scholarly journals Social Media, Digital Scholarship, and Academic Promotion in US Medical Schools

2021 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 215-219
Author(s):  
Stephanie Y. Johng ◽  
Ranit Mishori ◽  
Valeriy R. Korostyshevskiy
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Medical Schools ◽  
The United States ◽  
Academic Promotion ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Promotion Policies ◽  
Digital Scholarship ◽  
Medical Institutions ◽  
Academic Medical

Background and Objectives: Academic promotion is critical in academic medicine. Traditionally, peer-reviewed journal articles have been at the core of advancement deliberations. With the increasing prominence digital content and social media, an increasing number of academics have begun linking their scholarly value with their online activities. It is unclear whether and how US academic medical institutions have updated their promotion criteria to reflect the changing environment and digital practices of faculty members. Methods: We reviewed publicly available advancement and promotion policies and faculty handbooks of 148 allopathic medical schools in the United States (April 2018 through September 2018), to see if social media was explicitly included in their scholarship criteria. Results: Of the 148 allopathic institutions only 12 (8.1%) stated that digital and social media products would be factored into the scholarship and/or other domains of the promotion application. There were no associations between acceptability of social media in the tenure process and schools’ characteristics. Conclusions: Digital media use has the potential to distribute scholarship widely. Including digital scholarship in promotion would help destigmatize the use of digital platforms and promote science dissemination to the public. Medical institutions should embrace new models of digital scholarship and lead the way in defining and ensuring quality.

scholarly journals Statements issued by academic medical institutions after George Floyd’s killing by police and subsequent unrest in the United States: cross-sectional study

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathew V. Kiang ◽  
Alexander C. Tsai
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Black People ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Police Department ◽  
Medical Schools ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
Medical Institutions ◽  
Academic Medical

AbstractBackgroundThe horrific nature of George Floyd’s killing by a Minneapolis Police Department officer on May 25, 2020 has sparked more than a month of nationwide protests against police brutality and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. At critical junctures of the nation’s public health such as these, academic medical institutions may exert leadership by issuing public statements to communicate institutional values.MethodsWe obtained statements issued by 56 leading U.S. medical schools relevant to George Floyd’s killing and subsequent protests. We tokenized statements into words, n-grams of sizes 2 and 3, and sentences; removed non-informative stop words and words that would compromise de-identification; and stemmed the remaining words using the Porter algorithm. We followed a predefined set of rules for identifying important elements of these statements related to leadership in antiracism and public health.ResultsNearly all named George Floyd (50 [89%]), a majority noted the role of racism (43 [77%]) and acknowledged the Black community specifically (41 [73%]). Fewer ╌ slightly more than half ╌ referenced the act resulting in Floyd’s death (31 [55%]) or made explicit reference to the police (29 [52%]). Only 7 (13%) explicitly used terms denoting active support, like “antiracism” or “Black Lives Matter.” Most (45 [80%]) included references to negative sequelae resulting from racism like “disparities” or “inequality”. All included hopeful language.ConclusionOnly a minority of institutions made reference to the killing of George Floyd by the police, and most failed to address this country’s targeted, historically engrained, and sustained oppression of Black people through white supremacy. Thus, our study identifies significant opportunities for U.S. medical schools to exert meaningful leadership in health.

scholarly journals “Wars” on COVID-19 in Slovakia, Russia, and the United States: Securitized Framing and Reframing of Political and Media Communication Around the Pandemic

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta N. Lukacovic
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Research Question ◽  
The United States ◽  
Frame Element ◽  
Political Factions ◽  
Russian Media ◽  
The Government

This study analyzes securitized discourses and counter narratives that surround the COVID-19 pandemic. Controversial cases of security related political communication, salient media enunciations, and social media reframing are explored through the theoretical lenses of securitization and cascading activation of framing in the contexts of Slovakia, Russia, and the United States. The first research question explores whether and how the frame element of moral evaluation factors into the conversations on the securitization of the pandemic. The analysis tracks the framing process through elite, media, and public levels of communication. The second research question focused on fairly controversial actors— “rogue actors” —such as individuals linked to far-leaning political factions or militias. The proliferation of digital media provides various actors with opportunities to join publicly visible conversations. The analysis demonstrates that the widely differing national contexts offer different trends and degrees in securitization of the pandemic during spring and summer of 2020. The studied rogue actors usually have something to say about the pandemic, and frequently make some reframing attempts based on idiosyncratic evaluations of how normatively appropriate is their government's “war” on COVID-19. In Slovakia, the rogue elite actors at first failed to have an impact but eventually managed to partially contest the dominant frame. Powerful Russian media influencers enjoy some conspiracy theories but prudently avoid direct challenges to the government's frame, and so far only marginal rogue actors openly advance dissenting frames. The polarized political and media environment in the US has shown to create a particularly fertile ground for rogue grassroots movements that utilize online platforms and social media, at times going as far as encouragement of violent acts to oppose the government and its pandemic response policy.

scholarly journals Corporate crises in the digital world: what went wrong with Chipotle?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie McGuinty
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Crisis Management ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Crisis Communication ◽  
The United States ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Online Data ◽  
Digital World ◽  
Management Plans ◽  
Corporate Crisis

The practice of crisis communication has evolved since the rise of digital technologies and social media. Defined as an unexpected and non-routine event with high levels of uncertainty, crisis management plans and strategies are essential for organizations’ successes. Failure to strategically manage crises through both traditional and digital media may result in significant damages and losses. This MRP examines a recent corporate crisis - the case of Chipotle Mexican Grill during the 2015-2016 E. coli outbreak across the United-States - and looks at how the social media strategy (namely Twitter) influenced the outcome of the case. Using a combination of data analytics, company financials, and theoretical frameworks, this research brings to light the importance of measuring online data, and makes suggestions on how companies may use social media to manage various types of crises. Keywords: crisis communication, crisis theory, crisis management, crisis strategies, image repair, social media, crisis and technology, brand equity

The Global White Snake as Digital Activist Project

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-124
Author(s):  
Liang Luo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
The United States ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Green Card ◽  
Permanent Resident ◽  
Resident Alien ◽  
Human World ◽  
Contemporary United States

There is a long oral tradition and written record for the legend of the White Snake. As a woman, her “original sin” is being a snake. She is a snake who has cultivated herself for hundreds, if not thousands, of years to attain the form of a beautiful woman. Living as a resident “alien” (yilei) in the “Human Realm” (renjian), the White Snake has always been treated with suspicion, fear, exclusion, and violent suppression/exorcism. The White Snake is an immigrant to the human world, whose serpentine identity made her a “resident alien,” the legal category given to immigrants in the United States before they receive their “Green Card” and become a “permanent resident.” The implication of being a snake woman in the human world took on new meanings when the COVID-19 pandemic worsened the existing xenophobia, fear, and suspicion toward minority populations in the contemporary United States and throughout the world. Inspired by the Chinese White Snake legend, the three Anglophone opera, film, and stage projects from Cerise Lim Jacobs, Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri, and Mary Zimmerman, energetically engage with issues relevant to minority activism in the United States and more broadly, through digital media and digital platforms.

From Ink to Web and Beyond

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather McKee Hurwitz
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Women Activists ◽  
The United States ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Women's Activism ◽  
Media Activism ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
History Of ◽  
Feminist Movements

Mainstream media ignores the breadth and diversity of women’s activism and often features sexist, racist, and sexualized portrayals of women. Also, women hold disproportionately fewer jobs in media industries than men. Despite these challenges, women activists protest gender inequality and advocate a variety of other goals using traditional and new social media. This chapter examines the history of women’s media activism in the United States from women activists’ use of mainstream and alternative newspapers, magazines, radio, and television, to how activists adopted Internet technologies and new digital media strategies starting in the 1990s, to how contemporary feminists protest with Facebook and hashtag activism today. I argue that women activists’ use of new social media may necessitate significant shifts in how we research continuity and diversity in women’s and feminist movements, and how we conceptualize resources, micromobilization, and leadership in social movements broadly. I conclude with several suggestions for future research.

Documentary Film

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoë Druick
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Documentary Film ◽  
Reality Television ◽  
The United States ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Nonfiction Film ◽  
State Education ◽  
The Hours

Since the 1990s, there has been a veritable explosion of documentary films and digital media productions accompanied by a correspondingly large number of books and articles dedicated to contextualizing and interpreting them. The documentary film form itself is not new, of course. It dates from the 1920s, cinema’s fourth decade, and has long been a realist form associated with state education and political communication. During the experimental phase of cinema’s development after 1895, numerous fictional and nonfictional styles met and intermingled. However, it wasn’t until John Grierson, a British film writer and producer, bestowed the name “documentary” on a certain sort of pedagogical nonfiction film in 1926 that the genre began to acquire epistemological stability and institutional support. Although related, documentary retains some autonomy from instructional films, industrial and sponsored films, TV news, home movies, newsreels, and YouTube videos. Documentary was from the outset a filmic counterdiscourse to Hollywood, as well as a way for nations outside of the United States to make a filmic mark. It was thought that film could show reality as it was, especially by showing the connections between invisible structural causes (such as colonialism, industrial capitalism, geopolitical conflicts) and their effects, an important corrective to the fantasies being propagated by Hollywood’s celebration of consumerism. For many decades after the 1920s, documentary maintained its association with serious topics (e.g., economic depression, the world wars, postwar traumas, the Cold War, and the struggle for civil rights) and oppositional politics (e.g., social movements, anticolonial struggles, peace movements, struggles for environmental justice) handled without the distraction of aesthetic concerns. A number of factors led to changes surrounding documentaries in the 1990s and beyond: including the increase in film production programs in colleges, the proliferation of cable television stations needing inexpensively produced content to fill the hours, new more affordable video and digital technologies, and the rise of media conglomerates restricting the content of cinema and television screens. For years filmmakers had caviled against the authoritative conventions of educational and anthropological documentary. Beginning as early as the 1960s, documentary became increasingly self-reflexive, finding numerous ways to draw attention to itself as a form of knowledge production. Despite perceived challenges to the original documentary project, documentary remains a mainstay of television and a vital connection between cinema and television studies. Critical postcolonial and feminist work has highlighted the modernist (even at times imperial) project traditionally associated with the documentary, while identifying the challenges launched from within this trajectory. At the edges of documentary studies can be found engagements with other popular reality-based forms such as reality television and mockumentary. Documentary texts, which became increasingly interactive and concerned with everyday life and politics, have become a growing presence on digital platforms. Although some moot the future of documentary, the dynamism of this subfield of cinema studies reflects the widespread flowering of documentary and reality-based forms in media culture.

Digital Resources: FAMSI.org and the Beginnings of Digital Scholarship for the Ancient Americas

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Lyall
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
The United States ◽  
Digital Resources ◽  
General Audience ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Facilitated Communication ◽  
Research Material ◽  
Digital Scholarship ◽  
Novice Users

Launched in 1997, FAMSI.org established itself as the leading digital platform for the promotion and dissemination of Mesoamerican scholarship to the widest possible audience. The online arm of the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc., a nonprofit pledged to foster increased understanding of ancient Mesoamerican cultures, FAMSI.org crosscut disciplinary divisions and facilitated communication between scholars in the United States and those in Latin America. The eight-member Board of Directors and its advisory committee ensured that the foundation would harness the spirit of generosity and creativity that characterized the early days of the Internet for the benefit of a likewise emergent discipline. As the Website developed, FAMSI sought partnerships with and contributions from institutions around the world in order to make educational resources publicly available. The Website hosts a remarkable amount of primary research material, including image databases, contemporary and historical indigenous-language dictionaries, ethnographic videos, maps, and an up-to-date, searchable subject-specific bibliography, all of which are available in both English and Spanish and accessible at no cost to visitors. Between 1997 and 2006, the Website grew exponentially, but like many of its early counterparts, the site’s utility and navigability ultimately suffered as a result of the rapid development of new software and the obsolescence of existing digital platforms; searches became sluggish and unwieldy. While visitorship remained high for an academic site—over a million unique visitors a year—a 2012 survey indicated that scholars frequented only known parts of the site while novice users spent as little as a few minutes on the site. The global economic crisis of 2008 destabilized FAMSI’s funding, and in 2010 the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) assumed stewardship of the foundation as well as the Website. The museum began to maintain and review FAMSI.org, ultimately deciding to update and transform the Website into a new platform, AncientAmericas.org, which broadens the scope beyond that of Mesoamerica. FAMSI, with its dedication to research and online collaboration, became the principal resource for the research of ancient American cultures for both a scholarly and general audience beginning in the mid-1990s. Its enduring legacy is the spirit of interdisciplinary and international cooperation and generosity that it fostered.

scholarly journals The ASIBS Short Course: A unique strategy for increasing statistical competency of junior investigators in academic medicine

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 235-239
Author(s):  
Emma K. T. Benn ◽  
Chengcheng Tu ◽  
Ann-Gel S. Palermo ◽  
Luisa N. Borrell ◽  
Michaela Kiernan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Academic Medicine ◽  
Research Training ◽  
Junior Faculty ◽  
The United States ◽  
Underrepresented Minorities ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Clinical Databases ◽  
Medical Institutions ◽  
Short Course ◽  
Academic Medical

As clinical researchers at academic medical institutions across the United States increasingly manage complex clinical databases and registries, they often lack the statistical expertise to utilize the data for research purposes. This statistical inadequacy prevents junior investigators from disseminating clinical findings in peer-reviewed journals and from obtaining research funding, thereby hindering their potential for promotion. Underrepresented minorities, in particular, confront unique challenges as clinical investigators stemming from a lack of methodologically rigorous research training in their graduate medical education. This creates a ripple effect for them with respect to acquiring full-time appointments, obtaining federal research grants, and promotion to leadership positions in academic medicine. To fill this major gap in the statistical training of junior faculty and fellows, the authors developed the Applied Statistical Independence in Biological Systems (ASIBS) Short Course. The overall goal of ASIBS is to provide formal applied statistical training, via a hybrid distance and in-person learning format, to junior faculty and fellows actively involved in research at US academic medical institutions, with a special emphasis on underrepresented minorities. The authors present an overview of the design and implementation of ASIBS, along with a short-term evaluation of its impact for the first cohort of ASIBS participants.

Right-wing populism, social media and echo chambers in Western democracies

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 683-699 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shelley Boulianne ◽  
Karolina Koc-Michalska ◽  
Bruce Bimber
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
The United States ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Online Social Media ◽  
Echo Chamber ◽  
Right Wing Populism

Many observers are concerned that echo chamber effects in digital media are contributing to the polarization of publics and, in some places, to the rise of right-wing populism. This study employs survey data collected in France, the United Kingdom and the United States (1500 respondents in each country) from April to May 2017. Overall, we do not find evidence that online/social media explain support for right-wing populist candidates and parties. Instead, in the United States, use of online media decreases support for right-wing populism. Looking specifically at echo chamber measures, we find offline discussion with those who are similar in race, ethnicity and class positively correlates with support for populist candidates and parties in the United Kingdom and France. The findings challenge claims about the role of social media and the rise of populism.

#BlackLivesMatter: An Analysis of the Movement as Social Drama

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-110
Author(s):  
Leslie Kay Jones
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
The United States ◽  
Technological Determinism ◽  
Movement Mechanics

Scholars agree that the United States is experiencing a new black civil and human rights movement called #BlackLivesMatter and that the Internet is pivotal to that movement. Protests in Ferguson, Missouri, and in Baltimore, Maryland, dominated national attention for months through 2014 and 2015. Protesters have successfully gained the attention of elite power brokers, a necessary step in the social movement process. #BlackLivesMatter has many insights to provide about mobilization, if researchers take black American discursive power and intellectual production more seriously as subjects of analysis. This article argues that a dramaturgy framework reveals important meaning making that occurs on the periphery of a social movement. In this periphery, my analysis shows that black social media publics are harbingers of racial progress. Introducing the concept of a Greek Chorus to the dramaturgy framework better clarifies the role that Twitter plays in the movement as a public space where outside observers negotiate their own meaning making surrounding the movement’s claims and strategies. Conceptualizing movement mechanics in this way provides a clearer understanding of the importance of digital media in the contemporary black civil rights movement without relying on technological determinism, reducing social media to a structural component of the movement, or undermining the importance of physicality to protest.

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