Cullers and Guardians: subcultures, attitudes and culling kangaroos
Traditional approaches to identifying and classifying subcultures (such as class and demographics) are limited in their applicability online. Social media provide an abundant source of insight into subcultures, but the irregular and natural presentation of data often defies systematic analysis an...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
2016
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| Online Access: | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/10523/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/10523/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/10523/1/16500-46348-1-SM.pdf |
| Summary: | Traditional approaches to identifying and classifying subcultures (such as class and
demographics) are limited in their applicability online. Social media provide an abundant
source of insight into subcultures, but the irregular and natural presentation of data often
defies systematic analysis and traditional tools. To identify and understand subcultures this
study uses appraisal method to analyse comments in public Facebook discussions. It focuses
on a contentious issue in Australian society, the culling of kangaroos. The findings are
consistent with existing theories about wildlife attitudes and subcultures, suggesting
credibility in the sample and findings. Two main groups were identified, referred to here as
Cullers, who favour culling and reflect a more general attitude of human dominance over
wildlife, and Guardians, who oppose culling and reflect a more general attitude of mutuality
in rights and relations for humans and other species. The study supports previous research
assertions that attitudes and values are integral to the development of subcultures. The
appraisal method provided valuable insight into the complexity of attitudes within the two
main groups. The analysis using attitudes helped to reveal economic, environmental, patriotic
and rights influences on positions taken by subcultures, and suggests merit in future research
using appraisal to identify and account for ‘sub-subcultures’. |
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