influence – overstated

Drug ads may be a waste

The New Scientist reports on a study suggesting that direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical ads may be ineffective. The best part is that the study uses the natural divide between French- and English-speaking Canadians to create a perfect cross-sectional study (Canada forbids pharmaceutical ads, but US television does not).

Weblogs and political influence

I just received a call for papers for a conference entitled Politics and Information Systems: Technologies and Applications (PISTA ’03) which is hosted, not ironically with the International Conference on Computer, Communication and Control Technologies in Orlando Florida this fall. I think there is a fascinating paper on weblogs and the microcontent influence on politics.Continue reading “Weblogs and political influence”