IN ALL railway systems the structures needing corrosion protection may be divided into fixed structures (bridges, etc.) and rolling stock.
Yujia Zhai, Jiaqi Yan, Hezhao Zhang and Wei Lu
This study/paper aims to understand the public perceptions of AI through mass media discourse. In the past few years, significant progress has been made in the field of artificial…
Abstract
Purpose
This study/paper aims to understand the public perceptions of AI through mass media discourse. In the past few years, significant progress has been made in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). The benefits of AI are obvious, but there is still huge uncertainty and controversy over the public perception of AI. How does the mass media conceptualize AI?
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, the authors analyze the evolution of AI covered by five major news media outlets in the past 30 years from 7 dimensions: scientific subject, keyword, country, institution, people, topic and opinion polarity.
Findings
First of all, different subjects are competing for and dividing up the right to speak of AI, leading to the gradual fragmentation of the concept of AI. Second, reporting on AI often includes reference to commercial institutions and scientists, showing a successful integration of science and business. Moreover, the result of topic modeling shows that news media mainly defines AI from three perspectives: an imagination, a commercial product and a field of scientific research. Finally, negative reports have focused on various issues relating to AI ethics.
Originality/value
The results can help bridge various conversations surrounding AI and promote richer discussions, increase the participation of scientists, businesses, governments and the public and provide more perspectives on the functions, prospects and pitfalls of AI.
Details
Keywords
The main aim of this article is to broaden the notion of strategic intent in public relations. It also develops an understanding of the social value of what can be defined as the…
Abstract
Purpose
The main aim of this article is to broaden the notion of strategic intent in public relations. It also develops an understanding of the social value of what can be defined as the first modern health communication campaign in Europe based on strategic intents and the development of modernity.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is based on both historical research and empirical material from the Norwegian tuberculosis campaign from 1889 up to 1913, when Norwegian women achieved suffrage. The campaign is analysed in the framework of modernity and social theory. The literature on lobbying and social movements is also used to develop a theoretical framework for the notion of strategic intent.
Findings
The study shows that strategic intent can be divided into two layers: (1) the implicit strategic intent is the real purpose behind the communication efforts, whereas (2) the explicit intent is found directly in the communication efforts. The explicit intent may be presented as a solution for the good of society at the right political moment, giving an organisation the possibility to mobilise for long-term social changes, in which could be the implicit intent.
Originality/value
The distinction between explicit and implicit strategic intent broadens our understanding on how to make long-term social changes as well as how social and political changes occur in modern societies. The article also gives a historical account of what is here defined as the first modern health communication campaign in Europe and its social value.
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Keywords
This research aims to explore the origin of tourism public relations (PR) in Thailand as practiced by the State Railway of Siam (SRS) prior to the Second World War when rail…
Abstract
Purpose
This research aims to explore the origin of tourism public relations (PR) in Thailand as practiced by the State Railway of Siam (SRS) prior to the Second World War when rail travel was still a new form of transportation in the country.
Design/methodology/approach
The study approach is documentary research involving an in-depth examination of both published and unpublished documents of a special collection of the SRS archives conducted in a fact-based and descriptive manner.
Findings
In the first half of the 20th century, a period of global economic uncertainty, the SRS performed the role of the government's PR division, with one of its important tasks being to promote travel and tourism in the country among both Thais and foreigners. The SRS incorporated the use of PR materials including advertisements, films, guidebooks, speeches, events, pre-arranged press activities and sales promotions in its activities. The current study explores the SRS's strategies employed in the creation of integrated and place communication campaigns to promote its train service and tourism throughout Thailand via its railway network.
Research limitations/implications
The findings of the study reveal the PR efforts carried out by the SRS, which utilized a variety of communication tools in tourism promotion. This can lead to a better understanding of global tourism PR history and more specifically the development of tourism PR in Thailand and throughout South-East Asia.
Practical implications
The results add to the body of knowledge of how integrated marketing communication, place branding and professional PR activities evolved in Thailand.
Originality/value
The research fills a gap in the history of tourism PR and its relation to broader social and economic structures in Siam prior to the 21st century. It also reveals the little explored topic of how the railway engaged in historical path of PR practices and how they relate to a country's specific PR development outside of the highly researched U.S. context.
Details
Keywords
Claudia Chaufan, Hegla Fielding, Catherine Chesla and Alicia Fernandez
Professional interpreter use improves care in patients with limited English proficiency (LEP) but inequalities in outcomes remain. We explore the experience of US Latinos with LEP…
Abstract
Purpose
Professional interpreter use improves care in patients with limited English proficiency (LEP) but inequalities in outcomes remain. We explore the experience of US Latinos with LEP and diabetes in language discordant care.
Methodology/approach
We conducted in-depth interviews of 20 low-income Latino patients with diabetes and LEP. We interviewed participants in Spanish, digitally recorded and transcribed interviews, and read transcripts to identify themes and interpret meanings using interpretive phenomenology as theoretical framework.
Findings
While patients preferred, and experienced greater trust in, language concordant clinical encounters, they did not believe that language discordance affected outcomes because they felt that these depended largely on their compliance with physicians’ recommendations. Patients also downplayed structural barriers to care and outcomes. Self-blame was paradoxically encouraged by physicians’ praise vis-à-vis favorable outcomes.
Research limitations/implications
Limitations include small and convenience sample and limited generalizability. However, findings illustrate communicational dynamics between patients and clinicians with important implications for health care practice and policy. They support the perception that trust develops best within language concordant care, which underscores the importance of recruiting clinicians with diverse language skills. They highlight the importance of sensitizing clinicians to the social determinants of health, which may be overlooked when treating patients with conditions requiring substantial self-management, like diabetes. Language barriers in health care must be understood in the broader context of structural inequalities in health care. The necessary emphasis on self-management may (inadvertently) strengthen the hegemonic view that places responsibility for diabetes outcomes on patients’ ability to self-manage their condition to the neglect of social/political determinants of diabetes.
Originality/value
Studies have quantitatively examined the effects of language discordant care on diabetes outcomes, yet few have done so qualitatively. To our knowledge, no study has attempted to understand the experience of language discordance from the perspective of LEP patients with diabetes and how this experience may explain observed differences in outcomes.
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Hyunjoo Im, Hae Won Ju and Kim K.P. Johnson
Little research has been done to understand how individual elements (e.g. advertisements) within a webpage are processed and evaluated when visual complexity is increased. Thus…
Abstract
Purpose
Little research has been done to understand how individual elements (e.g. advertisements) within a webpage are processed and evaluated when visual complexity is increased. Thus, this study aimed to investigate how consumers allocate attention and evaluate products and advertisements on complex webpages when they are casually browsing.
Design/methodology/approach
This study conducted two experiments to test the causal effects of different degrees of visual complexity on consumer responses to products and advertisements. An eye-tracking experiment (n = 90) and a follow-up online experiment (n = 121) were conducted using undergraduate students as participants.
Findings
Participants formed a global impression from the overall webpage complexity, which spilled over to evaluation of individual elements on the webpage (e.g. product, advertisement). The inverted U-shaped relationships (vs. linear negative relationships) between webpage visual complexity and attitude toward the webpage, products, and advertisements were observed. The focal product was given a consistent level of attention regardless of the complexity level.
Practical implications
This study provides implications for website organization and design to maximize positive consumer experiences and marketing effectiveness. The findings provide implications for retailers and advertisement buyers.
Originality/value
This study expanded the knowledge by examining the interplay between individual elements of webpages and the whole webpage complexity when consumers browse visually complex webpages. It is a novel finding that the overall webpage complexity effect spills over to locally attended products or advertisements.
Details
Keywords
Cristina Vaz de Almeida and Célia Belim
This chapter focusses on the contribution of health professionals' communication competences to patients. We propose a model of communication to be used in the therapeutic…
Abstract
This chapter focusses on the contribution of health professionals' communication competences to patients. We propose a model of communication to be used in the therapeutic relationship, supported by a literature review. The methodology is qualitative. Four focus groups (FGs) composed of Portuguese health professionals (N = 25), such as medical doctors, nurses and professors in health fields, were conducted during 2017 and 2018. All the participants of FGs validated a three-factor aggregated and interdependent model, which is composed of assertiveness, clear language and positivity (ACP model). The factors reinforce the therapeutic relationship and improve health literacy, thus reinforcing the patient's health and well-being. The argument is that health is wealth, so if the communication can improve health, then this has positive social implications. The study is a response to the lack of consensus in the literature on what specific and operative communication competences the health professional should perform in clinical encounters with the patients, and how these competences can improve, in the final instance, their health and well-being.
Details
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Margot Opdycke Lamme and Jennifer Mathews Land
This brief essay aims to introduce public relations historians to PRimary Source, a new search tool designed to help them, their students, and public relations professionals…
Abstract
Purpose
This brief essay aims to introduce public relations historians to PRimary Source, a new search tool designed to help them, their students, and public relations professionals locate archives and manuscript collections relevant to the field.
Design/methodology/approach
The article outlines the site which is scheduled to be tested and then launched in October to coincide with the publication of this special issue of Journal of Communication Management. The site address will be: www.prhistorywiki.org Findings – The site will be available for use in historical research, student papers, and decision‐making among scholars and practitioners concerning the disbursement of their papers to a repository as part of their estate planning.
Originality/value
At the time of writing this article, an online tool with this emphasis currently does not exist.
Details
Keywords
A. Ravishankar Rao and Guillermo A. Cecchi
The purpose of this paper is to extend an analysis presented in earlier work which investigated the dynamical behavior of a network of oscillatory units described by the amplitude…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to extend an analysis presented in earlier work which investigated the dynamical behavior of a network of oscillatory units described by the amplitude of and phase of oscillations, and to present an objective function that can be successfully applied to multi‐layer networks.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, an objective function is presented that can be successfully applied to multi‐layer networks. The behavior of the objective function is explained through its ability to achieve a sparse representation of the inputs in complex‐valued space.
Findings
It is found that if the activity of each network unit is represented by a phasor in the complex plane, then sparsity is achieved when there is maximal phase separation in the complex plane. Increasing the spread of feedback connections is shown to improve segmentation performance significantly but does not affect separation performance. This enables a quantitative approach to characterizing and understanding cortical function.
Originality/value
The formulation of the multi‐layer objective function and the interpretation of its behavior through sparsity in complex space are novel contributions of this paper.
Details
Keywords
Claudia Magallanes-Blanco and Leandro Rodriguez-Medina
The main goal of the paper is to explore the origins and developments of the first community cellular network in Mexico.
Abstract
Purpose
The main goal of the paper is to explore the origins and developments of the first community cellular network in Mexico.
Methodology/approach
Data were gathered in 2015 and 2016 through in-depth interviews, participant observation, workshops, photos, official documents, and informal interviews in the state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico. Data was also drawn from the work of two activists, P. Bloom and E. Huerta, working with the community assemblies of a number of Indígena communities: Villa Talea de Castro, Santa María Yaviche, San Juan Yaee, San Ildefonso Villa Alta, San Bernardo Mixetepec, Santa Ana Tlahuitoltepec, San Jerónimo Progreso, Santiago Ayuquililla, San Miguel Huautla, Santa Inés de Zaragoza, Santo Domingo Xagacia, San Pablo Yaganiza, San Pedro Cajonos, San Francisco Cajonos, San Miguel Cajonos, San Mateo Cajonos, Santa María Alotepec, and San Juan Tabaá. To analyze the data, using codes created in Atlas.TI and relying on an inductive approach, we analyzed the history of this network within a theoretical framework informed by Actor-Network Theory.
Findings
Participants in the enactment of this cellular network followed two programs of actions, one technical and one legal. Together, the community assemblies and activists took advantage of available devices, free software and ordinary computers, on the one hand, and communal rules, national laws, constitutional reforms and tacit knowledge, on the other hand. They brought about a new, non-profit, communitarian, and self-organized network that allows for inexpensive communication between members of small, marginalized Indígena communities in the state of Oaxaca in Mexico.
Social implications
The arrangement of actants that the case illustrates is replicable in other parts of the country and outside of Mexico. The new community cellular network reduces the economic costs of communication, facilitates some jobs and family bonds, expands the range of community-owned projects, encourages self-organization and ways of situated conflict resolution, and empowers communities in relation to external powerful telecommunication corporations.
Originality/value
This is a novel account of a highly unusual set of community-led institutional innovations based on firsthand information drawn from the main actants of the new network.