Contrasted media frames of AI during the COVID-19 pandemic: a content analysis of US and European newspapers

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerome Duberry ◽  
Sabrya Hamidi

PurposeDespite the growing interest in AI, the scientific literature lacks multinational studies that examine how mainstream media depict AI applications. This paper is one of the first empirical studies to explore how French and English-speaking mainstream media portray AI during a pandemic. The purpose of this study is to examine how media define AI and how they frame this technology.Design/methodology/approachThe authors selected five media outlets and extracted all news articles that mentioned AI over a period of 30 days. The authors constituted the sample to ensure a mix of global, national and local media newspapers. The authors included Le Temps (Switzerland), Le Monde (France), The Guardian (United Kingdom), Politico Europe (Europe) and the New York Times (USA). The authors used the NexisUni database to collect the news articles. This resulted in a sample of 54 articles, which the authors then refined to 35 articles mentioning at the same AI and COVID-19. They then manually coded to identify media frames about AI.FindingsAlthough no news article provides a definition of AI, most articles highlight two main characteristics: information processing and adaptability. This paper also shows that the coverage of AI in US newspaper is more optimistic than pessimistic. European newspapers offer a more balanced perspective of the risks and benefits associated with the technology, and highlight its use mainly in the context of the COVID-19. Media framing changes according to the evolution of the pandemic. While the USA were not yet heavily affected by the virus, Europe experienced the peak of the crisis. The authors argue that the framing of AI follows that of the pandemic.Research limitations/implicationsThis study is limited in terms of timeframe (30 days) and media outlets (5). It would be useful to extend this sample to verify the results, and also conduct interviews among journalists to understand their motivations and understanding of AI.Originality/valueDespite the growing interest in AI, the scientific literature lacks multinational studies that examine how mainstream media depict AI applications in society. This paper is one of the first empirical studies to explore how French and English-speaking mainstream media portray AI during a pandemic.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-09-2020-0393

2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 204-218
Author(s):  
Elaine Ménard ◽  
Vanessa Girouard

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a search engine dedicated to image retrieval in a bilingual (French and English) context. This paper presents the first phase of user testing that was carried out to validate and refine SINCERITY, the new search device. Design/methodology/approach – This first phase of the search engine testing involved a small group of image searchers (10 French-speaking and 10 English-speaking participants) who were asked to retrieve a sample of images (30) using the new tool. A questionnaire was also developed to compile the comments of the users. Findings – The results of this first phase of testing revealed that even though image indexing was sometimes problematic, the participants did not encounter major difficulties retrieving images with SINCERITY. Comments and suggestions received will be taken into consideration to improve the performance and aesthetics of the search engine. Originality/value – Once fully operational, SINCERITY will allow users to search images in an attractive and user-friendly manner. Eventually, other types of images (documentary and artistic) will be added to the image database linked to the image search engine, as well as other languages.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 134-134
Author(s):  
Jasmin Tahmaseb McConatha ◽  
Jordan Broussard ◽  
Jacki Magnerelli

Abstract Media representations of the Covid-19 pandemic and its devastating consequences have shaped people’s fears, anxiety, and perceptions of vulnerability. Social scientists have examined the consequences of how information is “framed.” Framing theory asserts that issues can be portrayed differently by emphasizing or de-emphasizing aspects and information. According to Lakoff (2004) the impact of a message is not based on what is said but how it is said. Theories of framing focus on how the media frames issues, which then structure and shape attitudes and policies. A news article serves as a frame for an intended message. The purpose of this project is to analyze the ways that “age” has been framed during the Covid-19 pandemic. One of the most dominant frames in terms of COVID-19 coverage is how the pandemic has been analyzed through the lens of age and framed in terms of age discrimination. Method: A thematic analysis of New York Times and Washington Post news articles addressing older adults and illness vulnerability was conducted. The results of news articles appearing in these prominent newspapers indicated that the perceptions of older men and women tended to focus on the relationship between age and vulnerabilities to severe consequences from Covid-19. The frames in which these new articles were presented indicated ageist tones and messages that had the potential to either reinforce or lead to age stereotyping and discrimination.


2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oluwakemi Adeola Obayelu ◽  
Amaka Christiana Chime

PurposeThe majority of poor women in Africa live in rural areas, and investigating their empowerment status and factors influencing their empowerment is therefore a tool for overcoming poverty. This paper investigated the dimensions and determinants of women's empowerment in rural Nigeria.Design/methodology/approachThis study used data from the 2013 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS). Information on women's agencies, resource, income, leadership and time/workload was used to construct women empowerment index (WEI). Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and logit regression model.FindingsMost of the decisions were made by the women's spouses, while decisions on how to spend her earnings were jointly made with her spouse. A majority of the women did not justify beating nor owned businesses. A larger percentage of rural women were disempowered than men; agency had the highest relative contribution to women's disempowerment; and women in the northern zones of Nigeria were less empowered than their southern counterparts. Husband's education and her age were inversely related to women's empowerments while her education, household size and being the household head were directly related to it.Originality/valueThere is a dearth of empirical studies on multidimensional women's empowerment in rural Nigeria. This study therefore provides a clear understanding of drivers of women's empowerment in rural Nigeria, and its findings are to serve as guiding documents for policymakers in designing gender-responsive interventions programs and implementation of a genuine gender mainstreaming in rural development policy in Nigeria. Further, the findings would contribute to the growing body of knowledge, especially empirical studies, on women's empowerment in Nigeria and the developing world.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-07-2019-0455


2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 185-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pekka Hakkarainen

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study vaporizers – especially the vape pen – as a new technology in cannabis use. Until now, almost all information on the use of vaporizers or e-cigarettes for cannabis consumption has come from the internet, the popular press, and accounts by users, but not from the scientific literature. More research is needed. Design/methodology/approach Since scientific studies of the phenomenon are virtually non-existent, the author will also base his study on sociological reflections upon internet sites and articles published both in subcultural and mainstream media. The author will document a national estimate of the prevalence of vaping based on a recent population survey in Finland. Findings Vaping is an emerging trend in cannabis culture internationally. It has been seen as a healthier route of administration than traditional ways of smoking cannabis. Other images, created especially with the help of advanced high-tech machinery and stylish and fashionable designs for the vape pen, are aiming at being cool and easy to use. In Finland, 6 percent of cannabis users make regular use of a vaporizer, and around a quarter of users use one occasionally. A vape pen or e-cigarette was regularly used by 2.6 percent and occasionally by 9.1 percent of cannabis users. Originality/value The trend of increasing vaping and the use of new devices has not been properly recognized among researchers. The paper presents some original results from a national population survey.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 513-542
Author(s):  
Anselmo Ferreira Vasconcelos

PurposeThere have been strides in workplace incivility (WI), but in what direction, angles and theoretical streams are they taking place? In light of it, the purpose of this review is to analyze the overall WI research output yielded in the initial decades of this century.Design/methodology/approachThis investigation searched exclusively for empirical articles written in English that matched the terms incivility and WI in the websites of prominent peer-review publications covering the period of 19 years (i.e. 2000–2019). As a result, 93 peer-reviewed empirical studies were properly gathered and classified.FindingsWI is one of the most relevant topics in OB studies under scrutiny in this moment. Corroborating such a perception is the huge amount of outlets that have been publishing about WI. In this sense, it is a topic that has gained strong interdisciplinary status, given the manifested interest of very distinct areas. Cross-sectional studies have prevailed in terms of method preferences, yet other approaches have been used. Of noteworthy is the shortage of qualitative and meta-analytic studies. Data provided evidence that a very limited number of nations (only 18 countries) have been investigated and it is not exactly surprising that the United States be the target of the majority of studies in this field. The antecedents and consequences of WI are the major focus of the investigations. But I found some evidence that that WI has been tested as performing the role of measure, mediator and moderator.Research limitations/implicationsIt focused exclusively on peer-review journals and articles written in English.Originality/valueThis endeavor contributes to the theory of WI by encompassing crucial aspects such as time horizon, major outlets, study types, country-level output, samples features, constructs perused, theoretical function of WI and research outcomes. In addition, it points out new potential research streams.


2021 ◽  
pp. 019685992110408
Author(s):  
Paromita Pain

In recent times few issues have been as contentious as the Affordable Healthcare Act. This study analyzed media frames between the New York Times and The Alternet.Org ( N = 1772), one mainstream newspaper and one alternative news site, for the year 2012, to examine how two media outlets, different in approach and operational size, reported on the Affordable Healthcare Care Act, to demonstrate that the conflict frame dominated news coverage in both the organizations. Conflict framing emphasizes strife between individuals, and groups, and engenders cynicism which reduces attention to substantive issues. While alternative media is often seen to operate in opposition to mainstream media values, in this case, both mainstream and alterative media chose similar frames of coverage and thus audiences had little recourse to information that could have ensured a better understanding of the policy and its impact.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Hrckova ◽  
Robert Moro ◽  
Ivan Srba ◽  
Maria Bielikova

PurposePartisan news media, which often publish extremely biased, one-sided or even false news, are gaining popularity world-wide and represent a major societal issue. Due to a growing number of such media, a need for automatic detection approaches is of high demand. Automatic detection relies on various indicators (e.g. content characteristics) to identify new partisan media candidates and to predict their level of partisanship. The aim of the research is to investigate to a deeper extent whether it would be appropriate to rely on the hyperlinks as possible indicators for better automatic partisan news media detection.Design/methodology/approachThe authors utilized hyperlink network analysis to study the hyperlinks of partisan and mainstream media. The dataset involved the hyperlinks of 18 mainstream media and 15 partisan media in Slovakia and Czech Republic. More than 171 million domain pairs of inbound and outbound hyperlinks of selected online news media were collected with Ahrefs tool, analyzed and visualized with Gephi software. Additionally, 300 articles covering COVID-19 from both types of media were selected for content analysis of hyperlinks to verify the reliability of quantitative analysis and to provide more detailed analysis.FindingsThe authors conclude that hyperlinks are reliable indicators of media affinity and linking patterns could contribute to partisan news detection. The authors found out that especially the incoming links with dofollow attribute to news websites are reliable indicators for assessing the type of media, as partisan media rarely receive links with dofollow attribute from mainstream media. The outgoing links are not such reliable indicators as both mainstream and partisan media link to mainstream sources similarly.Originality/valueIn contrast to the extensive amount of research aiming at fake news detection within a piece of text or multimedia content (e.g. news articles, social media posts), the authors shift to characterization of the whole news media. In addition, the authors did a geographical shift from more researched US-based media to so far under-researched European context, particularly Central Europe. The results and conclusions can serve as a guide how to derive new features for an automatic detection of possibly partisan news media by means of artificial intelligence (AI).Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at the following link: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-10-2020-0441.


Author(s):  
Debi A. LaPlante ◽  
Heather M. Gray ◽  
Pat M. Williams ◽  
Sarah E. Nelson

Abstract. Aims: To discuss and review the latest research related to gambling expansion. Method: We completed a literature review and empirical comparison of peer reviewed findings related to gambling expansion and subsequent gambling-related changes among the population. Results: Although gambling expansion is associated with changes in gambling and gambling-related problems, empirical studies suggest that these effects are mixed and the available literature is limited. For example, the peer review literature suggests that most post-expansion gambling outcomes (i. e., 22 of 34 possible expansion outcomes; 64.7 %) indicate no observable change or a decrease in gambling outcomes, and a minority (i. e., 12 of 34 possible expansion outcomes; 35.3 %) indicate an increase in gambling outcomes. Conclusions: Empirical data related to gambling expansion suggests that its effects are more complex than frequently considered; however, evidence-based intervention might help prepare jurisdictions to deal with potential consequences. Jurisdictions can develop and evaluate responsible gambling programs to try to mitigate the impacts of expanded gambling.


2020 ◽  
Vol 72 (10) ◽  
pp. 1153-1158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yafei Deng ◽  
Xiaotao Pan ◽  
Guoxun Zeng ◽  
Jie Liu ◽  
Sinong Xiao ◽  
...  

Purpose This paper aims to improve the tribological properties of aluminum alloys and reduce their wear rate. Design/methodology/approach Carbon is placed in the model at room temperature, pour 680°C of molten aluminum into the pressure chamber, and then pressed it into the mold containing carbon felt through a die casting machine, and waited for it to cool, which used an injection pressure of 52.8 MPa and held the same pressure for 15 s. Findings The result indicated that the mechanical properties of matrix and composite are similar, and the compressive strength of the composite is only 95% of the matrix alloy. However, the composite showed a low friction coefficient, the friction coefficient of Gr/Al composite is only 0.15, which just is two-third than that of the matrix alloy. Similarly, the wear rate of the composite is less than 4% of the matrix. In addition, the composite can avoid severe wear before 200°C, but the matrix alloy only 100°C. Originality/value This material has excellent friction properties and is able to maintain this excellent performance at high temperatures. Peer review The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-10-2019-0454/


2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (5) ◽  
pp. 599-617
Author(s):  
Fernando Bermejo ◽  
Eladio Febrero ◽  
Andre Fernandes Tomon Avelino

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to provide broader understanding of the significant role that the pension system has in the Spanish economy by estimating the sectoral production, employment and income sustained by pensioners' consumption.Design/methodology/approachBased on input–output tables by the World Input–Output Database and consumption data from the Household Budget Survey by the Spanish Statistical Office, a demoeconomic model is applied to quantify the direct impacts, indirect impacts from interindustry links and induced impacts from income–consumption connections over a nine-year period (2006–2014). Then, the factors driving the evolution of total output, employment and value added during such period have been examined by using structural decomposition analysis.FindingsThe growing participation of consumption by pensioner households in final demand had proven crucial during the 2008 crisis to alleviate the negative trend in production and employment derived from the collapse in consumption suffered by the rest of households.Practical implicationsDetermining the underlying factors driving changes in both employment and income during the 2008 crisis can be of interest in political decision-making on the sustainability of the Spanish pension system.Social implicationsThe results of estimating both the employment and income supported by pensioners' consumption reveal the significant stabilizing effect of the public spending on pensions, particularly during the 2008 crisis.Originality/valueThe current Spanish approach of attaining the pension system sustainability by merely reducing social protection costs ignores the adverse consequences of a lower pensioners' demand. This paper addresses an alternative view in which pension spending is not considered a burden on economic growth but rather a means of improving the level of production and employment.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-01-2019-0047


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