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A number of ways of treating talk and textual data are identified which fall short of discourse analysis. They are: (1) under-analysis through summary; (2) under-analysis through taking sides; (3) under-analysis through over-quotation or through isolated quotation; (4) the circular identification of discourses and mental constructs; (5) false survey; and (6) analysis that consists in simply spotting features. We show, by applying each of these to an extract from a recorded interview, that none of them actually analyse the data. We hope that illustrating shortcomings in this way will encourage further development of rigorous discourse analysis in social psychology.

ObjectiveThe purpose of this report is to provide insight from pediatric stakeholders with a shared desire to facilitate a revision of the current United States regulatory pathways for the development of pediatric healthcare devices.MethodsOn August 5, 2020, a group of innovators, engineers, professors and clinicians met to discuss challenges and opportunities for the development of new medical devices for pediatric health and the importance of creating a regulatory environment that encourages and accelerates the research and development of such devices. On January 6, 2021, this group joined regulatory experts at a follow-up meeting.ResultsOne of the primary issues identified was the need to present decision-makers with opportunities that change the return-on-investment balance between adult and pediatric devices to promote investment in pediatric devices.Discussion/conclusionSeveral proposed strategies were discussed, and these strategies can be divided into two broad categories: 1. Removal of real and perceived barriers to pediatric device innovation; 2. Increasing incentives for pediatric device innovation.

This article examines how the political manipulation of Covid-19 statistics was opposed in 2020. It does this by studying in detail the language used in a public exchange of letters in the UK. The exchange was between the chair of the United Kingdom Statistics Authority (UKSA), a statutory body to prevent statistical malpractice, and the Minister of Health, who had been manipulating Covid statistics. The exchange reflects the greater power of the government minister. Initially, the UKSA chair used diplomatic language, marked by paratactic constructions, unspecified arguments, and impersonal structures that did not threaten the minister's face. The minister ignored these and the UKSA chair had to go beyond diplomatic language by re-specifying his arguments and upgrading his critical terminology. Only by catching the press's attention did the chair succeed in making the minister rectify, at least partially, the manipulated statistics. Implications for understanding today's political values are discussed. (Opposing statistical manipulation, manipulating Covid statistics, diplomatic language, parataxis and hypotaxis) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Byford and Billig examine the emergence of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories in the Yugoslav media during the war with NATO. The analysis focuses mainly on Politika, a mainstream daily newspaper without a history of anti-Semitism. During the war, there was a proliferation of conspiratorial explanations of western policies both in the mainstream Serbian media and in statements by the Yugoslav political establishment. For the most part such conspiracy theories were not overtly anti-Semitic, but rather focused on the alleged aims of organizations such as the Bilderberg Group, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission. However, these conspiracy theories were not created de novo; writers in the Yugoslav media were drawing on an established tradition of conspiratorial explanations. The tradition has a strong anti-Semitic component that seems to have affected some of the Yugoslav writings. Byford and Billig analyze anti-Semitic themes in the book The Trilateral by Smilja Avramov and in a series of articles published in Politika. They suggest that the proliferation of conspiracy theories during the war led to a shifting of the boundary between acceptable and non-acceptable political explanations, with the result that formerly unacceptable anti-Semitic themes became respectable. This can be seen in the writings of Nikolaj Velimirović, the Serbian bishop whose mystical anti-Semitic ideas had previously been beyond the bounds of political respectability. During the war, his ideas found a wider audience, indicating a weakening of political constraints against such notions.