CarolinaG aining attention in the mass media is a key goal of many social movement organizations (SMOs). The dominant explanation of media attention to SMOs is that the media act like a filter, selecting some types of SMOs and events for attention, and ignoring others based on characteristics of these SMOs, events, and their political environment. In contrast to this "bias model," I argue that some media attention to SMOs is characterized by positive feedback, or rich-get-richer processes: past media attention increases the likelihood of future media attention through its effect on the SMO and on other media outlets. Like other positive feedback systems, media attention can be path dependent, is routinely punctuated by large cascades of attention to previously obscure SMOs, and can be contingent on "accidents" of history: at critical junctures, individuals, organizations, and events have the potential to radically impact the extent of media attention to their movements and organizations. Media attention to SMOs can also become decoupled from the types of events that initially sparked their media attention, becoming spokes-organizations for their movements and receiving media attention for events and stories that they themselves are not involved. In support of this theory, I first show that media attention is, similar to other positive feedback processes, power-law distributed across SMOs using two national (US) data sets. I then illustrate the process of positive feedback in media attention through a case study of the Black Panther Party's rise to prominence in media attention.In democratic countries with independent news media, a key goal of social movement organizations (SMOs) is to gain attention, or visibility, in the mass media. The dominant explanation for media attention to SMOs is that the media pay differential attention to SMOs based on biased interpretations of which events, Cascades of Coverage 1
The authors argue that group threat is a key driver of the adoption of new and controversial policies. Conceptualizing threat in spatial terms, they argue that group threat is activated through the joint occurrence of (1) proximity to threatening groups and (2) the population density of threatened groups. By analyzing the adoption of county and state "dry laws" banning alcohol from 1890 to 1919, they first show that prohibition victories were driven by the relative strength of supportive constituencies such as native whites and rural residents, vis-à-vis opponents such as Irish, Italian, or German immigrants or Catholics. Second, they show that threat contributed to prohibition victories: counties bordering large immigrant or urban populations, which did not themselves contain similar populations, were more likely to adopt dry laws. Threat arises primarily from interactions between spatially proximate units at the local level, and therefore higher-level policy change is not reducible to the variables driving local policy.
Historians are increasingly studying lynching outside of the American Southeast, but sociologists have been slow to follow. We introduce a new public data set that extends existing data on lynching victims to cover the contiguous United States from 1883 to 1941. These data confirm that lynching was a heterogeneous practice across the United States. We differentiate between three different regimes over this period: a Wild West regime, characterized mostly by the lynching of whites in areas with weak state penetration; a slavery regime, found in former slave states, characterized mostly by the lynching of blacks; and a third minor regime, characterized by the lynching of Mexican nationals mostly along the Texas-Mexico border. We also note great variability at the county level in the extent of lynching. By contrast, we find very little state-level variability in lynching once local and regional regimes are considered. We discuss the implications of local and regional heterogeneity for quantitative lynching research using these data.
Who identifies as a world citizen? Many scholars argue that transnational connections are the primary conduits for global cultural diffusion and, therefore, that affluent residents of the densely connected global core should be the most likely to identify with global society. However, empirical studies have shown that global identification is common on the global periphery. We build on theories suggesting that individuals may emphasize expansive identities when particularistic identities fail to provide a sense of security in the face of threat. We argue that members of peripheral and marginalized groups express greater global identification because of the threat inherent in their precarious social positions. We show that (1) global identification is more common among residents of weaker and more repressive states, (2) members of repressed minority groups are more likely to identify with global society than co-nationals with collective access to state power, and (3) many residents of one weak state-Lebanon-expressed greater enthusiasm for global connection immediately following a terrorist attack.
Who identifies as a world citizen? Many scholars argue that transnational connections are the primary conduits for global cultural diffusion and, therefore, that affluent residents of the densely connected global core should be the most likely to identify with global society. However, empirical studies have shown that global identification is common on the global periphery. The authors build on theories suggesting that individuals may emphasize expansive identities when particularistic identities fail to provide a sense of security in the face of threat. They argue that members of peripheral and marginalized groups express greater global identification because of the threat inherent in their precarious social positions. The authors show that (1) global identification is more common among residents of weaker and more repressive states, (2) members of repressed minority groups are more likely to identify with global society than conationals with collective access to state power, and (3) many residents of one weak state—Lebanon—expressed greater enthusiasm for global connection immediately following a terrorist attack.
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