Amendment Theory Research Articles

Amending the Emotional Solidarity Theoretical Framework Through the Addition of Perceived Similarity, Empathy, and Narcissism

ABSTRACT As tourism rebounds globally, a growing need persists to understand the complex social dynamics between residents and tourists and how these dynamics shape residents’ support for the industry. By employing an amended theory of emotional solidarity, this study examined factors affecting residents’ solidarity and how that translates to pro-tourism behaviour. Data were collected from 438 residents in Fiji and analyzed using covariance-based structural equation modelling. Of Woosnam’s original antecedents—shared beliefs and interaction—were positively related to the two dimensions of emotional solidarity (communality and fairness); whereas shared behaviour was only positively associated with communality. Two dimensions of empathy (affective and cognitive) were positively associated with both emotional solidarity dimensions. Narcissism was negatively related to communality. A positive association was found between narcissism and the fairness dimension of solidarity, despite hypothesizing a negative relationship. Finally, both the communality and fairness dimensions of solidarity significantly explained residents’ pro-tourism behavioural intentions.

The Unity of Opposites in the Regulation of Social Media Platforms: Content Moderation Between the EU Digital Services Act and the US First Amendment Theories

The Unity of Opposites in the Regulation of Social Media Platforms: Content Moderation Between the EU Digital Services Act and the US First Amendment Theories

Gravity, axion Chern-Simons Einstein, and black holes

The low-energy limit of string theory involves an anomaly-removing correction of the action of Einstein-Hilbert, which defines a practical idea: Chern-Simons (CS) modified gravity. The CS correction composes of the product of a scalar field with the Pontryagin density, in which the scalar field is considered as a background field (non-dynamical formulation) or as an evolving field (dynamical formulation). Different solutions of Einstein’s general relativity (GR) continue in the amended theory; a keyable exception is the Kerr metric, which has affected a search for rotating black hole solutions. In this study, we derive a black solution characterizing a rotating black hole within the non-dynamical and dynamical frame of CS axion Einstein gravity (CSAEG). The case of non-dynamical has no new physics different from GR, which is consistent with what is presented in the literature. The main merit of this study is that in the dynamical framework of CSAEG, we show that the scalar field has a dynamical value up to the first-order approximation and under some constraints between the unknown functions that characterize this theory. Moreover, we show that the function U that characterizes CS can help to weaken the singularity for the invariant ^{*} ! R R.

Beyond positive and negative: Developing a reflexive framework for first amendment theory

Tracing back to the work of Isaiah Berlin and the debates of the Hutchins Commission, discussions of First Amendment theory have long been divided into interpretations of “negative” rights protecting speakers from interference and “positive” rights ensuring that the public has the right to a quality information system. This paper explores how a First Amendment framework consisting of these two approaches breaks down in a networked communication ecosystem in which the lines between communicator and audience are increasingly blurred. The analysis explores these questions amid ongoing debates over regulating platforms and the possibility of increased public intervention in the floundering news industry. The paper builds on previous scholarship that has deemed First Amendment theory “inadequate,” incorporating the work of Mike Ananny, Joshua Braun, Victor Pickard, Phillip Napoli, and others. It argues that the current information system is too complex for a simple binary approach to First Amendment theory. Instead, it calls for a reflexive approach that embraces how these perspectives interrelate, one that calls for protecting the rights of speakers, but doing so in a way that characterizes them as members of a larger collective of listeners whose interests must be served.

Distrust, Negative First Amendment Theory, and the Regulation of Lies

Distrust, Negative First Amendment Theory, and the Regulation of Lies

Understanding patterns of COVID infodemic: A systematic and pragmatic approach to curb fake news

Amid the flood of fake news on Coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19), now referred to as COVID-19 infodemic, it is critical to understand the nature and characteristics of COVID-19 infodemic since it not only results in altered individual perception and behavior shift such as irrational preventative actions but also presents imminent threat to the public safety and health. In this study, we build on First Amendment theory, integrate text and network analytics and deploy a three-pronged approach to develop a deeper understanding of COVID-19 infodemic. The first prong uses Latent Direchlet Allocation (LDA) to identify topics and key themes that emerge in COVID-19 fake and real news. The second prong compares and contrasts different emotions in fake and real news. The third prong uses network analytics to understand various network-oriented characteristics embedded in the COVID-19 real and fake news such as page rank algorithms, betweenness centrality, eccentricity and closeness centrality. This study carries important implications for building next generation trustworthy technology by providing strong guidance for the design and development of fake news detection and recommendation systems for coping with COVID-19 infodemic. Additionally, based on our findings, we provide actionable system focused guidelines for dealing with immediate and long-term threats from COVID-19 infodemic.

A Yin-Yang hybrid co-catalyst (CoOx-Mo2N) for photocatalytic overall water splitting

Conventional theory of dual co-catalysts on a semiconductor in overall water splitting is that the dual co-catalysts spatially separated for photocatalytic H2 and O2 evolution, respectively. However, this theory ignores the use of the surface exciton and the water as a whole molecular for splitting. Here, we put forward a new Yin-Yang hybrid co-catalyst (CoOx-Mo2N) with opposite functions for each component for efficient water splitting. The (CoOx-Mo2N) / Ge3N4 shows activities 1.5 times higher than that Ge3N4 loaded with the spatial separated dual co-catalysts CoOx and Mo2N. The super properties of the Yin-Yang hybrid are attributed to the adjacent spatial configuration for extra use of surface excitons, more favorable water molecular absorption and two electrons reactive path with H2O2 as intermediate involved in water splitting. It is proposed an amendment theory for conventional dual spatially separated co-catalysts by extra using surface exciton via spatially adjacent Yin-Yang hybrid co-catalyst.

An integrated framework to explain consumers’ purchase intentions toward green food in the Chinese context

The present study aims to explore an appropriate framework for explaining consumers’ purchase intentions toward green food in the Chinese context. An integrated green food purchase intention (IGFPI) model was designed based on various cognitive and affective variables extracted from the amended theory of planned behavior (A-TPB) and modified stimulus-organism-response (M-SOR) models. An online survey was conducted among Chinese consumers with 1,412 usable responses. Research data were analyzed using structural equation modeling to evaluate the strength of the relationship between constructs and compare the model fit among three models (i.e., A-TPB, M-SOR, and IGFPI). The findings reveal that three models present reasonable fit and the IGFPI model provides a better explanatory power than the other two independent models. In summarizing the results of hypotheses tests among the three models, the variables of perceived behavioral control, face consciousness, group conformity, utilitarian and hedonic attitudes have significant effects on purchase intentions toward green food. Consumers’ perceptions of nutritional content and price attributes of green food have strong effects on utilitarian attitudes, while the sensory appeal and price attributes strongly influence hedonic attitudes. Interestingly, the strength of the association between confidence, personal characteristics and purchase intention, as well as between ecological welfare and utilitarian attitudes vary within the independent and integrated models respectively. This study provides insight for stakeholders and future research in better understanding the framework and factors that influence purchase intentions of consumers toward green food products in the Chinese context.

Assuming Access to Professional Advice.

Access to reliable health advice can make the difference between life and death. But good advice is hard to come by. Within the confines of the professional-client or doctor-patient relationship, the First Amendment operates in a way that protects good and sanctions bad advice. Outside of this relationship, however, the traditional protections of the First Amendment prohibit content- and viewpoint discrimination. Good and bad advice are treated as equal. A core assumption of First Amendment theory is the autonomy of speakers and listeners. Another assumption, as this Article demonstrates in the health context, is the availability of access to professional advice. This assumption, however, is erroneous because access to health advice in fact is unevenly distributed.This Article argues that assuming access to professional advice creates indefensible inequality. Lack of access to expert advice puts some listeners at much higher risk than others. Current First Amendment doctrine is largely unproblematic for those who can afford expert advice, and makes expert advice much costlier where health provider access is needed to obtain good advice. Those who lack access must place a higher degree of trust in widely-available information because they have no more reliable alternative. In other words, First Amendment doctrine places a higher burden on those who can least afford expert advice and who are most dependent on experts in public discourse.

Assuming Access to Professional Advice

Access to reliable health advice can make the difference between life and death. But good advice is hard to come by. Within the confines of the professional-client or doctor-patient relationship, the First Amendment operates in a way that protects good and sanctions bad advice. Outside of this relationship, however, the traditional protections of the First Amendment prohibit content- and viewpoint discrimination. Good and bad advice are treated as equal. A core assumption of First Amendment theory is the autonomy of speakers and listeners. Another assumption, as this Article demonstrates in the health context, is the availability of access to professional advice. This assumption, however, is erroneous because access to health advice in fact is unevenly distributed. This Article argues that assuming access to professional advice creates indefensible inequality. Lack of access to expert advice puts some listeners at much higher risk than others. Current First Amendment doctrine is largely unproblematic for those who can afford expert advice, and makes expert advice much costlier where health provider access is needed to obtain good advice. Those who lack access must place a higher degree of trust in widely-available information because they have no more reliable alternative. In other words, First Amendment doctrine places a higher burden on those who can least afford expert advice and who are most dependent on experts in public discourse.

The Americans with Disabilities Act and the Constitution of the United States (Dissertation)

This dissertation seeks to answer whether the Constitution of the United States prohibits government entities from committing various types of discrimination against people with disabilities: (1) disparate treatment (2) failure to make reasonable accommodations, alterations, and modifications and (3) failure to properly integrate persons with disabilities, which includes an unjustified institutionalization component. To answer this question, this dissertation will use various well accepted modalities of constitutional analysis first solidified by the constitutional pluralist, Professor Phillip Bobbitt, and continuously used throughout American jurisprudence. As such, the methodology of this dissertation can be said to be socio-legal and legal-historical. Using the various modalities of constitutional pluralism, this dissertation shows that the Ninth Amendment provides protection for various unwritten rights; and that these rights can be protected under the following rubric: (1) A plaintiff identifies a putative right with varying degrees of specificity depending on how widely protected or respected the putative right is in the nation; (2) The plaintiff must then show that the right is generally accepted by the nation—either in its customs or statutes; and (3) That right must reflect some other principles found in the Constitution or jurisprudence associated with those clauses. It will be shown that the concepts of discrimination discussed above meet each of these elements. To fully discuss this thesis, this dissertation will be divided into three books. Book I discusses the history of disability rights. This is done to place disability rights in its proper constitutional and legal-historical context. It will discuss, inter alia, eugenics, institutionalization, and certain views about the concept of “disability” more generally. Book II will discuss the law, the Constitution, and legal interpretation. It will begin with a discussion on analytical jurisprudence and offer a definition of “law” for purposes of this dissertation. It will then conduct an overview of constitutional law; and will examine why courts should interpret the Ninth Amendment the way I suggest above. Book III will discuss disability rights laws in general, with a heavy focus on the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, which has been replicated throughout the nation. Book III will also apply my Ninth Amendment analysis to the three theories of discrimination discussed above—disparate treatment, reasonable accommodation, and integration. Book III will then offer a discussion as to why these three theories should be constitutionalized through the Ninth Amendment. The first main reason why conditionalization would be beneficial is that while the ADA binds the states and local entities, only a small fraction of the federal government is bound by it. The other two most important reasons why courts should constitutionalize these three theories of disability discrimination relate to congressional power. First, recognizing that these theories are protected by the Constitution, would mean that they cannot be undermined by Congress. This is especially poignant because of recent congressional attempts to undermine certain parts of the ADA. Constitutionalizing these rights, however, would not undermine Congressional power to protect those with disabilities. Rather, such constitutionalizing would actually expand Congressional power under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Related to Section 5, constitutionalizing these three theories of disability discrimination would greatly assist in the abrogation of sovereign immunity. Currently, the easiest way to abrogate state sovereign immunity is to find that state action has violated both a federal statute (like the ADA that is based on section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment) and some constitutional right. At present, disability rights plaintiffs are only protected by rational basis scrutiny, which means abrogation is often difficult, because state action against those with disabilities is likely to pass constitutional muster. Lastly, Book III will acknowledge that “what the courts give the courts can take away.” Thus, even recognizing that the courts should interpret the Ninth Amendment to protect the three theories of disability discrimination listed above, the same courts could overrule such interpretation. As such, the last portion of Book III will discuss the need for a Constitutional Amendment that explicitly protects people with disabilities, as an alternative to my Ninth Amendment theory.

A public good: Can government really save the press?

Amid concerns of ‘market failure’ in the U.S. commercial news industry, this paper explores more than a decade’s worth of scholarly arguments that government intervention and investment is the best solution to what many deem a crisis in American journalism. Through the lenses of First Amendment theory and political economy, the analysis examines a range of ideas and proposals that, in many ways, began with Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols’ The Death and Life of American Journalism in 2010 and continue up through Victor Pickard’s Democracy Without Journalism: Confronting the Misinformation Society in 2020. The paper concludes that, while a ‘positive’ interpretation of the First Amendment would seem to demand such intervention, the window of opportunity has closed due to a range of political and economic forces that have either developed or become further entrenched over the past decade. To that end, it calls on journalists and journalism scholars to work to shift the discourse of journalism, to characterise it as an essential, nonpartisan public good – one no different than education. It argues that such a shift, along with enough evidence of further market failure, could someday help inspire the necessary political and economic will to help rescue the floundering news industry on a wider scale.

Diffusion of Nanobubbles in fcc Aluminum

The existing theories of diffusion of gas-filled and empty bubbles in solids as yet do not have sufficient predictive power and require refinements that can be made using simulation. The method of the accelerated molecular dynamics simulation of the bubble drift in a pressure gradient is theoretically substantiated in this work. This method is used to calculate the diffusion coefficient of empty nanobubbles in aluminum. The theory of diffusion by means of the formation of critical terraces on the faces is supplemented in such a way that there is no contradiction with the continuous model for macroscopic dimensions. The simulation results show the key role of the formation mechanism of terraces in nanobubbles and confirm the amended theory. The inclusion of the effect of gas makes it possible to compare the simulation results with experimental data. The comparison also confirms the formation mechanism of terraces.

Blasi, Vincent. The Checking Value in First Amendment Theory. 3 A.B.A. Found. Res. J. 521 (1977)

Blasi, Vincent. The Checking Value in First Amendment Theory. 3 A.B.A. Found. Res. J. 521 (1977)

Free Speech, Rational Deliberation, and some Truths about Lies

Could “fake news” have First Amendment value? This claim would seem to be almost frivolous given the potential for fake news to undermine two core functions of the freedom of speech – promoting democracy and facilitating the search for “truth,” as well as the corollary that to be valuable, speech must promote rational deliberation. Some would therefore claim that fake news should count as “no value” speech falling outside of the First Amendment’s reach. This Article argues somewhat counterintuitively that fake news has value because speech doctrine should not be focused exclusively on the promotion of rational deliberation, but should also limit the state’s ability to control the way we emotionally experience ideas, beliefs, and even facts. It claims that like art, music, religious expression, and other forms of human communication that do not facilitate rational deliberation in their audiences, fake news can promote a form of expressive experiential autonomy. It can allow individuals to experience individual self-realization and identify formation and also form cultural connections with like-minded people, advancing social cohesion. Drawing on First Amendment theory and on the fields of cognitive and social psychology and political science, the Article views consumers of fake news not simply as uninformed, gullible rubes, but as individuals seeking to simultaneously distinguish themselves through individualization or self-identification and group association with a community of people with whom they share values. Understood in this way, the inquiry illustrates why the rational deliberation principle is incomplete because it does not explain much of what we ought to recognize as “speech.” This more nuanced understanding of the way that fake news connects with much of its audience has implications for free speech theory, First Amendment doctrine, and policymaking options for addressing the potential harms of fake news. To be clear, this Article is not a defense of fake news or those who intentionally attempt to influence others’ behavior by spreading false facts disguised as legitimate news. Thus, the Article concludes by explaining that while fake news should always be covered by the First Amendment, it should not always be protected.

Carpenter v. United States: Brief of Scholars of Criminal Procedure and Privacy as Amici Curiae in Support of Petitioner

Amici curiae are forty-two scholars engaged in significant research and/or teaching on criminal procedure and privacy law. This brief addresses issues that are within amici’s particular areas of scholarly expertise. They have a shared interest in clarifying the law of privacy in the digital era, and believe that a review of scholarly literature on the topic is helpful to answering the question in this case. This brief is co-authored by Harry Sandick, Kathrina Szymborski, & Jared Buszin of Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP. Carpenter v. United States presents an opportunity to reconsider the Fourth Amendment in the digital age. Cell phones are only one of the many new and pervasive digital technologies which automatically collect and reveal intimate personal data, such as Cell Site Location Information (“CSLI”), to third parties. This Amicus brief argues that the Supreme Court should resist extending the reasoning of Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735 (1979) — a 38-year-old case built on a faulty privacy premise — to the modern, hyper-connected, technology-dependent world. Instead, the Court should recognize that the new realities of this world require new legal doctrines to fit the privacy expectations shared by most Americans. Criminal procedure and privacy scholars are in near-unanimous agreement that an extension of what some have called the “third-party doctrine” could eliminate citizens’ privacy in the modern age. CSLI (and other data transmitted to third parties in the modern age) can reveal an individual’s interests, friendships, activities, travel, associations, beliefs, health concerns, financial problems, employment, and education. Smith is grounded in a pre-digital era, and cannot support future application of the Fourth Amendment. An extension of Smith’s reasoning would give law enforcement ever increasing access to the most private details of individuals’ lives without a warrant or probable cause. As a matter of Fourth Amendment practice, extending the third-party doctrine would curtail digital privacy and encourage arbitrary government intrusions into the lives of American citizens. As a matter of Fourth Amendment theory, applying the third-party doctrine to the digital world would undersell the value of privacy, and contradict the logic of Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 359 (1967). And, as a matter of precedent, Smith offers an inapposite and inadequate doctrinal foundation to support the future of a digital Fourth Amendment.

Ex Post Modernism: How the First Amendment Framed Nonrepresentational Art

Nonrepresentational art repeatedly surfaces in legal discourse as an example of highly valued First Amendment speech. It is also systematically described in constitutionally valueless terms: nonlinguistic, noncognitive, and apolitical. Why does law talk about nonrepresentational art at all, much less treat it as a constitutional precept? What are the implications for conceptualizing artistic expression as free speech? This article contends that the source of nonrepresentational art’s presumptive First Amendment value is the same source of its utter lack thereof: modernism. Specifically, a symbolic alliance between abstraction and freedom of expression was forged in the mid-twentieth century, informed by social and political influences that have now disappeared. What remains in its wake is a vague artifactual referent, historically untethered and conceptually reduced. This article reveals modernism’s invisible yet surprisingly tenacious hold on the relevant legal discourse, demonstrating how an embrace that appears both expansive and central to artistic expression is actually narrow and anachronistic. It obscures the big picture. To realign First Amendment theory and jurisprudence with artistic expression, the law should acknowledge the changes wrought by postmodernism.

Understanding the Politics of Constitutional Resilience in South Korea

South Korea has one of the oldest non-amended constitutions in the world. However, while the comparative literature has been neglecting this puzzling case as such, Korean literature on the matter has been lacking theoretically informed investigation. Therefore, this article studies the mechanisms and dynamics responsible for this outstanding endurance from the perspective of comparative constitutional amendment theory. Developing an analytical framework that integrates insights from quantitative and qualitative approaches, the article examines the last constitutional reform in 1987, and against the background of reform attempts since then, the constitutional amendment attempt in 2018. The analysis reveals how the core variables inclusiveness, specificity, and flexibility interplay with the contextual variables environment, formal institutions, and culture, particular to the case of South Korea. The study finds that a combination of highly exclusive political power structures with typically elite-driven political decisionmaking practices, in a political environment characterized by strong antagonism prompting an extreme conflictual constitutional ethos, are crucial to understanding the constitutional petrification.

Transparency is the New Privacy: Blockchain's Challenge for the Fourth Amendment

Blockchain technology is now hitting the mainstream. With the advent of enterprise blockchains, smart contracts, and corporate cryptocurrencies, countless human interactions, legitimate and illegitimate, are being and will be recorded permanently — and visibly — into distributed digital ledgers. Mass surveillance of day-to-day transactions will never have been easier. This article is the first to analyze blockchain protocols within the Fourth Amendment framework. Blockchain’s open, shared digital architecture challenges us to reassess two core premises of modern Fourth Amendment doctrine: that a “reasonable expectation of privacy” upholds the Amendment’s promise of a right to be “secure” against “unreasonable searches,” and that “a reasonable expectation of privacy” is tantamount to total secrecy. The article argues that these current doctrines rest on physical-world analogies that do not hold in blockchain’s unique digital space. Blockchain’s architecture particularly unsettles the physical-world rationales that underpin received Fourth Amendment distinctions such as public/non-public and content/non-content, as well as the third-party and false friend doctrines. Instead, this article argues that blockchain can create security against unreasonable searches, within the Amendment’s meaning, even for data that are shared or public. The key is control, not secrecy. The article weaves together a focused technical analysis of blockchain’s architecture and a careful assessment of current Fourth Amendment jurisprudence and historical context. It builds on scholarly critiques of current Fourth Amendment doctrine, and reveals the surprising connections between blockchain’s philosophical goals and Fourth Amendment theory, showing that blockchain’s open distributed architecture does the work in digital space that privacy does in the physical world to advance Fourth Amendment values such as security, control of information, expression, and personal autonomy. The article also evaluates textualist approaches to blockchain, concluding that blockchain data are an “effect,” subject to trespassory searches under the Supreme Court’s rubric in United States v. Jones. Finally, the article proposes an analytical framework for Fourth Amendment protections for distributed ledgers — corresponding to the levels to which blockchain users evince control of their data — that is grounded in text and theory and that is administratively practicable for courts.

Government Officials and Politicians: How the First Amendment Applies to Elected Officials' Social Media Pages

Lower courts throughout the country have struggled to grapple with how to apply First Amendment principles to Elected Officials' social media accounts. This Article analyzes elected officials' dual roles as politicians and government officers under First Amendment theory and doctrine and considers the normative and doctrinal consequences of these roles on elected officials' social media pages. Elected officials act sometimes as government officers, acting in furtherance of the duties of their office, at other times, they act as politicians, competing in the political marketplace. These roles carry distinct normative implications. As government officers, they may never engage in viewpoint discrimination. As politicians, however, the First Amendment protects their right to associate in furtherance of their political ends. The right of association implies the right to choose with whom one associates and therefore implies the right to exclude others for viewpoint discriminatory reasons. Courts recognizes both of these roles and applies different doctrines depending on which role predominates. When officials' role as government officer predominates, courts apply the public forum doctrine. And when officials' role as politician predominates, they apply the expressive association doctrine. On social media platforms, officials may act in either their role as government officer or politician, and their social media pages may be either public forums or expressive associations. Current judicial doctrine fails to adequately separate these roles on social media. I therefore propose a test to separate these two roles: courts should focus their inquiry on determining which role—political or governmental—predominates. Towards that end, courts should examine three factors from the perspective of an objective third-party: (1) The page’s ownership; (2) The page’s labels; and, (3) The page’s content, with particular attention to: (i) solicitations of public feedback on official policy; (ii) official announcements of government policy. Some cases will be clear. But sometimes, these factors will weigh in conflicting directions. In such cases of ambiguity, I argue that there should be a presumption in favor of finding that the page is governmental—i.e. that viewpoint discrimination is prohibited, and the public forum doctrine applies. This is for three reasons. First, the public’s interest in self-governance and democratic legitimacy outweighs elected officials’ autonomy interest in associating for political gain. Second, applying public forum analysis to prohibit viewpoint discrimination will decrease the political balkanization rampant on social media, further enhancing democratic legitimacy. Third, while this presumption necessarily infringes on officials’ autonomy, this concern is minimized because officials exercise control over the labels and content of their pages. Creating a presumption against officials incentivizes them to resolve any ambiguity in their account.