New Media and the Polarization of American Political Discourse

Scholars of political communication have long examined newsworthiness by focusing on the news choices of media organizations (Lewin, 1947 Lewin, K. 1947. Frontiers and group dynamics. Human Relations, 1: 143–153. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; White, 1950 White, D. M. 1950. The “gate keeper”: A case study in the selection of news. Journalism Quarterly, 27: 383–390. [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Sigal, 1973 Sigal, L. V. 1973. Reporters and officials, Lexington, MA: Heath.  [Google Scholar]; Gans, 1979 Gans, H. J. 1979. Deciding what's news, New York: Vintage Books.  [Google Scholar]). However, in recent years these traditional arbiters of the news have increasingly been joined or even supplanted in affecting the public agenda by “new media” competitors, including cable news, talk radio, and even amateur bloggers. The standards by which this new class of decision makers evaluates news are at best only partially explained by prior studies focused on professional journalists and organizations. In this study, we seek to correct this oversight by content analyzing five online news sources—including wire services, cable news, and political blog sites—in order to compare their news judgments in the months prior to, and immediately following, the 2006 midterm election. We collected all stories from Reuters' and AP's “top political news” sections. We then investigated whether a given story was also chosen to appear on each wire's top news page (indicating greater perceived newsworthiness than those that were not chosen) and compared the wires' editorial choices to those of more partisan blogs (from the left: DailyKos.com; from the right: FreeRepublic.com) and cable outlets (FoxNews.com). We find evidence of greater partisan filtering for the latter three Web sources, and relatively greater reliance on traditional newsworthiness criteria for the news wires.     

Countering Implicit Appeals: Which Strategies Work?

Some contemporary politicians try to mobilize racial attitudes by conveying implicit racial messages against their opponents—messages in which the racial reference is subtle but recognizable and which attack the opponent for alleged misdeeds. Although targeted politicians have tried a number of different strategies to respond to implicit racial appeals, little is known about the effectiveness of these strategies. Using two survey experiments, we answer the following question: Does calling the appeal “racial” work? That is, does it neutralize the negative effects on the attacked candidate? We find mixed evidence that it does. However, offering a credible justification for the attacked behavior works more consistently. We also test whether effects vary by candidate race. The results suggest that Black candidates’ rhetorical strategies are more constrained than identical White candidates’, but that White Americans are more open to credible arguments and justifications than the previous literature implies.     

The power of arms: rethinking armed parties and democratization through the Palestinian elections

This article examines the role of armed parties in democratization. Usually considered volatile and thus excluded from the democratic process, we argue instead that in certain circumstances, armed parties can have a productive role in elections aimed at democratization – most notably by contributing to the balance of power between incumbents and opposition, both before, during and after elections. An in-depth analysis of the 2006 Palestinian elections, placed in comparative context, shows how arms affect the calculus of voters, opposition elites, and incumbents to make elections more competitive and democracy more likely. The article then directly addresses the objection that postponing disarmament fosters civil war, arguing rather that postponing disarmament may actually help promote peaceful, democratic outcomes of states emerging from civil war. It concludes by discussing the implication of the analysis for the study of democratization and for policies aimed at democracy promotion.     

Confronting Coup Risk in the Latin American Left

Military coups d'état have become dramatically less frequent in Latin America over the past 20 years, leading many analysts to conclude that the risk of coups in the region today is negligible. Yet we observe that a particular subset of presidents in the region—namely, those commonly associated with the radical left—pursue a wide range of “coup-proofing” behaviors, primarily in the way that they manage relations with their militaries, but also in their political rhetoric. Our goal in this article is to explain why some Latin American presidents spend precious resources on coup-proofing. First, even as we demonstrate that coup activity is significantly diminished across the region as a whole, we offer evidence to suggest that coup risk is quite real in countries with radical left presidents. Second, we identify several specific strategies that these presidents have pursued to minimize coup risk. We explain the coup-proofing rationale behind each of these strategies and document their use in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador. Third, we show that no similar set of strategies or policies has been pursued by moderate leftist or more conservative presidents in the region. We infer from these empirical patterns that radical left presidents have undertaken substantial efforts to maintain military allegiance and to mitigate coup risk precisely because they recognize the possibility of military intervention. In our conclusion, we suggest that these strategies may confer a short-term benefit for the presidents who implement them, but they are likely to have negative consequences for the long-term stability of democratic institutions.     

From “Queue Jumpers” to “Absolute Scum of the Earth”: Refugee and Organised Criminal Deviance in Australian Asylum Policy

The arrival of asylum seekers by boat in Australia is no longer represented as a threat by the Australian government because of characteristics of asylum seekers themselves, but is instead predominantly represented as threatening because of the involvement of transnational organised crime in the form of people smugglers. This progression, which is demonstrated by comparison of the approach of the Howard coalition government with that of the Rudd and Gillard Labor governments, is best understood by reference to conventional understandings of organised crime and irregular migration, and critical accounts of both phenomena. Understood in this way, organised crime and people‐smuggling discourses serve to externalise the asylum seeker “problem” and maintain punitive policies, inhibiting the development of effective regional responses to the issue.     

Staying Out: Reentry Protective Factors Among Rural Women Offenders

The current study examines protective factors for women who transition from county jails to rural Appalachian communities, areas with limited health and behavioral health services. The study included drug-using women recruited from three jails in rural Appalachia and followed-up at 12-months post-release. Analyses focused on differences between women who remained in the community and those who returned to custody, as well as a multivariate model to determine protective factors for reentry success. At the bivariate level, staying out of jail was associated with being older, having a job, not using drugs, stable housing, receiving health treatment, and having prosocial peers. In the multivariate model, the most robust predictors of staying out of jail were drug use abstinence, health care utilization, and prosocial peers. Most research on criminogenic needs associated with reentry success have focused on men, and most focused on reentry to urban communities where services and resources are more accessible. These findings have important implications for criminal justice systems to implement reentry programs for women offenders during the transition to the community.     

Toulmin's philosophy of argument and its relevance to offender profiling

This study sought to identify the extent to which claims about the probable characteristics of offenders in ‘offender profiles’ were based on substantive arguments. Because Toulmin's (1958) philosophy of argument has been demonstrated as a useful way of breaking down arguments into their constituent parts (Burleson, 1979) we examined the extent to which profiles contained grounds, warrants, backing and rebuttals to support or refute various claims about offenders. Twenty-one profiles, representing a range of ‘profiling styles’, were obtained from a variety of sources. All of these had been used in major criminal investigations either in the UK or internationally. Of the nearly 4,000 claims made, nearly 80% were unsubstantiated. That is, they contained no grounds, warrant, backing or rebuttal. Moreover, less than 31% of the claims were falsifiable. We argue that (a) this demonstrates the need for a careful, systematic evaluation of profiling advice (b) Toulmin's structure is one useful method for evaluating such material and for providing a possible framework for such advice.