Public Assistance of Police during Criminal Investigations: Russian Experience

This study examines the high levels of public unwillingness to assist police in criminal investigations in Russia. Variables of public trust of police, fear of crime, victimization, and prior contact with police are used to explain this phenomenon. Also included in the study are variables of police fear and avoidance of police. The findings suggest that higher levels of distrust in, as well as fear and avoidance of police are strong predictors of citizens’ unwillingness to assist police in Russia. The paper discusses potential implications of these findings for the 2011 police reform in Russia

The Power of Influence: Traditional Celebrity vs Social Media Influencer

This article examines how YouTube and Instagram micro-celebrities are able to influence pop culture trends in regards to fashion and beauty at greater extents than the traditional celebrity. From their ability to create communities where users feel more connected to the influencer through higher levels of engagement, authenticity, and reliability, we can conclude that social media stars have the upper hand in endorsing products. From the implications of the social media star’s greater amount of influence on consumers, I conclude that product marketing efforts should prioritize using social media celebrities as their main advertising platform due to more efficient audience penetration and influence to buy. This, in turn, will result in attaining a substantial grasp of consumer attention and spending to drive higher sales and bring more attention to the company brand

Tendencias tecnoculturales digitales del siglo XXI en Nigeria y el pseudoísmo de la globalización en África

In prevalent scholarship, the words ‘Africa’ and ‘globalization’ have always been depicted as sharing a tenuous relationship that reveals several problems underlying the Eurocentric belief in the synchronicity of the world’s supposed progressive globality. The skepticism extended towards the concept of globalization in Africa is foregrounded against the fact that the continent’s socio-economic and political developments run at an uneven pace, different from the rest of the world. However, while it is easy to dismiss globalization as a western concept that does not holistically concern Africa, it is impossible to ignore the far-reaching significance of global attitudes and attributes in countries like Nigeria. In Nigeria, one such seemingly global hallmark is the popularization of digital technological trends such as social media, artistic internationalism, pop-cultural co modification, celebrityhood, and the embrace of digital economies such as cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. This proposed paper aims to expand on this techno-cultural strand of ‘globalization’ in Nigeria by referring to current experiential realities obtained from an observational study of Nigerian millennials and Gen-Zers, while arguing that the asymmetrical rise of culturally symbolic digital trends in Nigeria does, in fact, reveal the facadism and pseudoism of the concept of globalization.En la erudición predominante, las palabras “África” y “globalización” siempre se han descrito como compartiendo una relación tenue que revela varios problemas subyacentes a la creencia eurocéntrica en la sincronicidad de la supuesta globalidad progresista del mundo. El escepticismo extendido hacia el concepto de globalización en África se contrapone al hecho de que la evolución socioeconómica y política del continente se desarrolla a un ritmo desigual, diferente al del resto del mundo. Sin embargo, si bien es fácil descartar la globalización como un concepto occidental que no concierne de manera integral a África, es imposible ignorar la importancia de gran alcance de las actitudes y atributos globales en países como Nigeria. En Nigeria, uno de esos sellos aparentemente globales es la popularización de las tendencias tecnológicas digitales como las redes sociales, el internacionalismo artístico, la co-modificación de la cultura pop, la fama y la adopción de economías digitales como las criptomonedas y la tecnología blockchain. Este documento tiene como objetivo expandir esta vertiente tecnocultural de la ‘globalización’ en Nigeria al referirse a las realidades experienciales actuales obtenidas de un estudio observacional de los millennials y Gen-Z de Nigeria, mientras argumenta que el ascenso asimétrico de las tendencias digitales culturalmente simbólicas en Nigeria de hecho, revela el facadismo y el pseudoísmo del concepto de globalización

Cyberbullying Incidents Among African American Female Middle School Students

Recent research has shown an increase in cyber bullying acts against middle and high school students. The National Center of Education Statistics (2010) reported that cyberbullying incidents increased 73% between the years of 2007 and 2009. In 2011, 75% of cyberbullying victims were adolescents (National Center of Education Statistics, 2013). Using data collected from the Pew Research and American Life Project, the study examined the prevalence of cyber bullying acts against African American female adolescents compared to Caucasian male and female adolescents and African American male adolescents. Additionally, the study reported the cyber bullying incident that occurred most frequently as either directly using texting or indirectly using social media websites. Past research studies have shown a prevalence of cyber bullying acts against Caucasian females. The participants in this study were 737 adolescents 12-17 years old. The results suggested that a prevalence of cyber bullying acts against African American female students occurred at a significantly lower rate than Caucasian female and male students but a significantly higher rate than African American male students and Hispanic male and female students. Additionally, indirect cyberbullying incidents occurred significantly more frequently than direct cyberbullying incidents

A Psychological and Philosophical Understanding of Death: An Analysis of Platonic and Epicurean Philosophy in Modern America

The following research intends to discuss various issues surrounding death, first, by examining the study of death through the history of psychology, then through two separate philosophical accounts from Plato and Epicurus. Plato and Epicurus offer a conversation about the universality of death and how death ought to be considered and conceived by a society. This conversation between differing views suggests two varying ideas about how to cope with death; one offers a spiritual approach, wherein the soul is immortal and the other offers a scientific approach that death represents the end of all life, with absolutely no hope of immortality. As a society, America tends to subscribe to the former rather than the latter because of our inability to come to terms with the human condition. However, certain people are able to rise above the human condition and ascribe to the latter rather than the former. This paper will conclude by discussing case examples of the necessity for, and the complications arising from religion as a way to cope with death and the seeming inability of some to overcome the human condition and accept death

Multimodal access to social media services

Tese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Informática e Computação. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto, Microsoft Language Development Center. 201

E-Cigarettes: Perceived Harm among Youth in the United States

Studies have shown e-cigarette use surged among youth, but there is limited literature about how youth perceived the harm of these products. In this dissertation study, perceived harm of e-cigarettes and e-cigarette use over time among youth in the United States was explored. The dissertation study also included assessment of associations between perceived harm and susceptibility to e-cigarette use. A subset of data from Wave 1 and Wave 2 of the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) study, a national longitudinal study, was utilized. The PATH study used a questionnaire to capture self-reported data from non-institutionalized participants. Data from 12,154 youth who participated in the PATH study were analyzed. The results showed perceived harm of e-cigarettes changed over time among youth and changes in perceived absolute harm of e-cigarettes coincided with changes in e-cigarette use. The results also indicated that perceived absolute harm of e-cigarettes was associated with susceptibility to use of e-cigarettes and susceptibility to use of e-cigarettes was associated with subsequent e-cigarette use. With the dissertation study, the need for integration of perceived harm of e-cigarettes into tobacco control strategies aimed at reducing e-cigarette use among youth was underscored

Constructing the \u27Addict\u27: A Discourse Analysis of National Newspapers Concerning North America\u27s First Supervised Injection Site

Safe injection sites provide injection drug users with a safe space to inject drugs with clean supplies under the supervision of medical professionals. This study centres on a discursive analysis of newspaper representations of Insite, North America’s first supervised injection site, located in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Insite opened in 2003 under an exemption from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and has provided benefits to its clients through a reduction in public injections, decreased spread of infectious disease, and by providing clients with referrals to other community and social services. Despite these accomplishments the Canadian federal Conservative government, led by Stephen Harper, engaged in efforts to close the site in 2008. This resulted in legal battles which moved through the British Columbia Supreme Court, the British Columbia Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court of Canada. This study focuses on how Canadian national newspapers represented the Supreme Court decision in 2011 that allowed Insite to remain open under an exemption. The sample included 25 articles in total from The Globe and Mail and the National Post. Through a discourse analysis situated in the Foucauldian tradition this paper seeks to answer the following research questions: how is Insite and the court case represented in newsprint media and how are Insite’s stakeholders and clients represented in news media in 2011? The results from the analysis revealed that Insite was represented in terms of the health benefits it provides to its clients and the benefits it provides to the broader community through an increase in public order. While not spoken about equally, the smaller space allocated to discuss public order still provides the reader with the indication that the benefits to the broader community are also important to recognize when implementing supervised injection sites. Further, discussions surrounding public order and new supervised injection sites within the sample revealed that the authors of the newspaper articles believed that the readers of the articles must be provided with the benefits Insite provides to the broader community in order to justify the Insite decision. As well, the stakeholders within the sample that were relied upon were those who occupied an authoritative status, and the media also relied consistently on objective science to justify the case. The clients of Insite were represented in an overwhelmingly negative way, and consistently referred to as ‘addicts’. Further, the clients of Insite were not positioned as stakeholders in the Insite case and were not given the space to speak within the sample. Based on these results, I argue that the reliance on the medical and criminal model and a misrepresentation of harm reduction within the sample leads to and increases the invisibility of the clients of Insite. As a result, the clients of Insite are represented in stereotypical ways where they are reduced only to their drug use, which enforces the assumption that drug use is a moral failing. I also argue that an implication of the media excluding drug users in discussion relevant to them is that drug policy will continue to present the opinions of those who are given space in the media. Further, I argue that significant attention must be paid to what is included and excluded within the media, as there is no interrogation into the systemic and structural barriers that the clients of Insite face. Finally, I argue that the representation of drug users in the media is influenced by neoliberalism and this results in drug use being understood as incompatible with everyday life. This in turns leads to drug users being exposed to efforts that encourages them to responsibilize and become rational human beings who engage in economic risk calculations in order to reduce risks to themselves and the state. This study interrogates the ways in which the media represents supervised injection sites and concludes that the media must work to include drug users in discussions surrounding harm reduction initiatives that directly affect the lives of drug users, such as supervised injection sites