Conventional Journals Research Articles

Journalism and Science: How to Erode the Idea of Knowledge

This paper discusses aspects of the relationship between the scientific community and the public at large. Inspired by the European public debate on genetically modified crops and food, ethical challenges to the scientific community are highlighted. This is done by a discussion of changes that are likely to occur to journalistic attitudes--mirroring changing attitudes in the wider society--towards science and scientific researchers. Two journalistic conventions--those of science transmission and of investigative journalism--are presented and discussed in relation to the present drive towards commercialization within the world of science: how are journalists from these different schools of thought likely to respond to the trend of commercialization? Likely journalistic reactions could, while maintaining the authority of the scientific method, be expected to undermine public trust in scientists. In the long term, this may lead to an erosion of the idea of knowledge as something that cannot simply be reduced to the outcome of negotiation between stakeholders. It is argued that science is likely to be depicted as a fallen angel. This may be countered, it is posited, by science turning human, by recognizing its membership of society, and by recognizing that such membership entails more than just commercial relations. To rethink its relationship with the public at large--and, in particular, to rethink the ideal of disinterested science--is an ethical challenge facing the scientific community.

Public journalism

This article analyzes and responds to the most significant criticisms of public journalism made by scholars. After discussing public journalism advocates’ alleged failure to define public journalism clearly, we examine more specific criticisms. Among other issues, few advocates have taken seriously the likely impact of commercial imperatives on public journalism's modes of operation. We argue, however, that public journalism projects show that reform-oriented news organizations can challenge long-standing journalistic conventions, despite managements’ interests in maximizing profit. Ultimately, we argue, public journalism's long-term viability depends on continuing, explicit commitment by journalists, its institutionalization within newsrooms and journalism classrooms, and continued theory-development, research, and assessment.

A systematic review of how homeopathy is represented in conventional and CAM peer reviewed journals

BackgroundGrowing popularity of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in the public sector is reflected in the scientific community by an increased number of research articles assessing its therapeutic effects. Some suggest that publication biases occur in mainstream medicine, and may also occur in CAM. Homeopathy is one of the most widespread and most controversial forms of CAM. The purpose of this study was to compare the representation of homeopathic clinical trials published in traditional science and CAM journals.MethodsLiterature searches were performed using Medline (PubMed), AMED and Embase computer databases. Search terms included "homeo-pathy, -path, and -pathic" and "clinical" and "trial". All articles published in English over the past 10 years were included. Our search yielded 251 articles overall, of which 46 systematically examined the efficacy of homeopathic treatment. We categorized the overall results of each paper as having either "positive" or "negative" outcomes depending upon the reported effects of homeopathy. We also examined and compared 15 meta-analyses and review articles on homeopathy to ensure our collection of clinical trials was reasonably comprehensive. These articles were found by inserting the term "review" instead of "clinical" and "trial".ResultsForty-six peer-reviewed articles published in a total of 23 different journals were compared (26 in CAM journals and 20 in conventional journals). Of those in conventional journals, 69% reported negative findings compared to only 30% in CAM journals. Very few articles were found to be presented in a "negative" tone, and most were presented using "neutral" or unbiased language.ConclusionA considerable difference exists between the number of clinical trials showing positive results published in CAM journals compared with traditional journals. We found only 30% of those articles published in CAM journals presented negative findings, whereas over twice that amount were published in traditional journals. These results suggest a publication bias against homeopathy exists in mainstream journals. Conversely, the same type of publication bias does not appear to exist between review and meta-analysis articles published in the two types of journals.

Parallel universes

Parallel universes

Clinging to Tradition, Welcoming Civic Solutions: A Survey of College Students' Attitudes toward Civic Journalism

For civic journalism, the road to acceptance among practitioners, educators and scholars has been a rocky one.1 Since its inception in the mid-1990s, the movement has earned supportors who think that a bedrock goal of journalism is to help solve civic problems, and that engaging the public in dialogue offers hope of fixing a troubled U.S. press and democracy.2 Doubters and detractors, however, think that civic journalism seems unnecessary, insufficient or improbable-or that it sounds too much like advocacy and threatens the media's objective stance and credibility.3 Civic journalism has been a particularly thorny issue for higher education, which counts practitioners and scholars among its ranks. Many educators believe that the profession has lost its moral compass and that curriculum reform might foster a journalism more accountable to the public interest.4 Yet the subject has not been widely or deeply integrated into many programs' curricula. And despite fervent academic debates over civic journalism's consequences for education and the profession, few scholars have investigated the attitudes of college students-a group that includes current and future media professionals and consumers-toward the practice. Journalism researchers and educators need a current snapshot showing 1) to what degree college students support a range of civic journalism approaches, 2) whether greater support for the values of civic journalism correlates with less support for traditional ones such as objectivity, and 3) what characteristics among students arc linked to greater support for civic journalism values and practices. This study, a survey of more than 400 journalism students, seeks to answer these basic questions. Research on doing-and teaching-civic journalism Much of the empirical research on civic journalism has focused on the attitudes of practitioners and educators. For instance, in his 1999 surveys of 1,037 journalists for the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE), Paul Voakes found strong support for several dimensions of civic journalism. In that study, 59% of respondents said they strongly approved of developing enterprise stories, and 62% said they strongly approved of providing information on alternative solutions. These results seem to confirm preliminary findings from earlier research that a new conception of journalism's role in society may be emerging.5 The ASNE surveys also concluded that age, education and gender were not reliable predictors of support for civic journalism; newspaper size, job title, approval for joining civic organizations, and respect for community news showed strong correlations. Another survey of newspaper staff by M. David Arant and Philip Meyer showed that a majority adhered to traditional values and did not support civic journalism values that depart from traditional journalism; they found that journalists who supported certain civic journalism practices were at least as sensitive to traditional ethical concerns as those who did not.6 In a different survey of newspaper editors and journalism educators, both groups reported more support for initiating dialogue about community issues than for developing or participating in solutions to public problems-with editors endorsing such goals at significantly higher levels than educators.7 Studies on teaching civic journalism have shown a perceived need for new understandings of the relationship between journalism and society-and for new ways to educate students about this relationship. Jay Rosen, for example, notes that civic journalism classes help students experience the news production process with a degree of contemplation and self-reflection that contrasts with the routinized reporting of conventional journalism.8 Common practices such as superficial analysis of events, standard story frames and the reliance on elite sources discourage innovative thinking about solutions to long-standing problems in a community. …

Perceptions of public relations web sites by computer industry journalists

A survey of computer industry journalists ( n=101) explored usage and perceptions of public relations web sites as a newsgathering tool within the theoretical framework of journalistic conventions and routines, information subsidies and market-driven journalism. Regression analysis was used to identify the best predictors of web use for four key seminal questions. Depending on the specific questions, critical predictors of web use were the information value of the content, source credibility and reputation, perceptions about cost- and time-savings, and self-reported total hours of use. Implications for the future of sponsored web sites are discussed.

Introduction

Children, Youth and Environments Vol 13, No.1 (Spring 2003) ISSN 1546-2250 Introduction Roger Hart, Louise Chawla, and Sheridan Bartlett This first issue of Children, Youth, and Environments (CYE) rekindles an enterprise that goes back 30 years. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in June of 1974, a small group of researchers, planners and designers came together during the fifth annual conference of the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA) to talk about the quality of environments for children. This group discussed the need for a newsletter that could become a forum for their shared interests. No existing journals on children filled this role: none of them was truly interdisciplinary, and they failed to bridge the gaps between theory, research and practice. None had the graphic quality that is so vital in discussing the material world and spatial relationships, and none gave attention to reports of action projects. And so the Childhood City Newsletter was born– an expression of the zeitgeist of its time. It was to be a low-cost, highly graphic alternative to more conventional journals, without the detached formality that many were finding troubling in “serious” academic publications. Rather, it would encourage contributors to share the reasons for their personal involvement, and to consider the larger social and political implications of their work. It would reflect a belief in participatory democracy and in interdisciplinary activity in universities, and it would give expression to the newly recognized importance of the quality of the physical environment. A generation later, this core mission remains virtually unchanged in CYE. The Ph.D. program in Environmental Psychology at the City University of New York (CUNY) took on the task of coordinating the effort, and volume 1, number 1 came out in the summer of 1974. It had been agreed that other groups would also produce some of the newsletters, and sometimes they did. But the task largely became CUNY’s, and it grew in size as the years passed. Somehow, we managed to produce four useful issues per year– many of them theme issues that people still request. After eight years of banging out the newsletter on a typewriter, a generous gift of a computer and printer from a progressive child research and production company, The Child Growth and Development Corporation, simplified the production process somewhat. We were now receiving many full length articles, but resisted becoming a “real” journal for fear of losing some of the qualities and contributors we so ii valued. It became increasingly clear, however, that many in our network wanted a refereed journal, and with our new equipment we had the print quality to produce a more formal publication. We decided to create a journal but to make it clear to everyone that we welcomed all kinds of contributions– both the highly academic and the more informal reports of various professionals and non-professionals. Our choice of an editorial board, our selection of reviewers and our regular inclusion of news and other items helped us to negotiate this often tricky balance. It took vigilance and care to maintain academic legitimacy without becoming just another academic journal. We took this opportunity, also, to create a new title for our efforts – it became Children’s Environments Quarterly, and later just Children’s Environments. The original name, Childhood City Newsletter, turned out to have been an unfortunate choice. For many would-be contributors, it conveyed an overly informal quality. More significantly, it carried an unintended implication– that we believed in some kind of separate world for children. But Children's Environments as a title was also off the mark. We liked its simplicity, but it was a mistake not to make more explicit the fact that the focus was intended to include teenagers as well. Eventually, when the electronic CYE network was created, it was clear that the word “youth” belonged in the title, as it does in the title of the revived journal. After a year or two of producing Children’s Environments Quarterly, we decided to explore the possibility of having a publisher take over production. Some major journal publishers expressed an interest, but wanted to change most of what we believed in and what made our journal unique. We were...

Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology – Choose an exciting venture for the scientific future

The Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology (RB&E) journal was established by devoted reproductive scientists from around the world during the spring of 2002 in response to the gap in electronic publishing in this field among the journals associated with BioMed Central, London, United Kingdom (http://www.biomedcentral.com), and elsewhere. I am proud of being the initiator of the birth of our journal and have had the honor of being elected Editor-in-Chief by board members. Between the time of the birth of the journal and its launching, the RB&E Editorial Board, in cooperation with our publisher, BioMed Central, gradually developed important aspects of the journal's scope and peer review policy, and other rules required for the successful launch of this revolutionary journal. Prior to its launch, the RB&E already had 20 research articles to be published. They were contributed by board members and other scientists, and have passed the two- or three-step process of peer review by three experts in the field. Additional manuscripts are under review/re-review or pending resubmission, and several have been rejected. Yet, such is our principal rule – only good science will be distributed globally. Our peer-review policy is that the reviewer's comments provide constructive criticism with the intent to help the authors improve their manuscript. These are exciting times for revolution in scientific communication through electronic journals. Emerging electronic journals are the basis for the purely electronic distribution of scientific publications in the future. Just imagine no book shelves and mountains of unorganized reprints, no work nights or secretaries required to organize and search for articles of interest. Yet, this will become reality in the very near future for most active scientists. To do science without a web connection is not imaginable nowadays, and most 'top ranked' conventional journals offer web access to recent publications and to less or more distant archives. However, not everyone has the luxury of full access through a University or his/her prepaid subscription, or can afford to pay $35 per electronic reprint. Hence, the traditional journals develop electronic scientific communication through resources from individual subscribers and private and state owned Institutions, page charges from authors, and charges for color illustrations. Altogether, the conventional science publishing industry limits access to scientific contributions to scientists in developed countries while, in many cases, leaving the rest of the world unattended. In launching the new RB&E electronic journal that aspires to join the 'top tier' of reproductive science and reproductive medicine publications, we have chosen an approach that differs noticeably from traditional journals in several ways. The most important journal rules follow:

De stemmen van de watersnood. Hilversumse radio en de Zeeuwse stormramp van 1953

The voices of the flood disaster. Hilversum radio and the Zeeland disaster 1953 Courteous silence, with a random stubborn news hunter challenging authority; this is a general image of the journalistic culture in the Fifties. This publication explores, with the aid of the documentation of the flood disaster of 1953, how distanced, staged and law-abiding the press would have been in those hectic and catastrophic days. After a description of the circumstances leading up to the disaster an analysis is made of the content, tone and empathy of, primarily, radio reports. In contrast to expectations it appears that the reporters, especially in the days immediately following the floods, described their own feelings and empathy in an atmosphere of togetherness, which was entirely contradictory to the general image of journalism in those years. The interviews with the victims were short and to the point, but figures of authority spoke frequendy and extensively into the microphone - without being 'cut off. However, the question put to these authority figures were not exactly critical; on the contrary, they were generally treated obsequiously, which of course was typical of the times. The listeners never heard about the initially chaotic aid, the late reactions of the authorities, or the badly maintained dykes. The true dramatic range of the disaster took days to realize because of difficulties in Communications and the inaccessibility of some of the most badly affected areas. Nevertheless, from that moment on the journalists themselves regained control and most well honoured journalistic conventions were resumed.

E Is for Everything

Summary An ever-increasing number of e-journals are transcending the limitations of the paper medium by incorporating and integrating a wide variety of innovative electronic features and content. In this article, we examine the current evolution of the scholarly journal and review the emergence of functionalities that expand and extend the conventional electronic journal. We further explore additional e-journal enhancements and consider new forms and formats of scholarly communication likely to arise in the not-so-distant future.

Online publishing: how, why and other related issues.

The Internet allows the creation of a peer reviewed online journal, such as Images in Paediatric Cardiology, at a fraction of the cost of a conventional journal. Furthermore, an online journal can display a multitude of images and other multimedia material (such as audio and video files)--a feature not available in a conventional journal. The issues of creating such a journal are explored, along with the issues of online publishing, including copyright and peer review. Current proposals that may affect copyright and peer review in all journals are also outlined.

Practice makes perfect? Vets’ information seeking behaviour and information use explored

A random sample of UK veterinary practitioners was surveyed and interviewed on behalf of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons Wellcome Library to identify key issues in veterinary information use (IU) and information seeking behaviour (ISB).1 A greater proportion of respondents used the Internet for veterinary information than used a veterinary library. However, conventional journals, textbooks and conferences were the main information sources used. Some variations in information source use by practice size and type and information type were identified. The majority of library users and non‐users wanted enhanced library access via the Internet, especially to full‐text journals.

Public Journalism Challenges to Curriculum and Instruction

Advocates of journalism widely agree that this conception of journalism differs markedly from conventional journalism. Not only do the underlying goals of journalism differ from conventional but the way it is practiced contrasts as well. If this is indeed the case, then one would expect journalism scholars be debating, among other issues, the type of formal education and training required for students become competent journalists. Surprisingly, this has not been the case. Only few books and articles have been published. To date, no sustained debate on the important topic of journalism and journalism education has occurred. This is all the more surprising and unfortunate considering that courses in journalism are increasingly being offered at colleges and universities across the United States (Gibbs, 1997; Whitehouse and Clapp, 2000). Theory and practice Widely associated with the theoretical work of New York University Professor Jay Rosen and the writings of former Wichita (Kansas) Eagle Editor Davis Merritt, the emergence of journalism in the late 1980s and early 1990s may perhaps best be explained as reaction perceived flaws in the practice of conventional journalism (Merritt, 1994, 1995a, 1995b, 1996, 1998; Rosen & Merritt, 1994; Rosen, 1991, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999a, 1999b; Rosen & Merritt, 1998). Central conception of journalism is the argument that the primary political responsibility of journalists is help increase civic commitment to, and citizen participation in, democratic processes. In Rosen's (1993) words, be in their orientation, journalists must active in supporting civic involvement, improving discourse and debate, and creating climate in which the affairs of the community can be aired and deliberated (p. 3). This requires, in turn, that journalists abandon their current preoccupation with government as the actor which [they] need be attentive [and] people as the acted on, who [they] might occasionally ask comment but who otherwise have no role play (Merritt, 1998, p. 77). Journalists should, as Rosen (1994, p. 376) argues, focus on citizens as actors within rather than spectators to democratic processes (Carey, 1987) by helping them articulate what has been referred variously as the citizen's agenda, the public agenda, and the people's agenda. According Rosen's corpus of theory explanations, Lambeth, Meyer, & Thorson's (1998) Assessing Public Journalism anthology (Rosen, 1998, p. 46; 1999a, 1999b), journalism consists of three dimensions simultaneously. Public journalism is: (a) an argument about the proper task of the press, which is topic that has been covered widely in the scholarly literature (Glasser, 1999a; Haas, 1999; Rosen, 1999a), (b) a set of practices - experiments ... that are slowly spreading through American journalism, which are topics that have gained proportionally little discussion and which I seek address in this paper, and (c) a movement of people and institutions, supported by various organizations, notably the American Press Institute, the Kettering Foundation, the Knight Foundation, the Pew Center for Civic Journalism, the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, and the Project on Public Life and the Press. Public journalism can also be defined by example. Since 1988, when the first journalism campaign - as such - was launched by the Columbus (Ga.) Ledger-Enquirer (Rosen, 1991), more than 300 journalism campaigns have been conducted across the United States (Austin, 1997). While these campaigns have included work done across news media -- newspapers, television, radio, and the Internet, either separately or collaboratively (Denton & Thorson, 1998; Thorson & Lambeth, 1995; Thorson, Ognianova, Coyle, & Lambeth, 1998) - the majority of campaigns have been confined small and medium-sized newspapers (Merritt & Rosen, 1998). …

The 1999 Educational Conference of the National Association of Catering Executives

(2000). The 1999 Educational Conference of the National Association of Catering Executives. Journal of Convention & Exhibition Management: Vol. 2, No. 2-3, pp. 147-151.

Autocracy, anger and the politics of salvation

Anger is not just a journalistic convention, but a key motivation in politics. Certainly, it is one thing to say that anger is relevant; it is quite another to suppose that it is routine. Residual anger is relatively common and distorts decision‐making, but is generally ritualised. Democratic politicians confronted with intractable realities may be tempted to adopt authoritarian solutions, but democratic systems restrain this. Dictators frustrated in this way turn to the armed forces as skilled practitioners of violence to enforce their ideal vision of society on the untidy reality of ordinary everyday life. Military governments characteristically employ the imagery of the politics of salvation to defend a military autocracy. Paradoxically, authoritarian regimes, from fear of challenges to their own order, vent their anger on the weak; hence, the persistence of anger, as well as other empirical evidence, casts doubt on the theory of the democratic peace. The analogue of military autocracy is to be found in revolutionary organisation, which is also concerned with the politics of salvation. Hence, there is indeed a parallel between the politics of a revolutionary elite and the military politics from which it draws at least part of its rationale. Both are about the use of physical compulsion to create a better order, whether people want it or not. Hence, it is in anger that we find the link between autocracy and the politics of salvation.

Is the scientific publishing of complementary and alternative medicine objective?

Bias expressed by conventional journals against the field of "alternative," "integrative," or "complementary" medicine has been said to drive the appearance of new journals dedicated to this field. We examined two examples of recent articles on complementary and alternative medicine that appeared in two major medical journals in 1998. One is an editorial on the risks of alternative medicine, published in The New England Journal of Medicine and the other is a study on Therapeutic Touch, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. We evaluated whether information and opinions presented in this editorial and article are objective or not. We found that these examples reflect, at best, misinformation or misunderstanding of the field, or at worst, disingenuousness. We consider the possibility that this apparent bias may be due to the fact that some of the concepts implicit in alternative medicine are outside the current biomedical framework. Yet, it is only by exploring knowledge outside the boundaries of existing dogmas that real (as opposed to incremental) progress can occur.

Perceptions of Convention Destinations: Large-Half Versus Small-Half Association Meeting Planners. Martin Oppermann. Journal of Convention and Exhibition Management, vol. 1, no. 1,1998, pp. 35-48. Haworth Press, 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580. $36 annual subscription

Perceptions of Convention Destinations: Large-Half Versus Small-Half Association Meeting Planners. Martin Oppermann. Journal of Convention and Exhibition Management, vol. 1, no. 1,1998, pp. 35-48. Haworth Press, 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580. $36 annual subscription

CONFERENCES Economic Impacts of Conferences and Conventions. Stephen C. Grado, Charles H. Strauss, and Bruce E. Lord. Journal of Convention and Exhibition Management, vol. 1, no. 1, 1998, pp. 19-34. Haworth Press, 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580. $36 annual subscription

CONFERENCES Economic Impacts of Conferences and Conventions. Stephen C. Grado, Charles H. Strauss, and Bruce E. Lord. Journal of Convention and Exhibition Management, vol. 1, no. 1, 1998, pp. 19-34. Haworth Press, 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580. $36 annual subscription

Convention and Conference Facilities: A Framework of Statistical Predictions and Judgmental Adjustments for Daily Occupancy Forecasts. Zvi Schwartz. Journal of Convention and Exhibition Management, vol. 1, no. 1, 1998, pp. 71-88. Haworth Press, 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580. $36 annual subscription

Convention and Conference Facilities: A Framework of Statistical Predictions and Judgmental Adjustments for Daily Occupancy Forecasts. Zvi Schwartz. Journal of Convention and Exhibition Management, vol. 1, no. 1, 1998, pp. 71-88. Haworth Press, 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580. $36 annual subscription

Convention Site Selection Research: A Review, Concep tual Model, and Propositional Framework. Geoffrey I. Crouch and J. R. Brent Ritchie. Journal of Convention and Exhibition Management, vol. 1, no. 1, 1998, pp. 49-70. Haworth Press, 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580. $36 annual subscription

Convention Site Selection Research: A Review, Concep tual Model, and Propositional Framework. Geoffrey I. Crouch and J. R. Brent Ritchie. Journal of Convention and Exhibition Management, vol. 1, no. 1, 1998, pp. 49-70. Haworth Press, 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580. $36 annual subscription