How Accurate Are Survey Responses on Social Media and Politics?

How accurate are survey-based measures of social media use, in particular about political topics? We answer this question by linking original survey data collected during the U.S. 2016 election campaign with respondents’ observed social media activity. We use supervised machine learning to classify whether these Twitter and Facebook account data are content related to politics. We then benchmark our survey measures on frequency of posting about politics and the number of political figures followed. We find that, on average, our self-reported survey measures tend to correlate with observed social media activity. At the same time, we also find a worrying amount of individual-level discrepancy and problems related to extreme outliers. Our recommendations are twofold. The first is for survey questions about social media use to provide respondents with options covering a wider range of activity, especially in the long tail. The second is for survey questions to include specific content and anchors defining what it means for a post to be “about politics.”     

The New Economy,Class Condescension and Caring Labour: Changing Formations of Class and Gender

An argument about the declining significance of class and gender as structural constraints in British society has become common in mainstream sociological theory. Mobility, reflexivity, and detraditionalization are seen as key characteristics of a post‐Fordist, post‐structural society. In feminist theory, however, debates about the reconstitution of class and gender, as well as the symbolic meaning of class, challenge assumptions about detraditionalization. I assess these arguments through an exploration of the consequences of women's changing labour market position and the contradictions between employment and caring responsibilities. I argue that emerging class differences and widening inequalities between women, as well as new class relationships in the home, should be explored further.     

Sexual Debut Timing and Depressive Symptoms in Emerging Adulthood

The association between sexual debut timing and depressive symptomatology in adolescence and emerging adulthood was examined using data from Waves I, II and III of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Respondents who reported never having sexual intercourse at Wave I and were 18–22 years of age at Wave III were included (n = 5,061). Twenty percent of respondents experienced early (<age 16) and 49% experienced typical (ages 16–18) sexual debut. In bivariate analyses, pre-debut depressive symptoms were associated with earlier sexual debut among female but not male adolescents. In models adjusting for demographic characteristics and pre-debut depressive symptoms, sexual debut was positively related to adolescent (Wave II) depressive symptomatology, but only among female adolescents age less than sixteen. However, sexual debut timing was unassociated with emerging adult (Wave III) depressive symptomatology for both male and female respondents. Findings suggest sexual debut timing does not have implications for depressive symptomatology beyond adolescence.

Mandate, Independence and Funding: Resolution of a Protracted Struggle Between Parliament and the Executive Over the Powers of the Australian Auditor-General

This paper examines a political struggle in the Australian federal sphere over parliament's right, exercised through the Office of the Auditor-General, to oversee the accounts and management practices of the executive and entities created by legislation to deliver public services. The period from the early 1970s witnessed a dramatic shift in the method of delivering government services to the community and an increasing attention to economy, efficiency and effectiveness in their administration and delivery. The Australian government has increasingly used private sector organisational models and modern management and accounting practices to deliver a wide range of services. The rise of these 'new public management' practices resulted in an erosion of traditional parliamentary oversight of government management and reporting activities. This historical analysis is based upon Porter's (1981) processual analytical framework. The analysis focuses on the action of groups such as the executive, parliamentary committees and the Office of the Auditor-General as evidenced in documents produced in response to critical events. Models developed by Funnell and Cooper (1998) are used to characterise the transition of public sector audit from a traditional administrative model to a corporatist model.     

Advice about Life Plans from Mothers,Fathers, and Siblings in Always-Married and Divorced Families during Late Adolescence

The frequency of advice about life plans that older adolescents in always-married and divorced families received from mothers, fathers, and siblings was examined. Also, a pattern-analytic approach that grouped adolescents according to the amount of advice about life plans received from each parent and a sibling was employed to explore the connections between patterns of advice and adolescents' future occupational, educational, and family plans. The sample included 544 and 95 older adolescents in always-married and divorced families, respectively. Findings suggested that while adolescents relied on mothers for advice in both always-married and divorced families, adolescents in divorced families depended on fathers and siblings for advice less often than did adolescents in always-married families. Although there was some evidence of family context differences in the connections between patterns of advice and life plans, overall, adolescents in both family contexts who received more advice from a parent and, in some cases, a sibling compared to other adolescents were the most positive about their future life plans.     

Psychological abuse of women: Six distinct clusters

This study was designed to identify patterns of psychological abuse (abuse) and determine whether different patterns mediate the effects of violence and sexual aggression. Interviews were completed with 578 (80.3%) of 720 women who volunteered for a study of “bad” or “stressful” heterosexual relationships. Cluster analysis with 51 items assessing many types of subtle and overt psychological abuse identified six groups. Cluster 1 sustained the most serious abuse, violence, and sexual aggression, but partners did not denigrate women or control finances. Cluster 2 sustained serious abuse which was more subtle than the dominating-controlling abuse discussed by others and had moderate violence and sexual aggression scores. Cluster 3 scored relatively low on abuse but reported controlling types (e.g., isolation, enforced secrecy) and relatively little violence and sexual aggression. Cluster 4 sustained the least abuse, violence, and sexual aggression but the abuse was overt (e.g., criticism, several types of control). Clusters 5 and 6 were similar with high abuse and moderate violence and sexual aggression scores but they experienced very different types of abuse. Total psychological abuse, threats of violence, acts of violence, and sexual aggression scores made different contributions to women's health, help seeking, and relationship perceptions depending on the pattern of abuse they sustained. Results for each type of harmful act are discussed separately.     

The Political Theory of Reinvention

In this article, we examine the implications of the reinvention movement for democratic governance, broadly defined. The most basic premise of the reinvention movement is a belief that the accumulation of the narrowly defined self-interests of many individuals can adequately approximate the public interest. By "narrowly defined," we mean the interests of individuals as they privately apprehend them, unmediated by participation in a process of civic discourse. To illustrate the centrality of this assumption to the implicit theory of reinvention, we consider three of its elements—its use of the market model, its emphasis on customers rather than citizens, and its glorification of entrepreneurial management. We then examine the implications of the self-interest assumption, which entails a rejection of democratic citizenship, civic engagement, and the public interest, broadly conceived.