scholarly journals News media attention in Climate Action: latent topics and open access

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tahereh Dehdarirad ◽  
Kalle Karlsson

AbstractIn this study we investigated whether open access could assist the broader dissemination of scientific research in Climate Action (Sustainable Development Goal 13) via news outlets. We did this by comparing (i) the share of open and non-open access documents in different Climate Action topics, and their news counts, and (ii) the mean of news counts for open access and non-open access documents. The data set of this study comprised 70,206 articles and reviews in Sustainable Development Goal 13, published during 2014–2018, retrieved from SciVal. The number of news mentions for each document was obtained from Altmetrics Details Page API using their DOIs, whereas the open access statuses were obtained using Unpaywall.org. The analysis in this paper was done using a combination of (Latent Dirichlet allocation) topic modelling, descriptive statistics, and regression analysis. The covariates included in the regression analysis were features related to authors, country, journal, institution, funding, readability, news source category and topic. Using topic modelling, we identified 10 topics, with topics 4 (meteorology) [21%], 5 (adaption, mitigation, and legislation) [18%] and 8 (ecosystems and biodiversity) [14%] accounting for 53% of the research in Sustainable Development Goal 13. Additionally, the results of regression analysis showed that while keeping all the variables constant in the model, open access papers in Climate Action had a news count advantage (8.8%) in comparison to non-open access papers. Our findings also showed that while a higher share of open access documents in topics such as topic 9 (Human vulnerability to risks) might not assist with its broader dissemination, in some others such as topic 5 (adaption, mitigation, and legislation), even a lower share of open access documents might accelerate its broad communication via news outlets.

Author(s):  
Inge K. Sonn ◽  
Marieta Du Plessis ◽  
Carel D. Jansen Van Vuuren ◽  
Janene Marais ◽  
Emma Wagener ◽  
...  

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic struck globally and has affected higher education institutions (HEIs) and their operations, indirectly impacting the progress of the Sustainable Development Goal 4 achieved thus far. This article addresses HEIs achievements and challenges experienced in the wake of the pandemic. Online news media reports played a facilitative role in providing information to the HEI communities. A rapid review exploring online news media messages relating to higher education at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa was utilised. Narrative synthesis was used to analyse the data. The results highlight HEIs achievements, which aim to ensure that all students receive the same level of education and provision in terms of devices and mental health support. However, challenges were also experienced at HEIs and include students feeling uncertainty and fear regarding completing their education. Furthermore, the results also show that not all students received the same level of education due to contextual factors, thus deepening the existing social disparities in Africa. The pandemic provides an opportunity for HEIs to embed the components of global citizenship education into the curriculum and to work in an innovative way to promote Sustainable Development Goal 4.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 4584 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sunha Kim

In the context of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal for education, this study examines the potential of information, communication, and technology (ICT) as a way to provide quality education for all, with a focus on immigrant youth in the United States. The study uses structural equation models (SEM) to analyze data from a nationally representative data set, Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS)-USA. Focusing on mathematics achievement among immigrant youth (with non-immigrant youth as a reference group), this study explores the effects of ICT access and two types of ICT use for educational purposes: generic and specific. The results indicate that ICT access and specific ICT use both have positive direct, indirect, and total effects on math performance for immigrant youths, while generic ICT use has only a nonsignificant negative effect. In nonimmigrant youths, these ICT variables showed a different pattern, with the effects of ICT access and specific ICT use being less pronounced, but generic ICT use exhibiting a significant negative effect. These findings show the potential role of ICT-mediated education in narrowing the achievement gap between immigrant and nonimmigrant students, thereby helping immigrants better integrate into their destination countries.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pooja Khosla

Climate change is now impacting every country on every continent. Leading European countries are taking action-and even committing real moneyto fight climate change1 . Without action, the world’s average surface temperature is projected to rise over the 21st century and is likely to surpass 3 degrees Celsius this century-with some areas of the world expected to warm even more. In effort to resolve the issues related to climate change we need greater private sector participation. Incentivizing global investors and consumers to direct investments and consumption towards the corporations that are leading the effort towards climate sustainability may accelerate achieving United Nation’s current sustainable development goal (SDG’s) of Climate Action


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