Ways to get a more balanced gender representation in addiction journals' management and workforce.

Although the scientific community, particularly academic publishing, claims to be gender-neutral and based on meritocracy, it mirrors other parts of modern society, wherein residual gender imbalances and implicit and explicit gender biases are reproduced. In this report, we address gender imbalances (in particular, the overrepresentation of men) in the editorial workforce of academic journals as barriers to women's promotion and career progression in addiction science. We also consider potential gender-related elements and biases in the peer-review and editorial decision-making processes, which may result in women's lower publication rates, thereby creating another gender-related barrier to women's promotion, career progression and academic recognition. Establishing a more balanced gender representation in addiction publishing will require the adoption of the SAGER guidelines and the development of Gender Equality Plans for addiction specialty journals. Finally, although our focus concerns gender, the organisational mechanisms identified here also affect other types of heterogeneity and intersectional thinking.

Gambling operators' social media image creation in Finland and Sweden 2017-2020.

Aim: This is a first audit of how gambling operators in Finland and Sweden address citizens on social media. The study is able to pinpoint some differences between how gambling operators utilise social media in a state monopoly system (Finland) and in a license-based regulatory framework (Sweden). Methods: Curated social media posts from Finland- and Sweden-based accounts in national languages were collected from March 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020. The data (N = 13,241) consist of posts published on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. The posts were audited in terms of frequency of posting, content and user engagement. Results/Conclusions: Operators in both countries were, in general, active on their social media accounts, but there was a decline in number of posts between 2017 and 2020. A substantial number of the analysed posts did not visually portray gambling or games. In the Swedish license system, operators seem to present themselves more straightforwardly as gambling companies, whereas in the Finnish monopoly system the image was more tied to a social role of public good doing. Beneficiaries of gambling revenues became less visible in the Finnish data over time.

The critical role of peer reviewers: Challenges and future steps.

The critical role of peer reviewers in the publishing process is examined. Examples of typical challenges are provided, including the relative lack of rewards for this important task. Particular attention is paid to the need to consider the diversity of the peer reviewers recruited and impediments to the selection beyond Areas of Competence, often due to the small available pool. Finally, recommendations for improvement are suggested.

Self-exclusion from gambling: A toothless tiger?

While there is evidence for self-exclusion (SE) as an individual-level harm reduction intervention, its effects on reducing harm from gambling at the population level remain unclear. Based on a review of national legal frameworks and SE programs, including their utilization and enforcement in selected high-income societies, the present analysis aims to explore the reach and strengths of SE in the protection of gamblers in these jurisdictions. It places particular emphasis on SE programs' potential to prevent and minimize gambling harm at the population level. The overview examined SE in Finland, Germany, Italy, Massachusetts (USA), Norway, Sweden, and Victoria (Australia). These jurisdictions differ considerably in how gambling is regulated as well as in how SE is implemented and enforced. The reach and extent of enforcement of SE apparently vary with the polity's general policy balance between reducing gambling problems and increasing gambling revenue. But in any case, though SE may benefit individual gamblers and those around them, it does not appear to be capable of significantly reducing gambling harm at the population level. To render SE programs an effective measure that prevents gamblers and those linked to them from financial, social, and psychological harm, utilization needs to be substantially increased by reforming legal regulations and exclusion conditions.

Kettil Bruun is more relevant than ever.

Kettil Bruun is best known for the total consumption model introduced in 1975 in the collective work "Alcohol control policy in public health perspective". There were three tracks in particular that led Bruun's research towards the total consumption model: research on the distribution of power, research on international drug policies, and his contributions to criminology and social policy. Kettil Bruun's lifework shows that the innovation, intersectionality, and synergy which are now rehearsed in pompous research strategies were a non-question 40 years ago. These aspects were a natural part of the scientific pursuit of answers. Maybe in a much more modest and homemade form, but all the more import in terms of applicability at the general level of principle.

Understanding addiction: The shift from epistemology to ontology.

This essay contrasts a late modernist epistemological paradigm with an ontology-oriented Anthropocene-conscious Approach (ACA) as frameworks for understanding the coming into being and the making of addiction. Operationalizable theories and concepts of addiction have been crucial in an era with a great demand for compartmentalizing and systemically defining psychological struggles and social problems. In the modernistic progress story, the addiction phenomenon materializes through the conceptual division between capacity and non-capacity, with those capable of mastering their urges on one side and those incapable of doing so on the other. The ACA strives actively to move beyond artificial divides between agency/structure, culture/nature, mind/matter and instead explore phenomena ecologically across these continuums. This entails a conscious re-focus away from authoritative human-made assumptions towards new types of knowledge and knowing. In the ACA assemblage-like ontology, different elements are brought together in their capacities to affect each other into entities. Due to its claims of practical uses, I predict that the ACA will become as influential as Foucauldian genealogy in the field of addiction studies.