Bad News Has Wings: Dread Risk Mediates Social Amplification in Risk Communication

Social diffusion of information amplifies risk through processes of birth, death, and distortion of message content. Dread risk—involving uncontrollable, fatal, involuntary, and catastrophic outcomes (e.g., terrorist attacks and nuclear accidents)—may be particularly susceptible to amplification because of the psychological biases inherent in dread risk avoidance. To test this, initially balanced information about high or low dread topics was given to a set of individuals who then communicated this information through diffusion chains, each person passing a message to the next. A subset of these chains were also reexposed to the original information. We measured prior knowledge, perceived risk before and after transmission, and, at each link, number of positive and negative statements. Results showed that the more a message was transmitted the more negative statements it contained. This was highest for the high dread topic. Increased perceived risk and production of negative messages was closely related to the amount of negative information that was received, with domain knowledge mitigating this effect. Reexposure to the initial information was ineffectual in reducing bias, demonstrating the enhanced danger of socially transmitted information.     

The Mediated Amplification of a Crisis: Communicating the A/H1N1 Pandemic in Press Releases and Press Coverage in Europe

In the aftermath of the A/H1N1 pandemic, health authorities were criticized for failures in crisis communication efforts, and the media were accused of amplifying the pandemic. Considering these criticisms, A/H1N1 provides a suitable case for examining risk amplification processes that may occur in the transfer of information from press releases to print news media during a health crisis. We integrated the social amplification of risk framework with theories of news decisions (news values, framing) in an attempt to contribute to existing research both theoretically and empirically. We conducted a quantitative content analysis of press releases disseminated by health and governmental authorities, as well as the quality and tabloid press in 10 European countries between March 2009 and March 2011. Altogether 243 press releases, 1,243 quality press articles, and 834 tabloid press articles were coded. Consistent with research on news values and framing the results suggest that quality and tabloid papers alike amplified A/H1N1 risks by emphasizing conflict and damage, presenting information in a more dramatized way, and using risk‐amplifying frames to a greater extent and risk‐attenuating frames to a lesser extent than press releases. To some extent, the quality and tabloid press differed in how risk information was presented. While tabloid press articles seemed to follow the leading quality press with regards to content and framing of health crisis coverage, they exhibited a stronger emphasis on drama and emotion in the way they presented information.     

位移边界对2D-FGM板热应力影响研究

考虑不同的位移边界条件,建立了常物性2D-FGM板研究模型,并采用有限元法,得到其冷却瞬态热应力场分布图形。位移边界条件对常物性2D-FGM平面区域冷却瞬态热应力分布影响颇大,在简支和一端固定情况下,2D-FGM板自由边界上的热应力σ_x=0;两端固定情况下,其左右两边界均形成上中下三个应力聚集,应力分布形状和数值都发生了巨大的变化;将四周均设置呈固定约束后,热应力数值增长幅度较两端固定情况时更为明显。此结果为该材料的设计、制备提供了准确的理论计算依据。     

从互文性理论解读文本独特性——《押沙龙,押沙龙!》的个案研究

互文性的写作策略是福克纳创作后现代主义小说的有益尝试,其创作凸显了作者对文学传统和以往作品的利用和模仿,以及在此基础之上的否定颠覆和创新发展。以《押沙龙,押沙龙!》为个案研究,从文本叙事模式、人物选择和神话模式的角度对文本进行互文性解读,以求对文本独特性进行阐释。     

特殊重大工程项目的风险社会放大效应及启示——以日本福岛核泄露事故为例

福岛核电站泄露事故愈演愈烈,其技术风险引发的社会放大效应不断衍伸,在日本及世界各地蔓延,以致引发出世界范围内关于核电站未来发展的存废之争。以"风险社会放大框架"为分析工具,通过对福岛核泄漏风险社会放大效应的表现、特点、机制等进行梳理和剖析,并结合中国国情,提出保证风险信息公开、鼓励风险中公众参与、建立政民心理契约等政策建议。     

Transformative Homes

ABSTRACT

In the era of global workflows and massive migrations, it has been suggested that the notion of home is breaking free from its material aspects to become a set of exportable routines and practices. On the other hand, it is argued that the materiality of spaces and objects can support migrants' well-being in the new destination. Drawing on the ethnography of a Moroccan household in Rome, Italy, we illustrate how actions pertinent to the material home can favor identity development and the exercise of agency. First, we discuss squatting as a collective action of appropriation and transformation, which led to the identification with a transnational, intercultural category of migrant. Second, we illustrate the activities of furnishing as the locus of syncretic and reflexive processes, in which elements of the host country and themes from the migratory experience are mixed and reinterpreted in novel ways. Our analysis supports the view that the materiality of the home and the actions it affords play a major role in the socio-psychological adjustment of migrants and—on a wider scale—in processes of cultural dynamism and renovation.     

Living in displacement context: Coping strategies,changing attitudes and family dynamics among Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Mindanao,Philippines

ABSTRACT

The main objective of the paper is to critically examine and document the living conditions of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from Marawi City. Forcibly displaced more than a year ago due to armed conflict, these IDPs managed to find their way to an unoccupied building in the outskirt of Iligan City, Lanao del Norte Province, Philippines. Results show their range of main concerns such as the supply of electricity and water, health services and medicines and more importantly, food. Disruptions on children’s schooling and most especially the discontinuation of their parents’ livelihood were also documented. The community is waiting for their “turn” to access better temporary shelters provided by the government. The study utilized key informant interview (KII) among 10 household heads (from among the 75 families living in the building). Their narratives reveal several coping strategies amidst insufficient government assistance and community feeling of isolation, the most glaring of those, is the dependency to social network, capitalizing on the social ties with relatives and friends for assistance. The IDPs admitted however that the same assistance is not enough. Additionally, the reduction of food consumption and selling of food relief packs remain unsustainable in coping with their destitute condition. Moreover, the article also touches on the consequence of their displacement context on socio-familial dynamics.     

‘They More or Less Blended in with Society’: Changing Attitudes to European Migrant Workers in Post-war Lancashire

European volunteer workers have received comparatively little attention in the history of British post-war immigration, with greater coverage given to, for example, demobilised members of the Polish Resettlement Corps. This paper is based upon oral history interviews with a group of European immigrants, predominantly European volunteer workers, and local Lancastrians who started work in the Lancashire cotton industry between 1946 and 1951, and examines perceptions of how they integrated into British life in a variety of domains. The paper emphasises that ‘blending-in’ was context-dependent, with a sense of being welcomed and fitting-in applying to certain domains and in certain situations but not necessarily in others. It argues that migration fosters particular cultural attitudes and practices amongst both migrants and hosts as social identities are produced and reproduced, changed and challenged.     

State and Regional Variation in the Effects of Trade on Job Displacement in the US Manufacturing Sector, 1982–1999

Worker-level data from the 1984–2000 Displaced Worker Surveys are employed to examine the effects of trade on manufacturing workers’ probabilities of job displacement. Observed changes in import and export penetration rates yield increases in displacement probabilities for the North Central, Middle Atlantic and South Central regions yet lower displacement probabilities for the Plains/West and Pacific regions. Changes in import and export price indexes lead to increases in displacement probabilities for the Pacific, Southeast and Northeast regions and decreases for the South Central and Middle Atlantic regions. However, while the influences of imports and exports on job displacement vary considerably across states and regions, the estimated net effect of trade on displacement probabilities is minor, generally speaking, when compared to the combined influence of other factors.