Empathie und Medienempathie

Empathy is the capacity and tendency of a person to recognize, understand, and be sensitive to other people’s emotions. The roots of this construct go back to the psychology of emotions and personality psychology. Communication science frequently makes use of it to describe the experiences and emotions during media reception. However, the question can be asked whether empathy and media empathy are two different constructs requiring different measuring instruments. To begin with, this question will be discussed theoretically with important arguments being presented both in favor of and against the thesis of congruent constructs. Subsequently, a measuring instrument for media empathy will be introduced which is constructed following precisely the tried-and-tested operationalization of empathy. It was employed in two studies, and their findings will be compared with one another. The results display both similarities and marked differences, especially with regard to reception variables. Since communication science uses media empathy to explain the effects of reception, different references to reception variables represent a particularly apt argument for the broad independence of the construct and thus for a separate measuring instrument. The present measuring instrument, developed in the context of a pilot study, will be suggested as a provisionally valid operationalization.     

Reflections of battlefield tourist experiences associated with Vietnam War sites: an analysis of travel blogs

The aim of this paper is to analyse online travel blogs in order to gain an understanding of the reflections held by battlefield tourists in Vietnam. A qualitative approach utilising thematic analysis was conducted on 20 travel blogs. The findings suggest that tourists can have a deeply reflective experience at sites of past warfare, which includes cognitive dissonance to the war narrative. Tourist experiences in Vietnam presented a connection to the dead (mortality mediation) and a connection to the living (local people). These outcomes led to the overall understanding of battlefield experiences in Vietnam: The meaning of life and humanity through connecting with people, and the passing of time through the writing of history.     

Quality choice: Does it matter which workers own and manage the cooperative firm?

The information age and the spread of information technology has implications for organizational structure. Accordingly, the age-old issues of product and service quality are put into a new perspective. It is this new perspective that compels analysis and contrast of the joint quality and output choices of a labor-managed (LM) firm with those of its entrepreneurial (PM) twin. It is shown that the LM firm's behavior regarding quality and quantity depends on which workers own and manage the firm and on the way that marginal profit with respect to output is influenced by quality. Similarly, the effects of increases in either fixed costs or demand depend on who owns and manages the LM firm and on the relationship between marginal profit and quality. Thus, whether a cooperative will outperform or underperform its PM counterpart depends on the particulars of the situation. An earlier draft of this paper was presented at seminars at Academia Sinica in Taipei and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The authors are grateful to the participants in those seminars and most especially to Professors C. C. Mai, Eden Yu, and Dr. Li Tianyou, as well as to an anonymous referee for their comments and helpful suggestions. The authors are responsible for the final version.     

Integrated strategy for tourism education/training

Tourism is in need of a comprehensive framework within which to design and deliver education and training programs in a more effective manner. This paper reports the efforts of two provincial governments in Canada to formulate an integrated strategy on which to base the planning and development of a tourism education and training system. The goal of such integration is to ensure a greater degree of interdependence among different levels of the total education system so as to provide well-defined alternative career paths for present and future students. Initial results of the strategy on the development of the education infrastructure are reviewed.     

Factor market structure and technology choice in the Colombian brick industry

This paper examines the relationship between factor markets and an industry structure such that capital-intensity is correlated with size, and firms of different sizes coexist in the long run. Empirical evidence shows that wages vary positively with firm size after correcting for education, experience, turnover and firm location. Secondary source evidence suggests that capital access differs across entrepreneurs, according to their positions in Colombian society. These assumptions are combined in a model which can generate the industry structure observed. The alternative hypothesis that capital access improves over a firm's lifetime, so that industry structure represents a growth path, is examined and rejected.     

Less labor, longer lives: time to share

Two driving forces are changing modern life, First, significantly less labor is needed as productivity rises. Second, people are living longer—anticipate an 85-year life expectancy by 2020. We focus on two prominent consequences of these interacting drwers: new modes to allocate wealth need to be devised as those linked to 'the job' prove inadequate; And how we spend our time is changing. We consider time distribution among three forms of work (market, community, home), learning and communication, and play. We conclude that dramatic policy actions are in order to break free of societal reliance upon traditional jobs and to provide the expanding senior population a good quality of life.     

The Effect of Historic District Designation on Single-Family Home Prices

The designation and regulation of local historic districts in Baltimore, Maryland started in 1964. Structures within these districts are required to maintain exteriors in the style of the historical significance of the neighborhoods. Prior studies in other cities have shown that the designation did not always lead to an increase in restoration activities in these areas. This paper analyzes the effect of the designation on transaction prices and finds historic districts do have higher prices than identical non-historic districts.