News and information leadership in the digital age

This paper examines information networks on social media to draw conclusions about influence relationships among members of the mass media. The project considers social networks and information patterns using Twitter data, first at the newspaper level and second at the journalist level. Using a computational approach, we look for evidence of elite-directed information flows, as well as exploring whether we find evidence of an increase in the democratization of newsmaking. This study finds that elite voices continue to dominate information networks in the digital age; however, it also finds evidence that information can move expeditiously from journalists in local and regional outlets to elite ones, and vice versa. We move further to explore the content of tweets among the journalist network, finding that there are substantial, direct interactions among elite and regional and local journalists. Our results taken together uncover new network patterns and provide a novel insight on the role of information technologies in newsmaking in the digital age.     

Corporate interests within transnational advocacy networks: The International Coalition Against Plain Packaging

Most of the research on transnational advocacy networks documents progressive, voluntary movements, motivated by values associate with human rights and public goods. There is little critical reflection on the role of corporations within such networks or on the material motivations behind movements. Meanwhile literature on corporate political strategies related to partnerships with civil society is limited to national level analysis. This article presents a case study of the International Coalition Against Plain Packaging, which is conceptualized as a transnational advocacy network, and documents its links to the tobacco industry. We find that, not only have tobacco companies provided network members – publicly presented and perceived as independent – with financial resources, but they have also been involved in producing the information used by the network to debate the benefits of plain packaging. In return, the tobacco industry is able to propagate ideas favorable to its interests through organizations perceived as legitimate experts, and to maintain a network of allies ready to counter tobacco control regulations when and where they arise. Considering the multiple benefits corporations might derive from engaging with transnational advocacy networks, there is need for greater research on private actors’ influence within advocacy networks and on those networks that aim to counter or advance alternatives to progressive ideals.     

The student movement in Turkey: a case study of the relationship between (re)politicization and democratization

One particularly striking aspect of the global waves of social movements is the increasing politicization of youth, including students. Taking this as its starting point, this article discusses what the politicization of youth could mean for democracy and democratization in Turkey. This is important because, especially since 2011, Turkish politics has been dominated by debates concerning authoritarianization. Focusing on the largest student organization in Turkey, the Student Collectives (SC), this article shows that the relationship between politicization and democratization is more complicated than at first sight. Some aspects of the student movement in Turkey suggest it is an important moment of democratization in Turkey while other aspects arouse scepticism. Three crucial indicators of a movement’s democratic potential are whether it attends to deciphering the existing constellation of power relations, reflects on the possibility of installing a counter-hegemony and gives importance to collective identities. However, the SC’s potential democratic contribution is weakened by its conceptualization of democratic struggle in terms of antagonism rather than agonism through ‘moralizing’ politics. Moreover, its reluctance to engage with institutions of representative democracy further complicates the matter. The main contribution of this study is its discussion of various forms of politicization and their possible effects on democratization; and to give some clues to the activists of different social movements that can be helpful in their self-reflection.     

Health and the structure of adolescent social networks

Much research has explored the role of social networks in promoting health through the provision of social support. However, little work has examined how social networks themselves may be structured by health. This article investigates the link between individuals' health and the characteristics of their social network positions. We first develop theoretical predictions for how health may influence the structure of adolescent networks. We then test these predictions using longitudinal analysis of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). We find important relationships between the health status of adolescents and the characteristics of the social network positions within which they are embedded. Overall we find that adolescents in poor health form smaller local networks and occupy less central global positions than their healthy peers. These results also have implications for social network research, expanding the scope of factors responsible for the network positions individuals occupy.     

Partnerships of a feather flock together? An analysis of the emergence of networks of partnerships in the global cocoa sector

In this article, we move away from the case study approach dominant in the literature on partnerships and explore the emergence of networks of partnerships. Taking the global cocoa sector as our research setting, we examine 55 partnerships to analyse the linkages between them, their evolution over time, as well as the simultaneous occurrence of cooperation and competition. We discover that the partnerships are connected to each other through overlapping memberships of organizations and increasingly also through institutional linkages. The linkages between the partnerships channel the flow of resources and thereby reinforce the capacity of individual partnerships. A meta‐governance organization, which steers and coordinates the broader sustainability efforts of the cocoa industry, enhances the impact of the linkages. Our analysis shows that partnerships should be studied not only as autonomous entities but also as networks of partnerships.     

The effectiveness of nonprofit lead‐organization networks for social service delivery

Public agencies increasingly contract with nonprofit organizations to lead community‐based networks for social service delivery. We explore the role that partnership characteristics play in the effectiveness of these networks. Using data on children and family services in Los Angeles County, we consider the impact of both the motivations for forming partnerships and the nature of the resulting partnerships on perceived outcomes for clients, interorganizational relationships, and organizational learning. We find that client outcomes and interorganizational relationships are enhanced when partnerships are formed to meet certain programmatic and organizational goals. Organizational learning, however, is affected only when partnerships are formed to enhance organizational legitimacy. Partners selected because they share common vision increase effectiveness, while those selected because there are few alternative partners decrease effectiveness. Finally, when partnerships use an interorganizational coordination mechanism, client outcomes are improved. The managerial implications of these impacts for the nonprofit sector are developed. The results lend considerable support to the role of partnership motivation and partner selection in the effectiveness of nonprofit lead‐organization networks, and specificity about the nature of that role.     

The Analysis of Duocentric Social Networks: A Primer

Marriages and other intimate partnerships are facilitated or constrained by the social networks within which they are embedded. To date, methods used to assess the social networks of couples have been limited to global ratings of social network characteristics or network data collected from each partner separately. In the current article, the authors offer new tools for expanding on the existing literature by describing methods of collecting and analyzing duocentric social networks, that is, the combined social networks of couples. They provide an overview of the key considerations for measuring duocentric networks, such as how and why to combine separate network interviews with partners into one shared duocentric network, the number of network members to assess, and the implications of different network operationalizations. They illustrate these considerations with analyses of social network data collected from 57 low‐income married couples, presenting visualizations and quantitative measures of network composition and structure.     

Chronic illness and social network bridging in later life

Chronic disease has profound impacts on the structural features of individuals’ interpersonal connections such as bridging — ties to people who are otherwise poorly connected to each other. Prior research has documented competing arguments regarding the benefits of network bridging, but less is known about how chronic illness influences bridging and its underlying mechanisms. Using data on 1555 older adults from the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP), I find that older adults diagnosed with chronic illness tend to have lower bridging potential in their networks, particularly between kin and non-kin members. They also report more frequent interactions with close ties but fewer neighbors, friends, and colleagues in their networks, which mediates the association between chronic illness and social network bridging. These findings illuminate both direct and indirect pathways through which chronic illness affects network bridging and highlight the context-specific implications for social networks in later life.     

Taking Tilly south: durable inequalities, democratic contestation, and citizenship in the Southern Metropolis

Drawing on Charles Tilly’s work on inequality, democracy and cities, we explore the local level dynamics of democratization across urban settings in India, South Africa, and Brazil. In all three cases, democratic institutions are consolidated, but there is tremendous variation in the quality of the democratic relationship between cities and their citizens. We follow Tilly’s focus on citizenship as the key element in democratization and argue that explaining variance across our three cases calls for analyzing patterns of inequality through the kind of relational lens used by Tilly and recognizing that patterns of contestation are shaped by shifting political relationships between the nation and the city. We conclude that Tilly’s theoretical frame is nicely sustained by the comparative analysis of cases very different from those that stimulated his original formulations.     

Digital access,political networks and the diffusion of democracy

We examine the effects of digital access on the prevalence of democracy and its diffusion via trade, geographical and migration networks across 189 countries between 2000 and 2010. We find that different digital technologies may have varying impacts on freedom while affecting its diffusion via different political networks, and that related changes in civil liberties can be affected by both media freedom and internal political institutions. Our analysis suggests three key mechanisms linking information technology with democratic change and highlights the importance of a country's “susceptibility” to political influence that is triggered by greater digitally induced visibility.     

Women Behind the Shutter: Exploring the Place of Women in Elite Environmental Conservation Photographer Networks

Since the 1980s, much has been written about the importance of including women in environmental decision making. However, when and how women are included remains an issue. The goal of this article was to explore how the historical exclusion of women from the production of conservation visual narratives continues to have an influence on conservation networks. We surveyed 121 National Geographic Society-affiliated conservation/wildlife photographers, which produced a usable sample of 98 photographers, to assess whether there is evidence of the historical legacy of female exclusion in contemporary elite conservation photography networks. Using network analysis, we find a strong network among 67 conservation photographers, with eight subgroups. Our analysis shows that there are formal networks among conservation photographers, but these networks are sparsely populated with women. Of the women who are present, they mostly engage in the same subnetworks. Our findings provide evidence to support the notion that the historical exclusion of women from the production of visual conservation narratives has had a lasting impact on the network of conservation image producers, which may influence the way conservation is depicted to the general public. We situate our findings using gendered organizational theory.     

Psychological antecedents and motivational models of collective action: examining the role of perceived effectiveness in political protest participation

The present study examines Hong Kong citizens’ willingness to participate in the Occupy Central/Umbrella Movement. A representative adult survey (N = 816) was conducted before the Occupy Central protest in 2014. Regression analyses showed that the core psychological antecedents of political identity (psychological attachment to pro-democracy parties and Occupy activists), political efficacy (perceived effectiveness of individual and movement agency), ideology (dissatisfaction with the pace of democratization), and emotion (anger with the political environment) were significant predictors of likely participation. Measures of perceived effectiveness of the Occupy movement to achieve successful outcomes (i.e. its ability to influence public opinion, strengthen the pro-democracy cause in Hong Kong, and facilitate opinion expression) explained additional variance even after controlling for demographics and the core antecedents. An integrated motivational model of collective action was then tested using structural equation modeling. Findings are consistent with the extant literature. Moral convictions (democracy as a fundamental human value) served as an antecedent of identity, efficacy, ideology, and anger, while identity exhibited direct and indirect effects on participation through efficacy, ideology and anger. The model also pointed to a role for perceived effectiveness, supporting the idea that individuals are motivated by other potential outcomes of a protest beyond achieving its primary objective.     

“1·25革命”前后埃及政治转型比较

“1·25革命”后，埃及的政治转型一度为中东政治发展带来一丝曙光，但之后更剧烈的社会动荡又为民主转型带来了巨大的不确定性。事实上，在西方民主转型理论的诱导下，埃及的民主化走向误区具有必然性，西方民主转型理论注重即时性的结果，片面地将民主制度的建立及公民政治权利尤其是选举权的实现视作民主转型的终点，而忽视了民主的深刻内涵。民主某种程度上就是各种公民权利，包括基础权利、政治权利及社会权利，依次实现的漫长过程。三种权利互相支撑，构成三位一体的民主。穆巴拉克时代的民主转型缺乏基础权利和社会权利的支撑，最终导致民主的空心化。革命后的埃及尽管在民主制度建设上取得实质性进展，但公民权利的匮乏对民主的成熟构成严重制约，从选举到善治，埃及的民主转型任重而道远。     

Assessing the bias in samples of large online networks

We consider the sampling bias introduced in the study of online networks when collecting data through publicly available APIs (application programming interfaces). We assess differences between three samples of Twitter activity; the empirical context is given by political protests taking place in May 2012. We track online communication around these protests for the period of one month, and reconstruct the network of mentions and re-tweets according to the search and the streaming APIs, and to different filtering parameters. We find that smaller samples do not offer an accurate picture of peripheral activity; we also find that the bias is greater for the network of mentions, partly because of the higher influence of snowballing in identifying relevant nodes. We discuss the implications of this bias for the study of diffusion dynamics and political communication through social media, and advocate the need for more uniform sampling procedures to study online communication.     

Socio-historical foundations of citizenship practice: after social revolution in Portugal

This article shows how macro-historical processes of change can activate robust and enduring forms of citizenship practice, providing both survey-based evidence for this claim and a theorization of the causal mechanisms involved. Focusing on the case of Portugal, where democratization followed the historically unusual path of social revolution, we examine survey data on civic practice covering twenty countries and find Portugal to be a world leader in public participation in the electronic public sphere. When we examine the subsection of the population socialized politically in the country’s post-revolutionary democracy, we find another important indicator of lively citizenship practice. The article takes the examination of this specific national case as the basis for developing an argument of broad theoretical relevance on the social underpinnings of lively and participatory citizenship practice. With an empirical foundation for our claims in survey data and other sources, our analysis of Portugal offers an interpretation of the case, leading to substantial revision of assumptions in the extant literature. More importantly, through our examination of this case, we show how large-scale macro-historical processes of change can encourage lively civic practice manifested at the individual level. Our argument highlights the importance of hierarchy-challenging collective experiences that reconfigure cultural frameworks and reorient the character of institutional practice. We take up the implications of this argument for cases lacking a history of revolution and find certain parallels with national cases shaped by movements of social reform as in the social democracies of Scandinavia.     

Network domains in social networking sites: expectations,meanings, and social capital

This paper examines why the use of social networking sites (SNSs) leads to different results in cultivating bridging and bonding social capital for different groups of people. Based on in-depth interviews of 45 university students in Hong Kong, I find that Mainland Chinese students studying in Hong Kong actively use SNSs for seeking practical information about offline matters, and they obtain substantial enacted support from other Mainland students of the same university through SNS use. As a result, they accumulate both bridging and bonding social capital. Local Hong Kong students, however, use SNSs mainly for social information seeking and are only able to accrue limited bridging social capital through SNS use. Drawing on the theory of network domains, I argue that the different offline network structures in which students are located – namely, homogeneous and closed networks versus heterogeneous and open networks – explain this difference. Students with closed offline networks have defined expectations of online ties; they think of their online activities as practical and leading to real changes in their status among peers. Those with open networks have indefinite expectations of their online audience; thus, they interpret online activities differently, thinking of them as recreational, and they are playful in their online behaviour. These different outcomes of online activities consequently lead to diverse results in social capital accrual.     

Processes and Mechanisms of Democratization

Unlike Artistotle's analysis, recent treatments of democratization identify pathways and propose necessary conditions but fall short of specifying cause-effect relations. Democratization does not follow a single path, and is unlikely to have universally applicable necessary or sufficient conditions. A political process analysis of democratization defines it as movement toward broad citizenship, equal citizenship, binding consultation of citizens, and protection of citizens from arbitrary state action. High levels of all four elements depend on a significant degree of state capacity. Democratization emerges from interacting changes in public politics, categorical inequality, and networks of trust, which in turn depend on specifiable mechanisms of change in social relations. When the shocks of conquest, confrontation, colonization, and revolution promote democratization, they do so by accelerating the same causal mechanisms. The next round of research and theory on democratization requires identification, verification, and connection of the relevant causal mechanisms.     

INFLUENCE OVER OBSERVERS OF STRUCTURAL POWER: An Experimental Investigation

Research in network exchange theory and status characteristics theory that distinguishes power from influence has proven productive, but leaves open the question of whether a causal relationship exists between these two central, sociological concepts. Past research has found that structural power in exchange increases expectations for competent performance of the power user on a subsequent cooperative task. However, once the power advantage has been removed, previous research has failed to find increased influence of power users, perhaps because those subjected to power use react negatively to perceptions of the high-power actor as selfish or greedy. In society, the results of power used on relatively few people can be observed by many who may not react negatively to the power use because they are not directly exploited. Thus we predicted that observers of power processes would form high expectations for the competence of, and be influenced by, power users. An experimental study supported the predictions: A partner who had been in a high-power position had more influence over observers than did a partner who had been in a low-power position. An interaction was found such that the high-power partner had more influence over observers of power in strong-power networks, but not in weak-power networks.     

欧盟与沙特阿拉伯王国的民主化进程

“9·11”后欧盟加大对沙特等海合会国家的关注力度，这对未来如何建立新型的西方与伊斯兰世界的关系有重要参考价值。欧盟推进沙特民主化进程的动机主要表现在四个方面：维护欧洲安全、促进沙特稳定、弘扬欧洲民主、抵消美国压力。欧盟主要从经贸领域着手，积极推进沙特更好地融入世界经济，此外，还辅以对其现行政治制度的宽容和对伊斯兰的理解与尊重。欧盟民主观建立在维护人权的基础上，其民主只是一种手段而非终极目标。在欧盟的间接影响下，沙特在地方选举、政府机构改革和发展、非暴力民间组织的诞生、妇女地位改善等方面有所推进。欧盟与沙特之间存在着良性互动。