A comparison of email versus letter threat contacts toward members of the United States Congress

To better understand inappropriate correspondence sent to public officials, 301 letter cases and 99 email cases were randomly selected from the United States Capitol Police investigative case files and compared. Results indicate that letter writers were significantly more likely than emailers to exhibit indicators of serious mental illness (SMI), engage in target dispersion, use multiple methods of contact, and make a problematic approach toward their target. Emailers were significantly more likely than letter writers to focus on government concerns, use obscene language, and display disorganization in their writing. Also, letter writers tended to be significantly older, have more criminal history, and write longer communications. A multivariate model found that disorganization, SMI symptoms, problematic physical approach, and target dispersion significantly differentiated between the correspondence groups. The group differences illuminated by this study reveal that letter writers are engaging in behavior that is higher risk for problematic approach than are emailers.     

Digital Inclusion for Persons with Disabilities in China Under COVID-19: How Far Has China Come?

This article reviews social regulatory and redistributive policies in China that aim at fostering digital inclusion of persons with disabilities. We examine the emerging Chinese policies and how China has responded to the impacts of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on digital inclusion in terms of redistribution, market regulation, involvement of persons with disabilities and disabled people’s organizations (DPOs), and awareness-raising campaigns. The policy review demonstrates that the Chinese policy framework contains a few redistributive initiatives, for example, cash transfer programs, and free distribution of information and communications technology (ICT). These have the potential to increase the uptake of ICT among persons with disabilities. The Chinese policy framework also includes provisions to ensure consultation with individual persons with disabilities and DPOs in the deliberation and implementation of ICT accessibility policies. While China has initiated awareness-raising campaigns among market actors about the importance of digital inclusion, so far, the Chinese government has adopted little legal regulation of the market to foster accessibility to ICT. The article thus argues that some of the limitations may be due to the way state–market relations have developed since the economy opened up in 1978. Apart from the growing benefits of several cash transfer programs, we have not seen major changes or adjustments to the current policy framework during the efforts to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on digital inclusion.     

The design,purpose, and effects of voting advice applications

In recent electoral politics, one of the most striking internet-related developments is the increasingly widespread use of Voting Advice Applications (VAAs). In this introduction to the symposium devoted to analysing the design, purpose, and effects of voting advice applications, we briefly discuss the literature on these tools for voters, articulate the aims of the symposium, and summarise the six contributions. These papers represent the leading edge of an emerging subfield of electoral research, which has not only significant practical relevance but also research links with many other fields in political science.     

战后台湾地方新闻报道的实践历程

战后60年来，台湾地方新闻报道的整体发展历程，乃是台湾特有的历史与政治背景、西方新闻与大众传播论述的引进，以及新传播科技的变革等因素相互激荡的结果。通过“酝酿期”、“发展期”、“衰退期”、“转型期”等四个阶段的划分，本文展现出台湾新闻报导发展历程中，地方新闻报导概念的变迁形貌。进一步，本文以台湾地方新闻报道的实践经验为基础，融合当代社交媒体时代的媒体生态，提出“贴近本土话题，呈现多元意见，创造公共意识”三项功能，作为中国大陆落实地方新闻报道理念的创新路径。     

In search of proximate enemies

Abstract: The post-Cold War context has accompanied the ascent of East Asian economies and consumer markets, as exemplified by China, while Japan's experience has been marked by the struggle with an economic slump after the collapse of the so-called bubble economy. Japan has been actively promoting ‘cool Japan’ instead of the economy, but even more notable is the rise of the Korean Wave. Joined together with political contestation over historical issues, anti-China/Korea sentiments have been growing, as is the accompanying hate-speech movement against resident Koreans in new-millennium Japan. Growing East Asian rivalry along with the relative decline of Japan, the widely shared sense of socio-economic predicament and the upsurge of digital media communications have been conjoined to generate the hunt for proximate enemies – China, Korea, and resident Koreans in Japan – as the object of expressions of hate. How to develop better uses of digital media towards the cultivation of dialogic cultural citizenship is an imperative issue.     

Negotiating Refugee Empowerment(s) in Resettlement Organizations

In-depth interviews with both organizational staff and refugee clients in two American refugee resettlement organizations explore how empowerment is communicated to and understood by refugees being “empowered.” This study found that while organizational staff professed empowerment focused on self-sufficiency as self-determination, in practice their communication to clients defined self-sufficiency a priori in economic terms. Refugee clients instead constructed empowerment(s) in economic, educational, personal, and family terms. These findings highlight the need for changes in U.S. resettlement policy and for theoretical and practical understandings of refugee empowerment to recognize polysemic and conflicting empowerments in different life arenas and from different positionalities.     

人同人如何相异化--遵循马克思的思想脉络

因为人对自身的任何关系都通过人对他人的关系得到实现和表现，所以劳动异化能够过渡到人同人相异化、交往异化和社会联系异化。《手稿》异化劳动的前三个规定与第四个规定——“人同人相异化”，与《穆勒评注》中的交往异化和社会联系异化，都遵从同一个异化逻辑。异化的主体既可以是“孤立人”，也可以是两人或多人关系及其承载物。异化劳动和私有财产是阐释交往异化、社会联系异化的根源性概念。“社会联系异化”比“交往异化”能更准确地概括《穆勒评注》的主题。     

Gender and vote revelation strategy in the United States Congress

Legislators approach each election as if they might lose. Electoral insecurity coupled with gender stereotypes held by voters and lawmakers alike may lead female legislators to communicate more voting decisions to voters as a signal of their policy-driven efforts. Using an original data-set of over 40,000 official e-newsletters and Real Simple Syndication feeds sent by members of Congress, I show that women reveal more roll call votes to constituents than their male counterparts. Significant differences exist between male and female incumbents in the frequency of vote revelation despite the fact that male and female legislators use these communication techniques to reach constituents at the same rates and call attention to similar bills. These differences persist after accounting for the effects of party, seniority, district fit, and other potential confounds. Women highlight their ability to fulfill the roles expected of lawmakers by explicitly signaling involvement in lawmaking activities more frequently than men. In a second test, I analyze the types of bills legislators reveal votes on and find no differences between men and women.     

青年同性恋者社会交往的“逆差序格局”研究

在异性恋文化为主流文化的中国社会,青年同性恋群体的日常交往中面临着角色扮演的两难、人际交往的困境、不被社会甚至是亲人和朋友接纳的苦楚。从家庭社会学的视角出发,通过参与观察和访谈的方法对19位青年同性恋者的交往圈层进行以“己”为核心,同性伴侣及朋友、趣缘群与业缘群体、血缘群体依次外推的差序化呈现,来剖析青年同性恋者社会交往中“逆差序格局”形成的原因,可引发对未来多元化家庭发展的可能性以及家庭概念外延的丰富性的讨论。     

“互联网+”时代下司法与舆论良性互动论

媒体是民主法治的推动者、公平正义的维护者、安定秩序的营造者，与司法公正并称为现代法治社会的两大基石。新的互联网时代，司法与媒体应该构建更加紧密的良性互动机制，科学把握新闻时效性与司法程序性的对立统一、舆论开放性与司法谦抑性的对立统一、正义期待性与现实局限性的对立统一，协同推进法治中国的建设。