scholarly journals Demanding stories: television coverage of sustainability, climate change and material demand

2017 ◽  
Vol 375 (2095) ◽  
pp. 20160375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joe Smith
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Future Role ◽  
The Past ◽  
Demand Reduction ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
Television Coverage

This paper explores the past, present and future role of broadcasting, above all via the medium of television, in shaping how societies talk, think about and act on climate change and sustainability issues. The paper explores these broad themes via a focus on the important but relatively neglected issue of material demand and opportunities for its reduction. It takes the outputs and decision-making of one of the world's most influential broadcasters, the BBC, as its primary focus. The paper considers these themes in terms of stories, touching on some of the broader societal frames of understanding into which they can be grouped. Media decision-makers and producers from a range of genres frequently return to the centrality of ‘story’ in the development, commissioning and production of an idea. With reference to specific examples of programming, and drawing on interviews with media practitioners, the paper considers the challenges of generating broadcast stories that can inspire engagement in issues around climate change, and specifically material demand. The concluding section proposes actions and approaches that might help to establish material demand reduction as a prominent way of thinking about climate change and environmental issues more widely. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Material demand reduction’.

Leadership in Policy Innovation: A Conceptual Map

2010 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Scholten
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Management ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Environmental Policy ◽  
Empirical Study ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Policy Innovation ◽  
Local Policy ◽  
Policy Makers

Policy innovation is necessary for many environmental issues such as climate change and water management. Highly motivated individuals, who are both willing and able to take the lead and press home innovative proposals and as such transform existing policy, are vital in this process. This article focuses on such individuals. An exploration of the literature is confronted with the findings of an empirical study among local policy makers with a reputation for daring. The result is a conceptual map that can be used to further explore and understand the role of leadership and particularly daring decision making in environmental policy innovation.

scholarly journals Shopping Centres, Cycling Accessibility and Planning—The Case of Nova Lund in Sweden

Urban Science ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 70
Author(s):  
Till Koglin ◽  
Lucas Glasare
Keyword(s):  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Current Situation ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Literature Study ◽  
Shopping Centre ◽  
The Past ◽  
Whole Process ◽  
The Subject

This paper evaluates the history and cycling accessibility of Nova, a shopping centre established in Lund, Sweden, in 2002. The current situation was also analysed through observation and a literature review. Moreover, the study conducted a closer analysis of the history and role of the municipality based on further literature study and interviews with officials. The conclusion of the analysis indicates poor and unsafe bikeways caused by conflicts of interest between politicians, officials, landowners and the general public. It also depicts a situation in which the municipality’s master plan has been ignored, and, in contrast to the local goals, cycling accessibility at Nova has seen no significant improvement since the shopping centre was first established. The reasons for this, arguably, are a relatively low budget for bikeway improvements in the municipality, as well as a situation in which decision-makers have stopped approaching the subject, as a result of the long and often boisterous conflicts it has created in the past. Lastly, it must be noted that it is easy to regard the whole process of Nova, from its establishment to the current situation, as being symptomatic of the power structures between drivers and cyclists that still affect decision-makers at all levels.

A corpus-based investigation of techno-optimism and propositional certainty in the National Intelligence Council’s ‘Future Global Trends Reports’ (2010–2035)

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-57
Author(s):  
Jamie McKeown
Keyword(s):  
Global Trends ◽  
Future Role ◽  
Ideological Bias ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Global Peace ◽  
Discursive Representations

This article reports the findings from a study of discursive representations of the future role of technology in the work of the US National Intelligence Council (NIC). Specifically, it investigates the interplay of ‘techno-optimism’ (a form of ideological bias) and propositional certainty in the NIC’s ‘Future Global Trends Reports’. In doing so, it answers the following questions: To what extent was techno-optimism present in the discourse? What level of propositional certainty was expressed in the discourse? How did the discourse deal with the inherent uncertainty of the future? Overall, the discourse was pronouncedly techno-optimist in its stance towards the future role of technology: high-technological solutions were portrayed as solving a host of problems, despite the readily available presence of low-technology or no-technology solutions. In all, 75.1% of the representations were presented as future categorical certainties, meaning the future was predominantly presented as a known and closed inevitability. The discourse dealt with the inherent uncertainty of the subject matter, that is, the future, by projecting the past and present into the future. This was particularly the case in relation to the idea of technological military dominance as a guarantee of global peace, and the role of technology as an inevitable force free from societal censorship.

Changing Patterns of Politicization and Partisanship Among Women in France

1985 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvia B. Bashevkin
Keyword(s):  
Political Attitudes ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Political Involvement ◽  
North American Society ◽  
Social Activists ◽  
The Past ◽  
Changing Patterns ◽  
American Society ◽  
Feminist Movements

During the past decade, political researchers have devoted growing attention to women's political involvement and, to a somewhat lesser extent, their political attitudes in Western cultures. This interest has been a response in part to contemporary feminist movements and, more specifically, to the increasingly visible role of women as social activists, partisan elites and governmental decision makers in Western European and North American society.

The role of agency in project initiation decisions

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 518-535 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Mullaly
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Decision Rules ◽  
Personal Characteristics ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Organizational Dynamics ◽  
Substantive Theory ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Board Level

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of decision rules and agency in supporting project initiation decisions, and the influences of agency on decision-making effectiveness. Design/methodology/approach – The study this paper is based upon used grounded theory methodology, and sought to understand the influences of individual decision makers on project initiation decisions within organizations. Data collection involved 28 participants who were involved in project initiation decisions within their organizations, who discussed the process of project initiation in their organization and their role within that process. Findings – The study demonstrates that the overall effectiveness of project initiation decisions is a product of agency, process effectiveness or rule effectiveness. The employment of agency can have a direct influence on decision-making effectiveness, it can compensate for organizational inadequacies of a process or political nature, and it can be constrained in the evidence of formal and effective organizational practices. Research limitations/implications – While agency was recognized by all participants, there are clearly circumstances where actors perceive the ability to exercise agency to be externally constrained. The study is exploratory, contributing to the development of substantive theory. Theory testing as well as a more in-depth investigation of the underlying drivers of agency would be valuable. Practical implications – The study provides executives and individuals supporting the initiation of projects with insights on how to effectively influence the effectiveness of project initiation decisions, and the degree to which personal characteristics influence organizational dynamics. Originality/value – Most discussions of agency has been framed the subject as an executive- or board-level phenomenon. The current study demonstrates that agency is in fact being perceived and operationalized at all levels. Those demonstrating agency in the majority of instances in this study do so in exercising stewardship behaviours. This has important implications for how agency is perceived by executives, and by how agency is exercised by actors at all levels of the organization.

scholarly journals Novel Parameterized Distance Measures on Hesitant Fuzzy Sets with Credibility Degree and Their Application in Decision-Making

Symmetry ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 557 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiaru Li ◽  
Fangwei Zhang ◽  
Qiang Li ◽  
Jing Sun ◽  
Janney Yee ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Fuzzy Sets ◽  
Cardinal Number ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Distance Measures ◽  
Hesitant Fuzzy Set ◽  
Hesitant Fuzzy Sets ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Relationship

The subject of this study is to explore the role of cardinality of hesitant fuzzy element (HFE) in distance measures on hesitant fuzzy sets (HFSs). Firstly, three parameters, i.e., credibility factor, conservative factor, and a risk factor are introduced, thereafter, a series of novel distance measures on HFSs are proposed using these three parameters. These newly proposed distance measures handle the relationship between the cardinal number and the element values of hesitant fuzzy set well, and are suitable to combine subjective and objective decision-making information. When using these functions, decision makers with different risk preferences are allowed to give different values for these three parameters. In particular, this study transfers the hesitance degree index to a credibility of the values in HFEs, which is consistent with people’s intuition. Finally, the practicability of the newly proposed distance measures is verified by two examples.

Augmenting Medical Diagnosis Decisions? An Investigation into Physicians’ Decision-Making Process with Artificial Intelligence

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ekaterina Jussupow ◽  
Kai Spohrer ◽  
Armin Heinzl ◽  
Joshua Gawlitza
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Medical Errors ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Medical Decision ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Self Monitoring ◽  
Rule Based ◽  
Human Actors

Systems based on artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly support physicians in diagnostic decisions, but they are not without errors and biases. Failure to detect those may result in wrong diagnoses and medical errors. Compared with rule-based systems, however, these systems are less transparent and their errors less predictable. Thus, it is difficult, yet critical, for physicians to carefully evaluate AI advice. This study uncovers the cognitive challenges that medical decision makers face when they receive potentially incorrect advice from AI-based diagnosis systems and must decide whether to follow or reject it. In experiments with 68 novice and 12 experienced physicians, novice physicians with and without clinical experience as well as experienced radiologists made more inaccurate diagnosis decisions when provided with incorrect AI advice than without advice at all. We elicit five decision-making patterns and show that wrong diagnostic decisions often result from shortcomings in utilizing metacognitions related to decision makers’ own reasoning (self-monitoring) and metacognitions related to the AI-based system (system monitoring). As a result, physicians fall for decisions based on beliefs rather than actual data or engage in unsuitably superficial evaluation of the AI advice. Our study has implications for the training of physicians and spotlights the crucial role of human actors in compensating for AI errors.

What Is It Like to Be a Citizen?

In Our Name ◽  
2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Beerbohm
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Extensive Literature ◽  
Ethics Of Belief ◽  
Moral Obligations

This chapter defends a theory of citizenship that recognizes our need to make online decisions under electoral pressures, given our foibles as decision makers. Drawing upon the extensive literature on decision and judgment, it examines how fragile citizens are when it comes to decision making. The usual heuristics offered by political scientists suggest that citizens rely on informational shortcuts that are morally irresponsible. If we reconceive the role of the voter in explicitly moral terms, this approach is unsatisfactory in addressing the cognitive biases and defects of citizens. The chapter also considers the notion of cognitive partisanship and argues that it is unavoidable for decision makers to rely on heuristics when they reason about complex decisions. It concludes by emphasizing the task for a democratic ethics of belief: to provide citizens with heuristics that reduce the cognitive burden while respecting the moral obligations to attach to coercive, term-shaping decision making.

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