Distortion Of Truth Research Articles

Distortion of Truth about Islam and Its Reality: Some Reflections

Abstract: Since the beginning of the 20th century, a respectable number of scholars such as Iqbal, Mawdudi, and Qutb argued that Islam is explained in al-Qur’ān with the term Dīn which stands for the way of life and worldview. It, therefore, should not be termed as religion in the contemporary sense. To explain this particularly important aspect of Islam a sizeable number of books have been written. Despite this clarification and the truth and reality of Islam, most people, speakers, preachers, scholars, and authors present Islam as a religion in a limited and dogmatic way. This approach to Islam not only limits the scope and place of but also distorts the truth and reality of Islam. This paper using the method of content analysis explores and explains the true and realistic picture of Islam as it is presented in al-Qur‘ān. For this purpose, the translation of al-Qur’ān rendered by Zafar Ishaq Ansari is used. The main goal of this paper is on one hand to explore the real scope of Islam and on the other, to present it in its true and realistic perspective. The intellectual discussion of this work concludes that Islam should not be taken merely as a religion. Rather, it is more than that. It is the Right Way, which Allah (SWT) revealed to His final Messenger, Muhammad (PBUH).

The Illusion of Truth in Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost

Michael Ondaatje's Anil’s Ghost, a literary masterpiece, focuses on the distortion of truth. Set against the backdrop of civil unrest in Sri Lanka, the novel follows forensic anthropologist Anil Tissera as she exposes the complexities of revealing truth in a world rife with political and personal turmoil. This research abstract delves into the multifaceted layers of reality distortion portrayed in Ondaatje's work .At its core; the novel questions the notion of objective reality. Ondaatje masterfully employs fragmented narratives, shifting perspectives, and unreliable memories to diminish the lines between truth and fiction. Through Anil's investigation into the skeletal remains of victims of political violence, Ondaatje exposes the subjective nature of memory and the inherent biases that shape our understanding of past events. Moreover, the novel explores the psychological toll of living in a reality distorted by trauma and political oppression. Characters like Anil and Sarath, haunted by their pasts, grapple with the existential question of whether it is possible to reconcile personal truth with the external realities imposed upon them. Ondaatje's lyrical prose evokes a sense of disorientation, mirroring the characters' internal struggles as they confront the elusive nature of reality. Furthermore, the novel examines how power dynamics influence the construction of reality. Ondaatje exposes the ways in which those in positions of authority manipulate narratives to serve their own agendas, perpetuating falsehoods and suppressing marginalized voices in the process. Through Anil's quest for justice, the novel underscores the importance of bearing witness to the silenced truths obscured by those in power. The novel serves as a profound exploration of the distortion of reality in the face of political upheaval and personal trauma.

Media Literacy and Its Implications for The Understanding of Truth and Reality: A Philosophical Exploration

In an era characterized by an overwhelming abundance of information and media channels, the concept of truth and reality has become increasingly complex. Media literacy, the ability to critically analyse, evaluate, and understand media messages, plays a crucial role in navigating this complexity. This paper explores the philosophical dimensions of media literacy and its implications for the understanding of truth and reality. Drawing on interdisciplinary perspectives from philosophy, communication studies, and cognitive science, this study investigates the intricate relationship between media literacy and the construction of truth and reality. By delving into various philosophical frameworks, including epistemology, ontology, and phenomenology, the research examined how individuals' media literacy skills shape their perceptions and interpretations of truth and reality. Additionally, the study examines how media literacy influences individuals' ontological understanding of reality. It explores how media messages shape and mediate individuals' perception of the world, examining the interplay between subjective experiences, social constructs, and media representations. Furthermore, the study investigated the potential for media literacy to foster a more nuanced understanding of reality, encouraging individuals to engage in critical reflexivity and challenge their preconceived notions. The findings of this study showed that media literacy plays a pivotal role in enhancing critical thinking skills and mitigating truth distortion in a post-truth society.

Misreporting study results in main texts and abstracts of randomized controlled trials published by physical therapy researchers (SPIN)

BACKGROUND: The distortion of truth or “spin” has become a major concern in various fields as it can affect the accuracy of research dissemination. Recognizing the extent of this issue in physiotherapy research is essential for promoting good-quality research and raising awareness. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to determine the prevalence of spin in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published by Indian physiotherapists. METHODS: A Medline search was conducted to identify RCTs published by Indian physiotherapists from January 2000 to November 2018. We included studies with nonsignificant primary outcomes and reviewed them for spin in both abstracts and full texts using the Boutron checklist. Three reviewers were involved in the process. RESULTS: Of the 44 RCTs with nonsignificant outcomes, 40 (90%) showed spin in their abstracts and 39 (88%) in their main text conclusions. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings reveal a significant prevalence of spin in nonsignificant RCTs published by physiotherapy researchers. Improving research knowledge, enhancing scientific writing skills, and providing mentorship may help reduce spin in result reporting.

Truth-myths of New Zealand

This article probes the gap between different cultural perspectives in contemporary Aotearoa New Zealand, a nation-state founded on a bicultural encounter between indigenous Māori and settler British. One source of misunderstandings is a set of distorted versions of historical and social reality that have been promulgated through schooling and national media. These distortions of truth take the form of certain dubious, denigratory ideas about Māori, accepted as commonsense truth by Pākehā (European New Zealanders) to bolster their feelings of security and superiority in relation to Māori. I refer to these ideologies as the ‘truth-myths of New Zealand’ that operate like thought weapons of Whitepower within the apparently harmonious social context of Aotearoa New Zealand, dubbed with a longstanding reputation for the ‘best race relations in the world’. The purpose of this article is to focus in on the truth-myths themselves, represented by three typical statements of key ideas, presenting and explaining each one, and commenting on their significance and ongoing influence in national education, and society more generally.

Posverdad: una crítica desde la perspectiva de la Infocomunicación

The term “post-truth” has gained traction in the past few years, thanks to a contentious technological context, the spread of fake news, and the distortion of truth on the internet. The concept gained notoriety in 2016, when Oxford Dictionaries chose it as their word of the year, referring to “post-truth” as an adjective “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” However, this phenomenon is nothing new, a fact that led us to a more complex problem with “post-truth.” This article carries out a bibliographic revision of Edgar Morin’s concept of complexity and the principles of the technological paradigm outlined by Castells. We open a dialogue between these two perspectives in order to debate about “post-truth” from the epistemological perspective of infocommunication. Throughout this essay, we reflect on how “post-truth” cannot be applied to science and, thus, to investigations in the field of infocommunication.  

ІНФОРМАЦІЙНІ ЖАНРИ КОНТЕНТУ МЕДІЙ В СТРУКТУРІ КОМУНІКАЦІЙНИХ ІННОВАЦІЙ

Information genres as a platform for journalistic research are considered. The development of information genres in modern socio-economic realities is analyzed. It is hypothesized that with the capitalization of journalism, the possibilities of interviews and its varieties are expanded. Both interviews and reporting in modern capitalized media complement each other and help to optimize the presentation of content. More artistically perfect are the cases of media practice, when the interview not only introduces a reporting element, but also a third-party, sometimes very subjective, concise commentary. The practice of applying scientific research in the journalistic profession testifies to the overall effectiveness of research of this kind of distortion of truth. Fantasy associated with a specific fact does not create any new interpretation, but only complements the actual material. The method of an integrated approach to solving the problem of functional content of information genres should be based only on the basis of journalistic practice, taking into account the mentality of the Ukrainian audience. The group of information genres remains the most stable in the context of dynamic development and develops as media activity develops. Innovations in the thematic expansion of the spectrum of journalistic intelligence significantly expand the boundariesof the genre. Such a presentation becomes a kind of literary work, and that is why the criteria for analyzing the information genreshould be based on their specifics.

Looking Back and Looking Forward: (Re)Interpreting Consumer Insights in a Time of Transition

Looking Back and Looking Forward: (Re)Interpreting Consumer Insights in a Time of Transition

"There Should Be More Than One Voice in A Healthy Society": Infrastructural Violence and Totalitarian Computing in China

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese citizens were caught up within a public health crisis and an expansive censorship and propaganda infrastructure built by the Chinese government over the past few decades. In March 2020, we interviewed 24 Chinese citizens to understand how they experienced censorship and propaganda during the first few months of the pandemic. Drawing from the lens of infrastructural violence, we document state violence inflicted on the Chinese people at the infrastructural scale, penetrating ordinary citizens' minds and daily lives. We examine three dimensions of infrastructural violence: epistemic violence of truth distortion, emotional violence of state retaliation, and interpersonal violence of relationship deterioration. Based on our empirical findings, we reflect on how infrastructural violence is constituted through totalitarian computing technologies. We stress the need to study the geopolitics of technology and propose a research agenda for studying totalitarian computing.

Truth Distortion: A Process to Explain Polarization over Unsubstantiated Claims Related to COVID-19

Knowing what to believe in the context of COVID-19 is challenging. Conflicting narratives from an array of prominent sources make distinguishing what is true and false difficult. This research examines how a preference for a source of information influences one's truth judgments about controversial COVID-related statements. An early positive or negative evaluation of a public figure causes individuals to distort their truth judgments in the same direction as their preference. Interestingly, this truth distortion tends to increase linearly with a series of repeated controversial statements. Namely, most people tend to maintain their early preference and increasingly distort their evaluation of truth to make it fit the narrative of the source. Overall, this research provides insights into the process by which polarization occurs; that is, it demonstrates how people come to strongly believe in unsubstantiated claims over time, while others come to strongly reject the same information.

Психологічна сутність категорій «неправда» та «брехня» в межах інтерпретації результатів поліграфологічних досліджень

The scientific article is devoted to the psychological analysis of features of differentiation of concepts of untruth and lies in scientific researches of domestic and foreign experts-psychologists. Theoretical consideration of this problem led to appeal to the basic tenets of theories of lies available in modern psychological knowledge. The primary sources of analysis were the classics in this subject area of work K. Bond, V. Znakov, P. Ekman, V. Kazmirenko, K. Khalmetski, D. Sliwka, E. Feess, F. Kerzenmacher, W. Friesen, A. Mehrabian, O. Fry, T. Levin and others. The review allowed to identify the following psychological factors and sources that determine lies: biological, personal, situational. Lies and untruths are objective in nature – this suggests that they can reasonably be the subject of scientific (polygraphic) research and evaluation. The purpose of the article is to try to distinguish between the psychological interpretation of the essence of the concepts of «untruth» and «lie» within the interpretation of the results of polygraphic research. Methodology. During the preparation of the article, some general scientific and special scientific methods of cognition were used, in particular: historical, phenomenological, comparative, systemic, functional, generalization. Scientific novelty. The most distinctive features of a lie that need to be emphasized by a polygraph examiner are: the fact of distortion of the truth (a lie is an objective product of the subject’s speech activity on the falsification of information); the desire to mislead (the intent of a lie determines a certain goal and creates motivation to achieve it); awareness of the act of lying (the ability to correctly navigate the situation, determining their own behavior and continuously monitor current experiences); instrumental nature (lying acts as a means to an end, ie lying becomes for the subject one of the elements of the communicative arsenal, which is focused on the predicted result of actions); expediency (the purpose of using lies may be the desire to obtain material and psychological benefits (own, socio-reputational, etc.). Selected features should be summarized in three characteristic features of lies: the fact of distortion of truth; expediency. Conclusions. In reality, it is incredibly difficult for a polygraph specialist to feel the fine line between lies and untruths and to determine not only the objective peaks of polygrams, but also to determine their true motives, aspirations and intentions. At the same time, the solution of this difficult problem may be an appropriate response to the allegations of objectivity of instrumental methods of determining the guilt or innocence of a person in committing an offense. Keywords: polygraph; untruth; lie; deception; truth; deception.

Truth Distortion: A Process to Explain Polarization over Unsubstantiated Claims Related to COVID-19

Knowing what to believe in the context of COVID-19 is challenging. Conflicting narratives from an array of prominent sources make distinguishing what is true and false difficult. This research examines how a preference for a source of information influences one’s truth judgments about controversial COVID-related statements. An early positive or negative evaluation of a public figure causes individuals to distort their truth judgments in the same direction as their preference. Interestingly, this truth distortion tends to increase linearly with a series of repeated controversial statements. Namely, most people tend to maintain their early preference and increasingly distort their evaluation of truth to make it fit the narrative of the source. Overall, this research provides insights into the process by which polarization occurs; that is, it demonstrates how people come to strongly believe in unsubstantiated claims over time, while others come to strongly reject the same information.

Book Review: Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth by Brian Stelter

Book Review: <i>Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth</i> by Brian Stelter

Review: The Sociology of Identity: The Dialectics of Consciousness, Deconstruction and Reconstruction, by Abdulghani Imad

Review: The Sociology of Identity: The Dialectics of Consciousness, Deconstruction and Reconstruction, by Abdulghani Imad

Editor's Column: “We are the jury”: Steinbeck's America under Threat

Editor's Column: “We are the jury”: Steinbeck's America under Threat

Deep flow-net for EPI distortion estimation

IntroductionGeometric distortions along the phase encoding direction caused by off-resonant spins are a major issue in EPI based functional and diffusion imaging. The widely used blip up/down approach estimates the underlying distortion field from a pair of images with inverted phase encoding direction. Typically, iterative methods are used to find a solution to the ill-posed problem of finding the displacement field that maps up/down acquisitions onto each other. Here, we explore the use of a deep convolutional network to estimate the displacement map from a pair of input images. MethodsWe trained a deep convolutional U-net architecture that was previously used to estimate optic flow between moving images to learn to predict the distortion map from an input pair of distorted EPI acquisitions. During the training step, the network minimizes a loss function (similarity metric) that is calculated from corrected input image pairs. This approach does not require the explicit knowledge of the ground truth distortion map, which is difficult to get for real life data. ResultsWe used data from a total of Ntrain ​= ​22 healthy subjects to train our network. A separate dataset of Ntest ​= ​12 patients including some with abnormal findings and unseen acquisition modes, e.g. LR-encoding, coronal orientation) was reserved for testing and evaluation purposes. We compared our results to FSL’s topup function with default parameters that served as the gold standard. We found that our approach results in a correction accuracy that is virtually identical to the optimum found by an iterative search, but with reduced computational time. ConclusionBy using a deep convolutional network, we can reduce the processing time to a few seconds per volume, which is significantly faster than iterative approaches like FSL’s topup which takes around 10min on the same machine (but using only 1 CPU). This facilitates the use of a blip up/down scheme for all diffusion-weighted acquisitions and potential real-time EPI distortion correction without sacrificing accuracy.

Forming verification mechanisms in a dialogical contact

The article deals with issues of manipulative influence on the mind of an interlocutor by distortion or hiding of truth and discusses the formation of verifications mechanisms in educational migrants in a dialogical contact. The problem of manipulative strategies and tactics is one of the most urgent in the modern methodology of teaching foreign languages to non-native speakers. The authors analyze research related to ways of distorting the truth for personal gain by the addresser. The speaker can use direct lies to obtain one-sided profit, such lies being a propositional distortion of truth, however, in usual communication, the preference is given to half-truth or omission, i.e. non-propositional distortion of the truth. The article contains characteristics of the speaker’s claims to the significance of his or her statements, that is their validity, correctness, and truthfulness, as well as replies which are the listener’s reaction in a situation where he or she feels that at least one of the addresser’s claims to the significance of his or her speech act should be verified. Virtually any lexico-grammatical category can be used to distort or verify the truth in various ways. There are special markers that signal the addressee about a possible attempt of the speaker to manipulate the listener’s mind by distorting the truth. An efficient method for the listener to verify a heard message is a correct formulation of questions to clarify and specify the received information. The authors present examples of using speech tactic of soft and hard insistence on a concrete answer to a question and confirmation of the truthfulness of the addresser’s speech act. Working on the development of verification mechanisms in non-native speakers should be an integral part of the problem teaching. When selecting examples to demonstrate techniques of distorting the truth and pushing on the interlocutor, it would be appropriate to give preference to the samples that meet the principle of universality and typicality. Some of the above-mentioned manipulative techniques can be used both negatively and positively if the interacting persons strive to reach the truth by mutual understanding and consensus without an intent to mislead the interlocutor. Only an extreme usage of influence tactics, methods of imposing the addresser’s opinion, or persistent urging the addressee to take a decision the speaker needs, i.e. a psychological pressure on the addressee’s mind, is a signal that necessitates a thorough verification of the speech act of the communication partner.

Some Comments on the Alternative Universe of the Trump Administration.

The psychoanalytic concept of an "anal universe" is a type of alternative universe in which reality is denied and falsehood prevails. This essay demonstrates how this concept illuminates much of the confusion and distortion of truth generated by the Trump administration. The author comments on several behaviors of President Trump and his administration including perverse thinking and lying, mocking disabled people, demeaning women, labeling journalists as enemies of the people, encouraging regressive forces in groups, and promoting policies that cruelly affect immigrants and refugees. The author also comments on the primacy of the male phallus in American politics. He contrasts the spatial metaphor of an "anal universe," where there is distortion of language and an absence of moral constraints and ethical principles, with the metaphor of a feminine psychic space, which enhances the capacity for symbolic thinking and the generation of creative ideas and solutions.

"Don Died Peacefully": Perception Is Reality.

"Don Died Peacefully": Perception Is Reality.

Generating Image Distortion Maps Using Convolutional Autoencoders With Application to No Reference Image Quality Assessment

We present two contributions in this work: 1) a reference-free image distortion map generating algorithm for spatially localizing distortions in a natural scene; and 2) no reference image quality assessment (NRIQA) algorithms derived from the generated distortion map. We use a convolutional autoencoder (CAE) for distortion map generation. We rely on distortion maps generated by the SSIM image quality assessment algorithm as the “ground truth” for training the CAE. We train the CAE on a synthetically generated dataset composed of pristine images and their distorted versions. Specifically, the dataset was created by applying standard distortions such as JPEG compression, JP2K compression, additive white Gaussian noise, and blur to the pristine images. SSIM maps are then generated on a per distorted image basis for each of the distorted images in the dataset and are in turn used for training the CAE. We first qualitatively demonstrate the robustness of the proposed distortion map generation algorithm over several images with both traditional and authentic distortions. We also demonstrate the distortion map's effectiveness quantitatively on both standard distortions and authentic distortions by deriving three different NRIQA algorithms. We show that these NRIQA algorithms deliver competitive performance over traditional databases like LIVE Phase II, CSIQ, TID 2013, LIVE MD, and MDID 2013, and databases with authentic distortions like LIVE Wild and KonIQ-10K. In summary, the proposed method generates high-quality distortion maps that are used to design robust NRIQA algorithms. Furthermore, the CAE-based distortion maps generation method can easily be modified to work with other ground truth distortion maps.