What are social media’s prospects for meaningfully influencing public policy in the future? This paper draws on my (and co-authors’) research on petitioning—one form of direct contact between citizens and government officials—to provide context for the efforts unfolding online today. I examine petitioning during several critical moments—in the first Congress, during the Bank War of 1833–1834, a...

Social media has the potential to foster interactions between policy makers, government officials, and their constituencies. Opportunities to receive feedback from residents, inform them of government-provided opportunities, and increase engagement with the governance process have all been proposed as ways social media can play a role in Governance 2.0. However, the ability to realize these pot...

AIM A critical analysis of online public postings in response to the news about the ending of China's one-child policy was conducted. The specific study aims were to 1) identify the dominant public discourse in response to the news about the ending of the one-child policy and the beginning of the new two-child policy, and 2) explore implications for preconception care from the public discourse....

Rapidly developing social media technology has made obsolete many corporate computer use policies. New types of policies need to be developed which address the blurring of the distinction between corporate and personal computing. The gradual change in whose smart technology is used, and how it is used in the service of employers needs to be controlled to promote possible positive effects for th...

BACKGROUND Russia has high smoking rates and weak tobacco control policies. A simulation model is used to examine the effect of tobacco control policies on past and future smoking prevalence and premature mortality in Russia. METHODS The Russia model was developed using the SimSmoke tobacco control model previously developed for the USA and other nations. The model inputs population size, bir...

A variety of sources indicate decision makers use social media, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, to make decisions regarding potential employees. Unfortunately, there is scant academic research on the implications of this practice. To shed light on the relationship between social media and selection, we investigate whether applicants’ political attitudes and individuating information (i.e., job-r...

This article introduces, and attempts to define, the concept of 'media templates'. Drawing on focus groups discussions, content analysis and interviews with media personnel I demonstrate how template events help to shape news narratives and guide thinking not only about the past, but also of the present and the future. The argument is illustrated by examining the position of 'the Cleveland scan...

OBJECTIVE This paper reviews how the tobacco industry is promoting its products online and examines possible regulation models to limit exposure to this form of marketing. Opportunities to use new media to advance tobacco control are also discussed and future research possibilities are proposed. DATA SOURCES Published articles and grey literature reports were identified through searches of th...

The replacement of old radiologic contrast media with supposedly safer but more expensive media has created a dilemma for radiologists and hospital administrators. To quantitate the nature of this trade-off we performed a cost-utility analysis using optimistic assumptions that favoured the new media. A complete conversion to the new media would result in an incremental cost of at least $65,000 ...

BACKGROUND Social media can act as an important platform for debating, discussing, and disseminating information about vaccines. Our objectives were to map and describe the roles played by web-based mainstream media and social media as platforms for vaccination-related public debates and discussions during the Polio crisis in Israel in 2013: where and how did the public debate and discuss the i...