(Im)perishable Pleasure, (In)destructible Desire: Sexual Themes in U.S. and English News Coverage of Male Circumcision and Female Genital Cutting

Under what conditions do sexual pleasure and desire get addressed in news coverage of sexual health issues like female genital cutting (FGC) and male circumcision (MC)? In this study we employed an embodied ethnosexuality approach to analyze sexual themes in 1,902 items published from 1985 to 2009 in 13 U.S. and 8 English newspapers and news magazines. Journalists' discussions of sexual pleasure, desire, control, problems, and practices differed in quantity and quality depending on the practice and nation to which they pertained. News coverage in both nations presented FGC as impeding female sexual pleasure, desire, and activity in ways that reinforce (hetero)sexist understandings of sexuality. The English press depicted MC as diminishing male sexuality, whereas U.S. papers showed it as enhancing male sexuality. These patterns are influenced by, and serve to reinforce, cultural norms of embodiment and ethnosexual boundaries based on gender, race, and nationality. They may, in turn, shape public understandings of FGC and MC as social problems.     

The “Un-Candidates”

Abstract

Much has been written on whether female candidates “run as women” in their campaigns. This study explores the role of gender in political advertising through a systematic analysis of campaign commercials from U.S. House, Senate, and Governor races from 1964 to 1998. I hypothesize that candidates will use “femininity” in the commercials as a marker of “outsider” status. This theory considers image differentiation and branding as they relate to gender in political advertising. Advertisers typically use branding for two reasons: (1) to manufacture illusory differences to differentiate nearly identical products (such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi); and (2) to emphasize and expand real differences (7-UP, for instance, tries to differentiate itself from both Coca-Cola and Pepsi by branding itself the “Un-Cola”). Female candidates who correlate feminine character traits and women's issues with an outsider presentation in their campaigns are trying to be the “Un-Candidates.” The data in this study reveal the importance of contextual factors in determining whether a female candidate will undertake an “un-candidate” strategy     

I Am Woman,Hear Me Tweet! Gender Differences in Twitter Use among Congressional Candidates

This study synthesizes two theoretical literatures to explain gender differences in Twitter usage and effectiveness among US Congressional candidates. The first suggests that candidates in perceived disadvantaged positions, females in this case, innovate to improve their chances of success, and the second, that female politicians often adopt stereotypically masculine behaviors to be successful. On the basis of these theories, we hypothesize and confirm that female candidates are more likely than males to integrate Twitter into their campaigns, but our results are less conclusive regarding a difference in the likelihood that females use negative campaigning tactics via Twitter. Our results also indicate that those females who use Twitter more than their male counterparts tended to do better electorally, but this difference is conditional. Female Republican candidates who tweeted more increased their vote share, but the opposite is true for Democrats. We speculate that this differential effect may be a product of different audiences for social media in each party’s electorate.     

Exploring the role of the Senate Majority Leader's political public relations efforts

Grounded in first- and second-level agenda building, this study explored the role of the U.S. Senate Majority Leader in shaping the salience of issues and issue attributes in news media coverage and policymaking in 2011. A total of 358 public relations messages, 164 newspaper articles, and 83 policymaking documents were analyzed. Significant correlations were found supporting agenda-building linkages at both levels. Different types of information subsidies were explored, including press releases, blog posts, Facebook posts, and Twitter messages.     

EVIDENCE ON ELECTORAL ACCOUNTABILITY IN THE U.S. SENATE: ARE UNFAITHFUL AGENTS REALLY PUNISHED?

Many have questioned whether voters are able to hold incumbent officials electorally accountable through a retrospective voting strategy. We examine U.S. Senate elections from 1962 to 1990 in forty-one states, explaining which incumbents ran for reelection and their success in seeking reelection. We find that an incumbent's deviation from her state party platform decreases the probability that she will run for reelection and win if she runs. Furthermore, the electoral mechanism is found to be more efficient when voters are better informed. Finally, we find that our divergent party platform model provides a better fit than the median voter model.     

The Electoral Glass Ceiling

Abstract

Scholars such as Kahn and others have shown that the print news media have covered women candidates in ways likely to diminish their electoral viability. Those effects have yet to be verified in a non-experimentalsetting or extended to television. We offer non-experimental evidence of news-based effects for print news and television. We examine the effects of media coverage patterns by analyzing Senate races using the 1988-92 ANES Senate Election Study. Our results provide consistent support for the contention that news media coverage has disadvantaged women candidates in the eyes of voters. This work suggests a need for greater attention to research on broadcast news coverage of women candidates.     

Pax Americana? Accent attitudinal evaluations in New Zealand,Australia and America

This study describes a series of evaluations of gender pairs of New Zealand English, Australian English, American English and RP-type English English voices by over 400 students in New Zealand, Australia and the U.S.A. Voices were chosen to represent the middle range of each accent, and balanced for paralinguistic features. Twenty-two personality and demographic traits were evaluated by Likert-scale questionnaires. Results indicated that the American female voice was rated most favourably on at least some traits by students of all three nationalities, followed by the American male. For most traits, Australian students generally ranked their own accents in third or fourth place, but New Zealanders put the female NZE voice in the mid-low range of all but solidarity-associated traits. All three groups disliked the NZE male. The RP voices did not receive the higher rankings in power/status variables we expected. The New Zealand evaluations downgrade their own accent vis-a`-vis the American and to some extent the RP voices. Overall, the American accent seems well on the way to equalling or even replacing RP as the prestige—or at least preferred—variety, not only in New Zealand but in Australia and some non-English-speaking nations as well. Preliminary analysis of data from Europe suggests this manifestation of linguistic hegemony as 'Pax Americana' seems to be prevalent over more than just the Anglophone nations.     

Operation Iraqi Freedom: Mediated Public Sphere as a Public Relations Tool

The ideal of a free press informs theoretical and pragmatic constructions of media, civil society, and the public sphere in U.S. development efforts. The role of the free press in fostering civil society is held as an ideal for judging the rest of the world and for the justification of U.S. interventions elsewhere in the world sponsored by organizations such as United States Agency for International Development. Using a grounded theory analysis of the coverage of Operation Iraqi Freedom, this article demonstrates the frames that were presented in U.S. war coverage as justifications of the war. The grounded theory analysis is followed up by a content analysis to document the frequencies of occurrence of the frames. The frames suggest that media organizations worked more as the public relations agents of the U.S. government and actively engaged in demonization of the enemy to justify U.S. foreign policy during the early days of the war. Drawing on a postcolonial perspective, this article argues that the lapses in rationality reflected in the frames of war coverage pose critical questions for further interrogation about the nature of the media in Western civil societies.     

Boy Talk/Girl Talk

Abstract

Using data from a comprehensive database of political advertisements broadcast during the 1998 congressional election cycle, this study assesses whether male and female candidates follow different campaign communications strategies. The results of the analysis demonstrate that there are systematic differences between the ways that male and female candidates communicate with voters, but that these differences are typically not sizeable. In other words, gender seems to matter in campaign communications strategies but not always for very much. Where we do observe differences, however, the findings show that they tend to reinforce gender-based stereotypes more so than work to counteract them. Thus, these differences may be partly accountable for the electoral results we observe.     

Distributive Justice Evaluations in Two Cultural Contexts: A Comparison of U.S. and South Korean Teachers

The justice literature suggests, but has nottested, a positive relationship between met expectationsabout multiple workplace rewards and distributivejustice evaluations (the individual's assessment of whether s/he has been treated fairly). Datafrom samples of teachers in South Korea (N = 649) andthe U.S. (N = 810) are used to examine thisrelationship. In addition, U.S.-South Korea culturalvalue differences in individualism, seniority, and hierarchicalauthority are the basis for hypothesizing that certainreward-specific met expectations will be linkeddifferently to justice evaluations across the twosocieties. As hypothesized for both societies, the moreone's expectations about job-related rewards are met,the greater the perception of just treatment. Also ashypothesized, several societal differences based on cultural differences are found. Metexpectations about autonomy are more important inexplaining justice evaluations in the U.S., whereas metexpectations about advancement opportunities are moreimportant in South Korea.     

Party Elites and Women Candidates

ABSTRACT

Using a four state survey of party county chairs and locally elected women, this study finds support for the notion that potential women candidates are subject to bias in recruitment that hinders the cause of electing more women to state legislatures and Congress. It is hypothesized that bias is most likely due to one of two processes: one, the outgroup effect where negative evaluations of women as candidates are predicated on their lack of surface similarity to the predominantly male party elite, or two, the distribution effect where negative evaluations of women as candidates are predicated on the relative paucity of women in high status positions generally and politics specifically. Strong support was found for the outgroup effect, as party chairs consistently preferred candidates more like themselves. Given the ubiquity of men in the party elite, such outgroup biased attitudes represent a significant hurdle for prospective women candidates.     

Evaluations of aggressive women: the effects of gender, socioeconomic status, and level of aggression

Research finds gender differences in aggression and suggests that female violence is viewed differently from male violence. Participants were 94 female and 38 male students from a mid-size public university in the Southeast. Participants read a mock trial and answered questions about their attitudes concerning an aggressor in the scenario. The study was a 2 (male or female) by 2 (high socioeconomic status or low socioeconomic status) by 2 (verbal aggression or physical aggression) between-subjects factorial design. The participants responded to a revised version of the Attitudes Toward Women Scale (Nelson, 1988). As hypothesized aggressive women were evaluated more negatively than aggressive men and participants evaluated the female aggressor who used physical aggression more negatively than the female who used verbal aggression. The hypothesis that the female aggressor would be perceived as more in need of counseling than the male aggressor was not supported. Contrary to another hypothesis, respondents did not evaluate higher socioeconomic status aggressors more negatively than those of lower status. As hypothesized people with traditional views of women evaluated the female aggressor more negatively than people with more liberal views of women, and liberal participants evaluated the male and female aggressors similarly. The more negative evaluation of female aggressors and, in particular, females who use physical aggression, may result in unfair treatment of such females. These social biases may cloud perceptions of aggressive females, suggesting that their actions are more inappropriate than those of a male who committed the same act.     

Policy research at the congress: A case study of a research unit at the U.S. senate

The Survey and Statistical Analysis section (SSA) of the U.S. Senate Computer Center is analyzed as a case study of a unit that provides information to the U.S. Congress. Most information processed by the SSA is either gathered or analyzed using sociological research methods. This article discusses the activities of the SSA, uses of SSA information by the Senate, certain special issues affecting policy research for the Senate (the adversarial nature of the Senate, the unsuitability of Neyman-Pearson hypothesis testing, and the ethics of participating in the misinterpretation of data), and the place of sociology in the activities of the SSA. Some attention is given to the skills that are utilized by the SSA in conducting its research. His experience in Washington at the National Science Foundation as well as the U.S. Senate is enriching Buffalo State College’s new program in applied sociology.     

Casting the 2000 U.S. Presidential Primaries

This article examines the 2000 U.S. presidential primaries as a case study in "casting" by early journalistic and polling choices. Casting is a strong series of candidate expectations expressed by news organizations early in campaigns. Often casting choices are based significantly on early polls (and campaign cash), and sometimes they can become self-fulfilling prophecies as campaign coverage and elections move forward.

The author argues that casting occurs in regularly scheduled and significant news stories. The news choices fulfill both organizational needs and the routines of dramatic storytelling. The researcher examined polls and news coverage in the primary season from January 1 until March 14, 2000. News coverage was determined by daily keyword searches on Lexis-Nexis for each of nine candidates. The researcher tracked not only overall news coverage, but also news attention per polling point. Casting was clear: Al Gore and George W. Bush as extensively-covered front runners, a "serious candidates" field covered more extensively than their initial poll numbers would seem to justify, and nearly invisible "immediate also-rans."     

WHERE ARE THE WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS? BUSINESS OWNERSHIP GROWTH BY GENDER ACROSS THE AMERICAN URBAN LANDSCAPE

This study identifies the determinants of growth for male and female business ownership in a subset of U.S. counties. The results indicate that there are important characteristic and behavioral differences between the male and female populations in each county that affect regional changes in business ownership for each gender. In particular, the education level of males and females as well as the local family structure impact the propensity for firms owned by each gender differently. A Blinder‐Oaxaca type decomposition, a novel approach in the context of regional outcomes, demonstrates that although the effect of characteristic differences is larger, the behavioral differences are key to narrowing the gender disparity in business ownership. (JEL L26, R2, R3)     

DEMOCRATIC INCUMBENTS AND THE 1984 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: A CASE STUDY

This article examines the advantages a single Democratic incumbentutilized to win reelection in 1984 despite an overwhelming victoryby Ronald Reagan at the top of the ticket in the congressionaldistrict. The incumbent won reelection because of two typesof ticket splitting: Republican-inclined voters who voted forRepublican candidates for president and U.S. Senate and splitto vote for the Democratic incumbent for Congress, and Democraticvoters who supported Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate andCongress but split to vote for Ronald Reagan for president.Ticket splitting was found to be associated with basic politicalorientation—weak Republican and independent voters splitin favor of the Democratic incumbent and were far less likelyto vote a straight ticket for either party. Support for theDemocratic incumbent was explained in nonideological terms andwas based upon high recognition and favorability, constituentservice, voting record, and personal familiarity. For the Republicanchallenger, who never achieved a high level of recognition (despitesignificant campaign expenditure), support came almost solelyfrom the most partisan Republican members of the electorateand was based simply upon the party affiliation of the Republicanchallenger.     

The Effect of Daughters on Partisanship and Social Attitudes Toward Women

Washington ( 2008 ) finds that daughters promote liberal voting (at least with respect to women's issues) among U.S. Congress members and attributes this finding to socialization. However, daughters’ influence could manifest differently for elite politicians and the general citizenry either due to self‐selection or the Trivers‐Willard hypothesis, which suggests that parents invest differently in male and female children depending on their social status. Using nationally representative data from the General Social Survey, this study asks whether biological daughters affect political party identification, traditional views of women, or opinions about abortion and teen sex. We find that female offspring promote identification with the more conservative Republican Party, but this effect depends on social status. There is no evidence that daughters promote liberal views of women and less consistent evidence that they influence views of abortion or teen sex. Overall, evidence supports the Trivers‐Willard hypothesis, but with a more complex interaction by social status.     

“How Does She Have Time for Kids and Congress?”

Abstract

According to previous studies, women political leaders often are cast by the media as focused narrowly on matters of significance to their gender, and as being less weighty players in government than their male counterparts. This research explores the degree to which the press offices of women members of Congress perceive this to be the case, and the degree to which women representatives' communication efforts contribute to this pattern of coverage. Interviews with press secretaries to House members reveal that press secretaries find the media to be less fair in their treatment of women members, and that they believe women members are subject to sex role stereotyping. Contrary to the media's depiction, however, Congressional press secretaries and House member Web sites reveal that women members portray themselves, and seek to be portrayed, as having diverse interests and significant influence in Washington. Thus, it appears that the media, rather than the members and their staffers, are responsible for the stereotyped coverage that women representatives receive.