Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2004. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The popular media ("Media" here referring to newspapers, magazines. television, internet) adds to confusion and panic when reporting on the risks and benefits of Hormone Replacement Therapy for women (HRT). Most reports show bias, cast scientists as villains, or leave the reader more confused than before about terminology. The Southern African media does in general aspire to objectivity towards both the pharmaceutical and natural health industry. However, shallow or inept reporting, the need to generalise complicated findings and dramatise what's regarded as cold scientific news, create this bias and confusion. Misleading health reporting, in South Africa as much as anywhere else in the world, can change health behaviour and can even cost lives. Ethical health reporting can therefore be described as a matter of life and death. This paper aims to analyse the media for biased, confusing and alarmist reporting. It then aims to explain reasons for the bias or confusion. Fourteen reports are analysed. One Time magazine report, and 13 reports selected from the Southern African media. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Berigte oor Hormoonvervangingsterapie (HVT) vir vroue in die media ("Media") hier verwys na koerante, tydskrifte, televisie, internet) dra by tot verwarring en paniek. Die meerderheid berigte is bevooroordeeld, in die sin dat medici as booswigte uitgebeeld word. Indien hulle nie bevooroordeeld is nie, is berigte verwarrend, soms juis in 'n poging om konsepte te vereenvoudig. Die media in Suider Afrika aspireer wel tot objektiwiteit, teenoor beide die farmaseutiese sowel as die holistiese (kruie) industrie. Nietemin, oppervlakkige/oningeligte verslaggewing en die behoefte om ingewikkelde navorsing te vereenvoudig/interessant te maak, dra by tot vooroordeel en verwarring. Misleidende mediese beriggewing in Suid Afrika, net soos in die res van die wêreld, kan mense hoop om besluite te neem wat hul gesondheid kan skaad. Die belang van etiese verslaggewing kan dus as 'n kwessie van lewe en dood beskryf word. Hierdie studie ontleed berigte en ondersoek vooroordeel, verwarring of sensasionalisering. Redes vir bogenoemde word dan bespreek. Veertien berigte word ontleed. (een berig uit die Amerikaanse tydskrif Time, en 13 uit die Suider Afrikaanse media)

Thesis (PhD)--University of Stellenbosch, 2003. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this thesis an attempt is made to sketch the outlines of a cognitive theory of ethics, i.e. a theory in which ethical statements are a subset of descriptive statements. It is argued that the good is a quale, and that this quale roughly corresponds to what is often referred to as "pleasure". If this conceptualisation of the good is correct, then the resulting ethical theory is a cognitive, egoist version of ethical hedonism. The thesis proceeds by relating this conceptualisation of the good to economic phenomena. An investigation is then made of the conditions under which the following of a boundedly rational rule is preferable to calculating which one of the possible options available to the actor to follow. It is argued that one such rule is that "truth" should serve as a norm of inquiry. Next the issue of "altruism" is considered. It is argued that our intuitions regarding what egoist action should be are radically untrustworthy. Considerations from evolutionary biology and game theory make it clear that an egoist actor might well be best advised to perform a number of actions that would normally be termed altruistic. The next topic concerns the relation between fact and value. Arguments that claim to undermine the distinction between fact and value are argued to be fallacious. It is also argued that the correct view of the relation between fact and value can help to clarify some of the problems surrounding the conceptualisation of "objectivity". The thesis ends by considering the gains that arise from adopting the position argued for. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In hierdie tesis word 'n poging aangewend om 'n kognitiwe teorie van etiek, m.a.w 'n teorie waarbinne etiese stellings 'n subspesie van deskriptiewe stellings is, daar te stel. Daar word geargumenteer dar "die goeie" 'n quale is, en dat hierdie quale rofweg dieselfde objek is as wat dikwels na verwys word as plesier. Indien hierdie siening van "die goeie" korrek is, dan impliseer dit die moontlikheid van 'n kognitiewe, egoïstiese weergawe van etiese hedonisme. Die tesis poog eerstens om die verhouding tussen hierdie siening van "die goeie" en ekonomise fenomene te verduidelik. Daarna word ondersoek ingestel na die kondisies waaronder die volg van 'n begrensde rasionele reël 'n beter opsie vir 'n akteur is as om an al die moontlike opsies te kyk en die beste te kies. Daar word geargumenteer dat die idee dat die "waarheid" die doel van ondersoek moet wees een so 'n reël is. Volgende word daar gekyk na die kwessie van altruïsme. Daar word geargumenteer dat ons intuïsies insake die aard van egoïstiese optrede radikaalonbetroubaar is. Sekere kwessies in evolusionêre biologie en spelteorie laat dit blyk dat 'n egoïstiese akteur waarskynlik verskeie oënskynlik "altruïstiese" aksies behoort uit te voer. Die volgende kwessie wat bespreek word is die verhouding tussen feite en waardes. Daar word geargumenteer dat pogings om hierdie onderskeid te ondermyn nie suksesvol is nie. Daar word verder geargumenteer dat die korrekte siening insake hierdie verhouding sekere probleme insake die verstaan van "obkjektiwiteit" kan ophelder. Die tesis eindig deur die voordele wat uit spruit uit die aanvaarding van die posisie wat hier voor geargumenteer word. / National research Foundation (NRF)

<p>Abstract</p><p>Title: Wikipedia as a source? Is it accepted in the studies of Media and Communications at Uppsala University? (Wikipedia som källa? Är det accepterat vid studier i ämnet medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap vid Uppsala universitet?)</p><p>Number of pages: 38 (39 including enclosures)</p><p>Author: Susanna Salomon</p><p>Tutor: Else Nygren</p><p>Course: Media and Communication Studies C</p><p>Period: Autumn 2007</p><p>University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala University</p><p>Purpose/ Aim: The purpose is to study whether or not the Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia is an accepted source when a student writes a paper in Media and Communications at Uppsala University</p><p>Material/ Method: Qualitative research method based on interviews with teachers and on litterature.</p><p>Main results: The study shows that there is no common view within the faculty whether or not Wikipedia could be used as a source when writing a paper in Media and Communications. Some accept it, others do not. The results show that the teachers of this subject at Uppsala University have not yet decided upon how to adjust to the new large information bank wich is Wikipedia.</p><p>Keywords: Wikipedia, Uppsala University, sources, reliability, objectivity, collective intelligence, the Internet</p>

Higher education is one of the most expensive services an individual will ever purchase, yet many question whether enough information is available to higher education consumers to make informed decisions. The objective of this study was to determine the degree of personal experience higher education writers at selected major daily newspapers have with for-profit colleges and how those experiences affect the perceptions they have of the colleges. The second objective of the research focused on how much coverage for-profit colleges receive based on workforce projections, compared to traditional colleges.The study tested two hypsothees:1. Higher education staff writers at the selected major daily newspapers have little personal experience with for-profit, degree-granting colleges, compared to traditional colleges, resulting in neutral-to-negative perceptions.2. Despite predictions that a high percentage of jobs will require an education beyond high school but not necessarily a traditional four-year college degree, for-profit colleges receive less coverage than traditional colleges in the selected major daily newspapers.A five-page questionnaire was mailed to the person covering higher education at the major daily newspaper in mature ITT Technical Institute markets. Questions related to the amount of personal contact the journalists have with proprietary colleges and the perceptions they hold of these colleges as well as what they believe their readers' higher education needs are. Writers were also asked to indicate their agreement with several workforce projections and to report how many articles on specific topics were published in the last year. The study received a 54 percent response rate.The respondents were sorted twice, based on their personal contact and then based on their perceptions. Overall, respondents had about half as much contact with proprietary colleges as they did with traditional colleges in the past year, supporting the first part of Hypothesis 1. However, the largest percentage of respondents had some contact with proprietary colleges, resulting in positive-toneutral perceptions, disproving the first hypothesis overall. Delving further into the issue indicated that the more personal contact a journalist had with proprietary colleges, the more positive his or her perceptions of them were.The second hypothesis was supported however, in that traditional public colleges were contacted as sources for articles more than for-profit colleges by a margin of 77 percent to 23 percent. Non-profit traditional colleges were contacted more by a margin of 49 percent to 23 percent.Further analysis found that the more contact a writer had with a proprietary college, the more positive his or her perception of this sector was and the more coverage for-profit colleges received. / Department of Journalism

This thesis is about the relationship between human bodies and instrumental technologies that can be use to measure them. It adopts the position that instruments are technological structures that evoke and manifest particular phenomena of embodied life. However, through their history of association and use in the sciences and scientific medicine, instruments tend to be attached to a particular ontology, that of mechanical objectivity. Embarking from research into the artistic uses of physiological sensor technology in creative practices such as performance and installation art, this thesis asks whether it is possible to use instruments in a way that departs from their association with scientific objectivity. Drawing on philosophers who have developed an understanding of the relationship of instrumental technologies and human bodies as co-constructive, it explores how this model of con-construction might be understood to offer an alternative ontology for understanding the use of instruments in practices outside of science and scientific medicine. The project is therefore suggestive of degrees of freedom and flexibility that are open to exploitation by creative practices in the realm of instrumentation as an alternative to orthodox rationalisations of the value of scientific equipment as authentic, revealing and objective. The major contribution of the thesis is that transfers and synthesises arguments and evidence from the history and philosophy of sciences that serve to demonstrate how the instrumental measurement of human bodies can be considered to be a form of creative practice. It assembles a position based on the work of thinkers from a number of disciplines, particularly philosophy of science, technology, and the medical humanities. These offer examples of ontological frameworks within which the difference between the realm of the instrumental, material, biological, and the objective, and the phenomenal, meaningful and subjective, might be collapsed. Doing this, the thesis sheds light on how physical devices might enter into the interplay of making, mattering and objectifying the immaterial, a realm that it might be considered the role of artists to manifest. Drawing on contemporary, and secondary, accounts of the development of empirical testing in the medical sciences, the thesis agues for the recovery of a romantic account of human physiology, in which the imagination and meaning are active and embodied. It therefore offers to link the bodily and the instrumental through an extended-materialist account in which the physiological, rather than the psychological, is central. Developing a response to constructionist models of the body and instrumentation, the thesis concludes that a model of the poetic may be adopted as a method for understanding the opportunities and imperatives inherent in the avoidance of deterministic approaches to biosignalling technologies. In doing this, the thesis contributes particularly to the creative arts and technology research practices concerned with the use of body sensor technologies in humanistic applications. It complements the existing works by artists in this area that make use of instruments by assembling a number of theoretical readings and interpretations of how instruments work – among them the thermometer, lie detector, and automatograph – which illustrate the argument that that is possible to operate from a theoretical position within which instruments are both material, performative and symbolic.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of news commentary on the image of political candidates. Subjects were exposed to a political debate, which was followed by three experimental manipulations of a news commentary. One group saw a commentary biased toward one candidate and against the other. In a second group the bias was reversed. A third experimental group saw a neutral commentary and the control group viewed the debate but no commentary. The primary statistical analyses used were a multivariate analysis of variance, a multiple discriminant analysis and a factor analysis. The results indicated that the commentary did have some effects on the perception of the candidates' images. Furthermore, the commentaries affected the amount of the candidates' message which was recalled by the subjects, and cued the subjects to recall specific issues which were mentioned in the commentaries. Finally, the factor analysis indicated certain characteristics of the images of political candidates.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

This text explores the question of reasons for morality and the related issues, particularly the nature and the source of moral motivation. First, I elaborate the metaphysical distinction between subjective and objective, which concerns the status of moral reasons and the extent to which a human agent in involved in their genesis. Next, I raise some questions about moral motivation and I introduce briefly some contemporary views on these issues. Major part of the work is dedicated to the exposition of Kierkegaard's position, which combines subjective motivation for ethics (avoidance of personally perceived symptoms of despair) and objectively grounded reasons for morality (sin). Philosophers interested in moral motivation typically look for fundamental moral principles and compelling arguments in favour of being moral, but Kierkegaard turns the attention of his readers to the task of their own selves. His pseudonyms do not look for an objective moral principle, they show why the ethical life-view is essential for attainment of true selfhood. In this work, I compare some contemporary accounts of moral motivation to Kierkegaard's, I comment critically on some interpretations of Kierkegaard and differentiate between different aspects of reason for choosing the ethical life, implied in his pseudonymous...

In Sweden sports journalism has been critisised among many for lacking professionalism and sports journalists have been accused of being both restricted and biased. Especially in local sports journalism the issue is said to be evenmore prominent.Through a qualitative discourse analysis the main purpose of this essay is to study the standard of objectivity in swedish local sports journalism.Thirty two randomly selected articles written in ten local newspapers after ten games in swedish footballs top divison Allsvenskan were read and analyzed during the study. In relation to the profesional ideals of journalism some major themes of shortcomings were discovered and categorized. The most significant was the lack of hearing both sides. The reporting was very one-sided in a way that most of the time favored the local team. From an objective view questionable reporting was also found when it came to the inclusion and exclusion of certain in-game situations but also in what surrounding circumstances the journalists chose to aim their focus on. Uncertaincies were likewise exposed in the amount of personal opinions being shown by the author.

La thèse est centrée sur la notion de temporalité pratique. Elle étudie le rapport entre normativité et temporalité en montrant que dans la connaissance, l’objectivité est produite par une méthode de schématisation des catégories de l’entendement, ce qui permet de relier et d’appliquer les concepts universels, a priori et intérieurs, à un donné sensible particulier, alors que dans la pratique, les catégories de la liberté rendent possible une synthèse pratique au sein des désirs mais immédiatement sans passer par la schématisation de l'imagination. Il ne s’agit plus de légiférer sur un donné sensible et de l’ordonner mais de produire une réalité ou une effectivité qui est la « résolution de la volonté» de manière absolument immédiate. Or, s'il y a production d'une volonté moralement déterminée, il doit y avoir une temporalité pratique dans laquelle se déploie cette causalité par liberté. Cette notion n’a pas été élaborée par Kant mais il semble nécessaire de la penser pour comprendre l’efficace de la Loi morale. En effet, le problème de l’applicabilité du principe pur inconditionné dans le temps de l’esthétique transcendantale est incompréhensible car s’il s’applique dans le temps alors on doit conclure qu’il est lui-même conditionné a priori et s’il s’applique en dehors du temps, on arrive à la conclusion que le caractère intelligible est intemporel, éternel et immuable, ce qui éteint la liberté pratique comme bonne volonté. Notre thèse vise à répondre à ce problème en montrant que la Loi morale n’est agissante et ne devient un devoir que par la personne qui n’est pas immuable mais qui est temporalité pratique et duratio nouménon (durée rendue infinie par le postulat de la Dialectique de la raison pratique). / The thesis is centered on the notion of practical temporality. It studies the connection between normativity and temporality by showing that in knowledge, objectivity is produced by a schematism of the categories of the understanding, which allows to connect and to apply the universal concepts, a priori and internal, to one given sensitive private individual, while in practice, the categories of freedom make a practical synthesis possible within the desires, but at once, without passing through the schematism of imagination. It is not any more a question of legislating on one given sensitive and of ordering it, but of producing a reality or an effectiveness which is the " resolution of the will ", in a absolutely immediate way. Now, if a morally determined will has been produced, there should be a practical temporality in which this causality through freedom will operate . This notion was not elaborated by Kant but it seems necessary to think of it to understand the effectiveness  of moral Law. Indeed, the problem of the applicability of the unconditioned pure principle in the time of transcendental aesthetics is incomprehensible because if it applies in the time then we have to conclude that it is itself a priori conditioned and if it applies outside time, we reach the conclusion that the intelligible character is timeless, eternal and unchanging, which invalidates practical freedom as goodwill. Our thesis aims at answering this problem by showing that the moral Law is active and becomes a duty only by the person who is not unchanging but who has to be seen as practical temporality and duratio nouménon (duration made infinite by the postulate of the Dialectic of practical reason).