What We Talk About When We Talk About Taxes

Taxes are a preeminent issue in domestic politics, but the prevalence, content, and shape of public discussion on taxation is often perplexing to social researchers. We argue that part of the confusion arises from the lack of qualitative data on the meanings Americans associate with taxation. In order to remedy this lack we conducted semi‐structured interviews with white, Southern, small business owners. In answering our questions, our respondents constructed narratives that connected taxation with exploitation and a loss of personal freedom. We propose that everyday fiscal discourse is morally charged and interconnected with boundary work and a sense of group position. Further, qualitative research into tax talk can help make sense of the current political and social landscape (e.g., the continued cultural saliency of the Tea Party).     

From bias to coverage: What explains how news organizations treat social movements

Why do newspapers cover social movement actors, and why is this coverage sometimes favorable? Early scholarship saw the news media mainly as a source of data on collective action, and sought to ascertain its biases, but scholarship has increasingly focused directly on why movements gain coverage, especially coverage that can advance their goals. To understand why and how newspapers cover movement actors, we start with the insight that movements rely on the news media for many reasons, but their coverage is largely in the control of news institutions. In this review, we focus on perspectives that specify 3‐way interactions between the characteristics of newspapers, social movement actors, and the social and political contexts, but we begin with how news media institutions are organized. We conclude with suggestions for future research that take advantage of the digital revolution of the last generation.     

Much Ado About Nothing?

We can only welcome the discourse that has been initiated in our professional community with the concept of public sociology in the focus. Undoubtedly, Michael Burawoy has indisputable merits in fuelling this international dialogue. I find, however, that his position and conceptual framework is debatable at several points, therefore my review is on the side of those who criticize his ideas. My paper is divided into three parts: in keeping with the idea that the drop mirrors the ocean, I will start with the detailed critique of a single paragraph—the one which makes comments on his table entitled Types of sociological knowledge. It will be argued that by switching his viewpoints and using vaguely defined notions without empirical evidences he often tackles his subject inconsistently. Secondly, I intend to offer an alternative, three-dimensional conceptual model in which the social scientist’s prestige, influence and position on the action chain is taken into account as the main analytical aspects of the relationship between her/him and the public. Finally, based on this model, I propose to identify some strategies in order to find a better balance between the public and professional activity of social scientists.     

Public Discourses About International Students

A growing, English‐language literature analyzes the public discourse of international education and students. One large set of studies highlight the discursive marginalization of non‐western, international students in western, host societies. They draw on critical discourse analysis (CDA) and meta‐narratives of western, White, and elite dominance, which diminish the theoretical importance of discourse in non‐western and non‐elite settings. A second, smaller set of studies analyze the public discourse of international education in non‐western, specifically Asian, countries; they generally reference educational discourse in both Asian and western countries. Relatively few studies critically examine patterns of discursive domination in Asian discourse; but the ones that do so compare both Asian and Western countries. Even rarer are studies of social media discourse among international students. We find a few studies of social media discourse among Asian students who studied abroad, but none of foreign students studying in host, Asian countries. Attention to multiple discourses and theoretical narratives offers a fruitful, research agenda and underlines the complex, dynamic, global nature of contemporary public discourse on international education.     

“We Became Sceptics”: Fear and Media Hype in General Public Narrative on the Advent of Pandemic Influenza

In this article, we examine the apparent resistance of publics to messages regarding pandemic influenza. The 2009 H1N1 pandemic was addressed through media: governments used print, broadcast, and digital media to advise publics to enact hygiene practices and comply with social isolation; news media took up the pandemic as a lead story. Publics, however, rated the pandemic as not serious, even before it was widely known that it was mild for most. This problem is presently constructed as complacency: where individuals are seen to lack appropriate motivation to avoid risk. We combine perspectives on media reflexivity on the part of audiences with general public interviews and focus groups in Australia and the UK, to offer an alternative explanation for complacency. Publics endorse public health advice, but are skeptical of pandemic risk communication. They exhibit critical awareness of outbreak narrative and concomitant emotions, such as fear, which are coded into media stories. We, therefore, challenge the view that publics are complacent. Instead, governments must navigate an emerging terrain of ramified and critical media consumption to shape effective risk communication in time of global health emergency.     

Donor Complaints About Fundraising: What Are They and Why Should We Care?

The Fund Raising Standards Board is the body responsible for the self-regulation of fundraising practice in the UK. As a requirement of membership of this body, charities are required to complete an annual return detailing the complaints received about their fundraising practice in the previous year. We conduct through this study an analysis of these data to highlight the percentage of solicitations in a wide variety of media that result in a complaint. We also examine the nature of those complaints and interpret our results in the context of the wider literature exploring the role of complaints in bolstering customer/donor satisfaction and determining subsequent behaviour.     

Teaching About Organized Religion in Social Work

Abstract

Schools of social work commonly teach that the origin of the profession lies in the humanistic principles of the many world faith traditions. However, beginning as early as the days of the Charity Organization Societies (COS) in the late nineteenth century and the Social Security Act of 1935, social work education, research, and practice have increasingly disassociated themselves from religion and its contribution to the profession. Furthermore, a large number of social workers, regardless of their personal religious affiliations, were trained to think that their religion has no relevance for their everyday professional practice. Meanwhile, society, especially in the last two decades, is marching toward greater integration between social services and organized religion. The rift between religion and professional social work practice, extenuated in the past fifty years, is being challenged by devolutionary trends of government funding and social service delivery that encourage faith-based social service provision. These trends also challenge the dogmatic exclusion of religious contents in social work education. In this article, we review the place of organized religion in social work education and present our innovative course to re-link organized religion with social work curriculum.     

Parenting and Digital Media: From the Early Web to Contemporary Digital Society

Parents have accessed websites, online discussion forums and blogs for advice, information and support since the early days of the World Wide Web. In this article, we review the literature in sociology and related social research addressing the ways in which digital media have been used for parenting‐related purposes. We begin with the longer‐established media of parenting websites, online discussion forums, blogs, email, mobile phones and message and video services and then move on to the newer technologies of social media and apps. This is followed by a section on data privacy and security issues. The concluding section summarises some major issues arising from the review and points to directions for further research.     

The Silent Classroom: The Impact of Smartphones and a Social Studies Teacher's Response

The accelerated ownership and usage of smartphones and social media presents multiple issues for educators. There is a relationship between smartphones and (a) academic achievement, (b) engagement, and (c) mental health. The purpose of this literature review is to investigate the impact of smartphones and social media on students and how curriculum can best prepare youth for democratic citizenship. The case studies included in this review span beyond the United States due to the insightful research that has been conducted in various locations across the globe. When reviewing the literature, a few themes emerged. First, students who struggle the most academically are the ones who benefit most from the absence of a smartphone. Second, students of color are spending more time on social media and due to the increased exposure to racial discrimination online, academic motivation is decreasing for many of these students. Third, many researchers encourage schools to develop policies to limit smartphone use in the classroom. Finally, it is evident that the social studies curriculum needs to be expanded to include digital citizenship, media literacy, and the potential negative impact of smartphones and social media on students.     

User‐generated online queer media and the politics of queer visibility

In this article, we review sociological research on the politics of queer self‐presentation and visibility in user‐generated online media, such as personal homepages, blogs, YouTube vlogs, and queer‐specific social networking sites. Using an intersectional lens to attend to multiple axes of identity, the review offers a deeper understanding of how online queer media impact self‐presentation and visibility, while also privileging certain racial, sexual, and gender identities and practices over others. Online platforms can serve as spaces of resistance wherein queer people not only make themselves visible but also redefine dominant conceptions of identity, as well as the boundaries between public and private life. However, our review also finds that online spaces of queer self‐presentation often become another space for the reinforcement of dominant norms pertaining to various axes of one's identity. Given that the advent of user‐generated media and the Internet has facilitated the mobilization of queer people worldwide, an understanding of queer self‐presentation in online media demonstrates how new iterations of sex, gender, and sexuality are constructed in a technological era by queer‐identified people themselves, and how people can both resist and reify dominant social hierarchies across boundaries of space and time.     

Othering the rural: About the construction of rural masculinities and the unspoken urban hegemonic ideal in Swedish media

Studies within the field of rural geography have lately to a noticeable extent enriched the theme of the creation of masculinities and femininities focussing on social constructions of the rural, as well as social constructions of gender. In this study I aim to discuss some expressed discourses of the rural in order to illuminate the power relation between the urban and the rural and the spatial implications of the construction of masculinities and femininities.Taking three Swedish television productions as a point of departure, I will argue that an urban hegemony exists and that the programmes reveal how rural masculinities are constructed. The aim is firstly to add a spatial dimension to the constructions of masculinities, and secondly to show how media builds up and emphasises a gap between the rural and the urban in these constructions. Cutting-edge media is of interest, as it is active in reproducing certain practices and also in identifying who is following the norm and who is deviating from it. The three television productions highlight the construction of rural masculinities in terms of seeking help and being ‘backward’; that rural men are unequal and traditional as well as deviating and out of place.     

What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Performance? Dialogue Theory and Performance Budgeting

This article examines the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART)in the federal budgeting process. The early evidence on PARTprompts the search for a theory of budgeting that accepts thatperformance information will influence decisions but will notbe used in the same way from decision to decision, as the espousedtheory of performance budgeting suggests. Dialogue theory emphasizesthe ambiguity of performance information and related resourceallocation choices. An exploratory test of dialogue theory isundertaken through an experiment involving graduate studentsassessing PART evaluations. The results illustrate a varietyof ways in which different individuals can examine the sameprogram and, using logical warrants, come to different conclusionsabout performance and future funding requirements.     

Hybrid social and news media protest events: from #MarchinMarch to #BusttheBudget in Australia

Public protest events are now both social media and news media events. They are deeply entangled, with news media actors – such as journalists or news organisations – directly participating in the protest by tweeting about the event using the protest hashtag; and social media actors sharing news items published online by professional news agencies. Protesters have always deployed tactics to engage the media and use news media agencies’ resources to amplify their reach, with the dual aim of mobilising new supporters and adding their voice to public, mediatised debate. When protest moves between a physical space and a virtual space, the interactions between protesters and media stop being asynchronous or post hoc and turn instantaneous. In this new media-protest ecosystem, traditional media are still relevant sources of information and legitimacy, yet this dynamic is increasingly underpinned by a hybrid interdependency between traditional news and social media sources. In this paper we focus on an anti-austerity government movement that arose in Australia in early 2014 and was mobilised as a series of social media driven, connective action protest events. We show that there is a complex symbiotic interdependency between the movement and the traditional media for recognition and amplification of initial protest events, but that over time as media interest wanes, the movements’ network becomes disconnected and momentum is lost. This suggests that the active role traditional media play in protest events is being underestimated in the current research agenda on connective action.     

Information,Interactivity, and Social Media

The aim of this paper is to provide a conceptual theoretical framework to the term “social” in a social media context. This is done by exploring the relationship between three central terms in a social media environment: information, interactivity, and sociability. We suggest a model that describes the relations between these terms in a social media context. As the model suggests, information is the basic unit of a communication process, but social media users are the ones that decide whether and how much information to share, and when and whether to comment on a social media platform. Hence, not solely the technological features of a platform determine its level of interactivity and sociability, but the actual performances of its users.     

How Journalists Think about Media Effects—And Why We Should Care

Research suggests that journalists’ beliefs about media effects are influenced by unsystematically gathered knowledge and subjective-intuitive judgments. However, it has also been shown that these presumptions must be considered important factors for the formation of journalistic coverage. Against this background, this article synthesizes existing research on dimensions, determinants, and consequences of journalists’ presumptions of media effects. The resulting framework offers researchers in the field of journalistic content production a comprehensive overview of the possible role that presumptions of media effects could play for journalistic content creation. In a second step, we summarize the implications that the current state of research points at. We discuss why journalism scholars should integrate presumed media effects into their research agendas and what communication researchers, as well as journalists themselves, could do to promote more realistic beliefs about media effects among journalists.     

Talk About a Revolution: Social Media and the MENA Uprisings

This article examines the role played by social media in the popular uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). When discussing their role, it is important to note the wider research context on social media and political participation and to be aware of any ideological and normative interventions. A number of key questions are asked about the role played by social media in the uprisings. First is the importance of context when assessing the role and impact of social media with global reach. Second is the extent to which ‘old’ media in the guise of print and broadcast journalism have been displaced or downgraded as forums for public talk. Third is the variable use and significance of different information and communication technologies and formats. The fourth issue concerns the demeanor of activists and audience, while the fifth focuses on the effects of social media on the conduct of the uprisings and, insofar as this can be ascertained, on their outcomes.

Este artículo examina el papel que jugaron los medios en los famosos levantamientos a través del Medio Oriente y África del Norte (MENA, por sus siglas en inglés). Al analizar su papel, es importante notar una mayor amplitud en el contexto de la investigación sobre los medios sociales y la participación política, y de tener presente cualquier intervención normativa e ideológica. Se formularon varias preguntas claves sobre el rol que jugaron los medios sociales en los levantamientos. Primero, la importancia del contexto cuando se evalúa el papel e impacto de los medios sociales con el alcance mundial. Segundo, hasta qué punto los medios ‘antiguos’ en la forma de periodismo impreso y radio y teledifusión fueron desplazados o se redujeron a fórums de charlas públicas. Tercero, la importancia y el uso variable de las diferentes tecnologías y formatos de la información y la comunicación. El cuarto asunto analiza la conducta de los activistas y la audiencia, mientras que el quinto se enfoca en los efectos de los medios sociales sobre la conducta de los levantamientos, y en la medida que se pueda constatar, sobre sus consecuencias.

本文考察社会媒体在横贯西亚北非地区的民众反叛中扮演的角色。当讨论社会媒体的作用时,注意到社会媒体和政治参与广阔的研究范围并小心避免任何意识形态或价值标准干扰是很重要的。关于社会媒体在反叛中扮演的角色,存在若干关键问题。首先是当以全球性覆盖来评估社会媒体角色和影响时环境的重要性。第二是作为公众话题平台,以印刷和广播新闻形式出现的“旧”媒体在多大程度上被取代或其重要性降低了。第三是不同的信息、通信技术及形式的可变用途和重要性。第四个问题有关积极分子和接受者的行为,而第五个则聚焦于社会媒体对起义的进行以及在可确定范围内其结局的影响。     

Technological socialities: The impact of information and communication technologies on belonging among deaf and hard-of-hearing people

This review article examines how different types of communication technologies, from the specialized medical to generic social devices, influence belonging and sociality among deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) people. The emphasis is on DHH adolescents and young adults who may be impacted differently across countries, given state-specific policies regarding the status of sign language and deaf education, and based on different availability, affordability, and accessibility of communication technologies. We introduce different perspectives on deafness, ranging from pathological to cultural, a heuristic on which we build to explore DHH socialities as complex and evolving. We then analytically review ethnographic research on how cochlear implants impact DHH people's belonging to the “deaf world” and/or the “hearing world,” and how they navigate between these worlds. Then we move on to technologies such as text messages and social media, which enable DHH people to extend their socialities beyond local communities. Belonging is a fluid phenomenon, and technologies which are in a constant process of innovation and development may influence it in complex ways. We argue that to explore questions of belonging, identity, and sociality among DHH people, and how they are shaped by technologies, (visual) ethnographic methods are particularly productive.     

Use of social media for corporate communications by research-funding organisations in the UK

This research sought to explore the implications of social media for organisations’ business functions, to help inform organisational approaches to challenges presented by social media. UK-based research-funding bodies provided the focus of this study, and a literature review, quantitative survey and focus groups involving relevant communications professionals were undertaken. Findings show that most UK-based research-funding organisations have adopted social media channels for corporate communications, drawing chiefly on microblogging, video-sharing and social networking sites. Building a dialogue with stakeholders is a prime reason for using social channels, yet one-way ‘broadcasting’ of information is widespread. Web, media or communications/marketing teams generally manage social media channels. A minority of organisations have policies governing social media use by staff. Social media performance is mainly measured using quantitative metrics.     

Mixed Messages: Inconsistent Parental Mediation Indirectly Predicts Teens’ Online Relational Aggression

Although the predictors of off-line relational aggression have been examined in prior work, less is known about the factors that contribute to online relational aggression perpetration and victimization. This study examined parental restrictive and active mediation of teenagers’ social media use as potential predictors of these outcomes. We were particularly interested in understanding whether parental agreement about media rules and the consistency with which mediation was implemented had implications for teens’ social media use, conflict with parents, and experience with online relational aggression. We conducted an online survey of 814 adolescents from the United States (14- to17-year-olds), asking about perceived agreement between parents about media rules, parental mediation styles, the teens’ social media use, and their experiences with online relational aggression. Results showed that parental rule agreement negatively predicted inconsistent parental mediation. Inconsistent parental mediation predicted more adolescent social media use and more parent-teen conflict over media rules, which in turn, predicted both online victimization and perpetration.     

Stuck with ‘electronic brochures’? How boundary management strategies shape politicians’ social media use

Social media provide new opportunities for politicians, such as personalized communication directed at specific communities of interest. Yet despite potential benefits, empirical analyses show that politicians tend to shy away from an active engagement of online audiences. This study explores the effect of politicians’ online boundary management on their use of social media. Ties maintained through social media profiles can be embedded in diverse social contexts (‘context collapse’). Professional communicators, especially, are faced with the challenge of managing boundaries between professional and private online self-presentations. Based on a survey of 106 German members of parliament, we distinguish four types of boundary management strategies. We analyze the effects of these strategies on politicians’ social media use practices – and find that considering boundary management strategies allows for a better understanding of politicians’ online engagement (or lack thereof).