We advance interparty contact as a remedy to affective polarization and examine the processes through which interparty contact attenuates the hostility between Democrats and Republicans. We present ...results from three studies: (1) a survey examining the association between outparty friendships and affective polarization (cross-validated with a representative data from Pew Research Center), and two experiments, testing the effects of (2) vicarious and (3) imagined contact on affective polarization. We find that interparty contact attenuates outparty hostility primarily indirectly, through perceived commonality between the self and the outgroup, and not through the common mediators of contact, anxiety and empathy. We also show that cooperative interparty interactions - whether imagined or vicarious - have limited advantage over simple positive contact (studies 2 and 3), that negative interparty contact exacerbates outgroup hostility by enhancing anxiety and reducing empathy (study 2), and that interactions with one's political in group are not necessarily polarizing (study 3). These results underscore the differences between partisanship and other social group identities, and have important theoretical implications for the intergroup contact literature.
•Climate scepticism is highest in Australia, New Zealand, Norway and the USA.•Higher levels of CO2 emissions per capita are positively associated with scepticism.•Country vulnerability to climate ...change is correlated positively with climate scepticism.•Political conservatism, gender and low environmental concern are key predictors of scepticism.
Despite the findings of climate scientists, the proportions of climate sceptics appear to be increasing in many countries. We model social and political background, value orientations and the influence of CO2 emissions per capita and vulnerability to climate change upon climate scepticism, drawing upon data from the International Social Survey Programme. Substantial differences in the levels of climate scepticism are apparent between nations. Yet cross national data show that climate sceptics are not merely the mirror image of environmentalists. Typical predictors of environmental issue concern, such as education level, postmaterial value orientations and age are poor predictors of climate scepticism. Affiliation with conservative political parties, gender, being unconcerned about ‘the environment’ or having little trust in government are consistent predictors of scepticism. Climate change scepticism is also correlated positively with CO2 emissions and vulnerability to climate change. While high levels of scepticism have been documented among citizens of the United States, scepticism is as high or higher in countries such as Australia, Norway and New Zealand.
Political advertising on social media has increased dramatically in the last several years, reaching specific audiences with tailored messages. Political advertising is characterized by its primary ...objective, which is to attract voters through various means by a candidate, politician, or political party. By analyzing existing communication patterns that appeal to the general public during the electoral process, this study seeks to develop an intellectual framework that considers linguistic discourse. Using bibliometric analysis, this study examines and evaluates the body of literature on political advertising and how it is disseminated. It includes 114 publications published between 1996 and 2024 in the Scopus and WOS databases and were subjected to keyword analysis in the VOS viewer. This analysis produced six clusters, which eventually combined under three overarching themes. The results showed that the few previous studies conducted in this field only focused on the election season and that direct political actors were the source of these advertisements. More research on the sociopolitical context is desperately needed, along with scientific solutions, to address privacy concerns on digital platforms and disinformation in dialogic discourse. Considering all possible complexities in the persuasive communication process, this article offers concrete directions and propositions on efficiently targeting voters and implementing future regulations.
An individual’s opinions about media bias derive from their own independent assessment of media outputs combined with peer pressure from networked political allies and opponents. Here we generalize ...previous idealized, probabilistic models of the perception formation process, based on a network of Bayesian learners inferring the bias of a coin, by introducing obdurate agents (partisans), whose opinions stay fixed. It is found that even one partisan destabilizes an allies-only network, stopping it from achieving asymptotic learning and forcing persuadable agents to vacillate indefinitely (turbulent nonconvergence) between the true coin bias θ0 and the partisan’s belief θp. The dwell time td at the partisan’s belief increases, as the partisan fraction f increases, and decreases, when multiple partisans disagree amongst themselves. In opponents-only networks, asymptotic learning occurs, whether or not partisans are present. However, the counterintuitive tendency to reach wrong conclusions first, identified in previous work with zero partisans, does not persist in general for θ0≠θp in complete networks; it is a property of sparsely connected systems (e.g. Barabási–Albert networks with attachment parameter ≲10). In mixed networks containing allies and opponents, partisans drive counterintuitive outcomes, which depend sensitively, on where they reside. A strongly balanced triad exhibits intermittency with a partisan (sudden transitions between long intervals of static beliefs and turbulent nonconvergence) and asymptotic learning without a partisan. Counterintuitively, in an unbalanced triad, one of the persuadable agents achieves asymptotic learning at θ0, when the partisan is located favorably, but is driven away from θ0, when there is no partisan. The above results are interpreted briefly in terms of the social science theory of structural balance.
•Even one partisan destabilizes an allies-only network and drives vacillating beliefs.•Disagreeing partisans heighten network instability and shorten dwell times.•Opponents-only networks achieve asymptotic learning with or without partisans.•Wrong conclusions are reached first in sparsely connected opponents-only networks.•Various ally-opponent networks containing partisans exhibit intermittency.
The main goal behind this work is to examine how the armed anti-Soviet Lithuanian resistance was depicted in Soviet literature, and which meanings it created and conveyed to readers. The work will ...show which written methods were used in the formation of this approach, and how they changed in different periods. Specific topics will also be analysed where they were especially emphasised in Soviet publications.
The scientific novelty. This is one of the few works which specifically presents the image of Lithuanian partisans which was created through Soviet propaganda. The Soviet attitude towards Lithuanian partisans was analysed mainly in works which were written in Lithuanian, so this also remains relevant to modern analyses in foreign publications. The Soviet image distorted the historical circumstances of the past. This image is not an irrelevant event of the past but a tool of modern propaganda, one which is constantly being modified to adapt it to the times.
Conclusions. Soviet propaganda referred negatively and contemptuously to anti-Soviet Lithuanian partisans, and the terms ‘bandits’ and ‘bourgeois nationalists’ came into force to describe them. The authors of propaganda-related materials relied on the concept of class theory. The attitude which they expressed in their written work was characterised by tendency and uniformity, both of which reflected the official position of the Soviet government. During the most active periods of partisan fighting, the Soviet press published relatively little information about the partisans. The selected and published information – all of which was somewhat tendentious – was intended to intimidate resisters, would-be resisters, and their supporters. Between 1950 and 1990, the production and publication of materials was part of a propaganda enterprise which was firmly controlled and coordinated by the Soviet authorities. Their purpose in carrying out this industry was to portray the anti-Soviet resistance in the darkest colours and shades.. It was not possible to form a general picture of the resistance from such prints, written as they were with multiple errors and omissions. The image of the partisan movement as a non-autonomous phenomenon, an image which was formed through the use of propaganda, presents a negative social and personal image. The Catholic Church is considered to be a promoter and supporter of the partisan resistance.
Abstract
For good reasons, the green movement turned from wilderness to environmental justice as its central category in the 1980s and '90s. Today, several leading wilderness advocates seem to ...compete for the most reactionary positions, particularly on the issue of migration. A case can, however, be made for a progressive, cosmopolitan, Marxist view of wilderness as a space less fully subjugated to capital than others. There is a long history of exploited and persecuted people seeking freedom in and through the wild. This essay focuses on two such groups - maroons and Jewish partisans - and asks what we lose in a rapidly warming world where the remotest and supposedly wildest corners of the world are among the first to be destroyed.
Starting from a possible allusion to Sentiero dei nidi di ragno (The Path to the Spiders’ Nest) detected in the first pages of Ventitre giorni della città di Alba (The Twenty-three Days of the City ...of Alba), this article focuses on the friendship between Beppe Fenoglio and Italo Calvino and their intellectual solidarity in the name of their shared search for an authentic literary representation of the Italian Resistance.
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