Theodor Adorno, Paul Lazarsfeld, and the Public Interest Mandate of Early Communications Research, 1935–1941

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josh Shepperd
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Communication Theory ◽  
Rockefeller Foundation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Educational Broadcasting ◽  
Theodor Adorno ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Media ◽  
Noncommercial Media

Abstract Through detailed archival analysis of personal letters, this article examines how the “public interest” mandate of the Communications Act of 1934 inspired the formation of the Princeton Radio Research Project (PRRP), and influenced Paul Lazarsfeld’s development of two-step flows and media effects research. Buried in federal records, a post-Act Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Pursuant that mandated analysis of educational broadcasting additionally turns out to be the causative reason that Theodor Adorno was brought to America by the Rockefeller Foundation. Crucial to the intellectual history of media and communication theory, Lazarsfeld invited Adorno not only to develop techniques to inform educational music study, but to strategically formulate advocacy language for the media reform movement to help noncommercial media obtain frequency licenses. The limits and pressures exerted by the FCC Pursuant influenced the trajectory of the PRRP research, and consequently, the methodological investments of Communication Studies.

scholarly journals Corporate Governance of Artificial Intelligence in the Public Interest

Information ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 275
Author(s):  
Peter Cihon ◽  
Jonas Schuett ◽  
Seth D. Baum
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Corporate Governance ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Nonprofit Organizations ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Department Of Defense ◽  
The Public ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Media ◽  
The U.S

Corporations play a major role in artificial intelligence (AI) research, development, and deployment, with profound consequences for society. This paper surveys opportunities to improve how corporations govern their AI activities so as to better advance the public interest. The paper focuses on the roles of and opportunities for a wide range of actors inside the corporation—managers, workers, and investors—and outside the corporation—corporate partners and competitors, industry consortia, nonprofit organizations, the public, the media, and governments. Whereas prior work on multistakeholder AI governance has proposed dedicated institutions to bring together diverse actors and stakeholders, this paper explores the opportunities they have even in the absence of dedicated multistakeholder institutions. The paper illustrates these opportunities with many cases, including the participation of Google in the U.S. Department of Defense Project Maven; the publication of potentially harmful AI research by OpenAI, with input from the Partnership on AI; and the sale of facial recognition technology to law enforcement by corporations including Amazon, IBM, and Microsoft. These and other cases demonstrate the wide range of mechanisms to advance AI corporate governance in the public interest, especially when diverse actors work together.

Antitrust as Public Interest Law: Redistribution, Equity, and Social Justice

2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-101
Author(s):  
Dina I. Waked
Keyword(s):  
Public Interest ◽  
Competition Policy ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Allocative Efficiency ◽  
Consumer Welfare ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Interest Law ◽  
Antitrust Laws ◽  
History Of ◽  
Do So

This article proposes the use of antitrust law to reduce poverty and address inequality. It argues that the antitrust laws are sufficiently malleable to achieve such goals. The current focus of antitrust on the efficiency-only goals does not only lead to increasing inequality further but is also inconsistent with the history of antitrust. This history is presented through the lens of the public interest that emerges into the balance between private property and competition policy. Tracing the public interest at different historical moments, we get to see how it has been broad enough to encompass social welfare concerns. Over time, the public interest concern of antitrust was narrowed to exclusively cover consumer welfare and its allocative efficiency. Once we frame antitrust as public interest law, in its broadest sense, we are empowered to use it to address inequality. A proposal to do so is exposed in this article.

FC24-02 - Psychiatric literacy and the personality disorders

2011 ◽  
Vol 26 (S2) ◽  
pp. 1947-1947
Author(s):  
J. Winceslaus ◽  
A. Furnham
Keyword(s):  
Personality Disorders ◽  
Correct Diagnosis ◽  
Psychological Problem ◽  
List Type ◽  
Health Seeking ◽  
The Public ◽  
Lay People ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Media ◽  
Psychological Education

IntroductionThis study explored the unknown psychiatric literacy of the public with regard to the Personality Disorders (PDs).ObjectivesTo find out -i)Whether a lay person recognises the presence of a psychological problem in a person with a PD.ii)What labels lay people give to people living with PDs.iii)How lay people rate the quality of life of people living with PDs.iv)Whether a history of psychological education or illness improves a lay person's ability to identify a PD.AimsTo assess how much work is needed to be done in order to increase public psychiatric literacy to a satisfactory level with regard to the PDs.MethodsA vignette identification methodology was employed. 223 participants responded to the questionnaire Eccentric people’. Results: Lay people recognise people with PDs as being unhappy, unsuccessful at work and as having poor personal relationships, but do not associate these problems with psychological causes. Rates of correct labelling were low; under 7% for 7/10 PDs. History of psychological education and illness were positively correlated with the correct recognition of 70% and 60% of the personality disorders respectively.ConclusionsThe psychiatric literacy of the public with regard to the PDs is low. This raises concerns about the health seeking behaviour and correct diagnosis of sufferers, as well as the stigma attached to them and their social neglect by others. Psychiatric literacy needs to be increased, psychological education achieves this. The media could be an effective tool to increase psychiatric literacy.

“Tanked up Yobs” and “Self-Pity City”. Deconstructing the Myths of the Hillsborough Disaster

STADION ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-75
Author(s):  
Alan McDougall
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
British History ◽  
Public Realm ◽  
Grassroots Activism ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Overwhelming Evidence ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Media ◽  
Government Legislation

On 15 April 1989, Liverpool FC played Nottingham Forest in an FA Cup semi-final at the Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield in northern England. Catastrophic errors by the police and other organisations led to the deaths of 96 Liverpool supporters, crushed against the perimeter fences on the Leppings Lane terrace. Though the horrific facts of the disaster were quickly and widely known, they were lost beneath another narrative, promoted by the police, numerous politicians, and large sections of the media. This narrative blamed the disaster on “tanked up yobs”: drunk and aggressive Liverpool supporters, who turned up late and forced their way into the ground. Over the subsequent years and decades, as Hillsborough campaigners vainly sought justice for the disaster’s victims in a series of trials and inquests, the destructive allegation remained in the public realm. It was reinforced by establishment dismissal of Liverpool as a “self-pity city”, home to a community incapable of accepting official verdicts or of leaving the past in the past. This essay uncovers the history of the myths of the Hillsborough disaster. It first shows how these myths were established - how false narratives, with powerful backers, shifted responsibility for the disaster from the police to supporters, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. It then examines how these myths were embedded in public discourse - how Liverpool was demonised as an aggressively sentimental city where people refused to admit to “killing their own”. It finally analyses how these myths were overturned through research, media mobilisation, and grassroots activism, a process that culminated in the 2016 inquest verdict, which ruled that the 96 Hillsborough victims were unlawfully killed. In doing so, the essay shows how Hillsborough became a key event in modern British history, influencing everything from stadium design to government legislation.

Regulatory Rationales Beyond the Economic: In Search of the Public Interest

2010 ◽  
pp. 38-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Feintuck
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Frame Of Reference ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Political Values ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Media ◽  
Market Driven ◽  
Market Economics

This article contends that regulation in certain fields should incorporate and give emphasis to values beyond those of market economics. It is argued here that the frame of reference of the market is too narrow to encompass properly a range of social and political values which are established in liberal democracies and can be seen as constitutional in nature. Examples from fields such as environmental regulation and regulation of the media are used here to illustrate a range of non-economic values which have been, are, or should be reflected in regulatory theory and practice as a means of recognising and reflecting principles related to social justice. Such principles extend beyond, and may be antithetical to the practices, values, and outcomes of market-driven decision-making.

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