Public Reception Research Articles

A smarter neighbourhood? A postscript on Sidewalk Toronto

With Sidewalk Toronto's Quayside project, Toronto joined other cities where smart city projects have been conceived, initiated, and studied. For nearly two and a half years, newspaper space devoted to this project was central to public reception, perception, and response. With regard to The Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star, there was a conjunction between journalism discourse and planning a ‘smart’ neighbourhood assemblage based on the dual production of urban space. At the core of the Quayside project story was the question of big tech power and the ‘right’ novel neighbourhood assemblage for Toronto. I argue that mediatized controversy played a double role by expressing a propose-and-public pushback dynamic and as curriculum for place-based urban learning.

Trusting in Science and Religion

Science relies on trust both in its public reception and in the collaborative collection of evidence, as it is impossible for anyone to verify everything independently. Might the presence of trust in scientific practice help show that trust in religious matters is also rational? Or might scientific practices rather undermine testimony as a source of religious knowledge? Parallels and contrasts between scientific and religious knowledge are common in the literature, despite the plurality of sciences and religions that exist making such comparisons difficult. In this article, I will analyse science-based arguments for and against the reliability of religious testimony. I begin with Mary Midgley’s argument against scientism, and use it to develop a parallel between religious and scientific trust. I then consider two arguments from science against religious trust: the argument from the superiority of science, and the argument from cultural evolution. I argue that utilization of work in social epistemology is helpful for understanding the parallels between scientific and religious trust in a nuanced manner, and that relating specific scientific and religious practices might be more useful than general-level critiques of religious rationality.

The effectiveness of coercive measures in motivating vaccination: Evidence from China during the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT Governments worldwide have implemented mandates, restrictions, and other coercive measures to secure adequate vaccine coverage, with the COVID-19 pandemic providing numerous examples. While the ethics and public reception of such measures are matters of heated discussion, their effectiveness in motivating individuals to get vaccinated remains incompletely understood. This study addresses that gap by analyzing data from a 2022 nationwide online survey conducted in China. Respondents recruited through proportional quota sampling to reflect key demographic characteristics of the population were asked to specify their COVID-19 vaccination status and the reason behind their decision. Results reveal that while most respondents reported getting vaccinated voluntarily, 14.6% attributed their vaccination to the government’s coercive mobilisation efforts. Moreover, members of the ruling Chinese Communist Party, as well as individuals favouring Western vaccines unavailable in China, were more likely to cite coercive mobilisation as the reason for their vaccination. These findings suggest that coercive measures can motivate a substantial proportion of the population to get vaccinated, especially those closely connected to the political system and those with unmet vaccination preferences. Given the controversy surrounding such measures, this enhanced understanding of their effectiveness could help with formulating targeted policies to combat infectious diseases and safeguard public health.

COVID-19 and influenza vaccine Hesitancy among adults hospitalized in the United States, 2019-2022.

Understanding similarities and differences between hesitancy for influenza and COVID-19 vaccines could facilitate strategies to improve public receptivity toward vaccination. We compared hesitancy for COVID-19 vaccines during the first 13months of availability (January 2021-January 2022) with hesitancy for influenza vaccines in the 15months prior to COVID-19 vaccine availability (October 2019-December 2020) among adults hospitalized with acute respiratory illness at 21 hospitals in the United States. We interviewed patients regarding vaccination status, willingness to be vaccinated, and perceptions of vaccine safety and efficacy. We used multivariate logistic regression to identify factors associated with vaccine hesitancy. Among 12,292 patients enrolled during the COVID-19 vaccine period, 5485 (44.6%) were unvaccinated. Patient characteristics associated with not receiving the COVID-19 vaccine included younger age, female sex, higher BMI, lack of health insurance, absence of chronic comorbid medical conditions, no or rare influenza vaccination in prior years, higher CDC social vulnerability index (SVI), a measure of external stresses that may negatively impact health, living in the Midwest or southern US, lack of college or higher education, and not wearing a mask. Among 983 patients enrolled during the influenza vaccination period, 381(37.8%) were unvaccinated. Characteristics associated with not receiving the influenza vaccine included no or one chronic comorbid medical condition, no or rare influenza vaccination in prior years, being a current smoker, and higher SVI. Discussion with healthcare providers was a reason for vaccination for 27.7% (167) for influenza and 8.3% (564) for COVID-19 and to decline vaccination for 0.5% Ten great public health achievements-United States (2011) (2) for influenza and 2.2% (118) for COVID-19. We found that higher SVI scores and lack of prior influenza vaccination were associated with hesitancy for both COVID-19 and influenza vaccines. There were regional variations in COVID-19 vaccine acceptance and discussions with HCPs significantly influenced acceptance for both vaccines.

Public Awareness Campaigns on Palliative Care: Applying a Multidimensional Model to Understand the Reception by the General Public.

Public awareness campaigns on palliative care aim to tackle limited public knowledge and negative perceptions of palliative care. However, little is known about their public reception. This study examined how existing campaigns are interpreted, evaluated, and engaged with by members of the general public. Three public campaigns, launched in Flanders or the Netherlands between 2020 and 2023, were discussed in 10 focus groups (total of 65 participants). The analysis was guided by Schrøder's multidimensional audience reception model. Our results show that campaigns were interpreted, evaluated, and engaged with in highly divergent ways. People with personal experiences surrounding serious illness were generally more open toward campaign messages, while a sense of personal relevance was lacking for others. Campaigns that centered on the perspectives of seriously ill individuals while portraying them in active and resilient positions were more positively evaluated. Moreover, they were more successful in broadening perceptions of palliative care beyond being hospital-based end-of-life care for severely ill and care-dependent persons. Conversely, materials that neglected the patient's voice while framing palliative care as enabling moments of joy "despite serious illness" generally fortified prior perceptions and were often rejected. Additionally, a preference for highlighting the social context surrounding the patient was repeatedly expressed. We conclude that diversified strategies, optimizing a sense of personal relevance, are needed to more effectively influence public understanding and engagement toward palliative care. Destigmatizing palliative care also involves destigmatizing persons with serious illness, and representing them with an emphasis on their agency and strength is vital to this shift.

Between applause and arm crossing: Public reception of within‐group apologies and the role of system justification

AbstractWithin‐group apologies restore important values and afford victims their dignity; however, the system justification motive may cause group authorities to hesitate in apologizing or to include system‐justifying expressions to soothe the general public. Two studies were conducted, both on‐campus (Study 1) and off‐campus (Study 2), to empirically illustrate the public reception of within‐group apologies (victim‐focused and system‐challenging) and silence. The results indicate that higher levels of system justification are associated with more favorable attitudes toward responses from authority. For the general public (Study 2), high‐level justifiers supported the government's silence as much as the victim‐focused apology, maintaining trust despite perceiving unfairness. Conversely, low‐level justifiers, though negative overall, supported victim‐focused apology more than system‐challenging apology or silence. Additionally, the general public in Study 2 favored the victim‐focused apology over the system‐challenging one, rendering system‐justifying expressions unnecessary. We propose that authorities prioritize apologies emphasizing dignity and respect for victims, instead of fearing potential negative reception influenced by the system justification motive.

Joking Aside

In this article, I examine humorous portrayals of European music in satirical journals published in Istanbul during the 1870s. Drawing on theories of humor as a means of expressing ambiguity, I analyze a description of a private salon concert as well as polemical debates about the public performance and reception of Turkish-language operetta. Through the strategic use of irony and mistranslation, Ottoman satirists exposed the incongruities of being modern while playfully undermining perceptions of distance and proximity between “Istanbul” and “Europe.” Modernity produced a sense of dislocation, a being out of place, that was heightened by listening to unfamiliar sonic practices as part of a broader assemblage of civilized behaviors. Yet by making light of such disconcerting experiences, Ottoman satirists produced a form of cultural intimacy that relocated modernity itself within a more familiar and accessible space – as long as their readers got the joke.

Sentiment Analysis in Green Finance with LLMs

Green finance has gained global significance as governments and financial institutions emphasize sustainable investment. Understanding the sentiment of green finance reports can provide valuable insights into public perception, investor sentiment, and policy reception. This study uses three different models FinBERT, GPT-3.5 Turbo, and GPT-4o -- to perform sentiment analysis on over 1000 reports obtained from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) website. To assess the accuracy of the models, this paper manually labeled the sentiment of the reports into three categories: Positive, Negative, and Neutral. We compared the models outputs using standard metrics such as F1-score, Accuracy, Precision, and Recall. The findings indicate that GPT-3.5 Turbo outperforms the other models in terms of accuracy. GPT-4o shows superior performance compared to Finbert which trained on financial texts in extracting sentiment from general text. Even though FinBERT and GPT-4 have stronger financial text processing capabilities, GPT-3.5 Turbo can often capture the true intent and sentiment of the text more quickly and clearly, especially when trained on a relatively small text corpus. Its generalization and speed make it efficient for less complex financial tasks.

Costume curation knowledge exchange: A case study on experimental pedagogy

This article demonstrates how the consideration of costume can be a catalyst in developing curatorial/cultural programming approaches and, in reciprocation, how curatorial/cultural programming choices expand costume dissemination by means of atypical audience engagement and activation. The article contributes to costume discourse by elevating costume as a teaching and learning tool in a related discipline (curation) and by revealing how costume can be recontextualized and renewed for interactive public reception, going beyond costume as garment/artefact to expand the area of costume curation itself. The underlying research evaluates the pedagogical approach that steered an industry–academia project within an emerging area of arts and culture-related practice in higher education (HE), referred to as mutually beneficial ‘knowledge exchange’ (KE). The aim of the partnership project was to move a traditional fashion curation curriculum towards the performance-related realm of ‘cultural programming’, expanding students’ experience of real-world working practices and outputs, potentially leading to a richer range of employment opportunities upon graduation. As such, MA Fashion Curation and Cultural Programming students from London College of Fashion (LCF) at University of the Arts London (UAL) created three costume-based interventions as part of the yearly performance festival at the internationally renowned Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A). Framing four main research observations with theory of ‘threshold concepts’ in parallel with the principles of KE practice, both being portals towards new understandings and knowledge, this research additionally contributes to KE scholarship by addressing the need for more analytical case-studies involving students. More widely, this costume study evidences how KE scaffolds the discursive, collaborative teaching practices that are already a signature pedagogy of art and design (), and suggests that KE might be vital to the growing demand for new models of creative education (: 17) that develop industry–academia communities of practice.

Attitudes towards Ukrainian refugees: insights from the literature

The invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation in February 2022 prompted a significant influx of Ukrainian refugees into neighboring European countries. Comparative analyses have revealed that Ukrainian refugees generally received more favorable public reception compared to other groups, such as Syrians. This difference has been attributed to the perceived proximity and spillover risk of the war, as well as shared cultural values with Western countries. However, while initial sympathy towards Ukrainians is evident, concerns about economic implications and long-term costs may erode support over time. This highlights the need for sustained inquiry beyond war related empathy and cultural values. In response, this study calls for an in-depth exploration of refugee attitudes, recognizing the multifaceted nature of public opinion. Such understanding is essential for informing policymaking aimed at effectively supporting displaced populations and for fostering a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of current European responses to the Ukrainian refugee crisis. This paper critically reviews existing literature on public attitudes towards immigrants and refugees, identifying key themes and proposing avenues for future research.

Media Representation of Male Protagonists in Thai Boy Love Commercials: A Visual Discourse Analysis

The media portrayal of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) community may impact public understanding and attitudes towards this community, which has not been extensively studied. This article explores the media representation of gay men in commercials by presenting a visual discourse analysis of three Thai Boy Love commercials. Combining the visual representation framework of social actors and genre and functionality analysis, it examines (a) how the male protagonists are visually represented in relation to the audience from three symbolic dimensions and (b) how the salient patterns of presenting boy love commercials are integrated with the story’s narrative stages and genre functions. The findings suggest that the boys are primarily portrayed positively as inclusive, close, agentive and ordinary social members who feature soft masculinity. Nevertheless, such a generic and idealised representation romanticises gay relationships, diminishes the individuality of gay people and obscures the diversity within the gay community. The portrayal also prioritises the female gaze to cater to the core audience of heterosexual young women consumers. This article provides insights into the reciprocal relationship between public receptivity towards the LGBTQ community and their favourable visual representations in commercials.

Why do some retracted articles continue to get cited?

Retracted publications can still receive a substantial number of citations after the retraction. Little is known about the causes for this phenomenon and the nature of epistemic risk or harm in these retraction cases. Using this phenomenon also as an example for the broader question of how scholarly communities deal with uncertainty in the reception of publications, this case study aims to assess the epistemic contributions of retracted publications with continuous and decreasing citation impact and to relate these to the epistemic environments of the retracted papers and to reception patterns. Several parsing and natural language processing approaches are used, complemented, and validated by qualitative close reading. Specifically, (i) dissent and support are identified in citing and in co-cited publications; (ii) the concept terms of retracted publications are expanded by word embeddings and MeSH terms and traced in citation contexts; and finally (iii) rhetorical functions in citation contexts are identified based on keyword extraction. Empirical support and unresolved disputes are found almost exclusively in cases with continuous citations. Authors emphasize specific informational values in some cases with citations continuing after the retraction, while methodological and more general levels of claims prevail in others. Citations can be meaningfully examined by considering the weighing process between epistemic risks and informational value; persistent citation impact thus doesn’t necessarily indicate the perpetuation of epistemic harm.

Patterns of shared meaning across personal narratives surrounding experiences with palliative care, serious illness, and the end of life

Prior observations of persistent public misconceptions and negative beliefs surrounding palliative care have led to extensive calls for public education on palliative care. Yet, the development of effective initiatives to improve public perceptions of palliative care is still hindered by a lack of research providing a deeper, contextualized understanding of the way people perceive and give meaning to palliative care. This study therefore set out to explore patterns of shared meaning across personal narratives surrounding experiences with palliative care, serious illness, and the end of life. These narratives were collected during a broad public engagement initiative on palliative care in Flanders, Belgium which included a call to share personal stories surrounding palliative care (which 72 persons did) as well as a Citizens' Forum in which 24 persons engaged in live conversations on palliative care. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to analyze the personal narratives and yielded four axes of meaning: 1) ‘Sense of Support’, describing feeling supported or abandoned on multiple levels with key elements of open and empathetic communication, being informed and listened to; 2) ‘Being-in-Time’, incorporating a renewed sense of temporality and the weight of uncertain prognosis; 3) ‘Constituting a Sense of Self while Coping with Life-Threatening Illness’, involving concerns surrounding role adjustments and posthumous reputation; and 4) ‘Going Through the Process of Dying’, unique to bereaved individuals' narratives, highlighting the importance of being informed during the dying process and honoring the wishes of the dying person. Together, these axes illuminate how both positive and stigmatized views on palliative care are shaped by broader patterns of meaning attribution, deeply ingrained in personal and social contexts. The identified narrative elements can play a crucial role in improving the content, reach, and impact of future public communication and education on palliative care, effectively enhancing public receptivity and engagement.

Face-to-face fundraising and the dialectics of appearance

ABSTRACT Face-to-face fundraising (F2F) emerged in the 1990s as an innovative mode of charity fundraising, whereby paid fundraisers – often employed through for-profit agencies – solicit members of the public to sign-up for monthly direct-debit payments. Despite its everyday visibility – and public critical reception – this instance of the ubiquitous intersection of humanitarianism and commodification, integral to contemporary capitalism, remains unexplored. This paper fills this gap but, in the process, draws some theoretical lessons germane to this literature and to materialist critique more generally. I argue that the peculiar dialectics of appearance operative in the political economy of F2F resists interpretation in terms of extant conceptual appreciations of other modalities of ‘commodified compassion’ and in materialist conceptual vocabularies in political economy scholarship more broadly. Far from ‘mere appearance’, F2F’s abstract form of ‘shared humanity’ is not simply an ethical veneer to be bypassed in unveiling the concrete (re)production of inequalities in humanity, as is the general tendency in materialist critique. Rather, this appearance is essential for its functioning and those concrete inequalities are written into this form, rather than existing behind/beyond it. This, I suggest, is captured effectively by a ‘dialectical materialist’ take on the Marxian theory of the commodity form.

Consumer support for restrictive policies on unhealthy food and beverage delivery via drones.

Drone delivery services are set to increase unhealthy food and alcohol accessibility. The aim of this study was to evaluate public receptiveness to various options for regulating drone food and beverage deliveries and to identify sociodemographic differences in receptiveness. In total, 1079 adults were surveyed to assess total support and differences in support between population subgroups (e.g.age, sex, location, existing habits) for nine potential drone policies covering curfews, quotas, and product bans. Support was measured on five-point agreement scales, with mean individual policy support (M) and grand mean support calculated for all assessed policies (grand M). There was moderate support for all assessed policies (grand M=3.5), ranging from M=3.2 (drone delivery quotas for shopping centres and dwellings) to M=3.7 (night curfews, airspace quotas). Factors associated with policy support were older age, metropolitan residenceand using grocery delivery services. Public support exists for policies designed to restrict drone food and beverage deliveries. Drone food and beverage delivery policies will likely be supported by the public and could assist in controlling the accessibility of such products for the benefit of population dietary health.

In a Lad’s World. A Popular TV Series and Social Media in the Shadow of the Russo-Ukrainian War

The essay deals with the enormous success of the Russian television series The Boy’s Word. Blood on the Asphalt (Slovo patsana. Krov’ na asfalte, 2023), directed by Zhora Kryzhovnikov, on both sides of the trenches during the Russo-Ukrainian war. It discusses the role of social media and the public reception in Ukraine and Russia. In particular, the way the series depicts the so-called ‘Kazan phenomenon’, when the Tatar capital was shocked by criminal youth gangs in the late Soviet Union, makes it attractive and topical in the current situation. By analyzing this, the essay also attempts to gain a better understanding of how popular cultural products take up and process social problems and conflicts in a complex way.

The Ethical Implications of Prosocial Synthetic Resuscitation: Analysing User Comments to a Deepfake Campaign Addressing Intimate Partner Violence

In recent years, the ‘digital resurrection’ of the deceased through Deepfake technology has become a reality accessible to the general public and has raised profound ethical discussions in society. While the academic literature focuses primarily on regulatory and political implications, the public reception of digital resurrection remains largely unexplored. Furthermore, much of the public discourse around Deepfakes centres on their malicious applications, despite the potential for digital resurrection to serve prosocial purposes. This study focuses on an Israeli campaign called ‘Listen to My Voice’ (2021), which ‘resurrected’ women murdered by their partners, having them ‘tell’ the stories of the abusive relationships that preceded their deaths. An analysis of viewer responses shows that the campaign elicited strong reactions straddling the line between technology and ethics. Quantitatively, most comments supported the use of Deepfakes, given the importance of the cause and the impactful messaging. Qualitatively, two key themes emerged: one technical, indicating that visceral realism sparked both emotional connections and fundamental misunderstandings of the technology itself. The second highlighted an ethical tension between desires to protect autonomy and justifications for posthumously using an individual’s likeness for positive aims. The findings suggest Deepfakes’ technical attributes, particularly tangibility, significantly shape its ethical reception—a phenomenon we term ‘the ethics of technological misunderstanding’.

“Can you guess what every woman’s worst nightmare is?”: Good for Her Film, and Contextualising Rape-Revolt in post-Weinstein America and Promising Young Woman

The #MeToo moment following Harvey Weinstein's sexual abuse allegations led to a change in the way we make sense of ra;e allegations within popular discourse. In film, changes to the discursive construction of women's rights movements became key to what Barbara Creed calls the Feminist New Wave cinema. The rape-revenge film inserts itself into this new landscape of social and online activism too, as it starts to evolve into a 'rape-revolt' narrative structure, which aims to treat rape within film as a source of political revolt and a way to challenge institutions which uphold rape culture. Promising Young Woman (Emerald Fennell, 2020) interrogates these changes to the public reception of rape culture within a post-Weinstein framework which allows for a nuanced perspective on rape-revenge, taking into account a flawed criminal justice system, corrupt institutions, and enablers' personal failures. This article argues that the Weinstein scandal and its consequence on public discourse have started to influence the ways in which cinema makes sense of rape, and furthermore situates films of the Feminist New Wave within a movement which social media users have called the 'Good for Her' film. 

Studi Resepsi Khalayak terhadap Disinformasi Pandemi Covid-19 pada Media Sosial di Yogyakarta

This study aims to understand and analyze public reception of disinformation in Yogyakarta using Stuart Hall's encoding-decoding theory. The study used a qualitative method. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with two types of informants, namely santri and abangan. This study found that audience reception of COVID-19 pandemic disinformation varied, some were in a dominant hegemonic, negotiating, or oppositional position. The findings of this study confirm the thesis of reception studies which state that every message spread in the media is received polysemically. However, in contrast to the assumptions of reception studies, the position of audience reception at each reading position which is fixed and comes from the same audience is not true. On the contrary, this study found that audience acceptance can change, sometimes in a dominant hegemonic code, sometimes in a negotiating position, and even an oppositional code. Changes in acceptance positions are highly dependent on the issues contained in the COVID-19 pandemic disinformation message.

Southern Wind Algorist: Merging Nine Algorithms with Nine Gay Stories Written in Classical Chinese

This paper presents an immersive interactive art installation called Southern Wind Algorist, which explores the convergence of knowledge from multiple disciplines. The installation is situated at the intersection of media arts, Chinese studies, and gay & lesbian studies. It combines nine well-known algorithms in the history of computer graphics with nine gay stories written in classical Chinese. The resulting artwork is a unique fusion that has never been assembled before. The paper delves into the related works, the cultural context of the stories, the visual effects' relationship with the underlying themes, methodology, public reception, technical aspects, and sustainability. It also addresses issues related to the artwork's linguistics and visual accessibility. The installation creates a space for people to reflect on queer desires' historical perspectives and future trajectories and promotes cultural diversity.