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Background: Germany is the second most common country of immigration after the US. However, people with own or familial history of migration are not represented proportionately to the population within public health monitoring and reporting. To bridge this data gap and enable differentiated analyses on migration and health, we conducted the health interview survey GEDA Fokus among adults with Croatian, Italian, Polish, Syrian, or Turkish citizenship living throughout Germany. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the effects of recruitment efforts regarding participation and sample composition. Methods: Data collection for this cross-sectional and multilingual survey took place between 11/2021 and 5/2022 utilizing a sequential mixed-mode design, including self-administered web- and paper-based questionnaires as well as face-to-face and telephone interviews. The gross sample (n = 33436; age range 18–79 years) was randomly drawn from the residents' registers in 120 primary sampling units based on citizenship. Outcome rates according to the American Association for Public Opinion Research, the sample composition throughout the multistage recruitment process, utilization of survey modes, and questionnaire languages are presented. Results: Overall, 6038 persons participated, which corresponded to a response rate of 18.4% (range: 13.8% for Turkish citizenship to 23.9% for Syrian citizenship). Home visits accounted for the largest single increase in response. During recruitment, more female, older, as well as participants with lower levels of education and income took part in the survey. People with physical health problems and less favourable health behaviour more often took part in the survey at a later stage, while participants with symptoms of depression or anxiety more often participated early. Utilization of survey modes and questionnaire languages differed by sociodemographic and migration-related characteristics, e.g. participants aged 50 years and above more often used paper- than web-based questionnaires and those with a shorter duration of residence more often used a translated questionnaire. Conclusion: Multiple contact attempts, including home visits and different survey languages, as well as offering different modes of survey administration, increased response rates and most likely reduced non-response bias. In order to adequately represent and include the diversifying population in public health monitoring, national public health institutes should tailor survey designs to meet the needs of different population groups considered hard to survey to enable their survey participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT marks a pivotal advancement in artificial intelligence, reshaping the landscape of data analysis and processing. By simulating public opinion, ChatGPT shows promise in facilitating public policy development. However, challenges persist regarding its worldwide applicability and bias across demographics and themes. Our research employs socio-demographic data from the World Values Survey to evaluate ChatGPT's performance in diverse contexts. Findings indicate significant performance disparities, especially when comparing countries. Models perform better in Western, English-speaking, and developed nations, notably the United States, in comparison to others. Disparities also manifest across demographic groups, showing biases related to gender, ethnicity, age, education, and social class. The study further uncovers thematic biases in political and environmental simulations. These results highlight the need to enhance LLMs' representativeness and address biases, ensuring their equitable and effective integration into public opinion research alongside conventional methodologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Representative opinion polls indicate that members of the U.S. public may hold dichotomous perceptions of their veterans. While the majority of the U.S. public appreciates and honors their veterans, they are also considered to suffer from war-induced trauma and physical disabilities. Victimizing attitudes toward the veteran population may result in stigmatization and a more difficult transition into civilian society. This may be particularly problematic for U.S. veterans who were deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan as this younger veteran population needs to reintegrate not only into civilian society but also into civilian workplace settings. The present study aims to uncover and unravel underlying rationalities that justify heroizing and victimizing sentiments in relation to Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. In order to delve beyond socially desirable reporting and cultural norms, in-depth semi-structured interviews with 29 individuals (20 non-veterans and 9 veterans) were conducted. Three themes were identified by thematic analysis: Theme 1 "Individual Understandings of the Deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan" represents an underlying framework that tainted perceptions of Theme 2 "Conceptualizations of war, deployment, and violence" and Theme 3 "Evaluations of the veteran's personality." If the deployments were considered justified, then veterans were heroized, characterized with supreme altruistic traits when compared with civilians. Negative effects on health that were arbitrarily related to deployment experience were classified as short-lived. If the deployments were scrutinized, then veterans were considered as naïve victims of a deceitful government, suffering from long-term health problems. Importantly, as discussions surrounding the legitimacy of the deployments were context-dependent, the participants were able to hold perceptions of veterans as victims and as heroes side by side. In conclusion, the heroization and victimization of veterans may be the result of considering different viewpoints, elucidating diversity and access to equivocal information in an increasingly complex social world. Although the present findings may require further validation, they suggest that changing negative, stereotyping perceptions of veterans may require a coherent rationale for deployments and uniform mission objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 2018 and 2022, the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES, lead agency) in cooperation with the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS) conducted an empirical research project on ‘informal employment, social security, and political trust in sub-Saharan Africa’. Our opinion poll provides novel insight into informality and sheds light on the views and perceptions of people informally employed with regard to health issues, views on trust in state and government, self-organization, and interest in trade unions. The project improves the understanding of access to public goods and their provision; offers entry points for policymaking to provide social protection for the large (informal) majority of the African labor force; and establishes findings about distributional justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across numerous African societies, a prevalent resistance to LGBTQ rights is evident. While prominent strides have been made on LGBTQ rights in various parts of the world, the African context has witnessed limited progress. Public opinion polls indicate that influential figures have succeeded in altering public sentiment towards LGBTQ rights in Western countries, yet such progress remains elusive in the African context. Mechanisms effective in shifting public attitudes toward embracing LGBTQ rights remain largely unexplored, especially in the African context. In this paper, we consider whether endorsement messages conveyed by trusted authorities possess the potential to foster a shift in attitudes towards embracing LGBTQ rights among a nationally representative sample of respondents in Ghana. Through a factorial experiment, we find that there are varying impacts of messaging from distinct trusted authorities in shaping attitudes toward embracing LGBTQ rights. Notably, pro-LGBTQ messaging from traditional and co-partisan leaders yields modest effects, while messaging from religious leaders exhibits no discernible impact. These findings hold significance for determining strategic focal points in potential endeavors to advance LGBTQ rights within the African context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the record of Germany’s current coalition government consisting of the SPD, Greens and liberal FDP under chancellor Olaf Scholz, a member of the SPD. Since 2021, the coalition’s failure to set a coherent policy agenda, permanent infighting and external challenges, such as the Ukraine war and immigration, have led to a dramatic decay in support for the governing parties. The opposition CDU/CSU has profited little from the government’s weakness, while the rightist AfD rides high in opinion polls and elections. Conversely, Die Linke experienced a split in December 2023 when a group of its legislators—led by Sahra Wagenknecht, the former co‐chair of the left’s parliamentary group, decided to found a new political party, the ‘Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht—Reason and Justice’. The article evaluates Wagenknecht’s political discourse which aims to combine progressive welfare and conservative migration policies. It is suggested that Wagenknecht’s ‘left conservatism’ is a promising electoral project filling a representation gap in German politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public opinion polls have become vital and increasingly visible parts of election campaigns. Previous research has frequently demonstrated that polls can influence both citizens' voting intentions and political parties' campaign strategies. However, they are also fraught with uncertainty. Margins of error can reflect (parts of) this uncertainty. This paper investigates how citizens' voting intentions change due to whether polling estimates are presented with or without margins of error. Using a vignette experiment (N=3224), we examine this question based on a real‐world example in which different election polls were shown to nationally representative respondents ahead of the 2021 federal election in Germany. We manipulated the display of the margins of error, the interpretation of polls and the closeness of the electoral race. The results indicate that margins of error can influence citizens' voting intentions. This effect is dependent on the actual closeness of the race and additional interpretative guidance provided to voters. More concretely, the results consistently show that margins of error increase citizens' inclination to vote for one of the two largest contesting parties if the polling gap between these parties is small, and an interpretation underlines this closeness. The findings of this study are important for three reasons. First, they help to determine whether margins of error can assist citizens in making more informed (strategic) vote decisions. They shed light on whether depicting opinion‐poll uncertainty affects the key features of representative democracy, such as democratic accountability. Second, the results stress the responsibility of the media. The way polls are interpreted and contextualized influences the effect of margins of error on voting behaviour. Third, the findings of this paper underscore the significance of including methodological details when communicating scientific research findings to the broader public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines whether and to what extent the bandwagon effect and the spiral of silence impact opinion formation in a polarized context, where individuals tend to be persistent in their policy attitudes. Focusing on contentious policy issues at the heart of the culture war in American politics, our aim is to study the relative importance of attitude persistence and social conformity in the opinion-formation process, and how these responses depend on individuals' ideological commitments. We conducted an experimental study of US citizens, where participants donated money to organizations advocating opposed positions on seven of the most contentious issues in American politics. Utilizing the presentation of opinion polls as a treatment, the findings are threefold. First, we show that polls cause ideologically moderate people to abandon the minority and conform to the majority opinion regardless of the issue at stake. By contrast, we show that attitude persistence prevails among ideologically extreme people. Second, we demonstrate that seeing polls generally demobilizes people with minority views. Third, we find that opinion-conversion and demobilization jointly undermine minority opinions, while only a small minority of extremists repels both mechanisms. These findings have important implications for research on opinion formation in today's polarized political landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the labor upsurge of the early 2020s and places it in an historical context. In the early 2020s, workers across the U.S. protested, organized, and walked out, part of an upsurge that produced remarkable results. There were union victories at some of the country's best-known corporations, including Starbucks, Amazon, Google, Apple, and Trader Joe's. Between 2021 and 2023, more than 360 Starbucks stores unionized, most through independent worker action. Over 8,000 workers also organized an Amazon warehouse in Staten Island, doing so with a grassroots union and a budget of just $120,000. Across the country, the number of strikes surged, petitions for National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) elections rose sharply, and union density increased for the first time in decades. Opinion polls also showed record levels of public support for unions. Rather than seeing the upsurge as new – as media accounts stressed – the article links it to longer-term trends, particularly many decades of bargaining givebacks, increasing income inequality, and long-term union decline. Across the U.S., workers reached their breaking point, and hit back. Short-term conditions – particularly the labor shortage produced by the pandemic – were important, but the upsurge also reflected longer-term grievances that built up over decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines public opinion on Twitter during the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, focusing on the interplay between sport, communication, and soft power. It sheds light on the online discourse surrounding a global sporting event by analyzing tweet frequency, sentiment changes, prevalent topics, and the most popular tweets surrounding controversial events. Political discussions surrounding the World Cup initially dominated but gradually declined, shifting the focus to sporting achievements and cultural exchange. Throughout the tournament, the host country, European countries participating in the World Cup, and fans contested the narrative surrounding the event. However, the study highlights how celebrities and public figures had a more significant impact on shaping conversations about sports, cultural exchange, and sociopolitical issues. These findings deepen the understanding of the interplay between sports, politics, culture, and social issues, offering insights to researchers, practitioners, and policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Economics is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Systems Engineering & Electronics is the property of Journal of Systems Engineering & Electronics Editorial Department and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

How do survey respondents arrive at answers to survey questions? How do they fit different kinds of subtle or even contradictory ideas into "moderate" or "don't know" answers? Public opinion research practice typically treats attitudes as discrete thought processes that can be accurately captured with appropriately designed survey instruments. Critics have challenged conventional practice of public opinion research by highlighting the ambiguity of attitudes and their dependence on social context. These issues are most salient in the case of "neither" and mid-scale response selections, which have been characterized by survey researchers as a "dumping ground" for indifferent, unsure, refused, ambivalent, and other response types. Drawing on novel data from 20 cognitive interviews conducted for the 2006 ANES Pilot Study, we examine the distinct meanings respondents assign to "neither" and middle response categories, along with the various strategies they use to match their own reasoning with these categories. We propose a simple analytical framework that distinguishes between the meanings respondents intend to communicate and the logics they use to select "neither" and middle responses. Our analysis of this data from a common validation method empirically demonstrates how the ambiguity of "neither" and middle responses emerges from the complex cognitive work respondents undertake in relation to the flexible meanings of these categories and social expectations generated within the survey interaction. In addition, we show how qualitative cognitive interview data provides valuable insight into the response process that can be extended beyond question validation and used to triangulate interpretation of survey results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) remain highly vulnerable to the risk of acquiring HIV (Human immunodeficiency virus). This study was conducted to measure behavioral, biomedical and structural outcomes for the Global Fund funded AGYW programmes in five African countries with high burden of HIV including Botswana, Cameroon. Lesotho, Malawi and Namibia. Methods: The study used a mixed methods approach to collect behavioral, structural and biomedical outcome data. Quantitative data were collected through 418 Polling Booth Survey (PBS) sessions from 4,581 AGYWs. Participants were recruited through a community-based multistage sampling technique using sampling weights for urban and rural communities. 23 Focus Group Discussions (FGD) were conducted to understand barriers to use of HIV prevention programme and community recommendations for improved coverage. Ethical approvals were obtained from the ethics review board in all five countries. Results: More than 50% of the respondents from all five countries reported to be sexually active, and at least 30% or more of those who were sexually active had multiple sex partners. There were wide variations between the countries in condom use with a non-marital sexual partner which ranged between 66% in Namibia to 42% in Cameroon. Cameroon (44%) had high percentage of AGYWs with independent income source while school drop-outs were higher in Malawi (55.5%) and Lesotho (46.6%). Nearly 1/4th of AGYWs in all countries, except Namibia, reported experiencing intimate partner violence. Nineteen percent of the respondents were pregnant in the last 12 months, and 50% of those pregnancies were unplanned. Lesotho had the highest proportion of AGYW (90.5%) ever tested for HIV, followed by Malawi (87.5%), Botswana (75%), Cameroon (69%) and Namibia (62.6%). Discussion: There is diversity across the countries, with country-wise and age-wise variations in results. In all countries, the AGYW programme will benefit from a more targeted approach to reach out to the most vulnerable AGYW, strengthening structural interventions, strengthening linkage to PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis) and ART (Antiretroviral Therapy) for those who are living with HIV and a strong linkage with reproductive health services. The assessment helped countries to understand the gaps and opportunities to improve the HIV prevention programme with AGYW. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sentiment analysis (SA) in social networks plays a vital role in the current information industry era. It has a broad application basis and crucial practical significance for research in public opinion analysis, hot spot mining, and product recommendation. The current research on SA has gradually expanded from convolutional neural networks to graph neural networks since the graph structure can contain more text sentiment features. However, the improvement is limited due to the informal expressions and complexity of online reviews, and lack of fusing the context information of the statement, the dependency parsing results, and the syntactic results. To overcome these challenges, we aim to study the application of graph neural network in SA, investigate the sentiment features of the text from multiple views for the sentiment classification of Chinese text and propose a multi-graph and MLP-Mixer fusion network (MGMFN) model. This model effectively integrates the contextual information, syntactic information, and semantic information of Chinese text and considers the complementarity among contextual information, syntactic structures, and semantic correlations. The mechanism of the MLP-Mixer is utilized to enhance long-range semantic dependencies in the text and strengthen the spatially representational power of multi-head attention. In the experiment, the M a c r o F _ m e a s u r e and M i c r o F _ m e a s u r e of our model reach 83.72% and 86.43%, respectively, surpassing the most advanced method by 3.79% and 4.11%, respectively. This result shows that the proposed MGMFN model can effectively extract the multi-aspect features from Chinese texts to mine the information in sentences, and then improves the accuracy of Chinese text SA. In addition, the proposed MGMFN model provides a competitive analysis method for Chinese text SA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime in 2003, Iraqi Shi’a political actors have been the main forces leading the country, dominating the domestic legislative scene over their Sunni and Kurdish counterparts. This article brings innovative analysis and classification of actors, such as Islamic Da’wa Party, Badr Organization, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq (AAH), Harakat Huquq, Al-Hikma, Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), Sadrist Movement, or Imtidad, bringing more light on the Iraqi political scene since the parliamentary elections in 2021. The ideological anchorage of the parties is evaluated in two dimensions, religious and sectarian, placing them on the Islamic-secular and sectarian-nationalist axes, reflecting their approach towards intra-religious issues, vilayet al-faqih, possible normalization of relations with Israel, sectarianism, and nationalism. The methodology of this research is based on Chapel Hill Expert Survey data collection, semi-structured interviews with politicians and political experts from the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and Iraq, Jordan, and the United Kingdom, content analysis of examined actors’ statements on social and official media and opinion polls, reflecting the voices of the Iraqi society. The main results of this research singled out clusters of more pro-Iranian actors (Badr Organization, AAH, Harakat Huquq), with the highest tendency to use Islamic and sectarian policies, followed by more traditional Iraqi political actors such as Islamic Da’wa Party and ISCI. Al-Hikma, Sadrist Movement and Imtidad then inclined to be more nationalist and secular. Finally, it shows the Iranian influence as a crucial factor in shaping the domestic and foreign policies of thoseactors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) is a controversial technique that has been suggested as a means of temporarily halting global warming. A study conducted on 441 individuals in the US in November 2023 investigated the impact of three video presentations either promoting or opposing research on SAI. Two of the videos were presented by scientific experts either promoting or opposing further research into this technology. The third was politicized, featuring Tucker Carlson on Fox News, and arguing that SAI would endanger Americans. We found that all three of the video presentations had a strong influence on general support for or against research, and that the politicized presentation not only reduced support for research but also reduced trust in science and technology to provide solutions to problems facing humanity. The findings suggest the strong impact of messaging on public opinion about research into SAI as a climate change intervention strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Measuring the coverage of HIV prevention services for key populations (KPs) has consistently been a challenge for national HIV programmes. The current frameworks and measurement methods lack emphasis on effective coverage, occur infrequently, lack timeliness and limit the participation of KPs. The Effective Programme Coverage framework, which utilizes a programme science approach, provides an opportunity to assess gaps in various coverage domains and explore the underlying reasons for these gaps, in order to develop targeted solutions. We have demonstrated the application of this framework in partnership with the KP community in Nairobi, Kenya, using an expanded Polling Booth Survey (ePBS) method. Methods: Data were collected between April and May 2023 among female sex workers (FSWs) and men who have sex with men (MSM) using (a) PBS, (b) bio‐behavioural survey and (c) focus group discussions. Data collection and analysis involved both KP community and non‐community researchers. Descriptive analysis was performed, and proportions were used to assess the programme coverage gaps. The data were weighted to account for the sampling design and unequal selection probabilities. Thematic analysis was conducted on the qualitative data. Results: The condom programme for FSW and MSM had low availability (60.2% and 50.9%), contact (68.8% and 65.9%) and utilization (52.1% and 43.9%) coverages. The pre‐exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) programme had very low utilization coverage for FSW and MSM (4.4% and 2.8%), while antiretroviral therapy utilization coverage was higher (86.6% and 87.7%). Reasons for coverage gaps included a low peer educator‐to‐peer ratio, longer distance to the clinics, shortage of free condoms supplied by the government, experienced and anticipated side effects related to PrEP, and stigma and discrimination experienced in the facilities. Conclusions: The Effective Programme Coverage framework allows programmes to assess coverage gaps and develop solutions and a research agenda targeted at specific domains of coverage with large gaps. The ePBS method works well in collecting data to understand coverage gaps rapidly and allows for the engagement of the KP community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Under the background of coexistence of information overload and information fragmentation, it is of great significance to identify influencing factors and reveal the evolution logic of public opinion for public opinion governance. Design/methodology/approach: Taking 24 hot social events as research cases, firstly, the evolution process of public opinion was divided into initial stage and response stage. Secondly, eight antecedent variables were extracted for qualitative comparative analysis of fuzzy sets. Finally, the configuration path of public opinion evolution results was summarized. Findings: The research showed that compared with the initial stage, the influencing factors in the reaction stage played a key role in the continuous evolution of public opinion. The influencing factors in the initial stage and response stage played an indispensable role in promoting the evolution of public opinion to calm down. Practical implications: This research can provide reference for regulators to timely grasp the initiative, discourse power and leadership of public opinion development. Originality/value: Research on the two-stage configuration path of public opinion evolution is helpful to clarify the key factors affecting the evolution trend of online public opinion of hot events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Environmental & Social Management Journal / Revista de Gestão Social e Ambiental is the property of Environmental & Social Management Journal and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The electoral institution ensures the free expression of the will of the citizens in the choice of the ruler. The electoral institution is going through a difficult period not only within the post-Soviet space, but also in Russia, where it has to be adapted to the current global reality and the growing influence of network communications. Its modernization to a larger extent will depend on the understanding of its history. This study aims to conduct a comprehensive historical and political analysis of the electoral system development in contemporary Russia by looking at the institution of parliamentary democracy. For this, the study examines the approval ratings for the State Duma and the Federation Council, reported by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center between 2006 and 2020. Findings show that the current electoral institution had a significant impact on the establishment and consolidation of the political system of Russia at the beginning of the 21st century and in overcoming the consequences of the post-Soviet political transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the perspectives of South Korean strategic elites on the possibility of South Korea acquiring nuclear weapons. While there is no consensus among elites, a significant portion of those who do not support nuclearization express conditional support under certain circumstances. Nuclear advocates prefer an independent nuclear capability, while non-supporters prefer a nuclear-sharing arrangement within the US-ROK alliance. The survey also highlights the influence of the US alliance on South Korean attitudes towards nuclearization. The article concludes by emphasizing the importance of maintaining reassurance to South Korea and avoiding rhetoric that suggests a weakening of the US-South Korea alliance. [Extracted from the article]

Transparency is essential for objectively evaluating or replicating any study's findings. Although several reporting standards and guidelines exist for survey research, these standards are not adopted or enforced by most academic journals, and thus, transparency in survey research has been relatively low. This study documents and compares trends in transparency in survey research. We reviewed 899 articles that used 1,237 original surveys and were published in top journals in the fields of political science, sociology, and public opinion research between 2011 and 2021. The results show small changes in reporting different survey characteristics during the observed period. Nevertheless, we found that the majority of the articles did not provide responses or other rates, and a strong decrease was observed in transparency regarding response rates. Our results underscore the importance of promoting reporting standards and enforcing rules more rigorously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the grounds behind Vladimir Putin's decision were widely debated. Theories suggest several reasons, including Putin's nostalgic dream of restoring Soviet imperial glory, Russia's fears of NATO security threats near their borders. But another explanation may be more prosaic: Putin's desire to restore his sagging popularity at home by attempting to repeat his 2014 "Crimea" strategy. By annexing territories in Eastern Ukraine, he may have hoped to generate a "rally-around-the flag" effect, boosting his domestic support by appealing to Russian patriotism and nationalism. To examine this thesis, Part I outlines the core concept and what is known in the literature about the size and duration of the rally-around-the flag phenomenon. Part II examines the available time-series survey evidence drawn from a variety of opinion polls in Ukraine, Europe, and Russia focusing on the first 8 months of the war to detect any rally effects associated with Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Part III examines the evidence of media effects. Part IV adds robustness tests. The conclusion in Part V summarizes the main findings and discusses their broader implications for understanding the roots of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether proactive efforts to educate people about disinformation through advertisements can successfully increase skepticism towards false headlines or if such efforts do more harm than good by inadvertently increasing belief in false information. We analyze a survey experiment that employed three different advertisements that directly addressed "fake news." We find that all advertisements were effective at increasing skepticism towards "fake news" headlines. We also find no evidence of backfire effects occurring. However, subsequent analysis using Bayesian additive regression trees (BART) finds significant heterogeneity within these treatment effects. While all advertisements were effective, each ad was effective in different ways despite common themes and content. This suggests a more complicated understanding of the counter-disinformation process and highlights BART's utility in public opinion research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the international community attempts to unite to combat climate change, American party politics could hardly be more divided on this issue. This paper offers an additional explanation for how US congressional politics on environmental policy has polarized: the ongoing education realignment in American party politics. As the Democratic Party increasingly relies on college-educated voters and the opposite is true for the Republican Party, this can affect the parties' positions on environmental policy based on public opinion research which finds a positive relationship between education and pro-environment attitudes. Using League of Conservation Voters legislative scorecards from 1983 to 2020, this paper finds the education realignment contributed to the removal of pro-environment Republicans and anti-environment Democrats in Congress in recent decades; and this primarily occurred through elite replacement rather than conversion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The House of Representatives election of 2 December, 1972, was a watershed in Australian political history. That election saw the Australian Labor Party terminate the Liberal–Country Party (LCP) Coalition's twenty‐three‐year hegemony and bring to office not only a different type of Labor government but a different prime ministerial style in leader Gough Whitlam. Yet, just six years before, Labor at the 1966 election had suffered a 4.30 per cent two‐party preferred (2PP) swing and the loss of nine seats following Labor's lowest primary vote since 1934. Labor's dramatic reversal of fortunes in just six years therefore remains of enormous historical interest. But, given the 1972 election saw a modest 2.5 per cent 2PP swing to Labor, with the party seizing twelve seats from the Coalition and losing four back to the LCP, the 1969–72 triennium offers little insight into Labor's recovery. In that context, this article, via analyses of House of Representatives election results and public opinion poll data, explores the chronology, demography, and geography of Labor's electoral recovery to argue the 1966–69 triennium remains of far greater value when identifying exactly when, among whom, and where Labor began its pathway to power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In today's competitive information environment, clicks are the currency of the digital media landscape. Clickbait journalism attempts to entice attention with provocative and sensational headlines, but what are the implications when public opinion polls are the hook? Does the use of survey clickbait—news stories that make misleading claims about public opinion—have implications for perceptions of the public, journalists, or the polling industry? In two survey experiments conducted in the United States, we find that exposure to apolitical survey clickbait that makes exaggerated claims about the incompetence of the American public undermines perceptions of their capacity for democratic citizenship. At the same time, we find no evidence that this type of survey clickbait damages the reputations of the media or polling industry, suggesting that the media may have perverse incentives to use low-quality polls or to misrepresent polling results to drive traffic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent in‐depth qualitative research indicates that different people ascribe different meanings to their apparently similar stances on immigrants' entitlement to welfare. We are the first to investigate such variation quantitatively among the public‐at‐large, applying the novel method Correlational Class Analysis to an original survey fielded among a representative sample in the Netherlands (n = 2138). We uncover five ways of looking at immigrants' entitlement to welfare, each including both people who oppose that entitlement and those who support it. People who adhere to these different viewpoints substantially differ when it comes to income, education, religious denomination, and political preference. We interpret these unique findings and discuss them in relation to the extant literature on welfare chauvinism. Moreover, uncovering what people's stances regarding immigrants' entitlement to welfare mean not only advances the scholarly debate on welfare chauvinism, but also provides a stepping stone for meaning‐oriented sociological research on public opinion more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ridge calibration is a penalized method used in survey sampling to reduce the variability of the final set of weights by relaxing the linear restrictions. We proposed a method for selecting the penalty parameter that minimizes the estimated mean squared error of the mean estimator when estimated auxiliary information is used. We showed that the proposed estimator is asymptotically equivalent to the generalized regression estimator. A simple simulation study shows that our estimator has the smaller MSE compared to the traditional calibration ones. We applied our method to predict election result using National Barometer Survey and Korea Social Integration Survey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Nigerian media have, over the years, moved back and forth via all manners of experience of leadership, from military to democratic, until they finally settled into the present democratic governance. Experience from previous regimes exposed them to the vagaries of power and how to cope with them. These traditional news media, newspapers/magazines, radio, and television, were then the major and authentic news sources for Nigerians. The coming of the internet with its social media handles threw the journalists of these media into confusion as the citizens have taken the reigns of news/information peddling from under them, turning them into agents of confirmation and authenticity of information. Ironically, these traditional media, television, radio, and print, have adjusted to online media streaming, thus liberating themselves from the vagaries of temporal and spatial limitedness. Deploying a survey method (opinion poll, OPL) and relying on a purposive sampling technique, the authors purposively selected WhatsApp group platforms (WGP) as the most suitable of the new/social media with access to all manners of news sources. These were used to interrogate how online media/information/news streaming has taken the audience away from traditional media by being on the 'spot' at all hours with their avalanche of "Breaking News". The findings revealed that audiences currently resort to traditional media to confirm the authenticity of news and information carried online in a sort-of-when-in-doubt-watch-the television manner or listen to radio or read the newspapers/magazines. It concludes that online news streaming has become the coveted bride of present-day information and news seekers, albeit an unreliable one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses data from Google Trends and Twitter to analyze how public interest and sentiment towards Universal Basic Income (UBI) changed across all 50 states and Washington D.C. between 2018 and 2021. We specifically selected this time period as it includes both Andrew Yang's UBI campaign during the Democratic primaries in 2019 and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 when UBI gained attention due to the federal government's unconditional cash payment to almost all citizens. To overcome the limitations of sporadic opinion polls, we built on a recent development of the rescaling method to generate longitudinal Google Trends and conducted Twitter sentiment analysis. We observed a modest rise in public interest in UBI during Andrew Yang's campaign, especially in blue states, and a significant increase across all states at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although it quickly waned, the level of public attention became elevated compared to the pre-pandemic level. Contrary to previous studies, our analysis also reveals that overall sentiment became less positive after the peak interest during the pandemic, as more people engaged in online discussions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Environmental & Social Management Journal / Revista de Gestão Social e Ambiental is the property of Environmental & Social Management Journal and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The process of Polish population aging is gaining momentum. In Poland there is a large number of people aging in place, and their physical environment and how well it is adapted to their physical needs, is linked to their health and satisfaction with their home. The purpose of the study is to identify the current state of adapting apartments to the needs of people with mobility limitations in Poland, and also to present their current standard of residence. The following aspects were analysed: access to cold water, hot water, access to sewage, toilet in the apartment or on the staircase. The study aims at providing answers regarding the degree of readiness to change the resided apartments into the ones adapted to the needs of people with mobility impairments among people over 50 (a total of 208 respondents). The authors' aim was to find out the public mood among people aged 50 and over and their propensity to change apartments in the future The work used a public opinion research based on the performed survey and the conducted statistical analyses. The research revealed, e.g., that the respondents most often indicated the need to adapt bathrooms or toilets in their apartments or houses to facilitate mobility (52%). The respondents residing in the buildings constructed in the period 1945–1975 were most willing to change their current apartment into the one adapted to limited mobility. This is usually due to the poor technical condition of the buildings constructed in this period as well as the structural limitations that do not allow for the modernization of a bathroom or the installation of an elevator in the building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researching public opinion can help us learn important facts. People may quickly and easily express their thoughts and feelings on any subject using social media, which creates a deluge of unorganized data. Sentiment analysis on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook has developed into a potent tool for gathering insights into users' perspectives. However, difficulties in interpreting natural language limit the effectiveness and precision of sentiment analysis. This research focuses on developing a social media sentiment analysis (SMSA) framework, incorporating a custom-built emotion thesaurus to enhance the precision of sentiment analysis. It delves into the efficacy of various deep learning algorithms, under different parameter calibrations, for sentiment extraction from social media. The study distinguishes itself by its unique approach towards sentiment dictionary creation and its application to deep learning models. It contributes new insights into sentiment analysis, particularly in social media contexts, showcasing notable advancements over previous methodologies. The results demonstrate improved accuracy and deeper understanding of social media sentiment, opening avenues for future research and applications in diverse fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite fierce politicization in arms-exporting democracies, we lack systematic research on mass public preferences on arms transfers. We propose that citizens either apply a deontologist (rejecting transfers categorically) or consequentialist (trading-off economic, strategic and normative aspects) calculus of preference formation. Conducting population-representative survey experiments (N = 6617) in Germany and France, two global top-five major arms exporters, we find that 10–15 per cent of respondents follow deontologist considerations, a preference structure potentially relevant for all foreign policies involving the use of military force. Still, a majority shows differentiated preferences, giving largest weight to normative considerations, with assessments affected by moderating features (e.g., scenarios of just war). Principled rejection of arms trade and a large consequentialist weight for normative factors are more pronounced in Germany compared to France, indicating that public opinion might pose a stronger constraint for government policy in this country. Respondents’ preferences match opinion polls on post-Russian invasion Ukraine armament, indicating high external validity of our experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We live in a technological age, an age of the digital economy, an age based on technologies. These innovations have brought about many changes in society, starting with people's lifestyles and ending with large international trade structures. The importance of this research results from the need for digital technologies for the trade of the Republic of Moldova. Following this phenomenon, new economic concepts and ideologies emerged. Digitization is now found in all areas of human society and has also influenced commerce, one of the essential branches of society. This article aims to research the public opinion regarding the digitization process and its influence on the agri-food trade, the dangers that come with this phenomenon and the importance of educating the population about these changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community participation is a public administration perspective, in the formulation of qanun it is a form of public policy at the regional level which includes the regulation of various aspects of local life with all the benefits needed in the process of administering government. The aim of this research is to analysed and determine strategies for community participation in the formulation of qanun in Gayo Lues Regency. The research method used in this research is a qualitative approach. Primary data in this research was obtained directly through interviews about the research theme. Data collection techniques were carried out using Library Research (library research) and Field Research (field research). Data analysis uses qualitative analysis which is presented and explained in the discussion. The results of this research are that the process of formulating qanuns should not be carried out by one party alone, but requires the involvement of all parties both within the state structure and outside the state structure as a form of community participation in the development process. Participating in the formulation of qanuns is a community right that can be exercised both in the preparation and discussion stages, so that every community member needs their presence, both physical and conceptual, to provide substantial input into each qanun that is formed. Strategies to increase community participation in the formulation of qanuns in Gayo Lues Regency and what forms of participation the community can take in the process of forming qanuns. Several conclusions can be made, including, Qanun is the highest policy at the regional level, therefore community and stakeholder participation is absolutely necessary to ensure that the qanun is in Favor of the community, as well as guaranteeing the possibility of the qanun being enforced. A policy is needed to increase public participation in the formation of qanuns, namely, the government must provide education about the step by step process of forming qanuns, and there needs to be a clear and firm mechanism regarding the urgency of the intended participation. Forms of participation that can be carried out by the community include, taking part in public hearings either in the council building or going directly to the location of the relevant community or through seminars or workshops, attending trials at the DPRK building, conducting opinion polls, contacting the public through the mass media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does exposure to terrorism affect attitudes toward immigration policy? If so, is it the sense of threat that impacts these attitudes? Previous studies could not find conclusive evidence of increasing hostility toward out-groups as a direct consequence of terrorist events, as they struggle to separate attitudinal migration policy preferences and reactions to terrorism. Drawing on intergroup threat theory, we conducted two original public opinion polls (N = 954) in Israel, using a unique model that refined both the measure of the intensity of exposure to terrorism–more intensive (Study 1) and less intensive (Study 2)—and differences in the measure of different levels of geographic proximity to the attacks (high/low). Results indicate that in times of intense terror attacks, high levels of exposure to such attacks affect people's conflict-related threat perceptions, which drive their support for exclusionary migration policies. These findings improve our understanding of the spillover effects of terrorism on public opinion about migrants who are not involved in the conflict that prompts the terror attacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we aim to investigate optimal control to a mathematical model that describes agreedisagree opinions during polls in a multi-zone framework. We first present the model and recall its different compartments and we present some properties of the multi-zone model. We formulate the optimal control problem by supplementing our model with a functional objective. Optimal control strategies are proposed to reduce the number of disagreeing people in a targeted zone and the cost of interventions. We prove the existence of solutions to the control problem, and we employ the Pontryagin’s maximum principle to find the necessary conditions for the existence of the optimal controls and Runge- Kutta forward-backward sweep numerical approximation method is used to solve the optimal control system, and perform numerical simulations using various initial conditions and parameters to investigate several scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Politicas y Sociales is the property of Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Politicas y Sociales and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This project examines news coverage of public opinion polls and explores whether journalists and readers are familiar with best practices in this domain. Study 1 tests the effects of related errors on readers' perceptions, and Study 2 asks journalists to reflect upon this kind of coverage. Readers (N = 495) only noticed errors when they were very frequent, and many did not assess stories differently based on the presence of errors. Journalists (N = 51) acknowledged that this coverage often contains errors, and many identified individual and structural causes. Taken together, this suggests the need for additional training in polling and numeracy for journalists and audiences. Such efforts could improve news articles about public opinion polls, as well as readers' ability to recognize and seek out stronger coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why is there greater gender parity for long-haul truck drivers, astronauts, and paleontologists than for women airline captains? This study uses a mixed-methods approach to examine the underlying causes of the gender imbalance in the United States aviation industry, in which only 3.6% of airline captains are women. Two polls and one survey gather data from professional pilots (N=1093) on their experience with stereotyping, gender bias, and allyship. Direct comments were analyzed to shed light on the results of the survey. Results suggest that contrary to prevailing perceptions, the persistent gender imbalance in the flight deck can largely be attributed to an ingrained and self-perpetuating negative culture cycle unique to the flight deck and a lack of allyship which affects the recruitment and retention of women pilots. Findings from self-identified male pilots (N=575) revealed that the majority of most potential allies are not participating in resolving the gender imbalance because they do not see it as their responsibility. The authors develop a model depicting this cycle and propose a novel system-level (s-frame) solution to fundamentally change the culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has put forward a new indicator based on the "ABC‐model" of attitudes designed to capture individual‐level Euroscepticism. We constructed a composite anti‐EU score based on affective, behavioural and cognitive sub‐indices. The study analyses data from a representative, countrywide Hungarian public opinion research. Looking for the drivers of anti‐EU attitudes, we took an integrative approach linking various theories of voting behaviour, Euroscepticism and populism studies. Our research showed that subjective well‐being significantly reduces anti‐EU attitudes. We found some empirical support for the "left behind thesis" in the Hungarian context, as severe economic grievances and fear of losing social status explained anti‐EU attitudes. Authoritarian traits turned out to be a major driver of Euroscepticism in Hungary. We proved that cosmopolitan values reduce affective and cognitive anti‐EU attitudes, but foreign experience and some international ties significantly correlated with anti‐EU stance. We confirmed that being a supporter of the governing Fidesz party and sharing culturally right‐wing political views significantly increase anti‐EU attitudes. We also revealed that partisanship's effect is strengthened by affective polarization and political interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]