Dominant Themes Research Articles

The Morbid Realities of Social Media: An Investigation into the Narratives Shared by the Deceased Victims of COVID-19

Social media platforms have had considerable impact on the real world especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. Problematic narratives related to Covid-19 might have caused significant impact on the population specifically due to its association with dangerous beliefs such as anti-vaccination and Covid denial. In this work, we study a unique dataset of Facebook posts by users who shared and believed in such narratives before succumbing to Covid-19 often resulting in death. We aim to characterize the dominant themes and sources present in the victim's posts along with identifying the role of the platform in handling deadly narratives. Our analysis reveals the overwhelming politicization of Covid-19 through the prevalence of anti-government themes propagated by right-wing political and media ecosystem. Furthermore, we highlight the efforts of Facebook's implementation of soft moderation actions intended to warn users of misinformation. Results from this study bring insights into the responsibility of political elites in shaping public discourse and the platform's role in dampening the reach of harmful narratives.

"I'd rather see action": Application and recruitment experiences of underrepresented in emergency medicine trainees.

The emergency medicine (EM) physician workforce is largely composed of white men. Despite recruitment efforts over the past decade, there has not been a significant increase of trainees with underrepresented racial and ethnic identities in EM (URM). Prior studies have focused on institutional strategies to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in EM residency recruitment but have been limited in describing URM trainees' perspectives. We sought to assess URM trainees' perspectives on DEI in the EM residency application and selection process. This study was conducted at an urban academic medical center in the United States from November 2021 to March 2022. Junior residents were invited to participate in individual semistructured interviews. We used a combined deductive-inductive approach to categorize responses in predetermined areas of interest then elicit dominant themes within each category through consensus discussions. Thematic saturation was reached after eight interviews, indicating adequate sample size. Ten residents participated in semistructured interviews. All identified as racial or ethnic minorities. Three dominant themes emerged relating to authenticity, representation, and being treated as a learner first. Participants assessed the authenticity of a program's DEI efforts by evaluating the time frame and scope of DEI efforts. Participants reported a desire for representation of other URM colleagues in a residency program and training environment. While participants wanted their lived experience as URM trainees acknowledged, they were wary of being viewed solely through the lens of future DEI leaders rather than as learners first. URM residents value multifaceted commitment to DEI efforts, representation, and being seen as learners first when assessing residency programs. Programs seeking to recruit URM residents should develop a department-wide, multipronged, comprehensive DEI plan and showcase how their program will contribute to an applicant's professional development.

This is Africa: How young African TikTok trends challenged Afropessimism during COVID-19

Afropessimism, or the western media tradition of covering Africa in stereotypically negative ways, has continually served to strip the continent of representational nuance and agency. While Africa experienced its own COVID-19 challenges during the pandemic, the Afropessimistic outlook of total collapse and carnage did not become a reality. In fact, with the popular uptake of TikTok as the pandemic wore on, Africans began social media trends that kept many globally entertained as they navigated new lockdown realities. This study looks at three of these TikTok trends, namely #JerusalemaChallenge, #DontRushChallenge and #DontLeaveMeChallenge. Through textual analysis, the study explores if and how these trends provided counternarratives to Afropessimism. With dominant themes such as humour and dance emerging, findings suggest that these trends offered content that can be read as contributing to challenging Afropessimism through cultivating African digital agency and representation.

Discovering latent topics and trends in autonomous vehicle-related research: A structural topic modelling approach

Autonomous Vehicle (AV) technology is a disruptive transportation technology that promises to revolutionize how people travel. Due to their potential mobility benefits and associated impacts on public health and the environment, they have received massive attention from transportation experts. To date, there have been numerous academic research conducted regarding AVs, and many attempts have been made to summarize these research documents by manually reviewing them. Nevertheless, due to the vast nature of the existing literature, it is challenging to synthesize the themes in AV-related research and to explore their trends to inform future research direction. This study aims to utilize an advanced natural language processing technique to provide a comprehensive overview of the recent developments in AV-related research. The abstracts of 3292 articles published in transportation-based journals from January 2016 to October 2022 were collected and used for this study. A Structural Topic Model (STM) was employed to explore the dominant research themes hidden in the extant literature on AV research, examine their evolution over time, and determine the topics highly associated with developing and developed economies. Overall, the study highlighted that the least common themes in the literature are in the areas of the development of complex vehicle designs, safety, environmental benefits, and the impact of AVs on transportation infrastructure. Nevertheless, themes concerning AV safety and the environment are emerging as hot topics since late 2021. Topics related to investigating user perceptions, policies/approaches to increase user demand, and AV control/stability are highly studied. Besides, they predominantly originated from developed countries. The research themes, their associated trends, and the key policy suggestions drawn from the study are potentially useful for making well-informed research funding decisions, setting research priorities for countries, and guiding the future research endeavours of researchers.

Postmodern intertextuality: Teachers' perceptions about the challenges and implications for EFL learners in literary texts analysis

The purpose of this study was to understand postmodern Intertextual perceptions of college-level teachers, the contribution of Intertextuality in comprehending a literary piece of work, and certain challenges facing Saudi EFL learners in meaning construction during the reading process examined in this research. The subjects were five professional teachers from two different colleges who were interviewed in a certain time framework. The researcher analyzed the teachers’ personal experiences, explanations about postmodern reading intertextuality, and its intricacies in learners’ comprehension emerged as dominant themes. The findings show that during teachers’ semi-structured interviews, their meanings, and contents indicated that cultural background, lack of intertextual awareness, stereotype approach, and lack of postmodern literary knowledge can provide impediments in textual analysis and interpretation. Further research is needed to explore more avenues in postmodern intertextual areas and to look into viewing intertextuality from deeper perspectives.
 Keywords: Canterbury tales; English teachers; intertextuality; pastiche; postmodernism

Campus Planning and Design across Southeast Asia: A Scoping Literature Review from 2002-2022

As Southeast Asia continues to experience rapid urbanization, ensuring sustainable development in higher education campuses is becoming increasingly crucial. This paper presents a systematic literature review of 52 relevant research articles from 2002-2022. By analyzing the existing literature, this study aims to explore key themes in campus and planning design across Southeast Asia while incorporating Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as contextualizing background. Findings suggest sustainable and inclusive campus as dominant themes which significant to promote student well-being and academic success while enhancing environmental responsibility in Southeast Asia’s campus.

Lay representations of artificial intelligence and autonomous military machines.

This study is about how lay persons perceive and represent artificial intelligence in general as well as its use in weaponised autonomous ground vehicles in the military context. We analysed the discourse of six focus groups in Estonia, using an automatic text analysis tool and complemented the results by a qualitative thematic content analysis. The findings show that representations of artificial intelligence-driven machines are anchored in the image of man. A cluster analysis revealed five dominant themes: artificial intelligence as programmed machines, artificial intelligence and the problem of control, artificial intelligence and its relation to human life, artificial intelligence used in wars and ethical problems in developing autonomous weaponised machines. The findings are discussed with regard to people's tendency to anthropomorphise robots despite their lack of emotions, which can be seen as a last resort when confronting an autonomous machine where the usual interpersonal understanding of intentions does not apply.

Evaluation of Collaborative Tourism Management during a Pandemic

This study aims to evaluate collaboration-based tourism management during a pandemic. The design used in this study is descriptive qualitative with a literature study approach. The survey results show that collaboration in tourism management in Indonesia during the pandemic refers to three dominant research themes: accelerated recovery based on cooperation between institutions, a partnership between the government and tourism actors, and collaboration in developing tourism villages. However, further study must explore the concern for capacity building and organizational learning in rural communities. So the results of this study require further research that reviews more capacity building and organizational learning to increase village community collaboration in the tourism sector.

COVID-19 and Protracted Displacement: a Scoping Review of Migration Policies in Mexico and Central America

By the end of 2020, more than 500,000 migrants from Central America, Haiti, Africa, and Asia sought asylum along the US-Mexico border despite COVID-19-related travel restrictions and public health measures. A scoping review was conducted to understand the role of COVID-19-related policies on irregular migration flows through Central America and Mexico and to examine the experiences of asylum seekers traversing this region. Peer-reviewed literature, policy briefs, and commentaries were screened for inclusion, resulting in 33 documents selected for this review. This review identified three dominant themes: border closures due to multiple national migration policies, delays in asylum procedures, and increased risks to migrant wellbeing. This article argues that border closures were a punitive policy measure to deter irregular migration during the COVID-19 pandemic. Implications for future research and policy include prioritizing the health needs of asylum seekers and advocating the appropriateness and effectiveness of immigration and public health policy.

Students’ Creative Writings Mirroring the Social Reality

This article analyses a total of forty-six students’ writings from Grade 11 to master’s level published in one of the college’s annual magazines. Among them 24 are females and 22 are males. This research uses a qualitative content analysis method to analyze the students’ writings under various topics and genres to unearth their concerns. Although there are multiple studies on students’ creative writings focusing on the technical and gender aspects, only a few studies focus on the issues reflected in their contents. This research believes that students’ creative writings are significant as they give information about the issues, interests, and concerns from students’ perspectives. The students’ writings also reflect their concerns and awareness of students regarding various social issues in their writings. The findings from this study revealed that students are concerned about multiple social and political issues in Nepal such as poverty, political corruption, cultural issues, gender discrimination, caste discrimination, and women issues. Moreover, life is a dominant theme in both male and female writings and they are concerned about their life, future goals, and responsibility toward their parents. Some shared themes are the challenges of staying away from parents for study purposes, caste discrimination, gender discrimination, poverty, child labor, and women-related issues. Females have written personalized writings with varieties of issues and dark themes than males and the themes in their writings suggest their struggle in a patriarchal society, social restrictions, gender discrimination, and women violence against males’ writings on general themes such as loss of human values, loss of culture, and struggle of orphaned children.

Female patient violence experienced by female qualified nurses working in an inpatient psychiatric department.

Whilst there is an increasing prevalence of healthcare staff facing aggression, psychiatric nurses are thought to be most at risk; with such events being a hazard to their physical, emotional and psychological health. This study explored how patient violence is experienced by qualified nurses employed in an in-patient psychiatric facility in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). As male and female patients and nurses are segregated in Saudi healthcare settings, this study focused on female patient violence against female psychiatric nurses. Both the immediate and more long-term impacts were explored, together with approaches that could potentially facilitate avoiding, reducing and managing aggression within the work setting. The study adopted a qualitative descriptive design and used purposive sampling to recruit nine psychiatric nurses working in an in-patient setting, from a single KSA medical facility. Inclusion criteria required participants to be licensed, registered nurses, who, during the last 10 years, had worked in an acute in-patient psychiatric ward for adult females, and to have experienced some form of patient aggression. Semi-structured, one-to-one interviews were used to gather data, which was then subjected to thematic analysis. Two dominant themes were identified: (i) occurrence of violence and (ii) determination of violence. It was concluded that female psychiatric nurses were adversely affected by aggression towards them from female patients. Although the nurses considered this behaviour to be part of their nursing role, they reported minimal support from institutional managers, peers and their relatives.

Examining the convergence of dominant themes related to social entrepreneurship, NGOs and globalization-A systematic literature review.

Social entrepreneurship (SE) is an all-encompassing concept in comparison to a typical non-government organization (NGO). It is a topic that has captured the interest of academics investigating nonprofit, charitable, and nongovernmental organizations. Despite the interest, few studies have examined the overlap and convergence of entrepreneurship and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), in congruence with the new phase of globalization. The study gathered and evaluated 73 peer-reviewed papers using a systematic literature review methodology, mainly from Web of Science but also from Scopus, JSTOR, and Science Direct, and supplemented by a search of existing databases and bibliographies. Based on the findings, 71 percent of studies suggest that organizations must reconsider the concept of social work, which has evolved rapidly, aided by globalization. The concept has changed from the NGO model to a more sustainable one, such as that proposed by SE. However, it is difficult to draw broad generalizations regarding the convergence of context-dependent complex variables such as SE, NGOs, and globalization. The results of the study will significantly contribute to a better understanding of the convergence of SE and NGOs, as well as the recognition that many aspects of NGOs, SE, and post-COVID globalization remain unexamined.

Patterns and drivers of soil surface-dwelling Oribatida diversity along an altitudinal gradient on the Changbai Mountain, China.

Distribution patterns of biodiversity and environmental interactions are dominant themes in ecology. In montane ecosystems, biodiversity is closely associated with altitudinal gradients. However, studies of biodiversity in montane ecosystems are focused on plants and vertebrates, with relatively less on invertebrates. Here, the present study used a Vortis arthropod suction sampler to explore the biodiversity patterns of soil surface-dwelling Oribatida and their drivers along an altitudinal gradient (600, 800, 1600, 2000, and 2300 m) from typical temperate forests, evergreen coniferous forests, subalpine birch forests to alpine tundra on the north slope of Changbai Mountain, Northeast China. Trichoribates berlesei, Platynothrus peltifer, and Oribatula tibialis were the dominant soil surface-dwelling species on Changbai Mountain. Generally, alpha diversity and beta diversity of soil surface-dwelling Oribatida decreased with the rising altitude, with a peaking density value at 2000 m. The result of beta diversity showed that the structures of community were more influenced by the species turnover component than the nestedness component. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) ordination showed that the community structure of soil surface-dwelling Oribatida varied significantly along the altitudinal gradient. The variance partitioning showed that the elevation and climatic conditions determined the soil surface-dwelling Oribatida community. Spatial filtering represented by geographic and elevation distances was particularly associated with soil surface-dwelling Oribatida community variation between altitudes on Changbai Mountain. However, the variation of the Oribatida community between adjacent altitudes was only associated with geographic distance. Our study provides supportive evidence for the biodiversity analyzing of soil surface-dwelling Oribatida in montane ecosystems along an altitudinal gradient.

Mapping Neo-Modern and Postmodern Qur’ānic Reformist Discourse in the Intellectual Legacy of Fazlur Rahman and Mohammed Arkoun

Renewal and Reform have been the most discussed and dominant themes of Muslim intelligentsia, as they lived through the subjection of the greater part of the Muslim world by the Western colonial powers during the 18th and 19th centuries. The intellectual discourse on reform by the early Muslim reformers pivoted to the adoption of Western science and values and to the struggle of developing a new ilm al kalām (theology) complementary to modern science and western ideologies. The subsequent reformers, however, were more critical of Western ideas of civilization. Fazlur Rahman and Mohammed Arkoun belonged to the later wave of Muslim reformist movement of the 20th century and are the most well-known trail blazers of this reformist discourse, which centered on the Qur’ān. This article provides insight into the reform strategies of Dr. Fazlur Rahman and Mohammed Arkoun by mapping out key concepts in their discourses and their influence on later generations of reformers. Fazlur Rahman identified the stagnant intellectual legacy as the sole cause of the downfall of Muslim Civilization, caused by the absence of Ijtihād (independent legal reasoning). In his opinion, blind imitation based on precedence and consensus has only created a new hierarchy of traditional ulama (religious scholar) whose retrogressive mindset monopolized the interpretation of the Qur’ān. Making the Qur’ān as the center point for reform, he advocated its rereading based on the comprehension of the élan (spirit) of the Qur’ān. Similarly, Mohammed Arkoun, being trained in postmodern literary theory, adopted post structural methods for re-reading the Qur’ānic text. Arkoun’s critique and approach is interwoven with complex terminologies. He advocated desacralizing the text and the radical rethinking of Islam as a cultural and religious system. This appraisal promotes a philosophical perspective in combination with an anthropological and historical approach. Both these reformers have their own set of advocates and detractors. Undeniably, however, as this paper argues, Arkoun’s approach of understanding the Qur’ān can disturb the conventional prevalent belief system.

Present and the future in drawings by refugee children from Syria living in Lebanon

The aim of this article is to present the present life and future (dreams) of Syrian refugee children living with their families in informal/illegal places of residence in Lebanon. Research among refugees was conducted in the city of Zahle in 2017. The first part of the article characterizes the projection method used to analyze the drawings. The second part of the article presents the methodology of my own research in the Syrian community in the refugee camps. The third part analyzes the drawings of life in Lebanon and the drawings depicting the dreams and future of children and young people. The last part is a summary of my own research. On their basis it can be seen that most of the childrens drawings about life in Lebanon are poor in content. The dominant theme is the family home: barracks or tents. The buildings are disproportionately large compared to the figures, some dont have the windows or they are very small under the roof, some dont have the doors. Many buildings and tents dont have basis. The figures are usually small, without certain body parts. From the analysis of the drawings as well as from the children's comments, we can learn about the many negative emotions experienced by young refugees. These include sadness, depression, anxiety, fear, frustration, hostility, shyness, and insecurity. It is also a lack of self-esteem and a lack of self-confidence. When it comes to works about the future, most of them are rich in content compared to works about life in Lebanon. The family home is also the dominant theme. The studies show no perspectives for the future of the surveyed children.

Aotearoa New Zealand emergency ambulance services and the provision of end-of-life care: a short survey.

To characterise emergency ambulance service (EAS) clinical roles and experiences (including cultural competency and pastoral care) in the delivery of end-of-life (EOL) and palliative care in Aotearoa New Zealand. A nine question online survey was distributed to St John and Wellington Free Ambulance clinicians. Four questions enabled voluntary free-text comments to be submitted for thematic analysis. A further opportunity for free-text comments was available at the end of the survey. There were 444 participants, which is 14% of the paid ambulance workforce. 63% reported that they frequently transported EOL care patients to hospital when they could be better managed at home. EAS clinicians depend heavily on informal collegial support for pastoral care as formal debriefs are rarely offered. There were 671 free-text comments. Dominant themes included the importance of seniority, the need for further education, the importance of documented care plans and the need for better integration with community services, including hospice. More can and should be done to ensure EAS clinicians are supported to deliver quality EOL care for patients alongside other community providers.

Theresa’s tears: gendering mediations of populist leadership failures in Brexit Britain

ABSTRACT When former British Prime Minister Theresa May resigned in May 2019, in the first few days much mainstream and social media coverage focused on the tears she cried. Newspapers highlighted her tears as an extraordinary act for a politician. Her unexpected display of emotions was met with sympathy, sometimes even considered a feminist political moment, and often contextualised the framing of May’s political legacy. Analysing UK mainstream tabloid and broadsheet coverage following May’s resignation, this paper explores the media reactions in more detail. A dominant theme in the assessment of May’s legacy was her perceived inability to “get Brexit done.” Any deployment of feminist celebrations of public female tears was quickly overtaken by coverage that constructs May as politically and personally fragile, rooted in a known range of sexist tropes that associate femininity in politics with weakness. This “feminine weakness” is the opposite of what is needed to fulfil the Brexit project, which is often described in masculinist terms. Thus, Brexit is constructed as inherently masculine, and women are considered a threat to this project, highlighting the ways in which Brexit is mediated as a gendered political process. This article argues for greater attention to the role media play in the gendering of populist discourse.

Inclusive assessment in higher education: what does the literature tells us on how to define and design inclusive assessments?

In recent decades the diversity of university students has increased, and it has been observed that degree results vary between student groups. This degree awarding gap is particularly high between White students on the one hand and Black, Asian, and other ethnic minority students on the other. Assessments are a key aspect of closing the degree awarding gap. A systematic literature review was conducted to explore ‘What makes higher education assessments inclusive?’ and ‘How to design inclusive assessments in higher education?’. 14 articles were qualitatively analysed using Braun and Clarke’s (2006) thematic analysis. Four dominant themes were found in the literature: defining ‘inclusive’, assessment, wider context, and student perspectives. In the literature a clear response to the first research question was found, defining inclusive assessment as the provision of assessments that allow all students to do well without receiving alternative or adapted assessments. The second question proved more difficult to answer. While some aspects of inclusive assessments could be identified, others are still unanswered. The results showed that assessments cannot be planned in isolation but need to be integrated within the wider course design. Only one of the articles included data on student grades and progression. The existing qualitative findings could be enhanced by parallel quantitative data to understand the impact of inclusive assessments on grades and their potential in closing the degree awarding gap. Ultimately, this paper will argue that the current literature concerning inclusive assessment is limited by the lack of data on student attainment.

Lessons Learned From Monitoring Spanish-Language Vaccine Misinformation During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

COVID-19 vaccine misinformation is a global threat, and digital and social media support its spread. Addressing Spanish-language vaccine misinformation is critical. In 2021, we began a project to increase vaccine confidence and uptake in the United States by assessing and opposing Spanish-language COVID-19 vaccine misinformation circulating in the United States. Analysts identified trending Spanish-language vaccine misinformation each week, and trained journalists provided communications guidance for addressing the misinformation, which we delivered to community organizations via a weekly newsletter. We identified thematic and geographic trends and highlighted lessons learned to inform future efforts to monitor Spanish-language vaccine misinformation. We collected publicly available Spanish- and English-language COVID-19 vaccine misinformation across various media sources (eg, Twitter, Facebook, news, blogs). Analysts identified top trending vaccine misinformation in the Spanish query and compared it with vaccine misinformation in the English query. Analysts examined misinformation to identify its geographic source and dominant conversation themes. From September 2021 through March 2022, analysts flagged 109 pieces of trending Spanish-language COVID-19 vaccine misinformation. Through this work, we found that Spanish-language vaccine misinformation is easily identifiable. Linguistic networks are not distinct, and vaccine misinformation often circulates across English and Spanish queries. Several websites have outsized influence in promoting Spanish-language vaccine misinformation, suggesting that it may be important to focus on a handful of hyperinfluential accounts and websites. Efforts to address Spanish-language vaccine misinformation must incorporate collaboration with local communities and emphasize community building and empowerment. Ultimately, addressing Spanish-language vaccine misinformation is not an issue of data access and knowledge of how to monitor it; it is an issue of prioritization.

Failure or Reasonable Move?: Portrayal of American Pullout from Afghanistan in Russian and American International Media

This study examined competing narratives about the actions of the United States abroad through an analysis of 314 news items of the 2021 American withdrawal from Afghanistan by two media organizations: Russian Sputnik and American Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. The textual analysis revealed five dominant themes in Sputnik: Americans as losers and Taliban as winners, Americans as incompetent, Americans as unreliable, insensitive, and irresponsible, Americans as duplicitous, and Americans as a threat to world peace; and four dominant themes in RFE/RL: The Taliban taking over the country quickly, Americans successfully leading the evacuations, Americans having good faith and defending the decision to pull out, and Americans as naïve and lacking good judgment. The findings are interpreted in light of the image theory and second-level agenda setting theory.