Social media communication of the scientific and technological literature in emergency under COVID-19

PurposeThis paper takes the current COVID-19 pandemic raging around the world as a realistic background and uses the informal scientific communication mode in social media as the theoretical basis. It aims to explore the characteristics and rules of scientific communication in social media under emergency events, grasp the potential and risks of scientific communication in social media in special times and provide a perspective of academic communication for the scientific response.Design/methodology/approachThe authors select the enumeration data of the early COVID-19 theme papers spread on social media networks as the research object, apply descriptive statistical analysis to the basic statistical distribution of variables and use factor analysis and visualization methods to explore the law and characteristics of the spread of scientific papers on social media platforms.FindingsIt was found that users of the COVID-19 paper are mainly in North America, Europe and South America, followed by those in East Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania. The users are mainly public figures, doctors and other practitioners, science communicators and scientists. The process of social media communication reflects three ways of knowledge construction, social interaction and academic communication, and there are three ways of communication law and changing trend of cross transition and integration.Originality/valueThis study observes the function and role of science communication in social media in a special period from a unique perspective of academic communication, so as to promote academic means to fight against the epidemic.

Legal communications: legal development issues

The article attempts to provide an overview of appearance and social purpose of legal communications. The results indicate that legal communications appear and develop as behavioral guidelines expressed in the sources of law. The study revealed that ancient sources of law serve as guidelines for communications of legal prohibitions or incentives in the ancient world. This article provides examples of a new communicative model introduction in the states of the ancient world, in particular in Babylon’s King Hammurabi activities. The article provides an analysis of communication models that were introduced in different historical periods - in ancient Greece, in the Middle Ages, in modern times. The author demonstrates the importance of communication potential of the category . The author argues that the communicative function of law ensures that the participants of legal relations receive the state’s position of necessary, permitted or prohibited behavior. The author concludes that in-depth study of legal communication in the future requires the study of methods, techniques, communication guidelines as behavioral impulses that must be conveyed to recipients in various spheres of human life. Keywords: communication, law, legal communication, communication guidelines, human rights.

The Civic Role of OSPs in Mature Information Societies

Over the years, the discussion concerning the responsibilities of online service providers (OSPs) has gone from defining measures that OSPs should deploy to correct their market bias and ensure a pluralistic web, to the impact that OSPs have on the internet, on the flourishing of democratic values, and on societies at large. The debate spans different fields, from information and computer ethics, corporate social responsibilities, and business ethics, to computer-mediated communication, law, and public policy. Topics of analyses range from biases and skewing of information indexed by search engines, the protection of users’ privacy and security, to the impact of OSPs on democratic processes, and their duties with respect to human rights. This chapter investigates the ethical implications of intermediary liability. First, it describes the debate on the moral responsibilities of OSPs with respect to managing access to information and human rights. It then analyses the role and the nature of the responsibilities of OSPs in mature information societies. The chapter concludes its review by applying Floridi’s soft ethics to consider what responsibilities the civic role of OSPs entails and how they should discharge them.

Electronic Communication in the Paradigm of Interaction of State and Society

In recent decades, the phenomenon of mass electronic communication has been studied by various sciences. The right also turned out to be included in a similar discourse. Communication in the digital environment is the reason for the interaction of previously distant segments of society. In modern law, the concept of electronic communication remains in a certain sense debatable, it is often identified with legal communication. At the same time, electronic communication has an additional «dimension». The globalization of the information space encourages legal scholars to study electronic communication as the action and interaction of various actors, based on Internet technologies using web services, portals, blogs, websites, social networks. There is a need for re- levant legal regulation of the informational interaction between the authorities and society in the Republic of Belarus, in connection with which a new «field» is opening up for activities in various areas of law. The meaning of electronic communication is constantly expanding and, depending on the specialization, even varies. For an adequate understanding of electronic communication, law must take into account the tools of other humanities. In contact with the digital environment, legal science is called upon to reformat research tasks to explain the new empirical and theoretical experience associated with the transformation of the paradigm of interaction between the state and society in the network structures. The author comprehends these issues in relation to the conditions of development of e-government in the Republic of Belarus and the need for more active involvement of the public in the government.