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...

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Main Authors: Simmons, Peter, Mehmet, Michael
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2016
Online Access:http://journalarticle.ukm.my/10523/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/10523/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/10523/1/16500-46348-1-SM.pdf
id ukm-10523
recordtype eprints
spelling ukm-105232017-07-07T09:02:58Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/10523/ Cullers and Guardians: subcultures, attitudes and culling kangaroos Simmons, Peter Mehmet, Michael 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’. Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2016 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/10523/1/16500-46348-1-SM.pdf Simmons, Peter and Mehmet, Michael (2016) Cullers and Guardians: subcultures, attitudes and culling kangaroos. Jurnal Komunikasi ; Malaysian Journal of Communication, 32 (2). pp. 670-690. ISSN 0128-1496 http://ejournal.ukm.my/mjc/issue/view/877
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Local University
institution Universiti Kebangasaan Malaysia
building UKM Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
language English
description 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’.
format Article
author Simmons, Peter
Mehmet, Michael
spellingShingle Simmons, Peter
Mehmet, Michael
Cullers and Guardians: subcultures, attitudes and culling kangaroos
author_facet Simmons, Peter
Mehmet, Michael
author_sort Simmons, Peter
title Cullers and Guardians: subcultures, attitudes and culling kangaroos
title_short Cullers and Guardians: subcultures, attitudes and culling kangaroos
title_full Cullers and Guardians: subcultures, attitudes and culling kangaroos
title_fullStr Cullers and Guardians: subcultures, attitudes and culling kangaroos
title_full_unstemmed Cullers and Guardians: subcultures, attitudes and culling kangaroos
title_sort cullers and guardians: subcultures, attitudes and culling kangaroos
publisher Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
publishDate 2016
url http://journalarticle.ukm.my/10523/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/10523/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/10523/1/16500-46348-1-SM.pdf
first_indexed 2023-09-18T19:57:41Z
last_indexed 2023-09-18T19:57:41Z
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