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It has long been known that advertisers will "photoshop" (slang for editing photos to touch up or airbrush out imperfections) photos to make the subject more attractive. But many have pointed out that this subtle manipulation often goes too far. Young people, girls in particular, are bombarded with images of how they are supposed to look, contributing to many social and health problems as a result.

The American National Advertising Division (the US advertising industry's self-regulating watchdog) for example, recently moved to ban the misleading use of photoshopping and enhanced post-production in cosmetics adverts as it could be too misleading. In the UK some adverts have been banned because the effects of airbrushing has resulted in very misleading cosmetic adverts. France has even considered legislation to explicitly identify retouched images.

Some will claim it is up to parents to teach their children how to recognize these things, but parents cannot often win against an army of professional psychologists, marketers and others all focused on pushing their own images onto children, when studies also say that children are not old enough tell the difference between commercial and other content.

This page has been updated to add a section about this issue with further links, videos and examples.

Read full article: Media and Advertising

[…] Müller, L. (2014, December 6). The impact of the mass media on the quality of democracy within a state remains a much overlooked area of study. Retrieved from LSE The London School of Economics and Political Science: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/ […]

The 2020 election will soon be upon us. As usual, news outlets will play a crucial role informing the public about the candidates. But could their decisions actual swing elections?

That's the argument put forward by Prof. Gregory Martin from Stanford University in a recent paper. The data he's collected shows that the decisions made by reporters and editors may have surprising effects on who voters support.

Paper: https://web.stanford.edu/~gjmartin/papers/Milestones%20Jan%202020.pdf

Contributor(s): Dr Justin Gest, Dr Lisa McKenzie, Dr Dennis Novy | Welcome to LSE IQ, a new monthly podcast from the London School of Economics and Political Science. This is the podcast where we ask some of the leading social scientists - and other experts - to answer intelligent questions about economics, politics or society. A year on from the EU Referendum, academics, the media, politicians and policy makers have sought to understand why the UK public voted for Brexit. One demographic in particular has come under scrutiny for their apparent role in the leave vote. In this episode Sue Windebank asks what Brexit can tell us about the white working class? This episode features: Dr Justin Gest co director of LSE's Migration Studies Unit and Assistant Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University; Dr Lisa McKenzie, Fellow in LSE's Department of Sociology and; Dr Dennis Novy, an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick and an Associate at the Centre for Economic Performance at LSE. For further information about the podcast visit lse.ac.uk/iq and please tell us what you think using the hashtag #LSEIQ.

Ein (subjektiver) Tagungsbericht zur Jahreskonferenz des Research Committees 21 (RC21) on Sociology of Urban and Regional Development of the International Sociological Association in Urbino, Italien. 29. August – 2. September 2015. Claas Pollmanns Beitrag zur Blogreihe #1: Stadtsoziologie "Die Insel hat vierundfünfzig Städte, alle weiträumig und prächtig, in Sprache, Sitten, Einrichtungen...

Bryan S. Turner is a British sociologist researching in the area of human rights, citizenship, and religion. Having worked at universities in Europe, Asia, Australia, and the USA, processes of globalization and migration play a major role in his work. Currently, he is Professor of Sociology at the City University of New...

In this episode of our interview series, our host Luis Aue talks to Prof. Nitsan Chorev, Harmon Family Professor of Sociology and International and Public Affairs at Brown University. Listen …
Continue reading "Interview: Nitsan Chorev on the politics of global health"
The post Interview: Nitsan Chorev on the politics of global health appeared first on Orders Beyond Borders.

US campaign financing rules have been relaxed even further in recent years, making a worrying problem about the state of American democracy worse (because those with money have even more ability to try and buy votes or influence policy).

Media coverage of this issue, though it may pop up from time to time, seems quite limited. Perhaps because it is estimated that television stations this year could make as much as eight billion dollars from political campaigns.

The state of US mainstream media has unfortunately been lamentable for many years, and after the issues around hurricane Katrina, it was thought that the media would be rejuvenated. Unfortunately it does not seem that way.

This page has been updated with further information about campaign financing issues and how limits in the US have been lifted making the problem worse. Also added were notes on US press freedom, and an info graphic on media ownership concentration.

Read full article: Media in the United States

In this episode of our interview series, our host Lynda Iroulo talks to John Boli, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. Listen in, as Boli gives insight …
Continue reading "Interview: John Boli on his career, methodological individualism and writing better"
The post Interview: John Boli on his career, methodological individualism and writing better appeared first on Orders Beyond Borders.

Contributor(s): Dr Rebecca Elliott, Professor Ian Gough, Dr Rodolfo Leyva | Welcome to LSE IQ, the monthly podcast from the London School of Economics and Political Science. This is the podcast where we ask some of the leading social scientists - and other experts - to answer intelligent questions about economics, politics or society. For this LSE IQ we have something slightly different for you – an 'live' episode recorded in front of an audience at LSE at the beginning of November 2018. Economic growth has helped millions out of poverty. The jobs it creates mean rising incomes and consumers who buy more. This drives further growth and higher living standards, including better health and education. Yet WWF, the World Wildlife Fund, has recently warned that exploding human consumption is the driving force behind unprecedented planetary change, through increased demand for energy, land and water. Plastics and microplastics are filling our oceans and rivers and entering the food chain. The production of goods and services for household use is the most important cause of greenhouse gas emissions. The textile industry is responsible for depleting and polluting water resources and committing human rights abuses against its workers. It is also a major source of greenhouse gases, and three fifths of all clothing produced ends up in incinerators or landfills within a year of being made. For this episode of LSE IQ Jo Bale and Sue Windebank ask, 'Can we afford our consumer society?'. This episode features: Dr Rebecca Elliott, Assistant Professor, LSE's Department of Sociology; Professor Ian Gough, Visiting Professor at LSE's Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion and an Associate at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment; and Dr Rodolfo Leyva, LSE Fellow in LSE's Department of Media Communications. For further information about the podcast visit lse.ac.uk/iq and please tell us what you think using the hashtag #LSEIQ.

Brian Stelter, CNN chief media correspondent and host of Reliable Sources, got his start in journalism at a young age. At just 8 years old he would call up the local news station after a blizzard to report how much snow he had measured in his yard. Later, as a freshman at Towson University, he started a blog tracking the cable news industry, which quickly became a must-read website for those in the media and helped him land a job at The New York Times upon graduation. He joined David to talk about his lifelong interest in media; the impact of losing his dad at a young age; and the symbiotic relationship between the Trump administration and Fox News, the topic of Brian's new book, Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth.
To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy
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Contributor(s): Dr Suzanne Hall, Dr Alan Mace, Dr David Madden, Emad Megahed, Dr Patria Roman-Velazquez | Why don't you join us for a live recording of the LSE IQ podcast? Join us on Tuesday 6 November when we'll be asking, 'Can we afford our consumer society?'. For further information please see: http://bit.ly/lseiqlive. Welcome to LSE IQ, a podcast from the London School of Economics and Political Science, where we ask leading social scientists - and other experts - to answer an intelligent question about economics, politics or society. In 1964 the sociologist Ruth Glass coined the term 'gentrification' to describe the process of London's working class neighbourhoods being taken over by the middle classes. Modest two-up two down terrace houses were bought cheap, done up and made into expensive residences. Once grand Victorian houses that had fallen on hard times and become lodging houses or homes to multiple families, were restored once again and sub-divided into luxury flats. Soon the working class residents had been squeezed out of the neighbourhood and its character changed completely. Fifty years on and this process continues apace in London and many other cities. In this episode of LSE IQ Sue Windebank asks, 'Is the gentrification of our global cities inevitable?' This episode features: Dr Suzanne Hall, Department of Sociology, LSE; Dr Alan Mace, Department of Geography and Environment, LSE; Dr David Madden, Department of Sociology, LSE; Emad Megahed, owner of Tekk Room and Chair of Elephant & Castle Traders Association and; Dr Patria Roman-Velazquez, Chair of Latin Elephant and Senior Lecturer at Loughborough University.

Media have today covered a report by the International Development Committee on the effectiveness of UK aid spending.

Contributor(s): Dr Stephen Roberts, Dr Leeza Osipenko, Professor Barbara Prainsack, Dr James Somauroo | With more and more information about us available electronically and online, this episode of LSE IQ asks, 'Is big data good for our health?'
Advances in bio-medical technologies, along with electronic health records and the information we generate through our mobile phones, Smart Watches or Fit bits, our social media posts and search engine queries, mean that there is a torrent of information about our bodies, our health and our diseases out there.
Alongside this, the tremendous growth in computing power and data storage means that this 'Big Data' can be stored and aggregated and then analysed by sophisticated algorithms for connections, comparisons and insights.
The promise of all of this is that big data will create opportunities for medical breakthroughs, help tailor medical interventions to us as individuals and create technologies that will speed up and improve healthcare.
And, of course, during the COVID-19 pandemic we've also seen some countries use data, generated from people's mobile phones, to track and trace the disease.
All of this poses opportunities for the tech giants and others who want to be part of the goldrush for our data - and to then sell solutions back to us
What are the risks in handing over our most personal data? Will it allow big data to deliver on its hype? And is it a fair exchange?
In this episode, Oliver Johnson speaks to Dr Leeza Osipenko, Senior Lecturer in Practice in LSE's Department of Health Policy; Professor Barbara Prainsack, Professor of Comparative Policy Analysis at the University of Vienna and Professor Sociology at King's College London; Dr Stephen L. Roberts, LSE Fellow in Global Health Policy in LSE's Department of Health Policy; and Dr James Somauroo, founder of the healthtech agency somX and presenter of The Health-Tech Podcast.

Research
Blockchain's potential to improve clinical trials by Leeza Osipenko
Big Data, Algorithmic Governmentality and the Regulation of Pandemic Risk by Stephen Roberts
Personalized Medicine: Empowered Patients in the 21st Century? by Barbara Prainsack


Contributors
Dr Leeza Osipenko
Professor Barbara Prainsack
Dr Stephen L. Roberts
Dr James Somauroo

Coulter & Nagle, Eds.

On today's episode, we are joined by Colin Coulter, of the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. Colin is a Lecturer in Sociology, and he has an article out recently in Critical Sociology, co-authored with Francisco Arqueros-Fernández and Angela Nagle, entitled Austerity's Model Pupil: The Ideological Uses of Ireland during the Eurozone Crisis.

As some listeners may know, I have myself been working on a book about the role of culture in Irish austerity. And I've always found Colin to be a really great writer on this subject. He has a real knack for seamlessly blending together both analysis of the material dynamics of the Irish financial crisis, with a critique of the role of culture as force sustaining the legitimacy of austerity as the necessary solution. This cultural project is one being carried out by government institutions, to be sure, but also by a number of other cultural agencies that exist within Irish society, as they seek to orient Irish people better to understand their responsibility in causing the crisis.

But Colin also has an analysis of how certain strains within the Irish academic left have perhaps enabled this process — namely by overlooking questions to do with the production of capitalist culture. Colin explains the role of capitalist culture in Ireland in a really accessible manner, so its great to have him on the show. I think you'll really enjoy the interview.

You can find a copy of Colin's article on my Dropbox. Remember, if you like what you hear, please leave us a positive review on iTunes. As ever, if you have any feedback, you can reach us on Twitter @occupyirtheory. Enjoy the show!