Corroding consensus-building: how self-centered public diplomacy is damaging diplomacy and what can be done about it

Public diplomacy (PD) is an activity which has become central to the analysis of modern diplomacy. Yet while there are common definitions of PD widely used internationally, practice between states has come to diverge more and more. There is disagreement in the academic literature about what should be included in PD activities, the actors, and boundaries. But there is little analysis of the effects of PD on mainstream diplomacy. This paper, written by a diplomat and sometime practitioner of PD, argues that PD is losing its connection with wider diplomacy which is based on reciprocity and consensus-building. The digital revolution has enabled PD self-promotion which diminishes the necessity for diplomatic partnering. Global rivalries are played out daily for global publics with little room for quiet reflection and compromise. Such self-centered PD has immersed itself in the confusing and divisive nature of online engagement. While the Internet has brought massive benefits and opportunities to both diplomacy and PD, the consensus-building part of true diplomatic engagement is receding. The activities of ISIS and Russia were just the first major collective challenges to diplomacy through new PD techniques. In the past, diplomacy has responded to crises and conflicts and rebuilt its options. Now PD’s chaotic and troubling evolution needs a new response. This should include partners in the non-state sector and the owners of technology platforms. The article takes a practitioner’s perspective and proposes a forum where state and non-state experts could discuss appropriate collective responses by diplomacy so it can reassert options available for consensus-building.Accepted manuscrip

Still No Jetpacks or Gender Parity: Animated Film from 1980 through 2016

This study examines the gender ratio of characters in the 150 top-grossing full-length animated films from 1980 through 2016. Results show that males hold an overwhelming majority of both central and auxiliary roles. Male characters fill significantly more of the lead or protagonist roles, the speaking roles, the members of the protagonist’s main gang, and the film’s titles. No significant change has occurred over the years (1980–2016) to alter the gender balance; however, an increase in female authors and screenwriters corresponds with an increase in female characters in all of these roles. The underrepresentation of female characters in animated films exemplifies the ways in which popular media reflects and reproduces social inequality

Automatically Annotating the MIR Flickr Dataset: Experimental Protocols, Openly Available Data and Semantic Spaces

The availability of a large, freely redistributable set of high-quality annotated images is critical to allowing researchers in the area of automatic annotation, generic object recognition and concept detection to compare results. The recent introduction of the MIR Flickr dataset allows researchers such access. A dataset by itself is not enough, and a set of repeatable guidelines for performing evaluations that are comparable is required. In many cases it also is useful to compare the machine-learning components of different automatic annotation techniques using a common set of image features. This paper seeks to provide a solid, repeatable methodology and protocol for performing evaluations of automatic annotation software using the MIR Flickr dataset together with freely available tools for measuring performance in a controlled manner. This protocol is demonstrated through a set of experiments using a “semantic space” auto-annotator previously developed by the authors, in combination with a set of visual term features for the images that has been made publicly available for download. The paper also discusses how much training data is required to train the semantic space annotator with the MIR Flickr dataset. It is the hope of the authors that researchers will adopt this methodology and produce results from their own annotators that can be directly compared to those presented in this work

Development of RMJ: A mirror of the development of the profession and discipline of record management

The purpose of this paper is to examine critically the history of Records Management Journal on its 20th anniversary; it aims to review and analyse its evolution and its contribution in the context of the development of the profession and the discipline of records management. The paper seeks to provide the context and justification for the selection of eight articles previously published in the journal to be reprinted in this issue