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Five years after the murder of British MP, Jo Cox, during the European Union referendum campaign in 2016, this article examines the More In Common initiative through two sites of participatory practice: on Twitter via two related hashtags–#MoreInCommon and #LoveLikeJo–and the ‘More In Common’ exhibition (2021–2022) at the People’s History Museum in Manchester. We consider how both spaces help to organise public feeling and consider the ways in which these sites draw on Cox’s identity politics and values to curate her political legacy. We identify three emergent logics through our thematic analysis of the tweets posted with the hashtags in the month following her death: connected, visual and resistant. Considering the political legacy of ‘more in common’ 5 years later, we then trace the movement of the campaign from the digital to the physical and assess the ways in which Cox’s values are crystalized through co-created participatory artistic projects displayed in public gallery space.

In today’s digital media environment we are creating and consuming more images than ever before. From the importance of image in politics, to the ubiquity of the ‘selfie’ across social media platforms, visual communication is increasingly central to our everyday mediated lives. It is more important than ever to examine the social and cultural implications of mediated images – but how can we really interrogate the work that images do? Visual Communication: Understanding Images in Media Culture provides a theoretical and empirical toolkit to do just that. It explores a range of approaches to visual analysis, while also providing a hands-on guide to applying a diverse range of methods to your own work. The book: - Illustrates multiple perspectives, from content analysis and semiotics, to multimodal and critical discourse analysis. - Explores the centrality of images to issues of identity and representation, politics and activism, and commodities and consumption. - Brings theory to life with a host of original case studies, from celebrity videos on YouTube and civil unrest on Twitter, to the lifestyle branding of Vice Media and Getty Images. - Shows you how to combine approaches and methods to best suit your own research questions and projects. An invaluable guide to analysing contemporary media images, this is essential reading for students and researchers of visual communication and visual culture.

This report introduces the findings of our pilot survey on veterans’ perceptions on media representations of military and post-military experiences. The mainstream media is thought to play a key role in shaping public attitudes, which in turn affects how policy makers, charities and military advocacy groups work with the media. Our objective is to work with veterans to find out what they think the main issues are in contemporary media representations. The findings of the project will be used to offer guidance to British media organisations for a better-informed representation of military veterans. This report provides a brief context for the research and outlines some of the key themes that have emerged from our survey. It addresses the leading impressions and concerns raised by veterans, identifies the dominant perceived patterns of representation across varied media genres, and investigates how our respondents feel about issues such as disability, mental health, ethnicity, and gender in veteran portrayals. Crucially, the survey begins to explore the ways in which veterans believe media representations could be improved, and this will form a starting point for the recommendations we make to media organisations as part of our further research.

New media technologies present greater opportunities for the unguarded and personalized aspects of war to be shared in public spaces, including an element that militaries prefer remains unseen: the depiction of “our boys” killing. This article examines how soldiers’ transgressive visual practices of posing with dead bodies during the war in Afghanistan are re-presented in the mainstream UK press, and analyses the reactions garnered from group interviews with serving military media operations personnel, veterans’ groups and forces' families. Contradictory impulses are revealed in the news media’s outraged revelling in the presumed scandal, and in the focus group participant responses, many of whom reject the premise for the news story whilst also acknowledging common experiences of combat and the desire to show others “what war’s like”. The article therefore contributes to debates on the news mediation of amateur snapshot images, the imbrication of photographic practices in wartime experience, and the limitations of the news media as national moral arbiters. In prioritizing a methodological and analytical focus on the (military) audience rather than the news coverage, the article highlights how engagement with journalistic images and texts can act as a catalyst for identity-affirmation and for thinking critically about the military-media nexus.

Adenocarcinoma of the GEJ has seen a rapid increase in incidence over the last decades. Because of their borderline location between esophagus and stomach, the optimal management for these tumors is still an important subject for debate. Especially for the true cardiacarcinomas, i.e. type II tumors, there are still a lot of controversies regarding the optimal approach in neoadjuvant therapy and surgery. Although surgery is considered to be mandatory for curative treatment, postoperative complications are still a significant problem. Also, long-term survival in GEJ adenocarcinomas remains poor despite the increased use of multimodality treatments. The research presented in this thesis aims to evaluate current treatment strategies and to bring more insight in the optimal approach for GEJ adenocarcinomas. Secondly, important postoperative complications were evaluated. Also, prognostic factors for overall survival and recurrent disease were addressed.

Over the last two decades, aesthetics has become more central to political communi-cation and media studies in relation to both mainstream political power and counter-cultural movements. the term “aesthetics” originates from the Greek word “aisthesis,”which means perception by the intellect and the bodily senses. As a field of philosophical inquiry, aesthetics concerns the nature and functions of art. The notion of aesthetics is associated with questions around beauty, taste, and the formal (most often visual) qualities of texts, media, and material objects. The philosopher Alexander Baumgarten, who coined this word in 1735, defined aesthetics as the science of sensible knowledge, tying a concern with aesthetics to the understanding of how beauty stimulates and is gathered by the senses. Aesthetics pertains to the more properly formal aspects of communication, but also to its perceptual dimensions and sensuous experiences, as expressed through emotion, pleasure, and affect.

Minimally invasive techniques in transhiatal esophagectomy (THE) were introduced to reduce morbidity and enhance postoperative recovery. Aim of this study was to systematically review the current status and possible beneficial effects of the minimally invasive approach in THE. A systematic search was performed in PubMed, the Cochrane Library, and Embase to identify English articles published on laparoscopic THE. Comparative cohort studies were included for critical appraisal. Data describing perioperative and oncological outcomes were analyzed. A total of four comparative cohort studies that compared laparoscopic THE (n = 122) with open THE (n = 144) and four noncomparative cohort studies reporting on laparoscopic THE (n = 212) were included in this review. Median blood loss was significantly lower in the laparoscopic group in all studies (100–500 vs. 526–900 mL). Length of hospital stay was also significantly shorter for the laparoscopic approach in all studies (9–13 vs. 12–16 days). One study reported less major postoperative complications after laparoscopic THE (12 vs. 23%), in the other studies no differences were found. Also no differences were found with regard to operating time, postoperative morbidity, radicality, and lymph node retrieval. Based on these pioneer studies, laparoscopic THE was demonstrated to be safe and feasible with evidence of reduced blood loss and shorter hospital stays. However, level 1 evidence is lacking and further research is warranted to confirm these findings and also to evaluate long-term oncologic outcomes.

Item does not contain fulltext Esophageal and gastric cancer is associated with a poor prognosis since many patients develop recurrent disease. Treatment requires specific expertise and a structured multidisciplinary approach. In the Netherlands, this type of expertise is mainly found at the University Medical Centers (UMCs) and a few specialized nonacademic centers. Aim of this study is to implement a national infrastructure for research to gain more insight in the etiology and prognosis of esophageal and gastric cancer and to evaluate and improve the response on (neoadjuvant) treatment. Clinical data are collected in a prospective database, which is linked to the patients' biomaterial. The collection and storage of biomaterial is performed according to standard operating procedures in all participating UMCs as established within the Parelsnoer Institute. The collected biomaterial consists of tumor biopsies, blood samples, samples of malignant and healthy tissue of the resected specimen and biopsies of recurrence. The collected material is stored in the local biobanks and is encoded to respect the privacy of the donors. After approval of the study was obtained from the Institutional Review Board, the first patient was included in October 2014. The target aim is to include 300 patients annually. In conclusion, the eight UMCs of the Netherlands collaborated to establish a nationwide database of clinical information and biomaterial of patients with esophageal and gastric cancer. Due to the national coverage, a high number of patients are expected to be included. This will provide opportunity for future studies to gain more insight in the etiology, treatment and prognosis of esophageal and gastric cancer.

Esophageal and gastric cancer is associated with a poor prognosis since many patients develop recurrent disease. Treatment requires specific expertise and a structured multidisciplinary approach. In the Netherlands, this type of expertise is mainly found at the University Medical Centers (UMCs) and a few specialized nonacademic centers. Aim of this study is to implement a national infrastructure for research to gain more insight in the etiology and prognosis of esophageal and gastric cancer and to evaluate and improve the response on (neoadjuvant) treatment. Clinical data are collected in a prospective database, which is linked to the patients' biomaterial. The collection and storage of biomaterial is performed according to standard operating procedures in all participating UMCs as established within the Parelsnoer Institute. The collected biomaterial consists of tumor biopsies, blood samples, samples of malignant and healthy tissue of the resected specimen and biopsies of recurrence. The collected material is stored in the local biobanks and is encoded to respect the privacy of the donors. After approval of the study was obtained from the Institutional Review Board, the first patient was included in October 2014. The target aim is to include 300 patients annually. In conclusion, the eight UMCs of the Netherlands collaborated to establish a nationwide database of clinical information and biomaterial of patients with esophageal and gastric cancer. Due to the national coverage, a high number of patients are expected to be included. This will provide opportunity for future studies to gain more insight in the etiology, treatment and prognosis of esophageal and gastric cancer.