"A major contribution to the study of global events in times of global media. Owning the Olympics tests the possibilities and limits of the concept of 'media events' by analyzing the mega-event of ...the information age: the Beijing Olympics. . . . A good read from cover to cover."
—Guobin Yang, Associate Professor, Asian/Middle Eastern Cultures & Sociology, Barnard College, Columbia UniversityFrom the moment they were announced, the Beijing Games were a major media event and the focus of intense scrutiny and speculation. In contrast to earlier such events, however, the Beijing Games are also unfolding in a newly volatile global media environment that is no longer monopolized by broadcast media. The dramatic expansion of media outlets and the growth of mobile communications technology have changed the nature of media events, making it significantly more difficult to regulate them or control their meaning. This volatility is reflected in the multiple, well-publicized controversies characterizing the run-up to Beijing 2008. According to many Western commentators, the People's Republic of China seized the Olympics as an opportunity to reinvent itself as the "New China"---a global leader in economics, technology, and environmental issues, with an improving human-rights record. But China's maneuverings have also been hotly contested by diverse global voices, including prominent human-rights advocates, all seeking to displace the official story of the Games.Bringing together a distinguished group of scholars from Chinese studies, human rights, media studies, law, and other fields, Owning the Olympics reveals how multiple entities---including the Chinese Communist Party itself---seek to influence and control the narratives through which the Beijing Games will be understood.digitalculturebooks is an imprint of the University of Michigan Press and the Scholarly Publishing Office of the University of Michigan Library dedicated to publishing innovative and accessible work exploring new media and their impact on society, culture, and scholarly communication. Visit the website at www.digitalculture.org.
Sedimentary basins increase the damaging effects of earthquakes by trapping and amplifying seismic waves. Simulations of seismic wave propagation in sedimentary basins capture this effect; however, ...there exists no method to validate these results for earthquakes that have not yet occurred. We present a new approach for ground motion prediction that uses the ambient seismic field. We apply our method to a suite of magnitude 7 scenario earthquakes on the southern San Andreas fault and compare our ground motion predictions with simulations. Both methods find strong amplification and coupling of source and structure effects, but they predict substantially different shaking patterns across the Los Angeles Basin. The virtual earthquake approach provides a new approach for predicting long-period strong ground motion.
The aim of this article is to identify and examine the host residents' perceptions towards a mega event, the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, and its impacts. An impact scale comprising 20 impact items ...with four factors—social-psychological impacts, urban development impacts, economic development impacts, and social life impacts—was developed. It was found that the majority of respondents perceived the impacts of the 2008 Games very positively, particularly for those related to the social-psychological, urban development, and economic development factors. Residents' perceptions towards some social life impacts (e.g., overcrowding, higher prices) were mixed. Based on their different social representations (i.e., perceptions towards the impacts of the Games), residents were classified into two groups: “embracers” and “tolerators.” The three most significant factors that influenced residents' perceptions towards the Beijing 2008 Olympics were residents' perceptions/attitudes about government performance, their preference of more tourism development, and tourism-industry work experience.
We measure the overall influence of contextual versus individual factors (e.g., voting rules and media as opposed to race and education) on voter behavior, and explore underlying mechanisms. Using a ...US-wide voter-level panel, 2008–2018, we examine voters who relocate across state and county lines, tracking changes in registration, turnout, and party affiliation to estimate location and individual fixed effects in a value-added model. Location explains 37 percent of the cross-state variation in turnout (to 63 percent for individual characteristics) and an only slightly smaller share of variation in party affiliation. Place effects are larger for young and White voters. (JEL D12, D72, I20, J15, L82, R23)
The portrayal of Greece by the international press during the financial crisis has been seen by many independent observers as very harsh. The Greeks have often been blamed for a myriad of ...international political problems and external economic factors beyond their control. In this original and insightful work George Tzogopoulos examines international newspaper coverage of the unfolding economic crisis in Greece. American, British, French, German and Italian broadsheet and tabloid coverage is carefully analysed. The Greek Crisis in the Media debates and dissects the extent to which the Greek response to the financial crisis has been given fair and balanced coverage by the press and questions how far politics and national stereotypes have played their part in the reporting of events. By placing the Greek experiences and treatment alongside those of other EU members such as Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain, Tzogopoulos examines and highlights similarities and differences in the ways in which different countries tackled the challenges they faced during this crucial period and explores how and why the world's media reported these events.
The annual incidence rate of community-associated
Clostridioides difficile
infections in Quebec, Canada, has increased by 33.3%, from 0.51 (2008) to 0.68 (2015) cases/100,000 population, while ...incidence of healthcare-associated cases remained relatively stable. Possible causes include increased disease severity, increased antimicrobial drug use, emergence of virulent strains, and heightened physician awareness.
This paper reports the metrics‐based results of the Dst index part of the 2008–2009 GEM Metrics Challenge. The 2008–2009 GEM Metrics Challenge asked modelers to submit results for four geomagnetic ...storm events and five different types of observations that can be modeled by statistical, climatological or physics‐based models of the magnetosphere‐ionosphere system. We present the results of 30 model settings that were run at the Community Coordinated Modeling Center and at the institutions of various modelers for these events. To measure the performance of each of the models against the observations, we use comparisons of 1 hour averaged model data with the Dst index issued by the World Data Center for Geomagnetism, Kyoto, Japan, and direct comparison of 1 minute model data with the 1 minute Dst index calculated by the United States Geological Survey. The latter index can be used to calculate spectral variability of model outputs in comparison to the index. We find that model rankings vary widely by skill score used. None of the models consistently perform best for all events. We find that empirical models perform well in general. Magnetohydrodynamics‐based models of the global magnetosphere with inner magnetosphere physics (ring current model) included and stand‐alone ring current models with properly defined boundary conditions perform well and are able to match or surpass results from empirical models. Unlike in similar studies, the statistical models used in this study found their challenge in the weakest events rather than the strongest events.
Key Points
A large set of models that specify DST have been evaluated
Five skill scores were used to evaluate models
Statistical models perform best but physics-based models can compete
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