Deceptive Journalism: Characteristics of Untrustworthy News Items

ABSTRACT

Trustworthiness is key in journalism, yet some journalists intentionally deceive their audiences by fabricating sources or inventing news stories altogether. Earlier research suggests that deceitful news articles have characteristics that are different from trustworthy news articles. We aimed to confirm and expand on the existing literature by examining the case of Perdiep Ramesar, an esteemed Dutch journalist until it was discovered in 2014 that sources were non-existing in 126 of his articles for national newspaper Trouw (“Fidelity”). Using content analysis, we searched for systematic differences in source use and presentation comparing Ramesar’s deceptive news articles with two same-sized sets of reliable articles, (1) articles on similar topics from other journalists and (2) articles with verifiable sources from Ramesar himself. Results indicate that compared to real news sources, fictitious sources are more often secondary definers, who are presented in more stereotypical ways and through more and longer direct quotations. Furthermore, negations and self-references occur more often in deceptive news articles.     

Localized removal of layers of metal,polymer, or biomaterial by ultrasound cavitation bubbles

We present an ultrasonic device with the ability to locally remove deposited layers from a glass slide in a controlled and rapid manner. The cleaning takes place as the result of cavitating bubbles near the deposited layers and not due to acoustic streaming. The bubbles are ejected from air-filled cavities micromachined in a silicon surface, which, when vibrated ultrasonically at a frequency of 200 kHz, generate a stream of bubbles that travel to the layer deposited on an opposing glass slide. Depending on the pressure amplitude, the bubble clouds ejected from the micropits attain different shapes as a result of complex bubble interaction forces, leading to distinct shapes of the cleaned areas. We have determined the removal rates for several inorganic and organic materials and obtained an improved efficiency in cleaning when compared to conventional cleaning equipment. We also provide values of the force the bubbles are able to exert on an atomic force microscope tip.     

Implicit sequence learning is preserved in dyslexic children

This study investigates the implicit sequence learning abilities of dyslexic children using an artificial grammar learning task with an extended exposure period. Twenty children with developmental dyslexia participated in the study and were matched with two control groups—one matched for age and other for reading skills. During 3 days, all participants performed an acquisition task, where they were exposed to colored geometrical forms sequences with an underlying grammatical structure. On the last day, after the acquisition task, participants were tested in a grammaticality classification task. Implicit sequence learning was present in dyslexic children, as well as in both control groups, and no differences between groups were observed. These results suggest that implicit learning deficits per se cannot explain the characteristic reading difficulties of the dyslexics.     

Are they ready to teach? Student teachers’ readiness for the job with reference to teacher competence frameworks

This is the first report in a series of studies concerning student teachers’ readiness-for-the-job, defined by a framework of 11 international teacher competences (ITCs). Attaining readiness-for-the-job is connected to four characteristics of teacher education, namely; (1) employing the ITCs in day-to-day teaching in initial teacher education, (2) integrating the ITCs in the curricula of teaching programmes, (3) exercising the ITCs through practicum at schools and (4) by teacher educators modelling the ITCs. In the present study, a student sample from four teacher education colleges (n = 226) was surveyed to explore the extent to which students felt ready-for-the-job. The study outlines the degree to which the characteristics of teacher education are associated with student teachers’ readiness-for-the-job. The results identify the critical areas to be developed in these prospective teachers before they can actually become ready-for-the-job, and especially the central role of their teacher educators in shaping their professional competence.     

Social pressure for religious conformity and anti-gay sentiment among Muslim and Christian youth

Abstract

Research on civic education, for the most part, investigates the alleged outcomes of deliberate civic education programs. Remarkably, few types of research have investigated how the outcomes of group process (e.g. based on religion) in schools, and more specifically, the pressure to conform to in-group norms, relate to civic educational goals (e.g. promoting tolerance for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender people). Against that background, this paper has two objectives. First, we assess social variation in perceived social pressure for religious conformity among Christian and Muslim Youth enrolled in secondary education in Flanders (N?=?2765). Second, we investigate the relationship between perceived social pressure for religious conformity and anti-gay sentiment. Our analyses are guided by social identity theory and rely on multilevel analysis. We find that for both Christian and Muslim youth, anti-gay sentiment is higher among young people who experience higher social pressure through the perceived expectations from talking with significant others about religion.     

Techno-optimism and policy-pessimism in the public sector big data debate

Despite great potential, high hopes and big promises, the actual impact of big data on the public sector is not always as transformative as the literature would suggest. In this paper, we ascribe this predicament to an overly strong emphasis the current literature places on technical-rational factors at the expense of political decision-making factors. We express these two different emphases as two archetypical narratives and use those to illustrate that some political decision-making factors should be taken seriously by critiquing some of the core ‘techno-optimist’ tenets from a more ‘policy-pessimist’ angle. In the conclusion we have these two narratives meet ‘eye-to-eye’, facilitating a more systematized interrogation of big data promises and shortcomings in further research, paying appropriate attention to both technical-rational and political decision-making factors. We finish by offering a realist rejoinder of these two narratives, allowing for more context-specific scrutiny and balancing both technical-rational and political decision-making concerns, resulting in more realistic expectations about using big data for policymaking in practice.