Ieskats TV žurnālistu valodas lietojumā (2019–2020)

As evidenced by the studies referred to in the introduction of the paper, television is the most popular mass medium both in Latvia and throughout the European Union, and it plays a key role in shaping the linguistic environment. Therefore, it is important that at least the speech of journalists and programme hosts on television corresponds to the norms of literary Latvian. Lately, viewers have been particularly concerned about the quality of language. The rather low quality of Latvian used in mass media stems from both the speech commonly used by the society and the journalists’ Latvian language skills. A knowledgeable journalist is regarded as an authority, and viewers put their trust in authoritative and erudite speech. However, journalists sometimes lack awareness of their role and influence on the wide audience watching, evaluating, and quoting them. Examples were gathered from the most popular television channels in Latvia that broadcast in Latvian – LTV1, TV3, Rīga 24TV, S-TV – and the following programmes: “Rīta Panorāma”, “900 sekundes” (broadcast on LNT in 2019), “TV3 Ziņas”, “Bez tabu”, “Tieša runa”, etc. The examples show that there are numerous errors, linguistic inaccuracies, and stylistic shortcomings, particularly regarding lexis. The aim of the paper is to focus on the most common errors, those being lexicostylistic errors and the widespread use of colloquial speech. Although a mixture of styles is common nowadays and colloquial speech has become an integral part of publicist style, its usage in TV programmes cannot always be justified. A short insight into new words coined by journalists is provided as well; however, these words are not included in dictionaries and are unlikely to become neologisms. The conclusion of the paper focuses on the causes of errors and advice regarding the improvement of the journalists’ language.

Don’t blink: inattentional blindness in radiology report interpretation

Objectives: Medical errors attributable to inattentional blindness (IAB) may contribute to adverse patient outcomes. IAB has not been studied in the context of reviewing written radiological reports. This cross-sectional, deception-controlled study measures IAB of physicians towards an unexpected stimulus while interpreting written radiological reports. Methods: Physicians and residents from multiple fields were asked to interpret four radiology text reports. Embedded in one was an unexpected stimulus (either an abnormally placed medical exam finding or a non-medical quote from the popular television show Doctor Who). Primary outcomes were differences in detection rates for the two stimuli. Secondary outcomes were differences in detection rates based on level of training and specialty. Results: The unexpected stimulus was detected by 47.8% (n = 43) of participants; the non-medical stimulus was detected more often than the medical stimulus (75.0% vs 21.7%, OR 10.8, 95% CI 4.1–28.7; p < 0.0001,). No differences in outcomes were observed between training levels or specialties. Conclusion: Only a minority of physicians successfully detected an unexpected stimulus while interpreting written radiological reports. They were more likely to detect an abnormal non-medical stimulus than a medical stimulus. Findings were independent of the level of training or field of medical practice. Advances in knowledge: This study is the first to show that IAB is indeed present among internal medicine, family medicine, and emergency medicine providers when interpreting written radiology reports.

Abstract 1122‐000221: High School Student Stroke Awareness in Rio De Janeiro

Introduction : The ultimate purpose of this study was to assess the extent of stroke awareness within high school students in several countries in Latin America. Stroke awareness and prevention is the best way to minimize the risks of a stroke. Strokes resulted in 195,661 deaths in 2016 in high‐income regions within North America. In Brazil alone, there were 107,258 deaths by stroke in 2016 that could have been caused by improper treatment and lack of awareness. Methods : The focus of the study quickly shifted to within Brazil, due to its concerning status. Quantitative data provided by secondary and primary research through an anonymous survey shows a critical need for more awareness in high school students. A Google Form survey was conducted in 2020 with various multiple choice, checkbox, and multiple‐choice grid questions on 124 high school students in Brazil was passed out through several students in the area. Of these students, 83% were from a private high school with excellent academics, student life, and club activities, in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The impact of Covid‐19 has resulted in fewer responses from schools and officials as many were not taking any messages, making it difficult to attain survey responses. Results : Regardless, 26.61% of all survey participants were unaware of what a stroke is, and a majority thought it had to do with the heart. Less than half of the participants knew what FAST stood for, a well‐known acronym for identifying symptoms of a stroke. Even if a student identified a stroke, 25% did not know that the first step is calling an emergency hotline, crucial knowledge that could lead to a decrease in the high rate of stroke deaths. When asked where their knowledge of strokes came from, further concerns arose with more than half learning from social media, 12.39% not knowing anything, and 6.45% even citing Grey’s Anatomy, a popular television series. Only 37.1% of participants got any of their knowledge on stroke from the news and less than half learned from a credible source, such as their school. Conclusions : Lack of education about stroke among a significant number of students in Rio de Janeiro may lead to an increase in the number of stroke deaths that could have been prevented had communities been educated. The research marks the beginning of an ongoing assessment that will expand to all of Latin America. The assessment will reveal the extent of stroke awareness among the youth in the entire region and may provide a blueprint for educating them, ultimately improving the treatment rates for stroke in the region.

A woman scientist in pursuit of truth: A rising trend of representation with Chernobyl

Sky/HBO’s miniseries Chernobyl (2019) tells a human story behind the catastrophic disaster that had begun with an explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Soviet Ukraine on 26 April 1986. Over the course of five one-hour episodes, Chernobyl dramatizes the incidents that paved the way to the massive explosion, such as the Cold War era, the dysfunctional Soviet bureaucracy and the power issues among the male political and scientific establishment. The highlight of the miniseries is female agency being the symbol of scientific approach, rational thought and common sense. This article analyses Chernobyl and the character of a Belarusian nuclear physicist named Ulyana Khomyuk (played by Emily Watson) by focusing on women’s representation on popular television in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. It also questions whether Chernobyl is one of the very few examples in popular culture of changing patterns of women’s representation in STEM.

The changing language of women on The Big Bang Theory

This study focuses on how linguistic markers are utilized by women in media to highlight stereotypes and reinforce systems of oppression. Using data from the popular television program The Big Bang Theory, the speech patterns of the three main female characters, Penny, Amy, and Bernadette, were analyzed. It was found that changes in the speed and pitch of the dialog delivered by these characters correlated with the characters enacting certain female stereotypes that are not at the forefront of their personalities. The stereotypes of the traditionally feminine woman, overly aggressive woman, and ditzy blond are key in maintaining the inferior status of women. The stereotype of the traditionally feminine woman serves as an example of how women are supposed to act out their female identity, the overly aggressive stereotype is a warning against utilizing emotions outside of a traditional feminine community of practice, and the ditzy blond stereotype is used to provide proof of the inferiority of women and justify the continued subjugation of them.

Groupies, Fangirls and Shippers: The Endurance of a Gender Stereotype

The purpose of this special issue is to offer new perspectives on fan cultures which respond to changes and controversies that have happened since the last American Behavioral Scientist special issue on fandom was published, in 2005. But the aim of my contribution is to argue that, sadly, derisive-gendered discourses like ‘fangirls’, ‘groupies’ and ‘shippers’ are still alive and well. Returning to the kind of research conducted in the 1980s – when women’s experiences of feminized popular cultures began to be taken seriously – reminds us that their pleasures are no less derided or controversial four decades on. My findings also suggest that the enduring presence of older stereotypes within teen drama fandoms – particularly the ‘groupie’ – signals the agility of sexism, as the term can now be understood as more of a generational designation rather than a medium-specific one. This article is the product of three years of qualitative empirical research with ‘teen girl’ fandoms of three popular television shows: Pretty Little Liars, Revenge and The Vampire Diaries. The data it discusses includes Skype audio and video interviews, written interviews conducted via email and Facebook Messenger, along with overt social media observations.

Identification and Adoption of Themes in The Big Bang Theory Sitcom to Foster Academic Cultural Competencies of Doctoral Students in English for Academic Conversation Classroom

The primary purpose of this study is to identify academic cultural themes in the popular television sitcom The Big Bang Theory in order to enhance doctoral students’ awareness and acquisition of Ph.D. competencies through formalized and explicit instruction. The secondary aim is to assess the impact of the selected academic themes on doctoral students’ acquisition of Ph.D. competencies in an English for Academic Conversation (EAC) classroom. Drawing upon the concept of thematic learning instruction, a qualitative research method involving six clusters of Ph.D. competency reference framework developed by Durette and others was adopted to identify the academic cultural themes depicted by the sitcom’s main characters. This is followed by evaluating the effectiveness of an EAC course in fostering learners’ Ph.D. competencies using selected identified academic cultural themes. The result showed that the sitcom’s main characters demonstrate the personal and professional skills commonly possessed by a competent academic as an individual or group. This is evidenced as all the thirty-four identified skills traverse the six clusters of Ph.D. competencies devised by Durette and colleagues in 2016. Also, the impact assessment results revealed that the course fostered learners’ Ph.D. competencies as they shared knowledge, past experience, and action plans of every selected academic theme. This work contributes to existing knowledge of doctoral competencies vital to promoting competency-based Ph.D. programs in higher education.

Film Tourism in South-Eastern Sicily: In the Footsteps of Inspector Montalbano

This study focuses on film tourism on the island of Sicily, in the context of the popular television series, Montalbano. Since the series began, there have been increases in tourist flows in the towns most directly interested. Although it is impossible to say that the Montalbano series is directly responsible for these phenomena, it has succeeded in bringing visibility to the territories and landscapes of the area. In the tourist sector, there are now abundant possibilities for fans to participate in movie tours. The apparent success of the series and its tourist spin-offs can be problematised, therefore, since it raises questions about authenticity from the perspective of the subjectivity of the tourists. Authenticity, for a tourist on a ‘Montalbano tour’, relates more to the desire to explore a virtual reality than to the traditional attractions of the places. The issue of authenticity has contrasting implications for the areas involved. The location of ‘Vigata’, a fictional creation of author Andrea Camilleri, has become an issue, as towns compete for a share of the rapidly evolving tourist market, engaging in attempts to demonstrate authentic traces of the fictional context. The paper explores these issues from an interdisciplinary, mixed methods perspective that combines insights from the fields of Economics and Linguistics. Data are analysed in terms of the multimodal and discourse-pragmatic dimensions of the interpretation of image-texts. Keywords: Montalbano, film tourism, framing, multimodality, destination branding

This Is Us: An Analysis of Mediated Family Communication at End-of-Life

Death is a ubiquitous theme in television dramas and we argued that mediated depictions of end-of-life experiences have the potential to provide glimpses into the ways in which characters experience real-life issues and can serve as conversation starters within family viewers. The study aimed to identify how a popular television drama, This is Us, depicted end-of-life communication. Analysis of season one revealed 54 conversations about end-of-life, two explicit death scenes, and three implied death scenes. Results also illustrate how the storyline within the show clearly depicts the impact end-of-life has on the family system, emphasizing the ongoing interdependence, hierarchy, and boundary (re)negotiation as a result of death. Findings advance understanding of how mediated narratives can illustrate end-of-life scenarios and conversations within the family system and can provide observational opportunities for modeling end-of-life communication behaviors within their families.