Journalistic culture, editorial mission, and news logic: explaining the factors beind the use of populism in European media

Against the background of the variation in populism between countries exposed in the previous chapter by Blassnig et al., this chapter will focus on article, newspaper, and country-level explanatory factors for this variation. Evidence for between-newspaper variation with respect to populist communication has already been presented elsewhere (Manucci & Weber, 2017; Rooduijn, 2014; Wettstein et al., 2018). The role of the press in a political climate of intensifying conflict among European democracies, especially in relation to financial bailouts for EU member states and the EU’s response to migration pressure, to name a few, has been criticized (Sarikakis, 2012). For instance, Tomov and Raycheva (2018) assert that for Bulgaria, populist messages are widely disseminated in the media, especially during the migrant Crisis and periods of instability. They conclude that the media disseminate populist messages without the necessary criticism, not seeking different points of view on the subject. Due to the emergence and establishment of populist parties in the political field of virtually all European democracies, political communicators might cultivate a populist discourse in the public sphere which would then also be reflected in the degree of populism in newspapers. Furthermore, existing theoretical accounts of populism and the media have suggested that we must distinguish between two forms of populist discourse in media coverage: First, populist messages stemming from political actors who communicate through the media thereby using the media as a communication channel for their ideas, and, second, populism voiced by 3 media actors themselves. For the former, Esser, Stepinska and Hopmann (2017) have coined the term “populism through the media”, and for the latter, “populism by the media”. Mazzoleni (2008) has argued that we can speak of “media populism” when journalists create Populist messages themselves – and thus become much more proactive than merely transmitting the populist statements of political actors. The aim of the chapter is to explore the weight of factors that may help us to explain varying levels of populist communication within and between countries and newspapers, such as journalistic culture of a country, editorial mission of a medium, or style of an article. We work with the same content analysis data as already presented in the previous chapter by Blassnig et al. However, we will limit ourselves to the spring 2017 data (and leave aside the spring 2016 data) because we had a slightly larger number of countries in the sample in spring 2017. The following analyses are based on 762 news stories and 632 opinion pieces published in 34 newspapers from ten western and eastern European countries between February and April 2017. For more information on the type of stories and newspapers analyzed, and for more information on our operationalization of populism and exact methodical approach, we refer to the detailed information given in the preceding chapter of this book, by Blassnig et al

Reverse Engineering of the Spindle Assembly Checkpoint

The Spindle Assembly Checkpoint (SAC) is an intracellular mechanism that ensures proper chromosome segregation. By inhibiting Cdc20, a co-factor of the Anaphase Promoting Complex (APC), the checkpoint arrests the cell cycle until all chromosomes are properly attached to the mitotic spindle. Inhibition of Cdc20 is mediated by a conserved network of interacting proteins. The individual functions of these proteins are well characterized, but understanding of their integrated function is still rudimentary. We here describe our attempts to reverse-engineer the SAC network based on gene deletion phenotypes. We begun by formulating a general model of the SAC which enables us to predict the rate of chromosomal missegregation for any putative set of interactions between the SAC proteins. Next the missegregation rates of seven yeast strains are measured in response to the deletion of one or two checkpoint proteins. Finally, we searched for the set of interactions that correctly predicted the observed missegregation rates of all deletion mutants. Remarkably, although based on only seven phenotypes, the consistent network we obtained successfully reproduces many of the known properties of the SAC. Further insights provided by our analysis are discussed

Flower proteome: changes in protein spectrum during the advanced stages of rose petal development

Flowering is a unique and highly programmed process, but hardly anything is known about the developmentally regulated proteome changes in petals. Here, we employed proteomic technologies to study petal development in rose ( Rosa hybrida ). Using two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, we generated stage-specific (closed bud, mature flower and flower at anthesis) petal protein maps with ca. 1,000 unique protein spots. Expression analyses of all resolved protein spots revealed that almost 30% of them were stage-specific, with ca. 90 protein spots for each stage. Most of the proteins exhibited differential expression during petal development, whereas only ca. 6% were constitutively expressed. Eighty-two of the resolved proteins were identified by mass spectrometry and annotated. Classification of the annotated proteins into functional groups revealed energy, cell rescue, unknown function (including novel sequences) and metabolism to be the largest classes, together comprising ca. 90% of all identified proteins. Interestingly, a large number of stress-related proteins were identified in developing petals. Analyses of the expression patterns of annotated proteins and their corresponding RNAs confirmed the importance of proteome characterization.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/47485/1/425_2005_Article_1512.pd

Global Retinoblastoma Presentation and Analysis by National Income Level.

Importance: Early diagnosis of retinoblastoma, the most common intraocular cancer, can save both a child's life and vision. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that many children across the world are diagnosed late. To our knowledge, the clinical presentation of retinoblastoma has never been assessed on a global scale. Objectives: To report the retinoblastoma stage at diagnosis in patients across the world during a single year, to investigate associations between clinical variables and national income level, and to investigate risk factors for advanced disease at diagnosis. Design, Setting, and Participants: A total of 278 retinoblastoma treatment centers were recruited from June 2017 through December 2018 to participate in a cross-sectional analysis of treatment-naive patients with retinoblastoma who were diagnosed in 2017. Main Outcomes and Measures: Age at presentation, proportion of familial history of retinoblastoma, and tumor stage and metastasis. Results: The cohort included 4351 new patients from 153 countries; the median age at diagnosis was 30.5 (interquartile range, 18.3-45.9) months, and 1976 patients (45.4%) were female. Most patients (n = 3685 [84.7%]) were from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Globally, the most common indication for referral was leukocoria (n = 2638 [62.8%]), followed by strabismus (n = 429 [10.2%]) and proptosis (n = 309 [7.4%]). Patients from high-income countries (HICs) were diagnosed at a median age of 14.1 months, with 656 of 666 (98.5%) patients having intraocular retinoblastoma and 2 (0.3%) having metastasis. Patients from low-income countries were diagnosed at a median age of 30.5 months, with 256 of 521 (49.1%) having extraocular retinoblastoma and 94 of 498 (18.9%) having metastasis. Lower national income level was associated with older presentation age, higher proportion of locally advanced disease and distant metastasis, and smaller proportion of familial history of retinoblastoma. Advanced disease at diagnosis was more common in LMICs even after adjusting for age (odds ratio for low-income countries vs upper-middle-income countries and HICs, 17.92 [95% CI, 12.94-24.80], and for lower-middle-income countries vs upper-middle-income countries and HICs, 5.74 [95% CI, 4.30-7.68]). Conclusions and Relevance: This study is estimated to have included more than half of all new retinoblastoma cases worldwide in 2017. Children from LMICs, where the main global retinoblastoma burden lies, presented at an older age with more advanced disease and demonstrated a smaller proportion of familial history of retinoblastoma, likely because many do not reach a childbearing age. Given that retinoblastoma is curable, these data are concerning and mandate intervention at national and international levels. Further studies are needed to investigate factors, other than age at presentation, that may be associated with advanced disease in LMICs