Researching Fact Checking: Present Limitations and Future Opportunities

The fact checking field has grown tremendously in the past decade, as has academic interest in the practice, with dozens of studies testing the effectiveness of corrections. However, research on fact checking is not yet optimised to help fact checkers address the global challenges of mis- and disinformation. In this paper, we review the literature on fact checking’s effects and identify two key gaps. First, we discuss the limited diversity and external validity of existing studies, which have overwhelmingly been conducted in Western countries and under artificial, experimental conditions. Second, we argue that research has narrowly focussed on the short-term, corrective effects of individual fact checks, largely ignoring the multiple ways fact checkers conceive of their impact. Thus, research has overlooked the cultural and systemic changes that fact checkers pursue. We conclude by highlighting opportunities for further research and for improving communication between academics and fact checkers.     

Book Reviews

Food sovereignty, as a counter-movement to the food regime, includes a range of struggles, and is evidently quite elastic as a discourse and practice. Because the food regime itself is evolving and restructuring, food sovereignty embodies movement. In its ‘second generation’ phase it operates on both rural and urban fronts, separately and together, connecting producers, workers, consumers and various activist organizations. Nevertheless, it is important to recognize food sovereignty's origins in the global agrarian crisis of the last three decades. Small producers (peasants, farmers, pastoralists, fishers, forest-dwellers) continue to experience massive displacement by World Trade Organization (WTO)-style ‘free trade’, overlaid with new displacements by fiat, force and finance as land grabbing in various forms proceeds apace. This is a key theme in a response to Henry Bernstein's questions about the character of the food sovereignty movement.     

Violent Victimization and Perpetration During Adolescence: Developmental Stage Dependent Ecological Models

Using a variant of the ecological-transactional model and developmental theories of delinquency on a nationally representative sample of adolescents, the current study explored the ecological predictors of violent victimization, perpetration, and both for three different developmental stages during adolescence. We examined the relative influence of individual and family characteristics, peers, and neighborhood characteristics on the odds of experiencing violent victimization and perpetration over time with two waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health for those adolescents who reported no exposure to violence at Wave 1 (N = 8,267; 50% female; 59% Caucasian; 17% African-American; 14% Hispanic). We found that more proximal factors differentiated between different experiences with violence at Wave 2. Also, negative peers significantly differentiated between violent victimization and perpetration, and this influence was strongest in early adolescence. In exploratory analyses, we found that middle adolescents were particularly vulnerable to their disadvantaged neighborhoods for a high-risk group. This analysis is one of the few that considers multiple ecological contexts simultaneously and provides support for developmental differences within adolescence on the influence that peers and neighborhoods have in predicting violent victimization and perpetration.     

Suicide by Close-Range Gunshot Wound to the Bridge of the Nose

Suicidal gunshot wounds to the nasal bridge are rare, particularly at close range (defined as muzzle of the weapon not touching the skin surface, but near enough to deposit soot and stippling). Previously reported suicidal gunshot wounds to the nose have been through the left nostril (Forensic Sci Int 1995;71(1):25–31; J Forensic Radiol Imag 2013;1(2):63–7). The death of a 26-year-old man with a close-range gunshot wound to the bridge of the nose was deemed suicide due to history, scene, and autopsy findings. These findings included previous suicidal ideation, texted and written notes, the decedent's cross-legged position seated on the floor, the trajectory of the bullet through his head and into the ceiling fan and roof above him, and acute alcohol intoxication. This decedent may have been intending a hard contact forehead location but inadvertently fired the gun into the bridge of his nose while bending forward, prior to contact.     

Application of Structured-Light 3-D Scanning to the Documentation of Plastic Fingerprint Impressions: A Quality Comparison with Traditional Photography

Plastic fingerprint impressions found at crime scenes are often too delicate for collection, leaving photography as the best option for documentation. However, traditional photography techniques can be inadequate in documenting minute 3-D details due to limitations of the camera and lighting conditions. This study investigated the feasibility of applying commercially available structured-light 3-D scanners in the documentation of plastic prints. Attempts were made to develop a procedure to extract curvature features from 3-D scanned fingerprints and flatten the friction ridge features into two-dimensional (2-D) images to allow direct comparison with the traditional photography in the CSIpix^® Matcher and NFIQ 2.0 software. Two 3-D scanners were evaluated a Dentsply Sirona inEos X5^® and an Artec Space Spider. In this study, 3-D scanners demonstrated robustness as well as efficiency in the collection of plastic fingerprint impressions in select substrates. One of the developed methods utilizing a discrete geometry operator and convexity features outperformed traditional photography, achieving higher software detection scores in minutiae count and match quality, while traditional photography could not always capture enough high-quality minutiae for comparisons, even after digital enhancement.     

Are Developmental Assets Protective Against Suicidal Behavior? Differential Associations by Sexual Orientation

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Sexual orientation disparities in suicide behavior are well-documented. Yet, few studies have examined how developmental assets – key values,...     

Heresies’ Heresies: Collaboration and Dispute in a Feminist Publication on Art and Politics

Abstract

In the 1970s magazines, journals and periodicals constituted an alternative public sphere for second wave feminism. These publications provide an index—and at times the only documentation—of the activities of the women’s art movement as well as its many iterations and divisions. This article addresses this imbalance, arguing that Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics (1977–1992) was exemplar of the radical political challenge feminism posed to the art world and culture more broadly. Launched in 1977 by the Heresies mother collective, which included Joan Braderman, Mary Beth Edelson, Lucy R. Lippard, Harmony Hammond and May Stevens among others, the magazine had thematic issues edited by different collectives and was comprised of material from an open call. Content ranged from poetry, to academic essays, to artworks both original and reproduced. This article considers the collaborative process of producing the magazine, which attempted to be inclusive, but in fact came to mirror the divisions—as well as political investments—of the broader women’s movement, alongside the dissensus the publication provoked and attempted to confront.