Public Sphere Research Articles

The Quality of Short Videos as a Source of Coronary Heart Disease Information on TikTok: Cross-Sectional Study.

Coronary heart disease (CHD) is a leading cause of death worldwide and imposes a significant economic burden. TikTok has risen as a favored platform within the social media sphere for disseminating CHD-related information and stands as a pivotal resource for patients seeking knowledge about CHD. However, the quality of such content on TikTok remains largely unexplored. This study aims to assess the quality of information conveyed in TikTok CHD-related videos. A comprehensive cross-sectional study was undertaken on TikTok videos related to CHD. The sources of the videos were identified and analyzed. The comprehensiveness of content was assessed through 6 questions addressing the definition, signs and symptoms, risk factors, evaluation, management, and outcomes. The quality of the videos was assessed using 3 standardized evaluative instruments: DISCERN, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) benchmarks, and the Global Quality Scale (GQS). Furthermore, correlative analyses between video quality and characteristics of the uploaders and the videos themselves were conducted. The search yielded 145 CHD-related videos from TikTok, predominantly uploaded by health professionals (n=128, 88.3%), followed by news agencies (n=6, 4.1%), nonprofit organizations (n=10, 6.9%), and for-profit organizations (n=1, 0.7%). Content comprehensiveness achieved a median score of 3 (IQR 2-4). Median values for the DISCERN, JAMA, and GQS evaluations across all videos stood at 27 (IQR 24-32), 2 (IQR 2-2), and 2 (IQR 2-3), respectively. Videos from health professionals and nonprofit organizations attained significantly superior JAMA scores in comparison to those of news agencies (P<.001 and P=.02, respectively), whereas GQS scores for videos from health professionals were also notably higher than those from news agencies (P=.048). Within health professionals, cardiologists demonstrated discernibly enhanced performance over noncardiologists in both DISCERN and GQS assessments (P=.02). Correlative analyses unveiled positive correlations between video quality and uploader metrics, encompassing the positive correlations between the number of followers; total likes; average likes per video; and established quality indices such as DISCERN, JAMA, or GQS scores. Similar investigations relating to video attributes showed correlations between user engagement factors-likes, comments, collections, shares-and the aforementioned quality indicators. In contrast, a negative correlation emerged between the number of days since upload and quality indices, while a longer video duration corresponded positively with higher DISCERN and GQS scores. The quality of the videos was generally poor, with significant disparities based on source category. The content comprehensiveness coverage proved insufficient, casting doubts on the reliability and quality of the information relayed through these videos. Among health professionals, video contributions from cardiologists exhibited superior quality compared to noncardiologists. As TikTok's role in health information dissemination expands, ensuring accurate and reliable content is crucial to better meet patients' needs for CHD information that conventional health education fails to fulfill.

Review of the Paradigm on the Role of Print Media in Influencing Public Health

This paper explores important issues related to media research in the context of public health debates and emphasises the requirement of a research plan including media production based on political sciences. Consensus is that via topic selection and presentation, the media significantly impacts public health dialogues and influences public opinions. Often reflecting the interests of strong stakeholders, the way the media presents health challenges, their causes, and solutions greatly influences public health debate. But modern studies often overlook the complex processes of media production necessary for knowledge of how political economics, power, and culture impact these debates. Media production is not just the consequence of linked networks, occupational practices, technology, and institutional contexts reflecting ideological convictions; it is also the output of newsrooms, revealed by a thorough study of media production. Examining non-communicative diseases (NCDs), a major worldwide health concern affected by unsustainable commodity sectors, this viewpoint is very vital. Public health studies have not yet completely revealed the media tactics used by businesses pushing negative items such alcohol, tobacco, and processed foods. Underexplored is the impact of these sectors on public health policy discussions mediated via media coverage.

Public Sphere and Deliberations for Frontier Nagaland: Reflections on Recognition and Identity

To achieve a separate state named ‘Frontier Nagaland’, the civil society of Eastern Nagaland protested against taking part in the Hornbill Festival in 2022, the state festival of the Government of Nagaland, India. Initially, the civil society also decided to boycott the Nagaland Legislative Elections in 2023. Civil society organisations have refrained from participating in the festival after deliberating on the matter through different media platforms. Abstention from the festival, a cultural means of protest, brought the question of identity by highlighting not only the unequal development in the region but also their recognition as a ‘significant other’. This study argues that the protest and deliberation in the public sphere communicated well with the public, state and union government, creating a conducive atmosphere for deliberative democracy.

Planners Becoming Visualizers in the Mediatized World: Actor-Network Analysis of Cairo’s Street Billboards

While visual communication is crucial in urban planning, there is a gap in understanding how dominant narratives and visuals affect professional planning practice and planners’ roles, particularly in mediatized urban environments. This study addresses this gap by examining street billboards in Cairo to understand how planning visualizations contribute to the restructuring of the planning profession. It explores how these visual tools shape the practice and roles of urban planners, who are increasingly becoming visualizers. Employing actor-network theory, the study traces the relationships between billboards, planners, and other network actors. The primary research question is: How and why does the use of planning visualizations (billboards) restructure the profession of planning, including planning practice and the roles of planners? Utilizing a qualitative exploratory methodology, the study focuses on billboards along Cairo’s 6th of October Bridge. Data were analyzed through visual and content analysis of 209 billboards to understand their language, content, patterns, and geo-positioning. The analysis revealed that billboards in Cairo significantly impact urban landscapes and the visual culture of urbanization, often promoting exclusive real estate projects to a socio-economic elite. The research highlights the dilemmas in the changing professional roles of planners within a mediatized world and underscores the need for more inclusive planning practices. By employing actor-network theory, the study provides a nuanced understanding of the complex relationships that shape and are shaped by the visual culture of urban planning, offering insights into how planners can navigate and influence these dynamics for more equitable urban development.

Writing Confucian History in an Indian Language

Abstract This article uses a case study of an Urdu translation of the classical Chinese Shujing (Book of Documents) to bring to light a process of multiperson, mediated, and ultimately transimperial translation in which European source texts played crucial roles in transmitting detailed knowledge of China to the Indian public sphere. After outlining the theoretical approach of transimperial history and its value for Asian intellectual history, the article positions the Urdu Shujing in relation to earlier Indian and Middle Eastern accounts of China whose triangulated transmission—from East Asia to Europe and thence to South or West Asia—set various precedents for the translation of the Shujing from a prior English translation. The article then focuses on the Urdu version to reveal the transimperial mechanisms it used to not only translate and transliterate classical Chinese, but also to “transcalculate” dates and render Chinese history comparable to both Europe's and India's past. The conclusions argue that, from Ming China via the early modern Catholic empires to the occult subcurrents of British colonial culture, the transimperial pathways along which Confucian history reached India were ultimately Eurasian rather than narrowly inter-Asian in scope. This reliance on earlier European translations would later recur with the spread of “world literature” in the postcolonial era.

Star architecture in online public discourse: exploring Reddit user-generated content on the Vessel, New York, through a text analytics approach

Star architecture in online public discourse: exploring Reddit user-generated content on the Vessel, New York, through a text analytics approach

The most successful and influential Americans come from a surprisingly narrow range of ‘elite’ educational backgrounds

The highest-achieving figures in politics, business, academia, and the media dominate public discourse and wield great influence in society. Education—perhaps especially at “elite” colleges and universities—may lie at the heart of the divide between the general public and these top achievers. In this paper, we build a new data set for the American “elite” and systematically examine the link between selective schools and outstanding achievements. In Study 1, across 30 different achievement groups totaling 26,198 people, we document patterns of attendance at a set of 34 “Elite” 34 schools, the 8 Ivy League schools, and Harvard University in particular. In Study 2, we surveyed 1810 laypeople to estimate how well they are aware of the key empirical facts from Study 1. We found that exceptional achievement is surprisingly strongly associated with “elite” education, especially obtaining a degree from Harvard, and the general public tends to underestimate the size of this effect. Attending one of just 34 institutions of higher education out of the roughly 4000 in the U.S. appears to be a critical and surprising factor separating extraordinary achievers from others in their fields.

Does the Media’s Partisanship Influence News Coverage on Artificial Intelligence Issues? Media Coverage Analysis on Artificial Intelligence Issues

This study aims to analyze news coverage on artificial intelligence (AI) issues and highlight the characteristics and differences in reporting based on media partisanship. By examining AI-related news in the South Korean media, this study reveals how conservative and progressive outlets frame the issue differently. The analysis found that conservative media coverage predominantly focuses on positive aspects, emphasizing development value frames such as the benefits and societal progress brought by AI. In contrast, progressive media often highlight crisis value frames, focusing on issues like side effects, ethical concerns, and legislation surrounding AI. These partisan differences reflect fundamental societal priorities and influence public discourse and policy agendas. Understanding media framing is crucial for fostering informed public dialogue on the societal significance of AI and promoting evidence-based decision-making. By recognizing partisan biases and critically evaluating media coverage, citizens can engage in constructive discourse beyond ideological divides. This study underscores the role of the media in promoting interdisciplinary discussions about the future trajectory of AI and in preparing society for its impacts. Ultimately, evidence-based public discourse is essential for shaping responsible AI policies and mitigating potential risks in the digital age.

“Best Before”: On Women, Ageism, and Mental Health

Introduction: Our world has changed over the last decades, and one of the dramatic changes has been the increase in human life expectancy. Due to important life-saving breakthroughs, the current life expectancy for the world in 2024 is 73.33 years; and female global life expectancy is 76.0 years. This trend manifests one of the greatest achievements of human society, which, however, reveals issues that humanity has yet to address. One of them is the place and role of women over 40 in modern society. Purpose: This paper aims to unveil gendered ageism and to identify its negative impact on women’s mental health. Methodology: We conducted a systematic search in the main electronic databases, such as PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. Relevant studies were identified using search terms: women over 40, aging, gendered ageism, mental health, wellbeing, beauty standards, youthfulness, age stereotypes, multiple discrimination, inequity, identity, sexuality, social exclusion, intersectionality. The authors used phenomenological philosophical, hermeneutic, and inductive approaches, as well as the interpretive research paradigm. Review and Discussion: Constant anxiety about aging, attempts to turn back time, desperate cosmetic battles that women are involved in are far from just a tribute to fashion or female vanity, but also an attempt to come out of the shadows, to overcome the boundaries of female limited space, and to make a woman visible. However, women’s grand entrance onto the big stage faces gendered ageism that forces women over 40 feel excluded in society and life by making them invisible. Despite certain changes in public consciousness over the role of women in society, we still live in a men’s world. The centuries-old subordination of women to men, cultural ideas about the “perfect” female face, body, age, weight, compliance with which is a “pass” to the world of success, or, according to evolutionary psychologists, a “mechanism” that promotes survival, crystallize in various disorders, thereby undermining women’s mental health, downplaying the value of wisdom, knowledge and life experience, and eroding women’s self-esteem. Conclusion: Aging is a natural and inevitable process, and old age is a significant part of life, which can be filled with joy, achievements of small and big goals, dissemination of accumulated experience and wisdom. Unfortunately, these wonderful aspirations are hindered by ageism – one of the last socially acceptable prejudices. Inducing age stereotypes and perpetuating internalized ageism, our social environment maintains discrimination of women over 40 in workplace, social settings, and private sphere that has detrimental consequences for women’s mental and physical health. Therefore, combating ageism and sexism and eliminating age discrimination is essential to support older women’s health and wellbeing. Both women and men share the responsibility to progress towards true equity that will help women around the world achieve success on their own terms and reach their full potential. Life journey of every woman is a way of self-discovery and self-development, in which the various aspects of a woman’s personality come together to create unique integrity of body, mind, and spirit. To fully realize the potential of half of humanity, it is necessary to dismantle the systems that maintain inequities, as well as to raise up and empower women of all ages, colors, abilities to assert themselves and be respected in both public and private spheres, to accept reality and move on, to feel comfortable and confident in their own skin, to do wonders for everyone on our planet, and to know that every woman matters.

Power, interests and representations in the construction of alcopop as public problem in Quebec, Canada

Alcopops are malt-based or spirit-based sugary beverages whose consumption has led to numerous policies in different Western countries. This article examines the representational and socio-political dynamics surrounding the sale of alcopops that led to restrictive policies in Canada (2017–2020). Using qualitative methods during this period, including interviews with key players in the field of alcohol policy, analysis of press articles and review of legislative documents, we trace the evolution of public and political discourse on alcopops. We shed light on the role of social actors—mainly public-health organizations and the alcohol industry—defending their own interests to influence policy-making. A multi-theoretical framework is used to analyze how alcopops emerged as a public problem. This framework integrates Herbert Blumer's theoretical perspective on social problems, Serge Moscovici's social representation theory and Stevens and Zampini’s political constellation model. Through an analysis of the socio-political context in Quebec, we reveal the complex interplay between public health imperatives and the interests of the alcohol industry. This should serve as a model to study public problems that lead to public policies implementation.

Analyzing Media Content in Turkiye and the UK during the COVID-19 Pandemic Considering the Dimensions of Quadruple Helix Collaboration Processes

The outbreak of COVID-19 between 2020 and 2022 highlighted the significant role of news media as a tool of communication among different social actors. Due to the novelty of the virus, most citizens turned to official news outlets to obtain reliable information about the disease and pandemic regulations. Therefore, a content analysis of news coverage in different countries provides insight into their Quadruple Helix dynamics, which reflects new patterns of knowledge democracy under consideration of the media-based public sphere. This article aims to trace the patterns of prevalent topics related to COVID-19 news in Turkish and British mainstream news agencies between September 2020 and March 2022. By deploying content analysis, this research endeavours to elicit public discourses created around the pandemic. These media agencies engaged in critical commentary on the pandemic situation and the policies enacted during this period, updating citizens with the latest information. However, the differences in the political and social structures of each country influence their Quadruple Helix knowledge exchange, which has a high impact on transformation processes.

Ersatz Intelligence

While the uses of generative artificial intelligence (AI) are vast, one capability it lacks is true creativity. This requires originality and surprise, neither of which is possible without the human process. Yet students and others increasingly rely on AI, so it seems likely to shape public discourse as well as everyday life. Social-media groupthink and insular academic communities have already narrowed the range of intellectual discourse. AI stands to exacerbate the trend, filtering out unconventional prose and content in languages and dialects that are not widely spoken. Yet AI companies have limited motivation to enlighten consumers about its shortcomings. As with other sweeping technological innovations, complacency and overreliance on AI appears inevitable absent intervention. Without proper guidelines, AI could distil writing and idea formulation into a few predicted outcomes and extinguish true creative thought.

Artificial Intelligence dan (Persoalan tentang) Pekerjaan: Sebuah Tinjauan Filosofis dari Perspektif Vita Activa Hannah Arendt

Artificial Intelligence AI is the result of innovation and the proficiency of human technology. Technology like (AI) has the power to change humans including in terms of ability, expertise, time and handwork. This is the dilemmatic aspect of the emergence of AI. This article aims to examine the real technological developments and human innovations in AI and their impact on human handwork as a model of self-realization. The author analyzed this problem using a literature review method related to the Vita Activa concept initiated by Hannah Arendt. Starting from Arendt's criticism of the devaluation of the value of human action by the presence of AI, this research will show that active human involvement in handiwork still has the value of realizing the existence of human abilities. Thus, amidst human anxiety about the presence of AI, Hannah Arendt affirms the importance of human involvement in the public sphere.

The gender productivity gap in Biochemical and Biophysical sciences. Some evidence to solve the productivity puzzle.

This paper studies the gender productivity gap in biochemical and biophysical sciences in Argentina for the period 2011-2018. Women publish less papers than men due to academic and non-academic differences. We define the former as the individual characteristics related to research activity, that are developed in the public sphere, and non-academic as the ones related to the private sphere (such as housework and breeding). The later tend to negatively impact on the academic characteristics of female researchers, even when they are not supposed to be related. We test whether the gender productivity gap persists even when academic characteristics between men and women are alike, and to what extent these characteristics contribute to reduce the gap. The methodological approached is based on an extension of the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, named multivariate decomposition for nonlinear response models. Results show that both observable (academic) and unobservable factors (both academic and non-academic) explain the gender productivity gap and that the former contribute to the reduction but not the elimination.

Geoff Boucher. Habermas and Literature: The Public Sphere and the Social Imaginary

Geoff Boucher. <i>Habermas and Literature: The Public Sphere and the Social Imaginary</i>

“Instagram is like a karela”: transnational digital queer politics and online censorship and surveillance in India

Abstract This article explores transnational queer political flows and negotiations in Indian queer/trans communities on Instagram, situating this in its limits and restrictions as a public sphere that is corporate- and state-governed and subject to conditions of profitability, censorship, regulation, and algorithmic disciplining. Using insights from 23 in-depth interviews with queer/trans women and non-binary Instagram users and community organizers across India, I argue that binaries of Western/Indigenous, global/local, authentic/inauthentic are insufficient to understand Indian queer digital politics. I instead explore the political utility of agentic reclamations and negotiations of queer/trans identity by marginal queer/trans users. At the same time, drawing on participant experiences of content moderation, censorship, and corporate and state surveillance, I examine how the potentials of Instagram as a site to mediate articulations of a radical politics of queer liberation are restricted, thwarted, and reconfigured by platform design and policing.

Fa'avae: A Samoan Theory of Crime from the ‘South’ Pacific

This article presents an interdisciplinary theory on the causes of crime in Samoa. The theory utilises a cultural practice of building the foundation - fa’avae - of a Samoan house, to explain the causes of crime and to articulate a crime prevention strategy from the nuances of the word fa’avae. The interdisciplinary nature of this theory considers two main aspects of the Samoan life of God and family (aiga) to describe both the causes of crime in Samoa, and a way forward to restore aiga and community fractured by crime. The theory calls upon the church through church ministers – faifeau – to become active in the public sphere. This entails speaking out about the causes of crime and working in collaboration with other stakeholders in devising culturally appropriate crime prevention approaches for Samoa, likely to also be familiar to other ‘South’ Pacific nations.

Words and views on old age, or how ageism undermines the care relationship

Anxiety about ageing, as well as old age, is rooted in public discourse and has a negative impact on the quality of the relationship with the elderly, particularly in the context of care relationships with more vulnerable seniors. This text proposes a theoretical and empirical reflection on ageism, manifested as much in its hostile as in its compassionate forms.

ESG-трансформация российских регионов: теоретические аспекты

The paper considers the theoretical aspects of sustainable development and ESG transformation of Russian regions. The research substantiates a systematic approach to the balanced development of regions as socio-ecological and economic systems. The concept of sustainable development and regional ESG transformation correlates to the concept of regional economic security, economic growth, human and social capital development. In our opinion, a systematic reproductive approach is the most productive in solving many problems of regional socio-economic development. Moreover, it could consider the following issues of regional ESG transformation: a six-stage scheme of social reproduction: «science – production – distribution – exchange – consumption – utilization»; natural-economic-institutional-social reproduction chain. One of the aspects of the reproductive approach is the concept of sustainable development and the ESG agenda. However, in terms of economic theory and philosophy, four types of «transformational connections» can be distinguished: interaction, relationships, institutions, and management decisions. The regional sustainable development, the achievement of high indicators of its socio-economic development is presented as a balanced interaction of three components: economy, social sphere, and ecology. Russian scientists consider regional ESG transformation in terms of economic security, regional economic growth, and increasing its attractiveness, development of technological potential, improvement of the institutional environment, and competencies of managers at all levels in the field of sustainable development and ESG.

RENEWAL OF THE SOCIAL SPHERE AND STABLE SOCIETY SYSTEM IN THE PROCESS OF REFORMS

In this article, scientific information is given in order to analyze the interdependence of the work carried out in the social sphere and the creation of a stable society as a result of the reforms implemented in Uzbekistan and their socio-historical aspects.