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PloS One 2024Drawing on Critical Metaphor Analysis, this study investigates major metaphors of the COVID-19 pandemic used by the Chinese government in the specific genre of news...
Drawing on Critical Metaphor Analysis, this study investigates major metaphors of the COVID-19 pandemic used by the Chinese government in the specific genre of news picture. It examines patterns of metaphor use in the first year of the pandemic in China and explains how and why the government employs the identified metaphors in the Chinese political context. Results reveal that pandemic metaphors (45%) are not as widely used in news pictures as presumed, the vast majority (95%) are rendered in verbal mode, and the most salient metaphors used in news pictures are the UP/DOWN (spatial), WAR, FAMILY, and COMPETITION metaphors. This study then addresses how COVID-19 metaphors are used in the Chinese political context and claims that the Chinese government uses specific metaphors with persuasive and ideological functions. The WAR metaphor aids comprehension of abstract concepts of the pandemic treatment, the FAMILY metaphor fosters empathy among Chinese individuals to counter blame and discrimination in society, UP/DOWN (spatial) and COMPETITION metaphors stimulate action to overcome the common "enemy." WAR and FAMILY metaphors also contribute to the construction of a greater sense of collectivism and play a crucial role in fostering a positive national identity. Implications, limitations and some directions for future research are suggested.
Topics: Humans; Metaphor; Pandemics; COVID-19; China; Comprehension
PubMed: 38306327
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0297336 -
Cognitive Processing May 2024The paper provides novel theoretical and experimental perspectives on the functioning of linguistic vagueness as an implicit persuasive strategy. It presents an...
The paper provides novel theoretical and experimental perspectives on the functioning of linguistic vagueness as an implicit persuasive strategy. It presents an operative definition of pragmatically marked vagueness, referring to vague expressions whose interpretation is not retrievable by recipients. The phenomenon is illustrated via numerous examples of its use in predominantly persuasive texts (i.e., advertising and political propaganda) in different languages. The psycholinguistic functioning of vague expressions is then illustrated by the results of a self-paced reading task experiment. Data showing shorter reading times associated with markedly vague expressions as compared to expressions that are either (a) lexically more precise or (b) made precise by the context suggest that the former are interpreted in a shallow way, without searching for and/or retrieving exact referents. These results support the validity of a differentiation between context-supported vs. non-supported vague expressions. Furthermore, validation of using marked vagueness as a persuasive implicit strategy which reduces epistemic vigilance is provided.
Topics: Humans; Persuasive Communication; Reading; Psycholinguistics; Male; Female; Adult; Young Adult; Reaction Time; Language
PubMed: 38285278
DOI: 10.1007/s10339-023-01171-z -
Public Health Nutrition Jan 2024Given the aggressive marketing of foods and beverages to teenagers on digital platforms, and the paucity of research documenting teen engagement with food marketing and...
OBJECTIVE
Given the aggressive marketing of foods and beverages to teenagers on digital platforms, and the paucity of research documenting teen engagement with food marketing and its persuasive content, the objective of this study is to examine what teenagers see as teen-targeted food marketing on four popular digital platforms and to provide insight into the persuasive power of that marketing.
DESIGN
This is an exploratory, participatory research study, in which teenagers used a special mobile app to capture all teen-targeted food and beverage marketing they saw on digital media for 7 d. For each ad, participants identified the brand, product and specific appeals that made it teen-targeted, as well as the platform on which it was found.
SETTING
Online (digital media) with teenagers in Canada.
PARTICIPANTS
Two hundred and seventy-eight teenagers, aged 13-17 years, were participated. Most participants were girls (63 %) and older teenagers (58 % aged 16-17 years).
RESULTS
Participants captured 1392 teen-targeted food advertisements from Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube. The greatest number of food marketing examples came from Instagram (46 %) (with no difference across genders or age), while beverages (28·7 %), fast food (25·1 %) and candy/chocolate were the top categories advertised. When it comes to persuasive power, visual style was the top choice across all platforms and participants, with other top techniques (special offer, theme and humour), ranking differently, depending on age, gender and platform.
CONCLUSIONS
This study provides insight into the nature of digital food marketing and its persuasive power for teenagers, highlighting considerations of selection and salience when it comes to examining food marketing and monitoring.
Topics: Adolescent; Female; Humans; Male; Internet; Food Industry; Food; Marketing; Advertising; Beverages; Fast Foods
PubMed: 38269541
DOI: 10.1017/S1368980024000235 -
International Journal of Environmental... Dec 2023During the pandemic, the Japanese government drew upon the cultural concept of , or personal self-constraint, requesting that individuals accept responsibility for their...
During the pandemic, the Japanese government drew upon the cultural concept of , or personal self-constraint, requesting that individuals accept responsibility for their behaviors and consider minimizing the potential negative impact on others. While the approach to pandemic management rests upon the established and persuasive influence of cultural norms, variability in adherence can be expected according to age. This article documents an investigation into factors impacting vaccine hesitancy and susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 misinformation among Japanese youth. The point of departure is the belief that attitudes and behaviors, such as those underpinning the approach to pandemic management, arise from within a relational framework. Therefore, developmental characteristics, such as personality traits, and in-group affinity attachments, such as facets of national identity, can be expected to function as predictors of health attitudes and behaviors. The tested structural model of hypothesized interactions accounted for 14% of the observed variance in vaccine hesitancy and 20% in susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 misinformation. With the inclusion of gender, political ideology, and trust in government SARS-CoV-2 response as control variables, the respecified model increased the amount of variance observed in vaccine hesitancy to 30% and to 25% in susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 misinformation. The outcomes are discussed in relation to the communication of coherent public health discourse relative to personality traits and facets of national identity.
Topics: Adolescent; Humans; Vaccination Hesitancy; SARS-CoV-2; Japan; COVID-19; Communication; Personality
PubMed: 38248507
DOI: 10.3390/ijerph21010042 -
Health Promotion International Feb 2024Sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) taxes are present in many countries with evidence that they are effective in decreasing purchases of SSBs. However, in Australia where SSB...
Sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) taxes are present in many countries with evidence that they are effective in decreasing purchases of SSBs. However, in Australia where SSB consumption per capita is high, and calls for an SSB tax are frequent, there is no SSB tax and policymakers have stated their lack of support for such a tax. We examined whether political party voting preference and sociodemographic factors affect individuals' support for an SSB tax, and whether message framing affects this support. A nationally representative sample of 1519 Australian adults was recruited for an online experimental survey. Three persuasive frames and one control frame were randomly provided to participants and measures of agreement towards an SSB tax were assessed. Sociodemographic factors and political party preference were also captured. Message framing had minimal effect on the level of support for the tax. However, participants who received the 'supportive of food and drink companies frame' showed the highest positive feelings towards the tax, and participants in rural areas had higher levels of support for an SSB tax when receiving the 'protecting teenagers' frame. Participants who voted for conservative (right-leaning) parties and for Labour (a centre-left party) had similar levels of support towards the tax, which was considerably lower than Greens voters. Undecided voters had the lowest levels of support for the tax, and the frames had limited impact on them. These findings highlight the potential role of message framing in shaping public support for an SSB tax in Australia, particularly in the context of voting preference and sociodemographic factors.
Topics: Adult; Adolescent; Humans; Sugar-Sweetened Beverages; Cross-Sectional Studies; Beverages; Australia; Taxes
PubMed: 38206788
DOI: 10.1093/heapro/daad193 -
Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Dec 2023Coupling brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) and robotic systems in the future can enable seamless personal assistant systems in everyday life, with the requests that can...
Coupling brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) and robotic systems in the future can enable seamless personal assistant systems in everyday life, with the requests that can be performed in a discrete manner, using one's brain activity only. These types of systems might be of a particular interest for people with locked-in syndrome (LIS) or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) because they can benefit from communicating with robotic assistants using brain sensing interfaces. In this proof-of-concept work, we explored how a wireless and wearable BCI device can control a quadruped robot-Boston Dynamics' Spot. The device measures the user's electroencephalography (EEG) and electrooculography (EOG) activity of the user from the electrodes embedded in the glasses' frame. The user responds to a series of questions with YES/NO answers by performing a brain-teaser activity of mental calculus. Each question-answer pair has a pre-configured set of actions for Spot. For instance, Spot was prompted to walk across a room, pick up an object, and retrieve it for the user (i.e., bring a bottle of water) when a sequence resolved to a YES response. Our system achieved at a success rate of 83.4%. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first integration of wireless, non-visual-based BCI systems with Spot in the context of personal assistant use cases. While this BCI quadruped robot system is an early prototype, future iterations may embody friendly and intuitive cues similar to regular service dogs. As such, this project aims to pave a path towards future developments in modern day personal assistant robots powered by wireless and wearable BCI systems in everyday living conditions.
Topics: Humans; Animals; Dogs; Robotics; Brainwashing; Proof of Concept Study; Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis; Brain
PubMed: 38202942
DOI: 10.3390/s24010080 -
PloS One 2024While metaphors are frequently used to address misconceptions and hesitancy about vaccines, it is unclear how effective they are in health messaging. Using a... (Randomized Controlled Trial)
Randomized Controlled Trial
While metaphors are frequently used to address misconceptions and hesitancy about vaccines, it is unclear how effective they are in health messaging. Using a between-subject, pretest/posttest design, we investigated the impact of explanatory metaphors on people's attitudes toward vaccines. We recruited participants online in the US (N = 301) and asked them to provide feedback on a (fictional) health messaging campaign, which we organized around responses to five common questions about vaccines. All participants completed a 24-item measure of their attitudes towards vaccines before and after evaluating the responses to the five questions. We created three possible response passages for each vaccine question: two included extended explanatory metaphors, and one contained a literal response (i.e., no explanatory metaphors). Participants were randomly assigned to receive either all metaphors or all 'literal' responses. They rated each response on several dimensions and then described how they would answer the target question about vaccines if it were posed by a friend. Results showed participants in both conditions rated most messages as being similarly understandable, informative, and persuasive, with a few notable exceptions. Participants in both conditions also exhibited a similar small-but significant-increase in favorable attitudes towards vaccines from pre- to posttest. Notably, participants in the metaphor condition provided longer free-response answers to the question posed by a hypothetical friend, with different metaphors being reused to different extents and in different ways in their responses. Taken together, our findings suggest that: (a) Brief health messaging passages may have the potential to improve attitudes towards vaccines, (b) Metaphors neither enhance nor reduce this attitude effect, (c) Metaphors may be more helpful than literal language in facilitating further social communication about vaccines.
Topics: Humans; Metaphor; Language; Communication; Attitude
PubMed: 38170715
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0294739 -
Perspectives on Medical Education 2023ChatGPT has been widely heralded as a way to level the playing field in scientific communication through its free language editing service. However, such claims lack...
ChatGPT has been widely heralded as a way to level the playing field in scientific communication through its free language editing service. However, such claims lack systematic evidence. A writing scholar (LL) and six non-native English scholars researching health professions education collaborated on this Writer's Craft to fill this gap. Our overarching aim was to provide experiential evidence about ChatGPT's performance as a language editor and writing coach. We implemented three cycles of a systematic procedure, describing how we developed our prompts, selected text for editing, incrementally prompted to refine ChatGPT's responses, and analyzed the quality of its language edits and explanations. From this experience, we offer five insights, and we conclude that the optimism about ChatGPT's capacity to level the playing field for non-native English writers should be tempered. In the writer's craft section we offer simple tips to improve your writing in one of three areas: Energy, Clarity and Persuasiveness. Each entry focuses on a key writing feature or strategy, illustrates how it commonly goes wrong, teaches the grammatical underpinnings necessary to understand it and offers suggestions to wield it effectively. We encourage readers to share comments on or suggestions for this section on Twitter, using the hashtag: #how'syourwriting?
Topics: Humans; Communication; Language; Persuasive Communication; Writing
PubMed: 38163049
DOI: 10.5334/pme.1246 -
Food Research International (Ottawa,... Jan 2024Amidst rising obesity rates in the EU and the significant public health impact of excessive sugar consumption, the debate on reducing sugar through reformulation with...
Amidst rising obesity rates in the EU and the significant public health impact of excessive sugar consumption, the debate on reducing sugar through reformulation with sweet proteins derived from precision fermentation gains prominence, presenting a viable alternative to traditional sugars and conventional sweeteners. We conducted two studies to investigate the effects of health (emphasizing sugar reduction) versus naturalness (highlighting sweet proteins as alternatives to artificial sweeteners) message framing on the acceptance of products reformulated with sweet proteins. Study 1 (N = 296, Denmark) evaluated the impact of health and naturalness message framing on attitudes towards such reformulations. Study 2, in a cross-cultural sample (N = 3,000 Denmark, Germany, and Poland), tested the mediating role of health perceptions and the moderating effects of BMI and guilt (Study 2a), as well as naturalness perceptions, sweetener use, and pleasure (Study 2b) on product attitudes. Results of Study 1 indicated that healthiness perceptions had a more persuasive influence than naturalness perceptions. The cross-cultural findings of Studies 2a and 2b revealed that BMI, sweetener usage frequency, anticipatory guilt, and pleasure can modulate these effects. These insights suggest that while both perceived healthiness and naturalness shape attitudes towards sweet protein-enriched products, the significance of health perceptions prevails, with anticipatory emotions of guilt enhancing this influence, particularly when sweet proteins substitute added sugar. Such evidence holds substantial implications for strategies aimed at reducing sugar consumption and fostering the acceptance of products containing alternative sweeteners.
Topics: Sugars; Sweetening Agents; Carbohydrates; Europe; Excipients; Dietary Sugars
PubMed: 38129000
DOI: 10.1016/j.foodres.2023.113767 -
Frontiers in Public Health 2023The Chinese state has recently implemented the COVID-19 Vaccine Communication Campaign (CVCC) to counter vaccine hesitancy. Nonetheless, the extant literature that...
INTRODUCTION
The Chinese state has recently implemented the COVID-19 Vaccine Communication Campaign (CVCC) to counter vaccine hesitancy. Nonetheless, the extant literature that examines COVID-19 vaccine acceptance has less represented COVID-19 vaccine communication efforts.
METHODS
To address this lacuna, we qualitatively explored how CVCCs were organized in Chinese communities by investigating 54 Chinese stakeholders.
RESULTS
This study indicates that the CVCC was sustained by top-down political pressure. CVCCs' components involve ideological education among politically affiliated health workers, expanding health worker networks, training health workers, implementing media promotion, communicating with residents using persuasive and explanatory techniques, encouraging multistakeholder partnerships, and using public opinion-steered and coercive approaches. While CVCCs significantly enhanced COVID-19 vaccine acceptance, lacking open communication, stigmatizing vaccine refusers, insufficient stakeholder collaboration, and low trust in the COVID-19 vaccination program (CVP) eroded the validity of CVCCs.
DISCUSSION
To promote the continuity of CVCCs in China, CVCC performers are expected to conduct open and inclusive communication with residents. Furthermore, CVP planers should create robust partnerships among health workers by ensuring their agreements on strategies for implementing CVCCs and optimize COVID-19 immunization service provision to depoliticize CVPs. Our study will not only deepen global audiences' understanding of CVCCs in authoritarian China but also offer potential neighborhood-level solutions for implementing local and global public health communication efforts.
Topics: Humans; COVID-19 Vaccines; COVID-19; Communication; Qualitative Research; China
PubMed: 38098818
DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1253844