Conclusions and extensions

The final chapter summarizes the main findings, the most important of which is that coverage of Muslims in the United States is strikingly negative by any comparative measure, whether group, time, country, or topic. It draws on these core findings to reflect on whether American newspapers—and the media more broadly—may be fostering Islamophobia, and how they serve to reinforce boundaries between social groups that contribute to ongoing stigmatization of Muslims. It suggests that journalists and citizens develop the instinct to tone-check the media in an effort to limit the harmful effects of the deep and abiding negativity so commonly associated with Muslims and Islam.

Covering Muslims

For decades, scholars and observers have criticized negative media portrayals of Muslims and Islam. Yet most of these critiques are limited by their focus on one specific location, a limited time period, or a single outlet. This book offers the first systematic, large-scale analysis of American newspaper coverage of Muslims through comparisons across groups, time, countries, and topics. It demonstrates conclusively that coverage of Muslims is strikingly negative by every comparative measure examined. Muslim articles are negative relative to those touching on Catholics, Jews, or Hindus, and to those mentioning marginalized groups within the United States as diverse as African Americans, Latinos, Mormons, and atheists. Coverage of Muslims has also been consistently and enduringly negative across the two-decade period from 1996 through 2016. This pattern is not unique to the United States; it also holds in countries such as Britain, Canada, and Australia, although less so in the Global South. Moreover, the strong negativity in the articles is not simply a function of stories about foreign conflict zones or radical Islamist violence, even though it is true that terrorism and extremism have become more prominent themes since 9/11. Strikingly, even articles about mundane topics tend to be negative. The findings suggest that American newspapers may, however inadvertently, contribute to reinforcing boundaries that generate Islamophobic attitudes. To overcome these drawbacks, journalists and citizens can consciously “tone-check” the media to limit the stigmatizing effect of negative coverage so commonly associated with Muslims and Islam.

Media coverage of Muslims

Existing research largely concurs that coverage of Muslims is negative. Yet this masks how much remains unknown. In particular, there has been no clear or consistent way to gauge precisely how much negativity is present in stories about Muslims. This chapter introduces a systematic way to assess the tone of articles and discusses how this allows for answers to six important questions about coverage of Muslims. The chapter also outlines the structure of the book and summarizes the key findings. In particular, it argues that coverage of Muslims is strikingly negative by every comparative measure examined.

On the general relationship between plant height and aboveground biomass of vegetation stands in contrasted ecosystems

Ecological communities are unique assemblages of species that coexist in consequence of multi-causal processes that have proven hard to generalize. One possible exception are processes that control the biomass packing of vegetation stands; the amount of aboveground standing biomass expressed per unit volume. In this paper, I investigated the empirical and geometric underpinnings of biomass packing in terrestrial plant communities. I support that biomass packing in nature peaks around 1 kg m-3 across contrasted contexts, ranging from grasslands to forest ecosystems. Using published experimental and long-term survey data, I show that expressing biomass per unit volume cancels the effects of air temperature, species richness and soil fertility on aboveground stocks, thus providing a general comparative measure of storage efficiency in plant communities.

THEORY OF CHANGE AND LOGICAL FRAMEWORK: A COMPARATIVE MEASURE FOR MONITORING AND EVALUATION PRACTICES

This article is a brief study of the advantages and disadvantages of Theory of Change (ToC) and the Logical Framework (Log Frame) based on literature; a comparative approach. The later has a long historical stand in the development practices while the former was formed as supposed to answer the shortcomings of the Log Frame. By comparing both strengths and weaknesses, the finding argues that ToC is strongly considered to have a more certain degree of advantages rather than the M&E in view of development agencies especially NGOs in the practice of monitoring and evaluation of development practices. M&E, in particular, gave birth to ToC in pursue of answering the Log Frame’s current shortcoming. ToC has gained positive stand in the realm of international development by addressing at least three main features: participation, flexibility and the dynamic of development deliverance and accountability. Abstrak. Artikel ini adalah studi singkat tentang kelebihan dan kekurangan dari Theory of Change (ToC) dan Logical Framework (Log Frame) berdasarkan literatur; pendekatan komparatif. Yang kedua memiliki pendirian historis yang panjang dalam praktik pembangunan, sementara yang pertama dibentuk untuk menjawab kekurangan Log Frame. Dengan membandingkan kekuatan dan kelemahan, temuan ini berpendapat bahwa ToC secara kuat dianggap memiliki tingkat keuntungan yang lebih pasti daripada M&E dalam pandangan lembaga pembangunan terutama LSM dalam praktik pemantauan dan evaluasi praktik pembangunan. Monitoring & Evaluation secara khusus melahirkan ToC dalam rangka menjawab kekurangan Log Frame saat ini. ToC telah mendapatkan posisi positif di bidang pembangunan internasional dengan mengatasi setidaknya tiga fitur utama: partisipasi, fleksibilitas dan dinamika pembebasan dan akuntabilitas pembangunan.

Survival after non-resection of colorectal cancer: the argument for including non-operatives in consultant outcome reporting in the UK

Introduction Although the mainstay of colorectal cancer treatment remains operative, a significant proportion of patients end up without surgery. This is because they are either deemed to have no oncological benefit from the resection (too much disease) or to be unfit for major surgery (too frail). The aim of this study was to assess the proportion and survival of these two groups among the totality of practice in a tertiary unit and to discuss the implications on the conceptual understanding of outcome measures. Methods Data was collected over two study periods with the total duration of four years. Patient demographics, comorbidities, cancer staging and management pathways were all recorded. The primary endpoint was all-cause mortality. Results The total of 909 patients were examined. In the 29% who did not undergo resectional surgery, 6.5% had too little disease, 13.8% had too much disease, while 8.7% were deemed too frail. The highest two-year mortality was observed in the too much (83.2%) and too frail (75.9%) groups, whereas in patients with too little cancer the rate was 5.1%, and in those undergoing a resection it was 19.2% (P < 0.001). Conclusions The study has expectedly shown poor survival in the too much and too frail groups. We believe that understanding the prognosis in these subgroups is vital, as it informs complex decisions on whether to operate. Moreover, an overall reporting taking into account the proportion of these groups in an multidisciplinary team practice (the non-surgical index) is proposed to render individual surgeon's mortality results meaningful as a comparative measure.

Comparison of Population Aging in Europe and Asia Using a Time-Consistent and Comparative Aging Measure

Objective: We compare population aging in Europe and Asia using a measure that is both consistent over time and appropriate for cross-country comparison. Method: Sanderson and Scherbov proposed to estimate the old-age threshold by the age at which the remaining life expectancy (RLE) equals 15 years. We propose an adjustment of this measure, taking into account cross-national differences in the exceptionality of reaching that age. Results: Our old-age threshold was lower than 65 years in 2012 in Central Asia, Southern Asia, Southeastern Asia, and many Eastern European countries. These populations also experienced a higher share of elderly compared with the RLE15 method. Our method revealed more geographical diversity in the shares of elderly. Both methods exhibited similar time trends for the old-age thresholds and the shares of elderly. Discussion: Our prospective and comparative measure reveals higher population aging estimates in most Asian and Eastern European countries and more diversity in aging.