Re-Defining Defamation: Psychological Sense of Community in the Age of the Internet

In the era of traditional media, courts typically relied upon geographic constraints, including where a plaintiff lived or worked, to determine the appropriate community in defamation cases. The rise of the Internet has dramatically changed society – easily and immediately linking users across geography while allowing the rapid spread of information through a variety of channels that pose a challenge to the traditional media model centered around editorial judgment and professional ethics. Thanks in part to its global reach, the Internet has allowed users to engage in both business and social relationships around the world. Because of this, a person's need for a good reputation can no longer be confined solely to location. As a result, this article argues that courts must begin to evaluate other factors when determining relevant community in online defamation cases, positing that courts should utilize factors associated with psychological sense of community theory.     

Defining A Product Market for Spanish-Language Broadcast Media: Lessons from United States v. Univision Communications,Inc. and Hispanic Broadcasting

In 2003, a media merger with dramatic content and policy implications went largely unnoticed. Little attention was paid to the transaction because it did not affect the majority; it affected the largest minority population in the United States: Hispanics. Although up to 65% of Hispanics prefer Spanish-language media, most broadcast media now come from one corporation, Univision. In approving the consolidation of Univision and Hispanic Broadcasting, the FCC ignored product market findings by the Department of Justice as well as its own policy precedent, which includes numerous exceptions for Spanish programming to promote content and ownership diversity. Consistent with the FCC's mandate to protect the public interest, a demand-side analysis is undertaken, positioning the audience as consumer. Industry evidence, product market thresholds, and ownership rules are applied to United States v. Univision, Inc. and Hispanic Broadcasting, with the conclusion that a separate product market must exist for Spanish language broadcast media.     

New York city and subsidized housing: Impacts and lessons of the city's $5 billion capital budget housing plan

Abstract

New York City has devoted far more resources to the development and rehabilitation of affordable housing than any other U.S. city, investing more than $4 billion from 1986 to 1997. This article surveys the impact, status, and implications of New York's housing programs. It looks at correlations between publicly funded housing starts and changes in the housing stock, welfare rolls, and crime and at the economic impact of the city's housing investments within low‐income neighborhoods.

New York's housing programs have transformed neighborhoods, replacing large swaths of abandoned shells and vacant land with new housing and preserving thousands of buildings at risk of abandonment. While these housing investments correlate most strongly with reductions in vacant units and vacant lots, they also show significant correlations with reductions in welfare rolls and violent crime, but uneven economic impacts as well. New York's housing programs are important nationally less for the specifics of particular programs than for the institutional collaborations on which they are founded.     

Revitalizing inner‐city neighborhoods: New York city's Ten‐Year Plan

Abstract

This article examines the impact of New York City's Ten‐Year Plan on the sale prices of homes in surrounding neighborhoods. Beginning in the mid‐1980s, New York City invested $5.1 billion in constructing or rehabilitating over 180,000 units of housing in many of the city's most distressed neighborhoods. One of the main purposes was to spur neighborhood revitalization.

In this article, we describe the origins of the Ten‐Year Plan, as well as the various programs the city used to implement it, and estimate whether housing built or rehabilitated under the Ten‐Year Plan affected the prices of nearby homes. The prices of homes within 500 feet of Ten‐Year Plan units rose relative to those located beyond 500 feet, but still within the same census tract. These findings are consistent with the proposition that well‐planned project‐based housing programs can generate positive spillover effects and contribute to efforts to revitalize inner‐city neighborhoods.     

Comment on Dennis P. Culhane et al.’s “Testing a typology of family homelessness based on patterns of public shelter utilization in four U.S. jurisdictions: Implications for policy and program planning”

Abstract

A comprehensive typology of homeless families would help us understand how to provide services and supports appropriate to particular subgroups. In their attempt to establish such a typology, Culhane and his colleagues employ administrative data sets to correlate shelter use with behavioral indicators. These data sets are limited in that they fail to incorporate the complex, intense, and sometimes traumatic experiences that characterize the lives of homeless families, causing this study to fall short of what is required to create an accurate typology.

Among the areas overlooked by this approach are the high levels of traumatic stress and violence in the lives of homeless families, children's needs, and the interactions between parents and children. When only limited research is available, there is a danger that even modest findings will be used to support broad policy directions. Further research is needed to arrive at a defensible typology.     

Race and residential accessibility to shopping and services

Abstract

Predominantly black, upper‐income census tracts in the 10‐county Atlanta region have lower accessibility to certain personal consumption opportunities than comparable white tracts do; black residents are more likely to have to leave their neighborhoods to eat out (other than at fast food restaurants), grocery shop, or see movies. Accessibility is calculated as a function of travel time to providers of local goods and services. Such accessibility is a desirable attribute and contributes to neighborhood quality and housing value.

We find that differences in residential accessibility to shopping and services by race are not explained by income differences, but could result from real differences in consumption patterns, though these are more likely due to demographic differences between black and white populations of comparable incomes; inaccurate information on neighborhood attributes and personal consumption preferences; or racially biased business decisions. We conclude by summarizing the policy implications of our findings.     

Effects of the Institutional Design of the Civil Service: Evidence from Corruption

ABSTRACT

This research tests the direct effects of civil service structure on perceptions of corruption. Numerous studies suggest a relationship between civil service structure and corruption, but few test this link. It is hypothesized that corruption depends on the presence or absence of civil service policies, including job duties, tenure and security provisions, discipline policy, and rules on rewards and bargaining rights; the impact of government wages, per capita GDP, and democratization on corruption is also assessed. These hypotheses are tested using World Bank data for Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and central and eastern European countries. No statistically significant relationships between civil service structure and corruption are found; however, occasional evidence that corruption is higher in countries with higher total government wage bills was obtained. Results additionally indicate that corruption is lower in countries with higher GDP. While the conclusions presented here are largely exploratory, there is a distinct lack of evidence indicating a relationship between civil service systems and public perceptions of corruption.     

Sexuality,identity and dissidence: new scholarship on sub-Saharan Africa

In this review essay, I consider three recent monographs on sexuality and sexual cultures in Africa. Each of these three books grapple with the “problem orientation” of scholarship on African sexuality, in which sexuality is conceptualised primarily with reference to AIDS, homophobia and violence. The authors move beyond this problem orientation through a common concern investigating the poles of “modernity” vs “tradition”, “global” vs “local” and “authentic” vs “imported” as these concepts are deployed by activists, policymakers, and ordinary people talking about sex. All three authors also engage the question of how and why social changes happen, treating sexual identities and practices as dynamic, emergent phenomena.