The Effects of Network Expertise and Biases on Vote Choice

Many citizens lack the political knowledge to make informed decisions partly due to the high costs of becoming informed. Previous scholars have argued that if individuals speak with political experts who share their preferences, they can vote as if they were informed without paying information costs. This view of citizens as single-minded seekers of low-cost information is unrealistic. Individuals often choose discussion partners for reasons unrelated to politics, and many communication networks have heterogeneous information levels and preferences as a result. This paper simulates the votes of hypothetical electorates with different individual and network information levels. It demonstrates that network expertise has an effect on vote choice, but this effect is not as large as the effect of individual expertise. Rather, the key contextual determinant of an individual's vote is the partisan composition of his or her discussion network.     

信息革命与经济全球化

信息革命是指人类在认识世界的过程中 ,感知、反映、接收、传递、交流、综合分析和加工处理信息的工具与手段的革命性变革。人类文明的发展始终伴随着对信息获取、存储和运用能力的进步 ,2 0世纪中期以来 ,信息革命开始在全球蓬勃发展。信息革命是继工业化动力革命之后的人类新智能革命 ,它使人类社会面貌正在发生深刻的变化。在信息革命有力地推动下 ,世界进入了全球化迅猛发展、民族国家间联系密切、相互依存程度不断提高的新时代。在信息化新时代 ,认真研究和探讨信息革命与经济全球化的相互关系问题具有重要的理论与现实意义。     

A Review of: “Media and Conflict: Framing Issues,Making Policy,Shaping Opinions,edited by Eytan Gilboa”

Using survey data from statewide political party convention delegates in four states, I investigate whether and how gender stereotypes influence nomination choice. I examine whether gaining candidate information from different sources differentially influences gender stereotypes and the likelihood of supporting both a female and a male nominee. I argue that information sources outside a candidate's control—delegates' discussions with other delegates—versus sources candidates can control (e.g., campaign contacts and personal contact with the candidate) work against female candidates' nomination. Specifically, when delegates learn about candidates via the most controlled sources, they will be more likely to view the candidates as possessing both masculine and feminine traits and issue competencies. As a result, they should be more likely to support the candidate. In contrast, information from sources outside candidate control functions differently for male and female candidates: These sources confirm delegates' stereotype expectations, negatively affecting perceptions of a female candidate's masculine strengths, which then negatively relate to supporting her nomination. The results generally support these ideas: Delegates receiving information from the most controlled sources form balanced views of the female candidate, but the positive effects of information from these sources on nomination choice are not mediated by stereotypes. In contrast, delegates gaining information from other delegates confirm their stereotypes of the candidate and are then less likely to support her. More broadly, gender stereotypes, particularly those regarding female candidates' masculine traits and feminine issue competencies relative to the candidate's male opponent, directly and positively relate to delegates' likelihood of supporting her.     

International communication: shifting paradigms,theories and foci of interest

Abstract

This article aims to be a stock-taking exercise of the development of paradigms and foci of interest, in attempts to theorise the vast developments and far-reaching changes as well as the impact and effects of global communication in the world of today. Attention is firstly given to the current nature, impact and implications of global communication in the first decade of the 21^st century, as well as to a shift in emphases in the (sub)discipline of international communication. A critical overview is then given of discourses on the free flow of information, modernisation theory, dependency theory, the structural theory of imperialism, world system theory, hegemony, political economy, critical theory, the public sphere, cultural studies, the information society and globalisation. Since many of these paradigms have been borrowed or taken over from media studies, international relations or other (sub)disciplines, attention is given specifically to their application in theorising international communication. The article concludes with a critical overview of the current ‘state of the art’ with regard to the body of theory in international communication.     

论日本信息安全战略的“保障型”

波涛汹涌的信息技术革命和信息网络化浪潮在给人类带来良好机遇的同时,也带来了日趋激烈的信息战。信息战对信息安全的威胁和挑战越来越严重,对人类社会的冲击越来越广泛、越来越深刻,迫使人们研究应对战略和策略。日本在依据国情的情况下,实施了“保障型”信息安全战略,强调“信息安全保障是日本综合保障体系的核心”,并为此做出了种种措施,例如:颁布新战略计划、成立信息安全机构、打击网络黑客、治理垃圾邮件等,以保证本国的信息安全。     

俄罗斯电子图书馆的建设与发展

俄罗斯的电子图书馆建设早在20世纪90年代就被批准列入联邦专项计划，属于国家级的信息资源建设工程，得到俄联邦政府的全力支持。俄罗斯电子图书馆的建设与发展促进了相关行业群体的形成，进一步推动了跨地区、跨学科、跨部门的读者之间思想、经验的广泛交流，从而大大加快了俄罗斯政府主导的文化与文明建设的完善与扩展。     

论俄罗斯信息安全战略的“综合型”

波涛汹涌的信息技术革命和信息网络化浪潮在给人类带来良好机遇的同时,也带来了日趋激烈的信息战。信息战对信息安全的威胁和挑战越来越严重,对人类社会的冲击越来越广泛、越来越深刻,迫使人们研究应对战略和策略。俄罗斯在依据国情的情况下,实施了“综合型”信息安全战略,强调“以维护信息安全为重点,维护国家的综合安全”,并为此采取了种种措施,例如:提出第六代战争论、打击网络黑客、治理垃圾邮件等,以保证本国的信息安全。     

Orphan Counties and the Effect of Irrelevant Information on Turnout in Statewide Races

Over 10% of the American electorate lives in counties served by out-of-state media because of the mismatch between media markets and state boundaries. Frequently, these “orphan” counties face a different information environment than others in their home state: they receive no news coverage and political advertising for their own statewide races, irrelevant information pertaining to candidates in the neighboring state who will not appear on their ballots, or both. With a combination of county-level, individual-level, and political advertising data, our analysis evaluates the effect of orphan county residency and irrelevant political information on political participation. Results indicate that orphan counties have lower turnout rates than non-orphan counties and that this difference is explained by lower levels of interest in the campaign stemming from exposure to irrelevant information.     

Coerce,Consent, and Coax: A Review of U.S. Congressional Efforts to Improve Federal Counterterrorism Information Sharing

Government Accountability Office reports and secondary sources reveal that the U.S. Congress has employed three distinct legislative approaches to address the federal counterterrorism information-sharing impasse: coerce, consent, and coax. One main example illustrates each approach: the Homeland Security Information Network project exemplifies the coerce approach; Intellipedia illustrates the consent approach; the office of the Program Manager of the Information Sharing Environment exemplifies the coax approach. Secondary examples are utilized including those of regional Fusion Centers, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the National Counterterrorism Center. The merits and challenges of the three approaches are discussed and compared. The conclusion proposes ideas for using the approach most appropriate to specific counterterrorism challenges.     

发达国家数字图书馆的建设与启示

数字图书馆的建设和研究工作是在信息技术迅猛发展和各国信息基础设施的建设浪潮中产生的。自20世纪90年代以来,世界各发达国家都投入了大量的资源,加紧开发、研制数字图书馆。我国数字图书馆在1996年也开始启动,但在发展过程中还存在着许多问题,这需要我们在借鉴国外发达国家数字图书馆建设及实际应用经验的基础上,制定出我国数字图书馆建设切实可行的方案。     

满洲里信息港建设中的若干问题探讨

满洲里是我国最大的陆路口岸。基于其在我国乃至世界经济发展中的重要地位，为开放口岸、全方位构筑国际经贸城，以适应全球经济一体化的需要，建立满洲里信息港是完全必要的。目前满洲里市信息港的建设已初具规模，但在人们的思想认识和信息基础设施建设、管理等方面仍存在很多问题。因此，在未来信息港建设方面，应突出“中俄”特色，构筑电子商务雏形，迅速扩大网站影响，加强信息化管理。     

The Effects of Issue Salience,Elite Influence,and Policy Content on Public Opinion

When do citizens rely on party cues, and when do they incorporate policy-relevant information into their political attitudes? Recent research suggests that members of the public, when they possess some policy-relevant information, use that information as much as they use party cues when forming political attitudes. We aim to advance this research by specifying conditions that motivate people to use content over cues and vice versa. Specifically, we believe that increased issue salience motivates people to go beyond heuristics and engage in the systematic processing of policy-relevant information. Using data from a survey experiment that isolates the effects of policy-relevant information, party cues, and issue salience, we find that people are more likely to incorporate policy-relevant information when thinking about hydraulic fracturing (fracking), a relatively high-salience issue. When thinking about storm-water management, a relatively low-salience issue, people are more likely to rely on party cues.     

Cosmic top secret Europe? The legacy of North Atlantic Treaty Organization and cold war US policy on European Union information policy

As the EU has expanded its authority into areas of high politics such as monetary, defense, and foreign policy, it has simultaneously developed procedures for handling more sensitive and classified information. These critical policy domains require standards regulating secure information and personnel, but the concept of official secrets is in tension with the treaty norms of the EU. Observers allege that the classified information policy of the EU was imposed through the coercion of external actors such as North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the USA in a significant historical departure from the information security policies of European member states. This article evaluates the content of EU-classified information policies and compares them to the content of European member states, NATO, and the USA, in an effort to clarify the mechanisms of policy diffusion in the area of information security.     

Information inconsistency and the cognitive algebra of foreign policy decision making

This paper explores a special feature of the information complexity that underlies foreign policy decision making, i.e., inconsistency in information. We use the actor and action images to categorize types of inconsistency. The consequences of inconsistency for process and outcome are analyzed within the framework of a cognitive algebra model. Finally, we demonstrate the implications of the model in an experimental study. Our findings show that not every inconsistency is detected and those that are detected do not always affect the choice. The critical inconsistency is the one that presents an imbalanced structure of the actor and the action image. This inconsistency affects the choices made by decision‐makers and sensitizes them to the within image inconsistency. Furthermore, the results suggests that in the context of the scenarios employed in this experiment the actor image has a more dominant status for the foreign policy decision making process than the action image.     

Organizations,Credibility, and the Psychology of Collective Action

Political organizations frequently attempt to recruit sympathetic citizens to support their causes. Doing so requires communicating credibility—that is, persuading potential new supporters that they can actually achieve the goals they set out to achieve. In this article we investigate two of the predominant kinds of information that organizations might use to establish credibility: retrospective information (about past successes) and prospective information (about future plans). Using one field experiment and one survey experiment, we find that retrospective information fails to increase people’s willingness to spend scarce resources supporting political organizations. We find that this occurs because information about past successes suggests that the organization can succeed without any additional help. In contrast, we find that prospective information motivates new participants to become active.     

Informational Cues,Partisan-Motivated Reasoning,and the Manipulation of Conspiracy Beliefs

In this article, we examine the relationship between partisan-motivated reasoning and uncertainty-inducing official information cues with respect to conspiracy beliefs. We find that while partisanship matters when it comes to conspiracy beliefs, the uncertainty-inducing and countervailing nature of official cues can further inflame conspiracy beliefs when it is not in the political interest of individuals to subscribe to a given conspiracy theory. Contrary to expectations, we find that cueing Democratic self-identifiers with different types of official responses to conspiracy theories that implicate Republicans has no effect. However, such informational cues do significantly increase conspiracy beliefs among Republicans, even when a Republican is implicated in the conspiracy theory. Although partisan-motivated reasoning has a baseline effect on conspiracy beliefs, the extent to which these beliefs can further be manipulated appears asymmetric across party lines. Simply put, Republicans appear to be more susceptible to conspiratorial cues than Democrats.     

Running the Blockade: Information Technology,Terrorism, and the Transformation of Islamic Mass Culture

Arab media is no longer limited to state-sponsored sources, opening a door of opportunity to the Muslim world. Islamic terrorist groups leverage information technology to form resilient, networked organizations that influence how many Muslims perceive events and U.S. political goals. This article looks at the connection between information technology and cultural transformation in the Middle East. It focuses on how information technology—as the major weapon system in the battle of ideas—has been used effectively by Islamic extremists and less so by the U.S. Important conclusions are drawn regarding the necessity of culturally-attuned uses of information technology.     

Secrecy and Self-Interest: When Mediators Act Deceitfully

3rd party intervention in interstate conflict is a common strategy for mitigating conflict and obtaining a final agreement. However, not all mediations are successful, leading to the development of a rich literature on the mechanisms which decrease the probability of failure in a 3rd-party intervention. Within this literature, some studies examine how a mediator’ behavior and incentives affect the result of the mediation. Virtually all these studies assume that the mediator is virtuous such that peace is the most desired outcome of a conflict for her. However, this study challenges this assumption and contends that a mediator can gain benefit from the conflict between disputants. If this benefit is adequately large to overcome the benefits of peace, then the mediator has enough incentive not to conduct the mediation toward a peaceful outcome. We develop a signaling game model to study this issue formally and test the proposed hypothesis empirically.