scholarly journals Commentary: The power of print remains undiminished

2008 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-44
Author(s):  
Tim Pankhurst
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Offence ◽  
Sexual Predator ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Familiar Face ◽  
Rape Trials ◽  
Group Sex ◽  
Post Editor ◽  
Police Commissioner

The Dominion Post editor Tim Pankhurst, whose newspaper celebrated its centenary in 2007, outlines the innovations undertaken by his newspaper in meeting the technological challenges of the mainstream media. "Opposite is the by now familiar face of former assistant police commissioner and former Auckland district commander Clint Rickards. He resigned in disgrace in Decemeber 2007 the day before internal police disciplinary charges were to begin against him. He had survived two rape trials and escaped being convicted of any criminal offence but there was no doubt he had brought the police into disrepute through his actions in Rotorua in the 1980s, when he admitted to engaging in group sex while on duty. At the very elast he was a sexual predator and a highly intimidating bully..."

Assessments of User Comments With “Alternative Views” as a Function of Media Trust

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Marlene Kunst
Keyword(s):  
Online Discussions ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Argument Quality ◽  
The Public ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
User Comments ◽  
Media Trust ◽  
Heuristic Information Processing

Abstract. Comments sections under news articles have become popular spaces for audience members to oppose the mainstream media’s perspective on political issues by expressing alternative views. This kind of challenge to mainstream discourses is a necessary element of proper deliberation. However, due to heuristic information processing and the public concern about disinformation online, readers of comments sections may be inherently skeptical about user comments that counter the views of mainstream media. Consequently, commenters with alternative views may participate in discussions from a position of disadvantage because their contributions are scrutinized particularly critically. Nevertheless, this effect has hitherto not been empirically established. To address this gap, a multifactorial, between-subjects experimental study ( N = 166) was conducted that investigated how participants assess the credibility and argument quality of media-dissonant user comments relative to media-congruent user comments. The findings revealed that media-dissonant user comments are, indeed, disadvantaged in online discussions, as they are assessed as less credible and more poorly argued than media-congruent user comments. Moreover, the findings showed that the higher the participants’ level of media trust, the worse the assessment of media-dissonant user comments relative to media-congruent user comments. Normative implications and avenues for future research are discussed.

Next Generation of Sexual Predator Laws

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shan A. Jumper ◽  
Michael Bednarz ◽  
Raymond Wood
Keyword(s):  
Next Generation ◽  
Sexual Predator

Medical Liability for Off Label Use of Drugs in Romania

2018 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 755-757
Author(s):  
Ionut Vida Simiti
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Medical Devices ◽  
Medical Liability ◽  
Criminal Offence ◽  
Off Label Use ◽  
National Agency ◽  
Off Label ◽  
Scientific Support ◽  
The Common ◽  
Label Use

Breaking the limits of the risks for the human body, health or even the life of the patient, as assumed by the pharmaceutical producers, by using a drug off label, for its side effects, in another purpose or even against the purpose for which the drug was authorized by the National Agency of Medicine and Medical Devices, is not in itself illegal if the off label use has the common consent of both the doctor and the patient for a treatment and only for a treatment which, although a spread procedure, has little or no scientific support. But if the patient is subjected to unreasonable risks, endangering his body, health or life beyond the possible benefits of the treatment, without being informed about the lack of scientific support, the doctor is liable not only for malpractice (civil medical liability) but also for a criminal offence.

Investigating the Role of Familiar Face and Voice Cues in Speech Processing in Noise

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeesun Kim ◽  
Sonya Karisma ◽  
Vincent Aubanel ◽  
Chris Davis
Keyword(s):  
Speech Processing ◽  
Familiar Face

Social media bots as active disseminators of COVID-19 news (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed Al-Rawi ◽  
Vishal Shukla
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Financial Incentives ◽  
Total Sample ◽  
Breaking News ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Social Nature ◽  
Credible Information ◽  
Mixed Approach ◽  
Standard Terms ◽  
Official Sources

BACKGROUND In this study, we examined the activities of automated social media accounts or bots that tweet or retweet referencing #COVID-19 and #COVID19. OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study is to identify bot accounts to understand the nature of messages sent by them on COVID-19. Social media bots have been widely discussed in academic literature as some kind of moral panic mostly in relation to spreading controversial and politically polarized messages or in connection to problematic health bots (Broniatowski et al., 2018; Allem & Ferrara, 2018). The findings of this study, however, show that bots that reference COVID-19 mostly mention mainstream media and credible health sources while spreading breaking news on the pandemic or urging people to stay at home. These results align with previous research on the possible benefits, advantages, or possibilities afforded by the use of health chatbots (Brandtzaeg & Følstad, 2018; Skjuve & Brandtzæg, 2018; Kretzschmar et al., 2019; Greer et al., 2019). METHODS We used a mixed approach mostly comprised of several digital methods in this study. First, we collected 50,811,299 tweets and retweets referencing #COVID-19 and #COVID19 for a period of over two months from February 12 until April 18, 2020. We focused on these two hashtags because they are standard terms used by WHO and other official sources. From a total sample of over 50 million tweets, we used a mixed method to extract more than 185,000 messages posted by 127 bots. RESULTS Unlike the literature on health bots that associate them with anti-social activities, our findings show that the majority of these bots tweet, retweet and mention mainstream media outlets and credible official sources, promote health protection and telemedicine, and disseminate breaking news on the number of casualties and deaths caused by COVID-19. CONCLUSIONS Despite that some literature on social media bots highlight the controversial and anti-social nature of automated accounts, the findings of this study show that the majority of bots spread news on and awareness of COVID-19 risks while citing and referencing mainstream media outlets and credible health sources. We argue that there might be financial incentives behind designing some of these bots. However and if monitored and updated with credible information by health agencies themselves, we believe that bots can be useful during health crises due to their efficiency and speed in spreading valuable information, some of which is crucial for public health. CLINICALTRIAL N/A

The Propaganda Pipeline: Hacking the Core from the Periphery

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yochai Benkler ◽  
Robert Faris ◽  
Hal Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Election ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
The Core ◽  
Media Ecosystem ◽  
The Media ◽  
Cation Sites

This chapter examines the claim that alt-right activists hacked the media ecosystem byinserting various destructive memes into the mainstream media that helped DonaldTrump win the 2016 presidential election. In particular, this chapter considers thepropaganda pipeline—the path from the periphery to the core through a series ofwell-known amplifi cation sites, most prominently Infowars and Drudge. Th e “spiritcooking” stories as seen on Infowars, Washington Times, and Sean Hannity perfectlyencapsulate the propaganda pipeline from the periphery to the core, drawingin the various suspects in producing information disorder. Th e chapter also showshow statements by marginal actors on Reddit and 4chan were collated and preparedfor propagation by more visible sites, and how this technique was exploited by bothalt-right and Russia-related actors successfully to get a story from the periphery toHannity.

Unfitness to Plead in England and Wales

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rudi Fortson
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Learning Disability ◽  
Developmental Disorder ◽  
Criminal Offence ◽  
Legal Process ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Criminal Jurisdiction ◽  
Communication Impairment ◽  
The Law ◽  
Law Commission

This chapter examines the legal and practical issues encountered by practitioners when dealing with unfitness to plead litigation. As the Law Commission for England and Wales has pointed out, defendants charged with a criminal offence may be unfit to plead or to stand trial for a variety of reasons, including difficulties resulting from mental illness, learning disability, developmental disorder, or communication impairment. Two issues are considered: (i) how might those defendants who are unfit be accurately identified; and (ii) what steps should be taken by legal practitioners and by the courts of criminal jurisdiction to cater for the interests of vulnerable defendants, victims, and society, and to maintain the integrity of the legal process as one that is fair and just? The chapter evaluates the reform proposals of the English Law Commission and assesses how the law could be improved for all those who are involved in dealing with the unfit to plead.

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