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The role of the media in informing the public has long been a central topic in journalism studies. Given that social media platforms have become today's major source of news, it is important to understand the impact of social media use on citizens' knowledge of current affairs. While people get news from multiple platforms throughout the day, most research treats social media as a single entity or examines only one or two major platforms ignoring newer social media platforms. Drawing on news snacking framework, this study investigates how using some of today's most popular social media platforms predicts users' current affairs knowledge, with particular attention to Snapchat and its news section Discover. A survey conducted in the United States (N=417) demonstrated that each of the platforms is distinct: Twitter is a strongly positive predictor of knowledge, Facebook a marginally significant negative predictor, Reddit a significantly negative predictor and Instagram not a significant predictor. Overall Snapchat use has no significant association with users' knowledge of current affairs, whereas Discover use has a negative relationship. Further analysis revealed that mere exposure to Snapchat is positively related to soft-news knowledge and attention to Discover is negatively related to hard-news knowledge.

AbstractThis paper presents a novel methodological approach, multi-dimensional measure of resource stratification in civil society (MMRSC). The method aims at mapping civil society organisations based on different types of resources for studying resource stratification in civil society. The approach is based on six indicators consisting of economic, political, and media resources, internal and external to civil society. The MMRSC is a development and adaptation of the positional method within the elite research tradition aiming at identifying individuals holding central positions in powerful organisations. To be able to apply the positional method to civil society studies, the paper argues for a multi-dimensional understanding of resources taking into account diverse organisational forms and goals within civil society. The method is presented in a systematic step-by-step structure with exemplifications based on how it has been used in a study of civil society elites in four European countries and at the EU level.

We are increasingly witnessing the social and ecological crises of our time becoming entangled and amplifying each other. The current policy responses from national states and international governance bodies remain within the dominant framework of economic growth-centred strategies. In this editorial, we argue that a new paradigm of sustainable welfare is needed, which includes eco-social policies addressing social and ecological sustainability concerns in integrated ways. We first demonstrate how social and ecological problems are interconnected and why green growth approaches fail to tackle them. As an alternative, and as a pointer to a social security system that can help people navigate the dire straits of increasing eco-social risks, we present the foundations and principles of sustainable welfare, and discuss how this, according to Kuhn, can be understood as a new social policy paradigm. In the second part of this editorial, we introduce the papers brought together in this special issue. The cutting-edge research of the contributing authors includes theoretical and conceptual advances, empirical case studies from different European countries, and transnational studies. Each paper discusses the implications of its findings for European social security systems.

To avoid catastrophic consequences of impending ecological crises our socio-economic systems need to be transformed in rapid and radical manners. Focusing on working life and Sweden as an example for countries of the Global North with a social-democratic welfare tradition, we ask how social protection systems may be reorganised according to the concept of 'sustainable welfare', the satisfaction of basic human needs across space and over time. We combine a literature review with an analysis of qualitative data from deliberative citizen forums following Max-Neef's Human Scale Development methodology. After taking stock of the existing literature that highlights the unsustainable character of current work regimes, we present our application of the methodology used in the citizen forums as well as the data. Our participants generally highlighted the importance of broadening the concept of work beyond 'employment' when reflecting on the role of work in addressing and satisfying multiple human needs within planetary limits. The introduction of a universal basic income, a participation income, an expansion of universal basic services, working time reduction and a sabbatical year conditioned on civic participation/education were among the eco-social reform ideas that forum participants highlighted to liberate work from its current unsustainable and capitalist contexts and turn it from a negative into a positive need satisfier.

This paper contributes to the understanding of power structures in civil society by the exploring organizational connections of leaders holding multiple top-level leadership positions in resource-rich civil society organizations (CSOs) in Sweden. Based on unique association network data among national level CSOs collected in 2018, we discuss possible explanations behind the observed clusters of organizational connections via leader interlocks. Our results show that the resource-rich, national CSOs in Sweden are highly connected with each other via leader interlocks. We find that working within similar policy areas, sharing similar ideological backgrounds or historical legacies, and being a member of sectoral umbrella organizations or federations are among the salient characteristics of CSOs connected via leader interlocks. We suggest a multilevel understanding of leader interlocks among CSOs, including those at the individual level, as an avenue for further research. The focus on the individual level explanation would allow an understanding of the field of CSOs through the lens of an elite phenomenon rather than an organization-centered view.

Humans strive for balance between their motivations for accurate judgments and their cognitive effort. Although heuristic cues provide cognitive shortcuts, heuristic-based processing does not guarantee quality judgments. Based on the heuristic-systematic model, this study investigates if social media users select cues to use for their judgments based on cue applicability and reliability, which can facilitate more effective heuristic processing. The present study examine if (1) commenters' physical attractiveness and their claims of cognitive effort influence the effects of their comments about a political candidate on the viewer's attitude toward and vote intention for the candidate, and (2) if the viewer's political interest moderates the influences. The results indicate that vote intention is significantly influenced by the cognitive effort cue whereas attitude is significantly influenced only when the viewer is interested in politics. The attractiveness cue does not have a significant influence.

AbstractVery few countries have managed to decouple economic growth from resource use and greenhouse gas emissions in absolute terms and at rates to meet the climate targets of the Paris Agreement. To achieve this, technological solutions would need to be combined with sufficiency-oriented policies in a postgrowth context. This paper develops policy ideas for a sustainable welfare–work nexus via citizen engagement and examines the level of democratic support for such ideas. Theoretically, it employs "sustainable welfare" to understand welfare and wellbeing within planetary and social limits. The paper first sketches the welfare–work nexus as developed in the postwar circumstances in Western Europe, highlighting that this model was at no point in time ecologically generalizable to the rest of the world, and then briefly reviews the existing debate on sustainable welfare. The empirical analyses start with qualitative data from 11 deliberative forums on sustainable needs satisfaction, with emphasis on policies targeted at respecting the upper and lower boundaries of a "safe and just operating space" for economic and social development. The qualitative data are then triangulated with quantitative data from a representative survey, which was constructed based on the policy suggestions from the forums, hence allowing for an exploration of their popularity in the Swedish population as a whole. We find a considerable gap between the far-reaching policy measures that forum participants consider necessary and the measures that the general public in Sweden are prepared to support, especially when it comes to policies targeting maximum levels of needs satisfaction.

"This chapter critically reflects on the state of the art in research on the political relevance of entertainment media. It is argued that most research on this important topic has been based on the ideas of understanding or consistency. While these lines of research also need to be expanded, the authors call for bringing the hedonic principle into the fold as a primary explanatory principle for the study of political entertainment media. Moreover, the chapter stresses the need to expand the range of entertainment media content/ genres/ forms that are investigated for their political influence. As an example, the authors reflect on the political influence of graphic novels in this essay. In addition, the authors highlight the importance of an international perspective and of comparative work in this area of study. Only when research expands in such a manner to include these lines of research will substantive judgments concerning the political relevance of entertainment media be forthcoming." (publisher's description)

An 11-item Affinity for Political Humor (AFPH) scale is theorized as a higher-order latent factor with four lower-order latent factors (incongruity, superiority, anxiety reduction, and social connection). The theorized measurement model and several alternative models are tested using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). In addition, reliability and validity assessments are provided. Analyses are conducted using four data sets collected between December 2009 and March 2011 (total N = 1860). Results reveal the theorized model to fit the data well, but also indicate that an alternative model (four lower-order latent variables only) retains the strongest and most consistent fit across all four data sets. Reliability assessments reveal strong internal consistency for the 11-item AFPH scale, as well as for each of the four sub-dimensions. In addition, correlational analyses reveal the AFPH measures to retain strong validity (i.e., statistically significant and positive correlations with political TV satire consumption). ; Klein College of Media and Communication ; Communication and Social Influence

Degrowth has emerged as one of the most exciting, and contested, fields of research into the drivers of global heating, ecological collapse, and economic injustice. The perspective is both a critique of existing growth-based models of development, which it argues have put humanity on a collision course with non-negotiable ecological limits, and a vision for a brighter future in which humans and non-humans alike can flourish. By putting an end to growth-seeking economic development and boundless energetic and material throughputs, degrowth's proponents suggest we can build an economy that meets the material needs of people and planet for generations to come. This handbook's contributions signal the importance of degrowth across multiple disciplines and practices. Along the way, they grapple with some of the most critical questions, ideological assumptions, policies, and social struggles of our time. The handbook approaches degrowth as a loosely knit and developing set of interdisciplinary propositions about what it might take to achieve a world of human and non-human flourishing. Contributors explore, challenge, and critique degrowth's propositions and its prospects of shaping scholarly agendas, policy frameworks, and social movements. Essays consider degrowth from a variety of empirical and theoretical vantages, including urban design, architecture, political economy, political ecology, critical geography, and political theory. This integrative approach, at once critical and constructive, aims to preserve for readers the sense of possibility that has drawn people to degrowth scholarship thus far