Racism on the Web: Its rhetoric and marketing

Poster (1989) and Schiller (1996) point out that electronic communications have the power to change social and political relationships. The ‘new’ discourse of the Internet has political uses in spreading neo-Nazi ideology and action. I look at two kinds of online neo-Nazi discourse: hate speech itself, including text, music, online radio broadcasts, and images that exhort users to act against target groups; and persuasive rhetoric that does not directly enunciate but ultimately promotes or justifies violence. The online location of these discourses poses urgent questions. Does information technology make the re-emergence of prejudicial messages and attitudes swifter and more likely? Does the Internet's wide range of distribution make for more followers and finally more persuasion?     

修辞与科学知识传播论纲

科学知识的有效传播离不开修辞,以修辞的方式传播科学知识是可能的和必要的。第一,语言文字是科学知识的最基本的载体之一,以承载科学知识的修辞话语传播科学知识常常能为更广泛的公众所喜闻乐见;第二,修辞方式往往可以给特定科学知识传播以策略上的支持;第三,修辞过程与科学知识传播过程均为且均必为一互动的过程;第四,修辞和科学知识传播的效果都可以通过审美的方式体现出来。     

Robots and reality: a reply to Robert Sparrow

We commonly identify something seriously defective in a human life that is lived in ignorance of important but unpalatable truths. At the same time, some degree of misapprehension of reality may be necessary for individual health and success. Morally speaking, it is unclear just how insistent we should be about seeking the truth. Robert Sparrow has considered such issues in discussing the manufacture and marketing of robot ‘pets’, such as Sony’s doglike ‘AIBO’ toy and whatever more advanced devices may supersede it. Though it is not his only concern, Sparrow particularly criticizes such robot pets for their illusory appearance of being living things. He fears that some individuals will subconsciously buy into the illusion, and come to sentimentalize interactions that fail to constitute genuine relationships. In replying to Sparrow, I emphasize that this would be continuous with much of the minor sentimentality that we already indulge in from day to day. Although a disposition to seek the truth is morally virtuous, the virtue concerned must allow for at least some categories of exceptions. Despite Sparrow’s concerns about robot pets (and robotics more generally), we should be lenient about familiar, relatively benign, kinds of self-indulgence in forming beliefs about reality. Sentimentality about robot pets seems to fall within these categories. Such limited self-indulgence can co-exist with ordinary honesty and commitment to truth.     

政策过程与政策质量

近年来,科技政策质量越来越受到关注。本文依据科技政策的特殊性,提出政治与知识结合的ICD3PA模型描述政策过程,探讨政策过程与政策内容的互动关系,讨论了政策质量的五条标准,提出从完善政策过程入手改善政策内容、提高政策质量。     

Critical thinking: Kahneman and policy making

Robin Mansell is professor of new media and the internet at LSE. She is interested in how and why people communicate with each other, especially when their relationships are mediated by the use of information and communication technologies.     

新时期高校思想政治教育创新研究

高校思想政治教育的工作如何进行,能够使教师讲得精,学生学得好,必须在教学方法和手段上努力创新。教师要加强自身素质的修养与敬业精神的修炼,树立高度的育人意识,注意教师职业倦怠现象的就偏与屏蔽;要以敏感的政治思维和洞察力捕捉现实问题,讲究思想政治课课堂授课的艺术性,积极探索建设社会主义核心价值体系融入大学生思想政治课教学的有效方式和途径,把理论基础知识的教学与建设社会主义核心价值体系有机的结合起来,奠定塑造高级人才牢固政治素质的基础。     

Russia's innovation policy: Stubborn path-dependencies and new approaches

For the last twenty years Russia has been struggling to turn itself into an efficient market economy. Innovation and technological development are considered to be one of the best ways to achieve impressive results. The country has succeeded in retaining certain strengths of the Soviet science and technology system but it has often failed to address the former weaknesses and emerging challenges. There are a number of external and internal factors that make reforms inevitable and urgent. In the last five-six years the political leadership has started an unprecedented attempt to reverse the negative trends and boost Russia's innovation performance. This paper studies the new policy approaches and suggests several others that might be considered useful at this stage of the country's development. This work contributes to the wider debate on the heterogeneity of national innovation systems and adaptation of the respective analytical approach to the study of technological development of the emerging economies. It also provides a detailed review of the literature and data sources on the Russian science and technology, and aims to start filling in the gap in this seriously understudied research area.     

中国种子产业的发展、存在问题和政策建议

自新中国成立以来,我国种子产业经历了五个发展阶段,目前已基本完成了商业化种子改革。种子产业的发展有力地促进了我国农业生产的科技进步。但本文分析也表明,现行的政府研究单位主导商业化育种和种子管理属地化的体制,制约了种子产业现代化的进程,并导致种子产业的一系列问题。为此,本文提出了深化政府育种体系和种子产业改革的政策建议。     

Technological development and political stability: Patenting in Latin America and the Caribbean

We examine the effect of national political institutions on patent application rates. The expected future value of a patent, like any other form of property, depends at least partially on certainty about the future. In circumstances where policy stability is greatest, and hence political uncertainty least, one should expect more aggressive pursuit of intellectual property rights. We test these ideas using a 27 year panel of Latin American and Caribbean nations, estimating US patent applications and domestic patent applications by local inventors for each observation, and holding other economic and technological inputs to innovation constant. Our principal finding is that political stability matters to patenting. For US patent applications institutional system tenure, regardless of system type, increases patent applications. For domestic patent applications, institutional stability has either a weakly negative or insignificant effect, a result we attribute to generally escalating local patenting standards over time. The type of government influences both US and domestic patent applications rates, with a veto-players institutional coding better predicting marginal patenting rates than regime type.