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Hardly a day went by in the summer of 2018 without a report on the continuing water scarcity at the time in Switzerland. Again and again, newspapers, radio and television were coming up with questions like: "How much water do nature, agriculture and people need?", "How can we find ways to save water?" and "Which regions have the least water reserves?" On the other hand, Swiss municipal governments, cantons, engineering firms, NGOs and public sector agencies appear to be less concerned with the relationship between water scarcity and water-saving measures.

Hardly a day went by in the summer of 2018 without a report on the continuing water scarcity at the time in Switzerland. Again and again, newspapers, radio and television were coming up with questions like: "How much water do nature, agriculture and people need?", "How can we find ways to save water?" and "Which regions have the least water reserves?" On the other hand, Swiss municipal governments, cantons, engineering firms, NGOs and public sector agencies appear to be less concerned with the relationship between water scarcity and water-saving measures.

People who frequently engage with multiple types of media at once performed worse on simple memory tasks, according to the last decade of research. However, it's still too soon to determine cause and effect, says psychology Professor Anthony Wagner. The smartphones that are now ubiquitous were just gaining popularity when Anthony Wagner became interested in the research of his Stanford colleague, Clifford Nass, on the effects of media multitasking and attention.

VUB thesis exposes power dynamic in doctor-patient relations The internet as a source of information about health is no panacea for creating patient empowerment. That's the conclusion reached by Edgard Eeckman in the doctoral thesis he defended at VUB's Communication Science faculty. He researched the power balance in the doctor-patient relationship and the influence of online and offline information about health, in a study that reveals the power dynamics associated with being ill.

Authentication on certain websites via Facebook or Google accounts can be risky, but use of a browser extension from TU Wien eliminates the problem. We all knew this familiar scenario: to be able to use specific features of a website you need to log in, but creating an individual account for every single site is tedious.

Cambridge University Press has revealed the results of its global study into the language used around the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia. The huge amount of language data we've collected and analysed gives us fascinating insight into the mood surrounding the World Cup. Laura Grimes There has been no shortage of surprises during this year's competition, and this shines through in the language data.

European countries do not appear to feel threatened by the United Kingdom's decision to leave the European Union, a study of media coverage of Brexit has revealed. The study, based on coverage in 39 media outlets in France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Spain and Sweden, found that most Brexit reporting was neutral and fact-based.

Communication scientists show that word choice in media reports on suicide has a measurable impact on public opinion. In an empirical study published in Social Science & Medicine , an international team of researchers from the University of Munich, KU Leuven and the Medical University of Vienna show that the specific German word used in media reports of suicides has a measurable impact on how readers perceive and evaluate the act of suicide.

Older adults are largely obscured in the media representation of cancer and cancer experience, despite over three quarters of all cancers in the UK diagnosed in those aged over 60. The research, led by the University of Glasgow and funded by Cancer Research UK, found that articles featuring personal cancer stories more frequently focus on younger people.

New research from The Australian National University (ANU) has looked at the use of humour on Twitter during the 2016 US Presidential election. The study found that 35 per cent of election related posts used humour, and that Hillary Clinton supporters were almost three times more likely to use jokes than Donald Trump supporters.

With real-time web analytics, journalists and editors now know more about traffic to their stories than ever before. But it doesn't always result in the best stories. Angèle Christin explored the influence of these metrics in an American and a French newsroom. We've all been lured by captivating headlines from online news publications: You'll never believe it.

A new study by three MIT scholars has found that false news spreads more rapidly on the social network Twitter than real news does - and by a substantial margin. "We found that falsehood defuses significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth, in all categories of information, and in many cases by an order of magnitude," says Sinan Aral, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and co-author of a new paper detailing the findings.

Just a year ago, on the 22 February 2017, at a press conference at NASA headquarters, an international team of researchers revealed the existence of a unique exoplanetary system, made up of seven planets orbiting a small nearby star. Known as TRAPPIST-1, this system created a hug buzz on the Web, in the media, and within the scientific community.

 New Oxford University research suggests that social media and the internet are not the root of today's fragmented society, and echo chambers may not be the threat they are perceived to be. In fact, only a small proportion of the population, at most, is influenced by echo chambers. The argument against echo chambers is well documented: helped by social media algorithms, we are increasingly choosing to interact in safe spaces, with people who think and act like us - effectively preaching our opinions to the converted.

Nearly 80 per cent of all scenes throughout season 11 of MTV's popular hyper-reality show Geordie Shore contained alcohol content or alcohol use according to the results of a new study published today by researchers at the universities of Bath and Nottingham. The authors behind the paper - published in the journal Alcohol & Alcoholism - suggest that more needs to be done to protect young viewers from alcohol imagery and its harmful effects, including a potential review of age classification policy for the programme.

ANN ARBOR-Preschoolers who spend more time watching television, playing video games or using computers-especially if they're sneaky at bedtime-get less sleep, say University of Michigan researchers. Increased media use is linked to a shorter night sleep and a longer daytime nap for preschoolers, according to a new study by Jessica Moorman and Kristen Harrison of the U-M Department of Communication Studies.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The more you know about the news media and how it works, the less likely you are to believe conspiracy theories - even ones you might find politically tempting. That's the conclusion University of Illinois journalism professor Stephanie Craft and her research colleagues reached in a study being published next month in the journal Communication and the Public.

Worldwide survey of antibiotics researchers indicates uncertainty about number of deaths - New survey tool helps gather global expert opinions on existential issues No 316/2017 from Nov 15, 2017 Researchers say that it is difficult to quantify the true extent of the threat of antibiotic resistance for humanity.

Reading the news, posting holiday pictures, or watching cat videos on YouTube - the internet can be used for many things.

Watching television or playing with smart phone apps does not have any effect on children's language development - providing they still spend time reading, researchers have found. A study from the University of Salford and Lancaster University, published in the Journal Of Children And Media , has found that as long as parents or carers spend time reading with young children, and this time is not reduced in place of television or touchscreen devices such as iPads, children's exposure to these media should have no effect on the size of their vocabulary.