disinformation
Prof. Sylvia Kritzinger: ‘Europe needs to very seriously take our young citizens into consideration and engage them in politics’
Sylvia Kritzinger is Professor for Methods in the Social Sciences at the University of Vienna (Austria). Her research focuses on citizens’ political attitudes and voting behaviour, democratic representation, and political participation, voting at 16. She participated in this year’s Annual Lecture hosted by the European Parliament’s Panel for the Future of Science and Technology (STOA) ...
ESMH Media Review – October 04, 2023
Disinformation on social media: check out the ESMH selection of 14 science and tech news published in the last weeks on the web.
Prof. Mike S. Schäfer on ChatGPT and other generative AI tools: ‘A gamechanger for science communication’
Mike S. Schäfer, Professor of Science Communication at the University of Zürich (Switzerland), has been investigating communication and artificial intelligence (AI) for several years. He is currently focussing on how the development of the technology and its impact on society are envisioned in public debates in China, the US and Germany. He has recently published ...
‘Predatory’ publications put pressure on the integrity of scientific literature
Over two million scientific papers are published every year worldwide. Faced with the pressure to 'publish or perish', researchers can be tempted by journals that charge low publication fees and publish articles of dubious quality. The scale of these 'predatory publication practices' and 'predatory publication journals' is global and can have far-reaching consequences, as such ...
An expert’s opinion: Interview with David Moher on predatory journals
Professor David Moher, Director of the Canadian Centre for Journalology, a centre that conducts research on publication practices, speaks about the, in his words, "perverse incentives in academia to publish", and about the impact of less trustworthy sources of scientific information on policy. How would you define a ‘predatory journal'? David Moher: In 2019, over ...
An expert’s opinion: Interview with Ivan Oransky on the perils of scientific publishing
Medical writer Ivan Oransky, co-founder of the blog Retraction Watch and Editor-in-Chief of the autism research news website Spectrum, speaks about the difficulties of assessing the quality of peer review and of retraction, the process of publication withdrawal of articles that display flawed or erroneous data. He offers advice for non-specialist readers of scientific literature. ...
A scientist’s opinion: Interview with Dr Sylvie Briand on Omicron
Interview with Dr Sylvie Briand, Director of the Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness and Prevention department at the World Health Organization (WHO). The rise of new variants, such as Omicron, appears linked to immune-deficient carriers. What is the relationship between the occurrence of these events and vaccination rates? Sylvie Briand: Surely, unvaccinated, immune-deficient people who become ...
Omicron, another chapter in the Covid-19 pandemic
Before the winter holidays, a new, more transmissible variant was discovered. By now, Omicron is responsible for most new infections in Europe. What do we know so far? And what are the future possible scenarios?
