The dynamics of online news discussions: effects of news articles and reader comments on users’ involvement,willingness to participate,and the civility of their contributions*

This study investigates when and why news website visitors write civil or uncivil comments in response to news articles or related user comments. In an experiment, we manipulated the news value of news articles and the presence of ‘deliberative’ or ‘detrimental’ elements of comments to compare their impact on participants’ involvement, willingness to comment, and the comments they posted. News factors and comment characteristics increased participants’ willingness to comment via cognitive and affective involvement. Cognitive involvement made it less likely and affective involvement more likely that participants wrote uncivil comments. Additionally, involvement with previous comments increased participants’ willingness to comment on articles and vice versa. Results imply that news articles and comments dynamically shape the discussion value of online news.     

Information as metaphorical and allegorical construction: some methodological preludes

Metaphors, allegories and other kinds of indirect speech-acts and catachretical phrases are usually considered to be the very opposite of scientific theories. An alternative can be identified in the constructivists’ approach, dealing with catachretical expressions as a starting point for the explication of scientific language games. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate such an alternative point of view, dealing with metaphorical applications of the term “information” within biological narratives.     

California’s Title IV-E Partnership: A Statewide University–Agency Collaboration—Characteristics and Implications for Replication

University–agency partnerships funded by Title IV-E encourage students to enter the child welfare field by providing student stipends, thus supporting child welfare agency workforce development. This article examines the literature and historical roots of Title IV-E and other partnerships, identifies common structures and outcomes, and discusses the extent to which a structured development and change process supports the California partnership’s core mission to integrate the education and practice communities in child welfare. The partnership is teleological in nature, using a social exchange approach to advance mutuality and a full spectrum of benefits for universities and agencies. Models and best practice elements are presented as examples of how university–agency partnerships may enhance child welfare service delivery.     

Why the count de Borda cannot beat the Marquis de Condorcet

Although championed by the Marquis the Condorcet and many others, majority rule has often been rejected as indeterminate, incoherent, or implausible. Majority rule's arch competitor is the Borda count, proposed by the Count de Borda, and there has long been a dispute between the two approaches. In several publications, Donald Saari has recently presented what is arguably the most vigorous and systematic defense of Borda ever developed, a project Saari has supplemented with equally vigorous objections to majority rule. In this article I argue that both Saari's objections to majority rule and his positive case for the Borda count fail. I hold the view that defenders of Condorcet cannot muster arguments to convince supporters of Borda, and vice versa, but here I am only concerned to show that the Count de Borda cannot beat the Marquis de Condorcet. Saari's approach displays what I take to be widespread fallacies in reasoning about social choice worthy of closer analysis. This debate bears on important questions in the philosophy of social choice theory.     

The Development of Four Types of Adolescent Dating Abuse and Selected Demographic Correlates

This study determined the shape of trajectories from ages 13 to 19 of 4 types of dating abuse perpetration and examined whether the demographic characteristics of sex, minority status, socioeconomic status, and family structure systematically explained variation in the trajectories. The data are from 5 waves of data collected from 973 adolescents participating in the control group of a randomized trial. The mean trajectory for psychological dating abuse was positive linear, but the mean trajectories were curvilinear for moderate physical, severe physical, and sexual dating abuse. At all ages, boys reported more severe physical and sexual dating abuse than girls, minorities reported more moderate and severe physical dating abuse than Whites, adolescents in single‐parent households reported more psychological and severe physical dating abuse than those in 2‐parent‐households, and parental education was negatively associated with psychological and moderate physical dating abuse perpetration. The findings have implications for future research and for practice.