Virtual Discussion: Web-based Discussion Forums in Political Science

On-line discussion, while promising in theory, often turns out to be disappointing in application. Low levels of student participation are a particularly vexing and common problem. I argue that to overcome these chronic problems, instructors must recognize the collective action problems inherent in on-line discussion and address them, primarily through the use of selective incentives.I test this contention using on-line experiments conducted on undergraduate political science students. The results of the experiments provide evidence of an underlying free-rider problem and support for the contention that selective incentives are an effective means of overcoming this problem. In another level of analysis, the experiment also shows that even basic student-to-student on-line discussion can be an effective teaching tool, rivaling the effectiveness of more costly traditional web sites

Mask images on Twitter increase during COVID-19 mandates, especially in Republican counties

Wearing masks reduces the spread of COVID-19, but compliance with mask mandates varies across individuals, time, and space. Accurate and continuous measures of mask wearing, as well as other health-related behaviors, are important for public health policies. This article presents a novel approach to estimate mask wearing using geotagged Twitter image data from March through September, 2020 in the United States. We validate our measure using public opinion survey data and extend the analysis to investigate county-level differences in mask wearing. We find a strong association between mask mandates and mask wearing-an average increase of 20%. Moreover, this association is greatest in Republican-leaning counties. The findings have important implications for understanding how governmental policies shape and monitor citizen responses to public health crises