Thursday, November 04, 2021

Study finds more than 28 million extra years of life lost in 31 countries in 2020

Rate of excess premature deaths higher in men than women; findings shed more light on the full impact of the pandemic

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BMJ

Over 28 million more years of life were lost than expected in 2020 in 31 upper-middle and high-income countries, finds a study published by The BMJ today.

Except for Taiwan, New Zealand, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and South Korea, all other countries examined had more premature deaths than expected in 2020, with a higher rate in men than women. The highest rates of excess premature deaths were in Russia, Bulgaria, Lithuania, and the US.

Understanding the full impact of the covid-19 pandemic requires not only counting excess deaths (difference between observed and expected numbers of deaths from all causes), but also analysing how premature those deaths are.

Years of life lost (YLL) measures both the number of deaths and the age at which it occurs, making it a more detailed assessment of covid-19’s impact on populations.

Using this measure, an international team of researchers, led by Dr Nazrul Islam from the Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, set out to estimate the changes in life expectancy and excess years of life lost from all causes in 2020.

They compared the observed life expectancy and years of life lost in 2020 with those that would be expected based on historical trends in 2005-19 in 37 upper-middle and high-income countries.

Between 2005 and 2019, life expectancy at birth increased in both men and women in all the countries studied.

In 2020, there was a decline in life expectancy in both men and women in all countries except New Zealand, Taiwan, and Norway, where there was a gain in life expectancy. No evidence was found of a change in life expectancy in Denmark, Iceland, and South Korea.

The highest decline in life expectancy (in years) was in Russia (−2.33 in men and −2.14 in women), the US (−2.27 in men and −1.61 in women), Bulgaria (−1.96 in men and −1.37 in women), Lithuania (−1.83 in men and −1.21 in women), Chile (−1.64 in men), and Spain (−1.11 in women).

Years of life lost declined in most countries in both men and women between 2005 and 2019, except Canada, Greece, Scotland, Taiwan, and the US.

In 2020, years of life lost were higher than expected in all countries except Taiwan and New Zealand, where there was a reduction in years of life lost, and Iceland, South Korea, Denmark, and Norway, where there was no evidence of a change in years of life lost.

In the remaining 31 countries, more than 222 million years of life were lost in 2020, which is 28.1 million more than expected (17.3 million in men and 10.8 million in women).

The highest excess years of life lost (per 100,000) were in Russia (7,020 in men and 4,760 in women), Bulgaria (7,260 in men and 3,730 in women), Lithuania (5,430 in men and 2,640 in women), and the US (4,350 in men and 2,430 in women).

Overall, excess years of life lost to the covid-19 pandemic in 2020 were more than five times higher (2,510 per 100,000) than those associated with the seasonal influenza epidemic in 2015 (458 per 100,000).

The excess years of life lost were relatively low in people younger than 65 years, except in Russia, Bulgaria, Lithuania, and the US where the excess years of life lost was more than 2,000 per 100,000.

The researchers acknowledge some limitations. For example, they did not include most countries from Asia, Africa, and Latin America due to a lack of data, and were unable to take account of other critically important factors, such as socioeconomic status, regional disparities, and race or ethnicity.

However, the findings are largely in line with previous studies, and their use of authoritative national mortality data, together with a validated analytical approach, suggests that the results are robust.

“Our findings of a comparable or lower than expected YLL in Taiwan, New Zealand, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and South Korea underscore the importance of successful viral suppression and elimination policies, including targeted and population based public health policy interventions,” they write.

“As many of the effects of the pandemic might take a longer time frame to have a measurable effect on human lives, continuous and timely monitoring of excess YLL would help identify the sources of excess mortality and excess YLL in population subgroups,” they conclude.

###

JOURNAL

BMJ

DOI

10.1136/bmj-2021-066768

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Effects of covid-19 pandemic on life expectancy and premature mortality in 2020: time series analysis in 37 countries

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

3-Nov-2021

BMW’s fully electric car sales on track to double this year, but still way short of Tesla

November 3, 2021

The BMW i4 seen during a BMW press event in Garching, Bavaria, on September 29, 2021.
Matthias Balk | picture alliance | Getty Images

The BMW Group’s sales of fully electric vehicles grew by 121.4% in the first nine months of 2021, hitting 59,688 units, with the German carmaker stating Wednesday that electric mobility was “becoming an increasingly vital growth driver and success factor” for the company.

In total, the Munich-headquartered firm sold 231,575 all-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles between January and September, a jump of 98.9%. By comparison, in the third quarter of 2021 alone, Elon Musk’s Tesla says it delivered 241,300 vehicles.

BMW’s electric vehicle figures were contained in an earnings report published Wednesday. Net profit for the third quarter of 2021 amounted to 2.58 billion euros ($2.99 billion), a rise of 42.4%. This was despite deliveries in its automotive segment dropping by 12.2% compared to the third quarter of 2020.

“In the third quarter 2021, operations were increasingly impacted by supply bottlenecks for semiconductor components,” the company said. “Although this resulted in production volume shortfalls and lower sales volumes during the period from July to September 2021, the impact was more than offset by positive price effects for new and pre-owned vehicles.”

Back on the EV front, the BMW Group wants fully electric vehicles to represent at least 50% of its deliveries by the year 2030.

BMW is one of several well known companies pushing an electrification strategy. In March, Volvo Cars said it planned to become a “fully electric car company” by the year 2030.

In July, the Volkswagen Group said half of its sales were expected to be battery-electric vehicles by 2030. By the year 2040, the company said almost 100% of its new vehicles in major markets should be zero-emission.

This shift to electric mobility comes at a time when major economies around the world are attempting to reduce the environmental footprint of transportation.

The U.K., for example, wants to stop the sale of new diesel and gasoline cars and vans by 2030. It will require, from 2035, all new cars and vans to have zero tailpipe emissions.

Elsewhere, the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, is targeting a 100% reduction in CO2 emissions from cars and vans by 2035.

— CNBC’s Chloe Taylor contributed to this report

Consumers in China pick their 3 favorite electric cars — and only one is Chinese

November 3, 2021

Stephan Wollenstein, CEO of Volkswagen China, presents the new ID.6 Crozz electric car during the Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition on April 19, 2021.
Hector Retamal | AFP | Getty Images

BEIJING — When it comes to their favorite electric car brand, Chinese consumers’ top choice is Warren Buffett-backed BYD, according to a survey by Bernstein.

Elon Musk’s Tesla ranks second, and third on the list is Germany’s Volkswagen, Bernstein said. The firm cited the latest results from a regular survey of Chinese consumers in the third quarter of the last few years. This year’s survey, released Thursday, covered about 1,600 respondents.

Most of those surveyed lived in China’s larger cities, with an average age of 32 and monthly income of about 19,000 yuan ($2,969), the research firm.

Nearly half the respondents said they will consider buying an electric vehicle for their next car purchase, the report said, noting consumer preferences for lower operating costs, a better driving experience and environmental friendliness.

Intent to buy an electric car from a Chinese start-up like Nio or Xpeng doubled this year to about 9.5% of those surveyed, up from around 5% for the last few years.

Chinese start-ups ranked first in the “upper mass & premium” segment of the electric car market, which covers cars costing at least 150,000 yuan ($23,437). The next most-favored in that segment was Tesla, followed by premium German brands like BMW and Audi, the survey found.

But across cars of all categories, premium German brands ranked first, followed by Japanese brands Toyota, Honda, and Nissan, and Chinese brands including BYD and Geely, the report said. Electric car start-ups ranked sixth in this category.

China is the world’s largest auto market and many European car companies are making the country the starting point in their push into electric vehicles.

Volkswagen generates about 41% of its sales volume in China, according to Goldman Sachs.

Porsche counts China as its largest single market and reported 11% growth in the first three quarters of the year from the same period a year ago. During that time on a global basis, the German luxury automaker said its recently introduced electric Taycan model outsold its flagship 911 sports car.

— CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M BANK ROBBERY

Wells Fargo warns investors that the bank is likely to face more regulatory setbacks

CNBC

NOV 3,2021

Wells Fargo CEO Charles Scharf listens during the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, Calif., on April 30, 2019.
Kyle Grillot | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Wells Fargo isn’t out of the woods yet when it comes to its regulatory mess.

That’s the message the bank sent in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission this week. Wells Fargo said it is “likely to experience issues or delays” in satisfying demands from multiple U.S. regulators – a subtle, but meaningful shift in language from earlier filings where the bank said it “may” experience delays.

The development means that the most significant regulatory constraint on Wells Fargo — a Federal Reserve edict forcing the bank to keep its balance sheet frozen at 2017 levels — could take even longer to resolve, JPMorgan analyst Vivek Juneja said Wednesday in a research note.

“The key risk is that any further issues or delays would increase scrutiny and could further delay the asset cap getting lifted,” Juneja said in the note, citing comments from Fed chairman Jerome Powell that the asset cap won’t be lifted until compliance issues are resolved. Expenses tied to the regulatory overhaul could remain higher for longer, the analyst said.

The disclosure shows that CEO Charles Scharf, who took over two years ago, is still consumed with cleaning up the mess revealed by the bank’s 2016 fake accounts scandal. In September, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency hit the bank with a $250 million fine tied to its mortgage division.

Scharf told analysts last month that the latest fine indicates that despite resolving a pair of consent orders, the company is “likely to have setbacks” over the next few years as the CEO and his deputies work to improve the firm’s compliance functions.

When an analyst pressed for more information on the setbacks, Scharf noted the complex set of consent orders the bank was working on.

“I just want to make sure that people understand that we have these things that are out there, and don’t want you to be surprised if something happens,” Scharf said.

A Wells Fargo spokesperson declined to comment beyond the filing. Shares of the bank have surged more than 70% this year amid a broader rebound in financial companies.

With assistance from CNBC’s Michael Bloom

Labor unions push White House to add worker protections to Biden Covid vaccine mandate

President Joe Biden looks on as AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler speaks during an event in honor of labor unions on September 8, 2021 in the East Room of the White House at Washington, DC.
Oliver Contreras | AP

October 31, 2021

Some of the nation’s largest labor unions are pushing the Biden administration to expand its vaccine mandate for private companies to include additional protections for workers, including mask requirements and other safety measures to minimize the spread of Covid-19.

The AFL-CIO and about two dozen other major unions representing teachers, service employees, meat processing plant, auto and steel workers spoke with the Biden administration on its proposed safety rule in an Oct. 18 teleconference call with White House officials with the Office of Management and Budget.

“We stressed the importance of mitigation measures,” Rebecca Reindel, who represented the AFL-CIO on the call, told CNBC. “We really need to be getting ahead of the transmission piece of the virus. It takes a while to get vaccinated — we need protections in the meantime,” Reindel said.

Three of the biggest labor groups, specifically the AFL-CIO, the Service Employees International Union and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, told CNBC they asked the administration to expand employee protections, requiring employers to improve ventilation and enforce mask rules and social distancing. Reindel said companies should also be required to conduct a risk assessment, in consultation with labor, to determine which combination of mitigation measures are needed to best protect their employees in the workplace.

President Joe Biden directed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration under the Labor Department to write a rule requiring private companies with 100 or more employees to ensure they are all vaccinated or tested weekly for Covid-19.

OMB and Labor Department officials have held dozens of calls and meetings with industry lobbyists over the past two weeks as OMB reviews the mandate, OMB records show. The vaccine and weekly testing requirements will go into effect soon after OMB completes its review.

The AFL-CIO has called for sweeping measures to protect workers from Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic in March 2020. However, OSHA, which polices workplace safety, hasn’t yet issued any broad-based Covid safety rules.

Instead, OSHA issued requirements over the summer limited to health-care workers. Most health-care providers had to develop plans to mitigate the risk of Covid, ensure employees wear masks indoors, keep people six feet apart when indoors, install barriers at work stations when employees aren’t six feet apart, and ensure proper ventilation — among a number of other requirements.

The AFL-CIO and the United Food and Commercial Workers took the Biden administration to court, arguing that the OSHA standard “fails to protect employees outside the healthcare industry who face a similar grave danger from occupational exposure to COVID-19.” The unions specifically cited meatpacking, groceries, transportation and corrections as industries where workers need the Labor Department to issue an enforceable safety standard on Covid.

The unions and Labor Department filed a joint motion in September to put the case on pause until the Biden administration’s vaccination and weekly testing mandate is issued. The parties are required by the court to issue a joint status report on Monday.

“The harsh reality is that current COVID safety guidelines are simply not enough and have left millions of essential workers to fend for themselves,” Marc Perrone, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers, said in August after OSHA issued voluntary guidance recommending masks for vaccinated employees working in areas where transmission was high. “What we need now is a clear enforceable COVID workplace safety standard that will protect America’s essential workers still on the frontlines of this deadly pandemic.”

Perrone said his union is now waiting to see whether mitigation measures are included in the vaccine and testing mandate. “If we still have concerns, we will move forward,” he said, referring to the court case. The group represents 1.3 million employees across the grocery, retail, meatpacking, food processing, cannabis, chemical and distillery industries, including workers at Tysons Food, Kroger, Macy’s, Cargill and Pfizer. People in those industries are largely considered essential frontline workers by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The UFCW warned in an August letter to the Labor Department that vaccination – while important – does not eliminate the danger posed by Covid to workers as the highly transmissible delta variant spreads, the efficacy of vaccines wanes over time and new mutations of the virus emerge.

The AFL-CIO, in a May report, found 1,833 Covid outbreaks, nearly 90,000 infections and 378 deaths in the meatpacking, food processing and farming industries from the beginning of the pandemic in April 2020 through this April. A report from the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis found that infections among meatpacking workers were nearly three times higher than previously reported.

“There are going to be certain people who are not going to take [the vaccine] and get tested, and then if you don’t have mitigation measures in place, like masks, you’re sort of defeating your purpose,” Perrone told CNBC.

The Service Employees International Union asked the Biden administration in September to expand the vaccine mandate to include additional protections. The union represents represents 2 million workers in essential services such as janitors, health and other occupations.

“Layered mitigation measures, including but not limited to masking and distancing, as well as quarantine after exposure or positive tests remain necessary to protect against outbreaks,” Leslie Frane, the union’s executive vice president, wrote in a September letter to OSHA head James Frederick.

SEIU and UFCW have also called for paid leave for workers to get vaccinated and recover from the shot, paid leave for workers to quarantine and recover from the virus, and free Covid tests for workers with testing options at the worksite. The Biden administration said in September that it will also require businesses with more than 100 employees to provide paid time off for vaccination and recovery.

The United Auto Workers declined to specifically comment on whether it wants the vaccine and testing mandate to include Covid mitigation measures. The big three automakers have already implemented extensive safety protocols against Covid. While it supports vaccination generally, the union opposes requiring them as part of a federal or employer mandate. The union will review the vaccine and testing mandate when it is published, UAW spokesman Brian Rothenberg told CNBC.

“We’re waiting for the standards because we have over 700 contracts and we’re going to have to go through them and see how they impact our contracts,” he said.

WELL OF COURSE HE DOES

MONOPOLY CAPITALI$M

Lisbon Web Summit: Apple’s Software Boss Warns Against Draft EU Policy on App Store

November 4, 2021

Apple software boss Craig Federighi took the stage at the Web Summit in Lisbon to voice the iPhone maker’s objections to EU draft guidelines that could allow customers to install software from outside its App Store.

Apple contends that such a move would make phones the target of malware or hijacking by cybercriminals and the company is sending top executives to Europe to garner public support and show its resolve in stopping the proposal becoming law.

The Digital Markets Act under consideration in Brussels would force phone makers to allow third-party software to be installed on their devices from outside official app stores.

Big Tech critics say Apple and others use their control over software to entrench their dominant positions, while Apple argues its policies are a matter of keeping users safe.

Apple calls such unofficial app installations “side-loading”. Such a function is already available on Android phones that make up a majority of devices around the world. Apple warned of malicious apps infecting shopper gadgets and made doomsday predictions.

“Sideloading is a cybercriminal’s best friend,” Federighi pressed the case on stage, addressing thousands of attendees at Europe’s largest technology conference.

One compromised device could overflow into entire networks, and malware could jeopardize government systems, enterprise networks and public utilities, he said.

The draft rules need a green light from EU lawmakers and EU countries before they become law, likely in 2023.

Apple charges commissions of up to 30 percent for purchases made within the App Store and loosening its grip on it might allow developers to avoid paying those commissions.

Companies such as Spotify, which have been fighting Apple on different fronts, from privacy changes on iOS devices to high commissions, have called Apple’s policies as “anticompetitive.”

“The discussion about sideloading is just a sideshow, which is really designed to deflect the conversation away from the things that Apple is doing that are clearly anticompetitive,” Spotify Chief Legal Officer Horacio Gutierrez said in an interview.

“No one is arguing that Apple should lower their standards for privacy and security… it’s perfectly logical that Apple would set and enforce certain standards with respect to privacy,” he said.

© Thomson Reuters 2021

Elements may have been forged on Earth, as well as in space

November 2, 2021

Core of the matter: can elements be synthesized deep within the Earth? (Courtesy: Shutterstock/Johan Swanepoel)

Creating elements lighter than iron might not require the extreme conditions found inside very massive stars. According to a group of physicists in Japan and Canada, it is possible that oxygen, nitrogen and all other elements with atomic numbers up to 25 have also been produced inside the Earth. Their eye-catching claim relies on the idea that fusion reactions occur in the Earth’s lower mantle, where they are catalyzed by neutrinos and excited electrons.

According to the Big Bang model, the only elements present in the early universe were hydrogen, helium and tiny amounts of lithium. It is thought that elements with atomic numbers between four (beryllium) and 25 (manganese) are instead made through the progressive fusion of heavier nuclei inside massive stars. This process comes to a halt because the generation of iron (atomic number 26), in contrast with that of lighter elements, does not give off excess energy and so is unable to prevent stars from collapsing under their own weight. The resulting supernovae, however, yield high-speed neutrons that are captured by nuclei to create elements heavier than iron.

In the latest work, Mikio Fukuhara of Tohoku University and colleagues in Japan and Canada propose that these lighter elements can also be produced deep inside the Earth. The inspiration for this idea comes from the evolution of Earth’s atmosphere. As the researchers point out, the atmosphere is thought originally to have been made up almost exclusively of carbon dioxide. But its composition then changed radically, resulting in the dominance of nitrogen – which today accounts for about 78% of the molecules in the atmosphere – as well as large amounts of oxygen (some 21%), while carbon dioxide is a mere 0.2%.

Accumulation of nitrogen-14

Many scientists, says Fukuhara, reckon that much of the nitrogen was contained in material from the solar nebula, a gaseous cloud that condensed and conglomerated to form the Sun and its planets. Additional nitrogen then came as planetesimals rich in the element crashed into our planet. But he argues that that hypothesis cannot explain the rapid accumulation of nitrogen-14 which is thought to have taken place between 3.8–2.5 billion years ago.

The answer, Fukuhara reckons, might be terrestrial nuclear fusion. In a model published last year, he proposed that nitrogen, oxygen and water – whose concentration has also shot up over time – could have been forged in endothermic reactions inside the Earth’s mantle. Those reactions would involve carbon and oxygen nuclei confined inside the crystal lattice of calcium carbonate rocks.

As he pointed out, even the very high temperatures and pressures at depths of several thousand kilometres would not be enough to force those nuclei together against their mutual repulsion. But he claims that the presence of subatomic particles known as neutral pions can increase the nuclear attraction to the point where fusion occurs. Those pions, he says, would be generated by electrons excited by the rapid fracturing and sliding of carbonate crystals – caused by volcanic eruptions. Alongside the excited electrons would be neutrinos, captured as they stream through the Earth in large numbers from the Sun or other stars, or alternatively from nuclear reactions in the Earth’s core.

The latest work builds on this research by showing how such catalyzed fusion reactions could explain the production not only of nitrogen, oxygen and water, but all of the 25 lightest elements. To demonstrate the plausibility of this mechanism, the researchers calculated the minimum energy required to initiate the reaction in each case and then analysed the crystal structure of a mineral found in the mantle that contains the reacting elements.
Temperature, pressure and catalysis

As they report in a paper published in AIP Advances, they carried out the latter part of the analysis for three sets of nuclei – magnesium and iron, aluminium and magnesium, and aluminium and silicon. In all three cases they concluded that the combination of temperature, pressure and catalysis would indeed reduce the interaction distance between the nuclei such that they could fuse – yielding sulphur and titanium, sodium and silicon, and oxygen and potassium, respectively.

Isotope ratios yield clues to element synthesis

Fukuhara and colleagues point out that their proposed fusion mechanism remains a hypothesis and should be put to the test in experiments carried out at high temperatures and pressures. But they maintain that if confirmed their results would have a profound impact on geophysics. “To the best of our knowledge,” they write, “theories of element creation have not been previously developed in the context of an ‘Earth factory’”.

They add that they are performing additional calculations to work out whether the mechanism they have identified also applies to elements heavier than iron. Plus, they hint at a possible application of their work, arguing it offers the potential to create elements needed for space exploration. “We need not to look for oxygen, water and other elements in planets and satellites,” says Fukuhara.

Physics World sought comment on the research from several experts in nuclear physics and geoscience but received no substantive replies.

This article was originally published by Physicsworld.com.

Moons are planets too

by Brian Koberlein, Universe Today

What makes a planet a planet? The answer turns out to be rather contentious. The official definition of a planet, as defined by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) is that a planet must satisfy three conditions:

It must orbit the sun.
It must be in hydrostatic equilibrium.
It must have cleared its orbital neighborhood.

By this definition there are just eight planets in our solar system, most notably excluding Pluto. This has stirred all manner of controversy, even among astronomers. Several alternative definitions have been proposed, but a new study argues we should look to history for the solution.

The early definition of a planet was an object that moved against the stars over time. In historical astrology, there were stars, transitory objects such as comets, and planets. Thus, the sun and moon were considered planets, but not the Earth. With the rise of the heliocentric model, objects that orbit the sun were planets, meaning that Earth was a planet, but so was the moon. Throughout the 1600s and 1700s, this was the standard. When Galileo discovered four moons of Jupiter, he referred to them as the Medicean planets. When Cassini discovered Saturn's moon Titan, he referred to it as a new planet.

The use of "moon" as a general object also dates to this time. Galileo coined the term in 1632. For Galileo, a moon is a planet that orbits another planet, named after the first of that name. Planet and moon were not exclusionary terms. As Galileo demonstrated in 1611, stars shine of their own light, while planets only shine through reflected sunlight.

This simple definition held well into the 1800s. When astronomers discovered Ceres in 1801, it was clearly a planet. The same with Pallas, Juno, and Vesta. All were planets because they certainly weren't stars. But after a dozen worlds were found between Jupiter and Mars, many astronomers argued that they should be not planets, but asteroids.

This began a gradual shift to the idea that planets were large bodies orbiting the sun. Asteroids and moons should not be considered planets. When Pluto was discovered in 1930, it was clearly a planet because it was neither an asteroid nor a moon. But by the end of the 20th century, the simple definition became problematic. We found out that many large moons such as Io are geologically active. Titan has an atmosphere even thicker than Earth's. Pluto has mountains and complex geology but is even smaller than the moon. None of these meet the IAU definition of a classical planet, but it's hard to argue that they are not worlds as complex as Mars or Venus.

So what makes a planet a planet? Based on their work, the team argues that the IAU definition is a poor one. The general public dislikes it because the definition excludes Pluto, but more importantly, many scientists ignore the definition and still refer to bodies such as Titan, Pluto, Ceres, and others as planets. What seems to be the most consistent defining factor is that of complex geology and geophysics.

If we define planets by their geophysical qualities, then the Galilean moons are planets, as is Pluto, as is Pluto's moon Charon, as is our own moon. Anything with a diameter larger than about 500km would be a planet, meaning that our solar system alone has more than a hundred planets.Astronomers may have discovered first planet to orbit 3 stars

More information: Philip T. Metzger et al, Moons Are Planets: Scientific Usefulness Versus Cultural Teleology in the Taxonomy of Planetary Science. arXiv:2110.15285v1 [physics.hist-ph], arxiv.org/abs/2110.15285

Provided by Universe Today

Social media is reshaping British universities’ value systems in a scramble for likes and shares

Universities’ value judgements about research are becoming ‘coupled’ to social media platforms as they compete for funding by demonstrating their influence beyond academia, an analysis suggests.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

Universities’ value judgements about research are becoming ‘coupled’ to social media platforms as they compete for funding by demonstrating their influence beyond academia, an analysis suggests.

The study, by researchers at the University of Cambridge, focused on how universities use social media in ‘impact’ case studies, which are a requirement of the Research Excellence Framework (REF). The REF is a periodic assessment of university research, run by UK higher education funding bodies; the current review ends next year.

Researchers examined 1,675 submissions from the previous exercise in 2014. They found that universities consistently use platform metrics – such as follower numbers, likes and shares – to claim that their research is making an impression.

The authors describe this as a ‘naïve and problematic’ grasp of what both the data and ‘impact’ actually mean. But they suggest that in a competitive funding environment in which that meaning is in any case unclear, universities are reaching for social media metrics as easy-to-access measures of success that they hope might attract funding.

That process links the opaque, algorithm-driven value systems of platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to universities ‘evaluative infrastructures’. The study adds that this is just one example of how digital platforms are changing higher education, often unnoticed – and with uncertain consequences.

The study was undertaken by Dr Mark Carrigan and Dr Katy Jordan, at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge; Dr Carrigan has since become a lecturer at the Manchester Institute of Education.

“Social media platforms seem to be acquiring a role in how numbers manage higher education, as a sort of proxy for impact capacity,” Carrigan said. “We are starting to see academics seeking more followers and more shares not to support their research, but because it might be good for their careers.”

“Those metrics, however, result from social media companies manipulating content and user behaviour to maximise engagement with their platforms – a priority which then starts to become loosely coupled to universities’ own evaluative judgements about research.”

While the study in no way questions the importance of demonstrating impact as part of the REF assessment process, it does suggest that many universities have struggled since 2014 to understand the rather open-ended requirement. Impact is defined as: “an effect on, change or benefit to the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment, or quality of life, beyond academia.” This will be worth 25% of the score awarded submissions in REF 2021.

The researchers scanned 1,675 REF case studies from a public database for each of 42 terms relating to social media to identify patterns in the way social media was used. They also then analysed 100 randomly-selected case studies in closer detail.

Universities consistently mentioned social media in about 25% of their REF submissions. A handful of terms appeared far more than all the others: Google Scholar, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, “podcasts”, “blogs” and (as a general term) “social media”. They appeared most in case studies from the arts and humanities (46.3%) and least in the biological and medical sciences (13.1%).

Although some references were entirely valid, a surprisingly high number of case studies attempted to claim impact by simply recording statistical information from social platforms. These included citations and research rankings from sources such as Google Scholar, and more generally follower counts, comments, views, downloads, likes, mentions and shares.

The researchers describe the fact that so many universities took this flawed approach as a symptom of institutional isomorphism: a phenomenon in which organisations imitate each other when dealing with uncertain goals, creating a false notion of ‘best practice’.

“The statistical data only represents social media activity; at best it’s preliminary to claiming real impact,” Carrigan said. “At the same time, it’s becoming part of what universities nevertheless consider effective digital engagement, and potentially gets absorbed into the business case for what researchers are expected to do.”

Because successful engagement on social media corresponds not to the needs of people affected by the research itself, but the requirements of companies running the platforms, the authors suggest that this ‘loose coupling’ may lead to various problems if it goes unaddressed.

Researchers from less-popular disciplines, for example, may struggle to meet institutional demands to build a following for their work. Perhaps more worryingly, social media often reproduces and intensifies various inequalities. Other research has, for instance, found that white males are less likely to be harassed online than other demographic groups, and these academics may therefore find it easier to be rewarded for high levels of engagement than other colleagues.

The study notes that this is just one example of how higher education has embraced digital platforms ‘at a dizzying rate’ – without necessarily noting the implications. In particular, the COVID-19 pandemic has witnessed a rapid “online pivot” towards remote learning. Platforms such as Teams and Zoom are now widely used for lectures and seminars, while others support learning management (Moodle), student engagement (Eventus) and alumni engagement (Ellucian). So far their wider effects on the culture and priorities of universities seem to have been largely overlooked.

The researchers point out that social media itself can be used profitably in research – for example to build networks with ‘end users’ of research projects – but argue that this potential should be more systematically integrated into academics’ professional skills training.

“Higher education social media policies need to catch up with the fact that this is going on,” Jordan said. “At the moment, the main incentive academics are offered for using social media is amplification: the idea that your research might go viral. We should be moving towards an institutional culture that focuses more on how these platforms can facilitate real engagement with research.”

The study is published in Postdigital Science and Education.