试论电视民生新闻的传播困境

民生新闻自诞生起至今已走过六个年头。六年来，其传播形式与理念在被广泛接受的同时，也引来很大的争议。通过对民生新闻的传播对象、传播形式、主持人、传播焦点和传播理念五个方面的分析，透视其面临的困境和窘境，以期引起业界人士及学者对这方面问题的关注，使得这种电视节目的内涵得到全面提升。     

Voting alone: the decline of bodily mass communication and public sensationalism in presidential elections

The congregational crowd was a powerful mode of political communication in the nineteenth-century US until banished by the imposition of literate modes on popular electoral politics by Progressive reformers. We examine its major channels of expression, bodily mass communication and public sensationalism, within a framework of class-based struggle, observing that the practice of live bodily assembly created broad points of entry into political life, socialized the young, and successfully conveyed the importance of voting. A text-based normative model of the informed deliberative voter, we argue, offers too narrow a conception of participation compared to a more spaciously conceived democratic community.     

城市文化建设中图书馆的张力作用

目前公共图书馆对城市文化建设的影响越来越大,其资源的自身优势和不断延伸的服务能力也越来越重要。图书馆通过开放式的服务、标志性的建筑、独特的文献资源,以及主动的延伸服务手段,彰显了自己的优势和活力,已经成为城市文化发展的重要推手。     

Bordering Populism in Immigration Activism: Outlaw–Civic Discourse in a (Counter)Public

This study involved a rhetorical ethnography and textual analyses of an anti-immigration group over a six month period. I argue the collective engaged in a deleterious form of bordering populism, in which communicators continually attack and praise the same targets. This populism was generated by outlaw–civic shifts between marginalized, outsider stances, and more official, general cultural logics. The group demonstrated a fragile, fracturing approach to a public issue, and local, vernacular practices that are employed to bridge pressures for agitative and integrative movement communication in a pluralistic, globalizing environment. Overall, each of the group's stark rhetorical shifts for and against the government, businesses, and immigrants concurrently crafted and dismantled rhetorical borders, creating an unstable (counter)public forgoing the possibility of democratic communication and community.     

Connecting citizens and local governments? Social media and interactivity in major U.S. cities

Changing the relationship between citizens and government is often cited as a goal for digital government, and new tools such as social media have the potential to improve interactions with citizens through dialogue. Citizens are most likely to participate at the local level (Berry, Portney and Thomson, 1993; Oates, 1972; Oakerson, 1999), and the largest cities have traditionally been at the forefront in the adoption of e-government innovations (Moon, 2002; Ho, 2002). We examine the use of social networks and other interactive tools in the 75 largest U.S. cities between 2009 and 2011. During this period, the adoption of Facebook skyrocketed from just 13% of the cities in 2009 to nearly 87% in 2011; similarly, the use of Twitter increased from 25% to 87%. We further explore three case study cities through analysis of discussion on social networks, and interviews, and find that one-way “push” strategies (Mergel, 2013a) predominate, although there are some signs of greater openness toward dialogue with citizens.     

A promising phenomenon of open data: A case study of the Chicago open data project

This article presents a case study of the open data project in the Chicago area. The main purpose of the research is to explore empowering potential of an open data phenomenon at the local level as a platform useful for promotion of civic engagement projects and provide a framework for future research and hypothesis testing. Today the main challenge in realization of any e-government projects is a traditional top–down administrative mechanism of their realization itself practically without any input from members of the civil society. In this respect, the author of the article argues that the open data concept realized at the local level may provide a real platform for promotion of proactive civic engagement. By harnessing collective wisdom of the local communities, their knowledge and visions of the local challenges, governments could react and meet citizens' needs in a more productive and cost-efficient manner. Open data-driven projects that focused on visualization of environmental issues, mapping of utility management, evaluating of political lobbying, social benefits, closing digital divide, etc. are only some examples of such perspectives. These projects are perhaps harbingers of a new political reality where interactions among citizens at the local level will play a more important role than communication between civil society and government due to the empowering potential of the open data concept.     

Gender differences in the communication values of mature adults

Contrary to the “different cultures” view of men's and women's communication, prior research on communication values has found only small sex differences in the value placed on various affective and instrumental skills. However, this research has been criticized because college students' values may not reflect those of older individuals, and because it has failed to examine the influence of psychological gender (femininity and masculinity). In the current study, 153 men and 151 women over the age of 40 completed the Communication Functions Questionnaire (a measure of value for eight communication skills), as well as the Bern Sex Role Inventory (a measure of femininity and masculinity). Consistent with past research, sex differences in communication values were few and small. Femininity and masculinity were positively associated with most communication values, and mediatedmost of the observed sex differences.     

Civic education in Ethiopian schools: Adopted paradigms,instructional technology,and democratic citizenship in a multicultural context

After nearly two decades of military dictatorship, democratic civic education has been integrated into the Ethiopian school curriculum. This paper examines the policy–practice concordance in implementing the civic education curriculum based on empirical evidence generated on the philosophical underpinnings, curricular contents, pedagogical approaches, and the role of instructional technology. Data were gathered through a questionnaire survey on 179 randomly selected high school students, key informant teachers, and content analysis of students’ textbooks, teachers’ guides, and official policy documents. The findings reveal that the existing civic and ethical education curriculum is eclectic in its character blending the minimal interpretation of democratic civic education with the inclusive conception of ethno-cultural diversity relevant to multicultural societies. Nevertheless, the manner in which the TV-instruction is used in classrooms is found to hinder interactive learning that is instrumental to nurture democratic and active citizens.     

Measures of preschool children's interest and engagement in literacy activities: Examining gender differences and construct dimensions

Multiple approaches to measuring preschool children's literacy interest and engagement (i.e., parent-, teacher-, child-reported child literacy interest and observer-reported child literacy engagement) were examined in a sample of 167 four- and five-year-old children (M = 56.62 months, SD = 6.01) enrolled in Head Start. Associations among measures as well as gender differences and dimensions of preschooler's literacy interest and engagement were examined across measures. Measures were not strongly associated. There were small, but significant correlations between parents’ and teachers’ reports of children's literacy interest, and teachers’ reports of children's literacy interest and observers’ reports of children's literacy engagement. Gender differences were found for parent- and teacher-report measures, with teachers and parents rating girls higher on interest. Patterns of factor loadings differed between adult and child measures. Implications of findings are discussed.     

重新评估唐代小说《定婚店》的思想价值

唐代小说《定婚店》的主题是,告诉人们婚姻皆由命定,命定不可更改,人要相信命定,乐于接受命定。但小说又充满矛盾和悖论,其中天从人愿的人本思想,主要人物表现出的叛逆精神,以及相对丰富复杂的思想内容都值得肯定。其思想价值是创造了红绳结缡的神话故事,充分反映了古代人民对婚姻的敬畏心理;作为命定小说的突出代表,充分反映了晚唐时期人的沉沦和对主观能动作用的主动放弃。《定婚店》作为一个典型例证,充分说明了对思想内容丰富复杂的古代文学作品不能简单地褒贬是非。