Policy and public opinion

Page, B. I., & Shapiro, R. Y. (1983). Effects of public opinion on policy. The American Political Science Review, 77(1), 175-190.

Just come across this article and think it is a good reference for arguments that link public opinion with policy making.

Another related article is: Page, B. I., & Shapiro, R. Y. (1982). Changes in Americans' policy preferences, 1935-1979. Public Opinion Quarterly, 46(1), 24.

ELSI

ELSI represents Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications for nanotechnology. This is an important field of research in public understanding of science in general, and nanotechnology in particular. Scientists and policy-makers nowadays have recognized the need to connect with the general public. Science and technology, after all, is not something happening only in the laboratory. It has pivotal impacts on human life and the society.

Nanotechnology is not only considered to be able to alter "human characteristics," it can also bring about potential dangers that are unknown at the current state of scientific knowledge. Furthermore, it challenges people's deep-rooted beliefs about life and nature. In other words, to the general public, nanotechnology is not just a scientific issue, it is also a social issue which lends relevance to everyday life.

The book Societal Implications of Nanosciences and Nanotechnology was published in 2001 and derived from a workshop sponsored by National Science Foundation (NSF). It addresses the need and efforts to understand the relationship between human, the environment, society, and the technology.

Excerpts of book chapters can also be found here.

Gallup polls about religion and moral attitudes

just come across some nice poll data about how religiosity affects public perception of morally-loaded issues, such as stem cell research, abortion, homosexuality, etc. There are also some interesting international stuff.

1. Stem Cell Research Morally OK in Britain, Canada, and U.S.

This article indicated that stem cell research is in general deemed morally acceptable in the three countries. However, Americans are more likely than people in the other two countries to find the research unacceptable. This disparity was attributable to the varied roles of religiosity in these countries. Americans consider God to be important and go to church more often than Canadians and the British. And this central role of religion makes Americans more likely to make a connection between morality and controversial scientific/technological issues.

2. Worlds Apart: Religion in Canada, Britain, U.S.

This poll also painted a more religious public in the US. Americans not only go to church more often, but also more likely to say God is very important in their lives. Please also see a related survey: Most Britons, Canadians "Unchurched"

3. Moral issues

This poll tracks public evaluation on the state of moral values across time. In general, people are not satisfied with the current condition of moral values--more people consider it to be poor than good or excellent (a difference of 28%) in 2009. This disparity has remained since 2006. However, it should be noted that in 2009 a lot more Americans, compared with previous years, feel the condition of moral values is getting better. This poll also showed public perception of moral acceptability in relation to several social issues.

Mplus resource

Here are a couple of online resources in relation to the statistical program--Mplus.


1. UCLA: Multilevel modeling in Mplus (with handouts and video demos)
2. UCLA: Introduction to Mplus
3. UTexas: Mplus introduction
4. UCLA: Mplus class note-Path Analysis
5. UCLA: Mplus annotated output (Multinomial regression)
6. UCLA: Mplus data analysis example: logistic regression

Also read the online material developed by a faculty member at UNC about the concepts and assumptions about path analysis.

Mediation effect

Many of the studies in social sciences involve a mediating variable, which filters the effect of the original independent variable on the dependent variable. There are many ways of testing mediation. I just want to highlight some wonderful websites and resources that deal with this topic.

Calculation for the Sobel test. The website contains explanations of concepts and easy-to-use calculators for indirect effect.

Dr. Andrew Hayes at the Ohio State University also developed a website and SPSS macros for the test of indirect effect. Please click here for the SPSS syntax to activate the macro. There is also a PDF file that explains the steps after the activation of macro.

In fact, the software Mplus has proved to be very handy in testing indirect effect. By specifying the "ind" command, Mplus shows not only the effect size, but also the test score and significance of the coefficient.

The website developed by Dr. David Kenny is also very helpful. He is one of the author in the famous piece about mediation [The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations, (Baron & Kenny, 1986)].

Nano Song

just found this on YouTube today. interesting song about nano.



see ACS Nanotation for more information about the video contest.

Information about European Countries

Here are some reliable "facts" about European countries.

GENERAL INFORMATION

1. BBC established a nice database about background characteristics, political information, and even media systems in the world. Please see Country Profiles at BBC.


2. EUROPA is the portal site of the European Union (http://europa.eu). It provides up-to-date coverage of European Union affairs and essential information on European integration. It also has statistics and public opinion info. It's worth checking out! There is a specific section that devotes to some statistics in relation to science and technology in Europe.

3. Country Profiles by the Library of Congress.

4. UN Data--A world of information.

5. US Department of State, background notes.

MEDIA & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

6. European Journalism Center. The European Journalism Centre (EJC) is an independent, international, non-profit institute dedicated to the highest standards in journalism, primarily through the further training of journalists and media professionals. It has "media landscape" for all European countries.

7. EB68.2 E-Communications Household Survey (pdf), with summary sheet for individual 27 countries.

8. EB67.2 Scientific research in the media, accessible at European Union Public Opinion.

DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE

9. Science of Latvia.

10. Science and Society in Europe.

Social amplification of risk--Burns et al 1993

Incorporating Structural Models into Research on the Social Amplification of Risk: Implications for Theory Construction and Decision Making

This study empirically tests the framework of social amplification of risk, which argues that "social and economic impacts of an adverse event are determined not only by the direct biological and physical consequences of the event, but by the interaction of powerful psychological, cultural, social, and institutional processes that amplify or attenuate public response to the event" (Burns et al., p612).

In this study, the authors examined the causal relationship between "risk signals," "media coverage," "public response," and some physical consequences of adverse events.

108 hazards were identified and evaluated by experts to determine their political and economic implications. Public responses were measured by the level of political involvement, worry, and risk-reducing action induced by the hazards. Although measured at the individual level, these public responses variables were then aggregated to represent macro-level preferences. Information about media coverage was also collected to reflect the number of stories, duration of coverage, and issue half-life.

The most important finding of this study rests with the fact that both "casualties" and "property damage," indicators of the consequence of hazards, showed only marginally significant effect on the societal impact of the issues. It is, instead, the media coverage of and public reactions to the issues that matter.

However, I have several questions after reading this article.
1. What is the subject of amplification? Is it the social and political impact of the issue or the perceived risk of the issue? For example, some people may not care as much about what the risks are going to do to other people, or the whole society, as to themselves. Employing an "objective" measure of the impact of hazards does not hit the target idea. It is also difficult for me to draw a linkage between public reaction measures with the "impact" variable formed by the opinions of the experts.

2. Based on my first question, the causal order of their model (with "societal impact" being the final dependent variable ) may be open for adjustment. Can public worry and willingness to participate politically serve as the final outcome and be predicted by the "perceived" societal impact of hazards?

3. Showing a strong relationship between, for example, media coverage and societal impact does not necessarily mean that these hazards were "amplified." To what baseline does this amplification or attenuation compare? I think this is the most critical issue that scholars in this line of research should address.

Modernization and human development

The thesis of the third chapter of this book is the relationship between modernization and value change. In other words, do people living in countries with different levels of development also possess different values?

The authors, in particular, examine two sets of values--traditional vs secular and survival vs self-expression. On the other hand, modernization is operationalized as the proportion of labor forces in the industry sector and service sector.

The results confirmed two relationships. Materialism, characterized by the dominance of the industry sector, was associated with secular values; that is, less deferred to authority and religious guidance. Quite differently, post-materialism, characterized as the dominance of the service sector, was associated with self-expression values (i.e., more trust in people and higher demand in political participation).

Further analysis showed that these values were also predicted by the country's colonial legacy. For example, what values people hold depend on whether they were subject to the impact of communist, Confucianism, Catholic, or Protestant.

So, does the tradition of a country shape public values more strongly than colonial background? For instance, does an Islamic living in the middle east possess values more similar to another Islamic residing in other parts of the world than a Catholic in the same area? Their research suggests that the effect of a country overrides that of the political background. In other words, a Chinese in the US will hold values much more similar with an American in the US than another Chinese in Hong Kong.