Author: TheConversation

By Mike McDevitt, Professor of journalism and media studies, University of Colorado Boulder Walter Lippmann, who lived from 1889 to 1974, was an early and prime example of the public intellectual as pundit commenting on news of the day. Lippmann, a Pulitzer Prize winner, wrote a syndicated column on national and international affairs. He advocated a philosophy in which honest reflection on common experiences would lift citizens out of their parochial worldviews. A pundit is someone who offers commentary in the media on a particular subject area. A gallery of legacy newspaper pundits would include a more raucous wing....

By Christine Larson, Assistant Professor of Journalism, University of Colorado Boulder; and Ashley Carter, PhD Student in Journalism, University of Colorado Boulder A major transformation is underway in Romancelandia. Once upon a time, romance novels from major U.S. publishers featured only heterosexual couples. Today, the five biggest publishers regularly release same-sex love stories. From May 2022 to May 2023, sales of LGBTQ+ romance grew by 40%, with the next biggest jump in this period occurring for general adult fiction, which grew just 17%. The data from 2023 extends a boom that began in 2016: In the five years from...

By Oluwafemi Atanda Adeagbo, Assistant Professor of Public Health, University of Iowa; Engelbert Bain Luchuo, Senior Research Associate, University of Johannesburg; and Oluwaseun Abdulganiyu Badru, Ph.D. Candidate in Community and Behavioral Health, University of Iowa HIV self-test kits were developed to make it easier for people to access HIV testing. However, our research team has found that many people who use self-test kits do not go on to receive needed HIV treatment or start preexposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, to prevent future infection. In 2016, the World Health Organization recommended HIV self-test kits as a way for people to confidentially...

By Christopher Pollard, Tutor in Sociology and Philosophy, Deakin University Yanis Varoufakis grew up during the Greek dictatorship of 1967-1974. He later became an economics professor and was briefly Greek finance minister in 2015. His late father, a chemical engineer in a steel plant, instilled in his son a critical appreciation of how technology drives social change. He also instilled him with a belief that capitalism and genuine freedom were antithetical – a leftist politics that made his father a political prisoner for several years during the “junta”, as they called it. In 1993, when he first got the...

By Paul Lushenko, Assistant Professor and Director of Special Operations, US Army War College Unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, have been central to the war in Ukraine. Some analysts claim that drones have reshaped war, yielding not just tactical-level effects, but shaping operational and strategic outcomes as well. It is important to distinguish between these different levels of war. The tactical level of war refers to battlefield actions, such as patrols or raids. The operational level of war characterizes a military’s synchronization of tactical actions to achieve broader military objectives, such as destroying components of an adversary’s army. The...