Public Broadcasting Service Research Articles

ENQUIRE OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF EDUCATIONAL FUNCTION ON TELEVISI REPUBLIK INDONESIA (TVRI) AS A PUBLIC BROADCASTING INSTITUTION

The function of education is traditionally attached to the role of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Televisi Republik Indonesia (TVRI), stated in the Broadcasting Act 32/2002 as one of the public broadcasting institutions, along with Radio Republik Indonesia (RRI), are to carry out this educational function. This article will analyze the education function performed by TVRI. This research employs a single case study design. Data obtained through interviews and literature review. The results of the study show that educational broadcasts on TVRI have been around for a long time. The results of the documentation study show that educational broadcasts on TVRI receive a positive response from the public. Field research shows that one of the educational programs on TVRI, Study from Home (henceforth referred to as Belajar Dari Rumah/ BDR) has outperformed other public programs. Although traditionally considered one of the main functions of public television, the implementation of educational broadcasts, especially formal education on TVRI is not consistently carried out. The absence of formal education programs at TVRI was due to technical constraints in the form of a lack of compatible studio equipment to record formal education programs and unavailable budgets for the programs..

Put your whole self in

Increasingly hot topics in both science and journalism are diversifying the practitioners of these professions and examining what is meant by "objectivity" in this improved world. Bringing wider experiences and perspectives to the laboratory or the newsroom improves outputs, better serving the public. As both professions become more enriched with varied backgrounds and views, are the old ideas of objectivity outdated? I sat down with Amna Nawaz, the new co-anchor of Public Broadcasting Service's NewsHour (in the United States), who shared how she brings her "whole self" to her work. We explored what this means and the parallels in science.

Botticelli’s "The Birth of Venus" and the Visual Politics of Desirability

This project examines three contemporary re-creations of Sandro Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, exploring how modern depictions of the same image and story return to and change Botticelli’s vision. I juxtapose the fifteenth-century painting with three contemporary re-creations: Larry Moss’ Birth of Venus in Arigami (2009), Lady Gaga’s Applause music video (2013), and David LaChapelle’s The Rebirth of Venus photograph (2019). Venus has timeless status as an icon of beauty and desirability, but she changes over time in art. The original was created during the eruption of humanistic culture in the Early Renaissance and had radical and controversial influence.[1] The Renaissance saw a rise in ideas about religion, politics, and science, that influenced artists to push the boundaries of representability by seeing the body for visual pleasure.[2] Due to the authority of the church, the nude or partially nude body was subject to censorship, and erasure. Many artworks, including some by Botticelli, were confiscated or destroyed because they were considered obscene.[3] Botticelli’s painting was a private commission as the subject matter was controversial. It hung above the bed of wealthy statesman Lorenzo de’ Medici.[4] Now the original is accessible in public space, as are re-creations of the original, as the politics of representability have changed. Censorship of the female body still exists, but the boundaries of nudity continue to be pushed and moved in art, and in public discourses about art. [1] “Renaissance Nude,” Getty Museum, Getty Publications, https://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/renaissance_nude/inner.html. [2] Ibid [3] Ibid [4] (“Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance, Botticelli, PBS” 2023) “Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance., Botticelli,” PBS (Public Broadcasting Service), https://www.pbs.org/empires/medici/renaissance/botticelli.html

Reclaiming Popular Documentary ed. by Christie Milliken and Steve F. Anderson

Reviewed by: Reclaiming Popular Documentary ed. by Christie Milliken and Steve F. Anderson Nora Stone (bio) Reclaiming Popular Documentary edited by Christie Milliken and Steve F. Anderson. Indiana University Press. 2021. 406 pages. $80.00 hardcover; $26.00 paper; also available in e-book. Over the past twenty years, documentary film and television have become far more popular and widely available than in previous decades. Yet the scholarship on documentary has tended to privilege the most formally inventive and politically radical documentary films, from Chronique d'un été (Chronicle of a Summer, Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin, 1961) to Tongues Untied (Marlon T. Riggs, 1989) and The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer, 2012). Noël Carroll pointed out this tendency to focus on the "art-documentary" in 1996, and the trend has continued.1 It is easy to dismiss popular documentaries, from fawning celebrity portraits to protracted true-crime miniseries, but doing so leaves a vital area of film and media understudied at the very moment when audiences are viewing and engaging with documentary media more than ever before. Reclaiming Popular Documentary is an excellent start to correcting this oversight. Edited by Christie Milliken and Steve F. Anderson, the volume contains invigorating contributions that cover a wide swath of documentary media. In the introduction, Milliken and Anderson ask, "What is the relationship between documentary and entertainment and between popular documentary and advocacy? Can popular documentary be productively reconceived in relation to genre, modes, or rhetorical forms? Assuming the [End Page 219] popular is defined in contrast to other categories (either implicitly or explicitly), what might those other categories be?"2 The editors' capacious framing is wise because documentary's commercial relevance has not drained it of truth-telling potential or political urgency. The entrance of documentary into the mainstream media marketplace has only complicated its cultural standing. The anthology's first section covers the exhibition contexts of popular documentary. Contributors Ezra Winton and Patricia Aufderheide consider two institutions that remain important to the documentary film ecosystem: the film festival, specifically Toronto's Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, and public television, including the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). The choice to foreground these two institutions is strategic—a reminder that while streaming services have invested heavily in documentary films and series, they are not the saviors of documentary. Film festivals and public television continue to be central sites for the circulation of documentaries, formation of critical consensus, and launch of new documentarians' careers. Archivist Rick Prelinger suggests some imaginative alternatives to these stalwart if imperfect institutions, however, in the book's final section, "Engaging Audiences." In film events such as Lost Landscapes of San Francisco (2006–2020) and No More Road Trips? (2013), Prelinger has assembled archival footage of a particular place or activity and screens it for audiences who are encouraged to react and chime in during the screening. The popularity of these film events is a strong argument for creating new spaces and conditions for communal engagement with documentary cinema. Prelinger acknowledges that his practice appears arcane against the streaming service landscape. He writes, "I do not seek to bury the algorithm. But I question any retreat from public assembly, especially if such retreat occurs under the rubric of engagement, as so much interactive cinema asserts.… I would also argue that restoring big-screen experience coupled with direct, dialogical participation is a route toward staging the meeting of difference without its dilution, a means to an end rather than an end in itself."3 The most groundbreaking section of Reclaiming Popular Documentary is its third, "Short Forms and Web Practices." The short online documentary is of outsized importance in today's mediascape but has commanded comparatively little scholarly attention within documentary studies. Anthony Kinik, Michael Brendan Baker, and Allison de Fren explore what the prevalence of short web docs means for professional and amateur documentarians—who they partner with, what subjects they take on, and how they develop their formal strategies—as well as for people who watch, share, and comment on them. For instance, Kinik investigates the convergence of documentary film and journalism. As the internet thoroughly transforms print journalism, leading newspapers and magazines have begun hosting short...

Building a collaborative, university-based science-in-action video storytelling model that translates science for public engagement and increases scientists' relatability

Collaborating scientists and storytellers successfully built a university-based science-in-action video storytelling model to test the research question: Can university scientists increase their relatability and public engagement through science-in-action video storytelling? Developed over 14 years, this science storytelling model produced more than a dozen high-visibility narratives that translated science to the public and featured scientists, primarily environmental and climate scientists, who are described in audience surveys as relatable people. This collaborative model, based on long-term trusting partnerships between scientists and video storytellers, documented scientists as they conducted their research and together created narratives intended to humanize scientists as authentic people on journeys of discovery. Unlike traditional documentary filmmaking or journalism, the participatory nature of this translational science model involved scientists in the shared making of narratives to ensure the accuracy of the story's science content. Twelve science and research video story products have reached broad audiences through a variety of venues including television and online streaming platforms such as Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), Netflix, PIVOT TV, iTunes, and Kanopy. With a reach of over 180 million potential public audience viewers, we have demonstrated the effectiveness of this model to produce science and environmental narratives that appeal to the public. Results from post-screening surveys with public, high school, and undergraduate audiences showed perceptions of scientists as relatable. Our data includes feedback from undergraduate and high school students who participated in the video storytelling processes and reported increased relatability to both scientists and science. In 2022, we surveyed undergraduate students using a method that differentiated scientists' potential relatable qualities with scientists' passion for their work, and the scientists' motivation to help others, consistently associated with relatability. The value of this model to scientists is offered throughout this paper as two of our authors are biological scientists who were featured in our original science-in-action videos. Additionally, this model provides a time-saving method for scientists to communicate their research. We propose that translational science stories created using this model may provide audiences with opportunities to vicariously experience scientists' day-to-day choices and challenges and thus may evoke audiences' ability to relate to, and trust in, science.

Infrastructures of dissensus: repartitioning the sensible and articulating the political through the occupation of Greece’s public broadcasting service

This article engages with contemporary debates around the politics of space and the spatiality of politics by exploring how the fabrication of emancipatory infrastructures shapes the articulation and reconfiguration of the (urban) political. Moving beyond the prevailing emphasis on urban uprisings, the article focuses on the occupation and self-management of Greece’s Public Broadcasting Service (ERT) in response to New Democracy’s government decision to dismantle it in June 2013. In this juncture, ERT workers and multiple movements and activists in solidarity occupied the Service’s buildings across the country and recuperated its infrastructures to broadcast TV and Radio programmes. ERT’s buildings became key political spaces and nodal political infrastructures in the struggle against austerity. Drawing on Jacques Rancière’s conceptualization of politics as a world-making activity, the article reads these occupations as the opening of new spatialities for politics through the fabrication of infrastructures of dissensus. In this, it foregrounds the spatial and infrastructural dimensions of urban politics, explores how such infrastructure spaces reconfigure the partition of the urban sensible and traces the challenges and limitations that emerge from their encounters with the police order.

Reconciling editorial independence and public accountability issues in Public Broadcasting Service

A public broadcaster is pulled in two directions: There is the need to be accountable to the public,and the imperative to be editorially independent at the same time. The first implies parametersand control systems; the second points to the need for autonomy. This distinctive tension marksout a key difference between public and private broadcasting (through the public accountabilitycomponent), and between public and government-controlled broadcasting (through the editorialindependence proviso). Several dimensions can be identified in regard to assessing accountabilityand editorial independence, and also to the way that policy can work to integrate these twoapparently contradictory imperatives. In 2004, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC)was required in effect to mediate the complex challenges in this tension by formulating detailededitorial policies and systems. The significance of the SABC experience also extends to understandingthe nature of policy more broadly

A Community Engagement Model to Drive Advance Directive Discussion and Completion

Background Advance directives (ADs) describe individuals’ preferences for life-sustaining treatments and/or surrogate decision-makers, to help avoid unwanted, burdensome treatments at the end-of-life. However, only 36.7% of adults have completed an AD. There is growing interest in adopting a public health approach to end-of-life care, including ADs. We describe the experience of Honoring Choices Tennessee (HCT) which developed a pilot program, Advance Directives at Work in Tennessee (AD@WorkTN), to enhance AD completion by the general public workforce. Methods The AD@WorkTN initiative targeted adults in the Tennessee workforce by engaging human resource (HR) leaders in educational presentations. Each workshop provided resources to employers to integrate ADs into the employee orientation and benefits enrollment process. Educational materials, web tools, podcasts, AD forms, and a demonstration of how to complete an AD were included. Participants were directed to the HCT website which contains the state advance directive documents and with detailed instructions, as well as the co-branded MyDirectives app (MYD), to securely upload completed ADs. In April 2021 a HCT sponsored PBS documentary on advance care planning was produced with statewide distribution. Results Over a 2-year period, 58 workshops were conducted for 260 human resources leaders representing 958 businesses. As a result, 23 businesses have included ADs as part of the employee benefit process. Additionally, a 2-year multifaceted public outreach campaign between 2019-21 has reached 2,950 employees and 958 businesses. Approximately 81,500 Tennessee viewers have seen the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) documentary on advance care planning. There have been 2,954 visits to the HCT website and 411 visits to the co-branded MyDirectives site. Conclusion AD@WorkTN is a promising model to promote integration of ADs into the employee orientation and benefits enrollment processes. Enhanced discussion and completion of ADs among employed individuals and enhanced public discourse such as podcasts and television productions may encourage intergenerational conversations about end-of-life care and documentation in healthcare records.

Smart stacking of machine learning and semantic technologies in media management

The television sector has well-established industry standards and conventions around the description of franchises, shows, episodes and other aspects of production and distribution. However, time-based metadata describing specific moments and clips are much rarer. This is in large part because, without augmentative or assistive technology, such metadata is hard to produce at scale and at sufficient quality. This paper describes a project at the US-based Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) that combined machine learning and semantic technology to provide time-based metadata describing moving image content that both linked back to and enriched the organisation’s broader information domain. The content chosen for the project was a selection of episodes from ‘Sesame Street’, the long-running and much-fêted show aimed at preschoolers produced by the Sesame Workshop, and the featured taxonomy (part of a larger in-development PBS knowledge graph) was developed by the PBS Education division.

Peran Publik dalam Mendorong Kinerja Media Layanan Publik dalam Mewujudkan Watak Kepublikannya

The publicness character of the Indonesia Republic Radio/RRI is both historical as well as legal necessity. RRI was born from the historical process as a struggle radio to seize and defend independence from colonialists. This true identity that is embodied in the spirit of public service ethos is getting stronger after the enactment of Government Regulation No. 11/2005 and 12/2005 concerning public service broadcasting and RRI public service broadcasting respectively. The duty of serving the needs and interests of the public must be the "spirit" which drives its whole operational activities of broadcasting and institutional governance. For this reason, various efforts have been made, such as improving governance and expanding the broadcast network area. To answer the demands of media digitization, the adoption of media convergence technology in the form of the launch of the RRI Play Go application has also been carried out. This has changed it from a public service broadcasting institution (PSB) to a public service media (PSM). Its public character as a public service broadcast radio must be put forward by placing the public as citizens (citizens) active participants both in the process of planning and implementing broadcast program content as well as media institutional governance. Through PSM, the interaction between media managers and citizens can be established. The process of involving citizens in the production process of media content is also easily facilitated. For this reason, their role in supervising and evaluating media management must be more substantial to ensure the public character of RRI. Based on this, this study aims to examine the form of public participation in supervising and evaluating broadcasting and media management of RRI. More specifically, what is the role of the Audience Council Forum Komunikasi Pemerhati of RRI Malang in carrying out this function.

Helena Solberg: uma cineasta brasileira na televisão norte-americana

Este ensaio circunscreve o seguinte argumento: as ideias de Raymond Williams sobre a televisão como forma e experiência cultural ampliam a compreensão sobre o período em que a cineasta brasileira Helena Solberg dirigiu diversos documentários para uma emissora de televisão norte-americana na década de 1980. Para sustentar este argumento, nos apoiamos em análises tecidas por Raymond Williams em Television (1974) e nas pesquisas sobre a trajetória de Helena Solberg realizadas por Mariana Tavares e Ana Maria Veiga. Como resultado, esperamos explicitar como os documentários dirigidos por Helena, financiados e exibidos pela emissora estadunidense Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), integram usos e práticas televisivas mais democráticas, que a partir de Williams podem ser mais bem contextualizadas e compreendidas.

Community media in the United States: Fostering pluralism and inclusivity in challenging times

For most Americans, public service media (PSM) are synonymous with National Public Radio for radio and audio and Public Broadcasting Service for television and video. However, these national services do not fully circumscribe the PSM sphere in the United States. US community media are non-commercial, locally controlled outlets that produce content intended for local audiences, most often focused on local concerns associated with housing, education, government and the arts. This study provides an overview of the present state of community media in the United States. It draws on a variety of sources, including data from the industry, and from the professional press, as well as a series of extensive informational interviews with community media leaders around the United States. The subjects include representatives from community radio and community television outlets that serve urban, suburban and rural markets. After compiling and analysing the quantitative and qualitative data, several key indicators emerge that help to describe the current state of community media in the United States and point towards challenges and opportunities ahead for the sector.

Del debate internacional al concepto de servicio p�blico de radiodifusi�n

El objetivo de este trabajo es definir la noci�n de servicio p�blico de radiodifusi�n a partir del debate internacional sobre el mismo en distintas regiones del mundo, principalmente en el norte y centro de Europa, Norteam�rica y Am�rica Latina. Aunque las experiencias han sido diferentes en cada lugar, en los �ltimos a�os se ha intensificado una conversaci�n acerca de la importancia de fortalecer el servicio p�blico de radiodifusi�n con el fin de garantizar la diversidad y pluralidad de la informaci�n; el derecho a la comunicaci�n y a lalibertad de expresi�n; la ampliaci�n del espacio p�blico en los medios de comunicaci�n, entre otras cuestiones. El ensayo se ha confeccionado a partir del an�lisis de este debate, el cual ha adquirido mayor relevancia particularmente en Am�rica Latina durante este siglo.

“Signals to Every Dip and Hollow”: The Rise and Fall of the Appalachian Education Satellite Program and the Appalachian Community Service Network

“Signals to Every Dip and Hollow”: The Rise and Fall of the Appalachian Education Satellite Program and the Appalachian Community Service Network Carson E. Benn (bio) In the era of Internet mass communication, the steady growth of distance education seems an inevitable consequence. Though the classic setting of physical classrooms, school buildings, and campuses cannot seriously be seen as threatened, distance courses are a permanent institution due to high-tech media. Reactions to distance education courses range from mild unease to more outright rejections. One study from a scholar in educational policy at the University of Wisconsin found that while the Internet has in some sense negated the issue of distance from students and campuses, the issue of “place” still has a significant bearing (for higher education at least) on where students apply and attend. The author dubs these areas “education deserts”—communities bereft of higher-education institutions or those that place a disproportionate burden on one or two community colleges. Roughly 10 percent of adults in America live in these areas, the study finds, and the availability of distance learning technology has not made any significant improvement in applications or enrollment among adults in these communities. A report on the article in The Atlantic observed that “the conversation about how to make college more accessible [End Page 109] is not new,” yet issues like education deserts “have been largely ignored.”1 An early forerunner to distance education in the Appalachian region was the cable television network, The Learning Channel (TLC). Now a largely irrelevant purveyor of reality TV shows, TLC in its earlier years produced educational programming as an alternative to its more entertainment-centric competitors. That TLC was once known in another life as the Appalachian Community Service Network (ACSN) is not a heretofore-unknown revelation—it’s circulated as merely an interesting bit of trivia about the present-day network, usually as an emblem of the irony in commercial networks purporting to present edifying and useful content to mass audiences. A closer look into the story of the ACSN and its predecessor, the Appalachian Educational Satellite Project (AESP), finds the nation was not always so cynical about television media. Indeed, contemporary conversations about educational television better resemble our present-day research into distance education technology and curricula than our complaints about TV shows. In the first few decades of the television era, the new medium carried a noteworthy and profound cultural optimism that has since waned, similar today to the way the Internet has been regarded in recent decades. A television set was regarded foremost as a means of entertainment, but was also genuinely considered a device with actual educational benefits, both for children and the general population. The years prior to the Appalachian experiments in satellite and cable telecommunications saw a fair share of cynicism about the public benefits of television, even in regard to the creation of the Public Broadcasting Service and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in the late sixties. The goal of the men and women conducting the [End Page 110] later television experiments in Appalachia, as well as their primary benefactors, the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), was to explore new and advanced uses for the medium. To them, television could be used not only to connect a disadvantaged region to the rest of the world, but could also form a new, technologically-sophisticated institution in the region’s education system. Within the general scholarship in Appalachian studies, education garners a great deal of attention, distinguishing the topic as one of the most robust and refined areas of the discipline overall. Though all scholars of Appalachia owe a debt to Henry Shapiro and David Whisnant for Appalachia on Our Mind (1978) and All That is Native and Fine (1983) respectively, the intellectual challenges posed by those two works have been answered with distinction by a number of education historians.2 Thanks to the works of Deborah Blackwell, Jess Stoddart, Karen Tice, and Melanie Beals Goan (to name a few) we can examine with more magnanimity the characters and motives of a wide variety of educators working in the region and no longer feel compelled to look with a fine-tooth comb for traces...

The Effect of Game Importance on Concussion Incidence in the National Football League: An Observational Study.

IntroductionConcussion incidence in the National Football League (NFL) has been shown to generally increase as the season progresses. Yet, there is evidence that suggests that the incidence stagnates or decreases in the final quarter of the season in comparison to the third quarter. This anomaly cannot be explained by any of the known modulators of concussion incidence. However, the fact that the teams start getting eliminated from playoff contention in the fourth quarter of the season may explain this pattern in concussion incidence. This study tests whether there is a difference in concussion incidence in games between teams who are still in the playoff hunt [in the hunt (IH) games] versus games where both teams have had their playoff fate already determined (non-IH games).MethodsWe obtained details of 166 documented concussions from weeks 13-16 of each of the four NFL seasons from 2012 to 2015 from Public Broadcasting Service's (PBS) Frontline Concussion Watch and matched them to the games in which they occurred. Each game was categorized based on the playoff status [clinched (CL), eliminated (EL), or IH] of the teams playing in the game. Concussion incidence of the game types was compared to each other using a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test and student t-tests. Additionally, concussion incidences at six different player positions in important games were compared to the corresponding incidences in unimportant games. An ordinary least squares regression was used to examine the effects of game importance and plays per game on concussion incidence.ResultsConcussion incidence in important games (mean = 0.651 ±0.055) did not differ significantly (p: 0.890) from the incidence in unimportant games (mean = 0.623 ±0.143). Instead, plays per game was found to be the primary driver of concussion in the regression analysis (β = 0.01605; p: 0.025). At the position-specific level, running backs (RB) were the only position to demonstrate a significant increase in concussion incidence (p: 0.004) in important games (mean = 0.049 ±0.017) compared to unimportant games (mean = 0.00 ±0.00).ConclusionsThe results suggest that, in general, players are not more likely to suffer concussions in IH games than in non-IH games. However, RBs may have an increased risk of concussion in games with playoff implications than in games without.

Latinas/os in Documentary Filmmaking: Issues of Representation, Funding, and Opportunity

In the fall of 2018, the Voces Oral History Project at the University of Texas at Austin conducted individual oral history interviews and a public roundtable discussion with eleven award-winning Latina/o documentarians from a wide range of professional positions, filmmaking experiences, and career paths. This article uses those interviews and roundtable discussion as its primary source and oral history as its primary methodology. The purpose of this article is to provide a summary and analysis of the following major themes that arose: lack of representation of Latinas/os in documentaries and behind the camera; scarcity of opportunity for Latina/o filmmakers; the function and responsibility of documentary film, specifically in regard to Latina/o communities; and access to private and public funding and distribution, specifically in regard to the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). This article first provides a brief history of the origins of Latinas/os in documentary filmmaking beginning with the 1960s Chicano Movement, then discusses the role of Latina/o filmmakers’ work in relation to activism, journalism, and representation, then briefly presents the role of PBS in Latina/o filmmaking, and lastly focuses on the negotiations this group of Latina/o filmmakers must make in order to create the stories they want to tell.

Just Getting By? Francophone Belgian Journalists Dealing with Dutch-language Sources in Their Public Broadcasting Service

ABSTRACT In this article, we examine how the Dutch language is used when francophone Belgian journalists prepare and produce their reports—during all stages of the process—up until the actual broadcast. We conducted 16 qualitative interviews with TV news journalists employed by the Belgian French-speaking public broadcaster. Taking as a starting point the highly variable level of Dutch in the newsroom, we highlight four practices used by journalists when they have to cover a news story in Flanders or interview a Dutch speaker: avoidance, mutual assistance, specific efforts to deal with linguistic difficulties and what we call a “tactical use” of Dutch with the sources. This study reveals practices that are by no means a demonstration of excellent language skills. Journalists’ frequent lack of knowledge is compensated by a certain pragmatism: they aim to illustrate how their daily routines tackle a concrete problem in a relatively informal, flexible, and collective manner. Finally, we explore to what extent these practices impact journalistic performance and how the use of the Dutch language in the newsroom reflects the language divide in Belgium’s journalistic landscape.

Does the Environment Influence the Frequency of Concussion Incidence in Professional Football?

BackgroundSports-related concussion is a major cause of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). It is possible that environmental factors, such as temperature, humidity, and stadium's altitude, may influence the overall incidence of concussions during a game.PurposeTo examine the impact of environmental factors, such as temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, and dew point, on concussion incidence.MethodsPublic Broadcasting Service (PBS) FRONTLINE Concussion Watch was used to collect injury data on 32 NFL teams during regular season games from 2012 to 2015. Weather data points were collected from Weather Underground. Concussion incidence per game, the probability of a concussion during a game, and a difference in mean game-day temperature, humidity, dew point, and barometric pressure between concussion and concussion-free games were calculated. Our analysis included t-tests, analysis of variance (ANOVA), multivariate correlation tests, and logistic and Poisson regression. ResultsOverall, 564 concussions were reported. There were 411 games with concussions and 549 games without concussions. We observed a significant decrease in concussion incidence with increasing temperature, both when the temperature was divided into 20oF increments or into quartiles (p = 0.005 and p = 0.002, respectively). We identified a statistically significant lower mean-game day temperature in concussion games compared to concussion-free games (p < 0.0006). We also observed a significant decrease in the incidence of concussion per game with increasing dew point. There was no significant difference in concussion incidence in barometric pressure and humidity. The logistic regression model predicted a decrease in the probability of a concussion in games with higher temperatures and dew points.ConclusionsNational Football League (NFL) players experienced an increased risk of concussion during football games played in colder temperatures and at lower dew points. Further research on environmental effects on concussions may aid in improving player safety in football leagues.

Producing Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose: How Libertarian Ideology Became Broadcasting Balance

In the first weeks of 1980, Public Broadcasting Service affiliates across the United States aired Free to Choose, a television series featuring the economist Milton Friedman. This article focuses on the production team, which brought Friedman’s small-government, market-focused perspective via privatizing the production of public television. Specifically, executive producer Robert Chitester’s success in bringing the series to air stemmed from two factors: first, he expressed social imaginaries that helped coordinate funding relationships with underwriters; and second, he drew on his institutional knowledge of public television production to navigate zones of regulatory ambiguity without running afoul of broadcast rules and regulations.

Holding Up Half the Sky

In this article I explore the Half the Sky (HTS) phenomenon, including the documentary shown on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) network in 2014. I explore how the girls in whose name the HTS movement exists are represented in relation to Nicholas Kristoff and six celebrity advocates. This analysis foregrounds Global North philanthropy’s discursive use of Global South girls to advance a neoliberal approach that ignores structural forces that account for Global South poverty. The upbeat use of the concept of opportunities interpellates the audience into participating in individualized approaches to rescuing girls. Ultimately girls are spoken for while celebrities gain more exposure and therefore increase their brand recognition.