A Matter of Context: A Comparative Study of Media Environments and News Consumption Gaps in Europe

Research has shown that individual-level characteristics such as socioeconomic status and political interest are becoming more important as predictors of news consumption in a rapidly changing media environment. Despite this general trend, this article argues that the importance of individual-level predictors of news consumption varies between national media environments. We use extensive survey data from 16 European countries and multilevel modeling in order to investigate both contextual-level and cross-level effects on news consumption. The results show that media environment characteristics have additional effects on news consumption beyond the effects of individual-level characteristics such as education and political interest, but also moderating impacts on these individual-level predictors of news consumption. More specifically, national media environments characterized by higher levels of newspaper-centrism are related to smaller gaps in newspaper reading between those with high and low levels of education and political interest. Lower degrees of newspaper-centrism are, on the other hand, related to a weaker “lower-class bias” of television news and larger gaps in news consumption between those with and without high political interest. These findings are discussed in light of previous research on news consumption, knowledge, and participation gaps as well as cross-national comparative research.     

Briefly Noted

The argument is commonly made that television has changed the character of parliamentary elections. Its ever more central role in election campaigns outside the United States is held to have “presidentialized” parliamentary elections because it is a medium that projects personalities more effectively than ideas or policies. A comparison of the electoral roles of the Australian prime minister and the U.S. president indicates that both leaders are held personally accountable for government performance. However, such “presidentialism” appears to have little to do with television in Australia or in the United States. Television‐dependent citizens in both countries are less susceptible to the campaign appeals of chief executives than the rest of the voting public. Both leaders, but especially the president, do have an electoral impact. Counter to expectations, however, this impact makes itself felt in both cases among those voters who are not dependent on television for their political information and cues. Party identification seems to insulate the television‐dependent more successfully against leader effects.     

改革开放以来国内毛泽东新民主主义文化思想研究述评

改革开放以来,国内学者对毛泽东的新民主主义文化思想进行了深入的研究,既取得了丰硕的理论成果也诞生了一大批很有影响的学者。对这些研究成果做一个系统梳理,可以归纳概括出学者们研究的角度,以及有待深入研究的领域。从横向的角度概括已取得成果的特点;揭示研究学者们研究毛泽东新民主主义思想所经历的阶段,以及每一个阶段的特点;已有成果研究的重点和热点问题,包括毛泽东新民主主义的形成、理论体系、特征、作用和局限性等仍具有一定学术价值。     

Community-Partnered Needs Assessment: A Strategy to Teach College Students About Health Disparities

Partnering with communities to provide service-learning opportunities for undergraduates can be an effective strategy to teach college students about health disparities. In the current study, undergraduates partnered with a public K–8 school to conduct a participatory needs assessment. College students worked directly with teachers, parents, public school students, and key stakeholders to identify and prioritize health needs, and they awarded the partnership school a grant to address physical activity and bullying. Undergraduates rated the class highly favorably and reported a deeper understanding of health disparities resulting from the service-learning activity. Health disparities research is increasingly becoming a national priority and service learning can attract future talent by providing undergraduates with the opportunity to engage in the material in a meaningful way with clear community benefit.     

Life Imitates (and Informs) Meta-Analysis

SUMMARY

Mentoring programs for youth have become immensely popular in recent years. Evaluations of their effectiveness, however, have yielded mixed results. These findings underscore a need for more careful and in-depth scrutiny of programmatic features that are necessary for mentoring relationships to provide intended benefits to youth. Utilizing a novel, participatory research perspective, this paper considers the author's own experiences as a mentor of a 9-year-old boy and their relation to a set of program best practices identified in a recent meta-analysis of the literature (DuBois, Holloway, Valentine, & Cooper, in press). A framework for efforts to enhance mentoring program effectiveness is described.     

Laudable aims and problematic consequences,or: The ‘flow’ of knowledge is not neutral

This is a comment on how environments apparently favourable to open-ended and exploratory research, as across disciplines, can turn out to be rather otherwise. Social anthropology is the discipline in question here, and the current rhetoric of interdisciplinarity the source of some (new) problems.     

日汉外来语历史发展及介入方式比较研究

外来语是不同语言文化接触的必然产物,也是不同民族间交流来往的见证.日汉两民族在与外族交往的过程中,或直接借词或通过译词的方式接收外来词,逐渐形成了现在的词汇体系.文章对日汉外来语的历史发展和吸收方式进行对比分析和研究,找出二者之间存在的异同,为日汉外来语的研究提供参考.     

近三十年来中江兆民思想研究

近年来关于中江兆民的研究主要涉及其哲学思想、政治思想及汉学对其影响等方面。中江兆民研究始于20世纪80年代,起步于对其哲学思想的研究,随后逐渐扩展到其他方面。总的来说数量上是有所增加的,质量也有所提高,但视角还不够丰富。总之,对于这样一个在日本近代史上占有重要地位的思想家来说,目前国内的研究还有其不足之处。     

African research and development surveys: Highlights from the South African success story

ABSTRACT

Science and technology have a major role to play in current and future developments on the African continent as a whole. With the vast array of developmental challenges, current thinking needs to be expanded, so that technologies provide increased and enhanced solutions, such that African scientists produce an African response to the very many shared challenges affecting Africa – both as individual nations and as regards African people collectively. Key to developing an integrated science and technology network, within and across nations, is firstly to understand the extent of research and development (R&D) currently undertaken within individual territories and on the continent as a whole. In light of this, the article examines the value and importance of national surveys of research and experimental development undertaken in Africa. Within the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), many member states now have dedicated departments overseeing state science and technology (S&T) development initiatives. South Africa has the most developed science and technology system on the continent. In recent years, other SADC countries like Mozambique, Botswana and Namibia have initiated projects to measure R&D activities within their territories. Despite this, further North, R&D measurement on the continent is uncommon, both as a result and as a cause of underdevelopment.

The article explores the limited data from selected African R&D surveys in an attempt to understand measurement issues that exist and to detail the value and importance of mapping S&T systems and their applications to developmental issues in Africa. In countries like Algeria, Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, where S&T systems exist, effective means of measurement need to be established, so that the power of these systems can be harnessed, shared and exploited to benefit the African people. To this end, the African Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators (ASTII) initiative was set up at a meeting in Addis Ababa with the aim of delivering a survey of these countries’ R&D output and potential. This is eagerly awaited by the African S&T community.

At the forefront of African R&D measurement is the South African national R&D survey, administered by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC). Being an established survey, the South African team is often called upon by other African nations to support the setting up of surveys. The HSRC also trains visiting African scientists in the delivery of accurate and reliable R&D survey data. This article will, for the first time, present detailed results of the most recent South African national R&D survey (2008/2009), together with a trend analysis of historic South African R&D surveys.