Knowledge in process? Exploring barriers between epidemiological research and local health policy development

The Redes de Trueque (RT) thrived during the economic crisis of 2001 – 2002 in Argentina and still stand out as one of the largest Complementary Currency System in the world. These local exchange networks reach a large scale during times of severe economic distress, but as large non-state initiatives, they pose a governance problem. Four types of governance systems were structured within the Argentine RT, of varying degrees of sustainability: a) loosely regulated market systems, b) hierarchies, c) associational regional networks, and d) local communities. Based on a four dimensional analytical framework, this paper discusses the rules of governance and sustainability of the governance systems in the RT. It found that some became more sustainable than others in terms of achieving combinations of scale and organisational modes

The uncertain first-time voter: Effects of political media exposure on young citizens’ formation of vote choice in a digital media environment

The digital media environment changes the way citizens receive political information, also during an election campaign. Particularly first-time voters increasingly use socialmedia platforms as news sources. Yet, it is less clear how accessing political information in such a unique social setting affects these cohorts’ decision-making processes during anelection campaign, compared to experienced voters. We compare effects of these two groups’ political information exposure on their vote choice certainty during the 2015 Danish national election. We furthermore test how the relation between exposure and certainty can be mediated by active campaign participation. An 11-wave national panelstudy was conducted, using a smartphone-based assessment of citizens’ (n = 1108) media exposure and vote choice certainty across the campaign period. Results suggest that first-time voters’ social media exposure is responsible for their increase in certainty as the campaign progresses, while this effect is absent for experienced voters

Making better use of information to drive improvement in local public services: A report for the Audit Commission

This report on making better use of information to drive improvement in local public services was commissioned from the School of Public Policy at the University of Birmingham, by the Audit Commission. It explores how decision makers use information when making decisions. These decision makers can be politicians, top managers, operational managers, planners etc. The focus of this report is not on the use of performance indicators sensu stricto, but on the use of information more generally. Rather than studying how existing information is used or not used in decision making, this report is looking at how decision makers go about searching, analysing, summarising, processing and interpreting information when they need to make a decision. The report consists of three main chapters. - A summary of key government policy initiatives in the UK to stimulate the use of information in decision making - A review of the relevant research literature. This is the main section of the report. In it, we review the role of information in decision making theories, the organisational and structural context of information use, and psychological factors in the use of information in decision making - A presentation of a number of international perspectives on the use of information in public sector decision makin

Exposure Research Going Mobile: A Smartphone-Based Measurement of Media Exposure to Political Information in a Convergent Media Environment

In today’s convergent media environment, media exposure becomes increasingly channel-independent and social media-bound, and media content is more frequently accessed on mobile devices. This calls for new approaches to measuring media exposure. This study applies an innovative approach to survey (n = 2378) exposure to political information in the form of a mobile diary measurement, accessible via a specifically developed app. Respondents exhibited broad acceptance and uptake of the mobile measurement, resulting in an almost representative sample and equally satisfactory application of different platform modes. The study furthermore confirms limitations of mere usage time measurements of social media platforms in effects research and explores a range of actual content types that citizens encounter in social networks. It recommends more frequent use of mobile exposure measurements and argues for a content-related assessment of social media use in effects research