Child’s Play: Cooperative Gaming as a Tool of Deradicalization

Research in the field of countering violent extremism (CVE) has grown significantly in the last few decades. This research project contributes to the CVE literature by studying narratives as tools of reflections on self-identity designed intentionally within gaming exercises to help contextualize and account for as much environmental complexity as possible. This paper provides theoretical understandings of narratives (and their role in our lives), discusses narratives as they relate to violent extremist ideologies, and proposes how narrative reflections may serve as a deradicalization tool within cooperative games. Additionally, this article highlights elements of narrative reflection within current CVE resources and provides a list of exercises (games) that can be used in the field to promote narrative reflections

Entertainment media and backstage event framing: how 24 defines torture

The purpose of the current study is to examine how the prime time television show 24 frames torture by US government officials almost exclusively in scenarios of high-consequence, high-confidence that are not supported by public opinion polls, provide contextual rationalizations that are unrealistic, show torture methods as a viable means to gain needed information, and show enemy combatants torturing U.S. citizens. Through a quantitative content analysis of torture on the television series 24 and an analysis of focus groups’ reactions to select episodes of 24 portraying torture in such scenarios, the study seeks to investigate the role of entertainment media in influencing public opinion and providing “backstage” context from which opinions may be formed. The study examines how fictional portrayals of an event or issue such as torture can enter into political discourse on the subject. The study builds on prior research on how and when entertainment media provide context and frames to the public that the news media cannot, and helps further our understanding of how entertainment media can enter into public discourse and inform public opinion

Clastic Dikes in Megaflood Deposits

Montana Tech Public Lecture by Skye Cooley, Mission Valley Geologist

Paleohydrology of the Pleistocene Bear River and Pluvial Lake Bonneville

The rise of Lake Bonneville to its late Pleistocene highstand (30-15 ka) appears anomalously large. The lake grew ten-fold in area and is the only great Basin pluvial lake to overflow its threshold catastrophically. Lake expansion has traditionally been attributed to a climate shift where southward displacement of the jet stream brought cooler, wetter conditions to the region. Alternatively, the Bear River may have contributed to the lake\u27s expansion following its diversion south by young volcanics. Despite decades of speculation, little effort has been directed towards mapping and dating Bear River deposits in the key region where it enters the basin. Pleistocene deposits and volcanics near Oneida Narrows record the arrival of the river to Lake Bonneville, but the timing remains imprecise. Ambiguities on the order of 50,000 years exist. Previous geochronology work in Bonneville Basin is abundant, but mostly focused on indirect dating by radiocarbon methods or amino-acid zonation. Precisely when the Bear River began emptying into the lake and the hydrological impact on lake levels has not been factored into Great Basin paleoclimate models. An accurate chronology would help workers test hypotheses and provide a common basis for interdisciplinary research into questions concerning the paleoclimatologic, paleobiologic, and paleohydrologic evolution of the Bonneville Basin and beyond

Sink populations in carnivore management: cougar demography and immigration in a hunted population

Abstract. Carnivores are widely hunted for both sport and population control, especially where they conflict with human interests. It is widely believed that sport hunting is effective in reducing carnivore populations and related human-carnivore conflicts, while maintaining viable populations. However, the way in which carnivore populations respond to harvest can vary greatly depending on their social structure, reproductive strategies, and dispersal patterns. For example, hunted cougar (Puma concolor) populations have shown a great degree of resiliency. Although hunting cougars on a broad geographic scale (.2000 km 2 ) has reduced densities, hunting of smaller areas (i.e., game management units, ,1000 km 2 ), could conceivably fail because of increased immigration from adjacent source areas. We monitored a heavily hunted population from 2001 to 2006 to test for the effects of hunting at a small scale (,1000 km 2 ) and to gauge whether population control was achieved (k 1.0) or if hunting losses were negated by increased immigration allowing the population to remain stable or increase (k ! 1.0). The observed growth rate of 1.00 was significantly higher than our predicted survival/fecundity growth rates (using a Leslie matrix) of 0.89 (deterministic) and 0.84 (stochastic), with the difference representing an 11-16% annual immigration rate. We observed no decline in density of the total population or the adult population, but a significant decrease in the average age of independent males. We found that the male component of the population was increasing (observed male population growth rate, k OM ¼ 1.09), masking a decrease in the female component (k OF ¼ 0.91). Our data support the compensatory immigration sink hypothesis; cougar removal in small game management areas (,1000 km 2 ) increased immigration and recruitment of younger animals from adjacent areas, resulting in little or no reduction in local cougar densities and a shift in population structure toward younger animals. Hunting in high-quality habitats may create an attractive sink, leading to misinterpretation of population trends and masking population declines in the sink and surrounding source areas

"A Great Day for Oiled Pelicans:” BP, Twitter, and the Deep Water Horizon Crisis Response

On April 20, 2010, British Petroleum (BP) experienced one of the most tragic industrial accidents in history when 11 employees were killed and dozens more injured as the result of an explosion that tore through an offshore drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico. In the months that followed, BP grappled with the clean-up efforts as millions of gallons of oil spewed into the Gulf of Mexico on the eve of the region’s peak tourism season. BP also faced immense reputational damage and needed effective crisis communication to restore this damage with its stakeholders. This study uses content analysis to assess the organization’s communication efforts on the social media platform, Twitter, within the framework of the Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) model.To more fully understand the role of social media during a major environmental disaster, a total of 1,142 tweets were coded from April 29, 2010, to September 10, 2010, from the account @Oil_Spill_2010 (The name of the account later changed to @Restore_TheGulf and came under the control of the U.S. government.). Within the 1,142 tweets coded during the selected period, there were 1,596 crisis response message strategies found. Consistent with the SCCT, the deal cluster of strategies was most evident in the organization’s Twitter messages, comprising 47.87% (ingratiation, n = 433, 27.13% and concern, n = 331, 20.74%) of all coded strategies. With the proliferation of social media in our society, effective and efficient organizational responses during crises are certain to become more and more dependent on social networking platforms. This study takes an important first step in testing the SCCT model within the framework of social media sites