Priming time for Blair? Media priming, Iraq, and leadership evaluations in Britain

Priming is often mentioned in studies of media effects in Britain, yet empirical tests of its extent and nature are lacking; most evidence of priming effects is from the United States. Moreover, research on British elections concludes that the media have little impact on the public’s perceptions of issues, including in the 2005 election. In this paper we argue that priming by the British media has been misconceived and thus not studied adequately. We demonstrate that the issue of the war in Iraq was primed by media coverage in 2005, both as a consequence of the volume of coverage of the issue and its tone. The influence of Iraq was not just long-term, via its impact on confidence in the Labour government or Tony Blair’s reputation, but was also affected by media coverage during the campaign. We also demonstrate that the media’s coverage of Iraq in 2005 influenced voters’ evaluations of Blair by polarizing consumers of the same news. Finally, we find slightly more of an impact of the tone of coverage of Iraq in 2005 but it is moderated by the editorial stance of the newspaper—the editorial stance of British newspapers still seems to matter, suggesting that the dealignment of the British press has not eliminated the influence of reading a newspaper that endorses a party, no matter how qualified that endorsement may be.     

The Future of Political Communication Research: Reflections on the Occasion of Steve Chaffee's Retirement from Stanford University

Based on the psychological model of media priming, we examine the potentially strong link between news content and public opinion about Governor Patten's democratization plan for Hong Kong. Similar to previous priming studies, we hypothesized that an increase in the amount of media coverage of Patten's political reform plan would cause the public to assign more weight to the issue when evaluating the governor's overall performance. To validate the priming hypothesis in a nonexperimental setting, this study uses time‐series data obtained from 52 weekly public opinion polls, coupled with content analysis of three leading newspapers in Hong Kong between October 1992 and October 1993. The findings provide strong evidence supporting the media priming theory on an aggregate data level. Newspaper coverage of Patten's reform plan greatly inflated the relative importance of his proposal in the public's evaluation of his overall performance, with a 1‐week delay. The priming hypothesis survived a stringent test of several rival factors, including autocorrelation, the influence of the economy, and other important real‐world events.     

Media coverage of the economy and aggregate economic evaluations: Uncovering evidence of indirect media effects

Goidel, Robert K. & Langley, Ronald E. (1995). Media coverage of the economy and aggregate economic evaluations: Uncovering evidence of indirect media effects. Political Research Quarterly, 48, 313–328.     

The Micro-Determinants of Public Policy: A Case of Thailand’s Trade Policy

As international trade is vital to Thailand’s economy, the implementation of trade policy has always been at the center of the country’s public administration. Apart from the analysis of the macro-determinants of trade policy formulation, the factors affecting trade policy at a micro level is also equally important. This paper looks at factors influencing individuals’ perception of international trade policy. It uses questionnaire data, collected from Bangkok residents in 2017. The binary, logit and probit, models with marginal effects are employed for the estimation. The results indicate the significance of variables representing individuals’ knowledge and understanding of international trade policy as well as variables relating to individuals’ exposure to the new environment. The government, therefore, should make sure that accurate information is widely disseminated and reaches all stakeholders. People’s better understanding of trade policy should allow policy administration to be more efficient, producing maximum benefits for the country and its people.     

浅析大学生村官退出机制

大学生村官已成为新农村建设的重要力量,但在服务农村建设的同时,他们也面临聘期满后出路选择的诸多困境.因此,完善大学生村官退出机制就尤为重要.针对大学生村官退出机制存在的问题以及退出机制不畅的原因,有必要从以下几方面加以解决：一是建立完善保障机制,激发队伍活力;二是逐步完善大学生村官选拔任用政策;三是优化创业环境,促使村官扎根基层;四是加大另行择业的引导力度;五是建立齐抓共管机制,畅通就业渠道.     

形声字二元结构及其文化成因

形声字使汉字实现了由一元结构向二元结构的进化,它采用音义兼表的二元联系模式,在记词、造字、认读以及承递信息、类化汉字等方面都显示出极强的优越性。形声字的产生及其独尊之势的形成,除了汉字发展自身的原因和内在规律外,还与汉民族的认知心理、人文精神、思维方式、审美观念等密切相关,有着深厚的文化背景。     

Religious fundamentalism,religiosity, and priming: effects on attitudes,perceptions, and mock jurors’ decisions in an insanity defense case

Jurors are asked to use their personal knowledge and experience to make verdict decisions; thus, it is no surprise that their religious beliefs might influence their decisions. During legal insanity trials, jurors might also be exposed to religious stimuli (e.g. crucifix, prayer, Bible, etc.), which could evoke (prime) religious beliefs and thus influence decisions. Two studies examined whether dimensions of religiosity and religious beliefs relate to attitudes and decisions concerning mental health defenses, testing social identity theory against Allport and Ross’s religiosity hypothesis. In Study 1 (attitudes survey) and Study 2 (mock juror decision-making paradigm), religious fundamentalist beliefs consistently predicted punitive attitudes and decisions related to mental health defenses and verdicts, and this was moderated by intrinsic religiosity, such that religious fundamentalist beliefs only predicted punitiveness for individuals low in intrinsic religiosity. Also, priming fundamentalist beliefs increased punitiveness in both verdict and sentencing decisions. Combined, these results suggest that religious beliefs play a role in jurors’ verdict decisions in an insanity case, and that priming fundamentalist beliefs increases jurors’ punitiveness. Allport and Ross’s religiosity hypothesis was supported, but social identity theory was not.     

工业化城市化双加速阶段的城乡统筹发展——成因、表现及政策建议

该文认为,当前中国处于工业化中期阶段,城乡在经济、文化、社会发展等许多方面的差距日益扩大。特殊背景下形成的城乡分割的二元制度已越来越不适应市场经济发展以及构建和谐社会的要求,城乡统筹发展是中国进入工业化中期阶段的必然选择。在分析了国际经验的基础上,该文提出了进行制度创新、构建科学的城镇体系、促进城乡产业融合、大力发展各级各类职业教育、加大财政的保障性投入等建议。     

Moderators and Mediators of Framing Effects in Political Marketing: Implications for Political Brand Management

Due to its important practical implications, there has been a growing number of studies on framing conducted by scholars from various research domains. There has been, however, no paper that would provide a comprehensive overview of various moderators and mediators of the effect. The aim of this paper is to address this research gap, concentrating on psychological moderators and mediators of framing characteristic for political marketing. The paper consists of three parts. In the first part, the concepts of framing, priming and agenda-setting as well as the similarities and differences between them are presented in order to resolve common terminological inconsistencies. In the second, we discuss the moderating role of such variables as knowledge, trust in media and values on framing effect. In the third section, psychological mechanisms that underlie framing and priming are reviewed. Here, cognitive mediators such as accessibility and applicability effects are presented, followed by the discussion of the moderating and mediating role of emotions in framing effects, with special attention given to positive-negative asymmetry observed in the evaluation of political candidates and events. Finally, implication for political brand management are discussed. Our findings can be relevant for politicians, specialists dealing in political brand image and scholars studying framing effects.     

Financing Constraints,Exchange Rate Risk of Host Country and Location Choice of Enterprises’ Foreign Direct Investment——An Empirical Study Based on Micro Enterprises’ Data of Zhejiang Province

Financing constraints and exchange rate risk of host country are domestic and foreign factors which will hinder the stability and sustainable development of China’s enterprises foreign direct investment, so the interaction influence of these two factors on location choice of foreign direct investment is also crucial. Based on this, in this paper we study the foreign direct investment choice of host countries’ exchange rate risk during financing constraints. Through modeling the negative influence of revenue losing and the positive influence of financing cost reducing, our model finds that foreign direct investment enterprises with higher financing constraints tend to go for host countries with higher exchange rate risk in location choice. In empirical study, we match multiple database to construct the micro level data, and use two international data sources to measure exchange rate risks of host countries. Our empirical study finds that foreign direct investment enterprises with higher financing constraints tend to choose higher exchange rate risk countries through binary choice model and sorting model. The result of bivariate binary choice model ensures the robustness of our empirical research. Based on the comprehensive theoretical and empirical research results, we find the existence of financing constrains improves the risk preference in the foreign direct investment location choice.