The effects of traditional news,partisan talk,and political satire programs on perceptions of presidential candidate viability and electability

This study examines how exposure to network news, partisan opinion talk, and political satire programs during the 2012 Iowa presidential caucuses affected viewers’ perceptions of candidate viability (likelihood of capturing the party nomination) and electability (likelihood of winning the general election). Programs representing these genres—ABC World News, Fox News’s Hannity, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart—all framed the same candidate as the front-runner for the nomination, though each framed this candidate’s general election prospects in distinctive ways. A randomized field experiment assigned respondents to view one (or none) of the three programs as they aired. Assessments of the front-runner were significantly shaped by assignment to view television coverage, hence demonstrating the potential importance of all three media genres for the presidential nomination process.     

Bridging the Ethnic Divide: Student and School Characteristics in African American,Asian‐Descent,Latino, and White Adolescents' Cross‐Ethnic Friend Nominations

Based on the revised social contact theory, correlates of cross‐ethnic friend nomination among 580 African American, 948 Asian‐descent, 860 Latino, and 3986 White adolescents were examined. Socioeconomic and academic disparities between ethnic groups differentiated cross‐ethnic friend nomination between schools for all groups but African Americans. For all groups, cross‐ethnic friend nomination was less likely among students who preferred same‐ethnic friends. Academic orientations were associated with cross‐ethnic friend nomination positively for African American and Latino, but negatively for White participants. Longer family residence in the U.S. and English language facility was associated positively with cross‐ethnic friend nomination for Asian‐descent and Latino participants. Results point to the need to differentiate hypotheses by ethnic group, and to consider individual‐in‐context models in cross‐ethnic friend nomination.     

What's an Oscar worth?

This article examines the impact of an Academy Award nomination and award for best picture, best actor/actress, and best supporting actor/actress on a film's (i) market share of theaters, (ii) average revenue per screen, and (iii) its probability of survival. The model is estimated using weekly box-office data for a matched sample of nominated and non-nominated films. The results indicate substantial financial benefits for a nomination and award for best picture and best actor/actress. The structure of rewards is consistent with that found in two-stage, single-elimination tournaments.     

When Women Run Against Men

The electorate's reactions to women congressional candidatesare examined using both election returns and survey data. Whenparty and incumbency are controlled candidate sex alone is foundto have little or no effect on election outcomes. A curiousinteraction is found between candidate sex and party, however.This is attributed to nomination patterns     

THE FIRST STRAW? A STUDY OF THE ORIGINS OF ELECTION POLLS

Proto-straw polls appeared in the presidential election of 1824.These precursors to modern election polls originated out ofa combination of short-term political changes associated withthe end of the first American party system in general and thedemise of the congressional caucus system of nomination in particularand long-term developments associated with growing democratization,centralization, and quantification.     

A functional analysis of press releases from Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain during the 2008 primary presidential election

Press releases from Senators John McCain and Barack Obama's official websites were content analyzed using functional theory. Intercoder reliability was high and the results yielded significant results. Patterns from previous research were found but there were also new findings that may be a result of the fact that this is the first presidential election since 1928 that an incumbent President or Vice President has not run for their party's nomination.     

CARE Act: $100 billion bill still waiting for any action

The Comprehensive Addiction Resources Emergency (CARE) Act of 2019, introduced in the House of Representatives by the late Rep. Elijah Cummings (D‐Maryland) and in the Senate by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D‐Massachusetts) on May 8, still has a lot of support from the recovery community. But with Representative Cummings' death on Oct. 17 and Senator Warren's energetic campaign for the presidential nomination, it hasn't gotten much attention.     

Say it Loud: The Obama Effect and Racial/Ethnic Identification of Adolescents

The current study examined how self-reported racial/ethnic identification of adolescents living in poverty may be related to significant societal events and seminal public figures. Data from a multiple cohort longitudinal study, conducted in Mobile, Alabama between 1998 and 2011, were used to examine the impact of Barack Obama's nomination and presidency on racial/ethnic identification. The results show that significantly more adolescents changed their self-reported racial/ethnic identification from White or Mixed-Race to Black or Mixed Race after the election than before. These results suggest that a distant public figure can serve as a role model with observable effects for adolescents.     

Multiplexity and strategic alliances: The relational embeddedness of coalitions in social movement organisational fields

While scholars have embraced the notion of social movements as networks, there has been little empirical exploration of the emergence of coalitions within these multilayered systems. Here I explore the role of overlapping relations in alliance formation amongst a group of 55 health-related professional social movement organisations mobilised against austerity. Using cross-sectional bivariate exponential random graph models, I find dependencies between digital proxies for alliance, shared allies, information exchange, positive nomination and offline colobbying activity at the dyadic, degree and triadic levels. Cross-network associations indicate that multiplexity plays a non-trivial role in the formation of alliances and, more generally, social movement organisational fields, necessitating increased attention from scholars of social movements.     

Incorporating structural stigma into network analysis

A rich literature has explored the modeling of homophily and other forms of nonuniform mixing associated with individual-level covariates within the exponential family random graph (ERGM) framework. Such differential mixing does not fully explain phenomena such as stigma, however, which involve the active maintenance of social boundaries by ostracism of persons with out-group ties. Here, we introduce a new family of statistics that allows for such effects to be captured, making it possible to probe for the potential presence of boundary maintenance above and beyond simple differences in nomination rates. We demonstrate these statistics in the context of gender segregation in a school classroom, and introduce a framework for understanding the associated coefficients via network perturbation.     

Blog bias: Reports,inferences, and judgments of credentialed bloggers at the 2004 nominating conventions

Public relations practitioners awarded bloggers media credentials in 2004 to the summer presidential nomination conventions. Using the Hayakawa–Lowry bias categories, this quantitative content analysis reviewed sentences posted by credentialed bloggers during the convention to examine blogger reports (attributed, unattributed), inferences (labeled, unlabeled), and judgments (attributed and favorable, unattributed and favorable, attributed and unfavorable, unattributed and unfavorable) to analyze potential bias in “coverage”.     

Spiritual and Religious Communication: Intragroup Conflict among Southern Baptist Pastors

This ethnographic study examines pastoral intragroup conflict in a U.S. Southern Baptist church. In-depth interviewing and participant observation were employed. Specifically, we elicited, through formal interviews, direct statements from six practicing Southern Baptist pastors on the reasons for, prevalence, and results of such interpersonal or intragroup conflict in Baptist denominational leaderships. Findings from these efforts revealed the dynamics and corollaries of such conflict in Southern Baptist denomination in general. As the sources of such conflict are diverse, we argue that qualitatively analyzing and reporting on this subject are of value to communication scholars. Areas for future research are also addressed.     

Silent minority? Willingness to express opinions of motivated public depending on the perceived group size in the context of GM food controversy

Using 2010 dataset from Investigation of Consumers’ Risk Perception on Novel Foods on the issue of genetically modified (GM) foods in South Korea, the study explores the roles of situational motivation and perceived opinion climate on willingness to express an opinion in the context of the spiral of silence and group size effect hypothesis. The study analyzed the data using PROCESS moderation model. Findings provided that individuals are more willing to express their opinion when they have stronger situational motivation. However, this effect was moderated by perceived opinion climate such that those who perceive a less favorable opinion climate to their position are more willing to express their opinion than those who perceive a more favorable opinion climate as they have stronger situational motivation. Implications of the findings are discussed in detail.     

Name order effects in measuring adolescent social networks using rosters

Recent studies have found order effects in social network data collection, where later names on a roster receive fewer nominations. Some thus argue for randomizing name orders or sampling peer names for survey rosters. We model order effects as biases in nomination choices and demonstrate observational and experimental methods for assessing these biases and illuminating their mechanisms. Employing these lenses, we find little evidence of order effects on eight sociometric questions in four middle school cohorts over six waves. To inform future work, we investigate aspects of the survey situation that may amplify or attenuate order effects. Analyzing these moderating forces offers guidance for detecting, understanding, and mitigating order effects in future research.     

Rethinking Public Opinion in Penal Policymaking: Recommendations for Research

Public opinion is often described as a powerful force in penal policymaking in the USA. Unfortunately, research on public opinion in penal policymaking has been limited by inattention to a number of important variables: definitions of public opinion, individual and interpersonal constructions of public opinion by political leaders themselves, state differences in historical contexts and political cultures regarding public engagement and political influence, and diversity in the roles of public opinion at different levels of government. This paper considers current dilemmas in this area of inquiry and reviews recent research in order to highlight potentially fruitful new directions for research.     

Utilizing Peer Nominations in Middle School: A Longitudinal Comparison Between Complete Classroom‐Based and Random List Methods

Although peer nominations provide invaluable data on social status and reputations of classmates, the large size and organizational structure of secondary schools pose a practical challenge to utilizing nomination methods. Particularly problematic is determining the appropriate reference group when students are no longer in self‐contained classrooms. In the current study, we compared a random list method as an alternative to complete classroom‐based or grade list peer nominations. In a 3‐year longitudinal study of 2,307 middle school students, the temporal stability and construct validity of the method were assessed regarding peer acceptance, rejection, coolness, aggression, and victimization. The findings suggested that the random list procedure provides a feasible method to study large peer groups in secondary school settings.     

Letter Opinion on ERA: A Test of the Newspaper Bias Hypothesis

This paper compares letter opinion (opinions expressed in publishedletters-to-the-editor) with public opinion on ERA. Prior researchhas suggested that letter opinion is biased by atypical letterwriters or by newspaper editorial policies which are used toselect letters for publication. Drawing on a national sampleof 92 daily newspapers, no substantial difference between letteropinion and public opinion on ERA is detected. Little supportis found for the hypothesis that newspaper policies bias letteropinion.     

THE RISE OF PRESIDENTIAL POLLING THE NIXON WHITE HOUSE IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

This article traces the institutional development of presidentialpolling of public opinion. We suggest that Kennedy, Johnson,and especially Nixon developed the institution of the presidencyto include a "public opinion apparatus"—an operation thatwas centralized in the White House and devoted to assemblingpublic opinion data and conducting extensive public relationsactivities. According to interviews with former officials andarchival records, this apparatus had its roots in Kennedy's1960 presidential campaign, but during the Johnson and Nixonpresidencies it developed into a regular and enduring institutionfor connecting presidential activity with public opinion.     

Fear of the "Alien Other": Cultural Anxiety and Opinions about Japan

American public opinion toward Japan grew more negative coincident with 1980s "Japan-bashing" media messages. Two theories of opinion formation provide explanations for this. Democratic representation theory understands opinions as rational responses to new information. Cultural interpretation theory holds that public opinion is based on one's receptiveness to media discourse. Opinion is neither a rational response to information nor the passive acceptance of elite dictates. People differentially interpret media messages and form opinions in a process that is shaped by media attentiveness and their subjective cultural anxieties. Survey data permit an indirect test of the two theories applied to anti-Japan opinion. OLS regression analysis performed on GSS for four time periods reveals that anti-Japan opinion is rooted less in "rational" responses to personal economic insecurity or fear of increased global competition than in racial attitudes and domestic social-cultural concerns. America's negative opinion toward Japan in the 1990s is better understood as domestic anxieties that are redirected toward a symbolic target that the mass media has highlighted.