primary sample for the research. Specific types of collaborative economy platforms are explored, as well as the main advantages and disadvantages of the platforms used.

ICT USE GAP AMONG THE ELDERLY: EVIDENCE FROM THE EU COUNTRIES

ICT USE GAP AMONG THE ELDERLY: EVIDENCE FROM THE EU COUNTRIES

Author(s): Jovanka Damoska Sekuloska / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: ICT usage; elderly people; online purchase; clustering analysis; heterogeneity;

ICT is considered as one of the fundamental values and contribution to the digital economy. ICT use is becoming an increasingly crucial determinant for the old-age population to meet their demands for high-quality life and low-cost services. However, ICT use, including the employment of online purchase of the elderly population, varies widely among different EU-281 countries. This study aims to investigate Internet usage, especially in terms of online purchase behaviors among elderly Europeans aged 65 and older. Through clustering analysis, the aim of the paper is to identify the heterogeneity in Internet usage among the elderly population in the EU members. Results highlight the gap that exists in the level of online purchasing widely among EU countries.