Analysis of Blogs,Forums, and Social Networks

It is impossible to imagine the contemporary Internet without social media. Government agents, commercial, state, and social organizations, the opposition, and other citizens use social media as a giant turbine. Unfortunately, this turbine can also be used to spread disinformation as well as hostile propaganda on a mass scale. In this article we show how vulnerable social media are to infiltration by botnets with the goal of launching information attacks.     

论科学构建民族法学学科体系

民族法学学科属于新兴的年轻学科,在国家学科专业目录中还没有“法定地位”和“法律身份”,“借壳”于民族学成为相对独立的法学学科.民族主体、民族权利(权力)、民族行为规则和民族责任成为科学构建民族法学学科体系的“四大件”:民族主体发挥主体效用,成为民族法学研究的主体要素;民族权利(权力)构成民族法学的核心关键;民族行为规则引领民族法学的方向、路径和方法;民族责任成为民族法学的“兜底责任”,共同构筑出特色分明、本色纯正的民族法学学科体系.     

Footprints in the Sand: Personal,Psychological, and Relational Profiles of Religious,Spiritual, and Atheist LGB Individuals

The present study offers a comparison of the demographic features and lived experiences of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals with religious, spiritual, or atheist (R/S/A) belief systems. In this sample of 212 participants, the relationship of participants’ R/S/A beliefs to personal variables (e.g., age, gender, race), mental health variables (e.g., life satisfaction, psychological distress, internalized heterosexism, self-esteem), and relational variables (e.g., outness, connection to LGBTQ communities) were assessed. Correlational analyses indicated that level of R/S/A belief was unrelated to self-esteem, life satisfaction, or psychological distress; however, greater religious belief was correlated positively and significantly with internalized heterosexism and outness as LGB. To test the interactions of R/S/A beliefs and categorical variables of interest (e.g., race), log-linear analyses with follow-up chi-square tests were conducted. Findings suggested more similarities than differences for LGB people across R/S/A systems of belief. Limitations and implications for future research are discussed.     

“Unnatural Fornication” Cases Under State-Socialism: A Hungarian–Slovenian Comparative Social-Historical Approach

This comparative social-historical study examines different versions of state-socialist body politics manifested in Hungary and Slovenia mainly during the 1950s by using archive material of “unnatural fornication” court cases. By analyzing the available Hungarian “természet elleni fajtalanság” and Slovenian “nenaravno ob?evanje” court cases, we can shed light on how the defendants were treated by the police and the judiciary. On the basis of these archive data that have never been examined before from these angles, we can construct an at least partial picture of the practices and consequences of state surveillance of same-sex-attracted men during state-socialism. The article explores the functioning of state-socialist social control mechanisms directed at nonnormative sexualities that had long-lasting consequences on the social representation of homosexuality in both countries.     

Assessing Changes in Household Socioeconomic Status in Rural South Africa, 2001–2013: A Distributional Analysis Using Household Asset Indicators

Understanding the distribution of socioeconomic status (SES) and its temporal dynamics within a population is critical to ensure that policies and interventions adequately and equitably contribute to the well-being and life chances of all individuals. This study assesses the dynamics of SES in a typical rural South African setting over the period 2001–2013 using data on household assets from the Agincourt Health and Demographic Surveillance System. Three SES indices, an absolute index, principal component analysis index and multiple correspondence analysis index, are constructed from the household asset indicators. Relative distribution methods are then applied to the indices to assess changes over time in the distribution of SES with special focus on location and shape shifts. Results show that the proportion of households that own assets associated with greater modern wealth has substantially increased over time. In addition, relative distributions in all three indices show that the median SES index value has shifted up and the distribution has become less polarized and is converging towards the middle. However, the convergence is larger from the upper tail than from the lower tail, which suggests that the improvement in SES has been slower for poorer households. The results also show persistent ethnic differences in SES with households of former Mozambican refugees being at a disadvantage. From a methodological perspective, the study findings demonstrate the comparability of the easy-to-compute absolute index to other SES indices constructed using more advanced statistical techniques in assessing household SES.