scholarly journals Suspicious minds: cinematic depiction of distrust during epidemic disease outbreaks

2020 ◽  
pp. medhum-2020-011871 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qijun Han ◽  
Daniel R Curtis
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Disease Transmission ◽  
Disease Outbreaks ◽  
Epidemic Disease ◽  
Social Responses ◽  
News Reporting ◽  
Television Shows ◽  
Social Controls ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Key Issues

One key factor that appears to be crucial in the rejection of quarantines, isolation and other social controls during epidemic outbreaks is trust—or rather distrust. Much like news reporting and social media, popular culture such as fictional novels, television shows and films can influence people’s trust, especially given that the information provided about an epidemic disease is sometimes seen as grounded in ‘scientific fact’ by societies. As well as providing information on the ‘correct science’ behind disease transmission, spread and illness in films and literature, popular culture can also inform societies about how to feel and how to react during epidemics—that is to say create some expectations about the kinds of societal responses that could potentially occur. In this article we closely analyse three films that centre around epidemic diseases—Contagion (Steven Soderbergh, 2011), Blindness (Fernando Meirelles, 2008) and The Painted Veil (John Curran, 2006)—in order to highlight three categories of distrust that have recently been identified and conceptualised in broader discussions regarding trust and health: institutional, social and interpersonal. These films raise two key issues about trust and social responses during epidemics. First, while certain aspects of trust are badly diminished during epidemic disease outbreaks, epidemics can also interact with pre-existing structural inequalities within society—based on race, gender or wealth—to create mixed outcomes of discord, prejudice and fear that coexist with new forms of cohesion. Second, the breakdown in trust seen at certain levels during epidemics, such as at the institutional level between communities and authorities or elites, might be mediated or negotiated, perhaps even compensated for, by heightened solidity of trust at the social level, within or between communities.

scholarly journals Plague and the Fall of Baghdad (1258)

2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-177
Author(s):  
Nahyan Fancy ◽  
Monica H. Green
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Disease Outbreaks ◽  
Epidemic Disease ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Western Asia ◽  
Abbasid Caliphate ◽  
Historical Accounts ◽  
A Minor

AbstractThe recent suggestion that the late medieval Eurasian plague pandemic, the Black Death, had its origins in the thirteenth century rather than the fourteenth century has brought new scrutiny to texts reporting ‘epidemics’ in the earlier period. Evidence both from Song China and Iran suggests that plague was involved in major sieges laid by the Mongols between the 1210s and the 1250s, including the siege of Baghdad in 1258 which resulted in the fall of the Abbasid caliphate. In fact, re-examination of multiple historical accounts in the two centuries after the siege of Baghdad shows that the role of epidemic disease in the Mongol attacks was commonly known among chroniclers in Syria and Egypt, raising the question why these outbreaks have been overlooked in modern historiography of plague. The present study looks in detail at the evidence in Arabic sources for disease outbreaks after the siege of Baghdad in Iraq and its surrounding regions. We find subtle factors in the documentary record to explain why, even though plague received new scrutiny from physicians in the period, it remained a minor feature in stories about the Mongol invasion of western Asia. In contemporary understandings of the genesis of epidemics, the Mongols were not seen to have brought plague to Baghdad; they caused plague to arise by their rampant destruction. When an even bigger wave of plague struck the Islamic world in the fourteenth century, no association was made with the thirteenth-century episode. Rather, plague was now associated with the Mongol world as a whole.

"They're Freaks!": The Cult Stereotype in Fictional Television Shows, 1958––2008

2011 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 81-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynn S. Neal
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Culture Form ◽  
Television Shows ◽  
Present Context

This article analyzes the stereotypical portrayal of cults on fictional television shows and demonstrates the vital role that this popular culture form plays in the dissemination of anticult ideology. Through an in-depth examination of five episodes that aired between 1998 and 2008, it delineates how these shows employed stereotypical cult elements, such as fraud and violence, as well as contrasts in clothing, setting, and lifestyle to differentiate conventional religion from the dangers and delusions of cults. Further, the article reveals how usage of the cult concept is not limited to the present context and documents the historical pervasiveness of the cult stereotype on television since 1958. By highlighting these patterns, this study shows the power and implications of the cult stereotype. It illuminates how these television shows constitute a powerful force in defining and policing the boundaries of religious legitimacy in American culture.

scholarly journals A mathematical model of infectious disease transmission

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 02002
Author(s):  
Aurelia Florea ◽  
Cristian Lăzureanu
Keyword(s):  
Infectious Disease ◽  
Mathematical Model ◽  
Nonlinear System ◽  
Numerical Simulations ◽  
Disease Transmission ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Type System ◽  
Epidemic Disease ◽  
Infectious Disease Transmission ◽  
The Stability

In this paper we consider a three-dimensional nonlinear system which models the dynamics of a population during an epidemic disease. The considered model is a SIS-type system in which a recovered individual automatically becomes a susceptible one. We take into account the births and deaths, and we also consider that susceptible individuals are divided into two groups: non-vaccinated and vaccinated. In addition, we assume a medical scenario in which vaccinated people take a special measure to quarantine their newborns. We study the stability of the considered system. Numerical simulations point out the behavior of the considered population.

Imagining the Mulatta

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jasmine Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Culture Media ◽  
The United States ◽  
Gender Inequalities ◽  
Television Shows ◽  
Cultural Conditions ◽  
Political Events ◽  
And Gender

Imagining the Mulatta: Blackness in U.S. and Brazilian Media demonstrates how mixed-race women of African and European descent are harnessed in popular media as a tool to uphold white supremacy and discipline people of African descent to uphold state policies of antiblackness. Uncovering the racialized and gendered paradigms of U.S. and Brazilian media, the book uses case studies of texts from a broad range of popular culture media—film, telenovelas, television shows, music videos, magazines, newspapers, and Olympic ceremonies—to elucidate how the U.S. mulatta and Brazilian mulata figures operates within and across the United States and Brazil as a response to racial anxieties and notions of white superiority. These shared concepts of race, gender, and sexuality crystallize in the mulatta/mulata figure as representative of interlinked racial projects in Brazil and the United States. Focusing on popular culture and political events of the 2000s, the book demonstrates how the mulatta and mulata figures facilitated multicultural and postracial discourses. Exploring representations, definitions, and meanings of blackness in the context of the Americas, the book traverses the cultural conditions of racializations in the United States alongside Brazil to unveil the workings of pervasive racial and gender inequalities.

10. The letterless canon

2021 ◽  
pp. 104-111
Author(s):  
Ilan Stavans
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Graphic Novels ◽  
Jewish Literature ◽  
Comic Strips ◽  
Stand Up Comedy ◽  
Television Shows ◽  
Comedy Film ◽  
Film Scripts ◽  
The Way

“The letterless canon” argues that Jewish literature from the mid-twentieth century onward is not restricted to fiction, poetry, and theater. The book as a tool for the dissemination of knowledge has undergone a metamorphosis. Along the way, the border between high-brow and popular culture has been erased. Comic strips like Superman and graphic novels can be viewed as literary artifacts. Indeed we should consider the work of Will Eisner (A Contract with God), Art Spiegelman (Maus), and Alison Bechdel (Fun House), each of whom offers different contributions. There is also the matter of stand-up comedy, film scripts, and television shows which examine, from a Jewish perspective, gender, racial, and class issues.

A tale of two cities

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Cruickshank ◽  
Jan Wright
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Linkage Study ◽  
Study Data ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Language Programs ◽  
Data Collection And Analysis ◽  
Upper Secondary ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Equity Of Access

The current discourse in Australian languages education is that if children study languages in the early years, then languages uptake in secondary schools will increase. There has been little coherent data collection and analysis, however, to support or challenge this discourse. This article draws on findings from an ARC Linkage study in NSW involving cross-sectoral languages study data (2007 to 2014), school case studies and teacher surveys to explore links between primary school provision, uptake and continuation to Year 12. The study focused on 348 schools in two demographic areas – inner city Sydney and Wollongong. The three key findings were that uptake in upper secondary school is primarily a factor of scaling for tertiary entry; that socioeconomic status (SES) is a key factor in K-10 languages provision and uptake and that community languages have been marginalised from day schools. The paper argues that language programs and policy need to be based not on common beliefs but on consistent data collection. It also argues that two key issues need to be addressed to reverse the decline in language study: a review of the tertiary scaling of languages and government strategies which work from issues of equity of access for students in lower-SES schools.

From Claude Bernard to the Batcave and beyond: using Batman as a hook for physiology education

2011 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-4 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Paul Zehr
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
General Public ◽  
Teaching Practice ◽  
Comic Book ◽  
Scientific Understanding ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Scientific Concepts ◽  
Exercise Science ◽  
Television Shows ◽  
Claude Bernard

Communicating physiology to the general public and popularizing science can be tremendously rewarding activities. Providing relevant and compelling points of linkage, however, between the scientific experiences and the interests of the general public can be challenging. One avenue for popularizing science is to link scientific concepts to images, personalities, and icons in popular culture. Currently, comic book superhero movies and television shows are extremely popular, and Batman was used as the vehicle for popularizing concepts of exercise science, neuroscience, and physiology in my recent book, Becoming Batman: the Possibility of a Superhero. The objective of this book was to bring scientific understanding to the broader public by using the physical image and impression everyone has of Batman and his abilities and then connecting this to the underlying science. The objective of this article is to share some of the details of the process and the positive and negative outcomes of using such an approach with other academics who may be interested in similar activities. It is my goal that by sharing this experience I may stimulate like-minded readers to initiate their own similar projects and to also be emboldened to try and integrate popular culture touchstones in their own teaching practice.

scholarly journals Endemic infection reduces transmission potential of an epidemic parasite during co-infection

2013 ◽  
Vol 280 (1769) ◽  
pp. 20131500 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Randall ◽  
J. Cable ◽  
I. A. Guschina ◽  
J. L. Harwood ◽  
J. Lello
Keyword(s):  
Disease Transmission ◽  
Reproductive Output ◽  
Resource Depletion ◽  
Parasitic Infections ◽  
Energy Costs ◽  
Epidemic Disease ◽  
Future Studies ◽  
Transmission Potential ◽  
Nematode Transmission ◽  
Host Resource

Endemic, low-virulence parasitic infections are common in nature. Such infections may deplete host resources, which in turn could affect the reproduction of other parasites during co-infection. We aimed to determine whether the reproduction, and therefore transmission potential, of an epidemic parasite was limited by energy costs imposed on the host by an endemic infection. Total lipids, triacylglycerols (TAG) and polar lipids were measured in cockroaches ( Blattella germanica ) that were fed ad libitum, starved or infected with an endemic parasite, Gregarina blattarum. Reproductive output of an epidemic parasite, Steinernema carpocapsae , was then assessed by counting the number of infective stages emerging from these three host groups. We found both starvation and gregarine infection reduced cockroach lipids, mainly through depletion of TAG. Further, both starvation and G. blattarum infection resulted in reduced emergence of nematode transmission stages. This is, to our knowledge, the first study to demonstrate directly that host resource depletion caused by endemic infection could affect epidemic disease transmission. In view of the ubiquity of endemic infections in nature, future studies of epidemic transmission should take greater account of endemic co-infections.

scholarly journals Bayesian inference of infectious disease transmission from whole genome sequence data

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xavier Didelot ◽  
Jennifer Gardy ◽  
Caroline Colijn
Keyword(s):  
Disease Transmission ◽  
Sequence Data ◽  
Disease Outbreaks ◽  
Genomic Data ◽  
Realistic Model ◽  
Host Population ◽  
Whole Genome Sequence ◽  
Genomic Epidemiology ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Source Case

Genomics is increasingly being used to investigate disease outbreaks, but an important question remains unanswered -- how well do genomic data capture known transmission events, particularly for pathogens with long carriage periods or large within-host population sizes? Here we present a novel Bayesian approach to reconstruct densely-sampled outbreaks from genomic data whilst considering within-host diversity. We infer a time-labelled phylogeny using BEAST, then infer a transmission network via a Monte-Carlo Markov Chain. We find that under a realistic model of within-host evolution, reconstructions of simulated outbreaks contain substantial uncertainty even when genomic data reflect a high substitution rate. Reconstruction of a real-world tuberculosis outbreak displayed similar uncertainty, although the correct source case and several clusters of epidemiologically linked cases were identified. We conclude that genomics cannot wholly replace traditional epidemiology, but that Bayesian reconstructions derived from sequence data may form a useful starting point for a genomic epidemiology investigation.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document