Public and vocal calls by Algerian feminist groups to revise restrictive laws about women during the 2019 Hirak (“protest” in Arabic) were met with physical and online violence from both pro-government and reformist groups. Theories considering the role of public spaces in advancing democratic efforts differ on strategy and method for inclusion of marginalized voices. Through structured open-ended questionnaires with Algerian feminist demonstrators, this study probes the perceived efficacy of various democratic-advancing tactics. Findings show a reticence on the part of Algerian feminists in cultivating open social media spaces or efforts to assimilate into a single public and echo previous findings of those advocating for a more disputed perspective on democracy.

The decline in the number and quality of local news media has led to digital platforms becoming more central in circulating local information, affecting what information and issues are accessible to community residents. We demonstrate this by focusing on health disparities related to COVID-19, examining how both news and non-news civic organizations in six Great Lakes communities addressed pandemic-related racial inequities. Our analysis of interviews and a corpus of Facebook posts suggest that (1) very little discussion of health disparities emerged on Facebook from organizations in these communities, and (2) the majority of this content was produced by local news outlets. This article offers a vision of what local content might look like in the absence of robust local news outlets and highlights potential consequences of local civic information infrastructure with digital platforms playing a central role.

To facilitate greater integration of statistical reasoning and data instruction in journalism and mass communication (JMC) college curricula, this research note advocates designing collective instruction for journalism and strategic communication students organized around the data literacy construct. It introduces a Data Project Lifecycle model that maps statistics, data, and computational skills discussed across the literature, and which can be used in instructional design. Input from 24 journalism and strategic communication practitioners with data experience identifies essential data skills for JMC graduates: spreadsheet wherewithal, fluency in industry-standard software, ability to tell compelling stories with data, visualization, and self-directed learning.

Today's media companies seem to be more intertwined than ever. But are they? Do these "interlocks" affect editors and the content journalists produce? This study uses a three-method design to examine the connections among newspaper organizations and corporations. The network analysis examined the interlocks among newspaper companies' directors. The second phase surveyed editors of newspapers owned by these companies to assess the influence on the newsroom from the board and parent company. In the third phase, news coverage of directors and their affiliated organizations was content analyzed for newspapers whose editors perceived pressure "from above." The network analysis results suggest a monolithic interlocking structure that previous scholars feared. For one-third of survey respondents, corporate parents and the boardroom were seen as influencing the newsroom. These "pressured editors" perceived significantly stronger pressures from the boardroom, "ownership/upper management," and business interests than editors who did not indicate pressure from above. So, how did pressured newsrooms cover ownership and directors? Routine coverage of directors and their affiliated organizations was lacking. Disclosure of a relationship between a director or affiliated organization and the newspaper was disclosed half of the time and traditional journalistic scrutiny was applied less than half of the time.

A series of police killings of unarmed individuals, as well as the resulting #BlackLivesMatter social movement, has focused attention on police use of force throughout the United States. Historically police and media outlets that cover these incidents have tended to individualize situations where police use force on a citizen rather than consider them from a systemic approach. This qualitative content analysis attempts to demonstrate that calling these incidents by the controversial term officer-involved shooting gives journalists a common reference point for broader discussions about police use of force, race, and accountability, although it also represents a shortcut for reporters who rely primarily on police for information about crime and public safety.

Background: The results of meta-analysis studies and randomised controlled trials (RCTs) published in the last 10 years were collated and the effect of tea consumption on measures of cardiovascular disease (CVD) was considered. Methods: PubMed was systematically searched for relevant meta-analysis papers and RCTs. Inclusion and exclusion of studies, data extraction, and quality assessment were conducted according to the PRISMA statement. The Jadad criteria was applied to decipher the quality of RCTs. Results: Findings from 19 meta-analysis and 23 randomised controlled trials (n=1,422 participants) were evaluated. Clear evidence was found for blood pressure where 4 to 5 cups of black or green tea daily related to risk reduction. Moderate evidence was of a positive effect of green tea and its associated catechins on total and lowdensity lipoprotein (LDL) reduction. Growing evidence indicates that tea drinking could protect vascular health and reduce inflammation. A wider range of tea forms (chamomile tea, goishi tea, hibiscus tea, sour tea, rooibos tea) are increasingly being studied and also appear to have potentially favourable effects on markers of CVD. Conclusion: Tea drinking appears to play a significant role in blood pressure reduction, particularly amongst those with prehypertension or hypertension. Green tea has beneficial effects on total and LDL cholesterol reduction. Tea drinking in general appears to aid vascular function and the reduction of inflammation. Ongoing long-term trials are needed especially in relation to other tea forms alongside black and green tea.