European identity and media effects: a quantitative comparative analysis

The European Union (EU) is a political and economic union of 28 member states with more than 500 million citizens whose legitimate existence and further integration amongst others depend on if its citizens feel a sense of collective European identification. The literature on the topic suggests that exposure to media plays a vital role in making people feel such a sense of collective identification. Accordingly, in this thesis, the principal object is the analysis of direct media effect on people’s sense of European identity. The main empirical question of the study is: What kind of effects the media use has on European identity? This thesis addresses this relevant question by carrying out a theoretically grounded analysis of the relationship between European identity and the different effects of media exposure in various contexts. The study draws on the Social Identity Theory (SIT), and the findings of social psychologists’ findings which situate European identity a concept that corresponds to an individuals’ subjective assignment to a collective and his affective and evaluative attachment to this collective. --- The results of the study indicate that the EU has managed to instill a sense of European identity among its citizens this feeling, however, varies across different regions of the continent. The analyses also reveal that exposure to the media positively affects European identity. Nevertheless, such an effect is dependent on people’s pre-existing attitudes towards the EU and if they perceive the media to be neutral and credible. Moreover, the study also confirms the positive effects of preferring political news from both online and traditional media on European identity. --- The research in this dissertation aims to further the scholarly debate on the topic while emphasizing the direct relationship between the media and European identity, an issue which has largely been overlooked in the scholarship on EU attitudes.Die Europäische Union (EU) ist eine politische und wirtschaftliche Union aus 28 Mitgliedstaaten mit mehr als 500 Millionen Einwohnern, deren rechtmäßiges Bestehen und weitere Integration davon abhängen, ob ihre Bürger ein Gefühl der kollektiven europäischen Identifikation haben. Die Literatur zu diesem Thema legt nahe, dass die Medien eine entscheidende Rolle dabei spielen, dass Menschen ein Gefühl der kollektiven Identifikation bekommen. Dementsprechend ist das Hauptziel dieser Dissertation die Analyse der direkten Medienwirkung auf das europäische Identitätsgefühl der Menschen. Die empirische Hauptfrage der Studie lautet: Welche Auswirkungen haben die Medien auf die europäische Identität? --- Diese Arbeit befasst sich mit dieser relevanten Frage, indem eine theoretisch fundierte Analyse der Beziehung zwischen der europäischen Identität und den unterschiedlichen Auswirkungen der Medien in verschiedenen Kontexten durchgeführt wird. Die Studie stützt sich auf die Social Identity Theory (SIT) und die Ergebnisse der Ergebnisse von Sozialpsychologen, die die europäische Identität in ein Konzept denken, das der subjektiven Zuordnung eines Individuums zu einem Kollektiv und seiner affektiven und bewertenden Bindung an dieses Kollektiv entspricht. Die Ergebnisse der Studie zeigen, dass es der EU gelungen ist, ihren Bürgern ein Gefühl der europäischen Identität zu vermitteln. Dieses Gefühl ist jedoch in den verschiedenen Regionen des Kontinents unterschiedlich. Die Analysen zeigen auch, dass die Medienexposition die europäische Identität positiv beeinflusst. Ein solcher Effekt hängt jedoch davon ab, wie sehr die Menschen der EU ob sie die Medien für neutral und glaubwürdig halten. Darüber hinaus bestätigt die Studie auch die positiven Auswirkungen wählen politischer Nachrichten aus Online- und traditionellen Medien auf die europäische Identität. --- Die Forschung in dieser Dissertation zielt darauf ab, die wissenschaftliche Debatte über das Thema voranzutreiben und gleichzeitig die direkte Beziehung zwischen den Medien und der europäischen Identität zu betonen, ein Thema, das im Rahmen die Literatur zu den Einstellungen der EU weitgehend übersehen wurde

Climate change news audiences: analysis of news use and attitudes in eight countries

This report offers a comprehensive analysis of climate change news consumption and associated public attitudes in eight diverse countries: Brazil, France, Germany, India, Japan, Pakistan, the UK, and the USA. In addition to building on our last year’s findings, we also introduce fresh insights into new relevant topics, such as climate justice, health and climate change, and public opinion towards solutions journalism. Our research reveals that, compared to last year, there is a slight increase in climate change news consumption in most countries, coupled with stable trust in climate information from news media, while concerns about climate change misinformation persist. Notably, significant differences in public perceptions of climate change-induced impacts on human health emerge between the Global North and South countries. Regarding climate justice, just over half of respondents acknowledge the disproportionate effect of climate change on poorer people and countries, with considerable partisan disagreements. We conclude by discussing our findings and offering some policy inputs related to climate change journalism in the context of the ongoing discourse

Trust is key: determinants of false beliefs about climate change in eight countries

Science has established the human-caused nature of climate change, yet the prevalence of climate-related misinformation persists, undermining public understanding and impeding collective action. Strikingly, existing research on belief in misinformation about climate change has disproportionately focused on WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) countries. To move beyond this, our online survey (N = 8541) includes high-income countries in North America (US), Western Europe (France, Germany, UK) and East Asia (Japan), as well as an upper-middle income country in South America (Brazil) and lower-middle income countries in South Asia (India and Pakistan). By examining the interplay of news media usage, information sources, and trust in these sources, we advance our understanding of how these factors influence belief in climate change-related misinformation in diverse socio-cultural contexts. Across countries, we found that the strongest determinants of belief in misinformation about climate change were identifying as right-wing (compared with left-wing), consuming less offline news, having less trust in scientists, environmental activists, as well as international organizations, and having more trust in politicians, celebrities, and energy companies. Overall, trust in sources of information about climate change and demographic variables were much stronger predictors of belief in misinformation about climate change than reported news consumption (online, offline or on social media). These findings suggest that trust is key to understanding belief in false information about climate change

A Systematic Literature Review of Research From 2010 to 2020 Addressing User-Generated Online Comments Related to Health Issues and Recommendations for Future Research

This systematic literature review was conducted to provide insights into how online readers’ comments have been studied in the context of health over a 10-year span. About 593 studies published between 2010 and 2020; of these, 34 met the research criteria for inclusion. Our findings reveal that 60% of the studies focused on the United States, and a qualitative method was used in 74.3% of these studies. About 23.5% of the studies explored vaccine-related issues. Our results reveal that among the selected studies, 76.5% and 20.6% had female and male first authors, respectively. Textual analysis of abstracts shows that the top five keywords were news, HPV, vaccine, themes, and vaccination. However, 58.8% of the identified studies did not use any theoretical framework. In addition, nine health topics emerged: vaccines; health policies; nutritional and dietary choices; women’s health issues; quality of life and wellbeing; smoking; engagement with health-related news content; COVID-19; and suicide and mental health

Subjective Evaluation of Media Content as a Moderator of Media Effects on European Identity: Mere Exposure and the Hostile Media Phenomenon

This paper posits that the concept of European identity is an important indicator of the legitimacy of the European Union (EU). It further assumes that the exposure to EU related media content can influence the feeling of European identity. In order to verify this assumption, we combined the mere-exposure-theory and the hostile media phenomenon. We assume that these theoretical concepts could help to understand the influence of media on people’s levels of attachment to the EU. Regression analyses are performed on secondary data that were collected in a Eurobarometer survey in 2013. Our findings revealed that media exposure affected the respondents’ identification with Europe, as well as the modifications of this effect based on their assessments of EU media coverage. The results of the current study not only validate assumptions about the mere-exposure effects on identity but also confirm the theoretical assumption that perceived hostility reduces such effects, whereas exposure to information that is perceived as neutral promotes the effects of media exposure on the feeling of European identity

A Bibliometric Analysis of the Top 100 Cited Articles on Hepatic Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

The purpose of this study is to guide the readers to the impact of the articles published on hepatic magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). We searched Scopus using 10 different search terms for hepatic MRI. The selected studies were thoroughly reviewed by two independent authors and any disagreement was sorted out by mutual consensus. The list of articles and journals was downloaded into an excel spreadsheet. Only the top 100 cited articles were selected by mutual consensus among all the authors. These articles were further read in the full-text form and were further categorized into subgroups. Three authors independently reviewed the top 100 selected articles, and subsequently data was extracted from them and analyzed. Our study showed that the highest number of top 100 cited articles on hepatic MRI were from Radiology (30 articles) followed by European Radiology (14 articles). The American Journal of Roentgenology, Radiographics, and Journal of Magnetic Resonance had seven articles each. The United States had the highest number of articles by region. Nineteen other journals contributed only one article each to the list of top 100 cited articles. The contribution of authors to the top 100 cited articles was reviewed; all the authors contributing with more than two articles to the highly cited articles are given in Table 3 in the supplementary material. The maximum number of articles were published during 2009 (14 articles), and for a five-year period, the maximum contribution was made during 2008-2013 (44 articles). Our analysis gives an insight on the frequency of citations of top articles on hepatic MRI, categorizes the subtopics, the timeline of the publications, and contributions from different geographic distributions

Statistical analysis of climate trends and impacts on groundwater sustainability in the Lower Indus Basin

Agricultural intensification is increasing global demand for water, with groundwater especially susceptible given its year-round reliability. Climate change impacts on groundwater recharge exacerbate uncertainties for future access and use, especially for large aquifers across alluvial plains such as the Indus Basin of Pakistan. To generate better understanding of climate change impacts on groundwater balances in such contexts, we used MODFLOW 2005 to quantify the groundwater budget of the Northern Rohri Canal Command Area under RCP 4.5 and 8.5 climatic scenarios, while also taking climatic regionalisation into account. Under a baseline scenario, total annual pumping in the northern Rohri command was estimated to be 3.619 billion cubic metres (BCM), and the total net loss in storage over the simulation period from October 2010 to April 2014 was estimated at 1.244 BCM per year. By 2047, net decline in storage is projected to more than double to 2.185 per year under RCP 4.5 scenario and 2.214 under RCP 8.5. Our estimates suggest that a sustainable yield across the command area should be managed at approximately 3 ± 0.3 BCM per year to ensure sufficient adaptive reserves of groundwater for access during times of drought and inadequate surface supply, while also reducing waterlogging impacts from high watertables. This first-time estimate of sustainable yield provides irrigation system managers with an overall guide from which divisional-scale measures to achieve the goal can be identified through stakeholder engagement.Australian Centre for International Agricultural Researc

Cost-effectiveness and diagnostic accuracy of telemedicine in macular disease and diabetic retinopathy: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE: To determine cost-effectiveness and the diagnostic accuracy of teleophthalmology (TO) in the detection of macular edema (ME) and various grades of diabetic retinopathy (DR). METHODS: MEDLINE, EMBASE, and Cochrane databases were searched for TO, ME, and DR on May 25, 2016. The search was updated on April 2, 2019. Pooled sensitivity and specificity for ME and various grades of DR were determined using Meta-Disc software. A systematic review of the articles discussing the cost-effectiveness of TO screening was also performed. RESULTS: Thirty-three articles on the diagnostic accuracy and 28 articles on the cost-effectiveness were selected. CONCLUSIONS: Telescreening is moderately sensitive but very specific for the diagnosis of diabetic retinopathy. Non-mydriatic Teleretinal screening services are cost-effective, decrease clinics workload, and increase patient compliance if provided free of cost in remote low socioeconomic regions

National identity predicts public health support during a global pandemic

Changing collective behaviour and supporting non-pharmaceutical interventions is an important component in mitigating virus transmission during a pandemic. In a large international collaboration (Study 1, N = 49,968 across 67 countries), we investigated self-reported factors associated with public health behaviours (e.g., spatial distancing and stricter hygiene) and endorsed public policy interventions (e.g., closing bars and restaurants) during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic (April-May 2020). Respondents who reported identifying more strongly with their nation consistently reported greater engagement in public health behaviours and support for public health policies. Results were similar for representative and non-representative national samples. Study 2 (N = 42 countries) conceptually replicated the central finding using aggregate indices of national identity (obtained using the World Values Survey) and a measure of actual behaviour change during the pandemic (obtained from Google mobility reports). Higher levels of national identification prior to the pandemic predicted lower mobility during the early stage of the pandemic (r = −0.40). We discuss the potential implications of links between national identity, leadership, and public health for managing COVID-19 and future pandemics