Cosima Rughinis

University of Bucharest | Unibuc · Department of Sociology

In this paper we argue that quantitative survey-based social research essentializes age, through specific rhetorical tools. We outline the device of ‘socio-demographic variables’ and we discuss its argumentative functions, looking at scientific survey-based analyses of adult scientific literacy, in the Public Understanding of Science research field...

Gamified e-books extend invitations for young and adult readers to revisit classical literary worlds. We examine ten e-books to discover distinctive rhetorical resources used to enhance the reading experience and achieve convergence with the original literary world. We distinguish between attempts to focus attention on the material world, to create...

Representations of femininity in video games and other media are often discussed with reference to the most popular games, their protagonists and their sexist predicament. This framing leaves in shadow other dimensions. We aim to identify some of them and to open a broader horizon for examining and designing femininity and gender in games. To this...

We study smoking-cessation apps in order to formulate a framework for ethical evaluation, analyzing apps as ‘medium’, ‘market’, and ‘genre’. We center on the value of user autonomy through truthfulness and self-understanding. Smoking-cessation apps usually communicate in an anonymous ‘app voice’, with little presence of professional or other identi...

This paper analyses the use of ethnicity in quantitative models, focusing on Roma/Gypsy ethnic affiliation. Three research models are identified, together with characteristic measurement and model specification issues. A path model is estimated as a methodological example in order to explore the association of Roma/Gypsy ethnic affiliation with chu...

This paper uses the method of concerned photography to examine the reproduction and disruption of gender status through urbanscapes comprising statues, outdoor advertisements, mural artworks, and other materialized gender displays in public spaces. We propose the sensitizing concept of ‘massive gender displays’ to analyse our corpus of photographs...

Background: The relationship between COVID-19 vaccination and mortality has been established through clinical trials and other investigations at the individual level. In this study, we aimed to investigate the negative relationship between mortality and COVID-19 vaccination at country level. Study design: We conducted an exploratory, correlation...

This exploratory research focuses on the perceived impact of artificial intelligence on society, specifically the transformation of presentation of self through the use of AI- enhanced selfies. We rely on a thematic content analysis of 50 posts on Instagram that represent portraits generated by the Lensa AI application, with the aim of identifying...

Single mothers who wish to find new dating partners must contend with a lack of free time and the demands of parenting. As online dating has become a more socially acceptable way to access social, romantic, and sexual opportunities, many single mothers are now considering the use of dating apps to pursue their goals. In this article, we explored th...

The anti-vaccination movement, vaccine hesitancy, and wavering vaccination confidence have increasingly become matters of public interest, in parallel with an increasing normalization of representations of vaccination as risky. In this study, we used data on vaccination beliefs and behaviors from two Eurobarometer surveys to classify attitudes towa...

We investigated the negative relationship between mortality and COVID-19 vaccination at ecological level, which has been established through clinical trials and other investigations at the individual level. We conducted an exploratory, correlational, country-level analysis of open data centralized by Our World in Data concerning the cumulative COVI...

This research investigates representations of emotion work and emotional labor in caregiving, in the medium of graphic novels. The study is based on a collection of six contemporary graphic novels that discuss the relationships between older adults who are suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s and their family caregivers and professional caretaker...

We estimate patterns of covariation between COVID-19 vaccination rates and a set of widely used indicators of human, social, and economic capital across 146 countries in July 2021 and February 2022. About 70% of the variability in COVID-19 vaccination rates worldwide can be explained by differences in the Human Development Index (HDI) and, specific...

This article proposes a conceptual framework to study the social bifurcation of reality in polarized science-trusting and science-distrusting lay worldviews, by analyzing and integrating five concepts: science work, number work, emotion work, time work, and boundary work. Despite the epistemological asymmetry between accounts relying on mainstream...

The well-being of children and young people has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The shift to online education disrupted daily rhythms, transformed learning opportunities, and redefined social connections with peers and teachers. We here present a qualitative content analysis of responses to open-ended questions in a large-scale survey of te...

This paper documents the change and reproduction of gender status in the motion picture industry by discussing patterns in protagonist choice and authorship of biographical films produced from 1900 to 2017. The results rely on a quantitative analysis of all 4,539 films on the IMDb platform labeled with the “Biography” tag that portray an individual...

We study variability in General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) awareness in relation to digital experience in the 28 European countries of EU27-UK, through secondary analysis of the Eurobarometer 91.2 survey conducted in March 2019 (N = 27,524). Education, occupation, and age are the strongest sociodemographic predictors of GDPR awareness, with...

We studied variability in General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) awareness in relation to digital experience in the 28 European countries of EU27-UK, through secondary analysis of the Eurobarometer 91.2 survey conducted in March 2019 (N = 27,524). Education, occupation, and age were the strongest sociodemographic predictors of GDPR awareness, wi...

In this article, the authors highlight their findings on online memes to see what they reveal about self and time during the COVID-19 pandemic. Their analysis shows that the self and time are related aspects of social interaction. The self is akin to a theatrical performance and our perception of time is altered by problematic circumstances.

The COVID-19 pandemic led to fast and unexpected changes in social life, including education. Institutions and social actors were forced to rethink school participation in order to respect social distance, but also to ensure quality in education and social order. Digital and collaborative platforms replaced the physical classrooms and mediated the...

Dating apps have become increasingly popular, even more so in the period of the COVID-19 pandemic. Users rely on the anticipated results and perceived usefulness of dating apps, sometimes for extended periods of time. To create successful products, designers of dating apps aim to create socio-technical structures that are attractive, easily usable,...

We examine how self and time have been depicted during the pandemic in online memes. Full text: https://contexts.org/articles/what-do-memes-tell-us-about-self-and-time-during-the-pandemic/

The article is available at: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1cYTG_,cUWn3I6 Background: Despite lacking scientific support, vaccine hesitancy is widespread. While serious vaccine damage as a scientific fact is real yet statistically highly uncommon, emerging social and technological forces have amplified perceptions of risk for “probable vaccine da...

Background: Despite lacking scientific support, vaccine hesitancy is widespread. While vaccine damage as a scientific fact is statistically highly uncommon, emerging social and technological forces have converted probable vaccine damage into an alternative fact. Methods: Using the Eurobarometer 91.2 survey on a statistically representative EU27-UK...

Background: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 SARS- Cov2 has taken the world by surprise. Among the first promising repurposing agents proposed for treatment and prophylaxis, 2 antimalarial agents came into limelight: chloroquine and its less toxic derivative, hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). Intense research and public debates have followe...

Adapting “face-to-face” education to distance and online education in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been a massive challenge for countries around the world. Online education reignited older debates about inclusive education, such as hoped-for universal access versus current digital divides, prompting the public to refl ect about the past, t...

In Romania, as elsewhere, there is persistent controversy surrounding home-opathy wherein various parties try to draw the boundaries of legitimate medical practice. The literature on complementary and alternative medicine features little discussion on the temporal dimensions of controversies surrounding these therapies, focusing mainly on the tempo...

People develop their identities and self-knowledge through constant presentation of self in situations of everyday interaction. In this paper we study strategies of learning about self and society through participation in the online dating platform Tinder, and in digital communities dedicated to collective reflection on this experience. Through an...

While digital technologies pervade and transform professional and personal worlds, their impact remains strongly differentiated across various social worlds. Generational, professional and national boundaries have been deeply transformed yet reproduced through the impact of digital technologies. In this study we examine recent results concerning th...

Background: We discuss homeopathy's placebo effect as the result of a distributed therapeutic agency involving humans, objects, and texts. Homeopathy has been involved in controversies for centuries, and the dispute whether it is therapy or quackery is as lively as ever. Still, homeopathy has retained significant popularity and acceptance within t...

Web: http://compaso.eu/ Send manuscripts and inquiries to compaso@compaso.eu For the Winter 2017 issue, we invite research articles and notes that explore how we are being aged from outside the contours of our bodies, through the presence and absence of interaction with others, in materially and technologically organized activities, by living in...

In this paper we examine the evolving roles of digital technology in shaping the professional identity and therapeutic encounters of homeopathic practitioners. Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine that relies almost exclusively in making a diagnostic on patients' verbal description of their symptoms. In contrast to the biomedical diagnosis,...

Scholarly social networks such as Academia.edu and ResearchGate.net introduce a novel approach in literature search, bringing authors to the fore as nodes in exploration paths. While traditional literature search occurs in a text-based environment, academic social sites bring forward the authors. They make use of actionable researcher personas to f...

Guest Editor: Emanuel Socaciu, University of Bucharest Deadline for manuscript submission: April 15th, 2017 Send manuscripts at compaso@compaso.eu We invite research articles and notes that explore the interplay of science and daily life, the role of new technologies in scientific knowledge, the just-emerging and the strongly-persistent practice...

Poate știți, poate nu știți povestea uimitoare a lui Oscillococcinum, remediul homeopat care devine popular în farmaciile românești odată cu sosirea sezonului de răceli și gripe și care la noi a avut vânzări de peste 6 milioane de euro anul trecut [1]. Poate știți, poate nu știți istoria homeopatiei și cum diferă remediile homeopate de suplimentele...

This paper analyses two impromptu crowd science movements, comparing the TVTropes wiki community with the Bechdel Wallace test movement. Impromptu crowd science contributors engage in methodical knowledge creation, in absence of academic scientists' involvement. The two examples illustrate the potential of these movements to create data, analyses a...

We propose a set of six topics of inquiry into historical games as regards their feminine characters, and we illustrate them through an analysis of This War of Mine, Valiant Hearts and 80 Days. Historical games may include documented historical characters and fictive characters as well; the latter may aim to represent a type of real persons, or may...

We analyze the presentation software Prezi as an evocative object and a talkative technology that engages users in diverse web-based learning situations. Prezi claims to offer an alternative to a much ridiculed PowerPoint, and Prezi's rhetorical options indeed privilege storytelling and metaphors through spatial organization, movement, and visuals....

We analyze the presentation software Prezi as an evocative object and a talkative technology that engages users in diverse web-based learning situations. Prezi claims to offer an alternative to a much ridiculed PowerPoint, and Prezi's rhetorical options indeed privilege storytelling and metaphors through spatial organization, movement, and visuals....

We propose the concept of 'impromptu crowd science' to analyze the Bechdel-Wallace movement. We argue that the practice of using this test to evaluate movies generates a form of digitally distributed knowledge that reveals a challenging conceptual impasse. The current organization of the movement, mainly through blog and newspaper articles, quantit...

We propose a framework for designing computer science courses on accessible design, focusing on blind users. The dominant approach in the literature pursues student motivation for accessible design through three main springs: a ‘web of arguments’, highlighting utility and morality as key considerations, empathy, and mainstreaming. We introduce aest...

The present report summary includes the most important conclusions and recommendations presented in each chapter. For further explanations, tables, graphics, data sources, bibliography and complete recommendations see the Extended Report, the main result of the Commission’s activity, available only in Romanian language ( www.presidency.ro/static/CP...

Gender analysis of video games has increased its public visibility through the Gamergate controversy. We examine several casual art games in order to explore the diversity of both conventional and counter-stereotypical gender representations. We find significant reliance on stereotypical presentations , especially in 'sketchy wife' characters. Such...

Age and gender classifications have changed through history, yet they remain relevant in many social situations. They are used by organizations in all walks of life, and they are part and parcel of the identities that we invoke and attribute in daily interactions. Taking notice of both their persistent relevance and the significant changes in age-...

Gender has recently increased in relevance as a game analysis topic. Representations of masculinity and femininity in games have become a growing interest for scholars. Still, little has been written about representations of aging and older persons. Starting from this status-quo, we propose an analysis of age displays in a subtype of video games, n...

Many of us live in a state of persistent and pervasive connectivity. For quite some time, questions on whether this is doing us good or bad have increased in number and variety, as well as their answer trails. We pin our starting point in the public debate around N. Carr's question "Is Google making me stupid?", and we examine the questions asked a...

Recent years have witnessed an increase in the visibility of the so-called 'art games' both in the gaming community and in academic reflection. This label applies, as a rule, to relatively short indie games that appear to have a message about the human condition, life, psyche, society and, often, also about the game genre, in a self-referential loo...

Our minds are extended through tools – from pencils on paper to clocks and computers. 'Extended minds' have gained acclaim in digital times, but have also stirred fear: do objects become smarter at our expense? We propose a new approach to help cultivate auspicious cognitive relationships with things: the 'extended object'. If our thoughts are exte...

We examine the ways in which answers formulated in the Q&A community Quora are aggregated in a collaborative, computer-mediated body of knowledge. Readers’ experiences are shaped by the answer ranking algorithm, a central rhetorical device on Quora. Answer visibility on page is strongly dependent on the number of upvotes, but also on recency and au...

This paper examines current practices in motivating students to design accessible technologies, and proposes an additional method to promote a long-term, steadfast commitment to accessibility. We examine recent reports of teaching accessibility for blind users to sighted students, and we find three types of motivational devices: 1) a ‘web of argume...

In this paper we analyze 26 smoking cessation applications on Android OS focusing on how they address their implied users. We identify ‘refreshing quantification’ as a main method, which endorses a portrait of the users as myopic in risk perception, but heroic in their individual pursuit to reach the non-smoker identity. App-created relationships a...

We use large-scale survey data from the Eurobarometer 77.2/2012 to explore variability in online activity, cyber-crime exposure, and security measures of end-users in European Union (EU27). While cyber-security is a high-priority activity for security experts and researchers, end-users conduct it in the context of their daily lives, as a socially a...

We examine online sociality in Quora, a collaborative Q&A platform, through statistical analysis of 248 answers. Quora members interact through technology and with technology, creating different regimes of sociality: a regime of visibility, in which users and technology assemble the ranked list of answers; a regime of recognition, in which members...

We analyze digital rhetoric in two computer-supported collaborative settings of writing and learning, focusing on major depression: Wikipedia and Quora. We examine the procedural rhetoric of access to and interaction with information, and the textual rhetoric of individual and aggregated entries. Through their different organization of authorship,...

We analyze quantification in the open review process of Alt.Chi panels. We find that reviewers differ systematically regarding their activity patterns. We distinguish 'critical', 'supportive', 'discerning' and 'keen' reviewers, with distinctive contributions for two resources of meaningful numeric evaluation: intersubjectivity and intra-personal co...

In this paper we argue that online forums are a valuable resource for teaching and learning specific analytical skills required for empathetic understanding, especially for students in the social professions - such as sociology, social work, psychology, etc. Empathy refers to the capacity of understanding the situation of another person - that is,...

We estimate the influence of daily smoking frequency on behaviors and beliefs that affect self and others' exposure to tobacco smoke: smoking at home and in the car, passive smoking in public establishments and at the workplace, and beliefs about passive smoking risks, through a secondary analysis of Eurobarometer 77.1 / 2012 and 72.3 / 2009 survey...

We analyze in-depth five smoking cessation apps on Android OS, examining how they teach users to quit smoking and what they learn from users. Apps advise would-be ex-smokers how to perceive the world, how to deal with their emotions, and how to act on their bodies and environment. Still, they learn little from their users, and even less from the sc...

We analyze quantification in the open review process of Alt.Chi panels. We find that reviewers differ systematically regarding their activity patterns. We distinguish 'critical', 'supportive', 'discerning' and 'keen' reviewers, with distinctive contributions for two resources of meaningful numeric evaluation: intersubjectivity and intra-personal co...

We analyze current approaches in motivating students to pursue accessibility, with a focus on blind users, by examining scientific reports of courses in the computer science and engineering curriculum. We identify three main motivational resorts: a 'web of arguments', referring to issues of morality, legality, and interest; the practice of mainstre...

This paper discusses opportunities for learning about biographies through Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopaedia. We examine argumentation and interpretation practices in Steve Jobs's entry and its associated Talk pages, focusing on editors' debates on whether Jobs was an “inventor”. We highlight argumentation from delegated voice as a core element of W...

The article discusses acceptance of evolution and its relevance for measuring scientific literacy. The author analyzes the National Science Foundation knowledge quiz in relation to theoretical, methodological, and moral arguments, proposing a distinction between quiet and animated scientific constructs. When a public learns of evolution as an anima...

Proiectul STISOC - Ştiință şi societate. Interese şi percepții ale publicului privind cercetarea ştiințifică şi rezultatele cercetării - a fost finanțat de Autoritatea Națională pentru Cercetare Științifică din România, în cadrul programului PN II Capacități 2008, prin contractul nr. 203 din 10.09.2008. Investigația empirică a constat în elaborarea...

Plagiatul reprezintă (1) prezentarea drept creație personală a (2) creațiilor intelectuale originale ale unui (3) alt autor, în (4) contexte sociale în care creațiile personale sunt recunoscute și recompensate.

Rughiniş discusses three controversial issues with regard to surveys of the Romani population: ethnonym use, self-identification versus hetero-attribution of Romani ethnicity, and the use of variables in reference to Romani settlements. She uses data sets from ten surveys of Romanian Roma between 2000 and 2008 as well as the 2002 Romanian Census to...

The paper analyzes indicators of scientific knowledge and health knowledge currently available in population surveys and discusses their dimensionality, with particular reference to DK answers. Multiple correspondence analysis is used to identify a satisfactory data reduction strategy, in the Eurobarometer 63.1 2005 and STISOC 2009 surveys. Res...

The volume analyzes the attitudes and opinions of Romanians with respect to working, jobs, and the job market based on survey data collected in 2008.

Barometrul de Opinie Publică (BOP) este un program de cercetare şi analiză a opiniei publice din România, a cărui misiune este de a contribui la consolidarea legăturilor dintre structurile puterii şi societate în ansamblul său, clarificând temele cheie care trebuie să se regăsească pe agenda ONG-urilor şi instituţiilor publice, punând la dispoziţia...

The article explores the possibility to analyse common life philosophies through quantitative sociological surveys. Two such surveys are used to see whether people’s conceptions about hardship and happiness, and about marriage and happiness, seem to be generally valid in the population, and how they are influenced by one’s own life experiences. The...