Candidates’ use of informal communication on social media reduces credibility and support: Examining the consequences of expectancy violations

ABSTRACT

This experiment (N= 476) investigates how individuals evaluate political candidates who use informal communication on social media. We use expectancy violations theory (EVT) to predict that informal communication will lead to negative evaluations. Our results suggest that politicians’ use of informal communication on social media leads to expectancy violation, which decreases perceived credibility and lessens intention to support a candidate. This effect was not moderated by sex (male versus female) or age (young versus old) of the candidate, nor of participants being the same sex as the candidate. These findings suggest that political figures should use informal communication on social media with caution.     

Strategic alignment of participant motivations in e-government collaborations: The Internet Payment Platform pilot

Large-scale information technology implementations are risky projects, and the challenges and risks multiply when multiple organizations are involved, as is often the case in e-government initiatives. Some of the risk can be addressed by carefully aligning the partners' motivations, which are affected by each organization's internal and external operational and information technology strategies. In this paper, we propose a strategic alignment framework and use it to examine the motivations of a set of collaborating government agencies and businesses in the pilot implementation of the Internet Payment Platform, an interorganizational, third-party hosted, e-procurement system. As we predict, the partners in this study had varied technical, political, economic, and operational motivations for participating in the project. Even so, the participating agencies reported positive outcomes from the project, and look forward to further collaboration on the next iteration of this e-procurement system.     

Teachers' Beliefs and Practices in Relation to their Beliefs about Questioning at Key Stage 2

This study examines the relationship between teachers' beliefs and their practices at Key Stage 2 (ages 7-11) in relation to the use of questioning. Data were collected from interviewing and observing Key Stage 2 teachers at four schools in the West of England. A Straussian approach to grounded theory is followed broadly in order to analyse the data. In contrast to the findings of previous studies, which suggested a mismatch between teachers' beliefs and practices in that teachers, in certain respects, do less than they claim, the research revealed that teachers use a variety of skills during their teaching that they may not always be aware of. It is also argued that teachers do not share researchers' language to express the way they teach.     

Which juvenile crime victims get mental health treatment?

OBJECTIVE: To explore factors that facilitate the receipt of mental health treatment among juvenile crime victims. METHOD: Telephone interviews were conducted with a national sample of 157 caretakers whose children had suffered a serious sexual or physical assault in the previous year. RESULTS: Twenty-two percent of caretakers had thought about getting professional counseling for their child victims, and 20% of the child victims actually received it. But half of the families who thought about it did not follow through on their consideration. Moreover, nearly half of those victimized children who actually received counseling did so without their families reporting that they had considered it in advance. The level of symptoms and parent-child relationship factors were related to considering counseling which was in turn strongly related to actually getting counseling. Other factors were independently related to receiving counseling, such as the victimization occurring at school and the victim being perceived as at fault to some degree. Advice to get counseling and medical insurance also played roles. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggested two pathways to counseling. One occurred via direct parental concern, and was associated with such variables as parental perceptions that the child was depressed or withdrawn or that the parent-child relationship had been negatively affected. The other pathway occurred independent of parental concern, most likely via school interventions, because this counseling was in conjunction with school victimizations.     

Measuring a year of child pornography trafficking by U.S. computers on a peer-to-peer network

We used data gathered via investigative “RoundUp” software to measure a year of online child pornography (CP) trafficking activity by U.S. computers on the Gnutella peer-to-peer network. The data include millions of observations of Internet Protocol addresses sharing known CP files, identified as such in previous law enforcement investigations. We found that 244,920 U.S. computers shared 120,418 unique known CP files on Gnutella during the study year. More than 80% of these computers shared fewer than 10 such files during the study year or shared files for fewer than 10 days. However, less than 1% of computers (n = 915) made high annual contributions to the number of known CP files available on the network (100 or more files). If law enforcement arrested the operators of these high-contribution computers and took their files offline, the number of distinct known CP files available in the P2P network could be reduced by as much as 30%. Our findings indicate widespread low level CP trafficking by U.S. computers in one peer-to-peer network, while a small percentage of computers made high contributions to the problem. However, our measures were not comprehensive and should be considered lower bounds estimates. Nonetheless, our findings show that data can be systematically gathered and analyzed to develop an empirical grasp of the scope and characteristics of CP trafficking on peer-to-peer networks. Such measurements can be used to combat the problem. Further, investigative software tools can be used strategically to help law enforcement prioritize investigations.     

FORMATION OF THE CLASSICAL TYPE OF ACADEMY OF SCIENCES IN LATVIA

Well before the full independence of Latvia and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Latvia had begun to profoundly reform its national science system. Key events in the process were the foundation of the Latvian Union of Scientists in 1988 and the Latvian Council of Science in 1990. The next step was the radical reform of the Latvian Academy of Sciences such that it became an independent body of the classical academy type. By 1992, the Academy had adopted a new Charter and new Statutes. At the same time, the institutes which had been subordinated to the Academy became independent. In fact, many of the powers of the old Soviet‐style academy were assumed by the Council of Science and the Department of Science and Higher Education which was created within the Ministry of Education. The overall aim was to pattern Latvian science policy and its institutions on western European models.     

The Effect of Personal Development Planning on Attitudes,Behaviour and Understanding

This paper explores the impact of a personal development planning (PDP) project on the attitudes, behaviour and understanding of students in Years 11 and 12. It examines levels of motivation, personal understanding, communication skills and the responsibility of the students with regard to their own learning at the beginning of the project and again after 6 months. Findings may be of interest to tutors involved in PDP, action planning and similar initiatives driven by the one‐to‐one dialogue.     

Reconciling stable asymmetry with recovery of function: an adaptive systems perspective on functional plasticity

This article examines alternative ways of resolving an apparent paradox that has emerged from neuropsychological studies of language development: How can the developmentally stable functional asymmetry ("hemispheric specialization") observed in neurologically intact children be reconciled with the dramatic recovery of function often displayed following unilateral brain damage? The alternative resolutions we consider differ most critically in the roles they assign to lesion-induced neural reorganizations versus lesion-related release of preexisting functional potentials. Though arguments are given in favor of the latter as the primary factor in functional recovery, the primary goal of the article is to clarify the conceptual issues raised by recent empirical research.