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Studies which look at disaster affected people’s use of communications technologies often fail to take into account people’s communication rights in their analyses, particularly their right to freedom of expression. The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to this issue by exploring the link between freedom of expression, community participation and disaster risk reduction in the use of digital feedback channels offered by aid and government agencies in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan.

Ethnographic fieldwork was undertaken in the Philippines between 2014 and 2015 in Tacloban City and Sabay Island, both in the Visayas, which have been affected by Typhoon Haiyan. A total of 101 in-depth interviews were conducted with affected people, local and national officials, community leaders, civil society groups, telecommunications companies and humanitarian agencies.

The interviews reveal that majority of disaster-affected Filipinos chose not to engage with formal feedback platforms offered by government and aid agencies out of fear of giving critical feedback to those in authority. They were concerned about the possibility of losing their entitlement to aid, of being reprimanded by government officers, and of the threat to their lives and of their loved ones if they expressed criticism to the government’s recovery efforts. Nonetheless, 15 per cent used backchannels while 10 per cent availed of the formal means to express their views about the recovery.

The paper sought to draw links between people’s lack of engagement with the formal feedback mechanisms offered by government and aid agencies in the wake of Haiyan and the restrictive sociopolitical environment in the Philippines. Further research could be undertaken to examine how freedom of expression plays a role in disaster prevention and mitigation. Research into this area could potentially provide concrete steps to help prevent the occurrence of disasters and mitigate their impacts.

Freedom of expression and its place in disaster risk reduction is rarely explored in disaster studies. The paper addresses this oversight by examining the lack of engagement by communities affected by Haiyan with digital feedback channels provided by aid agencies and government. The findings suggest that despite the provisions for community participation in DRR under the Philippine Disaster Law, people are prevented to express criticism and dissent which puts into question the spirit and purpose of the law.

Gratitude is an element of positive psychology that has been found effective in improving subjective well-being and decreasing aggression in offenders. However, there is a dearth of studies on gratitude in ex-juvenile offenders. This study aims to explore the gratitude of ex-juvenile offenders using a photovoice technique.

Photos and stories behind pictures were collected from eight ex-juvenile offenders who reside in Kupang, Indonesia.

Thematic analysis resulted in four main themes: family as an oasis of gratitude, difficulty in social reintegration, strong peer support and gratitude and spirituality.

The results of this study indicated that family, peer support and intensive spiritual activities in prisons were influential in forming a sense of gratitude for ex-juvenile offenders. Interventions need to consider these three aspects to improve gratitude and resulting well-being in ex-juvenile offenders.

This chapter first examines evidence concerning departures of the four flights out of Boston, D.C., and Newark, including identifications of the aircrafts involved, some evidence regarding the flight paths, and then the hijackings. Alleged video evidence at airports for the hijackers themselves is examined, but found to be unacceptable.

The fact of a conspiracy is uncontested by all. Three alternative conspiracy possibilities regarding the planes are examined: the ‘official’ one of suicide hijackers skillfully guiding planes with steeled determination into targets (independent of the hijackers’ identities); use of beaconing or electronic control, similar to ordinary commercial landings, into the targets; and use of ‘drone’ airplanes. The third alternative is not supportable at this time, but the other two are possible explanations, not necessarily equally likely.

The issue of insider trading before 9-11 is addressed. Publicly available data from OptionMetrics are provided and analyzed, indicating that many early reports were not using accurate data. Turning to an academic study in the Journal of Business which relies upon confidential, superior data, the findings are summarized that, indeed, there is evidence of insider trading before 9-11 on American Airlines and United Airlines. Larger concerns of insider trading are also summarized. Lastly, we give brief consideration to the profits certain capitalists make out of 9-11.

Purpose – This chapter examines the problem of belonging for Muslims in the United States in a political environment where Muslims are increasingly represented as a threatening ‘other’ by conservative politicians and right-wing media. The goal is to demonstrate how an emotionally charged event, the murder of three middle class Muslim students in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in 2015, was taken up by the media in ways that reflected sharply contested political agendas and constituted divergent stories and biographies of belonging and stigmatization for the victims, their families and the broader Muslim community.

Approach – The research draws on a wide range of media representations of the murder, including local, national and international news sources and social networking sites. The analysis is based on close readings of this range of stories.

Social Implications – The analysis demonstrates that this murder drew widespread attention in the Muslim community because these particular victims readily became representative of a Muslim ‘model minority’. Despite the ambivalence associated with belonging on such terms, the families and Muslim community used the stories of these murder victims to speak out against negative stereotypes and to remind the American public of the dangers of inflammatory rhetoric.

Originality – The chapter takes an original approach to the problem of belonging by tracing in detail how a single event can generate divergent stories that mark their narrators as belonging in ways that are contested by others, vividly demonstrating the process of différance articulated by Derrida.

This paper aims to analyze the effect of floor level on condominium prices in San Diego, California. The authors determine whether “higher‐floor premiums” exist in the condominium market for a large California city. Further, they investigate how the floor premium varies throughout a building, particularly whether it is quadratic and whether there is a “penthouse premium” for top‐floor units.

The paper utilizes a data set of 2,395 condominium sales occurring in San Diego between 2006 and the second quarter of 2011. Using hedonic pricing analysis, the authors model the housing price as a function of condominium, building and neighborhood characteristics.

The results suggest that there is a higher‐floor premium for condominiums in San Diego. Specifically, an increase in the floor level is associated with about a 2.2 percent increase in sale price. The higher‐floor premium appears to be quadratic in price, suggesting that price increases at a decreasing rate above the mean floor level. The authors also find evidence for a penthouse premium, though this effect disappears once “floor” is controlled for in the model.

There has been little direct research on the floor effect in condominium prices. The studies that have used floor level as an explanatory variable have been predominately in Southeast Asia. The results suggest that the floor effect is more complex than previously modeled.

This research aims to understand how companies communicate their understanding of water-related challenges and their responses to identify new pathways for addressing this challenge to further advance rising interest in water sustainability strategies of corporations.

Through a content analysis of corporate disclosures, this paper identifies the actions and challenges reported by 35 FTSE 100 companies. These are analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively to explore variations in the subject of disclosure and the narrative framing.

The findings identify a clear split across the types of water sustainability reporting according to the industrial sector and subject of disclosure, linking to different narratives used according to legitimacy pressures.

This paper finds that energy, materials and consumer staples sectors consistently outperform other sectors on the reporting of water issues and the scope which is covered. This has implications for the design of regulations and incentives to increase water sustainability management activities in large companies, which currently under-report.

This paper highlights the need for policy implementation to further integrate water-related topics into company reporting and identifies situations where the narrative disclosed may distort the underlying situation that is being communicated.

This paper explores the narratives used in company reporting to identify the challenges related to water sustainability and the actions taken in response. This can contribute to developing a pathway towards increased water sustainability (e.g. through new policy design).

The purpose of this paper is to examine changes in patients' satisfaction after their doctor has participated in a brief educational intervention on medicolegal risk management.

Questionnaire completed by ambulatory patients, measuring satisfaction with their doctor's communication skills before and three months after the doctor participated in a three hour workshop on medicolegal risk management. 75 obstetrician/gynaecologists (O&Gs) and 99 general practitioners (GPs) were each rated by 60 of their patients following a consultation in their clinical rooms.

Patient satisfaction as evidenced by change to “complete satisfaction” with doctor's communication skills and overall satisfaction with the clinical encounter.

Participants had high initial patient satisfaction ratings and these were found to have improved across all parameters three months after the educational intervention.

The educational intervention was successful in improving doctors' communication skills as evidenced by enhanced patient satisfaction in all key areas, including those most frequently associated with patient complaint, litigation and adverse outcome.