Evidence from Twitter Discourse between 2015 and 2022

The ethical issues that arise in the development of AI technologies are closely linked to public engagement. Although Twitter, as an online public sphere, provides a platform for exploring AI ethics discourse, it is difficult for current research to effectively extract fine-grained but meaningful information from the vast amount of social media data. To address this challenge, this paper proposes a research framework for the fine-grained exploration of AI ethics discourse on Twitter. The framework consists of two main parts: (1) combining neural networks with large-scale language models to construct a hierarchically structured topic framework that not only extracts popular topics of public interest, but also highlights smaller, yet significant voices; (2) using narrative metaphors to achieve the integration of fragmented information across levels and topics, ultimately presenting a complete story to help the public better understand the evolution of topics within AI ethics discourse. Our research has revealed that the most significant concern in the current AI ethics discourse is the lag in AI-related laws and ethical guidelines. It also shows that the integration of AI technology with the humanities is essential to promote a good public society. Through cross-level fine-grained mining, this study uncovers information hidden beneath the noise interference, which helps policymakers make targeted adjustments or improvements to policies. In addition, this research framework provides a reference for fine-grained mining of other specific issues in social media data

What Makes an American Classicist?

If the American "classic" is involved in the dynamic of canons, value, and style, then what is the role of Classics as a field, and of the professional classicist? I argue that with the emergence of the professional classicist came significant anxiety, particularly regarding the transformative and unsettling consequences of specialist research. By discussing ostensibly established classicists like Basil Gildersleeve or Paul Shorey alongside Helen Magill, the first American woman to receive a PhD in Classics, I aim to destabilize the center of what establishment may or may not have meant in light of a shared, unsettled preoccupation with what a professional approach to a canon and a classic could be and ought to be

A Data-Driven Analysis of Ted Talks on YouTube

Science communication is evolving: Increasingly, it is directed at the public rather than academic peers. Understanding the circumstances under which the public engages with scientific content is therefore crucial to improving science communication. In this article, we investigate the role of affect on audience engagement with a modern form of science communication: TED Talks on the social media platform YouTube. We examined how two aspects of affect, valence and density are associated with public engagement with the talk in terms of popularity (reflecting views and likes) and polarity (reflecting dislikes and comments). We found that the valence of TED Talks was associated with both popularity and polarity: Positive valence was linked to higher talk popularity and lower talk polarity. Density, on the other hand, was only associated with popularity: Higher affective density was linked to higher popularity—even more so than valence—but not polarity. Moreover, the association between affect and engagement was moderated by talk topic, but not by whether the talk included scientific content. Our results establish affect as an important covariate of audience engagement with scientific content on social media, which science communicators may be able to leverage to steer engagement and increase reach

Contemporary Australia and Emerging Challenges

This reflection paper focuses on the role of the English language and social media in the context of the Australian mandatory detention system. After presenting Australia’s controversial border policy, the linguistic reality of detention is briefly explored to show that, on the one hand, refugees gain linguistic agency by acquiring and using English with different actors while, on the other, the ‘linguascape’ of detention remains embedded in broader dynamics of oppression and subjugation. The article further discusses how refugees’ digital counter-discursive practices enacted on social media concurrently aim at dismantling the dehumanizing, exclusionary, and obliterating anti-refugee rhetoric that pervades political and media landscapes in contemporary Australia

Temporality, Suffering, and Uncertainty in Narratives Following COVID-19

Long COVID affects millions of individuals worldwide but remains poorly understood and contested. This article turns to accounts of patients’ experiences to ask: What might narrative be doing both to long COVID and for those who live with the condition? What particular narrative strategies were present in 2020, as millions of people became ill, en masse, with a novel virus, which have prevailed three years after the first lockdowns? And what can this tell us about illness and narrative and about the importance of literary critical approaches to the topic in a digital, post-pandemic age? Through a close reading of journalist Lucy Adams’s autobiographical accounts of long COVID, this article explores the interplay between individual illness narratives and the collective narrativizing (or making) of an illness. Our focus on temporality and suffering knits together the phenomenological and the social with the aim of opening up Adams’s narrative and ascertaining a deeper understanding of what it means to live with the condition. Finally, we look to the stories currently circulating around long COVID and consider how illness narratives—and open, curious, patient-centered approaches to them—might shape medicine, patient involvement, and critical medical humanities research.Wellcome Trusthttp://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100010269Koneen Säätiöhttp://dx.doi.org/10.13039/50110000578

Classical Education and the Culture Wars

This article examines the rise of “classical education” (CE) as an educational model in the context of contemporary educational culture wars in the United States. A traditionalist educational model especially favored by Christian schools and universities, CE builds upon the prestige of learning in the texts of the ancient Mediterranean. It is increasingly promoted by educators and politicians on the right as a tool for instilling “civic virtue” and for wresting American education from the grip of secularism and left-liberal ideology. This paper explores CE’s actors, its history, its pedagogical content, and its ideological underpinnings, to show that for its champions, CE is not simply a way to return to time-honored “classics,” but to instill a conservative cultural hegemony rooted in Christian nationalism

Evidence from Six Countries

The use of social networking sites is associated with objectification tendencies of the self and others. However, only few studies investigate how users actually perceive sexualizing content on Instagram. In a recent study, we showed that perceiving sexy Instagram posts as appropriate and less revealing goes along with self-sexualization in German participants and that Instagram users tend to be more sexist than non-users. The present study aimed to replicate these findings in a cross-nations study to test for cultural differences. We asked N = 2055 persons from six different countries (Germany, Spain, United States, Italy, Turkey, and South Africa) to rate sexy Instagram posts with respect to revealing clothing, appropriateness, and attractiveness and collected self-report data on sexism, enjoyment of sexualization, and Instagram usage behavior. Our results show associations between the perception of the presented posts as appropriate, sexism, and self-sexualizing tendencies in all countries. Strength of the associations are mainly the same across all countries. Participants from Spain, the U.S., and Italy reported the lowest sexism scores and the most liberal ratings for the presented photos. We find no substantial main effect of mere Instagram use on sexism or photo ratings. The results suggest that Instagram use does not necessarily alter the perception of sexualized stimuli, but that greater appreciation of self-sexualizing others goes along with self-sexualization. This effect seems to be culturally invariant. The found mean differences between countries are plausible, but future studies should aim to obtain representative samples to allow serious assumptions about cultural effects.Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn (1040

An Accidental Paradox in Need of Change?

The approach in the United Kingdom to sex-based equal pay has for a long time been distinct from general sex discrimination and from equal pay based on other protected characteristics. This dichotomy allows for a greater focus on sex-based equal pay, in a distinct statutory regime, but also risks creating unnecessary, unintended and detrimental distinctions. This article outlines the different legislative approaches adopted in pursuit of related public policy goals regarding equality and explores, and suggests legislative and interpretative solutions to, a significant issue whereby problematic wording in the Equality Act 2010, and judicial interpretation of it, could unjustifiably leave sex-based claimants in a worse position than those with other protected characteristics with regard to both to injury to feelings and constructive dismissal