scholarly journals Cloning goes to the movies

2006 ◽  
Vol 13 (suppl) ◽  
pp. 181-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Cormick

Public attitude research conducted by Biotechnology Australia shows that one of the major sources of information on human reproductive cloning is movies. Traditionally, understanding of new and emerging technologies has come through the mass media but human cloning, being so widely addressed through the popular culture of movies, is more effectively defined by Hollywood than the news media or science media. But how well are the science and social issues of cloning portrayed in box office hits such as The Island, Multiplicity, Star Wars: Attack of the Clones and Jurassic Park? These movies have enormous reach and undoubted influence, and are therefore worth analyzing in some detail. This study looks at 33 movies made between 1971 and 2005 that address human reproductive cloning, and it categorizes the films based on their genre and potential influence. Yet rather than simply rating the quality of the science portrayed, the study compares the key messages in these movies with public attitudes towards cloning, to examine the correlations.

2019 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cordula Nitsch ◽  
Olaf Jandura ◽  
Peter Bienhaus

Abstract The quality of political reporting in the news media is a focal point of communication research. Politics, however, is not only conveyed via traditional sources of information, but via fictional sources. In particular, political dramas (e. g., The West Wing, Borgen) enjoy great popularity and are often acknowledged for their realistic depiction of politics. Still, little is known about the democratic quality of such fictional depictions. This paper aims to fill the gap by contrasting the depiction of politics in the fictional TV series Borgen with political reporting in a traditional TV magazine (Berlin direkt). The comparative content analysis is based on ten issues that are covered in both formats and focuses on the quality criteria of relevance, pluralism, and democratic discourse norms. Findings show no significant differences between Borgen and Berlin direkt for any of the three criteria, clearly indicating that fictional TV series can offer the same content quality as political reporting.


1988 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoel Cohen

News media are primary sources of information about international affairs. The rise of the mass circulation press and the expansion of foreign news coverage have brought the public at home and abroad closer to international affairs. The British Empire and two world wars strengthened the British citizen's interest and concern regarding foreign policy. The growth of radio and television added to this proximity. Portable electronic cameras and satellites enable the television viewer to become a participant in an event as he or she watches it unfold. Within the foreign policy-making process the media are sources of information to ministers and officials, contribute to the formation of public attitudes, are channels through which governments signal to, and manoeuvre, one another, and are key means for generating public support for foreign policy at home and abroad.


2012 ◽  
pp. 24-47
Author(s):  
V. Gimpelson ◽  
G. Monusova

Using different cross-country data sets and simple econometric techniques we study public attitudes towards the police. More positive attitudes are more likely to emerge in the countries that have better functioning democratic institutions, less prone to corruption but enjoy more transparent and accountable police activity. This has a stronger impact on the public opinion (trust and attitudes) than objective crime rates or density of policemen. Citizens tend to trust more in those (policemen) with whom they share common values and can have some control over. The latter is a function of democracy. In authoritarian countries — “police states” — this tendency may not work directly. When we move from semi-authoritarian countries to openly authoritarian ones the trust in the police measured by surveys can also rise. As a result, the trust appears to be U-shaped along the quality of government axis. This phenomenon can be explained with two simple facts. First, publicly spread information concerning police activity in authoritarian countries is strongly controlled; second, the police itself is better controlled by authoritarian regimes which are afraid of dangerous (for them) erosion of this institution.


Author(s):  
Yara Falmira Dianira

ABSTRACT An important factor for the success of a CSR program is effective communication. Communication will be effective if it has an impact. If the information is conveyed based on the needs, then the communication will be effective. This study aims to analyze the factors which are related to the effectiveness of CSR communication. This study used a census method to approach 37 participants who received CSR programs. The Data analysis used the Spearman rank correlation for the statistical tests. The results showed that there was a correlation between factors that have the strength of CSR companion communication (level of attractiveness of the companion, quality of message content, and sources of information) which have real communication at the level of understanding of the participants of the Kertajaya Creative Destination (KCD) CSR program. In addition, there is a real correlation the factors that have the strength of CSR companion communication (the level of credibility of the companion, the source information, and the level of the recipient) and having communication at the level of attitudes of participants in the Kertajaya Creative Destination (KCD) CSR program. However, there is no real correlation between CSR companion communication factors and participant actions.Keywords :communication effectiveness, CSR, elements of communication. ABSTRAK Faktor penting dari keberhasilan program CSR adalah komunikasi yang efektif. Komunikasi dikatakan efektif jika menimbulkan dampak. Bila informasi tersampaikan sesuai dengan kebutuhan, maka komunikasi yang dijalankan efektif. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis efektivitas komunikasi pendamping CSR. Penelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan sensus terhadap 37 orang peserta penerima program CSR. Analisis data menggunakan uji statistik korelasi rank Spearman. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa terdapat hubungan nyata antara faktor efektivitas komunikasi pendamping CSR (derajat daya tarik pendamping, kualaitas isi pesan, dan sumber informasi)  dengan efektivitas komunikasi pada tingkat pemahaman peserta program CSR Kertajaya Creative Destination (KCD). Selain itu, terdapat hubungan nyata antara faktor efektivitas komunikasi pendamping CSR (tingkat kredibilitas pendamping, sumber informasi, dan tingkat penerima) dengan efektivitas komunikasi pada tingkat sikap peserta program CSR Kertajaya Creative Destination (KCD). Namun, tidak terdapat hubungan nyata antara faktor efektivitas komunikasi pendamping CSR dengan tindakan peserta. Kata Kunci : CSR, efektivitas komunikasi, unsur-unsur komunikasi.


2021 ◽  
pp. 194016122199966
Author(s):  
Philipp Bachmann ◽  
Mark Eisenegger ◽  
Diana Ingenhoff

High-quality news is important, not only for its own sake but also for its political implications. However, defining, operationalizing, and measuring news media quality is difficult, because evaluative criteria depend upon beliefs about the ideal society, which are inherently contested. This conceptual and methodological paper outlines important considerations for defining news media quality before developing and applying a multimethod approach to measure it. We refer to Giddens' notion of double hermeneutics, which reveals that the ways social scientists understand constructs inevitably interact with the meanings of these constructs shared by people in society. Reflecting the two-way relationship between society and social sciences enables us to recognize news media quality as a dynamic, contingent, and contested construct and, at the same time, to reason our understanding of news media quality, which we derive from Habermas' ideal of deliberative democracy. Moreover, we investigate the Swiss media system to showcase our measurement approach in a repeated data collection from 2017 to 2020. We assess the content quality of fifty news media outlets using four criteria derived from the deliberative ideal ( N = 20,931 and 18,559 news articles and broadcasting items, respectively) and compare the results with those from two representative online surveys ( N = 2,169 and 2,159 respondents). The high correlations between both methods show that a deliberative understanding of news media quality is anchored in Swiss society and shared by audiences. This paper shall serve as a showcase to reflect and measure news media quality across other countries and media systems.


Author(s):  
Andrea Langbecker ◽  
Daniel Catalan-Matamoros

Sources of information are a key part of the news process as it guides certain topics, influencing the media agenda. The goal of this study is to examine the most frequent voices on vaccines in the Portuguese press. A total of 300 news items were analysed via content analysis using as sources two newspapers from 2012 to 2017. Of all the articles, 97.7% included a source (n = 670). The most frequent were “governmental organisations”, “professional associations” and the “media”. Less frequent sources were “university scientists”, “governmental scientific bodies”, “consumer groups”, “doctors”, “scientific companies”, “NGOs” and “scientific journals”. Most articles used only non-scientific sources (n = 156). A total of 94 articles used both categories and 43 used exclusively scientific sources. Our findings support the assertion that media can be an instrument to disseminate information on vaccines. Nevertheless, despite being present in most articles, the number of sources per article was low, therefore not presenting a diversity of opinions and there was a lack of scientific voices, thus suggesting lower quality of the information being offered to the audience.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Vikas Kumar

The quality of metadata is a crucial determinant of usability/interpretability of data. This paper draws attention to the poor quality of India’s government statistics and the paucity of metadata necessary to understand the problems. The paper suggests that there has been a decline in India both in terms of the availability and quality of metadata for key government sources of information including maps, decennial population censuses and National Sample Surveys amidst growing sophistication in the understanding of metadata. The poor quality of metadata impairs cross-sectional as well as inter-temporal comparisons and policymaking apart from concealing biases and lapses of government statisticians. The paper draws on the experience of three states – erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir, Manipur and Nagaland – where government statistics have been affected by serious errors that are not well-understood due to the lack of adequate metadata.


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