Audio: The Movie [DVD]. York,PA: Tracer Technologies, 2006

NPR analyst Juan Williams appeared on The O'Reilly Factor and said that he gets “worried” and “nervous” when he sees people in Muslim dress on airplanes. Two days later NPR fired Williams and the day after that Williams issued a serious accusation against NPR: “I was fired for telling the truth.” Criticism of NPR mounted—arising particularly from conservative commentators—and CEO Vivian Schiller disseminated a statement defending her organization. This essay applies the theory of image repair discourse to NPR's CEO Vivian Schiller's apology for firing Williams. Two accusations were in play and they prompted two distinct defenses: Her reaction to accusations that NPR had not followed appropriate procedures for termination Williams employed the strategies of mortification and corrective action and her defense of the firing itself used transcendence, bolstering, and attack accuser. This essay evaluates this defense as a poor example of image repair.     

Body of Opinion: NPR,Journalistic Authority,and the Juan Williams Affair

This article draws on and radically adapts the scholarship of medieval epistemology to suggest that at its heart, the Juan Williams clash with NPR represents an escalating conflict between two contrasting modes of authority in western culture with which journalism has long been aligned; scientia and probabilitas—in their modern forms, the authority of “disembodied objectivity” and “embodied” expert opinion. Discussing the controversy through the complex of theories surrounding issues of cultural authority, and employing the paradigm of “long journalism,” the article explores the repercussions of the rise of modern variants of probabilitas, not only at NPR but across the breadth of American journalism. In this light, the Williams affair is an illuminating flashpoint that represents this fundamental conflict, as the growing influence of probabilitas in news construction makes appeals to scientia increasingly tenuous ground on which to base journalistic credibility.     

Rationality and politics of algorithms. Will the promise of big data survive the dynamics of public decision making?

Big data promises to transform public decision-making for the better by making it more responsive to actual needs and policy effects. However, much recent work on big data in public decision-making assumes a rational view of decision-making, which has been much criticized in the public administration debate. In this paper, we apply this view, and a more political one, to the context of big data and offer a qualitative study. We question the impact of big data on decision-making, realizing that big data – including its new methods and functions – must inevitably encounter existing political and managerial institutions. By studying two illustrative cases of big data use processes, we explore how these two worlds meet. Specifically, we look at the interaction between data analysts and decision makers. In this we distinguish between a rational view and a political view, and between an information logic and a decision logic. We find that big data provides ample opportunities for both analysts and decision makers to do a better job, but this doesn't necessarily imply better decision-making, because big data also provides opportunities for actors to pursue their own interests. Big data enables both data analysts and decision makers to act as autonomous agents rather than as links in a functional chain. Therefore, big data's impact cannot be interpreted only in terms of its functional promise; it must also be acknowledged as a phenomenon set to impact our policymaking institutions, including their legitimacy.     

维系网络传播与公共利益的协调

合理使用是我国著作权法律制度的一项重要原则,维系网络传播与公共利益的协调依赖完善的合理使用制度。信息网络传播权制度不应偏离自己的立法目标。2005年国家公布了《信息网络传播权保护条例(草案)》,规范了数字环境下的合理使用制度,《条例》关于合理使用规定的方向是正确的,对协调网络传播与公共利益的平衡,促进社会信息资源的广泛交流与社会文化产业的整体进步有着重要意义。     

Killing off the Competition

In August 1929, James W. Upton, Editor of the republican newspaper, Honesty, discovered that that Seán Lemass and Gerald Boland, the Secretaries of the Fianna Fáil party, had issued a circular to their members that blackballed Honesty and promoted the sales of The Nation, a publication that Fianna Fáil's leader, Éamon de Valera, had recently brought under his control. The event that triggered this action was Upton's decision to publish an article critical of the Fianna Fáil leadership, something Upton did in the interest of freedom of speech. Upton, who was sympathetic to the Fianna Fáil cause, dubbed Lemass and Boland, ‘the Dublin Junta’ and accused them of launching an underhand attack to further their own careers and party ambitions. Fianna Fáil retaliated in the pages of The Nation, declaring that Honesty was no longer a republican journal and thereby destroying Honesty's readership. An exploration of these events reveals political duplicity and a fundamental misfit between the views of a republican idealist and hardheaded professional politicians. Upton believed that republicanism without journalistic freedom was no republicanism at all, whilst Lemass and Boland focused on building a disciplined party machine intent on suppressing dissent, within and without of its ranks.     

The Origins of the Freedom to Read Foundation: Public Librarians' Campaign to Establish a Legal Defense against Library Censorship

This article examines public librarians' experiences with attempted censorship, including their dismay, anger, and disappointment with fellow librarians and their professional organizations, which those under attack found apathetic in safeguarding user rights and protecting their jobs as library professionals. Some of these librarians became the activists who campaigned for the creation of the American Library Association's (ALA) legal defense machinery, along with other primarily young progressive librarians, who pushed forward their own agenda. This study highlights these public librarians' struggles, which made the Freedom to Read Foundation (FTRF) and ALA leading professional organizations in championing intellectual freedom. The study focuses on cases that shaped ALA's policy that led to the establishment of a defense mechanism for librarians in the late 1960s and 1970s. It also examines the extent to which ALA upheld the organization's professional credo and its members' rights.     

Political discourse: Do public libraries serve as a fertile ground?

Libraries in general, and public libraries specifically, are social institutions. It is their role and function to educate, inculcate values and provide recreational opportunities to the community. The success of a democratic political system depends on community involvement in decision making. The role of public libraries in political discourse was assessed with three approaches. Firstly, the geographical characteristics of public library communities were explored using Geographical Information System (GIS) methods. Secondly, the resources, services and activities of public libraries were identified. Thirdly, community perspectives were explored using the five aspects of the “Spectrum of Public Participation” of the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2). The results from all three approaches indicate that the public libraries of Islamabad do not facilitate opportunities for the community to be consulted, empowered or involved in political discourse. Analysis of GIS characteristics, library services and community perspectives suggests that improvements in planning and commitment (especially infrastructure, budget and human resources) would enable public libraries to increase opportunities for Islamabad communities to engage in political discourse.     

妇女杂志之父——《妇女家庭杂志》主编爱德华·鲍克

爱德华·W·鲍克是美国著名编辑、政论家和慈善家。本文回顾鲍克一生取得的成就,探讨他独具特色的编辑思想和风格,以及他担任主编的《妇女家庭杂志》成功的原因。     

DELIBERATION OR DISPUTE? AN EXPLORATORY STUDY EXAMINING DIMENSIONS OF PUBLIC OPINION EXPRESSION

This study examines people's willingness and ability to engagein various forms of public discussion. Public discussion isoperationalized along two distinctively different dimensions:rational exchange of ideas or arguments among citizens or deliberation,on the one hand, and opinion expression under situations ofsocial pressure or at least perceived pressure on the other.Based on survey data collected during the 1996 presidentialelection campaign, the two dimensions of public discussion anddistinctive sets of antecedents for each of the dimensions areexamined. In order to answer the question of why respondentsengage in specific types of public discussion, ordinary leastsquares and logistic regression techniques and structural equationmodeling are employed to examine more carefully the processesthat link explanatory variables and dimensions of public discussion.The results provide some support for Schumpeter's assumptionthat an informed and rational citizen does not exist, at leastnot in the political realm. Among friends and family, the discussionof political issues is driven by cognitive factors, communicationvariables, and civic skills. If respondents are faced with ananonymous and potentially hostile environment, however, affectivevariables like majority pressures and fear of isolation becomethe dominant factors. Implications for future research are outlinedand policy recommendations are formulated.     

Information governance,records management,and freedom of information: A study of local government authorities in England

In many democratic states political rhetoric gives weight to increasing public participation in and understanding of the political process; (re)-establishing public trust in government decision making; increasing transparency, openness, and accountability of public authorities; and, ultimately, improving government decision-making on behalf of citizens. Access to the public record and freedom of information (FOI) are mechanisms which help to facilitate the accountability of public authorities. Many jurisdictions have introduced legislation related to these mechanisms, and the UK government is no exception with its enactment of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in 2000. University College London (UCL) ran a research project over 12 months in 2008–2009, funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. The research project examined what the impact of the UK FOIA had been on records management services in public authorities, especially local government. This article reports on some of the findings of the study. It considers how FOI compliance and records management functions are organized in local government and the role of information governance which is emerging as an umbrella for such functions. It draws some conclusions about the contributions that records management services make to the ability of local authorities to comply with the FOIA and identifies some ways in which user experience may be affected by the management of records.     

以社交为核心的图书馆新思路——书途网模式

书途网是以图书交流和真实社交为核心,以网络为手段的社交型图书馆和图书交流平台,具有成本控制、真实社交和精准营销三方面的优势,同时也存在网站自身建设、用户隐私保护和盈利模式等方面的不足.设立用户等级机制、保护用户信息、坚持公益性的同时探索新的盈利模式是其持续发展的方向.     

Understanding the e-government paradox: Learning from literature and practice on barriers to adoption

We have identified a paradox in the still low adoption of e-government after more than two decades of policy efforts and public investments for the deployment of online public services. Using as evidence the focus and evolution of this focus over the period 1994–2013 in a vast body of literature produced by academia, international organisations and practitioners, we show that: a) the deployment of e-government was for a long time concentrated on more technological and operational matters and that only more recently attention switched to broadly defined institutional and political issues (hypothesis 1a); and b) institutional and political barriers are one of the main factors explaining lack of e-government adoption (hypothesis 1b). A decision making process that is still unstructured, untrustworthy, and not fully leveraging the available evidence hinder the perception of public value and citizens' trust in government, which contribute to low level of e-government adoption. We conclude suggesting that a smart government producing public value is grounded in a triangle of good decision defined by politics, values, and evidence and that to achieve it public sector should go beyond the traditional concept of service innovation. It should rather introduce conceptual and systemic innovation pertaining to a new way of thinking and of interacting with stakeholders and citizens as sources of both legitimacy and evidence.     

Framing controversy over language policy in Malaysia: the coverage of PPSMI reversal (teaching of mathematics and science in English) by Malaysian newspapers

In 2003, the Malaysian Government announced the policy of Teaching of Mathematics and Science in English [ETeMS or better known by its Malay acronym, Pengajaran dan Pembelajaran Sains dan Matematik dalam Bahasa Inggeris (PPSMI)]. The policy has, however, caused a furore, with both Malay nationalists and Chinese educationists treating the decision as an attack on their identity. Later in July 2009, the Malaysian Government announced to reverse the PPSMI policy starting from 2012. Researchers have long understood news as an artefact of a socially constructed reality. In making news, journalists shape a reality that reflects the political economic and ideological boundaries within which they work. By employing framing as the theoretical framework and content analysis as the research method, this study examined what pictures newspapers have created for citizens' understanding of the reversal of PPSMI policy. It was found that the mainstream newspapers framed the issue in similar ways, which was to explain and justify the reversal. Meanwhile, the alternative newspaper reflected what was mostly left outwhile the alternative newspaper reflected what was mostly left out and provided a counter-hegemonic discourse.     

From Coughlin to contemporary talk radio: Fallacies & propaganda in American populist radio

Talk radio has evolved into the town meeting of the 1990s. Talk radio's success comes from a combination of powerful personalities, audience involvement, and propagandistic appeals. Talk radio has become so powerful as to prompt the president of the United States to denounce many of its practitioners. Radio listeners need to understand how public figures use the media to manipulate the airwaves and their messages to influence the masses. This paper critically examines conservative talk radio figures using Father Charles Coughlin, the famous “radio priest” of the Shrine of the Little Flower, as the locus of comparison. The authors analyze the radio discourse of Coughlin, contemporary national figures such as Rush Limbaugh, and a Detroit‐area commentator, Mark Scott. Traditional propaganda analysis facilitates understanding of the rhetorical force of talk radio and enables the public to increase their awareness of and ability to deal with propaganda.     

An empirical analysis of e-participation. The role of social networks and e-government over citizens' online engagement

The aim of this paper is to further explore the drivers behind the decision of citizens to engage in social and political participation on the internet, since mixed empirical evidence has been found in the literature. Using data from the 2011 survey on the use of information and communications technologies by households and individuals in Spain, the following two types of e-participation are analyzed: reading/giving opinions about social/political issues and signing/taking part in online petitions/public consultations. Relying on an updated version of the resources approach, we investigate as to what extent e-participation is explained not only by traditional participation-related resources (i.e., socio-economic characteristics) but also by digital skills, social networks and the online development of public administrations. Results show that, while online participation is mainly associated with internet-related skills, there is a significant gender gap. Interestingly, the unemployed tend to engage socially and politically online more than the rest of the population.     

Online Story Commenting

The expansion of opinion is one of the key developments in the British press, as elsewhere. The article analyses the role of one of the most important types of commentator, newspaper political columnists, examining their credentials, sources, information society prospects, and putative impact. Using data from interviews with some of Britain's leading journalists, the study is able to corroborate findings from a wide-ranging literature review. In addition, it formulates some preliminary hypotheses: that the effectiveness of a so-called pundit is a function of his or her willingness to remain focused upon a theme; that there is a positive correlation between a columnist's political impact and the factual or informational content of the columns; and that a columnist is most powerful when complying with a broader newspaper campaign.     

Organizational maturity for co-creation: Towards a multi-attribute decision support model for public organizations

The paper conceptualizes a multi-attribute decision support model for the assessment of organizational maturity for co-creation, specifically for public organizations. This is achieved on the basis of a systematic literature review (i.e. content analysis) and analysis of two European case studies of promising collaborative practices (from UK and Slovenia). The co-creation drivers and barriers elicited from these two sources are integrated in a decision support model, thus setting the layout of a multi-attribute decision support model for the assessment of organizational maturity for co-creation. The final model conceptualized here consists of 25 attributes or criteria grouped into three categories: organization capacity, staff capacity, and a wider political and normative context in which public organizations act.     

Air Mail: NPR Sees "Community" in Letters From Listeners

This study of National Public Radio's "letters from listeners" segments applies two theoretical frameworks–imagined community and news work–to suggest that the practice of "imagining community" is a distinct practice of journalism. The findings suggest that NPR producers use letters segments to encourage listeners to feel as if they are part of a community. In selecting and packaging those comments, producers construct an imagined community that reflects the producers' own journalistic values, such as balance, accountability, and accuracy. The conclusion suggests that community-imagining might be especially difficult and abstract for large news media organizations serving massive and dispersed audiences.     

Expanding the Scope of Selective Exposure: An Objective Approach to Measurement of Media Ideology

The literature on selective exposure has made inestimable advances in our understanding of media and its effect on politics and the general public. However, much of the research on this topic has relied on potentially inaccurate assumptions. In our paper we apply an open-source, publicly available, high-dimensional measurement of meaning through word co-occurrence context (Shaoul & Westbury, 2010), which has historically been applied to questions of semantic relationships between words. This method allows scholars to avoid pitfalls from previous assumptions and determine previously unknown ideological positions of previously unknown sources. We demonstrate the validity and range of this method and provide a series of best practices for scholars who wish to employ this tool in their own research. Our method will ultimately expand the variety of research questions available as well as improving inferences, opening up new lines of research for scholars studying media consumption and political behavior.     

Television news and status conferral

In September 1996 a federal appeals court ruled that broadcasters cannot refuse daytime or prime time television federal candidates’ political advertisements containing abortion images. Broadcasters argued the advertisements were harmful to children and, thus, should be restricted. This article explores this public interest dilemma involving two competing interests: the concern for the welfare of children and the public interest in informed political debate. This article also discusses implications of the court decision.