The Conversation

Here's what happens when you 'like' a brand on Facebook

Written by Alisha Horky, Assistant Professor of Marketing, Elon University

What's not to like?Thumbs Up via www.shutterstock.com

Businesses seem obsessed these days with getting you to “like” them on Facebook.

It’s difficult to browse the internet without being inundated with requests to like a company’s Facebook page or with contests and offers dependent on doing so.

From the company’s...

Defeating terrorism through design: Think souks, not office buildings

Written by Thomas Fisher, Professor of Architecture, Director of the Metropolitan Design Center, and Dayton Hudson Chair in Urban Design, University of Minnesota

Embodiment of defiance... or foolhardy design?Paul Silva, CC BY

To fight terrorist networks, we need to understand them and learn from them. Obviously that doesn’t mean training to become terrorists ourselves. But we can learn from the way many terrorist organizations operate – via highly networked, decentralized connections. This kind...

How building design changed after 9/11

Written by Shih-Ho Chao, Associate Professor of Structural Engineering and Applied Mechanics, University of Texas Arlington

The new One World Trade Center building, made with high-performance concrete.John D. Morris, CC BY-SA

When buildings collapse killing hundreds – or thousands – of people, it’s a tragedy. It’s also an important engineering problem. The 1995 collapse of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and the World Trade...

How the pain of 9/11 still stays with a generation

Written by Dana Rose Garfin, Research Scientist, Department of Psychology and Social Behavior, University of California, Irvine

The Sept. 11, 2001 (9/11) terrorist attacks were the worst acts of terrorism on American soil to date. Designed to instill panic and fear, the attacks were unprecedented in terms of their scope, magnitude and impact on the American psyche.

The vast majority (over 60 percent) of Americans watched these attacks occur live on television or saw them...

Flashbulb memories of dramatic events aren't as accurate as believed

Written by Jennifer Talarico, Associate Professor, Psychology, Lafayette College

Where were you on Sept. 11 when you first heard that a plane had hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center?

Many of us may have vivid memories of that day, recalling where we were and what we were doing when we first learned of the attack, perhaps even remembering seemingly irrelevant details. Chances are, that memory isn’t as accurate as...

Command under attack: What we've learned since 9/11 about managing crises

Written by Herman B. "Dutch" Leonard, Baker Professor of Public Management and Faculty Co-Director, Program on Crisis Leadership, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

Aerial view of the Pentagon, September 14, 2001Wikipedia

The attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001 was the largest coordinated, multi-site international act of terror ever carried out on U.S. soil. Almost 3,000 people died, many others were injured and property damage ran into tens of billions of dollars.

Many people...

Apple Watch pivots to fitness – and focuses on a different style of self-help

Written by Jefferson Pooley, Associate Professor of Media & Communication, Muhlenberg College

When Apple unveiled its original watch in 2014, the California company touted three tent-pole features of the new wearable: style, communication and fitness. Rolling out the second-generation Apple Watch this week, Apple has positioned fitness, and fitness alone, as the device’s main selling point. High-end fashion, and friend-to-friend...

Achieving universal broadband: What the FCC can and cannot do

Written by Christopher Ali, Assistant Professor, Department of Media Studies, University of Virginia

The FCC has the power to save us from slow, expensive internet service.Snail and cable via shutterstock.com

It’s long-accepted common knowledge that high-speed internet access is a key to education, economic growth and even maintaining interpersonal connections. While the internet began as a public venture, in the last 20 years the private...

Why you should worry about the privatization of genetic data

Written by Kayte Spector-Bagdady, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Center for Bioethics & Social Sciences in Medicine, University of Michigan

Privatized. DNA image via www.shutterstock.com.

President Obama has promised to support a bold future for medicine where diagnostic testing and treatments aren’t just what’s best for most people – they’re what’s best for you.

This “precision medicine” takes individual variations in our genes and environments...

The history behind Philippine President Duterte's Obama insult

Written by Shelton Woods, Professor of East/Southeast Asian History, Boise State University

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte speaks his mind. He does not back down.

Some believe he took his plain speaking too far this week before leaving the Philippines for a summit in Laos.

Reporters asked how Duterte intended to answer President Obama’s concerns over the more than 1,300 drug suspects killed over the past two months in...