Paul Mason
Biographic Data
| ID | 4239068 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Paul Mason |
| GIVEN NAMES | Paul |
| FAMILY NAME | Mason |
| SIGNATURE | MASON P |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Birmingham |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3685-1507 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 90 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 27 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1938 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Draft-dodgers in 1980s South Africa
The subject of analysis in this article is oral testimony delivered by five white men who resisted conscription to the apartheid army in the 1980s. The argument, underpinned throughout by its focus on a liminal mode of being expressed by these men both during apartheid and subsequent to its demise, is set in motion by outlining the socio- historical context that framed the interviewees’ complex stances of resistance. The argument proceeds by payi…
The Postcapitalist Transition
The postcapitalism thesis asserts that open source and collaborative non‐profit organisations represent a new, non‐market sector in which the profit motive and monetary exchange no longer drive economic activity; in Marxist political economy terms, they are a new means for suppressing the law of value . Information technology has produced four systemic dysfunctions, limiting capitalism’s ability to function as a complex adaptive system: the zero …
Accounting for social benefits
The article explains the role of the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB) in setting accounting standards for the public sector, and the due process that is followed in setting those standards. The article explains the scope of the IPSASB's current project on social benefits, and how this compares to the scope of social benefits in Government Finance Statistics (GFS)/System of National Accounts (SNA) as well as the IPSA…
Biodiversity, drug discovery, and the future of global health
ooking to nature for medicine is nothing new -we have been doing it for tens of thousands of years and although modern pharmaceutical science has come a long way from those ancient roots, nature is and will always be an important source of useful compounds and inspiration. Dismissing nature in this regard is a huge mistake as evolution is the greatest problem solver and the myriad compounds produced by the immense variety of species we share the …
Masculinity against the grain in Damon Galgut’s The beautiful screaming of pigs , André Carl van Merwe’s Moffie and Koos Prinsloo’s Jonkmanskas
This article pays attention to strains of resistance to conscription and its bedrock ideology of masculinity in texts written by gay authors who performed their National Service, each of whose protagonists narrate their experiences as conscripts. The texts discussed, in order of analysis, are two novels written during the post-apartheid period in the form of Damon Galgut’s The beautiful screaming of pigs (1991, revised edition 2006) and André Car…
How to change the post-crash economy
Ben Chew: Hello, everyone, and thank you very much for coming to this Royal Society of Arts event on How to Change the Post-Crash Economy. My name is Ben Chew and I'm the Economics Editor of The In
Countercultural Influences on Resistance to Conscription in 1980s South Africa
Masculinities, Militarization and the End Conscription Campaign: War Resistance in Apartheid South Africa Daniel Conway Manchester and Johannesburg, Manchester University Press and Wits University
Why it's STILL Kicking Off Everywhere
The networked struggles of 2012-13 continue to exhibit features supporting an analysis that the 2008 financial crisis inaugurated a systemic change
Counterblast
The Children's Fund and the prevention of crime and anti-social behaviour
Early intervention prevention programmes form a significant element in the UK's complex and sometimes contradictory youth justice system. This article focuses on one such national programme in England, the Children's Fund, which has combined a broad aim of tackling children's social exclusion with a specific objective of reducing youth crime and anti-social behaviour, influenced by the Youth Justice Board's risk factors paradigm. In order to unde…
Conflation, collocation and confusion
Despite research to the contrary, a recent British Home Office report by Kelly et al. (2005) notes that in public consciousness a 'real rape' is perceived to occur in a public place, is perpetrated by a stranger and involves aggravating violence. Further, it notes that such skewed perceptions are implicated in the high attrition rate that this offence attracts in the United Kingdom. This paper suggests that a significant factor in the reinforcing…
Gypsy/Traveller Children and Families
This article describes a service that aimed to support the development of play and leisure opportunities for Gypsy/Traveller children. It uncovered a high demand for direct service provision, and there was limited capacity for action to make existing provision more inclusive. The article suggests how a focus upon networks, between Gypsy/Traveller communities, between service providers, and upon bridges between the two, could reduce the exclusion …
Misinformation, Myth and Distortion
This paper explores the manner in which prison and prisoners are constructed by the news media and highlights the processes of misinformation and distortion that exist in British crime journalism. These are illustrated through a detailed analysis of four stories which appeared in the British press during October 2005. Using discourse analysis, the paper investigates how these stories construct prisoners as high risk and a danger to society while …
Constructing Theories of Change
`Theories of Change' has proved a popular approach for both evaluators and commissioners of complex social programmes, but the ways in which theories of change (ToC) evaluations have been implemented show considerable variation. This article draws on the ongoing work of the National Evaluation of the Children's Fund (NECF) and argues that the literature which discusses the ToC approach has neglected the process by which theories of change are con…
Captured by the media
1. Turn on, tune in, slop out, Paul Mason 2. The function of fiction for a punitive public, Anna King and Shadd Maruna 3. Red tops, populists and the irresistible rise of the public voice(s), Mick Ryan 4. Crime sound bites: a view from both sides of the microphone, Enver Solomon 5. What works in changing public attitudes: findings from rethinking crime and punishment, Rob Allen 6. Delivering death: capital punishment, botched executions and the A…
Lies, distortion and what doesn’t work
This article argues that the populist and highly punitive penal policy in the UK is promoted by media discourses around prison. The combination of over-reporting of violent and sexual crime in the media and fictional constructions of imprisonment has been a highly significant factor in the growth of the prison population in late modernity. Providing a discourse analysis of one month’s UK media output on prison, it argues that through a discourse …
Prison Decayed
The increased populist and punitive turn in criminal justice policy in the United Kingdom over recent years has led to punishment becoming politicised, harsher and more ostentatious. The role of media and popular culture discourses of prison is rarely examined in this account. Adopting a Foucauldian discourse analysis of prison films released over the past 10 years, this article explores the prison film as one important element of the discursive …
A complex solution to a complicated problem? Early messages from the national evaluation of the Children's Fund Prevention Programme
This paper is concerned with exploring the research and policy base that underpinned the development of the Children's Fund Prevention Programme. It discusses how the initiative developed, how it is being evaluated and how it is now contributing to the new policy agenda around prevention services. Early findings are discussed highlighting some of the challenges local projects have to manage around partnership working, participation of children an…
What Works and Why
A central question in evaluation research is ‘what works and why?’ It suggests a need not only to estimate the average effect of a programme or intervention but also to estimate and understand variability around this average. Statistical models are good at estimating overall effects and, when extended into a multilevel framework, enable the variability of effects to be estimated. If, however, we aim for an understanding of just why this variabili…
Visual data in applied qualitative research
Image-based research is well developed within visual anthropology and visual ethnography, but it is little used outside of these disciplines. This article discusses an innovative research project which sought to use the outputs of a community development arts project as a source of visual data for the evaluation of an area-based health initiative. The use of such material in applied research required the development of a method unique to the proj…
Vulnerability to flooding
This paper presents research results on the impacts that floods can have on the people affected, thus complementing the existing data on the monetary losses liable to occur in flood events. Both datasets should be used when deciding on investment in flood defence measures. We report on research on the vulnerability of flood-affected communities to adverse health effects, and the development of an index of community vulnerability based on extensiv…
Snakes & Ladders
Although enjoying a period of renewed government policy interest and favourable research funding, youth studies has recently come under considerable intellectual attack, much of it from within. A common theme is that the major conceptual approach of most British youth research over the past twenty years - the sociological study of youth transitions - is not helpful in approaching 'the youth question'. The paper locates these recent critiques in t…
Lights, Camera, Justice? Cameras in the Courtroom
Court in the Web’
Watching The Invisible
Conflation, collocation and confusion
Despite research to the contrary, a recent British Home Office report by Kelly et al. (2005) notes that in public consciousness a 'real rape' is perceived to occur in a public place, is perpetrated by a stranger and involves aggravating violence. Further, it notes that such skewed perceptions are implicated in the high attrition rate that this offence attracts in the United Kingdom. This paper suggests that a significant factor in the reinforcing…
Visual data in applied qualitative research
Image-based research is well developed within visual anthropology and visual ethnography, but it is little used outside of these disciplines. This article discusses an innovative research project which sought to use the outputs of a community development arts project as a source of visual data for the evaluation of an area-based health initiative. The use of such material in applied research required the development of a method unique to the proj…
Snakes & Ladders
Although enjoying a period of renewed government policy interest and favourable research funding, youth studies has recently come under considerable intellectual attack, much of it from within. A common theme is that the major conceptual approach of most British youth research over the past twenty years - the sociological study of youth transitions - is not helpful in approaching 'the youth question'. The paper locates these recent critiques in t…
Lies, distortion and what doesn’t work
This article argues that the populist and highly punitive penal policy in the UK is promoted by media discourses around prison. The combination of over-reporting of violent and sexual crime in the media and fictional constructions of imprisonment has been a highly significant factor in the growth of the prison population in late modernity. Providing a discourse analysis of one month’s UK media output on prison, it argues that through a discourse …
Prison Decayed
The increased populist and punitive turn in criminal justice policy in the United Kingdom over recent years has led to punishment becoming politicised, harsher and more ostentatious. The role of media and popular culture discourses of prison is rarely examined in this account. Adopting a Foucauldian discourse analysis of prison films released over the past 10 years, this article explores the prison film as one important element of the discursive …
Constructing Theories of Change
`Theories of Change' has proved a popular approach for both evaluators and commissioners of complex social programmes, but the ways in which theories of change (ToC) evaluations have been implemented show considerable variation. This article draws on the ongoing work of the National Evaluation of the Children's Fund (NECF) and argues that the literature which discusses the ToC approach has neglected the process by which theories of change are con…
Why it's STILL Kicking Off Everywhere
The networked struggles of 2012-13 continue to exhibit features supporting an analysis that the 2008 financial crisis inaugurated a systemic change
Misinformation, Myth and Distortion
This paper explores the manner in which prison and prisoners are constructed by the news media and highlights the processes of misinformation and distortion that exist in British crime journalism. These are illustrated through a detailed analysis of four stories which appeared in the British press during October 2005. Using discourse analysis, the paper investigates how these stories construct prisoners as high risk and a danger to society while …
The Children's Fund and the prevention of crime and anti-social behaviour
Early intervention prevention programmes form a significant element in the UK's complex and sometimes contradictory youth justice system. This article focuses on one such national programme in England, the Children's Fund, which has combined a broad aim of tackling children's social exclusion with a specific objective of reducing youth crime and anti-social behaviour, influenced by the Youth Justice Board's risk factors paradigm. In order to unde…
What Works and Why
A central question in evaluation research is ‘what works and why?’ It suggests a need not only to estimate the average effect of a programme or intervention but also to estimate and understand variability around this average. Statistical models are good at estimating overall effects and, when extended into a multilevel framework, enable the variability of effects to be estimated. If, however, we aim for an understanding of just why this variabili…
The Postcapitalist Transition
The postcapitalism thesis asserts that open source and collaborative non‐profit organisations represent a new, non‐market sector in which the profit motive and monetary exchange no longer drive economic activity; in Marxist political economy terms, they are a new means for suppressing the law of value . Information technology has produced four systemic dysfunctions, limiting capitalism’s ability to function as a complex adaptive system: the zero …
Masculinity against the grain in Damon Galgut’s The beautiful screaming of pigs , André Carl van Merwe’s Moffie and Koos Prinsloo’s Jonkmanskas
This article pays attention to strains of resistance to conscription and its bedrock ideology of masculinity in texts written by gay authors who performed their National Service, each of whose protagonists narrate their experiences as conscripts. The texts discussed, in order of analysis, are two novels written during the post-apartheid period in the form of Damon Galgut’s The beautiful screaming of pigs (1991, revised edition 2006) and André Car…
Watching The Invisible
The American Family
Journal Article The American Family: Historical Perspectives. Ed. by Jean E. Hunter and Paul T. Mason. (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1991. xxiv + 211 pp. $44.50, ISBN 0-8207-0219-6.) Get access The American Family: Historical Perspectives. Ed. by Hunter Jean E. Mason Paul T.. (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1991. xxiv + 211 pp. $44.50, ISBN 0-8207-0219-6.) Steven Mintz Steven Mintz University of Houston Search for other works by…
Methods of Improving Legislative Procedure
There is little chance that any great improvement in legislative procedure can be made by the modification of parliamentary rules, as these rules have developed over a great length of time and have, in general, been adjusted to the needs of the various state legislatures by the adoption of legislative rules or by the decisions of the presiding officers of the various houses as questions have arisen. The improvement in procedure must be sought, th…
Social grooming between squirrel monkeys and uakaris in a seminatural environment
The American Family
Journal Article The American Family: Historical Perspectives. Ed. by Jean E. Hunter and Paul T. Mason. (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1991. xxiv + 211 pp. $44.50, ISBN 0-8207-0219-6.) Get access The American Family: Historical Perspectives. Ed. by Hunter Jean E. Mason Paul T.. (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1991. xxiv + 211 pp. $44.50, ISBN 0-8207-0219-6.) Steven Mintz Steven Mintz University of Houston Search for other works by…
Lights, Camera, Justice? Cameras in the Courtroom
Court in the Web’
Watching The Invisible
Snakes & Ladders
Although enjoying a period of renewed government policy interest and favourable research funding, youth studies has recently come under considerable intellectual attack, much of it from within. A common theme is that the major conceptual approach of most British youth research over the past twenty years - the sociological study of youth transitions - is not helpful in approaching 'the youth question'. The paper locates these recent critiques in t…
Vulnerability to flooding
This paper presents research results on the impacts that floods can have on the people affected, thus complementing the existing data on the monetary losses liable to occur in flood events. Both datasets should be used when deciding on investment in flood defence measures. We report on research on the vulnerability of flood-affected communities to adverse health effects, and the development of an index of community vulnerability based on extensiv…
A complex solution to a complicated problem? Early messages from the national evaluation of the Children's Fund Prevention Programme
This paper is concerned with exploring the research and policy base that underpinned the development of the Children's Fund Prevention Programme. It discusses how the initiative developed, how it is being evaluated and how it is now contributing to the new policy agenda around prevention services. Early findings are discussed highlighting some of the challenges local projects have to manage around partnership working, participation of children an…
What Works and Why
A central question in evaluation research is ‘what works and why?’ It suggests a need not only to estimate the average effect of a programme or intervention but also to estimate and understand variability around this average. Statistical models are good at estimating overall effects and, when extended into a multilevel framework, enable the variability of effects to be estimated. If, however, we aim for an understanding of just why this variabili…
Visual data in applied qualitative research
Image-based research is well developed within visual anthropology and visual ethnography, but it is little used outside of these disciplines. This article discusses an innovative research project which sought to use the outputs of a community development arts project as a source of visual data for the evaluation of an area-based health initiative. The use of such material in applied research required the development of a method unique to the proj…
Captured by the media
1. Turn on, tune in, slop out, Paul Mason 2. The function of fiction for a punitive public, Anna King and Shadd Maruna 3. Red tops, populists and the irresistible rise of the public voice(s), Mick Ryan 4. Crime sound bites: a view from both sides of the microphone, Enver Solomon 5. What works in changing public attitudes: findings from rethinking crime and punishment, Rob Allen 6. Delivering death: capital punishment, botched executions and the A…
Lies, distortion and what doesn’t work
This article argues that the populist and highly punitive penal policy in the UK is promoted by media discourses around prison. The combination of over-reporting of violent and sexual crime in the media and fictional constructions of imprisonment has been a highly significant factor in the growth of the prison population in late modernity. Providing a discourse analysis of one month’s UK media output on prison, it argues that through a discourse …
Prison Decayed
The increased populist and punitive turn in criminal justice policy in the United Kingdom over recent years has led to punishment becoming politicised, harsher and more ostentatious. The role of media and popular culture discourses of prison is rarely examined in this account. Adopting a Foucauldian discourse analysis of prison films released over the past 10 years, this article explores the prison film as one important element of the discursive …
Gypsy/Traveller Children and Families
This article describes a service that aimed to support the development of play and leisure opportunities for Gypsy/Traveller children. It uncovered a high demand for direct service provision, and there was limited capacity for action to make existing provision more inclusive. The article suggests how a focus upon networks, between Gypsy/Traveller communities, between service providers, and upon bridges between the two, could reduce the exclusion …
Misinformation, Myth and Distortion
This paper explores the manner in which prison and prisoners are constructed by the news media and highlights the processes of misinformation and distortion that exist in British crime journalism. These are illustrated through a detailed analysis of four stories which appeared in the British press during October 2005. Using discourse analysis, the paper investigates how these stories construct prisoners as high risk and a danger to society while …
Constructing Theories of Change
`Theories of Change' has proved a popular approach for both evaluators and commissioners of complex social programmes, but the ways in which theories of change (ToC) evaluations have been implemented show considerable variation. This article draws on the ongoing work of the National Evaluation of the Children's Fund (NECF) and argues that the literature which discusses the ToC approach has neglected the process by which theories of change are con…
The Children's Fund and the prevention of crime and anti-social behaviour
Early intervention prevention programmes form a significant element in the UK's complex and sometimes contradictory youth justice system. This article focuses on one such national programme in England, the Children's Fund, which has combined a broad aim of tackling children's social exclusion with a specific objective of reducing youth crime and anti-social behaviour, influenced by the Youth Justice Board's risk factors paradigm. In order to unde…
Conflation, collocation and confusion
Despite research to the contrary, a recent British Home Office report by Kelly et al. (2005) notes that in public consciousness a 'real rape' is perceived to occur in a public place, is perpetrated by a stranger and involves aggravating violence. Further, it notes that such skewed perceptions are implicated in the high attrition rate that this offence attracts in the United Kingdom. This paper suggests that a significant factor in the reinforcing…
Counterblast
Countercultural Influences on Resistance to Conscription in 1980s South Africa
Masculinities, Militarization and the End Conscription Campaign: War Resistance in Apartheid South Africa Daniel Conway Manchester and Johannesburg, Manchester University Press and Wits University
Why it's STILL Kicking Off Everywhere
The networked struggles of 2012-13 continue to exhibit features supporting an analysis that the 2008 financial crisis inaugurated a systemic change
How to change the post-crash economy
Ben Chew: Hello, everyone, and thank you very much for coming to this Royal Society of Arts event on How to Change the Post-Crash Economy. My name is Ben Chew and I'm the Economics Editor of The In
Masculinity against the grain in Damon Galgut’s The beautiful screaming of pigs , André Carl van Merwe’s Moffie and Koos Prinsloo’s Jonkmanskas
This article pays attention to strains of resistance to conscription and its bedrock ideology of masculinity in texts written by gay authors who performed their National Service, each of whose protagonists narrate their experiences as conscripts. The texts discussed, in order of analysis, are two novels written during the post-apartheid period in the form of Damon Galgut’s The beautiful screaming of pigs (1991, revised edition 2006) and André Car…
Biodiversity, drug discovery, and the future of global health
ooking to nature for medicine is nothing new -we have been doing it for tens of thousands of years and although modern pharmaceutical science has come a long way from those ancient roots, nature is and will always be an important source of useful compounds and inspiration. Dismissing nature in this regard is a huge mistake as evolution is the greatest problem solver and the myriad compounds produced by the immense variety of species we share the …
Political science (18 works) · Sociology (17 works) · Criminology (10 works) · Law (10 works) · Computer Science (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Psychology (9 works) · Business (8 works) · Economics (7 works) · History (6 works)