Fraudulent, harmful, or at best useless pharmaceutical and therapeutic approaches developed outside science-based medicine have boomed in recent years, especially due to the commercialisation of cyberspace. The latter has played a fundamental role in the rise of false 'health experts', and in the creation of filter bubbles and echo chambers that have contributed to the formation of highly polarised debates on non-science-based health practices-online as well as offline. By adopting a multidisciplinary approach, this edited book brings together contributions of international academics and practitioners from criminology, digital sociology, health psychology, medicine, law, physics, and journalism, where they critically analyse different types of non-science-based health approaches. With this volume, we aim to reconcile different scientific understandings of these practices, synthesising a variety of empirical, theoretical and interpretative approaches, and exploring the challenges, implications and potential remedies to the spread of dangerous and misleading health information. This edited book will offer some food for thought not only to students and academics in the social sciences, health psychology and medicine among other disciplines, but also to medical practitioners, science journalists, debunkers, policy makers and the general public, as they might all benefit from a greater awareness and critical knowledge of the harms caused by non-scientific health practices.

Fraudulent, harmful, or at best useless pharmaceutical and therapeutic approaches developed outside science-based medicine have boomed in recent years, especially due to the commercialisation of cyberspace. The latter has played a fundamental role in the rise of false 'health experts', and in the creation of filter bubbles and echo chambers that have contributed to the formation of highly polarised debates on non-science-based health practices-online as well as offline. By adopting a multidisciplinary approach, this edited book brings together contributions of international academics and practitioners from criminology, digital sociology, health psychology, medicine, law, physics, and journalism, where they critically analyse different types of non-science-based health approaches. With this volume, we aim to reconcile different scientific understandings of these practices, synthesising a variety of empirical, theoretical and interpretative approaches, and exploring the challenges, implications and potential remedies to the spread of dangerous and misleading health information. This edited book will offer some food for thought not only to students and academics in the social sciences, health psychology and medicine among other disciplines, but also to medical practitioners, science journalists, debunkers, policy makers and the general public, as they might all benefit from a greater awareness and critical knowledge of the harms caused by non-scientific health practices.

This book presents an historical and sociological account of the Italian mafia-type organisation known as the 'ndrangheta. It draws together diverse perspectives on the various 'ndrangheta clans and their behavioural models, focusing specifically on their organisational skills, their bonds with Calabrian society and Calabrian communities around the world, their mobility, and their characterisation as poly-crime organisations. The authors demonstrate that 'ndrangheta clans have an innovative way of being and doing mafia work through a dense network of relationships both in the 'upperworld' and in the 'underworld', a particularly acute sense of business, a reputation built on the protection of blood and family ties, and, last but not least, a symbiotic relationship and camouflage within Calabrian society. By focusing on both the structures and the activities of the clans and with findings based on judicial documents, this book explores why the 'ndrangheta is today labeled as "the most powerful Italian mafia". It will be of great interest to upper-level students and scholars of organised crime and sociology.

This book presents an historical and sociological account of the Italian mafia-type organisation known as the 'ndrangheta. It draws together diverse perspectives on the various 'ndrangheta clans and their behavioural models, focusing specifically on their organisational skills, their bonds with Calabrian society and Calabrian communities around the world, their mobility, and their characterisation as poly-crime organisations. The authors demonstrate that 'ndrangheta clans have an innovative way of being and doing mafia work through a dense network of relationships both in the 'upperworld' and in the 'underworld', a particularly acute sense of business, a reputation built on the protection of blood and family ties, and, last but not least, a symbiotic relationship and camouflage within Calabrian society. By focusing on both the structures and the activities of the clans and with findings based on judicial documents, this book explores why the 'ndrangheta is today labeled as "the most powerful Italian mafia". It will be of great interest to upper-level students and scholars of organised crime and sociology.

This edited book promotes and facilitates cybercrime research by providing a cutting-edge collection of perspectives on the critical usage of online data across platforms, as well as the implementation of both traditional and innovative analysis methods. The accessibility, variety and wealth of data available online presents substantial opportunities for researchers from different disciplines to study cybercrimes and, more generally, human behavior in cyberspace. The unique and dynamic characteristics of cyberspace often demand cross-disciplinary and cross-national research endeavors, but disciplinary, cultural and legal differences can hinder the ability of researchers to collaborate. This work also provides a review of the ethics associated with the use of online data sources across the globe. The authors are drawn from multiple disciplines and nations, providing unique insights into the value and challenges evident in online data use for cybercrime scholarship. It is a key text for researchers at the upper undergraduate level and above.

The coronavirus pandemic struck the world in a very distinctive way: experience from past pandemics or from more recent outbreaks could give us only a limited understanding of how the situation was likely to unfold. In this context, and with cyberspace being increasingly used to support health-related decision making and to market health products, potentially harmful behaviours have been carried out by individuals propagating non-science-based health (mis)information and conspiratorial thinking. This includes, among other actions, boycotting the use of masks and physical distancing, proactively opposing the use of the COVID-19 candidate vaccines, and promoting the use of useless or even dangerous substances to prevent or resist the virus. By relying on a virtual ethnography approach carried out on Italian-speaking alternative lifestyle and counter-information online communities, this book shows how the nature of personal interactions online and the construction of both personal and group identities through the development of an 'us vs. them' narrative, are central to the creation and propagation of medical misinformation. This book is essential reading for researchers in the social, health, and data sciences and also professionals interested in scientific communication.

This new textbook offers a systematic introduction to a wide array of cybercrimes, exploring their diversity and the range of possible responses to them. Combining coverage of theoretical perspectives with more technical knowledge, the book is divided into ten chapters which first lay the foundations of the topic and then consider the most important types of cybercrimes - from crimes against devices to political offences - before finally exploring ways to prevent, disrupt, analyse and better comprehend them. Examples from several countries are included, in the attempt to show how crime and deviance in cyberspace are truly global problems, with different countries experiencing comparable sets of challenges. At the same time, the author illustrates how these challenges manifest themselves differently, depending on the socio-legal culture of reference. This text offers an accessible introduction to the topic for all those studying cybercrimes at undergraduate or postgraduate level. Whether students approach the topic from a criminological, legal or computer science perspective, this multidisciplinary approach of this text provides a common language to guide them through the intricacies of criminal and deviant behaviours in cyberspace.