JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. American Sociological Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Sociological Review.Four aspects of mobilization are distinguished: formation of mobilization potentials, formation and activation of recruitment networks, arousal of motivation to participate, and removal of barriers to participation. Four steps toward participation in social movements are then distinguished: becoming part of the mobilization potential, becoming target of mobilization attempts, becoming motivated to participate, and overcoming barriers to participation. The relevance of these distinctions is justified theoretically by the claim that different theories are needed to explain separate aspects of mobilization and participation, and practically with the argument that different efforts are required from movement organizations depending on which aspect they are handling. Empirical support from research on mobilization and participation in the Dutch peace movement is presented. Nonparticipation in a mass demonstration can be based on four grounds: lack of sympathy for the movement, not being the target of a mobilization attempt, not being motivated, and the presence of barriers. These results are interpreted in terms of the literature on mobilization and participation.Social movements entail forming mobilization potentials, forming and motivating recruitment networks, arousing motivation to participate, and removing barriers to participation. It is important to distinguish these processes because they not only require very different activities of social movement organizations but they also require different theories of analysis. To create mobilization potentials, a social movement must win attitudinal support. The formation and activation of recruitment networks must increase the probability that people who are potentially mobilizable become targets of mobilization attempts. The arousal of motivation must favorably influence the propensity to participate of the targeted people. In removing barriers a movement organization increases the probability that motivated people eventually participate.At the individual level, becoming a participant in a social movement can be conceived as a process with four different steps: becoming part of the mobilization potential, becoming target of mobilization attempts, becoming motivated to participate, and overcoming barriers to participate. The first two steps are necessary conditions for the arousal of motivation. Motivation and barriers interact to bring about participation: the more motivated people are the higher the barriers they can overcome. MOBILIZATION POTENTIALMobilization potential refers to the people in a societ...

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The central question in this study is whether the power of the media agenda over the political agenda has recently increased. The agenda-building dynamics are established using cross-country time-series data on four issues, covering fifteen and eight years respectively of British and Dutch parliamentary debates and newspaper articles. Structural equation models show that the parliamentary agenda is more influenced by the media agenda than the other way around, and that the power balance has shifted even more in favour of the media. It is additionally found that media power is especially associated with issues within the European domain. This study contributes empirically to the 'mediatization' debate in a EU context, which is largely limited to the realm of theoretical speculation.

The role of the media in the creation of distrust is much debated in political communication. Will negative news, for example, relentless attacks on political authorities, result in political cynicism or in a stimulation effect? By and large the media may stimulate political participation, but it is less clear when negative news will nullify this effect. Negative news may not only have short-term behavioral effects but also effects on underlying attitudes such as trust in politicians, which may produce their "sleeper effect" on political behavior only in the long run. This article addresses two related research questions. Will negative news discourage trust in political leaders? Will trust have a sleeper effect for future party choice and future turnout within the months to come? The 2002 Dutch election campaign,being an unprecedented negative campaign as compared to other Dutch campaigns, provides a good case to investigate these questions. On the basis of a biweekly seven-wave panel survey study and a daily content analysis of television news and newspapers,negative news was found to have a significant effect on trust in party leaders in addition to prior vote preference and education.The distrust in party leaders also had a significant sleeper effect in the long run on turnout and on the actual vote in addition to previous intentions.In general,these findings support the malaise theory. They are helpful to explain why the Christian-Democrats could win the elections in defiance of the polls.Trust refers to a high estimation of the competence, honesty, or reliability of the one who is trusted, according to the expectations or norms of the beholder. Trust in government has decreased in recent decades, particularly in the United States (Chanley et al.2000;Hetherington 1998;Nye 1997). A decrease in political trust and a negative evaluation of government performance have been observed in European countries as well, albeit at a more moderate level than in 86 Press/Politics 11(2):86-104

Different “paradigmatic” approaches to explain news effects on voting may supplement each other, because their starting points are based on different news types in political campaign news: news on issue positions of parties, news on real‐world developments, news on support or criticism for parties, and news on success and failure of parties. Daily content analysis data and a weekly multiwave panel survey from the 2003 election campaign in the Netherlands are used for a simultaneous test. A logistic regression analysis demonstrates that the paradigmatic approaches supplement each other. The data reveal a huge impact of the news from a campaigner’s point of view in spite of a huge variety in responses to the news at the level of individual respondents.

Communicative complexity concerns the variety of issues and stakeholders (agenda complexity)

Whether financial news may contribute to market panics is not an innocent question. A positive answer is easily used as a legitimation to limit the freedom of financial journalists. Long-term effects of news are moreover inconsistent with the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH), which maintains that new information gives immediately rise to a new equilibrium. The EMH is under discussion, however, as a result of the transformation of financial markets and of financial journalism due to new economic thoughts, new communication theories, high-frequency trading and high-frequency sentiment analysis. As a case study of a market panic we show the impact of US news, UK news and Dutch news on three Dutch banks during the financial crisis of 2007–9. To avoid market panics, financial journalists may strive for greater transparency, not only on asset prices and corporate philosophies, but also on network dependencies in the worldwide financial markets.