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In a challenge trial, “healthy volunteers are intentionally exposed to pathogens in a controlled environment, in order to promote understanding of the pathogenesis, transmission, prevention and treatment of infectious diseases in humans.” (WHO 2021, Preface). Intentional infection is an uncomfortable concept, and as a result there is a widely held belief amongst research ethics scholars and commentators that a significant ethical concern with challenge trials is their potential to negatively impact the public’s trust in the institution of medical research (Eyal 2022, 4). However, the relationship between public trust and the ethics of conducting and assessing challenge trials is complex and existing literature on the subject does not sufficiently clarify it. This paper will begin by examining the ethical permissibility of challenge trials. Once these trials are shown to be ethically permissible under particular circumstances, I will explore how concerns about the way these trials allegedly exacerbate public mistrust largely result from ambiguities in the terms ‘public’ and ‘trust’. After both terms are defined, I will formulate my own account of how public trust should apply to a risk/benefit analysis for the purpose of trial design selection called the community engagement account, which argues that trial design selection policy should focus on demonstrating trustworthiness rather than garnering trust. Because demonstrating trustworthiness requires meeting a set of known expectations, this account identifies local, specific publics as those whose expectations should be of concern when discussing public trust and trial design selection. To examine the expectations of these publics, this account defends community engagement as the measure which should be used to acquire evidence of harmful public mistrust towards the institution of science that could potentially result from conducting a challenge trial. / Thesis / Candidate in Philosophy / In a challenge trial, “healthy volunteers are intentionally exposed to [diseases] in a controlled environment,” to give researchers a better understanding of a disease in order to develop cures or preventative measures for it (WHO 2021, Preface). Many research ethics scholars believe that conducting challenge trials could negatively impact the public’s faith in the institution of medical research, but the relationship between public trust and conducting challenge trials is complex and existing literature on the subject does not sufficiently clarify it. This paper begins by exploring whether or not challenge trials can be ethically conducted. Once I show that they can be under particular circumstances, I examine how public trust concerns largely result from the fact that ‘public’ and ‘trust’ are not well defined. After defining them, I formulate my own account of how public trust should apply to a risk/benefit analysis for the purpose of trial design selection.

This dissertation is a philosophical contribution to the theories on trust and on risk communication. The importance of trust in risk communication has been argued for and empirically studied since the 80s. However, there is little agreement on the notion of trust and the precise function of trust. This thesis sets out to study both aspects from a philosophical point of view. The dissertation consists of five essays and an introduction. Essay I is a comment on risk perception theory and the psychometric model in particular. The essay argues that sometimes individuals take risks simply because they are in a vulnerable position and have no other choice. Four factors are identified as crucial in risks from vulnerability: poor outset conditions, lack of reasonable options, hope and liability to disinformation. Essay II addresses the democratic approach to risk communication and the ideal of risk communication as a dialogue between more or less equal stakeholders. The essay develops a typology of different risk communication practices and influence distributions and concludes that the form of risk communication most commonly referred to in the literature is of the most imbalanced kind where all three types of influence falls to the same party. Essay III argues that trust can be understood as comfortable defocusing. Trust as comfortable defocusing means that when a person trusts, he or she is comfortable with letting certain things be in the hands or in the control of the trusted other. Departing from this idea a definition of trust is proposed consisting of three elements: (i) the truster’s comfortable defocusing from the trusted person’s part of caring for X, based on a (ii) belief about the trusted person’s care for X, concerning (iii) something of concern to the truster. Essay IV explores the concept of trustworthiness and under which conditions trust can be betrayed in a morally justified way. It is argued that two aspects are essential for every reasonable notion of trustworthiness: reliability in terms of commitment to trust and predictability in terms of compliance with norms. In order to be untrustworthy in a morally justified way two major conditions need to be fulfilled: first, what is expected from the trustee needs to be either immoral or part of an ongoing immoral or unjust relationship between truster and trustee and, secondly, the trustee must not be in a position to explicitly reject trust. Essay V examines two of the most employed distinctions within the trust literature, that of trust/confidence and of trust/reliance. These distinctions are evaluated against a set of five criteria. It is argued that both these distinctions are employed to cover several distinguishing properties, thus adding to conceptual confusion. / QC 20100712

Magistro darbo objektas – pasitikėjimas visuomenės informavimo priemonėmis (VIP). Darbo tikslas – nustatyti teorines ir praktines pasitikėjimo visuomenės informavimo priemonėmis priežastis. Pagrindiniai darbo uždaviniai: ištirti, kokia yra VIP ir visuomenės santykių prigimtis ir kokiomis sąlygomis jie pasireiškia; išskirti teorinius socialinius faktorius, lemiančius žiniasklaidos turinį; ištirti, kokį vaidmenį VIP vaidina politiniame šalies gyvenime; atskleisti, kokia yra VIP ir visuomenės santykių politologinė prasmė, kokią teoriškai įtaką VIP turiniui daro politinės jėgos; analizuoti VIP rinką ir jos veikėjus ekonominiu požiūriu ir identifikuoti teorinius ekonominius faktorius, lemenčius VIP turinį; nustatyti pasitikėjimo VIP prielaidas ir tyrimo metu praktiškai jas patikrinti. Darbe remiamasi D. McQuail (1994; 1992) teoriniu požiūriu, kad jog VIP veiklai įtaką daro ekonominės, socialinės ir politinės jėgos. Analizuojant, apibendrinant ir apjungiant iš daugelio kitų literatūros šaltinių surinkta informaciją, taip pat naudojant tyrimo metu surinktą statistinę duomenų analizę prieita prie išvados, kad visuomenės pasitikėjimą lemia ne tik visuomenės politinius, socialinius bei informacinius poreikius atitinkantis VIP turinys, bet ir individo požiūris į VIP turinį. VIP turinį socialiniu požiūriu įtakoja VIP siekis patenkinti socialinius visuomenės poreikius atstovauti viešąjį interesą ir būti viešųjų debatų visuomenei aktualiomis temomis vieta. Politologiniu požiūriu VIP turinį... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / We are concerned in day by day life whether something we see, hear and read can be trusted. All around the globe we can find tens of public opinion surveys that outline public trust in media in comparison with state public institutions. However, the comparison with other institutions gives us too limited view and no particular reasons of public to trust in media. Examining reasons of public trust in media solves current problematic approach. The objective of this paper is to identify practical and theoretical reasons that affect public trust in media. Hypothesis, that public trust in media is mainly dependent on media’s content has been raised. Theoretical outline of this paper is supported by McQuail’s theoretical approach which distinguishes four different forces that influence the media content. According to this, media and its content fall under economical, social and political pressures. While analyzing media within latter framework, media and society relationship, media’s role in social life were examined. This gave a theoretical view of factors that influence media’s content from the social perspective. Economical and political factors that influence media’s content were analyzed using the same framework. When the theoretical analysis is done a public trust in media in Lithuania research was organized. In a survey of 149 respondents, relationship between trust in media and the relationship of attitudinal components was tested. Theoretical analysis supported by the... [to full text]

Seasonal hypoxia in the northern Gulf of Mexico has been mapped extensively and is known to overlap the habitat of the brown shrimp Farfantepenaeus aztecus on the Louisiana continental shelf. Yet the impacts of Gulf hypoxia on the profitable brown shrimp fishery in Louisiana remain largely unknown. The problem is primarily attributable to nonpoint source pollution in the Mississippi River, but awareness of the problem has not resulted in an effective policy solution to stem this pollution to date. Using the combination of a quantitative data analysis to look for a correlation between Farfantepenaeus aztecus and hypoxic water, a survey mailed to shrimp fishers in Louisiana, and qualitative interviews with shrimp fishers and environmental activists and lawyers in Louisiana, I will examine the potential of a legal tool, the Public Trust doctrine, to slow nonpoint source pollution into the Mississippi River.

Trots att mödravården i höginkomstländer är relativt säker upplever uppemot 20 % av kvinnorna i Sverige förlossningsrädsla. Denna rädsla påverkar välbefinnandet före, under och efter graviditeten samt har konsekvenser för kvinnors relationer till bebis, partner och familj. Fenomenet har i mångt och mycket studerats ur ett individuellt perspektiv, men få studier undersöker relationen mellan kvinnors uppfattning om sjukvården och förlossningsrädsla. En experimentell studie med mellangruppsdesign har utförts med avsikten att se om fokus på brister i förlossningsvården orsakar högre nivå av förlossningsrädsla och lägre nivå av tillit till förlossningsvården hos kvinnor i åldern 18–45 (N=210). Vidare har det undersökts om tillit till förlossningsvården har ett negativt samband med förlossningsrädsla. Resultaten visar att fokus på brister i förlossningsvården inte har någon effekt på förlossningsrädsla eller tillit till förlossningsvården. Ett negativt samband föreligger mellan tillit till förlossningsvården och förlossningsrädsla. Orsaken till sambandet är ännu inte klarlagt och framgent behövs fler studier för att kunna fastställa hur relationen mellan förlossningsrädsla och tillit till sjukvården ser ut. / Despite the fact that maternity care in high-income countries is relatively safe, up to 20 % of women in Sweden experience fear of childbirth. This fear affects well-being before, during and after pregnancy and has consequences for women’s relationships with their baby, partner and family. The phenomenon has largely been studied from an individual perspective, but few studies examine the relationship between women’s perception of healthcare and fear of childbirth. A between-subjects experiment has been conducted to see if focusing on deficiencies in maternity care causes a higher level of fear of childbirth and a lower level of trust in the maternity care, in women aged 18–45 (N=210). Furthermore, it has been investigated whether trust in the maternity care has a negative correlation with fear of childbirth. The results show that focusing on deficiencies in maternity care has no effect on fear of childbirth or trust in the maternity care. The study shows a negative correlation between trust in the maternity care and fear of childbirth. The cause of the correlation has yet to be determined and future studies are needed to shed light on the relationship between fear of childbirth and trust in the maternity care system.

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This thesis examined the contemporary U.S. popular culture, specifically the Netflix series House of Cards, and the analysis was focused on the representation of the media reality portrayed in the first two seasons of the series. The credibility of given model situations or their exaggeration is examined based on thirteen research interviews with Czech and American journalists in March, April, and May 2020. The public trust in media, the influence of popular culture on mass society, specifics and ethics of investigative journalism, and broadly the representation of media in cinematography were presented in the first part. The analysis of the portrayal of journalists and media in the series and research interviews with experts followed. The main objective of this research was to evaluate the credibility of the portrayal of journalists. The secondary research question was focused on the public trust in media and the potential harm that the depiction in culture might cause. The views of Czech and American journalists on the portrayal of media in popular culture and the discussion about their diverse opinions are the primary asset of this thesis. The results prove that the perception of ethics and journalistic behaviour in given specific situations differ individually. Therefore, aspects such as...

The purpose of this thesis was to examine the reactions to Canadian public health organizations' messaging through a social media analysis by answering the following two research questions: 1) How did different levels of government use social media communication to inform the public of COVID-19 information during the reopening phase? 2) What was the public response to the lifting of COVID-19 measures? COVID-19-related Tweets posted by Ottawa Public Health (OPH), Public Health Ontario (PHO), and Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada (HC & PHAC) and their replies were collected using the Twitter API through Python. Sentiment analysis of the data was conducted using the VADER tool. This was followed by a thematic analysis of Twitter threads to identify patterns in the Tweets posted by each organization and their respective replies. Results of the VADER sentiment analysis indicate OPH Tweets were mostly positive, whereas HC & PHAC Tweets were slightly more positive than neutral. PHO Tweets were mostly neutral. Public social media replies to the selected public health organizations were also measured; replies to both OPH and HC & PHAC were more negative than positive, although replies to OPH were slightly more positive compared to replies to HC & PHAC. Thematic analysis revealed five themes regarding public health organizations' use of social media communications and eight themes relating to the public response to information posted by the selected public health organizations. The results from both sentiment and thematic analysis can help inform recommendations to enhance communication by Canadian governmental organizations, especially in public health systems, and offer recommendations for public health social media communication to inform future disaster response policies.

Misinformation poses a significant threat to democracy, as it undermines informed decision-making, creates distrust among citizens, and exacerbates social and political polarization. Public libraries can in theory mitigate this threat by serving as trustworthy sources of information and promoting critical thinking, but must contend with issues such as the politicization of library services, which have the potential to erode public trust in libraries. This paper explores the critical role of public libraries as democratic institutions in countering the growing problem of misinformation and disinformation. Six librarians and library managers from Sweden's largest public libraries were interviewed using semi-structured interviews to gather qualitative data on this topic. Thematic content analysis was conducted on the data, which resulted in several key themes that demonstrate issues involved in public libraries’ approaches to addressing misinformation. The results reveal that public libraries grapple with whether an open, unrestricted acquisitions policy is better, or whether a more selective policy is more effective in combatting misinformation-related problems. The results also indicate public libraries’ uncertainty in deciding how active and outspoken of a role they should take in combatting the issue of misinformation at large. The study highlights the importance of public libraries in addressing this societal challenge and provides insights into the tensions surrounding the library’s preservation of public trust and the protection of its democratic values when challenged by misinformation.