Opinion Dynamic Modeling of News Perception

During the last decade, the advent of the Web and online social networks rapidly changed the way we were used to search, gather and discuss information of any kind. These tools have given everyone the chance to become a news medium. While promoting more democratic access to information, direct and unfiltered communication channels may increase our chances to confront malicious/misleading behavior. Fake news diffusion represents one of the most pressing issues of our online society. In recent years, fake news has been analyzed from several perspectives; among such vast literature, an important theme is the analysis of fake news’ perception. In this work, moving from such observation, I propose a family of opinion dynamics models to understand the role of specific social factors on the acceptance/rejection of news contents. In particular, I model and discuss the effect that stubborn agents, different levels of trust among individuals, open-mindedness, attraction/repulsion phenomena, and similarity between agents have on the population dynamics of news perception. To discuss the peculiarities of the proposed models, I tested them on two synthetic network topologies thus underlying when/how they affect the stable states reached by the performed simulations.

Metaphoric Conceptualization of Social Reality in the Language of News Media

Today, social reality can hardly be viewed as the one-state-one-nationone language ideological framework (Bauman and Briggs, 2003). The modern multilingual and multicultural communities are inclined to examine social reality in a multiple variety of socio-economic and political manifestations and forms. To understand how social reality can be explored through examining certain socio-political processes in a country, the present paper aims at analysing the role of conceptual metaphor in cases when political scandals, involving corruption charges of high-ranking officials in Latvia are considered. For this purpose, the present study has focused on the analysis of selected commentaries that deal with corruption charges which were revealed in December 2019 issues of the magazine IR. The Latvian-origin weekly magazine IR was selected deliberately because; on the one hand, it has an enormous influence on how social reality is constructed and perceived by Latvian citizens. On the other hand, it was important to reveal that the evidence-based theoretical premises on the relationship between metaphor and society in the English language are applicable and work cross-linguistically in Latvian. The research presents a case study type. With the focus on the conceptualization of corruption-related social problems, selected discursive practices that dealt with the corruption cases being revealed by the news medium IR were considered. The results demonstrated that the journalists of the commentaries tend to take a critical discourse perspective on the representation of corruption-related issues and political events, which can be represented at the levels of abstraction. Conceptual metaphors contributed to mental representations of political issues and communication of social reality by conveying additional negative evaluation of such an inherently derogatory concept as corruption. The metaphors CORRUPTION IS DIRT, CORRUPTION IS GARBAGE, CORRUPTION IS NUCLEAR DISASTER, CORRUPTION IS A DISEASE also fulfil a cognitive function, helping to understand the concept of corruption in terms of another more concrete concept. The use of metaphors in the commentaries may have causal effects such as bringing about changes in the readers’ knowledge, beliefs and attitudes.

Falsification of Historical Figures (The Armenian Population in Turkey before and after the Genocide)

The argument and objective of the present case study is to prove, through the scientific method of analysis, that the online news medium Azerbaijani Vision (en.azvision.az), applying history falsification (negationism and revisionism) referring to the 1915 Armenian Genocide in general, and to the historic figures on the number of Ottoman Armenian population before and after the Genocide in particular, leverages technology to produce and disseminate false and fabricated figures about the mentioned data of Armenian population within the frames of its anti-Armenian propaganda. My assumption will be that the false model of history serves its function for a certain while because societies eventually enter a period when distorted representations stop serving the intended ends and impartial and unbiased research starts seeking the truth.

Embryonic Modernity: Infectious Dynamics in Early Nineteenth-Century Finnish Culture

The article explores the early decades of the nineteenth century as an era of what we call embryonic modernity. It focuses on Finland which, in 1809, became a Grand Duchy of the Russian empire. The article concentrates on early mass phenomena as embryos of an emerging modern culture. We scrutinize our subject through three different lenses, starting with social infectivity on a minor scale, the unrest caused by students. We then investigate the contagiousness of ideas seen through the press as a news medium in the 1820s. The last section concentrates on the news about cholera and its rapid spread during the early 1830s. We argue that historical embryos were formations of social relationality, composed of affects, beliefs, expectations and sentiments. These formations of emotive dynamics had the capacity to be imitated; they became components of larger social entities by extending their contagiousness to new regions and populations.

Should an Online Blogger Be Protected by the Illinois Reporter’s Privilege?

The question that this paper answer is whether the Illinois Reporter’s Privilege should protect an online blogger. The definitions of the terms “reporter,” “news medium,” and “source” quoted from 735 ILCS 5/8-902, followed by several examples. Second, a brief history of journalism is presented, where it is demonstrated that for hundreds of years, journalists and publishers alike engaged in their profession with little formal training, but rather with a sincere desire to convey the facts and the truth to their peers. Second, the essay outlines how Illinois and federal courts have employed the privilege in case law. In answering the question, the work examines whether WikiLeaks qualifies under the Illinois Reporter’s Privilege. The position taken is that the answer is yes. The idea is that if WikiLeaks qualifies under the privilege, then other online blogs also qualify. The opinion of the author is that the law is sufficient as it stands. There is no need to change its wording. Finally, some loose ends are discussed before reiterating the conclusion that the Illinois Reporters’ should not be changed.

When Does Corporate Social Irresponsibility Become News? Evidence from More Than 1,000 Brand Transgressions Across Five Countries

Companies are increasingly held accountable for their corporate social irresponsibility (CSI). However, the extent to which a CSI event damages the firm largely depends on the coverage of this event in high-reach news media. Using the theory of news value developed in communications research, the authors explain the amount of media coverage by introducing a set of variables related to the event, the involved brand, and media outlet. The authors analyze a sample of 1,054 CSI events that were reported in 77 leading media outlets in five countries in the period 2008–2014. Estimation results reveal many drivers. For example, the number of media covering the story may be 39% higher for salient and strong brands. 80% more media report the event if a foreign brand is involved in a domestic CSI event. When a brand advertises heavily or exclusively in a news medium, this reduces the likelihood of the news medium to cover negative stories about the brand. The average financial loss at the U.S. stock market due to a CSI event amounts to US$321 million. However, the market reacts to the event only if 4 or more U.S. high-reach media outlets report on the event.

Rene toner, falske nyheter

This article discusses skilling ballads as a news medium in the early modern period, and it suggests that in Scandinavia the news ballad was the most important journalistic genre for a broad public. Through a reading of ballads conveying news of fantastical creatures, the article considers how skilling ballads negotiated the borders between the true and the false, and how some of our contemporary mechanisms for revealing fake news can be detected in the early modern news ballads.

Manipulative tactics employed by Azerbaijani authors in online media resources

Recent investigations have established that manipulation is the abuse of language realized through various consciously employed linguistic means aimed to influence the listeners’ or readers’ social, interpersonal and mental states and behaviours, thus misdirecting their actions. Intentionality as one of the basic parameters of manipulation, no doubt, exercises a destructive effect on an individual, group or society at large. Depending on the range of their manipulative attitudes and intentions, often reaching beyond the bounds of morality, manipulators tend to bend reality, distort facts and through seemingly persuasive argumentation and proofs present their subjective reality as truth. This presupposes the employment of certain manipulative tactics and techniques meant to guarantee the manipulator’s success. The present case study attempts to expose the manipulative techniques and tactics deliberately employed by the Azerbaijani author of the article “Armenian So-Called Genocide”, published in the Azerbaijani online news medium “Azvision.az”. The object of the paper consists of a deep and thorough analysis of the manipulative intentions and interpretations worked into the mentioned article. On the basis of critical discourse-analysis, the application of the methods of argumentation, with references to empirical evidence, assists not only in observation of the mechanisms of manipulative techniques and tactics the author implements, but also reveals the persistence of Azerbaijani political circles toward the fulfilment of political goals through violations and falsifications of historical facts and distortions of reality.

Early identification of severe community-acquired pneumonia: a retrospective observational study

BackgroundCommunity-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is a leading cause of sepsis worldwide. Prompt identification of those at high risk of adverse outcomes improves survival by enabling early escalation of care. There are multiple severity assessment tools recommended for risk stratification; however, there is no consensus as to which tool should be used for those with CAP. We sought to assess whether pneumonia-specific, generic sepsis or early warning scores were most accurate at predicting adverse outcomes.MethodsWe performed a retrospective analysis of all cases of CAP admitted to a large, adult tertiary hospital in the UK between October 2014 and January 2016. All cases of CAP were eligible for inclusion and were reviewed by a senior respiratory physician to confirm the diagnosis. The association between the CURB65, Lac-CURB-65, quick Sequential (Sepsis-related) Organ Failure Assessment tool (qSOFA) score and National Early Warning Score (NEWS) at the time of admission and outcome measures including intensive care admission, length of hospital stay, in-hospital, 30-day, 90-day and 365-day all-cause mortality was assessed.Results1545 cases were included with 30-day mortality of 19%. Increasing score was significantly associated with increased risk of poor outcomes for all four tools. Overall accuracy assessed by receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was significantly greater for the CURB65 and Lac-CURB-65 scores than qSOFA. At admission, a CURB65 ≥2, Lac-CURB-65 ≥moderate, qSOFA ≥2 and NEWS ≥medium identified 85.0%, 96.4%, 40.3% and 79.0% of those who died within 30 days, respectively. A Lac-CURB-65 ≥moderate had the highest negative predictive value: 95.6%.ConclusionAll four scoring systems can stratify according to increasing risk in CAP; however, when a confident diagnosis of pneumonia can be made, these data support the use of pneumonia-specific tools rather than generic sepsis or early warning scores.

Reading, Watching, and Tweeting About Sports: An Analysis of Sport-News Retention

Much research has been conducted relating to uses-and-gratification theory and how audiences select their news medium and message. Research has examined how newspapers, television stations, and social media outlets such at Twitter present news. However, no research has examined from which medium the audience retains the most information. Through the lens of uses-and-gratification theory, this exploratory study used a 4 × 1 experimental design to fill this gap. A convenience sample of 285 students at a large Midwestern university was invited to participate. A total of 122 responded to the invitation (N = 122). While most reported getting the majority of their sports news via television, participants who were presented news in print scored significantly higher on a retention test than did their counterparts who consumed news via television or Twitter. Avid sports fans retained more information, and the presence of links and images in Twitter did have an impact on how much news was retained. Implications for further research are also discussed.