THE METRICS OF STYLE: ADAM SMITH TEACHES EFFICIENT RHETORIC

Does style matter for economic writing? Several stylistic characteristics of ninety-seven AEA presidential addresses, including word length, sentence length and percent of sentences in the passive voice, were computed and used to explain citations to these economists' work. Avoidance of the passive is an old stylistic norm given by Adam Smith. Word length and sentence length serve as modern stylistic norms. Only the percent passive matters to explain citations. Perhaps not coincidentally, while writing clarity in our data set has declined over time when measured by the new norm, it has improved when measured by the old norm.     

A SYSTEMIC TREATMENT APPROACH TO WIFE BATTERING

This article places the problem of wife battering or domestic abuse in a systemic framework. Literature that bears most directly on a systemic understanding and treatment of wife battering is reviewed. A comprehensive approach to treatment as it might be utilized by marriage and family therapists is outlined and a case example is presented.     

Identity and Ideas: A Roundtable on Identity Politics

This roundtable discussion examines the issue of identity politics and how identity influences and is influenced by gay/queer politics and theory. The participants discuss how identity politics affects political organizing and activism, how different identity communities can build coalitions, how the language related to identity is evolving, and how sexual attractions and practices interact with identity. The discussants look at how the influx into the gay and lesbian movement of new groups that challenge traditional identity boundaries—e.g., bisexuals and transgendered people—is affecting the movement. Finally, the discussants examine how “idea-based” politics may supplant identity-based politics as a new inclusive paradigm.     

THE MASS MEDIA AND THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE MISSING CHILDREN PROBLEM

This article traces the role of the mass media in the social construction of the "missing children issue' as a social problem. The social construction explanation of social problems offered by Blumer (1971) and Spector and Kitsuse (1977) has been criticized (cf. Best and Horiuchi 1985) for lacking a conception of extra-media influences that can affect audiences beyond the initial viewing situation. Recent work in mass communication indicates that a media logic is adapted by other institutions to amplify television imagery and themes about crime, danger, and child abuse. A case study of the origins and claims and counterclaims about the nature and extent of missing children is combined with an empirical analysis of the impact of various sources of information about the missing children issue in order to demonstrate the process by which a social problem is constructed. The impact of additional information is analyzed by administering a self-report questionnaire to 96 respondents before and after viewing a two-part documentary on the complexities of the issue. The data suggest that mass-mediated imagery and formats forge an interactive informational context for social problems by sustaining what is viewed in one's living room with imagery in bulk mail, milk cartons, and posters. It is further suggested that mass media depictions of problems such as "missing children' carry over into consonant images such as child abuse. This conceptualization is capable of encompassing other accounts of social problems (e.g., "urban legends") within claims-making activity.