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Drone technology opens the door to major changes and opportunities in our society. But this technology, like many others, needs to be administered and regulated to prevent potential harm to the public. Therefore, national and local governments around the world established regulations for operating drones, which bans drone use from specific locations or limits their operation to qualified drone pilots only. This study reviews the types of restrictions on drone use that are specified in federal drone regulations for the US, the UK, and France, and in state regulations for the US. The study also maps restricted areas and assesses compliance with these regulations by analyzing the spatial contribution patterns to three crowd-sourced drone portals, namely SkyPixel, Flickr, and DroneSpot, relative to restricted areas. The analysis is performed both at the national level and at the state/regional level within each of the three countries, where statistical tests are conducted to compare compliance rates between the three drone portals. This study provides new insight into drone users' awareness of and compliance with drone regulations. This can help governments to tailor information campaigns for increased awareness of drone regulations among drone users and to determine where increased control and enforcement of drone regulations is necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The winter of 2022/23 has seen large increases in energy prices and in the cost of living in many countries around the world, including Great Britain. Here, we report the results of two surveys, combining cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis, in a sample of about 5400 British households. One survey was conducted early in 2023, the other when participants had signed up to an ongoing research study in the past five years. Thermostat settings were about 1°C lower during the cost-of-living crisis than before, and householders were more likely to turn the heating off when the home was unoccupied. The effort to save energy increased compared to pre-cost-of-living-crisis levels. Using the in-home display more in the cost-of-living crisis than before correlated with greater effort to save energy, supporting the notion that displaying energy data can be a useful tool for energy reductions. Finding it difficult to keep comfortably warm in the home and struggling with meeting heating costs were linked to lower wellbeing, strengthening evidence links between cold, damp, and hard-to-heat homes and negative mental health outcomes. About 40% of respondents lowered the flow temperature of the boiler which might imply that highly tailored information campaigns can be effective in changing behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Socially stigmatized service workers (SSWs) like probation officers, social workers, and even aged care workers are often subject to negative media scrutiny when a crisis occurs, leading to public outrage and subsequent high attrition rates. The primary focus of this study is to examine the potential for marketing communication to generate a state of empathic concern amongst the public towards SSWs because an empathic public is less likely to want to punish, despite media calls to do so. A case is presented for the use of marketing communication explained through the lens of narrative execution and the general theory of emotion. Using a content analysis of public service announcements from representative bodies of social workers, in the US, UK and Australia we find little evidence of strategic intent to use narrative format or elicit empathic concern. A call and direction for further research is made in light of this finding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop a method to assess population knowledge about any given topic. We define, and rationalize, types of beliefs that form the 'knowledge spectrum'. Using a sample of over 7000 UK residents, we estimate these beliefs with respect to three topics: an animal-based diet, alcohol consumption and immigration. We construct an information-campaign effectiveness index (ICEI) that predicts the success of an information campaign. Information resistance is greatest for animal-based diets, and the ICEI is highest for immigration. We test the predictive power of our ICEI by simulating information campaigns, which produces supportive evidence. Our method can be used by any government or company that wants to explore the success of an information campaign. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the development of alcohol health education in Britain during the 1970s, using this as a way to explore the nature of public health and the place of the public within it. Focusing on a set of local health education campaigns, an expert committee report on alcohol prevention and a public consultation exercise on alcohol, the article highlights the presence of three different 'publics'. Health education campaigns tended to focus on the individual drinker, but the drinking habits of the whole population were also of concern. So too were the rights and responsibilities of citizen-consumers. These three publics--drinkers, the population and citizen-consumers--were often in conflict with one another, and though it was drinkers that became the object of alcohol policy, the needs of the population, and of citizen-consumers, could not be ignored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tests of behavioral insights have become increasingly more common, and have been deployed by UK government and agencies. Typically, these field experiments aim to change individual-level behaviors. The current article tests the potential of behavioral insights for changing group-level behavior. This article reports the results of a field experiment carried out with the Department of Communities and Local Government. The field experiment tested whether a normative message (vs. a neutral or no message) could encourage parish councils to register an asset of community value (social action). There was no statistically significant effect from this intervention, but the process of designing and implementing this field experiment shows the potential for theories of behavior change to be used by government departments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Examines the impact of awareness days on environmental attitudes and concern. • Focuses on the "Earth Hour" (EH) observance. • Applies an event study design. • No evidence of an EH effect on environmental and climate change attitudes and concern. • Similar results when using data from Germany or the U.K. Environmental awareness campaigns disseminate information about the state of the natural environment, aiming to affect public attitudes and encourage pro-environmental behavior. I test the influence of awareness days on the general public's environmental and climate change attitudes and concern, focusing on the case of the Earth Hour, an international campaign organized annually by the World Wide Fund for Nature. The Earth Hour highlights environmental consequences of human activity and encourages sustainable behavior, culminating with a call to mass action. To assess the Earth Hour's effect, I use longitudinal data from Germany and the UK, exploiting the orthogonality of the Earth Hour observance to the timing of data collection, to estimate models comparing individual attitudes and concern before and after the event. I find no evidence of an Earth Hour effect on environmental and climate change attitudes and concern. Results suggest that more research is needed to assess the influence of environmental advocacy campaigns and awareness days on the general public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2007 the European Commission decided formally to close an investigation under EC Treaty state aid rules into the financing regime for German public service broadcasters in light of formal commitments by the German Government to amend the current regime. The core of this reform, confirmed by the German Government, was to substantiate the description of the public service remit for the new media services and to establish a "three-step test" for these offers which adapts the British Public Value Test of the BBC. Enacting the necessary measures, however, the compliance with national constitutional law was hardly considered. According to the constitutional "freedom of broadcasting" the public service broadcasters are allowed to offer new media services only with programme-related content. Such limitations on the public service remit are clearly compatible with European Union Law. The "three-step test" recently implemented to fulfill the obligations set up by the European Commission, therefore, proves to be superfluous in relation to both national constitutional law and the European Union law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a critical assessment of the practical implementation of the Public Value Test (PVT) in Britain, the first European country to introduce it in 2007. Britain therefore has substantial experience with this regulatory tool from which other countries could benefit. The intention of the PVT has been to allow the BBC to assume new media activities only if their public value outweighs their potential adverse market impact. The article argues that the BBC's experience with the PVT points to practical problems not originally foreseen. These problems coupled with new challenges for the BBC call for a refinement of the process. Still, the evidence suggests that overall the PVT has worked well. It has allowed the expansion, though conditional, of the BBC into new media whilst the greater degree of economic and evidence-based regulation that the BBC is now subject to has made it a credible scrutiny process in the eyes of industry stakeholders. The article maintains that the PVT has served primarily to articulate industry concerns rather than the public interest. Indeed, the emphasis on outcomes and impact together with the piecemeal approach of the PVT present a threat to the PSB ethos. It is finally argued that the main advantage of the PVT has been enhanced regulatory certainty and the establishment of delineated spheres of activity for public and commercial media organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to examine the adoption and use of the term 'public value' in both the broadcasting and the wider cultural arena. It examines the ideas, tensions and contradictions that exist in such a notion, asking whether it is simply empty rhetoric, or whether it tells us something more. It argues that the term stands as an example of a failed approach to policy-making, being neither successfully technocratic, offering a clear methodology for assessing value, nor successfully rhetorical in the way that 'the public good', or 'public service broadcasting' can be deemed to have been. It also explores the means by which certain policy ideas are transmitted, briefly flourish and then dissipate, arguing that this may beat the cost to a longer-term more sustainable mode of cultural policy-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We provide an ex-post assessment of the UK 5-a-day information campaign, where the positive effects of information are disentangled from potentially conflicting price dynamics. Using 4 years of data from the Expenditure and Food Survey between 2002 and 2006, we estimate that the 5-a-day program has lifted fruit and vegetable consumption by 0.3 portions, on average. We also provide quantitative evidence of a differentiated impact by income group, ranging from 0.2 to 0.7 portions. All impacts are larger than those observed by simply comparing pre-policy and post-policy intakes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

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CBeebies, the BBC's brand for young children, has become a successful public service undertaking, lauded by parents and policy makers alike. Nevertheless, it operates in a complex and highly competitive "ecology," where recent funding crises in commercial television have left CBeebies as the main commissioner of U.K.-originated content. Having outlined the broader industry context of CBeebies, this article examines changes in its organization, target audience, scheduling and commissioning practices, and relationship with the BBC's commercial subsidiary, BBC Worldwide, to explain how wider commercial, cultural, and technological forces have impacted the Corporation's strategies for preschool content. It suggests that growing pressures to locate funding for "fewer, bigger, better" programs may have an adverse impact on the range of content and sources of supply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) and pluralism in the United Kingdom broadcasting market, and critically assesses the regulator Ofcom's developing ideas with regard to provision of PSB in the digital age. It then moves on to outlining the state of plurality of PS providers and PS programming in other European territories. The main point is that although the PSB is under strain across Europe due to licence fee limits, and regulatory and social changes, the debate on plurality of institutions, plurality of channels and plurality of sources of funding is well advanced in the United Kingdom, but in the rest of Europe PSB is still primarily defined in terms of 'internal pluralism' and most European countries have mainly focused on pluralism within the PSB, rather than between different providers. There is no historical precedent or current thinking for licence fee revenue being used to fund the creation of content on channels beyond the incumbent PSB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the context of New Public Management (NPM), successive UK governments have claimed that PFI projects provide more accountability, and arguably, more value for money (VFM) than conventional procurement for the public ( HM Treasury 1995, 2000, 2003a and 2003b ). However, recent empirical research in the UK on PFI has indicated its potential limitations for accountability and VFM ( Broadbent, Gill and Laughlin, 2004 ; Edwards, Shaoul, Stafford and Arblaster, 2004 ; Shaoul, 2005 ; and Ismail and Pendlebury, 2006 ) albeit these are based on either published accounts or a limited number of key stakeholders. This paper attempts to partially redress this gap in the literature by presenting an interesting case of the impact of PFI on accountability and VFM in Northern Ireland's education sector. The findings of this research, based on forty two interviews with a wide range of key stakeholders, suggest that stakeholders have different and often conflicting expectations and the actual PFI accountability and VFM benefits are much more obfuscated than those claimed in Government publications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the effect of new broadcasting techniques and of deregulatory politics in the UK. It is argued that the national style of regulation was a highly informal one with a limited use of formal law and of the courts, and that the concept of public service broadcasting has been essentially cultural. Informality of regulation has created serious problems of effectiveness and accountability, and has been undermined by the growth in the number of broadcasters. In 1988, the Thatcher government proposed important moves towards deregulation, the most important of which was to be the sale of licences for commercial broadcasting to the highest bidders. This proposal proved highly controversial as it was felt that the cash bids would divert money away from the production of quality programmes, and, as implemented in the Broadcasting Act 1990, considerable discretionary regulation was retained, notably in the `quality threshold' which bidders for licences were required to pass. The allocation of licences satisfied no-one; the amounts bid bore no relation to the value of each licence and extensive use of the quality threshold was made to disqualify bidders without any reasons being given. As a result the author concludes that there has been a failure either to achieve a market-based system or a clear development of a concept of public service broadcasting. The future shape of broadcasting will be determined by the decisions taken on the renewal of the BBC Charter in 1996, by the effect of takeovers which will in future be allowed in relation to commercial broadcasters and the development of new services subject to limited regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article was originally a report for the British government's Peacock Committee on Financing the BBC. Comparative conclusions concerning the impact of different funding arrangements for the range and quality of television programming are drawn from analyses of broadcasting systems in Britain, the United States, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and West Germany. Common trends and pressures are identified. Prime-time television schedules are compared. British programme performance is evaluated. A purpose for public service broadcasting in a period of telecommunications change is proposed. The principal options of broadcasting finance are reviewed in the light of international experience: full advertising; limited advertising; sponsor-ship; co-production finance; and the licence fee. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author reflects on the efforts to resolve the issue of obesity in Great Britain. The author cites the launching by the scheme Change4Life on January 7, 2013 of an advertising campaign to raise awareness on the unhealthy ingredients contained in popular foods and drinks. The opinion of Junior Health Minister Anna Soubry on the developments is also cited.

The authors discuss public service announcements (PSAs) against mental illness discrimination, as well as the journal's efforts to collect data on the British Time to Change campaign. According to the article, the campaign began in 2008 and is considered Great Britain's flagship mental health campaign concerning mental health stigma and discrimination.

The author ponders on the implications of the move by the British National Health Service (NHS) to advertise services like flu vaccination and medical screening for cervical or breast cancer in 2010. The weaknesses and strengths of advertising are considered by the author. A description of the posters from the NHS breast screening programme. He questions whether such advertising strategy is truly needed.

The article reports that celebrities are appearing in a British campaign, The Time to Change, to lessen the stigma of mental illness. Comic Relief and the National Lottery is funding the campaign which includes television and press advertisements. Former political aide Alistair Campbell, actor Stephen Fry, and television host Ruby Wax are in the ads. Sue Baker is director of the £18 million campaign.

The article states that Vicky Rideout, the vice president and director of the program for the study of entertainment media and health at the Kaiser Family Foundation, provided comments about the way public service messages in the U.S. are delivered to the public. She stated that the communication of the messages has evolved without much planning and that this mode of communication could benefit by studying ways that such messages are delivered in Great Britain. Public service messages in Great Britain are overseen by the Central Office of Information. The chief executive of that office is Alan Bishop.

Discusses the use of explicit advertisements by the British government sexual health campaign in order to educate the public about sexually transmitted infections such as genital herpes and gonorrhea. Use of ads on independent radio stations and in tabloid newspapers; Consideration of Valentine's Day cards that caution against sexual disease; Aims of the campaign to target those who respond to harsh imagery and direct language.

Criticizes the advertising campaign of Great Britain's Imperial Cancer Research Fund. Details of the misleading messages regarding cancer survival rates conveyed by the charity's print and radio advertisements; Failure of the campaign to accurately represent medical details; Impact of the awareness campaign on public anxiety regarding cancer.

Focuses on the publicity campaign for whooping cough vaccines in Great Britain. Degree of risk associated with whooping cough vaccine; Availability of vaccinated-related material to the public; Offer of vaccination to babies and infants.