Framing discrimination in the news: A mixed-methods analysis of frames in Belgian newspapers

Policy and institutional processes for managing modern biotechnology in Africa, as elsewhere in the world clearly bring out how biotechnology regulation in many respects represents the ‘avant garde’ case of technology governance. Biotechnology is characterized by highly dynamic technological developments and is inherently border-spanning in character, making it one of the most striking icons of globalization. This has led to some policy practitioners declaring that the policy responses in Africa are therefore not surprising. The fact that they are in a perpetual state of change, with new organizational and individual players coming into the fray at every twist and turn of the dynamics within the technology are seen as necessary as the organizations and individuals jostle to position themselves strategically to deal adequately with the challenges posed by the technology. The result has been that many organizations, programmes and approaches have been put in place by both state and non-state actors on the continent to try to cope with the challenge of maximizing the benefits and minimizing the risks of modern biotechnology. Inspired by the cross-national food security and technology challenge and policy responses ignited by the 2002–2003 food crisis in southern Africa this chapter presents and discusses some of the processes and institutional responses that were spawned at cross-national levels, bringing to the fore some of the challenges and limitations faced by both state and non-state actors in bringing about and implementing technology governance mechanisms. This chapter argues that part of the reason why changes in policy processes and governance mechanisms for biotechnology are not clearly understood is because of the limited analysis of the deeper contextual realities behind the various institutional and policy responses. The underlying contextual terrain, made up of individuals and organizations, and the various coalitions among them, and facilitating factors overarching their activities have a huge bearing on the impact and identity of responses given to policy challenges. While ‘newness’ may be exhibited at the macro-level, in the form of new organizations and/or programmes, this chapter contends that it largely remains ‘business as usual’ at various other levels feeding into these organizations and programmes, posing a big threat to the envisaged impact of the new institutional and policy responses. Using the example of biosafety policy processes in southern Africa, this chapter brings to the fore some of the realities technology governance faces in a developing country setting, making a case for multipronged approaches,including bringing back government, even in an era where governments are agreed to be playing a receding role. The chapter argues that there are real challenges and concerns in the subregion and the member states which need to be taken on board more if a transnational governance framework is to emerge. Governance in this case is used more as it relates to the processes of creating conditions for ordered rule and collective action, within a context where ‘no single actor has the knowledge and resource capacity to tackle problems unilaterally'. Particular interest is on how the complex interactions at various levels within the southern African biosafety terrain shaped the cross-national governance agenda, and with what impact this had on the collective action desired. Among the main issues observed is that the emergence of new policy responses has both divisive and uniting properties alike among the new and existing players, setting the stage for abrasive interactions at various governance levels. In particular the chapter presents and discusses the challenges brought to the theory and practice of governance by this multidimensional interface between a new technology, limited regulatory preparedness among countries and the (apparently inevitable) plethora of new institutions and processes to manage it.

Over time the impact of human interactions upon the natural environment has revealed changes to the condition and structure of the landscape. Practices which were once deemed to be suitable to natural conditions have since been recognised as having caused degradation to land, water, soils, and impacted upon floral and faunal biodiversity. In response to evidence of ecological declines, a range of institutional and management responses have been implemented, evolving to become a complex and fragmented environmental legal and management system. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of institutional responses as solutions to environmental problems. It did this through a case study exploration of the development, implementation, and administration of regulatory changes to the management of native vegetation in Queensland. These reforms were introduced to meet electoral commitments to address the high land clearing rates in light of scientific evidence of the association between this activity and the symptoms of degradation. Specifically, the study investigated whether these reforms would achieve their designed objectives without perverse impacts upon the ecological, economic, or social sustainability in semi-arid rangelands of south-west Queensland. The Pressure-State-Response (PSR)/ Driving Force-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) Models and the principles of Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD) provided the foundation for the formation of the case study research questions to examine this complex real world environmental problem, and the attempts made to achieve its resolution. These questions focused upon each element of the Models. Hence, five research questions guided this investigation: 1. What is the condition of the environment in south-west Queensland? 2. What are the major pressures upon the condition of the environment? 3. How effectively have institutional responses to address the environmental problem been implemented? 4. What are the social, economic, and environmental impacts of the response in the case study region? 5. Was the response designed to maximise its potential effectiveness without unintended consequences (impacts)? Five research cycles were employed to gather and verify data required to explore these questions. Firstly, published knowledge, science, and best-practice approaches to decision making were highlighted through literature examinations. Focus groups then identified priority issues for further exploration. Interviews facilitated the in-depth investigation of problems and the testing of assumptions. Practical and on-ground conditions, practices, and issues were subsequently detailed in ethnographic studies, and emerging research and system changes reviews presented the context to the matters being explored. Through this process of data collection, triangulation, and verification, collectively, this case study investigation found that: • despite extensive research and investment into science and knowledge, environmental problems in the case study area persist, due to the combined impacts of natural and induced pressures; • the introduction of domestic grazing and permanent waters into an area ill-equipped to handle it led to the transformation of the semi-arid landscape, whilst the changes which have become apparent have been attempted to be resolved by the landholders who inherited them; • the on-ground responses to degradation are influenced by an evolving, multifaceted, and multi-jurisdictional framework of policies, laws, and strategies which comprise the environmental legal system, and are implemented at international, national, jurisdictional, local, and property levels; • Queensland’s native vegetation framework is one of the more recent additions to this system, and whilst well intended, its design and implementation has been criticised as poorly reflecting best practice approaches; • regulatory deficiencies have the potential to limit the effectiveness of native vegetation reforms and the achievement of desired legislated objectives, and have the potential to compounding environmental, social, and economic problems in the case study region. However, it is argued that had a best practice approach to institutional response design and implementation been followed, this would have provided the opportunity to anticipate future problems, and allowed them to be addressed through the development and implementation of complementary tools and strategies. Furthermore, where institutional responses anticipate and address perversities as they occur, this can ensure that potential solutions to complex problems are capable of maximising the achievement of desired objectives without unacceptable impacts. Consequently, in order to identify and prevent the undesired outcomes predicted for the case study region, and to maximise the effectiveness of policy and institutional responses, problems need to be correctly defined, and appropriate responses generated. Hence, the thesis is: Where institutional reforms to solve environmental problems are not designed,implemented, and administered effectively, they will create negative ecological,economic, and social impacts. Policy design must be capable of conceptualizing and responding to possible and probable outcomes. However, and despite the knowledge, science, and information to do this already being available to guide decision making processes, the exploration of the case study demonstrated that institutional responses can still be potentially ineffective. This may be due to the complexity of issues needing to be considered, and the lack of guiding processes and tools to assist decision makers undertake this multidisciplinary activity. To resolve this dilemma, an adapted model has been created. The “Anticipatory, Sustainable, and Precautionary Institutional Response Evaluation (ASPIRE) Model” incorporates the findings and lessons from this study, and the elements which need to be considered in decision making. Through the utilisation of this model as a framework for examining complex problems, and developing and evaluating proposed solutions, the replication of the negative and perverse impacts of institutional responses which are anticipated for the case study can be prevented in the future. This will be achieved where the model is utilised by decision makers to guide the process for policy development and solution design in all sectors which attempt to address complex problems in multifaceted management environments.

The provision of common goods poses collective action problems, which may imply that the actors do not provide the good on a voluntary basis. The collective action problem associated with common goods has traditionally been identified as the prisoner's dilemma. However, the analysis of common goods needs to look more closely at the characteristics of the goods and of the social context of their provision. Different characteristics lead to different collective action problems and thus require different institutional responses. If the strategic constellations in common good provision are represented as matrix games, clear implications for institutional responses to certain collective action problems are revealed. This approach will be demonstrated for the case of regulatory competition for environmental standards. A number of factors which characterize the situation are varied — the heterogeneity of preferences for environmental regulation of the countries concerned; the heterogeneity of their market shares; the type of standards used; and the prevailing trade regime. Different combinations of these conditions lead to different collective action problems and, thus, to different outcomes of regulatory competition. In some cases a `race to the top' of environmental regulation can be expected; in other cases a `race to the bottom' will occur; finally, there are cases where no convergence of regulation will take place at all.

‘Staying in the Nationalist Bubble’

Many rights theorists argue that global poverty violates certain human rights, so that responsibility to address poverty involves carrying out the duties that correspond with relevant rights-claims. Liberatirians argue that the rights and duties associated with global poverty, especially what are sometimes thought of as “positive” rights, or rights of assistance, are inappropriately agent-neutral, giving them less justificatory force than agent-relative rights and duties. To counter libertarian concerns, Thomas Pogge tries to reframe the responsibilities corresponding to human rights as institutional rather than as belonging to agents. While admirable, his approach inadequately expalains the relationships between institutional responsibility and individual and collective action. A better way to respond to libertarian concerns—that is also compatible with Pogge’s emphasis on institutional responsibility—is to show that the duties regarding global poverty are indeed agent-relative, but by virtue of individual and collective action within institutions.

Pakistan’s security concerns have expanded to include terrorism, cyber insecurity, and climate-induced risks. These interconnected concerns are straining governance, institutional coordination, and long-term stability, necessitating a comprehensive reevaluation of national security beyond military solutions. The study analyses Pakistan’s non-traditional security threats over time, evaluates institutions and governance’s responses to cyber threats, climate change, and terrorism, and identifies policy gaps that hinder integrated security management. Systematic document analysis underpins the study’s qualitative research design. Official papers, anti-terrorism initiatives, cybersecurity frameworks, climate change adaptation measures, and scientific studies from 2001–2024 provided information. The study uses thematic and comparative methodologies to track risks, institutional responses, and governance effectiveness across sectors. The Result show Three significant patterns emerge. First, even while counterterrorism efforts have considerably reduced militant violence, governance issues, including social and economic marginalization and ideological radicalization, have not been addressed. Second, as Pakistan’s digital dependence has outpaced institutional cybersecurity safeguards, regulatory monitoring and policy responses are lacking. Third, climate-related hazards, including water stress and extreme weather events, aggravate food insecurity and rural livelihoods, increasing social and security vulnerabilities. The lack of policy integration and interagency coordination limits long-term effectiveness across the board. The study’s results and policy implications suggest that integrated governance is needed to address Pakistan’s security issues, rather than sector-specific initiatives. Policy implications include improving institutional coordination, integrating climate resilience and cybersecurity into national security planning, and implementing inclusive governance reforms to promote community resilience. A flexible and comprehensive plan is needed to improve national stability and sustainable growth.

Agriculture and groundwater development in northern China: trends, institutional responses, and policy options

Pakistan’s security concerns have expanded to include terrorism, cyber insecurity, and climate-induced risks. These interconnected concerns are straining governance, institutional coordination, and long-term stability, necessitating a comprehensive reevaluation of national security beyond military solutions. The study analyses Pakistan’s non-traditional security threats over time, evaluates institutions and governance’s responses to cyber threats, climate change, and terrorism, and identifies policy gaps that hinder integrated security management. Systematic document analysis underpins the study’s qualitative research design. Official papers, anti-terrorism initiatives, cybersecurity frameworks, climate change adaptation measures, and scientific studies from 2001–2024 provided information. The study uses thematic and comparative methodologies to track risks, institutional responses, and governance effectiveness across sectors. The Result show Three significant patterns emerge. First, even while counterterrorism efforts have considerably reduced militant violence, governance issues, including social and economic marginalization and ideological radicalization, have not been addressed. Second, as Pakistan’s digital dependence has outpaced institutional cybersecurity safeguards, regulatory monitoring and policy responses are lacking. Third, climate-related hazards, including water stress and extreme weather events, aggravate food insecurity and rural livelihoods, increasing social and security vulnerabilities. The lack of policy integration and interagency coordination limits long-term effectiveness across the board. The study’s results and policy implications suggest that integrated governance is needed to address Pakistan’s security issues, rather than sector-specific initiatives. Policy implications include improving institutional coordination, integrating climate resilience and cybersecurity into national security planning, and implementing inclusive governance reforms to promote community resilience. A flexible and comprehensive plan is needed to improve national stability and sustainable growth.

Latin American labor markets are remarked on for their structural heterogeneity, which, over the years, has been the result of a growing labor surplus. Thus, the digital labor platforms in delivery services that have emerged are breaking into a complex labor landscape, imposing new challenges. We intend to describe what forms the workers’ collective actions take and how these collective actions and their forms are linked with the labor institutions’ settings. We use three case studies with a comparative perspective of both national labor institutions and the history of collective action, particularly in the urban labor context. We collected secondary information from news media and academic bibliographies and primary information through interviews with collectives’ representatives. Our results show how the logic of digital platforms challenges collective action, and how the history of labor institutions might contribute to the rise of new forms of organization.

The rising popularity of social media has radically changed the way news content is propagated, including interactive attempts with new dimensions. To date, traditional news media such as newspapers, television and radio have already adapted their activities to the online news media by utilizing social media, blogs, websites etc. This paper provides some insight into the social media presence of worldwide popular news media outlets. Despite the fact that these large news media propagate content via social media environments to a large extent and very little is known about the news item producers, providers and consumers in the news media community in social media. To better understand these interactions, this work aims to analyze news items in two large social media, Twitter and Facebook. Towards that end, we collected all published posts on Twitter and Facebook from 48 news media to perform descriptive and predictive analyses using the dataset of 152K tweets and 80K Facebook posts. We explored a set of news media that originate content by themselves in social media, those who distribute their news items to other news media and those who consume news content from other news media and/or share replicas. We propose a predictive model to increase news media popularity among readers based on the number of posts, number of followers and number of interactions performed within the news media community. The results manifested that, news media should disperse their own content and they should publish first in social media in order to become a popular news media and receive more attractions to their news items from news readers.

Solidarity is a concept increasingly employed in bioethics whose application merits further clarity and explanation. Given how vital cooperation and community-level care are to mitigating communicable disease transmission, we use lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic to reveal how solidarity is a useful descriptive and analytical tool for public health scholars, practitioners, and policymakers. Drawing upon an influential framework of solidarity that highlights how solidarity arises from the ground up, we reveal how structural forces can impact the cultivation of solidarity from the top down, particularly through ensuring robust access to important social determinants of health. Public health institutions can support solidarity movements among individuals and communities by adopting a lens of social justice when considering public health priorities and, in turn, promote health equity.

Research on climate change has focused on news media’s framing of climate issues. With a shifting media landscape, news media face increased competition from other actors, including climate movement groups. This study examines how credibility and trustworthiness of a source (source ethos) influences attitudes toward information dissemination and collective action on climate change. Respondents (N = 507) were randomly assigned to news stories that varied in source ethos – legacy media (Dagens Nyheter), a conventional climate movement group (Fridays for Future), and a disruptive climate movement group (Extinction Rebellion) – as well as emotional appeals (hope, fear, balanced). While most results were not significant, Fridays for Future seems more effective in shifting attitudes on information dissemination in the balanced and hope conditions. Dagens Nyheter and Fridays for Future influenced attitudes toward collective action in balanced conditions. Findings suggest that source ethos shapes climate perceptions and that different sources play distinct roles in raising awareness and mitigating action.

In recent times, news medias avail oneself of online social media platforms for news promotion, sharing and commentary to a large extent mainly in Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit. Therefore, in the literature, researchers have been used machine learning and text mining techniques to attain useful insights from the news media data in social media in-order to understand the factors for gaining large audience attention. Different to the previous studies, analyses of the news media in this work are based on a set of new features; content features such as the originality of a news item, context features such as time and circadian patterns of a news media, and reader reactions. Our dataset includes 238K tweets and 128K Facebook posts of 48 most popular news medias shared during May-June 2017. In this study we explored; news producers, news consumers, inter news production patterns, inter news dissemination behaviors, sharing similar news items within Twitter and Facebook (cross-posts), and news readers reactions on news items. In addition, we investigated the best time period to receive highest readers’ attention towards their news items as this information is useful for other news medias to understand the best time duration to publish news items. Finally, we proposed a predictive model to increase news media popularity among readers and the results manifested that, a news media should disperse its own content and need to publish at first before other news media publish the same content in social media in-order to be popular and attract the attention from readers.

How do news media portray collective action involving activists who are deemed illegitimate political actors? The news media has a well-documented tendency to disparage adult activists by excluding their voices from coverage, attacking their political identities, and minimizing their collective action outcomes. However, the perceived illegitimacy of youth activists suggests they have no voices to be excluded, no political identities to be attacked, and no outcomes to minimize. This study analyzes coverage of the virginity pledge movement and gay-straight alliances in nationally circulated newspapers across two decades. Findings indicate youth activists' illegitimacy actually guaranteed youth a voice in the news media, but this came with unintended consequences. The news media used this perceived illegitimacy to undermine youth activists in three ways: (1) restricting youth voices to personal (apolitical) testimonies, (2) engaging in displaced disparagement by attacking adults and other legitimate targets, and (3) holding adults accountable for collective action outcomes.

Greenhouse gases emissions and their reduction strategies: Perspectives of Africa's largest economy