Friday, November 15, 2024

Canadian Unions Plan Court Challenges to Arbitration Ending Port Strikes

Montreal port — Canada's largest ports remained closed as the unions threatened court challenges to the arbitration order (Port of Montreal)

The unions representing the foremen for ports in British Columbia and the dockworkers in Montreal both responded angrily to the announcement that the federal government was mandating final and binding arbitration in their contract disputes. Both of the unions are being supported by the broader labor movement in Canada when they said they would seek charter challenges to the decision by Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon.

On the West Coast, where the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Ship & Dock Foremen Local 514 has been locked out since November 4, the union leadership called the government’s decision “an insult” and said it was denying workers’ bargaining rights.

“We will fight this order in the courts. We will fight the arbitrated forced contract in the courts,” said Frank Morena, president of the local, in a press release. “Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon has unfairly given the BC Maritime Employers Association (BCMEA) the one-sided federal intervention it wanted from locking out workers and closing BC ports.”

At the same time, the Quebec branch of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), which represents the port of Montreal’s nearly 1,200 dockworkers, called it a “dark day for workers’ rights.” In a press release, the union asserted, “The right to collective bargaining is a constitutional right.”

Montreal dockworkers had been striking against two of the large container terminals that had contracts with MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company. On Sunday, members across the port nearly unanimously rejected the “final offer” from the Maritime Employers Association. They were locked out largely closing the Port of Montreal as on Monday.

Both unions said on Tuesday that they planned to file court challenges to the direction by the Labour Minister of the Canada Industrial Relations Board to begin the final arbitration process. MacKinnon said it was clear that there was an impasse in both negotiations and that while the government supports negotiations the strikes were now having broader repercussions on more Canadians.

Labor unions including Teamsters Canada issued statements in support of challenges while businesses expressed relief that a resolution was in reach. Businesses and trade organizations had increasingly been pressuring the federal government to intervene.

With the potential for challenges, activity at the ports has not resumed while the unions and employers were awaiting instructions from CRIB. MacKinnon had said it could be a few days before operations were fully restarted.

The Greater Vancouver Board of Trade posted a calculator on its website to show the impact of the work stoppage including the ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert as well as smaller Pacific ports. As the lockout passes nine days, they are showing the value of trade disrupted at C$7.2 billion (US$ ). They emphasize this is just trade stopped at the ports and does not reflect the broader economic implications to Canada.

ILA Breaks Off Negotiations Over Automation Issues for East Coast Ports

longshore workers — Contract negotiations broke down for the U.S. East Coast ports over the use of automation (ILA file photo)

The tumultuous relationship between the International Longshoremen’s Association and the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX), which represents terminal operators, has taken another turn with the ILA reporting it has broken off the negotiations for a new master contract. Talks resumed this week after a three-day strike in October that closed ports from Maine to Florida and along the U.S. Gulf Coast.

“We are disappointed that USMX would attempt to disregard our ILA’s well-known position opposing job-cutting automation and semi-automation,” said the union in a statement released Wednesday, November 13 after just two days of negotiations.

The ILA is asserting that the employers “continued pushing automation and semi-automation language in its master contract proposals that will eliminate ILA jobs.” The union says USMX introduced new language for semi-automated equipment to be used at the ports.

“Unfortunately, the ILA is insisting on an agreement that would move our industry backward by restricting future use of technology that has existed in some of our ports for nearly two decades – making it impossible to evolve to meet the nation’s future supply chain demands,” USMX responded. They acknowledged that while making progress on other issues, “we were unable to make significant progress on our discussions that focused on a range of technology issues.”

The employers insist that they are not seeking technology that would eliminate jobs, but that the terminals need continued modernization. They said the focus is on increased efficiency, worker safety, and increased capacity. Previously, USMX offered to maintain the existing language in the contract regarding automation. This established a committee including the union to review proposed automation. Port officials point out that most of the ports have little or no automation in place today.

The issue of automation was left unresolved when the ILA and USMX reached an agreement to end the strike with a 62 percent wage increase over six years. They agreed to extend the contract till January 15, 2025, to resume negotiations on the remaining issues including automation, healthcare benefits for members and retirees, work jurisdiction, and container royalties.

Union president Harold Dagget told members that they would hold off on accepting the wage increase because he contends that would require signing a no-strike clause. The ILA called on USMX in today’s statement to “alter its unwinnable strategy, and resume negotiations as soon as possible.”

The January 15 contract expiration is just five days before the U.S. presidential inauguration setting the potential stage for a longshore strike at the start of the new Trump administration. The Biden administration was supportive of the union and pressured the employers to increase the wage offer. Dagget says that President-elect Donald Trump “promised to support the ILA in its opposition to automated terminals.”

Experts point out a January strike would come at a less critical time for the economy as it is a traditionally slower period for retail sales. However, the ports collectively handle half of U.S. volumes. In addition to containers, Ro-Ro traffic including cars and farm and construction equipment would be impacted.

The ILA broke off talks with USMX in June 2024 refusing to start the master contract negotiations and instead preparing for the October strike. Union leaders assert that the membership still stands behind them in the fight over automation creating the strong potential for a second strike.

Chlorine and cocoa butter could protect corals from disease and decrease antibiotic pollution of the oceans

Researchers found that chlorine mixed with cocoa butter is effective at treating diseased corals, which could reduce negative side effects of antibiotic treatments on ocean ecosystems

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Frontiers

Chlorine paste application — image:
The study’s co-authors Argel Horton and Laura Arton apply the chlorine paste to a large coral (Orbicella annularis). The bright white area is where the treatment has already been applied. Image: Dr Graham Forrester.
view more
Credit: Dr Graham Forrester.

In the tropical Atlantic, stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) is particularly severe because the disease is transmitted quickly, spreads to many hosts, and results in high mortality rates. Treatment methods to stop the spread of SCTLD are available; the most common is the use of antibiotics. This, however, comes with side effects like increased antibiotic resistance.

Now, an international team of researchers has investigated if an alternative, antibiotic-free approach to treating infected corals could help avoid antibiotic pollution of the world’s oceans and improve coral health.

“Our study shows that direct treatment of SCTLD can help corals survive a disease outbreak and highlights that active management of disease is possible in the field,” said Dr Greta Aeby, a researcher at Qatar University and senior author of the study published in Frontiers in Marine Science. “Antibiotic pollution is a problem worldwide, so we’re working to develop a non-antibiotic treatment that would slow down tissue loss diseases.”

Antibiotics vs chlorine

The researchers compared the effectiveness of different treatments by applying them to infected corals of Horseshoe Reef, near the British Virgin Islands. Some corals were treated with amoxicillin, an antibiotic; others were treated with a paste mixed from chlorine and cocoa butter.

“In this mix, the active ingredient is sodium hypochlorite, an antiseptic commonly used to kill bacteria or viruses. The chlorine powder we used in our treatment is the same used to kill germs in swimming pools. The cocoa butter was just the delivery mechanism allowing us to spread the chlorine on the coral lesions,” explained Aeby.

The researchers applied both treatments directly to corals and re-visited the reef every four or five weeks to measure and describe lesions and to reapply the treatment as necessary. After roughly 80 days, the median percentage of tissue lost was 17.6% for chlorine-treated colonies and 1.7% for amoxicillin-treated colonies.

Environmentally friendly

While the antibiotic treatment was more successful at containing SCTLD, the researchers said that unwanted side effects, such as the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, could be lessened when opting for the chlorine treatment. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria do not only affect corals, they said. “Any organism – crabs, fish, even humans – in that same environment has a higher risk of encountering bacteria that are now antibiotic-resistant,” explained Aeby.

While antibiotic treatments greatly impact the environment, the chlorine and cocoa butter paste mixture biodegrades easily, and the chlorine naturally deactivates within a day.

An added benefit is that it is much cheaper to produce – ingredients can be found in drug and hardware stores. “The antibiotic paste is not only tedious to produce, it also is often too expensive for conservationists, who operate with minimal funding on Caribbean islands,” said Argel Horton, a marine biologist at the Ministry of Environment, Natural Resources and Climate Change of the British Virgin Islands and co-author of the study.

Protecting oceans vital to coral health

The researchers said that not all corals responded equally well to the treatments. There also are many more coral species in different regions that haven’t been included in the study. They hope that future research will test the effectiveness of different treatment methods elsewhere.

“Disease treatment can help manage a disease, but it will not remove the disease from the coral populations,” said Aeby. Direct treatments can decrease the pathogen load in the environment, but treating coral colonies like done in study – individually and by hand – is not feasible in the long-term or on a large scale.

“The best strategy would be to improve environmental conditions so that corals have a better chance of fighting disease themselves. This includes cleaning up water pollution and rebalancing the ecosystem,” Aeby pointed out.

The researchers apply the chlorine paste to a large coral (Orbicella annularis) with several visible lesions. Image: Dr Graham Forrester.

Credit

Dr Graham Forrester.

Journal

Frontiers in Marine Science

DOI

10.3389/fmars.2024.1465173

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

The relative effectiveness of chlorine and antibiotic treatments for stony coral tissue loss disease

Article Publication Date

14-Nov-2024

WHICH IS AMERIKA

How can we reduce adolescent pregnancies in low- and middle-income countries?

New study from the University of Bergen (Norway) and the University of Zambia published Nov. 14, 2024

Peer-Reviewed Publication

The University of Bergen

Many young girls in low- and middle-income countries become pregnant early, which can be dangerous for them and for their babies. Studies show that girls who stay in school are less likely to get pregnant at a young age. Financial support can encourage girls to stay in school and delay pregnancy and marriage in some settings. However, a new large study from Zambia found that two years of financial support combined with comprehensive sexuality education and community dialogue meetings, moderately reduced births during the support period, but not after the financial support ended. As a result, the overall effect on births before age 18 was limited over the 4.5 years study period even though more girls completed junior secondary school. Longer-term efforts to make high school more affordable are likely to be important to keep girls in school and more clearly reduce adolescent pregnancies in low- and middle-income countries.

The study, to be published in eClinicalmedicine on 14th November, randomized 157 rural Zambian schools into three groups: one received economic support, another received economic support plus sexuality education and community dialogue, and the third served as a control group. The study included 5000 girls about to finish primary school (average age 14). Researchers from the University of Zambia, University of Bergen, Chr. Michelsen Institute, and the Norwegian School of Economics conducted the trial.

Previous research shows that poverty is a major reason why girls drop out of school and get pregnant early. Other reasons include social pressure to have children, and lack of knowledge about and access to birth control. The limited effects of the studied support package probably reflect that the support period was too short and many families could not afford school fees after the financial support ended. Most participants were around 16 and still at risk of early pregnancy. If the support had continued until they finished secondary school or turned 18, fewer girls may have gotten pregnant before 18. Also, better access to health services and contraceptives for young people is probably needed to reduce teenage pregnancies more effectively.

According to Professor Ingvild Sandøy, at the University of Bergen in Norway, the study is in line with previous research indicating that short-term poverty-reducing measures such as cash transfers should be combined with other initiatives to achieve substantial reductions in teenage pregnancies in low- and middle-income countries. Professor Patrick Musonda from the University of Zambia adds that Zambia’s recent removal of secondary school fees is a good initiative. It will likely keep children in school longer and help prevent many young girls from getting pregnant.

The funding for the study came from the Research Council of Norway, and the Swedish International Development Agency (through the Swedish Embassy in Zambia).

Journal

Clinical Medicine

DOI

10.1016/j.eclinm.2024.102934

Method of Research

Randomized controlled/clinical trial

Subject of Research

People

Article Publication Date

14-Nov-2024

Green flight paths could unlock sustainable aviation, new research suggests

Heriot-Watt University

image:
An aircraft approaching a runway. Turning busy long haul air routes into ‘green flight paths’ could get aviation to net zero faster, researchers say.
view more
Credit: Photo by Ben Glasgow for Heriot-Watt University.

‘

Green flight paths’ between key global locations could help to fast-track fully decarbonised aviation, according to research led by an international team based at Heriot-Watt University in the United Kingdom and the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates.

The research, published in the in the Royal Society of Chemistry’s top international journal, Energy and Environmental Science, recommends that a small number of long-haul flights with high passenger volumes, such as London to Dubai, could be used to establish these green flight paths by demonstrating and reporting on sustainable aviation fuels (SAF).

SAF are non-petroleum-based fuels that emit significantly fewer greenhouse gas emissions than traditional fossil-based jet fuels.

Dubai and London Heathrow airports are two of the busiest airports in the world and the first and second highest ranked in the world terms of CO₂ emissions from international flights, as well as total international passengers. London Heathrow is already a world leader in SAF ambition and is working towards a target of incorporating 11% of SAF into its overall fuel usage by 2030.

SAF is compatible with existing aviation fuel systems and can be used in current aircraft engines and infrastructure without requiring any modifications. This makes SAF easier to implement since airlines can use it with their current fleets, the study noted.

The green flight paths would encourage the “dedicated large-scale investment” needed to encourage the worldwide adoption of SAF.

Professor Steve Griffiths, Vice Chancellor for Research at the American University of Sharjah, is a sustainable energy expert and lead author of the paper. He said: “The UAE and UK are both highly dependent on long-haul flights, so have a compelling opportunity to lead the establishment of green flight paths, to demonstrate and deploy sustainable aviation fuels. Establishing green flight paths has the potential to not only drive decarbonisation of the aviation sector, but also lead to international cooperation for the development of SAF, and the related clean technologies needed to achieve net-zero by 2050 on a global scale.”

Professor John Andresen, Associate Director of the Research Centre for Carbon Solutions (RCCS) at Heriot-Watt University, co-authored the paper and is a chemical engineer with an expertise in fuel processing technology. He said: “The concept of green flight paths is inspired by green shipping corridors, which are paving the way for net-zero shipping. A similar framework for prioritising long-haul flight segments is becoming increasingly urgent, to drive the global production and use of net-zero SAF technologies.”

Currently, widely available sustainable flights are a long way from being a reality. SAF provide a potential route to changing this. Since the chemical and physical characteristics of SAF are almost identical to conventional fuels, they can be safely mixed. However, figures from 2022 show SAF production is way off track, currently sitting at 0.1% of the 2050 net zero goal that has been set by the international community.

There are a number of reasons for this lack of progress, many of which are economic, the researchers explain. SAF production is costly and in its infancy, so significant investment is needed to de-risk and reduce the costs of production. Unlocking investment is key to developing the scalable solutions that will lead to much wider uptake of SAFs.

Targeting a small number of high-volume, long-haul routes would demonstrate the economic viability of the green flight path model because it would speed up the development of commercially viable SAF supply chains, the researchers say. These targeted global locations often lie geographically close to industry clusters already working towards decarbonisation.

Coupling plans for green flight paths with the growing agenda for decarbonising whole clusters of the economy – for example, industry or transport – offers the opportunity to tackle challenges in a coordinated, holistic way, the researchers add.

The research paper also makes a strong case for the ‘climate justice’ of green flight paths. This is because only about 10% of the world’s population currently take flights, so green flight paths rightly place the onus on countries benefiting the most from aviation to develop solutions to make it sustainable. Solutions that can be scaled will also become increasingly important as worldwide incomes rise, along with a likely increase in demand for flights.

This research has been funded by the UK’s Industrial Decarbonisation Research and Innovation Centre (IDRIC), which is backed by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) – part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) – the UK’s national funding agency for investing in science and research.

This week, IDRIC’s Director, Professor Mercedes Maroto-Valer is in Baku, Azerbaijan, at COP29 – the 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference – working towards a global consensus on climate action and progressing decarbonisation goals in sectors that include aviation, energy and manufacturing.

Journal

Energy & Environmental Science

DOI

10.1039/D4EE02472A

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Green flight paths: a catalyst for net-zero aviation by 2050

Political abuse on X is a global, widespread, and cross-partisan phenomenon, suggests new study

New study suggests that individuals on social media platform, ‘X’, who deviate from their party norms are quickly treated as if they were a political enemy.

City St George’s, University of London

A new study suggests that political abuse is a key feature of political communication on social media platform, ‘X’, and whether on the political left or right, it is just as common to see politically engaged users abusing their political opponents, to a similar degree, and with little room for moderates.

While previous research into such online abuse has typically focused on the USA, the current study found that abuse followed a common ally-enemy structure across the nine countries for which there was available data: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Turkey, UK, and the USA.

Led by City, St George’s, University of London, in collaboration with the Alan Turing Institute and others, the study suggests that individuals who deviate from their party norms are quickly treated as if they are a political enemy.

Such ‘outlier’ individuals highlighted by the study include US politicians Liz Cheney and Tulsi Gabbard.

Cheney, a former Republican congresswoman in the US, broke ranks with her party, choosing to support the impeachment of Donald Trump for the January 6, 2021 storming of the US capitol.

Gabbard, originally a representative for the Democrats, defected to the Republicans very shortly after the current study completed.

Similarly, in the UK, the study found that former pro European Conservative party politicians such as Anna Soubry were endorsed by partisans (a person who strongly supports a political party) on the political left, and attacked by partisans on the political right.

In the study, the researchers used a complete data sample of X (then called Twitter) users posts, comprising 375 million tweets over a 24-hour period in September 2022. They mapped the posts of these users to another sample of over 1,800 politicians who have an active X account.

By observing which users retweeted which politicians, the researchers were able to estimate what the political leaning of each user was, either to the left or right.

They also measured the toxicity of the content of political posts to measure political abuse on X.

The study found that posts which mentioned political opponents were consistently more toxic than mentions of political allies. While political interactions, in general, were more toxic than non-political interactions in all the countries with available data.

While much attention has been given to social media facilitating the formation of ‘echo chambers,’ where individuals are only exposed to similar content, this study highlights the other side: X also enables communication across political groups, but the nature of this communication is often abusive.

The type of abuse aimed at political opponents which the study analysed is sometimes called ‘affective polarisation’, the phenomenon where partisans have negative feelings and emotions towards members of opposing political parties.

First author of the study, Dr Max Falkenberg, currently at the Department of Network & Data Science, Central European University, said:

“Many of these trends may have worsened: Since Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter, and the restrictions on data introduced, we no longer have access to the high quality data required to study these issues. This lack of transparency is democratically problematic and of significant concern if we are to improve the quality of political communication online.”

Andrea Baronchelli, Professor of Mathematics at City, St George’s, University of London, and who led the project, said:

“Our research reveals a key appeal of large platforms like X/Twitter: the chance to engage in aggressive exchanges with political opponents - unlike smaller platforms that simply allow conversations among like-minded users. This work confirms that the trend spans across countries, suggesting a society where the ‘other’ is viewed only as an opponent, and listening is reserved for allies. Recognising the implications for democratic life, our team will continue to study its broader impacts.”

Read the peer-reviewed article in the journal, Nature Communications.

ENDS

Notes to Editor

To speak to Dr Max Falkenberg (corresponding author) or Professor Andrea Baronchelli, contact Dr Shamim Quadir, Senior Communications Officer, School of Science & Technology, City St George’s, University of London. Tel: +44(0) 207 040 8782 Email: shamim.quadir@city.ac.uk.

To read a copy of the embargoed manuscript for the study article:

Patterns of partisan toxicity and engagement reveal the common structure of online political communication across countries

please request it from Dr Shamim Quadir, Senior Communications Officer, School of Science & Technology, City St George’s, University of London

The article will go live at this URL once the embargo lifts: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-53868-0

About City St George’s, University of London

City St George’s, University of London is the University of business, practice and the professions.

City St George’s attracts around 27,000 students from more than 150 countries.

Our academic range is broadly-based with world-leading strengths in business; law; health and medical sciences; mathematics; computer science; engineering; social sciences; and the arts including journalism, dance and music.

In August 2024, City, University of London merged with St George’s, University of London creating a powerful multi-faculty institution. The combined university is now one of the largest suppliers of the health workforce in the capital, as well as one of the largest higher education destinations for London students.

City St George’s campuses are spread across London in Clerkenwell, Moorgate and Tooting, where we share a clinical environment with a major London teaching hospital.

Our students are at the heart of everything that we do, and we are committed to supporting them to go out and get good jobs.

Our research is impactful, engaged and at the frontier of practice. In the last REF (2021) 86 per cent of City research was rated as ‘world-leading’ 4* (40%) and ‘internationally excellent’ 3* (46%). St George’s was ranked joint 8th in the country for research impact with 100% of impact cases judged as ‘world-leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’. As City St George’s we will seize the opportunity to carry out interdisciplinary research which will have positive impact on the world around us.

Over 175,000 former students in over 170 countries are members of the City St George’s Alumni Network.

City St George’s is led by Professor Sir Anthony Finkelstein.

Journal

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-024-53868-0

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Patterns of partisan toxicity and engagement reveal the common structure of online political communication across countries

Article Publication Date

14-Nov-2024

Increase in crisis coverage, but not the number of crisis news events

Researchers looked at nearly 240 years of crisis coverage in The Times to see how coverage has change over time

Norwegian University of Science and Technology

The world appears to be plagued by crises.

“The financial crisis, the European debt crisis, the migration crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the war in Gaza… The world seems to be stumbling from one existential crisis to the next, barely recovering from one before the next one hits,” said Stefan Geiß, a professor from the Department of Sociology and Political Science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).

However, are there really more crises now than before?

Has it always been this way, or is something new happening? And if there are more public crises today than in the past, what is causing them?

Geiß decided to investigate the matter together with two colleagues, PhD research fellow Conor A. Kelly from the same department and Christina Viehmann from GESIS in Cologne. Their results were recently published in the Journal of Communication.

Data from 1785 to the present day

“We investigated crisis coverage in The Times newspaper spanning 235 years, and found some interesting preliminary results.”

The researchers went all the way back to 1785 to analyze developments in coverage. The Times is a serious, rather conservative newspaper, and is certainly not known for sensationalism.

In order to analyze such vast volumes of information, significant computing power was absolutely essential.

“Our research harnesses the power of computerized text analysis, enabling us to look back in time and see how previous generations understood the crises they faced,” said Geiß.

The analysis focused on news articles in The Times. To check the validity of their analysis, they compared the results with data from The Guardian, The Economist, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, and The Washington Evening Star.

Identified more than 1000 crisis events

“We identified more than 1000 different crisis events that led to major news waves from 20 different types of crises. The most frequent were government crises, geopolitical crises, economic crises, epidemics and disasters,” said Geiß.

So, the fact that the media talk about crises is nothing new, and major news waves tend to occur on average around four times a year. However, while crises in the past were more spread out over time, they now tend to occur in clusters.

“We found that crisis events have become somewhat more frequent, but they tend to occur in more ‘clustered’ or ‘pulsating’ patterns rather than being evenly spread out over time,” said Geiß.

However, there is not necessarily a clear connection between the crises themselves and the crisis coverage.

“The increase in the use of crisis rhetoric is much stronger than the increase in the frequency of crises,” explained the professor.

In other words, crisis rhetoric is used much more frequently than before, but not all of it leads to noticeable news waves. Crisis rhetoric in individual articles does not necessarily create a sense of a public crisis or trigger a wave of news coverage regarding the situation everyone is concerned about.

There is, however, a period that appears quite atypical, as the two largest clusters of crisis waves ever recorded fall within this timeframe: the present.

“News coverage involving crisis rhetoric and the number of crisis events has been much greater in the last two decades than it was previously. The increase in crisis coverage is not just a British phenomenon either; it appears to be a trend in Western countries across various types of media.”

So why is this the case?

Several reasons for the increase in crisis coverage

According to the researchers, crisis rhetoric and to some extent what is portrayed as crisis events appear to be a response to three main factors:

1. Intensified crisis PR.

Interest groups pressure the media into perceiving something as a crisis. There are more of these groups, and they have become more professional. They also cover more different causes and sectors of society. It has therefore become easier for the media to experience, perceive and portray as a crisis events that would probably have been ignored or regarded as less serious in the past.

If something is perceived as a crisis, it increases the possibility that people with power and authority will allocate more money to the area; and the more power news media outlets get, the more relevant this becomes.

2. More diverse public spending across multiple sectors.

This is a complicated point. It concerns how public authorities are much more involved in more aspects of society than before, and how more of us are more concerned with what is happening around us.

For example, a larger proportion of the population is educated, and almost everyone has the right to vote. We therefore perceive it as more important to stay informed about what is happening in our local communities and around the world.

As more people wanted to know how their tax money was being spent and who to vote for, there was a greater interest in news coverage of politics. Mass media quickly gained a larger audience until the market became fully saturated in the 1950s. (See a detailed explanation of the contributing factors in the fact box.)

For politicians, being visible to a wider audience in the media has also become more important.

3. Increasing independence for news media outlets in relation to political parties.

In the past, media outlets were often tied to political parties and therefore not as dependent on making a profit.

An independent press has more power than before, but as competition increases and media outlets must generate a larger share of their revenue themselves, it may also be tempting to use crisis coverage to attract attention and income.

“These three factors are just the tip of the iceberg. The interplay among financial, political and communicative factors is extremely complex,” said Geiß.

However, it seems that the crisis events are less closely connected to crisis coverage than they were in the past. It is not necessarily the case that every event that receives crisis coverage is actually a crisis, and crisis rhetoric is not always effective. Most people do not always perceive events as a crisis, even if the media portrays them as such.

The internet, along with the fact that major media outlets now face both national and international competition to a much greater extent than before, may also be contributing to an increase in crisis coverage, although it is too early to say for sure.

Diverting attention away from other issues

Is it really that dangerous if the media exaggerate a bit from time to time?

“Crisis coverage keeps the public engaged while pushing many other pressing issues to the sidelines,” said Geiß.

The apparent crises divert attention away from issues that are not necessarily as newsworthy, but which may be equally important.

These pertain to worrying developments in society, such as the ever-widening gap between the rich and poor in many countries, or major humanitarian crises that have gradually developed over time.

Reference: Geiß S, Viehmann C, Kelly CA (2024). Inflation of crisis coverage? Tracking and explaining the changes in crisis labeling and crisis news wave salience 1785–2020. Journal of Communication, 2024, jqae033. https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqae033

https://academic.oup.com/joc/article/doi/10.1093/joc/jqae033/776040

Journal

Journal of Communication

DOI

10.1093/joc/jqae033

Method of Research

Content analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Inflation of crisis coverage? Tracking and explaining the changes in crisis labeling and crisis news wave salience 1785–2020

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Marxists.org

www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1951/murder.htm

Murder of the Dead by Amadeo Bordiga 1951

The Italian bourgeoisie is still here, and enthusiastically invests its income in paying for wars and other disasters for which it is then repaid four fold.