Suchergebnisse

Abstract
Powerful countries use foreign media broadcasts to enhance their soft power, yet there is scant empirical evidence as to whether such efforts actually sway public opinion abroad. Moreover, researchers have not specified conditions that may shape variations in the influence of foreign broadcasts and internet. We propose a theory that predicts, respectively, opinion-formation and issue-framing effects of foreign broadcasts as functions of the pervasiveness and familiarity of the issues they cover. We test our hypotheses by examining the potential effects of exposure to Russia-sourced broadcasts on views of Russia and other foreign policy issues in Kyrgyzstan, a most likely case of foreign media effects. Using an original, nationally representative survey conducted in Kyrgyzstan in 2015, we find that the influence of Russian media on Kyrgyzstani opinions varies according to the pervasiveness and familiarity of the issues at stake and is more limited than traditionally believed. The modest and conditional effects of foreign media in this particularly favorable environment cast doubt on the assumption that media are a soft-power tool "par excellence" and call for further research on how media can be used effectively for public diplomacy.

Political socialization is defined as the acquisition of orientations, beliefs, and values relating to the political system of which an individual is a part. In this study we are concerned with political knowledge about one of David Easton's major components of a political system: the authorities.

POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE AMONG YOUTH ABOUT THE AUTHORITIES IN A POLITICAL SYSTEM IS EXAMINED. 1,006 1ST YEAR U STUDENTS IN EASTERN CANADA WERE S'S OF THE STUDY. 25 COMPLETION ITEMS WERE USED AS AN INDEX OF STUDENT KNOWLEDGE OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL AUTHORITIES & ORGANIZATIONS IN REGIONAL, NATIONAL, & INTERNATIONAL SYSTEMS. SEX, COMMUNITY OF RESIDENCE, SES, & PERCEIVED SC OF THE YOUTH WERE IMPORTANT ANTECEDENTS OF KNOWLEDGE OF THE POLITICAL SYSTEMS. THE HIGHER POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE CATEGORY LARGELY CONSISTED OF HIGH SES: UR M'S DEFINING THEMSELVES AS UC. POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE IS AT LEAST AS HIGHLY ASSOCIATED WITH POLITICAL-ATTITUDINAL FACTORS AS SOCIOSTRUCTURAL VARIABLES. F'S DEFINING THEMSELVES AS REBELS OR REVOLUTIONARIES HAD HIGHER POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE, WHILE THEIR M COUNTERPARTS EXHIBITED A RETREATIST ATTITUDE TO POLITICS. WHEN THE SEX VARIABLE WAS CONTROLLED, THOSE DEFINING THEMSELVES AS REBELS & INTELLECTUALS, HAD HIGHER POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE THAN OTHER GROUPS. THE BELIEF THAT CONTACT WITH MORE HIGHLY EDUCATED PERSONS CAUSES THE ACQUISITION OF NEW KNOWLEDGE IS QUESTIONED. 5 TABLES. R. LENT.

This study aimed to understand the impact of electronic and social media sources in progression of political understanding, and political participation of youth in Pakistan. This study further explains the learning process through media as it has emerged as one of the strongest agents of socialization in the recent times. A sample size of 329 respondents (graduate level students) was selected systematically from public sector higher educational institutions in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) Pakistan. The data was analyzed through chi-square test to determine the relationship between political participation and youth behavior. A significant relationship (p=0.017) was found between medias programs' efficiency and decisions of government on various national and international issues with youth behavior. It is proved that formation of opinion on the helm of authority largely influenced by media. There was a strong and significant relationship (p=.000) between political party's agendas bring forth by media sources to gain mass support or vote. It indicatesthat political talk shows and advertisements on electronic media have manipulated minds of masses. Political campaign via electronic media effects youth behavior proved significant (p=.001). A strong association was also proved between media efforts to motivate people and bring them to vote (p=0.000) with youth behavior shows the efficiency and worth of media programs for the sustainability of democratic values. Again media proved its decisive role in establishing the public opinion about various political parties and their role in national interests, their zeal and synergies spending on national cause. Political parties motivate people through advertisements and conveying their vision, mission to their voters. Relation of media advertisement and youth's opinion was strongly significant (p=0.000) with youth behavior. It again showed that media as a tool can be very useful to mass mobilization for political purposes. The study concluded that media can play a pivotal role in motivating youth to become politically active as it works as catalysts in upbringing the latest information to the recipients and can succeed in determining a position of trust among the viewers. The study recommended that electronic media should focus on its programs to bring more reality and standard, making it more trustworthy, valid and reliable. It can be beneficial for youth, researchers and policy makers. Keywords: political attitude, infotainment, socialization, electronic media, youth behavior

From a normative vantage point, post-deliberative opinions should be linked to the quality of arguments presented during discussion. Yet, there is a dearth of research testing this claim. Our study makes a first attempt to overcome this deficiency. By analyzing a European deliberative poll on third country migration, we explore whether statements backed by reason affect opinions, which we term deliberative persuasion. We contrast deliberative persuasion to non-deliberative persuasion, whereby we explore whether the most frequently repeated position influences opinions. We find that with regard to regularization of irregular immigrants, deliberative persuasion took place. In the context of European involvement in immigration affairs, however, opinions are driven by the most frequently repeated position rather than by the quality of argumentation.

The article contributes to the literature on the political use of hashtags. We argue that hashtag assemblages could be understood in the tradition of representing public opinion through datafication in the context of democratic politics. While traditional data-based epistemic practices like polls lead to the 'passivation' of citizens, in the digital constellation this tendency is currently challenged. In media like Twitter, hashtags serve as a technical operator to order the discursive fabrication of diverse publicly articulated opinions that manifest in the assemblage of tweets, algorithms and criticisms. We conceptualize such a critical public as an epistemic sensorium for dislocations based on the expression of experienced social imbalances and its political amplification. On the level of opinion formation, this constitutes a process of democratization, allowing for the expression of diverse opinions and issues even under singular hashtags. Despite this diversity, we see a strong tendency of publicly relevant actors such as news outlets to represent digital forms of opinion expression as unified movements. We argue that this tendency can partly be explained by the affordances of networked media, relating the process of objectification to the network position of the observer. We make this argument empirically plausible by applying methods of network analysis and topic modelling to a dataset of 196,987 tweets sampled via the hashtag #metwo that emerged in the German Twittersphere in the summer of 2018 and united a discourse concerned with racism and identity. In light of this data, we not only demonstrate the hashtag assemblage's heterogeneity and potential for subaltern agency; we also make visible how hashtag assemblages as epistemic practices are inherently dynamic, distinguishing it from opinion polling through the limited observational capacities and active participation of the actors representing its claims within the hybrid media system.