Nontuberculous Mycobacterium Infection and Tumor Necrosis Factor-α Antagonists

Contains fulltext : 144010.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)1 oktober 200

Has the gender gap in voter turnout really disappeared?

According to conventional wisdom, the traditional gender gap in voting has disappeared or even reversed in most established democracies. Drawing on the existing literature on sex differences in political engagement and on pioneering voter turnout theories, this article questions the conventional assumption and hypothesises that women still participate at lower rates in less important elections. It systematically tests this hypothesis by exploring the impact of sex on voter turnout in different electoral arenas. The empirical analyses of two cross-national datasets (Making Electoral Democracy Work and the European Election Study) demonstrate that although there is generally no gender gap in first-order elections, women tend to vote less than men in second-order contests. This reflects women’s weaker interest in politics and their lower levels of knowledge about politics in second-order electoral arenas

Frame of mind: How predispositions moderate framing effects and contribute to politicizing EU immigration policy

The European Union is often perceived as a complex, intangible matter. Consequently, and due to the precarious nature of EU attitudes, mediated information is likely to play a significant role when it comes to the formation of public opinion (Page and Shapiro, 1992). Immigration; however, is a more tangible matter. People are regularly confronted with this issue in real life, which makes it less likely for media to have a great influence on related attitudes. Immigration has for decades been a topic of discussion on different levels of governance. Due to polarization on this topic, the outcome of debates on the European level has not always been successful (European Commission home affairs, 2010). Since media are expected to play a role in influencing public opinion, this paper is concerned with the following question: what is media’s role in the politicization of, and public opinion on the EU-migration issue? This paper looks to answer these questions in light of media news frames. By manipulating messages or by giving a selection of the truth, a message can have a certain impact or lead to certain interpretations (Entman, 1993). Previous research showed; however, that the significance ascribed to the issue acts as a moderator of framing effects (Lecheler, de Vreese & Slothuus, 2009), also the level of risk deducted from a news frame can induce greater levels of vote turnout (Schuck & de Vreese, 2009). Consequently, one may conclude that individual characteristics matter in the way news frames are interpreted, and in their effects. With the use of a two-wave between-subject experiment, during a two-week period in the Netherlands, the direct and moderated effects of a selection of frames are tested. The two-wave design permits to look at the moderating effect of initial characteristics on the connection between frames and public opinion

Selective exposure, political polarization, and possible mediators: Evidence from the Netherlands

Contains fulltext : 162149_a.pdf (author's version ) (Open Access) Contains fulltext : 162149.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)One of the main lines of reasoning in the contemporary debate on media effects is the notion that selective exposure to congruent information can lead to political polarization. Most studies are correlational, potentially plagued with self-report biases, and cannot demonstrate time order. Even less is known about the mechanisms behind such an effect. We conducted an online quasi-experiment with a sample matching the characteristics of the Dutch population closely (N = 501). We investigate how selective exposure can lead to polarized attitudes and which role frames, facts, and public opinion cues play. While we find that facts learned can help explaining attitude change and that selectivity can influence the perception of public opinion, we cannot confirm that people generally polarize.24 maart 201625 p