The Discourse of Digital Deceptions and ‘419’ Emails

This study applies a computer-mediated discourse analysis (CMDA) to the study of discourse structures and functions of ‘419’ emails – the Nigerian term for online/financial fraud. The hoax mails are in the form of online lottery winning announcements, and email ‘business proposals’ involving money transfers/claims of dormant bank accounts overseas. Data comprise 68 email samples collected from the researcher’s inboxes and colleagues’ and students’ mail boxes between January 2008 and March 2009 in Ota, Nigeria. The study reveals that the writers of the mails apply discourse/pragmatic strategies such as socio-cultural greeting formulas,self-identification, reassurance/confidence building, narrativity and action prompting strategies to sustain the interest of the receivers. The study also shows that this genre of computer-mediated communication (CMC) has become a regular part of our Internet experience, and is not likely to be extinct in the near future as previous studies of email hoaxes have predicted. It is believed that as the global economy witnesses a recession, chances are that more creative and complex ways of combating the situation will arise. Economic hardship has been blamed for fraud/online scams, inadvertently prompting youths to engage in various anti-social activities. K E Y W O R D S : computer-media communication, deceptions, discourse, email, ‘419’, fraud, hoax

Discursive Practice and the Nigerian Identity in Personal Emails

As communication by the electronic mail spreads and becomes increasingly common, more and more people are taking the advantage of its flexibility and simplicity for communicating social identity and cultural matters. This chapter, focuses on how Nigerian users of the electronic mails, apply the medium for expressing their identity through discursive means. Data comprises 150 personal emails written and sent between 2002 and 2009 in Lagos and Ota regions of Nigeria by individual email writers, comprising youths and adults from a university community and the Nigerian civil service. Applying socio-linguistic approach and computer-mediated discourse analysis, the study shows that the most common discursive means of expressing the Nigerian identity are greeting forms and modes of address; religious discursive practices and assertions of native personal names. The data also show evidences of Nigerian English in the email messages

2007 Annual Report to Congress

[Excerpt] The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA) was passed by Congress in 2000, and amended in 2004, to compensate American workers who put their health on the line to help fight the Cold War. In the course of doing their jobs, many of these workers were exposed to radiation and other toxic substances and, as a result, developed cancer and other serious diseases. The purpose of this program is to acknowledge the sacrifice of these workers and to compensate them in some small way for their suffering and loss. As originally enacted in 2000, EEOICPA included Part B (administered by the Department of Labor (DOL)) and Part D (administered by the Department of Energy (DOE)). In October 2004, Congress repealed Part D and enacted Part E of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act, effectively transferring responsibility for administration of contractor employee compensation from the DOE to the DOL. The 2004 amendments also created the Office of the Ombudsman for Part E and directed that it be an independent office, located within the Department of Labor, charged with a three-fold mission: To conduct outreach to claimants and potential claimants to provide information on the benefits available under this part and on the requirements and procedures applicable to the provision of such benefits; To make recommendations to the Secretary of Labor about where to locate resource centers for the acceptance and development of claims; To submit an Annual Report to Congress by February 15, setting forth the number and types of complaints, grievances and requests for assistance received by the Ombudsman, and an assessment of the most common difficulties encountered by claimants and potential claimants under Part E during the previous year

The Digital Folklore Project: Tracking the Oral Tradition on the World Wide Web.

I collected forty-two e-mail forwards over the course of four months, and from those I formulated a framework that adapts existing theory in collection and study of real-world folklore to the emerging folk communities that exist on the internet. Through this analysis I prove that the same genres of folklore that is routinely collected by folklorists have been adapted to fit the digital environment of the internet. I then use the framework that I lay out to perform a study of the e-mails themselves

Texts of female desire and of community

This study investigated narratives obtained from 45 participants about their watching of EastEnders. The first aim was to understand why people watch this program. The second aim was to identify the kinds of social object dominating their accounts as a way of revealing the forms of cultural debate catalyzed by the show. Material was generated via an open-ended e-mail questionnaire and analyzed qualitatively using grounded theory. Two major themes constituting social objects were identified; female desire and community. These themes were made-up of seven categories each of which helped explain why our participants watched EastEnders; reduced troubles, gender, relaxation, social activity, community, realism, and Britishness. We discuss these results in relation to past research but also argue that, as our findings suggest some participants gained a therapeutic effect from watching EastEnders, there is a fruitful and little explored link between such comfort viewing and research on psychotherapy

Small Businesses, Public Health, and Scientific Integrity

This report examines the activities of an independent office within the Small Business Administration: the Office of Advocacy. The Office of Advocacy has responsibility for ensuring that federal agencies evaluate the small business impacts of the rules they adopt. Scientific assessments are not "rules" and do not regulate small business, yet the Office of Advocacy decided to comment on technical, scientific assessments of the cancer risks of formaldehyde, styrene, and chromium. By its own admission, Advocacy lacks the scientific expertise to evaluate the merits of such assessments.The report analyzes correspondence and materials received through a Freedom of Information Act request made by staff at the Center for Effective Government. Our inquiry was driven by two questions: Why did the Office of Advocacy get involved in the debate over scientific assessments that do not regulate small business? Whose interests does the Office of Advocacy of the Small Business Administration actually serve?We found that the Office of Advocacy's comments on these assessments raised no issues of specific concern to small business and relied almost exclusively on talking points provided by trade associations dominated by big chemical companies. Between 2005 and 2012, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) and its members spent over $333 million lobbying Congress and federal agencies on, among other things, a protracted campaign to prevent government agencies from designating formaldehyde, styrene, and chromium as carcinogens. The Formaldehyde Council, Styrene Industry Research Council, and Chrome Coalition spent millions more. These groups asked the Office of Advocacy for assistance, and the Office became their willing partner.We conclude that the Office of Advocacy's decision to comment on scientific assessments of the cancer risks of certain chemicals constitutes a significant and unwarranted expansion of its role and reach beyond its statutory responsibilities. We recommend that Congress ask the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to investigate the Office of Advocacy and exert morerigorous oversight of its activities to ensure its work does not undermine the efforts of other federal agencies to fulfill the goals Congress has assigned them

RePEc and S-WoPEc: Internet access to electronic preprints in Economics

The first electronic Economics preprint appeared in 1993. Since then the growth has been dramatic as the use of the World Wide Web has exploded. RePEc has been instrumental in facilitating access to Economics preprints and in bringing order to the chaos that the WWW frequently represents. In a related effort S-WoPEc provides user friendly tools for adding data to the RePEc system. While this is significant in itself it has also been instrumental in fulfilling S-WoPEc's second goal--to provide increased exposure to Swedish Economics research

2010 Annual Report to Congress

[Excerpt] Public Law 108-375 which was enacted by Congress in 2004 also created an Office of the Ombudsman (the Office). Pursuant to this law, the Secretary of Labor was urged to take appropriate action to ensure the independence of the Office within the Department of Labor, including independence from the other officers and employees of the Department of Labor engaged in activities related to the administration of the provision of the EEOICPA. See 42 U.S.C. § 7385s-15(d). The Secretary of Labor appointed the first Ombudsman in February 2005, and the Office submitted its first report to Congress covering calendar year 2005 on February 15, 2006. When created in 2004, the Office was scheduled to sunset on October 28, 2007. However, in January 2007, Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act of 2008 extending the Office until October 28, 2012. Moreover, while the Office initially only had authority with respect to claims filed under Part E of the EEOICPA, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 expanded the authority of the Office to include Part B of the EEOICPA. The statute outlines three duties for the Office: To provide information on the benefits available under Part B and Part E and on the requirements and procedures applicable to the provision of such benefits; To make recommendations to the Secretary regarding the location of resource centers for the acceptance and development of claims for benefits under Part B and Part E; and To carry out such other duties as the Secretary shall specify. See 42 U.S.C. § 7385s-15(c). In addition to these specified duties, the statute also provides that the Office is to submit an annual report to Congress setting forth: a) The number and types of complaints, grievances, and requests for assistance received by the Office during the preceding year, and b) An assessment of the most common difficulties encountered by claimants and potential claimants during the preceding year