Trust is important for the perception of many types of risk, including those relating to genetically modified (GM) food. Who the public trusts in any given circumstance, however, is not well understood. In this study of public trust regarding GM food, an exploratory factor analysis with Promax rotation reveals public classification of three common institutional types-evaluators, watchdogs, and merchants. The structure of relationships among these stakeholders can act to enable or constrain public support for this new technology. Evaluators-scientists, universities, and medical professionals-are the most trusted. Watchdogs-consumer advocacy organizations, environmental organizations, and media sources-are moderately trusted. Merchants-grocers and grocery stores, industry, and farmers-are least trusted. While the federal government is seen as closest to being an evaluator, it is not highly correlated with any of the factors. The lack of trust in the organizations with the greatest resources and responsibilities for ensuring the safety of GM food should be seen as an important obstacle to the adoption of the technology.

Using "general trust in institutions" and "concepts of nature" as examples, the article analyzes the influence of cultural factors on sense-making of food biotechnology and the resulting public attitudes in the USA and Germany. According to the hypotheses investigated, different levels of trust and appreciation of nature explain part of the well-known differences in attitudes between both countries. The analysis of a crosscultural survey of the general population shows that appreciation of nature is a predictor of attitudes in both countries. The higher appreciation of nature in Germany partly explains why attitudes towards food biotechnology are more negative in Germany than in the USA. The relationship between trust and attitudes is more complex than expected, however. Institutional trust is a moderate predictor of attitudes towards food biotechnology in the USA but not in Germany. To explain the varying effectiveness of trust in resolving innovation-related uncertainty we refer to differences in issue framing in both countries and to the higher degree of universalism and individualism in the USA. We conclude that the higher relevance of trust and the lower appreciation of nature make the U.S. culture more apt to assimilate technical innovations than the German culture.

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Although female sex offenders have received increased scholarly attention in recent years, and have also gained widespread media attention, minimal research has focused specifically on public perceptions of their behavior. This study explores the nature of public perceptions of a group of offenders on which the media often focus—female teachers who assault adolescent male students—by examining reader comments posted on five Huffington Post articles published from November 2010 to November 2013. Using a thematic coding methodology to analyze over 900 online comments, we found that most comments recognize a current double standard in the sentencing process for female teacher sex offenders compared to their male counterparts. Comments also rely on traditional sexual scripts and/or gender role expectations to either acknowledge or deny a victim’s presence. Contrary to existing research that examined public perceptions and found that more punitive attitudes were expressed toward male sex offenders, these results suggest that the public believes in equality in sentencing for all sex offenders, regardless of gender. These results also confirm prior studies that find that the public perceives adolescent male victims of rape by older women “lucky.”

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This article presents a study of pluralistic ignorance situated within the virtual community of guilds in World of Warcraft (WoW). Pluralistic ignorance is a mistaken perception of social norms that overwhelms personal attitudes and leads to behavior contrary to an actor's attitude, and it has never been studied in the context of a virtual world. We analyze the presence of pluralistic ignorance in WoW guilds with the use of a sample of 195 players who responded to an Internet-based survey and 15 focus group participants. Findings show that pluralistic ignorance has a demonstrably lower presence in that community of WoW players than in a physical world equivalent, suggesting a higher tendency in that community toward consistency between private attitudes and public behavior. Factors uncovered that explain this difference include anonymity, safety of the Internet as social medium, and a hypersalience of identity in the WoW player community.

It is clear from the ethnographic and interview data presented that the authors obtained a surprising degree of honesty from relatively unguarded public-sector workers. But illustrating that even the most public of public-sector workplaces encounters a high degree of gatekeeping, some levels of access-and some interview topics-proved elusive or controversial. A union-organizing campaign within the Central Park Conservancy and suspicion about the authors' intentions eventually led to the Parks Department instructing its employees to refrain from speaking with Krinsky and Simonet. But even with such obstacles, the authors marshal an impressive amount of qualitative data, enabling them to speak with great authority about the political, social, and organizational structure of parks-as-workplaces.The work is also strong theoretically. The chapters are organized around theoretically informed topics including labor markets, urban governance, and political economy. The authors' focus is not so much on building new theory per se, but rather dialing macrolevel processes like neoliberalization and economic segmentation down to the micro level. The result is a book that is both highly intellectual and eminently readable. Researchers who work in these fields will find many moments of insight in the rich ethnographic data that Krinsky and Simonet so nicely analyze within their broader theoretical framing.In sum, Krinsky and Simonet's Who Cleans the Park? is an important sociological work that should be read by scholars interested in urban governance, the changing dynamics of work, parks and public space, and New York City politics.

Consumers are besieged by music. Corporations use music to shape consumer experience and purchasing behaviors, to build emotional connections with consumers, and to enhance the corporate brand image. Music provides a set of aesthetic and commercial cues, beyond visual and other sensory practices, for consumers and corporations. In this manner, music is intricately intertwined with commercial symbols, practices, and environments.