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Issues in Interdisciplinarity 2020-21/Truth in Punishment and The Panopticon

This chapter explores how philosophy assesses and conflicts with conceptions of truth in disciplines relating to crime and punishment. Postmodernist thought, specifically critical philosophy, conflicts with criminology by critiquing its methodology and conception of truth. Postmodernism also takes a critical approach towards utilitarianism, as seen through its views on the Panopticon prison scheme, thus creating a disciplinary divide with economics.

= Criminology and Critical Philosophy on Punishment =

Criminology applies the scientific method to explain “interactions of processes in law-making, lawbreaking, and the reactions of society to these processes”. It takes a positivist approach to knowledge when analyzing issues of crime and punishment. There is, however, some dissonance within criminology, as its early development by sociologists means it is greatly influenced by sociological thought. While criminologists commit to the use of the scientific method and believe there is consensus on epistemology, views of truth in the discipline have historical associations to sociological writings and methodology.

Major criticism has been filed against criminology’s approach to punishment by critical philosophers. In Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Foucault takes a constructivist approach to criminal law and justice. He argues that criminology is not grounded in scientific truths but is a result of social forces. He illustrates this by underlining how law's incorporation of criminal psychiatry in the nineteenth century was informed by a shift in focus from ‘crime to criminal’, and new rationality about how crime may be inherent. Such rationality demanded unique forms of scientific knowledge to justify the characterization of criminals and led to truth formation in the subject. This truism about ‘individual offenders’ still informs criminology today.

Foucault instead supported the analysis of power dynamics behind institutional conceptions of truth. Discipline and Punish thus provided an analysis of the rationale behind methods of ‘discipline’. One critique was of the underlying assumption of homo criminalis, or criminal man. Prisoners, who would otherwise be considered rational actors (homo economicus) in social sciences such as economics, are assumed in criminology to be homo criminalis—someone who is to be treated scientifically and distinct from non-offenders. Foucault suggests this assumption stems from historical methods of information gathering by prisons in the nineteenth century to theorize reasons for offenses. As such, criminology and one of its key assumptions were informed by available academic resources and historical findings rather than a universal or positivist truth.

While criminologists have adopted ideas about truth from critical philosophy, it has generally been limited to superficial changes to existing academic concepts and structures. Habits of sociological thinking have made it difficult for criminologists to fully appreciate and reflect on Foucault’s criticisms, and the pursuit for ideas with fixed meanings has given rise to positivist criticism of Foucault’s work as ‘lacking in rigor and being too ambiguous’, largely due to his intentional use of constructivist ideas.

= Economics versus Postmodern Philosophy on The Panopticon = Due to its position as a discipline where qualities of epistemological methods are discussed, philosophy lacks a unifying theory of truth, though individual philosophical theories do maintain distinct conceptions of truth. Schools of philosophy hold central dogmas that form the foundation for their ideas. Utilitarianism, as such, holds its central dogma—that the most moral action is one that maximizes utility—as an absolute truth.

Much like utilitarianism, a base assumption of absolutes is required when assessing positive classical economics. Frank H. Knight's 1940 publication, "What is Truth" in Economics?, categorizes knowledge in economics as that of human tendencies rather than that which can be understood through direct observation and "tests". Knight reflects the view of classical economists as he maintains the assumptions of people as rational actors, or those who will always act in order to maximize their own happiness with all available information, and that there exists an "ideal" apportionment of resources in any given circumstance.

This attempted "ideal" allocation is illustrated in Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon. Originally, the Panopticon was an architectural plan for a prison: a circular building positioning the inmates’ cells around a central surveillance tower. Inmates do not know when they are being watched, so they therefore must act as if under observation at all times. The Panopticon can be seen as a real-world application of Bentham’s utilitarian philosophy, where he defines utility as the property of producing “benefit”, or preventing "pain or unhappiness to the party whose interest is considered”. In the relevant economic context, Bentham posited that utility was defined as a "rational management that ‘lightens’ public expenditure".

In order to understand the Panopticon as a utilitarian prison scheme, it is important to view it through the lens of growing dissatisfaction with the prevalence of capital punishment under the criminal justice system of Bentham’s time. Bentham viewed his system as an improvement over the former in all aspects, stating that his simple architectural idea improved morals, health, industry, and the economy.

Bentham proposed a two-tiered system of efficient management fueled by monopolistic competition. The construction of the Panopticon would be the product of entrepreneurial contractors jockeying for the building contract, required to offer reasonable terms of construction so as to remain competitive in the market. Similarly, market forces of supply and demand allowed for a more efficient implementation of discipline in that "the punishment [of the convict], preventing his carrying the work to another market, subjects him to a monopoly, which the contractor makes as much of as he can (Bentham 1838)".

Despite a system poised for efficiency, numerous criticisms have been levied against the Panopticon. Most famously, in Discipline and Punish, Foucault uses the Panopticon as a metaphor to critique discipline under the modern state system. Although not a direct critique of Bentham’s prison design, the metaphor's influence led to widespread criticism of the concept, which developed a general misunderstanding of the Panopticon and Bentham's work as a whole. Primarily, the Panopticon has existed in modern consciousness solely in terms of Foucault’s description of panopticism as a form of power based on omnipresent surveillance. Due to Foucault's projection of governmental systems on the Panopticon, Bentham’s ideas have increasingly been perceived as authoritarian and pro-punishment. This interpretation conflicts with Bentham’s views in actuality: utilitarianism’s aim to maximise happiness suggests he viewed punishment as immoral except when preventing further unhappiness.

This misunderstanding hinges on conflicting attitudes to truth in morality and societal benefit. As mentioned, Bentham holds as an absolute truth that the most moral action is that which maximises happiness and minimises unhappiness, supporting his Panopticon through its economic benefit, efficiency and internalisation of discipline. Oppositely, the conception of truth by many postmodernist philosophers, including Foucault, is relativist and constructivist. Foucault posits that truth is socially constructed, specifically by power dynamics. By extension, according to social constructivism an action's moral worth is not set - it is dependent on the society in which it is contextualised. This difference in conceptions of truth means the morality of the Panopticon is debatable: utilitarians like Bentham see the plan as entirely morally justifiable, but later postmodern thinkers like Foucault question this idea.


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Issues in Interdisciplinarity 2020-21/Power in Contraception

Introduction
The contraceptive pill, the revolutionary invention playing a significant role in female sexual liberation and gender equality, may not be as feminist as we thought. As a divided issue, its research in pharmaceutical sciences and portrayal in the history discipline offer a varied and interdisciplinary perspective on this controversial issue. Their contrasting scientific and subjective approach highlight varied ways we approach the issue of power. When combined, they offer a more comprehensive view on the causes and impacts of power in the issue of contraception.

Power in History
History as a discipline is written and re-written by historians' selectivity of primary sources aiming to provide the most accurate account of events possible. However within History, there is an enduring gender bias within the discipline that sees a lacking female presence in reading lists, source syllabi and conference panels that discuss the specifics of what is taught within the curriculum; history in academia remains largely male. In the UK there are only 20.8% female history professors. In another example, a Stanford applied history conference featured 30 executives, exclusively white males. What if primary sources were the result of a western-male centred authority on what has been chosen to be told and the way it has been told? History relies on people's perceptions and society's way of experiencing and recalling events, but in a society where the prevailing perception is a male one, it is difficult to be completely objective.

History as a discipline allows us to look at how we view the chronologies of contraception in a way that shapes our contemporary view on the subject. Yet as we use History for understanding, unequal balances of power within the discipline distort how the history of contraception can be understood. There is an indirect, institutionalised form of power within History, held by certain groups of people, which unconsciously stifles the voices of minorities and potentially generates a lack of collective truth and accuracy. In studying the history of contraception, the male majority gives less space to women's voices and perspectives. The curriculum then bases more on facts and events rather than personal narratives, and subject these narratives to a generalisation of all women and the women's movement. A female perspective on the subject allows more diversity of thought as their positionally brings along with them an experiential connection and understanding rather than just an academic one.

Fortunately, there have been efforts to dismantle these gender biases within the discipline, where more women are encouraged to pursue research and be present during discussions. In this sense, we can say that the gender disparity is improving as contemporaries are more aware of this institutionalised bias. For example, in Reproductive Rights and Wrongs, the Global Politics of Population Control and Contraceptive Choice, Betsy Hartmann tackles the, until then, undiscussed issue of the pressure that can be put on some women in several countries and socio-economic groups by powerful figures that provide them contraception 'often in an unsafe manner, for their own objectives, which are fundamentally disempowering of women and of poor people generally.'. However, this indirect coercion will continue if the industry remains dominated by men who hold the most senior positions, thus those in higher positions of power have greater control over the academic narrative.

Side Effects in Female Contraception Methods
Power in pharmaceutical science is present in research related to the contraceptive pill. Women are often responsible for the burden of contraception (evident in the vast variety of female contraception drugs available), yet are subjected to various side effects associated with contraception. These include, but are not limited to, headaches, nausea, mood swings, and more serious effects such as blood clots and breast cancer. One study on the use of hormonal contraception by women found that it positively led to use of antidepressants. Why has further research not been done in the half century since the birth of contraception to reduce these side effects and make contraception safer for women?

The issue lies in the sex bias present in the discipline of pharmaceutical science. Especially in drug research, most are conducted and carried out on men, without regard for how the two sexes might react differently. Because of this, the recognition of health problems, from a drug specific to women, has been slow. Nancy Krieger posed this question: ‘Why, for four decades, since the mid-1960s, were millions of women prescribed powerful pharmacological agents already shown, three decades earlier, to be carcinogenic?’ This lack of knowledge can also be seen specifically in contraception. The Pearl Index was created in 1933 by Raymond Pearl, a male biologist, to calculate the effectiveness of contraceptive drugs in preventing pregnancy. Still used today, the Pearl Index uses equations not accounting for the side effects women experience taking the drugs.

Research in Male Hormonal Contraception
Meanwhile, results in research on the male contraceptive pill indicate that hormone regimens that induce azoospermia, the lack of viable sperm in the semen, prove to be effective in pregnancy protection, comparable with the female contraceptive pill. Given the erratic nature of the pill’s side effects for women, it is questionable why research in male oral contraceptives has not further progressed. A WHO study testing one male hormonal contraceptive found that androgenic common adverse effects included acne, mood changes, and abnormal liver function tests — all of which homogeneous to side effects in the female pill. Yet, this product was then deemed unacceptable to users. There are claims implying further testing has not been done due to the risk that may accompany long-term use, although the first large scale human trial on the female pill was carried out by Gregory Pincus in 1950s Puerto Rico before it was approved in the U.S., in which three deaths occurred.

It is consequently not presumptuous to view the power imbalance in gender in the field of pharmaceutical sciences as partly responsible for this issue. The underrepresentation of women in STEM indubitably leads to the implicit bias towards androcentric scientific studies — a form of indirect and direct coercion rooted in the social identity theory. The male agentic nature of scientific research has led to an invisible advantage for male scientists and reticence in female; therefore, the evident bias towards progressive studies in female contraceptives, rather than male, exists despite the extensive opposing justifications.

Conclusion
Interdisciplinarity is vital to the future of contraception. With a more objective approach from historians, the impartial truth of the implicit power imbalance in contraception is elucidated to the public. This change in authoritative historical influence hugely impacts the contemporary perspective that is fundamentally prevalent in scientific research — what has been written before will affect what researchers decide to study — which, in turn, transforms subsequent research, and therefore the field as a whole.

In a world where the supply and demand model is profoundly influential, this collective shift in view can also lead to an increase in unbiased research in contraception as the public advocate for more female representation in the scientific community. Progressive pharmaceutical science research can therefore be done to equalise the responsibilities of the two sexes in regards to contraception, thus ultimately advancing gender equality within this domain.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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Issues in Interdisciplinarity 2020-21/Poverty and education

Evidence

In poverty and education - cyclical nature

Evidence in political sociology: various theories driving research (e.g. conflict theory), socialization research,

Evidence in economics: quantitative data Keynesian economics v Marxian economics modelling

Evidence in geography- theories for continental drift/evidence for pangaea (Wegener)?? - jigsaw fit and Appalachian and Caledonian Mountains (qualitative?), geologic fit, magnetic polarity (quantitive?), species matching up


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Issues in Interdisciplinarity 2020-21/Evidence in quantifying happiness

= Evidence in quantifying happiness =


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Talk:Issues in Interdisciplinarity 2020-21/Oliwia, Olivia, Iman, Carlotta

Discussion:

Book covers Representation of a given culture through litterature

Final idea: Central Park rape case: Racial studies, Psychology, Biology, Media studies

False incrimination biased by racial and socioeconomic background of the convicted group ->Evidence issue: the evidence didn't add up, yet they were convicted

Psychological bias: false testimony Police's prejudices Media's approach and influence

Until next meeting: individual research and sharing information to get a better idea of what each of us wants to focus on

Empereurthepug (discuss • contribs) 13:56, 20 November 2020 (UTC)


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Issues in Interdisciplinarity 2020-21/Truth in decision making

Introduction
To define the word virginity, or virgin, which the dictionary describes as ‘a person who has not had sexual intercourse’, one must first define sexual intercourse. This in itself is a highly contended topic as, when looking for a definition, one is presented with the very heteronormative idea that it is merely the process of ‘heterosexual intercourse involving penetration of the vagina by the penis’, ignoring the LGBT community and what sex is to them. The word virginity originates from the latin ‘virgo’, which then evolved into ‘virginitatem’, or in French ‘viginite’, and translated into English it becomes maiden: a sexually intact young woman. Even the etymology of the word highlights the role the patriarchy has had in the concept of virginity, and how when talking of its importance and value, societies almost exclusively think of female virginity, which will be the main topic of our research also. An interdisciplinary approach is required when finding the truth in what virginity truly is as it can be defined in so many ways. Biologists often take the positivist approach and describe in in purely scientific terms, viewing it merely as a biological process. This view conflicts with that of gender studies or anthropology, in which virginity is not a fixed universal idea applicable to all, rather it is more of a state of mind. It is important to look at how the different definitions of virginity in different cultures affect the value they each place on it.


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Issues in Interdisciplinarity 2020-21/Truth

 * Issue: Truth
 * Disciplines: Economics, psychology, philosophy
 * Case study: Advertising for Black Friday on social media


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Talk:Issues in Interdisciplinarity 2020-21/Evidence in the Resource Curse and democratic instability in Africa

A note: I made a couple of small edits without logging in, my apologies, I believe the activity from 144.82.9.211 is me. Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 11:36, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Discussion Notes from 20/11/2020 Wikichapter Workshop:

Approaches to evidence in abortion.

- discipline 1: Theology / Biblical Studies
 * Morality drawn from religious scripture
 * A qualitative approach to evidence

- discipline 2: Biology
 * Gathers empirical evidence, controlled experiments
 * Scientific data indicates fetuses aren't immediately sentient
 * A quantitative approach to evidence

Potential issues to discuss? Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 14:00, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Definitions of life
 * Legality of abortions in different countries & reasoning behind the laws
 * What does the pope say? What do other priests say?
 * Access to the different kinds of evidence that support/prohibit abortion
 * How does studying different disciplines help with being able to think about both qualitative & quantitative evidence

Theological approach to evidence vs religious opinion
Hi guys, hope your research is all going well I was looking at the theological side of the abortion debate, but I'm finding it hard to find information on the actual approach of theology as a discipline (a lot of it is religious opinion rather than theological study of abortion) Is there any way we could get around this problem? Onchesilbeach (discuss • contribs) 12:13, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I have been able to find theological evidence, for example analysis of interpretations of updates and statements from religious institutions (mostly Roman Catholic, Vatican church) in response to the issue of abortion throughout modern history. I think that there is a good case for theological evidence on a disciplinary level in this topic, but I am open to changing if everyone is more comfortable with another discipline. I think the main thing is that within the issue of Evidence, it's really important to acknowledge the incompatibility of qualitative and quantitative evidence - something that an interdisciplinary approach really lends itself to. Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 12:21, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
 * If you're interested, one of the resources I was looking at - a Georgia Law Review (specifically the abortion part): https://heinonline.org/HOL/SearchVolumeSOLR?view=stp&collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/geolr25&div=33&terms=abortion . Another one was this: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3510981, to quote the abstract "This study examined the relationship of religion and beliefs about the beginning of life to the decision for or against abortion among 58 women with problem pregnancies." It was quite interesting. I think it might be straying out of theology as a discipline and is more about the individuals and the impacts of their religious faith (but the study of how people experience religion is also a topic in theology the discipline so?). A decent amount of my research has also led more to information surrounding the religious impacts in laws / the political realm. Not sure how well that plays into the discipline of theology.Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 12:31, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
 * That sounds good, but as you mentioned that seems to be more about the individuals and not theology as a discipline. I do think the qualitative vs quantitative evidence is worth exploring though, because this week in my ecology module we learned about how different types of evidence can lead to different conclusions on issues such as the "resource curse", and whether wealth from oil(and other natural resources) hinders democracy. Onchesilbeach (discuss • contribs) 18:08, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Moving to another topic after some research on the previous one
Discussions note for the 27/11/2020:

After discussing our research made on the topic of abortion, but also more broadly in the conflict on the definition of life between religion and science, we realize that topic such as abortion or euthanasia were quite complicated to approach in an interdisciplinary way since the line between fact/ evidence and individual opinion was too complicated to draw. Therefore, one member suggested from her geography course to work on the problem of resource in Africa. After discussing that, we ended up talking about instability in Africa. Finally, one other member talks about a book she read on the evidence of political instability in Africa. This book talked about a sociologist tried to prove how this instability was related to petrol by trying to use quantitive evidence. We brainstormed for another discipline to offer a qualitative approach to evidence on this issue, and settled for history. Historical research shows factors like British imperialism plays an important role in the current political instability. Thus, we decided to work on the conflict between History and Sociology to try to explain the political instability in Africa. We came up to the title: Evidence in the resource curse and democratic instability in Africa. Hudsonvalley12 (discuss • contribs)
 * Question, since the case study we refer to with the calculations about the oil is purely mathematical, should we further define the discipline we're dealing with as Applied Mathematics (in Sociology)? I know the approach he takes a sociological approach in terms of the variables he factors in, I'm just wondering if the actual evidence he produces falls more into the category of maths. Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 23:52, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Good point but I think it would fall more into the category of statistics than applied mathematics through the methods and tools he uses to calculate those different variables.
 * I see where you're coming from about the maths, but I don't think we should classify the discipline as mathematics, just because of the use of quantitative evidence. Many scientific disciplines focus on quantitative, statistical evidence such as biology, but we don't say the discipline is mathematics, right? If we are talking about Michael L Ross, he refers to himself as a political scientist and carries out his research in line with the methods adopted by his discipline, so I think this is the discipline we should focus on. What are your thoughts? Onchesilbeach (discuss • contribs) 13:36, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
 * To try to clarify my point: if we were to use the discipline of Applied Maths, we would have to talk about the tension between the way evidence is generated in Applied maths, vs in history. Looking at evidence which is simply quantitative in nature, does not mean that it has followed the methodological approach of generating evidence in applied maths, and does not mean it must belong to the discipline of maths. Does that make sense? It is a fine line I think; the idea of mathematical evidence vs. maths as a discipline. Onchesilbeach (discuss • contribs) 13:40, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

(For further notice we are talking about the essay "Does oil hinder democracy?" by Michael L Ross.) Romarinlavende (discuss • contribs) 13:27, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Just to clarify, we're specifically talking about the issues with how democracy was introduced in Africa during colonial periods right? I'm not sure we can comprehensively cover the impacts of colonialism as a whole, even if it it does all relate back to the current political instability. Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 13:58, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Colonial history
Hello guys, I have noticed that the two parts of our book are not very balanced out. Should we not merge together the first 2 paragraphs in the history section as they generally have the same idea? We could also develop on the Berlin Conference in the introduction as a general contextualisation rather than in the history section. Romarinlavende (discuss • contribs) 09:56, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Hey! I agree, yes I think that is a good idea! I have a bit more to write for the political section so hopefully it will be more balanced then. We could all expand on the introduction a little? Onchesilbeach (discuss • contribs) 11:07, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree, since the resource curse is introduced in the beginning, so should the main argument from the history perspective. @onchesilbeach I'll add a couple lines as well, I found a good link I shared on the doc Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 22:22, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Okay I have just rearranged a paragraph within the history section. However, I still feel like the Berlin Cnference paragraph should be part of the introduction rather than of the history section, but I would like to know what you guys think about it...Romarinlavende (discuss • contribs) 15:28, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

History subsection
Hi guys, looks like it's coming together well! I just wanted your opinions on whether "history" is the best description of the 2nd discipline.

In this subsection, it is stated that the evidence comes from a "sociological point of view", and I agree that the type of evidence mentioned here is more in line with sociology as a discipline. (the content is fine, just the name of the section basically) I know that perhaps sociology and political science may seem very similar, however we just need to focus on their ultimately different ways of generating and using evidence. What does everyone think? Onchesilbeach (discuss • contribs) 14:35, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I personally think that the main discipline concerned is history. It's like how in the political science section the way they generate the evidence is through the use of applied mathematics, but the driving discipline is political science. I do, however, see where you're coming from, and if others think it's more appropriate to label it as sociology then I'm happy with that change. I might also be biased because I've taken history but not sociology, so I might not be as familiar as others as to what it entails. Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 22:26, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I'd rather agree with BLacklipstick, throughout this section we mainly explore the historical factors (events, customs, etc...) which induced socio-political consequences. Therefore, to me, the name History makes more sense than sociology. However, I do get that the phrase you mentioned may cause a bit of confusion so I'll try to reformulate it. Romarinlavende (discuss • contribs) 15:10, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Yep, I agree with you guys! I think the explanation about how evidence is used in history really helped to clarify this! Onchesilbeach (discuss • contribs) 23:36, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

I've pulled this sentence from the history section because it doesn't fit with the rest of the paragraph: It has been observed that natural resources encourage and increase the likelihood of corruption among the elite of the concerned countries. This corruption led to an indeferrence of pro-growth initiatives. Also, natural resource, which creates profit, can obviously create some conflict between groups of people which can lead to an over-armed population. Should this be in the introduction? Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 12:16, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Okay sure that's fine, we need to cut things down anyway. We mentioned conflict as an indicator of the resource curse, which I think is fine since we are focusing on the democracy aspect of the resource curse. Do you think we need more detail?Onchesilbeach (discuss • contribs) 23:36, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

I've spliced most of the paragraphs together so it should read more cohesively @onchesilbeach, but I'm struggling with where to put the information in the 2nd to last paragraph. Relatively important information but I don't know where it would fit best, thoughts? Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 12:51, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Do you mean the 2nd to last paragraph in the Political science section? I think I have moved it to the intro, as further explanation of the resource curse. Is that okay? Happy to hear your thoughts! Onchesilbeach (discuss • contribs) 23:36, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Hi guys, I've edited down the history section but having read through it, I think we could have a greater focus on how the evidence was generated to reach those conclusions such as about colonialism and instability. What do you think, is there anything you've come across in the research which could be added? I will have a look myself as well. Onchesilbeach (discuss • contribs) 13:18, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Political aspect
Hey guys, I found a great article that has a lot of information that would fit in our wiki chapter, here is an abstract:

The fact that oil wealth and authoriatrism are tied together can be explained through 3 mechanisms: a “rentier effect” which comprehend ‘taxation effect” and “spending effect”, through which governments use low tax rates and high spending to use as a argument in order to keep the people on their side, a “repression effect”, by which governments build up their own military forces forces; and a “modernization effect”, in which the failure of the population to undergo certain social changes renders them less likely to push for democracy.

The “taxation effect” suggests that when governments earn enough revenues from oil, they are likely to tax their populations less heavily. Thus, the population will be less likely to demand accountability and representation to the government. The argument on the “spending effect” is that oil wealth may lead to more spending on patronage, which diminished the pressures for democratization. Democracy is wanted in all countries but citizens in oil-rich states allow their governments to spend more on internal security and so can block the populations’ democratic aspirations, for example, the Nigerian army is 34% of the country’s total budget. compare to 2,2% in the UK.

According to the “modernization effect”, the government will use the oil profits to prevent the formation of social groups which are independent of the state and hence which may be inclined to demand political rights from the government. In the latter case, oil inhibits democratization by retarding certain social changes that tend to produce a more accountable government. The modernization argument suggests that democratization comes about when a society is transformed by higher education levels, urbanization, the development of modern communications, and greater occupational specialization. If oil wealth inhibits these social changes, it could also impede the democratization process.

Here is the full article: https://www.afdb.org/fileadmin/uploads/afdb/Documents/Publications/Working_Paper_184_-_Does_Oil_Wealth_Affect_Democracy_in_Africa.pdf Hudsonvalley12 (discuss • contribs)

 * That's great, I was actually just reading the same one! It provides a good summary of the quantitative evidence that has been produced on the issue, and some interesting conclusions as well! I like what you've added to the page about it, and I'll see if theres anything I could add. Onchesilbeach (discuss • contribs) 12:24, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

I think it is a good idea to put it in the intro. It gives a general idea on how does oil have an impact on democracy, but I feel like it's not what our essay is about, since we want to focus on the conflict of evidence. Hudsonvalley12 (discuss • contribs)

Introduction
Quick question, why does the resource curse have it's own title? I think we should either do the same for the Berlin Conference, or leave them both in the introduction. Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 22:28, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I put the resource curse as its own title, because our chapter is about the Resource Curse, so I thought it needed a brief outline. But the facts about the resource curse/ where it came from, is not to do with either of the specific disciplines. We could move it back to the intro, I don't think we need to do the same for the Berlin conference since our chapter focuses is on the resource curse.Onchesilbeach (discuss • contribs) 12:21, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I think we'd be better off merging resource curse and introduction paragraphs together so the subsequent paragraphs clearly show the 2 confronting disciplines. We could go half way and call the 1st paragraph "introduction to the Resource curse" in the case of Africa or something along the same lines...Romarinlavende (discuss • contribs) 14:52, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

I'm struggling a bit with this short paragraph that was in the introduction: In fact, oil-rich dictators have more to lose when giving up that just power. Wealth is a big factor generated by oil profits only the elite benefit and use the money to cement their power by controlling government and its bureaucracy. This draws evidence that the resource wealth prevent any prospects for democracy. I tried to re-write it so it was at least grammatically correct, but I'm not entirely sure what the original author was trying to say. Are "the elite" owners of IOCs or local oil companies? I went to check the source but I can't seem to access more than the abstract, my apologies. Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 12:51, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I think this is mainly about the rentier and repression effect, and was part of the paragraph about possible causal mechanisms for how oil wealth impacts democracy. But since we decided we didn't have the word count to go into detail about the causes, we could remove this paragraph too? I didn't write this part though, so what are the thoughts of the author? Onchesilbeach (discuss • contribs) 12:57, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I see. If we want to keep it, I reckon we should elaborate that, it seems slightly disconnected.Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 13:09, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

The second paragraph that makes up a large portion of the introduction mostly references a single source. I'll find others that support the statements as well so it's clear this is a widely accepted idea. Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 13:09, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Question: I don't disagree with this line from the introduction "authoritarian governments will be less able to resolve domestic conflicts" but can we make this statement without elaborating? Why are authoritarian govs necessarily bad at conflict resolution? Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 14:31, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Editing
Most of our main information is in, we have around 1900 words so we need to cut about 40%. I have a thought: since @romarinlavende and I have done most of the History, and @onchesilbeach and @hudsonvalley12 have done most of the political science part, we should swap for the editing. That way we can make sure that we don't delete any background context that's necessary for a newcomer to understand the topic. What do you guys think? Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 16:14, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Yep that sounds like a good plan! We have quite a few small paragraphs in the sections, maybe we could integrate them together more, so the structure is clearer? Onchesilbeach (discuss • contribs) 16:43, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Sounds great to me! Hudsonvalley12 (discuss • contribs)

Images
I don't know if this is true for everyone else, but I haven't really thought about images yet. Is there anything you guys think we should include to facilitate readers? For the history section I was thinking about at least adding a map that compares Africa's pre-colonial ethnographic map and post-colonial borders, just for clarity. For the political science, are there any statistics or graphs from the main oil/democracy study that reiterate the quantitative quality of the research? Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 14:35, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi! Hope working on this is going well! Me and Hudsonvalley had a brief discussion about this, and were thinking perhaps we could use one of the graphs which best illustrate the conclusions of the quantitative studies. Although maybe we should confirm if have the word space, as any figures need to be captioned and described etc. Onchesilbeach (discuss • contribs) 21:15, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Oh ignore what I was saying! Image captions don't count in the word count so I reckon we should go for it, and chooses ones which help illustrate our points. Onchesilbeach (discuss • contribs) 18:16, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

If you need help putting the graphs in, I can help. We just have to make sure it isn't copyright, like I got mine from wikimedia commons. Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 12:22, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Content for Introduction
Hi guys, the page is looking good! I just edited the paragraph about the causal mechanisms for oil wealth on democracy, in the introduction.(Please feel free to make further edits) Do you think we should also include a brief outline on the tensions between the disciplines? I know we already introduce this in the subsections, but might be good so we are clear about the interdisciplinary tensions from the start? Onchesilbeach (discuss • contribs) 23:28, 11 December 2020 (UTC)


text:
Talk:Issues in Interdisciplinarity 2020-21/Saumya, Emma, Poppy

hey :)

maybe we can do truth in cultural/biological determinisms -enotecaaaa

20/11/2020 - I'm interested in Biology too. We also discussed Psychology, Philosophy, Love, Gender, Mental Health, Forensic Science and decided to focus on the issue of 'Truth'. - 12Tig


text:
Talk:Issues in Interdisciplinarity 2020-21/Evidence in the Propagation of Digital Fake News

12/12 last edit: corrected some punctuation and grammar mistakes. Little rephrasing. References checking. I made sure we were consistent with referencing numbers by always putting them after the punctuation. Our conclusion is clear and covers strong and multiple arguments. We have 1188 words including the titles. I think this version is good to be submitted. What do you guys think? Alwayslearningmore (discuss • contribs) I agree, just had a last read-through myself and I think our conclusion is clear and coherent with the argument we are trying to convey. After our meeting today we realised that there wasn't a lot of altering that needed to be done, mainly just reading through and making sure our body of work is consistent such as the punctuation, referencing style, and ensuring we are under the word count.Knowledge0202 (discuss • contribs) 17:48, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

After our last meeting yesterday, which sadly not everyone could attend, we decided that it was ready to be turned in. Good job guys!--Fiveeurobill (discuss • contribs) 12:20, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

I have included a link to our planning and research document: WikiChapter --Fiveeurobill (discuss • contribs) 15:20, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

11/12 I have read though our entire chapter and made corrections (any spelling mistakes or typos). We were also slightly over the word limit, so I have cut out a couple words from each "discipline" so that we now are slightly under 1200 words. I have also finished correcting all citations so that our referencing part is done.

I rephrased some sentences in each paragraphs to lower the word count and clarify some passages. Alwayslearningmore (discuss • contribs)

10/12 I've added the economic assumption that individuals act rationally into the economics paragraph to make it more coherent with the conclusion where it is also mentioned.Knowledge0202 (discuss • contribs) 20:37, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Conclusion - I approached it with the following structure; interdisciplinary summary - tension and a real, practical example - benefits of working together and a real, practical example - a final line which shows the direction the interdisciplinary collaboration is taking in the future of policy Uclqdeb (discuss • contribs) 13:22, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Capitalization - noticed all the disciplines have been capitalized - I am not sure this is always correct, as per sources like these https://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca/tpv2guides/guides/wrtps/index-eng.html?lang=eng&lettr=indx_catlog_c&page=9x1CsvEwOjcI.html Uclqdeb (discuss • contribs) 13:20, 10 December 2020 (UTC) 12/12: Sorry that was me! I corrected all the capitalized disciplines :) Alwayslearningmore (discuss • contribs)

11/12 I have corrected some of the citations because I think its very important to be consistent with our citation, just to make the chapter look like it was written by 1 author, but also so that the citations are easier to read and follow. We all decided to use the same website and the Vancouver referencing system, however there were still some inconsistencies I have corrected. --Fiveeurobill (discuss • contribs) 12:26, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

10/12 We have decided to change the title of our chapter from "Evidence in Fake News" to digital fake news, as digital fake news spreads a lot faster, especially though social media, and it is the fake news that we as teenagers encounter the most. All of the studies and pieces of evidence also focus on digital media. Before, all of us had our individual "limitations" paragraphs under each discipline but we have also decided to cut this out (due to the word count) but also because we then have more words to focus on limitations in general in our conclusion between discipline, which we think is more important. --Fiveeurobill (discuss • contribs) 12:21, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

9/12 With the analysis and links the text now totals 1,234 words Uclqdeb (discuss • contribs) 21:42, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

9/12 Conclusion aside, the main text has now been cut down to just over 900 words allowing more word count for the interdisciplinary perspectiveUclqdeb (discuss • contribs) 21:15, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

(Response to below) Just changed the title and am working on re-wording aspects with a priority on 1. the flow of the overall text 2. cutting down wordcount 3. keeping our key points precise Uclqdeb (discuss • contribs) 21:02, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

9/12

I think we should change our title to 'Evidence in the propagation of digital fake news' instead of social media as our research isn't specifically looking into fake news in social media but more towards websites, blogs, posts, the internet in general etc.Knowledge0202 (discuss • contribs) 19:38, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

9/12 I've made a few more adjustments to the economics paragraph such as the quotation marks as well as making a few changes to the changes that had been made as it altered the meaning of what was trying to be explained slightly. After the discussion we've had today we also agreed to take out the limitations section of the economics paragraph as it isn't very relevant to the explanation of why fake news propagates. I've also changed the advertising model example to cost per click as it may be more comprehendible to those who do not have a background in economics.Knowledge0202 (discuss • contribs) 16:02, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

9/12 Our word count is almost at 1300 words. Since we haven't finish the conclusion, we should make space elsewhere. Should we erase the limitations paragraphs in the Econ and Sociology ? They don't provide necessary information concerning the focus on the case-study: the production of evidence Alwayslearningmore (discuss • contribs)

8/12 Punctuation convention - after this was brought up in conversation I looked it up and it seems both ', " are valid as long as they are used consistently. Since the majority of our writing uses ' I would recommend we keep this as our quotation marker?Uclqdeb (discuss • contribs) 19:39, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

9/12: I agree, we should use the same quotation marks. I'll update my paragraph.Knowledge0202 (discuss • contribs) 13:04, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

8/12 Following some changes, particularly to the economics paragraph, I wanted to ask whether we should consider looking at the limitations of economics evidence in assessing why fake news propagates in a bit more depth eg: the assumptions of profit maximisation don't apply cleanly and thus although you can build statistical models, other disicplines are needed to fill the gaps these assumptions create ? I believe the CPA and CPC points, although good research, could be removed to clear word count for this - as I believe using CPM as an example is enough (since CPM,CPA,CPC,CPI,CPU and all other advertising metrics are variants of the same thing)Uclqdeb (discuss • contribs) 19:39, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

7/12 I edited the Economics paragraph, only where I thought some formulations were not clear enough. I created a space for the referencing and started referencing the paragraphs I wrote (for now Sociology). Since I just had a surgery, I need to take some time off. Alwayslearningmore (discuss • contribs) 9/12:Thank you for making the changes, the paragraph is more coherent now. Regarding including the other advertising models I'll have another look at the economics paragraph and see whether they definitely need to be included.Knowledge0202 (discuss • contribs) 13:08, 9 December 2020 (UTC) I'm a bit unsure about this sentence "In a similar ecosystem, beneficiaries of fake news include both the people that spread the fake news adverts and the creators of the fake news themselves", the adverts themselves don't necessarily contain the fake news, it's mainly the website owners that benefit from the revenue generated by advertisements and the fact that the more traffic a fake news page has the more likely an advert will be clicked on. I'll change it to 'adverts on the fake news page'.Knowledge0202 (discuss • contribs) 13:20, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

7/12 Some of the research that Ive done so far for the psychology aspect, has included the misinformation effect and false memories. A relevant study I found: Study conducted by five researchers provided more than 3,000 participants with six political news reports, two of which were fake that portrayed campaigners of either side engage in illegal behaviours. The participants were then asked to recall if they remember the events of the six stories or have any memory of them. Close to half of the participants claimed to have a memory of the made-up stories with some even narrating rich details about the event that never took place. The study illustrated the extent to which we can fall for fake news that it may even register in our brains as concrete memories. A key statement of the study stated that it was more likely for people to create false memories about events which aligned with their already held beliefs. --Fiveeurobill (discuss • contribs) 15:17, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

7/12 I've edited our page slightly and have taken out the subheadings for each paragraph, we discussed that they aren't that necessary as we've made sure we have all followed the same structure. It may also decrease our word count slightly as we were slightly over.Knowledge0202 (discuss • contribs) 23:43, 7 December 2020 (UTC) 7/12 Computer science solution paragraph - resolution

Following discussion, we chose to narrow it down to the 3 most comparable disciplines in order to have further wordcount for the aspect of the project linking disciplines. Therefore, we decided not to include this paragraph:

"Computer science is the discipline of understanding computing networks and information processes at a complex theoretical and practical level (1). Computer forensics is the branch of the discipline tackling evidence in digital media; recovering data to check for factual evidence (2). Information, untampered and in the form of data files, is the target outcome for the discipline. This is as opposed to the yes/no conclusions that are seen in traditional forensics and the qualitative or mathematical proof methods seen in other disciplines (3). Digital fake news is an issue in forensic computer science as it goes against laws and regulations (4). The process for identifying news as fake and locating the source is ever-changing in the discipline and rooted in the retrieving of data files as proof. A popular practical implementation solution and the main one approached by social media companies is a fact-checking algorithm that runs elements of the suspect post against all other searches it can find on the Internet. Image tampering and other manipulations of data can be analysed using tools that scan and compare information as well (5). Where the data files may not be “cleanly” retrieved (they have been tampered with, or not all information is available) the discipline would struggle to run its process and achieve objective information evidence (6). In the case of an incomplete investigation, it would require the methods of other disciplines to keep exploring the issue. The algorithms used for this purpose are created by collecting varied interdisciplinary evidence related to the issue of fake news. Thus, the solution in this discipline is partially built from different disciplinary perspectives already."

However, in researching behind this paragraph, we further saw how all solution orientations would necessarily be interdisciplinary! Uclqdeb (discuss • contribs) 14:33, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

6/12 I have uploaded and edited the introduction, the evidence in sociology paragraph and the first draft I wrote for the conclusion. After a meeting with the team, we have concluded that the emphasis I put on policy-making was too important and needed to be balanced out with more content on concrete tension between the disciplines. I used "flagging" as a practical example of a lack of interdisciplinary perspective in policy-making and as a door to argue for the necessity of interdisciplinary to address complex real-world issues. Alwayslearningmore (discuss • contribs)

6/12 After conducting my research on the discipline of psychology I have summarised all of my findings with regards to fake news and evidence in my chosen discipline. I thought it was very difficult to condense it down to 250 words, as we still have to keep in mind that we want to elaborate more on the limitations/tensions of the disciplines in our final paragraph. --Fiveeurobill (discuss • contribs) 13:27, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

6/12 Resolving the issue following a conversation

After speaking to the group we established we would actually just be looking at the issue and then only in the conclusion linking on how these different perspectives affect coming to a solution.

We also concluded that policy-making was a good final assessment to look at in the context of the outcome goals for a theorised interdisciplinary union over this issue. Questioning the specifics overall helped us better refine our approach to this project. Uclqdeb (discuss • contribs) 20:58, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

5/12 Reply to conclusion issue I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "we could consider how these different evidence approaches should affect a user's behaviour, or the curriculum, or platform structure rather than policy". Do you mean "should affect" as how it should change to limit the propagation of fake news? If so I feel that this is exactly what policy-making addresses (and its not only governmental input, we could talk about the tech companies' responsibility) Policy-making looks at different set of Evidence and disciplinary perspectives to inform its decisions. The limits of efficiency of certain policies, we could argue, are due to a lack of interdisciplinary perspective. In our case-study there is no clear and obvious clash between Evidence like there was in the lecture on CCTs. I feel policy-making would make our combining paragraph more pertinent: it highlights both the difficult/ inexistent communication between disciplines and the necessity if interdisciplinary when dealing with complex problems What do you think? I'm also open to anything https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/area/center/isp/documents/fighting_fake_news_-_workshop_report.pdf Alwayslearningmore (discuss • contribs) In the conclusion I think we should also talk about what is being done currently to tackle the issue of fake news, regarding the aspect of what should be done with education and curriculum I think we can draw on our own experiences of how we're taught to know what a good source is/isn't. When researching what fake news is I found an article on BBC Newsround which is aimed towards a younger audience, demonstrating that work is being done on informing individuals at an early age on what fake news is and how to identify it. It would also be important to emphasize that because these disciplines are looking at the issue from a particular perspective, gaps in knowledge may be prevalent as well as difficulty combining the evidence together to form an effective solution. For example from an economic perspective, fake news is propagated due to a monetary incentive whereas in psychology in some aspects more qualitative evidence is collected when looking at pre-existing beliefs- the evidence collected in economics and psychology are looking at completely different concepts and although they are looking at the same issue there is a different perspective as to what needs to be focused on to explain it, therefore there is difficulty in combining this evidence together to form a solution.Knowledge0202 (discuss • contribs) 18:36, 6 December 2020 (UTC) Also could look at how friction is inevitable from the start as there is no communication between these disciplines and how the research being taken is not a "mixed-research" approach. The evidence that is being collected is not designed to be combined with other pieces of evidence. Each discipline contains their own biases, methods of research, terms, frameworks and presentations. This could lead to the idea that if combining disciplines were to occur it would take a significant amount of time as there are contrasting approaches as well as having to adapt to different frameworks and terminologies. I found a really good article which expands on this, however what I've said is quite general so we may need to find a source that is more specific to our fake news issue. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228469056_Issues_in_Mixing_Qualitative_and_Quantitative_Approaches_to_ResearchKnowledge0202 (discuss • contribs) 19:05, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

For the name of the article, I totally agree with your formulation except maybe for the "digital" part (because I don't think the term is exclusive to Social Medias). "Evidence in the Propagation of Fake News through Social Media"???? Alwayslearningmore (discuss • contribs)

5/12 - Question

Should we rename it fake news in social media or digital fake news? The guide for the assesment says: "Something like ‘climate change’ will be far too broad for you to approach meaningfully with the word count you have." So maybe making it "Evidence in the Propagation of Digital Fake News" would be more valid as it seems to be what most of our research collectively has looked at? Uclqdeb (discuss • contribs) 10:29, 5 December 2020 (UTC) I agree we should rename so that our title is more specific, digital fake news seems like a more suitable title as we're focusing on how it's spread via the internet and our research is focused on this.Knowledge0202 (discuss • contribs) 18:13, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

5/12 - the conclusion

Following up from what was earlier discussed, it looks like the conclusion is tending to informing policy making, which makes sense, but why are we prioritising looking at policy over looking at a different outcome - for example, we could consider how these different evidence approaches should affect a user's behaviour, or the curriculum, or platform structure rather than policy - it feels that the policy focus would add yet another consideration to the many we are already tackling - but I'm open to thoughts. A conclusion idea would be identifying areas in which the different approaches to evidence clash, where they reinforce, and then assessing the outcomes that this brings in the context of the propagation of social media fake news.Uclqdeb (discuss • contribs)

30/11 Exploring more specifically to what extent computer science acts as a discipline; led to show it is a relatively new science which hence amalgamates different traditional approaches towards evidence collecting; the classic Western empirisism way, by mathematical proof, by constructing something that works, and by deduction. Even in the more legal side of the computer science discipline (forensic digital science) the results are drawn based on explicit data which is retrieved and hence counts as evidence. Qualitative methods don't seem to apply here. In the context of our project this could be compared to less emperic/ quantitative approaches to fake news identification such as those that arose from another group member's psychology research. Uclqdeb (discuss • contribs)

30/11 Regarding the last paragraph, my guess would be that there will be some differences in effectiveness depending on whether we tackle post-event fake news measures or pre-event fake news. As in, are we (society) looking to get to the root of the issue or looking to find the best ways to manage it? We started off on the idea of post-event (the propagation of fake news as opposed to the existence of it - which might have better fit under "Truth in Fake News"). Uclqdeb (discuss • contribs) 5/12 I've changed my limitations section, instead of looking at the limitations of advertising models I'm now looking at the limitations of profit-maximizing strategies for websites. Found a good article that explains that when websites do not warn users of misinformation they may experience a decrease in user engagement and therefore revenue due to a lack of trust between the user and publisher/website. Later on, we decided that instead of including 'flagging' within the limitations section of the economic paragrpah to include this within the conclusion instead.Knowledge0202 (discuss • contribs) 12:57, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

30/11 I have started doing research for our fourth paragraph: conflicts of Evidence in informing policy-making and edited the preliminary structure of the article. Introduction/ Evidence in Psychology/ Evidence in Economics/ Evidence in Computer Science/ Evidence in Sociology/ we will only keep three main body paragraphs/ Conflicting Evidence: informing policy-making Alwayslearningmore (discuss • contribs) I have found some articles on what large social media websites (such as Facebook and Twitter) are doing to combat the spread of fake news and misinformation through warnings, it has been found that fake news is an issue for social media companies as it can cause a lack of trust, reducing the number of users.Knowledge0202 (discuss • contribs) 13:45, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

29/11 I will write the paragraph on Sociology. Research methods are various and include qualitative and quantitative data applied to the issue of belief and propagation of fake news. It focuses on factors like age, gender, geographical location, education and such. I will demonstrate how sociology offers a complementary stance of FN. We will decide next week if whether we keep the section on Economics or Sociology We also have decided to add structure to our individual paragraphs to create a more unified and comprehensible whole: 1. definition of the discipline 2. Evidence in the discipline 3. application to the problem of fake news 4. limitations Alwayslearningmore (discuss • contribs)

30/11 Decided that within the introduction we should define what fake news is, how/why it spreads and how this is an interdisciplinary issue.Knowledge0202 (discuss • contribs) 12:25, 4 December 2020 (UTC) Draft introduction: Fake news is defined as “news or stories” (BBC, 2019) found on the internet that contain misinformation. Fake news is considered an interdisciplinary issue as multiples perspectives are needed to holistically understand the propagation of it, leading to research being undertaken in Psychology, Sociology, Computer Science and Economics. Tension is present between these disciplines due to contrasting methods of collecting evidence and perspectives, however, it can also be seen that by combining these disciplines together more effective policies can be achieved to combat the issue of fake news and the consequences it may/can cause.Knowledge0202 (discuss • contribs) 18:39, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

30/11 Having done research, I have now been able to form a strong reasoning as to why fake news spreads from an economic perspective, in which advertising models generate an incentive for the production and spread of fake news.Knowledge0202 (discuss • contribs) 12:25, 4 December 2020 (UTC) Today we also discussed what to include in the conclusion: 1. Where there is friction between the disciplines 2. Policies that can/are implemented to solve the issue of fake news We also decided that next week we are going to look at the work we've done so far and which disciplines to definetely include, choosing between sociology and economics.Knowledge0202 (discuss • contribs) 13:42, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

28/11 Today we discussed and assigned disciplines to all members of the group. Since I had the most interest in the psychology aspect of fake news, I will be doing research on that in the following week. We have another meeting set up for next Friday, where we will discuss what we have researched until now. I will specifically be looking for studies in psychology that show how fake news is spread or why people believe it. --Fiveeurobill (discuss • contribs) 13:09, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

28/11 Having done some initial research I found that one of the aspects of a business model in social media is advertising, advertising is the main source of revenue for most big social media companies such as Facebook and twitter etc. It can be seen that the more users a social media company has, the more revenue that can be gained from advertising, each click on an ad generates revenue. I found an article that found that fake news companies may be taking advantage of this as fake news headlines may generate more attention (and clicks on ads), hence, a reasoning for the propagation of fake news. This initial research is leading me to research more into how (quantitiatve and qualitative) evidence is collected to see the impact of fake news on companies and individuals.Knowledge0202 (discuss • contribs) 14:37, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

27/11 Exploring the role of computer science as a discipline in this project led to some unexpected findings. To summarize, it included a focus on computer forensics and started the idea of pre-event and post-event division within the issue of fake news. Are we focussing on preventing it before it is posted or after? This discipline primarily looks at after and interesting results regarding the evidence methods and the time cost of these have arised. Uclqdeb (discuss • contribs) 12:50, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

27/11 Group meeting and developed the ideas of the disciplines we would choose and exchanged results from research so far - we wanted to pick 3 out of the 4 options; Economics; Psychology; Sociology; Computer Science. We weighed pros/ cons, decided to individually do some research/300-word redactions on each to decide next call our “favourites”. We’ll assess favourites in terms of variety of evidence collection approaches between chosen disciplines and how closely they link to the overall issue. Uclqdeb (discuss • contribs) 12:48, 27 November 2020 (UTC) 27/11 Starting to form some research ideas on evidence within economics (in regards to fake news). Will start to look at; how evidence is collected to model the impact of fake news, which economic models are used by technology companies to increase revenue which may promote the propagation of fake news, and how evidence is collected and used to create these models. The plan is to do some initial research and discuss what we have found in a group meeting in order to establish which disciplines we definitely want to include and how to combine them together to see where they may be friction between the collection of evidence in the disciplines.Knowledge0202 (discuss • contribs) 15:45, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

24/11 I have started some research on the discipline psychology with regards to fake news. I have found a couple of studies that show how evidence is used in the discipline of psychology. The studies talk about the misinformation effect or how people often create false memories and interpret them as real if events match up with their already existing beliefs. I think that this is an interesting topic that relates to our chapter and I would be interested in continuing to research it.--Fiveeurobill (discuss • contribs) 14:54, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

(Response to the below)

The conclusion can compare effects from the perspective of various conclusions; policy making, educationally, behaviourally etc. I think we should make sure the conclusion maintains a focus on the overall outcomes of research (which disciplines are more/ less limited in using their evidence methods to assess, limit, prevent or otherwise fake news. Do the discipines complement themselves? Work together? Which discipine dominates maybe? ). Uclqdeb (discuss • contribs)

23/11

I think we should focus on one theme of fake news (for example: covid-19 or climate change) to have a more manageable and consistent running example. What do you think? We need to remember that the guiding thread of our article should be on the confrontation of different types/ different focus of evidence from different disciplines. I think it would be necessary to have a “reuniting” paragraph that addresses how policy-making, for example, should/ does confront the issue of fake news by combining the different sets of evidence and methods/ focus points we highlighted in separate disciplines. --Alwayslearningmore (discuss • contribs) 15:56, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

20/11: first brainstorm

main points of the first session:

-pinpointing our issue

-selecting an appropriate title

-selecting the disciplines discussed

-discussing how Evidence can be treated as an Issue --Alwayslearningmore (discuss • contribs) 14:22, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Evidence in Social Media and the impact on mental health Evidence in fake news Initial Discussion

Initially wanted to focus on social media. Looked at which concept history, truth, evidence, or power would be best suited for this. We decided that evidence would suit this issue well as the multiple disciplines involved in social media have different as well as similar ways of gathering evidence. After some more discussion of our options, we narrowed it down to two main options: looking at social media and its impact on mental health or fake news and why people believe in it and therefore why it spreads (we decided that evidence would also be well suited for this issue, for the same reasons as social media). Finally, we decided to go with the latter choice which was to look at fake news and more specifically why some people believe it.Knowledge0202 (discuss • contribs) 15:45, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

These were some of the disciplines we were considering and might be focusing on in our chapter. 3 of us study economics, so this might be a good one to consider. What makes us believe in fake news? - Psychology (Cognitive biases) - Geography (Demographics) - Education - Philosophy/linguistics - Economics

These are some of the original topics we were discussing: Impact of fake news? --Fiveeurobill (discuss • contribs) 14:55, 24 November 2020 (UTC) Need to also define what fake news is and why multiple disciplines are involved.Knowledge0202 (discuss • contribs) 11:58, 29 November 2020 (UTC) However, we have not fully decided on what aspect about fake news we will focus on. We want to make it as specific as possible.

Challenges in picking the title - during our meeting we spoke about doing; - evidence in fake news itself (linguistics, art, geography) Pros: gives the chance to define as we see fit. Cons: broad and might take too much time to define. - evidence in people believing it (psychology, neuroscience, geography, linguistics) Pros: more specific. Cons: not much variety across disciplines compared to the other suggestions. - evidence in the propagation of it (computer science, econ, psychology, sociology) (Uclqdeb (discuss • contribs) 14:14, 20 November 2020 (UTC))

The final disciplines we chose to focus on are: psychology (both cognitive and biological approaches), economics and we will also be looking at geography (demographics and looking at age,gender, etc. of who believes and spreads fake news). --Fiveeurobill (discuss • contribs) 14:55, 24 November 2020 (UTC) Found that the sociology discipline may be better suited as we may be looking more specifically at aspects such as age, gender, social class, and culture.Knowledge0202 (discuss • contribs) 14:48, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Having social media as an overall orientation, we voted to decide whether to focus on the mental health impact of social media or on the idea of censorship/ fake news. As we all have very different disciplinary background there was a lot of discussion at the beginning to bring thoughts together. The main outcome of this was realising the separate compartments of this project; disciplines and their evidence methods; how these methods interact with other disciplines and their methods; conclusions in the context of our issue. Uclqdeb (discuss • contribs)


text:
Talk:Issues in Interdisciplinarity 2020-21/Evidence in Happiness

In initial Zoom: establishing our interest in happiness (focus on workplace happiness? measuring happiness?). Looking at it within Economics, Neuroscience/Psychology, Anthropology as a basis, might cut these down again/shift focus. For tensions: look between Economics and Anthropology (money vs feeling, Gross Happiness Index vs Ikigai). Make sure to find relationship between different case studies used. Basciscool44826 (discuss • contribs) 14:04, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Economics, look at monetisation of happiness and workplace happiness (Gross Happiness Index, performance outcomes).
 * Neurologically: specific indicators and neurotransmitters? MRI.
 * Anthropology: culturally look at Ikigai, look at Bhutan. Evidence in anthropology/workplace is performance outcomes, and surveys (mix of quantitative and qualitative).