'White Coats Vs The White House' c/o BBC World Service

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	WHITE COATS
	WHITE HOUSE

White Coats Vs The White House
The Documentary - 21 August 2025

'What is going on with US science? Science Journalist Roland Pease asks whether the rounds of cuts, reorganisations and political strong-arming can be weathered, and how they will likely affect us all.

80 years after Vannevar Bush proposed what became the pact between government and universities that led to decades of global scientific dominance, is the edifice being toppled?

Bush’s report “Science, The Endless Frontier” led to the unwritten pact between university scientists and government funding that underpinned US leadership until now. “Trust us with the money, we’ll give you the global scientific advantage”.'

continued: 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct81nr

'Finding the Signal through the Noise' - WHO EARS

It is deprived communities who desperately want to do their best for family, but struggle to have access to and make sense of many sources of information. News and information not just through 'traditional' channels, but social media. Trying to be objective, non-judgemental it can still be surprising how TVs and smartphones are the key personal and furniture items.

Outside of London, Liverpool has a low uptake of immunisation against measles:

Liverpool, now has cases and a child's death from measles:

https://liverpool.gov.uk/council/public-health-liverpool/measles-on-the-increase/

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/alder-heys-plea-after-child-32050189

Located in-between, I often visit Manchester and Liverpool. I wonder now if I should visit Liverpool less. My daughter and her partner expecting their second child have a decision to make next year.

I noticed on X a reference to 'social listening'. This was missed while drafting a paper on COVID, technology, social media and information disorder. More positively, work on 'infodemic' was captured and posted. 

Blowing the dust of another draft, I will reassess this stream of work and seek specific literature, especially contributions to improved outcomes - public (mental) health.

McGowan B. S. (2022). World Health Organization's Early AI-supported Response with Social Listening Platform. Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA, 110(2), 273–275. https://doi.org/10.5195/jmla.2022.1398

See also:

Fryer, Jon. “Information Literacies – Learning, to Thrive in a Digital Age” IRMS Bulletin 230 (2022): 16-21.

Jones, P. (1996) Humans, Information, and Science, Journal of Advanced Nursing, 24(3),591-598.

The Role of Generative AI Use in 2024 Elections Worldwide

A high-level précis of the Technical Paper can be found in the Summary for Policymakers report, Generative AI in Electoral Campaigns: Mapping Global Patterns.

IPIE 

GenAI is being deployed in many ways during elections, ranging from the creation of deepfake video and audio messages, to sophisticated voter targeting. What are the implications of GenAI for election administration and voter participation around the world? This assessment delivers the first global, data-driven analysis of its kind, designed to inform policy recommendations that enhance election administration, foster trust in electoral processes, and boost voter turnout.

Based on an analysis of an original data set of 215 incidents, covering all 50 countries holding competitive national elections in 2024, we find that:

• Fully four-fifths (80%) of the countries holding elections in 2024 had GenAI incidents.  
• The vast majority (90%) of incidents involved content creation, such as audio messages, images, videos, and social media posts.
• Almost half of the incidents have no known source (46%), a quarter were produced by political candidates and parties (25%), a fifth were produced by foreign actors (20%), and the remainder came from other sources (9%).
• More than two-thirds (69%) of the incidents were described as having a harmful role in the election.

We encourage you to check out the full report, Summary for Policymakers, and press release announcement on our website.

My source: IPIE email.

'Fake news' - nothing new under the Sun

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	PD Reporter with "fake news" from an 1894 illustration by Frederick Burr Opper

Kruck, D. A 'ROYAL' BIT OF FAKE NEWS. Gibbons Stamp Monthly, August 2021, pp.28-30.

Image source:
https://aleteia.org/2018/02/09/fake-news-post-truth-and-technology-in-the-19th-century/

ROBOTPOLITICS

26 – 27 September, 2024 
UNIVERSIDADE ABERTA LISBON, PORTUGAL

The program includes:

• The house is on fire, but this is fine: the incoming tsunami of disinformation 
• Encrypted subjectivity in digital space 
• You are (not) your avatar: personhood, personal identity and legal issues in mind uploading 
• On Techno Dharma: Neurofeedback-assisted meditation as an enhanced technology of the self 
• Mapped in real time: Affective technologies and the post-human subjectivity 
• Does social bots rely on beliefs to communicate the science: An implication for misinformation. 
• The Paradox of Information Abundance: Homogenization of Political Thought in the World of Social Media 
• The main problems of Robotpolitics. Hints for their resolutions 
• « Smart city » / Intelligent Citizen 
• Smart Cities and Sustainability: Malthusian Sexual Robots 
• Sex-Bots: Friend or Foe to Human Relationships? 
• Towards Digital Platonism 
• Autonomous weapons systems in armed conflicts: ethical and legal implications 

See also - The Jena Declaration: https://thejenadeclaration.org 

Previously on W2tQ robots

Book: Digital Disinformation in Africa: Hashtag Politics, Power and Propaganda

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	Digital Disinformation in Africa
	#Politics #Power #Propaganda

Source: Twi/X

c/o Eliot Higgins: 'Moment of truth' or 'Movement to Critical Thinking'?

   moment

a : tendency or measure of tendency to produce motion especially about a point or axis

b : the product of quantity (such as a force) and the distance to a particular axis or point

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/moment

Here on W2tQ in posts applying Hodges' model I have tended to equate the subjective and the objective with the humanistic and mechanistic domains respectively. Of course, these mappings - conceptual placements are idealised. In reality there is a great deal of overlap. 

"Social media platforms such as X, once celebrated as democratising forces, are under even more scrutiny. The challenge isn't just rogue posts or unchecked algorithms. It reflects a deeper malaise, rooted in societal distrust, exacerbated by business models and perpetuated by reactive policies. The ramifications of disinformation spill on the streets with tangible, often devastating real-world consequences. 

These processes were already underway in 2014, when I founded the open-source investigative group Bellingcat." p.1. 

"The delicate balance between combating misinformation and ensuring digital freedoms remains elusive. ...

Addressing the root causes of disinformation requires a grassroots approach. Education stands at the forefront of this strategy. The idea is simple yet transformative: integrate open-source investigative and critical thinking into the curriculum. Equip the youth with the skills to navigate the labyrinthine digital realm, to question, analyse and verify before accepting or sharing information. ...

The potential of such a grassroots movement doesn't stop at school gates. Envision a world where universities become hubs of open source investigation, with national and international networks of students sharing methodologies, tools and insights. As these students move into their professional lives, they carry forward not just skills but a mindset - one that values critical thinking over blind acceptance." p.2.

Higgins, E. Moment of truth, Life&Arts, FT Weekend, 16-17 December 2023, pp.1-2.
 

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mental well-being critical thinking education - learning subjective PSYCHO-	physical well-being fact (checking) digital media literacy objective
social well-being society social impacts of info disorder	-POLITICAL political well-being policy - regulation political impacts of info disorder

https://thestudentview.org/

https://citizenevidence.org/

Access to education to combat information disorder, through digital media literacy is essential. There are now many claimed forms of literacy, and informatics. Engaging students must not just rest with  universities and graduate level education; especially as the 'professions' are set to change and new ones arise.

Previous posts 'information disorder' , 'ignorance'.

5th Multidisciplinary International Symposium on Disinformation in Open Online Media

Call for Contributions

The Multidisciplinary International Symposium on Disinformation in Open Online Media (MISDOOM) is returning for its 5th edition on 21 and 22 November 2023. This time, the conference will be hosted by the National Research Center for Mathematics and Computer Science (CWI) at Amsterdam Science Park (Netherlands). MISDOOM values multidisciplinary research and is designed to be inclusive of different academic disciplines and practices.

The symposium provides a platform for researchers, industry professionals, and practitioners from various disciplines such as communication science, computer science, computational social science, political science, psychology, journalism, and media studies to come together and share their knowledge and insights on online disinformation.

... details continued ...

My source - ERCIM NEWS posted previously:

https://hodges-model.blogspot.com/2023/07/ercim-news-134-xai.html

Previous posts: information disorder, misinformation

Art as 'social media' 1923

Music, Health and Character

"The varied picture presented by life is viewed by each individual through the transforming medium of his own private consciousness. Our judgements are biased, being coloured, inevitably, by our personal  interests, occupation and experience. To the physician has been entrusted the health of the body; his outlook upon the world is tinged by his desire to prevent disease by eliminating abnormal predisposing causes. So close and so intricate is the union of mind and body that modern medicine recognizes the necessity of right thinking and right conduct for the highest development of the body. Hence, from his unique corner of advantage, that of the sympathetic confidant of innumerable life tragedies, the physician views with dismay the ruin of individuals, and the disaster brought on families and entire communities by frequent contact with the morbid, even at times the depraved teaching which is embodied in many branches of art with lighthearted irresponsibility. More and more profoundly are the medical psychologists impressed by the creative and the destructive power of such intangible forces as ideas. More and more urgently, therefore, does modern medicine plead, in its capacity as guardian of the public health, for the improvement of mental and moral conditions. With wiser education people will demand that Art shall be pure, sincere and life-giving, and that artists shall value seriously their responsibility and their power to mould the character of the community. The true artist always aims high and discourages the association of art with all that is trivial, insincere and debasing." p.225-226.

Agnes Savill (Agnes Forbes Blackadder), Music, Health and Character, London: Bodley Head Limited. 1923.
(Book cover: AbeBooks)

#HelloMyNameIs ... Socrates^

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The Last Days of Socrates*
	Cancelling Socrates

Overview

“They say Pericles caught democracy from you in bed.”

Today, Socrates is revered as the founding father of Western philosophy. But in 399BC Athens, he was a pain in the neck. The plague is over, democracy is (just about) restored, and everyone would like to get back to normal. How hard is it for one ageing firebrand to stop asking questions? It’s time to shut him up…

Based on eyewitness accounts, Cancelling Socrates is a provocative, witty and dangerous world premiere from Howard Brenton, one of our foremost dramatists, whose acclaimed plays have been staged at the National Theatre, RSC, Shakespeare’s Globe, and worldwide. He reunites with our Artistic Director, Tom Littler.

My sources: 'Front Row' BBC Radio 4, 9 June 2022.

Images - c/o Penguin and Nick Hern Books (https://www.nickhernbooks.co.uk/cancelling-socrates)

Jermyn Street Theatre - text (as per links).

*(Just) A philosopher.

^You can play here too.

There is a play in #h2cm

#HelloMyNameIs #aPlay too,

"Information Disorder:" c/o Wardle and Derakhshan (2017) The transmission of ritual ...

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	“The transmission view of communication is the commonest in our culture — perhaps in all industrial cultures... It is defined by terms such as ‘imparting,’ ‘sending,’ ‘transmitting,’ or ‘giving information to others.’ ...
... The ‘ritual view of communication’, by contrast, is not about “the act of imparting information but the representation of shared beliefs.” pp.14-15.

 

Wardle, Claire, and Hossein Derakhshan. 2017. “Information Disorder: Toward an Interdisciplinary Framework for Research and Policy Making.” 162317GBR. Council of Europe. https://edoc.coe.int/en/media/7495-information-disorder-toward-an-interdisciplinary-framework-for-research-and-policy-making.html.

Previously:

WHO: Infodemic Management News Flash Thursday 4 November 2021 #25

 

Report: "Memes, Magnets and Microchips: Narrative dynamics around COVID-19 vaccines"

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MEMES	magnets and microchips
[ ... MEMES - MEMES - MEMES ... ]	misinformation ignorance disinformation

 

See also:

https://hodges-model.blogspot.com/search?q=ignorance

My source: HIFA

https://news.stanford.edu/2022/02/24/curbing-spread-covid-19-vaccine-related-mis-disinformation/

image: @uwcip

Draft paper: Abstract - "Society, Technology and COVID19 in Hodges' model"

"Society, Technology and COVID19 in Hodges' model"

Abstract

 

This descriptive paper explores technology, society and the COVID pandemic, curated through a generic conceptual framework: Hodges' model. Developed in health and education, the model provides an underlying structure and four care, or knowledge domains. Each domain can represent part of what would formally and globally be recognised as curricula. Of four prompts leading to the model's creation, one was to facilitate reflection and critical thinking. The COVID-19 pandemic makes Hodges' model an ideal tool to expatiate its socio-political and individual mental health impacts and technoscientific reponse. This will be demonstrated by using the model to reflect and critique the paper’s themes, exposing conceptual content, dependencies, relationships, stand-points, issues and opportunities. The pandemic has crystalised the irony of the 'information age' and a concurrent gift of an 'infodemic'. In response the paper's focus is the experiential impact of misinformation, fake news, ignorance, and literacies.

To begin, Hodges' model is introduced, then COVID, followed by society and technology in combination, an approach based on previous work that Hodges' model affords. Incorporated in Hodges' model, the political domain invites and facilitates dialectic critique. The model is situated, a product of the combination of structure and potential content. The awareness of various polarities, dualities, and dichotomies inculcates recognition of the 'middle' in whatever context the model is applied. This endows Hodges' model with a substrate inherently suited to deliberation and argumentation, namely, for example, subjective-objective, qualitative-quantitative, person-population, arts-sciences, demand-supply and dependent-independent dualities. The application of the model is explained with several examples, to reveal the convention for committing the model to paper. As will be evident, the author is located in the United Kingdom, but continues to seek - as with this work - a global perspective.


Keywords: COVID; technology; society; conceptual framework; Hodges’ model; ignorance

Awaiting news!