Witches, Victims, and Villains: #MeToo and the Political Polarization of Sexual Violence

#MeToo sought to combat sexual violence but evolved into a polarizing movement in the United States. Using a random sample of 5,153 tweets with #MeToo posted between 2017 and 2019 to explore the language and themes individuals use to polarize conversations around sexual violence, we find that MeToo supporters used rights-and-justice-focused language to advocate for survivors. In contrast, MeToo detractors employed legal and violent language to victimize the alleged perpetrators and villainize victims of sexual violence and their supporters. This demonstrates how "linguistic hijacking" unfolded online, with movement opponents co-opting key terms (like "victim") to undermine movement supporters' goals.

Agendas on Nursing in South Korea Media: Natural Language Processing and Network Analysis of News From 2005 to 2022

BACKGROUND

In recent years, Korean society has increasingly recognized the importance of nurses in the context of population aging and infectious disease control. However, nurses still face difficulties with regard to policy activities that are aimed at improving the nursing workforce structure and working environment. Media coverage plays an important role in public awareness of a particular issue and can be an important strategy in policy activities.

OBJECTIVE

This study analyzed data from 18 years of news coverage on nursing-related issues. The focus of this study was to examine the drivers of the social, local, economic, and political agendas that were emphasized in the media by the analysis of main sources and their quotes. This analysis revealed which nursing media agendas were emphasized (eg, social aspects), neglected (eg, policy aspects), and negotiated.

METHODS

Descriptive analysis, natural language processing, and semantic network analysis were applied to analyze data collected from 2005 to 2022. BigKinds were used for the collection of data, automatic multi-categorization of news, named entity recognition of news sources, and extraction and topic modeling of quotes. The main news sources were identified by conducting a 1-mode network analysis with SNAnalyzer. The main agendas of nursing-related news coverage were examined through the qualitative analysis of major sources' quotes by section. The common and individual interests of the top-ranked sources were analyzed through a 2-mode network analysis using UCINET.

RESULTS

In total, 128,339 articles from 54 media outlets on nursing-related issues were analyzed. Descriptive analysis showed that nursing-related news was mainly covered in social (99,868/128,339, 77.82%) and local (48,056/128,339, 48.56%) sections, whereas it was rarely covered in economic (9439/128,339, 7.35%) and political (7301/128,339, 5.69%) sections. Furthermore, 445 sources that had made the top 20 list at least once by year and section were analyzed. Other than "nurse," the main sources for each section were "labor union," "local resident," "government," and "Moon Jae-in." "Nursing Bill" emerged as a common interest among nurses and doctors, although the topic did not garner considerable attention from the Ministry of Health and Welfare. Analyzing quotes showed that nurses were portrayed as heroes, laborers, survivors of abuse, and perpetrators. The economic section focused on employment of youth and women in nursing. In the political section, conflicts between nurses and doctors, which may have caused policy confusion, were highlighted. Policy formulation processes were not adequately reported. Media coverage of the enactment of nursing laws tended to relate to confrontations between political parties.

CONCLUSIONS

The media plays a crucial role in highlighting various aspects of nursing practice. However, policy formulation processes to solve nursing issues were not adequately reported in South Korea. This study suggests that nurses should secure policy compliance by persuading the public to understand their professional perspectives.

Public Health in the Public Eye: Experiences of Ohio's Public Health Workforce During COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic was uniquely challenging for public health workers charged with enforcing recommendations. In the United States, media reports highlight frequent outbursts and threats from community members and elected officials regarding masking protocols, vaccine mandates, and other public health measures such as isolation/quarantining recommendations. Given this backdrop, the purpose of this study was to better understand the lived experiences of this critical workforce in the context of COVID-19. We conducted in-depth phone interviews with public health workers in Ohio (N = 11). Questions were designed to illicit workers' experiences and sense-making of the pandemic experience. We analyzed results using the techniques of interpretive phenomenological analysis. Five major themes focused on how workers experienced public perceptions of COVID-19 and the public health response. Three themes highlight the role of media and social media in polarizing public perceptions. These we note as: Dealing with Deadlock, Feeling Misunderstood and Misrepresented, and The Rollercoaster of Public Opinion. Getting on With the Work reveals strategies used to navigate public perceptions and misperceptions. This ranged from aggressive education and information sharing, to setting boundaries around the controversial or disputed aspects of the pandemic. Finally, After the Dust Settles comments on hopes for postpandemic transformations of public health and public perceptions thereof. These results can inform new pathways for public health. Paramount among these are effective strategies that address public knowledge, values, and worldviews. Such messaging must promote nuanced understanding and customized approaches for local realities, rather than relying on rigid dichotomies that further polarization and distrust.

Did text-based news-media coverage about the COVID-19 pandemic increase vaccine uptake? A population-based study in Alaska

COVID-19 vaccinations protect against severe infection, hospitalisation, and death. News media can be an important source of information for the public during a health crisis. This study explores the extent to which local or statewide text-based news coverage of the pandemic was related to the uptake of initial doses of COVID-19 vaccines among adults in Alaska. Multilevel modelling was employed to explore the association between news media intensity and vaccine uptake rates across boroughs and census areas, while controlling for relevant covariates. Results suggest that the intensity of news media did not significantly influence vaccine uptake during the majority of this time period and had a negative affect during the Delta-surge in the fall of 2021. However, the political lean and median age of boroughs or census areas were significantly associated with vaccine uptake. Race, poverty, or education were not significant determinants of vaccine uptake suggesting there are unique differences in Alaska compared to the U.S., particularly amongst Alaska Native people. The political environment in Alaska surrounding the pandemic was polarized. Future research in communications and channels that can cut through this polarized and politicized environment, and reach younger adults is needed.

The Impacts of Politicization on Public Health Workers: The COVID-19 Pandemic in Oregon and Montana

CONTEXT

The contributions from the field of public health to human society are numerous and are often taken for granted. The COVID-19 pandemic thrust the largely invisible public health workforce into the public eye. Like other career civil servants at the intersection of the citizen-state encounter, reports of uncooperative, hostile, and even violent confrontations between public health workers and those they serve are on the rise. This study explores the attitudes of public health professionals in two states in the American West.

METHODS

The authors conducted an anonymous web-based survey of public health professionals in Montana and Oregon one year into the COVID-19 pandemic.

FINDINGS

Public health workers who responded to the survey reported beliefs that the COVID-19 pandemic was politicized by actors in the government, both major political parties, the media, and the public broadly. This politicization affected workers' abilities to do their jobs, with respondents in Montana experiencing more negative impacts than those in Oregon.

CONCLUSIONS

Public health workers face growing antagonism from the public and pressure from political leaders, which poses a significant concern for the public health workforce and for communities as they prepare to address and overcome future public health challenges.

The self in selfies-Conceptualizing the selfie-coordination of marginalized youth with sociology of engagements

This article develops a theory of selfies as reflexive practices of self-coordination. Building on pragmatist sociology of engagements, I conceptualize selfies as digital practices of coordinating with the self in formats that are recognizable for others. This framework allows approaching the self as an act of coordination, simultaneously shaped by, and equipped to subvert the cultural conditions of how we ought to be. As these conditions are increasingly enforced and negotiated in the socio-technological arrangements of digital platforms, the article proposes an approach for making sense of selfies as key contemporary tools of self-making. Based on ethnographic work among activists with marginalizing experiences, I ask how the self is coordinated in the activists' selfies. I identify four ways of coordinating with the self in selfies: the self in a plan, the self in exploration, the affirmed self, and the self as public critique. The article contributes to our understanding on how practices of self-making evolve in an increasingly visual-digital society, and provides an approach for conceptualising the self as plural. By approaching the selfie as different formats of relating to the self, the framework proposed accounts for the possibility of multiple selves now afforded by digital technologies and enables analysing their politicizing potential.

The Nordic governments' responses to the Covid-19 pandemic: A comparative study of variation in governance arrangements and regulatory instruments

Government responses to the Covid-19 pandemic in the Nordic states-Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden-exhibit similarities and differences. This article investigates the extent to which crisis policymaking diverges from normal policymaking within the Nordic countries and whether variations between the countries are associated with the role of expertise and the level of politicization. Government responses are analyzed in terms of governance arrangements and regulatory instruments. Findings demonstrate some deviation from normal policymaking within and considerable variation between the Nordic countries, as Denmark, Finland, and to some extent Norway exhibit similar patterns with hierarchical command and control governance arrangements, while Iceland, in some instances, resembles the case of Sweden, which has made use of network-based governance. The article shows that the higher the influence of experts, the more likely it is that the governance arrangement will be network-based.

Pandemic responses at the subnational level: Exploring politics, administration, and politicization in Swedish municipalities

The Swedish response to the pandemic at the national level has attracted considerable international attention, but little focus has been placed on the way municipalities dealt with the crisis. Using Hay's dimensions of politicization, namely the capacity for human agency, deliberation in the public domain, and social context, we analyze the politicization of the municipal response to the pandemic in Sweden. We do this based on the analysis of the decision making process to activate (or not) an extraordinary crisis management committee. We find inter alia, that (i) only a quarter of the municipalities activated the committee while a majority of them had an alternate special organization in place; (ii) support to the existing organizational structure was more salient than creating an extraordinary organization, and (iii) a robust municipal structure was deemed to be one able to withstand shocks without resorting to extraordinary governance arrangements. We find a 'conditioned politicization' of the response, privileging administration over politics.

Socio-ecological drivers of public conservation voting: Restoring gray wolves to Colorado, USA

Understanding factors that influence real-world public conservation behaviors is critical for developing successful conservation policies and management actions. Citizens of Colorado, USA recently passed a ballot initiative to restore the gray wolf to its former range within the state. The >3 million votes offer an unprecedented opportunity to test factors that influenced decisions to support or oppose this conservation action. We created spatial linear regression models to assess the relationship between support for wolf restoration and (1) the presidential vote, (2) distance to conservation intervention (i.e., proposed wolf reintroduction and existing wolves), and measures of (3) livelihood and (4) demographics using precinct-level data. Our results demonstrate the strong relationship between support for wolf restoration and political support for the Democratic candidate for president in the 2020 election, and highlight how other factors, including increased age, participation in elk hunting, and proximity to the reintroduction region were associated with less support. Our findings underscore the critical role of politicization on public conservation action and the need to develop outreach and engagement strategies to mitigate polarization.

Partisan Differences in Legislators' Discussion of Vaccination on Twitter During the COVID-19 Era: Natural Language Processing Analysis

BACKGROUND

The COVID-19 era has been characterized by the politicization of health-related topics. This is especially concerning given evidence that politicized discussion of vaccination may contribute to vaccine hesitancy. No research, however, has examined the content and politicization of legislator communication with the public about vaccination during the COVID-19 era.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study was to examine vaccine-related tweets produced by state and federal legislators during the COVID-19 era to (1) describe the content of vaccine-related tweets; (2) examine the differences in vaccine-related tweet content between Democrats and Republicans; and (3) quantify (and describe trends over time in) partisan differences in vaccine-related communication.

METHODS

We abstracted all vaccine-related tweets produced by state and federal legislators between February 01, 2020, and December 11, 2020. We used latent Dirichlet allocation to define the tweet topics and used descriptive statistics to describe differences by party in the use of topics and changes in political polarization over time.

RESULTS

We included 14,519 tweets generated by 1463 state legislators and 521 federal legislators. Republicans were more likely to use words (eg, "record time," "launched," and "innovation") and topics (eg, Operation Warp Speed success) that were focused on the successful development of a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. Democrats used a broader range of words (eg, "anti-vaxxers," "flu," and "free") and topics (eg, vaccine prioritization, influenza, and antivaxxers) that were more aligned with public health messaging related to the vaccine. Polarization increased over most of the study period.

CONCLUSIONS

Republican and Democratic legislators used different language in their Twitter conversations about vaccination during the COVID-19 era, leading to increased political polarization of vaccine-related tweets. These communication patterns have the potential to contribute to vaccine hesitancy.

Health and politics in pandemic times: COVID-19 responses in Ethiopia

With a focus on responses to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Ethiopia and on political developments that have occurred in the country during the pandemic, this article contributes to the existing scholarship that explores the relationship between health and politics. Drawing on qualitative data from the project ‘COVID-19 Impact Tracing in Ethiopia: Social, Economic, Political, and Security Ramifications’, carried out in the Tigray, Amhara and Oromia Regional States (RS) from June to September 2020, we offer new empirical and theoretical perspectives that shed light on the political status of health and health policies in Ethiopia and beyond. In all the three regions, COVID-19 and the government’s pandemic response was subject to politicization and securitization. The degree of securitization and politicization differed between the regions and fluctuated over time; in areas with strong opposition to political authorities, the COVID-19 mitigating efforts were—during the first phase of the pandemic—more politicized and securitized than in areas with less opposition. Yet, as the political opposition and instability increased, threatening national security and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s political project, the authorities and the public paid increasingly less attention to the pandemic and the mitigating policies. In our analysis of these dynamics, we draw on a classic distinction that scholars of global public health have borrowed from political science: that of ‘low’ and ‘high’ politics. We argue that a contextually situated use of the high/low distinction allows us to recognize the fleeting and context-dependent nature of health’s political status, providing valuable insights that help us understand the ways that health emerges and disappears as high politics. The temporal and inter-regional shifts that appeared in, and as a response to, Ethiopia’s pandemic policies illustrate the importance of a continuous analysis of the relationships between health and politics at national as well as at sub-national levels.

Older Adults' Behavior Intentions Once a COVID-19 Vaccine Becomes Available

BACKGROUND

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of antecedent variables on older adults' intention to get a CORONAVIRUS DISEASE-2019 vaccine. Older adults are at higher risk of severe illness from the disease and face an increasingly ageist general population who misrepresent the pandemic as an older adult problem. We use the Theory of Planned Behavior framework to examine vaccine behavior intention.

METHOD

A convenience sample (n = 583) of adults aged 60 and older in the United States participated in an online survey using vignettes. Hierarchical regression and analysis of covariance were used to test our model.

RESULTS

Results suggest that perceived risk of the pandemic, general vaccine beliefs, and political affiliation influence respondents' attitude toward the vaccine. Respondents' attitudes toward the vaccine and their physician's recommendation help shape vaccine intention.

CONCLUSION

The results provide partial support to the proposed model in shaping vaccine intention among older adults.

Politicization and Polarization in COVID-19 News Coverage

This study examines the level of politicization and polarization in COVID-19 news in U.S. newspapers and televised network news from March to May 2020. Using multiple computer-assisted content analytic approaches, we find that newspaper coverage is highly politicized, network news coverage somewhat less so, and both newspaper and network news coverage are highly polarized. We find that politicians appear in newspaper coverage more frequently than scientists, whereas politicians and scientists are more equally featured in network news. We suggest that the high degree of politicization and polarization in initial COVID-19 coverage may have contributed to polarization in U.S. COVID-19 attitudes.

The COVID-19 Pandemic Exposes Limited Understanding of Ageism

During the COVID-19 pandemic, justification for orders to shelter in place have emphasized the vulnerability of older people. Although other at-risk groups were sometimes mentioned, the emphasis on older people could have effects on attitudes about aging and older people for decades to come. This essay provides a comprehensive biopsychosocial description of ageism and discusses the pandemic as a "focusing event" that exemplifies the extreme social consequence of ageism for the entire older population. It suggests revisions to the Elder Justice Act and utilization of programs such as the Reframing Aging, Age-Friendly University, and Ageism First Aid initiatives to reduce ageism in the wake of the pandemic.

A "Hijacked Salaried Status" in French Cooperatives of Freelance Workers: The Political Meaning of Shifts Between Standard and Non-standard Employment

This article considers a specific sub-type of non-standard employment-self-employment-through a particular type of cooperative in France: the Business and Employment Cooperatives (BEC), i.e., collectives of freelance workers. BECs aim to provide an indefinite employment contract-and the social protection associated with it-to these individuals who therefore become "salaried entrepreneurs." To better understand the gray zones of work, where legal status, practices and identities are often disconnected, this inquiry is based on a qualitative approach to social actors' practices. It shows, on a meso level, how BECs "hijack" the standard wage-labor contract on the grounds that this is emancipatory and therefore drag it into a non-standard form of employment. In addition with this first shift between the legal framework and its interpretation, a second shift occurs as each member of the cooperative-a "false wage earner"-develops a singular relationship to the constraints related to such a contract. Through the notion of "praxis," combining both objective and subjective dimensions of work, we are able to systematize the analysis of qualitative data and identify the factors that influence such a diversity of appropriations: the relationship to conflictuality and political competence. Finally, this article highlights the conditions under which social actors make a wide range of appropriations of common legal frameworks, whose flexibility requires us to consider employment relationships as variant and creative practices rather than as "perfect" or "deviant" forms.

The Politicization of the European Central Bank: What Is It, and How to Study It?

The politicization of the European Central Bank (ECB) is a recurrent theme in debates on the EU after the crisis, yet it is one that still suffers from a considerable degree of vagueness. This is unfortunate as it hinders the development of useful discussions on the place and legitimacy of the ECB within Europe's institutional order. To tackle this problem, this article presents a systematic analysis of the concept of ECB politicization and an agenda for future research on this phenomenon. After reviewing existing uses of the term in the form of three dichotomies - politicization versus independence, impartiality, and convention - the article proposes an alternative, preference-based definition of politicization as a deviation from technocratic policy-making in the ECB. Building on this definition, the article then indicates three avenues for the empirical study of politicization centred, respectively, on elite interviews and surveys, the analysis of central bankers' networks and the study of ECB language.

Politicization as an antecedent of polarization: Evidence from two different political and national contexts

Using longitudinal research designs, we examine the role of politicization in the development of polarization. We conducted research in two different political and national contexts. In Study 1, we employ a panel sample of supporters of the Tea Party movement in the United States and examine the relationship between the strength of their politicization and their subsequent feelings towards conservatives versus liberals (affective polarization) as well as their subsequent perceptions of commonalities with conservatives versus liberals (cognitive polarization). In Study 2, we employ a panel sample of members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) community in Germany and examine the politicization-polarization link with regard to feelings towards, and perceived commonalities with, feminists versus supporters of a populist right-wing political party. We obtained converging evidence suggesting that politicization promotes both affective and cognitive polarization. There was also some, but very limited evidence pointing to reverse causation. The danger of escalating polarization is discussed.

Alternative Action Organizations: Social Solidarity or Political Advocacy?

This article investigates the involvement of alternative action organizations in three forms of political advocacy in an attempt to gauge their degree of politicization. These forms can be understood as representing three different ways of making political claims: by raising public awareness with respect to a given cause or issue, by trying to influence the policy maker through "insider" lobbying activities, and by protesting in the streets as "outsiders." Our findings show strong cross-national variations in all three forms of political activities, although not always following a consistent pattern. They also suggest that there is a relationship between the severity of the economic crisis and the form of advocacy. Most important, our analysis suggests that the politicization of alternative action organizations depends both on certain internal characteristics such as their degree of formalization and professionalization, as well as their thematic focus, and the scope of their activities, and on the broader context in terms of economic crisis, austerity policies, and political opportunities. As regards the latter, we find an impact especially on lobbying and protesting.

Communicating about ocean health: theoretical and practical considerations

As anthropogenic stressors threaten the health of marine ecosystems, there is a need to better understand how the public processes and responds to information about ocean health. Recent studies of public perceptions about ocean issues report high concern but limited knowledge, prompting calls for information campaigns to mobilize public support for ocean restoration policy. Drawing on the literature from communication, psychology and related social science disciplines, we consider a set of social-cognitive challenges that researchers and advocates are likely to encounter when communicating with the public about ocean health and emerging marine diseases--namely, the psychological distance at which ocean issues are construed, the unfamiliarity of aquatic systems to many members of the public and the potential for marine health issues to be interpreted through politicized schemas that encourage motivated reasoning over the dispassionate consideration of scientific evidence. We offer theory-based strategies to help public outreach efforts address these challenges and present data from a recent experiment exploring the role of message framing (emphasizing the public health or environmental consequences of marine disease) in shaping public support for environmental policy.

Rational Versus Irrational Prejudices: How Problematic Is the Ideological Lopsidedness of Social Psychology?

The Inbar and Lammers (2012, this issue) survey revealed potentially disturbing pockets of ideological intolerance among social psychologists. Their findings raise a mix of procedural-justice questions bearing on fair treatment of colleagues and epistemological questions bearing on the opportunity costs of research programs that were either never conceived or smothered in infancy. An appropriately self-critical disciplinary response is to conduct identity-substitution thought experiments that explore (a) how we would collectively react to differential treatment in counterfactual worlds in which minority-majority faction roles were reversed, (b) how ideological bias may have suppressed research with the potential to undermine liberal policy positions (e.g., affirmative action, income redistribution, "dove-ish" security policies), and (c) how ideological bias may have led to attaching labels to conservative policy positions that moderates and conservatives consider tendentious (e.g., system justification, symbolic racism).

Popularizing dissent: A civil society perspective

This article theorizes civil society groups' attempts to popularize opposition to genetic modification in New Zealand as deliberative interventions that seek to open up public participation in science-society governance. In this case, the popularization strategies were designed to intensify concerns about social justice and democratic incursions, mobilize dissent and offer meaningful mechanisms for navigating and participating in public protest. Such civic popularization efforts, we argue, are more likely to succeed when popularity and politicization strategies are judiciously integrated to escalate controversy, re-negotiate power relations and provoke agency and action.

Politicization during the 2012 U.S. Presidential Elections: bridging the personal and the political through an identity content approach

We investigated U.S. citizens' politicization (i.e., switching from not self-defining to self-defining as an active political party supporter) during the 2012 U.S. Presidential Elections. We used a novel identity content approach to explore qualitative changes in overlap between personal and politicized identity traits. We collected longitudinal data from a community sample of U.S. citizens (N = 760), tracking whether and how personal and politicized identity content developed: two months before (T1), immediately before (T2), and 2 months after (T3) the election. We explored a subsample of participants who met inclusion criteria (n = 115), comparing 87 participants who did not politicize with 28 participants who self-labeled as unpoliticized at T1, but politicized at T2/T3. Results confirmed hypotheses: Only politicizers showed greater integration between their personal and politicized identity content over time; moreover, identity content was a significant positive predictor of politicization and action engagement. We discuss the value of identity content for politicization research.