College Students’ Adjustment: The Role of Parent–College Student Expectation Discrepancies and Communication Reciprocity

Parents’ influence on college students’ adjustment is underestimated frequently. As college students often set goals based on their perceptions of their parents’ expectations, discrepancies between college students’ and their parents’ expectations may be related to their adjustment. The purpose of this study was to examine parent–college student expectation discrepancies and communication reciprocity as predictors of college students’ adjustment in a diverse sample of 69 male and 105 female freshmen and sophomores from a large southeastern university. A subsample of their mothers and fathers also participated in this study. Correlational results revealed that college students report experiencing lower levels of self-worth and adjustment when higher expectation discrepancies are present between themselves and their parents. Regression results also indicated that expectation discrepancies and college students’ perceptions of communication reciprocity are important predictors of college students’ self-worth and adjustment. Such findings suggested that teaching assertive communication skills to college students and their parents may serve as a means of promoting positive outcomes for college students.

贵州少数民族妇女素质问题研究

因为历史及居住环境等因素,作为少数民族文化的体现和载体者,在漫长的历史长河中逐渐形成的本民族文化的封闭性、保守性,体现在本民族妇女身上仍然十分突出,极大地影响了她们自身素质的提高,延缓了现代化进程。要改变目前这种状况,必须通过外界的新文化、新思想,来消除少数民族妇女自身障碍,这是促使她们能够自觉地改变旧有观念,进而提高自身素质的关键;是促使其个体健康发展继而融入到人力资源优势整体中的关键;也是建立新型农村、塑造新型农民,让弱势群体共享社会成果,构建和谐社会、向现代化积极迈进的关键。     

Similarities between terrorist networks in antiquity and present-day cyberterrorist networks

This paper analyzes the similarities between terrorist networks in Antiquity and cyberterrorist networks today. By establishing comparisons between networks from two classes of terrorists whose actions were recorded 2,000 years apart, this paper adds substance to the understanding of the superiority of networks to archetypical organizational structures (i.e., with a hierarchically-based order). By identifying three major factors, many analogies can be drawn, based on empirical statements found throughout this analysis, between cyberterrorist networks in this day and age and terrorist networks in Antiquity. Those factors are (1) similar patterns of communication, (2) similar connections and kinship webs, and (3) similar obstacles.     

Introduction: the politics of public justification

ABSTRACT

Introducing the special issue, this introduction sketches a broad frame for studying public justification. Addressing the relevance of studying this phenomenon, we contend that justificatory processes are very much at the core today’s politics. Defining the concept inclusively, we highlight the relevance of communicative agency and, at the same time, the salience of communicative contexts that enable this agency. Casting our net widely, we show how public justification is related to other, more thoroughly studied concepts, such as legitimacy, authority and power. Encouraging students of public justification to add to our understanding of justificatory processes, we highlight multiple fruitful methodological avenues for studying the concept.     

善治理论视角下的和谐警民关系构建

警民关系是公安机关在社会管理中要处理的最重要的一项公共关系,其和谐与否直接关系到国家与社会的稳定。近年来警民冲突事件屡见报端,原因主要在于社会、政府、群众与公安队伍自身四个方面。从善治理论的视角分析,构建和谐警民关系有三路径选择,应提倡由公安机关主导的群众参与式社会治理模式。     

The ontic interconnectedness and interdependence of language and communicative actions

Abstract

An analysis of the interconnectedness of different functional domains within reality opens up the possibility to account for the multivocality of terms and for an analysis of the multifaceted meaning of language and communicative actions – their intertwinement with the integral meaning-coherence of reality. Therefore, the focus of this follow-up article is directed at the interdependent nature of communicative (i.e., socially disclosed) language use. Reflection on the problem of unity and diversity guides the discernment of the dualism present in Habermas's view and the assessment of the definition of communication in terms of the idea of a transition and/or sharing of meaning. Crucial ideas of Saussure, Derrida and Habermas are related to the mutability and immutability of the sign before the significance of the distinction between entity and function is applied to the conditions for and inter-functional connections of language and communicative actions. A discussion of the multifaceted coherence in which communicative actions are embedded subsequently receives attention. Finally, in view of the distinction between principles and their application (form-giving, positivisation) conventions, construction and the idea of autonomy are briefly assessed.     

The Practice of Deliberative Democracy: A Study of 16 Deliberative Organizations

This article investigates 16 organizations that attempt to foster better public deliberation in local and national communities. It develops a typology of these organizations and discusses them in the context of the scholarly literature on deliberative democracy. It particularly focuses upon the contributions these organizations may make to debates within the literature between advocates of relational and rational modes of deliberation. It finds that, much like the literature, practitioners of deliberative democracy wrestle with the competing demands of inclusiveness and group cohesion. Organizations attempt to solve this dilemma by stressing group action. However, this emphasis on action raises another dilemma associated with the relation between deliberative and representative models of politics. The essay concludes by suggesting that these organizations have accepted the challenge of improving public life through discourse that has been laid down by deliberative democratic theory. As such, they represent a natural experiment in deliberative democracy that deserves the serious attention of the scholarly community.     

The Homeopathic Image,or, Trauma,Intimacy and Poetry

Abstract

The concept of trauma has recently expanded its reach to include what otherwise might be understood as intimate experience. This overextension represents a threat to our ability to conceptualize intimate experiences, hence to use concepts to engage in intimate communication. An analysis of Wallace Stevens' poem "The Auroras of Autumn", demonstrates how poetry provides a supplemental vehicle for the communication of intimate experiences. Poetry is therefore characterized as an essential element in ethical life.     

Values,Communication Behavior,and Political Participation

This article examines how communication patterns mediate the influences of values on political participation. We find that the positive effects of postmaterial values on participation are mediated through reading public affairs content in newspapers. In contrast, materialist values negatively affect participation through watching television entertainment. Interpersonal discussion in which disagreement occurs mediates both the positive effect of reading public affairs and the negative effect of materialism on political participation. We also provide what may be a better explanation of the influence of communication patterns on political participation by going beyond acquisition of factual political knowledge. We show that individuals' efforts to think about news and search for additional information and perspectives modify what people "get from" media. Reflecting about news and integrating information from various sources promote better understanding of the political world and may provide a stronger cognitive base for political participation than factual political knowledge.     

An academic perspective on the copyright reform

The recently proposed new Copyright Directive was released on 14 September 2016. It has been described by EU law-makers as the pillar of the copyright package promised by the European Commission (EC), to be delivered before the end of Mr. Juncker's mandate. In its Communication of 6 May 2015, the EC had stressed “the importance to enhance cross-border access to copyright-protected content services, facilitate new uses in the fields of research and education, and clarify the role of online services in the distribution of works and other subject-matter.” The proposed Copyright Directive is thus a key measure aiming to address two of these three issues. However it is not without shortfalls.We have therefore decided to publicly express our concerns and send an open letter to the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council to urge them to re-assess the new provisions dealing with mandatory filtering of user-generated content in the light of the CJEU case law and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.In a more extended statement, we examine in details the text of both the explanatory memorandum and the Directive itself.Our conclusions are:1. A comprehensive re-assessment of Article 13 and Recital 39 in the light of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the E-commerce Directive (in particular Article 15) including CJEU case law is needed, as the proposed Copyright Directive does not expressly address the issue of its compatibility with both of these texts.2. Recital 38 does not clarify the domain and effect of Article 13. Rather, it creates confusion as it goes against settled CJEU case law (relating to Articles 14 and 15 of the E-commerce Directive and Article 3 of the Infosoc Directive). Recital 38 should therefore be deleted or substantially re-drafted/re-phrased. If the EU wants to introduce a change in this regard it should clearly justify its choice. In any case, a recital in the preamble to a directive is not an appropriate tool to achieve this effect.We hope that this exercise will prove useful for the debate that has now begun both in the European Parliament and in the Council.