Review of The people's choice: How the voter makes up his mind in a presidential campaign.

More than 300 studies have been published on the relationship between digital media and engagement in civic and political life. With such a vast body of research, it is difficult to see the big pic...

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Twenty Years of Digital Media Effects on Civic and Political Participation

* Cosmopolitan Communications: Cultural Diversity in a Globalized World. Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2009. 430 pp. $90 hbk. $25.99 pbk. Cosmopolitan Communications: Cultural Diversity in a Globalized World reiterates that cultures are robust and fairly impervious to Western cultural primacy. Building on similar points made in other recent globalization and media books, authors Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart borrow the "firewall" metaphor from information technology and apply it as a theoretical framework to the ongoing era of 24/7 global information exchange. The authors bring impressive credentials to this project: Norris is McGuire Lecturer in comparative politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and Inglehart is a professor of political science and director of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. Cosmopolitan Communications is a new addition to a book series dedicated to investigating the intersections of communication, society, and politics. Considering the flood of books on globalization, this tome stands out for its predictions that "individual use of the news media" directly influences one's values and ideological stances on issues ranging from "religion, gender equality" to political concerns for "selfexpression values and human rights." Norris and Inglehart address the ubiquitous question characterizing globalization and media studies: "What happens to distant rural communities in Bhutan... far-flung districts... in Burkina Faso, Burma and Afghanistan, once the world connects directly to these places and the people living in them learn more about the world? Will this process generate cultural convergence around modern values, and will national diversity be threatened?" The authors rely on data from the World Values Survey (WVS), surmising that "modern values" have not seemed to penetrate stalwart cultural reserves of tribal allegiance, regional dominance, and socio-political regression - problems that plague the societies of much of the cell-phone toting, television-watching developing nations around the world, particularly those of the global South. The authors' "firewall" metaphor helps to account for the persistence of woes like virulent nationalism, since Norris and Inglehart posit that far-flung, less connected citizens in remote societies are prevented from becoming "cosmopolitan," being mired in "parochialism" by obstacles such as "social psychological barriers" or lack of "integration into world markets, freedom of the press, and widespread access to the media." The authors use the term "cosmopolitan" teleologically to invoke the potential for democracy to develop under ideal interConnectivity to globalization's flows of media and capital. Part I of the book explores markets and poverty as "firewalls" that impede change, while it also classifies nationstates along a cosmopolitan-to-parochial scale. …

Cosmopolitan Communications: Cultural Diversity in a Globalized World

August 1977 marks the completion of 20 years of publishing for American Behavioral Scientist. These 20 years of lively ferment in the social and behavioral sciences have witnessed tremendous growth, considerable controversy, and greater interplay between the social science community and the larger (indeed, global) society which is the personal and professional environment for us all. American Behavioral Scientist will celebrate its 20th anniversary by featuring-over the next three years-a series of Special Issues devoted to retrospective assessments of the progress made in the major social science disciplines and subfields during the last 20-25 years. Each issue is being developed by a distinguished guest editor whose primary mission will be to garner the critical and analytic talents of a carefully selected group of contributors. Their cumulative perceptions should be of value to social scientists and serious students from all disciplines and all research orientations.

American Behavioral Scientist: * 20th Anniversary * 1957-1977

With the integration of social media in political communication repertoires, politicians now permanently campaign for support online. By promoting their personal agenda, politicians increasingly pr...

Personalization of politics on Facebook: examining the content and effects of professional, emotional and private self-personalization

This study explores the role of peer communication in normative social influences on risk behavior. We use the theory of normative social behavior (TNSB) as a guiding framework for developing a communication perspective on normative social influences. Peer communication is conceptualized as a norm-building factor and its concrete role is specified as a function of its content. The hypotheses on peer communication’s impact on norms in normative social influences are tested for the case of speeding in road traffic. The analyses are based on representative survey data of 1,138 German young car drivers. Findings from mediational analyses indicate that peer communication plays a crucial role in the formation of social norms which, in turn, affect risk behavior, and that the communication’s health-promoting potential depends on its content. Implications for further norm-based theory development and strategic risk communication are discussed.

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Where Do Norms Come From? Peer Communication as a Factor in Normative Social Influences on Risk Behavior:

Social norms have been found to be an important factor in individuals’ health and risk behaviors. Past research has typically addressed which social norms individuals perceive in their social envir...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0093650218824213

The effects of social norms among peer groups on risk behavior: A multilevel approach to differentiate perceived and collective norms

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Social norms as communicative phenomena: A communication perspective on the theory of normative social behavior

Social capital refers to the resources inherent in social relationships; it is considered the foundation of economic, political, and social development. To explore the media’s impact on social capi...

Social capital in media societies: The impact of media use and media structures on social capital

Phubbing—the usage of one’s smartphone in copresent interactions—has become a prevalent phenomenon in our digital society. At the same time, phubbing is perceived to be inappropriate in most social...

Sarah Geber

Papers

Where Do Norms Come From? Peer Communication as a Factor in Normative Social Influences on Risk Behavior:

The effects of social norms among peer groups on risk behavior: A multilevel approach to differentiate perceived and collective norms

Social norms as communicative phenomena: A communication perspective on the theory of normative social behavior

Social capital in media societies: The impact of media use and media structures on social capital

Commonly done but not socially accepted? Phubbing and social norms in dyadic and small group settings