Effect of the broadcast of a television documentary about a teenager's suicide in Israel on suicidal behavior and methods

Portrayals of suicide in the media are controversial because they may impact on suicide rates and methods. The aim of this study was to analyze the effect of the broadcast of a television documentary wherein an adolescent girl is interviewed about her suicide plan and subsequently dies by suicide. National suicide rates during the 8 weeks prior to the program and the 4 weeks following it were compared to the same periods in the previous year. There was no significant difference in the rates of completed and attempted suicides before and after the program. There was a shift toward the method used in the film after the broadcast, but it was found to be nonspecific to that year. A significant decrease was noted in the mean age of suicide attempters in the last promotional week prior to the broadcast compared to the previous year (p = .032). These preliminary findings suggest that the repeated televised promotion of a documentary on suicide may raise the risk of suicide in vulnerable populations. Further investigations in bigger populations are needed.     

Ironie als Methode

Dieser Artikel stellt theoretische und methodische Ansätze einer neoklassischen Soziologie vor. Die neoklassische Soziologie versteht sich als eine Habermas’sche Rekonstruktion der von ihren klassischen Theoretikern, hier vor allem Max Weber, konzeptualisierten, grundlegenden Idee der Disziplin. Mit Blick auf die Entwicklungen in Ost- und Mitteleuropa widersprechen wir der dominanten Vorstellung einer einzigen, homogenisierenden Globalisierungslogik. Sowohl in der Geschichte als auch in der Gegenwart lässt sich nämlich eine bemerkenswerte Vielfalt kapitalistischer Formen und Ausprägungen feststellen. Weder soziologische Netzwerktheorien oder Theorien der ?Einbettung“ noch ökonomische Modelle rationalen Handelns vermögen diese Vielfalt angemessen zu erfassen. Der hier vorgestellte neoklassische Ansatz verknüpft empirische, vergleichende Ansätze der Untersuchung des Kapitalismus mit einem ironischen historischen Analyseansatz und ermöglicht so erst eine differenzierte und kritische soziologische Analyse der verschiedenen Formen des Kapitalismus.     

Social Media Social Capital,Offline Social Capital,and Citizenship: Exploring Asymmetrical Social Capital Effects

In pursuit of a healthier and participatory democracy, scholars have long established the positive effects of social capital, values derived from resources embedded in social ties with others which characterize the structure of opportunity and action in communities. Today, social media afford members of digital communities the ability to relate in new ways. In these contexts, the question that arises is whether new forms of social capital associated with the use of social media are a mere extension of traditional social capital or if they are in fact a different construct with a unique and distinct palette of attributes and effects. This study introduces social media social capital as a new conceptual and empirical construct to complement face-to-face social capital. Based on a two-wave panel data set collected in the United States, this study tests whether social capital in social media and offline settings are indeed two distinct empirical constructs. Then, the article examines how these two modes of social capital may relate to different types of citizenship online and offline. Results show that social media social capital is empirically distinct from face-to-face social capital. In addition, the two constructs exhibit different patterns of effects over online and offline political participatory behaviors. Results are discussed in light of theoretical developments in the area of social capital and pro-democratic political engagement.     

Iraq—managing the peace

In a little over three weeks in March and April 2003 American-led Coalition forces invaded Iraq, defeated the Iraqi Armed Forces, removed Saddam Hussein's regime and occupied a country the size of France. In terms of military power and political will, it was a display of extraordinary detemination and might. To have achieved it in such a short time, with almost negligible military casualties and with limited war damage to the country's infrastructure was a feat of almost unimaginable military precision and planning. To have further avoided the dire consequences of the much talked of 'Stalingrad scenario' in and around the built-up areas of Baghdad and Basra displayed maturity and wisdom in the senior military leadership. That conditions for success were set, irrespective of outside pressures to act, is both commendable and surprising in a time of instant news, instant reaction and demands for instant success.     

A fatal case of oral ingestion of methanol. Distribution in postmortem tissues and fluids including pericardial fluid and vitreous humor.

A 41-year-old man ingested orally a large quantity of methanol and was found dead at home. The presence of methanol in body fluids and tissues was determined by head-space gas chromatography. The blood ethanol and acetone were negative. Tissue distribution of methanol showed that the kidney presented the highest content of methanol (5.13 g/kg) followed by liver (4.18 g/kg), vitreous humor (3.96 g/l), heart (3.45 g/kg), urine (3.43 g/l), pericardial fluid (3.29 g/l), blood (2.84 g/l) and finally stomach content (2.21 g/l).     

Sibling Abuse in Nature and Culture

This essay reflects on an article by Katy Butler in the Science Section of the New York Times of February 28, 2006. It argues that Butler discusses sibling abuse mainly as a biologically rooted phenomenon and does not clarify its social sources and dynamics. The essay presents the social causes of sibling abuse and suggests approaches toward its short‐term reduction and long‐term prevention.     

Ambiguous political power and contest efforts

When there is incomplete information on the source of power in a contest, the contestants may divide their lobbying efforts between the potential centers of power, only one of which determines the contests’ winning probabilities. Our analysis focuses on the effect of ambiguity regarding the source of power on the contestants’ aggregate effort in a symmetric, simple lottery contest with two potential centers of power. Specifically, we examine the effects of varying the informativeness of the contestants’ private signals (i.e., the probability that a signal is correct) and the degree of correlation between them. Our benchmark case is the standard Tullock’s model, in which the source of power is known, i.e., the contestants’ signals are perfectly informative. We show that the level of aggregate effort in this case is reached also when the signals are perfectly uninformative. However, in any intermediate case the contestants’ aggregate effort is lower, provided that the signals are not perfectly correlated. In other words, there is a U-shape relationship between the informativeness of the signals and the aggregate effort in the contest. The lowest level of effort is spent when the signals are independent and the probability that a signal is true is about 0.85. In this case, efforts are reduced by about one-fifth in comparison with the benchmark case: from a rent dissipation of 50% to slightly over 40%.