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Abstract This paper examines the ethical considerations surrounding intellectual freedom and social responsibility in public libraries (i.e., municipal and public school libraries) in the post-truth era. While libraries serve a crucial role in fostering an informed democracy, recent events have put public libraries, and front-line librarians themselves, in the “hot seat.” This paper examines the implications of recent campaigns for book bans, considerations around public libraries purchasing harmful and anti-science information, as well as political efforts to restrict the types of information public librarians are able to share with the public. Public librarians are professionally trained to value the role libraries serve as an information institution in a democracy; however, we argue that the contemporary ethical dilemmas public librarians face inflicts moral injury and may actively harm the identity central to public librarians’ motivation to serve their communities. The paper concludes with a sobering discussion of how these ethical dilemmas in public libraries might serve as a cautionary tale for bureaucrats working on the front-lines of public service in the post-truth era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A pair of anti-segregation marches held in Georgia in 1987 provides an opportunity for historical analysis of the role of race in mainstream news coverage of social protest. These protests were somewhat unique in that both anti-segregation marchers and counter-protesters – including KKK members – were on hand for both marches. Analysis of newspaper articles shows that coverage tended to give more space to White counter-protesters than Black protesters, did little to discuss the reasons behind the marches, and cast the primarily Black anti-segregation marchers as outsiders. This reinforces central themes of the protest paradigm – whereby groups that threaten the status quo are treated more critically. Perhaps most importantly, the findings also reinforce patterns of research demonstrating a disparity in news treatment between Black protesters and White counter-protesters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under what circumstances do armed groups in conflict choose to use terrorist bombings? This article challenges the conventional wisdom that terrorist bombings are done by either ideologically-driven or weak armed groups who have no reasonable prospect of success on the battlefield. Drawing from Mao's theory of protracted struggle, it argues that terrorist bombings are a weapon of choice for armed groups that have transitioned into capable fighting armies but lack the degree of popular support they need to be a serious political contender. Using data on attributed terrorist bombings from 1998–2005, it finds that Islamist groups and older armed groups with sizeable membership are more likely to use terrorist bombings than smaller or newer groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]