Our Reply to a Climate-Alarmist Newspaper Editorial

Interpersonal Metadiscourse in Newspaper Editorials

The power of media lies in its persuasive function, which gives media a potential to maneuver on the mind of audience (van Dijk 1996). This potential is realized via different linguistic resources, one important group of which is metadiscoursal resources. The major aim of this study was to explore how and in what distribution these resources are employed by writers with different cultural backg...

Radically Questioning the Principle of the Least Restrictive Alternative: A Reply to Nir Eyal; Comment on “Nudging by Shaming, Shaming by Nudging”

In his insightful editorial, Nir Eyal explores the connections between nudging and shaming. One upshot of his argument is that we should question the principle of the least restrictive alternative in public health and health policy. In this commentary, I maintain that Eyal’s argument undermines only a rather implausible version of the principle of the least restrictive alternative and I sketch ...

Portrayal of scientific controversy on climate change. A study of the coverage of the Copenhagen summit in the Spanish press

Controversy has been a relevant element in the coverage of climate change. Several studies emphasize the influence of economic, political, and journalistic factors in the portrayal of controversies on this topic, along the last few decades. Very often this was related to the lobbying action of several political and economic interest groups and resulted in the portrayal of a distorted image of t...

Comment on 'Measurement of activity concentrations of natural radionuclides in the topsoil of IITA Ibadan by gamma-ray spectrometry' Reply to the Reply to "Comment on the Invited Editorial 'Effectiveness of tritium beta particles'" A further reply

Uncertainty & attitudes towards climate change 1 Uncertainty , scepticism and attitudes towards climate change : biased assimilation and attitude polarisation

‘Scepticism’ in public attitudes towards climate change is seen as a significant barrier to public engagement. In an experimental study, we measured participants’ scepticism about climate change before and after reading two newspaper editorials that made opposing claims about the reality and seriousness of climate change (designed to generate uncertainty). A well-established social psychologica...