The Dynamics of Political Attention: Public Opinion and the Queen's Speech in the United Kingdom

This article represents the effect of public opinion on government attention in the form of an error-correction model where public opinion and policymaking attention coexist in a long-run equilibrium state that is subject to short-run corrections. The coexistence of policy-opinion responsiveness and punctuations in political attention is attributed to differences in theoretical conceptions of negative and positive feedback, differences in the use of time series and distributional methods, and differences in empirical responsiveness of government to public attention relative to responsiveness to public preferences. This analysis considers time-series data for the United Kingdom over the period between 1960 and 2001 on the content of the executive and legislative agenda presented at the start of each parliamentary session in the Queen's Speech coded according to the policy content framework of the U.S. Policy Agendas Project and a reconstituted public opinion dataset on Gallup's "most important problem" question. The results show short-run responsiveness of government attention to public opinion for macroeconomics, health, and labor and employment topics and long-run responsiveness for macroeconomics, health, labor and employment, education, law and order, housing, and defense .     

The Participation Divide? Political Participation,Trust in Government,and E‐government in Australia and New Zealand

Drawing on 438 telephone interview surveys in Australia and 500 in New Zealand, we find evidence of a 'participation divide' where those participating in politics do so using a range of means, including electronic ones. Those less likely to participate in politics, are less likely to participate across all means measured. Those with higher levels of education and income and of European ethnicity are more likely to participate. We confirm the existence of the so-called 'digital divide' with those that use e-government means and those that do not, being stratified by education, ethnicity, income, gender and age. Contrary to our expectations we find that lower levels of trust in government are associated with higher levels of some types of participation, including e-government ones.     

Das Alter: adressiert, aktiviert, diskriminiert

In the last years, ageing – or rather active ageing – has become a highly popular issue. In contrast to the disputed activation in labor market policies, the activation of old age seems to be a win-win-situation that benefits everyone. However, embedded in two highly topical debates – demographic change and activation-based welfare state reform – the conditions of the popularization of active ageing remain a blank within the German discussion. This concerns the specifics of old age activation as well as the power-related implications and the normalizing and standardizing consequences of this re-negotiation of old age. It is the aim of this article to discuss these blanks theoretically, paying reference to Anglo-Saxon gerontology, to works on active society and to gender theory on sameness and difference.     

Laughter and Liability: The Politics of British and Dutch Television Satire

Contemporary politicians face immense rhetorical and communicative challenges. Performing on the intertwined stages of politics, media (including Internet) and everyday life, they need to master diverse and contrasting repertoires of talk. Political communication research, at present, has ignored the question of how politicians face and experience these challenges, and how they reflect on the new communicative field. In this article, we begin to redress this situation by analysing and comparing the motives, experiences and reflections of politicians who appeared in the British satirical TV show, Have I Got News for You, and its Dutch adaptation, Dit was het Nieuws. Based on in-depth interviews with seven Dutch and 14 English MPs, we conclude that they draw from three repertoires to legitimise and reflect on their participation: a strategic, indulgent and anti-elitist repertoire. The first repertoire is predictable in the context of current political communication research, whereas the latter two add new dimensions of pleasure and bottom-up representation to it.     

The Effect of Music Video Clips on Adolescent Boys’ Body Image, Mood, and Schema Activation

There is limited research that has examined experimentally the effects of muscular images on adolescent boys’ body image, with no research specifically examining the effects of music television. The aim of the current study was to examine the effects of viewing muscular and attractive singers in music video clips on early, mid, and late adolescent boys’ body image, mood, and schema activation. Participants were 180 boys in grade 7 (mean age = 12.73 years), grade 9 (mean age = 14.40 years) or grade 11 (mean age = 16.15 years) who completed pre- and post-test measures of mood and body satisfaction after viewing music videos containing male singers of muscular or average appearance. They also completed measures of schema activation and social comparison after viewing the clips. The results showed that the boys who viewed the muscular clips reported poorer upper body satisfaction, lower appearance satisfaction, lower happiness, and more depressive feelings compared to boys who viewed the clips depicting singers of average appearance. There was no evidence of increased appearance schema activation but the boys who viewed the muscular clips did report higher levels of social comparison to the singers. The results suggest that music video clips are a powerful form of media in conveying information about the male ideal body shape and that negative effects are found in boys as young as 12 years.     

Subjective Social Status,Immigrant Generation,and Cannabis and Alcohol Use Among Adolescents

Research indicates that subjective perceptions of socioeconomic status (SES) affect aspects of health and behavior. There has been little research attention to how objective (e.g., education) and subjective aspects of SES may differ in their influence on the substance use of adolescent immigrants. The present study examined whether the associations between subjective SES and substance use, and between parental education and substance use varied by immigrant generation. Data were derived from the 2011 Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey, a representative survey of students in the 7th to 12th grade. The sample for this study consisted of 9177 students 12–19 years of age; 48.4 % were female, 66.4 % were White/European, 5.2 % Black/Afro-Caribbean, 16.4 % Asian and 12 % other. Results indicated that subjective SES was more strongly associated with cannabis and alcohol use among first-generation immigrants than among adolescents of other immigrant generations even after adjusting for parental education. First-generation immigrants with low subjective SES had a lower probability of cannabis and regular alcohol use, but there was no difference in use between immigrant generations at high subjective SES. The associations between parental education and cannabis and alcohol use did not significantly vary with immigrant generation. The findings highlight the importance of status beliefs among adolescents, particularly among first-generation immigrants, and suggest that further research attention to such beliefs would enhance our understanding of SES and its links to adolescent health risk behaviors.     

Family Cohesion and Romantic and Sexual Initiation: A Three Wave Longitudinal Study

Although the relation between family relationships and the timing of sexual debut has been the focus of many studies, research on mediating factors is scarce. This study examines whether low levels of family cohesion result in an earlier onset of romantic and sexual experiences, and whether the link between family cohesion and an early sexual debut is mediated by early romantic initiation. A longitudinal sample of 314 adolescent girls and 222 boys, aged 12–17 at Wave 1, completed questionnaires at three measurement points with three year intervals. The results showed that sexual debut followed romantic initiation for 77% of the participants. For early adolescent females (aged 12–14), high levels of family cohesion resulted in a later sexual debut and this association was fully mediated by a delay of romantic initiation. Among boys and older girls, timing of romantic initiation did not mediate the link between family cohesion and timing of sexual initiation. Early adolescent girls who have negative relationships with their parents turn to romantic relationships for intimacy and support, which subsequently provide the opportunity for an early sexual debut. Low levels of family cohesion thus primarily precipitate romantic initiation and sexual initiation appears to be secondary to this process among girls in this age group.