Ethical issues in pro‐social advertising: the Australian 2006 White Ribbon Day campaign

• The Australian White Ribbon Day 2006 campaign was severely criticized by mental health professionals and those working in the family and domestic violence sector because of depictions of suicide and self‐harm in the television advertisement and accompanying promotional materials. The White Ribbon Day (WRD) National Leadership Group (NLG) rejected all requests by concerned groups to not use these campaign materials. They and their apologists claimed that such violent imagery was necessary to attract men's attention and was being misinterpreted as depicting suicide attempts.
• With preliminary ethics approval we set out to assess reactions to the television advertisement. After 24 interviews, the testing was terminated by the university research ethics officer after two male respondents demonstrated significant distress after viewing the ad. Furthermore, the results by that stage showed that there were perceived messages of suicide in the ad. These results were sent to the WRD NLG with a request to reconsider proceeding with the television advertisement and associated materials. Mental health and domestic violence organizations lodged similar requests. All requests were rejected. The case raises a number of ethical issues for pro‐social organizations when dealing with sensitive issues and using execution techniques that may impact negatively on vulnerable audiences.

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Judicial Decisions Involving Questions of Private International Law

Netherlands International Law Review -     

On the Nature of Harms Reported by those Identifying a Problematic Drinker in the Family,an Exploratory Study

A national telephone survey on alcohol-related harms experienced by others consisted of 2,649 randomly selected adults and 415 (15 %) commented on the family member whose heavy drinking most negatively affected them. Relationships comprised close family (child, parent, sibling; 47 %), partner (22 %), extended family (e.g., aunt/uncle, cousin, grandparent; 19 %), and ex-partner (12 %). Common harms were being emotionally hurt and having a serious argument. An average of 3.4 harms was reported and multiple harms meant a higher likelihood of significant impact. Harms were classified into four domains which accounted for approximately 60 % of the explained variance: psychological (26.1 %), physical (11.4 %), social (10.9 %), and practical (9.6 %). Psychological and practical domains were associated with significant harm as were being female and sharing a home with the drinker. Perceived harms from a problematic drinking family member are broad ranging and have significant impact. Advice, information, and directions for family members dealing with a problematic drinker need development.     

Catching Them Before Too Much Damage is Done: Early Intervention with Resistance‐Refusal Dynamics

Children often need help before their parents are ready to stop fighting. Children at the center of high‐conflict disputes, particularly those who resist contact with a parent, face extraordinary risks of maladjustment. Years of investigation and litigation may precede any meaningful attempt at intervention, based on the questionable belief that all elements of causality (or blame) must be established before any effective treatment can occur. Children's functioning may continue to deteriorate during this time, undermining their future adjustment and reducing the chance of successful intervention later. We illustrate the application of the coping‐focused, multisystemic Child Centered Conjoint Therapy model to assisting these families. Methods to assist children without compromising external investigations are discussed.     

The publication of Australian Press Council Adjudication 1468: a failure to meet ‘due prominence’ requirements

The Australian Press Council, the print media self‐regulation body in Australia that receives and adjudicates complaints by the public, states that upheld adjudications are to be published with ‘due prominence’. The Council defines ‘due prominence’ as publishing the adjudication such that it is ‘likely to be read by those who saw the offending material’. In 2010 the Council upheld a complaint about misleading material that occurred on the front page of a newspaper. The complaint included that the misleading front page material triggered a large number of insulting letters about the person in that story which the newspaper published the following day. The newspaper published the upheld adjudication (no. 1468) on the letters page even though the primary offending material occurred on the front page. Rather than seek re‐publication in a more prominent location, the Australian Press Council accepted the newspaper's placement as satisfying their ‘due prominence’ requirement. Given the apparent inconsistency between publication of the adjudication on the letters page and the ‘likely to be read by’ definition of due prominence, we provided 100 adult newspaper readers with brief details of the upheld complaint and the definition of due prominence and asked where in the paper the adjudication should be published. Contrary to the Council's acceptance of the location of the newspaper's publication of the adjudication, the vast majority of newspaper readers (88%) responded with the front page (62%) or the first three pages (26%). This discrepancy is discussed in the context of the efficacy of self‐regulation and the ethical standards of bodies charged with ethical governance. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Notes on recent articles

An increasing number of studies in political communication focus on the “sentiment” or “tone” of news content, political speeches, or advertisements. This growing interest in measuring sentiment coincides with a dramatic increase in the volume of digitized information. Computer automation has a great deal of potential in this new media environment. The objective here is to outline and validate a new automated measurement instrument for sentiment analysis in political texts. Our instrument uses a dictionary-based approach consisting of a simple word count of the frequency of keywords in a text from a predefined dictionary. The design of the freely available Lexicoder Sentiment Dictionary (LSD) is discussed in detail here. The dictionary is tested against a body of human-coded news content, and the resulting codes are also compared to results from nine existing content-analytic dictionaries. Analyses suggest that the LSD produces results that are more systematically related to human coding than are results based on the other available dictionaries. The LSD is thus a useful starting point for a revived discussion about dictionary construction and validation in sentiment analysis for political communication.     

Legislating equity: A comparison of provincial legislation in manitoba and ontario requiring pay equity

A great deal of activity is currently underway in Canada surrounding pay equity. Several provinces have passed legislation requiring some form of assessment or implementation of equity for public and/or private sector employers. However, definitions of what constitutes equity have not been consistent across provinces. Differing provisions have quite different implications for the overall equity of the results. Analysis of these implications are useful for policy makers designing assessments and implementation projects. The paper examines the legislation in Manitoba and Ontario in terms of how each provides for equity. Each piece of legislation contains provisions which may compromise the resulting equity, either in the way gender-domination is defined, the way comparable worth is estimated, or the way equity is achieved. The lessons to be learned (or re-learned) from these provisions are detailed.     

Do motor vehicle advertisements that promote vehicle performance attributes also promote undesirable driving behaviour?

• In response to concerns that motor vehicle advertising may have a negative influence on audiences' driving attitudes, many countries have adopted Codes of Ethics with respect to motor vehicle advertising. Most Codes restrict explicit depictions relating to power, speed and acceleration but do not necessarily identify when advertisements implicitly communicate these and other undesired messages about unsafe driving behaviours. We selected three motor vehicle advertisements containing depictions of vehicular behaviour such as fast driving and rapid acceleration that had been the subject of complaints to the Australian Advertising Standards Board. We exposed these advertisements to n = 463 14–55 year olds. All three advertisements were found to promote positive expectancies about undesirable driving behaviours. These data confirm the rationale for motor vehicle advertising Codes but identify faults in applying the Codes; namely that the Advertising Standards Board upheld complaints about only one of the advertisements whereas viewer perceptions indicate that all three breached the Australian Code. There is a need to include mechanisms other than simple observation to assess whether undesirable messages are being communicated in motor vehicle advertisements.

Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Consensus decision-making in CCAMLR: Achilles’ heel or fundamental to its success?

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics - The Commission for the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources is the body responsible for the...