Critics of voting by mail express concern over its impact on civil society. For example, Thompson (2004) posits that voting by mail limits electoral civic engagement by preventing the temporal norm of simultaneity on Election Day. I, however, find that the open ballot system of voting by mail promotes deliberation, which encourages civic engagement. This study tests if voting by mail increases ...

Flow theory offers an individualistic explanation of media enjoyment, while cooperative learning theory posits a social explanation for enhanced learning in groups. This classroom-based experimental study examines whether game players can experience both conditions and the influence of each on several types of civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions. We find that high quality cooperative lear...

A Web survey of 1,715 college students was conducted to examine Facebook Groups users' gratifications and the relationship between users' gratifications and their political and civic participation offline. A factor analysis revealed four primary needs for participating in groups within Facebook: socializing, entertainment, self-status seeking, and information. These gratifications vary dependin...

This article presents an overview of current understandings in the study of political and civic engagement and participation, drawing in particular on innovations which have emerged from the PIDOP project. For the purposes of the article, ‘engagement’ is defined as having an interest in, paying attention to, or having knowledge, beliefs, opinions, attitudes or feelings about either political or...

We use the China General Social Survey (2005) and the Home Office Citizenship Survey (2005) to study civic engagement and neighbourhood trust in China and Britain in this paper. We focus on class differences in participation in sports/recreation, religion, children's/adult education and public-welfare activities, and trust in the neighbours. We find higher levels of civic involvement in Britain...

Nader and Simin—A Separation is the first Iranian movie which won manyinternational awards as well as admiration from critics and the public. Many reviewsby critics, however, have revolved around problems in spousal relationships ofcouples in different social classes of Iran. Through highlighting the self-evidentdismantling elements and unreliable readings in the acting, directing, and even the...

This study aimed at investigating the impact of closed-caption program on listening comprehension of English movies and vocabulary learning. Sixty-four graduate students studying at Shiraz Islamic Azad University were selected as the participants of the study. The participants were divided into two groups: experimental group (with closed caption program) and control group (without closed captio...