This study analyses the tone and information content of the IMF Article IV Staff Reports during the Eurozone crisis. Researchers create a tone measure denoted WARNING, based on the existing DICTION... Show More

This study analyses the tone and information content of the IMF Article IV Staff Reports during the Eurozone crisis. Researchers create a tone measure denoted WARNING, based on the existing DICTION 7.1 Hardship dictionary. Researchers find that in the run-up to the current credit crises the warnings by the IMF were issued to Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, and Slovenia. In contrast, the more severely hit countries were not warned by the tone of the IMF Article IV Staff Reports. Researchers also conclude that the IMF interactions were more effective with low-income countries and with other emerging economies than they were with advanced and large emerging economies. Individual countries Article IV Staff assessments for Ireland and Spain indicated the warnings by the IMF were only in the years when the countries were deeply in recession and it was too late to provide any policy guidance.

Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, American leaders confronted difficult dilemmas involving civil liberties in the context of terrorism. Previous scholarship has made clear that exposure... Show More

Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, American leaders confronted difficult dilemmas involving civil liberties in the context of terrorism. Previous scholarship has made clear that exposure to threatening information may result in significant decreases in the public's willingness to support expansive civil liberties guarantees, yet relatively few researchers have systematically examined the content of information transmitted to the public during these debates. This study employs a computerized content analysis to investigate differences in broadcast media coverage following the reporting of significant post-9/11 security/rights dilemmas. The analysis focuses on two key periods: the reporting of President Bush's authorization of warrantless NSA wiretapping in late 2005 and the coverage of President Obama's 2009 proposal to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Findings suggest that broadcast sources diverged significantly in the amount of threatening information conveyed to the public during the reporting of key security/rights dilemmas.

This paper incorporates content analysis of 495 drafts of 70 presidential speeches gathered from the archives of all ten presidencies from Franklin Roosevelt to George H.W. Bush to measure the... Show More

This paper incorporates content analysis of 495 drafts of 70 presidential speeches gathered from the archives of all ten presidencies from Franklin Roosevelt to George H.W. Bush to measure the changes to drafts of presidential speeches as they move through the White House speech drafting and review process. Studying the fluctuations in rhetorical scores demonstrates the degree to which forces within the presidency present different approaches to the rhetorical strategies of the White House. While the fluctuations revealed by content analysis may not tell us precisely about the motives of those within the process, they reveal significant differences in the approach of various staff members and help scholar better understand the inner workings behind the rhetoric of the bully pulpit.

The analysis of a sample of characteristic commercial shop signs in today's Limassol, Cyprus, asserts their anchorage function as syncretic/polysemiotic texts relying upon the synergy of semiotic... Show More

The analysis of a sample of characteristic commercial shop signs in today's Limassol, Cyprus, asserts their anchorage function as syncretic/polysemiotic texts relying upon the synergy of semiotic systems, in their commercial and broader informational function. The study of intersemiosis, i.e. of the translation between pictorial and linguistic semiotic systems and their hierarchy, can provide the basis for an in-depth semiotic study of the socio-economic and historical-aesthetic landscape of the city. This study offers a preliminary methodological separation of sign systems on the shop signs in Limassol, showing up the ways intersemiosis remains the standard historical communication method of shop signs since the advent of mass commerce.

At the core of this essay is the idea that cognition is best described as a highly developed homeostatic device aiming to maintain a dynamic equilibrium between internal representations and changes... Show More

At the core of this essay is the idea that cognition is best described as a highly developed homeostatic device aiming to maintain a dynamic equilibrium between internal representations and changes in environmental conditions. The author emphasizes the fundamental role played by aesthetics in facilitating an accurate description of the human mind and introduce basic elements of a theory accounting for the influence of art on the cognitive system. A general bibliography is provided for the reader unfamiliar with the notions and desirous to pursue the analysis further.

There are certain sounds in the Greek-Cypriot dialect (henceforth GCD) that cannot be represented by characters from the Greek alphabet in its written form. Contradicting ideologies have made it... Show More

There are certain sounds in the Greek-Cypriot dialect (henceforth GCD) that cannot be represented by characters from the Greek alphabet in its written form. Contradicting ideologies have made it impossible for Cypriots to settle on an official and common orthographic system, which has led to a rich variety of typographic conventions and many significant typographic drawbacks. This study aims to introduce a new set of typographic characters for the representation of the palato-alveolar GCD consonants that would provide ideal reading conditions for users (Unger, 2007; Noordzij, 2005; Bringhurst, 2005), while taking into consideration their political and cultural stances and needs. The new typographic system has been tested in two rounds of action research, providing both quantitative and qualitative data. The results show that the proposed system satisfies both the design and linguistic criteria of a successful written system as proposed by Sebba (2007), namely phonological accuracy, simplicity and readability.