Digital Promotion of Suicide: A Platform-Level Ethical Analysis

This article utilizes Aristotelian and Kantian philosophies to probe the social responsibilities of internet intermediaries that in one way or another assist and promote suicide. Striking a balance between freedom of expression and social responsibility, it is argued that several actors should be involved in restricting or eliminating live-streaming suicide, sites that encourage and facilitate suicide, and insult forums that drive people, especially adolescents, to take their own lives. The remediating actors are: commercial social media/website owners through their moderators; voluntary, non-profit, NGO “public defenders”; internet platform providers; regulatory agencies based on legislative authority, and advertisers. Practical remedies are suggested for each of these actors, noting as well important exceptions and caveats regarding the respective solutions

Places for News:A Situated Study of Context in News Consumption

This paper presents a qualitative study of contextual factors that affect news consumption on mobile devices. Participants reported their daily news consumption activities over a period of two weeks through a snippet-based diary and experience sampling study, followed by semi-structured exit interviews. Wunderlist, a commercially available task management application and note-taking software, was appropriated for data collection. Findings highlighted a range of contextual factors that are not accounted for in current ‘contextually-aware’ news delivery technologies, and could be developed to better adapt such technologies in the future. These contextual factors were segmented to four areas: triggers, positive/conducive factors, negative/distracting factors and barriers to use

Will cities become obsolete?

Whether the answer to the question which forms the title of this article is yes or no, the techno-social phenomena and trends outlined here are inevitable. If cities are not rendered obsolete, they will certainly be different. One way or another, the city of the future will have a radically altered life dynamic - if exists at all.

Teledemocracy from the top

Teledemocracy, the use of new communications and information technology to widen the scope of the public's political participation, is a hot topic. Over the past few years a number of wide-scale teledemocratic experiments have taken place, for example in New Zealand, the State of Washington, and Hawaii, and the idea is being increasingly discussed in the scholarly as well as popular literature.1 The reasoning behind, and justification for, teledemocracy has been expounded before.2 This Comment, however, attacks the problem from a new perspective - where do politicians fit into such a system, and why should they nurture its development?Information technology Voting systems Public policy

Elite and Popular Newspaper Publication of Press Releases: Differential Success Factors?

This study examines for the first time whether elite and popular newspapers are influenced differently by public relations practices of PR1 agencies. Based on 373 press releases, 71 potential variables were tested for successful press release publication in two types of Israeli newspapers: popular (Yediot Akhronot and Maariv) and elite (Haaretz). In addition, 32 journalists (including 6 editors) and 13 PR agency managers were surveyed. A mathematical formula was devised to pinpoint the central success factors. The main findings highlight success elements for each type of newspaper: news importance, novelty and usefulness; writing quality and timely transmission to the paper; press release source (agency/manager/practitioner experience; reputation; educational level; and mutual trust relationship with journalists/editors). The implications of the basic findings are explored