Coming Out of the Closet, Also on the News? A Longitudinal Content Analysis of Patterns in Visibility, Tone and Framing of LGBTs on Television News (1986-2017)

This study documents the results of a longitudinal content analysis of television news about LGBT people in terms of visibility, active representation, tone and framing in Flanders (1986–2017). While attention for LGBT issues has increased over time, LGBTs are not more likely to be visually represented or granted a voice. Gay men are more often actively represented than lesbians and transgender people. News remains negatively biased, although news stories in which LGBT people are depicted as the cause of negativity have become less prevalent. Patterns in framing have shifted: Deviance and abnormality frames have decreased in favor of a rise in equal rights and victim frames. Patterns in tone and framing were similar for gay men, lesbians and transgender people. Results suggest that journalists have shifted from problematizing homosexuality to problematizing homophobia. Implications of news as a source of mass-mediated contact to promote tolerance toward LGBT people are discussed

The Crowdsourced Replication Initiative: Investigating Immigration and Social Policy Preferences. Executive Report.

In an era of mass migration, social scientists, populist parties and social movements raise concerns over the future of immigration-destination societies. What impacts does this have on policy and social solidarity? Comparative cross-national research, relying mostly on secondary data, has findings in different directions. There is a threat of selective model reporting and lack of replicability. The heterogeneity of countries obscures attempts to clearly define data-generating models. P-hacking and HARKing lurk among standard research practices in this area.This project employs crowdsourcing to address these issues. It draws on replication, deliberation, meta-analysis and harnessing the power of many minds at once. The Crowdsourced Replication Initiative carries two main goals, (a) to better investigate the linkage between immigration and social policy preferences across countries, and (b) to develop crowdsourcing as a social science method. The Executive Report provides short reviews of the area of social policy preferences and immigration, and the methods and impetus behind crowdsourcing plus a description of the entire project. Three main areas of findings will appear in three papers, that are registered as PAPs or in process

The Intergenerational Transmission of Environmental Concern: The Influence of Parents and Communication Patterns within the Family

This article reports on the intergenerational transmission of environmental concern and the explanatory power of communication patterns within the family. Using representative data from the Parent-Child Socialization Study in Belgium (PCSS, 2012), this article focuses on the relative influence of the mother and the father, and gender-specific patterns in the transmission of environmental attitudes. The results clearly confirm the transmission hypothesis: both the mother and the father have a significant influence on the environmental concern of their offspring. No gender-specific transmission mechanisms were found. In families that communicate regularly about the environment, transmission was more effective. Nevertheless, the transmission effects were only moderate, indicating that environmental concern may not be a core attitude within Belgian families. © 2014 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.peerreview_statement: The publishing and review policy for this title is described in its Aims & Scope. aims_and_scope_url: http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=aimsScope&journalCode=vjee20status: publishe

The parent-child similarity in cross-group friendship and anti-immigrant prejudice: A study among 15-year adolescents and both their parents in Belgium

The aim of this article is to investigate the role of parental cross-group friendships on the anti-immigrant prejudice of their children. It is hypothesized that the relation between parental cross-group friendship and the child's prejudice can be mediated by two intergenerational transmission mechanisms: (1) via parent-child similarity in prejudice, and (2) via parent-child similarity in cross-group friendship. Data stem from the Parent-Child Socialization Study (2012), a representative sample among adolescents and both their parents in Belgium. Controlling for the mediating mechanisms, no direct relationship between parental cross-group friendship and adolescents' prejudice was found. Parental cross-group friendships was, however, indirectly related via parent-child anti-immigrant prejudice and cross-group friendship similarity. It is concluded that prejudice is strongly related within families. © 2014 Elsevier Inc.publisher: Elsevier articletitle: The parent–child similarity in cross-group friendship and anti-immigrant prejudice: A study among 15-year old adolescents and both their parents in Belgium journaltitle: Journal of Research in Personality articlelink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2014.03.001 content_type: article copyright: Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.status: publishe

The intergenerational transmission of political participation patterns. The moderating role of gender and socio-economic status

There is a broad consensus in the literature that widespread and representative political participation is vital for democratic political systems. Previous research, however, has shown that gender and socio-economic inequalities with regard to political participation already appear early in adolescence and tend to be stable over the life-cycle. It is often assumed that these stratification patterns are transmitted from parent to child and that as a consequence inequalities will persist over time. The goal of the current paper is to investigate whether the transmission of participation can be moderated by socio-demographic variables as gender and socio-economic status. Therefore, we draw upon a representative study among 3,426 adolescents and both their parents in Belgium. Results indicated that the participation history of both mother and father has a strong effect on the participation intentions of the adolescents. No gender-specific transmission pattern was found. Contrary to our expectations, high-status families were not more effective in transmitting participation patterns than low-status families. Implications are discussed accordingly.status: publishe

Is same-sex marriage legislation related to attitudes toward homosexuality?

Since 2001, various Western countries have accorded legal recognition to same-sex marriages, but thus far we lack information on how this legislation is related to trends in public opinion. In most of the literature, declining levels of prejudice toward homosexuality are found to result from structural social processes (rising education, secularization, detraditionalisation), which should occur in all industrialized societies, with or without same-sex marriage. In this article, we analyse data of the five waves of the European Social Survey for the period 2002-2010. Results show that levels of prejudice are significantly lower in countries that recognize same-sex marriage, while levels are only slightly lower in countries with some form of registered partnership for gay and lesbian couples. Therefore, we can assume that same-sex marriage is indeed an issue affecting public opinion and public policy.status: publishe

Facilitators of intergenerational similarity in social and political attitudes:the role of discussion, sophistication, attitudinal homogeneity, and gender

While parents remain key socializing agents for political attitudes of adolescents, we observe that parent-child similarity in these attitudes is less substantial than initially theorized and seems to vary across studies and type of attitude. We hypothesize that social learning mechanisms explain differences in the strength of parent-child similarity. To assess this proposition, we compare the moderating power of political discussion, political sophistication, parental homogeneity, and gender using data from the Belgian Parent-Child Socialization Study 2013 (N = 1943 families). Our results demonstrate that parents and children resemble in their political and social attitudes and that this similarity is stronger for concrete and socially salient attitudes and reinforced by frequency in political discussion. Results also indicate that social learning practices, or at least the ones considered in this study, are not necessary conditions (anymore) for parent-child correspondence. Frequency of cue-giving in the form of direct communication is important to internalize parental attitudes but political sophistication and consistency in cue-giving less so. Parents and children correspond even in the absence of optimal social learning conditions which suggests that informal learning and observation of parental behavior are crucial to consider as well

Television news content as a contextual predictor of differences between attitudes toward minority groups

Although research has shown that different types of prejudice are highly correlated, prejudice hierarchies indicate that individuals differentiate between target groups. Here we examine the relationship between television news coverage and differences in attitudes toward minority groups. We rely on intergroup threat theory, tone and framing theories to formulate our hypotheses and conduct a multi-method study: All prime-time television news items in Flanders (N = 1,487) reporting on five minority groups (LGBT, Jews, Eastern Europeans, North-Africans, Roma) were coded in terms of tone and framing, and subsequently combined with individual-level survey data. Patterns in news coverage reflect differences in prejudice: groups that are most negatively/positively evaluated by the public receive the most negative/positive coverage. Prejudice is especially high for minority groups associated with problems and criminal threat frames in the news. We conclude that news content is an important characteristic of the intergroup context reflecting differences in minority group appraisals in society.peerreview_statement: The publishing and review policy for this title is described in its Aims & Scope. aims_and_scope_url: http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=aimsScope&journalCode=hmcs20status: publishe

The Role of Sensationalism, Tabloidisation and Diversity in News Coverage of Immigration and Attitudes: Public and Commercial Television News Compared

Public and commercial news have a distinct logic and adhere to different goals. In this paper, we evaluate the effect of this duality in the case of television news coverage on immigration and ethnic minorities. First, using survey analysis, we investigate whether individuals with a preference for public versus commercial television news differ in their attitudes toward ethnic minorities and immigrants. In a second step, we hypothesize that this attitudinal gap is reflected by differences in content between both types of broadcasters. Relying on a content analysis of Flemish (i.e. the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium) television news (2003-2013), we compare coverage of ethnic minorities and immigrants between public and commercial news. We consistently find that individuals with a preference for commercial news hold more negative attitudes toward ethnic minorities and immigrants. The content analysis shows that, despite the overall negativity bias in coverage, commercial news focuses more on sensational news content, stressing negativity and conflict, and contains more tabloid characteristics like episodic news coverage and soft news topics. In line with its democratic function, public television news offers a more positive view on ethnic minorities and immigrants. We propose that these differences in news content can offer an explanation for the attitudinal gap between public and commercial news consumers. In this regard, we conclude that public broadcasters still have an important tolerance-enhancing and informative role to play in society.status: publishe