title: Gentleman (2016 film)

text: "Gentleman" debuted with earnings of US$71,938 (48.25 lakh) from its premiere shows, surpassing the records set by Nani's previous films. The opening global gross and distributor share figures stood at 5.5 crore and 3.19 crore, respectively, making it Nani's career best opener. In its first weekend, "Gentleman" grossed nearly 14 crore and collected a distributor share of approximately 9 crore globally. At the same time, it managed to earn US$537,490 (3.63 crore) at the United States box office. The film continued to earn steady returns due to positive word of mouth; it collected a total of US$678,032 (4.6 crore) in eight days, and US$771,107 (5.25 crore) in ten days at the United States box office. It also experienced a decent theatrical run at the AP/Nizam box office, where it grossed 15.4 crore in ten days, with a distributor share of 10.21 crore.


title: Gentleman (2016 film)

text: In its third week, the film witnessed a drop of 60% in its screen count and 65% in its revenues. According to trade analyst Taran Adarsh, it collected a total of US$872,320 (5.86 crore) in 17days at the United States box office. The film's global earnings remained steady despite reduction in screen count due to new releases. In 17days, "Gentleman" grossed a total of 28.21 crore globally with a distributor share of 16.23 crore. The film managed to retain nine screens in the United States after the release of "Sultan" and witnessed a drop of 80% in its earnings; it collected a total of US$897,001 (6.03 crore) in 24 days. By the end of its theatrical run, "Gentleman" grossed a total of 32.6 crore globally, with a distributor share of 17.72 crore.


title: Pathologic

text: Pathologic ( – a pun on Thomas More's "Utopia" and the Russian word for "plague") is a 2005 role-playing and survival game developed by Russian studio Ice-Pick Lodge. The game was released in Russia by Buka Entertainment in June 2005, followed by a localised English release from G2 Games and GMX Games in 2006. An updated version, "Pathologic Classic HD", was developed by General Arcade, published by Good Shepard Entertainment, and released in October 2015. A remake was developed by Ice-Pick Lodge using the Unity game engine and released as "Pathologic 2" in May 2019 by tinyBuild.


title: Pathologic

text: The player can choose one of three playable healers, who are listed only by their honorifics: two men, The Bachelor (Daniil Dankovsky), and Haruspex (Artemy Burakh); and a girl – The Devotress, Klara (later re-translated as "The Changeling, Clara"). Only the former two are available at the start of the game, with Clara being unlocked after completing a playthrough of the game with either Daniil or Artemy. The questlines available depend on which character is being played. The two unchosen playable characters are present in the town during the chosen character's playthrough.


title: Pathologic

text: Each player character has a different listed goal in their quest book, but the player's only necessary goal is simply to survive to the end of the 12 days by maintaining their resources. The game takes place in a perpetual world over a timeframe of 12 in-game days. Throughout each day, the player receives quests from non-player characters (NPCs); however, the game continues regardless of whether they are completed or not. At exactly midnight of each day, the incomplete quests are erased from the player's notebook. Quests are divided into main missions (one per day), which decide if a major character (referred to in-game as the "Bound") will die, and side quests, which earn money and items. Completing main quests is essential to discovering the secrets of the town, as characters who would otherwise reveal information later in the game can fall ill from the plague early.


title: Pathologic

text: Regardless of the player's choice in player character, each of the three healers tries to uncover the source of a strange lethal sickness known as the "sand plague" that has befallen a small town. Although players can play as each of them, there is only one base storyline, which is seen from the three different points of views of the chosen player character. Minor plot details will change depending on the player, and the ability to uncover some secrets depends on which character is being played. The player may also interact with the other two unchosen characters and discuss their progress throughout the game.


title: Pathologic

text: The game's fluctuating economy represents the harsh forces of supply and demand in an isolated, disease-ridden town. All districts and major buildings of the town are named after body parts and biology. On the edge of town, there is a great building named Polyhedron, a physically impossible structure used as a fortress by children. On the opposite side lies an ominous cattle-slaughtering Abattoir, with the Apiary (later re-translated as "Termitary") next to it.


title: Pathologic

text: Each character has an assigned group of NPCs - their "Bound" - which they are tasked with keeping safe by completing the main quest every day.


title: Pathologic

text: There are four endings available. Each playable character has a designated ending, although any of these three endings may be chosen if the player completes the optional task of keeping the other healer's Bound healthy by the meeting time on the 12th day. The Bachelor's ending allows the town to be destroyed, saving the miraculous Polyhedron. The Haruspex's ending destroys the Polyhedron to allow the production of a panacea, saving the town. The Devotress/Changeling's ending allows both the Polyhedron and the town to coexist, at the cost of sacrificing some of the townspeople. If the player is unable to keep all of their Bound safe, however, the town becomes overrun by pestilence in the fourth "Bad Ending".


title: Pathologic

text: "Pathologic" was the first game developed by Russian studio Ice-Pick Lodge. The game was announced by Russian publisher Buka Entertainment on 30 March 2004, intending to release in the last quarter of the year. The native Russian version of the game was released to manufacturing on 31 May 2005, for release on 9 June. The English-localised version was completed on 20 November 2005 and released by G2 Games in 2006. A German version was published by Frogster Interactive Pictures on 20 April 2006 after being released to manufacturing earlier that month.


title: Pathologic

text: Ice-Pick Lodge stated in November 2013 that it was looking to remake "Pathologic" and using crowdfunding to finance the development. The developer confirmed the remake's development in July 2014 and launched a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign that September. This campaign sought to raise , which it reached by the end of the month, and ended in a total of backed by 7,139 people. In October 2015, Ice-Pick Lodge announced "Pathologic Classic HD", a remaster of the original "Pathologic" developed by General Arcade and published by Gambitious Digital Entertainment. This remaster introduced upgraded visuals, fixed bugs, re-recorded dialog, and a re-translated English script. "Pathologic Classic HD" was released on 29 October 2015. The remaster received generally favourable reviews, according to Metacritic. Under publisher tinyBuild, the "Pathologic" remake was retitled "Pathologic 2" to distinguish it from "Pathologic Classic HD". "Pathologic 2" was released on 23 May 2019.


title: Pathologic

text: In Russia, "Pathologic" was critically well received, winning year-end accolades from five Russian outlets. However, its reception in English-speaking countries has been varied, being both praised for its atmosphere and concept while equally panned for its poor translation, outdated graphics and slow-paced gameplay.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: The elaboration likelihood model (ELM) of persuasion is a dual process theory describing the change of attitudes. The ELM was developed by Richard E. Petty and John Cacioppo in 1980. The model aims to explain different ways of processing stimuli, why they are used, and their outcomes on attitude change. The ELM proposes two major routes to persuasion: the central route and the peripheral route.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: For instance, as the picture shows, a person is considering buying a car and he is persuaded by his friend to buy a certain model. If he processes his friend’s message by taking the central route, he will carefully evaluate his friend’s argument and rationally think about the cost, reliability, fuel efficiency of this model. Once he generates favorable thought along the central route, the ELM predicts he will accept the message and the result is enduring. However, if he uses the peripheral route to process the message, he will be likely to buy the car simply because he likes the color, or a famous idol on television “asks” him to buy this car. Compared to the central route’s effect, thoughts generated from the peripheral route will be relatively short-lasting.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: Elaboration likelihood model is a general theory of attitude change. According to the theory's developers Richard E. Petty and John T. Cacioppo, they intended to provide a general "framework for organizing, categorizing, and understanding the basic processes underlying the effectiveness of persuasive communications".


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: The study of attitudes and persuasion began as the central focus of social psychology, featured in the work of psychologists Gordon Allport (1935) and Edward Alsworth Ross (1908). Allport described attitudes as "the most distinctive and indispensable concept in contemporary social psychology". Considerable research was devoted to the study of attitudes and persuasion from the 1930s through the late 1970s. These studies embarked on various relevant issues regarding attitudes and persuasion, such as the consistency between attitudes and behaviors and the processes underlying attitude/behavior correspondence. However, Petty and Cacioppo noticed a major problem facing attitude and persuasion researchers to the effect that there was minimal agreement regarding "if, when, and how the traditional source, message, recipient, and channel variables affected attitude change". Noticing this problem, Petty and Cacioppo developed the elaboration likelihood model as their attempt to account for the differential persistence of communication-induced attitude change. Petty and Cacioppo suggested that different empirical findings and theories on attitude persistence could be viewed as stressing one of two routes to persuasion which they presented in their elaboration likelihood model.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: Assumption 2: “Although people want to hold correct attitudes, the amount and nature of issue relevant elaboration in which they are willing or able to engage to evaluate a message vary with individual and situational factors”


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: Assumption 4: “Variables affecting motivation and/or ability to process a message in a relatively objective manner can do so by either enhancing or reducing argument scrutiny”


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: Assumption 5: "Variables affecting message processing in a relatively biased manner can produce either a positive (favorable) or negative (unfavorable) motivational and/or ability bias to the issue-relevant thoughts attempted”


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: Assumption 6: "As motivation and/or ability to process arguments is decreased, peripheral cues become relatively more important determinants of persuasion. Conversely, as argument scrutiny is increased, peripheral cues become relatively less important determinants of persuasion."


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: Assumption 7: "Attitude changes that result mostly from processing issue-relevant arguments (central route) will show greater temporal persistence, greater prediction of behavior and greater resistance to counter-persuasion than attitude changes that result mostly from peripheral cues."


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: The elaboration likelihood model proposes two distinct routes for information processing: a central route and a peripheral route. The ELM holds that there are numerous specific processes of change on the "elaboration continuum" ranging from low to high. When the operation processes at the low end of the continuum determine attitudes, persuasion follows the peripheral route. When the operation processes at the high end of the continuum determine attitudes, persuasion follows the central route.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: The central route is used when the message recipient has the motivation as well as the ability to think about the message and its topic. When people process information centrally, the cognitive responses, or elaborations, will be much more relevant to the information, whereas when processing peripherally, the individual may rely on heuristics and other rules of thumb when elaborating on a message. Being at the high end of the elaboration continuum, people assess object-relevant information in relation to schemas that they already possess, and arrive at a reasoned attitude that is supported by information. It is important to consider two types of factors that influence how and how much one will elaborate on a persuasive message. The first are the factors that influence our motivation to elaborate, and the second are the factors that influence our ability to elaborate. Motivation to process the message may be determined by a personal interest in the subject of the message, or individual factors like the need for cognition. However, if the message recipient has a strong, negative attitude toward the position proposed by the message, a boomerang effect (an opposite effect) is likely to occur. That is, they will resist the message and may move away from the proposed position. Two advantages of the central route are that attitude changes tend to last longer and are more predictive of behavior than the changes from the peripheral route. Overall, as people’s motivation and ability to process the message and develop elaborations decreases, the peripheral cues present in the situation become more important in their processing of the message.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: The peripheral route is used when the message recipient has little or no interest in the subject and/or has a lesser ability to process the message. Being at the low end of the elaboration continuum, recipients do not examine the information as thoroughly. With the peripheral route, they are more likely to rely on general impressions (e.g. "this feels right/good"), early parts of the message, their own mood, positive and negative cues of the persuasion context, etc. Because people are "cognitive misers", looking to reduce mental effort, they often use the peripheral route and thus rely on heuristics (mental shortcuts) when processing information. When an individual is not motivated to centrally process an issue because they lack interest in it, or if the individual does not have the cognitive ability to centrally process the issue, then these heuristics can be quite persuasive. Robert Cialdini's Principles of Social Influence (1984), which include commitment, social proof, scarcity, reciprocation, authority, as well as liking the person who is persuading you, are some examples of frequently used heuristics. In addition, credibility can also be used as a heuristic in peripheral thinking because when a speaker is seen as having a higher credibility, then the listener may be more likely to believe the message. Credibility is a low-effort and somewhat reliable way to give us an answer of what to decide and/or believe without having to put in much work to think it through. Peripheral route processing involves a low level of elaboration. The user isn’t scrutinizing the message for its effectiveness.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: If these peripheral influences go completely unnoticed, the message recipient is likely to maintain their previous attitude towards the message. Otherwise, the individual will temporarily change his attitude towards it. This attitude change can be long-lasting, although durable change is less likely to occur than it is with the central route.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: The two most influential factors that affect which processing route an individual uses are motivation (the desire to process the message; see Petty and Cacioppo, 1979) and ability (the capability for critical evaluation; see Petty, Wells and Brock, 1976). The extent of motivation is in turn affected by attitude and personal relevance. Individuals' ability for elaboration is affected by distractions, their cognitive busyness (the extent to which their cognitive processes are engaged by multiple tasks), and their overall knowledge.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: "Attitudes" towards a message can affect motivation. Drawing from cognitive dissonance theory, when people are presented with new information (a message) that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values, they will be motivated to eliminate the dissonance, in order to remain at peace with their own thoughts. For instance, people who want to believe that they will be academically successful may recall more of their past academic successes than their failures. They may also use their world knowledge to construct new theories about how their particular personality traits may predispose them to academic success (Kunda, 1987). If they succeed in accessing and constructing appropriate beliefs, they may feel justified in concluding that they will be academically successful, not realizing that they also possess knowledge that could be used to support the opposite conclusion.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: "Personal relevance" can also affect an individual's degree of motivation. For instance, undergraduate students were told of a new exam policy that would take effect either one or ten years later. The proposal of the new exam policy was either supported by strong or weak arguments. Those students who were going to personally be affected by this change would think more about the issue than those students who were not going to be personally affected.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: An additional factor that affects degree of motivation is an individual's need for cognition. Individuals who take greater pleasure in thinking than others tend to engage in more effortful thinking because of its intrinsic enjoyment for them, regardless of the importance of the issue to them or the need to be correct.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: "Ability" includes the availability of cognitive resources (for instance, the absence of time pressures or distractions) and the relevant knowledge needed to examine arguments. Distractions (for instance, noise in a library where a person is trying to read a journal article) can decrease a person's ability to process a message. Cognitive busyness, which can also serve as a distraction, limits the cognitive resources otherwise available for the task at hand (assessing a message). Another factor of ability is familiarity with the relevant subject. Though they might not be distracted nor cognitively busy, their insufficiency in knowledge can hinder people's engagement in deep thinking.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: Some psychologists lump opportunity in with Ability as it primarily relates to the time available to the individual to make a decision. The popular train of thought today is that this is a category of its own. Factors related to ability to think includes: time pressure, message repetition, distraction, knowledge, fatigue, social pressure, etc.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: "Message repetition" enables more argument scrutiny. If the argument is strong, repetition leads to more change in attitude. For example, in marketing research, advertising leads to a favorable brand attitude as long as the arguments are strong and tedium is not induced. However, it is noticeable that repetition does not always lead to more attitude change. The effect of repetition also depends on other factors such as content of argument, and previous knowledge and attitude.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: When "Distraction" is high, elaboration is lower due to limited mental power. In this case, people are less influenced by the quality of the argument in a persuasive message. Rather, they focus on simple source cues. Keeping other factors constant, a stronger argument leads to more attitude change when distraction is low; and a weak argument could lead to more attitude change when distraction is high.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: A variable is essentially anything that can "increase" or "decrease" the persuasiveness of a message. "Attractiveness", "mood" and "expertise" are just a few examples of variables that can influence persuasiveness. Variables can serve as arguments or peripheral cues to affect the persuasiveness of a message. According to the ELM, changing the quality of an argument or providing a cue in a persuasive context could influence the persuasiveness of a message and affect receivers’ attitudes.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: Under high elaboration, a given variable (e.g., expertise) can serve as an "argument" (e.g., "If Einstein agrees with the theory of relativity, then this is a strong reason for me to as well") or a "biasing factor" (e.g., "If an expert agrees with this position it is probably good, so let me see who else agrees with this conclusion"), at the expense of contradicting information. Under low-elaboration conditions, a variable may act as a "peripheral cue" (e.g., the belief that "experts are always right"). While this is similar to the Einstein example above, this is a shortcut which (unlike the Einstein example) does not require thought. Under moderate elaboration, a variable may direct the "extent of information processing" (e.g., "If an expert agrees with this position, I should really listen to what they have to say"). If subjects are under conditions of moderate elaboration, variables might enhance or reduce the persuasiveness in an objective manner, or bialy motivate or inhibit subjects to generate a certain thought. For instance, a distraction could serve as a variable to objectively affect the persuasiveness of a message. The distraction will enhance the persuasion of a weak argument but reduce the persuasion of a strong argument. (As the Figure III (Reduce) suggests.)


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: Recent scholars studied persuasion combining ELM with another concept self-validation: to affect the extent to which a person trusts their thoughts in response to a message ("self-validation role"). A person not only needs to have an attitude towards a message, but also needs to trust their own attitude as correct one so this message can influence their behaviors. If they do not deem themself as correct, they will mentally abandon their own thought. Because of its metacognitive nature, self-validation only occurs in high-elaboration conditions. The ELM posts that variables (credulity, happiness, etc.) can influence the amount and direction of processing, and self-validation postulates that those variables can affect how people use their thoughts as well. For example, when people are generating favorable thoughts about a new idea, they will be more self-affirmed if they are nodding their heads (a variable). Conversely, if they are shaking their heads, they will be less self-affirmed about their thoughts. (See more examples in Postures)


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: For an individual intent on forming long-lasting beliefs on topics, the central route is advantageous by the fact that arguments are scrutinized intensely and that information is unlikely to be overlooked. However, this route uses a considerable amount of energy, time, and mental effort.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: It is not worthwhile to exert considerable mental effort to achieve correctness in all situations and people do not always have the requisite knowledge, time, or opportunity to thoughtfully assess the merits of a proposal. For those, the use of the peripheral route excels at saving energy, time, and mental effort. This is particularly advantageous in situations in which one must make a decision within a small time constraint. On the other hand, the peripheral route is prone to errors in judgment, at least in attributing reasons for behaviors. Also, people are persuaded in peripheral routes based on import cues such as credibility of the information source. However, the sleeper effect could influence the strength of persuasion.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: It is noteworthy that high elaboration does not necessarily lead to attitude change. Resistance to persuasion occurs when someone feels their freedom to perform a certain behavior is threatened. A famous study on reaction is conducted by Pennebaker and Sanders in 1976. The experimenters placed placard in campus toilets to discourage graffiti. The result of experiment suggests the amount of graffiti written on the threatening placards was significantly positively related to both authority and threat level. Findings are interpreted as reflecting reactance arousal.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: Researchers have applied the elaboration likelihood model to many fields, including advertising, marketing, consumer behavior and health care, just to name a few.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: In 1983, Petty, Cacioppo and Schumann conducted a study to examine source effects in advertising. It was a product advertisement about a new disposable razor. The authors purposefully made one group of subjects highly involved with the product, by telling them the product would be test marketed soon in the local area and by the end of the experiment they would be given a chance to get a disposable razor. Whereas, the authors made another group of subjects have low involvement with the product by telling them that the product would be test marketed in a distant city and by the end of the experiment they would have the chance to get a toothpaste. In addition to varying involvement, the authors also varied source and message characteristics by showing a group of the subjects ads featuring popular athletes, whereas showing other subjects ads featuring average citizens; showing some subjects ads with strong arguments and others ads with weak arguments. This experiment shows that when the elaboration likelihood was low, featuring famous athletes in the advertisement would lead to more favorable product attitudes, regardless of the strength of the product attributes presented. Whereas when elaboration likelihood was high, only the argument strength would manipulate affected attitudes. Lee et al. supported the studies on that product involvement strengthens the effects of "endorser–product congruence on consumer responses" when the endorsers expertise is well related with product to create source credibility. Lee's finding also helps to understand celebrity endorsement as not only a peripheral cue but also a motivation for central route.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: Later in 1985, Bitner, Mary J., and Carl Obermiller expand this model theoretically in the field of marketing. They proposed in the marketing context, the determinant of routes is more complex, involving variables of situation, person, and product categories.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: It is widely acknowledged that effects of ads are not only limited to the information contained in the ad alone but are also a function of the different appeals used in the ads (like use celebrities or non-celebrities as endorsers). In a study conducted by Rollins and Bhutada in 2013, ELM theory was the framework used to understand and evaluate the underlying mechanisms describing the relationships between endorser type, disease state involvement and consumer response to direct-to-consumer advertisements (DTCA). The finding showed while endorser type did not significantly affect consumer attitudes, behavioral intentions and information search behavior; level of disease state involvement, though, did. More highly involved consumers had more positive attitudes, behavioral intentions and greater information search behavior.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: Since social media become a popular marketing platform as well, some scholars also use the ELM to examine how purchase intentions, brand attitudes, and advertising attitudes could be affected by interactivity and source authority on social media platforms. Ott et al. conducted an experiment by presenting participants with Facebook posts from a fictitious company and analyzing their attitude change. The results shows that high and medium interactivity (which means numbers of responses from company representatives on social media posts would: 1) enhance the perceived informativeness (consumers can get useful information from advertising), and then strengthen positive attitudes and purchase intentions; Or 2) increase perceived dialogues, which led to increasing perceived informativeness and then positive attitudes and purchase intentions. However, high interactivity without the perceived informativeness would generate negative attitudes and low purchase intentions. This study has suggested that to some extent companies should engage audience in a systematic processing way in social media advertisings, as consumers elaborate along central route will generate more positive attitudes and higher purchase intentions.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: Recent research has been conducted to apply the ELM to the healthcare field. In 2009, Angst and Agarwal published a research article, "Adoption of Electronic Health Records in the Presence of Privacy Concerns: the Elaboration Likelihood Model and Individual Persuasion". This research studies electronic health records (EHRs), (an individual's) concern for information privacy (CFIP) and the elaboration likelihood model (ELM). The two researchers aimed to investigate the question, "Can individuals be persuaded to change their attitudes and opt-in behavioral intentions toward EHRs, and allow their medical information to be digitized even in the presence of significant privacy concerns?"


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: Since the ELM model provides an understanding how to influence attitudes, the said model could be leveraged to alter perceptions and attitudes regarding adoption and adaptation of change.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: Chen and Lee conducted a study about online shopping persuasion by applying the elaboration likelihood model back to 2008. In this study, how online shopping influences consumers' beliefs and perceived values on attitude and approach behavior were examined. "Twenty cosmetics and 20 hotel websites were selected for participants to randomly link to and read, and the students were then asked to fill in a 48-item questionnaire via the internet. It was found that when consumers have higher levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness, central route website contents would be more favorable for eliciting utilitarian shopping value; whereas when consumers have higher levels of emotional stability, openness, and extraversion, peripheral route website contents would be more critical in facilitating experiential and hedonic shopping value", Chen explained.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: In 2009, another study about the effects of consumer skepticism on online shopping was conducted by Sher and Lee. Data on young customers' attitudes about a product were acquired through an online experiment with 278 college students, and two findings emerged after analysis. First, highly skeptical consumers tend to stick with their original impression than been influenced by other factors (Central Route); which means, they are biased against certain types of information and indifferent to the message quality. Second, consumers with low skepticism tend to adopt the peripheral route in forming attitude; that is, they are more persuaded by online review quantity. Lee indicated, "these findings contribute to the ELM research literature by considering a potentially important personality factor in the ELM framework".


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: Other studies applied ELM in e-commerce and internet related fields are listed below for your additional references:


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: Scholars have studied whether media modalities will serve as variable to affect which processing route to take. The previous researches by Chaiken suggested that audio and video modes tended to led receivers to heuristic processing (taking the peripheral route) rather than engage in systematic processing (taking the central route). Bootb-Butterfield and Gutowski have studied how media modalities, argument quality, and source credibility interact to influence receivers to process messages. Bootb-Butterfield and Gutowski conducted an experiment by providing students with strong or weak arguments from high or low credible sources in print, audio, or video modes. By giving participants with negative thought topics, experiment results shows that media modalities, source credibility, and argument quality have significant interactions in attitudes change and elaboration mounts: Within the print mode, the interaction between source credibility and argument quality was the least, partly confirmed that print mode would generate systematic processing. And participants generated more unfavorable thoughts towards weak arguments than strong arguments. Within the audio mode, there was no difference between weak and strong arguments with low credible sources; But, weak arguments with high credible sources generate more unfavorable thoughts than strong arguments. Within the video mode, arguments with low credible sources had no difference in elaboration mounts, while strong arguments with high credible sources produced more thoughts.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: Many else research on how media content triggered the central or peripheral processing and lead to attitude change. In order to reduce youth smoking by developing improved methods to communicate with higher risk youth, Flynn and his colleagues conducted a study in 2013, exploring the potential of smoking prevention messages on TV based on the ELM. "Structured evaluations of 12 smoking prevention messages based on three strategies derived from the ELM were conducted in classroom settings among a diverse sample of non-smoking middle school students in three states. Students categorized as likely to have higher involvement in a decision to initiate cigarette smoking, are reported relatively high ratings on a cognitive processing indicator for messages focused on factual arguments about negative consequences of smoking than for messages with fewer or no direct arguments. Message appeal ratings did not show greater preference for this message type among higher involved versus lower involved students. Ratings from students reporting lower academic achievement suggested difficulty processing factual information presented in these messages. The ELM may provide a useful strategy for reaching adolescents at risk for smoking initiation, but particular attention should be focused on lower academic achievers to ensure that messages are appropriate for them."


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: Another research directed by Boyce and Kuijer was focusing on media body ideal images triggers food intake among restrained eaters based on ELM. Their hypotheses were based on restraint theory and the ELM. From the research, they found participants' attention (advertent/inadvertent) toward the images was manipulated. Although restrained eaters' weight satisfaction was not significantly affected by either media exposure condition, advertent (but not inadvertent) media exposure triggered restrained eaters' eating. These results suggest that teaching restrained eaters how to pay less attention to media body ideal images might be an effective strategy in media–literary interventions.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: Braverman researched on combining media modality and content design. She directed a study focusing on the persuasion effects of informational (anecdotal evidence) and testimonial messages (personal stories or experience) in text or audio modes. Study results supported that people in low issue-relevance would be persuaded more by testimonial messages, while people in high issue-relevance would be persuaded more by informational messages. She also found that text was more effective for informational messages, whereas audio was relatively more effective for testimonial messages.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: With the development of the internet and the emerging new media, L. G. Pee (2012) has conduct interesting research on the influence of trust on social media using the ELM theory. The findings resulted that source credibility, the majority influence, and information quality has strong effect on the trust for users.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: Scholars have also studied on how the ELM functions on Connective-collective action on social media. "Connective-collective activities" means ones are able to receive other's personal opinions and add responses to them, so the information will be accumulated and turned into a collective one. On social media there four types of activities are considered as connective-collective: 1) commenting; 2) uploading materials; 3) relaying information received; 4) affiliating (i.e. Liking, following, etc.). Nekmat et al. have suggested that the overabundance of information on social media might not induce audience to heuristic processing; instead, source attributes such as credibility and personalness (which means the closeness of friends in a circle) will be mediated by elaboration cognition. Nekmat et al. found that personalness was positively related to elaboration and users with elaboration cognition were more willing to participant in connective-collective activities. They speculated that this was due to the need to cross the private-public boundary when interacting on social media gave people burdens.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: Molina and Jennings focused on whether civil and uncivil behaviors on Facebook serve as cues to encourage users' willingness to participant in a discussion. By presenting experiment participants with Facebook posts and comments (civil or uncivil), they found that: civil comments will encourage more elaboration and therefore generate more willingness to engage in a discussion than uncivil comments; the more elaboration participants generate, the more they are willing to participant in the discussion.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: The ELM has been studied with regard to its usefulness in politics and voting specifically. The work of Terry Chmielewski (University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire) found "moderate-to-strong support for the applicability of E-L-M to voting." This finding came through the study of voters in the 2004 and 2008 elections for President of the United States.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: Continuing on that thread, the work of Wood and Herbst found that, "family and significant others were more influential than celebrities in engendering support for a political candidate." This indicates that peripheral route processes may have some influence on some voters; however, family and friends are likely to be more influential than those who do not have a personal connection to specific voters.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: Hans-Joachim Mosler applied ELM to study if and how a minority can persuade the majority to change its opinion.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: The study used Agent-based social simulation. There were five agents, three (or four) of whom held a neutral opinion on some abstract topic, while the other two (or one) held a different opinion. In addition, there were differences between the agents regarding their "argument quality" and "peripheral cues". The simulation was done in rounds. In each round, one of the agents had an opportunity to influence the other agents. The level of influence was determined by either the argument strength (if the central route was taken) or the peripheral cues (if the peripheral route was taken). After two rounds of persuasion, the distance between the majority's original opinion to its new opinion was studied. It was found that, the peripheral cues of the minority were more important than the argument quality. I.e, a minority with strong arguments but negative cues (e.g., different skin-color or bad reputation) did not succeed in convincing the majority, while a minority with weak arguments and positive cues (e.g., appearance or reputation) did succeed. The results depend also on the level of "personal relevance" – how much the topic is important to the majority and to the minority.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: Scholars also studied how partisan cues in media content will affect elaboration direction and mount. Jennings combined social identity theory and elaboration likelihood model to study whether identities will motivate audience to only rely on partisan cues on media to process information, and whether partisan cues would inhibit audience from learning. Jennings's experiment provided participants with a nonpartisan or partisan article at first and used questionnaires to test their elaboration and learning outcomes. The results supported Jennings hypotheses: articles with partisan cues would prevent partisans from learning more information in the article, compared to articles without partisan cues. Besides, nonpartisan articles would relatively generate more positive thoughts than partisan articles. Also, partisan members tend to elaborate more negative thoughts when exposed to out-group's information, and partisan members will elaborate more positive thoughts when exposed to in-group's messages. For instance, Republicans will come out of more negative reasons why a Democrat senator should not be elected, while Democrats will generate more positive reasons to elect a Democrat senator.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: ELM has been utilized to look at the effect of social media on politics. One study on the effect of Twitter on politics, by Wu, Wong, Deng, and Chang, found that certain types of tweets (1 central route, 1 peripheral route) are most effective in political persuasion. Informative tweets (central) have been shown to produce a consistent impact on opinion convergence. Affective tweets (peripheral) have been shown to be more inconsistent.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: Dunbar et al. studied on how violent and nonviolent ideological groups developed their persuasion strategy online. Ideological groups (or ethnic groups) are people who shared similar values such as religious beliefs, political beliefs, and social movements which distinguish them from out-group members. Some ideological groups are considered as violent because they acquiesce use of violence to achieve their values. For instance, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals’ website advocated their ideas nonviolently, while ISIS website sanctioned and prioritized violent acts for their goals. Dunbar et al. have studied how nonviolent ideological groups and violent groups used tactics to induce central or peripheral processing, and surprisingly found that both nonviolent ideological and violent groups applied more central cues than peripheral cues in their persuasion, in another word, they adopted more arguments and evidence than simply designing a visually attractive website or idolizing someone. Besides, violent ideological groups used more fear appeals to their audience, and interacted less with their audience. Dunbar et al. speculated that some extreme groups desired to have tight control over their content so they had low tolerance for other's opinions.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: One of the most common reasons why an individual does not attend counseling is because they are worried about the falling into a stigma (being considered crazy, or having serious “issues”). This stigma, which was prevalent 30 years ago, still exists today. Fortunately, an implementation of the ELM can help increase the positive perceptions of counseling amongst the undergraduate student population. Students that repeatedly watched a video that explained the function and positive outcomes of mental health counseling demonstrated a significant and lasting change in their perception to counseling. Students who watched the video once or not at all maintained a relatively negative view towards counseling. Thus, repeated exposure towards the positive elements of counseling lead towards a greater elaboration and implementation of the central route to combat negative social stigma of counseling. Most negative intuitions exist within the realm of the peripheral route, and therefore to work against stigmas the general public needs to engage their central route of processing.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: The more credible a counselor is perceived to be, the more likely that counseling clients are to perceive the counselor’s advice as impactful. However, counselor credibility is strongly mediated by the degree to which the client understands the information conveyed by the counselor. Therefore, it is extremely important that counseling clients feel that they understand their counselor. The use of metaphor is helpful for this. Metaphors require a deeper level of elaboration, thereby engaging the central route of processing. Kendall (2010) suggests using metaphor in counseling as a valid method towards helping clients understand the message/psychological knowledge conveyed by the client. When the client hears a metaphor that resonates with them, they are far more likely to trust and build positive rapport with the counselor.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: Li has expanded the theoretical frame of the ELM and applied it to information system acceptance. Li conducted a research on persuasive tactics for managers who needed to persuade staff to adopt new information systems within firms by integrating the ELM, social influence theory (It studies how a person is influenced by others in a network to conform to a community, and there are two types of social influences: informational and normative influences), and affective and cognition responses (or emotional responses and rational responses). Li's experiment suggested that: 1) managers should tailor their persuasive strategies according to various elaboration abilities of staff. For staff who have higher levels of elaboration likelihood, managers should emphasize benefits and values of new systems; For staff who have lower levels of elaboration likelihood, managers should provide expertise and credible sources; 2) Commonly speaking, providing strong arguments is more effective than relying on credibility; 3) Since normative influences lead to more affective responses and informational influences lead to more cognition responses, managers should implement different strategies to provoke staff's reaction, while 4) cognition responses are more important than affective responses when accepting a new system.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: In designing a test for the aforementioned model, it is necessary to determine the quality of an argument, i.e., whether it is viewed as strong or weak. If the argument is not seen as strong, then the results of persuasion will be inconsistent. A strong argument is defined by Petty and Cacioppo as "one containing arguments such that when subjects are instructed to think about the message, the thoughts they generate are fundamentally favorable." An argument that is universally viewed as weak will elicit unfavorable results, especially if the subject considers it under high elaboration, thus being the central route. Test arguments must be rated by ease of understanding, complexity and familiarity. To study either route of the elaboration likelihood model, the arguments must be designed for consistent results. Also, when assessing persuasion of an argument, the influence of peripheral cues needs to be taken into consideration as cues can influence attitude even in the absence of argument processing. The extent or direction of message processing also needs to be taken into consideration when assessing persuasion, as variables can influence or bias thought by enabling or inhibiting the generation of a particular kind of thought in regard to the argument. "While the ELM theory continues to be widely cited and taught as one of the major cornerstones of persuasion, questions are raised concerning its relevance and validity in 21st century communication contexts."


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: Some researchers have been criticized for misinterpreting the ELM. One such instance is Kruglanski and Thompson, who write that the processing of central or peripheral routes is determined by the "type" of information that affects message persuasion. For example, message variables are only influential when the central route is used and information like source variables is only influential when the peripheral route is used. In fact, the ELM does not make statements about "types" of information being related to routes. Rather, the key to the ELM is "how" any type of information will be used depending on central or peripheral routes, regardless of what that information is. For example, the central route may permit source variables to influence preference for certain language usage in the message (e.g. "beautiful") or validate a related product (e.g. cosmetics), while the peripheral route may only lead individuals to associate the "goodness" of source variables with the message. Theoretically, all of these could occur simultaneously. Thus, the distinction between central and peripheral routes is not the type of information being processed as those types can be applied to both routes, but rather how that information is processed and ultimately whether processing information in one way or the other will result in different attitudes.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: A second instance of misinterpretation is that processing of the central route solely involves thinking about the message content and not thoughts about the issue. Petty and Cacioppo (1981) stated "If the issue is very important to the person, but the person doesn't understand the arguments being presented in the message, or if no arguments are actually presented, then elaboration of arguments cannot occur. ... Nevertheless, the person may still be able to think about the issue." Therefore, issue-relevant thinking is still a part of the central route and is necessary for one to think about the message content.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: Lastly, a third instance of misinterpretation by Kruglanski and Thompson is the disregard for the quantitative dimension presented by the ELM and more focus on the qualitative dimension. This quantitative dimension is the peripheral route involves low-elaboration persuasion that is quantitatively different from the central route that involves high elaboration. With this difference the ELM also explains that low-elaboration persuasion processes are qualitatively different as well. It is seen as incorrect if the ELM focuses on a quantitative explanation over a qualitative one; however one of the ELM's key points is that elaboration can range from high to low which is not incorrect as data from experiments conducted by Petty (1997) as well as Petty and Wegener (1999) suggest that persuasion findings can be explained by a quantitative dimension without ever needing a qualitative one.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: In 2014, J. Kitchen et al. scrutinized the literatures of the ELM for the past 30 years. They came up with four major research areas that have received most significant criticism:


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: The first critique concerns issue of the model's initial development. Considering that the ELM was built upon previous empirical research and a diverse literature base to unify disparate ideas, the model is inherently descriptive because of the intuitive and conceptual assumptions underlying. For example, Choi and Salmon criticized Petty and Cacioppo's assumption that correct recall of a product led directly to high involvement. They proposed that high involvement is likely to be the result of other variations, for example the sample population; and the weak/strong arguments in one study are likely to result in different involvement characteristics in another study.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: The elaboration likelihood continuum ought to show that a human can undergo a natural progression from high involvement to low involvement with the corresponding effects. This continuum can account for the swift between the central and the peripheral routes, but has yet been lack of comprehensive and empirical testing since the beginning. However, researches has been done under three distinct conditions: high, low, and moderate.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: This area of critique basically lands on the nature of ELM being a dual-process model, which indicates that the receivers will rely on one of the routes (central or peripheral) to process messages and possibly change attitude and behaviour. Stiff (1986) questioned the validity of ELM because the message should be able to be processed through two routes simultaneously. On top of Stiff's questioning, alternative models have been raised. Mackenzie et al (1986) advocated a Dual Mediation Hypothesis (DMH) that allow receivers to process the ad's content and its execution at the same time with reasonable vigilance. Lord et al. (1995) proposed a Combined Influence Hypothesis which argues that the central and peripheral cues worked in combination despite the variables of motivation and ability. Kruglanski et al. (1999) proposed a single cognitive process instead of the dual-process model. Although drawing on the fundamental conception from ELM, such as motivation, ability and continuum, the unimodel suggests a normative and heuristic rules for human to make judgement based on the evidence. The Heuristic Systematic Model (HSM) is another alternative model concerning this issue.


title: Elaboration likelihood model

text: Many studies have been expanding and/or refining the model by examining and testing the variables, particularly in advertising research. For example, Britner and Obermiller (1985) were among the first to expand the model to new variables under the peripheral processing. They proposed situation, person, and product categories as new variables under the context of marketing.


title: Caesura

text: A caesura (, . caesuras or caesurae; Latin for "cutting"), also written cæsura and cesura, is a metrical pause or break in a verse where one phrase ends and another phrase begins. It may be expressed by a comma (,), a tick (✓), or two lines, either slashed (//) or upright (||). In time value, this break may vary between the slightest perception of silence all the way up to a full pause.


title: Caesura

text: In classical Greek and Latin poetry a caesura is the juncture where one word ends and the following word begins within a foot. In contrast, a word juncture at the end of a foot is called a diaeresis. Some caesurae are expected and represent a point of articulation between two phrases or clauses. All other caesurae are only potentially places of articulation. The opposite of an obligatory caesura is a bridge where word juncture is not permitted.


title: Caesura

text: In modern European poetry, a caesura is defined as a natural phrase end, especially when occurring in the middle of a line. A follows a stressed syllable while a follows an unstressed syllable. A caesura is also described by its position in a line of poetry: a caesura close to the beginning of a line is called an "initial" caesura, one in the middle of a line is "medial", and one near the end of a line is "terminal." Initial and terminal caesurae are rare in formal, Romance, and Neoclassical verse, which prefer medial caesurae.


title: Caesura

text: In verse scansion, the modern caesura mark is a double vertical bar ⟨||⟩ or ⟨formula_1⟩, a variant of the single-bar "" ("twig") used as a caesura mark in medieval manuscripts. The same mark separately developed as the virgule, the single slash used to mark line breaks in poetry.


title: Caesura

text: This line includes a masculine caesura after θεὰ, a natural break that separates the line into two logical parts. Unlike the tragedians in their hexameters, Homeric lines more commonly employ feminine caesurae; this preference is observed to an even higher degree among the Alexandrian poets.


title: Caesura

text: This line uses caesura in the medial position. In dactylic hexameter, a caesura occurs any time the ending of a word does not coincide with the beginning or the end of a metrical foot; in modern prosody, however, it is only called one when the ending also coincides with an audible pause in the line.


title: Caesura

text: The ancient elegiac couplet form of the Greeks and Romans contained a line of dactylic hexameter followed by a line of pentameter. The pentameter often displayed a clearer caesura, as in this example from Propertius:


title: Caesura

text: In Old English, the caesura has come to represent a pronounced pause in order to emphasize lines in Old English poetry that would otherwise be considered to be a droning, monotonous line. This makes the caesura arguably more important to the Old English verse than it was to Latin or Greek poetry. In Latin or Greek poetry, the caesura could be suppressed for effect in any line. In the alliterative verse that is shared by most of the oldest Germanic languages, the caesura is an ever-present and necessary part of the verse form itself. The opening line of "Beowulf" reads:


title: Caesura

text: The basic form is accentual verse, with four stresses per line separated by a caesura. Old English poetry added alliteration and other devices to this basic pattern.


title: Caesura

text: One of the widely used examples of caesurae in Indian poetry was in the 'dohas' or couplet poems of Sant Kabir Das, a 15th-century poet who was central to the Bhakti movement in Hinduism. An example of his doha or couplet:


title: Caesura

text: Caesurae can occur in later forms of verse, where they are usually optional. The so-called ballad meter, or the common meter of the hymnodists (see also hymn), is usually thought of as a line of iambic tetrameter followed by a line of trimeter, but it can also be considered a line of heptameter with a fixed caesura at the fourth foot.


title: Caesura

text: Considering the break as a caesura in these verse forms, rather than a beginning of a new line, explains how sometimes multiple caesurae can be found in this verse form (from the ballad, Tom o' Bedlam):


title: Caesura

text: In later and freer verse forms, the caesura is optional. It can, however, be used for rhetorical effect, as in Alexander Pope's line:


title: Caesura

text: Caesura is very important in Polish syllabic verse (as in French alexandrine). Every line longer than eight syllables is divided into two half-lines. Lines composed of the same number of syllables with division in different place are considered to be completely different metrical patterns. For example, Polish alexandrine (13) is almost always divided 7+6. It has been very common in Polish poetry for last five centuries. But the metre 13(8+5) occurs only rarely and 13(6+7) can be hardly found. In Polish accentual-syllabic verse caesura is not so important but iambic tetrametre (very popular today) is usually 9(5+4). Caesura in Polish syllabic verse is almost always feminine, while in accentual-syllabic (especially iambic) verse it is often masculine: sSsSsSsS//sSsSsSsSs. There are also metrical patterns with two or three caesuras, for example 18[9(5+4)+9(5+4)].


title: Caesura

text: In music, a caesura denotes a brief, silent pause, during which metrical time is not counted. Similar to a silent fermata, caesurae are located between notes or measures (before or over bar lines), rather than on notes or rests (as with a fermata). A fermata may be placed over a caesura to indicate a longer pause.


title: Caesura

text: In musical notation, a caesura is marked by double oblique lines, similar to a pair of slashes . The symbol is popularly called "tram-lines" in the UK and "railroad tracks" or "train tracks" in the US.


title: Line Islands

text: The Line Islands, Teraina Islands or Equatorial Islands (in Gilbertese, "Aono Raina") are a chain of 11 atolls (with partly or fully enclosed lagoons) and coral islands (with a surrounding reef) in the central Pacific Ocean, south of the Hawaiian Islands. The island chain stretches northwest to southeast across , making it one of the longest island chains in the world. It lies at the geographic center of the Pacific Ocean (), near Starbuck Island. One of the atolls in the group, Kiritimati, has the largest land area of any atoll in the world. Of the 11 atolls, all of which were formed by volcanic activity, only the Kiritimati and Tabuaeran atolls and Teraina island have a permanent population (one of the reefs, Filippo Reef, is shown on some maps, but its existence is doubted). Eight of the atolls are parts of Kiribati. The remaining three—Jarvis Island, Kingman Reef (which is largely submerged), and Palmyra Atoll—are territories of the United States grouped with the United States Minor Outlying Islands.


title: Line Islands

text: The International Date Line passes through the Line Islands. The ones that are parts of Kiribati are in the world's farthest forward time zone, . The time of day is (UTC-10.00), the same as in the state of Hawaii in the United States, but the date is one day ahead of Hawaii. The time in the Line Islands is 26 hours ahead of some other islands in Oceania, such as Baker Island, which uses .


title: Line Islands

text: Archaeologists have identified the remains of coral Marae platforms and/or village complexes on several of the islands, including the Kiritimati and Tabuaeran atolls, Teraina Island, Malden, Millennium Atoll and Flint Island. These remains are dateable as far back as the 14th century, and show that the inhabitants of the Line Islands were more than just castaways.


title: Line Islands

text: Most 18th-century visitors to these isles overlooked these telltale signs of former Polynesian settlement. This included Captain Cook, who landed on Christmas Island in 1777, as well as Captain Fanning, who visited Teraina (Washington Island) and Tabuaeran (Fanning Atoll) in 1798.


title: Line Islands

text: In the 19th century, whaling ships were regular visitors to the islands. They came in search of water, wood and provisions. The first whaler recorded to have visited one of them was the "Coquette", which docked at Kiritimati (then called Christmas Island) in 1822.


title: Line Islands

text: In 1888, the United Kingdom was planning to lay the Pacific cable, and annexed the islands with a view to using Tabuaeran (then Fanning Island) as one of the relay stations for the cable. The cable was laid and was operational between 1902 and 1963 (except for a short period in 1914).


title: Line Islands

text: In 1916, the British annexed Fanning and Washington islands, making them part of the British colony of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands. In 1919, they annexed Christmas Island to the same colony. The Line Islands occasionally featured briefly in the biennial reports furnished by the Colony's resident commissioner to the Colonial Office and Parliament in London (see, for example, the reports submitted in 1966 and 1967).


title: Line Islands

text: The United States contested the British annexations, based on the U.S. Guano Islands Act of 1856, which allowed for very wide-ranging territorial claims. It relinquished these claims only in 1979, when it entered into the Treaty of Tarawa, which recognised Kiribati's sovereignty over the majority of the Line Islands chain.


title: Line Islands

text: Geographically, the Line Islands is divided into three subgroups: the Northern, Central, and Southern Line Islands (however, the Central Line Islands are sometimes grouped with the Southern Line Islands). The table below lists the islands from north to south.


title: Line Islands

text: The lagoon areas marked with an asterisk are included in the land areas of the previous column because, unlike typical lagoons in atolls, they are inland waters completely sealed off from the sea.


title: Line Islands

text: On 23 December 1994, the Republic of Kiribati announced a change of time zone for the Line Islands, to take effect 31 December 1994. This adjustment effectively moved the International Date Line more than to the east within Kiribati, which placed all of Kiribati on the Asian or western side of the date line, despite the fact that Millennium Island's longitude of 150 degrees west corresponds to rather than to its official time zone of . Millennium Island is now at the same time as the Hawaiian Islands (Hawaii–Aleutian Time Zone), but one day ahead. This move made Millennium Island (then Caroline Island) the easternmost land in the earliest time zone (by some definitions, the easternmost point on Earth), and one of the first points of land which saw sunrise on 1 January 2000 – at 5:43 am, as measured by local time.


title: Line Islands

text: The stated reason for the move was the fulfilment of a campaign promise that Kiribati President Teburoro Tito had made to eliminate the confusion caused by Kiribati straddling the Date Line and therefore being constantly in two different days. However, Kiribati officials were not reluctant to attempt to capitalise on the nation's new status as owners of the first land to see sunrise in 2000. Other Pacific nations, including Tonga and New Zealand's Chatham Islands, protested the move, objecting that it interfered with their own claims to be the first land to see dawn in the year 2000.


title: Line Islands

text: In 1999, to further capitalise upon the massive public interest in celebrations marking the arrival of the year 2000, Caroline Island was officially renamed Millennium Island. Although the island is uninhabited, a special celebration was held there to mark the occasion. It featured performances by native Kiribati entertainers and was attended by Kiribati's President Tito. Over 70 Kiribati singers and dancers travelled to Millennium Island from the capital, South Tarawa, accompanied by approximately 25 journalists. The celebration, which was broadcast worldwide by satellite, had an estimated audience size of as many as one billion viewers.


title: Kwon Alexander

text: Kwon Alexander (born August 3, 1994) is an American football linebacker for the New York Jets of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at LSU. He was drafted by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the fourth round of the 2015 NFL Draft. Alexander has also played for the San Francisco 49ers and New Orleans Saints.


title: Kwon Alexander

text: Alexander attended Oxford High School in Oxford, Alabama. An impact player on the defensive side of the ball, Alexander missed most of his 2011 senior campaign with a knee injury after posting 144 tackles, 17 sacks, and six forced fumbles (three recoveries) as a junior in 2010. Oxford finished the season 12–2, advancing the AHSAA Class 6A state semi-finals where they lost 32–22 to Marlon Humphrey's Hoover. Alexander participated in the Under Armour All-American Game as a member of the black team. He was chosen as a finalist for the High School Butkus Award, given annually to the nation’s top linebacker. He was also named to the 2011 ESPN All-Alabama Football Team and was a Class 6A All-State Football Team Honorable Mention.


title: Kwon Alexander

text: Alexander was also a state qualifier in track & field at Oxford. At the 2011 AHSAA 6A Section 4, he posted personal-best times of 11.24 seconds in the 100-meter dash and 22.99 seconds in the 200-meter dash, placing 9th and 7th, respectively.


title: Kwon Alexander

text: Regarded as a four-star prospect according to "ESPN.com", "Rivals.com", and "Scout.com", Alexander was ranked No. 19 in the 2012 Scout.com Final Southeast Top 150. He was ranked No. 45 in the Press-Register Super Southeast 120 and No. 29 in the 2012 ESPNU 150. He was listed in the MaxPreps 2012 Top 100. He was rated as Alabama’s No. 3 prospect by "ESPN.com", No. 11 by "Rivals.com", and No. 6 by "247Sports.com". Nationally, "ESPN.com" and "Scout.com" rated him as the No. 3 linebacker, "247sports.com" rated him as the nation’s No. 9 linebacker, while "Rivals.com" rated him at No. 20. He committed to Louisiana State University (LSU) to play college football.


title: Kwon Alexander

text: Alexander attended LSU from 2012 to 2014. As a true freshman, he played in seven games with two starts and had 12 tackles. As a sophomore, he started nine of 13 games. He finished the season with 65 tackles. As a junior, Alexander led the team with 92 tackles and had 1.5 sacks. After his junior season, Alexander entered the 2015 NFL Draft.


title: Kwon Alexander

text: On December 31, 2014, Alexander announced on his Twitter account his decision to forgo his senior season and enter the 2015 NFL Draft. Alexander was one of 33 collegiate linebackers to attend the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis, Indiana. Alexander completed all of the necessary drills, finishing second among all linebackers in the 40-yard dash, sixth in the bench press and short shuttle, and ninth in the three-cone drill.


title: Kwon Alexander

text: On March 27, 2015, Alexander attended LSU's pro day, but opted to stand on his combine numbers and only performed positional drills for team representatives and scouts from all 32 NFL teams, including Steelers' head coach Mike Tomlin and general managers from the Minnesota Vikings, New Orleans Saints, New York Giants, New York Jets, and Pittsburgh Steelers. During the draft process, he attended only one private visit with the San Francisco 49ers. At the conclusion of the pre-draft process, Alexander was projected to be a third round pick by NFL draft experts and scouts. He was ranked the second best outside linebacker prospect in the draft by NFL analyst Charles Davis and was ranked sixth best outside linebacker in the draft by NFLDraftScouts.com, and was ranked the seventh best linebacker by Matt Miller of NFLDraftScout.com.


title: Kwon Alexander

text: The Tampa Bay Buccaneers selected Alexander in the fourth round (124th overall) of the 2015 NFL Draft. The Buccaneers traded their fourth (128th overall) and seventh round (218th overall) picks to the Oakland Raiders in order to move up four spots and select Alexander. He was the 11th linebacker drafted in 2015.


title: Kwon Alexander

text: On May 12, 2015, the Buccaneers signed Alexander to a four-year, $2.75 million contract that includes a signing bonus of $478,322.


title: Kwon Alexander

text: Alexander entered training camp, competing for the job as the starting strongside linebacker against Danny Lansanah. After performing well, he was moved to middle linebacker to compete for the starting role against veteran Bruce Carter. Head coach Lovie Smith named Alexander the starting middle linebacker alongside outside linebackers Lavonte David and Lansanah.


title: Kwon Alexander

text: Alexander made his NFL debut and first NFL start in the season-opener against the Tennessee Titans and recorded five combined tackles and a pass deflection during a 42–14 loss. Two weeks later, he recorded ten combined tackles, two pass deflections, and made his first NFL interception off of a pass attempt by Ryan Mallett in a 19–9 road loss to the Houston Texans. During Week 5, Alexander made five combined tackles, two pass deflections, and made his first NFL sack on Blake Bortles as the Buccaneers defeated the Jacksonville Jaguars by a score of 38–31. Prior to Week 8, Alexander's younger brother, Broderick Taylor, had been murdered just two days prior. He started the following game and recorded 11 combined tackles, a forced fumble, a fumble recovery, and an interception during a 23–20 road victory over the Atlanta Falcons. His efforts earned him the title of NFC Defensive Player of the Week. On December 7, Alexander was given a four-game ban for violating the league's policy on performance-enhancing substances and missed the last four games of the season (Weeks 14–17).


title: Kwon Alexander

text: Alexander finished his rookie year with 93 combined tackles (59 solo), nine pass deflections, three sacks, and two interceptions in 12 games and starts. He also had an overall grade of 31.6 from Pro Football Focus. The Buccaneers finished fourth in the NFC South with a 6–10 record and Lovie Smith was fired at the end of the season.


title: Kwon Alexander

text: Offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter was promoted to head coach and hired former Atlanta Falcons head coach Mike Smith as defensive coordinator. Smith retained Alexander as starting middle linebacker to begin the regular season.


title: Kwon Alexander

text: Alexander started in the season-opener at the Atlanta Falcons and recorded 17 combined tackles and a sack in a 31–24 victory. Two weeks later, he made seven combined tackles and returned an interception off of Case Keenum 38 yards for his first NFL touchdown during a 37–32 loss to the Los Angeles Rams. During Week 8, Alexander recorded a season-high 14 solo tackles and broke up a pass in a 30–24 overtime loss to the Oakland Raiders. During Week 15, he recorded a career-high 21 combined tackles (11 solo) in a 26–20 road loss against the Dallas Cowboys.


title: Kwon Alexander

text: Alexander finished his second professional season ranking fourth in the league in tackles with 145 combined (108 solo). He also had seven pass deflections, three sacks, and an interception in 16 games and starts. He earned an overall grade of 77.3 from Pro Football Focus and was their most improved second-year linebackers.


title: Kwon Alexander

text: Alexander started in the season-opener against the Chicago Bears and recorded a solo tackle, a pass deflection, and intercepted former teammate Mike Glennon during a 29–7 victory. He left the game after sustaining a hamstring injury that sidelined him for the next four games (Weeks 3–6). In Week 15, Alexander recorded a season-high 13 solo tackles as the Buccaneers lost to the Atlanta Falcons by a score 24–21.


title: Kwon Alexander

text: Alexander finished his third season with 97 combined tackles (70 solo), four pass deflections, and a career-high three interceptions in 12 games and starts. On January 16, 2018, he was named to his first Pro Bowl replacing injured Seattle Seahawks middle linebacker Bobby Wagner. Pro Football Focus gave Alexander an overall grade of 68.0, ranking him 48th among all qualifying linebackers in 2017.


title: Kwon Alexander

text: Alexander started the first six games of the season before suffering a season-ending torn ACL in Week 7. He was placed on injured reserve on October 22, 2018.


title: Kwon Alexander

text: Alexander finished the season with 45 tackles, two sacks, two pass deflections, and a sack in six games and starts.


title: Kwon Alexander

text: On March 13, 2019, the San Francisco 49ers signed Alexander to a four-year, $54 million contract that includes $27 million guaranteed.


title: Kwon Alexander

text: During Week 1 against his former team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Alexander made a helmet-to-helmet hit against former teammate Jameis Winston, and was disqualified as a result. Prior to being ejected, Alexander made three tackles in the season-opening 31–17 road victory. In the next game against the Cincinnati Bengals, Alexander recorded his first interception of the season off of Andy Dalton in the 41–17 road victory. During Week 7 against the Washington Redskins, Alexander forced a fumble on running back Adrian Peterson that was recovered by teammate Jullian Taylor in the 9–0 road victory. Two weeks later against the Arizona Cardinals, he left the eventual 28–25 road victory with an apparent chest injury. The next day, Alexander was diagnosed with a torn pectoral and was placed on injured reserve.


title: Kwon Alexander

text: Alexander was designated for return from injured reserve on January 2, 2020, and began practicing with the team again. On January 10, 2020, the 49ers activated Alexander off injured reserve the day before the NFC Divisional Game against the Minnesota Vikings. He helped the 49ers defeat both the Vikings and Green Bay Packers to advance to Super Bowl LIV, where he recorded a tackle and pass deflection in the 31–20 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs.


title: Kwon Alexander

text: On November 2, 2020, the San Francisco 49ers traded Alexander to the New Orleans Saints in exchange for a fifth-round conditional pick in the 2021 NFL Draft and linebacker Kiko Alonso. He was named a starter in Week 10, and started the next seven games before suffering a torn achilles in Week 16. He was placed on injured reserve on December 28, 2020.


title: Kwon Alexander

text: On March 16, 2021, the Saints released Alexander. However, the team brought him back on August 3, 2021 after signing a one-year deal worth up to $3 million. He was placed on injured reserve on September 17, 2021 with an elbow injury. He was activated on October 25.


title: Vietnam People's Navy

text: The Vietnam People's Navy (VPN; ), or the Naval Service (), also known as the Vietnamese People's Navy or simply Vietnam/Vietnamese Navy (), is the naval branch of the Vietnam People's Army and is responsible for the protection of the country's national waters, islands, and interests of the maritime economy, as well as for the co-ordination of maritime police, customs service and the border defence force.


title: Vietnam People's Navy

text: On 19 July 1946, Acting President of Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) Huỳnh Thúc Kháng signed into law a decree establishing the modern Vietnamese navy. Then, on 10 September of that year, General Võ Nguyên Giáp started to build a flotilla as the core of the new navy. On 8 March 1949, Vietnam established the Department of Naval Research under the General Staff. This department has performed both research and training to prepare for combat missions.


title: Vietnam People's Navy

text: Following the Geneva Conference in 1954, the DRV went about creating its own naval forces. On 7 May 1955 the Vietnam People's Navy was created with the establishment of the General Directorate of Coastal Defence, it formed the basis for the Navy Operational Command (based on the Vietnamese Ministry of Defence decree No. 284/ND signed by General Võ Nguyên Giáp to established Naval Research Board, under the General Staff, on 8 March 1949). The primary mission of the Navy was to patrol the coastal areas and the inland waterways.


title: Vietnam People's Navy

text: Throughout the Vietnam War the role played by the Vietnam People's Navy (or North Vietnamese Navy) was largely unknown to the public. However, on 2 August 1964, three North Vietnamese Swatow-class patrol boats attacked the destroyer in what became known as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. The second attack, which the United States claimed to have occurred on 4 August, was dismissed by the North Vietnamese as a fabrication.


title: Vietnam People's Navy

text: The North Vietnamese, however, had maintained their own version of the events which took place. According to official VPN accounts "Maddox" penetrated North Vietnamese waters on 31 July 1964, and provoked a battle with the North Vietnamese. In response to American provocation, three 123K-class torpedo boats from the 135th Torpedo Boat Battalion were dispatched to intercept the American destroyer. The resulting clash became known as the 'Battle of Thanh Hóa' in which North Vietnamese "torpedo boats succeeded in driving the Maddox out of Vietnam's territorial waters, shooting down a U.S. aircraft and damaging another".


title: Vietnam People's Navy

text: Apart from patrolling territorial waters, the Navy also had the mission of transporting military supplies to support the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the Vietcong during the Vietnam War. On 31 October 1961, a sea route version of the Ho Chi Minh trail was established by the Navy, with the 759th Transport Unit responsible for carrying military supplies and other goods for the Communist ground forces in South Vietnam. To avoid detection by the South Vietnamese and U.S navies, North Vietnamese transport ships were often disguised as fishing trawlers. On 16 February 1965, a 100-ton North Vietnamese trawler from the Transportation Group 125 was discovered at Vung Ro Bay. This led to the creation of Operation Market Time by the US Navy to intercept disguised enemy ships.


title: Vietnam People's Navy

text: On 19 April 1972, the Navy and Vietnam People's Air Force (VPAF) participated in the Battle of Đồng Hới off the coast of North Vietnam. During this battle it was believed that the U.S Navy destroyed a Soviet-made cruise missile for the first time. The destroyer was damaged after a VPAF MiG-17 dropped a bomb, destroying a aft gun mount.


title: Vietnam People's Navy

text: In the years following the complete withdrawal of U.S and other allied forces, the North Vietnamese went back on the offensive. As part of the Ho Chi Minh Campaign, the Navy increased the transportation of military supplies, food and uniform to the Communist forces in the South. When the PAVN occupied the northern provinces of South Vietnam in 1975, captured Republic of Vietnam Navy (RVNN) vessels were pressed into service with the Navy. In April 1975, ex-RVNN vessels carried North Vietnamese troops to capture the Spratly Islands. Opening battle in the island Southwest Cay "(Vietnamese: Song Tử tây)" on 4 April 1975, amphibious raid by sea of the Naval Marine corps number 1 (precursor of the 126th Brigade Naval Marine corps) and three vessels of the 125 corps coordinated with the commandos of the 5th Military Region, after 30 minutes, the Navy controlled the main battle area, facilitating the capture of the other islands. The Navy gained control of Sand Cay island (26 April), Namyit Island (27 April), Sin Cowe Island (28 April) and Spratly Island (29 April). The Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) had captured the Paracel Islands from the South Vietnamese in January 1974. These islands are also claimed by Vietnam, however they have no current presence there.


title: Vietnam People's Navy

text: Prior to 1975, the Navy operated fewer than forty patrol boats along with the coastal junk force. With the collapse of South Vietnam on 30 April 1975, the Navy was expanded with ships from the defunct RVNN. Captured vessels included two patrol frigates, over one hundred patrol craft, and about fifty amphibious warfare ships. Consequently, the navy ballooned in size to become the largest Southeast Asian navy by the mid-1980s, with 1,300 out of its 1,500 vessels captured from the South Vietnamese Navy or US Navy.


title: Vietnam People's Navy

text: In the late 1970s the naval infantry (or marines) was formed to be stationed on the areas claimed by the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in the Spratly Islands. The naval infantry is equipped with PT-76 light tanks, BTR-60 personnel carriers and naval infantrymen are armed with AK-74 rifle, AKM-47 assault rifles, Makarov PM pistol (Officers), and PKM machinegun infantry weapons, and more.


title: Vietnam People's Navy

text: In March 1988, the Navy fought against the PLAN at Johnson Reef, causing the losses to the Vietnamese of several transport ships and up to 64 deaths. The battle was won by the PLAN who outgunned and outnumbered them, using a fleet of frigates against Vietnamese lightly armed transport ships. This prompted the Navy to modernise its weapons and its overall naval capabilities.


title: Vietnam People's Navy

text: The VPN began modernizing with its contract purchasing two Gepard-class frigates from Russia in 2006. From that point until 2016, a series of changes were implemented to transform the VPN from a purely brown-water navy to one capable of safeguarding its territorial interests in the South China Sea. Its most modern ships in 2011 were its 5 Petya-class frigates (2 Petya-III's from the late 70s, and 3 Petya-III's from the 80s) and a KBO-2000 fast attack craft. The navy attempted a KBO-2000 project with Russia in which the Severnoye Design Bureau designed a KBO-2000 which was constructed in Ba Son Shipyard in Ho Chi Minh City. Only one ship of this class was built by Vietnam, designated HQ-381, but it did not meet the Navy's expectations and so the project was canceled.


title: Vietnam People's Navy

text: On 26 October 1975, the Ministry of Defence issued Decision No.141/QD-QP which established five Coastal Areas of Naval Command and jurisdiction provisions of the five regions. In 1978, they were renamed as the following naval regions:


title: Vietnam People's Navy

text: The Vietnamese naval academy, with its headquarters in Nha Trang, is the main institute for training naval commanding officers for the divisional level, and commanding staffs at tactical/campaign levels. Students include both undergraduates and postgraduates serving in the military.


title: Vietnam People's Navy

text: The forerunner of the Vietnam Naval Academy, the Coastal Training School, was established on 26 April 1955 by the General Staff. The school has changed name several times, such as the Naval Training School in 1959, the Naval School of Vietnam in 1961, the Naval Officers School in 1967, and the School of Naval Engineering Command in 1980. The school renamed itself the Naval Academy in 1993.


title: Vietnam People's Navy

text: After 55 years of development, combat and growth, the academy has trained thousands of officers and technical staff for major specialised fields such as vessel control, mining and anti-mine operations, anti-submarine missiles, gunships, information, radar, sonar, coastal radar, shipyard work, the Coast Guard, and Border Defence Force.


title: Vietnam People's Navy

text: In addition, the naval academy has trained officers for both the Royal Cambodian Navy and the Lao People's Navy.


title: Vietnam People's Navy

text: The current total manpower of the navy is around 50,000 officers and enlisted personnel, including naval infantry and other specialised units.


title: Clarissa Dickson Wright

text: Clarissa Theresa Philomena Aileen Mary Josephine Agnes Elsie Trilby Louise Esmerelda Dickson Wright (24 June 1947 – 15 March 2014) was an English celebrity cook, television personality, writer, businesswoman, and former barrister. She was best known as one of the "Two Fat Ladies", with Jennifer Paterson, in the television cooking programme. She was an accredited cricket umpire and one of only two women to become a Guild Butcher.


title: Clarissa Dickson Wright

text: Dickson Wright was born in St John's Wood, London, the youngest of four children. Her father, Arthur Dickson Wright, was a surgeon to the Royal Family who had served with the Colonial Service at Singapore, and her mother, Aileen Mary (Molly) Bath, was from "a well known and respected Singapore family". She said her father was an alcoholic who subjected his wife and children to verbal and physical abuse.


title: Clarissa Dickson Wright

text: At the age of 11, Wright was sent to the Convent of the Sacred Heart, an independent school for girls in the coastal town of Hove in Sussex, and then to the Convent of the Sacred Heart at Woldingham. After school, Wright studied for a law degree at University College London, and undertook her pupillage to become a barrister at Gray's Inn.


title: Clarissa Dickson Wright

text: Dickson Wright was called to the bar in 1970. She later claimed (although she turned 23 that year) that this occurred when she was aged 21, and that she was the youngest woman ever to be called to the bar. After her mother died of a heart attack in 1975, she inherited a considerable sum of money, which by her own account she squandered over the next eight years. Her mother's death, combined a year later with that of her father, who spent his final years wheelchair-bound and aphasic after a stroke, left her in a deep depression, and she drank heavily for the following 12 years.


title: Clarissa Dickson Wright

text: In 1979, Dickson Wright took control of the food at a drinking club in St James's Place in London. While there she met a fellow alcoholic named Clive (whose surname she never revealed); they had a relationship until his death in 1982 from kidney failure at the age of 40. Shortly thereafter she was disbarred for practising without chambers. Dickson Wright said that, during her alcoholic years, she had sex with an MP behind the Speaker's chair in the House of Commons.


title: Clarissa Dickson Wright

text: In the early 1980s, she was homeless and staying with friends. For two years she was cook-housekeeper for a family in Sussex until she was sacked for her alcohol-induced behaviour. After being charged with drink-driving, Dickson Wright started to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, counselling, and a detox centre. She attended the Promis Recovery Centre at Nonington. In her 2009 book "Rifling Through My Drawers" she expressed a belief in reincarnation. She was a keen supporter of hunting.


title: Clarissa Dickson Wright

text: BBC2 commissioned a series of "Two Fat Ladies". Four series were made and shown around the world. Paterson died in 1999 midway through the fourth series.


title: Clarissa Dickson Wright

text: "Two Fat Ladies" ended after Paterson's death. Dickson Wright appeared with Johnny Scott in "Clarissa and the Countryman" from 2000 to 2003 and played the gamekeeper in the sitcom "Absolutely Fabulous" in 2003. In 2004 she closed her Edinburgh cookery book shop due to bankruptcy and lost the contract to run a tearoom at Lennoxlove, the seat of the Duke of Hamilton and Brandon. In 2005, Dickson Wright took part in the BBC reality television show "Art School".


title: Clarissa Dickson Wright

text: Dickson Wright was elected as Rector of the University of Aberdeen in November 1998, the university's first female rector. Her autobiography, "Spilling the Beans", was published in September 2007. In 2008, she presented a one-off documentary for BBC Four, "Clarissa and the King's Cookbook", where she makes recipes from a cookbook dating to the reign of Richard II.


title: Clarissa Dickson Wright

text: Along with racehorse trainer Sir Mark Prescott, Dickson Wright was charged with hare coursing with dogs in North Yorkshire in March 2007 under a private prosecution lodged by the International Fund for Animal Welfare under the Hunting Act 2004. On 1 September 2009, she and Prescott pleaded guilty and received an absolute discharge at Scarborough Magistrates' Court. They said that they were invited to the event by the Yorkshire Greyhound Field Trialling Club, which told the court that it believed it was running a legal event by using muzzled dogs.


title: Clarissa Dickson Wright

text: In October 2012, Dickson Wright appeared on "Fieldsports Britain" to discuss badgers and their nutritional value, saying: "There's going to be a cull, so rather than just throw them in the landfill site, why not eat them?" In November 2012, she presented a short BBC4 TV series on the history of the British breakfast, lunch and dinner. She was a supporter of the Conservative Party and lived in Inveresk, Scotland.


title: Clarissa Dickson Wright

text: Dickson Wright was hospitalised from the start of 2014, and died in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary on 15 March 2014 from an undisclosed illness which led to her death from pneumonia.


title: Clarissa Dickson Wright

text: Her funeral mass was held in Edinburgh at St Mary's Cathedral on 7 April, after which she was cremated.


title: Clarissa Dickson Wright

text: "The Two Fat Ladies" DVD set contains a 40-minute BBC tribute to Paterson that aired in 2004. The DVD box set was released in the United States of America in July 2008. The Acorn Media release contains all 24 episodes across four discs. The show had been released in Britain as a Region 2 DVD set.


title: Clarissa Dickson Wright

text: Her "A History of English Food" was described by "The Independent" as "richly informative" and "surely destined for classic status". The reviewer noted that she had seen badger hams on the bar in the West Country pubs of her childhood, and that a tripe seller in Dewsbury market sold "nine different varieties of tripe, including penis and udder (which is remarkably like pease pudding)."


title: Ben Hecht

text: Ben Hecht (; February 28, 1894 – April 18, 1964) was an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, journalist, and novelist. A successful journalist in his youth, he went on to write 35 books and some of the most enjoyed screenplays and plays in America. He received screen credits, alone or in collaboration, for the stories or screenplays of some seventy films.


title: Ben Hecht

text: After graduating from high school in 1910, Hecht ran away to Chicago, where, in his own words, he "haunted streets, whorehouses, police stations, courtrooms, theater stages, jails, saloons, slums, madhouses, fires, murders, riots, banquet halls, and bookshops." In the 1910s and 1920s, Hecht became a noted journalist, foreign correspondent, and literary figure. In the late 1920s, his co-authored, reporter-themed play, "The Front Page", became a Broadway hit.


title: Ben Hecht

text: The "Dictionary of Literary Biography – American Screenwriters" calls him "one of the most successful screenwriters in the history of motion pictures". Hecht received the first Academy Award for Best Story for "Underworld" (1927). Many of the screenplays he worked on are now considered classics. He also provided story ideas for such films as "Stagecoach" (1939). Film historian Richard Corliss called him ""the" Hollywood screenwriter", someone who "personified Hollywood itself". In 1940, he wrote, produced, and directed "Angels Over Broadway", which was nominated for Best Screenplay. In total, six of his movie screenplays were nominated for Academy Awards, with two winning.


title: Ben Hecht

text: Hecht became an active Zionist (supporter of a Jewish "national home" in Palestine) after meeting Peter Bergson, who came to the United States near the start of World War II. Motivated by what became the Holocaust—the mass-murder of Jews in Europe—Hecht wrote articles and plays, such as "We Will Never Die" in 1943 and "A Flag is Born" in 1946. Thereafter, he wrote many screenplays anonymously to avoid a British boycott of his work in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The boycott was a response to Hecht's active support of paramilitary action against British Mandate for Palestine forces, during which time a Zionist force's supply ship to Palestine was named the S.S. "Ben Hecht" ()().


title: Ben Hecht

text: In 1954, Hecht published his highly regarded autobiography, "A Child of the Century". According to it, he did not hold screenwriting (in contrast to journalism) in high esteem, and never spent more than eight weeks on a script. In 1983, 19 years after his death, Ben Hecht was posthumously inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.


title: Ben Hecht

text: Hecht was born in New York City, the son of Belarusian-Jewish immigrants. His father, Joseph Hecht, worked in the garment industry. His father and mother, Sarah Swernofsky Hecht, had emigrated to New York from Minsk, Russian Empire. The Hechts married in 1892.


title: Ben Hecht

text: The family moved to Racine, Wisconsin, where Ben attended high school. For his bar mitzvah, his parents bought him four crates full of the works of Shakespeare, Dickens and Twain. When Hecht was in his early teens, he would spend the summers with an uncle in Chicago. On the road much of the time, his father did not have much effect on Hecht's childhood, and his mother was busy managing a store in downtown Racine. Film author Scott Siegal wrote, "He was considered a child prodigy at age ten, seemingly on his way to a career as a concert violinist, but two years later was performing as a circus acrobat".


title: Ben Hecht

text: After graduating from Racine High School in 1910, Hecht attended the University of Wisconsin for three days before leaving for Chicago at the age of 16 or 17. He lived with relatives, and started a career in journalism. He won a job with the "Chicago Daily Journal" after writing a profane poem for publisher John C. Eastman to entertain guests at a party. By age seventeen Hecht was a full-time reporter, first with the "Daily Journal", and later with the "Chicago Daily News". He was an excellent reporter who worked on several Chicago papers. In the aftermath of World War I, Hecht was sent to cover Berlin for the "Daily News". There he wrote his first and most successful novel, "Erik Dorn" (1921). It was a sensational debut for Hecht as a serious writer.


title: Ben Hecht

text: The 1969 movie, "Gaily, Gaily", directed by Norman Jewison and starring Beau Bridges as "Ben Harvey", was based on Hecht's life during his early years working as a reporter in Chicago. The film was nominated for three Oscars. The story was taken from a portion of his autobiography, "A Child of the Century".


title: Ben Hecht

text: From 1918 to 1919, Hecht served as war correspondent in Berlin for the "Chicago Daily News". According to Barbara and Scott Siegel, "Besides being a war reporter, he was noted for being a tough crime reporter while also becoming known in Chicago literary circles".


title: Ben Hecht

text: In 1921, Hecht inaugurated a "Daily News" column, "One Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago". While it lasted, the column was enormously influential. His editor, Henry Justin Smith, later said it represented a new concept in journalism:


title: Ben Hecht

text: While at the "Chicago Daily News", Hecht famously broke the 1921 "Ragged Stranger Murder Case" story, about the murder of Carl Wanderer's wife, which led to the trial and execution of war hero Carl Wanderer. In Chicago, he also met and befriended Maxwell Bodenheim, an American poet and novelist, later known as the King of Greenwich Village Bohemians, and with whom he became a lifelong friend.