Transparenz im Journalismus

The transparency that journalists and newsrooms can produce for their audience has long been regarded as a rather marginal criterion for journalistic quality. But new transparency models??due to the interactivity, immediacy, archiving capacity and the absent limitation of space in the internet??offer greater potentials than classical instruments in print and broadcasting. In comments, web videos, blogs, twitter feeds and social networks, journalists discuss with users and publicly account for editorial decisions. Transparency is fashionable in the digital public sphere; its evaluation, however, is not clear, but ambiguous and complex. This paper conceptualizes (self-)transparency and qualitatively classifies the available instruments in a three-dimensional matrix model. This is to facilitate the analysis of problematic areas and potential conflicts: Newsrooms demonstrating open self-reflection dismiss the ideal of ??objective journalism??. Yet, transparency is not only an ethical demand, but is also supposed to strengthen trust in journalistic products because it permits quality evaluations by the audience. An experiment shows, for the first time, that self-transparency has an effect on trust in some aspects but not as a basic principle. Analysing this interdependency, we have to distinguish between transparency of process and of product as well as between different media.     

??ber Terroristen und Spitzensportler

Islamophobia is more strongly developed in East Germany compared to the western part of the country. Given the lack of personal contact with Muslims in East Germany, islamophobia is probably strongly influenced by media coverage. For this reason, the coverage of two East German regional newspapers, Nordkurier and Volksstimme, is analyzed against the theoretical background of a conjunction of the social-psychological stereotype content model with the communication-scientific concept of framing. Using content analysis and latent class analysis, two so-called stereotype frames were identified. Two thirds of all Islam-related articles use the ??cold and harm frame??. Here, Muslims are often blamed for the lethal consequences of terrorist action, their behaviour is evaluated as cold or immoral, and military interventions against them are discussed. On the other hand, one third of all Islam-related articles belongs to the ??competence and cooperation frame??. Competence is ascribed to Muslims as their success in artistic, athletic or political activities is recognized and other actors?? interest in cooperation in these areas is emphasized. Whereas the ??cold and harm frame?? probably promotes medial segregation, the ??competence and cooperation frame?? is representing an assimilative model of media integration.     

Social Network and Weight Misperception among Adolescents

It is recognized that public health intervention targeted toward changing lifestyle behaviors to reduce overweight status is a considerable challenge. It is important that individuals recognize their overweight status as a health risk in order for an effective change in lifestyle behaviors to occur, and growing evidence suggests that actual weight and perception of weight status often do not match, especially among adolescents. In this article, we explore the extent to which exposure to heavier peers and parents affects misperception of their own weight status by adolescents. Using data from a nationally representative sample of adolescents, we estimated instrumental variable models with school‐level fixed effects to account for bidirectionality of peer influence and environmental confounders. Our results indicate that individuals who live in an environment that exposes them to overweight/obese parents and heavier peers tend to misperceive their weight status and think of themselves to be of lower weight than they actually are. Our analysis also revealed differential effects by gender and type of peers.     

UK World War I and interwar data for business cycle and growth analysis

This article contributes new time series for studying the UK economy during World War I and the interwar period. The time series are per capita hours worked and average capital income, labor income, and consumption tax rates. Uninterrupted time series of these variables are provided for an annual sample that runs from 1913 to 1938. We highlight the usefulness of these time series with several empirical applications. The per capita hours worked data are used in a growth accounting exercise to measure the contributions of capital, labor, and productivity to output growth. The average tax rates are employed in a Bayesian model averaging experiment to reevaluate the Benjamin and Kochin (J Political Econ 87:441–478, 1979) regression.     

Aus einer Hand: Wirksame Hilfe für den Einzelfall

Unser Sozial- und Gesundheitssystem bietet eine Fülle von Angeboten zur Gesundung, Rehabilitation und Wiedereingliederung. Doch wie sieht im Einzelfall die optimale Unterstützung aus? Case Manager sind die Schnittstelle zwischen Patient, sozialem Umfeld, professionellem System und Kostentr?gern. Sie sind die Profis für eine bedarfsgerechte und effiziente Rund-um-Versorgung.     

A toolkit for macrostructural regional forecasting: Methodological approaches and results of computations

This paper discusses the issues of developing a consistent system of forecast computations providing a long-term outlook for the Russian economy in both sectoral and regional contexts. Under special focus is the formation of regional development scenarios. Such scenarios are suggested to be based on the territorial pattern of investments into the national economy. Results of computations are presented for the period up to 2030 for two scenarios.     

Do international shocks affect small wholesalers and retailers?

Previous research has suggested that the smallest firms are those most vulnerable to international competition, as measured by exchange rate fluctuations and import shares. However, that work—and the overwhelming bulk of the empirical literature on determinants of exit or firm survival—dealt entirely with the manufacturing sector of the economy. This paper analyzes annual US data for 1989–2005 for about 50 wholesale and retail sectors to explain small firm exit rates in several employment size categories. The main result is that wholesalers respond negatively to a stronger currency in a manner similar to that of manufacturers, while retailers are generally unaffected.