scholarly journals Explaining Support for COVID-19 Cell Phone Contact Tracing

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ludovic Rheault ◽  
Andreea Musulan
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Cell Phone ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Policy Instrument ◽  
Contact Tracing ◽  
News Item ◽  
Fast Pace ◽  
Containment Measures ◽  
Phone Contact ◽  
Pre Treatment

COVID-19 contact tracing applications have been deployed at a fast pace around the world and may be a key policy instrument to contain future waves in Canada. This study aims to explain public opinion toward cell phone contact tracing using a survey experiment conducted with a representative sample of Canadian respondents. We build upon an established theory in evolutionary psychology—disease avoidance—to predict how media coverage of the pandemic affects public support for containment measures. We report three key findings. First, exposure to a news item that shows people ignoring social distancing rules causes an increase in support for cell phone contact tracing. Second, pre-treatment covariates such as anxiety and a belief that other people are not following the rules rank among the strongest predictors of support for COVID-19 apps. And third, while a majority of respondents approve the reliance on cell phone contact tracing, many of them hold ambivalent thoughts about the technology. Our analysis of answers to an open-ended question on the topic suggests that concerns for rights and freedoms remain a salient preoccupation.

scholarly journals Uncovering two phases of early intercontinental COVID-19 transmission dynamics

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Yang ◽  
Juan Li ◽  
Shengjie Lai ◽  
Corrine W Ruktanonchai ◽  
Weijia Xing ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Phylogenetic Analyses ◽  
International Travel ◽  
Contact Tracing ◽  
Genetic Sequencing ◽  
Response Strategies ◽  
The World ◽  
Containment Measures ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Community Transmission ◽  
Two Phases

Abstract Background The COVID-19 pandemic has posed an ongoing global crisis, but how the virus spread across the world remains poorly understood. This is of vital importance for informing current and future pandemic response strategies. Methods We performed two independent analyses, travel network-based epidemiological modelling and Bayesian phylogeographic inference, to investigate the intercontinental spread of COVID-19. Results Both approaches revealed two distinct phases of COVID-19 spread by the end of March 2020. In the first phase, COVID-19 largely circulated in China during mid-to-late January 2020 and was interrupted by containment measures in China. In the second and predominant phase extending from late February to mid-March, unrestricted movements between countries outside of China facilitated intercontinental spread, with Europe as a major source. Phylogenetic analyses also revealed that the dominant strains circulating in the USA were introduced from Europe. However, stringent restrictions on international travel across the world since late March have substantially reduced intercontinental transmission. Conclusions Our analyses highlight that heterogeneities in international travel have shaped the spatiotemporal characteristics of the pandemic. Unrestricted travel caused a large number of COVID-19 exportations from Europe to other continents between late February and mid-March, which facilitated the COVID-19 pandemic. Targeted restrictions on international travel from countries with widespread community transmission, together with improved capacity in testing, genetic sequencing and contact tracing, can inform timely strategies for mitigating and containing ongoing and future waves of COVID-19 pandemic.

Transnational Protest and The Public Sphere

2005 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Beyeler ◽  
Hanspeter Kriesi
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Economic Globalization ◽  
The Public ◽  
The World ◽  
World Economic ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Selection Of

This article explores the impact of protests against economic globalization in the public sphere. The focus is on two periodical events targeted by transnational protests: the ministerial conferences of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the annual meetings of the World Economic Forum (WEF). Based on a selection of seven quality newspapers published in different parts of the world, we trace media attention, support of the activists, as well as the broader public debate on economic globalization. We find that starting with Seattle, protest events received extensive media coverage. Media support of the street activists, especially in the case of the anti-WEF protests, is however rather low. Nevertheless, despite the low levels of support that street protesters received, many of their issues obtain wide public support.

scholarly journals TraceTogether: Pandemic Response, Democracy, and Technology

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 523-532 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hallam Stevens ◽  
Monamie Bhadra Haines
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Science ◽  
Social Trust ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Contact Tracing ◽  
Democratic Participation ◽  
Government Power ◽  
Power And Control ◽  
Close Proximity ◽  
Pandemic Response ◽  
And Control

Abstract On 20 March 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Singapore government released a new app called TraceTogether. Developed by the Ministry of Health, SG United, and GovTech Singapore, the app uses the Bluetooth capability of smartphones to store information about other smartphones that have come into close proximity with your own. These data facilitate the government’s process of “contact tracing” through which they track those who have potentially come into contact with the virus and place them in quarantine. This essay attempts to understand what kinds of citizens and civic behavior might be brought into being by this technology. By examining the workings and affordances of the TraceTogether app in detail, the authors argue that its peer-to-peer and open-source technology features mobilize the rhetorics and ideals of citizens science and democratic participation. However, by deploying these within a context that centralizes data, the app turns ideals born of dissent and protest on their head, using them to build trust not within a community but rather in government power and control. Rather than building social trust, TraceTogether becomes a technological substitute for it. The significant public support for TraceTogether shows both the possibilities and limitations of citizen science in less liberal political contexts and circumstances.

scholarly journals Public support for ‘soft’ versus ‘hard’ public policies: Review of the evidence

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanchayan Banerjee ◽  
Manu Savani ◽  
Ganga Shreedhar
Keyword(s):  
Financial Incentives ◽  
Public Policies ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Policy Instrument ◽  
Future Research ◽  
The Public ◽  
Future Research Agenda ◽  
Educational Campaigns

This article reviews the literature on public support for ‘soft’ versus ‘hard’ policy instruments for behaviour change, and the factors that drive such preferences. Soft policies typically include ‘moral suasion’ and educational campaigns, and more recently behavioural public policy approaches like nudges. Hard policy instruments, such as laws and taxes, restrict choices and alter financial incentives. In contrast to the public support evidenced for hard policy instruments during COVID-19, prior academic literature pointed to support for softer policy instruments. We investigate and synthesise the evidence on when people prefer one type of policy instrument over another. Drawing on multi-disciplinary evidence, we identify perceived effectiveness, trust, personal experience and self-interest as important determinants of policy instrument preferences, along with broader factors including the choice and country context. We further identify various gaps in our understanding that informs and organise a future research agenda around three themes. Specifically, we propose new directions for research on what drives public support for hard versus soft behavioural public policies, highlighting the value of investigating the role of individual versus contextual factors (especially the role of behavioural biases); how preferences evolve over time; and whether and how preferences spillovers across different policy domains.

scholarly journals Efficiency of public-private co-regulation in the food sector: the French voluntary agreements for nutritional improvements

OCL ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clementina Sebillotte
Keyword(s):  
Nutritional Quality ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Policy Instrument ◽  
Voluntary Agreements ◽  
Food Sector ◽  
Policy Action ◽  
Indicators Of Success ◽  
The Empirical Analysis ◽  
Interpretative Model

This article analyzes co-regulation as a policy instrument that makes it possible to achieve synergy between public support and private efforts in the food sector to improve the nutritional quality of the food offer. Our objective is to demonstrate the interest and the limits, as well as the conditions of the efficiency of this instrument, through the empirical analysis of the French voluntary agreements for nutritional improvements (charters) implemented in the framework of the French National Nutrition and Health Program (PNNS). We propose an interpretative model of the policy action on the nutritional quality of the food offer set out in the PNNS and we carry out new indicators of success to assess the efficiency of voluntary agreements in the food sector.

Explaining Public Support for the Use of Military Force: The Impact of Reference Point Framing and Prospective Decision Making

2011 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Héctor Perla
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Reference Point ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Public Support ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThis article examines the determinants of public support for the use of military force. It puts forward a Framing Theory of Policy Objectives (FTPO), which contends that public support for military engagements depends on the public's perception of the policy's objective. However, it is difficult for the public to judge a policy's objective because they cannot directly observe a policy's true intention and influential political actors offer competing frames to define it. This framing contestation, carried out through the media, sets the public's decision-making reference point and determines whether the policy is perceived as seeking to avoid losses or to achieve gains. The FTPO predicts that support will increase when the public perceives policies as seeking to prevent losses and decrease when the public judges policies to be seeking gains. I operationalize and test the theory using content analysis of national news coverage and opinion polls of U.S. intervention in Central America during the 1980s. These framing effects are found to hold regardless of positive or negative valence of media coverage.

Czech Public Opinion on Turkey's Accession to the EU: An Analysis through the Lenses of Sociological and Discursive Institutionalism*

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-95
Author(s):  
Pelin Ayan Musil
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Discursive Institutionalism ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Eu

While Turkey lacks significant levels of public support from the Czech Republic in its EU bid, the existing studies of European public opinion on the question of Turkey do not bring any reasonable explanation as to why this can be so. To shed light on this problem, this article offers an analytical framework derived from sociological and discursive institutionalism. First, it shows that the historical/cultural context in the Czech Republic has created an informal institution built around the norms of “othering” Muslim societies like Turkey (sociological institutionalism). Second, based on the media coverage of selected political issues from Turkey between 2005 and 2010, it argues that this institution both enables and constrains the “discursive ability” of the media in communicating these issues to its audience (discursive institutionalism). Since the media—as a political actor—mostly acts to maintain this institution and does not critically debate it, the public opinion of Turkey as the “cultural other” remains as a dominant perception. The official support of the political elite for Turkey's accession to the EU does not countervail the media influence, as this support is often not conveyed to the Czech public agenda.

scholarly journals An Internet of Things Approach to Contact Tracing—The BubbleBox System

Information ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Polenta ◽  
Pietro Rignanese ◽  
Paolo Sernani ◽  
Nicola Falcionelli ◽  
Dagmawi Neway Mekuria ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Internet Of Things ◽  
Contact Tracing ◽  
Healthcare Sector ◽  
Prototype Implementation ◽  
Privacy Concerns ◽  
Social Distancing ◽  
Infected People ◽  
Containment Measures ◽  
Pros And Cons ◽  
National Governments

The COVID-19 pandemic exploded at the beginning of 2020, with over four million cases in five months, overwhelming the healthcare sector. Several national governments decided to adopt containment measures, such as lockdowns, social distancing, and quarantine. Among these measures, contact tracing can contribute in bringing under control the outbreak, as quickly identifying contacts to isolate suspected cases can limit the number of infected people. In this paper we present BubbleBox, a system relying on a dedicated device to perform contact tracing. BubbleBox integrates Internet of Things and software technologies into different components to achieve its goal—providing a tool to quickly react to further outbreaks, by allowing health operators to rapidly reach and test possible infected people. This paper describes the BubbleBox architecture, presents its prototype implementation, and discusses its pros and cons, also dealing with privacy concerns.

Political control or legitimacy deficit? Bureaucracies’ symbolic responses to bottom-up public pressure

2019 ◽  
pp. 53-76
Author(s):  
Saar Alon-Barkat ◽  
Sharon Gilad
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Social Protest ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Political Control ◽  
Principal Agent ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Social Protests ◽  
Principal Agent Model ◽  
Symbolic Interactions

Public administration research has focused on bureaucracies’responses to top-down pressures by elected politicians. By comparison, bureaucracies' responses to bottom-up public pressures, such as media coverage and social protest, and the micro-mechanisms that underlie variation in their response, have received less attention. This study analyses the extent to which subjection to political control shapes direct response of bureaucracies to bottom-up public pressures. Based on current literature, we explore two distinct micro-mechanisms: firstly, building, inter alia, on principal–agent theory, we would expect higher levels of political control to render bureaucracies more attentive to public pressures in order to pre-empt intervention by politicians who are reliant on public support (principal–agent mechanism). Conversely, building on regulation theory, we would expect autonomous agencies to exhibit attentiveness to salient public pressures to compensate for their precarious democratic legitimacy (legitimacy-deficit mechanism). Empirically, we analyse the responses of a diverse set of 36 bureaucracies to unprecedented social protests taking place in Israel during 2011. We focus on bureaucracies', including independent agencies', symbolic responses via advertising campaigns. Our analysis shows that higher levels of political control enhanced the inclination of bureaucracies to engage in symbolic interactions in response to social protests, supporting our extended version of the principal–agent model.

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