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What theories explain variation in public opinion toward asylum seekers? We implement a survey experiment in which a representative sample of German residents evaluates vignettes of asylum seekers, which randomly vary attributes that speak to deservingness, economic and religious threat, and gender considerations of attitude formation. We find strong support for deservingness theories. Economic and religious threat theories also receive empirical support. Gender plays a negligible role. Importantly, we also document that economic and—to a lesser extent—religious threat considerations only matter when respondents evaluate economic refugees. By contrast, political refugees are welcomed nearly unconditionally. Our paper thus replicates key findings from Bansak, Hainmueller, and Hangartner (2016) and Czymara and Schmidt-Catran (2016) using a representative sample and points to an important interaction effect in public opinion formation toward asylum seekers: economic threat only gets activated when refugees' deservingness is in doubt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Real-time response (RTR) measurement is an important technique for analyzing human processing of electronic media stimuli. Although it has been demonstrated that RTR data are reliable and internally valid, some argue that they lack external validity. The reason for this is that RTR measurement is restricted to a laboratory environment due to its technical requirements. This paper introduces a smartphone app that 1) captures real-time responses using the dial technique and 2) provides a solution for one of the most important problems in RTR measurement, the (automatic) synchronization of RTR data. In addition, it explores the reliability and validity of mobile RTR measurement by comparing the real-time reactions of two samples of young and welleducated voters to the 2013 German televised debate. Whereas the first sample participated in a classical laboratory study, the second sample was equipped with our mobile RTR system and watched the debate at home. Results indicate that the mobile RTR system yields similar results to the lab-based RTR measurement, providing evidence that laboratory studies using RTR are externally valid. In particular, the argument that the artificial reception situation creates artificial results has to be questioned. In addition, we conclude that RTR measurement outside the lab is possible. Hence, mobile RTR opens the door for large-scale studies to better understand the processing and impact of electronic media content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has long been observed by social scientists and, more intuitively, by those who are concerned with the practical politics of public opinion, that one function of the mass media is to confer recognition on individuals or groups. Public recognition, in turn, when it comes from a "significant other" or an important reference group, may exercise an influence on the opinions and behavior of those who receive it. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role that recognition, as expressed through the mass media, played by influencing politically-significant behavior in one crisis situation—the Berlin blockade of 1948-49. Following the end of the Second World War, the city of Berlin in Germany was divided into four sectors, each of which was occupied by one of the four major powers. A full blockade of the land and water routes leading to the sectors occupied by the Western Allies was imposed by the Soviet Union in June 1948. Moscow's objective in doing this was apparently either to force the United States, Great Britain, and France to relinquish their position in Berlin, or else to obtain major concessions from them in West Germany.

The rising penetration of smartphones now gives researchers the chance to collect data from smartphone users through passive mobile data collection via apps. Examples of passively collected data include geolocation, physical movements, online behavior and browser history, and app usage. However, to passively collect data from smartphones, participants need to agree to download a research app to their smartphone. This leads to concerns about nonconsent and nonparticipation. In the current study, we assess the circumstances under which smartphone users are willing to participate in passive mobile data collection. We surveyed 1,947 members of a German nonprobability online panel who own a smartphone using vignettes that described hypothetical studies where data are automatically collected by a research app on a participant's smartphone. The vignettes varied the levels of several dimensions of the hypothetical study, and respondents were asked to rate their willingness to participate in such a study. Willingness to participate in passive mobile data collection is strongly influenced by the incentive promised for study participation but also by other study characteristics (sponsor, duration of data collection period, option to switch off the app) as well as respondent characteristics (privacy and security concerns, smartphone experience). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To mitigate the effects of low survey participation rates and possible nonresponse bias in survey estimates, survey organizations often try to collect auxiliary information with which to evaluate and possibly adjust for differences between respondents and nonrespondents. Call record data and other forms of paradata are commonly used for this purpose, but these data tend to be only weakly correlated with the survey items. Follow-up surveys conducted with nonrespondents try to get around this issue by asking a subset of key items selected from the original questionnaire. However, intensive follow-up procedures are expensive and have other known limitations. In this article, we explore an alternative follow-up procedure that simply asks nonrespondents for consent to use their administrative records in lieu of taking part in a telephone survey interview. Utilizing a unique study design with administrative records available for the overall study sample, we examine characteristics of telephone nonrespondents who consent to record use in a mail follow-up survey. Interestingly, we find that many telephone nonrespondents are willing to grant access to their administrative records. These consenting nonrespondents are similar to the remaining survey nonrespondents, yet different from the telephone survey respondents, which results in reduced nonresponse bias for some key economic items. We discuss the practical implications of these findings and offer some suggestions for incorporating the collected administrative data in nonresponse bias evaluation and adjustment procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Propaganda presupposes definition of sound policy, based upon comprehensible knowledge of the facts and of the political, military and economic situation and also of the enemy psychology. When a line of policy has been laid down, actual propaganda operations may be begun, but not before. First of all axioms of propaganda is that only truthful statements be made. Secondly, there must be no conflicting arguments, and this can only be ensured by close cooperation of all propagandists and by strict adherence to the policy defined. The political attitude of the United Nations with respect to Germany is extremely confusing. On the one hand, threats of indiscriminate reprisals and punishment are made. On the other hand, promise after promise is given equally indiscriminately to the "German people," according to which, after the war, no reprisals will be taken by the Allies and Germany will be received as a welcomed member of the commonwealth of nations.

This article presents a bibliography related to propaganda and public opinion polls in the U.S. The book, "Democracy Through Public Opinion" by Harold Dwight Lasswell analyzes factors that may lead U.S. public opinion to exert democratic control over basic decisions. In "What Every Citizen Should Know About the Navy" by Hanson Weightman Baldwin, an Annapolis graduate and former naval officer, now military and naval specialist for the "New York Times" outlines the training and tasks of enlisted men and officers. He sketches their daily life, describes their quarters, notes their disciplines. Different types of naval vessels are described and sketched. A final chapter on naval strategy is illustrated with charts. A glossary of naval terms precedes an appendix of naval statistics. In the new edition of "Germany Prepares for War," Ewald Banse outlines the basic Nazi war plan in 1932. The author is a German geographer, appointed by the Nazis as Professor of Military Science at Brunswick Technical College.

Although the role played by public opinion in a totalitarian state is carefully controlled, this does not mean that a dictatorship ignores the opinion of its citizens or does not try, to measure their thinking. In this article, Arthur L. Smith, Jr., who is Professor of History at California State College at Los Angeles, describes the considerable effort Nazi Germany devoted to this end between 1939 and 1945. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]