Windsor, Leah, Mitchell, Sara McLaughlin, Osborn, Tracy, Dietrich, Bryce, and Hampton, Andrew J.
Journal of Language & Politics. 2022, Vol. 21 Issue 6, p919-943. 25p. 2 Charts, 2 Graphs.
Subjects
Computational linguistics, Sentiment analysis, Intelligibility of speech, Women legislators, Gender, Campaign issues, and Elections
Abstract
We explore how gendered language in Senate floor debates evolves between the 101st and 109th sessions (N=229,526 speeches). We hypothesize that female Senators speak like women in the general population, that their speeches focus on traditionally designated women's issues, and that they use female linguistic strategies found in the general population when discussing low politics or women's issues. We also expect women to speak like legislators, adopting more male linguistic approaches for high politics issues or in election year speeches and for female senators to use more male linguistics as time served in the Senate increases. Using a suite of computational linguistics approaches such as topic modeling (Latent Dirichlet Allocation), syntax and semantic analysis (Coh-Metrix), and sentiment analysis (LIWC), our analyses highlight the distinct roles of women speaking for women (e.g. promoting issues like education or healthcare), women speaking like women (e.g. using personal pronouns), and women speaking as Senators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Conversation analysis, Literature, Videos, and United States senators
Abstract
Using conversation analysis, this article examines how questioners manage resistant responses in the context of U.S. Senate hearings. In particular, we examine how questioning Senators use explicit metacommentary – a turn constructional practice in which speakers offer 'on-record' comments on the manner in which a prior turn was formulated – to manage a recipient's resistant responses to polar questions. Within these contexts, metacommentary becomes a resource for highlighting the preference organization of the original question and challenging the adequacy of the recipient's response. The analysis shows how metacommentary not only serves to guide a question recipient toward producing an adequate response, but additionally works to register the questioning Senator's stance toward the inadequacy of the response while highlighting this inadequacy for both the co-present audience and viewers of these publicly televised hearings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly. Sep2018, Vol. 95 Issue 3, p670-690. 21p.
Subjects
Political communication, Polarization (Social sciences), Gatekeeping, Press & politics, Reporters & reporting, United States Congress personnel, Radicals, and Gatekeepers
Abstract
Does the news media cover ideological extremists more than moderates? We combine a measure of members of Congress' ideological extremity with a content analysis of how often lawmakers appear in the New York Times from the 103rd to the 112th Congresses and on CBS and NBC's evening newscasts in the 112th Congress. We show that ideological extremity is positively related to political news coverage for members of the House of Representatives. Generally, ideological extremity is not related to the likelihood of coverage for senators. Finally, we show that extreme Republicans are more likely to earn media attention than extreme Democrats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
In a previous paper, Kovacs (2010) proposed a generalized relational similarity measure based on iterated correlations of entities in a network calibrated by their relational similarity to other entities. Here I show that, in the case of two-mode network data, Kovacs's approach can be simplified and generalized similarities calculated non-iteratively. The basic idea is to rely on initial similarities calculated from transforming the two-mode data into one-mode projections using the familiar duality approach due to Breiger (1974). I refer to this as two-mode relational similarities and show, using the Southern Women's data and data from Senate voting in the 112th U.S. Congress, that it yields results substantively indistinguishable from Kovacs's iterative strategy. • Previous work introduced two-mode similarity measures using iterated correlations. • This paper proposes non-iterative measures of two-mode similarity using projections. • The two-mode relational similarity performs as well as the iterative approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Izam, Muhammad Zakwan Mohd, Maros, Marlyna, Jaludin, Azhar, and Abdullah, Imran Ho
GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies. May2023, Vol. 23 Issue 2, p220-240. 21p.
Subjects
Language policy, English language usage, Legislators, Malay language, and Malays (Asian people)
Abstract
The Malaysian Rules of the House of Representatives Council are the laws pertaining to rules and regulations in the Malaysian Parliament. Regulation 8 of the Rules of the House of Representatives Council (Peraturan-Peraturan Majlis Mesyuarat Dewan Rakyat), the Parliament of Malaysia pursuant to Article 62 (1) provides that "The Official Language of the Council is bahasa Melayu, but the speaker may authorize the use of English". However, recent report from a newspaper suggested that the status of bahasa Melayu as an official language of the parliament is being neglected as such some parliament members have been reported of using English blatantly during the parliamentary debate. Thus, this study aims to identify the trend of English language usage in Parliament 13 of the House of Representatives. The data used were codeswitching of Malay and English languages in 224 files of the Malaysian Hansard Corpus of Parliament 13. The present paper illustrates the use of the corpus-based approach to determine the frequency of English words used in the Malaysian Hansard Corpus. The results revealed that there is an increase in the usage of English words from the first to the fourth quarters. This finding also proposes that English is gaining more attention among the parliamentary members as a medium to express ideas in the Malaysian parliament which statement contradicts the law stating bahasa Melayu as the official language of the Malaysian parliament. Information gained from this study will help to provide insight on whether the claim that the status of bahasa Melayu as the official language of the Malaysian parliament is true or otherwise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Communication Quarterly. Nov/Dec2019, Vol. 67 Issue 5, p560-583. 24p.
Subjects
Cold War, 1945-1991, International organization, Post-Cold War Period, Inventions, and Responsibility
Abstract
A mere three months after the peaceful Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, and less than a year after his last imprisonment under the communist regime, playwright-turned-president Václav Havel stood before a joint session of U.S. Congress in February of 1990. In his address, Havel marked, for his American audience, the new freedoms being established at home. More than just a victory lap, however, Havel's visit articulated the importance of the invention of post-communism, as the end of the Cold War had to be constructed for his global audience. Havel's version of invention in the speech used temporality and embodiment as key rhetorical materials—as he emphasized the opportune moment of the end of the Cold War, he also embodied the higher moral sense of responsibility and democratic civic culture that he believed the moment called for. However, this inventive process was understood differently by his American, European, and Czech audiences, and his attempts to transcend Cold War frames were highly contested. Havel thus became a complex symbol of the transition between the Cold War and the post-Cold War, which showed the tensions around the implementation of a "new world order." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
The article discusses the court case U.S. v. Davila-Mendoza, wherein the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit restricted the Commerce Clause authority of the Congress over economic activity on foreign waters, particularly the regulation of maritime drug trafficking under the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act.
Journal of International Social Research; Apr2021, Vol. 14 Issue 77, p343-351, 9p
Abstract
Copyright of Journal of International Social Research is the property of Journal of International Social Research and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
Journal of Policy History; April 2023, Vol. 35 Issue: 2 p281-306, 26p
Abstract
AbstractIn order to establish a new national budget system during the Progressive Era, Congress had to overcome an earlier convention in which it used detailed appropriations in an attempt to control the budgetary actions of federal agencies and the president served no formal role. Incremental changes to strengthen congressional budgetary controls proved inadequate but provided reformers with an opportunity to supplant the existing orthodoxy, resulting in the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921. Although most studies have focused on the Act in terms of its effects on presidential power and presidential/congressional relations, this study focuses on congressional actions and debates to show how reform was rooted in long-standing congressional concerns about the need to control agency budgetary actions and was understood at the time as a culmination of those efforts, not simply as a case of Congress enhancing presidential power at its own expense.
Rhetoric, Dairy industry, Agriculture, Futures, and Plant-based diet
Abstract
In this essay, I utilize the U.S. Congress' DAIRY PRIDE Act to critique the animal-sourced dairy industry's use of legislative and nutritional discourse to claim the name "dairy" and its analogs. Contextualizing the role of naming, re-naming, and un-naming in environmental communication, I begin with an overview of the U.S. animal-sourced dairy industry's effort to suppress plant-based alternatives through strategic un-naming practices. I call this genre of un-naming "hypocognitive rhetoric." I problematize hypocognitive rhetoric by demonstrating how the U.S. animal-sourced dairy industry uses this rhetorical strategy to obfuscate alternative (more specifically, plant-based) agricultural futures. In claiming dairy's name and painting industrialized, animal-sourced dairying practices as natural, normal, and necessary for human advancement, the animal-sourced dairy industry not only renders invisible the human inequities inherent in animal-sourced dairy production and consumption, but also cloaks the experiences the nonhuman animals used for lactation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Gatekeeping, Polarization (Social sciences), Political doctrines, Mass media, Television broadcasting of news, and Cable television networks
Abstract
Today's news media environment incentivizes gatekeeping practices that lead to a bias toward content containing partisan conflict and ideological extremity. Using a content analysis of 46,218 cable and broadcast television news transcripts from the 109th through 112th Congresses, we examined the frequency with which members of Congress appeared on cable and broadcast news. When we modelled on-air statements by members of Congress as a function of legislator and institutional characteristics, we revealed a gatekeeping function that vastly overrepresents extreme partisans on both sides of the aisle. The effect is largely consistent for network and cable outlets alike, suggesting that gatekeeping processes under both market and advocacy models bias content towards the extreme and conflictual. This finding is particularly important in light of recent evidence linking media-driven misperceptions about polarization to partisan-ideological sorting and negative political affect in the electorate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Feminist Media Studies. Dec2023, Vol. 23 Issue 8, p3924-3941. 18p.
Subjects
Political campaigns, Newspapers, Discourse analysis, Gender inequality, and Public officers
Abstract
In light of the historic gains made by women in the 2018 midterm elections—both as candidates and as newly elected officials—an updated assessment of gender parity in campaign coverage is warranted. The results of an empirical discourse analysis show that despite record numbers of women serving in both the United States House of Representatives and Senate, men as candidates, journalists, and quoted sources dominate the reporting landscape. The results foreground a neglect of women as candidates for office and of women as quoted sources in the discussion of political campaigns, regardless of reporter gender. Women's voices and candidacies do not survive in political reporting, even when the reporter is a woman. These results may be due to both structural biases in the political arena writ large—mirrored by press organizations—and gendered practices in the newsroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
INTERGROUP relations, POLITICAL affiliation, POLITICAL parties, and STATISTICAL models
Abstract
• Political polarization can take both weak and strong forms, defined by intergroup relations. • Positive and negative political ties can be inferred from patterns of bill co-sponsorship. • Both chambers of the US Congress have grown more polarized since the 1970s. • Trends in congressional polarization are unrelated to which party holds the majority. Claims that the United States Congress is (becoming more) polarized are widespread, but what is polarization? In this paper, I draw on notions of intergroup relations to distinguish two forms. Weak polarization occurs when relations between the polarized groups are merely absent, while strong polarization occurs when the relations between the polarized groups are negative. I apply the Stochastic Degree Sequence Model to data on bill co-sponsorship in both the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate, from 1973 (93rd session) to 2016 (114th session) to infer a series of signed networks of political relationships among legislators, which I then use to answer two research questions. First, can the widely reported finding of increasing weak polarization in the U.S. Congress be replicated when using a statistical model to make inferences about when positive political relations exist? Second, is the (increasing) polarization observed in the U.S. Congress only weak polarization, or is it strong polarization? I find that both chambers exhibit both weak and strong polarization, that both forms are increasing, and that they are structured by political party affiliation. However, I also find these trends are unrelated to which party holds the majority in a chamber. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Journal of Law & Politics; Summer2019, Vol. 35 Issue 1, p19-65, 47p
Subjects
JUSTICE administration, DUE process of law, COURTS-martial & courts of inquiry, JUDICIAL power, and SEXUAL assault lawsuits
Abstract
In Ortiz v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 2165 (2018), the majority described the military court-martial system (a commander-controlled process for adjudicating criminal complaints) as judicial in character. It reached this conclusion over Justice Alito’s dissent, which took a diametrically opposed view by describing the system as an Executive Branch entity that could not exercise judicial power. The conflict between these two views is nothing new as they have been at the center o f a debate about the fundamental nature o f courts-martial for more than a century. Since Congress legislates consistent with Justice Alito’s executive view, a rift between the Legislative and Judicial Branches is now apparent. This gives rise to a question about the constitutionality o f the court-martial framework under the Uniform Code o f Military Justice (UCMJ): does the current commander-controlled process comply with the requirements o f due process? The answer to this question is especially relevant in today’s political environment where members o f Congress, operating under an executive view o f courts-martial, pressure senior military leaders to produce convictions in sexual assault cases. Therefore, this Article examines the due-process question, concluding that there is an argument that the UCMJ’s court-marital framework may not meet constitutional muster. In reaching this conclusion this Article highlights the type o f structural reform that is necessary to ensure due-process compliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Only five presidential messages led to formally declared wars in the history of the USA. While attempting to shed some light on the role of discourse in the origins of armed conflicts, the contribution explores a selection of textual aspects of war discourse on the basis of President Woodrow Wilson's Address to Congress Requesting a Declaration of War Against Germany. The address is analysed in the context of the remaining four presidential messages delivered before the formally declared wars by J. Madison, J. Polk, W. McKinley and F. D. Roosevelt. The first section of the paper gives a short description of the relevant theoretical foundations of the analysis. In the second section the methodological underpinnings of the analysis are established (Fairclough, 1992; Chruszczewski, 2002). The problematic of readability of texts is introduced and it is followed by the introduction of the typology of arguments devised by Chruszczewski (2003). In the third section the analysis of the presidential speech is preceded by a brief overview of Wilson's presidency. Following the presentation of the results of the readability test, the structure of a general model of argument development is presented and the results of the analysis are discussed with focus on the semantic content of Wilson's Address as well as on the reasons for the continual increase in the readability of the five consecutive presidential war messages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Walker, Andrew J., Silva Campo, Ana María, Manners, Jane, Hébrard, Jean M., and Scott, Rebecca J.
The William & Mary Quarterly (Project Muse); August 2022, Vol. 79 Issue: 3 p425-452, 28p
Abstract
Abstract:In 1809 more than three thousand people were claimed as slaves upon arrival in Louisiana, in violation of the 1807 U.S. law against the international trade in persons to be held or sold as slaves. Having lived as free persons in Saint Domingue since the revolutionary emancipations of the 1790s, these people had been swept into a large exodus of war refugees in 1803, as the Napoleonic expeditionary assault ravaged the colony. When France and Spain went to war in 1808, the Spanish government in Cuba expelled the "French" refugees. More than ten thousand soon made their way toward Louisiana. Before their departure, one hundred prosperous white refugees penned a petition to President James Madison, seeking to bring into the United States those whom they coyly described as their "domestics." In June 1809 the U.S. Congress passed, and the president signed, a law granting the requested "remission of penalties" for those from Saint Domingue via Cuba who had violated the 1807 law. The Louisiana legislature, in turn, authorized putative owners to buy and sell those they now claimed as slaves. The dynamics of these acts of peremptory enslavement reframe our understanding of Caribbean connections in the early U.S. Republic, and of the 1807 law.
Review of International Affairs (04866096); Sep-Dec2022, Vol. 73 Issue 1186, p33-60, 28p
Subjects
RUSSIAN invasion of Ukraine, 2022-, UNITED States armed forces, CHINA-United States relations, and CHINESE people
Abstract
Copyright of Review of International Affairs (04866096) is the property of Institute of International Politics & Economics and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
Southwestern Mass Communication Journal. Fall2021, Vol. 36 Issue 3, p1-15. 15p.
Subjects
Political parties, Political elites, Political endorsements, and Primaries
Abstract
This experimental study examines the impact of endorsements by party elites within a primary election for the U.S. Senate. This experiment used a pretestposttest design to identify and measure an endorsement's effect on participants' evaluations of the endorsed primary candidate and the unendorsed primary candidate, as well as their evaluations of the endorser and their political party. Results showed that such endorsements impacted participants' assessments of both the endorsed and unendorsed candidates, while the impact on perceptions of their political party approached a level of significance. Implications of these results are discussed, and recommendations for future research initiatives are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]