Excavating Concealed Tradeoffs: How Russians Watch the News

Citizens in democracies are expected to make better decisions if they understand policy tradeoffs. However, politicians rarely have incentives to communicate them; citizens are uncomfortable choosing among valued outcomes; and devising a common metric is difficult. It is not surprising that in the United States the environment provides relatively little cuing or priming of tradeoffs in television news. Russian citizens, on the other hand, face a media environment in which tradeoff cuing is intentionally suppressed by owners' agendas, yet viewers detect concealed tradeoffs even in the absence of tradeoff priming and viewpoint diversity. Analysis of discourse among ordinary Russians in 16 focus groups convened in four cities, differentiated by political reform and media market environments, showed that when watching news in which tradeoffs are thoroughly concealed, viewers challenge stories by offering a broad spectrum of uncued tradeoffs. Tradeoffs come from diverse policy domains and represent a range of cognitive strategies, some of which are considerably more abstract than others and link elements of their observations and assumptions (together with what they can extract from the stories) into complex reasoning outcomes.     

Elaborations on credibility judgments by professional lie detectors and laypersons: strategies of judgment and justification

Abstract

Laypersons and professional lie detectors differ in biases of credibility judgment. The former are biased toward the truth, whereas the latter are biased toward lies. In an attempt to further understand these differences, the present study focused on the process of credibility judgment, rather than on its outcome. Forty-nine professionals (27 officers, 11 interrogators, 11 intelligence and secret services agents) and 40 laypersons (students) read an account of an event, and judged the credibility of the narrator; namely, the likelihood that he had actually experienced the event. Laypersons tended to believe the narrator more than professionals. The two groups also differed from each other in judgmental strategy (heuristic versus systematic) and justification (of either believing or disbelieving the narrator), and in the interpretation of the very same heuristics. Overall, the data showed that in credibility judgment laypersons and professionals process information differently: analyzing the very same statement, the former tended to consider it as true, whereas the latter tended to consider it as false. These data may partially account for the observed biases in credibility judgment of laypersons and professionals.     

Using immersive virtual reality and ecological psychology to probe into child molesters' phenomenology

Abstract

Child molesters (n=13) and sexually non-deviant subjects (n=29) were immersed with virtual characters depicting relevant sexual features while their sexual arousal and gaze behaviour were assessed to characterise their sexual preferences and intentional dynamics. Sexual arousal was measured using circumferential penile plethysmography (PPG). Gaze behaviour dynamics were derived from average gaze radial angular deviation (GRAD) and GRAD coefficient of variation (GRADCV). Results show distinct sexual arousal profiles according to sexual preferences and point towards the existence of specific gaze behaviour dynamics guided by sexual intentions. Theoretical interpretations are based on the ecological psychology of J. J. Gibson, the extended mind theory and the integrated theory of sexual offending. Theoretical underpinnings stemming from these approaches are advocated as being especially well suited to explain how virtual reality can help probing into child molesters' phenomenology as lived from the “first-person” stance.     

The Strategic Timing behind Position-taking in the US Congress: A Study of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act

Roll call voting by members of the US Congress has been frequently studied. In contrast, the various decisions leading up to roll call voting are relatively unexplored. This article analyses one of those decisions: when senators announce their final passage vote intention. The authors use the same set of variables to analyse both the timing of the announcement and the final passage vote. They find that different independent variables predict these two different decisions, though the constituency and the senator's institutional setting matter in both. Furthermore, this study corroborates an assumption in the rational choice literature that those members with the most information are the first movers.     

我国女性休闲研究现状与展望--基于CNKI 2005～2014年文献的内容分析

基于CNKI 2005～2014年度数据,采用内容分析法和文献计量法,在文献数量、文献引文情况、文献研究主题、采用的研究方法、期刊影响力、研究作者、主要研究机构等8个方面总结评价我国女性休闲研究的基本情况及其局限后发现,未来的研究应该从以下几方面多视角地透视女性休闲问题：拓宽女性休闲研究领域;采用多元化的方法和手段研究女性休闲问题;加强女性休闲领域的实证研究,加强同妇女维权组织的合作等,以进一步深化女性休闲研究。     

生态保护补偿制度的价值取向和立法选择

生态保护补偿制度从环境法学角度看,是通过制定合理、科学、可行的规则来激励人们的生态环境保护行为,协调其背后各方利益之间的关系,以实现保护生态环境、促进社会公平目的的制度。环境权与生存权、发展权都是人类同时追求的正当人权,但这些权利在现实中往往存在矛盾之处,有效解决环境权与生存权、发展权三者间的矛盾是生态保护补偿制度设立的根本动因,也是生态保护补偿制度在法理学意义上的价值归属。生态保护补偿制度的推进关键在立法,其立法可采取基本法与单行法并举的立法模式,尽快制定《生态保护补偿法》基本法和专门领域、专门类别的生态保护补偿单行法;立法内容上应明确生态保护补偿法律关系主体,确定生态保护补偿标准和方式,完善生态保护补偿的程序,规范生态保护补偿的监管。     

我国基层民主的特点分析

我国基层民主作为社会主义民主的重要组成部分具有以下几个特点:一是主体的广泛性,这是人民群众直接参与与自身利益密切相关的国家与社会事务管理政治活动的基础;二是内容的差异性,这是基层民主建设的基本规律;三是环节的连续性,这是实现民主选举、民主决策、民主管理和民主监督并重的全过程民主;四是路径的渐进性,这是基层民主政治建设艰巨性的体现;五是实践的直接性,这是我国基层民主发展的基本思路。     

YouTube: A Political Advertising Tool? A Case Study of the Use of YouTube in the Campaign for the European Parliament Elections 2009

Political campaigns are made to attract the attention from citizens. The beginning of its adaption is linked to the appearance of the social media and user-generated content. Since the number of users of social network sites in Europe constantly grows, 2009 was the first time that these websites were used in political marketing purposes for the European Parliament elections. This is an exploratory study of the nature and extent of video-based social media, studied through the content analysis of YouTube videos created for the electoral campaign for the 2009 European Parliament . ( 2009 ). European elections . Retrieved from http://www.europarl.europa.eu/elections2009/default.htm?language=en  [Google Scholar] European Parliament elections by 13 political parties from four EU states. Results have shown the specificities of political advertising on the YouTube, a raising interest in social media among citizens in Europe, and the development of this way of campaigning.     

肖像权三题简

肖像权是自然人享有的重要人身权。肖像利益是肖像权的客体,既包括人身利益也包括财产利益。角色形象不属于肖像权。肖像权包括肖像制作权、肖像使用权和肖像利益维护权。对肖像权的限制应限于法律明文规定。     

社会实在的规范性与公私法的界限——与徐国栋教授商榷民法的“公私法混合说”

民法的＂公私法混合说＂建立在＂强行法说＂基础之上,该理论通过区分任意性规范和强制性规范把私法的范围限于任意性规范。强行法说预设了一种缺少规范性的＂社会实在＂：一方面忽略了法律对社会实在的构造功能,没能看到强制性规范与私人领域的构成性关系;另一方面忽略了通过强制性规范所表达的私人自治的规范性要素,没能看到强制性规范与私人领域之间在合法性意义上的共生性。尽管公私法的划分问题具有可争议性,但强行法说因其对社会实在的理解存在偏差而无法成为一种妥当的公私法界限理论,民法的＂公私法混合说＂自然无法成立。