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This article proposes the concept of digital heuristics to model and explain political communication strategies in the complex environment of hybrid media systems. Insights from recent psychological and political research on heuristic decision-making are combined with literature on the current structural context and features of online communication in order to make the case for a heuristics-oriented approach to political communication strategies. I argue that despite the growing importance of data analytics, in increasingly dynamic and uncertain communication environments, political actors mainly design their strategies according to simple rules (heuristics) that rely on selective information (as well as trial and error) rather than to complex models. Analyzing interviews with communication managers from major political parties in Germany and the United Kingdom, I identify and conceptualize two types of digital heuristics in use: hybridity-based and algorithm-based. The article concludes with considerations for a future research agenda using the concept of digital heuristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infant–parent interaction forms the foundation for language learning. For the majority of deaf infants, hearing loss can impact access to, and the quality of communicative interactions, placing language development at risk. Support for families to meet the challenges faced during interaction is highly variable in the United Kingdom. In a step towards more standardized but tailorable family support, we co-produced an instructional, video-based intervention, testing for feasibility in terms of behavior change in seven communicative strategies and acceptability with 9 parents, forming study 1. Parents increased their use of the majority of behaviors and found content and delivery acceptable. However, further development was required to: (a) support use of semantically contingent talk and attention getting strategies to elicit infant attention, and (b) ensure the information was provided in a bite-size format that could be tailored to individual families. In study 2, the intervention was refined based on findings from study 1 and assessed for acceptability with 9 parents and 17 professionals, who reported similar high acceptability scores. Final refinements and modifications could be addressed in future interventions. The current studies provide a positive early step towards a standardized intervention to support communication that could be used in routine practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current article studies the influence of attitudes toward immigration on state legitimacy. We analyzed the European Union countries that received the greatest immigrant inflows in 2014: Germany, France, Spain, and the United Kingdom, through data from the latest edition of the European Social Survey. Our results show that citizens with negative attitudes toward immigration consider their states to be less legitimate. Conversely, positive attitudes toward immigration are not associated with increased state legitimacy (except in Spain). Based on these findings, there is a clear need for communication strategies that provide information on the actual effects of immigration. In their absence, the political discourse on this matter will continue to be co-opted by power-grabbing actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across parliamentary democracies, elected representatives constitute the link between citizens and government. MPs can connect with voters via the party label, or through personalized forms of representation, which is seen to be increasing in importance. However, scholars disagree on what explains variation in MPs' use of personalized representation strategies. In this article, we argue that politicians use different strategies to personalize the link between themselves and citizens: a constituency-oriented and a person-oriented strategy. To test our argument, we develop a new and novel dataset with behavioral measures of personalized representation. Using a content analyses of 698 British and Danish MPs' personal websites, we demonstrate that the use of personalization strategies is conditional on the incentives MPs face in terms of electoral insecurity, candidate selection procedures, and the electoral context of the system. Our findings show that the level and type of personalized politics vary across political systems and may pose different types of challenges to party democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the perceived effectiveness of multilingual upbringing strategies and ways of communication adopted by families where the parents are of two different nationalities. The theoretical introduction presents an overview of the most important issues related to the linguistic development in bi-/multilingual children, debunking common myths and misconceptions surrounding the notions of bi-/multilingualism. The empirical part analyses the results of a survey conducted among parents who raise their children multilingually, looking at the strategies of communication adopted, the perceived effectiveness thereof, and whether the respondents would have changed or improved anything if they had been given a ‘second chance’. The results show that the most frequently implemented method is the one parent-one language approach, whose usefulness the majority assessed positively. Other practical conclusions concerning multilingual upbringing are also drawn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Communication strategy training (CST) is a recognized part of UK speech and language therapists' (SLTs) role when working with a person with aphasia. Multiple CST interventions have been published but, to date, there are no published studies exploring clinical practice in this area. Aims To investigate UK SLTs' current CST practices. Methods & Procedures Thirty-seven UK SLTs completed an online questionnaire, eight of whom attended a follow-up focus group. A clinical consistency scale was applied to the questionnaire data and tasks that were most consistently used were explored in the focus group and analyzed using a primarily deductive thematic data analysis approach. Outcomes & Results Three key CST findings arose: (1) the rarity with which SLTs focus equally and explicitly on both communication partners' strategies; (2) SLTs' differing understandings of CST terminologies and concepts and underuse of formal assessment; and (3) the absence of video feedback. Conclusion & Implications This study's survey findings suggest that conversation partners not only receive half the amount of CST given to people with aphasia but also play a more passive learning role when they are present. This is an interesting point to consider when the current evidence base contains stronger evidence for the effectiveness of conversation partner CST over other CST approaches, it being described as an effective method that may be maintained over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on a study that examined the personal employment paths of six international academics at a British university. To complement previous accounts of difficult migration, it focuses on the successful experiences of such academics, in particular how proficiency in English facilitated their move into employment in higher education (HE), and the linguistic competences and communication strategies they deploy in their daily activities. The article identifies key factors that have facilitated to their academic achievements and contributes to the understanding of the benefits and consequences of skilled migration. In conclusion, it suggests workplace pedagogy and policy responses that could facilitate other international academics' successful experiences in the UK HE sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores local government engagement and communication with citizens in one of the UK’s largest cities from the perspective of a range of actors involved in the engagement process. We establish that a variety of interpretations and contested meanings of engagement exist among professionals involved in different spheres of public engagement. These meanings have different outcomes for the potential voice and influence given to citizens in the city’s democratic existence. We explore what the differing motivations behind the council’s communications and engagement strategies mean for the way that the democratic space of the city is constructed and communicated to citizens. We conclude that there is a need for closer integration of engagement and communications strategies. Integral to the success of such strategies is an empirically informed understanding of what public engagement is, and what skills and practices are necessary to engage with citizens successfully, especially in the reconfigured communication ecology to which new media adds a new dimension. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Introduction: Communication in public health emergencies is an important means to ensure population's confidence in the decisions of the central authority. Usually, the lack of planning communication strategy entails negative reactions from the population and decreased compliance to the recommended preventive measures in response to the emergency. Objectives: The study presents the techniques and means of communication used in several countries of the world during pandemic influenza A H1N1pdm in 2009 and the data on the impact of different communication strategies on the behaviour of population towards the recommended public health measures and towards vaccination. Method: The data were collected and summarized by evaluating scientific articles, official public reports of the countries and the information posted on the websites of public health authorities. Results: The most frequently used communication techniques were teleconferences, posters, informative flyers and dedicated hotlines addressed to both population and medical staff involved in the implementation of public health measures. Creating crisis committees or special units dedicated to the accumulation of information and communication was one of the solutions found by some countries to ensure a coordinated communication type. In the United Kingdom, of 1000 participants in a study to assess the impact on communication, only 39% said they had received informative flyers and only 26% of them read them. Basically, there was no difference in behaviour between those who received the flyer information and those who did not received it (OR = 0.9, 95% CI: 0.7-1.2). In a study conducted in France, it was shown that only 17% of the 2,253 people surveyed wanted to be vaccinated with the pandemic vaccine. In Romania, the survey conducted in 2010 within the FLUMODCONT project, indicated that only 58% of respondents were offered the pandemic vaccine and of these, only 34% said that did the vaccine. Conclusions: Although in many countries of the world, national preparedness plans included references to the ways and techniques of communication and target groups, whom the messages should be addressed to in a pandemic, in 2009, they have not always proved effective. Since the level of severity of the pandemic was lower than expected, there were shortcomings in communication both towards the public and to the health care providers. Unclear and not always coordinated communication led in many states to low levels of influenza vaccination coverage, and also to a lower confidence in the use of vaccination as a safe and effective preventive measure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Communication in public health emergencies is an important tool to ensure population's confidence in the decisions of the central authority. Usually, the lack of planning communication strategy entails negative reactions from the population and decreased compliance to the recommended preventive measures in response to the emergency. Objectives: The study presents the techniques and means of communication used in several countries of the world during pandemic influenza A H1N1pdm in 2009 and the data on the impact of different communication strategies on the behaviour of population towards the recommended public health measures and towards vaccination. Method: The data were collected and summarized by evaluating scientific articles, official public reports of the countries and the information posted on the websites of public health authorities. Results: The most frequently used communication techniques were teleconferences, posters, informative flyers and dedicated hotlines addressed to both population and medical staff involved in the implementation of public health measures. Creating crisis committees or special units dedicated to the accumulation of information and communication was one of the solutions found by some countries to ensure a coordinated communication type. In the United Kingdom, of 1000 participants in a study to assess the impact on communication, only 39% said they had received informative flyers and only 26% of them read them. Basically, there was no difference in behaviour between those who received the flyer information and those who did not receive it (OR = 0.9, 95% CI: 0.7-1.2). In a study conducted in France, it was shown that only 17% of the 2,253 people surveyed wanted to be vaccinated with the pandemic vaccine. In Romania, the survey conducted in 2010 within the FLUMODCONT project, indicated that only 58% of respondents were offered the pandemic vaccine and of these, only 34% said that did the vaccine. Conclusions: Although in many countries of the world, national preparedness plans included references to the ways and techniques of communication and target groups, whom the messages should be addressed to in a pandemic, in 2009, they have not always proved effective. Since the level of severity of the pandemic was lower than expected, there were shortcomings in communication both towards the public and to the health care providers. Unclear and not always coordinated communication led in many states to low levels of influenza vaccination coverage, and also to a lower confidence in the use of vaccination as a safe and effective preventive measure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research in the United States has found candidates for elected office are able to use a rhetorical form of closed-circuit communication with evangelical Protestants — “God Talk” — that communicates valuable political information without alerting other constituencies. Close observation of the 2010 parliamentary elections in the United Kingdom (U.K.) uncovered what appeared to be a form of God Talk in use by David Cameron and the Conservative Party, especially the use of “broken” to describe the state of Britain. Thus, we assess whether God Talk is an efficacious communication strategy in the U.K. using an experiment that selectively exposes participants to God Talk statements. The mixed results suggest that some forms of God Talk are better than others in conveying to U.K. evangelicals that a candidate is conservative and religious without triggering the same associations by non-evangelical voters. We close with a discussion of the normative impact of such communication strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article investigates the extent and nature of the press coverage of the personal lives and personal qualities of contemporary British political leaders. In particular, it explores the legacy of the politicization of Blair's private persona, or the Blair effect. Was Blair's era a temporary anomaly, or did it have a transformative effect on the way that parties, politicians, and journalists conceive the role of the personal in public discourse and in the construction of a leader's public persona? This research demonstrates that the degree of politicization of private persona still depends, to an important extent, on the personality of the leader and on the leader's communication strategies, and that it is still possible to have a prime minister such as Gordon Brown, who tries to keep his personal life mostly private. But this is only part of the story. Blair's era altered expectations about the role that the personal plays, and ought to play, in public discourse, and how much significance is given to it as a criterion of leadership evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In liberal democratic theory demonstrations and protests have long been seen as a bridge helping to overcome possible disconnects between publics, opinion formation and decision-makers and, in more recent social theory, they are thought to perform a role in vitalizing moribund parliamentary democracies, crystallizing collective identities and circulating new cultural codes. In Britain today, as in many other Western democracies, demonstrations and protests have moved from the margins to the mainstream, becoming increasingly profuse and an accepted political tactic for an expanded range of organizations, single-issue campaigns, new social movements and transnational advocacy networks. They depend on the media, and the news media particularly, to get their message across and mobilize wider support. Much has changed however, since earlier studies documented how the news media reported protests and demonstrations through a dominant law and (dis)order frame, labelling protesters as deviant and de-legitimizing their aims and politics by emphasizing drama, spectacle and violence. This discussion considers some of these major changes and, on this basis, proposes a new research agenda for the exploration of the complexities and contingencies that now inform the news media's reporting of dissent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports findings from part of an evaluation study of the Communication Aids Project (CAP), a government-funded project in England which provided communication aids to school-aged children. The paper focuses on parents' views of the CAP process and the impact of the aid. Fourteen parents were interviewed twice over the telephone: once before or just as their children received communication aids and again six to eight weeks later. Parents expressed satisfaction with the impact of the aid on their children's lives and showed they had realistic expectations concerning potential short- and long-term benefits. They raised two main concerns regarding the provision of aids, namely the timescale involved and access to accurate information and advice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]