An analysis of morbidity and mortality using Google Trends

Improvement in information technology has led to an increase in the ability of individuals to access health information; however, there still exists a large gap between patient and physician knowledge about diseases and/or illnesses. Often patients find themselves in doubt or overwhelmed by the care they are given. High medical costs also persist which makes the experience of patients less than ideal. For these reasons, among others, the internet has become a very popular tool in the hands of individuals who may wish to better understand the status of their health, make more informed decisions about their treatment options, and/or find cheaper ways to maintain good health status or cure a disease. Internet search engines, especially Google, play a crucial role in providing a means for patients to get the health information they need. The analysis presented in this article seeks to investigate the possibility of using Google Trends data to analyze the relationship between internet searches on the major causes of death and actual mortality in the United States. Specifically, this research seeks to investigate how well Google search query data serve as proxy for data on the actual causes of death.     

Reaching Publics on the Web During the 1996 Presidential Campaign

This case study explored how the 1996 Democratic and Republican parties' presidential candidates used the World Wide Web to communicate to voters during the general election.

The study found that the campaigns were able to present more in-depth issue information through this new communication medium than traditional media channels. Results also indicated that the campaigns did not use this new technology to increase interaction between voters and candidates.     

Has the American Public’s Interest in Information Related to Relationships Beyond “The Couple” Increased Over Time?

Finding romance, love, and sexual intimacy is a central part of our life experience. Although people engage in romance in a variety of ways, alternatives to “the couple” are largely overlooked in relationship research. Scholars and the media have recently argued that the rules of romance are changing, suggesting that interest in consensual departures from monogamy may become popular as people navigate their long-term coupling. This study utilizes Google Trends to assess Americans’ interest in seeking out information related to consensual nonmonogamous relationships across a 10-year period (2006–2015). Using anonymous Web queries from hundreds of thousands of Google search engine users, results show that searches for words related to polyamory and open relationships (but not swinging) have significantly increased over time. Moreover, the magnitude of the correlation between consensual nonmonogamy Web queries and time was significantly higher than popular Web queries over the same time period, indicating this pattern of increased interest in polyamory and open relationships is unique. Future research avenues for incorporating consensual nonmonogamous relationships into relationship science are discussed.     

Voter Decision Making 1972 and 1974

A panel study of decision making by Ohio voters found differencesbetween the 1972 and 1974 general election campaigns in termsof attributes the voters used to choose candidates, when theychose, and how difficult their choices were to make. The studyexplored relations between.these differences and found variationsbetween the campaigns in voters' attention to and discussionof the campaigns, and in their uses of mass media. Difficultyof decision making in particular was highly associated withcertain campaign information-seeking behaviors, suggesting thatmass media and other political information sources may be usedin specific ways by voters experiencing difficulty.     

Social networks and Internet connectivity effects

This paper explores the impact of communication media and the Internet on connectivity between people. Results from a series of social network studies of media use are used as background for exploration of these impacts. These studies explored the use of all available media among members of an academic research group and among distance learners. Asking about media use as well as about the strength of the tie between communicating pairs revealed that those more strongly tied used more media to communicate than weak ties, and that media use within groups conformed to a unidimensional scale, showing a configuration of different tiers of media use supporting social networks of different ties strengths. These results lead to a number of implications regarding media and Internet connectivity, including: how media use can be added to characteristics of social network ties; how introducing a medium can create latent tie connectivity among group members that provides the technical means for activating weak ties, and also how a change in a medium can disrupt existing weak tie networks; how the tiers of media use also suggest that certain media support different kinds of information flow; and the importance of organization-level decisions about what media to provide and promote. The paper concludes with a discussion of implications for Internet effects.     

The Internet's impact on policy evaluation: information compression and credibility

As with all media, the Internet structures and frames information, rewarding some information search and decision behaviors while punishing others and, thereby, strongly influences evaluation research results and possibilities. Now that the Internet is for many evaluators the information medium of choice, the impacts of the medium on evaluation deserve careful attention. The objective of this article is to lay groundwork for a theory of the impact of the Internet on evaluation and policy analysis. Questions addressed include the following: (a) What is the impact of the Internet on the evaluator's professional role, work norms, and work habits? (b) Does the use of the Internet affect who is an evaluator or the meaning of professional evaluation? and (c) How does evaluation via Internet affect the technical quality and credibility of evaluation? A key thesis is that the Internet compresses information in the sense that it is not always easy to distinguish among information resources and, especially, the authority of the information provider and the nature of the knowledge warrant. On one hand, the Internet's information compression seems to hold potential for the democratization of evaluation. On the other hand, the diminished ability to make quality distinctions about evaluation-relevant information may undercut the legitimacy of evaluation.     

Implicit frames of CSR: The interplay between the news media,organizational PR,and the public

This study focuses on the implicit framing of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the interplay between the news media, organizational public relations (PR), and the public. The aim of the study is to investigate the multidirectional causal relationships between these three domains in terms of the use of implicit frames. An automated content analysis of Dutch newspaper articles and organizational press releases is employed. In addition, Google Trends data is examined in order to determine implicit frames of CSR among the public. Monthly level Vector Autoregression (VAR) analyses show different effects across frames. Overall, in line with our expectations, results show positive effects of the news media on the public and of organizational PR on the news media. Moreover, contrary to expectations, we found a negative effect of the public on the news media and mixed results with regard to the effect of the public on organizational PR. Investigating the multidirectional relationships between the news media, organizational PR, and the public provides insights into how they – as a domain – affect and get affected by each other in their communications.     

Cultural divides and digital inequalities: attitudes shaping Internet and social media divides*

Researchers on digital divides have identified demographic and attitudinal factors associated with inequalities in access, skills, and patterns of Internet use, primarily around age, income, and education. While the attitudes and values of Internet users and non-users have been studied over the years, they have rarely been used to identify broader ‘cultures of the Internet’ and their role in shaping digital divides. This paper builds on research in Britain, which focused on patterns of attitudes underpinning Internet cultures, to explore the degree that similar or distinctive cultures have developed in the USA, and whether and how they are useful in explaining digital divides. This study utilizes original data drawn from a telephone survey of residents across the State of Michigan that adapted survey items and methods from the Oxford Internet Survey of Britain. Based on these survey responses, the paper identifies and describes the cultures of the Internet among Michigan residents, as an exploratory case of the US as a whole, and shows how these cultures shape digital divides in Internet access and social media use. The robustness and explanatory power of these explorations of Internet cultures argue for further research on the United States and for comparative research with other nations.     

IS THERE SUCH A THING AS AN ONLINE HEALTH LIFESTYLE?

The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of the Internet for health-related purposes and whether this usage is part of larger pattern of health-promoting behaviors, or health lifestyle. Pierre Bourdieu's concept of habitus provides the key theoretical concept that links health lifestyle and the digital inequality framework to explain how social conditions (i.e. social status and quality of Internet access) influence attitudes and behaviors. Path analysis is used to examine the relationship between key endogenous variables on attitudes, health behavior, health status, and online health-related activities, while controlling for demographics and other factors. Data comes from the National Cancer Institute's 2007 Health Information National Trends Survey. The results demonstrate that online health behaviors can be usefully conceptualized as elements of health lifestyle. The combination of health lifestyle and digital inequality provides a broader theoretical framework that highlights the importance of social conditions to influence people's Internet habitus and routine health-promoting behaviors. The combination of health lifestyle and digital inequality provides a useful theoretical framework for future research investigating persistent social disparities in health and the potential for the growing reliance on information and communication technologies to contribute to socially patterned health outcomes.     

VOTERS' INTERMEDIATION ENVIRONMENTS IN THE 1988 PRESIDENTIAL CONTEST

Considerable information about a presidential election campaigncomes to voters through such intermediaries as personal networksand the mass media. This article examines the operation of theseintermediaries in the 1988 Ohio presidential campaign by focusingon exposure to them and the perceived partisan content of theirmessages—and how these key features of intermediationrelate to various voter characteristics. People are most disposedto discuss politics with like-minded relatives and friends,but discussions with co-workers provide an opportunity for politicallydissonant messages to intrude. This political discussion ismodulated by political attentiveness rather than personal orpartisan characteristics. Media exposure is high and also isrelated most to political attentiveness, although age is animportant determinant as well. Surprisingly, the media werecommonly perceived as balanced and neutral in the presidentialrace or, where committed, as supporting the candidate the respondentopposed. Because of this, only a third of the respondents foundthemselves in an overall intermediation environment that wasconcordant with their own preferences. Considerably more werein environments containing some discordant views, which couldchallenge their partisan dispositions.     

Opportunities and challenges of the digital lifespan: views of service providers and citizens in the UK

Information about UK citizens’ use of digital technologies is often expressed in statistics – x% lack Internet access; y% get online to engage in online banking, update social media sites, or participate in online auctions. There are many social implications to digital technology use, however – individuals may communicate online as a major way to stay in touch with friends and family, and as Internet access rises and government and public sector budgets shrink, online services become an increasingly attractive way for government and public sector service providers to communicate with citizens. This paper presents selected results of an exploratory study designed to investigate the digital personhood of UK citizens through interviews with participants at three life transitions: leaving secondary school, becoming a parent, and retiring from work. Digital personhood in this paper implies identity information online, and some interaction with others around that information. We then report on our presentation of a selection of these results to thirteen stakeholders who represented UK government departments, public sector organisations, and industry. We found that citizen and stakeholder concerns were quite different, especially at the new parent life transition, and that stakeholders tended to underestimate the willingness and ability of citizens to become involved online with the government and public sector, and overestimate citizens’ vulnerability online. Future research should investigate practical strategies for increasing communication between stakeholders and citizens, and also how to encourage stakeholders to work together to benefit their common clientele – the citizens.     

MASTERING THE ART OF SOCIAL MEDIA

Online communication has become a central part in the communication repertoires of political actors in Western mass democracies. In Switzerland, where broadband, internet use, and media literacy are amongst the highest in the world, all major political parties run their own website and are active on social media. This article seeks to show how Swiss political parties deal with social media, how they implement it and how they use social media. The study builds on empirical data from a structural analysis of party websites, the official Facebook sites, and Twitter feeds. These social media sites were analysed for their resonance, update frequency, and thematic clusters focusing on information, mobilization, and participation. A weekly assessment of the user numbers illustrates the development of user resonance throughout the 2011 election year. While political parties claim to appreciate the dialogue and mobilization potentials of social media, they mainly use social media as an additional channel to spread information and electoral propaganda. The overall resonance is still on a very low level. The data seem to sustain the normalization hypothesis, as larger parties with more resources and voters are better able to generate effective communication and to mobilize online than small and marginal parties.     

Active participation or just more information?

Given increasing calls for children and young people to participate via the Internet in civic and political activities), this article examines how far, and with what success, such participation is occurring among UK teenagers. Findings from a national survey conducted by the UK Children Go Online project show that young people are using the Internet for a wide range of activities that could be considered 'participation', including communicating, peer-to-peer connection, seeking information, interactivity, webpage/content creation and visiting civic/political websites. The findings are closely examined using path analysis techniques to identify the direct and indirect relations among different factors that may explain how and why some young people participate more than others. The results suggest that interactive and creative uses of the Internet are encouraged by the very experience of using the Internet (gaining in interest, skills, confidence, etc.) but that visiting civic websites depends primarily on demographic factors (with older, middle-class girls being most likely to visit these sites). Finally, cluster analysis is used to identify three groups of young people - interactors, the civic-minded and the disengaged - each of which is distinctive in its social context and approach to the Internet.     

Un-presidented: a qualitative framing analysis of the NAACP's public relations response to the 2000 presidential election

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has a 100-year history of mobilizing minority voters. Millions responded to the NAACP's multi-million dollar publicity campaign in the 2000 presidential election. When the election stalled unexpectedly, the NAACP's communications response was intended to help U.S. voters interpret the unusual circumstances.The NAACP's public relations department uses the media and the Internet to reach its audiences. This study qualitatively examined the NAACP's messages and compared them to almost 400 post-election news articles in six mainstream newspapers. There was little overlap between the media's frames and those advanced by the NAACP, which suggests that the NAACP's messages were ignored.     

中国新媒介二十年与青年网络社会的建构

从1994年至2014年的20年间,中国社会发生了巨大的变化。这种巨大变化特别体现在媒介的不断创新。2014是中国互联网发展的第20年。20年间,伴随新媒介同步出现了一个新的"青年族群",即"80后"和"90后",尤其是"90后",直接被称之为"互联网一代"。本文旨在分析中国互联网20年间与青年相关的具有代表性的网络事件,通过新媒介事件的"原点"来观测中国新青年的网络社会是如何建构的。     

Incorporating cash flow analysis with traditional analysis for evaluating casino financial stability

Abstract

The rapid growth and greater competition among casinos has resulted in a number of firms being financially impaired while others are being forced into mergers and consolidations. Many US gaming regulators have adopted regulations for monitoring the financial stability of casino properties. These regulators typically use financial statement analysis tools for measuring the financial stability of the gaming properties. This has traditionally consisted of measures derived from the income statement and balance sheet while ignoring the statement of cash flows. At this time, there is little information on how to read the statement of cash flow, let alone how to analyze this statement. While prior studies have been mixed on the informational content of cash flow information, they conclude that cash flow information does help explain many of the changes in the balance sheet and income statement and thus helps in the understanding of changes that have taken place in a corporation. This type of information should lead to a better understanding of the financial stability of gaming properties. The use of cash flow ratios along with the traditional ratios should provide additional assurances about the liquidity and solvency of gaming corporations.     

Internet risks and expert views: a case study of the insider perspectives of youth workers in Hong Kong

This study collects and analyses the viewpoints of front-line youth workers regarding the notion of ‘Internet risks’. Previous studies have examined and discussed various dangers of the Internet. Parental, school, and governmental interventions are often called for by those concerned. The implicit assumption is that these are the people who possess the expertise to tackle the problems at hand. Through participation in three forums focusing on ‘Internet risks’, and in-depth interviews with 10 such ‘experts’ in Hong Kong, the study examines if this is a valid assumption. It finds that experts perceive Internet risks rather differently. In addition to the more conventional views about content, contact and conduct risks, our interviewees are aware that a new order is quickly emerging in the new media environment. Despite being considered as ‘experts’, they do not necessarily know how to tackle the so-called ‘youth-at-risk’. Rather, they are exploring how they would capitalize on the opportunities offered by the developments. The key findings highlight the need to critically review the notion of ‘Internet risks’. As with other risk frameworks, the ultimate aim is to develop intervention programmes. In this regard, risks are often treated as concrete problems that can be solved. Youth experts, however, find that the changing scope, speed and persistence of communication in today's information society present the biggest challenge in youth work. The existing framework of risks was unable to describe and account for such risks. In response, Internet risk has to be reconceptualized so that more updated, relevant and imaginative intervention can be introduced.     

EFFECTS OF INTERNET USE AND SOCIAL RESOURCES ON CHANGES IN DEPRESSION

We examine how people's different uses of the Internet predict their later scores on a standard measure of depression, and how their existing social resources moderate these effects. In a longitudinal US survey conducted in 2001 and 2002, almost all respondents reported using the Internet for information, and entertainment and escape; these uses of the Internet had no impact on changes in respondents' level of depression. Almost all respondents also used the Internet for communicating with friends and family, and they showed lower depression scores six months later. Only about 20 percent of this sample reported using the Internet to meet new people and talk in online groups. Doing so changed their depression scores depending on their initial levels of social support. Those having high or medium levels of social support showed higher depression scores; those with low levels of social support did not experience these increases in depression. Our results suggest that individual differences in social resources and people's choices of how they use the Internet may account for the different outcomes reported in the literature.     

Transnational Information Politics and the “Child Migration Crisis”: Guatemalan NGOs Respond to Youth Migration

Sharp increases in “child migrants” from Central America detained at the US border in 2014 brought unprecedented levels of attention to long extant social and political issues perceived as causing youth migration. While governments on both sides of the US border faced criticism over responses to the migration “crisis,” the presumed causes of this migration presented in US media discourses went largely unquestioned. This article presents data collected in June 2015 from in-depth interviews with Guatemalan and transnational non-governmental organization (NGO) staff, scholars, lawyers, and activists in order to understand the complex interpretations of child migration by NGO actors in Guatemala. Findings illustrate how NGOs may selectively draw on the power of prevailing media narratives to buttress ideological and programmatic goals while simultaneously contesting how the same media depictions obscure the lived realities of migrants. We consider the transnational information politics of representations of “child migration” across government, media, and civil society sectors and the critical role of NGOs in articulating the complex realities faced by populations vulnerable to migration.     

Breaking Through the Information Blockade: Election and Revolution in Ukraine 2004

The mass media are an important part of modern elections and revolutions. This was certainly the case in Ukraine in 2004 when a key Presidential election erupted into the Orange Revolution and resulted in a change in the country’s ruling political elite. This paper looks at the impact of the mass media on political events in Ukraine during the 2004 presidential election campaign, and suggests that television in particular played a central role in the events which led to the Orange Revolution and its aftermath. It looks at how both the establishment and the opposition used the media to try and achieve their political goals, whether they were successful, and what the implications are.