In the Funhouse Mirror: How News Subjects Respond to their Media Reflections

Based on in-depth interviews with eighty-three people who were named in newspapers in the New York City-area and a southwestern city, this dissertation explores the phenomenon of being featured, quoted, or mentioned in a news story, from the subject's point of view. Discussions of news subjects usually begin when the journalist comes on the scene and end with subjects' assessments of accuracy in the articles in which they appear. But I find that news subjects perceive the phenomenon of "making the news" as a broader saga that begins with their involvement in an event or issue, often only later deemed newsworthy by journalists, and extends to the repercussions of the coverage in their lives, including feedback they receive from others and effects on their digital reputations. Subjects interpret their news coverage, including its accuracy, in light of the trigger events that brought them to journalists' attention in the first place and the coverage's ensuing effects. Individual chapters focus on subjects' reasons for wanting or not wanting to speak to reporters; their interactions with reporters; their reactions to the news content in which they were named; and repercussions of news appearances. I conclude that the assumption that news subjects are all victims of the press is both reductive and, often, from the subject's own point of view, inaccurate. While common wisdom suggests that people who seek news attention do so for petty or poorly considered reasons, I find that interviewees often did consider the pros and cons of speaking to the press before agreeing to do so. For most participants the attraction could be summarized as the opportunity to address or display themselves before a large audience, which they saw as rare and elusive, even in today's web 2.0 world. At the same time, most subjects understood, at least in theory, the main risks involved: that they were giving up control over their stories to reporters, but would nonetheless bear the repercussions of having had their names in the news. But the majority concluded--even after seeing the, often imperfect, resulting articles--that the benefits outweighed the risks. Subjects were often pleased with their news appearances even despite inaccuracies in the content because they found that, unless they were portrayed extremely negatively, appearing in the news conferred status, which was often not just psychologically but materially beneficial. Those subjects who were left dissatisfied with their experiences appearing in the news only rarely felt misled or outright betrayed by journalists. It was far more common that subjects felt journalists were unacceptably aggressive or exploitative. Other subjects traced their discontent not to their interactions with journalists but to the content of the resulting news stories, whether because inaccuracies derailed their objectives for appearing in the news in the first place, or because the content had stigmatizing effects. This is the ugly obverse of status conferral: subjects who were portrayed as behavioral deviants--criminals for instance--found that not only was their status not enhanced by their news appearances, their social standing and professional prospects were badly damaged. I conclude that both the status and stigma conferred by the news media are magnified by the digital publication, circulation, and searchability of news articles, which can now continue to have profound effects on subjects' lives far into the future

The relationship of certain word analysis abilities to the reading achievement of first, second, and third grade children,

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston Universit

A flexible framework for articulating how student teachers learn teaching, as described by participants in a national review of initial teacher education in England

The aim of this study was to elucidate approaches to teaching student teachers how to learn teaching. It was based on a view of learning to teach as complex but that this should not prevent those in the field of initial teacher education from constructing and articulating their own professional knowledge of how they teach student teachers. Using secondary data, generated for a national review of initial teacher education in England, it drew on multiple perspectives from those in the field, to inform the development of a flexible framework for articulating how student teachers learn teaching. The study was positioned within the paradigm of post-positivism and aligned to a critical realist philosophy. To this end, it illuminates the social structures of and for professional practice, through qualitative thematic analysis, which took a hybrid approach to theme generation. The themes generated were used to develop the ‘Pillars of Interaction and Interconnecting Bridges Framework for Articulating ITE Practice’. Rather than focusing on an aspect of practice, the framework and themes that generated it, took a holistic view of initial teacher education, whilst still representing its complexity. Central to the framework and a key finding from the study is the importance of viewing student teachers as teachers of their own learning, learning to learn how to teach. Thus, the findings illuminate how to teach future teachers to also be future learners of teaching. The study offers teacher educators, as well as those developing initial teacher education strategy, a flexible framework to articulate, guide and further develop practice. As such, it contributes to initial teacher education discussion and debates informing current and future policy

Human 3D cellular model of hypoxic brain injury of prematurity.

Owing to recent medical and technological advances in neonatal care, infants born extremely premature have increased survival rates1,2. After birth, these infants are at high risk of hypoxic episodes because of lung immaturity, hypotension and lack of cerebral-flow regulation, and can develop a severe condition called encephalopathy of prematurity3. Over 80% of infants born before post-conception week 25 have moderate-to-severe long-term neurodevelopmental impairments4. The susceptible cell types in the cerebral cortex and the molecular mechanisms underlying associated gray-matter defects in premature infants remain unknown. Here we used human three-dimensional brain-region-specific organoids to study the effect of oxygen deprivation on corticogenesis. We identified specific defects in intermediate progenitors, a cortical cell type associated with the expansion of the human cerebral cortex, and showed that these are related to the unfolded protein response and changes. Moreover, we verified these findings in human primary cortical tissue and demonstrated that a small-molecule modulator of the unfolded protein response pathway can prevent the reduction in intermediate progenitors following hypoxia. We anticipate that this human cellular platform will be valuable for studying the environmental and genetic factors underlying injury in the developing human brain

A comparative genomics approach to understanding the biosynthesis of the sunscreen scytonemin in cyanobacteria

BACKGROUND: The extracellular sunscreen scytonemin is the most common and widespread indole-alkaloid among cyanobacteria. Previous research using the cyanobacterium Nostoc punctiforme ATCC 29133 revealed a unique 18-gene cluster (NpR1276 to NpR1259 in the N. punctiforme genome) involved in the biosynthesis ofscytonemin. We provide further genomic characterization of these genes in N. punctiforme and extend it to homologous regions in other cyanobacteria. RESULTS: Six putative genes in the scytonemin gene cluster (NpR1276 to NpR1271 in the N. punctiforme genome), with no previously known protein function and annotated in this study as scyA to scyF, are likely involved in the assembly of scytonemin from central metabolites, based on genetic, biochemical, and sequence similarity evidence. Also in this cluster are redundant copies of genes encoding for aromatic amino acid biosynthetic enzymes. These can theoretically lead to tryptophan and the tyrosine precursor, p-hydroxyphenylpyruvate, (expected biosynthetic precursors of scytonemin) from end products of the shikimic acid pathway. Redundant copies of the genes coding for the key regulatory and rate-limiting enzymes of the shikimic acid pathway are found there as well. We identified four other cyanobacterial strains containing orthologues of all of these genes, three of them by database searches (Lyngbya PCC 8106, Anabaena PCC 7120, and Nodularia CCY 9414) and one by targeted sequencing (Chlorogloeopsis sp. strain Cgs-089; CCMEE 5094). Genomic comparisons revealed that mostscytonemin-related genes were highly conserved among strains and that two additional conserved clusters, NpF5232 to NpF5236 and a putative two-component regulatory system (NpF1278 and NpF1277), are likely involved in scytonemin biosynthesis and regulation, respectively, on the basis of conservation and location. Since many of the protein product sequences for the newly described genes, including ScyD, ScyE, and ScyF, have export signal domains, while others have putative transmembrane domains, it can be inferred that scytonemin biosynthesis is compartmentalized within the cell. Basic structural monomer synthesis and initial condensation are most likely cytoplasmic, while later reactions are predicted to be periplasmic. CONCLUSION: We show that scytonemin biosynthetic genes are highly conserved among evolutionarily diverse strains, likely include more genes than previously determined, and are predicted to involve compartmentalization of the biosynthetic pathway in the cell, an unusual trait for prokaryotes

The consequences of tree disease and pre-emptive felling on functional and genetic connectivity for woodland invertebrates

Funding FAP was funded by the Macaulay Development Trust and the Woodland Trust. RJM and JAS were supported by the Scottish Government’s Rural and Environment Research and Analysis Directorate 2016-2021 strategic research programme. Development by SCFP of the landscape genetics capability in the customised version of RangeShifter was funded by programme Blanc of l’Agence nationale de la recherche. JMJT was supported by NERC grant NE/T006935/1 ‘Wildlife Corridors: Do they work and who benefits?’ Acknowledgments We thank the Macaulay Development Trust and the Woodland Trust for funding FAP, the Scottish Government’s Rural and Environment Research and Analysis Directorate for funding RJM and JAS, programme Blanc of l’Agence nationale de la recherche for funding SCFP, and NERC for funding JT. We thank the Woodland Trust for access to the National Canopy Map for England and WalesPeer reviewedPublisher PD