When authors submit an academic paper to a journal, they enter into a social contract with editors and peer reviewers. It is generally accepted that information in papers is both confidential and copyrighted; i.e., authors own their intellectual content, and editors and peer reviewers have an obligation to protect it. Here, we question whether it is ethically permissible for peer reviewers or editors to use or share information from a paper submitted to their journal while it is under consideration, or even after the journal rejects the paper. We argue that only verifiable ethical breaches or violations of codes of a journal’s conduct by authors, such as plagiarism or data theft, would allow editors the right to breach the author-journal contract of confidentiality and reach out to other editors, ethics groups, or university authorities to share relevant information from a submitted paper. In any other situation, including the use of generative AI in the review or editorial process, the absence of explicit permission from the authors is an editorial ethical breach and a violation of the publishing social contract. We draw on the ICMJE 2025 recommendations, but consider revisions to them, while highlighting a few case studies.
This commentary reflects on how Ancient Greek Literature is a rich archive of ecological communication. Bringing together classics, comparative literature, environmental humanities, and media studies, we suggest that reading the environment as a text should be understood as an ongoing practice of attunement to human and more-than-human interdependence. Thus, the ancient texts do not merely describe a lost world, but offer an enduring hermeneutics, transforming our contemporary ecological urgency into a dialogue with a deep past that is perpetually present.
This paper examines Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men (2006) through an ecofeminist framework informed by Karen J. Warren’s philosophy. The study explores how the film portrays the intersection between environmental collapse and patriarchal control, revealing how women’s bodies become sites of exploitation and resistance. By analyzing the film’s depiction of infertility, biopolitics, and ecological decay, the paper argues that Children of Men exposes the deep interrelation between environmental degradation and gender-based oppression. Through a close reading of visual and narrative elements, the study highlights how ecofeminist theory can illuminate the ways in which environmental and gender injustices are mutually reinforcing.
The study analyzes repeated offenders of scientific misconduct among authors affiliated with Indian institutions. To do so, we searched the SCOPUS database for retraction notices of articles written or cowritten by such authors. Broad categories of reasons for retractions, institutions, and the types of retracted publications were discussed. Most retractions (12.5% out of 239 retractions analysed) were from authors affiliated with S.V. University. The main reasons behind retractions were ethical misconduct (139, 58.2%) and scientific distortion (43, 18%). About one in ten authors who have at least one article retracted had more than one retracted publication.
This paper examines modal density, a concept introduced in Discourse Analysis by Norris [2004, 2009], in news media. Modal density combines intensity (modal prominence) and complexity (modal interactions), and is believed to vary across media genres and speech acts in climate change communication. Using data from UCLA’s NewsScape corpus, 500 short video clips from genres such as news reports, talk shows, weather forecasts and political speeches were analyzed. The study measured modal intensity and complexity across speech, prosody, and visual resources. Findings highlight differences across genres and speech acts, offering insights into multimodal strategies that promote public engagement with climate change. The study also introduces a quantitative method to compare modal density across genres, which improves our understanding of ecological discourse.
This study critically examines the application of peace journalism principles in South African newspaper coverage of xenophobic violence, focusing specifically on episodes from 2008 and 2015. Utilizing qualitative content analysis guided by Johan Galtung’s peace journalism framework, the research evaluates the extent to which leading newspapers, Mail & Guardian, Sunday Times, The Star, and Daily Sun, contextualized conflicts, avoided binary narratives, amplified marginalized voices, and promoted solutions-oriented reconciliation. Findings indicate significant disparities in journalistic practices, with analytical newspapers such as Mail & Guardian consistently adhering to peace journalism principles through contextual reporting, inclusive representation, and solution-focused narratives. Conversely, tabloids like Daily Sun prioritized sensationalism, reinforcing stereotypes and neglecting comprehensive contextualization. These variations highlight the crucial influence media narratives have on societal perceptions and responses to xenophobic violence. The study emphasizes the transformative potential of peace journalism, arguing for its broader adoption within South African media as a critical strategy for fostering empathy, understanding, and social cohesion. Ultimately, the consistent application of peace journalism principles could substantially contribute to addressing the structural causes of xenophobia and to promoting sustainable peace and reconciliation.
Sport has long been a prominent element of social life, carrying educational, ethical, economic and health-related functions, and shaping lifestyles, fashion and cultural norms. Within this field, sports marketing relies on communication tools directed at key stakeholder groups – fans, sponsors, media and local authorities – in order to build the image of clubs and players, convey positive information and support high attendance as well as a favourable atmosphere during competitions. The present article reports an empirical study of communication structures in top-tier Polish football clubs, focusing on the role of press officers as central actors in club–stakeholder relations. Using a 38-item semi-structured online questionnaire, data were collected from press officers of all 15 Ekstraklasa clubs between August 2023 and February 2024, and analysed with descriptive statistics and logical reasoning. The study examined how organisational and technological arrangements within communication departments relate to the perceived effectiveness of contact with external audiences.The results indicate that dedicated fan-service points, proactive dialogue on social media, and systematic cross-department coordination are jointly associated with a substantial share of the variance in self-reported quality of service, pointing to the need for continuous adaptation of strategies, methods, and communication techniques. The findings underline that enhancing and regularly updating the content and formats of messages addressed to stakeholders is a key route to improving service quality and strengthening the club’s image. Consequently, a thorough understanding of the principles of effective communication, as well as of the specific tools shaping itscourse in contemporary media environments, emerges as a necessary condition for the professional functioning of football clubs at the highest level of competition.
This study examines the moral dynamics and motivations that drive the characters’ decisions to make personal sacrifices and remain loyal in Veronica Roth’s Divergent. It illuminates the depth of their relationships and their unwavering commitment to ethical principles in a dystopian setting. The analysis focuses particularly on the protagonist, Beatrice Prior, tracing the difficult moral choices she faces and the risks she takes for the sake of others. Despite adversity and danger, the characters demonstrate loyalty, selflessness, and a readiness to protect one another, reflecting the human capacity for ethical resilience. To provide a comprehensive understanding of these motivations, the study applies Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory of moral development, which explains how individuals progress through different stages of moral reasoning—pre-conventional, conventional, and postconventional. By using this theoretical framework, the research examines the characters’ moral dilemmas and the reasoning behind their decisions to sacrifice and remain loyal. Through the lens of moral development theory, the study offers insight into the ethical dimensions of sacrifice, loyalty, and moral growth in a dystopian world.
This paper explores the construction of dystopia through posthuman narrative strategies in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five (1969). It examines how Vonnegut employs non-linear structure, metafiction, and posthuman narration to reimagine identity, agency, and the human condition in a dystopian world. Drawing on Zhang Na’s concept of posthuman narrative developed in Posthuman Becoming Narratives in Contemporary Anglophone Science Fiction, the study integrates narratology with posthuman theory to analyze the dissolution of human-centered perspectives. Zhang’s framework emphasizes narratives that lack self-maintenance and evolve through the reader’s engagement, reflecting a relational and hybrid form of subjectivity. Using discourse analysis, the paper demonstrates how Vonnegut’s text disrupts traditional humanist assumptions by blurring the boundaries between human and non-human experience, realism and metafiction, and individual and collective identity. The research contributes to current discussions on posthumanism by showing how dystopian fiction redefines the human in technologically mediated and politically unstable contexts, offering new ways to conceptualize existence beyond essentialist paradigms.
This paper explores the tension between two competing discourses in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale: the dominant ideology upheld by the state and the counter-discourse articulated by the handmaids. The official discourse constructs a covertly colonized community in which individuals are confined to strictly defined roles and spaces. Focusing on the role of religious authority as part of the Ideological State Apparatuses, the paper examines how the theocratic system of Gilead perpetuates control and submission. At the same time, it investigates how the handmaids resist this oppressive order by forming an imagined community grounded in shared suffering, memory, and covert communication. The analysis draws on Michel Foucault’s theory of discourse, Louis Althusser’s concept of ideology, and Benedict Anderson’s notion of imagined communities to interpret how power and resistance operate within Gilead’s social hierarchy. Employing close textual analysis within a qualitative framework, this study demonstrates how language, ritual, and collective identity serve as both tools of domination and subversion in Atwood’s dystopian narrative.
The Internet has become an inseparable part of contemporary society. Few people today can imagine life without using various social media platforms. However, what does the Internet truly offer? The seemingly beautiful and utopian world presented through online photos and videos conceals a darker side. The dangers awaiting users who succumb too easily to this idealized vision can have serious real-life and legal consequences, ranging from data fraud, identity theft, and financial crimes to human trafficking and child exploitation. Online hate speech has also contributed to the psychological and social destruction of individuals who lacked the resources or strength to cope with it. This paper aims to address the question of whether the Internet poses a genuine threat to its users, or whether such concerns merely reflect a dystopian vision of human helplessness in the digital age.
This paper explores the emerging phenomenon of neuroculture and its reflection in contemporary dystopian fiction. It examines the intersection of neuroscience, psychology, and literature, focusing on how modern narratives portray society’s increasing dependence on dopamine-driven stimuli such as social media, psychiatric medication, and consumerist distractions. Through analyzes of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, and My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh, the paper identifies patterns of escapism, passivity, and emotional withdrawal as central features of pleasure-oriented culture. The study adopts an interdisciplinary framework combining semiotics and neurobiology to interpret dystopian literature as both a mirror and a warning signal of collective detachment and mental health crises in the digital age.
This paper explores the dynamic interplay between aesthetics and politics in Suzanne Collins’s dystopian novel The Hunger Games. It examines how the Capitol’s construction of spectacle and propaganda aestheticizes violence and control, while the resistance movement led by Katniss Everdeen politicizes aesthetics to challenge hegemonic power structures. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of Walter Benjamin and Guy Debord, the study investigates how aesthetics function as a medium of both domination and resistance. The analysis focuses on the Capitol’s use of visual and performative elements—from the luxurious costumes of its citizens to the meticulously orchestrated pageantry of the Games—to reinforce its authoritarian rule and legitimize systemic violence. At the same time, characters such as Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark subvert this spectacle through acts of defiance and self-representation that politicize beauty, performance, and symbolism. By weaponizing aesthetics, the protagonists transform tools of oppression into instruments of dissent, destabilizing the Capitol’s narrative and inspiring collective resistance. The paper ultimately demonstrates how art and politics intersect to shape perception, ideology, and social change in contemporary dystopian fiction.
Some libertarian theorists advocate for recognizing easements by necessity. In specific circumstances they would guarantee the right of passage through the land that is already owned. One popular argument in favor of such easements concerns a situation where landowners’ exercise of their property rights prevents others from entering non homesteaded areas and taking them into ownership. The argument holds that a firstcomer who mixed labor with some parcel that blocks access to unowned land de facto owns that land as well. It is argued that such a property right is self-contradictory because the only legitimate method of original appropriation is labor mixing and the firstcomer actually acquires the virgin land without doing so. Easements of necessity are then postulated as a means to rectify this alleged contradiction. In the present paper this argument in favor of easements is examined and refuted.
With a focus on its philosophical and practical consequences for human awareness, this paper explores how artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing interior design. It makes the case that artificial intelligence (AI) can strengthen the emotional bonds that exist between people and their surroundings by defining consciousness as awareness of one’s existence and surroundings. AI may produce individualized design solutions that support residents’ ideals and promote self-expression and well-being by examining user interactions and preferences. However, there are ethical issues with AI incorporation, including the possibility of design homogenization and the possible loss of personal autonomy. The essay promotes a well-rounded strategy that embraces technological advancement while maintaining human agency. It demonstrates through case studies how AI-driven design can represent individual stories and feelings,ultimately adding to the conversation on moral design in the technological sphere.
This paper examines how migrant bodies become sites of crisis within contemporary migration narratives. It analyses the intersections of power, surveillance, and violence in a postcolonial, globalized context, applying Foucauldian discourse analysis to Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West. The study explores how disciplinary power regulates and normalizes migrants through mechanisms of control, including surveillance and the panoptic gaze imposed by host nations. Focusing on key themes such as border crossings, refugee camps, and displacement, the paper highlights the marginalization and objectification of migrant bodies through Foucault’s theory of power. It argues that modern global systems perpetuate new forms of domination and control, shaping migrants’ experiences of vulnerability and identity. Ultimately, the analysis reveals how structural violence and global governance transform migration into a dystopian condition of crisis.
Effective communication is central to the delivery of high-quality maternal healthcare, yet it remains an understudied component in public health systems in low- and middle-income countries. This qualitative study examines the communication challenges between healthcare providers and pregnant women in public hospitals in Bangladesh, with a focus on how these barriers impact maternal health outcomes. Drawing on thirty in-depth interviews with patients and providers, and observational data from four rural and peri-urban hospitals, the study identifies six key barriers: language mismatch, time constraints, lack of empathy, cultural insensitivity, overuse of medical jargon, and gender discomfort. These factors were found to hinder mutual understanding, reduce patient trust, and discourage full disclosure of health concerns. Framed by Habermas’s theory of communicative action and cultural competence theory, the findings illustrate how structural limitations and cultural disconnects intersect to produce fragmented and inequitable care experiences. The study highlights the urgent need for systemic reforms that integrate communication training, gender-sensitive consultation environments, and culturally inclusive practices within maternal health services. By emphasizing communication as a foundational element of care, this research contributes to the growing discourse on improving maternal health outcomes in Bangladesh.
This paper explores the evolution of dystopia from its literary origins to its contemporary digital manifestations, arguing that the genre has transformed from a speculative inversion of utopian ideals into a critical method for interpreting modern reality. By combining literary history (from More, Swift, and Zamyatin to Atwood and Butler), media analysis (film and television), and cultural critique (digitalsurveillance and algorithmic control), the study bridges traditionally distant fields and proposes a synthetic, interdisciplinary framework. Drawing on theorists such as Suvin, Moylan, Claeys, and Zuboff, it contends that dystopia has outgrown its status as a literary genre to become a cultural grammar for reading the world. Through comparative and theoretical analysis, the article demonstrates how dystopia functions as both narrative and methodology—mapping the interplay of power, technology, and identity in the digital age. The study shows that the mechanisms conceptualized in classic dystopias such as Nineteen Eighty-Four and The Handmaid’s Tale—surveillance, linguistic control, and biopolitics—now operate through social media, algorithms, and self-performance. Ultimately, dystopia’s many shapes reveal the humanities’ enduring capacity to interpret and critique our algorithmic, mediated existence.
This study examines the influence of social media influencers in promoting mental health awareness among urban youth in Vietnam,focusing on cities such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Using a qualitative approach based on 20 in-depth interviews with young adultsaged 18 to 30, the research explores how influencer credibility, cultural framing, and engagement patterns shape perceptions and behaviors related to mental health. Guided by the Elaboration Likelihood Model and Source Credibility Theory, the findings reveal that influencers who demonstrate authenticity, emotional transparency, and cultural sensitivity are perceived as more credible and effective. Participants identified strongly with influencers who shared relatable experiences, used familiar language, and addressed common pressures in Vietnamese youth life. While many respondents reported shifts in attitude and increased willingness to engage in mental health conversations, structural barriers such as stigma and limited access to services continued to constrain action. The study concludes that social media influencers can serve as powerful communicators of mental health messages when their content aligns with the cultural values and emotional realities of Vietnamese youth.
The study aimed to investigate the relationship between ICT usage, financial literacy, and digital financial inclusion among the youth in Kampala, Uganda. It primarily aimed to address the existing gap in understanding how these two variables, ICT usage and financial literacy, serve as predictors of digital financial inclusion, particularly among young populations who are often financially excluded. The investigation employed a cross-sectional research design, utilizing primary data collected through structured questionnaires from 294 youths in Kampala. Descriptives, correlation, and regression analyses were used to assess the relationships between ICT usage, financial literacy, and digital financial inclusion. The study’s key findings revealed that both ICT usage and financial literacy have significant positive effects on digital financial inclusion. Specifically, ICT usage and financial literacy were found to explain 42% of the variation indigital financial inclusion. The remaining 58% could be attributed to other factors not included in this study. The findings pose significant implications for policymakers and stakeholders involved in financial inclusion initiatives. The study highlights the critical role that ICT plays in extending financial services to previously underserved populations, particularly in regions with limited access to traditional banking infrastructure. Moreover, the findings underscore the need to integrate financial literacy programs into digital financialinclusion strategies. This approach would not only enhance youths’ capacity to use digital financial tools but also improve their financial well-being by fostering better financial decision-making, saving, and investment behaviors. This study contributes to the body of nowledge by providing further support for the relationship between ICT Usage, financial literacy, and digital financial inclusion among youth. It further unveils a new model that suggests and demonstrates that digital financial inclusion is primarily predicted by ICT Usage and financial literacy, which has not been explored in the digital financial inclusion literature, especially among youth in the context of developing countries. This adds to the Technology Acceptance Model and Systems Theory of Financial Inclusion, which emphasize the importance of technology and financial education in enhancing access to financial services.
