Understanding the Political Ideology of Legislators from Social Media Images

In this paper, we seek to understand how politicians use images to express ideological rhetoric through Facebook images posted by members of the U.S. House and Senate. In the era of social media, politics has become saturated with imagery, a potent and emotionally salient form of political rhetoric which has been used by politicians and political organizations to influence public sentiment and voting behavior for well over a century. To date, however, little is known about how images are used as political rhetoric. Using deep learning techniques to automatically predict Republican or Democratic party affiliation solely from the Facebook photographs of the members of the 114th U.S. Congress, we demonstrate that predicted class probabilities from our model function as an accurate proxy of the political ideology of images along a left-right (liberal-conservative) dimension. After controlling for the gender and race of politicians, our method achieves an accuracy of 59.28% from single photographs and 82.35% when aggregating scores from multiple photographs (up to 150) of the same person. To better understand image content distinguishing liberal from conservative images, we also perform in-depth content analyses of the photographs. Our findings suggest that conservatives tend to use more images supporting status quo political institutions and hierarchy maintenance, featuring individuals from dominant social groups, and displaying greater happiness than liberals.Comment: To appear in the Proceedings of International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM 2020

Mobilizing Public Will For Social Change

Examines the theory and strategies of "public will" campaigns and offers tangible criteria for their evaluation. It provides a rich inventory of strategies for use in mobilizing the public will through an integration of models of agenda building, social problem construction, issues management, social movements, media advocacy, and social capital. In addition, the paper provides cases and examples of public will campaigns directed at various social problems, along with criteria for evaluating these campaigns at various stages of a social problem's life cycle

Constructing Drug Using Victims: Race and Class in Policy Debates on Ecstasy Use in the U.S.

Sociologists and political scientists examining the social construction of public anxiety surrounding drug use in the United States have argued that racial minorities are the targets of the harshest drug laws, while middle-class whites are shielded. In this article, I provide further evidence that middle-class, white drug users are shielded from harsh punishment by analyzing the process through which U.S. legislators and policymakers decide which drug users need punishment and which deserve protection and treatment. Analyzing transcripts from federal Congressional hearings, I examine the rhetoric of legislators and stakeholder witnesses concerning the use of 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) by middle-class whites. Building on the social construction literature, I use social identity theory to demonstrate how legislators within Congressional hearings create in- and out-groups in order to categorize different drug users and dealers. My analysis of Congressional hearing language concerning white MDMA use demonstrates that Congressional speakers use rhetoric to convince committee members and the wider public that middle-class, white drug users are different from drug users of color and that the appropriate policy response is education and treatment, rather than punishment. My findings highlight how middle-class, white drug users are characterized differently from drug users of color, providing further evidence that U.S. drug policy has historically favored middle-class, white drug users

Do As I Say...Should We Teach Only Abstinence in Sex Education?

In order to address these problems more effectively, it is not necessary to settle any of thepolitical debates that whirl around the issue of sexuality education. What is needed is a commitment to results. Elected officials, teachers, school boards and parents need to choose: is the function of sexuality education in public schools primarily to prevent disease and unplanned pregnancy or to promote traditional ideology?We need to use the information currently available to set responsible sexuality educationpolicy focused on improved outcomes for youth. Quality research on program effectiveness, along with a close analysis of the needs of young people at especially high risk, provides important guidance

The self-perception of adult educators in Eastern Europe in the post-Soviet transitional period

This article addresses the self-images of adult educators in view of exercising their professional agency in contexts of social transformation after the fall of the communist regimes. It draws on research undertaken in Poland, Ukraine and Russia in 2009 which investigated the self-perception and self-evaluation of adult educators with regard to their own educational practice—vis-à-vis the challenges of transition in general and of the need of rethinking the dictatorial past in particular. The interviews with 91 adult educators in three countries illustrate the impact of socio-political change in the period of democratization on the concept of one’s professional identity. They also demonstrate how transition policies create dilemmas for practice which adult educators accommodate or resist. The article discusses how different self-images are linked to socio-political challenges of society in the transition times. It analyses the possibilities, challenges, impacts and constraints of different perception and forms of educational practice in the light of the current situation in three countries. (DIPF/Orig.

'Changing Marriage? Messing with Mr. In-Between?: Reflections Upon Media Debates on Same-Sex Marriage in Ireland'

This article explores some aspects of the emergence of local debates same-sex marriage in the Republic of Ireland. Taking up this issue through an analysis of mediatized reactions to the introduction of German gay marriage in 2001, I point to how we can see evidence of a shift away from Irish traditional relationships between the social, politics and religion, which served to police and silence much public discussion about sexuality. While prudery about sexual issues still remains, my data points to the emergence of prudent-yet-tolerant sharing of stories about the social exclusion of same-sex couples. In spite of recent setbacks for a legal case seeking the recognition of a foreign same-sex marriage in Ireland, we may point to a growing political and legal consciousness for the extension of rights for lesbian and gay couples but it is still unclear as to what model will be adopted in the Irish context. While in the Irish case, there is only intermittent media interest in \'gay marriage\', we can locate this struggle within the framework of the sociology of intimate citizenship. Not only do claims for same-sex marriage illustrate pointed inequalities experienced by lesbians and gay men, the stories also problematize the naturalness of heterosexuality. The Irish case may, of course, be explored within the context of a global challenge to gender identity where the imagined same-sex couple enjoy some element of certainty in an uncertain world.Same-Sex Partnership, Marriage, Media, Irish Times, GLBT, Ireland

Analysis of Stigmatic Content in State Mental Health Legislative Proposals

Despite the proven effectiveness of mental health interventions, services remain limited across the country. Social workers have repeatedly advocated for increased funding, but mental healthcare gaps persist. Disparities could be addressed through the policy process, but critical proposals often do not pass. One of the biggest barriers is the concept of stigma, which could extend into legislatures and influence mental health-related policy outcomes as a form of structural stigma. Factors that influence legislator voting behavior are found in the literature, but studies have not explicitly focused on structural stigma or mental health-specific policy outcomes. Thus, the present study aimed to explore state mental health legislative proposals with goals of exposing forms of structural stigma present in the language and potential effect of the bills as well as identifying and disseminating patterns in mental healthcare policy outcomes. To achieve this aim, quantitative content analysis was conducted on a stratified random sample of bills that were codified into frequencies and examined through multiple logistic regression analyses. The study found that bills were structurally stigmatic in language and potential effect. Male and Republican legislators were more likely to introduce structurally stigmatic mental health bills, while party majority status and structural stigma in the language of the bills predicted mental health bill passage. Mental health advocates can utilize this information to better target policymakers for structural stigma reduction efforts as well as to increase their effectiveness in influencing bill sponsorship or voting behavior

When business met politics: the case of Want Want, a different type of media capital in Taiwan

Since 2008, the Taiwanese business group Want Want, having made a fortune in China, has returned to Taiwan to buy a major media group and attempt to exert political influence on Taiwanese society. This paper analyses the rise and rationale of this new type of media investor in the light of the business/government relationship under China’s model of state capitalism. According to the analysis developed in this paper, when China needed foreign investment in the early 1990s, Taiwanese investors were warmly welcomed by the Chinese government, which provided Taiwanese businesses with tax incentives at that time. After 2000, however, when not only domestic Chinese entrepreneurs emerged but also more non-Chinese investors entered the Chinese markets, Taiwanese businesses realised that the investment environment had become much more competitive, so they had to work hard on building ties with Chinese officials. Under these circumstances, Want Want bought into media in Taiwan as an asset to be used in order to build social ties with the Chinese government, but in doing so, Want Want has also triggered resistance from Taiwanese civil society. Future researchers and regulators can continue to watch and define this new type of investment, which has become increasingly significant in this region