Qualified privilege: A defense for the public relations function

Technology continues to challenge the public relations practitioner to find ways to inform key constituents. The new technology has given rise to the “new journalism” that includes a declining traditional media and exploding internet media filled with websites and bloggers. The question posed by this research asks: Does the public relations practitioner inherit the same protection offered by “qualified privilege” that is most often associated with the traditional “press” or “reporter?” The research lays a foundation with an examination of defamation and the defense of qualified privilege. The research concludes that if information gathered by the public relations practitioner meets the “intent” and “content” tests, the information qualifies as news. Passing the “news” test, the defense of “qualified privilege” also attaches to the public relations practitioner.     

The dilemma of recognition: Administrative categories and cultural diversity

Governments around the world combat inequality by means of group-specific redistribution. Some pursue redistribution that benefits groups, but also wish to avoid accentuating or even recognizing group distinctions. This poses a dilemma that they try to resolve by adjusting the category system used to target redistribution. There are three types of adjustment: accommodation (the multicultural approach), denial (the ideal-typical liberal solution), and replacement (a compromise). In replacement the targets of redistributive policies are constructed to avoid accentuation or recognition of inconvenient group distinctions, but still allow redistribution that benefits these groups. Replacement is increasingly in demand around the world because the disadvantages of multiculturalism are becoming apparent while denial is hard to sustain in the face of group inequality. The actual effect of replacement is little researched and less understood, however. Does it resolve the dilemma of recognition? Two examples–India and Nigeria–where replacement has been tried ever since the 1950s cast doubt on its viability.     

The Effects of Spousal Health on the Decision to Smoke: Evidence on Consumption Externalities, Altruism and Learning Within the Household

Married individuals are healthier than single individuals though the reasons are not well understood. Individuals with spouses/or partners are less likely to smoke. We explore the relationship between health and marital status by analyzing three potential channels through which marriage affects smoking, i.e., consumption externalities (one spouse's smoking affects the other spouse's welfare), altruism (one spouse reduces smoking in response to the other spouse's bad health), and learning about risks of smoking from the health experience of one's spouse. We find spousal health does not affect smoking due to altruism or learning within the household but do find evidence for consumption externalities.     

Strengthening communities through women's self help groups in South India

This article reports on an evaluation of women's Self Help Groups(SHGs) in an area in south India. Groups were evaluated, notin terms of their success as microcredit schemes, from a financialperspective, but in relation to their contribution to genderdevelopment. Evidence emerged that women perceived changes intheir identity towards working collectively to influence forchange at the village and panchyat levels. They engaged in communityand social action programmes, both at the local level and byjoining with issues beyond the local. When considered withinconstructs of empowerment, capability poverty, citizenship,and participation in democratic processes, such SHG outcomes,and the community development processes that accompany theirwork, can be seen to make a modest but significant contributionto broader transformations of oppressive structures.     

The Independence of Aptitudes,Interests, and Career Beliefs

The importance of client beliefs in career counseling depends on their ability to add unique information about the client over and above that contributed by aptitudes and interests. The Career Beliefs Inventory was administered to 200 Australian students in grade 10 together with measures of Holland's RIASEC interest themes and scholastic aptitudes. The correlations between scales from the three domains showed clearly that beliefs made a contribution distinct from that provided by aptitudes and interests. Even though the results may reflect possible sampling or method variance, career beliefs in this sample added unique information to that traditionally used in career counseling.     

A fair result in foul weather

The Duckworth–Lewis method for adjusting targets in rain-interrupted one-day cricket matches is used throughout the world, but, as Frank Duckworth explains, he originally came to statistics from physics via metallurgy, and only thought of applying statistical methods to sport when their power became apparent to him during his career in the nuclear energy industry     

When Bad Things Happen in Good Places: Pastoralism in Big‐City Newspaper Coverage of Small‐Town Violence*

Abstract An examination of big‐city newspaper coverage of violent crimes in small towns during a recent five‐year period reveals a remarkable degree of uniformity in the language reporters use to characterize life in these places. The cliches signal an underlying set of stereotypes of small‐town life: They are safe, close‐knit communities where bad things are “not supposed to happen.” Yet the point of the stories is that bad things do happen. Drawing upon culturological and sociological approaches to the study of news production, this paper argues that the small towns described in the news are symbolic landscapes that reflect a pastoral orientation among journalists and in the culture at large.     

Extended Contact through Story Reading in School: Reducing Children's Prejudice toward the Disabled

The aim of this study was to develop and assess a prejudice-reduction intervention for young children based on a relatively recent psychological concept, extended contact. A number of extended contact interventions were tested based on different models of generalized intergroup contact. A 3 (type of extended contact: neutral, decategorization, and "intergroup") × 2 (time of interview: pre- vs. post-extended contacts) mixed design was used, with the latter variable being within participants. Non-disabled children ( N = 67) aged 5–10 years took part in a 6-week intervention involving reading stories featuring disabled and non-disabled children in friendship contexts. The main dependent variables were children's attitudes and intended behavior toward non-disabled and disabled people. Results showed that extended contact led to increased positivity toward the disabled, and this was most pronounced in the intergroup-extended contact condition. These findings suggest that extended contact can provide a prejudice-reduction intervention tool that can be used with young children in contexts in which the opportunity for direct contact is low. The findings also add to the psychological literature, providing support of the Hewstone and Brown (1986) "intergroup" model in the context of extended contact.