Making fathers relevant: How practitioners include both parents in talk about parenting programmes

Parenting programmes are recommended as an effective means to support parents in promoting positive relationships with, and managing the behaviour of, their children. One barrier that impedes their successful implementation is that partners, especially fathers, are less frequently recruited by child welfare services. This article reports on a study that investigated how both parents were engaged with parenting services. Direct recordings were made of initial telephone conversations between six practitioners and 28 parents referred to those services and investigated for evidence of how the other parent was recruited. Conversation analysis was used to identify how participants introduced the possibility of both parents being included in the service, how these possibilities were negotiated, and what eventual agreements were made for both parents to be included in future arrangements. Implications for practice, training, and future research are considered.     

A systematic review on the application of dialogue in public relations to information communication technology-based platforms: Comparing English and Chinese contexts

This study aims to systematically analyze and compare studies applying the dialogue approach in public relations to information communication technologies (ICTs) under English and Chinese context. Specifically, we want to investigate the subjects, the adoption of dialogic principles, and the processing of additional valuables of dialogue in selected studies. By identifying 68 relevant peer-reviewed journal articles under English context and 13 under Chinese context, we analyzed different subjects in selected publications, including their research topics, methods, samples and objectives. Moreover, our study also revealed the following results: (1) three dialogic principles were well adopted while the other two were not; (2) public engagement was the most common effect; (3) organizational response was the most common antecedent to dialogue implementation. Future studies are recommended to diversify research methods, topics and relevant technologies. We also call for developing theoretical models for dialogue in public relations and updating dialogic principles and measurements. Based upon the fact that the dialogue approach is less studied under Chinese context, we also offer a path to construct effective and ethical communication between organizations and publics on various ICT-based platforms in Greater China.     

How publics react to situational and renewing organizational responses across crises: Examining SCCT and DOR in social-mediated crises

The prevalence of social media among networked publics calls for more research regarding how organizations can conduct effective crisis communication on social networking sites. Based on the situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) and the discourse of renewal (DOR) theory, this study examined how social media publics’ sentiments were affected by situational and renewing organizational responses in various clusters of crises. Twitter data of six crises representing three crisis clusters varying in the responsibility attribution (i.e., ambiguous, accidental, and preventable) were collected. We conducted a content analysis on organizations’ official tweets during crises (N = 59) and sentiment analysis on publics’ replies on Twitter (N = 4,340). The results showed that publics’ positive sentiments toward organizations were affected by organizational crisis responses that included instructing information, sympathy, systemic organizational learning, and effective organizational rhetoric. We recommend that crisis managers express sympathy toward publics as well as organizational learning that prevents a crisis from happening again.     

Moving forward the dialogic theory of public relations: Concepts,methods and applications of organization-public dialogue

Advanced information and communication technologies and social media (Web 2.0) have significantly shaped every aspect of contemporary society since Kent and Taylor’s (1998) proposal of dialogic principles, which later evolved into dialogic theory of public relations. It is now time to move the theory forward. The special section aims to advance the dialogic theory of public relations by reviewing the scholarship in organization-public dialogue to pinpoint critical issues for its development and introducing studies that take the dialogue approach to examine a range of public relations practices in China. In this introduction, we first identify critical issues to be addressed for the development of the dialogic theory of public relations and then introduce the articles included in the section. We conclude by proposing research directions for the theoretical and practical development of the dialogic approach to public relations.     

Racial/Ethnic Minority Community College Students' Critical Consciousness and Social Cognitive Career Outcomes

A need exists to better understand how racial/ethnic minority students' critical consciousness development in response to marginalization may be involved in their educational and career development. We therefore examined the link between critical consciousness development and career decision self-efficacy and career outcome expectations among racial/ethnic minority community college students. Following social cognitive career theory's conceptual pillars, we developed a testable model integrating critical consciousness and social cognitive variables. This model was tested with 135 racially and ethnically diverse community college students. Data analysis included path analyses and tests of model fit using structural equation modeling. Results suggested that (a) higher critical agency is linked to higher career decision self-efficacy and outcome expectations and (b) critical action and reflection have a bidirectional link and predict higher critical agency. Implications for research and practice aiming to close educational and career gaps among racial/ethnic minorities are discussed.     

Contribution analysis to analyze the effects of the health impact assessment at the local level: A case of urban revitalization

The health impact assessment (HIA) is a tool used to estimate the potential impact on health of non-health-related proposals prior to implementation. While it is increasingly used in Quebec, Canada, studies have not analyzed its medium-term impacts and potential long-term impacts. We conducted a contribution analysis using in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, as well as documents, observation and images related to HIA in order to analyze its impacts on the revitalization of road infrastructure, parks and green spaces, and residential housing. Our analysis not only reflects on the decision-making process through the adoption and implementation of HIA recommendations, but also on the link between actions implemented in the field and health outcomes.     

The Solidary Relationship’s Consequences for the Ebb and Flow of Activism: Collaborative Evidence from Life-History Interviews and Social Media Event Analysis,

Acting in solidarity with deprived others has become a central topic in social movement research. The explanations of solidarity activism or political altruism are few. However, social movement researchers have claimed that solidarity with out-of-group others is a by-product of in-group interaction. In contrast, we argue that out-group interaction with the deprived other and the formation of a solidary relationship is central to the ebb and flow of solidarity activism. We investigate the Danish refugee solidarity movement and show that the meeting with the deprived other 1) brings about an interaction order which makes an ethical demand on the activists to care for the other both within the bounds of the situations and in the future; 2) enacts and amplifies activists’ values and beliefs because the deprived other becomes an exemplar of the injustice and the need to help the broader group of people in the same fragile situation. We develop and test this theory drawing on 42 life-history interviews and a social media dataset containing a panel of 87,455 activists participating in refugee solidarity groups.     

The coevolution of trade agreements and investment treaties: Some evidence from network analysis

Regional trade agreements (RTAs) and bilateral investment treaties (BITs) are expected to promote trade and investment relationships. One critical feature of such agreements is the network, so the multiplex coevolution of RTAs and BITs should be captured by the dynamics of their two networks. Although many studies have examined the roles of RTAs and BITs, most studies do not account for crucial network properties. This study explores how RTAs and BITs coevolve by applying a stochastic actor-oriented model of multiplex network evolution. In particular, we examine the roles of (i) cross-network dyadic interinfluences and (ii) within- and cross-network preferential attachments to discuss the dynamic relationships between RTAs and BITs. The results are as follows. First, our estimation supports cross-network dyadic interinfluences. Countries that sign a BIT are willing to establish an RTA, while those that sign an RTA are reluctant to establish a BIT. Second, concerning preferential attachments, countries prefer to sign BITs with partners that have more RTA and BIT links. However, countries tend to form RTAs with partners that have more BIT links but are reluctant to form RTAs with those that have more RTA links. We discuss possible justifications for these results, including arguments regarding the benefits and costs associated with the formation of RTAs and BITs.     

Quantifying the similarity of 2D images using edge pixels: an application to the forensic comparison of footwear impressions

We propose a novel method to quantify the similarity between an impression (Q) from an unknown source and a test impression (K) from a known source. Using the property of geometrical congruence in the impressions, the degree of correspondence is quantified using ideas from graph theory and maximum clique (MC). The algorithm uses the x and y coordinates of the edges in the images as the data. We focus on local areas in Q and the corresponding regions in K and extract features for comparison. Using pairs of images with known origin, we train a random forest to classify pairs into mates and non-mates. We collected impressions from 60 pairs of shoes of the same brand and model, worn over six months. Using a different set of very similar shoes, we evaluated the performance of the algorithm in terms of the accuracy with which it correctly classified images into source classes. Using classification error rates and ROC curves, we compare the proposed method to other algorithms in the literature and show that for these data, our method shows good classification performance relative to other methods. The algorithm can be implemented with the R package shoeprintr.     

人文与自然两合:及物性系统下二十四节气文化报道生态话语分析

文章采用及物性系统标注和生态话语分析方法对中国日报中48篇二十四节气文化报道进行了研究。研究结果表明,反映节气变化、农事活动和气象特征的物质、关系过程及其参与者成分在语料中占比较高。同时,以上成分还承载了人与自然和谐共处的背景信息,包括范围、定位、方式和因果环境成分等。高频词汇在各成分中突出了人类承担生态责任和重视自然的生态地位。通过及物性系统下的生态话语分析,文章认为,二十四节气文化报道展现了人类了解、顺应、保护自然并与自然和谐共处的生态效果,体现了中华优秀传统文化中人文与自然的融合,在引导公众正确认知人与自然关系方面具有重要意义。