This study explores how UK young adults’ exposure to social networking sites (SNSs) and attention to specific SNS content relate to their political practices. Data were collected from a diverse group of undergraduates during the 2015 General Election and Labour leadership campaign via a web survey designed with novel instruments (e.g., simulated Facebook and Twitter newsfeeds). Results indicate that regular use of varying SNSs and attention to certain political content—for example, newsfeeds about student-fee activism—have a positive weak association with off-line formal and activist participation and a considerably stronger association with online “slacktivism.” Moreover, exposure to SNSs was found similarly high across respondents. However, those with typical demographic and psychographic markers of participation (e.g., upper socioeconomic status, early political socialization) showed significantly greater levels of engagement with political content and off-line and online participation. Together, these findings suggest that frequent social media consumption is linked to a minimal and narrow mobilizing impact.

Disconcerting findings from sociological research suggest that Western youth are developing subjectivities that reflect neoliberal discursive formations of self-interestedness, competitiveness, and materialism. However, propositions about 1) the cognitive-affective mechanisms that explain how youth acquire and reproduce neoliberal ideology, or 2) the dispositions and behaviours that typify a neoliberal subject, remain vague. Therefore, in this article I provide a novel conceptualisation of these two psychosocial facets that can help advance understandings and investigations of the emerging modes and societal consequences of neoliberal subjectification. Specifically, I review major theoretical tenets from the respective literatures on neurocognitive development, social cognition, neoliberalism, and neoliberal hegemony. I then synthesise these tenets within a modified habitus formulation to sketch a testable cognitive-sociological model for explaining and exploring some of the distinct dispositional values, attitudes, and practices that youth raised in societies with institutionally and culturally prevalent neoliberal norms and discourses may potentially develop and enact.

Experimental insights into the socio-cognitive effects of viewing materialistic media messages on welfare support

IntroduccinEn el Per, los accidentes de trnsito son uno de los ms importantes problemas de salud pblica. El objetivo de este estudio fue describir las no mortales de trfico por carretera de la lesin de vigilancia establecido a nivel nacional, utilizando los datos combinados. Mtodo: Este es un hospital de un sistema basado en prctica en 2007 en unidades centinela (instituciones de salud) en el pas. La informacin se recoge a partir de tres diferentes fuentes de datos: registros de los hospitales, los informes policiales, y los datos de seguros de vehculos. Las lesiones no mortales de trfico por carretera que asistieron por primera vez en los departamentos de emergencia estn incluidos en el sistema. La informacin es analizada peridicamente y presentados en reuniones con los tomadores de decisiones, y difundido a los participantes en el sistema. Resultados: Despus de dos aos de los resultados de la recopilacin de datos indica que la mayora de los casos se asisti a los peatones y cuatro ocupantes de los vehculos de ruedas. El mayor porcentaje de los peatones se encuentra en Cajamarca (56,4%), un estado en el noroeste del pas. Sin embargo, en algunos Estados de la regin amaznica (Loreto, San Martn y Ucayali), motociclistas y pasajeros de los vehculos de motor representaron un importante porcentaje de los casos. La distribucin por grupo de edad y sexo de la persona lesionada muestra un nmero mayor de hombres de 20 a 34 aos, con un nmero importante en el grupo de 5-9 aos de edad. Conclusiones: Algunos de los problemas del sistema son la sostenibilidad de las unidades participantes centinela y la expansin al resto del pas. El mayor desafo consiste en identificar intervenciones apropiadas de prevencin sobre la base de estos datos.

There is growing worldwide concern that the rampant spread of digital fake news (DFN) via new media technologies is detrimentally impacting Democratic elections. However, the actual influence of this recent Internet phenomenon on electoral decisions has not been directly examined. Accordingly, this study tested the effects of attention to DFN on readers’ Presidential candidate preferences via an experimental web-survey administered to a cross-sectional American sample (N = 552). Results showed no main effect of exposure to DFN on participants’ candidate evaluations or vote choice. However, the perceived believability of DFN about the Democratic candidate negatively mediated evaluations of that candidate—especially amongst far-right ideologues. These results suggest that DFN may at worst reinforce the partisan dispositions of mostly politically conservative Internet users, but does not cause or induce conversions in these dispositions. Overall, this study contributes novel experimental evidence, indicating that the potential electoral impact of DFN, although concerning, is strongly conditional on a reciprocal interaction between message receptibility and a pre-existing right-wing ideological orientation. The said impact is, therefore, likely narrow in scope.