scholarly journals Lessons from lockdown: Media discourse on the role of behavioural science in the UK COVID-19 response

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jet Sanders ◽  
Alessia Tosi ◽  
Sandra Obradović ◽  
Ilaria Miligi ◽  
Liam Delaney
Keyword(s):  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
National Level ◽  
National Policy ◽  
Media Discourse ◽  
High Stake ◽  
Behavioural Science ◽  
Policy Application ◽  
The Uk

In recent years behavioural science has quickly become embedded in national level policy making. As the contributions of behavioural science to the UK’s Covid-19 response policies in early 2020 became apparent, a debate emerged in the British media about its involvement. This served as a unique opportunity to capture public discourse and representation of behavioural science in fast-track, high-stake national policy making. Aimed at identifying elements which foster and detract from trust and credibility in emergent scientific contributions to policy making, in study 1 we use corpus linguistics and thematic analysis to map the narrative around the key behavioural science actors and concepts which were discussed in the 650 news articles extracted from the 15 most read British newspapers over the 12-week period surrounding the first hard UK lockdown from March 2020. We report and discuss 1) the salience of key concepts and actors as the debate unfolded, 2) quantified changes in the polarity of the sentiment expressed toward them and their policy application contexts, and 3) patterns of co-occurrence via network analysis. In Study 2, we investigate how salience and sentiment of key themes observed in traditional media discourse tracked on original Twitter chatter (N = 2,187). In Study 3, we complement these findings with a qualitative analysis of the subset of news articles which contained the most extreme sentiments (N = 111), providing an in-depth perspective of sentiments and discourse developed around keywords, as either promoting or undermining their credibility in, and trust toward behaviourally informed policy. We discuss our findings in light of the integration of behavioural science in national policy making under emergency constraints.

scholarly journals Lessons From the UK's Lockdown: Discourse on Behavioural Science in Times of COVID-19

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jet G. Sanders ◽  
Alessia Tosi ◽  
Sandra Obradovic ◽  
Ilaria Miligi ◽  
Liam Delaney
Keyword(s):  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Fast Track ◽  
National Level ◽  
National Policy ◽  
High Stake ◽  
Behavioural Science ◽  
Network Analyses ◽  
Policy Application

In recent years behavioural science has quickly become embedded in national level governance. As the contributions of behavioural science to the UK's COVID-19 response policies in early 2020 became apparent, a debate emerged in the British media about its involvement. This served as a unique opportunity to capture public discourse and representation of behavioural science in a fast-track, high-stake context. We aimed at identifying elements which foster and detract from trust and credibility in emergent scientific contributions to policy making. With this in mind, in Study 1 we use corpus linguistics and network analysis to map the narrative around the key behavioural science actors and concepts which were discussed in the 647 news articles extracted from the 15 most read British newspapers over the 12-week period surrounding the first hard UK lockdown of 2020. We report and discuss (1) the salience of key concepts and actors as the debate unfolded, (2) quantified changes in the polarity of the sentiment expressed toward them and their policy application contexts, and (3) patterns of co-occurrence via network analyses. To establish public discourse surrounding identified themes, in Study 2 we investigate how salience and sentiment of key themes and relations to policy were discussed in original Twitter chatter (N = 2,187). In Study 3, we complement these findings with a qualitative analysis of the subset of news articles which contained the most extreme sentiments (N = 111), providing an in-depth perspective of sentiments and discourse developed around keywords, as either promoting or undermining their credibility in, and trust toward behaviourally informed policy. We discuss our findings in light of the integration of behavioural science in national policy making under emergency constraints.

scholarly journals New CLGF Four-Year Grant to Help Local Government Service Delivery and Boost CLGF’s Research Capacity

2012 ◽  
pp. 136-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucy Slack ◽  
Susan Rhodes
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Service Delivery ◽  
International Development ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Regional Policy ◽  
Local Level ◽  
National Policy ◽  
Research Capacity ◽  
Government Service ◽  
The Uk

The UK Department for International Development (UK AID) has agreed £4.5 million funding for a four-year CLGF programme to improve governance and service delivery at local level in several areas of the Commonwealth including Africa and Asia from 2012-16. It will also help to support national policy frameworks for local government service delivery, and increase engagement of local government in regional policy planning and implementation. CLGF will continue to work with its members, UN partners and others to mobilise more resources towards the support of local government in the Commonwealth. The new programme will focus on local government pilot projects in LED, supporting ministries and local government associations in strengthening their national policy making for local government, and establish regional forums to enable local government to engage in and influence regional policy making to reflect the needs and priorities of local government. It will also boost CLGF’s research capacity with targeted research to strengthen CLGF’s policy making and advocacy, including more sustained engagement in international policy debates on key issues affecting local government, such as climate change.

The national governance of prostitution: political rationality and the politics of discourse

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hendrik Wagenaar ◽  
Helga Amesberger ◽  
Sietske Altink
Keyword(s):  
Sex Workers ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
National Level ◽  
National Policy ◽  
Policy Networks ◽  
Policy Formulation ◽  
Labour Law ◽  
Immigration Laws ◽  
Political Rationality ◽  
Policy Agendas

This chapter depicts policy formulation as an ‘organised anarchy’ of agenda setting and political decision-making that expresses itself in an ongoing tension between institutionalised political rationality and public discourse. The emergence of policy agendas and the introduction of legislation are associated less with a particular identifiable phase of the policy process than with the contingent interactions of policy networks and institutions. This unruly process is strongly influenced by discourse, in both countries the worldwide neo-abolitionist discourse. In the Netherlands national policy swung from the halting legislative decision to decriminalize brothels, back to a national policy of control and containment. Austria’s policy was traditionally aimed at the control of a stigmatised activity, through measures such as compulsory STD checks, unfavorable fiscal measures, and immigration laws that prevent sex workers to have full access to the labour market. In both countries we observed that at the national level the sex trade is shaped as much, or perhaps even more, by laws that are tangential to prostitution (immigration, tax, social security and labour law) as by laws that are specifically directed at it.

Towards a New Professionalism in School? A Comparative Study of Teacher Autonomy in Norway and Sweden

2007 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 232-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingrid Helgøy ◽  
Anne Homme
Keyword(s):  
Policy Making ◽  
National Level ◽  
National Policy ◽  
Compulsory Education ◽  
Professional Autonomy ◽  
National Standards ◽  
Teacher Autonomy ◽  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
Individual Teacher ◽  
National Differences

Local autonomy is one of the recent trends in reforms of compulsory education. However, several parallel trends such as individual accountability, performance and visibility challenge professional autonomy. The aim of this article is to explore how accountability and transparency reforms affect teacher autonomy in Norway and Sweden. The authors argue that both individual teacher autonomy at the local workplace and autonomy at the national level embracing teachers as a collective group are important in analysing teachers' professional autonomy. In comparing teachers' professional autonomy they differentiate between processes of individualisation and collectivisation. Their analysis indicates, although intra-national differences, that the difference between Norwegian and Swedish teachers is striking. While the Swedish teachers experience a high degree of individual autonomy, their influence on national policy processes seems weakened. This leads to the assumption that professional autonomy as a result of transparency and accountability reforms, even if the teachers report individual professional autonomy, reduces the authority of the profession at the national policy-making level. The analysis indicates that Norwegian teachers are characterized by old professionalism. The strong input regulations in Norway limit individual teacher autonomy. Even with weakened individual autonomy, teachers still manage to supply conditions for national education policy making. This means that teachers still are autonomous at the collective level. Moreover, the findings indicate that national standards and control in education are accepted as tools for securing professional knowledge and status.

scholarly journals The Ambivalence of Adoption: Adoptive Families’ Stories

Sociology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 363-379
Author(s):  
Cath Lambert
Keyword(s):  
Family Life ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Social Process ◽  
National Policy ◽  
Adoptive Parents ◽  
Adoptive Families ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Online Archive ◽  
The Uk

The making of family through adoption is an emotionally and politically charged legal and social process. Both its historical and contemporary manifestations are characterised by ambivalence. Contemporary domestic adoption in the UK is at a point of profound reflection, as many of its ambivalent features are articulated at the levels of national policy making as well as within the micro political sphere of family life. Drawing on an online archive of adoption stories, in particular blogs written by adoptive parents, this article attends to the affective ways in which this ambivalence manifests within adoptive families. Queer theoretical resources are used to engage with themes of haunting, absence and loss, the strange temporalities of adoptive kinship and the complex politics of undoing at the heart of adoption.

scholarly journals Roma Representation in Danish Roma Policy and Public Discourse—A Critical Analysis

Societies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Lassen Olesen ◽  
Leena Eklund Karlsson
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
National Policy ◽  
Growth Strategy ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Policy Discourse ◽  
Media Discourse ◽  
Europe 2020 ◽  
Majority Population

Imagined stereotypes of Roma are prevailing across Europe and have an impact of discrimination and social exclusion of the Roma. In 2011, Denmark published their National Roma Inclusion Strategy as a response to the Europe 2020 Growth Strategy. This study analyses how the Roma are represented in the national policy and in ongoing discourse regarding Roma in newspaper articles published around the time of the publication of the Strategy. A critical discourse analysis was conducted, and the findings show that a profound stigmatization of the Roma was common and acceptable in both Danish nationalistic media discourse and in the paternalistic policy discourse. The Roma were represented as an alienated, non-empowered group in contrast to the majority population and lacking any useful qualities. There was a lack of Roma voices in both policy and newspapers. The discourses regarding Roma in Denmark are lacking both Roma influence and initiatives to change Roma conditions.

EFFECTIVENESS OF POLICY LEVEL ENVIRONMENTAL AND SUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENT: CHALLENGES AND LESSONS FROM RECENT PRACTICE

2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (01) ◽  
pp. 39-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
RICHARD P. EALES ◽  
WILLIAM R. SHEATE
Keyword(s):  
Policy Development ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
National Level ◽  
National Policy ◽  
Energy Planning ◽  
Case Examples ◽  
Strategic Actions ◽  
Policy Level ◽  
The Uk ◽  
High Level

This paper explores the challenges and lessons from recent practice and experience of applying tools such as Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) and Sustainability Appraisal at the policy level in the UK and Europe. It investigates whether or not these tools have been effective and helped to deliver more sustainable development at the high level of national policy development. The analysis is illustrated by case examples from the UK, such as Eco-towns and Energy Planning. The paper concludes that the current performance by the UK Government in implementing the SEA Directive for national level strategic actions is far from exemplary. At the root of the problem is the poor consideration and evaluation of reasonable alternatives, the fundamentally weak conception of sustainability adopted and the apparent perception that having to undertake an assessment and comply with the SEA Directive is a hurdle, rather than a useful mechanism for helping to deliver better and more sustainable evidence-based policy making.

scholarly journals Communicating Cosmopolitanism During Times of Crisis: UNHCR and the World Refugee Day Campaign in the UK and Bulgaria

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 467-485
Author(s):  
Ekaterina Balabanova
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Message Framing ◽  
National Level ◽  
Communication Strategy ◽  
Professional Communication ◽  
Organizational Challenges ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Distant Suffering ◽  
The Uk

Abstract How can a cosmopolitan message about refugees be communicated in an international political context characterized by growing hostility to outsiders at the national level? This article provides a detailed analysis of a specific World Refugee Day campaign based on extensive access to internal data from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and interviews with key informants alongside case studies of the campaign in two European countries: the United Kingdom (UK) and Bulgaria. While internal UNHCR assessment suggested successful meeting of pre-set targets, a series of issues around the implementation of message framing and the potential for this to generate action are identified. The article applies ideas about the communication of distant suffering to explore how World Refugee Day campaigns operate as interventions into global public discourse. The analysis of the campaign framing finds that it maximized space for solidaristic understanding of the refugee issue and reflexivity. However, the article argues that the communication of these ideas is impacted by the practical and organizational challenges (and opportunities) of developing a professional communication strategy in the context of a rapidly changing media and political environment.

Simulations: National Policy Making

1986 ◽  
Vol 51 ◽  
pp. 15-18
Author(s):  
Morris J. Levitt ◽  
Ronald James
Keyword(s):  
Interest Group ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
National Level ◽  
National Policy ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
Policy Instrument ◽  
Legislative Process ◽  
Political Factors ◽  
Congressional Action ◽  
Law Making

This simulation sets up a presidential and congressional structure and demonstrates the various institutional and political factors that exist in the law making process on the American national level. We have designed a role-playing framework for presidential initiative, congressional action/reaction, and interest group and media activity. Students will become aware of agenda setting, the budget as a policy instrument, and the forces and strategies of influence that affect lawmaking. It can be inserted into a semester course to diversify routine lectures and discussion. It is flexible, easily adjusted to class size and time available to highlight the executive-legislative process (it may take three to eight class sessions).

scholarly journals Religion as Source Domain of Metaphors in World War II Media Discourse

2021 ◽  
pp. 148-167
Author(s):  
O. A. Solopova ◽  
N. N. Koshkarova
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
English Language ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Media Discourse ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
World War ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Media Discourses

The article studies the English-language media discourses of the World War II period from a retrospective point of view. The aim is to identify the patterns of modeling the images of war and peace in British, American and Australian media discourses. The definition of military media discourse as an institutional form of communication is proposed, its essential characteristics are highlighted. The source of the material was the authoritative digitized archives of the UK, the USA and Australia. The material was extracted using corpus linguistics tools. The qualitative analysis was carried out within the framework of the cognitive-discourse methodology using the method of metaphorical modeling. The object of the research is the dominant metaphor used when representing the images of war and peace in the three discourses. The authors show common and specific features of the use of the religious metaphor, conditioned by cultural and extra-linguistic factors, and conclude that the religious metaphor places war and peace at different poles of the scale of values and actualizes the binary axiological opposition “good — evil”, “light — darkness”.

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