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3 Amnesty International: The NGO That Made Human Rights Important

• Published: July 2012
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This chapter focuses on Amnesty International, the classic case of an NGO which has a centralized system for proposal and enforcement powers and a decentralized system for implementation. Amnesty forged a structure and a technique that led to its political salience as an important agenda setter in terms of both ideas and organizational salience during the Cold War. While previous transnational organizations had largely struggled with centralized agenda setting, Amnesty was the first to have a strong central office—the International Secretariat—which controls proposal and enforcement powers of the agenda despite strong national sections throughout Europe. Since the end of the Cold War, this body has gone through some changes, which have solidified the Secretariat's agenda-setting powers.

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Amnesty International

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• Regina List 4  

175 Accesses

Address of Organization

International Secretariat 1 Easton Street London WC1X 0DW UK www.amnesty.org

Introduction

Amnesty International (AI) describes itself as a “worldwide movement of people who campaign for internationally recognized human rights.” AI has grown into one of the largest international NGOs with more than 2.2 million members, supporters, and subscribers in over 150 countries and territories.

Brief History

Amnesty International’s work began in 1961 when British lawyer, Peter Benenson, launched the “Appeal for Amnesty” with the publication of a widely reprinted article that brought attention to those imprisoned, tortured or executed because their opinions were unacceptable to government. Several months after the article’s publication, delegates from six European countries and the United States agreed to establish a permanent international movement to defend freedom of opinion and religion, and in 1962, delegates from 14 national groups decided to set up the organization...

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References/Further Readings

Clark, A. M. (2001). Diplomacy of conscience: Amnesty International and changing human rights norms . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

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Hopgood, S. (2006). Keepers of the flame: Understanding Amnesty International . Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Power, J. (2001). Like water on stone: The story of Amnesty International . Boston: Northeastern University Press.

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Centre for Social Investment, Universitaet Heidelberg, Schillerstrasse 4-8, Heidelberg, 69115, Germany

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University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

Helmut K. Anheier

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George Mason University, Arlington, VA, USA

Stefan Toepler

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List, R. (2010). Amnesty International. In: Anheier, H.K., Toepler, S. (eds) International Encyclopedia of Civil Society. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-93996-4_303

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Articles on Amnesty International

Displaying 1 - 20 of 27 articles.

After 50 years of global effort to abolish torture, much work remains

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Associate Professor of Public International Law, University of Copenhagen

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Effectiveness of Amnesty International on sustainable protection of Human Rights

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• Take Action

Banned Books Week 2024

From september 22-28, 2024, amnesty international usa will spotlight 13 cases highlighting individuals or communities whose human rights are under attack because of their work as authors, journalists, bloggers, filmmakers, poets, novelists, photojournalists, publishers, academics, musicians, and librarians., themes & cases.

Graffiti Artists

• Pierina Nochetti , Argentina
• Aleksandra Skochilenko , Russia

Artists & Art Collectives

• Chen Pinlin , China
• BK-16 , India
• Toomaj Salehi , Iran

Social Media Contributors

• Manahel al-Ataibi , Saudi Arabia
• Kamile Wayit , China
• Ana da SIlva Miguel, Angola

Librarians, Scholars, and Educators

• Unite Against Book Bans , USA
• Etienne Fakaba Sissoko , Mali

Journalists & Media Workers

• Alberto Amaro Jordan , Mexico
• Maria Ponomarenko , Russia
• Nidal al-Waheidi & Haitham Abdelwahed , IOPT

Jump to Banned Books Week Resources

Amnesty International calls attention to human rights violations perpetrated against graffiti, street, and protest artists whose work may sometimes constitute vandalism or nuisance violations. While Amnesty International supports the right of governments to enact laws intended to discourage vandalism, human rights standards call for them to be applied equitably, without discrimination based on political perspective or social status, and carry sanctions not disproportionate to the harm caused by the alleged violation.

Pierina Nochetti

Graffiti artist facing 4 years in prison.

Pierina Nochetti, Argentina, is facing up to 4 years in prison (as of March 6) and facing criminal charges of “aggravated damage” for painting graffiti in a protest questioning the disappearance of a young trans man.

Online Petition    Case Sheet   Sample Letter   PDF Petition

Released! Aleksandra Skochilenko

Protest artist sentenced to 7 years in prison.

Alexandra / Aleksandra (Sasha) Skochilenko , Russia, replaced price tags in a local supermarket with small anti-war labels. She was been sentenced to 7 years in prison as a prisoner of conscience. But on August 1, 2024, Alexksandra was released from prison as part of a prisoner swap between the U.S. and Russia.

Artists, including poets, musicians, songwriters, visual artists, and film artists, regularly raise the ire of governments. Artists may also form groups that align and champion political perspectives unpopular with a government. The members of such movements are at particular risk for human rights violations, yet they also create effective spaces for people to join together in the community and advance social change. During Banned Books Week 2022, Amnesty International drew attention to Cuban San Isidro movement members [online book] who faced long prison terms for their art and political perspectives. Amnesty International has also noted the contributions of collectives such as the Kauda Drama Collective in Sudan, various collectives advocating for gender justice and diversity in the Americas, youth collectives in Brazil, the Fearless Collective in Lebanon, and others.

Chen Pinlin

Documentary filmmaker facing 5 years in prison.

Chen Pinlin is the director of the documentary ‘Urumqi Middle Road’ (乌鲁木齐中路), which captures scenes from the nationwide “White Paper Movement,” a series of peaceful protests against three years of rolling lockdowns under China’s zero-COVID policy and the harsh environment of censorship and surveillance in China. Chen uploaded the documentary to the Internet around the one-year anniversary of the White Paper Movement. He was arrested on January 5, 2024, and is being held in the Baoshan Detention Centre in Shanghai on charges of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” Chen may face five years in prison if convicted. 

16 Artists, Academics, and Writers detained for Human Rights and CIvil Rights work for Marginalized Communities

Human Rights defenders collectively known as the BK16 have used their professional and creative voices to advocate for human and civil rights, against the caste system, and for cultural, religious, and linguistic pluralism. According to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, they have been detained for their human rights and civil rights work for marginalized religious communities. Artists swept up in the BK16 arrests include: Varavara Roa, poet; Arun Ferreira, cartoonist; Sudhir Dhawale, publisher and actor; and members of the Kabir Kala Manch cultural group: Ramesh Gaichor, Sagar Gorkhe, and Jyoti Jagtap.

Toomaj Salehi

Rapper and hip hop artist Toomaj Salehi was arrested in October 2022 solely in relation to his participation in protests during the “Women Life Freedom” uprising and his criticism of the Iranian authorities’ human rights violations and executions and calling for human rights and freedom for the people of Iran. He was sentenced to death after being convicted of “corruption on earth.”  His trial was grossly unfair, and authorities dismissed his complaints of torture, including electric shocks, death threats and repeated beatings resulting in bone fractures and vision impairment in one eye.

In June 2024, Iran’s Supreme Court overturned the conviction and death sentence. However, Toomaj remains in Esfahan Central Prison and is facing a suite of spurious new charges including “spreading propaganda against the system,” “insulting religious sanctities,” and “spreading lies with the intention of disturbing public opinion,” which could result in the imposition of a long prison sentence.

Social media is a dangerous place for people in many countries to express their opinions. Authorities have enacted laws that allow officials to arbitrarily determine what may constitute criminal behavior based on ill-defined notions such as “fake news,” “morals,” “threats to national security,” or “terrorism.” Such vague laws become a tool for controlling what people can discuss. They give authorities the power to censor uncomfortable information and determine what is true or false, offensive, dangerous, or seditious in ways that enable them to target dissenting and critical voices.

Manahel al-Ataibi

Fitness instructor & social media influencer sentenced to 11 years in prison, saudi arabia.

Manahel al-Otaibi , Saudi Arabia, is a 29-year-old fitness instructor sentenced to 11 years in prison in connection with her social media posts. She was charged with violating the Anti-Cyber Crime Law due to her tweets in support of women’s rights and posting photos of herself at the mall without an Abaya (a traditional loose-fitting long-sleeved robe) on Snapchat.

Kamile Wayit

Uyghur university student sentenced in 2023 after posting video on wechat.

Kamile Wayit , China, is a 20-year-old Uyghur female university preschool education student. She has been detained since December 2022 and sentenced on March 25, 2023 under the charge of “promoting extremism” after posting a video on WeChat about the November 2022 “A4 protests” in China and the related nationwide peaceful protest. The protest aimed to commemorate victims of the Urumqi Fire.

Ana da SIlva Miguel

Social media influencer sentenced to 6 months in prison.

Ana da Silva Miguel (also known as Neth Nahara), Angola, a 31-year-old TikToker and digital influencer, uses her social media to comment on current issues in Angola, mainly involving famous artists and politicians. In August 2023, she was convicted to 6 months in prison for the crime of ‘outrage against the state, its symbols, and bodies’ for recording a live video on TikTok criticizing the president. Following an appeal by the public prosecutor on September 27, her 6-month sentence was increased to 2 years in prison. 

Librarians, scholars, and educators are information professionals who may become the target of authoritarian regimes, populist movements, and other forces in society because of the work that they do to research, retain, or provide information. The free flow of information is a foundational principle of human rights and is essential to the full realization of the rights articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  

Etienne Fakaba Sissoko

Academic and author sentenced to 2 years in jail following book publication.

Etienne Fakaba Sissoko, Mali was convicted on charges of defamation, damaging the state’s reputation and distributing fake news. He was sentenced to two years in jail, with one year suspended, and a fine of XOF 3 million (approximately 4,500 Euros). A notable government critic and scholar, Etienne Fakaba Sissoko, was arrested after the publication of a book in which he denounced alleged propaganda in the Malian government’s public information campaign. His arbitrary detention is in violation of his right to freedom of expression. He must be immediately and unconditionally released.

Unite Against Book Bans

There are widespread efforts across the U.S. to censor and ban books that include content related to race, gender, sexuality, and LGBTQIA+ subject matter, including in public schools and libraries.

Librarians and teachers are also being targeted in light of the publications they use to support their work, including elevated incidents of threats and harassment as well as police reports filed against library staff. These reports mirror serious challenges to freedom of expression found in authoritarian regimes elsewhere in the world.

The bans are extremely concerning — because freedom of expression and access to education are human rights. Removing and banning books from public schools and libraries is a slippery slope to government censorship, and erodes the U.S. government’s obligations to human rights.

Journalism is fundamental for sustainable development, human rights protection, and a robust civil society. Journalists, media professionals, writers, and activists all play a crucial part in maintaining freedom of expression and holding the powerful to account. Worldwide, however, journalism remains a dangerous and, too often, deadly profession. Journalists are increasingly threatened, physically assaulted, jailed on trumped-up charges, or killed. Numerous reports and studies confirm that threats inordinately affect women journalists and those who represent minority groups. Nine times out of ten, the murder of a journalist is unresolved.

Alberto Amaro Jordan

Journalist repeatedly attacked due to work.

Mexican journalist Alberto Amaro has denounced several serious attacks in the last five years due to his work. Since 2019, Amaro has been beaten, threatened, and arrested by police officers, intimidated by alleged members of a drug cartel, suffered an attempted break-in, and had shots fired at his house, among other attacks. Despite all this, in August 2023, the Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists determined that he was no longer in danger after four years enrolled in the Mechanism and told him it would be withdrawing his four bodyguards.

Alberto Amaro’s security situation must be immediately reassessed, in consultation with him, and guarantees made that his existing protective measures are not withdrawn, and any additional measures that are needed to guarantee his safety must be granted, given the level of risk he faces. Authorities must investigate any attacks against him. 

Maria Ponomarenko

Journalist and blogger sentenced to 6 years in prison following  telegram  post.

Maria Ponomarenko is an activist, blogger and a journalist from Barnaul, Altai Krai, who worked for the online media outlet RusNews. On April 23, 2022, she was arrested by the police under Article 207.3 (2) (d) (“Public dissemination of knowingly false information about the Russian Armed Forces committed with motives of hatred or enmity”).

The “false information” she was accused of disseminating was a March 17 post (which has since been deleted) in her Telegram channel about the bombing of the Donetsk Regional Academic Drama Theatre in Mariupol, Ukraine by Russian forces, which killed hundreds of civilians.

In February 2023, Maria was sentenced to six years imprisonment. Maria is a prisoner of conscience.

Nidal al-Waheidi and Haitham Abdelwahed

Journalists & photojournalists detained since october 2023 in conditions constituting enforced disappearance, israel and occupied palestinian territories.

Nidal al-Waheidi and Haitham Abdelwahed are journalists from the occupied Gaza Strip. Both were detained by Israeli forces on October 7 while they were reporting the Hamas-led attack and are held in conditions constituting enforced disappearance. Since then, Israeli authorities have refused to disclose their whereabouts or the legal grounds and reasons for their arrest. As of December 2023 no information has been shared about their fate or whereabouts. Israeli authorities must immediately disclose their whereabouts and the legal grounds for their arrest, grant them access to legal representation and ensure their humane treatment. Unless charged with an internationally recognized criminal offense, they must be immediately released.

Banned Books Week Virtual Launch Event

Challenges to freedom of expression: how governments are reinventing censorship in the 21st century.

Join us for a dynamic virtual event exploring the critical issues of freedom of expression and censorship in the 21st century. This event will feature a panel of experts, including scholars and artists, who will delve into the role of social media in amplifying or silencing voices, the impact of government regulations and corporate policies on free expression, and the ethical dilemmas surrounding the spread of disinformation. Participants will have the opportunity to engage in interactive Q&A sessions, share their perspectives, and explore how we can protect freedom of expression while also protecting Human Rights.

Date & Time : Thursday, September 19, 2024, 8pm-9:30pm EST

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Good news from Banned Books Week

Aleksandra released, on august 1, 2024, alexksandra was released from prison as part of a prisoner swap between the u.s. and russia. aleksandra’s birthday is september 13th; send her a greeting card, mail cards to: aiusa, 89 south street, boston, ma 02111.

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• Essay on Elections

Research Paper On Amnesty International

Type of paper: Research Paper

Topic: Elections , Violence , Human Rights , Torture , World , Children , Technology , Women

Words: 1300

Published: 11/15/2019

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Introduction

Amnesty International (AI) is an IGO (Intergovernmental Organization) which boasts of a global membership in approximately over 150 countries and a total of approximately three million members (Amnesty International, 2011). Its main area of interest is in protection of human rights and campaigns to stop crimes against humanity. The vision of Amnesty International describes a world where all individuals enjoy international standards of human rights as per the International Declaration of Human Rights. AI is independent of any religious, political, governmental or economic interests.

History of Amnesty International

AI began in 1961 as a result of the outrage of a British lawyer called Peter Beneson. He was outraged when he learnt of the arrest of two students from Portugal who had been arrested for making a toast to freedom. He wrote an article named ‘The Forgotten Prisoners’ which was published and reprinted in various newspapers across the world (Amnesty International, 2011). This led to the global campaign known as ‘Appeal for Amnesty 1961’that drew international reactions to the plight of the two students. This appeal led to the formation of Amnesty International, an international movement aimed at defending individual liberty of opinion and of religion.

The 1960s saw the establishment and expansion of the membership of AI. In this period, AI was involved in the rights of prisoners. The Prisoner of Conscience Fund was established in 1962 so as to give prisoners and their family members some relief and advocates for the release of prisoners of conscience. By the end of the 1960s, over 2000 prisoners were released as a result of efforts by AI. The 1970s witnessed the continual growth of AI and in 1972; a global campaign to end torture was established. In 1975, the United Nations adopted a Declaration on Torture which was advocated by AI. In 1979, AI became involved in efforts to prevent political killings and began this campaign by publishing approximately 2665 names of people who had disappeared in Argentina after a military coup by Jorge Videla (Anna, 2011).

In the 1980s AI continued its campaigns established in earlier years. In 1985, an educational pack on human rights was published. The 1990s saw AI expand its operations to include hostage situations, discrimination due to sexual orientation and human rights abuses by armed militia or groups. In 1997, AI began its campaigns for the rights of refugees from all over the world. In the 2000s focus also expanded to women’s rights with the ‘Stop Violence against Women’ campaign being established in 2004 (Parry, 2005, 356). In 2009, AI launched the campaign dubbed ‘Demand Dignity’ which advocated for corporate accountability, maternal mortality and formulation of rights laws.

Contributions and Success of Amnesty International

Amnesty International is a global movement with members from all walks of life. Since inception, AI took upon itself the Herculean task of advocating for the rights of all individuals. The membership of AI has grown to over two million members. It began by advocating for the rights of prisoners of conscience like political prisoners. This led to the release of over 2000 prisoners by the close of the 1960s in a number of countries globally with more releases continuing into the following years. The campaigns by AI have been instrumental in securing the release of political prisoners by making their cases public and subject to international condemnation. The campaign to end torture, which was launched in 1972, has been instrumental in the reduction of torture across the globe. Their campaigns led to the formal denunciation of torture by the United Nations with the UN passing a Declaration on Torture in 1975 (Mutua, Terlingen and Vega, 2008, 331).

The contributions of AI globally can be appreciated in regions as the issues are region- specific. In Africa, AI has been instrumental in fighting for the rights of civilians as the continent has faced many armed conflicts. Examples include resolved conflicts in Liberia, Angola, Southern Sudan, Rwanda and Angola and those currently in progress like Libya. Whether resolved or in progress, these conflicts lead to long term human rights abuses. AI has worked with other bodies like the African Union and the UN to mediate for peace treaties and to advocate for reduced civilian casualties in addition to maintaining the dignity of human life even in war situations. It has also been instrumental in advocating for the rights of women, children and refugees on the continent. Through the efforts of AI and other interested parties, the death penalty was abolished in Rwanda, and while several other countries may still give the death penalty, campaigns by local AI and other interested groups lead to a reduction into life sentences (Amnesty International, 2011).

In the Americas, human rights have become largely embraced, and return to civilian rule in many states in contrast to military rule has caused a corresponding reduction in extrajudicial killings and political assassinations. The biggest debate with regards to human rights is the anti-terror war. Terror suspects being held in prisons like Guantanamo Bay where they are subjected to torture and lack of trials. While AI and other bodies have campaigned vigorously for the rights of these suspects, they continue to be detained and subjected to torture like sleep deprivation, waterboarding and others. Latin America has reported great progress in reducing violence against children and women. Many Asia-Pacific countries have recently attained independence and therefore aspire to achieve a state of human dignity. AI advocated for the respect of human rights in some regions when they were in conflict like Myanmar. AI is part of the bodies which are advocating for the respect of human rights, including women and children. In some countries, the rights of women are greatly violated as they are forced into prostitution through human trafficking in addition to violence and other violations. Asia-Pacific countries have recently become part of the Human Rights Council where they have vowed to uphold human rights. AI will be instrumental in monitoring and advocacy. The Middle East and North Africa has not made great strides in upholding human rights because of complex reasons. AI reports that its efforts and those of interested bodies to advance human rights have been misinterpreted as an attempt to ‘westernize’ them. In 2008, the Arab Charter on Human Rights was put into action; however, it has not prohibited child execution which is in contravention of international human rights laws. Europe and Central Asia are considered a leader in the preservation of human rights. AI has played a significant role in enhancing accountability, and encouraging the upholding of human dignity (Rouke-Boyer 2011, 282). In this region, AI has played a role in fighting for the rights of refugees, reducing domestic violence, fighting racial discrimination and human trafficking. In countries like Turkey, Chechnya, Russia and Uzbekistan, AI has been instrumental in advocating for freedom of expression.

Since inception, AI has been at the forefront in advocacy for human rights and its membership has increased to over two million globally. AI is associated with the advances in human rights and its enforcement. As a result of its efforts, many milestones have been reached in different regions. While AI advocacy has been more successful in certain regions than others, it continues to advance its work because no region can claim to be perfect in the observation of human rights.

Amnesty International, Accessed ,26 May 2011, ‘Amnesty International’, www.amnesty.org. Anna Tomforde. "Amnesty urges backing for Arab Spring "human rights revolution"." McClatchy - Tribune Business News 13 May2011. Mutua, M., Y. Terlingen, and C. de la Vega. "Just Back From the Human Rights Council." American Society of International Law. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting (January 1, 2008): 329-338. Parry Ann. Humanitarian Organizations: Amnesty International. (South Yatta: MacMillan Education, 2005) 354-370. Rouke-Boyer. International Politics on the World Stage, Brief. (New York: McGraw Hill Companies, 2011) 131-383.

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NASA Discovers a Long-Sought Global Electric Field on Earth

• A rocket team reports the first successful detection of Earth’s ambipolar electric field: a weak, planet-wide electric field as fundamental as Earth’s gravity and magnetic fields.
• First hypothesized more than 60 years ago, the ambipolar electric field is a key driver of the “polar wind,” a steady outflow of charged particles into space that occurs above Earth’s poles.
• This electric field lifts charged particles in our upper atmosphere to greater heights than they would otherwise reach and may have shaped our planet’s evolution in ways yet to be explored.

Using observations from a NASA suborbital rocket, an international team of scientists has, for the first time, successfully measured a planet-wide electric field thought to be as fundamental to Earth as its gravity and magnetic fields. Known as the ambipolar electric field, scientists first hypothesized over 60 years ago that it drove how our planet’s atmosphere can escape above Earth’s North and South Poles. Measurements from the rocket, NASA’s Endurance mission , have confirmed the existence of the ambipolar field and quantified its strength, revealing its role in driving atmospheric escape and shaping our ionosphere — a layer of the upper atmosphere — more broadly.

Understanding the complex movements and evolution of our planet’s atmosphere provides clues not only to the history of Earth but also gives us insight into the mysteries of other planets and determining which ones might be hospitable to life. The paper was published Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024, in the journal Nature .

An Electric Field Drawing Particles Out to Space

Since the late 1960s, spacecraft flying over Earth’s poles have detected a stream of particles flowing from our atmosphere into space. Theorists predicted this outflow, which they dubbed the “polar wind,” spurring research to understand its causes. 

Some amount of outflow from our atmosphere was expected. Intense, unfiltered sunlight should cause some particles from our air to escape into space, like steam evaporating from a pot of water. But the observed polar wind was more mysterious. Many particles within it were cold, with no signs they had been heated — yet they were traveling at supersonic speeds.

“Something had to be drawing these particles out of the atmosphere,” said Glyn Collinson, principal investigator of Endurance at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and lead author of the paper. Scientists suspected a yet-to-be-discovered electric field could be at work.

The hypothesized electric field, generated at the subatomic scale, was expected to be incredibly weak, with its effects felt only over hundreds of miles. For decades, detecting it was beyond the limits of existing technology. In 2016, Collinson and his team got to work inventing a new instrument they thought was up to the task of measuring Earth’s ambipolar field.

How the Ambipolar Field Works

A weak electric field in the upper atmosphere may loft charged particles into space..

Scientists theorized this electric field should begin at around 150 miles (250 kilometers) altitude, where atoms in our atmosphere break apart into negatively charged electrons and positively charged ions. Electrons are incredibly light — the slightest kick of energy could send them shooting out to space. Ions are at least 1,836 times heavier and tend to sink toward the ground. If gravity alone were in play, the two populations, once separated, would drift apart over time. But given their opposite electric charges, an electric field forms to tether them together, preventing any separation of charges and counteracting some of the effects of gravity.

This electric field is bidirectional, or “ambipolar,” because it works in both directions. Ions pull the electrons down with them as they sink with gravity. At the same time, electrons lift ions to greater heights as they attempt to escape to space, like a tiny dog tugging on its sluggish owner’s leash. The net effect of the ambipolar field is to extend the height of the atmosphere, lifting some ions high enough to escape with the polar wind. Animation credits: NASA/Conceptual Image Lab/Wes Buchanan/Krystofer Kim

Launching a Rocket from the Arctic

The team’s instruments and ideas were best suited for a suborbital rocket flight launched from the Arctic. In a nod to the ship that carried Ernest Shackleton on his famous 1914 voyage to Antarctica, the team named their mission Endurance. The scientists set a course for Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago just a few hundred miles from the North Pole and home to the northernmost rocket range in the world.

“Svalbard is the only rocket range in the world where you can fly through the polar wind and make the measurements we needed,” said Suzie Imber, a space physicist at the University of Leicester, UK, and co-author of the paper.

On May 11, 2022, Endurance launched and reached an altitude of 477.23 miles (768.03 kilometers), splashing down 19 minutes later in the Greenland Sea. Across the 322-mile altitude range where it collected data, Endurance measured a change in electric potential of only 0.55 volts.

“A half a volt is almost nothing — it’s only about as strong as a watch battery,” Collinson said. “But that’s just the right amount to explain the polar wind.”

Hydrogen ions, the most abundant type of particle in the polar wind, experience an outward force from this field 10.6 times stronger than gravity. “That’s more than enough to counter gravity — in fact, it’s enough to launch them upwards into space at supersonic speeds,” said Alex Glocer, Endurance project scientist at NASA Goddard and co-author of the paper.

Heavier particles also get a boost. Oxygen ions at that same altitude, immersed in this half-a-volt field, weigh half as much. In general, the team found that the ambipolar field increases what’s known as the “scale height” of the ionosphere by 271%, meaning the ionosphere remains denser to greater heights than it would be without it.

“It’s like this conveyor belt, lifting the atmosphere up into space,” Collinson added.

Endurance’s discovery has opened many new paths for exploration. The ambipolar field, as a fundamental energy field of our planet alongside gravity and magnetism, may have continuously shaped the evolution of our atmosphere in ways we can now begin to explore. Because it’s created by the internal dynamics of an atmosphere, similar electric fields are expected to exist on other planets, including Venus and Mars.

“Any planet with an atmosphere should have an ambipolar field,” Collinson said. “Now that we’ve finally measured it, we can begin learning how it’s shaped our planet as well as others over time.”

By Miles Hatfield and Rachel Lense NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Media Contact: Sarah Frazier, [email protected]

Endurance was a NASA-funded mission conducted through the Sounding Rocket Program at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The Svalbard Rocket Range is owned and operated by Andøya Space. The European Incoherent Scatter Scientific Association (EISCAT) Svalbard radar, located in Longyearbyen, made ground-based measurements of the ionosphere critical to interpreting the rocket data. The United Kingdom Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the Research Council of Norway (RCN) funded the EISCAT radar for the Endurance mission. EISCAT is owned and operated by research institutes and research councils of Norway, Sweden, Finland, Japan, China, and the United Kingdom (the EISCAT Associates). The Endurance mission team encompasses affiliates of the Catholic University of America, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Leicester, U.K., the University of New Hampshire, and Penn State University.

Related Terms

• Goddard Space Flight Center
• Heliophysics
• Heliophysics Division
• Science & Research
• Sounding Rockets
• Sounding Rockets Program

Interspeech 2024

Apple is sponsoring the 25th annual Interspeech conference, in Kos, Greece, September 1 to 5. Interspeech focuses on research surrounding the science and technology of spoken language processing. Below is the schedule of Apple-sponsored workshops and events at Interspeech 2024.

Stop by the Apple booth in the Kipriotis Hotels & Conference Center, Floor 1, Booth #4, from 10:30 - 19:00 on Monday, September 2; 09:30 - 18:00 on Tuesday, September 3, and Wednesday, September 4; and 10:30 - 16:00 on Thursday, September 5 (all times GMT+3).

Saturday, August 31

• Young Female* Researchers in Speech Workshop (YFRSW)
• 13:15 - 14:15 GMT+3, 2nd Lyceum of Kos
• Carolina Brum will be representing Apple during the mentoring hour at the workshop.

Wednesday, September 4

Positional Description for Numerical Normalization

• 10:00 - 12:00 GMT+3, Poster Area 4B

Deepanshu Gupta, Javier Latorre Martinez

Novel-view Acoustic Synthesis from 3D Reconstructed Rooms

• 13:30 - 15:30 GMT+3, Poster Area 2A

Byeongjoo Ahn, Karren Yang, Brian Hamilton, Jonathan Sheaffer, Anurag Ranjan, Oncel Tuzel, Miguel Sarabia del Castillo, Rick Chang

RepCNN: Micro-sized, Mighty Models for Wakeword Detection

• 14:30 - 14:50 GMT+3, Hippocrates

Arnav Kundu, Prateeth Nayak, Priyanka Padmanabhan, Devang Naik

Transformer-based Model for ASR N-Best Rescoring and Rewriting

• 14:50 - 15:10 GMT+3, Aegle B

Edwin Kang, Christophe Van Gysel, Man-Hung Siu

Thursday, September 5

Can You Remove the Downstream Model for Speaker Recognition with Self-Supervised Speech Features?

• 10:00 - 12:00 GMT+3, Yanis Club

Zak Aldeneh, Takuya Higuchi, Jee-weon Jung, Skyler Seto, Tatiana Likhomanenko, Stephen Shum, Ahmed Hussen Abdelaziz, Shinji Watanabe

Enhancing CTC-based Speech Recognition with Diverse Modeling Units

• 10:00 - 12:00 GMT+3, Poster Area 3B

Michael Han, Zhihong Lei, Mingbin Xu, Xingyu Na, Zhen Huang

ESPnet-SPK: Full Pipeline Speaker Verification Toolkit with Multiple Reproducible Recipes, Self-Supervised Front-Ends, and Off-the-Shelf Models

• 11:00 - 11:20 GMT+3, Iasso

Jee-weon Jung, Wangyou Zhang, Jiatong Shi, Zak Aldeneh, Takuya Higuchi, Barry Theobald, Ahmed Hussen Abdelaziz, Shinji Watanabe

Comparative Analysis of Personalized Voice Activity Detection Systems: Assessing Real-World Effectiveness

Satyam Kumar, Sai Srujana Buddi, Oggy Sarawgi, Vineet Garg, Shivesh Ranjan, Oggi Rudovic, Ahmed Hussen Abdelaziz, Saurabh Adya

Multimodal Large Language Models with Fusion Low Rank Adaptation for Device Directed Speech Detection

Shruti Palaskar, Oggi Rudovic, Sameer Dharur, Florian Pesce, Gautam Krishna, Aswin Sivaraman, Jack Berkowitz, Ahmed Hussen Abdelaziz, Saurabh Adya, Ahmed Tewfik

Accepted Papers

Acknowledgements.

Arnav Kundu, Ilya Oparin, Javier Latorre Martinez, Lyan Verwimp, Markus Nussbaum-Thom, Mirko Hannemann, Thiago Fraga da Silva, Tuomo Raitio, and Tatiana Likhomanenko are reviewers for Interspeech.

Related readings and updates.

International conference on acoustics, speech and signal processing (icassp) 2023.

Apple sponsored the International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP), which took place in person from June 4 to 10 in Rhodes Island, Greece. ICASSP is the IEEE Signal Processing Society's flagship conference on signal processing and its applications. Below was the schedule of Apple sponsored workshops and events at ICASSP 2023.

Interspeech 2022

Apple sponsored the 34th Interspeech conference, which was held in Incheon, Republic of Korea from September 18 to 22. Interspeech is a global conference focused on cognitive intelligence for speech processing and application.

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From left: Dr. Gregory Perreault, Dr. Mildred Perreault, Dr. Janelle Applequist, and Dr. Fan Yang.

Zimmerman School faculty present research papers during International Communication Association conference

• Michelle Holden, USF College of Arts and Sciences
• August 29, 2024

Accomplishments , Research

Four faculty members from the Zimmerman School of Advertising and Mass Communications recently presented research papers during the 74th Annual International Communication Association (ICA), which took place in June. The ICA aims to advance the scholarly study of human communication by encouraging and facilitating excellence in academic research worldwide.

Dr. Gregory Perreault , associate professor, presented a paper on joy in journalism.

“A lot of research in journalism studies is really sad: exploring audience hostility, difficult labor practices, and why journalists leave the field. But what I find to be more intriguing is why journalists stay. Noteworthy in all that scholarship is that they’re talking to still-working journalists,” he said. “My research team and I have a data set exploring particular pillars of joy—like generosity, humor, forgiveness—in the life experiences of journalists. Over the next year, we hope to look in particular at how journalists experience generosity (and offer it).”

Dr. Mildred Perreault , assistant professor, highlighted her work focusing on rural journalism and news and disaster communication ecology.

“It is important to share work at the international level so that you can learn more about other countries and also gain a broader understanding of our field. It also helps one to connect with new collaborators,” she explained. “International engagement, like presenting at ICA, is something that distinguishes USF scholars from other scholars at smaller universities, but also helps it align with peer AAU schools.”

She also shared that there were additional networking and engagement opportunities beyond paper presentations.

“I was also part of a group that examined efforts to engage underrepresented groups in academic scholarship about media and communication. That was a great opportunity to have deeper conversations about how to bring new voices into academic spaces.”

She adds that she received some great feedback after her paper was accepted, as well as during the conference, that she can edit for submission to a publication.

“Often the research process is lonely, but conferences make it much more engaging and collaborative. For example, with my work on rural journalism, I was able to participate in a panel discussion with several other scholars in this area. Since it is a niche area, it is a great opportunity to connect with media scholars all over the world who are studying something smaller communities,” she said.

Dr. Fan Yang , assistant professor, and Dr. Janelle Applequist , associate professor, presented their co-authored paper on a meta-analytic and scoping review of digital data-driven advertising.

“Presenting papers at this conference to a wider audience is crucial for several reasons. It provides an excellent opportunity to disseminate our findings and ideas, allowing us to collect constructive feedback from diverse perspectives and seek new collaborations that can enhance the quality and impact of my research. It also aligns with USF's strategic planning goals of engaging broader audiences and furthering internationalization efforts,” Yang explained.

“Presenting our work to a national/international audience contributes to USF's branding and fosters cross-cultural academic exchanges,” she added. “These presentations serve as a platform to showcase The Zimmerman School's cutting-edge research and innovative approaches in advertising and mass communication. This visibility not only enhances the school’s reputation, but also attracts potential students, faculty, and research partners, ultimately strengthening our position as a leader in the field.”

For Applequist, the experience of presenting research at these venues serves as a critical "first step" of her scholarly process. It provides an opportunity to receive and apply feedback from audience members before submitting a study for journal publication. 

“The diverse perspectives offered by colleagues from various fields, institutions, countries, and cultures foster a transdisciplinary approach that significantly enhances the quality and relevance of my (and my team's) work,” she said.

“Feedback provided by an audience member after Dr. Fan Yang and I presented our co-authored study resulted in great conversation regarding how the rigor of our methods (a meta-analytic and scoping review of digital data-driven advertising) could be adapted for more niche areas (e.g., direct-to-consumer advertising in the pharmaceutical industry). These types of studies would serve to inform the field of advertising while providing potential industry partners with critical information for enhancing their daily and annual operations.”

“As a proud member of the USF community, I am committed to publishing high-quality research that showcases our commitment to research excellence. I am very fortunate to be working alongside great colleagues and team members, focused next on grant-funded projects, including a collaboration with BayCare on social determinants of health, and a large-scale NIH-funded study where colleagues and I seek to enhance communication processes throughout clinical trials to address participant retention,” Applequist said.

Yang says she hopes to next deepen exploration of AI's impact on media consumption and human-machine communication.

“We plan to investigate the individual and social implications of AI-driven communicative technologies, as well as expand our studies on AI-powered social robots using cutting-edge tools available in our Media Research Center of The Zimmerman School. Our ultimate goal is to position The Zimmerman School at the forefront of AI research in media research, providing valuable insights for both academia and industry as we navigate the rapidly evolving landscape of AI-enhanced media ecosystems.”

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CAS Chronicles is the monthly newsletter for the University of South Florida's College of Arts and Sciences, your source for the latest news, research, and events at CAS.

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• Why don’t women use artificial intelligence?

Even when in the same jobs, men are much more likely to turn to the tech

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B e more productive . That is how Chat GPT , a generative-artificial-intelligence tool from Open AI , sells itself to workers . But despite industry hopes that the technology will boost productivity across the workforce, not everyone is on board. According to two recent studies, women use Chat GPT between 16 and 20 percentage points less than their male peers, even when they are employed in the same jobs or read the same subject.

The first study, published as a working paper in June, explores Chat GPT at work. Anders Humlum of the University of Chicago and Emilie Vestergaard of the University of Copenhagen surveyed 100,000 Danes across 11 professions in which the technology could save workers time, including journalism, software-developing and teaching. The researchers asked respondents how often they turned to Chat GPT and what might keep them from adopting it. By exploiting Denmark’s extensive, hooked-up record-keeping, they were able to connect the answers with personal information, including income, wealth and education level.

Across all professions, women were less likely to use Chat GPT than men who worked in the same industry (see chart 1). For example, only a third of female teachers used it for work, compared with half of male teachers. Among software developers, almost two-thirds of men used it while less than half of women did. The gap shrank only slightly, to 16 percentage points, when directly comparing people in the same firms working on similar tasks. As such, the study concludes that a lack of female confidence may be in part to blame: women who did not use AI were more likely than men to highlight that they needed training   to use the technology.

Another potential explanation for the gender imbalance comes from a survey of 486 students by Daniel Carvajal at Aalto University and Catalina Franco and Siri Isaksson at the Norwegian School of Economics ( NHH ). It also found a gender gap: female students enrolled in the NHH ’s only undergraduate programme were 18 percentage points less likely to use Chat GPT often. When the researchers separated students by admission grades, it became clear that the gap reflected the behaviour of mid- and high-performing women (see chart 2). Low performers were almost as likely as men to use the technology.

Why might this be? The researchers probed what was going on with some clever follow-up questions. They asked students whether they would use Chat GPT if their professor forbade it, and received a similar distribution of answers. However, in the context of explicit approval, everyone, including the better-performing women, reported that they would make use of the technology. In other words, the high-achieving women appeared to impose a ban on themselves. “It’s the ‘good girl’ thing,” reckons Ms Isaksson. “It’s this idea that ‘I have to go through this pain, I have to do it on my own and I shouldn’t cheat and take short-cuts’.”

A lack of experience with AI could carry a cost when students enter the labour market. In August the researchers added a survey of 1,143 hiring managers to their study, revealing that managers value high-performing women with AI expertise 8% more than those without. This sort of premium does not exist for men, suggesting that there are rewards for women who are willing to relax their self-imposed ban.

Tera Allas of McKinsey, a consultancy, worries that by the time AI is firmly embedded into modern working life, it might be designed to appeal more to men, who are its main users—potentially shutting women out in the long term. But not everyone is as concerned. Despite the fact that the early internet was dominated by men, for example, young American women were more online than their male counterparts by 2005. On top of this, Danielle Li of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology notes that the studies do not actually show whether men’s current Chat GPT use translates into better or more productive work. At the moment, the technology may be more of a digital toy, she says. Perhaps, then, high-achieving women are simply better at avoiding distraction. ■

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This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “A new gender gap”

Finance & economics August 24th 2024

• Kamala Harris’s cost-of-living plan will end in failure
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• Why investors are not buying Europe’s revival
• Investors should avoid a new generation of rip-off ETFs
• Artificial intelligence is losing hype

From the August 24th 2024 edition

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Masturbation paper researcher attacks ‘groupthink’ backlash

Two years on from international scandal, karl andersson claims he had received nothing but praise for article prior to online outcry.

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A PhD student who was booted off his course after writing a paper describing how he masturbated to sexualised images of young boys has accused his university and publisher of surrendering to an online pile-on.

Karl Andersson was expelled by the University of Manchester and his 2022 article – subtitled “Using masturbation as an ethnographic method in research on shota subculture in Japan” – was retracted after his exploration of a manga comic genre depicting sexual encounters involving children was condemned as “morally offensive”.

The Swedish researcher has never spoken publicly about the saga, but in a new book, Impossibly Cute Boys: The Healing Power of Shota Comics in Japan , he claims that he had received nothing but praise for his paper prior to publication.

The convener of a PhD course in “queer autoethnography” where the paper was drafted praised it as a “wonderfully written, reflective, analytical and intriguing essay on masturbation ‘in the field’”, adding: “This is already very publishable, should you so desire. Bravo,” Mr Andersson recounts.

He says that his own supervisor praised it as “pretty damn good”, describing it as his “best piece of writing”, while it was positively received on submission to the Sage journal Qualitative Research , with one reviewer stating that the rationale for using masturbation as a method was “well justified”, adding: “The author has conducted provocative research by use of a highly bold and innovative application of autoethnography. Best of all, the author has done this extremely well.”

However, after the published paper made headlines around the world, it was pulled by Sage, which said it “legitimises sexual activity involving sexually graphic illustrated images of children” and had “potential to cause significant harm”, while Manchester – which had funded Mr Andersson’s PhD – expelled him after ruling that he had caused “significant reputational harm” to the university.

Mr Andersson, who writes that he is now an independent researcher, claims that he fell victim to “ill-willed and homophobic reports” by the media and accusations from “the mob” on social media, with “otherwise rational academics” joining in as an act of “groupthink”.

But Michelle Shipworth, an associate professor in UCL’s Energy Institute who was an early critic of the paper, said it was concerning – and telling – that nobody had challenged Mr Andersson’s research topic or methods.

“Academia is becoming more attitudinally homogenous and, at the same time, more censorious, making it increasingly dangerous for academics to argue against a view they believe is widely held,” she said. “This creates a risky environment vulnerable to both accidents and exploitation.”

Manchester said that it had conducted a “robust” investigation into the “significant concerns” around Mr Andersson’s work.

A Sage spokesperson said: “Together with the editors of the journal, we retracted the article after an investigation determined that there was a lack of institutional ethical oversight and a lack of adequate and appropriate ethical review ahead of publication.”

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Mirroring Change: Literature and Social Transformation

International Seminar

3rd & 4th October 2024

Organized by

Research and Cultural Forum (RCF)

Department of English

Pondicherry University

Puducherry-605014

Host Department : The Department of English at Pondicherry University has been an important educational destination for research scholars and students, ever since it commenced functioning in 1986. Over the years, the department has produced innumerable PhD and M. Phil scholars, in addition to a large number of postgraduate students. The faculty of the department with their different specializations and academic interests are at the forefront of innovative teaching and advanced research varying from contemporary literary, cultural and language studies to theoretical explorations. The department also runs a Post Graduate Diploma in Professional Communication in English, an add-on program, in much demand among students and employees.

Furthermore, the department has also sought to enhance the language and communication skills of students from across the University through Functional

English and other communication-oriented courses. Another hallmark of the department is the Research and Cultural Forum (RCF) which acts as an avenue for scholars and students to showcase their research work and creative abilities. The department has also been at the forefront of organizing seminars, workshops and faculty development programs.

About Research and Cultural Forum (RCF):

Conceived thirty-five years ago as Research and Journal Alert Forum (RJAF) at the Department of English, Pondicherry University, RCF is a platform for research scholars and students of the department to discuss their research findings in various areas related to literature and culture and also present their creative talents. Run exclusively by the research scholars of the department, under the guidance of the faculty members and the support of MA students the forum hosts invited talks, workshops and interactive sessions by experts of national and international repute in the emerging areas of English Studies. The forum was recently renamed Research and Cultural Forum to integrate the department's research and cultural outputs. Now, it proudly undertakes the mission of bringing together and highlighting the role of literature in social transformation through this two-day International Seminar.

About the Seminar:

A Two-Day International Seminar has been planned by the Department of English on the 3rd & 4th of October 2024, with the focus area “Mirroring Change: Literature and Social Transformation”.

Literature has been able to predict, analyze, and critique social, economic and political change for a long time. This, in turn, has contributed to understanding social and political transformation through a medium that has been conventionally seen to be largely imaginative and fictional. While Orwell’s cautionary tale, 1984 predicted the effects of totalitarian regimes and surveillance, Harriet Beecher’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin “helped lay the groundwork for the American Civil War” (Kaufman, 2006: 18). If Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath brought into full view the travails of America during the Great Depression, Munshi Premchand’s Godaan brutally exposed poverty and the evils of the zamindari system in India. Literature has thus been constantly in sync with the changing silhouettes of society.

The conference aims to explore how literature has closely interacted with and mirrored the intricate matrix of the social and political milieu. This interaction has resulted in innumerable texts that have reflected these significant changes and helped us understand an ever-changing world. The wide gamut of social, political, economic, cultural, sociological and anthropological change has prompted the writer to ask questions, show up the mirror and sometimes even offer prescriptions for ills, thus making literature a vehicle for social transformation.  The conference aims to investigate and explore the significant role that literature has played in reflecting these changes, therefore acting as truth-seeker, sentinel, chronicler, and critic, all rolled into one.   

The conference aims to explore the interchange between literature and social transformation across varied arenas and can include, but is not restricted, to the following areas:

•           Political upheaval and social movements

•           Caste, class and hierarchy

•           Reigns, regimes and democracy

•           Marxism and literature

•           Changing dimensions of gender

•           Queer narratives

•           Geographies, borders and migration

•           Indigenous literatures

•           Anthropocene, Ecocriticism and Ecofeminism 

•           Dalit literature and social justice

•           Technology and literature

•           Popular culture and subcultures

•           Medical imperialism and illness narratives

Registration Fee:

Faculty Members:      Rs. 2000

Research Scholars:     Rs. 1000

PG Students:               Rs. 500

Co-authors are required to pay individually.

UG students (participation only): Rs 200

Abstracts can be uploaded through the Google form link

below on or before 30th August 2024.

Registration Link: https://forms.gle/CA78DHY86yfQtzhW9

Your queries may be addressed to rcfseminar202 4 @gmail.com

Important Dates:

Last date for sending abstracts: 30th August 2024

Confirmation of acceptance will be communicated by: 2nd September 2024

Complete papers are to be sent by: 27th September 2024 

Travel and Accommodation:

We hope that you will be able to take care of your travel and accommodation. However, accommodation will be arranged for outstation paper presenters if intimated in advance.

Working lunch and local hospitality will be provided.

Chief Patron :

Prof. K.Tharanikkarasu, Honourable Vice-Chancellor (i/c), Pondicherry University

Prof. Clement S Lourdes, Director, Culture  & Cultural Relations

Prof. Rajneesh Bhutani, Registrar (i/c)

Prof. D. Lazar, Finance Officer (i/c)

Chairperson : Prof. Clement S Lourdes, Dean, School of Humanities

Convener : Dr. T Marx, Prof & Head, Department of English

Faculty Coordinator: Dr. Harpreet Kaur Vohra, Associate Professor

Coordinators: Drishya K, Steward C.

Members:     

                        Prof. Binu Zachariah

                        Prof. K. Reshmi

                        Prof. Lakhimai Mili

Dr. Aiswarya S. Babu

                        Dr. Vidya Sarveswaran

Dr. S. Visaka Devi

Address for Communication:

Steward  C.        

Research Scholars                                                     

Department of English                                              

Pondicherry University                                             

Puducherry-605014                                                   

8589825788, 8270410154