Bumsoo Kim, Eric Cooks and Yonghwan Kim
Employing the cognitive mediation model, the study aims to examine a moderated-mediation mechanism of social media news use contingent upon elaboration on political knowledge…
Abstract
Purpose
Employing the cognitive mediation model, the study aims to examine a moderated-mediation mechanism of social media news use contingent upon elaboration on political knowledge through fact-checking – specifically, the interaction effect of social media news with elaboration on fact-checking.
Design/methodology/approach
The moderated-mediation model is tested using panel survey data collected during the 2016 USA presidential election (N = 1,624 at Wave 1; N = 637 at Wave 2).
Findings
The findings reveal that social media news users are frequent visitors of fact-checking websites. Results also suggest that those with increased social media news use and cognitive elaboration on news content are more likely to visit fact-checking sites, which contributes to increased political knowledge.
Originality/value
The results of the current study, especially in the era of social media environment where various information is overflowing, suggest an important role of individuals' responsibility as democratic citizens given that people's cognitive elaboration and surveillance efforts, which tries to think about important public issues they consume through media, could strengthen a positive pathway toward informed citizens.
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Bumsoo Kim, Eric Cooks and Seong-Kyu Kim
This study aims to explore the extent to which Twitter users engaged in uncivil and morally questionable expressions in their comments about specific Asian countries and citizens…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the extent to which Twitter users engaged in uncivil and morally questionable expressions in their comments about specific Asian countries and citizens. The integrated threat theory (ITT) was used to formulate questions surrounding incivility and moral foundations within Twitter discourses related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors collected tweets and retweets posted by English-speaking Twitter users in the United States (US) across the following three phases: (1) initial discovery of COVID-19 in China, (2) high US mortality rate from COVID-19 and (3) the announcement that a vaccine would soon be available in the US.
Findings
The authors found a significant difference in uncivil tweets posted in cities with higher levels of reported hate crimes against Asians than cities with low levels. Lastly, English-speaking Twitter users tended to employ moral virtue words and moral vice words when discussing China and Chinese culture/populations.
Research limitations/implications
The bags-of-words employed are limited in capturing nuanced and metaphorical terms. In addition, the analysis focused solely on Tweets composed in English and thus did not capture the thoughts and opinions of non-English speakers. Lastly, this study did not address all Asian countries. In this sense, the findings of this study might not be applicable to Tweets about other nations.
Practical implications
Given that many Twitter users tend to use terms of moral virtue in support of Asians and Asian communities, the authors suggest that non-governmental organization administrators provide morally supportive social media campaigns that encourage users to engage in civil discourse.
Social implications
These findings have theoretical implications as the frameworks of integrated threats and moral foundations were used to offer group-level explanations for online behavior. Additional research is needed to explore whether these frameworks can be used to explain negativity in other communication environments.
Originality/value
This study expands the findings of prior studies that identified the extent to which Twitter users express hate speech, focusing on general Twitter discourse across three specific periods of the pandemic: degrees of incivility and moral foundations, and comparison of incivility based on the prevalence of reported hate crimes.
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This paper aims to describe the way participants in the hobby of gourmet cooking in the USA manage culinary information in their homes.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to describe the way participants in the hobby of gourmet cooking in the USA manage culinary information in their homes.
Design/methodology/approach
The study utilizes domain analysis and serious leisure as a conceptual framework and employs an ethnographic approach. In total 20 gourmet cooks in the USA were interviewed at home and then their culinary information collections were documented through a guided tour and photographic inventory. The resulting ethnographic record was analyzed using grounded theory and NVivo software.
Findings
The findings introduce the personal culinary library (PCL): a constellation of cooking‐related information resources and information structures in the home of the gourmet cook, and an associated set of upkeep activities that increase with the collection's size. PCLs are shown to vary in content, scale, distribution in space, and their role in the hobby. The personal libraries are characterized as small, medium or large and case studies of each extreme are presented. Larger PCLs are cast as a bibliographic pyramid distributed throughout the home in the form of a mother lode, zone, recipe collection, and binder.
Practical implications
Insights are provided into three areas: scientific ethnography as a methodology; a theory of documents in the hobby; and the changing role of information professionals given the increasing prevalence of home‐based information collections.
Originality/value
This project provides an original conceptual framework and research method for the study of information in personal spaces such as the home, and describes information phenomena in a popular, serious leisure, hobby setting.
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Richard Webb, Ian Davies, Brian Johnson and Julie Abayomi
The increasing prevalence of obesity in the UK has been of concern for some time. This is particularly true in Liverpool and in response the Liverpool Weight Management Programme…
Abstract
Purpose
The increasing prevalence of obesity in the UK has been of concern for some time. This is particularly true in Liverpool and in response the Liverpool Weight Management Programme (LWMP) was devised. It offers a service involving dietitians and other expert agencies working towards facilitating dietary and lifestyle changes in obese NHS patients in Liverpool via a 12-week education programme. This qualitative study aims to investigate patients' experiences of the LWMP.
Design/methodology/approach
Informed volunteers participated in focus groups exploring their experiences following the programme. Focus groups were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim, then analysed following a thematic approach utilising constant comparison analysis to allow a qualitative view of the LWMP to be formed.
Findings
Participants described an increase in immediate self-confidence during the LWMP, as opposed to coercion and pressure experienced elsewhere. The results also show the implementation of dietary changes by participants and favourable opinions towards both the group settings and patient-centred care. Participants also positively described the LWMP regarding the programmes social approach and aspects of programme content; however, there were issues with over-dependence on healthcare professionals. Healthcare professionals also need to recognise that long-term empowerment may still be lacking and that follow-up support and the effectiveness of some areas of programme content need to be considered to ensure patients benefit from sustainable weight management.
Originality/value
This paper addresses an identified need for qualitative research in the area of health service weight management programmes and highlights the importance of long-term support in empowering patients by exploring their lived experience of the LWMP.
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In a Northern city, which claims to have more than 12,000 Commonwealth immigrants, mostly of Asian origin—Pakistanis and Indians, an increasing number of whom have been joined by…
Abstract
In a Northern city, which claims to have more than 12,000 Commonwealth immigrants, mostly of Asian origin—Pakistanis and Indians, an increasing number of whom have been joined by their wives and families, there was instituted in 1965 a routine examination of their children before school entry, later extended to children of immigrant origin already in the schools. This examination extended to haemoglobin estimation, tuberculin‐testing and, equally important, examination of the stools for pathogens and parasitic ova. 419 entrants were examined in the first half of 1965 and 898 pupils. Parental co‐operation must have been excellent, as parents all agreed, without exception, to the special examination, although to some extent, there might have been considered legal authority in the current School Health Service (Medical Inspection) Regulations made under the Education Act, 1944. We are not aware of any report of intestinal pathogens, but helminth infestations were reported (Archer D. M., Bamford F. N., and Lees E., Helminth Infestations in Immigrant Children, 1965, Brit. Med. J., 2, 1517), from which it appears 18·6% carried five types of worm, of which the commonest was hookworm. It would be fair to assume that helminth infestation, indicating as it does, exposure to food infections, water‐borne disease and environment generally, is an index of gastro‐intestinal infection and the presence of pathogens, including the carrier state.
The Minister of Health in the exercise of the powers conferred upon him by the Public Health Act, 1875, the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, the Public Health Act, 1896, the…
Abstract
The Minister of Health in the exercise of the powers conferred upon him by the Public Health Act, 1875, the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, the Public Health Act, 1896, the Public Health (Regulations as to Food) Act, 1907, and by Section 8 of the Milk and Dairies (Amendment) Act, 1922, and of every other power enabling him in that behalf, hereby makes the following Regulations, that is to say:
Sir Philip Foreman, CBE, DL, chairman and managing director of Short Brothers PLC, the Belfast‐based aerospace manufacturer, has been elected 1985–86 President of the…
Abstract
Sir Philip Foreman, CBE, DL, chairman and managing director of Short Brothers PLC, the Belfast‐based aerospace manufacturer, has been elected 1985–86 President of the 78,000‐member Institution of Mechanical Engineers. He succeeds the retiring President, Dr Waheeb Rizk, with effect from the Institution's Annual Meeting today (Wednesday, 22 May).