bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Measurement of sputtered beryllium yield and angular distribution during nanostructure growth in a helium plasma
Authors: Hollmann E. M. , Alegre D. , Baldwin M. J. , Chrobak C. P. , Doerner R. P. , Miyamoto M. , Nishijima D.
Published: September 2017

The angular distribution and sputtering yield of beryllium exposed to helium plasma are estimated from analysis of line-integrated 2D imaging of Be-I line emission in a steady-state linear plasma device. As the surface nanostructure forms during plasma exposure on a ∼100 s timescale (corresponding to a fluence of order 1020/cm2) from nearly mono-energetic ion bombardment, a narrowing of the beryllium sputtering angle and a significant (∼5×) drop in sputtering yield are observed. These trends are found to be qualitatively consistent with modeling taking into account the effect of the surface morphology on sputtering yield and angular distribution.
Crystalline structures of particles interacting through the harmonic-repulsive pair potential
Authors: Levashov V. A.
Published: September 2017

The behavior of identical particles interacting through the harmonic-repulsive pair potential has been studied in 3D using molecular dynamics simulations at a number of different densities. We found that at many densities, as the temperature of the systems decreases, the particles crystallize into complex structures whose formation has not been anticipated in previous studies on the harmonic-repulsive pair potential. In particular, at certain densities, crystallization into the structure Ia3¯d (space group #230) with 16 particles in the unit cell occupying Wyckoff special positions (16b) was observed. This crystal structure has not been observed previously in experiments or in computer simulations of single component atomic or soft matter systems. At another density, we observed a liquid which is rather stable against crystallization. Yet, we observed crystallization of this liquid into the monoclinic C2/c (space group #15) structure with 32 particles in the unit cell occupying four different non-special Wyckoff (8f) sites. In this structure particles located at different Wyckoff sites have different energies. From the perspective of the local atomic environment, the organization of particles in this structure resembles the structure of some columnar quasicrystals. At a different value of the density, we did not observe crystallization at all despite rather long molecular dynamics runs. At two other densities, we observed the formation of the βSn distorted diamond structures instead of the expected diamond structure. Possibly, we also observed the formation of the R3¯c hexagonal lattice with 24 particles per unit cell occupying non-equivalent positions.
Thermocompression bonding technology for multilayer superconducting quantum circuits
Authors: McRae C. R. H. , Béjanin J. H. , Pagel Z. , Abdallah A. O. , McConkey T. G. , Earnest C. T. , Rinehart J. R. , Mariantoni M.
Published: September 2017

Extensible quantum computing architectures require a large array of quantum bits operating with low error rates. A quantum processor based on superconducting devices can be scaled up by stacking microchips that perform wiring, shielding, and computational functionalities. In this article, we demonstrate a vacuum thermocompression bonding technology that utilizes thin indium films as a welding agent to attach pairs of lithographically patterned chips. At 10 mK, we find a specific dc bond resistance of 49.2 μΩ cm2. We show good transmission up to 6.8 GHz in a tunnel-capped, bonded device as compared to a similar uncapped device. Finally, we fabricate and measure a set of tunnel-capped superconducting resonators, demonstrating that our bonding technology can be used in quantum computing applications.
English transitive particle verbs
Authors: Luo Han
Published: September 2017

Adopting the Cognitive Linguistic (CL) framework, this study focuses on the particle placement phenomenon of English transitive particle verbs and its relationship with idiomaticity. Construal is argued to play a key role in determining which order a transitive particle verb should take. When a caused motion event or state change event is construed sequentially, the discontinuous order is taken to emphasize the final resultant state of the object. When the holistic construal is taken to view the same situation, the continuous order is adopted to profile the object or the interaction between the subject and the object. The holistic construal requires two conditions. First, the particle has a dynamic sense. It can designate both the process and the endpoint of motion. Second, the final state denoted by the particle is directly caused by the action denoted by the verb. In contrast, the sequential construal is allowed as long as a causal link can be established between the two participants under discussion or between the verb and the state change of one participant. In addition, the present study argues that the particle placement of idiomatic particle verbs depends on the processes in which the particle verb has developed its idiomaticity. If the idiomatic meaning develops from the inference associated with the sequential construal, the discontinuous order is preferred. On the other hand, if the idiomatic meaning is based on the holistic construal, the continuous order is then preferred. Moreover, item-by-item analyses of particle verbs that only allow one order listed in theCollins COBUILD Dictionary of Phrasal Verbsprovide corpus-based support to the CL view of the relationship between construal, particle placement, and idiomaticity proposed in this study.
Language territorial regimes in multilingual ethnic territorial autonomies
Authors: Borisova Nadezhda , Sulimov Konstantin
Published: September 2017

Ethnic territorial autonomy (ETA) is an institutional way to ensure simultaneously the integrity of the state and the rights of ethnic minorities through preferential policies in certain ethnically sensitive spheres. Language preferential policies differ greatly across multilingual ETAs and can be analyzed through the concept of “language territorial regime” (LTR). In this paper, we examine LTRs along two dimensions: (1) the scope of state regulation of language use and (2) the way language rights are perceived and used. The first considers the depth and universality of state regulation of language use – “strong” or “weak.” The second concerns whether the community's approach to language rights is symbolic or pragmatic. The combination of these two dimensions allows the categorization of LTRs into four main classes: “strong parting-regime,” “strong pooling-regime,” “weak pooling-regime,” and “weak parting-regime.” A comparison of South Tyrol, Vojvodina, and Wales allows conceptualizing LTR as a system of de jure institutional arrangements of linguistic issues and practice of self-organization and perpetuation of multilingual communities.
Control of actin polymerization via the coincidence of phosphoinositides and high membrane curvature
Authors: Daste Frederic , Walrant Astrid , Holst Mikkel R. , Gadsby Jonathan R. , Mason Julia , Lee Ji-Eun , Brook Daniel , Mettlen Marcel , Larsson Elin , Lee Steven F. , Lundmark Richard , Gallop Jennifer L.
Published: September 2017

The conditional use of actin during clathrin-mediated endocytosis in mammalian cells suggests that the cell controls whether and how actin is used. Using a combination of biochemical reconstitution and mammalian cell culture, we elucidate a mechanism by which the coincidence of PI(4,5)P2 and PI(3)P in a curved vesicle triggers actin polymerization. At clathrin-coated pits, PI(3)P is produced by the INPP4A hydrolysis of PI(3,4)P2, and this is necessary for actin-driven endocytosis. Both Cdc42⋅guanosine triphosphate and SNX9 activate N-WASP–WIP- and Arp2/3-mediated actin nucleation. Membrane curvature, PI(4,5)P2, and PI(3)P signals are needed for SNX9 assembly via its PX–BAR domain, whereas signaling through Cdc42 is activated by PI(4,5)P2 alone. INPP4A activity is stimulated by high membrane curvature and synergizes with SNX9 BAR domain binding in a process we call curvature cascade amplification. We show that the SNX9-driven actin comets that arise on human disease–associated oculocerebrorenal syndrome of Lowe (OCRL) deficiencies are reduced by inhibiting PI(3)P production, suggesting PI(3)P kinase inhibitors as a therapeutic strategy in Lowe syndrome.
Prepatterning by RhoGEFs governs Rho GTPase spatiotemporal dynamics during wound repair
Authors: Nakamura Mitsutoshi , Verboon Jeffrey M. , Parkhurst Susan M.
Published: September 2017

Like tissues, single cells are subjected to continual stresses and damage. As such, cells have a robust wound repair mechanism comprised of dynamic membrane resealing and cortical cytoskeletal remodeling. One group of proteins, the Rho family of small guanosine triphosphatases (GTPases), is critical for this actin and myosin cytoskeletal response in which they form distinct dynamic spatial and temporal patterns/arrays surrounding the wound. A key mechanistic question, then, is how these GTPase arrays are formed. Here, we show that in the Drosophila melanogaster cell wound repair model Rho GTPase arrays form in response to prepatterning by Rho guanine nucleotide exchange factors (RhoGEFs), a family of proteins involved in the activation of small GTPases. Furthermore, we show that Annexin B9, a member of a class of proteins associated with the membrane resealing, is involved in an early, Rho family–independent, actin stabilization that is integral to the formation of one RhoGEF array. Thus, Annexin proteins may link membrane resealing to cytoskeletal remodeling processes in single cell wound repair.
Are the impacts of land use on warming underestimated in climate policy?
Authors: Mahowald Natalie M , Ward Daniel S , Doney Scott C , Hess Peter G , Randerson James T
Published: September 2017

While carbon dioxide emissions from energy use must be the primary target of climate change mitigation efforts, land use and land cover change (LULCC) also represent an important source of climate forcing. In this study we compute time series of global surface temperature change separately for LULCC and non-LULCC sources (primarily fossil fuel burning), and show that because of the extra warming associated with the co-emission of methane and nitrous oxide with LULCC carbon dioxide emissions, and a co-emission of cooling aerosols with non-LULCC emissions of carbon dioxide, the linear relationship between cumulative carbon dioxide emissions and temperature has a two-fold higher slope for LULCC than for non-LULCC activities. Moreover, projections used in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for the rate of tropical land conversion in the future are relatively low compared to contemporary observations, suggesting that the future projections of land conversion used in the IPCC may underestimate potential impacts of LULCC. By including a ‘business as usual’ future LULCC scenario for tropical deforestation, we find that even if all non-LULCC emissions are switched off in 2015, it is likely that 1.5 °C of warming relative to the preindustrial era will occur by 2100. Thus, policies to reduce LULCC emissions must remain a high priority if we are to achieve the low to medium temperature change targets proposed as a part of the Paris Agreement. Future studies using integrated assessment models and other climate simulations should include more realistic deforestation rates and the integration of policy that would reduce LULCC emissions.
The Reception of Beat Writers in Japan
Authors: Tomiyama Hidetoshi
Published: September 2017

The Beat writers, especially Jack Kerouac (1922–1969), William Burroughs (1914–1997), Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997), and Gary Snyder (1930–), have been well known in Japan. Though Snyder’s differences from the other three, such as his West Coast background and a reformist and edifying stance, are obvious, here we choose not to be fussy about the application of a name, and simply follow his inclusion as in Ann Charter’s The Penguin Book of the Beats (1992). The Beat writers have been eagerly translated and read in Japan, though they are not a common focus of academic literary study. They exerted influence on writers and artists, in particular in terms of a rebellious attitude toward the conformist society and formalized artistic conventions prevailing in Japan. One conspicuous aspect of their impact is that it is part of the influx of American popular, mainly youth, culture since the 1950s, involving jazz, folk, and rock music, as well as numerous films depicting antiheroes on the road. Some Japanese poets, most notably Shiraishi Kazuko (1931–) and Yoshimasu Gōzō (1939–) were directly inspired by the Beats, and others unwittingly formed parallel developments. Assessing their specific achievements requires considering the historical context of modern Japanese poetry. The Beats, in turn, were attracted by Eastern cultures and religions, especially Buddhism; Snyder through his stay in Japan for the practice and study of Zen Buddhism had direct contact with Japanese poets, academics, and activists. Generally speaking, Japanese today, though they usually have some inkling of what Zen is, are not necessarily aware of the Buddhist heritage informing their basic worldview. Still, literary manifestations of what Alan Watts termed “Beat Zen,” in particular Kerouac’s, are not dissimilar to the religious attitude of many Japanese toward the world, which tends to seek to intuit a sense of enlightenment or salvation here and now, beyond humanly delimited distinctions and preconceptions.
Neoliberalism and Contemporary Anglophone Fiction
Authors: Johansen Emily
Published: September 2017

The problem of capital and the question of its appropriate or desired relationship with political life and civil society shapes how readers, authors, and citizens understand and experience everyday contemporary life and its cultural products. Capital, in its post-1945 incarnation, is widely held to have been either in a state of crisis or responding to crisis (both historical and contemporaneously). Depending on the critic, these crises and their impacts are varied: the collapse of the 19th-century European balance of power, the rise of Keynesian economics, the birth of biopolitics, the Cold War and the specter of Communism, the repeating “systemic cycles of accumulation” endemic to the history of capitalism. This variant of capitalism that shapes contemporary life goes by many names, though the general consensus tends to call it “neoliberalism.” Despite its varying names, neoliberalism is generally held to be an economic doctrine that understands human freedom to be best achieved through free markets and entrepreneurial enterprise, privileging the individual above all else. Government should, therefore, be minimal; its role is to enforce the rules of the game but not to interfere in it. Neoliberalism is thus both revolutionary in its insistence on rethinking social life as solely economic life and an extension of long-standing values and arrangements of economic life that date back centuries.

Contemporary fiction takes part in debates about the hyper-individualized neoliberal subject and neoliberal values in a multitude of ways and at a variety of scales. The predominant way is in its interrogation of neoliberal identity politics—either to reinforce or critique, or something in-between, the possibilities for subject formation under neoliberalism. At another remove from the individual text has been the challenge to long-standing genre conventions, particularly in the novel. If modern novelistic genres rose alongside earlier modes of capitalist accumulation, contemporary authors are reimagining them to reflect changing rationalities. Finally, at the meta-textual level, there has been a variety of critical attention given to publishing, its infrastructures, and the role of the artist for both the appearance and success of texts. Across all these approaches—both imaginative and critical—is a commitment to an ongoing examination of the ways neoliberalism in all its varied impacts inflects “how we live now.”
Japanese Proletarian Literature during the Red Decade, 1925–1935
Authors: Bowen-Struyk Heather
Published: September 2017

Modern Japanese literature emerged as Japan asserted itself as a military-industrial power from the end of the 19th through the early 20th centuries. The subject of modern literature was worthy of a seat at the table of the world’s powers, or so goes the story of a literary canon all too often focused on the legitimacy of elites. But modern literature is not only about a male alienated intellectual failing to have a satisfying relationship. During the international “red decade” (1925–1935), proletarian writers in Japan as elsewhere sought to harness and transform the technology of modern literature in order to represent the hitherto un- or underrepresented women and men, peasants and factory workers, elderly and children in order to bring the masses into consciousness of their collective power. For a decade, nearly every writer in Japan engaged the energetic but often divided proletarian movement as they sought to grasp the challenges of a rapidly modernizing society, transformation in the family and gender, dual economy, worldwide depression, and escalating imperialism.

Largely overlooked during the Cold War, this important decade of modern literature has experienced a well-deserved scholarly and popular revival in a period of 21st-century precarity, protests against privilege, and questioning of media and representation. Two exemplars from proletarian literature—Hayama Yoshiki’s “The Prostitute” (1925) and Miyamoto Yuriko’s “The Breast” (1935)—offer a frame to apprehend the richness of genre, voice, storytelling, experimentation, and ethics in proletarian literature, a vital part of modern literature.
Health and Risk Policymaking, the Precautionary Principle, and Policy Advocacy
Authors: Parrott Roxanne L.
Published: September 2017

Health and risk policymaking focuses on decisions made and actions undertaken to set standards and pass laws to promote healthcare and public health quality, while achieving global health security. Policymakers in governments and institutions deliberate for the purposes of achieving effective and efficient policies, revealing both acceptance and rejection of evidence from health and risk, prevention, and economic sciences, as well as gaps in these domains. Health and risk communicators function implicitly within the boundaries of these decisions and actions, while contributing to prevention science related to strategic messaging and information dissemination. Policymakers face barriers to their efforts residing in the sheer volume of health and risk sciences research; the lack of evidence demonstrating that policies lead to intended outcomes (often, because a policy has not been trialed/implemented); and the absence of economic analyses associated with costs of interventions proposed and undertaken. The precautionary principle (PP) based on adopting caution when evidence is absent, uncertain, or ambiguous regarding possible harm to humans or the environment may function as a guide in some situations. Advocates may draw attention to particular issues in other cases. Policies may be stalled owing to the policy context, including election cycles, legislative and institutional bureaucracies, competing agendas, and fragmented systems of healthcare. Health and risk communicators may collaborate with policymakers and work to translate evidence into useful formats to facilitate the application of evidence to policymaking decisions and actions.
Government-Driven Incentives to Improve Health
Authors: Anderson Peter
Published: September 2017

Worldwide, key behavioral risk factors for ill-health and premature death include smoking, alcohol, too much or too little of several dietary factors, and low physical activity. At least three structural factors (biological attributes and functions, population size and structure, and wealth and income disparities) modify the global impact that the risk factors have on health; without accounting for these structural drivers, the effect of government-driven incentives to act on the behavioral risk factors for improved health will be suboptimal. The risk factors and their impact on health are further driven by malleable circumstantial drivers, including technological developments, exposure to products, social influences and attitudes, and potency of products. Government-driven incentives, which can be both positive and negative, can act on the circumstantial drivers and can impact on the behavioral risk factors to improve or worsen health. Government-driven incentives include a range of policies and measures: policies that reduce exposure; regulation of the private sector; research and development to reduce potency; resource allocation for advice and treatment; direct incentives on individual behavior; and, managing co-benefits and adverse side effects. Within a framework of government-driven whole-of-society approaches to improve health, an accountability system is needed to identify who or what causes what harm to health to whom. A health footprint, modeled on the carbon footprint is proposed as the accounting system.
Parents as Agents for Change in Health and Risk Messaging
Authors: Askelson Natoshia , Spies Erica
Published: September 2017

Parents can be the target of health and risk messages about their children and can be a channel by which children hear health messages. This dual role can make parents powerful agents for change in children’s health. Parents receive health messages from a variety of sources including health care providers, schools, the media, the government, and family. Parents tend to be a more frequent target for health messages when their children are infants or young. They receive many messages related to keeping their children safe. Most of these messages are not developed as part of a rigorous data-driven and theory-based intervention and often lack sophisticated message development and design. Furthermore, instead of segmenting parents and tailoring messages, parents are frequently treated as a monolith, with no diversity related to behavior or communication.

As children age, parents can become the channel by which children can hear a health message. Parents of school-age children and adolescents are continually communicating messages to their children and are often targeted to communicate messages related to health or risk behaviors. Intentional efforts to encourage parents to talk to their children are often related to risk behaviors among older children. Specifically, parents are asked to convey messages about sexual health, alcohol and drug use, and driving. Evidence points to parent–child communication in general and communication about specific risk behaviors as protective for children. Research has also suggested that adolescents want to hear health messages from their parents. Parents are a natural choice to communicate about health and risk throughout childhood and adolescence due to the parent–child relationship and the influence parents can have over children. However, this special relationship does not automatically translate into parents having good communication skills. Messages designed to encourage parents to communicate with their children about a health topic have often been developed with the assumption that parents know what to communicate and how to effectively communicate with their children. Deficits in communication skills among parents have been recognized by some campaign developers, and an emphasis on developing those skills has been a significant part of some messages targeting parents. Health communication campaigns have been developed to inform parents about when and how to talk to their children about health issues such as alcohol, drugs, and sex. Unfortunately, not all parent–child communication is positive or effective and this can have potential unintended consequences. Treating parents as an audience in a more nuanced manner, with greater emphasis on evidence-based message development, could result in more effective messages and better health outcomes.
Social Marketing Applied to Health and Risk Messaging
Authors: Lefebvre R. Craig , Palmedo P. Christopher
Published: September 2017

Many ideas about best practices for risk communication share common ground with social marketing theory and practice: for example, segmentation, formative research, and a focus on behavioral outcomes. Social marketing first developed as a methodology to increase the public health impact of programs and to increase the acceptability and practice of behaviors that improve personal and social well-being. The core concepts of this approach are to be people-centered and to aim for large-scale behavior change. An international consensus definition of social marketing describes it as an integration of theory, evidence, best practices, and insights from people to be served. This integrated approach is used to design programs that are tailored to priority groups’ needs, problems, and aspirations and are responsive to a competitive environment. Key outcomes for social marketing efforts are whether they are effective, efficient, equitable, and sustainable.

The 4P social marketing mix of Products, Prices, Places, and Promotion offers both strategic and practical value for risk-communication theory and practice. The addition of products, for example, to communication efforts in risk reduction has been shown to result in significantly greater increases in protective behaviors. The Cover CUNY case demonstrates how full attention to, and consideration of, all elements of the marketing mix can be used to design a comprehensive risk-communication campaign focused on encouraging college student enrollment for health insurance. The second case, from the drug safety communication arena, shows how a systems-level, marketplace approach is used to develop strategies that focus on key areas where marketplace failures undermine optimal information-dissemination efforts and how they might be addressed.
Mass Communication and Policy Gatekeeping
Authors: Craig Richard T.
Published: September 2017

Who filters through information and determines what information is shared with media audiences? Who filters through information and determines what information will not be shared with media audiences? Ultimately, who controls the flow of information in the media? At times commentary pertaining to media content references media as an omnipotent individual entity selecting the content transmitted to the public, reminiscent of a Wizard of Oz manner of the all-powerful being behind the curtain. Overlooked in this perception is the reality that in mass media, there are various individuals in positions of power making decisions about the information accessed by audiences of various forms of media. These individuals are considered gatekeepers: wherein the media functions as a gate permitting some matters to be publicized and included into the public discourse while restricting other matters from making it to the public conscience.

Media gatekeepers (i.e., journalists, editors) possess the power to control the gate by determining the content delivered to audiences, opening and closing the gate of information. Gatekeepers wield power over those on the other side of the gate, those seeking to be informed (audiences), as well as those seeking to inform (politics, activists, academics, etc.). The earliest intellectual explanation of gatekeeping is traced to Kurt Lewin, describing gatekeeping as a means to analyze real-world problems and observing the effects of cultural values and subjective attitudes on those problems like the distribution of food in Lewins’s seminal study, and later modified by David Manning White to examine the dissemination of information via media. In an ideal situation, the gatekeepers would be taking on the challenge of weighing the evidence of importance in social problems when selecting among the options of content and information to exhibit. Yet, decisions concerning content selection are not void of subjective viewpoints and encompass values, beliefs, and ideals of gatekeepers. The subjective attitudes of gatekeepers influence their perspective of what qualifies as newsworthy information. Hence, those in the position to determine the content transmitted through media exercise the power to shape social reality for media audiences. In the evolution of media gatekeeping theory three models have resulted from the scholarship: (1) examination of the one-way flow of information passing through a series of gates before reaching audiences, (2) the process of newsroom personnel interacting with people outside of the newsroom, and (3) the direct communication of private citizens and public officials. In traditional media and newer forms of social media, gatekeeping examination revolves around analysis of these media organizations’ news routines and narratives. Gatekeeping analysis observes human behavior and motives in order to make conceptualizations about the social world.
Spiral of Silence in Health and Risk Messaging
Authors: Gearhart Sherice
Published: September 2017

The spiral of silence theory provides insight into the ways in which perceptions of public opinion can lead to changes in opinion expression behavior. Conceptualized in a political communication context, the central claim of the theory is that individuals’ fear of social isolation motivates them to continuously evaluate the climate of opinion through both experiences with the media and interpersonal communication. Upon assessment, individuals either find themselves in a situation where their opinion aligns with the majority or minority. Accordingly, those who find their opinion does not align with the dominant opinion are likely to conceal their opinions while those who find their opinion aligns with the majority are more likely to express them.

Empirical research testing the spiral of silence theory has predominately focused on measurement of focal variables and methods of empirical testing. Advances have been made in regard to micro-level factors, such as creating universally applicable measures of psychological attributes. However, limited work has explored macro-level factors, such as appropriateness of issues, application to computer-mediated communication environments, and tools used to identify circumstances vulnerable to spiral of silence effects. Nonetheless, the practical value of the spiral of silence theory for health and risk communicators can be utilized by modifying campaign efforts to anticipate and counteract fluxes in public opinion.
Vividness
Authors: Ewell Patrick J. , Guadagno Rosanna E.
Published: September 2017

According to Nisbett and Ross, “Information may be described as vivid, that is, as likely to attract and hold our attention and excite the imagination to the extent that it is (a) emotionally interesting, (b) concrete and imagery-provoking, and (c) proximate in a sensory, temporal, or spatial way.” Despite a widespread belief held by scholars and practitioners alike that vividness enhances persuasion, most early studies on this topic found weak or nonexistent vividness effects. To further understand this relationship, subsequent research focused on explaining these inconsistent findings. Taylor and Thompson explored the different ways that vividness has been operationalized across studies. Guadagno, Okdie, Sagarin, DeCoster, and Rhoads elucidated the conditions under which vividness enhances or detracts from persuasion. Generally, the extant literature suggests that vividness is an effective means of enhancing persuasion when the main point of a communication is the sole component made vivid. These findings caution against attempts to persuade by increasing overall message vividness, because off-thesis or incongruent vividness has the unintended and undercutting consequence of distracting influence targets from the point of the communication. This conclusion is based on the results of individual empirical studies as well as meta-analytic findings. Literature on shock advertising as a specialized case of vividness also exists. Future research on vividness might further delineate when, how, and why vividness sometimes enhances and sometimes detracts from persuasion.
Lifespan and Developmental Considerations in Health and Risk Message Design
Authors: Nussbaum Jon F. , Worthington Amber K.
Published: September 2017

Health and risk message design theories do not currently incorporate a lifespan view of communication. The lifespan communication perspective can therefore advance theorizing in this area by considering how the fundamental developmental differences that exist within and around individuals of different ages impact the effectiveness of persuasive message strategies. Designing health messages for older adults therefore requires an examination of how theoretical frameworks used in health and risk message design can be adapted to be age sensitive and to effectively target older adults. Additionally, older adults often make health decisions in conjunction with informal caregivers, including their adult children or spouses, and/or formal caregivers. Message design scholars should thus also consider this interdependent influence on health behaviors in older adults. Strategic messages targeting these caregivers can appeal to, for example, a caregiver’s perception of responsibility to care for the older adult. These messages can also be designed to not only promote the older adults’ health but also to alleviate caregiver stress and burden. Importantly, there is an unfounded stereotype that all older adults are alike, and message designers should consider the most beneficial segments of the older adult audience to target.
Behavioral Journalism in Health and Risk Messaging
Authors: McAlister Alfred
Published: September 2017

Behavioral journalism is a term used to describe a theory-based health communication messaging strategy that is based on conveying “role model stories” about real people and how they achieve healthy behavior changes. The aim is to stimulate imitation of these models by audiences of their peers. Theoretical foundations for the strategy itself are in Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory and Everett Rogers’s model of diffusion of innovations, but it can be used flexibly to convey various kinds of theory-driven message content. Behavioral journalism emerged as an explicit health communication technique in the late 1970s and was developed as a distinct alternative to the social marketing approach and its focus on centrally generated messages devised by experts. It has been used subsequently to promote smoking cessation, improvements in nutrition and physical activity, avoidance of sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancy, reduced intergroup hostility, advocacy for healthy policy and environmental changes, and many other diverse health promotion objectives. Formats used for behavioral journalism include reality television programs, broadcast and print news media, printed newsletters for special audiences, documentary film and video, digital and mobile communication, and new social media. Behavioral journalism is intended for use in concert with community organization and actions to prompt and reinforce the imitation of role models and to facilitate and enable behavior change, and its use in that context has yielded many reports of significant impact on behavior. With citations of use growing steadily in the past two decades, behavioral journalism has proven to be readily adaptable to new and emerging communication technologies.
Location-Based Ads and Exposure to Health and Risk Messages
Authors: van 't Riet Jonathan , Spook Jorinde , Ketelaar Paul E. , Hühn Arief
Published: September 2017

Many of us use smartphones, and many smartphones are equipped with the Global Positioning System (GPS). This enables health promoters to send us messages on specific locations where healthy behavior is possible or where we are at risk of unhealthy behavior. Until now, the practice of sending location-based messages has been mostly restricted to commercial advertisements, most often in retail settings. However, opportunities for health promotion practice are vast. For one, location-based messages can be used to complement environmental interventions, where the environment is changed to promote health behavior. Second, location-based messages incorporate opportunities to tailor these messages to individual characteristics of the recipient, increasing perceived relevance. Finally, location-based messages offer the distinct possibility to communicate context-dependent social norm information. Five preliminary studies tested the effects of location-based messages targeting food choice. The results suggest that sending location-based messages is feasible and can be effective. Future studies should explore which messages are most effective under which circumstances.
Vision and Promoting Health
Authors: Moon Marla L.
Published: September 2017

A visual impairment can affect cognitive, emotional, neurological, and physical development. Visual impairment impairs reading speed and comprehension, and is often mistaken for a learning disability. Learning is accomplished through complex and interrelated processes, one of which is vision. As a result, visual impairments limit the range of experiences and kinds of information to which one is exposed. A reliance on visual cues in health and risk messages intensifies these effects with regard to health information. The millions of children and adults who are affected by visual impairments worldwide thus require specific consideration regarding how best to make health information accessible for them. The reliance on caretakers to address the health information needs of those living with visual impairments violates their privacy and threatens their emotional well-being. Technological and modality advances that rely on touchscreens that lack tactile or auditory cues marginalize a broad segment of society that is in need of gateways to overcome barriers to accommodating visual impairment. In designing strategic health and risk messages, consideration should be given to this scope of possible limitation and its implications for access to and processing of health and risk information. Health and risk message designers should understand both the realities of challenges to accessing information for the visually impaired and strategies for addressing these realities and the scope of the issue worldwide and across the lifespan.
Physiological Measures of Wellness and Message Processing
Authors: Floyd Kory , Pavlich Corey A. , Dinsmore Dana R.
Published: September 2017

Research has shown that the expression of affection and other forms of prosocial communication between two or more people promotes wellness and has the potential to increase life expectancy. The human body contains multiple physiological subsystems that all contribute to the overall health and well-being of an individual; the simple act of engaging in prosocial communication has been shown to positively influence one’s health and well-being. The specific benefits of engaging in prosocial communication are not limited to one specific physiological subsystem; it is the pervasiveness of this benefit that is so important. The benefits of prosocial communication range from building the body’s defense systems to increasing the effectiveness of recovery; in essence, prosocial communication increases the body’s overall integrity and rejuvenating power. These benefits have been observed for a variety of prosocial behaviors, including the expression of affection, touch, social support and cohesion, and social influence. The health benefits of prosocial communication point to the importance of considering prosocial communication when designing health and risk messages.
Intergroup Communication and Reconciliation: Experiences from the Former Yugoslavia
Authors: Nikolić-Ristanović Vesna
Published: September 2017

Intergroup communication is an important aspect of dealing with intergroup conflicts in post-conflict societies, including countries of the former Yugoslavia. Widespread monolithic and authoritarian communication is one of the main obstacles to constructive communication about the past in the former Yugoslavia, and the challenges involved in shifting the nature of communication, although rarely addressed and explored, seem to be a condition sine qua non of effective reconciliation efforts. This should include contact and communication issues as well as the very process through which the shift from authoritarian (one-way) communication, which perpetuates conflicts, to inclusive (two-way) communication, which has reconciliatory potential, can be achieved. Allport’s intergroup contact hypothesis, its revisions and further elaborations in relation to the use of inclusive communication for overcoming divisions and reaching reconciliation in post-conflict societies, as well as restorative and transformative justice literature, including experiences of using yoga as part of restorative justice and reconciliation programs, can serve as good theoretical departures.

As we explore communication as a way toward reconciliation in post-conflict societies using as an illustration experiences from the former Yugoslavia, we need to be aware of intergroup communication on the macro, meso, and micro level and its impact on reconciliation after the armed conflicts of the 1990s. Conflicts on the macro level include conflicts between the states, or on the level of the society, while meso-level conflicts are intergroup conflicts; micro-level conflicts relate to interpersonal conflicts. Also we need to understand the scope and nature of interethnic and other intercultural conflicts, as well as their socio-historical context and impact on intergroup communication. Thus, addressing intergroup communication in a constructive and inclusive way while dealing with the past and implementing reconciliation initiatives is important. Intergroup communication initiatives that foster reconciliation in particular need to be identified and explored, as examples of the practice of establishing inclusive communication and binding people from different ethnic groups and those affected by armed conflicts in different ways together.
Group Status
Authors: Lorenzi-Cioldi Fabio
Published: September 2017

Group status refers to the extent to which members of a group are respected and admired by others. All known societies are characterized by status stratifications, with the most advantaged groups enjoying a more-than-fair share of the total wealth and prestige. Most ordinary criteria to categorize people into groups possess value connotations that eventually uphold prestige hierarchies. Gender, ethnicity, and age—but also disability, weight, sexual orientation, and of course education, income, and class background—are major criteria of social stratification. Established status characteristics may consist of ascribed (e.g., gender) or achieved (e.g., occupation) qualities. They may further consist of groups with more (e.g., gender) or less (e.g., race, social class) contact and mutual interdependence. Status hierarchies are manifold, and the best metaphor encompassing their diversity is that of a vertical dimension that ranks groups’ status and prestige. Generally, members of high-status groups praise individualistic and autonomous self-conceptions and show self-directedness, whereas the opposite tendencies prevail toward the bottom of the status hierarchy. Socialization practices (e.g., parental education, peers, school, and the workplace) take center stage in explaining how members of status groups acquire these contrasting habits and characteristics. However, recent social psychological research sheds light on more general processes related to how people interpret and react to specific situations. Major contributions of social psychological analyses of group status are found in social identity theory, social role theory, status construction theory, the stereotype content model, and social dominance and system justification theories. Despite substantial differences, these perspectives complement each other to account for the formation, the maintenance, and the change of status hierarchies. Status hierarchies are not only pervasive and inevitable but also crucial in their consequences. Status contributes to a wealth of phenomena, including subjective well-being, mental, and physical health, etc. Important for the present discussion is research investigating how group status affects verbal and nonverbal communication between members of high- and low-status groups.
Intergroup Contact
Authors: Harwood Jake
Published: September 2017

Contact between members of different groups has long been advocated as a productive means for reducing intergroup prejudice. The empirical evidence supports this notion, with hundreds of studies indicating that people (especially people from dominant groups) gain more positive attitudes towards other groups (typically non-dominant groups) by communicating with members of those groups. Generalization from the individual group member to the group as a whole is stronger when the target’s group membership is salient during the encounter, albeit that generalization might be positive or negative. Recent years have seen expanded definitions of intergroup contact, moving from direct face-to-face contact to broader realms such as imagining interaction with the outgroup, contacting the outgroup through interactive (e.g., computer) or non-interactive (e.g., broadcast) media, and becoming aware of or observing contact involving other ingroup and outgroup members. Several suggestions for the most effective content of contact have been supplied, but the most definitive recommendation is simply that the contact not be negative: contact involving extensive conflict and negative emotions do not reduce prejudice. The effects of contact can occur through a wide variety of mediators, but the most commonly studied have been anxiety and empathy: contact reduces anxiety and increases empathy, and those emotional responses translate into more positive intergroup attitudes. Counter-intuitively, some evidence suggests that contact is most effective for people with higher levels of pre-existing prejudice. Contact can have some ironic negative effects on progress towards societal equity. In particular, considerable evidence suggests that harmonious intergroup contact can reduce perceptions of inequality and suppress the motivation for social change for dominant and subordinate groups. For subordinate groups specifically, a positive intergroup experience with a dominant group member can reduce the drive to actively challenge the status quo.