An Exploratory Study of COVID-19 Misinformation on Twitter

During the COVID-19 pandemic, social media has become a home ground for misinformation. To tackle this infodemic, scientific oversight, as well as a better understanding by practitioners in crisis management, is needed. We have conducted an exploratory study into the propagation, authors and content of misinformation on Twitter around the topic of COVID-19 in order to gain early insights. We have collected all tweets mentioned in the verdicts of fact-checked claims related to COVID-19 by over 92 professional fact-checking organisations between January and mid-July 2020 and share this corpus with the community. This resulted in 1 500 tweets relating to 1 274 false and 276 partially false claims, respectively. Exploratory analysis of author accounts revealed that the verified twitter handle(including Organisation/celebrity) are also involved in either creating (new tweets) or spreading (retweet) the misinformation. Additionally, we found that false claims propagate faster than partially false claims. Compare to a background corpus of COVID-19 tweets, tweets with misinformation are more often concerned with discrediting other information on social media. Authors use less tentative language and appear to be more driven by concerns of potential harm to others. Our results enable us to suggest gaps in the current scientific coverage of the topic as well as propose actions for authorities and social media users to counter misinformation.Comment: 20 pages, nine figures, four tables. Submitted for peer review, revision

"My Children and I Will no Longer Suffer from Malaria": A Qualitative Study of the Acceptance and Rejection of Indoor Residual Spraying to Prevent Malaria in Tanzania.

The objective of this study was to identify attitudes and misconceptions related to acceptance or refusal of indoor residual spraying (IRS) in Tanzania for both the general population and among certain groups (e.g., farmers, fishermen, community leaders, and women). This study was a series of qualitative, semi-structured, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions conducted from October 2010 to March 2011 on Mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar. Three groups of participants were targeted: acceptors of IRS (those who have already had their homes sprayed), refusers (those whose communities have been sprayed, but refused to have their individual home sprayed), and those whose houses were about to be sprayed as part of IRS scale-up. Interviews were also conducted with farmers, fishermen, women, community leaders and members of non-government organizations responsible for community mobilization around IRS. Results showed refusers are a very small percentage of the population. They tend to be more knowledgeable people such as teachers, drivers, extension workers, and other civil servants who do not simply follow the orders of the local government or the sprayers, but are skeptical about the process until they see true results. Refusal took three forms: 1) refusing partially until thorough explanation is provided; 2) accepting spray to be done in a few rooms only; and 3) refusing outright. In most of the refusal interviews, refusers justified why their houses were not sprayed, often without admitting that they had refused. Reasons for refusal included initial ignorance about the reasons for IRS, uncertainty about its effectiveness, increased prevalence of other insects, potential physical side effects, odour, rumours about the chemical affecting fertility, embarrassment about moving poor quality possessions out of the house, and belief that the spray was politically motivated. To increase IRS acceptance, participants recommended more emphasis on providing thorough public education, ensuring the sprayers themselves are more knowledgeable about IRS, and asking that community leaders encourage participation by their constituents rather than threatening punishment for noncompliance. While there are several rumours and misconceptions concerning IRS in Tanzania, acceptance is very high and continues to increase as positive results become apparent

Bringing together emerging and endemic zoonoses surveillance: shared challenges and a common solution

Early detection of disease outbreaks in human and animal populations is crucial to the effective surveillance of emerging infectious diseases. However, there are marked geographical disparities in capacity for early detection of outbreaks, which limit the effectiveness of global surveillance strategies. Linking surveillance approaches for emerging and neglected endemic zoonoses, with a renewed focus on existing disease problems in developing countries, has the potential to overcome several limitations and to achieve additional health benefits. Poor reporting is a major constraint to the surveillance of both emerging and endemic zoonoses, and several important barriers to reporting can be identified: (i) a lack of tangible benefits when reports are made; (ii) a lack of capacity to enforce regulations; (iii) poor communication among communities, institutions and sectors; and (iv) complexities of the international regulatory environment. Redirecting surveillance efforts to focus on endemic zoonoses in developing countries offers a pragmatic approach that overcomes some of these barriers and provides support in regions where surveillance capacity is currently weakest. In addition, this approach addresses immediate health and development problems, and provides an equitable and sustainable mechanism for building the culture of surveillance and the core capacities that are needed for all zoonotic pathogens, including emerging disease threats

On the Limits of Liberalism in Participatory Environmental Governance: Conflict and Conservation in Ukraine\u27s Danube Delta

Participatory management techniques are widely promoted in environmental and protected area governance as a means of preventing and mitigating conflict. The World Bank project that created Ukraine’s Danube Biosphere Reserve included such ‘community participation’ components. The Reserve, however, has been involved in conflicts and scandals in which rumour, denunciation and prayer have played a prominent part. The cases described in this article demonstrate that the way conflict is escalated and mitigated differs according to foundational assumptions about what ‘the political’ is and what counts as ‘politics’. The contrasting forms of politics at work in the Danube Delta help to explain why a 2005 World Bank assessment report could only see failure in the Reserve’s implementation of participatory management, and why liberal participatory management approaches may founder when introduced in settings where relationships are based on non-liberal political ontologies. The author argues that environmental management needs to be rethought in ways that take ontological differences seriously rather than assuming the universality of liberal assumptions about the individual, the political and politics

A community-engaged infection prevention and control approach to Ebola.

The real missing link in Ebola control efforts to date may lie in the failure to apply core principles of health promotion: the early, active and sustained engagement of affected communities, their trusted leaders, networks and lay knowledge, to help inform what local control teams do, and how they may better do it, in partnership with communities. The predominant focus on viral transmission has inadvertently stigmatized and created fear-driven responses among affected individuals, families and communities. While rigorous adherence to standard infection prevention and control (IPC) precautions and safety standards for Ebola is critical, we may be more successful if we validate and combine local community knowledge and experiences with that of IPC medical teams. In an environment of trust, community partners can help us learn of modest adjustments that would not compromise safety but could improve community understanding of, and responses to, disease control protocol, so that it better reflects their 'community protocol' (local customs, beliefs, knowledge and practices) and concerns. Drawing on the experience of local experts in several African nations and of community-engaged health promotion leaders in the USA, Canada and WHO, we present an eight step model, from entering communities with cultural humility, though reciprocal learning and trust, multi-method communication, development of the joint protocol, to assessing progress and outcomes and building for sustainability. Using examples of changes that are culturally relevant yet maintain safety, we illustrate how often minor adjustments can help prevent and treat the most serious emerging infectious disease since HIV/AIDS

Making sense of tragedy: the ‘reputational’ antecedents of a hospital disaster

This article explores the workings of Reputational Dialogues (RD) (as a form of organizational discourse); within the setting of a UK NHS hospital that has encountered disaster. The disaster in question took place at the Bristol Royal Infirmary (BRI), circa 1984-1995; and is thought to have incurred the deaths of 34 ‘special heart babies’. The article explores patterns of RD utilization associated with the tragedy. Transcripts from the hearings of an inquiry into the disaster are used to access these patterns– if within specific limits and constraints that are discussed in the article. The article seeks to comment on the workings of RDs within the BRI disaster setting and considers, tentatively, how these dialogues may have helped to institutionalize dominant and (counter-cultural beliefs) about the BRI and its reputation as a provider of cardiovascular care to young children. Overall, the article contributes to organization theory by beginning the process of observing the institutionalization of RD and its by-products, as organizational phenomena

Degrees of permeability: confinement, power and resistance in Freetown's Central Prison

This article deconstructs a binary that has arisen between prisons as, on the one hand, ‘total institutions’ of exclusion and, on the other, ‘carceral continuums’ that incorporate marginalized urban livelihoods. The experiences of four inmates at Pademba Road, Freetown’s male prison – which accommodates inmates with sentences from one year to life – illustrate that prisons belong in neither camp. Instead, inmates’ unique responses to their imprisonment show that both a prison’s continuity and its exclusionary mechanism are situational and gendered as crime, social standing, capital and agency coalesce. Following Michel de Certeau’s examination of people’s reappropriations of culture in everyday life, this article analyses how inmates’ tactics to reinforce and bend prison walls work to either strengthen or undermine the carceral system’s strategies and influence the prison’s permeability. Inmates’ embodied experiences allow for a nuanced understanding of the inside/outside relationship of imprisonment and of the space between mobility and stasis, subjugation, embrace and resistance.</jats:p

Representations of the oil encounter in Amitav Ghosh's The circle of reason

This article analyses the handling of generic form in the middle section of Amitav Ghosh’s The Circle of Reason (1986), a section which has hitherto received little critical attention and which some readers find puzzling. In particular, it examines two literary modes used by Ghosh in representing a fictional Middle Eastern state: the picaresque and social realism. This well-demarcated textual focus forms the foundation for larger points about Ghosh’s writing, his critique of contemporary capitalist values and Western imperialism. Additionally, the article adumbrates ways in which Ghosh’s critique of the Oil Encounter can be connected to recent political developments, such as the so-called "war on terror". It is also a significant contribution to writing on oil. Colonial sugar, spice, and even cod have all received due attention, while oil, the author suggests, remains woefully under-discussed, given its determining role in contemporary economies

How effective is 'relationship marketing' in gaining customer loyalty to securities brokerages?

Relationship marketing (RM) is widely acknowledged as a useful tool in gaining customer loyalty in various sectors. However, to date, there had been no research on how RM impacts customer loyalty in the securities brokerage firm industry in The Stock Exchange of Thailand. This study employs an inductive research approach to explore RM in securities brokerage firms in Thailand’s financial services sector and gain an understanding of customers’ and other stakeholders’ views of RM activities and loyalty to brokerages in an emerging market. Multiple data collection methods were employed, including semi-structured interviews as the main collection method and participant observations in a supporting role. Qualitative content analysis and coding techniques were used for analysing the data. This pioneering research provides new theoretical and practice knowledge and delivers a far more subtle and nuanced analysis of the dynamics at play between customer loyalty, various RM strategies and different customer types – compared to the current literature. The study found that securities brokerage firms in Thailand implemented RM practice but with differences in relationship marketing strategies, depending on the types of customers being targeted. The study identified the main factors impacting on customer loyalty to both local and international securities brokerage firms. Finally, the research confirmed that RM had a demonstrable impact in gaining customer loyalty to securities brokerage firms in The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET), but with intriguing characteristics, for example, RM’s positive impact on individual short-term investors’ loyalty, not to brokerages, but to particular staff

Making sense of tragedy: the ‘reputational’ antecedents of a hospital disaster

This article explores the workings of Reputational Dialogues (RD) (as a form of organizational discourse); within the setting of a UK NHS hospital that has encountered disaster. The disaster in question took place at the Bristol Royal Infirmary (BRI), circa 1984-1995; and is thought to have incurred the deaths of 34 ‘special heart babies’. The article explores patterns of RD utilization associated with the tragedy. Transcripts from the hearings of an inquiry into the disaster are used to access these patterns– if within specific limits and constraints that are discussed in the article. The article seeks to comment on the workings of RDs within the BRI disaster setting and considers, tentatively, how these dialogues may have helped to institutionalize dominant and (counter-cultural beliefs) about the BRI and its reputation as a provider of cardiovascular care to young children. Overall, the article contributes to organization theory by beginning the process of observing the institutionalization of RD and its by-products, as organizational phenomena.Reputation effects; the medical profession; organizational crisis; institutionalization; discourse analysis