Values,Communication Behavior,and Political Participation

This article examines how communication patterns mediate the influences of values on political participation. We find that the positive effects of postmaterial values on participation are mediated through reading public affairs content in newspapers. In contrast, materialist values negatively affect participation through watching television entertainment. Interpersonal discussion in which disagreement occurs mediates both the positive effect of reading public affairs and the negative effect of materialism on political participation. We also provide what may be a better explanation of the influence of communication patterns on political participation by going beyond acquisition of factual political knowledge. We show that individuals' efforts to think about news and search for additional information and perspectives modify what people "get from" media. Reflecting about news and integrating information from various sources promote better understanding of the political world and may provide a stronger cognitive base for political participation than factual political knowledge.     

当代英国华人社会与政治参与：以2010年大选为中心

本文以英国华人参与2010年下议院选举为中心,分析英国华人社会的变迁与政治参与。本文分为两个主要部分。第一部分讨论近20年来英国华人社会的结构及其特征,指出尽管华人人数迅速增加,但华人社会内部的多元化和碎片化的特征明显存在,这对华人社会内部凝聚力的形成和对英国国家认同感的建立有一定的阻碍作用。近来这一情形有所改变。第二部分围绕参加2010年选举的8位华裔候选人的政纲、组织、策略和选举结果,具体分析英国华人参政的成就与问题。结语部分探讨英国华人社会融合和参政的未来道路以及政策含义。     

News,Talk, Opinion,Participation: The Part Played by Conversation in Deliberative Democracy

Deliberative democracy can be defined as a political system based on citizens' free discussion of public issues. While most scholars have discussed deliberative democracy normatively, this study attempts to test the validity of a model of deliberative democracy through examining the interrelationships among its four components: newsmedia use, political conversation, opinion formation, and political participation. Sufficient empirical evidence was found to support the hypotheses that (a) news-media use is closely associated with the frequency of political conversation in daily life both at general and issue-specific levels; (b) willingness to argue with those who have different opinions is influenced by majority perceptions and by news-media use and political talk; (c) news-media use and political conversation have positive effects on certain measures of the quality of opinions (argument quality, consideredness, and opinionation) and perhaps on opinion consistency; and (d) news-media use and political conversation are closely associated also with participatory activities, but more so with "campaigning" than "complaining."     

Talking Tough: Gender and Reported Speech in Campaign News Coverage

Building on the notion of "gendered mediation," we argue that conventional news frames construct politics in stereotypically masculine terms, and we examine the implications of these news frames for the coverage of female party leaders. Content analysis of reported speech in television news coverage of the 1993 and 1997 Canadian elections, combined with the results of an experiment, reveals that the speech of the three women leaders was subject to more interpretation by the media and was reported in more negative and aggressive language. The study concludes that gendered mediation may hinder women's chances of electoral success.     

Steven Chaffee and the Future of Political Communication Research

This article discusses four basic characteristics of Steven Chaffee's research: going beyond the "common research wisdom," careful explication of concepts, avoiding unsubstantiated charges against the media, and investigation of the social aspects of communication. The evolution of political socialization research is used as an example of how these characteristics have strengthened Chaffee's contribution to that area and to the larger field of political communication. It is argued that the future of this field would benefit from emulation of these characteristics. Continuing problems of political communication research are noted, and various emerging problems are discussed.     

Youth,culture, negotiation and politics

The following paper was motivated by a series of seminars held in 2004 at University of Bayreuth on the Harvard Negotiation Concept of Roger Fisher, William Ury and Bruce Patton (R. Fisher, W. Ury, Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement without giving in, 2nd edn, Penguin Books, New York 1991). When comparing the advices of the Harvard Negotiation Concept with my own negotiation experiences in youth politics, I realized that the Harvard Concept is rather useless in many forms of intercultural negotiations. It does not sufficiently address how much culture influences our perceptions of negotiations. Politics is not the only, but surely the most prominent field of intercultural negotiation. Therefore my focus of research was: does culture influence politics? In the first chapter, I describe the reason for the science of negotiation, the validity of universal negotiation concepts, the definition of culture and the existing research on intercultural negotiations. In the second chapter, I discuss concrete examples of how culture allegedly influences politics, such as in International Youth Politics and in the ASEM process. I also give some results from a survey that I carried out in 2004 (The extended version of the paper can be found at my webpage at http://www.karsten-wenzlaff.de). All examples cast a doubt on whether culture really influences politics.     

The Effects of Political Talk Radio On Political Attitude Formation: Exposure Versus Knowledge

The effects of political news on the mass audience are usually difficult to establish empirically. Recent models of mass communication effects have held that political knowledge is a better indicator of media reception than traditional measures of exposure. This claim is tested in two studies of attitudes toward Democratic and Republican leaders during the 1996 U.S. presidential primary campaigns. The impact of messages from three types of political talk radio (PTR) is examined: Rush Limbaugh, other conservative hosts, and liberal/moderate hosts. Political knowledge and exposure to talk radio are found to be equally good predictors of attitudes toward political leaders when studied separately. However, when tested against one another, exposure is the more effective measure. Agreement between Rush Limbaugh's messages and his audience's attitudes toward political figures is consistent and strong. Biased processing of PTR content by audience members with partisan predispositions contrary to those of the host is also examined.     

From Top-Down to Trickle-Up Influence: Revisiting Assumptions About the Family in Political Socialization

A growing number of theorists are calling for a revival of research on political socialization based on the premise that children are active in their own civic development. We advance this argument a step further by proposing a model of family communication that reverses the roles of parents and children as conventionally understood in political socialization. Adolescent children are not merely receptive to political stimulation; they possess the power to transform patterns of family communication in ways that benefit themselves and their parents. We first challenge a series of interrelated assumptions about the nature and direction of influence in the family. We then document evidence of "trickle-up influence," in which child-initiated discussion--stimulated by a civics curriculum--prompts the parent to increase her civic competence via increased news media use, knowledge gain, and opinion formation. The parent's response reflects her desire to maintain a leadership role in the family, and more important from a theoretical perspective, it reveals the intrinsic forces of family adaptation that can make the home a powerful incubator of citizenship. Political growth occurs when the family system adjusts to reestablish equilibrium in response to exogenous factors or developmental needs that propel change. The ultimate purpose of this essay is to propose a functional model of family political communication. We apply theoretical perspectives from developmental literature to illustrate how political communication serves the family goals of autonomy and cohesion during various stages of the family life cycle.     

美国越南人族群的形成和政治参与

美国越南人族群是美国多民族大熔炉中的重要组成部分。20世纪70年代的越南难民潮导致了美国越南人族群数量的激增。他们抵达美国后通过不断努力在经济和社会生活中取得了长足进步,并为其政治参与创造了条件。美国越南人族群在过去30年间的政治参与发生了显著变化,从最初单纯重视游行示威,到逐渐学会运用多种方式参与到美国主流政治生活中去。他们的政治参与还存在着明显的右倾保守化、发展变化迅速等特点。     

泰国社会转型过程中的“缓冲器”——制造可控的政治危机

20世纪90年代以来,泰国正经历着社会的全面转型,社会转型带来不可避免的社会动荡。然而有着自身政治发展规律的泰国却通过制造一系列可控的政治危机消减社会转型造成的过剩能量,维持着整个社会的基本稳定,推进着国内政治的发展。可以预见,在泰国社会转型没有最终完成之前,其国内政治危机仍将是社会常态。     

Does the Political System Determine Media Visibility of Politicians? A Comparative Analysis of Political Functions in the News in Sixteen Countries

News coverage of politicians is very unequally distributed: a few powerful politicians receive the bulk of media attention, while the large majority hardly gets into the news. However, case studies show that news outlets in some countries give more attention to ordinary politicians compared to other democracies. This study examines and explains the variation in media visibility of politicians with different institutional functions across Western democracies. We employ a large-scale content analysis of television news, newspapers and online news in sixteen countries to analyze whether a political system logic determines the distribution of political functions appearing in the news. This logic suggests that journalists follow the political hierarchy of the country when covering politicians. We also check for an additional media logic that would push journalists to focus on a limited number of high-standing politicians. The results confirm that both logics matter, but that mainly the structural characteristics of the political system have an impact on the distribution of news coverage of politicians. In countries where political power is more equally distributed across politicians, a broader range of (elite) politicians makes it into the news. Our results suggest that the media logic is nested in the broader political context and in some cases even strengthens the logic of the political system.