21 pages., via online journal., This article offers a critical rhetorical ecofeminist analysis of the Meatless Monday campaign, a U.S.-based meat reduction initiative focused on public health and the environment. By examining the campaign's online discourse, the study sheds light on vegetarian advocacy defined by an apolitical small-steps strategy and identifies constraints on the campaign's significant empowerment potential. Extending past scholarship on how some vegetarian discourses resist and reproduce meat-eating culture's hegemonic norms of gender, race/ethnicity, class, and human–nonhuman relations, I develop and demonstrate what I call the critique of neoliberal backgrounding as an intersectional ecofeminist heuristic. I conclude that the campaign should address the meaningful consequences that its affirmation of neoliberalism has for its targeted areas of concern and for interconnected societal problems.
10 pages., ISSN 2223-4985, via online journal., The study investigated the factors influencing accessibility of rural information services in Tanzania. Specifically the study identified the types of information services provided in rural areas; identified the sources of information used by rural people and determined the barriers to accessibility of information services in rural areas in Tanzania. The study employed a meta-analysis methodology where studies on information services in rural areas in Tanzania were analysed. Findings of the analysis were then compared and contrasted to see the similarities and differences. It was found that there were several information sources used in rural areas ranging from simple face to face communication to modern interactive ICTs including the mobile phones. Despite the availability of a number of information sources, several factors limited the accessibility of information services in rural areas. Findings show that high illiteracy levels, poor/unreliable information infrastructure, low income, lack of electricity and high cost of ICTs have limited the accessibility of information services in rural areas. Others factors including the use of difficulty languages when repackaging information, lack of time to access information and geographical isolation to have also limited some from accessing information services in rural areas. The study recommends that in-order to improve the access to information services in rural areas, it is important to deal with both individual and institutional factors which limit access to information. It is also important to conduct audience research oftenly that appropriate information can be delivered to the right people.
