by jon on
Feb 29, 2008 at 9:50 am
Article: The Blogosophere as a Public Arena, Social Problems, February 2008.
Summary: In an age of mass media and giant corporate news agencies, many optimistically look to the internet as a new venue for non-elites to make their voices heard and push issues into the public discourse.
Ray Maratea analyzes the role blogs play in the competition for public attention and finds that blogs do, in fact, offer many advantages. Thanks to the speed at which blogs can be updated and the ability of blog posts to quickly spread through the internet via hyperlinking, blogs can be an effective means of drawing public attention to issues.
However, in other respects blogs aren’t as revolutionary as they may seem. For example, the blogosophere is very hierarchical, with a small number of blogs drawing most of the traffic. Additionally, blogs tend to use the same criteria as traditional media when deciding what is deserving of attention, such as drama and novelty.
by jon on
Feb 29, 2008 at 9:49 am
Article: Cross-ideological discussions among conservative and liberal bloggers, Public Choice, January 2008.
Summary: On the one hand, the internet provides people with access to an extraordinarily diverse range of information and opinions. On the other hand, the internet can also bring like-minded people together into isolated, homogeneous communities devoid of dissent and diversity. Which side wins out?
Eszter Hargittai, Jason Gallo and Matthew Kane look at political blogs and examine how frequently conservative bloggers link to liberal bloggers and vice versa. They followed 40 of the top political blogs (20 conservative, 20 liberal) for three week-long periods over the course of ten months. They have several interesting findings:
- In terms of blogroll links, conservatives are more likely to link to liberal blogs than liberal bloggers are to link to conservative blogs.
- Within blog posts, about 12% of outgoing links from conservative blogs went to liberal blogs, and about 16% of outgoing links from liberal blogs went to conservative blogs.
- Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most common format of these cross-ideological links follow a “straw-man” format, simply dismissing the other sides’ views
- However, when blog posts actually engage the substance of the linked article, conservative bloggers were actually more likely to agree (14%) than disagree (12%), while liberal bloggers only expressed substantive agreement 5% of the time.
In short, they found some support for both faces of the internet, and also found some interesting differences between conservative and liberal bloggers.
If this is interesting to you, this article is part of a special issue on blogs and politics.
by jesse on
Feb 25, 2008 at 11:41 am
Article: Incorporating Ritual Into Greedy Institution Theory: The Case of Devotion in Amateur Chess. The Sociological Quarterly, Winter 2008
Summary: Ever wonder why the kid who gets beaten up for his love of chess keeps coming back to the game that is the source of his grief? Antony J. Puddephatt thinks the answer lies in examining amatuer chess as a “greedy instituion” that works through five elements ((1) isolation from competing social spheres; (2) encapsulation within a symbolic status structure; (3) a collective feeling of elite status; (4) trials of worthiness; and (5) prestructured ritual) to foster commitment amongst players.
by chika on
Jan 24, 2008 at 10:17 pm
Article: “Fat in the Fire? Science, the News Media, and the ‘Obesity Epidemic’.” Sociological Forum 23(1): 53-83.
Summary: Watch out for news reporting on weight gain and health crisis – you might be blaming yourself for recent weight gains more than you should. While the news media and medical science publications share much in their reports on obesity and health, news media dramatize the issue more, highlight our individual responsibilities more, and blame particularly the poor, racial minorities, and women more, Saguy and Almeling (Sociological Forum 2008) find. The exponential growths of reports on obesity and weight since 1980 are the same in both medical and news publications, but the news media have continued to beat the medical publication in the article counts since the mid-1990s. The expansion of media coverage and the preferred use of sensational words like “crisis” and “epidemic” might be flaring the issue of fat in the fire.
by jesse on
Jan 24, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Article: Dynamics of Political Polarization. American Sociological Review, October 2007
Summary: This article deals with two “puzzling paradoxes.” The first is the simultaneous absence and presence of attitude polarization; the notion that global attitude polarization if rare, yet pundits typically describe it as commonplace. The second is the simultaneous presence and absence of social polarization; while individuals typically have very little difference in attitude from those that make up their social/interpersonal networks, their larger networks are nonetheless characterized by considerable differences in attitude. These paradoxes are resolved through the understanding of a few key concepts. The first is what the authors term “take off” issues: those issues that for a very short period demand attention and appaear to radically polarize the populus, such as the Iraq war or stem cell research. It is also essential to understand that not only may people have conflicting views and opinions in their own thoughts, people are highly selective in the issues they discuss with others. As such, people are much less likely to discuss “takeoff” issues with those whose opinions they are unfamiliar with or knowingly opposed to. In combination, these factors explain why people see so little polarization in their day-to-day lives, et hear so much about the polarized world they live in from television commentators.
by jesse on
Jan 24, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Article: The Labeling of Convicted Felons and Its Consequences for Recidivism. Criminology, August 2007
Summary: Florida law allows judges to withhold adjudication of quilt for people found guilty of a felony and sentenced to probation. In effect, these individual’s records do not reflect the felony at all; they lose no civil rights and may lawfully claim they have enevr been convicted of a felony. To test the power of the felony label, the authors looked at nearly 96,000 felony cases in Florida and compared those who were given adjudication and those who were not. Their study finds that those who receive the formal label of felon are significantly more likely to commit another crime in the next two years that those who do not, even when controlling for multiple location characteristics (crime rate, relative poverty rate, etc.). The effect of the label is found to be stronger for whites and females, as well as those who had reached the age of 30 with no prior convictions. The authors point to ways in which the judicious use of the adjucation process can reduce harm not only at the individual level, but at the societal level as well.
by jesse on
Jan 24, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Article: Conservative Protestant Congregations and Racial Residential Segregation:Evaluating the Closed Community Thesis in Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Counties. American Sociological Review, June, 2007.
Summary: This article tests the hypothesis that the number of Conservative Protestant congregations per 1,000 non-Hispanic whites is directly associated with the level of residential segregation between whites and blacks. The author finds that levels of segregation correspond positively with the presence of Conservative Protestant congregations and is consistnet across a variety of both urban and rural locales. Blanchard (the author) argues that this takes place not simply because of racial intolerance (though he admits this may have some impact in these congregations), but rather because of the closed nature of these groups and a strong focus on in-group relationships. Unlike other major Christian denominations, Conservative Protestans eschew programs and services that reach out to non-members and instead emphasize in-groupt ties and relationships. Furthermore, while other churches may serve as the meeting point for different races and thus act as a springboard toward integration, the closed nature of Conservative Protestant congregations serves to strengthen, not weaken, excisting social cleavages.
by heather on
Jan 17, 2008 at 11:22 pm
Article: Joining up: Did military service in the early all volunteer era affect subsequent civilian income? Social Science Research, December 2007
Summary: “The military has historically been the single largest employer of young men and the largest vocational training institution in the nation.” So how are the benefits? Jay Teachman and Lucky Tedrow examine the long-term impact of military service on men’s income and find that military service gives young men from disadvantaged backgrounds an income boost while they’re active, but things tend to even out for enlistees once discharged. Furthermore, white veterans with at least a high school degree suffer an income deficit when compared to their civilian counterparts.
“Nearly two decades following discharge from the military (and net of many important controls, including several attempts to adjust for selectivity), better educated White veterans earn about 87% of the income enjoyed by their nonveteran counterparts. Thus, on the face of the matter, military service does not appear to be a wise economic choice for many men who could otherwise do better by remaining in the civilian labor market. They lose critical labor market experience and likely lose important information about job networks.”
The noteworthy exception to this trend is that Blacks with less than a high school education receive an income premium from their service. These results have important implications for military recruitment efforts.
by heather on
Jan 17, 2008 at 9:13 pm
Article: The Association of Couples’ Relationship Status and Quality with Breastfeeding Initiation Journal of Marriage and Family, December 2007
Summary: In a recent study, Christina M. Gibson-Davis and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn weigh in on the growing debate over whether diverse family forms influence child well-being. Looking at data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Survey, the authors examine the links between relationship status, relationship quality, and race and ethnicity in breastfeeding initiation. In line with previous findings, the authors conclude that married women are more likely to breastfeed than mothers in other family forms. At the same time, however, the variability between cohabiting, non-cohabiting partners, and non-romantically involved parents should not be downplayed. Another noteworthy finding is that non-married mothers who received paternal financial support during pregnancy were half as likely to breastfeed. Among non-married African American mothers, paternal emotional support also decreased the likelihood of breastfeeding by 28%.
by meg on
Jan 17, 2008 at 8:43 pm
Article: Coverage Bias in Traditional Telephone Surveys of Low-Income and Young Adults Public Opinion Quarterly, vol. 71, no. 5
Summary: This article finds that surveys that rely on traditional random-digit-dials of landlines have a significant bias in their information about low-income young people. Because 32% of low-income young adults live in households with only a wireless phone, telephone surveys that do not include cell phones will understimate the prevalence of binge drinking and smoking, but will overestimate obesity. These surveys will also underestimate physical activity and the prevalence of HIV testing. This article is part of a special issue on telephone surveys and cell phones in the United States.