Bad Press Research Articles

Strategic Press Release When Employee Unemployment Risk Is Better Insured

Using the staggered changes in unemployment insurance (UI) benefits across states in the United States as an exogenous shock to employees’ costs of unemployment and the hiring firm’s costs of disclosure, this study investigates whether and how a firm’s relationship with its employees impacts its strategic disclosure through press releases. We find that firms increase (reduce) bad (good) press releases after their employees’ UI benefits become more generous. This finding is consistent with the notion that larger UI benefits reduce the costs of employee unemployment risk borne by hiring firms and thus reduce firms’ costs to release bad news items. Interestingly, we find that the large increase in UI benefits is associated with more discretionary, but not nondiscretionary, bad press releases. The findings are robust when we exclude earnings-related press releases from our sample. Further evidence shows that the increase in negative press releases is mainly driven by news regarding earnings, products-services, marketing, credit ratings, assets, and legal issues, which are more closely related to employee perceptions of unemployment risk. JEL classification: G10; M41; J31; J65.

The origin of 2,5-dimethoxy-4-methylamphetamine (DOM, STP).

The story of the 1967 appearance of the powerful psychedelic 2,5-dimethoxy-4-methylamphetamine (DOM, STP) commonly omits details and often includes hyperbole and inaccuracies. It is well known how and when the drug was first distributed to the public for free by Owsley Stanley, but the role that Alexander Shulgin played in providing that material is not as well understood. In the interest of transparency and historical accuracy, this article attempts to present an accurate account of this well-known but inadequately detailed event. It follows DOM's development as an experimental substance believed to hold potential promise in psychotherapeutic applications through its appearance as a street drug generating bad press and a lasting bad impression among the public. One of the more interesting questions is why Shulgin would have taken such an immense risk in releasing this material to clandestine operators. While DOM was still legal it was also Dow's intellectual property, so discovery of his involvement could have jeopardized his career. The escape is especially curious as all fingers would logically first point towards Shulgin as the source. Drawing from published and unpublished sources, the authors attempt to suggest answers. DOM rapidly faded into oblivion before human pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics could be established. In this account, the reader is informed of the potential value that the compound played in non-clinical molecular neuroscience, elucidating receptor specificity of new drugs, and how mistaken warnings about combining DOM with chlorpromazine led to better non-pharmacological drug crisis response.

Patient safety: why does the NHS always seem to get a bad press?

John Tingle, Lecturer in Law, Birmingham Law School, University of Birmingham, considers different viewpoints on patient safety issues

Guenevere's Raptus-Sanctus Triumphs in Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur

Abstract: Generally speaking, scholars of Malory's Morte Darthur have given Guenevere bad press. Terms like 'shrew' and 'virago' have been often applied, while her agency has been largely ignored or minimized. Recently, however, scholars have begun to reconsider her characterization and even her agency. Analysis of her response to Meleagant's attempted raptus , however, has been minimal; likewise minimal has been discussion of her response to Lancelot both with respect to Meleagant and to Lancelot's late and apparently marital desire. Both men become wholly subject to Guenevere's subtle but masterful agency.

Modified Gannet Optimization Algorithm for Reducing System Operation Cost in Engine Parts Industry with Pooling Management and Transport Optimization

Due to the emergence of technology, electric motors (EMs), an essential part of electric vehicles (which basically act as engines), have become a pivotal component in modern industries. Monitoring the spare parts of EMs is critical for stabilizing and managing industrial parts. Generally, the engine or motor parts are delivered to factories using packing boxes (PBs). This is mainly achieved via a pooling center that manages the operation and transportation costs. Nevertheless, this process has some drawbacks, such as a high power train, bad press, and greater energy and time consumption, resulting in performance degradation. Suppliers generally take the parts from one place and deliver them to the other, which leads to more operation and transportation costs. Instead, it requires pooling centers to act as hubs, at which every supplier collects the material. This can mitigate the cost level. Moreover, choosing the placement of pooling centers is quite a challenging task. Different methods have been implemented; however, optimal results are still required to achieve better objectives. This paper introduces a novel concept for pooling management and transport optimization of engine parts to overcome the issues in traditional solution methodologies. The primary intention of this model is to deduce the total cost of the system operation and construction. Programming techniques for transporting the PBs, as well as for locating the pooling center, are determined with the aid of an objective function as a cost function. The location of the pooling center’s cost is optimized, and a Modified Gannet Optimization Algorithm (MGOA) is proposed. Using this method, the proposed model is validated over various matrices, and the results demonstrate its better efficiency rate.

Swapping out silicone

More than most chemical markets, the cosmetic and personal care ingredient industry is subject to the feelings and fancies of everyday consumers. People tend to be conscious of the safety and environmental impact of the chemicals they apply directly to their skin and hair. It’s usually a good thing: the personal care sector often leads the way on sustainability, exerting influence on supply chains, novel chemistry, and industry practices. That responsiveness, though, also makes the industry susceptible to fads. Fashionable ingredients take flight far beyond what their actual performance merits, and a bit of bad press can imperil whole categories before rigorous science starts to speak. Silicones are in the latter camp as they face broadening bans and diminishing popularity despite what many describe as strong safety profiles, excellent performance, and modest environmental impact. Though they’d mostly rather not, chemical suppliers and consumer product makers are figuring out where and

Developing response-ability in human-wasp encounters

Learning to live with unloved others is crucial in the ecological crisis. Unloved wasps are feared and disliked for their sting. Understanding of their ecological importance is increasing, however. Human-wasp encounters are changing with environmental changes, and strategies for multispecies cohabitation are needed. This multispecies study highlights features of wasp biology affecting human-wasp encounters and analyzes how conflicted human-wasp relations could be mitigated. The geographical focus is Finland, in the Northern boreal region. Biological analysis specified spatiotemporal aspects affecting human-wasp encounters: human and wasp habitats and preferences overlap ubiquitously. From a media analysis, we identified contextual strategies for living with wasps: exterminating, repelling, relocating, and giving space. Wasps do not receive only bad press – human-wasp relations are diverse and contextual. Knowledge of wasp ecology may allow for cultivating response-ability in multispecies encounters. Media provides information and narratives that allow reinterpreting wasp “aggression” as a vulnerable multispecies condition. Human-wasp encounters are corporeal and often preferably avoided. Therefore, methods that allow developing intimacy without proximity may be used for reflecting on human-wasp relations. One such method is crocheting decoy wasp nests. Human-wasp encounters could be mitigated by species-specific strategies that assess the risk involved. However, developing such strategies is difficult because wasps are often confused with other black-and-yellow insects.

Filmic transposition of revolt and revolution in Nigeria: success or failure of protest in Arase’s In my Country and Somewhere in Africa

ABSTRACT Protest actions have become popular resorts to decry bad governance and press on socio-political demands in Nigeria. However, the attack and maiming of protesters, the hijack of the protest medium allegedly by hoodlums, and the arrest of protesters by unnamed security agents have introduced doubts as to the potency of the protest medium in effecting desired socio-political change. Understanding the motivations for protest actions through the Grievance theory and Leaning on Marxism, this article analyzes the social stratification and exploitation that triggers protests and the fate of the citizenry in the face of lethal opposition to protests as represented in Arase’s In my Country (2017) and Somewhere in Africa (2011). We submit that the struggle for good governance through protest and revolt requires patriotism, willful spirit, sacrifice, and courage. Optimal regard for the rule of law and the rights of citizens to peaceful assembly and protest is recommended.

Celebrity Ad Campaigns: How Celebrities are leveraged by Indian Corporates

This research paper delves into the role of Indian celebrities in brand endorsements and their ROI to brands. As celebrity endorsements are one of the most preferred marketing tactics of brand managers, it is important to evaluate their effect on the target consumer. Some questions like, does a celebrity face help to drive sales? Or is the brand value of a company directly proportionate to the stature of the celebrity associated with it? Or Does a popular face bring instant publicity for the brand? This research paper gathers insight from young Indians, middle-aged adults and Indian marketing experts to find out brand recognition and popularity basis its celebrity association. The paper also deep dives into the perception of the brand when the associated celebrity is surrounded by scandals and bad press.

Moods: from diffusiveness to dispositionality

ABSTRACT The view that moods are dispositions has recently fallen into disrepute. In this paper, we want to revitalise it by providing a new argument for it and by disarming an important objection against it. A shared assumption of our competitors (intentionalists about moods) is that moods are ‘diffuse’. First, we will provide reasons for thinking that existing intentionalist views do not in fact capture this distinctive feature of moods that distinguishes them from emotions. Second, we offer a dispositionalist alternative that we think does better. Finally, we disarm the objection that is responsible for dispositionalism’s bad press.

The Final Frontier of Sustainable Materials: Current Developments in Self-Healing Elastomers.

It is impossible to describe the recent progress of our society without considering the role of polymers; however, for a broad audience, “polymer” is usually related to environmental pollution. The poor disposal and management of polymeric waste has led to an important environmental crisis, and, within polymers, plastics have attracted bad press despite being easily reprocessable. Nonetheless, there is a group of polymeric materials that is particularly more complex to reprocess, rubbers. These macromolecules are formed by irreversible crosslinked networks that give them their characteristic elastic behavior, but at the same time avoid their reprocessing. Conferring them a self-healing capacity stands out as a decisive approach for overcoming this limitation. By this mean, rubbers would be able to repair or restore their damage automatically, autonomously, or by applying an external stimulus, increasing their lifetime, and making them compatible with the circular economy model. Spain is a reference country in the implementation of this strategy in rubbery materials, achieving successful self-healable elastomers with high healing efficiency and outstanding mechanical performance. This article presents an exhaustive summary of the developments reported in the previous 10 years, which demonstrates that this property is the last frontier in search of truly sustainable materials.

Does bad press help or hinder sustainable supply chain management? An empirical investigation of US-based corporations

This study explores the effect of negative news about an organization on its sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) practices. We focus on how public reports about controversial business practices motivate a company to make adjustments so that environmental and social concerns are better included in its supply chain management practices. Using agenda-setting theory, we identify managerial commitment as an important factor in transmitting external media pressure. We analyse longitudinal data, ranging from 2002 through 2014 and collected for more than 700 US-based corporations. Our findings reveal that companies significantly increase SSCM after being the subject of negative news, particularly when management commitment to environmental sustainability and social welfare is high. Our findings should encourage supply chain decision makers to consider more broadly how external stakeholders view their global supply chain operations. Our research sheds light on negative news as an external factor; previous literature used media attention as anecdotal evidence and focused more on internal company factors. We contribute to research in SSCM by studying the mediation effect. It is essential that supply chain decision makers better apprehend the importance of negative news, management commitment, and SSCM and understand their role in influencing public opinion.

On Literary Plasticity: Readings with Kafka in Ecology, Voice, and Object-Life by Heather H. Yeung

Reviewed by: On Literary Plasticity: Readings with Kafka in Ecology, Voice, and Object-Life by Heather H. Yeung Paul Sutherland Sherban On Literary Plasticity: Readings with Kafka in Ecology, Voice, and Object-Life. By Heather H. Yeung. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 2020. vii+111 pp. $59.99. ISBN 978-3-030-44157-9. 'Plastic has bad press.' So begins Heather H. Yeung's book. In her introductory chapter, she emphasizes plastic's political image by referencing National Geographic articles that portray plastic as the new 'bedrock' of our planet, replacing floating icebergs with drifting plastic bags (p. 1). Despite these opening remarks, On Literary Plasticity is not an anti-plastic treatise. Rather, the book questions humanity's 'addiction to plastic'. It takes Kafka's story Die Sorge des Hausvaters as its focal point and elucidates the titular concept via a close reading. Yeung maintains that critics must consider plastic in its various guises: plastic history, neuroplasticity, linguistic plasticity, and (her own contribution here) literary plasticity (p. 3). Far from a condemnation of plastic, this book dwells with Kafka's Kurzprosa to elucidate the plastic processes of reading and encourage a deeper understanding of 'the hold that plastic exerts on us' (p. 4). In Chapter 2, Yeung highlights the word and figure of 'Odradek' in Kafka's story, its plastic implications, and propounds an ethical imperative from the text. Critics mostly disagree on how to categorize Odradek, thus leading Yeung to conclude that it evades taxonomy (p. 42). However, as the story progresses, Odradek becomes more familiar, moves from neuter to masculine pronouns, and receives a voice. Yeung argues that this development reflects the human disposition to value familiarity and fear alterity (p. 43). The image of Odradek mutates like plastic and, like plastic's many polymers, Odradek contains various synthetic units (p. 48). Yeung thus draws Kafka's ethical injunction from the text, namely that we must not take literary creation for granted, and we must allow a story 'to simultaneously take us over and resist comprehension' (p. 44). In Chapter 3, Yeung considers Roland Barthes's Le Plastique in tandem with Kafka's story because both texts share critical qualities in common with plastic; [End Page 312] they are 'ultimately unnatural' and mobile (pp. 58–59). Yeung illustrates their unnatural aspects by showing that each of the texts evades genre; they elude categorization into short story, aphorism, prose poem, or scientific observation (p. 63). Hedging genre, both present unnatural morphology (p. 60). Additionally, owing to their small size, they share the quality of mobility with plastic; they can easily travel in a pocket or purse, and one might quickly replicate or recite them just as one might recycle plastic (p. 66). On Literary Plasticity offers a particularly valuable contribution to Kafka scholarship in its fourth chapter, wherein Yeung diverges from the most familiar reading of the final paragraph of Die Sorge des Hausvaters. Noting that Slavoj Žižek, Judith Butler, Walter Benjamin, and 'Theodor Adorno all assume the narrator to be the eponymous Hausvater, Yeung focuses instead on the plasticity of points of view (p. 88). 'Thus, she shifts the 'work and literary power' of the text from the figure of the father onto the text's 'formal machinations' (p. 89) and argues that it would be mistaken to assume that the narrative voice of the opening paragraph coincides directly with that of the Hausvater. Instead, Yeung contends that the narrative voice is 'disembodied', and in so doing offers a novel interpretation (p. 89). Although the final chapter presents a satisfying shift from Kafka's early twentieth century to plastic's twenty-first century, I had hoped to find a more explicit illumination of the political implications of Yeung's engaging assertion. If we rely extensively on plastic objects and plastic modes of thought in the Anthropocene age, precisely how might we perceive oceanic plastic anew after Yeung's reading of Kafka? Yeung implies that we ought to embrace literary plasticity and neuroplasticity in our approach to the ecological threat of plastic objects, yet the political claim remains implicit (p. 99). An explicit visualization of how this perception of plastic might transmute the environmental gaze on...

Travelers' Tales: Their Values and Virtues

Travelers' Tales: Their Values and Virtues

Praying with One Eye Open: Mormons and Murder in Nineteenth-Century Appalachian Georgia

Praying with One Eye Open: Mormons and Murder in Nineteenth-Century Appalachian Georgia

MEGXIT IN CONTEMPORARY MEDIA AND INTERNET DISCOURSES

Every language preserves historic realia, reveals peculiarities of the geographical position of a particular country, main traits of the national character, and the overall cultural code of every nation speaking it. The language also describes all new realia and phenomena, and neologisms are coined all the time. «Brexit», «Megxit», «To Meghan Markle» are relatively new words in the English language. Romanticized image of a beautiful and tender princess, happily married to her royal Beau − a handsome, valiant and dashing young man is one of the most popular icons in European folklore. But modern fairy-tales are not that much simple. One omniscient author is definitely not enough, and millions of other on-line commentators contribute to the main line of the story, describing the prince and his princess, and often calling them names. Surprisingly as it may seem, the saying «My home is my castle» becomes not true, and the palace walls often shudder from rumors and insinuations, racial slurs and undertones. Under the circumstances a former friend often becomes a foe, compatriots become the invaders, responsible for a massive intrusion and violation of a basic human right for privacy. The main characters feel unhappy and the fairy tale soon becomes a thing to endure. These are the realia of our modern culture, with its etiquette and netiquette, black PR, on-line trolls and getting bad press. The Sussex family often cites racism as the main cause of all their troubles, but the plethora of various texts can reveal much more than just racism and related inequities. Personal qualities of the Duchess, her American origin and professionalbackground contribute to a massive cultural clash, and the new word «Megxit» appears, adding new shades of meaning to the «happily ever after» from the fairy tales. The article centers on the issues causing Megxit, and the texts give newinsight to a famous and well-known story.

Good eggs

Good eggs

Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in the American Midwest

Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in the American Midwest

The image of the foreign squatter: British and Irish youths in the Dutch city of Leiden during the 1990s

AbstractBased on a systematic analysis of local mainstream and activist media, this article reconstructs conflicts over the framing of British and Irish squatters in Leiden during the 1990s. During this decade, several hundreds of English-speaking youths travelled to Leiden and surrounding villages to work as seasonal labourers. Often lacking access to regular housing, many of them resorted to squatting houses and as a result got involved in local urban development conflicts. While proprietors, neighbours, aldermen and the police all tried to gain support via the media, squatters also contacted media outlets to counter bad press. This article reconstructs the ensuing struggle over the image of the foreign squatter in Leiden's local media during the 1990s, and analyses the dynamics between the various groups that attempted to influence the squatters’ framing.

Palm oil substitution in hazelnut spread

AbstractOne of the most important components in spreads is the fat phase. The characteristics of the used fat determine most of the quality factors of the products such as viscosity, texture, colour, shelf life, etc. In these kinds of products, the commonly used fat is palm fat, however, in recent years it has had a bad press due to its negative environmental impact and health concerns. Therefore, the aim of our research was to develop a palm oil free hazelnut spread. We investigated the effect of replacing the fat in the fat phase with milk fat or coconut fat to the apparent viscosity, colour and texture properties of the product. According to our results the palm fat had the highest and coconut fat had the lowest viscosity. In texture analyses palm fat and milk fat showed no significant difference in hardness and in work of penetration. Coconut fat was significantly different in every texture attributes from the other samples. In the case of colour measurement all samples were significantly different. Despite the observed differences in some parameters the suitability of milk fat for hazelnut spread production should be further investigated (sensory analyses, shelf-life).