Citizens, Knowledge, and the Information Environment

In a democracy, knowledge is power. Research explaining the determinants of knowledge focuses on unchanging demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. This study combines data on the public’s knowledge of nearly 50 political issues with media coverage of those topics. In a two-part analysis, we demonstrate how education, the strongest and most consistent predictor of political knowledge, has a more nuanced connection to learning than is commonly recognized. Sometimes education is positively related to knowledge. In other instances its effect is negligible. A substantial part of the variation in the education-knowledge relationship is due to the amount of information available in the mass media. This study is among the first to distinguish the short-term, aggregate-level influences on political knowledge from the largely static individual-level predictors and to empirically demonstrate the importance of the information environment

Credit Where It's Due? Valence Politics, Attributions of Responsibility, and Multi-Level Elections

When considering elections in multi-level contexts, scholars have typically assumed-in line with second-order election theory-that the way voters approach an election depends on their attributions of responsibility, that is, on what they see as being at stake in that election. This assumption is questionable. The formal position is not always clear, and is further blurred by parties and the media. Moreover, many voters pay little attention to politics and have little incentive to trace constitutional responsibilities. In this paper I use data from election studies in two multi-level contexts, Ontario and Scotland, to explore the nature and impact of voters' attributions of responsibility. The evidence suggests that, when called upon in surveys to do so, many voters can confidently and fairly accurately assign issues to different levels of government. Yet they do not seem to consider these attributions much at elections. There is very little indication that issues weighed heavier in the decision-making of those who regarded them as the responsibility of that electoral arena. A plausible explanation is that most voters sidestep the cognitive demands imposed by multi-level elections

The significance of ionic concentrations in the internal media of animals

1. The electrical and ionic gradients across a cell membrane depend on its permeability properties, on the concentration and net valency of the organic constituents of the cytoplasm and on the critical energy barrier to the extrusion of sodium. Such considerations do not, however, explain the small extent to which the concentration of potassium varies in myoplasm which may, instead, be related to the effects of potassium on particular enzymes. 2. The fact that the apparent optimum level of potassium cannot usually be maintained in animals in which the extracellular level of sodium is below about 140 mM may explain why so many non-marine animals have internal media of about that concentration, for more concentrated body fluids would require more work for their regulation. 3. In axoplasm, the concentration of potassium is more nearly proportional to the concentration of sodium in the internal medium and this may partly explain the general correlation between the extracellular levels of sodium and potassium. 4. The relation between pH and temperature in poikilothermic vertebrates is such as to suggest that the prime function of acid-base regulation is to control the ionization of imidazole groups. 5. High tensions of carbon dioxide cannot be maintained in water-breathing animals because of the high solubility of this gas in water as compared with oxygen. Bicarbonate levels are correspondingly low to give a suitable pH. Higher tensions are possible in air-breathing animals, and also necessary if water and heat are to be conserved, but an uncertain upper limit is set by the need for oxygen. The associated higher levels of bicarbonate confer the advantage of better buffering. 6. Calcium and bicarbonate levels are not obviously limited by the solubility of calcium carbonate and a more general limitation on the composition of body fluids seems to arise from the low solubilities of calcium phosphates. 7. The pattern of ionic balance in vertebrate plasma, reflected in a nearly constant value to the molar ratio ([Ca] + 5 × 10--4)/([K] +0.034 [Na]), may be explained in terms of the maintenance of a constant electrical gradient across certain areas of cell membrane, between the inner and outer double layers. 8. The patterns of cation balance in the haemolymphs of molluscs, crustacea and insects are also reviewed, with emphasis on the correlations existing between the concentrations of different cations. An attempt is made to relate the correlations in the mollusca to the concentrations of cations at the surfaces of cells