Non-official Sources Research Articles

Beyond the horizon: exploring the experiences of indentured returnees in their plantation colonies and homeland

ABSTRACT This paper focuses centrally on returned indentured Indian labourers and examines the indenture system through their experiences, narratives, and savings. While the majority of research on the indenture system takes a ‘for’ or ‘against’ stance, this paper acknowledges the range of experiences and makes the case that, despite the tragic nature of the returnees’ story and the regret and loss they endured, not every experience in the colonies was depressingly bad. This paper analyses official archival and non-official sources to establish that the plantation experience was quite diverse. Many people made their economic fortunes by savings and experienced social upliftment on the plantations by creating casteless space, but when they returned after their contract, they struggled to integrate into their home country and families.

The News Sourcing Practices of Solutions Journalists in Africa, Europe, and the U.S.

ABSTRACT Solutions journalism is one of the newest alternative journalism strategies aimed at combating news fatigue through rigorous reporting on solutions to society's problems. One of the primary goals for the movement is increased source diversity that features more non-official and citizen voices, like those often used in other forms of alternative media. This study examined the types of sources journalists included in 555 text-based solutions journalism articles from the U.S., Europe, and Africa collected from the Solutions Journalism Network. The results indicate solutions stories are meeting the goals set forth by proponents of the movement, as they most frequently include nonprofits/groups and unaffiliated citizens. Solutions stories in American publications contained significantly more non-official sources than did their European and African counterparts, though these sources still comprised the majority of those used across all three continents. However, solutions stories included in the study contained fewer total sources than traditional news articles and still featured government and business sources regularly. This finding suggests solutions journalism practitioners may still have work to do to increase their use and variety of sources.

The Role of Artisans in the Circumcision Festival of 1675 During the Reign of Sultan Mehmed IV

In 1675, the Ottoman state held an imperial festival (sur-ı hümayun) in Edirne to celebrate the military achievements, the circumcision of the sons of Sultan Mehmed IV (r. 1648-1687) and the marriage of his daughter. Drawing from seventeenthcentury official and non-official sources concerning the festival, this essay focuses mainly on the role of the artisans. It shows how the practices of the artisans at the festival resembled those of the army artisans who, too, paraded at the initial stage of the military campaigns. However, rather than the mere theatrical aspects of the guilds’ pageantry, it emphasizes other yet multiple functions of the artisans. In particular, showing the role of the Istanbul and Edirne guilds in front of and behind the stage, this essay argues that they not only benefited from participating in such events but also bore their burdens as they provided various services, labor, and funding. In this regard, it also pays attention to the other side of the coin where not only artisans but also other actors were involved. To this end, after a brief introduction, this essay focuses on the day-to-day parades of the artisans, the practices of gift-giving, the burdens and benefits of the festival for the different classes, and finally its military tone by considering the actively involved artisans and their auxiliaries.

Spatial data collection and qualification methods for urban parks in Brazilian capitals: An innovative roadmap.

Urban parks have been studied for their effects on health and the environment. Accessing park data from reliable and comparable sources remains challenging, reinforcing the importance of standardized search tools, notably in Latin America. We designed a systematized methodology to identify processes of accessing, collecting, verifying, and harmonizing urban park spatial data in all Brazilian capitals included in the Urban Health in Latin America (SALURBAL) project. We developed a research protocol using official and non-official sources combining the results of Google Maps (GMaps) points and OpenStreetMap (OSM) polygons-GMaps-OSM. Descriptive analyses included the frequency of the distribution of parks before and after harmonization stratified by data source. We used the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) to assess agreement in the area between official and GMaps-OSM data. Official data were obtained for 16 cities; for the remaining 11 capitals, we used GMaps-OSM. After verification and harmonization, 302 urban parks were obtained from official data and 128 from GMaps-OSM. In a sub-study of the 16 cities with official data (n = 302 parks), we simulated a collection of non-official data using GMaps-OSM and OSM only. From GMaps-OSM, we obtained 142 parks, and from OSM, 230 parks. Statistical analysis showed a better agreement between official data and OSM. After completing verification and harmonization, the complete dataset (official and GMaps-OSM) included 430 urban parks with a total area of 145.14 km2. The mean number of parks across cities was 16, with a mean size area of 0.33 km2. The median number of parks was nine, with a median area of 0.07 km2. This study highlights the importance of creating mechanisms to access, collect, harmonize, and verify urban park data, which is essential for examining the impact of parks on health. It also stresses the importance of providing reliable urban park spatial data for city officials.

Evaluating the inclusion of Inuvialuktun place names in online maps

Place names, also known as toponyms, are a fundamental part of our cultural and geographical environment. Like many Indigenous groups, Inuvialuit in what is now northwestern Canada use place names to describe the landscape, guide and warn travellers, and convey important cultural information (Hart 2011, 9). Many efforts are underway to document, restore and promote the use of Indigenous toponyms in Canada, including their submission to provincial and territorial naming authorities (Inuit Heritage Trust 2016). A related means of raising the profile of Inuvialuit place names is their inclusion on maps that are readily accessible to the public. In their ten calls to action for natural science researchers working in Canada, Wong et al. (2020) underscore the need for Indigenous place names to be incorporated, with permission, in maps and text associated with scientific research to recognize the stories and Indigenous Knowledge behind the names (777). This paper is a step in addressing this call to action by presenting the results of an analysis of Inuvialuktun-language place names in the Tuktoyaktuk area. The analysis examines how readily the names are identified in official, and popular non-official sources and discusses implications for promoting Indigenous Knowledge more broadly.

How Media Resources and Power Relations Define Critical Reporting in China: A Longitudinal Analysis of The Beijing News’ Corruption Coverage Between 2004 and 2018

ABSTRACT Critical reporting (piping-baodao) has long been considered one of the most important journalistic tools in China, exhibiting great democratic potential. However, the media environment for such reporting has become precarious over the past decade, raising the questions of how much space is left for critical reporting and how it is related to the media–state dynamics. Drawing on a 15-year longitudinal content analysis of how The Beijing News—an outspoken newspaper—reported corruption, this study explored the evolution of critical reporting in China. The results revealed that critical reporting is still a small-scale, non-routine journalistic practice. A detailed analysis was conducted to determine how media resources and power relations shaped critical reporting. The results showed that critical reporting has tended to take a resource-intense format and require non-official sources. Furthermore, critical reporting was more pronounced with respect to the coverage of low-ranking officials and officials outside the newspaper’s parent region. Broader implications of these findings have been discussed. Overall, the present study advances the understanding of critical journalism in an authoritarian context and explores its relations with the state.

When Crime Meets Pandemic: Organized Crimes and Triad Societies’ Activities during COVID-19 Pandemic in Hong Kong

Recent studies suggest that the pandemic has impacted criminal activities and organized crime groups. This article provides a qualitative review of changes in crime rates, patterns, and activities of organized crime groups (specifically, Triads) in Hong Kong. Three specific types of organized crimes with high Triad involvement were selected: serious violent crimes, serious drug-related crimes, and smuggling. After analyzing both official and non-official sources, the results showed that despite the government's stringent control measures that significantly suppressed socio-economic activities during the COVID-19 pandemic, the figures for these selected crimes rose tremendously. Triads' organized criminal activities became more frequent, dangerous, and aggressive, posing a severe threat to Hong Kong's law and order.

Practices, knowledge, and attitudes of community pharmacists towards dispensing drugs during the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross sectional study from Jordan.

Pharmacists have an important role in providing correct information, education, and counseling to the public during the COVID-19 pandemic and other health crisis. In order to perform their duties in a correct manner, they must receive adequate and evidence-based information from official resources. The objectives of the study were to examine the practices of community pharmacists towards dispensing drugs during the COVI-19 pandemic and assess their knowledge concerning the safety and efficacy of these drugs in managing the COVID-19 infection. This was a web-based cross-sectional study conducted through the distribution of the questionnaire via the social media through a google form. The drugs examined were azithromycin, hydroxychloroquine, dexamethasone, and certain antiviral drugs. A total of 485 community pharmacists responded to the questionnaire. Pharmacists dispensed these medications based on the physician's orders, 420 (86.6%), according to the pharmacist´s recommendations 327 (67.4%), or upon patient´s request 278 (57.3%). Azithromycin was the most dispensed drug and two thirds of the pharmacists dispensed drugs more than 10 times. Community pharmacists did not possess adequate knowledge concerning the effectiveness and safety of the drugs in the management of COVID-19 infection. In the multivariate linear regression analysis; education, type of university, and the average number of daily customers were statistically significant, p values: 0.004, 0.002, and 0.016, respectively. Pharmacists did not have a positive attitude towards dispensing drugs based on their own recommendations. More than half of the pharmacists agreed that they thought it was a correct decision to give these drugs based on their own judgment. Community pharmacists should not receive information from non-official sources. Strict regulations and implementation of disciplinary actions against pharmacists that dispense prescription only drugs based on their medical judgment are necessary to stop this illegal behavior. A proactive role demonstrated by the pharmacists and based on scientific facts will reduce misconceptions and hazardous behavior of self-medication using prescription only drugs based on rumors and fictitious news.

Covid Data Analytics Repository: An interdisciplinary look into the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil

This article describes the construction and deployment of the Covid Data Analytics Repository, a source for interdisciplinary studies about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil. We collected different types of data from official (IBGE, DATASUS) and non-official (Brasil.IO) sources, online social networks (Instagram, Twitter), and from a search engine analysis tool (Google Trends). We used these data to perform investigations aimed to understand the impacts of COVID-19 in the country, from economics to social behavior. At the moment of publication of this article, our repository contains 1,508 documents, classified into two main types: (i) databases and tables downloaded from the aforementioned sources; and (ii) papers, reports, maps and graphs resulting from the analyses that we performed. As a means to allow reproducibility and foster follow-up studies, we released our repository for public use.

Predictors of confidence and trust in government and institutions during the COVID-19 response in Australia

Predictors of confidence and trust in government and institutions during the COVID-19 response in Australia

Tornado climatology and potentially severe convective environments in Mexico

Tornadoes are extreme meteorological phenomena that can produce significant damage. The Mexican territory is prone to tornadogenesis; however, these phenomena are poorly studied in the country, and several characteristics of their behavior are unknown. We analyzed the spatiotemporal distribution of tornadoes and waterspouts in Mexico (2000-2020) and compared them with potentially severe convective environments. The updated climatology consists of 378 tornado and 99 waterspout reports and is the product of previous research and recent documentation obtained from official and non-official sources. Given the significant influence of population density on the distribution of tornado reports and the lack of meteorological instrumentation for severe weather monitoring, we used the ERA5 dataset to complement the documentary data by computing potentially severe convective environments. The results show an increasing trend in tornado reports, from an annual average of 12 (2000-2012) to 44 (2015-2020). Tornadoes are mainly documented along the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt in central Mexico, while waterspouts are reported in the central and southern portions of the Pacific Ocean and the Yucatán Peninsula. The tornado season spans from May through August, while waterspouts are common during June. Tornadic activity is most frequent between 15:00 and 21:00 h local time (20:00-02:00 h UTC). The results obtained from the reanalysis data indicate favorable conditions for severe storm development in northeastern and northwestern Mexico during late spring and summer. These regions coincide with those where significant tornadoes and supercell storms have been previously documented. The computed covariates based on convective available potential energy and wind shear allowed the identification of regions vulnerable to the impact of diverse severe storm manifestations (e.g. tornadoes) and the coverage of areas without documentary information.

Citizen journalism reduces the credibility deficit of authoritarian government in risk communication amid COVID-19 outbreaks.

During the outbreak of an epidemic, the success in risk communications to make the public comply with disease preventive measures depends on the public’s trust in the government. In this study, we aim to understand how media audiences update their trust in the government during the COVID-19 outbreak depending on the information they received. We conducted an online survey experiment in February 2020 in Hong Kong (n = 1,016) in which respondents were randomly provided with a government press release and an endorsement either from an official or a non-official source. This study shows that the information from a non-official source enhances the credibility of official government messages. Our findings imply that dictators can actually “borrow credibility” from their citizen journalists and even nondemocratic leaders can make themselves more trustworthy to potential dissenters through citizen journalism. Allowing information flow from non-official sources can be a practical measure for governments to address the problem of a credibility deficit during a pandemic.

Tweets and Source Diversity: Newspapers’ Sourcing of Twitter Posts from 2009 to 2016

ABSTRACT This study analyzes New York Times, Washington Post, and USA Today stories from 2009 to 2016 in which tweets were used as news sources to determine whether their use contributes to source diversity. Research consistently has shown that U.S. journalists rely on official sources such as governmental or business elites in reporting the news and that ordinary citizens and alternative voices are not well represented. Some scholars have theorized that social media platforms such as Twitter might disrupt journalistic norms, leading to greater source diversity in news reports. A content analysis of stories appearing in the three newspapers (N = 1,085) finds that the journalists’ use of tweets as news sources differed little from traditional sourcing practices. Tweets from politicians were cited most frequently while the tweets of non-official sources were rarely cited, a trend that grew more pronounced over time. Furthermore, the tweets generally were not featured prominently within the stories. Journalists at the three newspapers appear to have normalized Twitter to fit existing norms and reporting practices.

Communicating public health during COVID-19, implications for vaccine rollout

A large body of information and opinion related to COVID-19 is being shared via social media platforms. Recent reports have raised concerns about the reliability and verifiability of said information being disseminated and the way systems, processes and design of the platforms facilitates such spread. This, alongside other areas of concern, has resulted in several social media platforms taking steps towards tackling the spread of mis- and dis-information. Here we discuss approaches to online public health messaging from a range of sources during COVID-19, with a focus on official and non-official sources in the United Kingdom (UK). We highlight issues for ongoing public health decisions, and the potential impact for the future course of the pandemic.

Pandemics and PSAs: Rapidly Changing Information in a New Media Landscape

ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic has brought into focus a shift in the communication of health-related information. Traditionally, public service announcements (PSAs) consisted of video or radio messages, posters, or billboards created by government agencies and health organizations to provide information about health topics. However, the widespread use of the internet and the growth of social media has changed PSA creation and dissemination in many ways. Increasingly, a variety of actors, including non-official sources and lay persons, have been using social media to disseminate PSAs or PSA-like content. Audiences are larger and more engaged with content, and users have the novel ability to interact with PSAs through shares, likes, or comments. While social media for health communication has many advantages, there are also a number of disadvantages including misinformation, conspiracy theories, bots, and trolls. Credibility of different sources has also become a topic of debate. An ongoing challenge during the pandemic has been reaching audiences in a crowded online environment, establishing authority as a trusted source, and countering misinformation. In this paper, we discuss how the media landscape is changing PSAs and the implications of these changes in the context of pandemics.

J.Sachs, G.Schmidt‐Traub, C.Kroll, G.Lafortune, G.Fuller, F.WoelmThe Sustainable Development Goals and COVID‐19. Sustainable Development Report 2020Cambridge University Press, 2020. 510 p.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted by the United Nations (UN) in 2015 to “end poverty and set the world on a path of peace prosperity and opportunity for all on a healthy planet” by 2030. This ambitious framework includes 17 goals (e.g., no poverty, zero hunger, good health, quality education, etc.) with 169 targets and 231 unique indicators. The SDGs have been widely adopted to guide policy makers in development efforts around the world, but they also have been criticized as too unwieldy and all-encompassing. The Economist (March 26, 2015) concluded that the “SDGs are unfeasibly expensive” and “are so sprawling and misconceived that the entire enterprise is being set up to fail.” Nevertheless, the SDGs are now an integral part of the global development movement and are often cited by advocates of specific interventions. The Sustainable Development Report 2020 (SDR2020) was prepared by teams of independent experts at the Sustainable Development Solutions Network and the Bertelsmann Stiftung. It is separate from the The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2020 published by the UN. The project is directed by Jeffry Sachs, who was an advisor to UN Secretaries-General Kofi Annan and Ban-Ki Moon in the creation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and SDGs. As in previous years, the SDR2020 presents and aggregates data from all UN member states to describe each country's progress towards achieving the SDGs and indicates areas requiring faster progress. Estimates of indicators rely on the most up-to-date data from variety of official and nonofficial sources. In order to summarize levels and trends in country performance, the report calculates indices for each SDG with a scale from 0 to 100 (worst to best). A country's overall SDG Index score and its scores on individual SDGs can be interpreted as a percentage of optimal performance. The overall SDG index score ranges from a high of 84.7 in Sweden to a low of 38.5 in Central African Republic. The report's central chapter summarizes global and regional trends in index scores, and appendix tables present two-page summaries of levels and trends for SDG indicators for each country. Besides struggling with a range of methodological issues, the authors faced the difficult task of succinctly summarizing a very large set of data (115 SDGs indicators for 193 countries). Unfortunately, there are few general findings, because the degree of progress towards achieving the SDGs depends on (i) country/region, (ii) the specific SDG, and (iii) level or trend. On average, progress since 2015 has been fastest in low- and middle-income countries especially in East and South Asia. Africa scores low but showed significant improvements in a number of SDGs. OECD countries, which have on average the highest scores, made only limited progress. The report provides a valuable but rather brief summary of these regional differences. A second objective of SDR2020 is to review policy efforts to implement the SDGs. This assessment is based on information gathered in new expert and public opinion surveys to gauge political leadership in support of the SDGs at the country level. Results confirm that the SDGs framework is increasingly used at many national and international statistical institutes and other data providers. The adoption of the SDG framework by policy makers is growing but more limited. The report's clear exposition in graphs and tables and the many country and regional statistics will no doubt be appreciated by policy makers and researchers in national and international organizations. However, the value of the findings is somewhat limited by the lack of current data for many indicators. As the authors discovered, most estimates are not up to date and a substantial proportion of the data points available now even have a year of reference that predates the adoption of the SDGs. This diminishes the value of publishing country-level estimates on an annual basis, as indicators for many countries change little from one year to the next. The report was in preparation when the Covid-19 epidemic struck. A brief discussion of this huge new human and economic crisis is included, and the authors identify which SDGs will likely be most heavily affected. The epidemic will cause massive disruption of progress on the SDGs for years to come, but it was too early to assess this damage at the time of the publication of the report (July 2020).

Evaluating Incidence and Impact Estimates of the Coronavirus Outbreak from Official and Non-Official Chinese Data Sources

This paper uses new credible non-official sources of data to evaluate the incidence and impact of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak in China Based on

The frame of the house: How elite news sources framed Taiwan’s housing policy

This study content analyzed how elite news sources framed Taiwan’s housing policy and inequality that underlies its major social problems in the press. Results show that reports used pro-market rhetoric, not pro-social equality justification. Official sources causally assigned unaffordable housing to individuals, whereas nonofficial sources blamed the government’s failed policy. This research added to the scarce literature on framing of economic issues. It’s also among the first framing studies incorporating a time element in analysis.

A Holistic Approach to Beach Development in Badagry Local Government in Nigeria: A Case of Whispering Palm Beach Resort

The study was carried out to investigate the issues surrounding the planning and management strategies adopted in Badagry Local government Area for coastal tourism development, with a view to recommending appropriate sustainable measures that will facilitate effective coastal zone development. This work was based on primary data and supported by secondary data. The primary data were collected during field investigation in Badagry Local Government Area of Lagos State with the aid of questionnaire and interview methods. The secondary data were obtained from both official sources (government agencies) and non-official sources (libraries, the internet and newspapers), to include, population statistics, tourist inflow, etc. In this research, both in-depth interviews and informal interviews were conducted amidst staff of tourism related institutions, such as, hotels, beach development offices, tourism boards and agencies to investigate the different impacts of coastal tourism in Badagry, opinions of tourists and agencies (stakeholders) and the need for proper planning and management. As the sample size of this study is large, the questionnaires were specifically used to gather views from a large number of tourists regarding beaches and coastal zones in Badagry. In order to effectively assess the impact of tourism activity management on the stakeholders, the likert scale pre-coded responses were included in the questionnaire. A total of 100 copies of the survey questionnaire were administered within the Badagry community among host members, tourists, the hospitality related outfits, government and private agencies operating within the area. Data from the questionnaire were analysed by various statistical tools in the Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS Version 20.0, 2011). Data were further analysed using correlation analysis and the one-way ANOVA.The study found that, there is significant relationship between coastal tourism management and tourism planning at Whispering palm. It, also, found a positive correlation with all the independent variables. This reveals that any possible change in socioeconomic factors will lead to development of the local community. The study concluded that, any increase in the economic wellbeing of individuals in the community or any significant social change through tourism activities will directly have positive influence on local community development. The study recommended sustainable coastal zone management and planning; provision and implementation of policies and plans for sustainable tourism;effective governance structures and relationships;sustaining coastal tourism development through Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA); and supporting host community livelihood through coastal zone products.

SEEG initiative estimates of Brazilian greenhouse gas emissions from 1970 to 2015

This work presents the SEEG platform, a 46-year long dataset of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) in Brazil (1970–2015) providing more than 2 million data records for the Agriculture, Energy, Industry, Waste and Land Use Change Sectors at national and subnational levels. The SEEG dataset was developed by the Climate Observatory, a Brazilian civil society initiative, based on the IPCC guidelines and Brazilian National Inventories embedded with country specific emission factors and processes, raw data from multiple official and non-official sources, and organized together with social and economic indicators. Once completed, the SEEG dataset was converted into a spreadsheet format and shared via web-platform that, by means of simple queries, allows users to search data by emission sources and country and state activities. Because of its effectiveness in producing and making available data on a consistent and accessible basis, SEEG may significantly increase the capacity of civil society, scientists and stakeholders to understand and anticipate trends related to GHG emissions as well as its implications to public policies in Brazil.