ICYMI: RT and Youth-Oriented International Broadcasting as (Geo)Political Culture Jamming

Research in political communication has recently begun to explore the role of non-Western English-language state-funded international broadcasters (NEIBs) in influencing international audiences. Despite this, there has been little attention given to understanding how NEIBs engage and influence young people in ‘Western’ democracies. Our article addresses this gap by providing a detailed analysis of RT's English-language, youth-orientated news product ICYMI. Launched in 2018, ICYMI is a social media-based news brand that consists of a series of 2–3-min videos that deliver satirical takes on recent global events including military conflict, financial scandals, and culture clashes. Our findings, which examine the first year of the platform's activity, show that ICYMI is a novel form of engagement, one that is not easily categorised as either public diplomacy or propaganda, nor can it be described as traditional journalism. Instead, we label this approach as geopolitical culture jamming. In this article, we conduct a discourse analysis of 45 videos published on YouTube by ICYMI over its first year to examine how the platform attempts to influence how young people relate to traditional foreign policy discourses. Our empirical analysis centres on how viewers engage with and interpret ICYMI's videos with the aim of addressing how RT may be influencing younger audiences, particularly its core demographic of Anglophone white males whose comments reflect an attachment to ICYMI's populist, anti-elite worldview.

Racial Differences in Time at Work Not Working

Racial differences in effort at work, if they exist, can potentially explain race-based wage/earnings disparities in the labor market. The authors estimate specifications of time spent on non-work activities at work by Black and White males and females with data from the American Time Use Survey. Estimates reveal that trivially small differences occur between non-Hispanic Black and non-Hispanic White males in time spent not working while on the job that disappear entirely when correcting for non-response errors. The findings imply that Black–White male differences in the fraction of the workday spent not working are either not large enough to partially explain the Black–White wage gap, or simply do not exist at all.

Comparison of Trimethoprim-Sulfamethoxazole vs. Clindamycin for the Treatment of Children with Musculoskeletal Infections

Background: Musculoskeletal infections ([MSKI]; osteomyelitis, septic arthritis, pyomyositis) are common invasive infections in children. With increasing antibiotic resistance and allergies, treatment options are limited. Trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (TMP-SMX) has activity against common MSKI pathogens, yet pediatric MSKI outcomes data are limited. Our aim was to evaluate outcomes of children with MSKI treated with TMP-SMX compared to clindamycin. We hypothesized that outcomes would be similar between groups. Methods: We conducted a retrospective review of children <18 years old, admitted to Riley Hospital for Children from January 2010-June 2021 treated with TMP-SMX or clindamycin for MSKI. Patients were identified by ICD-9/10 codes. Patients were excluded if TMP-SMX or clindamycin was not the main treatment, they had symptoms >30 days, hardware associated infection, or an alternative diagnosis. Treatment success was defined as no evidence of infection at the end therapy. Treatment failure was defined as antibiotic intolerance, or development of recurrent/chronic osteomyelitis. Adverse drug reactions were recorded. Results: One-hundred-sixty-three patients (30 TMP-SMX, 133 clindamycin) met eligibility criteria. The majority were non-Hispanic white males, median age of 1.75 years (IQR, 1-3.75) for the TMP-SMX group, and 7 years (IQR 3-10) for the clindamycin group. Osteomyelitis was the most common infection type in both groups (TMP-SMX 43.3%, clindamycin 54.1%). S. aureus was the most common pathogen in both groups (TMP-SMX 36.7%, clindamycin 48.1%). Of the patients that completed follow-up, 84% successfully completed treatment with TMP-SMX, compared to 86.4% with clindamycin (odds ratio [OR] 0.82; 95% CI 0.25-2.46, p=0.75). Adverse drug reactions occurred in 6.7% of the TMP-SMX group, compared to 10.5% in the clindamycin group (OR 0.61; 95% CI 0.13-2.57, p=0.52). Conclusions: Preliminary results show that TMP-SMX is well tolerated and not associated with higher risk of treatment failure compared to clindamycin in the treatment of pediatric MSKI. Randomized controlled trials to evaluate optimal treatment are needed.

Black Girls And Referrals: Racial and Gender Disparities in Referral to Substance Use Disorder Screening in The Juvenile Justice System

Background: Justice-involved children (JIC) have a high risk for illicit substance use (SU) and substance use disorders (SUD). Females are particularly vulnerable. It is critical that JIC who report current SU are referred for SUD screening to be provided with potentially life-saving treatment services. Florida law and Florida Department of Juvenile Justice (FLDJJ) policy mandate that JIC who report current SU be referred for SUD screening. Evidence suggests a racial referral gap among JIC who require SUD screening, and research on intersectionality suggests that these disparities may be exacerbated for minority females. Therefore, we hypothesize that Black and Latinx females will be less likely to be referred for SUD screening than White children despite reporting current substance use to FLDJJ. Methods: Multivariate logistic regression was employed to analyze cross-sectional data from FLDJJ on 35,884 JIC who reported SU in the past six months. The main and interaction effects of race and gender on the likelihood of referral for SUD screening were tested. The control variables included substance type, age, household income, current SU problems, history of mental health problems, number of misdemeanors, and risk to recidivate. Results: There were no significant differences in the likelihood of being referred for SUD screening between White females and White males. However, Black females (AOR= 0.48), Latinx females (AOR= 0.77), and Black males (AOR= 0.76) were significantly less likely to be referred than White males. Black females were half as likely to be referred as White males and females. Conclusion: This study finds evidence that Black females in the juvenile justice system are significantly underserved. The justice community must leverage these findings to implement protocols that ensure equal services for all children and eliminate gender and racial disparities in SUD screening.

‘No-Barriers’ tobacco product? Selling smokeless tobacco to women, people of colour and the LGBTQ+ community in the USA

BackgroundIn both Sweden and the USA, smokeless tobacco (ST) is legal and used predominantly by men. Starting in the 1970s, US tobacco companies attempted to expand the ST market to women, African Americans, Hispanic Americans and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and other sexual orientation (LGBTQ+) people.DesignWe analysed industry documents from the Truth Tobacco Industry Documents Library triangulating findings with recent ST advertising and publicly available literature.FindingsWe found tobacco companies used design innovations such as pouched moist snuff, snus and dissolvable products to expand the market. In addition, diverse advertising campaigns targeted women, people of colour (Hispanic, African American) and LGBTQ+ communities with identity-targeted messages emphasising novelty, convenience, cleanliness and use in smoke-free environments. However, stereotypes of ST users as rural white males endured, perpetuated by continued marketing aimed at this customer base, which created cognitive dissonance and stymied marketer’s hopes that pouch products would ‘democratize’ ST.ConclusionThese failed campaigns suggest novel products such as nicotine pouch products may provide a ‘clean slate’ to similarly target women and other low-ST-using groups. Based on this history, the risk of new tobacco and nicotine products to increase health disparities should be closely monitored.

Black Lives Matter in Brother: A Postcolonial Perspective

This study aims to examine how the lives of blacks are reduced and eliminated in Brother (2017) by David Chariandy. Black Lives Matter is a hash tag that appears after the killing of Trayvon Martin (17 years old African American) in 2012 by the savage hands of George Zimmerman (white person). This hash-tag has become a social movement that calls for equality in order to stop the violence against black people because their live is as valuable as white’s. The movement comes into being to highlight the “hypocritical democracy in service to the white males whose freedom are openly depended upon the oppression of blacks” (Lebron, 2017, P. 1). Those who have started this movement try to redeem a state and its arbitrary actions against black who are exterminated since the slavery. Alicia Graza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi have established this movement to reveal the suffering of the blacks who have no rights to live their life. Chariandy is a Canadian writer who specialized in Caribbean literature, black diaspora, and postcolonial studies. The novel is analyzed through Kimberlé Crenshaw’s concept (intersectionality) to show how the race, gender, and class are intersecting together to emphasize how the human beings will be treated accordingly.

Inequality in Life Lost to Violence in the United States

This study uses demographic methods to describe ethnoracial and educational inequality in the cumulative risk of homicide death and life lost to violence in the United States. If age-specific homicides rates were to continue at 2018–2019 levels, more than 1 in 19 Black males without a high school diploma would die by homicide. In contrast, 1 in 152 White males without a high school diploma and 1 in 233 Black males with a bachelor's degree would be violently killed. Among Black males without a high school diploma, homicide led to a decrease in life expectancy at ages 15–19 of more than two years. The impact of U.S. violence on the life expectancy of socially marginalized people exceeds the population impact of all causes of death except heart disease and cancer.

Writing in Their Time: A Queer and Feminist Analysis of Vancouver’s 1979 Writing in Our Time Series

The 1979 Writing in Our Time series became Vancouver’s most attended reading series, bringing light to the viability and international status of the city’s literary scene. While it has largely been remembered as a celebration of Vancouver’s literary culture, more marginalized voices of Vancouver’s literary communities have highlighted the series’ implications for gay male and female writers in the city. This article considers whose time was actually represented by the Writing in Our Time series. I suggest that while it gave gay men the opportunity to be onstage and speak about their concerns, including the homophobic attacks against bill bissett in the House of Commons that prompted the series, Writing in Our Time provided women limited opportunities to publicly share their work while relying upon their invisible labour to succeed. Through the production of a new socio-cultural history of the series, including an analysis of printed publications, oral histories, and audiovisual documentation of the events, this article demonstrates that Writing in Our Time was catalyzed by attacks on a gay writer, relied on women’s invisible labour, showcased the androcentric relations of Vancouver’s literary scene, and sparked resistance from feminists to women’s peripheral position in the series. I argue that, due to their proximity to or distance from heterosexual white males in power within the scene, the series simultaneously supported gay writers in Vancouver’s literary scene and further marginalized women by reinforcing sexist social hierarchies. The effects of these androcentric relations led to greater dialogue about issues affecting gay men within the series and by women about sexism within and outside of the series at that time.

Effect Of Unsaturated Fatty Acid Omega-3 On Some Histological Criteria In White New Zealand Rabbits Administrated With Cyclosporine Drug

The present study was aimed efficiency to evaluate the unsaturated fatty acid omega-3 in reducing the side effects that resulted from administration of cyclosporine drug in white New Zealand rabbits. (60) from white males' rabbits were used in this study, the animals divided into major four groups (15) rabbits per group and its subdivision into three groups (5) rabbits per group. The first group is orally administered with normal saline, second groups were administered cyclosporine (25mg/kg) only. Third groups were administered cyclosporine (25mg/kg) in the first day and Omega-3 (500mg/kg) in the second day, while Fourth groups were administered cyclosporine (25mg/kg) in the first day and omega-3 (1000mg/kg) in the second day for periods (21,30,60) days respectively. After ending study periods, the animals were sacrificed and the blood was collected and samples from liver were taken and the results were showed the following: the histological study showed pathological changes after administration of cyclosporine (25mg/kg) with blood congestion for period (21day), while severe blood congestion with beginning of fibrosis for period (30day) while in the period (60day) very severe blood congestion with aggregation of inflammatory cells and grow of fibroblast cells were showed. while the interaction between cyclosporine and two concentrations (500&1000mg/kg) of omega-3 were showed non-pathological changes in liver tissues. From this study concluded that omega-3 have an important role in the reducing histopathology side effects that result from administration of cyclosporine drug in white rabbits.