scholarly journals Business Power in Noisy Politics: An Exploration Based on Discourse Network Analysis and Survey Data

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 286-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrian Rinscheid
Keyword(s):  
Network Analysis ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Power Relationships ◽  
Voting Behaviour ◽  
Structural Power ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
The Public ◽  
Business Power ◽  
Run Up ◽  
Democratic Vote

This study links voter-centred and interest group perspectives to assess the role structurally powerful businesses can play in contested political issues. Revisiting the literature on business influence in politics, incumbent businesses are theorised to strategically use their structural power to influence voters’ preferences. The conceptual framework is illustrated with a case study of a direct democratic vote related to Swiss energy policy. To empirically trace the role incumbent businesses played in the run-up to the vote, the study employs a two-step approach. First, it uses Discourse Network Analysis (DNA) to examine arguments and actor coalitions in the public debate preceding the vote. Second, the DNA results inform a statistical analysis of survey data on voting behaviour. The findings suggest that incumbent businesses can use their structural power strategically to shape voting behaviour. The study stimulates the discussion about political power relationships in societies and enriches the nascent debate about phasing out unsustainable energy infrastructure. Importantly, it opens up ways to combine DNA with other methods, an avenue that shows promise for use and further refinement in future applications.

Assessments of User Comments With “Alternative Views” as a Function of Media Trust

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Marlene Kunst
Keyword(s):  
Online Discussions ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Argument Quality ◽  
The Public ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
User Comments ◽  
Media Trust ◽  
Heuristic Information Processing

Abstract. Comments sections under news articles have become popular spaces for audience members to oppose the mainstream media’s perspective on political issues by expressing alternative views. This kind of challenge to mainstream discourses is a necessary element of proper deliberation. However, due to heuristic information processing and the public concern about disinformation online, readers of comments sections may be inherently skeptical about user comments that counter the views of mainstream media. Consequently, commenters with alternative views may participate in discussions from a position of disadvantage because their contributions are scrutinized particularly critically. Nevertheless, this effect has hitherto not been empirically established. To address this gap, a multifactorial, between-subjects experimental study ( N = 166) was conducted that investigated how participants assess the credibility and argument quality of media-dissonant user comments relative to media-congruent user comments. The findings revealed that media-dissonant user comments are, indeed, disadvantaged in online discussions, as they are assessed as less credible and more poorly argued than media-congruent user comments. Moreover, the findings showed that the higher the participants’ level of media trust, the worse the assessment of media-dissonant user comments relative to media-congruent user comments. Normative implications and avenues for future research are discussed.

Climate Justice

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
Climate Justice ◽  
Policy Discourse ◽  
Mary Robinson ◽  
The Public ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
To Come ◽  
Run Up ◽  
High Level

Climate justice requires sharing the burdens and benefits of climate change and its resolution equitably and fairly. It brings together justice between generations and justice within generations. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals summit in September 2015, and the Conference of Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change in Paris in December 2015, brought climate justice center stage in global discussions. In the run up to Paris, Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Climate Change, instituted the Climate Justice Dialogue. The editors of this volume, an economist and a philosopher, served on the High Level Advisory Committee of the Climate Justice Dialogue. They noted the overlap and mutual enforcement between the economic and philosophical discourses on climate justice. But they also noted the great need for these strands to come together to support the public and policy discourse. This volume is the result.

Marginalia as narratives of ordinary lives: Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall’s Down to This

2021 ◽  
pp. 002198942098111
Author(s):  
Silvia Julia Caporale-Bizzini
Keyword(s):  
Public Perception ◽  
Life Stories ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Personal Journey ◽  
The Public ◽  
Big City ◽  
The Human Condition

This article examines Canadian author Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall’s 2004 memoir Down to This: Squalor and Splendour in a Big-City Shantytown through the notions of marginalia and the ordinary in order to question dichotomic representations of homelessness. It explores how the author moves beyond binaries, interrogating the dichotomy ordinary/out of the ordinary lives by narrating his ethical encounter with the other (Butler, 2004). The text is written as a journal where Bishop-Stall describes his personal journey through homelessness; and more importantly, it gives a voice to the other down-and-out people in notorious Toronto’s Tent City. The characters’ unreliable and fragmented storytelling uncovers the lives of the faceless others. I contend that in Down to This individuals’ life stories are connected to realities which question binaries through the re/mapping of ordinary experiences and affects; they disintegrate the opposition materiality vs abstraction, or as I argue, exclusion vs inclusion (out of the ordinary/ordinary). Down to These bridges the private details of the residents’ life stories, and the public perception of the problem of homelessness, illustrating how everyday moments of precarity intersect with wider political issues. In the process, the narrative also questions the binary attitudes of exclusion (disfranchisement) and inclusion (privilege). This literary strategy gives the constellation of stories a profound illuminating vision of the human condition. I show my point by drawing on the of marginalia (Kistner 2014), and by analysing the characters’ narratives of precariousness through the notions of editing and affective assemblage (Gerlach, 2015; Hamilakis, 2017).

scholarly journals The role of race, religion, and partisanship in misperceptions about COVID-19

2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 638-657
Author(s):  
James N. Druckman ◽  
Katherine Ognyanova ◽  
Matthew A. Baum ◽  
David Lazer ◽  
Roy H. Perlis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Media Exposure ◽  
Group Level ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
The Public ◽  
Media Usage ◽  
Targeted Interventions ◽  
Large Survey ◽  
Racial Ethnic

Concerns about misperceptions among the public are rampant. Yet, little work explores the correlates of misperceptions in varying contexts – that is, how do factors such as group affiliations, media exposure, and lived experiences correlate with the number of misperceptions people hold? We address these questions by investigating misperceptions about COVID-19, focusing on the role of racial/ethnic, religious, and partisan groups. Using a large survey, we find the number of correct beliefs held by individuals far dwarfs the number of misperceptions. When it comes to misperceptions, we find that minorities, those with high levels of religiosity, and those with strong partisan identities – across parties – hold a substantially greater number of misperceptions than those with contrasting group affiliations. Moreover, we show other variables (e.g., social media usage, number of COVID-19 cases in one’s county) do not have such strong relationships with misperceptions, and the group-level results do not reflect acquiescence to believing any information regardless of its truth value. Our results accentuate the importance of studying group-level misperceptions on other scientific and political issues and developing targeted interventions for these groups.

scholarly journals Paranoid styles and innumeracy: implications of a conspiracy mindset on Europeans' misperceptions about immigrants

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Sergio Martini ◽  
Mattia Guidi ◽  
Francesco Olmastroni ◽  
Linda Basile ◽  
Rossella Borri ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Demographic Factors ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Democratic Accountability ◽  
Common Phenomenon ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
The Public ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Socio Demographic Factors ◽  
Influence Perceptions ◽  
Western Democracies

Abstract Innumeracy, that is, the inability to deal with numbers and provide correct estimates about political issues, is reported to be widespread among the public. Yet, despite the recognition that a conspiracy mindset is an increasingly common phenomenon in Western democracies, this has not been considered as a potential correlate of innumeracy. Using data from an online sample of respondents across 10 European countries, we show that those with a higher propensity to hold a conspiracy worldview tend to overestimate the actual share of the immigrant population living in their own country. This association holds true when accounting for country heterogeneity and other cognitive, affective and socio-demographic factors. Employing a comparative design and refined measurements, the article contributes to our understanding of how a conspiracy mentality may influence perceptions of relevant political facts, questioning basic processes of democratic accountability.

scholarly journals What does it mean when we ask the public if they are ‘confident’ in policing? The trust, fairness, presence model of ‘public confidence’

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Morrell ◽  
Ben Bradford ◽  
Basit Javid
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Good Evidence ◽  
Fundamental Question ◽  
Police Force ◽  
Public Confidence ◽  
Single Item ◽  
The Public ◽  
West Midlands ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Part Model

‘Confidence’ is widely taken to be a crucial measure of the relationship between citizens and public services such as policing. It is acknowledged that confidence is multifaceted and hard to measure, but often discussions are based on one ‘headline’ rating of a single item, for instance: ‘What is your level of confidence in…’. The subsequent focus for research is explaining what might drive ‘confidence’, or what it might predict. We are interested in a more fundamental question: what does it mean when we ask the public if they are ‘confident’ in policing? To answer this, we analyse extensive and detailed survey data specifically designed to measure public confidence, within the jurisdiction of a UK police force – West Midlands Police. We develop then validate a three-part model of confidence as trust, fairness and presence, and find good evidence to support this model across different waves of the survey. This extends existing literature with implications for policy.

Is Social Media a Digital Pulpit? How Evangelical Leaders Use Twitter to Encourage the Faithful and Publicize Their Work

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 309-339 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan P. Burge ◽  
Miles D. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Natural Extension ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Political Language ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Commentary ◽  
Religious Communication ◽  
Theories Of Religion ◽  
Social Media Platforms

Social media is altering how some religious leaders communicate with their followers and with the public. This has the potential to challenge theories of religious communication that have been developed through the study of traditional modes such as sermons. This study examines how leaders in U.S. evangelicalism take advantage of the public platform provided by Twitter. Using over 85,000 tweets from 88 prominent evangelical leaders, we find that these leaders often use their social media platforms as a natural extension of their current modes of communication. More specifically, evangelical leaders use their account to encourage and inspire their followers, while also conveying information about upcoming personal projects such as tours and book releases. In a small number of cases, evangelical leaders do make reference to political issues, but those individuals are ones who have already built a brand based on political commentary. Speaking broadly, the usage of political language by evangelical leaders is rare. The paper concludes with a discussion of how this analysis advances theories of religion and communication.KeywordsTwitter – social media – evangelicals – leaders

scholarly journals Assessing the sustainable nature of housing-related taxation receipts: the case of Ireland

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diarmaid Addison Smyth ◽  
Kieran McQuinn
Keyword(s):  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Housing Market ◽  
Extended Period ◽  
Market Regulation ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Public Finances ◽  
Financial Market Regulation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Recent Financial Crisis ◽  
Run Up

Purpose The Irish fiscal position was significantly affected by the recent financial crisis. Budgetary surpluses quickly gave way to significant deficits post 2007, culminating into a lengthy excessive deficit procedure and entry into a formal EU/IMF assistance programme in 2010. Much of the deterioration in the public finances was caused by a sharp decline in property-related taxes because the Irish housing market rapidly contracted. In this paper, the authors quantify the extent to which disequilibria in the housing market can affect the tax take, finding significant implications over an extended period. Design/methodology/approach The authors attempt to quantify the extent of housing-related tax windfall gains and losses in Ireland over a 30-year period as a result of disequilibrium in the housing market. This involves a three-step modelling approach where we relate property-dependent taxes to the housing market while estimating equilibrium in the latter before solving for the tax take consistent with that equilibrium. In so doing, the authors find that the fiscal position compatible with equilibrium in the housing market has at times diverged greatly from actual outturns. Findings This paper confirms the significant role played by the housing market in influencing both the tax-take and the overall fiscal position. The authors find that there have been a number of instances where excesses in the housing market have spilled over into fiscal aggregates, notably in the housing bubble period between 2003 and 2008. However, with the on-going adjustments in the housing market, it would appear that prices and volumes have overcorrected in recent years. Overall, much greater emphasis should be given to the role of the housing market in forecasting key taxation aggregates. Originality/value The recent crisis highlighted how domestic policy mistakes (both in terms of budgetary planning and financial market regulation) can greatly amplify economic shocks. Irish budgetary policy in the run up to the financial crisis of 2008/2009 was clearly based on unsustainable levels of housing-related tax receipts. This paper highlights the need for a much more granular approach in framing tax forecasts and in assessing the public finances by more explicitly factoring in housing market developments.

“The Pleasures of Merely Circulating”

2014 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-174
Author(s):  
Caroline Gelmi
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
The Public ◽  
Early American ◽  
Female Authors ◽  
Political Effects ◽  
Early National ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Cultural Functions

Caroline Gelmi, “‘The Pleasures of Merely Circulating’: Sappho and Early American Newspaper Poetry” (pp. 151–174) This essay examines how early national verse cultures Americanized the popular figure of Sappho. Newspaper parodies of fragment 31, which circulated widely in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, mocked English poet Ambrose Philips’s well-known translation of Sappho’s “Phainetai moi” ode in order to address concerns over the role of Englishness in the United States. The parodies achieved these political effects by allegorizing their own conditions of print circulation and deflating the cultural associations of fragment 31 and Philips’s translation with the lyric. In this way, these poems were able to address a number of political issues, from English imperialism in Ireland to the specter of English aristocracy in the U.S. federal government. This study of Sappho’s role as a figure for American print circulation in the early nineteenth century also offers a pre-history of the more familiar midcentury association of Sappho with the Poetess. As a figure for the Poetess, Sappho came to embody anxieties over female authors in the marketplace, representing concerns that the public circulation of the Poetess’ work and the promiscuous circulation of her body were one and the same. This essay tells the rich backstory to these more familiar concepts, tracing Sappho’s earlier entanglements with print circulation and the political and cultural functions she served.

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