Search

This article focuses on careers in journalism. A staff position as a science journalist is as rare as it is coveted. In fact, many more opportunities exist for public information officers or freelance writers. Whatever the position, the ability to communicate is the common denominator. People who write about science for a living fall into two broad categories. There's science journalism and science writing, and those are two different things, says Deb Blum, president of the U.S. National Association of Science Writers (NASW), which promotes both roles. Blum says that journalism is undergoing a revival that reflects an upturn in U.S. advertising dollars.

Retraction Watch has witnessed a retraction boom since its founding 12 years ago. But the scientific community must do much more. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a call for papers for the 27th NATO/CCMS International Technical Meeting on Air Pollution Modelling and Its Application on October 25-29, 2004 in Canada.

This paper argues that Michael Polányi's account of how science, as an institution, establishes knowledge can provide a structure for a future institution capable of countering misinformation, or fake news, and deepfakes. I argue that only an institutional approach can adequately take up the challenge against the corresponding institution of fake news. The fact of filtering news and information may be bothering. It is the threat of censorship and free speech limitation. Instead, I propose that we should indicate reliable information with a trademark and news signing-approved information and brand equity. I offer a method of creating a standard for online news that people can rely on (similar to high-quality shopping products). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on a surge in withdrawn scientific papers from scholarly literature and on the system for handling such post-publication retractions in Great Britain. It states that retraction notices are increasing to more than 400 notices even though the number of papers published has increased by only 44% since 2001. It cites the British Committee on Publication Ethics' (COPE) survey on editors' attitudes toward retraction which showed inconsistencies in policies and practices.

Many journalists and journalism scholars contend that the profit motive of commercial media companies conflicts with the supply of high quality journalism. However, media companies should supply high quality news if quality yields sufficiently greater revenues. Quality journalism may not increase audience either because of a lemons problem or because consumers do not value the product dimensions that journalists do. The authors test whether news quality matters in a cross-section of U.S. newspapers. Newspapers winning Pulitzer Prizes in recent years have significantly higher circulation, even when controlling for the economic, demographic, and media characteristics of their markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While facing cuts, downsizing and revenue losses, media organizations experience paradoxical demands in being organized for print or linear production with daily deadlines and simultaneously striving to be 'digital first' and produce and publish stories online on a continuous basis throughout the day. In this paper, we describe efforts applied when introducing the metaphor flowline in a medium-sized newspaper organization in Norway with the aim of aligning their production and publishing processes to readers' consumption of online news. Both the production volume of journalistic content, reader consumption and the newsroom workers' experience of mastering their everyday work life increased dramatically in a very short time. The involvement of a temporary autonomous team in the planning and designing of a test pilot aiming to make flowline "as practice", was integral to the digital transformation success, allowing for participative action across newsroom boundaries. Based on the empirical findings from the local newspaper organization and drawing on theories on liminality (Turner 1982, 1986) and metaphorical work (Schön 1993), this article presents a set of six interrelated steps incorporating a structure for autonomous teams and their role in enabling lasting change in organizations facing digital transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on several tips to improve one's writing, particularly when creating a good title that will capture readers. Topics discussed include the two goals to achieve the titles in order to quickly grab the reader and describe the paper, the paratextual dimension and subtext for a more strategic when creating a title.

This paper reviews and critiques some popular methods of ranking economics journals, compares results of some methods, and suggests new uses of two old methods. International economics journals are ranked and used to provide a vehicle for the analyses. Journal citations over a five-year period provide the data input for the analysis. This study illustrates the significance of the method used in how journals are ranked. The Bradley-Terry model is used to estimate the odds ratios one journal will cite another. The model is also discussed as a possible tool for finding the boundary between fields and field journals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the notions of text ownership and its partial inverse, plagiarism, and asks how close or different they are from a procedural point of view that might seek to establish either of these properties. The emphasis is on procedures rather than on the conventional subject division of authorship studies, plagiarism detection etc. We use, as a particular example, our research on the notion of computational detection of text rewriting, in the benign sense of a standard journalist's adaptation of the Press Association newsfeed. The conclusion is that, whatever may be the case in copyright law, procedural detection and establishment of the ownership is a complex and vexed matter. Behind the paper is an unspoken appeal to return to an earlier historical phase, one where texts were normally rewritten and rewritten again and the ownership of text by an individual was a less clear matter than in historically recent times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers developments related to the publication's "Molecular Psychiatry" in the U.S. It is revealed that the journal evolved rapidly since its debut in 1996. It already receive more than 700 papers annually but it can only publish a fraction of what it receives. It also has its blog which enables authors to give summaries of their works.

Text clustering plays an important role in data mining and machine learning. After years of development, clustering technology has produced a series of theories and methods. However, in the text clustering of Chinese news, the mainstream LDA method suffers a high time complex. In order to improve the speed, this paper puts forward a new method in which neural network language model is first applied to text clustering. Text clustering is first converted to its dual problem called word clustering. With neural network language model, we can get word vector which can be used in the fuzzy k-means of the Chinese news keyword set. Based on the keyword clustering result, we can get text clustering result of Chinese news by a single transition. Experiments have show this method's running speed is five times faster than LDA. This method has been successfully used in the Sohu news recommendation system currently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Molecular Psychiatry (2003) 8, 123-124. doi:10.1038/sj.mp.4001317 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study attempts to determine a correlation effect between people's perception and awareness of the operationalization of artificial intelligence in their everyday lives and in the production, presentation, and publication of news media in the U.S. By looking at the effect individual characteristics may have on a person's perception and awareness of AI operationalized for news media and looking at whether perception and/or awareness of AI operationalized in a person's daily life affects their perception and awareness of AI operationalized for news media, we seek to find correlation between these two factors. The research relies on Actor-network theory, the MAIN (Modality, Agency, Interactivity, Navigability) Model, and utilizes a convenience sample survey method using the MTurk participant platform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Doxing is the intentional public release onto the Internet of personal information about an individual by a third party, often with the intent to humiliate, threaten, intimidate, or punish the identified individual. In this paper I present a conceptual analysis of the practice of doxing and how it differs from other forms of privacy violation. I distinguish between three types of doxing: deanonymizing doxing, where personal information establishing the identity of a formerly anonymous individual is released; targeting doxing, that discloses personal information that reveals specific details of an individual's circumstances that are usually private, obscure, or obfuscated; and delegitimizing doxing, which reveals intimate personal information that damages the credibility of that individual. I also describe how doxing differs from blackmail and defamation. I argue that doxing may be justified in cases where it reveals wrongdoing (such as deception), but only if the information released is necessary to reveal that such wrongdoing has occurred and if it is in the public interest to reveal such wrongdoing. Revealing additional information, such as that which allows an individual to be targeted for harassment and intimidation, is unjustified. I illustrate my discussion with the examples of the alleged identification of the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, by Newsweek magazine, the identification of the notorious Reddit user Violentacrez by the blog Gawker, and the harassment of game developer Zoe Quinn in the 'GamerGate' Internet campaign. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the adverse effects of premature release of incomplete scientific information in the media. The premature release of incomplete information, without any form of peer review and without making it clear to journalists that the work had not been refereed, is contrary to good scientific practice. The paper could, in principle, be revised or even rejected after peer review, in which case the public would have been misinformed. Industrial companies already release claims to the media while keeping data confidential for commercial reasons.

This article presents a report of the editor of Sociology of Education, a scholarly journal published by the American Sociological Association, as of August 1972. During the 1971-1972, there was little change of editorial policy of activities. Although the larger number of pages in the current volume are devoted to research reports, these are complemented by critical reviews of research, theoretical articles, and bibliographic essays. A symposium on the state of the field will appear shortly, and work is well advanced on a special issue about university faculty, for which Donald Light of Princeton University serves as editorial consultant. Although it has been our intention to publish occasional discussions of education policy or practice, few such manuscripts are sent to the journal, and none has appeared in the current volume. Since June 1, 1971, 236 papers have been received, in comparison with 266 in the preceding year. Of these, 30 were accepted, 13 without revision, 13 with one revision, and four with two or more revisions. One hundred fifty-three manuscripts were rejected and three were withdrawn. As of May 31, 50 papers were awaiting decision. Thus for the current year, the acceptance rate, articles still must wait about twelve months to be published. Because of the hardworking editorial board, editorial action has been quite fast. The modal, and mean, decision time during the year was eight weeks; and for about a quarter of the papers on which action was taken, decision were reached in three to five weeks.

The article introduces the nature podcast, a free audio show that features topical discussions with nature journalists, particularly on the significance of their works and short interviews with the authors of Nature papers. The recently released nature podcast will discuss topics on folding DNA to firefly lights.

Journalists have been writing about evolution since Darwin first published the Origin of Species. Today, news about evolution comes in a dizzying diversity of venues. In this paper, I survey this diversity, observing its strengths and weaknesses for helping students learn about evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Survey research has demonstrated that citizens perceive ideological bias in television news, specifically with regard to CNN and Fox News Channel (FNC), which allegedly represent the liberal and conservative viewpoint, respectively. In this paper I argue that attaching the CNN and FNC labels to news stories sends an ideological cue to the viewer regarding the content of the story. Utilizing an experimental design that allows manipulation of the network attribution of actual FNC and CNN content, I am able to demonstrate that the CNN and FNC labels function as ideological signals to the viewer, with this signal being most pronounced among ideologues whose views are supposedly at odds with those attributed to the network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the transitions and outlines the future directions of the journal "Asia Pacific Journal of Management." The focus of this journal has moved from Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) to become more Asia-wide in its mission, coverage, and contribution. Founded in 1983 by a leading ASEAN-based institution, the journal historically had a topical scope often limited to issues pertinent to companies domiciled in ASEAN. The main contributors to the journal at that time happened to be based at ASEAN institutions.

Provides instructions for authors contributing to the journal "Plant and Soil." Aim and scope; Online manuscript submission; Manuscript presentation; Additional information.

Presents the rules for journalism set by the officials of the publishing firm Foundations of Chemistry in Los Angeles, California. Awareness on the aims and objectives of the organization; Basis for selecting a topic; Need of submitting the manuscripts and figures in electronic form.

Presents instructions to be followed by authors when preparing manuscripts. Submission of a manuscript to the editor with an authorization to publish it from the institution; Lengths of original papers, reviews and short communications or letters to the editor; Order of the main heading.

Presents instructions for the contributing authors of the "Journal of Analytical Chemistry." Publication of original theoretical and experimental papers; Types of articles published in the journal; Guidelines for the preparation of manuscripts.

Aristotle saw ethics as a habit that is modeled and developed though practice. Shelly's Victor Frankenstein, though well intentioned in his goals, failed to model ethical behavior for his creation, abandoning it to its own recourse. Today we live in an era of unfettered mergers and acquisitions where once separate and independent media increasingly are concentrated under the control and leadership of the fictitious but legal personhood of a few conglomerated corporations. This paper will explore the impact of mega-media mergers on ethical modeling in journalism. It will diagram the behavioral context underlying the development of ethical habits, discuss leadership theory as it applies to management, and address the question of whether the creation of mega-media conglomerates will result in responsible corporate citizens or monsters who turn on their creators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an acknowledgment by the journal "Linguistics and Philosophy," to dozens of reviewers, the members of the Editorial Board, and others, who contributed towards the publication of the journal. The contributors do not only form the basis of the decision whether to accept a manuscript but also contribute significantly to the author's revising of a paper and lead to a much improved published version. Some of the contributors for whom acknowledgment is offered are: Markus Kracht, Angelika Kratzer, Bill Ladusaw, Alex Lascarides, Peter Lasersohn, Sebastian Lobner, Jan-Tore Lonning, Jason Mattausch, Robert May, Louise McNally, Arthur Merin, Anita Mittwoch, etc.

The paper places the model of the media field in the context of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's theory of fields, capital and habitus. It illustrates the media field approach by analyzing several field case studies. Through systematic comparison with other approaches to media research, it highlights the unique contributions offered by the field theory while pointing out some still unresolved difficulties. Bourdieu and associates developed a new paradigm for the sociology of journalism centered around the concept of the media field. Their basic thesis is that as journalism has become less autonomous from the economic field, its influence and pervasiveness have also increased. The news media serving as an agent of dominant power are undermining the autonomy of other spheres of cultural production and thus the optimal social conditions for the production of scientific knowledge and artistic innovation. In service of this intellectual project, Bourdieu and associates contribute to the Anglo-American tradition of news media research in various ways.

The article explains the editorial process used in the periodical "De Economist" during the period 1997-2006. According to the author, the process is a cooperative effort between the editorial board and the managing editor. Papers received by the publication are distributed to two appropriate co-editors who are then in charge of initiating the refereeing process.

The article discusses the new editorial practices and policies of the journal "Plant and Soil." The periodical prefers to accept manuscripts that develop and evaluate hypotheses targeted at enhancing the understanding of underlying mechanisms. Documents that do not follow the instruction for authors' guidelines and have not been properly proofread will be rejected. As part of the new scheme, the authors are also requested to suggest at least one appropriate section editor to handle their submitted research papers.

Typically, a noun phrase beginning with the indefinite article introduces a referent assumed to be unknown to the addressee. But in newspaper opinion journalism, this is not always the case. In ‘instead of hailing its first female president, it [the US] seems poised to hand the awesome power of its highest office to a man who revels in his own ignorance, racism and misogyny’ (The Guardian, 9/11/16), ‘a man who…’ can be understood as a new referent or type. But once seen in context, where the identity of the man is known, it becomes clear that it is signalling something different. This paper examines how this sort of reference works by challenging existing accounts of ‘late’ indefinites and the meaning relation of co-extension. It is shown that lexical cohesive ties between the expression and preceding text and context create a shared space which allows these expressions to function ‘definitely’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During March, April and May 2007 the local newspaper for the island of La Réunion, “Le Journal de L’Ile de La Réunion” (JIR), published 427 articles relating to natural hazards, with hazard-related articles occupying a total paper area of 21.94 m2 and appearing in all but four of the 90 editions of the newspaper. This high level of coverage was due to the passage of two cyclones in March, the largest historical eruption of Piton de la Fournaise in April, and a major rock fall event in May. The high level of coverage may also be due to the fact that JIR is a tabloid that follows tabloid news values. Cyclones, volcanic eruptions and rock falls fit the news values of a tabloid well, especially when the stories involve the power elite, feature stories of human interest, include surprise elements and rescues, and are of high impact, especially to the local population. Disasters also provide spectacular imagery and the opportunity for eye-catching headlines, which is another element of the tabloid format. These key parameters thus all flag stories about natural hazards and, in particular, volcanic eruptions as being newsworthy for a tabloid.Of the page space devoted to natural hazards, 9.24 m2 (42%) were set aside to reporting of volcanic activity, specifically the April 2007 eruption of Piton de la Fournaise. We completed a content analysis of these reports to understand the quality of information disseminated to the readership and to extract data regarding the impact of the eruption on local communities. We found the information to be of extremely high quality, with lava reporting being the most important issue covered by page area, mostly due to its photogenic nature. If we consider text-dominated reports, and exclude photo-montages, then the order of importance in terms of space set aside to reporting of a particular theme becomes: (i) general eruption details; (ii) summit collapse; (iii) lava flows; (iv) evacuation; (v) gas; (vi) ocean-entry; (v) air fall; (vi) vegetation fires (lit by lava contact); and (vii) volcano-seismicity. As the eruption and the nature of the hazard evolved (from lava flow through air-fall and gas, to summit collapse and ocean-entry) so too did the focus of the reporting. Once the eruption had finished, emphasis shifted from the hardships of the impacted community to sightseeing and tourism. We found that the quality of the reporting resulted from the use of journalists who were specialized in their reporting areas and who therefore knew the background and the correct sources to seek out for information. This shows that a well-informed journalist can be (i) a means to disseminate information and educate an impacted population, and (ii) a source of information for the volcanologist regarding societal impacts of, and population responses to, natural hazards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Provides instructions for authors who wish to send their contributions to the journal "Plant Ecology." Scope of the topics and issues published by the journal; Method of submission and correspondence; Instructions during preparation of manuscripts; Formats for citations.

This article reports that the "Journal of Behavioral Education" is rescheduled. Volume 11, previously announced appearing for 2001, has been redesignated as 2002. Please note that the cover date for volume 10, number 4, is December 2000 and the cover date for volume 11, number 1 is March 2002. Editor is pleased to subscribe to this valuable journal. With its new Co-Editors, its new Editorial Office, and now its rescheduling, they are pleased to continue to provide with high quality peer reviewed original papers on topics of interest on a timely basis.

The article provides information about the journal "Demography." The journal's experience in the gatekeeping role has led it to conclude that the discipline of demography in general and this journal in particular are in good health. Based on the quality of manuscripts received and the thoughtful responses on external reviews solicited by the editorial board, it is evident that most demographers care about their journal and demography as a field of study. With the help of numerous external reviewers, it has sought to carefully evaluate manuscripts not only on the quality of the science but also on the importance to the discipline of the issues addressed. Although it's primary goal was the publication of high-quality science in the field of demography, other objectives included changing the looks and image of the journal, increasing the emphasis on research that tested explanations for demographic behavior, reducing the editorial and publication lag time, publicizing the contents of "Demography," in the national press and other professional outlets, and grouping articles around interest themes.

The article presents a profile of journalist John Maddox who was editor of the Journal "Nature" on two separate occasions. That he returned to "Nature" in 1980 after 7 years for a second stint as editor was viewed with some surprise according to the article. The article notes his imposition of a peer review system for assessing manuscripts and other aspects of his operating style. The article makes reference to Friedrich Nietzsche's archetypal "Great Man" and describes Maddox according to certain related criteria.

The article reports on the presentation of the 2005 Hennipman Prize to authors Allard Bruinshoofd and Wilko Letterie for their article "Investment and finance when liquidation is costly," that was published in the March 2004 issue of "De Economist." The award recognized the authors' effort to investigate the connection between investment and finance.

Comments on the process of rejecting or accepting manuscripts for scientific publications. Advantage of the anonymous peer review process as a method for a fair and quick manuscript selection process; Role of editorial offices in facilitating manuscript acceptance; Strategy in handling manuscripts with different reviews from reviewers.

Presents major changes in the editorial policy and practice in the journal "Plant and Soil." Expansion of the Editorial Board of the journal; Expectation of the editors that all primary papers to contain important new information; Implementation of an online editorial system in improving the manuscript turnover rate.

The article focuses on De Economist's editorial process which is a co-operative effort between the editorial board and the managing editor. It indicates that in the years 1998-2007, the editorial process resulted in an average rejection rate of 62 percent. The duration of the refereeing process relates to the number of months passing between the first submission of the manuscript and the receipt by the authors of the referee reports and the editorial board's accompanying judgment. A list of manuscripts which were submitted and rejected for publication is presented.

This article presents excerpts of articles published previously in the journal "Nature." According to an article published in the August 27, 1955 issue of the journal, there is something very depressing about contemporary biological journals. Paper after paper records observations or experiments, analyses them cautiously, and in a timid and tentative way compares them with previous observations and experiments on the same theme. Only rarely does the writer disclose how his work is related to the broad panorama of biology. According to an article published in the August 24, 1905 issue of the journal,a somewhat lamentable aspect of modern science is the vast array of unorganized facts which are awaiting coordination. This is too often because they have been amassed without any definite idea of the purpose which they may serve.

The article reports on the decreased media coverage about science. According to the report of the Pew Research Center, the decrease does not show a falling public interest in science, as much as the increased emphasis of media on war, foreign policy and the homeland. The author claims that science desks suffer as the newspaper industry responds to falling circulation because of the notion that science is of little interest to readers. The author also mentions that the Internet is overtaking television as the major source of science news. Information on reasons to sustain science journalism is also presented.

Finland and the Russian Federation share significant overlaps in history. With the exception of a couple of conflicts, the relationship between the two is commonly described as friendly. With a common border of more than 1,300 km, Finland has always been closely tied to its eastern neighbor. Despite the physical proximity, the Cold War era closure of the border increased the mental distance between the two sides, and fostered an image of the other colored largely by attitudinal stereotypes. For a long time, the tightly secured border was deemed as a necessary construction, which allowed cross-border flows and influence to be managed and filtered. The resulting 'us' versus 'them' mentality etched in the minds of many has proven to be far more deeply rooted and harder to erase than the political border per se. In an attempt to trace the development of the portrayed image of Russia, this article analyzes the opinion columns featured in the main Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat during 1990-2010. The analysis suggests that little effort has been made to improve the popular geopolitical image of Russia. While understanding the potential of having Russia as a neighbor, many Finns continue to actively reconfirm the elements in the neighbor, which should be let go in order move beyond stereotypes. This tendency is only reinforced by the load of the language used, which seems to inhibit people from critically evaluating the opinions and views that they hold. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Set in a period of heightened public debate in the 2000s and with predictions of the demise of printed books in the background, this study examines whether Australians turned to books in relation to some of the most heated international issues of the era: those associated with the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan. Analysis of the data reveals that over one and a half million books worth over AUS $50 million (AUS $50,213,000) which could be read directly in relation to debates about the wars were sold in the 6 years timeframe and far more if indirect reading is included. This research is one of the first major scholarly studies internationally to identify English-language contemporary reading patterns based on Nielsen BookScan sales data and is located in an illustrative timeframe (2003-2008): after the introduction of Nielsen BookScan in Australia and before the popularity of ebooks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the editorial and commentary in the June 19, 2008 issue of "Nature" which was debated at Nature Network's News and Opinion forum. The commentary was made by Sandra Titus, the director of intramural research at the U.S. Office of Research Integrity, which reported a survey indicating thousands of unreported instances of research misconduct a year. The debate is centered on the policies that should be implemented to prevent further misconduct. Forum participants provided personal evidence to support the view in which they cited that misconduct investigations are often focused solely on an individual offender and thus failing to diagnose the environment that has allowed the misconduct to flourish.

The article reports on the adverse impact of the conventional publish for free and pay to read business model. It mentions that there are several publishers of academic journals have adopted the open-access model, but this model can do more harm than good and it mentions its negative impact including the access gap to scholarly literature, worsened by the increasing costs of journal and the declension of library budget. In addition, despite of its open-access features, it will do more aggravations than benefits.

The article offers tips on how to become a competitive editor in the mass media industry. Juan-Carlos Lopez, chief editor of the Nature Medicine journal, has explained the importance of the blog "Spoonful of medicine." The editors are required to undergo a multidisciplinary studies to review the animal experiments, potential relevance to human diseases and knowledgable in various disciplines and technologies. In addition, the editors are advised not to question the capability of the authors. Information regarding the Web sites of the blog is also presented.

The article provides information about "Futures," the science-fiction column of the journal "Nature." The journal launched the column to celebrate the millennium with its first series on November 1999 to December 2000. It was later revived in February 2005. The youngest author in the column, Ashley Pellegrino, is only 11 years old. Editors and other staff have written 15 stories which usually contains 850 to 950 words.

The “sociological imagination” that connects personal troubles to public issues is an idea that was in the air when C. Wright Mills gave it a name and advanced it in a way to make it part of the intellectual armament of the New Left. Later, journalistic practice would turn it into a cliché while sociology would assume prematurely that it was a weapon for the left rather than a tool that could be used from and for different political positions. This essay is a set of second thoughts about the meaning of the “sociological imagination” since Mills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]