Press independence in newspaper coverage of the 2009 health care debate

This study examines press independence from the government in the 2009 national health care debate. Through a content analysis examining source expressions, or the words journalists attribute to various people in the news, the study captures the essence of the discourse represented in the news about the debate. This paper also outlines a distinction between various types of autonomy, and offers a new conceptualization of independence. Procedural autonomy, which is autonomy in journalistic norms and routines, does not necessarily result in content autonomy, which is autonomy of viewpoints expressed in the news. In other words, if non-governmental sources say substantially similar things to governmental sources, then the news content is not independent from government influence. This study determines, therefore, whether there is a substantial difference among the various viewpoints expressed by different types of news sources. Using as its framework the indexing theory, which posits that journalists will tie the range of news discourse the governmental elite opinion, this study determines whether some discourse falls outside the range of elite opinion. The results indicate that while the press did heavily focus on governmental elite debate in the health care debate, they made a moderate effort to bring in non-governmental voices and views. Despite this, however, those voices did not represent substantially different views. The exceptions to this rule were experts and, at least in the contentious months of late summer, popular voices

A third wave of selective exposure research? The challenges posed by hyperpartisan news on social media

Hyperpartisan news on social media presents new challenges for selective exposure theory. These challenges are substantial enough to usher in a new era -a third wave- of selective exposure research. In this essay, we trace the history of the first two waves of research in order to better understand the current situation. We then assess the implications of recent developments for selective exposure research

Recommendations for the Generation, Quantification, Storage, and Handling of Peptides Used for Mass Spectrometry-Based Assays

BACKGROUND: For many years, basic and clinical researchers have taken advantage of the analytical sensitivity and specificity afforded by mass spectrometry in the measurement of proteins. Clinical laboratories are now beginning to deploy these work flows as well. For assays that use proteolysis to generate peptides for protein quantification and characterization, synthetic stable isotope-labeled internal standard peptides are of central importance. No general recommendations are currently available surrounding the use of peptides in protein mass spectrometric assays. CONTENT: The Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium of the National Cancer Institute has collaborated with clinical laboratorians, peptide manufacturers, metrologists, representatives of the pharmaceutical industry, and other professionals to develop a consensus set of recommendations for peptide procurement, characterization, storage, and handling, as well as approaches to the interpretation of the data generated by mass spectrometric protein assays. Additionally, the importance of carefully characterized reference materials-in particular, peptide standards for the improved concordance of amino acid analysis methods across the industry-is highlighted. The alignment of practices around the use of peptides and the transparency of sample preparation protocols should allow for the harmonization of peptide and protein quantification in research and clinical care

Social Affect and Political Disagreement on Social Media

The perception of political disagreement is more prevalent on social media than it is in face-to-face communication, and it may be associated with negative affect toward others. This research investigates the relationship between interpersonal evaluations (i.e., perceived similarity, liking, and closeness) and perceived political disagreement in social media versus face-to-face settings. Relying on a representative survey of adult internet users in the United States ( N  = 489), the study first examines the differences between social media and face-to-face settings in terms of interpersonal evaluations and relates them to parallel differences in perceived disagreement. Results are discussed in light of important, ongoing scholarly conversations about political disagreement, tolerance toward the other side in politics, and the “affective turn” in public communication about politics

Comparative corrective action: Perceived media bias and political action in 17 countries

The corrective action hypothesis predicts that people will take political action in response to media content they perceive to be biased against them, and evidence has accumulated in favor of it. However, research has not yet investigated the hypothesis in comparative context. This study fills that gap in the literature, relying on the Comparative National Election Project (N = 23,527), and analyzing data from 17 countries. Results show evidence of an overall positive relationship between perceived media bias and political action, and they also show evidence that this relationship varies in strength between countries. Moreover, press freedom partially explains this variation. Results are discussed in light of the theory of corrective action and recent trends in political participation worldwide

Perceived exposure to and avoidance of hate speech in various communication settings

© 2019 Elsevier Ltd Social media platforms have been accused of spreading hate speech. The goal of this study is to test the widespread belief that social media platforms have a high level of hate speech in the eyes of survey respondents. Secondarily, the study also tests the idea that encountering perceived hate speech is related to avoiding political talk. The study analyzes data from a two-wave online survey (N = 1493) conducted before and after the 2018 U.S. Midterm Elections, and it estimates perceived exposure to hate speech across multiple venues: face-to-face, social media, mobile messaging applications, and anonymous online message boards. Results show that (a) respondents report higher levels of hate speech on social media in comparison to face-to-face communication and (b) there is a positive relationship between perceived exposure to hate speech and avoidance of political talk. Results are discussed in light of public conversations about hate speech on social media