Media relations and the Internet: how Fortune 500 company web sites assist journalists in news gathering

A content analysis of all 2001 Fortune 500 Company Web sites was conducted to determine how corporations are using the Web to meet the informational needs of journalists. Analyses revealed that the majority of Web sites do not have dedicated press rooms where media content is centralized. In press rooms, news releases, executive biographies and executive photographs are the most commonly included materials. Statistical analyses suggest that higher-ranking companies more often provide press rooms and materials in press rooms than lower-ranking companies.     

“When You Wake Up It'll All Be Over”: Communication in the Anaesthetic Room

This article focuses upon communication between medical professionals and patients within anaesthetic rooms—rooms in which patients are anaesthetized prior to entry into operating theaters. The most closely related field of sociological study is research on surgery, which tends to consider anaesthesia as a secondary specialism. Using video data collected from anaesthetic rooms and operating theaters in the United Kingdom, this article suggests that, while the processes that have been identified in surgery have some relevance for anaesthetic practice, there are important variations and differing interactional contingencies which need to be taken into account. In particular, the concept of “depersonalization” or “objectification” becomes particularly problematic in anaesthesia in ways that have not been broached in the study of surgery.     

How Activist Groups Use Websites in Media Relations: Evaluating Online Press Rooms

Content analysis of activist organization Websites determined how activists use online resources in media relations. Seventy-four activist Websites were analyzed. About one-third (32.4%) included organized online press rooms. The most common media relations materials were organizational history (70.3%), organizational mission statement (54.1%), organizational publications (47.3%), press releases (33.8%), and policy papers (31.1%). Activist Websites did not provide strong dialogic features for journalists, but dialogic features were more available for the general public. Theoretical implications are examined and 6 recommendations are made for improving online activist press relations.     

Population growth impacts of zero net international migration

"In a country such as the United States, the contribution of net international migration to overall population change overshadows the contribution of natural increase.... Some analysts have assumed that if the same number of people leave and enter the country each year, then the effect of net international migration will be zero. This article examines that assumption and shows that it is fallacious. Examining the direct, indirect, total, and negative demographic impacts of zero net international migration through simulations with demographic data, we demonstrate that zero net international migration is not the same and therefore does not have the same demographic results and implications as zero international migration. We conclude that zero net international migration should not be confused with zero international migration."     

'Land of the free'? Circulating human rights and narrated lives in the United States

Abstract

In the 50 years during which human rights has gained an international currency, personal narratives have become one of the most potent vehicles for advancing human rights claims. This is particularly true in the United States where personal narratives attesting to human rights violations frequently gain wide exposure through mass publication and publicity, media circulation, and global information flows. This article explores the circulation of human rights narratives in the United States, examining some of the ways that stories enter into public discourse through published life narratives, television talk shows, news reports, campus lectures and publicity tours, websites, and the like, and are taken up by popular and academic audiences, spurring debates within the fields of legal and political theory, international relations, religion, morality and ethics, often far removed from the originating event or site of human rights violation. The article considers the many intended and unintended effects of this circulation on storytellers, their audiences, and the campaigns they represent.     

Conflicting Agendas: The Politics of Development Aid in Drug‐Producing Areas

When international development policy prioritises goals determined by the donor's domestic policy concerns, aid agencies not only fail in their development objectives but can also generate conflict in the recipient country. In the Bolivian Chapare, where the United States is driven by the need to demonstrate success in controlling cocaine production, policies to eradicate coca leaf have led to programmes with limited development impact that increase conflict both locally and nationally. In contrast, the European Union's successful collaboration with local governments which began in 1998 provides insights into generating sustainable development and de‐escalating conflict in drug‐producing regions worldwide.     

Pedagogy of international social work: a comparative study in the USA,UK, and Georgia

The social work profession worldwide has been increasingly influenced by globalization and its effects on social issues that require social workers to be responsive and knowledgeable in addressing them. In recent years there has been an increased emphasis on the internationalization of the social work profession and education. With limited examples of international social-work-teaching methods discussed in the literature, there is also a lack of information obtained directly from students on methods of instruction that they most prefer and find beneficial. This collaborative, comparative project examined students' perceptions of methods that make teaching international social work successful at three universities in the United States, United Kingdom, and Georgia. While there were different preferences for content- and process-driven approaches in teaching, students' common interest was in gaining practice examples and exposure to real-life practice of international social work in their own and other countries. The findings suggest that international social work education needs to be more experiential and practice-based.     

The media battle between Celebrex and Vioxx: influencing media coverage but not content

This study examined newspaper coverage of the battle between two pharmaceutical companies in the arthritis painkiller market and the impact that the companies’ public relations activities had on the way the story was presented. A framing analysis was used to determine the relationship between the companies’ messages and press content. Frames consistent with the companies’ objectives occurred, but most stories were rated as neutral, with an almost equal number of favorable and unfavorable stories. This suggested that the companies may have influenced the press on what to cover but not necessarily what to say.     

Malaga—The Journey: The Performing Arts as Motivational Tool for Pasifika Students in Aotearoa New Zealand

In 2009, the musical work Malaga: The Journey, based on the journeys of Pacific peoples to Aotearoa New Zealand, was staged in the city of Porirua. Involving a large group of predominantly Pasifika students from three local secondary schools, the aim of the project was to encourage and motivate students to achieve better educational outcomes, and affirm positive notions of Pacific identities. Using these objectives as a starting point, this article presents a personal observational ethnography of the two weeks leading up to the shows, highlighting how these themes were incorporated into the rehearsal space and reflected in the work itself. Ending with anecdotes from those most closely involved in bringing Malaga to the stage, it suggests not only that the show was successful but also adds to discourses around the value of performing arts and culture in wider educational contexts.     

International and Domestic Dimensions of Russia’s G8 Presidency in 2006

In 2006, as president of the Group of Eight (G8), Russia intended to increase its global status, respond to foreign criticism about its democratic credentials, and advance key policy positions. In determining whether these goals were met, the author examines six important issues that Russia’s G8 presidency covered, including its agenda items (global energy security, infectious diseases, and education), nuclear nonproliferation, counter-terrorism, and the crisis in the Middle East. Informed by international socialization theory, the author finds that the G8 presidency gave Russia a high-profile platform on which to assert its national interests and sovereignty. President Vladimir Putin showcased Russia’s strengths in various ways, ranging from symbolic images of its renewed grandeur to demonstrations of its independent policy line on energy security and rhetoric about its democratizing the G8 decision-making process. He also benefited from the fact that other G8 leaders did not publicly press him on issues related to Russia’s authoritarian backsliding. However, Russia’s achievements as G8 president were soon overshadowed by worsening relations with the United States and the European Union; by further restrictions on civil society; and by high-profile assassinations. The behaviour of Russian officials during 2006 indicates that international socialization was not taking place in any meaningful way beyond a display of diplomatic code (e.g., rhetoric on consensus-building).     

The Factors that Make and Unmake Migration Policies1

Migration policies often fail to achieve their declared objectives or have unintended consequences. This article discusses three sets of reasons for this: factors arising from the social dynamics of the migratory process; factors linked to globalization and transnationalism; and factors within political systems. Effective policies are often hampered by the one‐sided explanatory models used to explain migration, as well as by interest conflicts in both domestic and international politics. In many cases this leads to migration policies with contradictory objectives or hidden agendas. The article goes on to discuss some elements of a conceptual framework for improving policy formation and possible components of fairer and more effective migration policies at the national, regional and global levels.     

Waiting on Others: Gender in the Medical Waiting Room

In this article, I describe how gendered interactions and power dynamics play out in medical waiting rooms. While people are spending time idle, waiting for the next thing to happen (i.e., to check in, to see the doctor, to pay), social processes continue to occur and reinforce these gendered interactions and dynamics. Using data collected from ethnographic observations of medical waiting rooms in the Midwestern United States, this article illustrates that waiting offers another opportunity to understand the subtle ways that gendered expectations and hierarchies are perpetuated. Patients, their friends, and families do gender in medical waiting rooms through the amount of auditory and physical space they take up and the ways in which they behave and respond to the actors and expectations in this space.     

The Role of Federal Policies in Supporting Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Families

Abstract

Grandparents caring for their grandchildren is among the oldest practices in child rearing with roots embedded in the traditions across many cultures. However, in recent years, the issue of “grandparents raising their grandchildren” has garnered the attention of researchers, advocates, service providers and even the popular press. Dynamic changes in family life, related social trends and child welfare policies in the United States have resulted in dramatic growth of intergenerational care giving among this population. The 2000 United States Census shows that there are 6 million children living in grandparent- and other relative-maintained households, which represents a thirty-percent increase from the last Census. This growth has created the need for effective federal policies that support and insure the well-being of these families.

This paper examines some of the reasons grandparents raising grandchildren are capturing public attention, and the growing needs for effective federal policies that support this burgeoning population. We will (1) provide a brief demographic sketch of grandparent-headed families, (2) identify some of the challenges faced by these families, and (3) explore some of the most effective federal public policies, in particular the new National Family Caregiver Support Program, which are emerging from an intergenerational agenda directed at assisting these families. We conclude by noting that the issue of “grandparents raising their grandchildren” presents a unique opportunity to develop coalitions and policies that cross sometimes rigidly defined age-based policy structures.     

The Sonoran Desert’s Domestic Bracero Programme: Institutional Actors and the Creation of Labour Migration Streams

This paper traces the journeys of male migrants to Empalme, Sonora, Mexico to uncover the development of the often overlooked domestic bracero programme that operated in conjunction with its well‐known international equivalent. Drawing on interviews and observations with ex‐braceros who met at a park near the Mexico‐US border, I examine their experiences and participation in Mexico’s domestic bracero program, an unintended and unexplored consequence of its international counterpart. The study shows how regulation and control were constantly reinvented at every step of the selection process by state actors and their affiliates in Mexico. The paper reveals how the oversupply of labour and modernization of agriculture in Sonora resulted in the development of a migration industry where local municipal leaders, coyotes, the state, and Mexican agribusiness capitalized from men’s displacement. The migration industry during the bracero selection process controlled who gained access to the United States labour market by capturing migrant labour en route to the United States in the process fueling a thriving cotton industry in the otherwise stagnant Sonoran Desert economy. The study concludes by taking the lessons from the historic domestic bracero programme to show one instance in which internal and international labour markets were closely interwoven. In the end, I call for more research that examines the relationship between markets on both sides of the border that uncovers how networks are not only structured by personal ties but also by state and market relations.     

Centering the voices of international students in family studies and family therapy graduate programs

In this article, we report the results of a survey that accessed the perceptions of family studies and family therapy international master's and doctoral students across the United States. Our goals included giving collective voice to the experience of international students and gathering their suggestions for improving programs. Themes that emerged from responses to open- and closed-ended questions included feeling (mis)understood and (de)valued; forming personal connections and experiencing marginalization; the importance of including international perspectives in curricula; considering the relevance/transferability of knowledge; and attending to barriers to learning. Based on the results, we share suggestions for improving family studies and family therapy graduate programs relative to program planning, curricula revision, teaching strategies, and faculty development.     

Diaspora Philanthropy in the Context of Policy Coherence for Development: Implications for the post‐2015 Sustainable Development Agenda

Thus far, there has been a dearth of studies that systemically examine the relationship between diaspora philanthropy, the development community and securitised migration regimes. This article addresses this by responding to the research question, “How coherent are securitised migration policies with diaspora philanthropy and the transformative development objectives that characterise the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agenda?” The analysis is based on the concept of policy coherence for development (PCD). The article compares the simultaneous regionalization and securitization of European Union and United States migration policies and contends that these policy strategies undermine diaspora philanthropy, development partnerships and transformative development. Normative change must be introduced in order to establish coherence between globalized migration policies and diaspora philanthropy objectives. Normative coherence for development can be achieved by introducing principles from the SDG's and the Busan Development Partnership Agreement amongst other international development agendas, into migration policy‐making at the national and regional levels.     

Incapsulating hands: on the (in)dependence of young adults in the UNHCR’s Maratane Refugee Camp

Drawing on research with a small group of young women and men in Maratane Refugee Camp, Mozambique, this paper argues that youth envisage themselves as incapsulated in the camp’s physical and ideological boundaries. It shows that the United Nations’ (UN) mandate of finding durable solutions to international problems is difficult to achieve when young people envisage themselves as reliant or dependent on the UN. It argues that greater attention needs to be given to the mentoring of young people within the UN system, so that they are equipped with viable and realistic life expectations and skills.     

SOUTH AFRICA'S PRESS RESTRICTIONS EFFECTS ON PRESS COVERAGE AND PUBLIC OPINION TOWARD SOUTH AFRICA

The 2 November 1985 ban on photographic and sound recordingsby the South African government provided an opportunity to investigatehypotheses concerning the effect of the ban on U.S. media coverageof South Africa and on public opinion toward South Africa. Wehypothesized that the ban would result in (1) a decrease incoverage of protest-related stories, (2) a tapering off of thevolume of coverage, and (3) a decline in the prominence of theSouth Africa story. We further hypothesized that (4) all ofthese effects would be stronger for broadcast than for printmedia, that (5) if the press ban reduced coverage of eventsin South Africa, there would be less attentiveness to the SouthAfrican problem among the general public in the United States,and that (6) sympathy for the black population would decreaseas a result of the press restrictions. We found that the press restrictions did not have the effectspredicted, either on press coverage or on United States publicopinion. Relative to levels of political violence in South Africa,coverage levels did decline. However, the decline did not occurabruptly in November, but appeared as a continuation of decreasesthat had already begun in September, prior to the press restrictions.     

Migration policy objectives for European East-West international migration

The study contains selected results of Delphi research (subjective judgements concerning the future on a collective expert basis) on international migration between Central/Eastern (C/EEc) and Western European countries. Taking part in the research were 109 scholars and officers (70 in the first Delphi round and 39 in the second round) from all over Europe – mainly sociologists, economists, geographers and demographers dealing with the topic of migration.
Results indicate growing problems and tensions in societies, the division of Europe into two parts, and the triggering rather than pacifying of further antagonisms and hostile anti-immigrant attitudes on the Western side. As predicted, it seems that the West will further try to curb immigration by applying tighter restrictive measures. Regarding competition between Eastern Europeans and Third World immigrants in Western Europe, the preferred opinion is that "the C/EE immigrants will not significantly affect the activities of the Third World immigrants in the West because they will attempt to gain posts/jobs at higher levels of the social ladder."
Concerning policy objectives, the two most important general aims were how to contribute to migration stabilization in the East, and how to maintain and further develop stable democratic order and promote economic development.
Policy objectives devoted to specific migration issues indicate that more international cooperation, more information and more democracy/tolerance is necessary. Shared objectives should be: (1) to intensify mutual contacts; (2) disseminate information on rules and regulations regarding international migration as well as to tackle the issue of harmonizing the given migration controlling systems and statistics within Europe; and (3) provide further support for temporary labour contracts for Eastern professionals and manual workers in the West.     

Tuberculosis Screening for International Students

Abstract

Nonimmigrant, international students entering colleges in the United States are not required to undergo screening for tuberculosis (TB). Thirty-nine percent of active TB cases in the United States are in foreign-born individuals. In an effort to minimize the occurrence of active TB on a community campus with an increasing international student population, the college health service implemented a TB-screening policy for all newly enrolled international students. For the 1997/98 school year, 171 international students from 70 different countries enrolled in classes. Fifty-nine students (35%) screened for TB had a positive skin test (greater than 10 mm induration). Of those, 34 initiated isoniazid therapy, and 27 successfully completed the prescribed regimen under supervision of the campus health office.