Controversial Events Research Articles

(De)constructing a Dar-ul-Uloom Aalim’s Identity in Contemporary Britain: Overcoming Barriers of Access

The controversial events of 2001 (9/11) and 2005 (7/7) have led Britain’s media and policy makers to view the proliferation of orthodox Islamic seminaries, Dar-ul-Ulooms (DUs), and their graduates (Ulamaa) with suspicion, further exacerbating the marginalisation of an already marginalised Muslim minority within mainstream British society. Due to ethnic, sociocultural, and religious differences, the identity of Ulamaa in modern-day Britain has become increasingly complex and supposedly contradictory due to the perceived differences between orthodox Islamic values proselytised in DUs and ‘liberal’ British values. Using an interpretive phenomenological analysis, this paper reports on data collected in 2020 through three in-depth interviews with an Aalim who graduated from a DU in England after 2005. It explores how he constructs and negotiates his religious and national identities. The interviews were undertaken by one of the authors, himself an Aalim, and the paper also provides reflection on the barriers of access to this under-researched group. Data suggest that although DU identity might not contradict British identity, and Islam is not seen as incompatible with British values, the perceived contradictions between DU orthodoxy and British values appear to be conflated with cultural resistances emanating from Britain’s colonial legacy in India; the birthplace of DUs. Thus, analysis of the data reveals, through an Aalim’s personal voice, issues of identity involving culture, religion, and community.

A war waiting to happen: How Menachem Begin and his administrations paved the way to the 1982 Lebanon war

The 1982 Lebanon War is one of the most controversial events in Israeli history. The prevailing narrative of this war states that it was a war of deception, a war in which Defense Minister Ariel Sharon deceived Prime Minister Menachem Begin and the entire Israeli government. However, this narrative does an injustice to Menachem Begin. In this narrative, Begin is perceived as a victim, as one who was deceived by his defense minister. Begin had a much more significant role. This article claims that in terms of Menachem Begin’s policy toward Lebanon, the Lebanon War was an event waiting to happen. The main argument is that from the moment Menachem Begin came to power in 1977, a countdown to a comprehensive action in Lebanon was started. The decisions and actions taken by Begin and his governments in the years preceding 1982, paved the way to the Lebanon War.

Facts of Vertigo in Adolescents: Controversies and Challenges - A Narrative Review.

Vertigo is a common complaint in the general population affecting 5% of adults in one year. At least 29.5% of adults have referred vertigo during life. Even though the prevalence of vertigo is well known in adults the epidemiologic data in adolescents is sparse. To date, it is known that adolescent females are usually affected by vertigo and some conditions such as depression and anxiety are found in this population. However, the lack of information about the prevalence of most common types of vertigo in adolescents, predisposing factors, challenges, and controversies in clinics in the literature, present a challenge for clinicians regarding the approach and follow-up of this population. Herein, we performed a literature review including data about the prevalence, most common types of vertigo and controversial events in the approach of vertigo in adolescents over the last two decades.

Plan for political, controversial events on your campus

There's no time like the present to prepare for political candidates and controversial speakers — and in some cases, individuals who may be considered both! — to visit your campus this fall semester.

A Quantitative and Content-Based Approach for Evaluating the Impact of Counter Narratives on Affective Polarization in Online Discussions

The increasingly widespread usage of the Internet and social networks has changed the way people interact with each other and react to events. These interactions enable positive collective outcomes such as enhancing collaboration in science. Conversely, undesirable effects have emerged: the self-segregation of online users within “bubbles” of biased content, the spread of misinformation, and the growing diffusion of aggressive speech with radical emotional valence. Affective polarization is the extent to which two opposing groups dislike one another, and it could be measured as the degree to which the two groups are willing to discriminate one against the other. Such social mechanism could occur in online social networks as a result of a controversial event in the offline world. To counter affective polarization, influential actors often make interventions using counter narratives in online social networks. However, a quantitative measure of the effectiveness of such counter narratives is typically not provided. In this study, we propose an approach to evaluate the affective polarization in online discussions generated by an offline controversial event and a measure of the effectiveness of counter narratives made by influential actors to attenuate the rise of affective polarization. The proposed approach was applied to five cases of controversial events that occurred in European soccer leagues using data collected from Twitter. Such an approach could be generalized to any other scenario involving an offline event that sparks divergent emotional reactions in online discussions and an official social media account that intervenes with a counter narrative to impact affective polarization.

Before and After the Fall of Communism: The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and Soviet Foreign Policy in 1939–1940 in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russian Textbooks

ABSTRACT The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact is a controversial event in the history of the Second World War. Some scholars regard the Pact as essential to the security of the Soviet Union; others consider it a reason to equate the Soviet Union with Nazi Germany as the main initiator of the Second World War. Comparison of the historical representations of the Soviet territorial expansion in 1939–1940 in Soviet and post-Soviet Russian textbooks can uncover the conceptual transformations in historical consciousness since the fall of Communism, and reveal: does the current evaluation of the Pact in Russia and Eastern European states vary?

Images of Transgressions: Visuals as Reconstructed Evidence in Digital Investigative Journalism

ABSTRACT The epistemic authority of journalism has undergone significant theorization and empirical investigations in past years. This article contributes to this growing body of scholarship by analyzing how collected images and videos are used as evidence in 14 visual video investigations by The New York Times. A visual discourse analysis following the Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse (SKAD) is conducted to map out how an investigative way of seeing is established by coexisting discursive practices, including narrativization, coding schemes, highlighting techniques, and juxtaposition of video footage in split-screen mode. The article argues that these discursive practices serve as markers of authority which together facilitate a demonstration that recontextualizes collected visuals into evidence, reanimating them as external objects of knowledge that can be interrogated in epistemic struggles concerning the definition of controversial events.

Morality, punishment, and revealing other people's secrets.

Nine studies represent the first investigation into when and why people reveal other people's secrets. Although people keep their own immoral secrets to avoid being punished, we propose that people will be motivated to reveal others' secrets to punish them for immoral acts. Experimental and correlational methods converge on the finding that people are more likely to reveal secrets that violate their own moral values. Participants were more willing to reveal immoral secrets as a form of punishment, and this was explained by feelings of moral outrage. Using hypothetical scenarios (Studies 1, 3-6), two controversial events in the news (hackers leaking citizens' private information; Study 2a-2b), and participants' behavioral choices to keep or reveal thousands of diverse secrets that they learned in their everyday lives (Studies 7-8), we present the first glimpse into when, how often, and one explanation for why people reveal others' secrets. We found that theories of self-disclosure do not generalize to others' secrets: Across diverse methodologies, including real decisions to reveal others' secrets in everyday life, people reveal others' secrets as punishment in response to moral outrage elicited from others' secrets. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Effects of Russia-Ukraine war

The Ukraine crisis can be understood as one of the most controversial events in the today’s global political debate. The ongoing conflict has come to affect and influence Europe’s as well as the rest of the world’s foreign- and security policies. From a historical perspective Ukraine has been torn between East and West ever since the country became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991. The International Monetary Fund warned Russia’s war with Ukraine and the subsequent sanctions imposed upon President Vladimir Putin’s country will have a “severe impact” on the global economy. Having built up a large military presence on the border from late 2021, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, which is ongoing. Price shocks will have an impact worldwide, especially on poor households for whom food and fuel are a higher proportion of expenses. Russia’s ultra- rich who rank among the world’s 500 wealthiest people have now lost a combined $83 billion this year. The war resulted economic loss which has a huge impact on the global economy. Key Words: Russia, Ukraine, gold, stock market, war

Are Nociplastic Pain and Neuropathic Pain Different Pains?

The International Association for the Study of Pain has classified pain into nociceptive pain, neuropathic pain, and nociplastic pain based on the cause of the pain. At present, nociplastic pain is pain that is not nociceptive pain and has the following characteristics: no clear evidence of actual or threatened tissue damage causing the activation of peripheral nociceptors or evidence for disease or lesion of the somatosensory system causing the pain. If there is tissue damage, disease or lesion, it is neuropathic pain; if there is none, it is nociplastic pain. In other words, the difference in diagnosis is whether or not tissue damage, disease, or lesion can be found at the current medical level (testing equipment). The treatment of nociplastic pain is almost the same as the treatment of neuropathic pain. Fibromyalgia is included in nociplastic pain. To my knowledge, of the nociplastic pain and neuropathic pain, fibromyalgia is the disease with the highest number of pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments with evidence of efficacy. Effective treatments for fibromyalgia are often given to neuropathic pain. This expands treatment options. I presume that tissue damage, disease or lesion will be found in fibromyalgia through advances in the medical science by the time humans emigrate to Mars. The distinction between nociplastic pain and neuropathic pain complicates the diagnosis of chronic pain. However, the distinction does not improve the treatment outcomes. Medical science is the discipline to find a treatment method that can produce better outcomes. In the event of a medical controversy, the medical theory with better treatment outcomes should be adopted. It is desirable to combine nociplastic pain and neuropathic pain into one pain. This will simplify diagnosis and increase treatment options (improve treatment outcomes) in nociplastic pain and neuropathic pain.

T. S. Fedotov and the Problems of Utilization of Heart-Lung Machine in the USSR (1940s – 1950s)

This article reviews the biography of T. S. Fedotov, a Voronezh associate of a prominent physiologist S. S. Bryukhonenko. Studies on the application of autojector, the first heart-lung machine in the world created by Bryukhonenko, were carried out at the Voronezh Medical Institute jointly with the Institute of Experimental Physiology and Therapy of the Peopleʼs Commissariat for Health since mid-1930s. It was under Bryukhonenko’s supervision that Fedotov prepared his dissertation (1941) on the restoration of higher nervous activity in dogs, revived after exsanguination and clinical death. After the war, in Voronezh, Fedotov continued with his own experimental studies of the use of the autojector on laboratory animals. At the same time, he encountered the medical community’s disapproval of the idea of using the heart-lung machine (cardiopulmonary bypass) and was scientifically marginalized. Nevertheless Fedotov did not abandon his experiments with Bryukhonenko’s device and even modernized it. Using the case of Fedotov’s life and work as an example, the paper attempts to show the complicated and controversial events in Soviet science in the first decades after the Great Patriotic War. The inflated expectations for using the heart-lung machine in the pre-war 1930s and the hopes for, in the near future, being able to revive humans after the war gave way to rejection of the device as harmful and useless for practical application.

The new historical politics and criticism of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi in contemporary Indian press

To successfully modernize the country and mobilize Indian society and to eventually implement ambitious plans for economic development, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) sets itself the task of achieving national unity. The BJP in the face of its leader Narendra Modi is forced to conduct constant polemics with their main political opponent - the Indian National Congress. Having come to power in 2014, the BJP representatives use a number of management methods aimed at changing the historical memory of the peoples of India, which can be characterized as "historical politics". The authorities are trying to back up their actions to mobilize Indian society with a new historical rationale, using Hindutwa as a "new ideology". A new official version of the past is being formed, history and historical mythology are actively used to solve political problems of the present. The historical memory of society undergoes transformation and becomes an arena for the struggle against a political enemy. In the Indian press, every memorable date, every historical event becomes the basis for broad discussion and polemics with its historical predecessors and political competitors. After coming to power, Bharatiya Janata Party constantly refers to recent historical events, considering them from a certain ideological angle. This controversy, which has spilled over into the pages of the Indian press, allows us to talk about the BJP pursuing a new historical policy aimed at creating comfortable interpretations of controversial historical events for itself.

MH370 and MH17 airplane catastrophes


 Reporting verbs are important in news articles on controversial events or issues because of the need to present one’s position on the topic or at least indicate the attitudes of the sources cited in the articles. The The study investigated the usage of reporting verbs in MH370 and MH17 airplane catastrophe in Malaysian English online newspapers. The aspects analysed were the reporting verbs for speaker stance and writer stance. A total of 80 news articles on MH370 and MH17 airplane catastrophes taken from two online English-language Malaysian newspapers, New Straits Time and The Star, were analysed using Thomson and Ye’s (1991) framework on reporting verbs. The analysis identified 931 instances of RVs: 764 instances for speaker stance, and 167 instances for writer stance. On the speaker stance, about 90% of the articles on MH370 and MH17 were reported positively, and the various sources of information were stated clearly. Negative and neutral speaker stances were infrequent. As for writer stance, the overall results showed a balanced use of counter-factive and non-factive reporting of the writer stance (42.51% and 47.90% out of 167 instances). The two newspapers were similar in their use of verbs for reporting the writer stance in MH370 articles in that over half of the writer stances were non-factive, and about 25% were counter-factive. In their coverage on the MH17 catastrophe, The Star maintained the same pattern of balance between non-factive and counter-factive writer stances but New Straits Time leaned towards a counter-factive writer stance, suggesting more critical reporting. The study showed that the articles on airplane catastrophes leaned towards safe reporting focussed on the available details of the incident.

Truth, Justice, and Sexual Violence: A Comparative Analysis of Op-Eds Surrounding the Hill-Thomas and Ford-Kavanaugh Hearings

ABSTRACT Using discourse analysis to examine newspaper Op-Eds during the Hill-Thomas and Ford-Kavanaugh hearings, this study explores how media can function as an arbiter of public opinion during controversial events. This analysis highlights the importance of Op-Eds in defining whose voices matter in shaping national mediated discourses, examining the role media play in critical public debates surrounding issues of gender, race, power, and sexual violence. Against a backdrop of increasing numbers of women in the Senate chambers, the growing numbers of women and people of color across American newsrooms, and the impact of the #MeToo movement in the national conversation about sexual violence, this study examines changes in opinion authorship and media discourses surrounding these two hearings set 27 years apart. Findings show a shift in Op-Ed contributors, from mostly men in 1991 to predominantly women in 2018. Support for women and sexual assault accusers was largely absent in Op-Eds from 1991, replaced by vague debates about fairness and justice; while in 2018, Op-Ed authors offered tangible support for accusers. This study considers both the promise and limitations of these shifting media discourses to address structural and institutional power relations.

To Follow or Not to Follow: Analyzing the Growth Patterns of the Trumpists on Twitter

In this paper, we analyze the growth patterns of Donald Trump's followers (Trumpists, henceforth) on Twitter. We first construct a random walk model with a time trend to study the growth trend and the effects of public debates. We then analyze the relationship between Trump's activity on Twitter and the growth of his followers. Thirdly, we analyze the effects of such controversial events as calling for Muslim ban and his ‘schlonged' remark.

Analysis of the Biased Language Based on Two Selected Editorial Reports in Light of the Appraisal Theory

The current research scrutinizes controversial topics that have not been widely discussed before. It is concerned with controversial issues in the Middle East and the West and how these events are related to famous politicians as represented in the western media. Through reviewing different editorial articles about the Middle East and the West, the researcher noticed that the editors handled the controversial events related to famous politicians in a different way. They handle the issues according to their ideologies and cultures. That was obviously noticed when the researcher reviewed various articles in different newspapers related to two politicians: the Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and the former President of the United States of America George Walker Bush. Thus, the aim of the research is to explore the biased language from the linguistic point of view and offers systematic categorization of particular types of evaluation. As for the method of analysis, this research adopts the Appraisal Theory focusing on the attitude resource with its three sub-systems. The deduction of the research is that news is a representation of editor’s ideologies and it portrays their political, personal and national inclination in spite of their claim to be unbiased and neutral in their approach.

Building Skills for Life Through Controversial Events

Building Skills for Life Through Controversial Events

“Lord Save Us from Champions like This”: The Sonny Liston-Muhammad Ali Heavyweight Championship Bouts as Transnational Sporting Culture in 1960s Finland

The two championship bouts between Sonny Liston and Muhammad Ali in 1964 and 1965 are among some of the most controversial events in the history of boxing. While their significance has been interpreted in the United States against the backdrop of the Civil Rights era, this article opens up a pathway for discussing transnational meanings and functions that African American heavyweight champions assumed in faraway lands, such as Finland. Contextualized within a Transnational American Studies research paradigm, the article considers the multiple ways in which Finnish media reporting made sense of and imposed significance on transnational sporting culture in the 1960s. The article argues that prizefighting served as a lens through which reporters negotiated Euro-American relations, national identity, and the global spread of professional sports at the expense of amateurism. In addition to providing a site for negotiating ethnic and racial differentiation, the primary sources analyzed show the ways in which prizefighting offered a locus for constructing performative, class-based sporting whiteness.

(Des)igualdad de género y fútbol. ¿Qué fue del Comité de RSC de la RFEF en el caso de la Supercopa en Arabia Saudí de 2020?

Este artículo analiza el recorrido que tuvo el denominado Comité de Responsabilidad Social Corporativa de la Real Federación Española de Fútbol (RFEF). Se trata de un órgano consultivo constituido en 2019 y disuelto a mediados de 2020. Nos interesa conocer las acciones que llevó a cabo en ese periodo. Para ello, se interpretan los testimonios de entrevistas realizadas a algunos de los miembros externos que formaron parte del comité. Nos centramos en aquellas actuaciones en materia de igualdad de género y con esta intención se propone como caso paradigmático la celebración de la Super Copa de España en Arabia Saudí. Se trata de un acontecimiento controvertido, sobre el que el Comité planteó recomendaciones concretas.

Guerrilla patriotism and mnemonic wars: cursed soldiers as role models for football fans in Poland

Most national symbols – the flag, the coat of arms, the anthem, the pantheon of historical figures – belong to the common symbolic space. However, there are also those which divide the society: controversial figures or historical events which are difficult to assess and vulnerable to contradictory interpretations. In Poland, one case in point are the Cursed Soldiers. This paper discusses a specific mode of patriotism of football fans influenced by the figures of Cursed Soldiers. The first part provides a theoretical frame for further arguments. The second draws the relation between Polish football fans and nationalism. The third introduces the figure of Cursed Soldiers: their history, political context and social perceptions. The fourth part analyses fans’ guerrilla patriotism. It revolves around performative content produced within football fandom, mainly by ultras groups. The article concludes with a discussion of specifics and universals of the proposed model of guerrilla patriotism.